--ovw--LI--ovw--

He replied with, "That's why I'm not telling you."

MONDAY

9:13 AM

Northwest of Windcreek

"Been a while since a situation got this messed up from one murder case."

I reviewed records and composites on my U.S.-issued mobile device as Connor Meadows lead the way.

To where, I didn't know at the time.

Sam popped her pink bubble gum.

"A ten-year old girl, right?" she said.

"Fourteen," said Kaylee. "I think."

Kaylee and Connor were the ones that helped take in the armed suspect we found at Il Male Nekantral.

"And from the Lowdown," I remarked.

"Just like our star Christopher Midnight," quipped Connor. "Funny because if you never told anyone they'd think you were from the Suburbs, or something."

"Sure, Connor."

Connor's device blinked and beeped, alerting us to take a turn in some sort of direction.

"Kaylee," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Who was the lady in the mask?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

"Lady in the mask," I repeated. I watched Jupiter Two wag his big fluffy white tail as he trotted along beside us, a happy dog, not a care in the entire world. "Kayles?"

"Sorry," she said. "Sarah Olivia 'Coke Sandwich' Peters." The name was vaguely familiar. Though I knew it wasn't one of my cases- I would've known immediately. Maybe one of Kaylee's? Her vigilante ones, anyway. "Previously identified drug trafficker and addict."

"Any other known or alleged crimes?" I said.

"Apart from trying to assault us at the hotel," Connor said, "none that we've heard of."

Jupiter Two jumped up and down. I gave him a biscuit I still had on me from Baker Joe's. It was soggy from the snow, despite the wrapping.

"Why is she nicknamed Coke Sandwich?" I said.

"I'll send him the warrants," Sam said. "Girl puts coke in her sandwiches."

Sheesh. I wondered what I missed in a week.

"We missed you, you know," said Kaylee.

"I missed having a purpose," I said. "I had to sneak inside just to use the training simulation rooms. Although that was fun."

"The guards wouldn't have stopped you," said Kaylee. "You were off the case a week, not the entire Union of Sta-"

Another resounding blast, and almost-blinding flash of pure white- from one side of the huge abandoned diamond mine we were now approaching.

"Shit," said Connor.

The soft lilac sky and its soft glow was seemingly so out of place from all the blood and all the fear I assumed we all felt.

"Fuck this," said Sam.

"This was... this was a diamond mine?" I said. "Supposedly, right?"

"Did anyone ever really believe there were any diamonds in here?" said Kaylee.

"Nope," said Connor.

"If by diamonds you mean heroin then yeah, probably," said Sam.

We all gave her some sort of look.

I had the perfect response.

"Umm," I said. "Cool."

"That shit ain't even strong, Chris." She popped a pill and swallowed it dry, around the peach-and-strawberry Baker Joe's bubble gum. "You should see the stuff they sell in mainland U.S., it's pure fire."

Kaylee and I stared at each other.

"I have," I said. I addressed Connor. "So... this place we're going. What is it?"

"We don't know. But Reynaldo Mendoza Torres, and Sarah Coke Shit, and Belinda, all had this same file with the same coordinates... and what seems like the same map. And, apparently, so did you."

"Coke Sandwich," said Sam.

"Please arrest me, Mr. Meadows, for having a random four-inch piece of soggy paper from a human trafficking patron, who offered to buy me shoes I couldn't accept per human abuse job protocol." I checked myself. "Correction, sorry- he offered me money to go buy shoes; money I couldn't take. Can you give me a cell away from Belinda Klein's and closer to the Davenports' office?"

"I'm not saying you're in on this," Connor said. "But... there has to be some reason he gave it to you."

"He felt bad for me. They all did. They hurt me anyway then felt bad then did it again." Jupiter Two nuzzled my arm. "Hey, if it's pointless... let's not talk about this today."

"Do you remember his name? How old was he? Where was he from?"

"Connor," said Sam. "Leave him alone."

It might help the murder victim. I mean- the case. It might help for the murder victim's case. There was no saving that girl now.

I stopped walking, and closed my eyes.

Kaylee put her hand around my wrist.

"Chris?"

"I... don't remember much. Older man, wore some kind of... a tux."

"Tuxedo?" asked Connor.

"Or a suit. I'm sorry, there were so many. This one wasn't ugly like a lot of them were. He was... he was kind of nice. I think he was."

"I told you to just leave him alone," said Sam.

Happy the raccoon poked the dimple on my left cheek.

"I tried," I muttered.

I kept walking.

"Any... distinguishing characteristics?"

"He told me to 'get out of here,' something like that."

"What do you think he meant by that?"

"Connor," said Kaylee. "Stop."

"No idea. We have a case, and now a kidnapping- two kidnappings. Are we any closer yet?"

Another explosion. Was it the third, or the fourth? We didn't even know what we'd heard earlier during the fight with the Talon.

Sam removed her hands from her ears.

"This shit's louder and more annoying than Jeminem X Cardo P rapping on crack," she remarked. "Real talk. This place mad gully, bro. Let's leave."

"No," the three of us replied in unison.

"You're the one that wanted to be here," Kaylee said.

Happy gave Sam an apple.

"Heat signatures," Connor said.

--ovw--

--ovw--LII--ovw--

"Heat signatures," Connor said.

MONDAY

9:14 AM

Northwest of Windcreek

"I'm running straight into them," I said. "I got this."

I tapped my own holographic projection and immediately saw two bodies- human bodies as far as I could tell. We were only a half-kilometer away from the abandoned mine's lift.

"Visuals." I spotted them, both in black, masked- almost similar to Sarah Peters back at the hotel, but not quite exactly identical.

As they pulled out their guns, I roundoffed into a whipback and launched for a long arc takeoff, facing the direction of our antagonists.

They almost reminded me of those evil bandits in that one video game Kaylee and I played, Webesteria.

I smiled.

"Coming in hot, my friends!" I yelled from above them.

As if in slow motion, I slid the U.S. tapping device face shut and closed the hologram, pocketed the mobile, and spun into my left and into my backwards arched layout. They shot at me but that wasn't good enough; if there was one thing as unpredictable as the Overwoods weather, it was possibly my spin lines and the modifications I made, to in-air body positions.

And Sam, probably.

Two seconds later both my of my beat-up black shoes were on the taller adversary's shoulders.

"Hello there," I said. "Tell me what you know, and I won't have to knock one of you out and then otherwise silence the other."

"Is this kid on crack?" said the other masked adversary, a seemingly female voice.

"If by crack you mean apples," I said, "then yes."

I twisted and spun fast into a forward quadruple as she shot but missed awfully, horribly- because as I did, I saw the blood start to flow heavily from one of the ears of the bandit I just took off of.

Well, bandit- or criminal or gangster or warden or bouncer or guard or whatever. Either it was just his ear hopefully, or, hopefully not, somewhere near his skull. His or hers or theirs or xeirs, I didn't know the pronoun at the time.

I landed on the woman's shoulders- with ignite on this time- and dropped into a double-twisting hurricanrana whip to a hard right elbow to the side of her cranium- the hardest single elbow I had thrown that day so far. There was no need for the Americana submission arm lock Carter White taught me. I pocketed her two Bauer 355OD handguns (instantly feeling disgusted because at the time I generally still hated guns) and ran back to the taller person.

"Hey," I said. "Are you okay?"

The muffled response rang clear in the empty space between us.

"Stay back!" the man said- in some kind of neutral mainland U.S. accent, he sounded almost like James, or even a little bit like me, "this is protected territory!"

Protected?

Protected by who?

The man tried to shoot but only dropped his one handgun upon pulling the trigger, stumbled back, and put his right hand to his temple- near his ear, where all the blood was coming from. He dropped to some kind of partly sitting, partly crawling position- half on his back and half on his side. It reminded me of that centipede I saw outside of school back in the Suburbs.

Well, a heavily bleeding centipede.

Didn't he have backups? Fellow recruits? A healer or a medical agent, like I was depending on the mission?

"Help," he said to no one in particular.

I front walkovered in his direction, hands on the ground then feet then hands for four flips and a half, soundlessly, until I lowered myself onto the ground beside him for the final landing. I simply tossed his handgun to the side with my left hand, tossed it down beside the lift, where it slid into a rock and then fell down. Down, down, down, into the enormous mine. I stared at it until it disappeared from any human eye's field of perception.

"Help," he said again to no one in particular.

"I got you," I said.

See, this is why I hated guns.

At the time I did...

"Help," he said for the third time.

I tore his mask with one of my small black combat knives, hollered at Kaylee, as Happy the raccoon bounded toward me, riding on top of Jupiter Two. I placed two fingers into the mess of blood and torn skin.

Suddenly, I was afraid. Afraid that we might not save him- this... this whoever he was. The blood that pooled around our legs was sizeable in amount and pool diameter and I'd survived it before in Nightingale and otherwise- but... what about him?

"Happy! Kayles! Asses over here!"

"We're here, we're here!" Kaylee hopped over the unconscious woman's body, whereas Sam stepped on both her breasts and then took the cash from her pockets before zooming over. Kaylee immediately made stielvine to wrap around the bandit's head.

"We need him conscious," I said. "Arrowvine- read his mind, now. Get whatever you find. Cognito, Edge- surveillance. Let us know what's down there."

"Eldredge copies!" cheered Sam. "Last one to the lift is a monkey's megacigarette butt! Oops, sorry, you lose!" She zoomed to the old, creaky-looking lift. "Pulling up in dat whip, I done dat dumb shit..." she rapped to herself as Connor made his way toward her.

--ovw--LIII--ovw--

MONDAY

9:19 AM

Northwest of Windcreek

"Pulling up in dat whip, I done dat dumb shit..." she rapped to herself as Connor made his way toward her.

I turned my attention to the man under us.

Compassion, not the need to get clear and coherent answers, moved my other hand onto the skin of his neck. And yes, here was the pain; awful, heavy, like a headache but more so like the death and the foggy blurry gore and the necrosis that Zapryekavil brought on- not as bad, but almost.

"Can you please not think about Zapryekavil right now!?" said Kaylee.

"Dude," I said, "read this guy's mind, not mine!"

"Muscle memory," she said. "I read everything."

"Fuck that right now, Kayles, freaking concentrate."

"Help me, please," the man mumbled.

You'll be fine, I wanted to say.

But the reality was, I didn't know.

Despite the stielvine, he was bleeding. There was... some part of me that almost knew it was too late, too late for him. But just didn't want to acknowledge it. Not yet, anyway.

No-

I was going to save him. I was there to help him; I was going to save him.

Enough people were abused or tortured or killed in front of me.

The black streaks under my eyes, the skin on my hands as well as my face turning white, the irises of my eyes probably changing color from brown to gray to white at this point; I didn't know how much time we had.

I spoke telepathically to Kaylee, because of the mission, and, because, this man I didn't know was probably dying.

Concentrate.

I'm doing that.

Well, do better.

"Shut up, Chris," Kaylee said physically, with a tone of acid to her normal singsong Southern U.S. voice.

The man started to laugh. It was terrifying. Because... I'd heard that kind of laughter before. We both did, Kaylee and I.

Blood ran down both my eyes.

"It's funny... I don't... I don't... I don't feel any pain at all anymore. Thank you."

Those were the last words he spoke.

--ovw--LIV--ovw--

I break down walls then put up fences.

- from Towards the Light V

Did I believe when you said,

"Hey, come with me, I won't brainwash you?"

- from If Jealousy Was Money

--ovw--

MONDAY

9:22 AM

Northwest of Windcreek

"It's funny... I don't... I don't... I don't feel any pain at all anymore. Thank you."

Those were the last words he spoke.

My hands shook erratically, my skin crawled, like they didn't want to be a part of me. I didn't want to be a part of me.

I got up, turned around, and walked.

I did this.

"By the time you read this, you'll either have discovered your powers or this paper will be on top of your dead body. I'll guess you're alive because you get everything you want and my attempt to kill you probably didn't work.

I just want you to know you're worthless.

That you're pitiful, that everything you do is a mistake.

People will know you and remember you. And they will say good things about you.

I'll make sure you don't hear them. You'll hear only me. You will believe only what I said about you then, and what I think about you now.

Nothing you do is right."

Blood stopped running down my face, the blood from my eyes. And then it was blood with water. My breaths turned into that same ragged, uneven, choked breathing- it was like Nightingale, it was just like Nightingale... and that stupid experiment should have killed me.

I couldn't do one thing right.

"Fuck!"

My voice echoed around the walls of the mine below us, bouncing off to empty space around us.

What was this life, anyway? What did I ever do? It seemed to me, my only purpose was to be a mop bucket for all of the dirt in this world, all of the garbage and the dirt it had to offer.

AS IF I DIDN'T FEEL DIRTY ENOUGH ALREADY.

I hated guns...

And that other one, it fell down, down, down, down this deep, empty mine of who knew how many floors. I felt my feet, I felt my legs walking.

Kaylee's voice yelled from somewhere in the area.

"Chris!"

I heard it. But what else I heard was bedroom moans, torture wails, pleading. Seventeen years of what seemed mostly like senseless pain, senseless persecution. This eighteenth one didn't seem to be that much different.

Not now.

And I thought, probably not tomorrow...

"CHRIS!"

Two steps, four steps, six.

Seven.

He was in a black coat, a tuxedo, I think they called it. The man was across from me as I sat on the bed reading my only copy of the Bible. I wanted more books, but couldn't afford them. The only cloth on my body was half the bed sheet.

The man took his watch from the drawer and looked back at me. It was maybe the prettiest, shiniest thing I had ever seen then, his watch. Gold and silver, and shining things, I thought it was made of. He smiled at me.

"You don't want me to go," he said. "Do you?"

I looked at the man- he was somewhere in his thirties, maybe early forties? His hair was a mix of blond and some gray.

"You're the one that... doesn't make things hurt too badly," I said. I surveyed his eyes, any nuances in their movement or any movement of his body that was out of his ordinary behavior. It was something I knew to do, from early. How early, I don't remember. "So I guess not."

I was always honest with these people. Even the ones that hurt me the most. I was eleven.

"Do you have kids?" I asked.

He looked at me.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

I shook my head. "I don't know. Curious, I guess."

The man put a stack of paper bills on top of a table beside the bed.

"I'm not supposed to take gifts," I said.

"You don't have to tell anyone," he replied, discreetly. Hushed. "Get yourself something nice. Something new to read. A pair of shoes, something."

"I can't take it," I said. I tried hard to disguise the disappointment I felt but couldn't. "There's a camera."

Was there a difference, between "wouldn't" or "couldn't?"

One of Kaylee's vines wrapped around my less-damaged wrist and hand- the right one. I cut it off with a combat knife. I used the special marked one; the special marked one that I used on nobody but myself.

I counted one cut for each of the people that I was not able to save, when I saved myself; I counted one cut for each individual that used me all for themselves. I wanted one cut for each time that someone else had hurt me, because this way, I was hurting myself.

You make goodbye look so easy.

I remember noting how strong her accent was when she popped her gum again, chewed, and replied with, "Yeah, me too. You get to call me Sam." She pulled a folded piece of paper from a jacket pocket and snorted whatever was in it, then said, "Let's do this, Morphine."

I remember how her black-and-yellow striped pants made her look like a bumblebee; a bumblebee with the most breathtakingly colored eyes.

You make goodbye look so easy.

How's your life in wonderland?

I glanced at the strange, slow, orange-with-purple-clouds Overwoods summer sunset; I remembered Marie. Summers here that rained and snowed with typhoons or hurricanes or every other catastrophe you could possibly think of. The boys and girls- the children- that have never and will never recover from the tortures.

But Kaylee and I are damaged forever.

While the ones who ran the experiment are probably out drunk and partying.

I am so hungry...

You make goodbye look so easy.

How's your life in wonderland?

You're spending for another call, and another time

Just to get me near you

Fifteen steps, twenty.

From the snakes, from the most evil of all the most evil, from the oblivion, from the misery that existed only in some places.

I plunged into the earth.

--ovw--

You make goodbye look so easy.

How's your life in wonderland?

You're spending for another call, and another time

Just to get me near you

But I've lost everything.

--ovw--LV--ovw--

Scream it

Watch as I turn midnight

All I have

Is thanks to you

- from Does to You, Thanks to You

Fifteen steps, twenty.

From the snakes, from the most evil of all the most evil, from the oblivion, from the misery that existed only in some places.

I plunged into the earth.

Wind- I descended and descended. I didn't remember how high the fall was; how deep this mine was. They must have been mining for long if it was that deep. Air tossed my black hair back and around and my double-tied ponytail everywhere, I felt this and nothing else as I kept my eyes closed and awaited my death.

Of course, like Century Spire, that's not how it happened.

I didn't remember hitting any kind of ground.

I was still descending, falling to death; I didn't know what hit me- or if anything even did- when I blacked out.

MONDAY

Around 10:36 AM

Below the earth

Exact location unknown

Bottles.

Bottles of... Vystir antidote. Just like the ones I begged for, from James, years ago.

Vystir antidote. That was the first thing I saw.

My teeth... bloody, only slightly more damaged than how fucked up they already were; the taste of blood was what seemed to tell me that I was alive still.

A very vaguely familiar, yet somehow deep and relaxing, almost musical- well, to me it was anyway- voice spoke. I wasn't sure it was real. And it was almost like I knew who it was. But this could've all been a trick.

"Chris."

I spun up and off the ground, until a chain on my left wrist cut me from the air and dragged me back down.

And then, it wasn't a chain; it was some kind of red plastic, tied to some kind of machine. There was... some kind of IV drip, several of them actually, on my right arm.

I was left bleeding on the ground but stuck with needles?

I...

I remember feeling like a trapped animal; a small helpless trapped animal knowing he was about to get slaughtered, or worse.

Much worse.

I don't want to be here

I don't want to be here I don't want to be here I don't want to be here I don't want to be here

"Chris, over here."

I ripped needles and micro tubing off my right arm, and glanced over at where the male voice came from. This room was dark- the walls were black.

Kind of like Nightingale...

The bottles of Vystir antidote were on a midnight blue tinted glass table. And there he was- the man who called my name. He looked maybe a few years older than I was? Perhaps five years, something? He had sandy-colored hair and silver-blue eyes, piercing and utterly luminous; Labradorite and Tourmaline gemstones mixed with a light blue sky.

Yes, exactly- it took me that long to put my guard back up. The kindest-looking men can be dangerous. I was off, I was so off. An easy target, trapped in a place unknown yet also strangely familiar.

Oh wait hold on a second

"Where am I?" I said, wincing, as more blood spouted off and onto my left hand when savagely I tore off whatever was above it; to say that I was dizzy was the top five understatement of the decade. A white light bulb, concealed inside a deep black mission style lamp to my left, started to flicker. But it almost seemed to flicker in a specific pattern.

No wait a second I know this place

My eyes wide, I tucked my right elbow and tightened my core, performed my half-turn evade into front double to one-legged roundoff to backwards whip- one of my most basic but most useful maneuvers- then dropping to the floor as black shards of wood and glass and plastic flew like bomb shrapnel from thirty-nine feet away. Twelve meters. Like a gymnastics floor.

I didn't even go out of bounds.

I remember wanting to immediately ask more questions; I didn't. Experience had taught me to always await at least the first response, to assess the situation (or assess whoever was in a room with you, especially if they were larger, or both) further, and to pause before you take any kind of next step.

I took a deep, slow breath, closed my eyes, and then made the decision to speak again.

Rising slowly from the marble floor which now had my blood on it, I said, "Should I repeat my question?"

He paused before answering me, like he was trying to put something together. The short, buzzed hair on his face was a funny shade of yellow, darker than blond.

"Wilson-Delos Santos-Martinez diamond mine. You..." he paused again. This man had the strangest expression on his face as he locked his eyes on mine. I couldn't place it. "You might know it as the, um."

Okay kill me now

"The what?" I insisted.

"Well-"

"SAY IT."

"Experimentation site."

Experimentation site...

"So..." I said. "You mean, like... like Nightingale?"

I pretended my voice didn't totally wobble at the N-part, the first syllable of that word. Even though it completely obviously did. It's possible I even stuttered.

Yeah, I probably did.

The man looked at me, like he wanted to say more... or, was it possible? Almost like he wanted to put arms around me.

But not in a bad way.

"Possibly," he said.

"Why are you here?" I said. "Why are we here?"

To our right, there was a glass wall. Just barely, vaguely, I made out the silhouette of what looked like a tall man.

Of course, almost any man or woman was tall to me.

"Chris."

"What? And how do you know my name?

He stood still, one of his wrists also tied by what looked like plastic of some kind. And then, I knew immediately it probably wasn't just plastic.

For just one fleeting moment, a blurry recollection of my body breaking through thin acrylic and pseudopolycarbonate sheets and layers of mysterious glass ran through my mind. It might have been my imagination. But the sense that my arms had been dragged and the strange, almost-dislocated-but-not-exactly sensation in my shoulders told me that's exactly what happened.

I continued.

"I..."

Well, I tried to continue, anyway.

I am a marshmallow

He said nothing; he just looked at me. His eyes locked hard on mine like he was asking some kind of unspoken question.

I kept my thoughts as logical as I possibly could have.

I am a marshmallow

This was not making any sense. I wasn't even sure if I was alive. If I said anything, what loss could that cause me? I was probably dead anyway, and this guy wasn't going to hurt me; he was behind something.

"I jumped." I looked at my torn pant leg. I remembered the shard of wood from the mutated giant tree I smashed into before I rolled like a cotton ball soaked of his own blood. "I jumped and now I'm... here."

"Yeah," the man said. "You attempted suicide trying to find me."

"Find you?" I said. "Dude, I don't even know you."

"Caleb," he said. "Your boyfriend. Kaylee's brother."

There was a pause before he spoke again, at which time I took the opportunity to select a very useful shard of black glass off the bloody marble floor. There was so much blood on it; how was I alive? Perks of having been forcefully stuck with a million needles in an eighteen-year career/lifetime of starvation? Perks of being one-half of the only two Nightingale survivors?

I visibly shuddered; I hugged my arms and added more blood to the front of my shirt.

UGH I couldn't even THINK that word

"Please," he said. "Don't tell me you've-"

"I'm literally triple gay, yes," I butt in- "But I am single, and I like it that way, and seriously, eff men sometimes because, like- eighty percent of them are really just awful."

I was lying. I was lonely and I wanted someone.

I didn't know if I wanted someone if I just needed distraction from the memories of the brutality of... of the... of the N word.

Not *THAT* N word OMG

I hoped he couldn't read that off me from behind the transparent physical divide between us. Was he a telepath? Because he seriously looked like he knew me; looked like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Anyway, Kaylee's..."

Kaylee. Where was my most valued friend; fellow Nightingale survivor?

"She... she tried to help me make it somewhere." I shook my head. This felt way too much like Nightingale. "We were... finding something, somewhere." I of course omitted the part that we were probably doing it as part of the Union of Stars; I didn't know who this guy was. "I met her dads. Awesome people. But the other one's kind of an alcoholic." I cleared my throat. "Sometimes. I don't know who you are."

Why was I talking to him, anyway? He could have been Krasvya, or a spy, or a torturer, or a murderer or rapist or both, or something.

Why was I talking to him?

"Do I know you from somewhere?" I said, trying to be polite. "I'm so sorry. I'm... lost."

I could have been wrong, but I think there was almost some kind of sheen in his eyes.

Sheesh. I thought I was the crybaby- I mean, I really was. Anything made me cry.

"Sorry if I insulted you," I said.

--ovw--LVI--ovw--

"Sorry if I insulted you," I said.

MONDAY

10:39 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

He turned, to face the back of his... of the capsule he was in. I wasn't in one.

Okay, this was too much like En Gail.

Shit.

I tried to slow my breathing. The man said nothing, and then... from what seemed like nowhere, he began to sob; albeit softly. I was so confused- and even more so when the next voice spoke.

"It worked," a deep, resonant, gruff-ish voice announced. "He won. The boy's forgotten us."

Someone won?

"Won a what?" I asked idiotically.

ORBIPLOSIONS

"Danny," said this other man- a strange one by the looks of him; almost very mysterious. To me he was, anyway. He wore a large glowing red mantle, and some kind of brown pair of leather gloves. They looked almost familiar... somehow. I knew he'd beat me easily in an unarmed SRA. The red mantle he wore could cover two times my body size; one of those gloves could have both my hands in one.

I can't fight a huge dude

YES YES I CAN NOW

I'm like 5'2

FIVE THREE!!! And who says he wanted to hurt you?

I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know

HE LOOKS TERRIFYING

NO HE DOESN'T

I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know

I was terrified- but, no. He couldn't hurt me. The two of them were in those En Gail capsules; I wasn't.

I exhaled a sigh of relief.

And then I was terrified.

How did they both know... both my names?

"If you won't tell me why we're here-"

Something flickered in the darkness, to my left. It floated in the air- a tiny glowing shiny purple thing- and then it latched on to my arm. I didn't move.

Is this a new explosive-

I remained frozen. Half of me was thinking that perhaps movement would set the thing off; the other half of me was thinking that perhaps it should just go off.

I was tired. I was

so

tired

Of everything, of myself; of not doing anything right JUST ONCE.

But I couldn't afford to let it show...

I tried to look closer at the small glowing thing. I didn't know what it was.

"That's a combustifly," said the older-looking of the two men. "They're like butterfires. They're also like fireflies- but those are extinct now."

I've heard this guy speak before...

Fireflies?

Why does that SOUND familiar-

I knew what fireflies were! I read about them once. In an old book. An old book, from... An old book from

...

From...

Uhm

Uhm-

Uhm.

Uhm?

Yes, I read about them in an old book from... somewhere.

"And they also really like you," the man continued. His mantle seemed to glow in the dark, like a charred log from a mutated red sequoia tree when it's tossed in the fire at home.

At home?

I... don't have a home.

"You like them because they're good for keeping really pesky mosquitoes away. From both dogs and from yourself," he said.

Doggy

:3

I smiled. "Well, I do like dogs!" I paused. I shook my head. "Where are we?"

I looked at the En Gail capsules- or whatever they were but really I had nothing else to call them at the time- and tried not to think at all.

Perfect cylinders. Almost-invisible glass walls.

Assuming it was glass.

Thinner than paper. Almost-invisible walls that are thinner than paper.

They weren't tinted, not like the wall Marie was behind when I spoke to her.

Can you please

NOT THINK ABOUT *THAT*????!

The socket of my right eye felt odd- numb yet achy somehow at the same time- and I touched it with my left hand. I discovered that it was covered in dried blood.

Wait.

HOW did this happen?

The rest of me was also covered in either dried or fresh blood. I was dizzy. A feather, the color of a seriously burnt eggplant, floated from my scalp onto my torn left shoe. I knelt down- which seriously hurt both my legs, particularly the left one- and took a closer look at it.

A deep violet... FEATHER

WHAT

How when WHY

WHAT

WHAT??? with three question marks politely.

Did I go fight a bird version of Wyatt last night?

I repeated myself for what felt like the millionth time. It sounded like it ended with a period, like:

"WHERE. AM. I."

"We're not sure, either," was the reply. I stood slowly and turned toward the sound. It was the dead ringer for the teacher... guy. "I'd have told you by now, Chris," said the one that was, apparently, still wiping tears from his eyes. "And you'd know that I'd have told you by now." He put a fist against the transparent barrier that kept him from attacking me. "You should KNOW that I would have told you by now!"

He had that common-ish Southern U.S. accent. It almost reminded me of Scott, one of Kaylee's dads.

A wave of nausea hit me from nowhere. They have to know something! They MUST know something!

I was becoming increasingly impatient with the lot of them.

"If you won't tell me why we're here," I said, "then at least tell me what my relationship is with the two of you." How did they know, not one, but both of my names?

"I feel sick," said the blond man.

YEAH NO SHIT DUDE JOIN THE CLUB

"Are you friends of Belinda's?" I asked. "Do you work at the Webwork in V4?"

"Do you still know who James is?" said the older man, the one with chestnut brown hair and some kind of cartoon Christmas-tree sideways shaped beard.

Still know?

"I'm not answering until you give me what you know." I flexed the fingers of my left hand, felt the very subtle rush of heat. I was in no mood to negotiate. "And there's probably a trillion different Jameses."

"James Tobler," the older man said. "Union of Stars."

Okay. They knew.

"Yeah, I mean, of course I know the guy."

"Do you still know Kaylee?"

Still know Kaylee?

"I've been brainwashed before," I said, somewhat belligerently- "and they didn't manage to even do that. The very few memories they managed to even mess up at all came back eventually. So stop treating me like a test subject."

BECAUSE I WAS SO DONE WITH THAT.

"Let me in your head, Chris," said the dirty blond-haired one, the one with the gray-blue eyes.

They were actually kind of pretty. Maybe to me, anyway. So different from mine.

Let me in your head, Chris.

It was a whisper. An almost sweet one. And even strangely familiar, but...

But how?

His eyes reminded me of... of a sidewalk I once slipped on. It was covered in ice on a cloudless day.

And then I snapped back to reality.

LET ME IN YOUR HEAD???

"How about I break open yours?" I said.

And then- he continued to cry, and he said nothing.

--ovw--LVII--ovw--

"Let me in your head, Chris," said the dirty blond-haired one, the one with the gray-blue eyes.

They were actually kind of pretty, to me, anyway. So different from mine.

And then I snapped back to reality.

"How about I break open yours?" I said.

And then- he continued to cry, and he said nothing.

MONDAY

10:42 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

I had to think clearly.

They knew my names. They knew James.

I had to think, I reminded myself. Clearly. But there was that almost... ambiguously, hazily familiar feeling of fingers, hands, hands... on my head. I reached for the back of my head but there was nothing- just the ponytail; the two elastic bands still caked with my blood, a lot of it. That was blood, right? Not like my hair had any red in it? I wasn't sure what I was imagining at that point; my vision was still out of focus and mostly still gray and black. I simultaneously still wanted to vomit but also really, really wanted some potato chips, both of these things while PTSD with conveniently appropriate flashbacks ate away at my mind. It took all the strength I had to not fall forwards onto my face on the floor.

Dark red marble tile...

It's nothing, I said to myself- it feels like before but it's nothing.

It felt like hands were pulling my hair; dragging my head back. Something was in my thoughts- something that shouldn't be there, but it was. Something or someone.

Strands of my hair stuck to the blood on my neck; I remember they didn't look as black as they usually did.

Maybe it's all the blood, I thought. Maybe I've run out of the red stuff or I'm running too low and now my brain is overcompensating. I should eat cheese. That'll help.

Red hair. It reminded me of James. And of someone else.

Ew.

I literally physically puked, again.

I never had any reason to look at my hair, I never even visited any barber shops. Why would I literally sit down in a chair, while someone (someone I probably didn't even know) literally stood behind me with sharp objects?

The words came to mind again.

"IF YOUR TEAM COMES FOR ME

I'LL BREAK MORE THAN HIS BONES

DAVENPORT WILL DIE

-M M

PS

I LET YOU LIVE TO HAVE YOU

AGAIN"

I snorted. So we had Peters, Klein, Torres.

Whoever it was... they certainly didn't break anyone's bones. Except perhaps mine if they were someone from my past.

I wiped my mouth and face, smearing more blood on myself.

"So, we have to get out of here," I said. "Don't we?" My eyes scanned the shiny, black marble walls. Beautiful, absolutely elegant; the floor- different shades of red. Different hues of red, just like...

"Who's running this show?" I continued. "Torres? Peters? Someone they work for?"

My right hand moved automatically to my jeans pocket, for the combat knives, in the leather holder. I heaved another sigh of relief. Still there.

And then, there was an answer.

"Neither," said the voice that haunted me only in my dreams. "Well, sort of. They do work for me, in one sense."

Happy place happy place happy place happy place

Ferrets and puppies and corgis and dogs and raccoons and marshmallows, and hot chocolate. All free.

Happy place

Happy place

A world where I had the money and the opportunity to do what I wanted, not be a child abused by those completely incapable of humanity, because they simply did not have the brain to be capable of it at all.

Happy place. Happy place.

...

Happy place

Here's what I remember: my spine, it turned to ice. That's what it felt like. I was ready to combust, explode into flames and blood and diamond and detonate, blow up- and take this entire mine with me in the process.

Of course, that probably was not on the table.

But when I turned around, it was... Belinda.

"Klein?"

No response, from anyone there.

"Klein, who was that, where is he?"

And then, he shifted. Shape shifted. From a tied-up curly mess of thinning gray hair, dyed pink, bamboo and ladders-and-snakes tattoos with thorns and the tiger and the red eyes; within seconds he was the man I saw just that one week in the B14 training simulation. The one who saw me, a child, as nothing- and I meant nothing even in the least- except for a source of income.

It took all that I had not to bury every single one of the twenty-five knives in my pocket into his face.

"You realize you left me armed," I said. "Tell me your name before I arrest you."

He looked at me, sad, a disappointed look on his face. He almost pouted.

"But you know my name," he said.

"I did know, yeah," I said. "You were Belinda, just now." I scathingly forced the dimple into my left cheek, forcing the smile onto my face- the smile even reaching my eyes; I'd smiled at people enough that even when it was fake, it was still slightly believable at the very least. "And now, you're... something that belongs exactly where you are," I said. "In the brain and in the body of something only as low down, as wretched, as miscreant, as scum as you. Nothing is worse, nothing."

Low down, was the understatement of the century; understatement of the millennium.

"What planet are you from?" I said. "Where ABHORRENT corruption, pride, delusion- delusion and pride and false dominance from a fake sack of nonexistent accomplishment is all you ever brag about?"

He looked at me, and frowned.

Then he shifted again.

The black walls seemed to shake, there was a sense of the invisible hands disappearing- off from where they were on my mind.

Because: I knew who I was, and I knew a lie when I saw one.

Guess who it was...

"Jeff," he said, only to me, walking close to my face, looking down at me. "Jeff," he repeated. "I told you, my boy." He took a step back, and pulled out a cell phone. My cell phone.

In one swift and lightning-fast motion, I snatched my U.S.-issued device from his right hand; I struggled inside of myself not to smash my elbow or the back of my right fist into his head as hard and as barbarously as I could- and with IGNITE- because, for all I knew, maybe he was running these show. And these two innocent people who I'd never met, were under his mercy. Possibly, thereby, mine. As I spun in the air I kept my arms tucked so as not touch him any further. He spoke his next words as I landed without a sound, both my feet and one hand on the red, subtly patterned, tile floor.

I looked down at it.

I'd been here...

There he was: fully shifted.

"Is this you?"

And, of course, I meant you.

"This is the actual me, yes," spoke the sociopath and psychopath; criminal and manipulator. "Imagine speaking to your father the way you spoke to me now."

I almost puked.

Here he was, no mask on. Strangely, he almost looked like someone I knew. The eyes were green, darker a shade of green than the pistachio-ice-cream light green shade of that ice cream I had with Kaylee on our graduation day, years ago. I didn't remember where we bought it. Did one of the teachers buy it for us? I didn't remember spending for it- so I guessed maybe one of the teachers bought it for us. Or maybe Carter did? The Carter that gave me the brownie, not the Carter that taught me the Americana armlock submission.

Something was missing...

"Something is missing, my boy," said Jeff.

"You don't deserve what's in my mind," I said, "and you need to stop talking to me like..."

"Like what?"

"We are not related."

He raised his eyebrows at me.

The man who said his name was Caleb called for my attention.

"Danny," he said, his tears mostly dried, but his eyes still conveying a heavy sense of... dread? Concern? HE was distressed, that was for sure. "I was going to tell you."

"Yes," said Jeff. "That's why you're here. Because you were going to tell him."

What? Please. "I was going to tell you?" Tell me what? I didn't even know this guy, and the already-existing list of people pretending they knew me was a pathetically and disgustingly long one. What, tell me I had another surprise SRA coming up per order of James?

Didn't Connor say he wanted to tell me something...?

I shook my head.

Head in the fight. I was probably imagining it; I avoided the chainsmoking animal-talker, if I could.

I think...

Yeah, it was probably just another SRA; Connor and Belinda only ever gave me bad news, if we were working, anyway. I think the only good news Connor ever gave me was, "Congratulations, B21 is busted so James gave you special access to B14 so you can make yourself suffer from self-imposed training on weekends THERE instead!"

"Then why is he here!?" Caleb said, pointing at the older man with the slight Port accent.

Jeff looked at the ground, then smoothed back his sleek dark red hair with his right hand.

He did that before, too. In the bedroom...

"Because," said Jeff, slowly, "because nobody else can have him but me."

I could have sworn I tasted some kind of bile at the back of my throat. Although, that partly may have been the fact that I quite recently actually vomited.

Whatever look was on my face, it wasn't a not-confused one; it wasn't a not-disgusted one.

BECAUSE I WAS DISGUSTED.

"You see," continued Jeff, as he walked around to a panel, not unlike the one that Avyeena Paleros stood in front of when she died, when both her eyes came off and dropped to the ground in front of me as her skin and muscle and intestines turned into a pool of brown and red and black- the same kind of screen they used to test our minds and demand answers to questions that, sometimes, even I did not know the answers to.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

How I even survived...

"You see, what?" I said.

Jeff continued his little speech.

I'll say now that even without painsteal, the black streaks started to brand themselves into the skin under my eyes- not because I was taking any pain, but because I was that horribly disgusted. It was a rare occurrence. If something bothered me too much, it was the same physical symptoms of using my painsteal power.

I remembered how James decided to start calling me "Methadone," on my second takedown assignment- it was a team takedown assignment that saw multiple agents hurt: Kaylee Davenport, Wyatt Shafer, and Lyca- she was a brawler not unlike Sam; my ability got to see a lot of action that whole week. That was a while ago; it was one of my first call signs until they "settled" on Marblefox for me. Typically, they named me after painkillers.

"You see," he said, again, "I'm your father. And you're my son. Nobody can have you, but me. I have the right to own you, no one else does."

Now, I didn't MEAN to- but it happened. My right fist collided, hard, into his face- and then it caught fire.

"You had that coming," I said.

He lay on the ground a moment, writhing, and then he shifted again; into Elyza- but only his one arm and face- to extinguish the fire with cold and with vapor ice. And then he stood.

"That's the second mistake you made," he said, seething, the venom in his words almost half the tone of mine, but with no conviction. That was the difference between us, at all times.

"What was the first one?" I said sarcastically. "Shutting down your child sex business? Or not keeping my mouth shut and telling people what you did when I was nine? Probably the former, right?"

--ovw--LVIII--ovw--

"That's the second mistake you made," he said, seething, the venom in his words almost half the tone of mine, but with no conviction. That was the difference between us, at all times.

"What was the first one?" I said sarcastically. "Shutting down your child sex business? Or not keeping my mouth shut and telling people what you did when I was nine? Probably the former, right?"

MONDAY

10:44 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

In response, he shot dark black clouds of vapor in a long projectile line at me, as if in slow motion; I shielded myself with my left hand, but that was a mistake.

My left hand, down to my wrist, immediately became dark blue, almost black, and the same little worms, tentacles, arms, started to come up from little red, oozing holes, blood and water and pus and who knew what else. Only this time- it felt like my left hand was coming off.

This wasn't skin. This wasn't poison. This was unearthly, disgusting, disgust that existed only on other metaphorical planets- only inside of the man I now had to be in a faceoff with. I knew, and I only knew, I would have rather been anywhere else.

Except- there were two innocent people who were trapped by this torturer.

And I was wrong, too. At that time, I thought it was only two.

"Leave him alone!" the older man yelled from his capsule. "You can have what you want! He won't arrest you, he won't! Do what you want, please, just leave the boy alone."

I looked at this man and almost felt like I had met him somewhere. I'd been to the port a lot. I'd go there at midnight. There was a strange moment where I felt, again, that something, something was missing...

Jeff smiled.

"Okay," he said, lifting both his hands. "I'll leave the boy alone."

Now I was the one writhing, more so from disgust and the fact that little pieces of the oozing, blackened skin of my hand started to fall like sprinkles or salt grains onto the red floor.

"I missed injecting you, boy."

I said nothing.

"And I missed injecting you in bed."

I said nothing.

He laughed.

"Injecting," he said, "you in bed."

I said nothing.

"Tell me you miss me."

No.

I flipped backwards, twisting in the air, both my feet twisting and crossed into the ceiling sprinkler head- setting it on fire, and causing the ceiling high, high, high above us to start raining clean Experiment Site WDSM Diamond Mine tap water, down on us.

It tasted like the Overwoods.

--ovw--LIX--ovw--

"Tell me you miss me."

No.

I flipped backwards, twisting in the air, both my feet twisting and crossed into the ceiling sprinkler head- setting it on fire, and causing the ceiling high, high, high above us to start raining clean Experiment Site WDSM Diamond Mine tap water, down on us.

MONDAY

10:47 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

It tasted like the Overwoods.

I opened my mouth before landing, caught a spoonful of the cold, clean water in my mouth and swallowed, before twisting twice and whipping back twice upon landing and then throwing a black combat knife toward the exposed pipe above my head- and gray smoke concealed both me and the screen behind me.

I remember how the water tasted: clean. Until Experiment Nightingale, I never even had truly clean water- real water. It was awful, to say the least- to have an experience as wonderful as clean water, or even sex, to be taken from you by these monsters.

Strangling us wasn't the worst thing they did- to me; to Charlotte; to Marie; perhaps to Kaylee but she won't talk about it, nor did I see it.

One reality that the whole world knows regardless of the lies: some people are on a throne, and their only purpose is to let all the world suffer, and to want all the world to suffer, while they sit in comfort and do everything they can just to be praised as the good guys.

I faced the screen. I knew his password: Honorable777IAm*THE*MostRighteousAND@HONORABLE777IAmTheSaintPreacher,iamthePerfection.

He'd use this password on his portable device and the sleek computer he'd use when he thought I was asleep. Perhaps, the one advantage that I had, the one gift that I was given, from spending nights and nights and night after night after night in his bed. This key, this password, was the one thing that helped me and also thereby Kaylee Davenport to survive.

I don't know if he would have spared us either way.

But, personally, I doubt it. And it's such a big wonder why I would, right?

I unlocked the screen with the password and the still-memorized panel commands I entered using the touch-activated keys below it.

And then, there were three names. Two I didn't recognize, and one that I did.

--ovw--LX--ovw--

And if what tomorrow brings

Is nothing short of the truth

Then it'll tell you

That I never took the part for you

I never played that part for you

MONDAY

10:47 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

And then, there were three names. Two I didn't recognize, and one that I did.

CALEB SAMUEL DAVENPORT

ANTHONY DAVID MALCOLM

DENICE LYCA ZAMBAIA

I had to take a moment. Even though that was not possible.

He had ZAMBAIA?

I hadn't seen her for a while. Denice Lyca Zambaia: like me but even more like Sam, she was a fighter, very strong and extremely athletic and employed by the Union of Stars mainly for target takedowns. She got more high-paying jobs than Sam did, because while they had similar strengths, and then even some overlapping fight styles, Denice was trained formally and usually showed more discipline, whereas... well, Sam learned on the streets and continued to fight outside of U.S. or competition affairs.

I didn't believe it; Denice Lyca Zambaia had a mixed martial arts record of 14-0-0, and this was outside of SRAs. Ten of them by knockout.

How was she placed here?

The water from the ceiling stopped at once. I thought, well- I still had the smoke from the burst pi-

And then thorned stems wrapped around my neck from behind, immediately cutting holes and punctures into my skin and dragging me backward.

"You're very clever, my boy."

Even his voice was enough to make me crawl under my skin.

I tried to never hate anyone. And to this day, I can't say I "hated" him; it's just that if anything even remotely like him at all was around- much less, actually him- I just had to go far, far away.

"IT'S GROSS," I said, "if anyone's gonna act like they're my dad at all, then it's FUCKING NOT GOING TO BE YOU, of all people."

The older man with the slicked back brown hair guffawed, but only for a moment. Almost like he found that funny- it WASN'T- and then all of a sudden thought otherwise.

"Why don't you check that phone you wanted back from me so badly?" said Jeff.

"If you promise not to hurt them," I said, as I glanced over to the far corner of the dark room where I saw her- Denice. She would invite me to MMA matches until she picked up on the matter that I generally avoided all violence; and then, she invited me only if she was in one of the bouts. She truly was awesome in a fight; inside a ring or out. And I'd go, just for her.

Because, like Kaylee, she was beautiful inside and out.

Her brown hair was usually dyed blond- as it was in that moment- and braided and tied back in the MMA-athlete-fighter style, as I liked to call it; I didn't know what else it was. Dutch braid? Fish braid? Cabbage braid? Infinity Möbius?

Dragonfruit braid?

Tomato?

"I won't hurt them for now." He gestured at the still-glowing screen inside my jeans pocket, opposite the one where the knives were.

He was reading my mind and I knew it; I closed up all the entrances, set up all the barriers there possibly could be for my mind and its nuances and its resonances- if Kaylee wanted me, she'd have to call, or come down here.

Jeff glowered at me.

"Well, go on, then," he said. "Look at it."

I took the phone, its face still on and glowing white with black text.

A message- from Connor.

--ovw--LXI--ovw--

This could be the last time that I ever say to you that I mean it.

- from Integrity

MONDAY

10:53 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

A message- from Connor.

I glanced at the man who introduced himself as Caleb. Why I did, I didn't know.

Well- he didn't really introduce himself. He assumed I knew who he was.

As I slid my finger across the screen to scroll back up to the top of the text, I called her name- without looking backward, without turning away from this... from this abomination.

"Denice!" I shouted.

"Copy, Morphine."

She still called me by my old call sign. One of them- when we did covert together.

Something feels off

"You okay?" I said.

"Yeah."

Sam lost SRAs to very few people; Lyca was one of them. I watched, but only because Sam always wanted me there- she'd give me phone calls at 2AM (when she was probably very high) to say that she needed my moral support- and then, after, I always waited at the exit gates with her favorite addictive Baker Joe's strawberry bubble gum, Kaylee and her look of Sam-disapproval, and my double-coupons for Pacifico chocolate raisin bread.

You know, the stuff I like to dip in the hot chocolate while other people stare.

A new thought scratched at the back of my head.

Wasn't someone else there, too?

Nope

Someone else was there, too...

No one else was there

I felt like someone else was there, like there was a puzzle in my head that needed solving. In my mind I pulled up memories of Sam's already-black eye; that other time when Carter caught her ankle in a submission hold, and I had two plastic bags full of ice with me in advance; that time she and Tiana and I won against three of the U.S.'s highest-ranked agents- which, as soon as I got the message, I knew was OBVIOUSLY for James's ENTERTAINMENT rather than an actually useful and constructive training bout.

I guessed maybe it was getting boring for him, to be popping stimulants all the time. All day, all night.

The question in my head.

But wasn't someone else there???

The three question marks in my head screamed at me; there was something wrong about the empty space beside me in all those memories.

"That wasn't empty space," said the blond man from behind the transparent wall.

I glanced at him again. He looked like a friendlier version of my old biology teacher. Same larger build, same eyes; only the hair was slightly different, because this man's was a perhaps a bit darker.

I looked closely. Of all the things- I fixated on his hair.

Only for a moment, though.

Yeah. Maybe, like, two shades darker.

He shook his head at me.

"Empty space?" he repeated.

Creepy.

"So that's all I am now?" he said.

Who was he talking to?

For just a second, I forced myself to look at Jeff.

But I felt nothing.

Creepy...

But a bit attractive almost? Sort of? Maybe he knows something?

YEAH HE KNOWS ALL OF YOUR NAMES

Hold on. What was I thinking about?

THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE THERE, MOVE ON

No one else?

No one else was where? Move on from what?

READ THE MESSAGE ON THE SCREEN

My eyes hyperfocused on the text on the screen; all of the people in that room- Lyca, Anthony David, Caleb Samuel, Jeff- fixated on me. The soft glow of white-and-blue light from the phone illuminated the loose strands of my hair; stray hair next to my ears and my chin and my neck; all seemingly dipped in blood. All the eyes in that black and dark red room, save for my own, were on me. My left hand- or should I say the skin on it- was only slowly un-growing the worms or tentacles; it was still murky dark blue and absolutely, horribly gross. I stared at the movement of the little worms. Maggots.

There was nothing for me to vomit.

Read. The message. On. The screen.

Nightingale snatched back at me in my mind. Calling to me for my attention again.

Voices; screams; large limbs and large hands on my small body.

No one saved me.

Sinister red. Everything was dark, perverse, sinister red.

Sam often told me she would have punched all the memories in the face for me. And all of the criminals associated with them, too.

I read the message on the screen.

Monday

9:31 AM

Sent via SecureWeb

Chris.

Or, I should say- Daniel Tobler.

If you get this- we're trying to find you. We hope, and we are praying to every God that exists and even to the God that *YOU* always believed in, that you're alive. PLEASE BE ALIVE.

If you get this, the three of us are still making a way down to however far you dropped... And, if you're alive, AND YOU BETTER BE BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW YOU JUMPED FROM CENTURY SPIRE AND LIVED, here's what I wanted to... Well, what I wanted to tell you.

I'm asking you, or I'm asking OF YOU a deal. You get to have this, but you hold on to the map, SEND IT TO US IF YOU CAN.

Use the holograph projector and review this.

ATTACHED

Daniel Tobler - File, 9TB

Reply Forward Delete

I flipped on the holograph scanner, scanned the paper, with its creases, folds, and lines, and sent it to Sam and not Connor, carbon-copying both Kaylee and Wyatt.

And to Connor, I replied:

"I love you, Connor.

Platonically. Even though I'm literally gay.

If I acted like I hated you it's because sometimes I did. But if I hate then that's a reflection of me, not of you.

This might be goodbye."

I moved on immediately to reviewing this nine-terabyte file he text messaged to me.

And then, of course, I wished I hadn't.

DANIEL TOBLER

Recruited Age Twelve

Birth Mother: NOT YET IDENTIFIED

Birth Father: JEFFERY PHILIP CHRISTIAN TOBLER

Known abilities: NONE CONFIRMED

[UPDATE]

Known abilities:

STILL TO BE FIRMLY VALIDATED

*Able to set objects on fire

*^Yet subject is non-pyrokinetic?

*Able to decrease pain experienced by direct contact with other individual

*^Sacrifices self. Experiences "same" pain as that of other subject in process; other subject will not experience pain if in contact with this subject

*^Subject does not "numb" pain, subject takes pain from other test subjects

*Occasionally hypermobile

*^Particularly the spine and shoulders

[UPDATE]

Known abilities:

STILL TO BE FIRMLY VALIDATED

*Telepathy

*Flight?

*^Not levitation. Flight is manual and must physically be executed correctly to achieve said flight

[UPDATE]

Birth mother: NOT VALIDATED

*Possible match #1: HAVAILIE JENNA GRAYSON - Incarcerated for murder, drug addict, passed away in prison.

*Possible match #2: ISABELLA MADISON GARCIA-COOPER - Incarcerated for murder, confirmed child trafficker, passed away in prison.

*^Bodies not yet found. Cannot confirm.

*There may be other matches.

*^Verification may take 40 to 50 months or longer; as with 99% of all Overwoods individuals, any DNA samples have been intermixed with compound OVERWOOD-V-STIIR-B or OVRW-STRANULUS-A

[UPDATE]

DANIEL TOBLER AKA CHRISTOPHER MIDNIGHT

*SAME FILE

*All compounds/files/composites/etc. attached

*Will pass file handling to separate division/branch due to relationship:

*^This was initially assigned to the brother of subject's father

*^Tests to confirm this only completed today

*As such, will hand off text file handling

[UPDATE]

*Request to be re-assigned text file handling/update compilation DENIED due to:

*^Requesting handler

*^1 Is previous holder of file and update collection/organization/coordination

*^2 Requester is current handler of subject

*^3 Requester has known substance addiction to the ff: DEPRESSANTS, STIMULANTS

*^4 Requester was noted to be under influence of alcohol when requesting re-assignment

*^5 Requester is related to subject

All compiled evidence uploaded to same file.

[UPDATE]

Known abilities:

*Able to set objects on fire

*^From outside as well as from inside

[UPDATE]

*Request for file to be re-assigned to original holder APPROVED due to:

*^1 Requester is permitted access and authorization to all Union of Stars agent-level files

*^2 Requester is new head of OVERWOODS BRANCH Union of Stars

*^3 Overriding - Requester is original file holder

*^4 Second holder of file is presently MIA.

*^5 Second holder of this file has not responded to messages/MIA - Status unknown - Whereabouts unknown

[UPDATE]

*Subject is only survivor of male control group #9

*Subject is also only survivor from male experimental group #17

*Subject has proven ability in combat

*^Despite refusing to engage in said combat

*Subject is same age as only female survivor from NIGHTINGALE.

*^Subject has same birthday as only other survivor from NIGHTINGALE

*^Only other survivor is DAVENPORT, Kaylee Ann.

*ANIMAL-related experiments [MID-NIGHTINGALE, PRE-NIGHTINGALE, POST-NIGHTINGALE] were performed on subject TOBLER, Daniel

*PLANT-related experiments [MID-NIGHTINGALE, PRE-NIGHTINGALE, POST-NIGHTINGALE] were performed on subject DAVENPORT, Kaylee Ann

[UPDATE]

*POST-NIGHTINGALE experiments shall be halted IMMEDIATELY

[UPDATE]

*Attaching scans of DNA/OVERWOOD-V-STIIR-B/OVRW-STRANULUS-A

*Subject will be included in ANIMAL TESTING OPERATION #6 as opposed to original proposed NIGHTINGALE II

*Female survivor will also be included

*^DAVENPORT, Kaylee Ann

*Rejected appeal to NIGHTINGALE II

[UPDATE]

*Confirming that JEFFERY PHILIP CHRISTIAN TOBLER is subject's birth father.

*^Birth mother still not known/confirmed

*^Genetic tests failed

*^DNA test results for mother's side so far are inconclusive

*^File holder and subject's handler is confirmed family member of subject as father's side uncle

*This file holder and AGENT's caretaker will attempt sobriety for said AGENT

*[SIMPLE NONINVASIVE TESTING] Determined AGENT is able to detect deception (98% more accurately than peers)

*Will place AGENT in interrogations/interviewers or criminal investigators

*Will not approve further experimentations on AGENT.

[UPDATE]

*EX-SUBJECT IS NOW AGENT

*NO FURTHER EXPERIMENTATIONS WILL BE APPROVED

Last modified by JAMESON ADAM TOBLER

--ovw--LXII--ovw--

This could be the last time that I ever say to you that I mean it

And if what tomorrow brings is nothing short of the truth

Then it'll tell you that I never took the part for you

I never played that part for you

- from Integrity

MONDAY

11:01 AM

Experiment Site: WDSM Diamond Mine

A message buzzed in, and previewed itself at the top of the holographic projections as I was presented with all of the wonderful DNA-Overwoods-Experiment-Whatever scans that absolutely delighted me, and filled me with such joy.

I'm lying.

"WE GOT YOUR MAP, WE KNOW YOUR LOCATION. IT'S A MIND MAZE. STAY ALIVE. - ARRVN"

At least that map was good for something.

If only I was good for anything...

--ovw--

"CHRIS."

The voice played itself in my mind, as Lyca and Caleb Samuel and Anthony David and Jeff Tobler all stared at me; just watching my reactions.

I responded, through my mind. There was only one person whose bond was powerful enough to break through to me, even in moments like this.

James.

"It's me," I responded.

It wasn't possible. I saw all the proof in the world and it still wasn't possible.

"No, buddy, it's possible," he said telepathically, "and it's my fault."

I felt nothing.

I felt nothing, yet tears threatened to spill over my eyelashes when I spoke the only words that acknowledged the truth:

"So you did it to me." It was a whisper. A whisper through the white and gray webs of telepathy, the ones that in my mind were now turning to water, and then to ice, and then to nothingness. "So you were there, and you knew, and you were just like them."

In front of me there were monsters and moving cadavers with broken bones and Charlotte; Charlotte Miller's body, exactly as thin and fragile as mine was, disfigured; broken. Dead. She was just as old as I was, and she was no more important; she was no less valuable.

--ovw--

Sinister red.

Everything was dark, perverse, sinister red.

Voices; screams; large limbs and large hands on my small body.

No one saved me.

Sometimes, I felt like I couldn't see anything.

--ovw--

I said the words again: "So you did it to me."

Only demons- only DEMONS from hell itself could cause children so much suffering; so much PAIN.

Could cause the innocent to suffer to the point of not knowing who they are anymore.

The cost of the pleasure, of the games of these people.

To them- they are the only ones in the world.

No one saved me.

James paused.

"Please be more specific," he said, like he was pleading with me to understand. To understand whatever it was, because whatever it was, I was not going to understand.

My telepathic voice transformed into a version of itself I hadn't heard before; a version of itself I never thought I would ever hear. I can still remember it now. It wasn't my voice; it was a knife, it was a tower of collapsing cards all set on fire; it was the bile and the blood and the chemicals that I vomited into Jeff's experiment bathroom sink; it was all of these things; all of the ugliness in the world combined with the fact I was yards away from a man who raped me, raped me in absolutely every sense of the word possible.

"You want me to be more specific."

"I had to do a lot of things."

Yeah, I bet he did.

I only had to pull up the memory for him to see it, and so that was what I did:

*^Sacrifices self. Experiences "same" pain as that of other subject in process; other subject will not experience pain if in contact with this subject

He continued. "Chris..."

I remember now how Jeff was still smiling at me. Like he wanted me to know; he wanted for me to know.

I don't remember crying.

But I do remember realizing I had fallen 500 floors to my death only to find that the truth was that I was related by blood and on paper to the two most depraved, corrupted, abnormality freaks the entire universe had ever known. Add to that my alleged mom who was a proven drug addict murderer child trafficker.

I also remember thinking about how far I had fallen from the tree.

Such a good thing, then, that blood never meant anything for me.

Looks like I had done a lot of things right after all.

--ovw--

Now: which of the two evils did I want to get rid of first?

Very slowly, one word at a time, my telepathic voice returned to itself, like a robot monster methodically disassembling one sheath, one gun, one piece of armor at a time; a mutated half-monstrosity from the underworlds of Experiment Nightingale removing its own limbs and its own claws.

"Is it Chris, or is it Danny?" I said to James. I felt no connection to either of these two men; it might have been on paper, but it was not possible to feel a connection. I was 500 floors under the ground and 500 million miles from that apple tree. I had seen proof yet to me it was not possible. "You were one of them." Is it Chris, or is it Danny? I tried to swallow the thought- and the memories- and failed. "Do you choose everything for me, just like you chose all those 'tests' you decided to run?"

I'd done a lot of things right; it wasn't enough for me.

These two monsters with green eyes still existed.

Colors in our minds, for me and James both, transformed from ice blue to gray to black to hellfire to the deepest color of red one could want; it was the color of my blood, on these very tiles. And I was a child then. All of us were, the victims. And I felt everything James felt, and vice versa, because that was how it was when the strong telepaths were connected; I could run, but I could not run; I could put up the wall but then how long would it last until I saw him?

And the truth...

It wasn't from James; it didn't come from James. It came in a nine-terabyte holographic message from Connor Meadows.

Of all people.

"First, I didn't run those tests," James said in the bitterest tone I had ever heard of him to that point. "Second..." I felt his guilt through the telepathic binding; I felt his guilt. As the telepath that I am, I experienced it, and yet magically still I felt absolutely nothing at all. I didn't know how it was possible. "I didn't know it was you. I didn't know who you were- just that you were an exceptional telepath and a healer-"

"Flattering," I interrupted, beyond any respect that I used to have for the man, if any. "But I'm not even a healer, I just take pain because apparently I get to be hurt all the time while you sit in a chair and watch."

And then I realized I hated him.

I understood why he never told me: it was his own form of brainwashing me.

Brainwashing me...

Because his brother did the same thing.

I felt it- there was apology and sincerity and a true compassion in both our minds, and all of that came from his- but I was tired. And people I cared about were near a threat.

In our minds, he tried to continue, and then he didn't anymore. When you know there's no point, you don't bother.

"Chris," he said, almost choking on my name- the only true name I thought I knew- the name I grew to love; almost shaking but not quite, "if I could have saved you sooner-"

Stop, I thought to no one in particular; to the whole world in general.

I remember my exact thought at that exact moment:

There is no point in tears now; there is no objective.

I remember simultaneously wanting to fall apart, and wanting to hurt Mr. Jameson Adam Tobler for all of the hurt he put me through- as if that as possible; as if there was any pain to describe to him that he WATCHED while all of us suffered- but, no, wasn't my anger misdirected?

No. He watched children die.

I no longer remember whose voices were in my mind; which telepaths were intervening, jumping into the blood and into the fire, if any were; maybe they were all my own cries; my own thoughts on fire and covered in my blood.

He saved you.

My anger is misdirected.

I stared at the black mission style lamp's broken pieces; I stared at the crystal chandelier above it and all of its gold and glass and the little flickering candles.

Just like the fires. Just like the burning glass tiles.

Kaylee still screams herself awake, just like I do. You take a step and then it's over; you hop over the air and survive but at the cost of your body and the cost of your sanity.

You will be in pain forever after. Because it doesn't stop.

Was my anger really misdirected?

No, he stood in front of a screen while you DIED like he always does!

My anger is misdirected.

Or was it?

No. He watched children die.

He did.

Yes. That he did.

And he gets to live with it AS HEAD OF the Union of Stars' Overwoods branch?

But... wasn't he also the one who ensured I wouldn't be harmed any further?

No. He watched children die.

My

anger

is

misdirected.

But wasn't he also the one who watched while his brother raped me and touched me and pushed me and yelled at me?

RAPED ME IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD???

Destroyed me and every part of me.

My anger is misdirected. It must be misdirected... it has to be misdirected. He saved me.

There was nothing left; I had nothing left.

Red hair.

I always hated red hair. I even hate his hair.

Wasn't he someone who stared and kept reports and filed papers and signed warrants and signed approvals on things that could have taken my life, at twelve, all in the name of bettering conditions only for people who already had more than all of us?

Anthony David- the older man, in the other capsule- started to slam his fists on the transparent divide. His mouth was moving.

But I heard nothing.

He was getting drunk and shooting drugs up his arms for a high while his brother was abusing, violating, corrupting you.

I blinked blood and water off my eyes.

They have red hair; I even hate their hair. They are the same person.

THEY ARE THE SAME.

They were not the same. Were they?

THEY ARE THE SAME

"You can't hate me like this, Chris," James's voice echoed in my head.

He's begging you just like you begged him to stop, thousands and thousands and thousands of times.

Hundreds.

Of thousands. Of times.

You can't hate me like this, he said.

One of the candles fell from the chandelier I had been looking at; its wax was black and it transformed into an oily pool of lurid, reflective, shiny blood the second it hit the dark red marble floor. Reflective and shiny like a gas leak, but red now; not black.

Sinister red.

In the reflection on the floor, I saw Charlotte Miller's face; her dislocated shoulders were not completely concealed by the ropes. The angles of the bones were severely disjointed; troublesome to anyone's eyes- both arms going entirely backwards; the blackness of Jeff's nonexistent soul the exact same blackness of Charlotte's now-empty eye sockets.

They choked her to death.

Yes. They did that, in front of me.

And she was NOT the only victim, and Marie was there, and Kaylee was there.

No, she wasn't the only victim- not the only child-turned-to-dead-body at all in that three month torture plan. Not by a long shot.

What was it that James said? You can't hate me like this, Chris. That's what James said.

I smiled a twisted smile, and shook my head; I did both these things slowly.

"Yes," I said. "I can."

In gymnastics, you're rewarded for the difficulty of what you do. What did you perform- how hard was it? People who throw the biggest, most potentially dangerous, most difficult skills- they are the ones that usually earn a medal; they are the ones that are rewarded.

Someone once told me that life is the exact same way.

But, at the time, I could not fathom what the possible reward could be for all of the harm that I had been put through.

--ovw--

A million potential reactions- from begging Jeff to kill me, to asking Lyca to destroy the cylinder/chamber/trap/thing she was in (I think she was in mine, actually, and Anthony David was in Kaylee's), to simply laughing and doing a triple twist on two injured legs- ran through my mind. At the same time, the odd man called Caleb Samuel Davenport started to hum a tune. It was a beautiful tune; a really, really pretty melody that I could listen to for days. And I was so fascinated by his eyes, even though their color literally reminded me of the ice-covered sidewalk that I once slipped on.

ORBIPLOSIONS

Orbiplosions?

What's that all about?

And then suddenly I realized the entire tune he was humming was literally A SONG THAT I WROTE.

How???

How does he know my song?

I kept seeing Charlotte choked to her death in front of me.

This shit mad gully bro and literally I'm not even Sam like WTF???

I kept seeing how her bones were forcefully snapped out of the right places. No, PUSHED, right out of the right places.

HOW

I heard again the tightening of the cord on her neck and around her shoulders. I heard it. The most bizarre, nauseating, bloodcurdling yet inconspicuous sound. Followed by the sounds that were made of the grinding misalignment of her own bones.

It was my name she screamed. My name, before she died. And it wasn't just her, too.

Like- I would ONLY share that kind of info WITH A REALLY GOOD FRIEND OR PARTNER!

I heard Marie call out my name. Not once. Not twice. Not thrice. Again, again, again, again. And at night. Every night, in my sleep.

Kaylee also screamed my name. But... did I save her? Was I able to save the girl who was my best friend?

She was my only friend, wasn't she?

Was Kaylee my only friend?

Aren't you forgetting Sam?

What night of Nightingale is this?

WHAT NIGHT

OF NIGHTINGALE

IS THIS

HOW???

I put three fingers on my neck to feel my pulse.

I felt nothing.

--ovw--

I feel nothing.

Why

do I

feel nothing

I breathed in slowly through my mouth, and out slowly through my mouth. I counted to three.

"Chris," James said, slowly. "You know I care about you." He paused. "You know this."

Does he ever run out of bullshit?

Apparently not, right?

Whose SHIT has he been smoking?

I paused.

...you don't want the answer to that

"This piece of shit's your brother?" I said.

At that point, to me, the last conversation didn't happen, because there was a threat to the lives of people I cared about- people who actually, truly, genuinely showed that they cared about me. The thought of how close Kaylee was to this man they called Jeffery Philip Christian Tobler made me shudder; the movement sent spikes of pain through my neck and shoulder and hand and leg and entire body.

Do I have to kill him to keep my friends from getting hurt?

I wasn't going to kill him.

No.

No.

Maybe Sam could do that, if absolutely needed...

She would. She was always prepared to kill when needed. And she always did everything she could to protect me. People like her, people like Tiana, people as hurt as Emberion, the good and possibly the last good people are why I fight.

I can't kill.

But if Kaylee comes here and he tries anything, anything at all-

But I knew exactly what things he was capable of doing and three innocent people were right in front of me, all in his trap.

Just like all of us kids were in his trap, when Kaylee and I were kidnapped. Taken and murdered. Because he murdered all of us.

And I knew right then, though I didn't know how much of the battle was won or lost, that to go near this man at all would require more of me than I could possibly ever ask of myself.

"Older brother," James replied. I'd almost forgotten I even asked him a question. "Yup."

"Why didn't you kill the damned thing?"

"I tried."

"I'm arresting him."

"Chris," he said.

We both felt my flare of anger.

"Jameson Adam Tobler," I replied.

He laughed, telepathically, BECAUSE LIKE OMG, IT WAS SO FUNNY.

"Wait for the others to get there. Sam, Elyza-"

"Elyza isn't here."

"That's where you're wrong. You think she'd abandon the world's brightest night sky at a time like this?"

I shifted my eyes- slowly, carefully, politely- off of Jeff, and to the transparent divides that were the capsules, the ones holding Caleb Samuel and Anthony David in place.

Davenport. And Malcolm.

Malcolm...

I felt a pinching sensation at the back of my head, near where my ponytail was. I took the elastic bands off for the time being.

Two separate cylinders; knowing my own experience from Nightingale, I doubted there was much in my power to break them. But maybe Lyca...

My gaze shifted to the dark red marble floor.

It was so beautiful. So shiny. And so twisted at once.

And I'd seen it before.

What did he say? The world's brightest night sky?

What on earth did that even mean?

"That's you, buddy."

What?

I heard James's telepathic sigh. "It's a compliment," he said. "Midnight."

"So, Elyza Cobb is on the way?" I said.

"Yup. Your very favorite Liquid Nitrogen is on the way."

He paused.

"So am I," he said. "And so is Tiana."

I put the elastic bands back on my hair, smearing blood on the long black wisps while I tied them.

"Ambervi?" I said.

"Yes."

Slowly, I dropped to my knees- and then on my butt- and sat there on the floor with the phone still flashing its text and glowing blue with its holographic images in my right hand. The left hand was...

UGH

How long did it take for me to recover from that one part of Nightingale again...?

"Myelantic is bringing the poison antidote to you. Hang on."

"MYELANTIC?"

"Who else is the drug expert?" James asked. A question as a response to my question.

I looked at my left hand. I shook my head again.

Orbiplosions.

Vaguely, I recalled a blinding, white flash of light. Somewhere in the past. I couldn't quite place it. Maybe it was the memory of a bad dream.

Bad dreams...

I shook my head again.

I get lots of those.

I also recalled what I saw in that file.

ANIMAL-related experiments [MID-NIGHTINGALE, PRE-NIGHTINGALE, POST-NIGHTINGALE] were performed on subject TOBLER, Daniel

Yeah, well. I knew I was a corgi.

PLANT-related experiments [MID-NIGHTINGALE, PRE-NIGHTINGALE, POST-NIGHTINGALE] were performed on subject DAVENPORT, Kaylee Ann

Explains why she's a peashooter.

Shut up

Hands on the back of my head...

Hands on my mind hands on my mind

Well- she really was a peashooter. Wait, what did James say to me?

I looked at him.

"You," I replied.

Jeff still looked like he was going to have the time of his life. And for all I knew at that time, maybe he really was going to.

"Oh. Well, yes, Emberion is also on the way there."

Jeff and I locked eyes; we surveyed each other's statures. He was a tall man, his hair unlike James's and unlike mine, save perhaps for its length, which like mine, I never bothered to think about. I was two-and-a-half feet tall and about to be absolutely destroyed by a murderer molester abuser giant.

One who had no conviction. One who lied, to everyone, about everything.

I put out the blaze on my left hand. I didn't even realize it had set itself on fire again.

"I'll do this on my own," I said to James. Even to myself I sounded like a robot. A robot who was dying, or one who wanted to die.

James said nothing.

Do robots die?

Or maybe I sounded already dead- it was barely a telepathic whisper.

I cleared my throat physically. I repeated myself telepathically.

"I'll do this on my own," I said.

"You're an idiot," said James.

I shook my head again. "How did you even know how to-"

"The map."

That one map.

Okay.

"And how did you-"

"As soon as you sent it to Kaylee, Caleb sent it to practically everyone in the Union of Stars," said James, "which already presents a hazard in itself. But as soon as this man figures..." He trailed off.

Which man?

Figures what?

"You mean your sociopath psychopath brother?" I said. "And do you mean 'Caleb' like-" I glanced at Caleb Samuel. "Like, Caleb Samuel Davenport? Like the guy here? Is he related to Kaylee in some way?"

"They're related. And yes," said James, "as soon as he figures out that he can't have you, he kills you, kills himself maybe, and a whole lot of other people in the process."

That made sense but it also didn't.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

I actually said that word...

"You're his endgame," said James.

What?

"How do you know that?" I responded.

How did he know that?

Maybe he just knows his brother really well.

Right? What else could it be?

I knew Jeff was going to kill me. That's exactly what I was banking on.

"Chris," James said. "I'm not letting him kill you. I'm not letting him hurt you."

Oh, really?

"Too late," I said. "But thanks for the thought."

Stop reading my mind, you powerful telepath idiot.

"You still in there, Morphine?" yelled Lyca, physically, from her capsule. I turned to her and nodded, subtly. Slowly. It was as quick as I could respond at that time at least.

How does he know this?

"Answer the question, James," I said. "And don't make it like the stuff you wrote into my file."

I watched Anthony David attempt to set fire to the glass capsule he was in- I had no idea he was pyrokinetic. I raised my eyebrows and blinked a few times. He didn't seem like a pyrokinetic; like the kid in class I knew from second grade who blew up a frog in a science experiment.

Marie was there...

But the glass capsule didn't catch fire; it didn't break Anthony out.

Jeff laughed.

I didn't see that pyrokinetic kid at Nightingale. Either he wasn't selected or wasn't there- which is extremely unlikely, as almost all of the kids in our age bracket were in that experiment- or he was killed by Jeff and James and their high-ranking mainland US counterparts really early into the experiment. Or maybe he was in another experiment?

"James," I repeated.

He hesitated.

"Because you were my endgame, too, once."

--ovw--LXIII--ovw--

"Because you were my endgame, too, once."

MONDAY

11:03 AM

WDSM DIAMOND MINE - JEFFERY PHILIP CHRISTIAN TOBLER'S UNDERGROUND EXPERIMENTATION/TORTURE HOUSE*

Status: Available

*Or so I called it.

Oh, wait.

That's actually what it was.

Hah. Go me.

--ovw--

"Because you were my endgame, too, once."

I wasn't sure what that meant.

"What-"

"Don't ask."

"I am asking."

"Chris, buddy, there's a lot I have to explain to you."

"No shit. Question one: who was that man, that gave me that map years ago?"

"That may have been me."

"WHAT?"

"We'll talk about it later."

I was a PTSD pie from Baker Joe's with extra strawberry topping. I was a marshmallow on a spinning diamond plate.

"Your jokes were never funny," I said, mostly to myself, really. Almost. Sort of. I continued. "Question two: This Caleb guy sent it to everyone in the Union of Stars? How?"

That was when a giant rock- yes, a giant rock- smashed through the far wall, just beside Lyca, and effectively forced more incandescent light from Jeff's ginormous living room (which was still just like it was back in Nightingale- full of beautiful, warm, orange light and fireplaces) into this oversized torture cell.

That was when I saw them- Tiana Ambervi, and Emberion Myelantic.

I continued to speak En Telepathe to James.

"Dude. How did they-?"

"They were already on the way there. As soon as you... attempted suicide Kaylee notified everyone."

I said nothing.

And then, I said:

"Oh. Thanks."

"I'll let her know."

"I'm about to engage. Any further instructions?"

"Do NOT engage."

I rolled my eyes. Jeff was still smiling at me. He was, as he usually was with me at least- delighted. Almost like he was looking at a meal. Almost like how delighted I typically get whenever I see French toast, or how delighted I typically get whenever I see practically any dog (especially corgis, because they are adorable and they are happiness), or how delighted I typically get to see Sam or Kaylee on or after a bad day.

Except a very disgusting, exploitative, predatory version of it.

I'm literally a marshmallow. Ugh. Like, go find a sandwich or something if you're hungry!

Why am I-

Hands. Hands at the back of my head.

I shook my head.

I'm a bit dizzy...

I realized he'd been staring at me just standing there for quite some time, actually, just... standing there breathing really hard. I made the mistake of looking at his pants.

"Do not engage why?" I asked James. "I mean, apart from the fact he doesn't even try to be an appealing predator, like, at all?"

Not the point. But ugh. I mean, he kinda tried- like. Sometimes. I guessed.

"You remember those explosions and white flashes of light?"

"Yeah."

"That was him."

I immediately put a hand up, and toward Ember and Tia, to signal to them to stop. They stopped where they were, Tia hopping off ember's back and and manipulating the rocky, earthy, rubble that she could- flipping them over on the ground like you would an egg or a piece of meat on a frying pan.

Tiana "Tia" Ambervi: Earth Manipulation. Or, as she liked to call it, "Earthbending." Or, as I liked to call it, "VROOM VROOM SMASH BRING DA HAUS DOWN!!!"

Not literally, of course. Don't do that. Don't destroy houses.

Not like I had one...

"Tell me, my boy," piped Jeff, "do you know these three lovely individuals I've selected so carefully, just for you?"

"I know Lyca," I said.

Why are you answering?

WHY ARE YOU ANSWERING-

"I mean, Denice," I said. "Denice Lyca Zambaia. We do know each other."

Jeff's smile carved deeper lines into his face. He was almost attractive.

Almost.

"And what about these two... disgusting men-"

He literally just called them lovely.

Wait, wait.

I'm a bit dizzy...

Is that what he said?

That's what he said, right?

"...do you happen to know them?"

Nice of him to say that. You know, if I thought about it... he was lovely, too. In his own way.

Jeff nodded, almost in approval of my last thought.

NO WAIT HOLD ON A SECOND

"I..." I paused. "I think they might work in the Webwork... for the Union of Stars." When was the last time I ate? "I don't know them really beyond that, and I'm not really even sure... that I've... bumped into them."

This place is pretty.

ORBIPLOSIONS.

Another voice in my head, a male voice. But so blurry; so muffled by the water; so muted by the rain; so stifled by the heat. "I am not letting him do this to you again."

Who? Do what? WHAT WATER? WHAT RAIN?

WHAT HEAT?!

ORBIPLOSIONS.

Caleb looked like the kind of guy Wyatt would hang out with. It was just one big UGH- like UGH, almost a red flag, or to me it was. I'd stay away from nine out of ten people that looked like that or gave me that vibe. Although his voice was actually quite nice, to me at least.

But he wasn't speaking anymore.

ORBIPLOSIONS.

That voice sounded like me.

But what on earth is an orbiplosion?

Another voice this time; the same voice from earlier.

"Hang on, buddy," it said. "I got you." Who? Who got me? That sounded scary. But I knew who it was... and yet I didn't? If you can imagine one moment walking down a street you've walked down a million times, and then THE VERY NEXT instant you are in a place you don't recognize; no idea where or who you are. Or you know but you just can't get to it. That was how it felt.

And sometimes, I hate that I still remember it.

"Just hold on. We're saving you from this, so JUST HOLD ON."

Saving you from this? Bullshit. No one ever saved or helped me- no one EVER did. I always hated whenever people pretended they had helped me- in any way- when they never, ever, ever did.

I saved you

Don't bother.

WHO THE FUCK TRIES TO BRAINWASH PEOPLE?

I can't-

Just don't bother for right now; he won't remember you. You'll only make it worse. I know how it feels.

Why were there voices in my head? Why were there so many of them?

Okay, I don't know where I am.

I like sunflowers

Well, this is probably what I get for even THINKING about Wyatt-

THIS SHIT MAD GULLY BRO

The older man, in the other transparent capsule, looked like a nice guy. I remember thinking that maybe he had a family; maybe a son and daughter and a bunch of dogs and cats at home, all waiting for him to come back.

I have to save this man.

"It's like I'm not even here!" blubbered the guy in the first transparent capsule- Caleb Samuel Davenport- for whatever reason. My ears practically recoiled at the volume. "This can't be; it isn't possible!"

He and I locked eyes before he spoke again.

This really weird, insane stranger has like SUPER NICE eyes like the color like wow

If only he didn't give me the creepy Wyatt Shafer vibes.

"This isn't possible," he repeated, but softly that time. The very opposite of the way he said it the first time. I had no idea what was so confusing to him. We lived in the Overwoods- fucked up shit happened all the time, left and right and and up and down and center. But I also knew I was there to kill every evil and destroy the scum, in any and all of their forms.

That gave me a moment.

Why do I... do I normally think like this? No, I probably didn't. And the man was still talking.

"I... I can't believe this," he said in some sort of tone of disbelief- disbelief that I couldn't really explain.

He can't believe what?

I can.

So, the guy is trapped in a fancy glass cell, underground, in the Overwoods. He whines like Sam did at age four. Was he born yesterday?

Damn.

That's a really fucked up thought, I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm thinking like this-

THAT'S STILL NOT WHAT I MEANT

Shut the fuck up bro I didn't whine LIKE THAT

Hands on the back of my head

Also, it's not a glass cell.

WHERE IS ELYZA?!

Hands on my mind, hands on my mind

But that wasn't possible, was it?

Hands on my mind...

I like sunflowers

Just when I thought miss orange sunshine was the only one who thought about flowers.

I DON'T think about flowers.

She's lying.

"I feel really sick," I suddenly blurted out, to no one really- but everyone standing near me heard it; I didn't know why I was even saying it to start with. "Can you all stop thinking so loud and so much?" I touched my fingers to my eyebrows. Why was there so much blood on them. Really fresh blood, too. "It's starting to hurt."

That was a lie. Starting to hurt? STARTING TO HURT? I was IN SO MUCH PAIN ALREADY.

"I lied," I said out loud to no one. "I literally lied; I'm already in pain. Like, a lot of it. But... why is everyone thinking so much?"

DO YOU SEE WHAT HE'S DOING TO HIM?

This is JEFFERY PHILIP CHRISTIAN TOBLER we're talking abo-

Wait a second.

WAIT. A. SECOND-

There are hands on my mind and I can hear thoughts.

You always hear thoughts.

Wait, no he doesn't.

His own? Just like we all hear ours?

I'm kinda dizzy...

WHERE IS ELYZA?

Y'all, he's probably just hungry???

I can guarantee you that he is absolutely NOT JUST HUNGRY.

I'm here.

Shit.

I don't think he even remembers telepathic shield...

Telepathic shield?

A barrier, Chris. Can you remember how to use a telepathic barrier?

Well. Uhm. Like, I knew what a barrier was?

Like, you know, when there's, like, traffic or a flood and you, like, put sandbags around something?

Right?

Maybe telepathic guard? Maybe he remembers it like that?

Telepathic guard? What's a telepathic guard?

He is literally the smartest idiot in the world right now.

I swear that comment still makes me cry to this day.

What did Kaylee do to get her memories back?

You know, because it's honestly the nicest compliment I've ever received.

Corgi corgi corgi boing boing boing boing

That's THE PROBLEM, y'all- only CHRIS knows!!!

Does it looks like he knows if all he's thinking about is corgis

And Kaylee doesn't?

NO I DON'T MISS I-PUNCH-EVERYTHING-ON-EARTH-TO-GET-MORE-DRUGS-AND-I-THINK-IT-MAKES-ME-SO-COOL

I swear I should've hit more of that dope yesterday

I know someone who's selling.

THAT IS ILLEGAL how have y'all not lost y'all's jobs

Fever dream, fever dream, it was a fever dream.

Because, it HAD to be a fever dream.

Christopher Midnight, this is NOT a fever dream, so just HOLD ON.

Maybe they were all just my own thoughts, from a half-entered-into dream; maybe I was so tired that I was falling into a half-sleeping state- right there, on my feet, and in front of THE actual Mr. Tobler.

Well, the ONE Mr. Tobler.

Because there was another one...

Another one where?

I focused my eyes on the older man. He stared straight back at me, but somehow it wasn't uncomfortable.

He has a family he has to go home to, is what I remember thinking to myself. He has a family he has to go home to... so I have to save him.

But I can barely think. I'm not sure why; I'm usually good at mental vigilance. Hypervigilance even.

EVEN with zero food, zero sleep, and blood loss. Wait, where did I put my stuffed husky again?

I shook my head. And wow, did shaking my head HURT.

Do ONE THING right, I thought to myself. GET THIS MAN BACK TO HIS HOME AND HIS FAMILY. I always wondered what that might be like. Having a house at all, a family at all.

Wait, was the ground even here? Somehow, it didn't feel like it. Certainly not to me. I felt like the ground beneath me was moving; I felt like I probably had to hold on to something or else I was going to fall- for the millionth time.

My gaze dropped to the floor.

Dark red tile...

"Chris," said James's voice telepathically.

His telepathic voice was one I was trained to recognize. Or maybe when you hate someone you make yourself recognize their voice no matter what, so you can avoid it. Maybe that or he just made it so clear and so forceful. As much anger as I felt, there was no way I could deny that he was a powerful telepath.

Perhaps even as strong as his brother-

"What?" I responded.

"I got a surprise for ya."

--ovw--LXIV--ovw--

"I got a surprise for ya."

MONDAY

11:04 AM

A total mess, somewhere below ground level. UGH

But at least with some friends around me

Status: Available

"I got a surprise for ya."

"No thanks," I said.

"Look up."

I looked above us, and as I did, Tia and Lyca and Ember did the same- there he was: James, flying down fast, or should I say descending, passing flawlessly through what looked to me like semi-translucent black-and-gold barriers which looked like glass- some of which were broken... possibly by me- as he manipulated the material effortlessly and practically surfed toward us on an invisible wave of telekinetic power and brilliance; beneath the soles of his shoes a thin pane of what to me... was either really really shiny glass or some kind of actual diamond. I remember thinking that he looked like a drunk skateboarder, magically floating down from the top of a large theater.

That's some description.

Corgi corgi corgi boing boing boing boing

Except, I didn't know if skateboarders were real; I only saw them in magazines and picture books from the library.

I smiled.

And then I remembered where I was.

At that moment, an elegant blond woman walked, in light blue stilettos and aquamarine glasses, gracefully from the foyer to the living room to this chamber, and she beamed at Jeff.

Wow, she is breathtaking

You're gay, for CRYING OUT LOUD, YOU'RE GAY

Yes I am but I'd still marry her

Who on earth was so bothered that I liked ELYZA?

Oh, yeah... I knew her name. Elyza. Elyza Jacobs, was it? It would've been hard for me to forget the name of someone I found so attractive.

THE ONE WHO KISSED YOU!

What?

THE ONE WHO KISSED YOU THE NIGHT YOU GOT THE FIRST TEXT MESSAGE.

I like sunflowers

Elyza COBB. COBB!!!

Wait, what first text message?

Doesn't matter. Kissing is not the only thing we did, and you don't even remember!

T M I

Corgi corgi corgi boing boing boing boing I eat bread.

Pulling up in dat whip, I done dat dumb shit

THAT SONG ROCKS

See? THE Christopher Danny Midnight gets my taste in music. I love u my bro.

He's brainwashed.

I love u more, Sam :DDDD

BUT HE'S GAY

YES I AM

"Pleased to see you again, Jeffery." Her voice was cool; not calm exactly; just... pleased almost.

"Hi, Liquid Nitrogen," I said, even though she literally wasn't even talking to me. I wondered if she liked my new-but-not-even-new look. Bloody, thin, and starving. Very stylish indeed. I ran a hand through my hair to put more blood on it.

"Hey," she said to me, and then, to Jeff, "Your little shifting-glass puzzle was much too easy to decode, Jeff. I can see why you had to set them on fire. The kids would've all lived otherwise."

Jeff didn't respond. He was, apparently, too fixated on James. They glared at each other. I wasn't even sure if glared was the right word at all- they were staring daggers at each other. Yet, at the same time, it wasn't the most obvious thing in the world. I could just tell by very, very subtle shifts in their eye and body movement; their posture. Almost like two large wolves sizing each other up, not engaging, not making any sound.

Wolves or clownfishes, anyway. Swimming around in a slow circle.

Another message buzzed in. I didn't tap on it; I just quickly glanced at the notification preview at the top of the holographic display.

"ONE MORE LAYER TO GO. SAM WILL GET THERE FIRST AS ALWAYS. - ARRVN"

Corgi boing boing boing boing boing

What? Who was that, wand what did they mean by-

Corgi.

Boing boing boing boing boing.

Dogs are happiness

Dogs are happy

Happy = dog

Cute = dog

I hate Wyatt

I couldn't shut my mind up.

And to be clear, I don't think I hated him. Or maybe I did; it just wasn't worth thinking about.

A stab of pain started in my left hand- near the wrist and metacarpals- and traveled up my shoulder to the muscles on the left side of my neck. Where did that pain come from?

The pain was so bad; I stopped and I thought about it. That pain had to come from something, somewhere. A training injury? From gymnastics? Possibly... I flexed my fingers, slowly, on both hands.

If it was from a recent fall, I probably would have felt it sooner than this- not just out of the blue; not just now.

Where did that pain come from?

Perplexed, I took a breath. I counted down from five. I didn't know how, or why, but I felt the answer to that question was an important one. I didn't want to, but I asked myself again.

Where did that pain come from...?

The flash of a memory. An ugly one.

Maybe you can guess which.

I still don't know to this day (not for sure anyway) but a PTSD flashback... possibly served us all well, maybe just that one time.

Who knows?

Because suddenly I remembered what a telepathic guard was.

"Kaylee, no engaging," I said, super duper quickly, telepathically- perhaps the most rushed I had ever ever sounded in any telepathic conversation. "Tell her NOT to engage. I'm talking about Sam; DO NOT ENGAGE. If you're with the cute raccoon and the cute doggo- tell them to NOT go down here. I mean- tell Connor to tell them that. Radio silence, out."

This was all I said, and then I got up, and offhandedly walked over to a counter with a barstool and several sets of expensive wineglasses. Beside them: Vystir poisoning antidotes.

Yep. Just the ones I had to bargain for with James not that long ago...

Well, I supposed if you considered how much had happened in that one year alone then maybe it REALLY WAS that long ago.

The only thing there that still reminded me of where I was, who I was with, and who my real friends were... was the physical pain.

So I had to hold on to it; I had to hold on to it to survive this. Tobler was by far the only man I knew who had the power of mind control; the power to brainwash. Or, in my case, attempt to brainwash. I knew that in moment I was losing, but for how long?

If I looked over my shoulder- which I did- I saw the deep red carpet that lead to that now-open red door which led into the midnight-sky-and-stars bedroom. As horrible as it was, a small part of me had to admire the design of this place. I could see the glow of that same lava lamp from where I sat elevated on the barstool.

--ovw--LXV--ovw--

If I looked over my shoulder- which I did- I saw the deep red carpet that lead to that now-open red door which led into the midnight-sky-and-stars bedroom. As horrible as it was, a small part of me had to admire the design of this place. I could see the glow of that same lava lamp from where I sat elevated on the barstool.

MONDAY

Still 11:04 AM

Party at the torture place.

Status: Available

Party my butt.

As Kaylee rightly foreshadowed, Sam was next to arrive; she entered in a similar fashion as James- and I think possibly I- did, straight down through those black-and-gold semi-translucent glass barriers. She zipped past the already-created openings and holes (YOU'RE WELCOME SAM) and immediately stood beside me at the counter and poured herself a glass of... what looked like some kind of dark red wine.

"Sam," I whispered.

"WHAT?" she hissed at me. "I can't 'engage,' right?" She was being discreet and yet also very sarcastic, or so it seemed to me anyway. "How else am I gonna have fun?"

Kaylee and Connor- fully visible- walked down from a grand, curved, polished dark-wood styled staircase that extended from somewhere above the living room, right beside the foyer and their absolutely, absolutely breathtaking fireplaces. Connor's face was bleeding, and Kaylee's leg was wrapped heavily in stielvine. The warm glow from the fires undulated off their bloody upright bodies like slowly, subtly flashing combustiflies on those totally unpredictable fall nights- because, in the Overwoods, there was no scheduled fall. Fall happened overnight, and whenever it wanted to.

Kaylee and Connor stopped where they stood, about four feet away from Tiana Ambervi and Emberion Myelantic.

I stared at the carpet in front of them. At a very specific spot on the carpet, in fact- and like I thought, almost disguised by the colors but not quite, the slight smears of my blood which I tried but never could quite wash out completely (yes, Jeff made me wash my own blood off his floors) were all still there.

And, here, in this place, as I spoke the words "Sam, put that down, that's probably literally my blood from years ago," I had to process all that had been in front of me in the last couple of hours, alone. From the Talon I had no idea existed outside the areas near V8, to the alleged individual that looked like me in some way or shape or form, that the Talon somehow thought might experiment on them again- WHICH STILL BRUISED MY EGO BECAUSE THAT MADE NO SENSE it being me- to the man I let die, to the seventh or eighth failed suicide attempt. Officially, probably the fifth if you count only the ones after En Gail.

Nightingale.

Sorry. I try.

Ahem. So there we all were, for a moment, quietly all assessing each other, perhaps aware of just how much damage, both physically and otherwise, that this one Jeffery Philip Christian Tobler was capable of causing. The story to it all... I was only just still about to find out.

Or so I thought. Because, as with a lot of things in life or so it seemed to me anyway, things took time.

And he had such a... such a nice, nice looking name too. Jeffery Philip Christian Tobler- that could be a CEO of a... a... bank or a charity or even a hospital or a rehab facility for sports injuries, or something. Anything.

Yet, here he was. The man that abused me. This... this was what he CHOSE instead.

I got up.

"Chris, stay back."

I kept walking.

"I only have a question," I said, as behind me Sam took a sip and immediately put the glass down and looked like she was going to throw up. I was probably right- it probably really was my blood from years ago. "Jeff, you in Nightingale and the man that used me back in the Lowdown, years ago... I-" I took a quick breath, tried to compose myself, and yet felt like I was about to drop a thousand feet down into the earth again- "I know you're can't be Belinda. But are you the same as the man that used me as a CHILD INCOME SOURCE in my childhood years, in the Lowdown?"

Marshmallow on a spinning plate, marshmallow on a spinning plate.

Happy place happy place

Happy place

"Chris, you got it," said Kaylee's voice, only to me telepathically- in the split moment I forgot to keep my guard up from the relentless attacks of the awful PTSD and memories and flashbacks and... the FACT that this man was in front of me.

Did I say "man?"

Apologies.

MONSTER. SOULLESS.

GARBAGE.

ABOMINATION.

I put my mental/telepathic guard up immediately just as soon as I could- but not before someone else threw a thought in there, and it was Caleb Samuel.

Don't say you forgot how I kissed you-

UGH. UGH, WHAT?

SHUT UP! I said telepathically, closing them all out once more. I heaved a sigh.

What was up with all these crazy people around me? I would never kiss that guy, he's disgusting, like, ew!

Ew ew ew ew ew ewwwwww

I flexed my fingers and cleared my throat, softly, quietly. But in the quiet of this chamber, still, all could hear. You could even hear that strange, subtle, very subtle snap of the bone and ligaments in my left hand which still happened every single time I moved it; it was audible only in a large, echoey room full of silence.

"I asked a question," I said.

"Yes, Midnight," answered his brother- James. "That was him. Half the time, it was him. The other... the other half, that was someone else."

"So the actual guy," I said.

"Yeah." James looked at me, for only a moment, and I could have sworn there were actual tears in his eyes. "The man standing in front of you now just took advantage of that."

"You mean the abomination."

"Say what you want about me, son, you are still mine at the end of the d-"

"AT THE END OF THE DAY ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD," I said, interrupting, "AND I DON'T CARE IF IT'S ME." And then, there, in front of all my friends and my worst, absolute worst enemy- I began to cry. "I don't care if it's me. I just want to be in a world that does not have you in it."

And, apparently, those were the words that destroyed him.

--ovw--LXVI--ovw--

The words I spoke:

"I just want to be in a world that does not have you in it."

And, apparently, those were the words that destroyed him.

I know what evil looks like.

And it's the ugliest thing you can possibly ever look at on this planet.

--ovw--

Some pages of these red notebooks seem to be torn out, and missing...

But this pen is awesome!

So tell me now

Does it fix you?

So tell me now,

why you always want to die

Tell me now, does it fix you?

When your every word

is made up;

just a lie.

Tried to sell us what you never believed in

Tried to sell us what you don't even believe in

--ovw--

So tell me now

Does It Fix You

--ovw--

MONDAY

11:07 AM

Party at the torture place. Shit was hitting the fan here- like, TOTALLY, REALLY hitting the fan. This was NOT good.

Status: Available

And one of the FREAKS trapped in a human-sized cylindrical capsule for experiments of torture behind me, apparently, had no other things to consume his mind AT THAT AMAZING MOMENT OF EVERYONE'S TERROR- apart from pretending that he kissed me OR THAT I KISSED HIM.

What else could have possibly gone wrong after, right?

Spoiler alert: WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Spoiler alert: Oh God please no

Please don't get me wrong, I swear in another situation, I might (kiss him?) maybe! I was gay. I AM gay. Triple gay, at that. SO TRIPLE GAY, IN FACT, SO TRIPLE GAY THAT I FREAKING SHOOT RAINBOW LASERS OUT OF MY HANDS WHEN I WAVE TO SECURITY GUARDS AT SHOPPING MALLS (if and when they stare at me for way too long, only). So, maybe I would freaking kiss the guy, somehow, in an alternate set of circumstances. Anything is possible, right? OH WHAT IS MY POINT?! I'm just trying to be nice and trying not to be mean. He was probably a great guy (???), maybe. I didn't know.

And I wouldn't have known.

Because I didn't know him.

--ovw--

"AT THE END OF THE DAY ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD," I said, interrupting, "AND I DON'T CARE IF IT'S ME." And then, there, in front of all my friends and my worst, absolute worst enemy- I began to cry. "I don't care if it's me. I just want to be in a world that does not have you in it."

And, apparently, those were the words that destroyed him.

Flash of blinding, white light, an enormous, astronomic tremor that shook probably not only my bones but likely also the lining of my intestines and possibly my brain- a spark and then an outward resonance that blasted everybody but Abomination Tobler off their feet and into the walls or a counter or a mantle or a sofa- Elyza was the lucky one. Whereas, Connor fell unconscious immediately and Ember was blown back into... I didn't know what it was. A... an antler? A sharp decoration of some kind. Kaylee and I ran immediately toward him when a very strong arm grabbed me by the waist, from behind, and kept me in place- Abomination Tobler's arm.

OKAY OKAY WHY ON EARTH IS IT THAT GENETICS DICTATED THAT I **HAVE** TO BE LIKE HALF THE SIZE OF EVERYBODY AND EVERYBODY IS TALLER THAN ME AND I AM A SKINNY PENCIL THAT ANYBODY CAN LIFT

JUST

WHY

W H Y ????!?!? !?!?!?? !????

I resisted the urge to drive my heel straight up into his balls with ignite and then spin off-

Wait. Actually, he might have liked that...

UGH.

W H Y ????!?!? !?!?!?? !????

"Let the boy, go, Jeffery," James growled, so unlike the warm tone I was accustomed to. So unlike his usual; his baseline. "His friend needs him."

I stared at Ember, his hooves on the ground facing us and his... I wasn't sure; his side or his leg or something in his horse-human-horse-like body had been gutted- the artifact mounted on the wall so gloriously, and so perfectly, was in fact some kind of dead animal's sharp, tenacious antlers. I assumed they were possibly those of the mutated sabretooth-deer hybrid, also seen usually around V8. Seen usually around V8 or that's what I was told. What did any of us know, now, after the encounter with the Talon? But it could have been any animal's. I wouldn't really have known.

"HERE'S what's going to happen-" Abomination started. "You simply let me keep the boy, and nobody gets hurt. You let me take him, off to some kind of an island somewhere, and I have him, where he belongs... and we all carry on with our lives." He smiled, the same smile he put on when he would lure me in with food or a treat or warmth and then then physically damage me in some way immediately after- "I'm sure none of you would like to anger me. How's that?"

Well. It was... my choice, was I to let him keep me and do whatever he wanted forever, or potentially sacrifice my friends?

Was this an actual debate?

"Let me go help Ember," I choked, squealing like a pinched hamster, "and you can have whatever you want- leave them all alone."

"That's ridiculous!" snarled Sam.

"Sssshhhh," I hissed at her. "This is someone that's capable of all, and I mean all of the damage in the world and more."

"He's right!" Abomination Jeff Tobler beamed, he practically sang the words in the perfect acoustics of the grand, amazing, astronomically expensive place.

James stared at me.

"Can I..." I hesitated, choking, still crying somewhat but focused on Myelantic, "Can I just stay here again? I can have visits from my friends, can't I?"

From the back, just barely in the periphery of my field of vision- I saw Liquid Nitrogen. She nodded at me, as she proceeded to slowly walk toward the very same screen that I had already unlocked earlier.

"No visits," he replied. "And we don't want to stay here. You never wanted to stay here, anyway, right?"

Well... he had a point.

"Chris, just let me talk to him," said James.

"We're all getting exactly what we all want- I'm perfectly satisfied!" beamed Tobler. He really was practically singing now. It was insane because I'd heard it before- and half the time he wasn't actually even bad at it. It only scared me further. "And if you want the ring that's responsible for the fourteen-year-old girl, you already have Peters. She has your answers."

It wasn't a bad deal. My friends live, walk away unharmed, never see me or this man again.

Never see me, or this man again.

I... I remember thinking I could live with it.

I could live with it...

He had the perfect plan. Murder, chase, lure me back. I suppose he'd tried this on many occasions before and simply failed; in the last two years alone I've ignored so many attempts to get my attention- because 9 out of 10 times, it's obvious. You're born in the Lowdown and you have the minimum necessary intelligence = you don't fall for things. But many of those people don't have the minimum necessary intelligence.

My dream to help and to shut down other trafficker rings or the lords of mass abuse- shut them down one way or the other way- had come to life for a year; maybe two. The rewards were more than worth it, because I didn't need a reward.

A male voice spoke loudly in my head: "WE ARE NOT LETTING HIM TAKE YOU, MIDNIGHT."

I wasn't sure who it was.

I locked eyes with Sam, who zoomed her way straight back to us and was standing only ten yards away. I saw the bandages on her shoulder again; the injury inflicted by Klein.

I am not letting her get hurt again.

Not her, not ANY of these people who have nothing but good to me... perhaps, with the exception of James. To even think his name was painful.

"Chris." James's voice.

Our eyes still locked, Sam positioned one of her feet slightly behind the other, one hand a fist and one hand in the process of becoming one.

NO.

"He can kill all of you," I said out loud. "He's asking for one thing." I choked on blood. "And KILLING all of you is not the worst thing this man can do. He's only asking for one thing."

He asks for one thing. And you all get to live.

I've been lured into so many things, most of which were obvious. When you've spent sixteen or so years surrounded by the most deceitful, most repulsive of liars, you can see through bullshit and you don't buy it. And I shut them down.

I haven't gotten all of them- I was still working on that. But I shut some of them down.

Permanently.

Maybe, that was enough.

People certainly had attempted to kidnap me before; it was the same for people I worked with closely- Kaylee, Connor. I supposed there were others, who may have been viewed as close to me and possibly would be targets for that reason. I tried to limit my connections to those that were strong; capable in a fight even against the odds.

People had been obsessed over me before. I supposed this was really no different. Just... the price to pay; the cost. It was a very high cost if I didn't comply. It really wasn't new. It was just like my life back at the Lowdown, all over again.

He buried his face in my filthy, blood-coated hair.

"Go help your friend," he whispered.

"NOW!" Kaylee yelled at Liquid Nitrogen, who tapped the final command to lift the capsules- the SAME capsules that spit black smoke and poison fumes that turned SKIN into POISON.

Only- one of them didn't lift. Caleb's was stuck to the ground or ceiling, two walls and two, just like Nightingale. Through a command on a device, Jeff activated that one still-buried in the ground capsule and that horrible, cruel, dreadful black smoke.

Immediately, his skin turned dark blue and dark purple and the same red holes, small red holes that oozed blood and pus and whatever else- and those awful tiny little tentacles.

I wanted to puke, but I was not going to.

Kaylee, and James, and Elyza- they had all made their choice. They knew, and they knew how dangerous this man was.

I yelled, my voice carrying like a honey-coated cotton ball trying to make a sound in a concert mosh pit- and yet, still audible- "If you value your life, LEAVE! I am killing this man and I'll take care of it from here. Or he can kill us bo-"

Jeff jabbed me hard in the throat as two blinding, absolutely blinding- beyond shining and beyond bright, giant white orbs of detonation deafened, disoriented most of us. I bit into his hand, biting until I tasted his flesh and his blood ran down my imperfect teeth- as I saw Emberion Myelantic slowly try, try to get up.

It was as if it was slow motion:

As the mansion or underground torture house or WHATEVER it was shook and rumbled, as the mine above us possibly was going to crush us all to our deaths, a glass shard, as large as my body- still glimmering in its gold and black tint- fell from five-and-a-half stories above, and Sam, who was still covering her ears, still blinking, orienting herself to perhaps throw her fists at this man that hurt me beyond any kind of repair- just like she threw her fists at anyone that ever tried to hurt me- unknowingly stood in its way before it hit the floor.

Note from the author:

Does It Fix You is on Nonfiction II: The Album (by realnotperfect).

It's an independent album from a nontalented person (me). Show love.

--ovw--LXVII--ovw--

When it's all just gone into the end

I don't feel it, feel it anymore

Catch me in the dead of night

Catch me in the dead of night

Because I'll put your crimes into the light

- from Sounds Around Me

MONDAY

11:14 AM

Jeff Tobler's hideout

Status: Available

Slow motion. That's how it happened. To this day, I'll miss her. To this day, I still cry, because I know that I will always miss her and I know that I will never, ever, forget her kindness.

Slow motion.

I can stop this from happening

I can save her

Slow motion.

I can stop this I can stop this I can stop this I can stop this

I can save her

I remember spitting Jeffery Philip Christian Tobler's blood out of my mouth with a piece of his skin stuck in my imperfect teeth, and then having to spit that out, too, and then trying to zoom and twist and spin and break my way to her-

But, he was too heavy for me.

But, his arm wrapped around my neck from behind me, and he held me in place.

But, I only had half of a second, and my hands were still too far from Jeff's face.

The giant shard of glass came into contact with the worst place imaginable- right where her heart was...

I remember it. Between her shoulder and her sternum. Just slightly to the left of the center of her chest.

That was where it landed.

I still remember tasting bile in the back of my throat. I remember choking on the disgust of having to be so near this awful, absolutely vile monster. When what I wanted was to be beside my friend.

It pinned her to the ground, where the shard broke in two and shards showered her face, splintering her green-and-turquoise eyes that always reminded me of the Overwoods snow, that we would collect into cups, sweep off of window panes together, press into each other's faces after tough days and tough SRAs, laughing about who should've won and which place Connor probably stole his motorbike from.

She is- as she always has been- the stronger part of me.

She always will be.

On the hard days, I remember her, and sometimes she makes me feel like the tears can make me become stronger, instead of the mess that often takes over most of us.

While the stranger Caleb Samuel writhed in the capsule and Kaylee ran toward him- I ignited Jeff's face, causing it to go completely on fire both inside and out, breaking two of the fingers in my right hand in the process and spun, still in what to me felt like the slowest of all slow motions, in the air to land beside her. I took her hand in mine as I stared at the small glass shards that had peppered her eyes, causing them to bleed.

"I'll..." she muttered, somehow just barely audible to me, in all this chaos. "I'll murder that hoe."

My tears and water and mucus from my runny nose fell down onto her shirt and her face; neither of us cared.

"Which one?" I said. "The man here, or Belinda?"

She made this horrible... this... horrendous, ghastly, absolutely horrid croaking noise- I still hear it in my nightmares, at times, but at least I get to see her- I felt like I was the one that was dying; I wanted it to be me.

"Both of them," she barely groaned; agonized. Her blood covered her light yellow shirt and covered all of her bracelets; all of the little cute trinkets that she wore. The rainbow flag. The little fox, the one with the white mane. The cat, the white one, with the yellow nose and the pink ribbon on its left ear. "Kill them both, Danny, Danny- promise me."

"I promise," I whispered back at her. I didn't know if it was a lie. But my next words, I meant, I meant more than any other words I had ever spoken. "I love you, Sam."

"Kill them," she said. "I love you, too, Danny Christopher Sunlight. Midnight." She made this awful, croaking, gurgling, dying sound again- as she inadvertently sprayed both her saliva-digestive-enzyme-spit and blood, with the FUCKING DAMNED bits of glass at me. "You're the kindest friend that I ever had, in the Lowdown and V4 and anywhere outside a' thyeah. Give Chaquille all my dope. Thank you. Thank you so much, for everything. You really... you really are my morphine."

And that was that. She died. Blinded by blood, glass, and my tears- the skin on my face white streaked with black from stealing all of her pain in the last minute I had together with her- I walked toward Jeff, who was writhing, madly causing ruptures, destruction, death, explosions- not unlike how he was back in Nightingale; not unlike how he was in the bedroom, Nightingale, or Lowdown.

With nothing left except the awareness that I had lost more than anyone else- anyone else on earth- ever possibly could have, from all of the time and life and purity... and the innocence... and all of the inherent foundational human RIGHTS that were all taken from me, seemingly in one go- one knife buried itself into the hand that covered Jeff's left eye; another knife buried itself through his neck- sideways; another into the same hand and eye and again and again and again and again into the heart as I started to dig all of my fingers into the hole in his chest; the pool of blood was nonexistent- it did not exist to me. What existed was Sam, the girl who bought me the cold strawberry pudding. The girl who defended me from everything that she could; the one that was going to help me find the murderer of this fourteen-year-old victim.

But no.

No, not anymore.

--ovw--LXVIII--ovw--

You wrote me a song I

I'm never gonna believe

So sit on the throne and I

I'll stay with the covers for you

- from I'm Gonna Kill Me Before You Do

MONDAY

11:18 AM

Jeff Tobler's hideout

Status: Available

My fingers, broken and otherwise, buried inside the open flesh of Jeff Philip Christian Tobler's chest- feeling, feeling desperately for his nonexistent heart; I began to wail, moaning, groaning and howling like a wounded deranged female tabby cat in heat, as the mine above us shook with the last few blinding, disorienting explosions and their remnants rattled the foundations of all of the things I'd ever known.

Lyca tackled me hard, shoving me off of Jeff Tobler's body as another large shard from the crystal-like barriers so high above us effectively severed his entire head off- or that might have actually been me and the glass shard just pushed it off further; I didn't know- and then, Lyca pointed at Ember. He seemed unconscious, lying on the ground beneath a broken fireplace mantel.

Do one thing right PLEASE

PLEASE

I cut through the air toward him with a superhuman, adrenaline-loaded speed and with almost perfect trajectory. The rumbling threw me off slightly.

What mattered more, though, was that a circle of light spawned to my right and forced my body to do a triple forward rotation with 1 & 1/2 twist(s) which I did not intend to do.

Orbiplosions.

I landed on my head and watched the world turn purple, such an ugly shade of purple that I had never before seen, the blood from my eyes mixing with new blood from my nose and moisturizing my lips. And also my chin, which had glass in it. And also my left ear and also I think the eardrum. And my shoulder, too.

And I TRIED to get up quickly.

And I really, really tried...

Wyatt is such an idiot

I swear I HATE that guy

Can we think of something else

NO

From the ground I saw Lyca pick up Jeff's body- like it was a feather, which to her it probably really was- and snap it in half from the back. She slammed his body on the ground hard- so hard- but still not as hard as I wanted; not as hard as when he hit me when I was a child.

And all I could do then was cry. I know I still do.

And then I watched Lyca sprint toward the capsule Caleb Samuel Davenport was trapped in. I was more than willing to bet that the container was not only small to Lyca, but perhaps even fragile, like a snowflake.

Snowflake...

Sam.

I can save her, screamed a hysterical voice in my head. The voice itself seemed to be exploding. To me, it was the only thing still exploding- even though the entire mine above us was still rumbling; even though smaller- but still sizeable- orbs of blinding white light were still everywhere. One staircase, where one of these circular explosions spawned, was no longer anything more than a pile of powder that reminded me of ash. But it didn't smell like ash- it smelled like death; it smelled like evil; it smelled like Jeff Tobler.

Orbiplosions.

Blinding light in perfect circles.

I could've sworn I'd seen them before somewhere...

I can save her.

My own voice was in every nearby telepath's head- though I wasn't trying to broadcast it. Even I couldn't shut it up at that moment... though I doubt it was as much a nuisance as the remainder of the orbiplosions, and the falling death from above. It was a game of Get Rained On, You Die- Kaylee and I's version of The Floor Is Lava that we would still play together even post-Nightingale.

You know... because, of course, it made like absolutely tons of sense to play The Floor Is Lava with me.

I can save her

Miracle apples are in Vicinity Eight.

Where was my mind? Where was anything?

I can save her

Sam is not gone, I can save her.

I really love French toast.

Shut the FUCK up! I screamed telepathically, at myself. Or was it at myself? Every telepath around heard it, too. No, no, I can save her. She is not gone.

From where Kaylee stood she gave me... a look like she wanted to stab me with a fork. Or that's what it looked like to me. I wanted to stab myself, too. Her tears were probably like mine- except mine had blood in them, and were turning black.

Hers probably had tiny invisible sunflower seeds in them. I wouldn't know.

Can you do ONE THING RIGHT???

I fumbled like a dying animal. I fumbled like an ant crushed by a boot. It felt like ten years, the time it took me to drag myself over to Skittles's body.

But Skittles is dead?

SKITTLES WAS KILLED YOU IDIOT

I felt for the smooth doggy coat- no, no, horse coat, right beneath the skin of my only-slightly-more-functional hand. Was it my left one or my right one? I didn't even know left from right anymore. It's strange how now, I look back and what I seem to remember more vividly than everything else was how hungry I was. I remember the colors and the blood, but my stomach still feels empty and stinging and just physically really absolutely horrible at the memory. Kaylee also says she feels that way...

I wasn't breathing when my hands turned Myelantic's elegant white coat red.

"Come on, Ember." The whisper was audible to myself only at first, and then, also audible to every telepath around. Come on, Ember.

Come on, Ember.

I coughed blood and spit it out to clear my throat a little bit.

"Hey, man." My nose was a blood faucet and everything was dark purple and pure black. My eyes half-shut, I tried to search for any visible injuries; any open wounds; something; anything. "I owe you those apples, remember? From V8? Like I said I would?"

LIKE I SAID I WOULD. The stupid, dumb promises that I made to the ones who DIED IN FRONT OF ME.

But Ember isn't dead yet

I can still save her

I can save them, I can

I pinched my nose shut, and blood pooled in my mouth.

I can do one thing right

I can do SOMETHING right, I CAN

Focus on Emberion.

I'm really hungry...

THERE IS NO MORE SAM GO SAVE EMBERION

I barely registered that I was doing what I was doing- that I was even doing anything at all.

It was muscle memory; though all of the nerves in my body were fried and my face and hands were chalk-white from stealing Sam's pain.

I waited for pain to transfer, from Emberion who gave me the only pain medicine I could afford when I was still young, when I had been beaten to a broken-nosed, bloody-mouthed child slave from the Lowdown, one reduced to a defective and fragmented pulp... by what Ember called a miserable child pimp.

Ember couldn't stand me in pain; he never let me go home with with a bloody nose; he'd wrap my arms and back in an actual bandage, and made sure I could actually walk before letting me out of his sight. I know this because that is how he treated me, and none of the many favors that I ever did for him were forced or sexual, because he knew how to be a friend to me.

And that is more- much more- than what my "family" could say.

HE FED ME MORE THAN MY FAMILY DID.

Years ago, he'd call me the "little mouse that crawled out of the sewers." Except in a genuinely sweet, wholesome, horse-y way. When I began working investigation, he started to call me something else; he started to call me what Lyca called me; he called me what Sam called me in her final moments: Morphine.

What she called me in her final moments-

But for me, at twelve, morphine wasn't me. It was him.

And then suddenly I wasn't done.

I wanted Jeff alive, cut off limb by limb, tied to a stake; he deserved to be injected alive with bloodkill into every inch, every square centimeter of his distorted-corrupted-DEPRAVED-degraded BROKEN brain and nonexistent heart and body-

No, no, it didn't matter; God and karma and the universe could handle that. It then struck me that I was feeling no additional pain.

I looked down, and blinked, and blinked, to triple-check that my hands were still on Myelantic's white coat.

No additional pain.

For just a second I glanced once more at Sam's body, then focused my attention back to Ember- but just like Skittles, and just like Crayon, it was all gone before I could take it from him.

No pain. He was gone.

He was gone and I COULDN'T EVEN STEAL THE PAIN OFF HIM BEFORE he was GONE.

Fuck's sake do ONE FUCKING THING right Midnight

I can still save her

The echoes in my head, the echoes in my head...

Do you hear the sounds around me?

Focus on Emberion.

Save who? Focus where?

There is NO EMBERION

Another gigantic shard fell from the sky in front of us; I shielded my eyes from more flying confetti; from circular flashes of blinding white light; from more explosions.

Do ONE THING right Midnight

When did death and soullessness ever look so beautiful, like a rock concert from thousands of years ago shown on the school library television screen?

DO ONE FUCKING THING RIGHT

From an enormous shelf, a residual intermittent orbiplosion pushed the heavy glass aquarium of pseudosaltwater, glowing clownfish, shining pure-white angelfish, and Aequorea Forskalea down onto the marble tiles. I can still remember how the blood and the water mixed puddles on the floor.

You can't do anything right

A flash of blue light, sparks, and glass- whatever illuminated the tank. Caleb Samuel was screaming.

You can't do ANYTHING right

I thought I heard Tiana's moans of pain.

Good, I thought. Tiana Ambervi is alive.

But she certainly wasn't the one bringing this HAUS DOWN!!!

Another explosion turned half the dark marble replica of Auschwitz II-Birkenau into rubble, ash, fire, and crushed powder.

It also took three of Emberion Myelantic's four horse legs with it, and I thought maybe, we might keep get to keep two, because one landed straight onto my face and into my arms. Did you know that Josef Rudolf Mengele's birthday was not that different from Kaylee and I's birthdays? Yup, same month, only four days apart. History lesson for you.

I screamed a young boy's scream (or a young girl's scream, or whatever the spectrum is nowadays, it almost feels hard for me to keep up sometimes, or a young nonbinary person's scream- you get the point, right? I apologize), impossibly high; I should have recorded it for a song for personal record purposes; giant shards still falling above us started to shatter only half of the way down.

Well at least maybe that saved someone.

I need to get the miracle apples I OWE him from Vicinity Eight

But... how

I heaved again.

If there is NO EMBERION

There is NO MORE EMBERION

And that... was when I lost my mind.

For the five hundredth time.

I didn't feel that the shaking had stopped- Kaylee was then tying my arms with stielvine, or she was trying to- because then I attempted my second suicide attempt of that day. I pushed Kaylee roughly away from me, grabbed the nearest sharp object- the one knife I had always, always saved for myself. With my right hand and using even the two broken, mis-angled and mis-aligned fingers on it, I gripped the knife hard, as hard as I clutched Sam Shilberg's hand when she died- only this time the hand was not in her hand but on the left of my throat.

The blade had just buried itself into my skin when the flashing, blazing fire of orange blinded me- making me step back a moment, making me drop my knife.

"No," I whispered.

My knife. My knife, please.

I found it in the blood and glass, picked it up, and then a whipping long dark green vine of Kaylee Davenport's whipped it off of my hand again.

"No," I said again. "No," I said, again... and again. "My knife," I whispered to no one, "Please."

I picked it up a third time when Lyca punched it straight out of my hand- effectively breaking two more of the fingers on it- and she caught it in midair, and then snapped it in two.

I had nothing left in me; I couldn't scream.

So instead I just sat on the floor and sobbed.

Anthony David put his warm red mantle to me. It was so funny; it was almost familiar- it had felt almost like he had wrapped it around me a hundred times before. It was like I knew how it felt already and I really liked it- as Elyza Cobb froze the dangling broken fingers, perhaps, to save them from coming off entirely. Lyca returned to work, smashing and breaking down the rest of the capsule- steering clear of the toxic, ugly, poison smoke, but failing anyway as a mere wisp of the smoke-like poison landed onto her arm and her skin immediately turned blue and purple; the holes and the ooze and the tentacles.

After Liquid Nitrogen froze up my broken fingers, she waited graciously for Lyca to come hold me in place, for Kaylee to wrap all of us in healervine while she gave everyone a completely tasteless avocado. Caleb Samuel was probably dying- but I felt like there was nothing in me that cared. He sounded to me like a psychopath, anyway. Imagine being so big and strong and powerful and using all of it only to hurt other people. I'm not saying that was what he was. He just gave me that vibe, a little.

James stood alone across from us as Kaylee and Elyza tried to nurse the awful, overly disgusting wounds caused by the smoke- those inflicted heavily on Caleb. James stood in front of his older brother's snapped, stabbed, decapitated body.

Decapitated.

Just like that fourteen-year-old girl.

I wondered if Belinda had answers. Maybe. Because this time, it was different.

Because although I was a marshmallow, she was now going to be talking to a killer.

--ovw--