Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (42 page)

Andy and his two partners in crime listened to
their conversation, looking unworried and carefree. They remained
motionless.

“
Now, listen to me very, very
carefully, Harris. What I’m about to tell you is both complicated
and deeply important. You must heed every word of it to have even
the smallest chance at surviving this. Their Telepath is going to
stop my Manipulation, which normally would be no problem except for
the fact that they’ve got a Manipulator too. I’m going to use all
my power to neutralize their Manipulator’s attacks, and as a
result, I won’t be able to deal any in return. Both of my Kinetics
will do their best to stop their one Kinetic, but they too will be
dealing with fending off the Path’s attempts to weaken them. You
see, there is a reason every team needs a Path, and if your tramp
of a mother hadn’t killed mine, those three would be dead already.
Do you understand?”

A sudden, gripping panic entered Jack’s
mind.

I did it again!
he thought.
I
stopped paying attention when someone was trying to teach me
something, because it was boring. It’s okay. I’ll just do what I
always do. Pretend I understand.

Jack narrowed his eyes on Cemmera and forced
himself to wear his most confident grin. “I understand,” he said,
keeping his voice cool and confident. A glimmer of hope entered
Cemmera’s otherwise dark and desperate expression.

Jack walked in front the three Op. team
members, positioning himself directly in the middle between Andy’s
group and Cemmera’s. Jack knew what he would do. He’d use a burst,
and send the three of them packing, just like when he’d fought
against Melissa.

He allowed a very small drop of power to
trickle in, groaning at the agonizing feeling of discomfort and
nausea.

“
Gah!” he called out. “It’s like the
worst thing ever.”

The power rushed into him, and he extended his
arm, holding out his open palm to the three murderous Psychs. Andy
met Jack’s eyes and retreated several steps, petrified of him for
some reason. Requiem only smiled. It was a twisted, disfigured
smile, lighting up her maddened face. There was a single strand of
her smooth-flowing red hair dangling across her eyes, adding menace
to her psychotic delight. Ruin looked as he always did, carefree,
languid, and sincere.

Jack searched for that trigger—that familiar
feeling, and using all the power he had drawn out he threw it at
them, attempting to send them flying with his Kinetic
might.

All at once there were screams, followed soon
after by the sound of banging and collision, erupting from
somewhere behind him. Several loud clangs rang throughout the
kitchen. Jack looked over his shoulder … and felt a wave of
embarrassment and shame, as he saw the three members of Cemmera’s
team crash and break the few remaining kitchen cabinets. The
Kinetics were unconscious, and Cemmera looked livid.

“
Whoops,” Jack said to the group
with Andy. “I meant to do that to you three, not sure what I did
wrong. Hold still, okay? Let me try this again. Not sure why it
went backwards.”

Requiem clapped her hands together and cheered.
“Oh! Brother, Jack, Darling! That was wonderful! Well, well,
done.”

Cemmera screamed at him, shaking her fist in
the air. A look of depression replaced the previous fire in her
eyes. She had been sent crashing into the broken refrigerator, and
now, in addition to the water from the broken sink showering her
head, cracked containers of milk and orange juice were leaking on
top of her as well. Between the dirt from the garden, the juice,
the milk, and the water mixing it all over her, Jack thought she
kind of resembled an alien monster.

“HARRIS!” she roared at him.
“What kind of a man can’t aim straight? You buffoon, you
idiot!”

Jack felt guilty. He sort of had an idea of
what he’d done wrong, and he was certain that next time he could
correct it. “Sorry about that, guys, I made an oopsie. My
bad.”

One of the Telekinetic brothers fell forward
onto his face as the cabinet he was leaning on gave out, while the
other simply closed his eyes and drooled. Cemmera tried to stand,
and made it halfway too, before the slippery floor got the better
of her, and she tripped, landing painfully on her rump. Jack wasn’t
sure if it was the water and juice in her eyes, but it looked to
him like she was crying.

Ruin gave Andy a pat on the back. “Do you see,
brother? And you said it was going to be hard to get Jack Harris to
join our side. Look, he’s only taken one glance at us and he’s
already betrayed his friends. He knew we were family at first
sight.”

Andy did not meet Jack’s gaze, once again
making Jack wonder if he’d done something horrible to him, but for
the life of him, he couldn’t remember. Andy retreated a few more
steps, to stand behind Requiem.

Jack scratched his head. “Umm, I think you guys
might be a little confused. That was an accid—”

Requiem cut him off and grabbed his hands.
“Darling, I have a present for you! You’re going to love this.
Come, come, come!” Before Jack could protest, he found himself
dragged away by the deranged girl. She led him out of the house and
started off at a run, pulling him with her. Jack ran alongside her,
more than just a little confused. Ruin and Andy followed close
behind, though Andy just a bit farther away than Ruin.

They led him to the back of a large, beaten-up
van. The front window was missing, and blood was everywhere, some
in very odd places. There were splotches on the dashboard, steering
wheel, and even some on the tires.

Requiem hopped in the back, and Jack turned to
Andy. The boy shivered just by having Jack look at him.

“
Andy, did I do
something?”

Andy fell on his knees with tears in his eyes
as he backed away from Jack at a crawl. His hands scraped the
concrete while he back-crawled into Ruin. The young man held Andy
in place, preventing him from going any farther.

“
S-stay away from me, you monster!”
Andy looked horrified, so much so that he was unable to
stand.

“
What did you do to our Brother?”
Ruin asked Jack.

“
I don’t know. I don’t remember. I
feel like I did something bad, but it’s just not ringing a bell.
Oh, by the way, you three are like, under arrest and
stuff.”

Ruin laughed. He helped Andy get back to his
feet. Requiem emerged from the back of the beaten-down vehicle with
a small, fluffy animal. Jack’s eyes lit up. He remembered having
one very similar a long time ago.

“
Is that a rabbit?” he
asked.

“
Yes, it is, and I got it for you,
Darling.”

Requiem passed the creature to Jack. It was a
small, white little thing, with tiny blue eyes and a round nose. He
held it in his arms, and for a moment Jack remembered the one he
had lost so long ago.

“
Thank you,” Jack whispered. He
didn’t understand why such a horrible person would do something so
nice for him. The little rabbit didn’t struggle, it even started to
fall asleep in Jack’s arms. Requiem blushed, and while Jack had not
known her for long, he had the feeling that it was an expression
she seldom displayed. Even Andy and Ruin seemed surprised by
it.

“
It was … nothing, Darling,” she
said, crossing her left foot over her right and averting her eyes.
For a moment, some of the madness in her eyes seemed to fade, only
to be replaced in an instant. “Now, our newest and dearest brother,
you must come with us. We’re working on getting a home for
everyone—for you, me, and your two brothers. Mr. Wellington and the
rabbit too, of course. You’re going to love him,
Darling.”

Jack didn’t understand why, but he felt no
anger or hatred towards Requiem or her brother. There was something
about them, something off. He couldn’t place it, but there was a
look in her eyes as if there were more to her buried beneath the
madness. They’d committed such terrible and despicable crimes, they
had ruined lives and crushed people’s dreams, and yet, Jack could
not bring himself to hate them.

“
Can I ask you something, Requiem?
Requiem
is
your name, right?”

She smiled. “Ask away, Darling.”

“
How come you guys kill people? When
I’m alone with you guys, you don’t seem like such bad people, so
why? Don’t you feel bad that you take away other people’s lives? I
don’t understand why all those people you killed had to
die.”

Requiem turned away from Jack and said nothing.
Ruin spoke in her place. “Brother Jack, my sister and I learned at
a young age that regardless of what you do in this world, as long
as you’re strong enough to get away with it then it can’t be
wrong.”

Jack tried not to let sadness fill his voice,
but some of it seeped through. “But how can you say that, guys? You
seem to really care about each other. Are you saying that if
someone really powerful came along and killed one of you that …
that it’s okay because they were strong enough to do
it?”

Requiem spun around and grabbed Jack’s shirt.
“No!”
she yelled. “No one can ever take away my family.
No, that can never be right.”

Jack put an arm on her shoulder, and she
blushed yet again. “Then how?” he asked, looking deep into her
maddened gaze, trying to see past it. “Then how can you make other
people feel that pain?”

She released his shirt and walked away,
mumbling words to herself that Jack couldn’t make out. There was
more to her—he was sure of it. Ruin sighed and walked over to
Jack.

“
You’ll understand in time, Brother.
For now, we should be on our way.”

“
No.”

“
No?” Ruin asked. “What do you mean,
‘no’?”

“
I mean, no way. I’m not joining you
guys. What you three do is wrong, and awful. No one has the right
to do what you’ve done. May I ask you a question? You’re Ruin,
right?”

He nodded. “Go right ahead.”

“
You killed a boy named Jonathan
Herbert, right? He was my age. In fact, he was in my class. Do you
remember?”

Ruin crossed his arms and rested his chin on
his left fist, deep in thought. After a moment he looked at Jack.
“I don’t remember the names, but I think I know the one you’re
talking about. What about it?”

“
Did you know that our solar system
was formed by something called a nebula?”

Ruin looked taken aback. “What does that have
to do with anything, Brother?”

Jack ignored the reply. “Just answer me. Did
you know that?”

Ruin laughed. “No, Brother, I
didn’t.”

“
Well, Jonathan did. He told me that
once. It’s amazing what you can remember about people after you
find out that they’re no longer alive. He wasn’t like other people.
Then again, nobody in this world is truly like anybody else. Ya
see, Jonathan wanted to be an astronomer.”

Jack had to struggle to continue speaking.
Requiem had returned, and now both her, her brother, and even Andy
looked at Jack with confusion as tears began to fall down his face.
A deep sadness entered Jack, but he wiped away his tears and
continued to speak. His voice occasionally broke into a
whimper.

“
When we went to that space-camp
thing on a field trip, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person so
happy. All he wanted was to work for NASA. He had so much that he
wanted to do and a whole life ahead of him to do it. Every day he
would come to class wearing those t-shirts, with the stars and
stuff. Adam used to talk to him about it, because Adam knows a lot
of things. He and Jonathan would go at it for hours, and I’d
listen. I didn’t understand most of it, but I understood that it
was his dream. I wasn’t really his friend, but I always hoped that
one day he made his dreams come true. And he was doing it, too! At
least, he was until he met you two. I read the file, you
know?”

It was becoming very hard to continue, but Jack
forced out the words. “They say he was walking home one night from
the astronomy club, and it was dark because he’d stayed late at
school. You two held him down. You.” He pointed to Ruin. “You
pinned him down kinetically, and you.” He pointed to Requiem. “You
allowed Ruin to see his heart. It was the same heart that filled
him with wonder when he looked at the stars, the place that made
him chase his dreams. And for no reason other than ‘fun’ you
decided that his hopes, his dreams, his life. You decided to take
all of that away from him. All I want to know is why? What did he
do wrong that he didn’t deserve to live? Was it because you didn’t
like him? Or did you even know him? Tell me, you two. Tell
me!”

Ruin’s smile did not fade, but his eyes did
seem to take on a more serious gaze. “We chose, that’s why,” he
said. “There is no reason, don’t you get it? We don’t kill because
we hate the people we’re killing. We do it to prove that we
can.”

Jack felt the beginnings of anger.
“
Is that all?”
he shouted. “Just for that? You’re
willing to take away everything from people, just to show that you
can?”

“
We don’t expect you to understand
right away, Brother. But until you—”