I pause and consider my options. I could jump. I could run. I could fight.

    “Get on your knees. Now.” The man orders. His voice is rough and deep.

Suddenly, I switch off. I can’t control my muscles. I can only watch. No, not again. Not again.

The last thing I feel is the cold metal of a gun in my hand. The gun I left behind.

 I wake up to a throbbing pain in my head. I’m leaning against a rough, slippery rock wall. I groan. A cave, I’m in a cave. I pat down my clothes. No gun. I sigh in relief.

    “Did you really think I’d let you keep it?” The man asks.

    “I didn’t kill you?” I stutter. I was so sure that I’d killed him after I blacked out. Well, not me exactly.

    “And why would I let you do that?” He replies with a smirk. He’s big and tough-looking, clutching a gun in the corner of the cave.

I realize that my hands are cuffed tightly together.

    “Who are you? What is going on? I’m so lost right now. I don’t understand.” I reply. I’m so confused, this massive headache isn’t helping, either. I can’t decide whether I should cry or scream or both.

    Before I can decide, he answers.

    “Your name is Leah Hill, correct?”

    “Yes.”

    “And you were born in Virginia, correct?”

    “No, I was born in Ohio.”

    “Yes, you were born in Virginia. You’re patient number…” he checks a file in his lap, “1062. For the sake of it, I’ll call you Leah.”

    I start to panic. “I’m not a patient of anything, I’ve haven’t been in a hospital since I was born! I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He might try and take me to the police. Maybe they’ll say I’m crazy and lock me up.

    “Relax. Obviously, I have a lot of work to do. Shut up and sit still, this might take a while.” He sighs. He leans against the cave wall and stretches his legs.

I fight the urge to cry, but I remember that he has a gun and I don’t. That, and he’s not handcuffed. And, from the look of it, he’s had some type of physical training because he’s not exactly weak-looking.

    “You’re Leah, and you can call me… Duke. You don’t need to know my real name. You…” He points at me, “are a very interesting young lady. You see, you were born in a government facility that was made for… creating monsters. Well, I say monsters, they say machines. “Weapons” works too. You are a monster. That’s putting it nicely, too. You haven’t gone haywire like the other cases.

    “There was one kid in nowhere, Indiana who killed his whole family. Just. Like. That.” He emphasizes each word with a stab from the knife he’s holding. “The funny thing is, the government thought that they failed completely with their experiments. They thought nothing worked. Little did they know… and what they did, was they got rid of their little lab rats. They abandoned them. You were lucky, you got put up for adoption. Not all of those kiddies did.”

    “I bet you wanna know why you’ve been going so crazy lately, huh? The put this chip inside your head. They were supposed to be able to control it remotely, only it never work. I’ve been told that someone hacked them. That makes you a puppet. I’m no scientist or doctor...I’m, well, you could say I clean up people’s messes.”

    “So, you’re a janitor.” I smirk. “I don’t believe you. I’m probably imagining you. I’m probably crazy.” I could be dead. Maybe this is hell? Maybe I’m crazy.

    Duke takes great offense to this, I can tell. He puffs his chest out and frowns.

    “You aren’t imagining me!” He scoffs. “Don't be silly.”

    “What you’re saying makes no sense. No government could get away with that. There’s just no way.”

    “You’d be surprised. Anyway, they did and that’s all that matters. Do you get chronic headaches? Do you have an extreme fear of needles? Do you have night terrors sometimes?” He asks.

    “Yeah...but none of those prove there’s a government chip in my brain. Lots of people have all three of those.” I retort. This guy could be on drugs, that would explain a lot.

    “Okay, well my main point of talking to you, was to explain that we’re going to Virginia to get that chip removed before you end up killing anyone else.”

    “What makes you think I’ll let somebody operate on my brain?” I ask incredulously. “I. Don’t. Think. So.”

    “Well, I don’t think you have a choice. I also don’t think you want to let some hacker into your mind.” Duke answers. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is. C’mon, get up. Give this a chance. It’s your last one.

    “Fine. Why don’t you unlock these first?” I flash my handcuffs at him. “Please.”

    “Not a chance. I’m not having you kill me, thank you very much.” He responds. “But I will cuff your hands in front of you. That’ll be more comfortable.”