Izzy woke in a blanket of warmth that had nothing to do with the thin sheet that covered her as she slept.  Her dreams had been pleasant.  She couldn’t exactly remember them but they left her feeling content, a feeling she hadn’t had for quite a few weeks.   She turned to look at her clock and realized that she was late for her meeting that morning with Dr. Thompson. 

“Shit,” She said tossing the sheets aside and rushing into the bathroom.  She ran her hand through her hair as she washed her face.  She sighed realizing she should shower but her hair was not greasy enough to warrant being more late. 

By some miracle Izzy managed to make it to her professor’s office only fifteen minutes after her allotted time was supposed to start.   She took a couple deep breaths before knocking on the door.

“Hello?” Dr. Thompson’s voice called out from the other side of the door and Izzy pushed the door open and took a seat in front of his desk.

“I am so sorry I’m late,” she started to utter but Dr. Thompson held up his hand. 

“No need to apologize.” He smiled and chuckled slightly.  Izzy groaned, he probably thought Izzy had gone home with Greg and that was why she was running late. 

“I wasn’t,” She started to protest but he cut her off.

“Shall we get started?” He asked her holding his hand out for her draft of her thesis.  She handed it over and sat back.

“How are you after last night?” She asked him remembering the strange look he had given her date the previous night.

“I’m fine, why?” He asked chuckling slightly. 

“You just acted a bit strange when you ran into me and Greg last night.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a pen and another copy of her thesis so she could take notes as they discussed.

Dr. Thompson shook his head. “Nothing, my wife and I were hungry and it probably just hit me,” he smiled and turned his attention to the Izzy’s paper in front of him.

Izzy nodded and kept to herself that his wife had been holding a doggie bag from a restaurant when they ran into each other.  She shrugged and thought it was probably none of her business why he acted how he had. 

She watched as he flipped through a few pages but was silent.  Her paper couldn’t be that good, there had to be some critiques.  She waited in anticipation for something to come out of his mouth.

“How have you been?”

That was not what she was expecting him to talk about.  Hadn’t they got past the small talk and were no on to the actual work, what she was there for.  She couldn’t spend all day with him; she had to find out how Mark’s meeting went and if they acquired the phone. 

She shrugged.  “I’ve been good except for some unusual dreams about a complete stranger.”  She blushed slightly. What would he think of her dreaming about a Backstreet Boy?

“Well, we all have those at times. Did you have one last night?”

Izzy shook her head.  “I can’t remember.  The strange thing about them is they aren’t like normal dreams, sometimes I feel like they actually happened.  Like they are memories more than dreams.” She could tell that she should have kept that last tidbit to herself almost immediately.  Dr. Thompson sifted in his seat uncomfortably. 

“That does sound interesting, but dreams are just that, nothing more than dreams.” He smiled at her.  “If you will excuse me, I need to get a few things.  I will be right back.”  He stood and left the room without waiting for her ‘okay’ to leave, not that he really needed her permission to leave.

She wasn’t sure what she should be doing as she waited for him to return.  She opened her thesis and started to thumb through the pages finding a few grammar errors and correcting them as she went. Some were on the very pages she was sure her professor had looked through already.  How had he missed them?

Sighing, Izzy started to look anywhere but at her paper.  Her eyes scanned her professor’s office. She hadn’t really noticed all of the certificates and pictures around his office before.  Her eyes fell on one picture of Dr. Thompson standing with another man.  The picture was nothing extraordinary; it was just two men standing side by side shaking hands as if they were congratulating each other.  Something about the picture did not sit right with Izzy, she felt sick when she saw it and when she looked back at it she felt the bile rise in her throat. 

She knew she had to leave; it wasn’t safe for her there.  She gathered her stuff and hastily threw them in her bag.   She reached the door just as Dr. Thompson opened it and came back in.

“Where you off to?”

Izzy looked up at him and felt sick.  “I don’t feel well all of a sudden.  I thought it better not to be here and get sick all over desk in case it’s the flu and not food poisoning.”  She apologized and hoped he would believe it.  She tried to move past him but he blocked her way.

“Let me get you some water,” He tried to get her to move back into the room.  She shook her head and pushed past him. 

“I should get home,” She called back to him as she quickened her pace down the hallway. 

She stepped out of the doors of the building and took a deep breath trying to calm the sick feeling that was pulsing through her.  Why did that picture have her feeling that way?  She took two more deep breaths before she heard her professor’s voice again.

“Izzy,” He grabbed hold of her arm.  Her eyes caught a glimpse of something metal in his hand. Her eyes focused on the object before it was too late.  Izzy slapped Dr. Thompson’s hand and the syringe away from her.  Shoving him hard, she kicked the syringe under a bush before turning away and running down the sidewalk towards the street. 

Sweat was starting to form and drip into her eyes, her heart was racing.  She knew she was being followed as she ran, eventually turning down an alley.  Maybe the alley would cut through to the next street over.  She mentally kicked herself when she found she was in a dead end. 

She turned to see Dr. Thompson approaching her from the open end of the alley.  The syringe in his hand again.

 “Izzy, just get it over with.  The more you fight it the worse it will be,” Dr. Thompson spoke calmly with even breaths, like he hadn’t been running only a few minutes before.

“I don’t know what is going on but I am not going to let you or anyone else do anything to me.”  She argued back.  What was going on with her life?  The past few weeks had been nothing but one strange event after another.  A flash of a girl’s face suddenly came to her taking her by surprise.  “Natalie,” She whispered remembering a girl that was shown on the news only a few days earlier as killed.  She had attacked her too and then was found dead, but why didn’t she remember that at the time she was shown on the news?   

The memories of the other girl almost distracted her long enough for Dr. Thompson to get the edge but luckily she blocked his attack.  Grabbing the arm with the syringe she twisted it behind him.  She tried to force him to release the syringe again but this time he had an iron grip on it and she knew if she touched it even slightly the fight would be over.

Dr. Thompson dropped the syringe into his free hand then using his own weight he flipped Izzy over his head.  She landed like a brick on her back in front of him.  He quickly brought down his hand with the syringe to plunge in into her but she managed to gain her composure and block his arm.

Not knowing how she knew what to do she brought her legs over her head and hooked her ankles together behind his head, flinging him over her and into the dumpster a few feet away.   A box full of cans fell on top of him dazing him long enough for Izzy to take the syringe from him.  Keeping her free hand on one of his arms and kneeling on the other she squatted next to him and held the syringe at his neck, the tip of the needle almost piercing the skin.

Dr. Thompson groaned and when he realized the situation he was in, he only struggled for an instant until the cold point of the needle made him realize he was worse off than he initially thought.

“I want so answers!” Izzy shouted at him.  “What the hell is going on?”

Dr. Thompson was silent until Izzy pushed the needle a little further into his neck.  “It is part of my mission that you never find out.”

“Your mission?” She asked but he would not speak more about that no matter how much more of the needle she pushed into his skin. 

“What is in this syringe?” This wasn’t the first time someone in her life she thought she could trust came at her with a syringe full of something.

“Medicine.” 

“Medicine?” She asked with a sarcastic tone.  “I doubt that.”

“It will take away any confusion or unwanted dreams.”

“I don’t have any confusion or unwanted dreams.” She spat at him.  Her mind flashed briefly to Brian’s face.  This was connected to the dreams about him she’d been having recently, she knew it instantly.   “What is it exactly and why are you doing this to me? You are like a father to me.”  There were a few tears in her eyes but she fought them back, what he just did, tried to do, to her meant that he really was nothing like a father after all and it was breaking her heart.

“I don’t know anything more than what I was told.” His eyes met hers and she knew it was the truth.  She was caught up looking at him that she almost didn’t notice the hand she’d been kneeling on he had worked free.  He tried to grab for her throat but it was too late, the movement had caused Izzy to shove the syringe into his neck and out of instinct she pushed the plunger down. 

She watched as his eyes glazed over and he no longer had a look of recognition when his eyes fell on her. 

Scared about what had just happened, izzy dropped the syringe and took off down the alley.  She needed to find answers, she needed a friend.  She was going to find Megan and maybe they could find a way to get to Brian together.  He had answers she needed, she knew it.