As Red finishes crudely stitching together my stomach, I watch a middle-school-looking girl crack and tear open my father's skull. Gouging out most of the brain matter as if she could tell the mush apart, she seems to find what she is looking for, eagerly scarfing it down. She is frozen for a minute while her eyes display the dance of a racing mind.

Red finally pulls her hands away from my stomach, "You should be good for now, but we still need to get you to Jason and Veronica so you don't die of infection later."

The face of what was my father slams into the wall, the remnants of his brain painting it. "FUCK! Where is she, Tom?"

Red looks back and forth between me and Carnie while I respond, "I don't know, she was taken by the teleporter."

Carnie walked and spoke menacingly to me, "You have to know something! Why aren't you telling me?"

"Carnie I--" Red had put a hand out to halt Carnie before she got to me.

"Carnie, he's in bad shape so don't touch him." Red and her exchanged eye contact for a brief second before Carnie pushed back against Red's hand. There was no initial impact sound but Carnie went flying, slamming into a wall and sliding across the rubble-covered floor before coming to a stop. "Carnie, calm down! We'll look for your mom, but after I get Tom healed."

"T?" The young man from the roof appeared in between us and Carnie on his knees, picking up the recently fallen body. "Where... Where is it?" He looked around the hall in desperation.

It wasn't hard to tell what he was looking for, "it's over there." I pointed to the almost unrecognizable severed head lying by the wall.

"Why would you do that to him?"

WHY? He lost, that's why! Is this guy stupid or oblivious? Either way, he's still a skilled teleporter, someone who might be able to take Red and Carnie at once, so why did he only do support? He might not be as skilled as I think, then again that asshole may have just wanted to kill me himself. I'm in no condition to gamble on it, looks like I'll have to play this safe. "You see that unconscious girl over there, she..." Is this even worth trying to explain? No other option I guess, I hope he believes it. "That woman you snatched, the tall one, she was her mother. She needed his brain to try and find where her mother went."

"Oh... It would be my brain then. T wouldn't have known what I did with her..."

Is this really working? It might just be his shock, he sounds empty inside right now. I had already tried to sacrifice Carnie's mom once, the least I could do is push this a little. "So you know where she is?"

He vanished along with the body before reappearing by the head. "Yes... no. I kept trying to knock her out. I didn't want to kill her. No matter how high I dropped her. She would just stand back up." He spoke while laying the body on the ground and placing the head to the neck, "But with her durability and strength. If I had just sent her away she might have been able to get back here. So I sent her up again. As high as I could."

Okay... "So you finally knocked her out, or is she dead?"

He placed his hand on the forehead, of, the head. "I don't know, she never came down."

I guess that settles that, I'll tell Carnie when she wakes up. "..." He's not trying to leave, just sitting there. The shock must have taken over completely, I can hardly believe there was someone who cared about that piece of shit enough to be in shock after his death. Funny, the fact that he cared about him is what's going to let us get away. "Red." I whispered to her in a low tone, "We should grab Carnie and go while he's--"

"I watched you."

Shit, did he hear me? Will he finally start attacking?

"Growing up. I was watching your mom. But you were there. She loved you... You said you were too weak. Did you mean too weak to stop the desire to kill? Even if it was your mother?"

"I never gave in to the desire! I was forced into it, and I wasn't strong enough to fight that force."

"You were forced to have the desire?"

"NO, to act on it."

"Could you have been forced to act on it if you didn't have the desire?"

His words brought back a memory that I had tried to destroy.

***

"How could you do this? All I gave you was a push. Your inhibitions should have been lowered, nothing more. You were supposed to act out a little, not kill everything in sight, especially your mother."

"What... you... you made me?"

"No! I can't make someone kill if they don't want to, more so a loved one, not even if I tried. All you should have done is acted out. Enough to convince your mother you needed to go to the facility. I don't understand. The only way this could have happened is if... you wanted to kill. You wanted to kill even if it was your mother."

***

"It wouldn't have changed anything! It was that agent's ability. He manipulated me and made me do it."

"Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?" He placed his other hand on the body while still rubbing the head. "Even without him in your life, you're so much like T. It doesn't matter what I say, not with that mind of yours."

"The fuck did you just say, I'm nothing like him. He left Ma!"

"He did, and you have your life thanks to that. The second he saw that same desire in your eyes, he would have killed you then and there. Say what you want about T but he had control of his!"

I stood up on one knee, Red trying to stop me, "Control? You call this control?"

"He had control, that is until you killed the one thing he loved in this world. He was able to channel those desires into something before she died. It was your mother, she tamed someone with the insatiable desire to kill! How? With her love. The same love she gave to you. She was enough for him! All he needed! But not for you... What did you do, when you lost someone close to you? I had to track you down, and when I did I found the trail you had left! Crippling a girl, then murdering her and her father. Killing countless cops. I hope that lady next to you knows what you did to the last girl you were close to, after killing her!" By now he was standing next to the body, pointing at me while he shouted, "You, have no right to judge HIM!"