The Eye Gaze Message

Crazy. The word hung in the cold air of the nursery, heavy with the weight of Marcus’s legal strategy. Elena leaned against the barricaded door, listening to his footsteps retreat down the hall, each thud a nail in the coffin of her credibility. She tore open the foil wrapper of the protein bar with her teeth, the sound loud in the sudden silence. She forced herself to eat, chewing the dense, tasteless mass mechanically. She needed the calories. She needed the fuel.

*Three hours until the locks reset.*

Behind her, a soft, digitized chime broke the rhythm of the ventilator.

Elena spun around. Leo was awake. His eyes, usually clouded with the heavy fog of his condition, were open and tracking her. He was staring at the eye-gaze computer mounted above his crib, the infrared camera locking onto his pupils.

"Leo?" she whispered, dropping to her knees beside him. "Hi, baby. I'm here. Mommy's here."

The screen flickered. The predictive text software was active, a cursor blinking in the center of the blue field. Leo’s eyes darted to the left, selecting a letter. Then down. Then right.

*B.*

Elena watched, her breath held. He usually only spelled "drink" or "pain" or "TV."

*A.*
*D.*

*BAD.*

A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature swept over her skin. "What is it, Leo? What's bad? The storm?"

His eyes moved again, faster this time, driven by an urgency she had never seen in him.

*L.*
*A.*
*D.*
*Y.*

*LADY.*

Elena gripped the bars of the crib. "Diana? Is it Diana?"

Leo didn't answer. He was already working on the next word. His gaze was fierce, his small chest rising and falling with the mechanical assistance of the machine Val had tried to sabotage.

*H.*
*I.*
*T.*

*HIT.*

The cursor blinked. *BAD LADY HIT.*

Elena stared at the screen, the letters burning into her retinas. She looked at her son’s frail, paralyzed body. There were no bruises on his face, no marks on his arms. But he couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't feel his torso.

"Where?" she choked out. "Where did she hit you, Leo?"

His eyes moved one last time.

*M.*
*E.*

*ME.*

Elena pulled the blanket down, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She checked his arms, his chest. Nothing. She gently rolled him to his side, checking his back.

And then she saw it.

On his upper thigh, hidden beneath the diaper tab, was a small, circular burn mark. It wasn't a bruise. It was a precise, angry red welt. It looked like the end of a cigarette, or perhaps... a heated wire.

She touched the skin around it, and Leo’s eyes squeezed shut on the screen. He couldn't feel the pain, but his body registered the trauma. The autonomic response.

Elena’s heart stopped. Diana hadn't just 'dusted'. She had hurt him.