Chapter 23: No Shouting

The smell of freshly baked brownies wafted through the air, and the kitchen was warmed by the hot oven. Alana nodded in approval—everything was coming along great. Jack was going to love them. She closed the oven door and flipped off the internal light.

Through the corner of her eyes, she spotted the old cat-shaped clock sitting snugly on top of the wall by the kitchen entrance. She frowned.

Jack should really be getting home around now.

She forced the thoughts from her mind. There was no sense in getting paranoid over nothing. She was happy her boy was a Telekinetic like his momma. There was so much she was going to (forcefully) make him learn. The thought made her grin. She loved Jack more than anything in the world, but he was simply too fun to mess with.

She gave the brownies one last look before starting on dinner. Melissa would be coming over tonight, and she loved talking with the girl. Jack was definitely going to be annoyed. Alana would probably end up spending more time with Melissa than he would while the two of them engaged in girl-talk.

She sung out loud to herself while she prepared dinner.

******

Paro made sure he met each one of their eyes while he spoke. “I have one rule and one rule only. No one is to speak at a volume above the conversational level I am using right now. Every single one of you will get your say, I promise. But if anyone so much as raises their voice, or speaks with an angry or demeaning tone, I will dole out punishment on the spot. And you know me well enough to know I’m not bluffing.”

Paro looked around the planning room. Each member of his team looked each other in the eye and nodded.

“Now,” Paro began, “let me make it perfectly clear that no one here, not even myself, knows how Jack did what he did, why he did what he did, or even what it was that he actually did. I won’t waste any more time discussing it. I am allowing us to discuss his fate as a group, because I feel that as a team, you have earned at least that much. Though the decision ultimately is mine, I’m weighing in everything you say. This, I promise.”

“That feeling,” Sarah said. Her eyes were down trodden, and she looked exhausted. “It was like when that general Deven Moore paid us a visit, only it was so much worse.”

Melissa raised a questioning eyebrow, and Sarah filled her in. She had been in school during that frightening ordeal.

Of everyone on the team, she seemed to be taking this the worst. During the nightmarish event, Melissa had remained calm and really proved her worth. Had it not been for her actions, they’d all be dead. But now that the situation had calmed down, Melissa looked sick with worry.

Paro noticed that Michael was almost shaking with anticipation, so Paro nodded and allowed him to speak next.

“Look, fellas, I know we’re worn and shaken up from what just happened. But let’s remember who Jack is and what he is. I don’t think he did what he did on purpose. Remember how he had no idea he started the fire? Well, I think it’s kinda like that.”

Kazou sighed. “I never for a moment thought he meant to do any of this.”

“Then why do you—”

“Let me finish, Michael. The fact that I agree with you is not a good thing. Jack could’ve killed every one of us. You, me, all of us, we all came very close to lying in caskets while being lowered into the ground. I am sorry that I called him a demon earlier, but Michael, after what we all just saw, Jack Harris should never be allowed out in public again. What he did was so unbelievable that I’m no longer positive he’s even a human being.”

Melissa balled her hands into fists and gritted her teeth while she listened to Kazou speak, and Paro gave her a warning glance. He wasn’t in the mood for her attitude.

Sarah shocked the room with what she said next. “I agree with Kazou. It would be irresponsible of us to allow that boy around people again. I’m the only one here with an affinity for Telepathy, so you don’t know what I felt. You can’t even begin to understand it.”

Tears flowed down her delicate face. Paro’s heart warmed whenever he took in Sarah. She was as kind as she was brilliant. Her black hair hung from a ponytail behind her head, and her soft cheeks brightened as she spoke.

With each passing day, Paro felt increasingly uneasy in her presence. He had promised himself he would never love, his work was too important for relationships. Yet every time he looked at her, he felt emotions he didn’t know he still had.

For her to suggest turning in Jack, she must be really, really shaken up. Never, would the Sarah I know be willing to give up on someone.

“Jack is a good boy,” she whimpered, “but I just don’t know what to do anymore. If he’s ever allowed in public, what will happen if he does that again, whatever it even was. Oh, God, I thought there were twenty or thirty Telepaths surrounding us. I know we’re not supposed to bring it up, and I’m sorry, Paro, but no human being should’ve been able to do what he did.”

“Only as far as we know,” Melissa said. They all turned to her. She was finally breaking the silent state she’d been in since they flew the unconscious Jack and Andy back to H.Q.

The situation was beyond serious—it would be more accurate to call it dire or perhaps even cataclysmic. Yet despite the world-shaking events that had just taken place, Paro had only been able to think of how upset Jack would be if he knew he’d flown in a helicopter while he was asleep and didn’t get to enjoy the ride. It maddened Paro just how much the boy had changed him in such a short time.

“The way I see it,” Melissa continued, “we don’t know much about the higher ranks, do we? Paro, I know you’re not allowed to go into specific details, but can you at least confirm to us that when you attained the rank of Captain you were told secrets and other stuff that most of us are forbidden to know?”

Paro nodded. “That I can.”

“So then, who knows how powerful some of the higher-up Psychs are? I know I’m still new to all this, but they never really show us what they’re capable of. Maybe Jack just has the strength of a General. I mean, didn’t you say this Deven Moore did something similar?”

Even Michael had to shake his head at that. “Only slightly, Melissa. Sure, the guy did something weird that made us feel like running away and whatnot, but he didn’t conjure creatures of the night to murder us.”

“Regardless, does that mean he couldn’t?”

Paro had to admire Melissa’s thought process. She was correct about the lack of information. Nobody had any real idea of just how powerful the Generals were. And while Deven Moore had created a similar oppressive feel, that didn’t mean he was using all his power at the time. But still, Paro thought it unlikely that anyone in the world had ever done what Jack just had. The mere thought of it made him tremble.

“There’s one thing you guys aren’t taking into consideration,” Michael said. “Sarah, if we report Jack, he won’t be locked away for long and ya gotta know that. The Op. teams’ll pick someone like him right up. You think what Jack did was dangerous now? What about when he’s forced to use his abilities with the intent to kill?”

Kazou’s eyes became dark. He cleared his throat. Now, there was a terrible look to his face, and Paro was almost afraid of what he’d say.

“I’ve been thinking that same thing ever since we left the train terminal. Life can be cruel, life can be harsh, but life is still life. Much like you, I can’t bear the thought of Jack ending up as a killing machine, and we alone know the danger he possesses to this world. The boy is unconscious, at peace. I will be willing, if allowed, to do what must be done. We could put him to sleep. He’d never feel a thing. I know it would kill us inside, but—”

“To hell with the rules!” Melissa shouted in a high-pitched wail. She leapt out of her leather chair and jumped on top of the glass table then sprinted across and lunged at Kazou, knocking him out of his own chair and onto the floor. She pulled back her fist and crashed it down onto his face, sending blood spraying from his nose.

Paro was so shocked by what he was seeing that he froze for a moment. In that instant, Melissa picked Kazou off the floor and slammed him into the glass table, shattering it with a loud and deafening clatter. The large Japanese man was smashed clean through it and again landed on the floor.

He howled and grabbed her by the shirt with one hand, and with the other he slammed his fist into the side of her face, flinging her backward.

Melissa was sent crashing into a wall, knocking diagrams and bulletins to the floor, and Paro recovered from his shock immediately. There were few things certain in the world of Psychs, but if there was one thing that was almost guaranteed it was this—when two Reinforcers clashed, one almost always died.

Paro put his incredible disappointment in the two aside and drew a great deal of power into himself. He’d always had an affinity for Reinforcement, but upon learning he was an Unrestricted, he spent a great deal of time studying Telekinesis and Manipulation. Telepathy was the only affinity he seldom bothered with.

With a strength born of natural talent combined with years of practice, Paro narrowed his eyes and focused on the two. As if grabbed by invisible, powerful arms, the two were separated and flung to opposite ends of the room, crashing into walls with a loud bang and hanging against them like dartboards.

Michael and Sarah were sitting in their chairs wide-eyed. Their arms dangled in midair where just moments before they rested on the now shattered table.

“What did I just say, you foolish, silly brutes!” Paro snapped at them. “Oh, you don’t like that word, do you? Well maybe you shouldn’t act like them!”

For a moment, the two turned and glared at Paro, furious at the derogatory term, but after a moment they simply looked ashamed, especially Melissa. Paro released the two, and they slid down the wall and landed on their rears. The door to the planning room slammed open, and five Psychs of various affinities rushed in with almost a dozen security officers in tow.

“Is everything alright in here, Captain?” asked the first woman to rush in. She was Amanda Pierce, Telekinetic and team-leader of her own. The people that followed her in were her members.

“Ah, everything is fine, just a little accident.”

She eyed him with suspicion as she looked around the room at the broken table, the Japanese man with the broken nose, and the ruined bulletins and diagrams littering the floor.

“Two Reinforcers just went at it, didn’t they?” she mused.

“Can we keep this quiet please, Amanda?”

She laughed. “You owe me a drink. Come on, guys, this isn’t our problem.”

She left the room and the security officers followed in suit. Paro waited until they were out of earshot before turning his eyes back to his two idiot Reinforcers.

“I’m disappointed in you both.” Melissa and Kazou both got to their feet and dusted themselves off.

“Melissa, you started this fight. The table, the bulletins, everything is coming out of your pay. Kazou, for you to even suggest what you just did … you’re lucky I don’t report that. Euthanizing a member of my team, are you out of your mind? Every day I wonder why you don’t join the Op. teams. It seems that each day I’m finding more and more about this bloodlust you have, and as your team-leader, I’m wondering where I’ve failed you.”

Kazou looked more than a little ashamed. A look of deep regret and humiliation came into his eyes, as the usually stone-faced Kazou shed a single tear of his own.

“Gomennasai,” he whispered. He bowed and closed his eyes, before turning around and leaving the room.

Damn, now I have to feel guilty, Paro thought.

He had been too hard on him, and now he was the one who should be ashamed, but what Kazou had suggested was not only inappropriate, it was among the most disgusting suggestions any member of his team had ever made on the topic of anything!

“I’ve decided,” Paro said, and with his words, the team snapped alert. “Wake up the Harris-kid and fly him back before his mother throws a hissy fit. I’ll call her and tell her we got held up or something. I’ll make an excuse. We’ve got no other choice. Kazou was right about one thing, though—we can’t let him become a killing machine. So, as a team we’ll just have to fight through this. I don’t know what that thing with his eyes was, but Melissa, if you ever see him do that again, knock him the hell out before he gets to so much as blink with them.”

Despite having torn her clothes on the glass and having several scrapes and bruises, she seemed to beam with relief and happiness. “You got it, Paro! I’ll wake him up now. Wait, what happens when you wake up someone who’s sedated?”

******

“Five more minutes!” Jack pleaded, tossing and turning on some weird, bed-thing. Where was he? Whatever, he didn’t care. He was too tired for it to matter where he was or what he was sleeping on.

“Jack, get up—now!” It was Melissa’s voice. His eyes shot open and he looked around him. He was in some kind of hospital room, with a needle and IV-bag sticking out of his arm. Jack opened his mouth to scream, but Melissa covered it.

“Don’t worry. We’re taking that out now, just relax.”

A man in a white coat walked over and removed the needle while Melissa held him down. “There we are, Mr. Harris. You’re up and ready to go.”

Melissa ruffled his messy hair, looking as beautiful as always, although she was scraped up like she’d just been in a fist fight.

“So, how do you feel, Jack?”

“Ah, you know, as good as can be expected given the current economic climate.”

Melissa sighed. “Why do I even ask?”

“Where are we?” he asked.

“You’re in H.Q, on the second lowest floor of our building, quite a bit below ground, actually. We keep our med-center and temporary holding areas here.”

Jack wiped his eyes. His vision was slightly blurry. It was cold in the room, which really did look like one from a hospital. There was a sink, needles everywhere, and cabinets with medicine. The walls were all white and there was a medical smell to the place.

“How did I get here?”

For some reason, Melissa looked taken aback, but when she spoke, she sounded like she was reciting something from memory.

“Andy hit you over the head pretty hard and you blacked out. It’s okay, though. We stopped him. He’s in custody one floor below us.”

So I couldn’t save him. Jack filled with sadness.

“Anyway,” Melissa said, her face brightening with cheer. “I’ve got some good news. We’re going to fly you home. We don’t want your mom to worry now, do we? I know you’ve been itching for another helicopter ride.”

Jack’s eyes widened at the news, and he couldn’t help but smile. “What are we waiting for then, let’s go!”