Arms resting carefully on his laps, Melmarc sat and listened. Ms. Jennifer Baldur, because for some reason she seemed quite attentive to her title, was a woman in her thirties with a degree in not just psychology but Gifted psychology. Melmarc knew of the degree but also knew that its study was rare, on account of the Gifted making up a very minute percent of the population and thinking they were too strong to need any help.
She did her best to introduce herself as harmlessly as possible after taking a moment to use the restroom in the office. She had a [Scout] class but had always been more interested in the working mind of a human being. At one point, she’d joked about how God, singular, had played a joke on her and given her a class that had nothing to do with her passion.
Once upon a time, Melmarc would not have focused on the concept of God giving her a class. While the catholic church did not explicitly—or implicitly for that matter—teach it, there were Christians who believed that being Gifted was somehow a blessing of God. Then there were other religions that explicitly taught it as a blessing of God.
However, what had made him pick it out was his knew knowledge. Knowing that there were gods out there, actual gods like the ones served in myth made him all the more aware of the concepts of deity. Knowing that there was a portal to a world filled with angels was another thing.
Ark cocked his head to the side when she mentioned her class. “You seem weak for a [Scout].”
Melmarc fought the urge to sigh. Ark did not like the woman in any way, and all she’d done was eavesdrop on them. To a certain extent, Melmarc could understand it.
Ms. Jennifer shrugged. “Well, I never took the time out to grow my class.”
Ark looked down at his fingers, using them to count when Melmarc knew perfectly well that his mathematical skills were so good that sometimes it took people by surprise.
“That’s at least twelve years of your life with your class,” he said, feigning surprise. “And you never once tried to grow it?”
Ms. Jennifer crossed her legs, her black pants loose enough to move with the action as if flickered by the wind. Melmarc did not smell the piss he had smelled earlier.
Then the woman shrugged. “Contrary to what a lot of people believe at your age, your Gift is not everything.” She gave them a kind smile. “You can be whatever you want without having your class define you.”
Melmarc was a little intrigued to find no sign of dissonance. He had a feeling it was because she had, quite literally, made something of herself without her class.
Ark leaned forward. “That means that at our age you also thought you couldn’t be anything outside of your class.”
The woman bobbed her head from side to side. Her hair moved with the action, a kind bob that came down to barely touch her shoulders. “I cannot say that I was not stricken with grief by my class. I almost did not continue my passion. I almost just gave up on it and just decided to chase being a great [Scout].”
Ark’s brows furrowed a bit in curiosity. She had his interest now. But it was not in the way of a troublesome child wanting guidance, more in the way of a person finding a story interesting and wanting to see where it went.
“Then your parents convinced you that you can be whatever you want to be?” Ark asked.
The woman chuckled a little, almost as if at herself. “Wouldn’t that make them the parents of the year,” she said sarcastically. “But no, that’s not what happened.”
“Oh.” Ark paused. “Then what happened?”
“My guidance counsellor back in high school,” she answered. “He told me that I could be anything I put my mind to. Then he gave me examples of successful people who hadn’t met their success through their class.”
Dissonant.
Melmarc frowned. He did not like it when people lied to Ark. “Ms. Jennifer.”
Her gaze moved over to him.
“Uh oh,” Ark smirked before she could talk, “someone messed up.”
Ms. Jennifer’s gaze turned confused for only a minute before refocusing on Melmarc. “Yes, Marc. Can I call you Marc?”
“You may,” he answered. “But you have lied to us for the first time. You have two more chances to lie to us, then my brother and I will stop talking until our mandatory school session is over.”
She blinked. “I did not—”
“Careful,” Ark interrupted her. “My brother is not always the kindest. You finish that statement and he’ll count it as a lie.”
There was no dissonance.
Ms. Jennifer said nothing for a moment. Her eyes moved from Melmarc to Ark and back. She seemed to be thinking, to be considering. Melmarc knew the look.
She adjusted on her seat, re-crossed her legs. “Would you say learning how to spot what you believe is a lie is a skill you have built growing up or a skill of your class?”
Melmarc knew the answer to that quite easily.
“We would say that we are here for therapy,” Ark interrupted, “not to be grilled on our skills and classes, which,” he raised a hand, “mind you, I think should be against school policy.”
Her attention moved over to Ark gracefully, as if she was finally finding her footing and her position above them.
“Has your instinct to protect your brother always been there,” she said, “or is it something born of a specific event?”
Melmarc took note of that, too. It was the thing with therapy. Usually when having therapy with a child, he had learnt that therapists tended to come at them from a place of kindness and gentleness. They lured you into a false sense of security, then made you comfortable talking about the things that you would most usually not talk about.
Ms. Jennifer was not being gentle or kind. She was being, dare he say, confrontational. She was treating him as if he was a hostile adult, challenging him.
You guys did make her piss herself, he reminded himself. Can’t be surprised if she doesn’t want to treat you like kids anymore.
“I would say that I defend my younger brother because I’m supposed to,” Ark answered simply, then he tilted his head, defiant as well. “Or did you not have siblings who loved you?”
“I had siblings,” she said, nonchalant. “Still do, actually. And we are as close as adult siblings can be. But that’s not why we’re here.”
Melmarc noted that, too. It was her nonchalance, it was as real as it was fake. However, what truly had his attention was that it was intentional. She was showing Ark that her personal life was not something that bothered her. And this was one of the reasons Ark was better with people than he was.
All his life, for as long as he could remember, Melmarc had always tried to decipher people, to figure them out. And he’d learnt long ago that everyone had an angle. It was not an evil angle or a malicious one, just an angle. They smiled sometimes because they wanted you to see them smile. They twirled their hair a certain way because they wanted you to see them do it.
His problem was in not understanding why while growing up. It was not that everyone did it, but he’d seen people do it often enough that it became a thing of worry for him. Every time a person did something, he wondered why. Caution left him too cautious, so he hesitated to show a lot because if he could see it, then he could only imagine how much those who did it saw, and just how better at understanding these things they were at it.
As for Ark, he worked differently. It was not that he could not see it, it was that he did not care. Of everybody Melmarc had ever come across or known who played an angle with the gestures they showed and words they said, Ark was definitely up there in prowess. Ark could a grandmother her own son if he wanted to. When Ark wanted to lie, he did it so well.
“So,” Ms. Jennifer said, “why don’t we handle the reason we are here.” She looked between them. “Would that be alright as long as I don’t lie to you?”
Ark shrugged. “We guess.”
“Then we’ll start simple,” she said, her countenance switching so that she looked down at her writing pad. “Are there any bruises you have that I currently can’t see?”
Her head came up and she looked at the two of them.
Ark nodded. “Yes. I’ve got at least three. They are healing quite well.”
She nodded then looked at Melmarc. “What about you, Marc?”
“A few,” he answered honestly. “But I don’t know how many.”
“Would you say that there are more than three?”
“Yes.”
Ms. Jennifer nodded, then wrote something down on her note pad. “As long as you continue to receive the medical attention you require, you’ll be fine.” She didn’t look up from the pad as she wrote. “I have been informed that the school has put measures in place to ensure that you are safer now than you were before this whole thing happened.” She paused, frowned a little. “It’s doing it’s best to make sure that the school is safer, that the students are safer.”
“And the members of staff?” Melmarc asked.
Now she looked up from her note pad. “They are doing the best they can for the members of staff. But some of us are here because we can take care of ourselves and know that the lives of the children are more important than ours.”
“Whoa,” Ark breathed. “That’s hardcore.”
Dissonance. Melmarc fought back a grimace. It was not in Ark’s nature to lie so blatantly, especially around him. Ark’s arm touched his.
“Sorry about that,” Ark apologized even though he knew that lying didn’t cause Melmarc any discomfort. He simply knew that Melmarc didn’t like it.
“Do you doubt the staff and school’s ability to keep you safe?” Ms. Jennifer asked, her tone curious.
“Not entirely.”
“I see.” She looked thoughtful. A moment later, she looked around the room they were in. “What about right now?” she asked. “Right here. Do you feel safe?”
Melmarc looked around the room.
He knew that was not specifically what she was talking about, but he could not help but take in the room. The chair he was sitting in had one arm slightly lower than the other. It was imperceptible, ignorable if he was not focusing on it. On the table that she sat behind was a box of tissues. Interestingly enough, it was not some cheap tissue, with an ocean blue box it looked like the expensive kind.
Did she pick blue because we are boys or is it just blue? he wondered. He wasn’t sure which answer would be better, a yes or a no.
Then there was clock behind him. He couldn’t see it right now, but it was there. He had seen it when he’d entered. He wondered if that was on purpose, the clock kept behind the patients so that they could not see the time, so that they could not count the time. But the therapist could see it. His brows furrowed at the thought, and he moved his attention from the room for a moment to the woman.
Is it intentional? he asked himself, then he caught it. It was only for a moment, a minute fraction of a second, but he caught her eyes flick up very quickly to the clock and back.
At least he could confirm that she was in fact making use of the clock.
Then there was the smell of perfume. Her perfume. It was a gentle tickle in his nostril, very subtle yet there. Feminine.
He would’ve breathed it in for specificity, but he had never been a fan of perfumes. Much unlike Ark.
Then there was—
“Alright, alright,” Ark sighed. “She didn’t mean it that precisely.”
Melmarc looked at Ark and smiled a little at being caught.
Ark gestured with his hands. “She means do we feel safe. It’s more about our feelings than actually being safe.” He turned to her almost looking apologetic. “Obviously, if you meant actual safety, there are too many ways to get into this room and not enough ways to get out. As for feeling safe, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?” she asked, curious.
“Because we can make anywhere as safe as we want it to be whenever we want it to be,” Ark answered.
Melmarc caught on to that, remembering that all they had to do was pick a place to make their existential home and nothing would be able to get to them.
“Does that apply everywhere or just here?” she asked, already writing more things down. “Can you make anywhere in the school safe?”
Ark shrugged. “I would think so.”
“How about this?” She adjusted in her seat. “Where would you say is the place you feel safest in the school?”
This was the reason therapy worked on Ark. Melmarc knew that a good therapist learnt about a person even in their silence, in the questions they choose to answer as much as the ones they choose not to answer, but he figured it was easier to understand a person when they had a lot to say. Unlike Ark who was more than happy to have a chat, he only spoke when he believed he should speak.
Ark looked at Melmarc. “Where would you say you feel safest?” he asked, genuinely interested.
Melmarc didn’t have to think about it. “As long as you are present…” Then I know I’m not going to kill anybody.
Ark cocked a brow at that, intrigued and with a very annoying older brother joke poised on his lips that Melmarc just knew he really wanted to crack.
“And you?” Ms. Jennifer asked, before Ark could crack whatever joke he wanted to.
Ark paused, looked at her, then he shrugged. “Anywhere a person isn’t getting on Mel’s nerves.”
“You feel safest when your brother isn’t angry?” she asked, zeroing in on it. “Why is that?”
“Because it is always a bad idea to get on my younger brother’s nerves,” Ark said, there was a tone of warning in his voice.
“And why is that?”
Ark stopped, then settled back into his chair. “Because angering Mel is a quick way to get my fist in your face.”
“And how is that safe?”
Ark opened his mouth to answer but Melmarc beat him to it. “Because it is safer for Ark to hit a person than for me to hit a person.”
The room fell silent for a moment and Ms. Jennifer looked as if the answer was what she had been waiting for.
“Does he have better restraint than you do?”
“I’m more comfortable in the chaos,” Ark answered.
It was true, but it wasn’t the truth. That was the thing about Ark and his ability to lie. His brain worked faster than a clock when picking out which truth to offer. The best lies, after all, were lies that were not lies. They just weren’t the truth.
“And would you agree?” Ms. Jennifer asked him.
Melmarc shrugged. The truth was not about restraint. Melmarc believed he had more restraint than Ark, the problem was that Ark, these days, possessed far more mercy than he did.
“Would it be safe to say this?” She placed her pen on the table. “You brothers only feel safe in each other’s presence.”
“I would say so,” Melmarc agreed.
“Then that leads me to the next question.” She dropped the notepad on the table. “When you disappeared, did the both of you end up in the same place?”
<>
Melmarc shifted his attention to his mind. Veebee, you good?
<>
What are you doing?
“When we disappeared?” Ark asked Ms. Jennifer, his tone sharp.
<> Veebee answered. <>
At the same time, Jennifer assumed a confident posture. “We have an eyewitness, Ark.” Melmarc’s grip on the arm rest tightened. Ms. Jennifer Baldur was getting too comfortable. In her comfort, she was getting bold. “An eyewitness who says that they saw you entering a portal. The question is how you got out.”
Dissonant
…
Veebee stood in front of a building. It stood in the blind spot of every eye present. For now, however, there were only four eyes present. It had lived long enough to know what a gun looked like and watched the man and woman standing in front of the door with guns in their hands.
Both people were unimportant, and so were the guns in their hands. What was important was the color of the building, the black stains on white walls. What was more important was that Veebee could not simply exist within the building.
Something had made a domain for itself in its owner’s world.
<>
Veebee did not like that at all.