Part XIX - 4: Attacks of the Heart

"Tim, I really need your help," Joey said, catching me after our class.

I looked him in the eye and said carefully, "In what way?"

"I need you to let me link with you... "

"Absolutely not," I said, turning away to leave him.

"You don't understand," he said, grabbing my arm. "I want to free all my girls."

When I didn't struggle to leave, Joey let my arm go and waited for my response.

"Why me?" I finally asked. "Why not just borrow Tommy like you did when you enslaved them in the first place?"

"Because... He... He won't let the link form anymore. I don't know why."

"Good for him," I said without thinking.

Joey flinched from my comment, but he didn't let it show it had hurt beyond that before saying, "Please? It's the last thing I'll ever ask of you."

I looked him in the eyes and let my empathic senses feel him out to their fullest ability. While I sensed he really meant what he had said, I could feel he wasn't entirely sure if he really wanted to do it. He wanted Suzi back so bad, yet his lust for power had not been reduced in the least, and the indecision within him was driving him nuts.

Joey was truly asking for my help, but the plea was to end his indecision one way or another more than just needing to link with me. I realized that I was now committed to decide his fate one way or the other. If I didn't aid him in freeing his slaves, he was ready to let himself be swallowed up by the corruption already eating at his heart.

Seeing how close he was to the edge, I gave him a weak smile and said, "Just give me a minute to tell Jennifer and we can go, okay?"

He smiled and let out a sigh of relief as he nodded, his eyes getting bright with his hope.

Joey had been a busy boy all right. We spent the whole afternoon and evening going from one girl's house to another, Joey showing me bits and pieces of what he had done in his incredible programming of their minds. The complexity yet compactness of his super-rat astounded me, and even though I was very experienced with the use of commands and the manipulation of memories, I could see that Joey had a gift similar to Jennifer's, just completely opposite in form.

By the time we finished the seventh girl, it was nearly eleven and we were both very tired. Joey's charm and honest desire to explain and show me everything had drawn my feelings for him out again, and this time I was the one who asked him to sleep over, and even accepted his suggestion at taking a shower together.

Despite Joey having a hard on the whole time, he made no attempts towards anything sexual in the shower or afterwards when we were in bed together, so I was feeling pretty relaxed around him by morning.

Even though I had recovered nearly all my memories by that time, I still occasionally had moments where a memory would overwhelm me, especially when the situation fit the circumstances which the memory had been about. That morning I awoke to find Joey's face sleeping peaceably about ten inches from mine, and as I studied his face, I was cast back into the memory of the morning when we had left for college to seek out Sarah and her supposed enslavers.

When my mind returned to the present, Joey was staring at me with a look of deep tenderness in his eyes, and for a moment, just for a fraction of a second, I wanted to kiss him. That didn't happen, but we did give each other a hug before I left to pick up Jennifer and Joey took a limo home to pick up some fresh clothes and breakfast before we all went to school.

Jennifer made no attempt to hide her displeasure of my announcement I would be going with Joey after school to finish up the remainder of his girls. She could tell I was starting to feel closer to Joey again, and made me promise to come over after we were done with the five remaining girls we had left.

When Joey showed up at Suzi's and my fifth hour class, Suzi and I both could tell something was seriously wrong by his strained frown, and once I excused us from class, the three of us met out in the hall to talk.

"What is it?" I said, beating Suzi to the punch for once.

"I was just... attacked," he said carefully.

"Attacked?" Suzi said, looking around as I scanned.

"Someone tried to take me over. I almost couldn't," he said before reaching out to us for support.

"Whoa, there Joey," I said, trying to keep him on his feet as his balance continued to falter. "Just relax and sit down on the floor, okay? You don't have to shield yourself so hard now that I'm here."

"But you don't understand," he said, looking up desperately. "I think it was... her."

"Her? Her who?" I asked in confusion.

"Jennifer," Joey whispered as he focused on reinforcing his mental defenses.

"Jennifer?!?" I said unbelieving. "Why? What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything," he said, his eyes closed as he continued to focus on re- tuning his cryptic thoughts.

"Why do you think it was Jennifer?" Suzi asked.

"She doesn't like me. She can't read my thoughts."

"Is that all?" I said rather angrily. "You better have more than that to accuse... "

"Timmy," Suzi said warningly.

"What?!? You think it was her too?" I said incredibly.

"I don't know, but look at him. Have you ever seen Joey so worn out? Besides you and Jennifer, do you know anyone else who could wear him down like that?"

"Suzi, no offense but... you don't know enough about it. Any telepath could wear Joey down given enough time and the right opportunity... Joey... Joey?"

"Is he... asleep?" Suzi said, watching his face slowly relax.

"I'm not sure. I don't think so. Shit, I hate not being able to scan him. Look, it doesn't matter who did it. The fact is someone did do it and they failed. If it was Jennifer, she'll tell me. If it wasn't... Well then we have a new problem."

"Well, since I don't know anything about it, I'm going back to class," she said, still feeling a bit hurt from my comment.

"Shit, Suz. I didn't mean to make it sound like that," I said after her.

"You said I wasn't telepathic, and you and Joey have never even tried to show me anything because 'I couldn't understand', or 'I don't know what it's like'. Well I'm tired of being the helpless and dumb mute around you two. At least Jennifer tried to explain to me what she was doing."

And with that Suzi walked back into our classroom.

Feeling a bit helpless myself, I decided I had better ask Jennifer if she knew anything, and felt out her mind in the class down the hall.

"Yes?" came her reply when I contacted her.

"Could you come here a minute? I need to ask you something."

"Uhm, okay... "

I felt the commands being issued to the students and teacher in that room, then out of the corner of my eye saw her come out of the room, pause a moment, then hurry towards us.

"What happened? Is he okay?"

"He was attacked telepathically. He thought you were the one doing it. You weren't were you?"

"Me?" she said surprised. "Why would I... No, I didn't. Is he going to be okay?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. I think he's just withdrawn from his senses. What's the matter?"

"He's... doing something... can't you see it? He's... What is he doing?"

"I don't see anything."

"It's like he's changing the way his streams flow all by himself. Changing the symbols, their relationships, everything... I... "

Her face went blank, and I sighed realizing she had also withdrawn from her normal senses to study Joey's mind.

But then suddenly there was a surge of telepathic energy coming from Joey, and before I knew it, Joey was in my head looking around frantically.

"HEY!" I said out loud while trying to shut him out. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!"

Joey didn't answer, struggling to prevent me from shutting him out as he scanned my mind for something. When I finally kicked him out of my head, Jennifer immediately broke through my defenses and started scanning me too, but I had had enough of that. Before Jennifer could even scan for my name, I had kicked her out and was canceling every symbol coming out of her mind and Joey's simultaneously.

"Will you two stop it!" I said getting furious as they both strained to gain access to my head again. "In three seconds, I'm going to call out fifty guys from class and have them beat the living shit out of both of you if you don't stop it RIGHT THIS GOD DAMN MINUTE!"

Joey's trickle of energy stopped first, then when Jennifer's hadn't ten seconds beyond her deadline, I launched an attack on her mind. Even though it couldn't have any affect on her, it still got her attention when every defense she knew was easily overcome by my overwhelming power. And just to make sure she understood I didn't want her doing something like that again without asking first, I didn't stop for a good minute even after she had stopped her own attempts.

While I was cussing them both out for their betrayal, neither one of them were listening to me, nor did either of them open their eyes. After I had calmed down enough to see they were both ignoring me, I snorted with the decision that Suzi had the right idea, and so I turned away from both of them and returned to class.

About twenty minutes later, I felt both of them attempting to contact me, but I ignored them just like how Suzi was ignoring me. I wasn't really upset with them, just wanted to make them think twice about trying something like that again.

Joey hadn't done anything to me, so when he showed up for our sixth period class, I accepted his apology without emotion, but covered for him when he fell asleep in class from his draining day.

Jennifer, however was not appogetic at all. When she caught up to me and Joey in the hall after school, she demanded that I let her scan my mind, and that Joey could wait until tomorrow for me to help him finish cleaning up his mess.

Joey was pissed, but he didn't argue with me when I agreed, especially since I mentioned he should rest so we both wouldn't be drained from what happened earlier that day.

"Why are you helping that creep?" Jennifer finally asked as we headed for my car.

"You know why, and I don't like you calling him names," I said a little angrily.

"I call them as I see them," she said flatly. "He's a bad person, and you can't trust him."

"You just don't know him like I do. And just because you can't read his thoughts doesn't make him untrustworthy."

She bit her lip to keep from arguing, but when we reached the car, she said, "After you help him fix his girls, I don't want you to have anything to do with him again."

"I'm sorry? I must have heard you wrong. It sounded like you were giving me an order."

"Call it what you want. He's a bad person, and every time you have something to do with him, something bad happens."

"Look!" I shouted before calming my voice and restraining my anger. "Jennifer, honey, I'm not a fool, and I can take care of myself. Joey's been my friend a long time and we've been through a lot together, so please understand I can't just turn my back on him because you don't like him. He's trying to change, and he needs... "

"NO!" she said with more emotion I had ever felt from her before. "You have to choose! Either ME or JOEY! Understand?!? ME OR JOEY! NOT BOTH!"

She broke into sobs, and for a moment I was awash in the chaos of her and my emotions. But then she looked up at me, her eyes begging for my tenderness, my touch, my love, and as I felt that magical feeling pulling us together, I knew deep down that indeed I had to choose, and there was no question on who my choice would be.

Just before our lips could meet, we were jolted by a flash of light followed by the sound of a camera whirl. We looked up and found Suzi standing there grinning like a cat getting ready to take another picture.

Jennifer and I just looked at each other, then after the flash went off again, we gave Suz the kissing shot she wanted.

"That one should have gone in the year book," Suzi commented with a sparkle in her eye. "Along with all the others."

"What do you mean, others?" I said, recognizing that sparkle as being something mischievous.

Suzi put her pack down and pulled out a black with gold stripes book, then opened it up to the center and showed it to us.

"These others," she said, barely containing her laugh.

"Oh my gosh," Jennifer said as we gazed upon the two full pages of snapshots of the two of us in the center of the new yearbook.

"You're joking, right?" I said, leaning closer to examine how the pages were attached.

"Oh, sure I'm joking. Just wait until tomorrow when they hand out the rest of the copies," she said grinning like mad.

"I can't believe it, Tim," Jennifer said softly. "The balloon, the lockers, the dance, that day in the hall... Suzi, how did you get all these?"

"Believe it or not, I didn't have anything to do with it. I hate to admit it, but it was all Joey's idea."

"It was?" Jennifer said surprised.

"He took most of the pictures himself," Suzi said looking me in the eye. "He's the only one who could, you know? He can be pretty selfish and insensitive at times, but... If he really cares about someone... "

I looked at Jennifer as the smile faded from her face and she looked down at her feet a moment before glancing up at me.

"I'll just leave you two alone," Suzi said, seeing her work was done.

"Thanks, Suz," I said after her.

"I'm sorry," Jennifer said, looking at her feet again. "I was thinking of myself and not... "

I gave her a big hug and said, "It's okay... Hey, I have an idea. Lets forget about all this and go car shopping."

"Car shopping? For who?"

"Me. That picture of us kissing in my Porsche just doesn't sit right with me. I look... stuck up or something."

"Oh," she said, trying to hide her disappointment.

I grinned and shook my head, then said, "Geez, Jennifer. You don't even know how to drive yet. I can't buy you a car until you learn how to drive it first."

She looked at me while turning red in the face, then opened her mouth to say she didn't want it, but my penetrating grin stopped her and she just blushed harder while letting her excitement show through.

"I don't know why I stood it this long," I commented as we left the parking lot. "I mean, my dad bought me this car while I was missing most of my marbles, but I've known since before Christmas that it really isn't my style."

"What is your style then?" she said after a brief silence.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I used to have a red Formula, but even that seems too flashy now."

"I like those new Pontiac Grand Prix, or Buick Regals."

"You like them? They look... melted," I said with distaste.

"Daddy likes the Regals because their front grills look like a Jaguar's," Jennifer said defensively. "And I know you. One look at their speedometer and all the buttons, you'll be in electronic heaven."

"Really?" I said, wondering if there really were a lot of buttons. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to look at the Grand Prix while we're looking at the Trans Ams. Uhm, do they have the buttons like the Regals?"

She was grinning as she said, "I think so," and I couldn't help but grin myself.

Shit. She was right. One look at the digital speedometer and all the buttons the radio and other controls had, I nearly drove one off the lot that day. But then I realized I could get even more bu... uhm, options not available on the cars they had on the lot, and so after checking off as many of the optional features I could and paying half the sticker price on the spot, we left in my boring Porsche that didn't even have any buttons that lit up at night.

When we got to Jennifer's house, Trip's car was parked out front, so Jennifer sighed and said, "I guess this means you don't want to come in?"

"Sorry, but I just... you know."

"You want me to see if I could go out tonight?"

"No, you said you had a ton of homework, and I guess I do too. I'll be okay. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you."

"You still gonna help me finish cleaning up my girls today?" Joey asked me in a soft voice before our class the next day.

"Yeah. And you have Suzi to thank for it too."

"I do? How?"

I simply opened up my newly acquired yearbook to the center page and showed it to him, then watched him blush all over.

"So she told you, huh?" he said, trying to escape looking me in the eyes.

I took the pressure off him by looking down at the pages and said, "I think she's missing you. Brad said they haven't had sex all week, and the last time she did, he couldn't... satisfy her."

"Thanks," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"No, I think I do," I said, giving him a smile without making direct eye contact. "And I can feel how bad you want to do what you feel is right. I just hope you can stick to it."

I felt a wave of guilt pass over him, then he redoubled his determination towards what he felt he had to do and said, "One of my girls is going to meet us upstairs after school, so if its okay we can meet there."

"That's fine. Jennifer's going to go home on the bus for once, so it will be just you and me."

"Thanks Tim," Joey thought to me.

"You're welcome Joey. It's nice to have you back," I thought back to him.

Joey and I went up to the room together after class was over and I kept picking up moments of guilt and nervousness from him that I assumed meant he was truly regretting the things he had done with his girls and was nervous about having to face them after setting them free.

"Well, it looks like Dorothy's running late," Joey said after we got our sodas and sat down a while. "Want me to find her just incase she forgot?"

"Uhm, I guess so," I said after attempting to locate a Dorothy in the building myself.

I felt his share link attempting to form, so I accepted it and waited for him to send out a pulse or something, then was surprised when he got up and sat down next to me on the couch.

But then I felt him concentrating on pooling his energy, so I just watched him and anticipated the pulse he was going to send out.

The moment before he released his surge of telepathic energy, I sensed another wave of guilt that suddenly alarmed me.

"Forgive me," he grunted as I felt him focus the entire pulse at my mind and released it.

Before I could possibly try to deflect it, his pulse flashed through my mind, stunning me long enough for him to disable my ability to use my own telepathic abilities followed by ordering my eyes to close.

"What the FUCK are DOING!" I screamed, standing up and stumbling away from him.

He didn't answer me as he concentrated on programming my mind with some kind of new rat, but for some reason he didn't take over my conscious mind and I naturally tried to use that to my advantage.

"You son of bitch! You TRICKED me! You DECEIVED ME! YOU BETRAYED ME! AGAIN!" I screamed, trying to find my way to the door without the use of my eyes. "I'll fucking never trust you again, you coward! FUCK!"

Joey grabbed my wrist and held onto it with a vice like grip, pinning his coin between his hand and my bare skin. Just as I began to struggle, I felt him activate the rat in my head, and then I suddenly couldn't move as his rat started dissecting my mind.

I could still think, just couldn't move. Once I realized it was futile to attempt to move any more, I focused my mental senses on what the rat was doing, but before I could analyze it very much, I felt it release the caps I had placed on my emotions.

My anger about what he was doing to me quadrupled as my empathic abilities went into overdrive as all the previous anger and rage I had built up over the years poured through my soul. As his rat continued its dissection of my mind, my consciousness began seeking out a way to get my revenge, and then all of a sudden, I could see again.

Joey wisely had his eyes closed incase I tried to use my empathic abilities on him. But even though I couldn't move a muscle, I still reached out, grabbed his fucking heart and squeezed.

Joey jerked as my empathic abilities poured my rage and anger into tightening my invisible grip on his struggling heart. Despite what you may think, I had no intention of killing him. Even in my enraged frame of mind I had enough sense to know I know had the winning hand and this would force him to stop whatever he was doing to me in order to live.

His eyes opened a moment in a desperate gasp, but he didn't let go of my wrist and he didn't stop his rat as it started on the last third of my mind. The longer he waited, the harder I squeezed, and then suddenly the rat undid the command that kept me from moving so long.

But instead of attempting to get away from Joey, I simple continued to squeeze harder to prove to him he had to stop it or else. But even when the pain became too great for him to bear, Joey managed to keep his hold on my wrist as he sank to his knees clutching his chest with his other hand.

The rat was just about to finish its task when I panicked and squeezed with all I had left. And then suddenly the rat finished and erased itself from my head, leaving me stunned and blinking since it hadn't done anything but clear out commands in my head.

I examined my mind until I felt Joey's hand release its grip and joined its mate next to Joey's unconscious form. Moments later I felt Joey's coin detach from my wrist and strike the bare linoleum floor with a clear sounding ping.

I watched the coin as it bounced then rolled in an arc, then found myself unable to stop watching it as it began its swirling spinning, making that all familiar sound of a coin spinning to a stop yet seemingly to be calling my name as it did.

The coin seemed to take forever to finally come to a rest, and as the echo of its ring fades from my ears, I became very aware of the silence which followed before reaching out and picking it up and noticing Joey's body for the first time since it began its spin.

I felt... the same. Yet everything around me felt a little different. Joey.

"Joey," I said gently, then more urgently, "Joey!"

I rushed to his side and quickly felt his clammy wrist for a pulse, then had a moment of pure panic when I didn't feel one.

"Oh shit, Joey," I said, with tears coming to my eyes. "Don't die on me. I didn't know. Fuck. Come on buddy. Share link. SHARE LINK!"

I couldn't get him to respond. Telepathically or emotionally. I could feel his life force fading as I rolled him onto his back and started CPR, but it quickly became apparent he wasn't responding to it.

I accidentally dropped his coin while switching from giving him air to pumping his chest, and just hearing its sound made me grab it and stare at it a moment, hoping it would somehow save him.

I tore his shirt open and pressed the coin up against his chest at his heart, then tried to focus as much of my being into forcing a share link through the coin. I tried so hard I almost passed out from the exertion, but when I stopped to regain my strength, I felt something come back from the coin like a reflection of what I had tried to send through it.

I tried it again, and discovered that while he still wasn't breathing or his heart wasn't beating, his life force wasn't declining like it was.

I refocused myself into sharing whatever I could with him through the translucent coin, and despite the difficulty of maintaining it, I discovered a level where his life force stopped declining and I didn't get any feedback from his coin.

I quickly found myself tiring, and knew I had to get help, and fast. I managed to feel out Mr. Higg's mind and call for help before I had to withdraw and concentrate completely on keeping Joey's life force from falling any more.

Somehow I managed to crawl on top of Joey and lock my arms around him so we wouldn't be separated. When Mr. Higgs found us, he tried very hard to get me to tell him what to do, but all I could do was hold on to Joey and hope he wouldn't try to break us apart to get me to talk to him.

When the ambulance came, the paramedics attempted to do just that, and despite the incredible strain it took me to do it, I managed to send Mr. Higgs the need to get us to Sarah along with a flashback of the time with John, Joey, and me.

After that I withdrew from my senses for it was too hard to keep it up any longer. I felt as if I was lost at sea, clutching onto a piece of driftwood with my strength fading, knowing I would sink if I let go even a moment. Of course it wasn't I who would sink, but Joey.

I lost track of time after that, the struggle to keep my meager trickle of a life share link going was the only thing I was aware of until suddenly I felt someone trying to pull me away.

"nO!" I gasped as the offending hands successfully pulled me off him. "Stop... "

"Tim, it's okay," I heard Margaret say from beside me. "Sarah's here and... "

That was all I needed to hear before allowing myself to be swallowed up by the immense need for sleep.

"Tim?" I heard my mother call. "Wake up, baby."

I parted my eyes enough to verify my mom and dad were there, then I think I must have fell back asleep again.

"Tim, you need to wake up and tell us what happened," my mother's voice said inside my head.

As I struggled to awaken, I felt the distinct itch of an IV in my arm, and for a moment I wondered if I had been in an accident.

But then it all came back to me, and after I opened my eyes from the shock, I saw they had monitored my thoughts and had gotten the whole story that way.

"You can go back to sleep, son," my dad said as my mom turned to Margaret to explain.

"Is he okay?" I asked, my eyes already shutting.

"He's still asleep," I heard him say as everything faded away.

I woke up the next day in the early afternoon feeling a little weak, but for the most part okay. It took me a few moments to remember what I was doing there, then as soon as I did, I reached out to find out who all was there and most importantly, how Joey was.

Sarah, Margaret, Tom, and my mom were trying to pass the time away by playing cards, and I found Joey in intensive care still asleep and feeling pretty weak, but seemed to be all there if you know what I mean. Joey's mind was still encrypted, not that there was much going on while he was asleep like that, but it made finding out why he had done what he had done impossible until he woke up.

When I contacted my mom, Margaret, Tom and she came to my room to see me, and I got the distinct impression that Sarah was convinced this whole mess was all my fault.

After giving them more details of what happened, I was disappointed to learn they had no more of an idea why Joey went through so much trouble to clear out my head, especially to the extent that he almost died carrying it out.

Suzi brought Jennifer with her after school to visit, and after waiting ten minutes for Jennifer to end her hug, Suzi excused herself and left to check on Joey.

Since there wasn't really anything wrong with me, I got to go home that night with my mom, but I was right back up there the next morning with Suzi to wait with Joey's parents for him to awaken.

Suzi and I were allowed in Joey's room for a few minutes to see him, and while I attempted to contact him, Suzi clung to my arm watching him, then she sighed just as I gave up.

"I feel so helpless," she said softly.

"I know, so do I."

"But... I've felt helpless before. But now... I feel even smaller and less significant than ever."

"He'll be okay. You know he will."

She sighed again, then let go of my arm and gave Joey a kiss on the forehead before wiping one of her tears off the side of his face.

I followed her out, lost in my own thoughts about why he would have risked his life for nothing. I couldn't understand Joey's reasons, for it seemed so futile. All I knew was he had done it believing it was the right thing to do, and I couldn't ignore that fact.

The weekend crawled by, for I spend the entire day Saturday and Sunday at the hospital waiting for Joey to wake up to put an end to my confusion about his motives.

My mother ordered me to go to school on Monday, and I conceded to going as long as I was notified the moment Joey woke up. Jennifer was a little upset when I insisted I go to school in Midge, but I made it up to her by sending a limo to pick her and her girlfriends up for school.

For some reason I couldn't explain, I had this deep need to keep Joey's coin on me at all times. Like as if it contained a part of him, a part of him that wanted to be with me... I know it sounds silly, but I was trying to rationalize things which weren't rational, but emotional, and at the time I didn't question it because it comforted me to believe.

I landed Midge back behind the school where she wouldn't be in the way and yet close enough that I could leave in a hurry if I needed to. I went up to the room for a while and started to pack up some of the personal things out of a feeling of nostalgia.