Control

xxxiv | battle plan

A STRATEGY IS WHAT WE USUALLY STRUGGLED WITH. It didn't ever go as we planned, a basic idea is what we just had before we went out and did our thing. This time, we couldn't risk anything to happen -- we couldn't lose another person. A plan was in the making, but I know it was going to steer off the tracks as soon as it leaves the station.

After a few hours of watching home videos, I pulled out Aidan's laptop and started looking through his stuff. It probably wasn't the right thing to do but the boy had information leaking from the device. It was basically a personal diary, not to mention it had a million firewalls. Jessica entered the room as I struggled to unlock it, giving a hand. I barely saw her around, not that I payed much attention, but she did seem kind of... off. Like there was something else on her mind that picked at her from the inside.

We -- Spencer, Kassandra, Jessica, Tyson and I -- were up in my room brainstorming. Dad and Clayton were out, I'm pretty sure. We needed food, and to see what the Institute was doing outside. Most of the windows were boarded up. There was a single one where the sun was able to still shine through in my room, making me feel slightly less contained in the huge house.

One thing I knew from Aidan's laptop -- he was extremely close to his mother and she was willing to give Aidan any information possible. Blueprints and files from the Institute were found in the heavily protected files. I wonder if she knows about... that. She probably does, the Institute must've found his body. It's can't just be lying on the cold ground back where I left him.

A lot of the files were about me. Procedures, experiments, the plans they had for me. Mom was willing to give me away to all of this. Her daughter. She wanted me to be a weapon, an extension of the Institute's arms, from nearly the day I was born. The day I was told I was sick. There never really was a point that I wasn't apart of this.

"Spencer?" I asked, looking up from my screen. He and Tyson were in the middle of a hushed conversation. Both looked my direction.

"Yeah?"

"Am I still a threat?"

The room stayed silent. 

"What do you mean?" Spencer asked, looking for the right words.

"I mean..." I liked my lips. "They've been using me all this time. What if they still can?"

"Whatever you did to break the bond seems like it was enough. It's been a couple days now, Lauren. If they could, they'd have you back at the Institute right now. Mom definitely would be trying to reach us and scream at us."

"I was the person who controlled all those people? You think they're all free?"

Jessica answers this time. "If you aren't controlling them, then they should be free. Why did the Institute even need you as, like, a beam or something to actually, like, spread the mind control-ness? If they control you, why not the others?"

Spencer bit his lip, unsure of himself. "Because they used Lauren as a subject to test the whole mind control process, if they could find a solution that makes someone obey them. What better than a child?"

"Your mom just did that to her?" Kass asked, disapproval on her face. "That's messed up."

"Yeah, it is." He didn't meet anyone's eye contact, just looked down. "They did the whole experiment around you, Lauren. When they succeeded on you, they tried others, but it failed. You were the only success, but then..." He paused.

"Then what?" Tyson asked, probably more curious than me. 

"Lauren.... you were able to manipulate people to do what you want. Even just on your own, without the Institute on your back--"