“I miss the portals.”
And that’s my cue, Jennifer thought, moving to the door.
“Yeah,” she heard Melmarc answer before taking the door knob in her hand and turning it.
When she walked in, her entrance was heralded by the sound of her heels clicking against the tiled floor. She wore heels like this intentionally. Not only did they make her feel sexy and a little powerful while making her ass look bigger, which she definitely needed considering she was looking to catch a man’s eye in this big school, they also made sure that she didn’t have to go through the ordeal of dealing with startling people.
So when she walked in and the brothers fell silent, she knew that if they had not heard the door, then they were certainly hearing her approach.
Her steps were clear and controlled. She walked with purpose. She’d learned it in school. As a therapist, she was supposed to walk with purpose, it gave people confidence, made them believe that she knew what she was doing even if she did not. However, she needed to be careful of the confidence that came with it. Too much confidence and among children it could easily look as if she walked with command. Such a misunderstanding as not a good thing when dealing with children that could potentially be rebellious. And from what she knew about Gifted children psychology, rebellion was most often their first instinct based problem.
When she got to the table in front of them, Jennifer turned and faced both brothers. They were young, even if larger than their peers. The older, Ark, sat with a certain look on his face that she could not place. It was almost as if he was trying to figure out his own emotions. He was probably a thinker. Melmarc, the younger, was simply looking at her as if he had no opinion on her presence or even the conversation they had just been having.
“Good day, Lockwoods,” she greeted., hoping she was doing a good voice as presenting herself as a friend, a person who was on their side and not on the school’s side. She needed to look trustworthy if she wanted them to trust her, after all.
Her hand twitched and she fought the urge to adjust her glasses on her face since she knew they were not sliding down or misaligned.
She noticed the moment she’d messed up. The older brother rolled his eyes at the sound of her voice. He was either smart and observant, or this was not his first time in therapy. The problem with the brothers was that unlike most of the students of Fallen High that she had dealt with, his file from his previous school or schools and his currently updated behavioral file in Fallen High did not match.
Their old schools said that Melmarc was the well behaved student who listened and obeyed while Ark was the rebel, doing whatever he wanted and getting into different kinds of trouble. Apparently, Melmarc made it his duty to keep Ark in check to some degree. The problem was that the reverse was the case in Fallen High. While Ark remained the eccentric of the two brothers, Melmarc was proving to be the troublesome brother, starting from his spar with Devin in their admission test to his portal issue then what he had done to Sanders only a few days ago. In each situation, Ark had been to some degree, the reasonable one, or at least the one not getting into trouble.
Melmarc was the one who answered for both brothers. “Good day, ma’am.”
Ma’am, she noted, children who believed that they were usually better behaved despite the troubles they got into were often more polite. They aren’t here because they did anything wrong.
It was a reminder she needed because every talk about the Lockwood brothers always sounded as if someone was just waiting for the second shoe to drop.
“You’re late,” Ark said, unimpressed.
Jennifer grinned. “Am I?”
Ark checked his watch. “Our session started half an hour ago.”
“And yet, it also began half an hour ago.” She folded her arms over her breasts. It was not her preferred method of folding her arms. Usually, she did it under her breasts, but that always made them pop, and the last thing she wanted was to stir the bodies of young children in need of therapy—or any child at all. But that was unimportant right now. “Now, tell me about this portal you miss.”
Something in the boy’s gaze shifted. It was as if he had decided on an emotion. He had decided that he did not like her, and that was definitely not a good thing. It would only serve to make their sessions more difficult.
“And,” he said, sounding careful and intentional, as if testing her, “just how much did you hear.”
She shrugged, affecting nonchalance. Perhaps he was testing her truthfulness. In this case, the truth was not what mattered, what mattered was what she could make him believe. “Enough to know—”
Everything else happened in a blur. The one thing she could remember was the older brother calling her a bitch, and deciding she would need to teach the child that respect for their elders and those in position of authority was necessary when the world tilted around her.
She fell backwards, pushed as Ark vanished from his seat, gone faster than she could blink. Before she knew it, she was almost pressed against the table by a firm hand.
“Stand down, Ark.” Melmarc’s voice was clear yet somehow tired.
Her mind slotted the tone with which he’d spoken. It was something authoritative, like a commanding officer to their subordinate. Even as he spoke, he did not look at her. He kept his attention on Ark. Behind him, she could not read the boy’s expression, but she could read Ark’s, and it terrified her.
All she could see in the boy’s eyes were his decision—his decision to kill her. Quick and painless was unimportant. Slow and painful was unimportant. All he cared about was making sure that she was dead. To him, while he was angry, killing her was necessary.
Then her eyes moved slightly, as if to confirm it. There, she saw the fire in his hand. It burned black yet bright, it was like a shadow seeking to consume all the light. It burned so bright that she knew it would consume her without wasting any piece of her.
It terrified her, bothered her that not only was a child so young willing to kill so precisely, but he was also capable of it. She was Gifted with a combat class but still knew that she paled.
“She was eavesdropping,” Ark said. Even in his anger, he was not arguing with his younger brother, he was explaining.
Melmarc shook his head very slowly. “Nobody dies today.”
Jennifer’s eyes widened in horror.
Nobody dies today?
That implied that between both brothers, someone had died before. She felt her bladder threaten to give out, but it did not. Breath held, all she could do was pray that this was all it would be. She had seen her fair share of hazards and she knew that all this would do was educate her on how to handle the brothers going forward.
And, as she waited through Melmarc’s silence, and Ark’s ticking jaw and his ever growing anger, she continued to remind herself that she would learn from this because it was what she was supposed to do. She would take her fear and hide it away because an adult was not supposed to be afraid of children. One could not save what they were afraid of.
When Ark spoke again, his anger had not subsided. “Why?” he all but spat.
Melmarc shrugged, unbothered, unfazed. “Because I said so, Ark.” He leaned forward a little, almost as if trying to figure out if he was about to be disobeyed. “Stand down, and I’ll sort this out.”
There was another moment of silence where Jennifer knew that her life hung in the balance. For all her combat class, she had not grown or mastered it because she had been too obsessed with becoming an amazing therapist and wallowing in the disappointment of gaining a combat class instead of a class more fitting to her psychological inclination. So, she was an A-rank [Scout] who could not fight. An A-rank [Scout] who used her abilities to observe her clients.
It was a while before Ark finally listened. She watched the darkness—because that was all she could describe it as—dissipate from his hand, dying out.
Then he took a step back, displeased. He did not sit down.
His brother must’ve noticed the implication of it because he said, “Sit.”
“This is unfair,” Ark complained.
Melmarc tilted his head slightly, his hand still pinning Jennifer back. “Ark,” he said firmly. “Sit.”
Ark obeyed with a frown. He sat down and folded his arms like a petulant child just denied what he wanted.
Only when he was seated did Melmarc remove his hand from Jennifer’s shoulder. Jennifer took the momentary chance to stand up to her full height, checking on her legs through the whole thing. She knew enough about fear to know that a person could be so terrified that their legs would not move properly.
Her legs were close enough to that stage, but sheer will and audacity kept them standing firm as she stood at her full height, only managing to come up an inch above Melmarc’s shoulders.
Melmarc looked down at her while standing enough to not be in her personal space. He looked down at her with something polite in his eyes. The whole thing was like a movie with two deranged brothers where only one had communication skills and it was not Ark.
“My apologies for the inconvenience,” Melmarc apologized, his tone calm, almost diplomatic. She wanted to open her mouth to say that it was alright when he added, “But you’re going to have to tell me everything that you heard.”
Oh.
The realization that she was wrong was… worrying.
It didn’t matter. All she had to do was compose herself. She was beginning to understand why the file on the brothers from their previous school and the one that Fallen High had were different. Ark didn’t like getting in trouble, Ark got into trouble because he was reckless and impulsive. It meant that Melmarc had to be the thoughtful one.
“Well—”
Her voice seized in her throat and she doubted the word had even come out when Melmarc stepped up to her, occupying her personal space. He towered over her, looked down and into her eyes.
“And please,” he said, his tone dead yet intent, “do not lie to me.”
The emptiness in the boy’s eyes told her a lot of things. Unfortunately, for everything it told her something else told her everything she needed to know.
She had just pissed herself.
Her hand reached behind her and grabbed the edge of the table a single moment before her legs gave out on her. She wobbled a little but managed to stay upright. If Melmarc Lockwood cared, he did not show it. His eyes remained dead and empty. Jennifer knew, in this moment, that the truth was more important than what he believed. Somehow, she did not doubt that he would know the difference between the truth and what was not the truth.
Realization hit her like a brick wall. Her life rested in the hands of Melmarc Lockwood.
How? She asked, horrified.
If she lied, one or both brothers would kill her. The consequences of civilization be damned, they would rip her life from her body and somehow believed that they would go on surviving whatever consequence came. In fact, it was as if they believed the consequence to be inconsequential.
She swallowed visibly while one brother waited in his chair and the other stood patiently.
“I,” she began, interrupted by another well needed gulp, “know that two of you have skills you believe are too dangerous to use on other people because it could kill them.”
Ark rolled his eyes.
“I know—” she continued, only for Melmarc to stop her with a shake of his head. “I swear I’m telling the truth,” she added hurriedly. “I—”
“I heard,” Melmarc said calmly. “I heard, not I know.”
Jennifer blinked. The semantics were important to the boy, and she would obey. “I heard you say that you have skills too dangerous to use.” Melmarc nodded, and she continued. “I heard that you think just being here, living here, is a handicap.”
Melmarc tilted his head to the side. “What else?”
“You miss portals.”
He nodded again. “What else?”
“Nothing else,” she blurted out quickly, knowing she was on thin ice. “I swear, that’s all I heard.”
It made her wonder what else they had talked about.
Melmarc’s brows furrowed. It was the slightest thing. It could’ve meant anything. And that she did not know what it meant and could not guess worried her greatly.
In the end, Ark sighed. “She telling the truth?”
“That’s a good question.” Melmarc stepped back, and Jennifer released a breath she had not known when she’d started holding. “I have the answer.”
Ark sighed again. This one was in exasperation and a little relief with a mix of displeasure. “So… nobody dies today.”
Melmarc nodded very slowly, then moved and sat down on his chair. Both brothers watched Jennifer even as she still struggled to stay standing. She would live. Her fate had been decided by two children in a room.
And they sat there, just sat there.
She understood it now. She understood something that all the others who had written the files on the children did not understand. They had probably not been alone in a room with the children. It was either that, or they had never found themselves in this kind of situation.
Both boys were equally dangerous. There was just a simple difference. Ark was emotional, and Melmarc had none.
The monster and the beast.
It was a concept that an old professor had told her once, specifically Professor Donovan, who had been forced to take his sabbatical after his psychological interview with Melmarc Lockwood.
The concept implied that the beast was a savage man who lived by his emotions. You were never safe around them, but you always knew when you were in danger. They were sporadic, acting on their instincts. They killed because certain emotions were moved and thus spurred them into doing—killing. They were only as true as their emotions. Often, they regretted only after the act had been performed. Mostly, they did not.
Then there was the monster. The monster was a different breed, a different kind of beast, so to speak. They walked, unmoved by their emotions, yet they were not good, erring more on the side of neutrality than good. For every good they displayed was not good but a show of benevolence. If offended, the beast could move in a fit of rage and slaughter their enemy, the monster had no such compulsion. They moved, not bound by emotion but by decisiveness. They did not act rashly. They weighed the actions of a person and decided on the consequences to be suffered. And then, only then, did they move. They killed because they had decided that you had to die. And where the beast could possess regret or even remorse in the aftermath, the monster had no such emotion.
In some cases, they reveled in it.
“But be careful,” she remembered Professor Donovan once saying, “lest you meet a monster that does not care. For he or she would not walk with mercy or benevolence in any hand.”
When Jennifer finally got her bearings, she hoped that the brothers in front of her would not realize that they’d made her piss herself.
Still, she watched them with the eyes of a therapist, watching and paying attention even in her fear. Ark’s foot was already beginning to tap. He was already rethinking. The certainty was still there, but this was the aftermath, this was the second guessing faze.
Her eyes moved over to Melmarc, and she found the boy watching her. He sat still, showing no signs. He was… unfazed.
“Have a seat, ma’am,” Melmarc said politely. And yet, there was something about him that remained empty, as if all of this was a waste of his time. As if it was all beneath him.
If it was out of place, Ark did not seem to think so.
The beast, she thought, watching Ark’s tapping foot. Then her eyes panned over to Melmarc’s unfazed posture. And the monster.
And somehow, she was supposed to make them fit and useful citizens in the world. And all without ending up dead.