Devour

Chapter 40 - Dax

Emma beats Pippa and I to the Forbidden Planet, our emergency meeting place. Her handler loiters outside. A comic book store. A simple place for siblings to meet and chat. Very safe. There's also a back door. The fellow who runs the place has a sister who was a mutant and died in the war. He's generally glad to let us hang about or even let me out the back door without a handler.

"What's going on?" Emma asks, almost accusingly.

"I'll tell you all," I say, as Nel and Jules file in, leaving their handlers outside.

"Why's she here?" Nel never was polite.

"Me? I bring presents," Pippa says, handing them each a tracer.

"Why do we need these?" Jules asks.

"I have reason to believe Patch is a telepath," I say.

"What?" Emma asks.

"No, he's not," Nel says.

"Why?" Jules asks.

"During our argument yesterday---he knew something only I know, only me," I say, because I'm not going to tell them what it was, I should've thought of an excuse, but no. No more lies. "There was no way, none, he could have known this, without going through my mind."

"Why's that an emergency? Other than him not telling us," Emma says.

"Yeah he might not realize he's doing it---I don't sometimes," Nel says.

"Because when you showed us those police transcripts---the time that he walked back in from the barn was before Nel woke up----Nel woke because our dad was consciously telling her to wake up," I say.

"Right----he said he walked in and saw the fire," Jules says, nervously.

"Well if he's telepathic---which I now know he is---how does he not know who did it? I mean---if supposing our dad was responsible---Patch would have immediately known it----on that footage he walks in calmly---a telepath would know there was a fire and run. He doesn't," I say, "It doesn't add up."

"Do you like----know, know he's a telepath? You couldn't be wrong?" Emma asks, respecting that I don't want to tell her. Yet she does want to know for sure.

"I know. There's no way he could have said what he did----he referred to a memory that I don't need to share right now, but that only I knew of," I say, awkwardly.

"Like you know on your last birthday you cried and listened to Madonna and ate salt and vinegar crisps," Nel says, sort of seeing that it's a personal memory, "Alone in your room, and never told anyone you did, and then he said something like 'you cry and eat crisps and listen to Madonna on your birthdays'?"

"Yes---exactly, there was zero reason for him to say it even in guessing, he was completely specific," I explain.

"Okay---so he's lying to us about his abilities---why didn't you ask him?" Emma asks.

"If I'm right---which I am----then our dad would have figured it out—it took me this long but our dad actually read our minds, he'd have seen an inconsistency at some point," I say.

"You think that they got into an argument and Patch did something awful," Nel says, tears in her eyes.

"I don't know----look we've all knocked one another over, broken doors, all in fits of anger because we don't know how to control our powers," I say, "Look---all of us, have knocked doors off their hinges trying to slam them 'cause we're angry, or slammed dishes off counters or anything—by mistake. What if our powers were seven fold?"

"He's supposed be like, ten times better than dad," Nel says, quietly.

"And what if he is? Dad broke a door that time by accident that time we'd locked ourselves in the closet to eat raw cookie dough and he had excellent control----- I'm not saying Patch did something terrible on purpose---but he and our dad didn't get on well Patch was forever antagonizing him," I point out, "If he did something, he probably didn't mean to."

"I nearly knocked my mum over when we were arguing," Nel says, a little sadly.

"I got bruises the time Dad pulled me back from the fire, cause he was holding me too hard," Jules was like obsessed with fire from age four to seven, and that needless to say made our dad super nervous. "It was an accident. He felt bad afterwards."

"Exactly, I knocked Patch through the ceiling that once when he put roaches in my bed and scared me---Dad knocked him into the wall and left a dent when Patch banged cymbals over his face-- it's easy to do for any of us when properly provoked---and he might be too afraid to say anything he doesn't want to get in trouble," I say.

"But if he did do it---or even knows something because he's a telepath--- we need to know," Nel says.

"And we need to tell him we know we can help him keep the secret if that's what he needs," I say. I don't believe it though. I know he did it. God, I know he did it. And he meant to in some small way.

"What's your plan then? Confront him? All of us?" Emma asks.

"Yes---together, tell him we love him it's okay we'll work through it, but he needs to be honest with us if we're to help him hide what he's done because someone else is going to notice," I say, "Except----we do have to go into it with the precautions in place as though he did kill them, even by mistake."

"We can't do it in London then, if he can set things on fire or whatever—" Emma begins.

"Innocent people could get hurt," Jules says.

"We go back to Bucknell, back to the old farm house," I say, "Remote, where no one else will be hurt if we do wind up fighting with him."

"He's going to wonder why we ask him to meet us there," Emma says.

"We don't. If he's reading our minds, he'll know and he'll come. If he doesn't come, we look around and look at the case file and see if we can think of anything else," I say.

"What if he doesn't come because he knows we're waiting for him?" Nel asks.

"He'll come," I say, "If I'm right and he is a telepath---he'll come."

"That's why do we need the tracers?" Emma asks.

"So you can all go without your handlers," Pippa says.

"You should stay," I tell her, "Cover for me."

"If one of you gets injured I can escort you to a hospital," Pippa says, shaking her head, "I should at least be close to be handler for someone if things go south."

"She's right---having at least one handler along could help us," Emma says.

"I've got a taser, I do know how to use it," Pippa says.

"Is it the strongest one there is?" I ask.

"Yeah, I had to because I've got you," she says nodding. Oh. I require the highest level of voltage, which is like a million. That's nice? Do I feel good about this? Not really?

"But---shouldn't we just talk to him?" Jules asks, nervously, "I mean---it feels like we're luring him out there---trapping him."

"If he's reading our minds, he'll know we're doing it for his own good, so we can talk to him in private," I say, really wanting to believe it.

I believe he'll come to us to fight.