Read Project Paper Doll for Free Online Page B

this same phenomenon.
    He thought that with time, patience, and practice, what I’d lost would return to me. But it had been ten years of all three now with little or—let’s face it—no progress. Except, apparently, when Rachel Jacobs was on a rampage.
    On rare occasions, like yesterday, the block would sort of thin out for a few seconds, and my telekinesis would break through, like a buried memory floating to the surface. Usually with disastrous results, because I wasn’t in control of the flood of power. And then, before I could even try to get control, the block would close me out again.
    Honestly, most days I didn’t care that my ability was gone. I wasn’t really sure I wanted it back—it had only brought me fear and pain. But I couldn’t tell my father that.
    “You need to start practicing again.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. He probably hadn’t slept since sometime yesterday; exhaustion was catching up to him. “If the block is finally starting to disappear and you don’t have control, those bursts of wild power are going to lead GTX right to us.” He looked at me, worried. “You’d be completely defenseless.”
    In spite of my reservations about getting my ability back, I knew he was right. But more practice?
    Something between a bitter laugh and a scream of frustration lodged in my chest with an ache. The truth was, “practice” was a joke. For years I’d spent several hours a day after school trying to move a red foam ball into a plastic blue cup without touching either one. It was pointless. I’d stared at those objects for so long it felt as though the afterimages were permanently burned into the backs of my eyes. And the only time that stupid ball ever moved was when I accidentally jostled the table with my knee.
    How was I supposed to regain control over a power I couldn’t even access with any degree of regularity? I’d given up trying about six months ago.
    “Practice won’t help.” I rubbed at the ache beneath my breastbone. “It hasn’t helped.”
    “We have to do something,” he said. “We’re running out of time.”
    I froze.
    “One of my sources at GTX says they’re ramping up the search for you. With the changeover in the administration, new people are in key positions, and the hearing committee on DOD spending is making everyone jumpy. Someone’s going to be checking to see where all the government funds went for this research, and GTX will want to have something to show for the project,” he said. The “project” meaning me.
    I shivered. That explained the phone call yesterday morning and why he’d been following the news about the hearing committee intently. “How close are they?” I asked, my throat suddenly tight with fear.
    My father closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
    He looked tired—the skin sagging around his eyes—and so much older. As if twenty years had passed instead of ten since the night at GTX when he’d first acknowledged my existence with a discreet wave. He was the only human ever to treat me as a person and mean it. For the first six years of my life, give or take, I’d thought my name was Wannoseven. It was only after I escaped—with Mark Tucker’s help—that I learned Wannoseven wasn’t a name at all but a numerical designation. 107. Pathetic. I’d answered to a number, one Jacobs and the others had assigned me.
    My first few years in the lab weren’t bad. Actually, they were awful, but that’s only based on the knowledge I have now, thanks to ten years of living Outside. At the time, the lab was my home, and while I certainly hated parts of it (the constant testing—no kid likes to get shots or have her blood drawn; and let me tell you, electrodes inserted at the back of your head aren’t much fun either), I didn’t know any different. It wasn’t that I thought other children were undergoing similar experiences in their own homes; it was more that I’d never met another child. I knew they existed—I’d seen