That led to the final transgression. The dissemination of any content that did, or could bring the college into disrepute was absolutely verboten. It was also, oddly, a blessing in disguise for me, as protecting their reputation was possibly the main reason that the college didn’t seem to want to involve the police in the matter, for the moment, at least.
I guessed they figured reporting the incidents would draw unwanted attention, and spread the story farther and wider than if they just buried them, and investigated privately.
Another small mercy was that the Dean did seem to believe that, apart from being the subject of both videos, I’d had no part in their appearance, and as such, hadn’t directly broken any college rules. On the other hand, I got the distinct impression that he didn’t believe my repeated assertion that I had no idea who was responsible.
That being said, without any specific evidence of wrongdoing on my part, I was seemingly on probation more as a precautionary measure and a cautionary tale to other students, thank anything else, which really made no sense to me, as I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Still, I’d been trying to look at the positives. The police weren’t involved, and they hadn’t withdrawn or paused the Fellowship...Yet.
With all that crowding my head, I hadn’t noticed the van draw up alongside me as I walked until it was way too late, and even as I registered what was going on, I was already being forcibly bundled into the back of it, complete with a hood over my head.
As soon as my brain caught up with what was happening to my body, survival mode kicked in and I fought with everything I had in me. Not that it did much good, given that my hands were tied behind my back, and whoever had snatched me was obviously a lot stronger than I was. Still, there was no way I was just going to lie there and accept my fate, whatever that might be.
When my captor spoke, nervous hysteria almost got the better of me, and it was all I could do not to laugh. It wasn’t that the situation was funny. It was far from it, but something about the cliché of the robot voice, combined with the stone-cold terror flooding my body, made me want to laugh. It made no sense, but then nothing in my life did at that point in time. I’d actually stopped expecting it to.
The last thing I remembered was being flung around like a piece of popcorn in a pan, before everything went black. When I came to, my head was throbbing, and when I struggled to sit up, it felt like it weighed one hundred pounds. I was lying on a mattress in what seemed to be some kind of storage space or warehouse. What the fuck?
“Hello?” I sounded unrecognizably weak and feeble.
“Sleeping Beauty awakes.” The robot voice really wasn’t a laughing matter. In fact, it was creepy, and weird, and couldn’t mean anything other than danger. Grabbing me from the street obviously spelled trouble, but somehow the disjointed speech made the situation even more ominous.
“Hello, and welcome to the show.” With those words, the space that had previously been gloomily and eerily dark was bathed in what seemed like the light of a thousand semitrailers, or the floodlights at a football stadium, but all crammed into a much smaller space. I squinted out into the excessive brightness, but couldn’t see a thing. Now my head felt like someone had carved my skull open with an angle grinder, and removed my brain while I was still awake.
“Hello? Who’s there...? Where are you...? Who are you...? What do you want?” My voice sounded as rough and croaky as my throat felt.
“Leave the questions to us. This is our show, and you’re not in a position to do anything other than whatever the fuck we tell you to do. On your feet. Now.”
If I thought sitting up was bad, standing up felt like I was one hundred and fifty years old, and someone had poured acid onto my aforementioned pre-extracted brain.
Everything hurt. I stumbled a little, worried I was blacking out again, and was surprised to feel arms reach out and steady me from behind. I hadn’t realized that anyone was so close. I didn’t know if I was disoriented, or if it was the acoustics of the lofty space, but I’d been unable to pinpoint where the voice speaking to me had been coming from, though I’d been fairly certain it was from somewhere in front of me.
It occurred to me that I could still be right about that, as the voice and arms could belong to two or more different people. I knew from the van that there were at least two of them—the one who’d grabbed me, then proceeded to bounce around the back of the vehicle with me, and the driver.
I hadn’t been able to see into the cab, so for all I knew there could have been a passenger, also. Likewise in the back, though I wasn’t aware of anyone apart from the person who was manhandling me, that didn’t necessarily mean that there weren’t others silently watching on.
The same was true of the warehouse. I’d clearly been out cold when they’d brought me in, so I had no idea how that was handled or by whom, or when the hood had been removed. Now, peering into the blinding light, I couldn’t see much of anything or anyone, but that didn’t mean there was nobody or nothing there. Plus the voice had said “we,” which suggested a minimum of two, unless they were referring to the voices in their head.
“Steady. Do as you’re told, and you’ll be okay.” The metallic voice behind me sounded as reassuring as a fake robot could—not reassuring at all.
“Sit the fuck down on the chair,” the first voice boomed. I squinted into the gloom again, scanning the sparse space. Apart from the mattress I’d just risen from, the chair in question appeared to be the only item of furniture in the room. I made my way to it, on slightly shaky legs, aware that the second person was hovering a few paces behind me every step of the way.
Sitting on the chair was both ecstasy and agony. Not standing or walking was definitely a good thing, but lowering myself into the seat was painful, and the seat was hard. I shifted slightly trying to get comfortable, or at least less uncomfortable.
“Sit still.” I did as I was told, not wanting to risk the wrath of voice number one.
“Good. Now strap yourself in, this is going to be a bumpy ride.” It took me a moment to realize that he was talking figuratively. It was a plain and basic plastic chair, like the kind found in schools and colleges across the country, and there were no straps, or seat belt. In my defense, my head still felt as though it had been burned with acid. Hardly conducive to clear thinking.
“So are you ready to take a stroll down memory lane? I warn you, this isn’t going to be a gentle little post-dinner meander to watch the sunset. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is going to be a startling dash through the past to reveal who you truly are. They say a Rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, but I beg to differ Tabitha. You’re a monster, and I’m going to make you pay.”
Tabitha. Despite the fogginess in my head, that word, my name, rang out loud and clear, just like it had from the slideshow in the lecture hall, along with my old yearbook photo. I had no idea what was going on, or who was behind it, but one thing I did know was that whatever it was, it had something to do with my past. With who I used to be. With Tabitha. Which meant it was likely something I’d been trying to forget.
Chapter 22
Kane
Something about the whole situation didn’t sit right with me. I’d known what the deal was from the start. Fox had made no secret about his plans to bring Rose down, and exactly what that would entail. He’d described it in minute detail, and I’d gone along with it. In fact, more than that, I’d helped him in any way I could—just like I always had—planning and refining every step in the process.