The next day comes, and Reed is peppy since it's now the weekend and he can play his fighting games unimpeded—at least until Mabel tells him to do his homework. Niel will probably end up joining him later. Illia is planning on going for a walk with Mabel and Gabriel when Dwayne arrives now that the weather is no longer horrible. Niel will probably go with them as well. As for Lydia, nobody knows what she plans on doing today, and that likely includes her as well. Before Niel engages in any activity today, he wants to have a private talk with Dwayne about Lydia's family, and thankfully, he walks in through the door just before noon.

Rather than jump on him right away, Niel waits for a few minutes so Dwayne can situate himself. Afterward, Niel requests to speak with Dwayne privately once he's ready, and the two enter the private room and take a seat.

"So what is it you want to talk to me about?" Dwayne asks, his large stature hardly fitting in the smaller chair across the desk.

"Lydia. Or rather, her parents." Niel is almost afraid to say this. Maybe he should have asked Lydia more questions first, instead of jumping the gun and going to a third party so soon. "I want to know more about what happened before she came here."

"Oh? If you don't mind me asking, why is that?"

Niel realizes he hadn't thought this far ahead. He wants to know more, but why exactly? Is it just simple curiosity? Or is it that unconscious thought of redemption pulling him along?

"I..." he says to buy his thoughts more time to shape. "I asked her why she was so upset lately, and she told me about what her parents did, and how you helped her back on her feet. I want to help her, but I don't know enough to do anything."

Dwayne has a firm look in his eye, like Niel has passed some kind of test, though not with flying colours.

"That's where you're wrong, first and foremost," Dwayne says. "You're never unable to do anything. Lydia trusted you enough to open up and vent; that's already something you've done to help, even if it seems small." The firm look from before changes to reminiscence. "She spoke very negatively of her parents, correct?"

"Correct."

"I assumed so. The truth is, despite what she believes, her parents do care about her and her brother. That's why they began stealing in the first place: to support them. Miriam and Levi told me that it was originally supposed to be one score—just something to get them on their feet so they could go straight, but then one became two, and two became three, and they became entranced by the money and couldn't leave the lifestyle behind. And that's when the consequences caught up with them."

"So, why did Lydia say her parents hated them?"

"Grief. If her parents never committed the crimes they did, the police wouldn't have been looking for them, and if they didn't run from the police, then Aaron would still be alive today. She held onto this so tightly in her grief that she became disillusioned by it, and along with her other grievances towards her parents, she convinced herself that they never cared about her or Aaron in the first place."

"If you know this, then why not tell her?"

"I have, along with Mabel and Gabriel. The problem is, she's so resolute in her belief that she vehemently rejects any and all attempts made to convince her otherwise."

If this is the case, then Niel made the right move by talking with Dwayne. Lydia would have never told him this.

"Is there anything else you would like to know?" Dwayne asks.

"Nothing for now."

"Okay. One last word of advice before we go, then," Dwayne says as he pulls himself out of the undersized chair. Niel follows suit. "Lydia's parents hurt others, and they deserve their time in prison, but it's okay to feel bad for someone while also condemning what they've done. It could be good or bad, but there's always a reason behind someone's actions. It's up to you to decide if the reason can justify the action, and to what extent. The world isn't black and white, after all."

The message resonates with Niel somewhat. They leave the room and Dwayne reconnects with the other two adults while Niel instinctively goes to his room to ponder. If Lydia has her parent's intentions wrong, then the next step would be to talk to her about it, right? She told him a lot so far, but maybe she has more to say. He approaches her room door and knocks, and he can hear her audibly groan inside as she gets up to answer.

"What is it?" she growls annoyedly as she pokes her head around the door.

"Can we talk for a bit?" Niel asks. He makes an effort to sound more polite than usual, but it doesn't exactly sound that way.

"Again? ...Fine." Lydia opens her door fully and steps back so Niel can enter, and then shuts the door behind him. On her desk are an open magazine, some open make-up bottles, and a few used wipes matching the colours in the bottles. She sits back down in front of her desk while he stands in the middle of the room. "So what is it this time?"

"Your parents again," Niel says crudely. "I want to know more about what you think of them."

Lydia looks at him with skepticism. "Didn't you figure that out yesterday?"

"You told me a lot about everything yesterday, but I want to hear more about your parents in particular... since they've been troubling you recently."

"So you want me to vent?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"You suppose?" Lydia sighs. "Fine. They left me and Aaron on our own all the time so they could go out and steal. Is that good enough?"

"But why did they?"

Bewilderment hits Lydia for a moment. "Why? Because they're greedy assholes. Why else?"

"Did they ever tell you what they were doing with all of the money they stole?"

"No, of course not." She's confused by where this questioning is going, but then that confusion turns to mistrust as she believes she catches on. "You're not trying to convince me that they're worth a damn, right?"

"I just want to hear your side."

"Well, my side is the only side. They're snakes that only cared about themselves."

"But what if—"

"There's no 'what if'! You weren't there! They never have a damn about us, and Aaron is dead because of them!" Lydia rockets out of her chair so aggressively that Niel has to catch it with his Dust before it hits the floor. "You saying you just want to hear my side is bullshit! You're just here to convince me to give those assholes another chance! Get out!"

Lydia screams in anger as she physically shoves him toward the door. Niel tries to hold his ground so he can convince her otherwise, but coupled with his prior experiences, this aggression quickly erodes the patience that he had been slowly cultivating during his time here, and he snaps as well. Darkness invades his bloodstream as his own rage clouds his judgment.

"At least you have a family to abandon," Niel seethes as a parting shot.

"GET OUT!!"

Lydia forms a tidal wave out of thin air with a loud crack and smashes it into Niel, throwing him completely out of her room before slamming the door and locking it with a wall of ice. Niel can hear everyone around the house reacting, so before he's found drenched on the floor, he races upstairs in Shadow Dive to his room high on adrenaline and slips out of the window. He needs to leave to cool his head.

He's not safe in the city with his anger at a fever pitch, so he careens toward the forest with a phantom's haste. Once he's safely wrapped in a veil of trees, he uncloaks and impatiently scrapes away as much water as he can off of his body and out of his clothes. Lydia vehemently rejects all notion of her parents being anything less than monsters, but this was such an extreme reaction that Niel can't help but let the anger from the confrontation boil in his knuckles, and he slugs a tree to vent his frustration. So much force ends up being put behind the punch that his hand becomes buried wrist-deep in the trunk—but when the leaves shower down and he learns how much effort he needs to give to pull his fist free, does he have a moment of sobriety.

This is exactly what he's scared of.

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As he stares fearfully at the palms of his own hands, the Warden's Key flashes brightly from his chest, and Niel realizes that he hadn't tucked it under his shirt yet. He finds that his hands are trembling as he hides the pendant. The forest around him is unfamiliar now. Niel clasps his head as he reaches for his phone to check the map, and he finds that Reed has sent him a text.

'Dude, where did you go? What the hell happened?' the message reads. Niel doesn't recall Reed saying the word 'dude' often. He goes to respond... but he closes the app instead. Niel doesn't even know why he did this, he just doesn't feel like talking now. Instead, he brings up the map and checks his location. He's fairly deep within the southern forest, but it won't be hard to find his way back. Along with that, something else catches his eye: the glade they found a week ago isn't very far away. Niel doesn't want to go home and face whatever the adults have to say yet, so he decides to go there for now.

The sky is still overcast and the ground is muddy in places, but at least it's not raining. He's barely drying thanks to the lingering humidity. His Dust may be precise, but it's not precise enough to pick up and move water molecules out from within clothing. At least he can use it as makeshift shoes to protect his mushy socks from the ground.

The clearing in the forest is exactly how they left it. The fallen logs haven't been moved, the tall oak tree stands strong, and the river and pond still flow. Though, none of this should be surprising as it has only been a week since he's been here last. Then again, a large storm just blew through, so maybe there should be some kind of change. Regardless of the state of the glade, Niel plants himself on one of the fallen logs.

He regrets how things have turned out. Lydia saying he was only there to convince her... She's not right, but he'd be lying if he said that possibility wasn't driving him to act in the first place. And at the end, he completely lost control of himself and resorted to pettiness. Losing control terrifies him. His weapons were words this time, but they may not be on the next, so he can't afford there to be a next time. He can't let the lab's teachings take control.

Not again.

Niel remembers that he still hasn't responded to Reed's text. He opens up his phone and tells Reed that he's at the glade. He gets a read receipt almost immediately, and a response shortly after.

'You should really come back. The adults aren't happy, but not angry. Just worried. I think.'

'What about Lydia?' Niel asks.

'She's still locked in her room. What happened?'

Niel becomes too absorbed in thought to answer. All this strife is because of her parents, but she refuses to see why they acted the way they did and thus treats them dishonestly. If she still hates them while also accepting the true reason why, then that's okay. But she doesn't, and now she's locking herself away. From where Niel stands, this problem will never be solved on its own, and her rage will never be abated.

A new resolve finds its way to the surface of his mind. If Lydia won't be convinced by their words, then he'll find evidence hard enough to break her false reality.

He's still wound up, but he decides to return home now that he has his thoughts in order. Mabel and Gabriel aren't happy about what he said and how he ran off, so they give him a stern warning to drop the topic of her parents. They try to scold Lydia as well, but she keeps her room locked down like a fortress. She remains in her room for most of the day, only coming out to eat—and being visibly irritated while doing so.

The rest of the day passes by with little happening, apart from Niel apologizing to Lydia for their confrontation, and her blatantly ignoring him doing so. While Niel wants to find evidence to prove her parents' intentions, he has no idea where to start. He won't get any leads from Lydia, not with how she pretends he doesn't exist. Mabel and Gabriel want him to stop talking about her parents, so he doubts they'll tell him anything. Reed wants to stay out of this mess. And Niel really doesn't want to snoop around Lydia's room.

Evening eventually falls over the home, but before Dwayne decides to return to his own, a certain Niel moping around the living room with a discontented expression catches his eye. It could just be that he's bummed about being scolded earlier, but based on how Niel tends to react, Dwayne's gut tells him this likely isn't the case. With a silent break among those in the living room, he decides to look further and summons Niel to talk privately again.

"You look lost tonight. What's on your mind?" Dwayne asks; a simple opener that allows Niel plenty of room to talk freely. On the contrary, Niel was nervous about being called in so suddenly, especially after what happened earlier today—and being told by everyone around him to abandon trying to help only convinces him to internalize his thoughts further. Niel looks down and tilts his head slightly, but ends up saying nothing.

"Is it about what happened today?" Dwayne continues when he gets no response. He needs to narrow down his search if he's going to get Niel talking. Niel tilts his head further down, leading Dwayne to believe he's on the right track. "Is it about Lydia?"

"...Yeah." The answer is short and quiet, but it's all Dwayne needs to hear.

"Are you still thinking of a way to help her?"

Niel's eyes quickly flick up to Dwayne's. "...Yeah," he repeats almost identically, just a little louder this time.

Dwayne empathizes with Niel, so instead of shutting him down immediately, he decides to let him say his piece. "What have you come up with?"

"I don't know," Niel responds tentatively. "I want to find evidence to prove Lydia wrong, but I don't know where to look."

Dwayne understands. He's reminded of when he was in Niel's shoes almost four years ago, looking for a way to help Lydia. Or, rather, he still is.

"Lydia's outburst today is very concerning to me," Dwayne muses. "She's been combative towards us before, and while you certainly didn't help in this situation, I've never seen her act this aggressively before." His eyes flash in recollection as he recalls how she treated Niel the day they first found him. "... Regarding her parents."

"I'd like to know something," Niel says softly. "Why did you help Lydia? Or, why did you help a family you didn't know until after their world crashed around them?"

Dwayne leans back in his chair as he organizes an answer. "We were strangers back then, but I couldn't turn away from a child suffering through the worst point in her life. Now, she's become a part of the family, and frankly, I can't stand to watch her live this lie. All I want is for her to abandon this delusion so she can grieve properly and move on from her anger, but I'm not sure how."

A part of the family. Niel wonders if that extends to him as well.

"And I assume that your reasoning for trying to help now is similar to mine."

Niel nods his head silently.

After a noise of acknowledgment, Dwayne writes down an address on a spare piece of paper and slides it across the table to Niel.

"It's late, and we all need some rest after what happened today. Come to my house tomorrow, and I'll share with you what we've tried," Dwayne says.

"Alright."

They both leave the private room after this, and Dwayne heads home while Niel gets ready for bed. He checks the address he was given and finds that Dwayne's house is only a single block away. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but he assumed Dwayne lived further out. Either way, this is the lead he was looking for. How far it will get him is left up in the air, especially with Dwayne wording it as 'what they've tried'. He'll just have to find out tomorrow.

>>>>>>

There's no school today since it's still the weekend, so Niel leaves for Dwayne's at noon. It's a mere ten-minute walk to his house, and when he gets there he double-checks the address to make sure he's where he needs to be. Dwayne's house is exactly what Niel expected it to be: a regular-looking two-floor suburban home with clean white siding, a spotless shingled roof, and a neat moderately sized front yard. It's obvious that Dwayne takes care of this place. Niel walks up to knock on the front door, and Dwayne opens it in short order.

"Good afternoon," Dwayne greets as he invites Niel inside.

"Good afternoon," Niel echoes. He steps into the porch and takes his shoes off, and another face comes to greet him.

"Hello. You must be Niel," the woman hails. She has lighter skin like Dwayne and hair that falls no further than her shoulders, and while she's a full head shorter than him, she nearly matches him in bulk.

"This is my wife, Phoebe," Dwayne introduces. Niel returns the greeting.

"While Dwayne runs the home you're at, I manage the hospital further in the city," Phoebe explains. Her accent is strong and unknown to Niel. "And when you guys are out on summer break, you'll be coming to do some volunteer hospital work!"

"We'll explain what all of that is when the time comes, so don't worry about it for now," Dwayne says as soon as he sees Niel's confused expression. "For now, let's go to my office."

Dwayne and Pheobe lead Niel upstairs to a neatly organized room with bookshelves and filing cabinets lining the back wall, a tall potted plant in the corner, and a large wooden desk in the centre. Dwayne sorts through one of the metal cabinets and selects a yellow folder housing various papers.

"This is all of what we've shown Lydia," Dwayne says as he places the folder on the desk. Niel opens it and sorts through the contents, finding drawings and paintings made by a child, family photos of the Brookes, and various other school projects and pictures. In one photo, a boy Niel assumes is Aaron is standing next to a young Lydia, who is clutching a stuffed pink rabbit in her arms. They look alike in nearly every photo they're together in.

"How did you get all of this?" Niel asks.

"Levi and Miriam. They gave us this so we could try talking Lydia down, but she didn't listen at all..." Dwayne clarifies solemnly. "There isn't much left we can use, as most of their belongings were confiscated due to being bought with dirty or laundered money."

"Some sad, too," Phoebe chimes in. "Little girl lost her brother, both her parents were arrested, and then she lost her house and just about everything else she owned. What a sin."

"Lydia used to love her stuffed animals, but she had them all taken from her. I don't know why the judge thought that needed to happen. All she was left with was a beauty magazine, and she ended up switching from stuffed animals to make-up."

Niel recalls how he found Lydia's room to be surprisingly empty. He looks further through the folder and finds a sticky note stuck to the back. 'Self Shelf' is written in blue ink, with 'B-17' written just below.

"What is this?" Niel questions.

"That's the storage facility where the stuff they were allowed to keep was sent to. It's mostly old clothes and some other things; nothing we figured would mean anything to Lydia," Dwayne explains.

Niel punches in the facility on his map and finds it on the west side of the city, and that's when an idea forms. He types 'B17' next to the facility's name and turns his phone off.

"So, you showed everything in this folder to Lydia, right?" Niels asks for reconfirmation.

"Yes, across the years she spent at the home. She found ways to explain away most of it and ignored what she couldn't, regardless of who did the talking," Dwayne says. "With what you've learned from her so far, do you have any ideas on how you could reason with her?"

Niel didn't think he would become more clueless after viewing the evidence Dwayne and the others had tried using, but he genuinely doesn't know how else to approach this. He spitballs ideas based on what catches his eye, but every single idea is shot down due to them already trying it before. Niel has no choice but to concede defeat.

With nothing left to be shown or help with, Niel decides to return home. Or, that's what he tells Dwayne. If that folder is a path to repeating dead ends, then Niel will brave the undergrowth. He makes his way northwest to the only idea any of them have left: the storage facility.