"Are they...dead?" Athan asked, sounding like he wasn't sure which answer he wanted to hear.

"No, just sleeping. You weren't supposed to come here, Athan. I thought even you were smarter than that."

I'd come 'running' as soon as Athan sent Rito back without returning himself. Damn stupid scrawny legs didn't move right, and so I'd showed up late, but apparently still just in time. I'd always known it was a possibility he'd come here, but in my arrogance, I'd ruled it out. Too many bad memories, I'd thought.

Pfeh. Athan loved digging up bad memories. I was a moron.

"I had to see for myself. Was he really...did he…"

I advanced on Athan with my arm extended. He looked down at my palm and swallowed hard, and then closed his eyes. When my fingers touched his brow, we were connected, and through this, I showed him.

I was in the mind of his father. In the mind of everyone, really, but the father was the key point here. This was on my last trip here, when I'd come looking for something, anything, to take Athan's mind off his own suffering. I thought, maybe there was some piece of his old life that could still make him happy, could remind him that things weren't all shit all the time.

I really was too soft with him. But what could I do? His worries were my worries by proxy.

I'd ditched Rito because I didn't want her hare-braining up whatever I found out here, but I knew as soon as I drew close that there wasn't anything here for Athan.

His dad was pissed, about nothing, as always. The wife had bumped a chair or something, and he was shrewdly calculating if putting bruises on her face again would remind her not to do it anymore, or if he could get away with putting them somewhere less obvious. I'd say it made me sick, but honestly, this wasn't exactly a new low for a human mind for me. Definitely the type I'd scrub out without a second thought, but it was Athan's dad.

He opted for the face, and I drew in my connection from his mother after flinching from the blow once, my breath suddenly coming in ragged. Cowardly piece of shit of a man. There was nothing here for me, so I left, and just by luck would wind up running into those two classmates of Athan and find what I was looking for.

Athan reeled as I pulled away, leaving him with the memory. His face flushed red and his fists clenched and unclenched.

"I'd love to pop his head," I volunteered. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't want dibs."

"Cowardly piece of shit of a man," Athan echoed my last thoughts in the memory. "He deserves to die. How fucking could he." He glared at me darkly. "He did this to Lia?"

I nodded once and saw Athan's mind just about explode with restrained violence.

It wasn't...pleasant. Athan was hurting just thinking about it, and I didn't want him to do something he'd regret. I'd intended for him to go here to have a positive experience not...this. But killing could be cathartic, too, I knew. Just not exactly in line with how Athan operated.

"I owe it to Lia. I owe it to Mom," he said. "I can't let this keep happening."

"Your mom's messed up too, Athan," I warned him. "She's not staying through this because she's a sound person. If she could leave, she wouldn't. Not after Lia left. Your dad's all she's got left."

That took most of the fire out of him as he chewed on my words.

"Can you fix them?" he asked suddenly.

"Depends on what you mean by fix. I can fuck them up so that they look normal...but I know your opinion on enslaving people's minds. Are they better as zombies than broken people?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "They're not. But maybe she can be."

I grinned. I liked where this was going. This was just the right kind of sick to tickle my tastes.

"Leave her alone, but fix him. Do whatever you need to do...drill his head out and put whatever you need in there. Make it so he treats her right."

"He'll be worse than dead," I beamed at him. "This is beyond killing, it's cruel, you know that, right? He'll be trapped in there forever, watching and feeling himself be this entirely different person and never able to escape."

"He hit Lia," Athan said darkly, like that just explained everything. And given the boy's complex, yeah, I guess that did.

"Well, sounds like a fun day for me," I said, stalking into the yard to lay on the grass under an oak. "How often do I get to really mess up someone who deserves it? It'll be a few hours to get him set up. Don't feel like you have to wait around.

"No, I'll wait," he said, sitting down next to me. "I want to see it."

I smiled at him. "Athan, you really don't. Trust me."

"Always telling me what I think."

"Always right, too. Look, take it from me, torturing someone who's bad isn't all it's cracked up to be. If they're an asshole, put them out of your misery and move on. Here, saving your mom is obviously kind of a neat perk, very pragmatic, and I adore how fast you jumped to full lobotomy, I couldn't be more proud -- but don't just stick around to watch someone suffer. It hurts you more than them."

He hesitated, but I saw in his mind he wasn't leaving. After what I'd shown him, he felt like he needed closure for everything the man had done to Lia. A little unfortunate, but understandable. I sighed.

"Well, if you're just gonna sit here anyway, let me borrow your lap so I can work in comfort at least," I told him, sliding down sideways to put my ear resting on his thigh. "Goddamn, you're always so warm. How do you manage that?"

"Well, my body has this thing called fat on it, and these things called muscles, which burn this stuff called food…"

"Oh! You found Zuwaigani! I'm so excited you brought some back. Are you going to eat that tonight? When I passed by that building the first time, the taste of it just about made me cream myself on the spot."

"Gross?"

"As if. I could drown in a pool of that dipping sauce and die happy. And then come back and do it like, thirty or forty more times before it started getting old. Shit is that good."

"Did you really send me out here just to pick you up a fucking crab?" he asked me.

Of course I hadn't. I knew he'd bump into those kids and they'd have a moment, and I thought a moment of dealing with the real world in a way which didn't totally suck a dick was exactly what Athan needed to get his mind on straight about how to approach this whole Dragon thing. I'd even given him just a teensy mental prod, a lite version of what I'd done after Karu dumped his ass way back when, to make the pain of his situation a little less keen.

Of course, he'd seen through me. I did have to remind myself that this was the one guy in the world I couldn't hide things from either. Still, despite that--

"Yep!" I lied. "That crab is to die for. You should have bought two."

"It's already like five pounds of crabmeat," he said shaking his head. "And bisque. And other shit."

I giggled at the thought of eating five pounds of crab and felt my concentration slip. "Oops."

"Oops?"

"Nothing. I should probably just focus more on your dad. Not that a mistake or two is really gonna matter given what all I'm doing in here, but still."

He let me work in silence, which wasn't really silent at all. We talked in emotion, in half-completed thoughts, as we tended to do, just reacting and thinking and feeling each other's minds in the half-open way only the two of us could.

He was in a much better place when he'd left, and I felt inordinate pride at my success. AEGIS wasn't the only one who could plan a quest for Athan's mental health, even if, in reviewing it now, I'd mostly just gotten lucky a lot.

But hey, luck is where preparation meets opportunity, right? And I'd put down the prep work to make Athan more receptive, so all the credit was well-deserved.

He snickered at my internal pride, making me blush at the thought of it, but it was a passing thing, as most thoughts were, and our collective stream of consciousness continued until evening.

"My back is ready to die," he announced. "How the hell do you sit under a tree so long without your butt falling asleep?"

"Step one, I have no butt," I said, poking at my flat backside. "Step two, tree is actually pretty comfy compared to a cramped underground prison coffin. I'd recommend a hundred years in one and then see if the tree still gives you pain."

"I think I might head back," he said, gently lowering my head as he escaped under me. "You're right. I don't need to see this. Just knowing that Mom will be doing better, and that Lia...is safe now, that's all I really need."

"Smart guy. I'll be there in like an hour. If you touch a crab without me there, I swear to God, I will burn this whole planet to the ground."

"We'll wait," he said, rising to his feet with a smile. "Though if you burn it all down, you kinda eliminate the chance of having any other crab."

"It's the principle of the thing, Athan. One world for one crab. Seems fair to me."

He laughed which made me laugh. He gave me an affectionate ruffling of my hair like he did to Lia, and as much as I didn't appreciate my thoughts banging around while he did it, I had to admit, I didn't mind his touch.

He headed off back the direction we came, taking the street at a slow pace I might have even been able to match. After he was gone, I looked over at the tree in the neighbor's yard, where there really was nothing to be seen.

"Olly olly oxen free. You can come out now, little hunter," I called. A moment later, something dropped heavily out of the tree and rose from the landing into a white-clad shaved-head bitch of a woman.

"Saga. The pleasure is ever all yours," Karu said with a mocking bow.

"You come here to off his parents?" I asked.

"I did. Do you happen to be a mind-reader perchance, or was that merely a fortuitous guess?"

"You've gotta learn there's an art form to killing indiscriminately, Karu. You can't just pop off everyone who's ever hurt Athan and expect him to be grateful. I'm here with my hands elbow-deep in his daddy's brain and he's thanking me for it. Show a little restraint."

"Funny words, from one such as you."

"Oh I show restraint all the time. You have no idea how much I just want to pop open the head of half the humans who pass me by. But I don't, and as a consequence, Athan lets me use his lap as a pillow. Pretty worth, I think."

"And funnier still they be given to one such as me."

"Yeah, that one is a riot," I grinned. "I used to think you were a real uptight bitch, Karu, so wrapped up in morals and absolutes and apparently just a big fucking idiot who didn't realize that grey was more than a color. And now look at you. Budding little nihilist. Warms my heart."

"You have no heart," she scoffed though a smile. "I suppose I should be offended to receive a compliment from you, but as you say, your methods do seem superior at the moment. I will endeavor to keep them in mind."

"I've got this situation under wraps," I said gesturing towards the house. "You heard Athan's plan? Wasn't that hot?"

"I admit I did not expect to hear such from him, but yes, the thought of such coming from him did have...an unspeakable allure. He is a man of great passion, and perhaps not so afraid to do the necessary as I sometimes fear. I will leave you to your work."

"Thanks. Good flying, Hunter."

She gave me a curt nod and a smile, and then I held my ears as the jetpack tore up the sky.

Fascinating woman, that one. And I hoped for all our sakes that she sorted her shit out before she realized that her obsession with Athan wasn't worth holding onto.