I tried to turn my head to watch them, but the strap holding my head in place kept them just out of my line of vision. I heard Amanda tell someone else to grab more sensors for my heart.

A few seconds later, the neckline of my shirt was pulled down as another sensor was attached.

I could only lie there, helplessly waiting for what was about to happen. My pulse began to quicken and I could feel my hands begin to shake. I tried my breathing technique to steady them, but the claustrophobic feeling of being tied down was more than I could handle.

“Okay, we’re ready to go,” said someone off to my right.

Before I could brace myself, a stabbing pain radiated through my forearm where one of the sensors rested. I screamed out in pain.

“Oh no, that won’t do,” Russo said, walking back to the front of the table where I was strapped down. I felt a moment of relief thinking that maybe he wasn’t a monster after all.

“Amanda, bring me the mouth restraint,” he said undoing my head strap.

I felt my panic rise as she approached with some kind of medieval face mask. I shook my head from side to side as they tried to strap the mask around my face. Bruno was beckoned over to hold me steady, wrapping his massive hands around my head as a single tear trickled down my cheek.

“Please, don’t do this,” I tried to plea, but no sound came out.

“Very good, no need for all of us to hear your screams,” he said walking away as Amanda re-strapped my head to the table.

This time I tried to brace myself for the pain, but it came from another sensor unexpectedly. I bucked against the table as a knife-like pain slashed through my other arm.

Sobbing, I tried to plea with them, but my words never made it past the mask. The next pain was below my collarbone and was more staggering than before. Each jolt seemed to intensify every time they shocked me. Over and over again in different locations, they tortured my body.

I lost all track of time and my vision began to blur. I yearned for my emotions to take over, anything to help me escape what I was suffering.

I began to hallucinate and could see Mark off to the side. Though he wasn’t strapped down, he seemed to be in greater pain than I was. I wanted to reach out to him, but my arms were too heavy, I could no longer feel them attached to my body.

“Mark!” I tried to cry out. I could read his lips as he called out my name and then there was darkness as I mercifully passed out.

I came to suddenly, finding myself in a wheelchair under a steaming shower. I was still fully dressed and my clothes were soaked through.

My throat burned and tasted of bile. I looked down and discovered that I had vomited all over myself.

I felt someone behind me as they squirted something in their hands and scrubbed my hair. I could feel their frustration as they roughly scrubbed my head.

The water abruptly turned off. I was instantly chilled from the soaked clothing against my body. My teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.

“James, you can’t leave her sitting in the cold like that,” I heard Bruno say through the noise of my chattering teeth.

I felt the straps being undone.

“Look man, they didn’t tell me when they hired me I was going to have to clean puke off some girl.”

“Yeah I know, but it’s not the girls fault. You heard her screams. She was in some serious pain. I don’t think I will ever forget the scream she made when they first turned on whatever that machine was,” Bruno said. As he finished taking off the bindings, I felt a warm blanket being tucked around me and surprisingly gentle hands under my knees picking me up out of the chair.

I was weak as a newborn kitten as he carried me down the maze of hallways. I kept my eyes closed, but tried to gather my thoughts. They had obviously carried me into a different part of the building to bathe me because the hallway we had taken earlier was a straight shot without any turns.

Finally, I heard a door being opened and I felt myself being lowered onto a cot. I opened my eyes although I was extremely dizzy, and could see that I was back in my room. Bruno was standing in the doorway. His clone James was holding a folded stack of hospital scrubs and a couple more blankets. He set them on the cot without a word. Bruno shot me a look of what looked like sympathy, but it could have been just a trick of light.

I heard the lock reengage. I sat up slowly and was surprised at how weak I was. I used my arm to steady myself and cringed when I saw the ugly mark the sensor had left. Steadying myself didn’t work, so I laid back down trying to catch my breath.

The lights flickered out.

“Go figure,” I muttered.

My teeth stared to chatter as a shiver ran down my body. My wet clothes had soaked through the blanket that was wrapped around me. I knew I needed to get them off. I used the last of my strength to shimmy out of my wet jeans. It took several moments to recover from the exertion and by the time I started on my shirt, my teeth were knocking painfully against each other. My shivering was so intense that the cot began to shake. It took some work, but I managed to shrug out of my shirt, and slip on the scrubs that were sitting on the edge of the cot. I was so exhausted I barely had the strength left to tuck the blankets around myself.

This time though, my sleep was not dreamless.

The dream started the same as every other dream I had ever had. The Boardwalk in the distance and soft rolling waves washing up on shore. I felt extremely relieved to be here at our spot again. There was a light breeze off the ocean that left a slight chill in the air. My eye was caught by the sudden movement of someone running across the beach toward me. It was Mark. I rushed to meet him and just as he was about to reach out to me, his hands encountered some sort of barrier, stopping him in his tracks. I reached out with my hands, feeling the strange force field that was keeping us apart. It was invisible to the naked eye, but it didn’t make it any less impenetrable.

“Krista, are you okay?” I heard him ask. I was shocked. We had never been able to talk before in the dreams and even though there was an invisible wall separating us, I could hear him clearly.

“I’m scared.”

“I know you are, but don’t worry, I’m going to find a way out.”

“What if you’re too late? I can feel myself getting weaker with each passing minute.”

“I won’t lose you. I am going to get us out of this situation; you just have to be strong.”

I placed my hands on the invisible barrier. Mark placed his palms to mine. I could not feel them, but the memory of his touch made it feel almost real.

The feeling was lost as I felt my body being tugged from the barrier by some unseen force. Mark was being pulled in the opposite direction. I could see him fighting it as he tried to grab onto anything and everything. Finally in desperation, I heard him call out his love for me.

I began to weep as the distance between us grew. I tried to tell him I loved him also, but I was being dragged out of my dream.

I blinked at the sudden light that filled the room. I was disappointed that the dream had not eased the ache in my heart, instead realizing that I was feeling sicker than before. At this point, I guessed we had been separated for more than 24 hours now.

I tried to raise my head but, laid back down acknowledging the fact that my strength was sapping away. Maybe my violent bout of sickness had escalated it, but I was getting worse by the moment.

My musing was interrupted as the door to my room was opened.

“They want to see you back in the laboratory,” Bruno said stepping into the room.

I sighed and tried to sit up, my body fell weakly back down to the cot. Bruno reached down and with one hand and pulled me to my feet. I tried to steady my balance, but my water like legs made the effort useless. They gave out from under me, but before I could hit the floor Bruno scooped me back up in his arms.

I was grateful for his help, but could not express it as I laid my head against his arm and closed my eyes as he carried me out of the room.

I dozed off for a moment during the walk down the hall, but was awakened by the many voices and activity in the room when we entered.

“I don’t think she can handle another round of whatever you did to her last night,” I heard Bruno say. “She was too weak to even hold her head up.”

“Yes, the testing can be quite rigorous, but when the others join us, it will be well worth it. We have to see how far she can be pushed,” Russo said.

“I just feel tha…”

“I’m not paying you to feel, or think for that matter! Just do your job and leave the thinking to me, understand!”

I tried to make sense of anything that I was hearing. Push me for what? I thought. Could he really be responsible for my dreams? What about Sam and Shawn?

“Why are you doing this?” I asked in as strong a voice as I could muster, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of knowing how weak I really was.

“Why? Because, it’s the most logical way to test my theories.”

I looked at him in dismay. He was still talking in riddles.

Noting my confusion, he sighed.

“Well, I did promise you some answers, and it’s obvious you don’t have much longer. Though I am quite disappointed that my experiment failed, I expected the injection to have a stronger effect at this point, but I shouldn’t be surprised. You women have always been weak. It’s a wonder we didn’t die out centuries ago,” he said disdainfully.

“Where to begin,” he started. “I guess the best place is the beginning.”

“In the beginning…”

Was he kidding? It sounds like he was quoting the bible.

“There were many of us through the years and we all converged here in Santa Cruz.”

“Why?” I asked trying to process both his statements.

He looked at me like I was a disobedient child for interrupting him.

I clamped my mouth closed not out of respect, but sensing he would stop talking if I didn’t act like the puppet he wanted me to be.

“We are drawn here because Santa Cruz is what you would call Holy Ground. ”

“What do you mean Holy Ground?” I asked.

“Can I continue or are you going to act like an insolent child?” He asked in the condescending tone I was beginning to hate with a passion.

“Holy Ground, meaning that celestial beings are drawn here, or more accurately, Guides and Protectors are drawn here.”

My head reeled at his words. ‘Celestial Beings?’ ‘Guides and Protectors?’ My religious background was sketchy, but I did know that ‘celestial beings’ meant angels or something like that, but I had no idea what he meant by ‘Protectors’ and ‘Guides.’ A million questions raced through my head, but I held my tongue.

“In fact, Santa Cruz means Holy Cross,” he continued. “For centuries, our kind gathered here and were then dispersed by arch angels to go out and ward off the evil that plagued the earth,” he said with bitterness dripping from his voice. “We were paired with soul mates, creating a predetermined connection between a Guide and a Protector. Plus, our reproduction ensured that our kind would continue from one generation to the next. “The Guides,” he said looking at me bitterly, “were created to use their emotions to find the evil that lurked in the human spirit and use that emotional power to try to sway them to the good side, instead of the path they were on. Protectors were sent to protect the Guides at all cost. The trick is that one cannot survive without the other. I’m sure they felt we would cherish the bond that tied us together. I, however, was the exception. I survived the loss of my weaker companion and became stronger despite the severing of our bond. I plan on making the remaining Protectors like me. Meaning, the life of a Protector will no longer rely on that of a weak companion that is susceptible to every human emotion. So you see my dear, I will fix God’s mistake. Of course, I had hoped that the injection I gave you would make you stronger; giving you better control over your emotions, but science sometimes takes time doesn’t it? Unfortunately for you however, time is a luxury you no longer have. I’m sure your death will destroy your Protector, just as every other Guide’s death has before you.”

His hatred was tangible.

I wanted to know what had happened to the rest of the Guides and Protectors, but was suddenly more scared of him than I had ever been. His dark, evil aura surrounded him making me feel extremely uncomfortable.

“It was easy to destroy them you know,” he said, picking the thoughts out of my head; I knew instantly that Sam and I had been right. We could read each other’s minds; we just needed to master it. I shook my head. I would not play his games.

He snorted once again, rummaging through my head. “Oh come now, you wanted the truth after all. It wasn’t I that created our kind this way, but it will be me that fixes it,” he said, sounding almost proud of himself.

His egotistical confession was horrifying. How many had he murdered? My heart constricted as I thought of my parents, so casually tossed to the side. Grief threatened to overtake me as I thought of all the lives lost. Was he a… I searched for a phrase I remembered hearing years ago in my one attempt at attending church when I was younger.

“Fallen Angel?” He said impatiently rummaging through my head. “Your ignorance is almost overwhelming. You’re supposed to be more superior to typical humans, but you seem to lack the IQ I am used to dealing with.”

Like I cared at this point what he thought of me. I did wonder though, if we were directed by angels, how he was able to murder innocent people without any repercussions?

“I have the protection of another higher power, you could say; one that encourages my talents,” he said with a sinister smile that made my skin crawl.

“Why were we abandoned? Why not destroy all of us? We were practically babies,” I asked angrier than I had ever been. He had destroyed all our lives and seemed so pleased by his deeds.

“My intention was never to destroy our kind, but to make it stronger. Your parents wouldn’t listen to my ideas, choosing instead to trust in a creator that made them weak. They left me no alternative but to eliminate them. I have been watching and observing all of you for the last fifteen years. I know everything about all of you. It was only a matter of time before you were drawn here, just as we were before you. Soon, the other Protectors and Guides will come as well, feeling the call of the Holy Cross. Let me rephrase that. The others will join me since you and your significant other will no longer exist.”

An errant thought hit me. “Don’t you mean the other four? There’s still another couple out there besides Lynn and Robert.”

“Once again your assumptions are wrong. I never said I gave up all of you. I kept the more docile pair as my own. They adore their papa and would do anything for me. They’ve been raised to appreciate how special they are. Through my guidance, they have become more powerful than even I could have imagined. The girl shows none of the weakness you exhibit, and soon I will have all the information I need to complete my work.