18 comments/ 48525 views/ 96 favorites A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 By: sycksycko Disclaimer: This is a story that is very low on the smut scale. Also, the protagonist isn't perfect and is struggling to find his way around some supernatural powers, though he does have good and noble intentions. Hope you enjoy it and check my user profile for updates on sequels! Edited by Over_Red Whether you like, hate, or are left indifferent by this story, I strongly recommend you read his Dream Drive series, right here, on Literotica. *********** Jack Watts stood nervously in the dining room doorway. His father was sitting at the table and reading the paper. It was his first day of shore leave. Jack's mother had told him not to bother his father with anything, but Jack just couldn't hold it in any longer. It had been brewing since the last time his father was home on shore leave. As much as Jack wanted to speak up about it, he was afraid. He hadn't been this nervous ever since his first day in middle school. Jack's dad's posting to the aircraft carrier had happened in the summer and the family, consisting of Jack and his parents, had moved to this town, which was basically built around the naval base the carrier called home port. Nervous over how Jack was going to fit in with the new crowd, Jack's mother had spent hours fretting and trying to make everything perfect. She had doled out one piece of advice after the next and fed Jack with so many admonishments that she had managed to make Jack nervous like he had never been before. He hadn't even realized he desperately needed to go to the bathroom until they had actually gotten to school and were waiting for the principal to see them. Jack's mother had scolded him quietly, calling him a troublemaker, and refused to let him go to the bathroom. He had sat and waited, while the urge grew ever stronger, and then had to keep sitting while the principal welcomed him and then spoke with his mother. After their talk was finally over, Jack hadn't gotten a respite. He had been escorted straight into the classroom, where the teacher had refused to excuse Jack to go to the bathroom, citing the fact that he had just come in. Not one grown up had listened to him that day and Jack had wound up peeing himself in class. He was a laughing stock amongst his peers, ever since. The same kind of anxiety that had prevented him from speaking up soon enough, or loud enough, then was gripping him now. His mother had nothing to do with it this time. That incident and his mother's stupid refusal to let him go to the bathroom had taught him to ignore pretty much everything that came out of her mouth. It had also taught him that grown ups can be ridiculously stupid at times. But this was different. This was his father and Jack dreaded the thought of disappointing him. Jack wiped the palms of his sweaty hands against his pants and cleared his throat quietly. He took a step forward and said, "Dad?" His father looked up from the papers. "Yeah, Son?" "I, uh... I need to tell you something." His father set the paper down on the table and pulled out a chair. He indicated it and said, "Well, come on! Sit down and tell me what's on your mind!" Jack took the offered seat and cleared his throat again. "I, uh, I think that... I've been thinking about the things that you were saying to me about... Duty and honor and... Service and I think that, while I do respect all that you've been saying to me... I think that I would rather be a basketball player, than a sailor." Jack looked up and met his father's eyes, expecting to see disappointment, or scorn, in them. Instead, his father was pensive for a moment. Then a small grin grew on his face. Jack thought he could see a light twinkle in his father's eyes. He sounded happy as he asked, "Are you sure about that, Jack?" Jack nodded vehemently. "Yes." "You'd like to be a basketball player?" Jack nodded again. "And you'd be willing to put in the time and effort to train and become better, each and every day?" "Yes, I would," Jack said. "Honest!" His father smiled and reached over to ruffle his short, brown hair. Normally, Jack didn't like it when people messed with his hair, but his father was away at sea for most of the year and Jack was desperate to spend time with him whenever he was home. He gladly endured the hair mussing. His father put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. His smile slowly faded. "You're twelve years old, Jack. Pretty soon, you won't be a boy anymore. You'll be a young man." Jack watched the smile fade from his father's lips and something else replaced it. His father opened his mouth to say something, but Jack's mother walked in at that moment. "Come on, Bert," she said, "We are going to be late!" She turned to Jack and said, "And it's about time you were in bed!" Jack rolled his eyes at the interruption. His father was home so rarely and half the time he was, his mother was dragging him off to spend an evening with these people, or those. Jack hated her for it. He hated her even more now, because he was having the most important talk of his life with his father and she was dragging him off to play cards with the neighbors. "Coming, dear," his father called back to her. He turned back to Jack and said, "Listen, Jack, I've got an important meeting tomorrow. I want you to come with me. We'll finish this little talk then, alright?" "Alright," Jack said. "There's a good boy! Now, go upstairs and get to bed!" "Yes, Sir," Jack said. He went upstairs. The one good thing about living on a naval base was that nobody bothered to hire babysitters for older kids. After they had moved here, his parents had decided that he was old enough to be on his own and that had made leaving all his friends behind a bit more tolerable. The next day, Jack's father took him to the cemetery. Jack had been expecting his father's important appointment to be in some kind of an office building, not a graveyard, especially since his father put on his dress uniform, complete with medals. They walked silently amongst the headstones for a few minutes, before Jack's dad stopped them. He crouched by Jack and said, "Jack, I need you to wait for me here. Ok? Just for a few minutes." Jack looked around at the tombstones. He had no idea what they were doing there, but he trusted his father. "Ok, Dad." "I'll wave when you can come over," his father said and stood up straight. Jack stood still and watched as his father marched down a row of graves. He wasn't the least bit afraid that his dad was going to leave him there, but he felt uneasy, all the same. His dad stopped in front of a grave and mechanically pivoted to face it. He saluted sharply. Jack watched curiously as his father stood at attention in front of the grave. He could just about hear that his father was speaking aloud, but he was too far to be able to make out the words. It sounded to him like his father was making a report to a superior officer. He scanned the graveyard all around them. There was absolutely no one in sight. Jack spent a few minutes reading the names on the gravestones around him, but they weren't all that interesting. Standing around in a graveyard was quite boring so Jack started wondering if his dad might be engaging in some kind of espionage operation. He let himself entertain such a notion, if only to pass the time. Jack was so engrossed in his spy fantasy that he must have missed his father's wave. He flinched when he heard his father call to him. He gave a big wave for him to come over. Jack lurched forward but then quickly remembered it was impolite to run in a graveyard, so he forced himself to walk over to his father. As he got closer, he read the grave marker his father had been seemingly speaking to. It belonged to a dead naval officer whose name had been Jack White. Jack was surprised to see that the man had died fourteen years ago to the day. His father put his hands on Jack's shoulders and drew him close to himself. He turned Jack around to face the grave he had been talking to and said, "This is my son, Sir." Jack's brow immediately bunched up as he could see that the rank of the officer buried before them had been lieutenant junior grade. His father was a lieutenant and had had lieutenants junior grade saluting him for a few years now. Jack didn't know why his father was addressing the grave with the respect that was usually reserved for flag officers. "I named him after You, Sir. I think he's old enough for me to tell him all about You, Sir." Jack's dad knelt before him and looked him in the eye. "Jack, this is the grave of the man I named you after. Back when I had just finished the academy and got my first posting, this man saved my life and the lives of eight other men. If he hadn't done that, then I would have died. I would never have married your mother and you would never have been born at all." Jack looked over his father's shoulder at the simple grave marker in awe. He couldn't even imagine never being born at all. His father described the shipboard accident that threatened all of their lives and made the young lieutenant's selfless sacrifice necessary, but the specifics of naval engineering went over Jack's head, so he only focused on the part of the story where one man sacrificed himself for nine others. Jack was shocked to learn that his whole life was predicated on one man's selfless act and he tried to imagine what it had been like. His father snapped him out of his reverie when he said, "Do you understand why I have brought you here today?" Jack looked into his father's eyes and said, "Yes. You wanted me to see this man's grave. You wanted to tell me about how he saved your life." His father nodded and said, "Yes, but I also wanted to show you that there are such things as individual heroes. That one man can be more than just himself." He nodded at the grave. "Jack's body might be lying dead in this grave, but he is still alive. He lives on in the nine of us and everything we do counts as if he had done it, because if he hadn't done what he had done, then none of us would be around to do it. Everything that you'll ever do, you'll do because of his sacrifice. "Now, I know that I've been badgering you with the constant talk about how individual people are weak, and how they can gain power by banding together in service of the common good. This is true. It has been true throughout history and it will be true for as long as there are people, but I'm wondering if I've somehow made you feel like... Like a single person's actions can't make a change for the better, or that an individual has to ignore his own needs and serve the greater good?" Jack realized his dad was waiting for an answer, so he shook his head no. "Because one man can always make a difference, Jack. Even with the little things. We can never know what the future brings us and how we will be tested, or when. No one knew that bolt would fail like that. The lieutenant didn't know he would have to take immediate action that day to save the lives of others. He hadn't gotten out of his rack that morning knowing he would be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. He had carried duty and honor in his heart and when the darkness came, he was the light of salvation for the nine of us. "Only when we are put to the test, Jack, only then we can find out just how much we can accomplish. As long as a person holds duty and honor in their heart, they can change the world for the better. Even on their own. What I'm trying to say, Jack, is that you don't need to join the Navy to be a good man. Ok? I'm sorry if I made you think that you had to. Whatever you choose to do, I'll like it, so long as you choose to do it. In your heart. Do you understand me, Jack?" His father's voice was breaking with those words and tears were starting to slide down his cheeks. Jack was feeling uncomfortable seeing his father cry so he nodded. His father tapped his fist against his chest. "So long as you put all your heart in what you do, you'll do good. You'll do me proud." His father pulled Jack into a tight hug. Jack returned it, looking at the grave marker of his namesake. After a while, his father broke their hug, sniffed and said, "I'm sorry if I made you feel like you had to do things you didn't want to do. I only told you those things over and over because I just wanted you to get along better with the kids at school. I wanted to motivate you to join them and have some fun. It hurts my heart to hear that you have no friends." "Sorry," Jack simply said. He didn't know what else to say. He himself wished he had friends, but the peeing on his first day thing was simply too much of a hurdle to clear. "Well, it's not your fault." No, it's Mom's, Jack thought. He made no sound. His dad ruffled his hair and smiled. "Things will get better, you'll see! You can come upon the chance to make a friend even in the most unexpected of circumstances. The lieutenant, here, became my friend by pure chance. We shared a cabin aboard ship because our names were next to one other in the crew roster." He looked up at the grave marker and a tear slid down his cheek. "He's the one that taught me what duty and honor really mean." He looked into Jack's eyes. "You remember the lessons I taught you about them?" Uneasy with his father's tears, Jack quickly nodded and said, "To carry duty in your heart means to spend each day of your life working towards the greater good. To carry honor in your heart means to never let a wrong go by unopposed." "Yes," Jack's dad said and smiled. "Yes, that's it in a nutshell." He patted Jack on the shoulder. "Good man!" Jack stood up straighter at being called a man, instead of a boy. His father checked his watch. "Come on! We should be getting home." He stood up, faced the grave and stood at attention. He saluted sharply. "Goodbye, Sir!" They walked out of the cemetery. "Dad?" "Yes, Jack?" "Will you tell me about him?" "Of course. The first thing you should know about Jack was that he loved basketball." Jack looked up at his father in surprise. "Yes, he did. A poster of Michael Jordan was taped up above his rack. Jack looked up to Jordan. He was his role model with his tenacity and devotion. Especially when he made his comeback. You see, Jack, even an NBA star can change the world for the better, by inspiring others with his performances." They came to the car and his dad walked around it to open the trunk. "Besides, even if you don't become the best there ever was, I'd certainly love to see you play." He tossed Jack a brand new basketball. Jack caught it and smiled wide. It was a big, round, orange ball of fatherly love. He rushed into his father's embrace. "Thanks, Dad!" "Just promise me you'll have fun!" "I will, Dad! You're the best!" They drove away and Jack cast one last look back at the graveyard. The wind kicked up the fallen leaves, making them look like they were waving goodbye. Jack waggled his fingers and then faced front when their car turned the corner. After his father left for his ship again, Jack took the ball out for a spin. He bounced it happily against the pavement all the way until he came to the basketball court in the park. A bunch of kids were standing under one of the baskets, looking like their parade had been rained on. They turned their eyes to the sound of Jack's ball bouncing and he felt uncomfortable at the looks they were giving him. As he moved to the other hoop, he saw the problem. Their ball was wedged between the backboard and the side of the hoop. "Hey," Jack called out to them, "do you want to try and knock it loose with my ball?" The kids nodded and Jack tossed the ball to them. They all tried to knock their ball loose, but it was jammed in too tightly and none of them could do it. When Jack walked all the way over to them, he saw that he was older, taller and stronger than them, so he gave it a few tries, himself. "How did you jam it in so tightly?" "We didn't," one of the kids snapped. "It was the Navy brats!" Jack realized why he didn't know these kids. They were townies, the children of civilian parents. The feud between them and the children of Navy personnel was long standing and one of the first things Jack's classmates instructed him in upon his arrival. Even though they mocked him and considered him the lowest of them, the other Navy brats still expected him to toe the line and hate the townies. Even the middle school grouped Navy children and civilian kids separately, since they learned long ago that minimal contact between the groups kept things quiet inside the school grounds. Outside the school grounds, however, a war was raging, unseen by the oblivious grown-ups. Clean clothes and bikes were the casualties of that war. Spokes were bent with anything that could be found on short notice. Brakes were disabled and bells stolen as a matter of course. Knocking a kid over into the dirt and grass was a feat that brought kids greater standing in the eyes of their group, so they patiently staked out any mud hole they could find. Waiting for a lone member of the opposing side to wander close to it. Jack considered the whole thing to be distasteful and wrong. Even if he hadn't been dumped on by the other brats, he would take no part in it. In the "war" between the brats and the townies, he couldn't figure out which side was the injured party, so he had stayed out of it. He would have told on the kids, long ago, but both sides detested snitches and would unite against them, so Jack kept quiet. He had been curious about the mysterious townies ever since he had first got there and now was his chance to make friends with some of them. "They can't be any worse than the brats," he told himself. "The big one picked it up in one hand," one of the kids said, gesturing at the ball, "jumped up and wedged it in there. We'll never get it loose. We need to go get a parent." The kids looked unhappy with the suggestion. "If I tell my mom that the Navy brats had been picking on me again, she'll lock me up for my own safety," one of the kids morosely said. "You don't need a parent," Jack said. "You can knock it loose on your own." "How? Do you know where we can get a stick that long?" "Without any grown-ups seeing us get it," another kid said. "You can just pick up one of the dead branches from the green over there," Jack said. "We tried that already," the first kid said and pointed at a couple of dry branches not far from the court. "The branches aren't long enough to reach!" "Not on their own," Jack said. "Maybe we could tape them together," one of the kids said. The kids looked between themselves as they thought about whose garage they could find tape in. "I have a different idea," Jack said. "If the five of you stand in a circle and hold your hands on the shoulders of the two guys opposite you and we put some of your coats over your arms, then he can climb atop them and reach the ball with a stick." The thin boy Jack indicated looked very unhappy with the idea, but the rest of the boys agreed with it. Jack positioned them in the circle and intertwined their arms to distribute the sixth boy's weight evenly between them. After he tossed some coats atop their arms, he had them squat and he helped the sixth boy climb up. They stood up and the boy could now reach the ball with the stick. He whacked it repeatedly, but it still refused to be budged. The kids began to groan under the strain. "Ok, guys," Jack said, "different approach! Jam the stick into the very corner between the hoop and the backboard! Further in than the ball is wedged!" "I tried that already," the scrawny kid complained. "It won't budge!" "Just jam it in and hold it there," Jack said to him. "Ok, the rest of you are going to take one step that way." He indicated the direction opposite of the ball. "Hold the stick steady! On three! One, two, three!" A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 The boys stepped under the hoop and the stick acted like a lever against it, unjamming the ball and sending it falling onto the head of one of them. "Ow," the boy complained. "Ok, hold it together until he comes down," Jack said, indicating the scrawny kid. As soon as he was down safely, they finally let go of one another and took a collective breath of relief. They started thanking him, but then one of the kids said, "How come we've never seen you before?" "Wait a minute," the scrawny kid said, "I've seen him around before! In school. He's lumped in with the Navy kids." The gratitude evaporated from the kids' faces and they all but glared at Jack. The biggest of them stepped forward. He was almost Jack's size. "Is this true? Are you one of them?" Jack sighed and said, "My father is in the Navy, but I'm not-" "Get away from us," the big boy said. Another spoke up, saying, "Wait! He's ok. He helped us get our ball back." "He's one of them," the big boy insisted. "Look, let's call a truce, ok? We won't come after you and you don't come after us. Ok?" "Ok," Jack said, having no other choice. "But, listen, you guys! The other brats only come after you because they envy you." The kids looked confused. "Your fathers are with you all the time, while theirs are away at sea most of the time. That makes them jealous." "The brats whose dads are stationed in the base are the same as the rest of them," one of the kids said. "Yes, but that's only because they feel they have to be," Jack said. "They've learned from their parents about loyalty to their shipmates." "Too bad they didn't also learn about right and wrong," the big boy said. "Look! You're cool and all, but we just don't hang out with your kind. You can go play on that hoop and we'll play on this one, but that's it. After we part ways today, the truce is over. We find your bike unattended, we remove all the cables." Jack took his ball and went to practice his free throws, while behind him the six townie kids laughed and played together. It irked him to hear their mirth, while he was condemned to solitude. If the kids didn't want to play with him, then that was their choice. He didn't really know how to make them choose differently. Despite knowing that the right thing to do was to just enjoy himself and practice his aim, he wasn't enjoying himself nowhere near as much as they were as he took shot after shot. He got tired of it after a while, took his ball and went home. As he was leaving the park, he decided to jump over one of the benches. During the run up, he stepped on a dry twig, hidden under some fallen leaves, and lost his momentum. He sailed over the bench, but his knee caught on the edge of the back of the bench and he tumbled end over end on the dirt in front of it. When he stopped rolling, his eyes immediately locked on to the huge, gaping hole in his knee. He saw the bones under it. He was at once both fascinated by seeing that the biology textbooks were true and that he did have bones that looked just like the pictures, and scared shitless that this little accident would end his dream of someday playing in the NBA. He got up and hobbled home on just one leg, as quickly as he could. When he hopped to his house, he saw his mother out front. She was just leaving. He panicked. He needed her to fix his knee. He screamed and she turned towards him. Janice rolled her eyes and huffed in annoyance. Her son, Jack, was hopping towards her and screaming like a stuck pig. It was so embarrassing. He was twelve years old, already, and his father was a Navy lieutenant, yet Jack sometimes acted like he was five. Janice patiently waited for him to skip to her and then said, in a tone that meant he was in big trouble, "Jack Watts, why are you hollering for all the world to hear?" Jack hopped to a stop in front of his mother and looked down, stymied by her tone of voice. He kept his injured leg elevated and bent at the knee, and Janice saw the big tear on the front of his jeans. She bent over to inspect it more closely and was about to chastise Jack for ruining a perfectly good pair of pants, when he flexed his leg a little more and she saw the gaping hole in his knee. The sight of bare bone peeking through the blood and retracting skin made her think about her father's butcher shop, where she had spent her teen years helping out. In particular, it made her reflect on how similar human and pig bones were. Those thoughts lasted only a split second and were immediately overridden by a fear that her only child would limp forever, if his leg could even be saved. Jack was shaking with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. The fear and the pain that had been overwhelming him were fading now that his mother was there to help. He felt ashamed for having screamed like that. As he relaxed and let go, his senses shut down, one by one. For a moment, he was blind, deaf and had no sense of where he was or how he was feeling. He lost track of time, so the moment could have lasted for all eternity, for all he knew. He even lost track of who he was. The timeless moment came to an end and a deluge of thoughts rushed into Jack's mind. Jack felt ashamed for what the other service wives would think of him for having raised such a wimpy son. His shame immediately dovetailed into guilt about having planned to go to the hotel and meet with Mark. The shame of being in bed with a man while his son hopped around, injured and afraid, was almost making him cry. Jack flinched and his senses were suddenly restored. He was standing on one leg in front of his mother. He shook his head, blinked in confusion at the thoughts that had just flowed through his mind. Janice sniffed back tears, took Jack by the hand and said, "Come on, we need to clean that up!" Jack was still baffled by what had been going through his mind and he paid very little attention as his mother began to help him up the stairs to the front porch and into the house. He mutely hopped along and tried to sort out the confusion in his head. Soon, they were in the bathroom and Janice cut open the leg of the jeans. She got Jack to stick his leg in the tub and used the shower to wash the blood and grime off of him. The gash was deep, long and irregular. It would need stitches. She reached for the first aid kit and took out the antiseptic spray. "Be brave, Jack," she softly said. Jack was still trying to make sense of the brief flurry of thoughts that had cropped up in his mind a minute ago so he didn't even notice the disinfectant spray until it was too late. She sprayed the disinfectant over his wound and Jack's mind cleared in pain. He yelped and tensed, but it was too late. His knee was on fire. "We have to go to the clinic to get this stitched up," his mom said. Hearing that made Jack feel even worse. Janice wrapped a quick bandage around his knee and wasted no time getting him to the emergency room. They waited for half an hour before a young doctor came over and led them to an exam room. He stitched up Jack's knee and ordered five days without walking or flexing his knee and gave him a tetanus shot. "Will I still be able to play in the NBA, doctor," Jack fearfully asked. "Of course you will, champ," the doctor said, mussing up his hair. "You'll just need to take some time off from your training, ok?" He left, saying that an orderly would come round to wheel Jack out of the clinic and give him a pair of crutches and the discharge papers. "Wait here, sweetie," Janice said, "I have to go make a call." Jack, angered at having his hair ruffled, bit back a sardonic response about rushing off to join the circus and mutely watched as his mother left the room, mumbling about finally getting herself a cellphone. Left alone in an exam room, he thought back to the silly thoughts that had entered his head, for just a split second, earlier that day. He had felt a combination of fascination, fear and shame, followed by guilt and the image of a man called Mark. The more he thought about it, the less it made sense. He didn't know any grown-ups named Mark. His mother came back with the orderly and they left the hospital. He spent five days in bed with his mother spoon feeding him ice cream and letting him watch all the TV he wanted. Despite living the dream, by the standards of a twelve year old, Jack found himself bored by daytime television and frequently considering his memory of briefly thinking about this man Mark. He was just about to discount it, when he reread one of his X-Men comics. His brief experience wasn't all that different from what Professor X and Jean Grey did in the comics. Jack gasped aloud as he remembered himself thinking about his son Jack during that weird burst of thoughts. He realized he hadn't been the one thinking that. It must have been his mother's thought. She had a son named Jack. He was him. Jack felt goose bumps run up and down his arms as he realized that he must have read his mother's mind. For a brief moment, he had felt what his mother felt, thought what his mother had thought. Jack asked himself if that could really be the truth. He wanted it to be the truth, he wanted to be a superhero, like Professor X, but could he really do it? Wasn't mind reading just the stuff of fiction? Stuck in his bed and with nothing better to do, he decided to give it a try. He closed his eyes and listened intently, but he could not hear his mother's thoughts. He screwed up his face in concentration, but perceived nothing. He spent the night awake, thinking about what it would be like to be able to read people's minds. He found himself wishing he could read anyone's mind, more than anything. Soon enough, he was well enough to go back to school. He spent the entire day flexing his imaginary psychic muscles and trying to read a mind. Anyone's mind. He failed miserably. He consulted all the comics he had at his house for guidance and even asked the guy at the comics store about mind reading. The guy recommended a lot of comics, but Jack didn't have the allowance to buy more than a few of them. He perused their content online, on a computer in the school's library. His mother refused to let him have a computer at home, which would "let all the filth from the net come in", as she liked to say. One of the things many of those comics' plots had in common was that the mind reading heroes used meditation techniques to improve their powers. Jack spent all his free time looking up information about meditation online. The computers in the library were always available, since most of his classmates had smartphones, but he could only use them for a few hours between the end of his classes and when he had to be home for dinner. He spent the time on the computer making notes on meditative techniques and then tried them out in his room, late at night. He kept at it for over a month, but he made no progress. He began to think that that timeless moment of disconnecting from all his senses and thinking his mother's thoughts might have been just the pain in his knee making him confused. It was vivid in his memory, but he guessed he could have just imagined it in the first place. With the weather too cold for basketball, he kept up with his efforts to master the ancient art of meditation on his own. Eventually, his online searches led him to an ad about a course in transcendental meditation that would be taught in his town. If the mystic art of meditation could make him read minds, then attending that course was the way to do it. He emailed the address in the ad. He got all the info on the course in response and wrote it down, but his hopes were fading. He needed to pay for it and, because he was only twelve, he needed a parent's signature to attend. He brooded all the way home. His mother was a devout catholic and if she thought he could even spell the word meditation, she'd have a fit and make him eat soap. He sighed heavily and shook his head. He could never catch a break. His dad was on his aircraft carrier and Jack had no way of getting him to sign a permission slip for him, even if he could somehow get him to go against his wife's wishes. He came home and sat down heavily on the sofa. His knee ached and he winced. His eyes started to mist up. Here he was, sitting on a sofa, instead of learning meditation, and his mother was off somewhere, completely oblivious to the fact that she was stopping her own child from achieving such a great destiny as becoming a superhero. Jack wiped his eyes and bunched up his brow. He glanced at the clock. His mother was supposed to be back home by now. She only worked part time. He started to get worried about her. What if she had also taken a tumble somewhere? He shut his eyes and concentrated on reading her mind. She might be in trouble. After a few minutes, his cheeks and eyelids began to hurt from all the squinting. He opened his eyes and rubbed the fatigue from his face. His efforts gave no result. He was starting to get very worried about his mom. It wasn't like her to not be there when he came home. He thought about calling 411 and asking them to connect him with Mark, thinking he might know where his mother was, but he didn't know Mark's last name. Jack's brow drew down. What had his mother been doing, thinking about going off to meet with Mark while he was injured? During that flurry of thoughts that had invaded his mind, she had felt guilty, Jack was sure. Why would she be feeling guilty? Jack's mouth tightened as he figured it out. His mother was meeting with the man to cheat on his father. It was the thing all the Navy kids feared and talked about in hushed tones, a mysterious disease that prowled unseen and struck down families, seemingly at random. Infidelity. A lot of the kids whose dads were at sea for most of the year would one day come to school in tears and tell their friends that their moms had been unfaithful and that their parents were getting a divorce. In this town, that meant that the kids would be leaving town along with their mother. Jack had seen many of them go over these past two years. All of them secretly feared that they would be next. The thought of his mother being unfaithful made him angry, but he didn't know what to do. Should he stand up for his father and expose his mother as a cheater? Wouldn't that destroy his family? He sat back down on the sofa and waited for her to come back home, thinking of how to best handle the situation. As the minutes passed, he realized that he had exactly no proof of her infidelity and that he should either let it go, or find some proof. Before long, his mother came in, wearing her Sunday finest, a lot of makeup and a big, warm smile. "Hello, dear." Looking at the woman that was cheating on his dad and had the gall to teach him morals, Jack's anger turned cold. He decided to find proof. He drew upon the old saying for catching flies and forced a smile. "Hi, Mom!" "Did you have a nice day at school," she absentmindedly asked. "Yes, I did," Jack said. He innocently asked, "How's Mark?" "Oh, he's great," she said, dreamily. "He's going to..." Her voice trailed off and she looked Jack in the eye. He could plainly see the emotion on her face. It was fear and guilt and worry. She was cheating on his father. For the briefest of moments, Jack felt the elation of being right and truly having mind reading powers. In the very next instant, the realization that his mother was cheating on his father came crashing down on top of it. "You're cheating on Dad," he whispered. Janice sent him to bed without supper and Jack was too astounded to protest. He just shuffled off to his room. He spent the night crying on his bed until he fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning, he was done with tears and he had come to a decision. Janice Watts was the enemy and Jack was going to take her on with everything he had. He wanted to run tell his father, but he didn't know how to get in touch with him while he was at sea. He was also aware of the fact that he had no proof of the affair. He couldn't just tell people he had somehow managed to pick up on his mother's thoughts. They'd laugh at him. His own father would most likely choose to believe her over him. Even if he got his dad to believe him, the other grown ups never believed the word of a kid over that of another grown up. He remembered some of the stories about the divorces of the other Navy brats' parents. He knew that he had to have absolute proof of infidelity, or the wife would bleed the husband dry. He had no intention of allowing Janice to bleed his father dry. He was going to get the proof himself. He was going to become a mind reader and find out all the details of her affair before he told his dad. Then his dad would win the divorce and justice would be served. First step was getting into that meditation class. He decided to blackmail his mother. It was the honorable thing to do, he told himself, as it meant standing up against her wronging his father with her infidelity. With his cheating mother out of the picture, his dad would be free to live a better life. Jack would be, too. When Jack breached the subject, Janice yelled at him, trying to scare him into not telling on her to his father, but he just glared at her. She sent him to school without breakfast and threatened him with a severe beating if he told anyone anything. When he came back home, she asked him if he was going to listen to reason. When he told her he was going to tell his father about Mark, she withheld dinner from him and forbade him from watching TV. As she sat to eat dinner, he turned on the TV. She rushed to the living room and turned it off, after slapping him for disobeying her. Jack just glared at her and said, "Wait 'till I tell Dad about Mark." Janice wasn't going to let herself get blackmailed by a child, especially not one that was her own son. She took a deep breath, calmed down a bit, and told Jack to go to his room. He just sat there and glared at her. Janice smirked. If Jack wanted to play the waiting and sulking game, she was going to teach him patience. Days passed and Jack refused to cooperate with her on all fronts. He dug his heels in with such pigheaded stubbornness that he reminded her of her own father. Every day, he came home and told her he was going to tell on her indiscretion to his father. Janice punished him with every punishment she could think of, but it didn't work. The day of her husband's liberty leave was coming closer and she was starting to really resent hearing Jack's declaration every day. She started denying him food and limiting his bath time. She hoped it would work, but Jack just kept on with his glares and threats. As the day of her husband's arrival got closer and closer, she was starting to panic. If Jack so much as mentioned Mark's name to his father, he'd immediately flip out. Mark was her old flame and she had cheated on Bert with him before. In fact, their marriage only survived because she had solemnly sworn on her own mother's copy of the good book that she would never, ever, even think of Mark, let alone speak to him. Her husband would divorce her, she'd get kicked out of her home and lose her part time job on the naval base, which she only got on account of her husband. All of her friends were also Navy wives and they'd shun her. She'd be out on the street, with just the shirt on her back, if she allowed Jack to tell his father anything. Mark was married and would lose everything, his business and his kids, if he tried to divorce his wife. The timing for the two of them to get together had to be ideal, and now just wasn't the right time. Janice made a banana nut cake and invited Jack into the kitchen. She cut two big slices of cake and served them on two plates, one for her and the other for Jack. She could hear his stomach growling. He kept glaring at her. "Eat up, Jack," she said, "it's your favorite." She took a big bite of the cake and made a show of enjoying it. A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 "I'm telling Dad," he said. Janice rolled her eyes and forced a smile on her lips. "You will do no such thing, young man," she said, calmly. "If you do, then your father is going to get angry. He'll be very, very angry, Jack. And hurt and sad. Do you want your father to come home from serving his country and feel sad and angry and hurt. Do you want to hurt your father, Jack? Is that it?" Jack's glare was immovable. "I'm telling Dad," he said. Janice felt tears of frustration coming on. She tried to make the kid see reason and understand just how much pain and suffering his little slip of the tongue could cause. Jack was having none of it. Then her frustration got the best of her and she cried in earnest. Jack felt a bit bad at seeing his mother cry, but she had kept him from watching TV, playing with his friends, and even eating. He only ate in the school cafeteria and what he could sneak out of the fridge when she wasn't looking. He was so pissed off with her about that, that he couldn't scrounge up any simpathy for her tears. He also hated her hypocrisy. She was violating one of the very Commandments she had spent so much time drumming into his head. He got bored with listening to her sobs, so he went upstairs to his room. When he got home from school the next day, his mother sat in the living room. "Jack, my darling, come sit with me," she said. Jack walked over and sat in the armchair opposite her. "What do you want? What can I give you so you don't tell your father about Mark?" Her voice nearly broke as she said, "I'll do anything, Jack! Anything!" Jack grinned. His long campaign finally paid off. He felt like maybe he could get dad to believe him, now that his mom was crying over it, but he knew she could be very cool and composed at times. His first priority was still learning meditation and becoming a superhero. Then he could do anything, including punish his mom for cheating on his dad. "Things are going to be very different around here, from now on," he said. Janice was shocked at how small his demands were. He had endured what passed for severe hardship to a twelve year old in America and he only asked for an allowance, attending a course in meditation and no more bible study camp or Sunday school. She shrugged and agreed to his demands. Not sending him to camp would pay for his allowance, and the course in meditation was a very small price to not get thrown out on her ass. Besides, she told herself, I'll just undo all of that as soon as his father goes back to his ship. His father's visit was short and passed pleasantly. The next time Jack asked for his allowance, Janice turned him down cold. Jack smiled and started to recite all the ways he could get in touch with his father. Apparently, the two had scheduled a regular exchange of letters and even shore to ship calls. Janice's heart beat wildly as she realized the game had changed for ever. A part of her was feeling proud for seeing her son demonstrate the ability of foresight. Another part wanted to wipe that smile off his face with a few good swings of the rolling pin. She caved and gave him his allowance. Jack attended the meditation course, followed by a course on advanced techniques. They taught him a lot, particularly about muting down his senses, but he just couldn't quite read people's minds. He spent months trying to, though. Becoming a real life Professor X became his obsession and sole ambition. His many failures were followed by doubts, but the fact that he knew about Mark and had successfully blackmailed his mom about it was proof positive that he had done it once already. He simply refused to consider the possibility it could have been a one-time thing. During his father's next visit, they got a puppy. It was a cross between a Border Collie and a common mutt and his black and white fur looked like that of a Dalmatian. His dad named the pooch Spot and Jack and he built the puppy a dog house in the back yard. When his father left again, Jack resumed his nightly meditation sessions. The puppy, however, was to be kept outside, in the dog house, per Janice's orders. The puppy spent his nights yapping and whining, disrupting the sleep of half the block. Jack did his level best to keep up with his nightly meditation exercises, but Spot's yapping was very distracting. Jack sucked it up and tried various types of ear plugs, but they did not work as advertised. One night, Spot was just quietly squealing and Jack managed to get some proper practice in. He used the dog's whining as a sort of pacemaker for his own breathing. The monotone, high pitched sounds occupied a lot of Jack's attention. Slowly, Jack managed to clear his mind of thoughts. His senses and awareness were dimmed. He achieved a state of mental clarity and then Spot changed his tune to begin wailing at the top of his lungs. Jack's concentration was broken and he felt a surge of anger towards Spot. Jack's eyes shot open as he heard the puppy yelping in sudden pain. He jumped up and opened his window, peering into the dark to see who had dared hurt his father's dog. Jack jumped out of his window and ran to the dog house. He saw it was still latched shut and there were no tracks of anyone having been there, that Jack could see in the moonlight. He unlatched the doghouse and brought the quiet puppy outside for inspection. Spot was unharmed. Jack petted the puppy and put him back inside. He latched the house shut and looked around, angry at whoever came to hurt the dog. He went back inside and got to sleep a short while later. The next night, the puppy was placed in the dog house again and he quickly started to whine. Jack's meditation practice kept up as usual, though Spot kept disrupting it. Spot would steadily whine a few more times, and each time, Jack's exercises would start to lead somewhere. He would attain a deep level of mental calm, where his mind would be freed of all thoughts and emotions. When Spot changed pitch and/or rhythm, Jack's mind would flash over with frustrated anger and that was followed by Spot yelping in pain and then getting quiet. After the fourth time this happened, Jack finally started to connect the dots. There wasn't anyone sneaking in to hurt the dog. He began to suspect it was him making the puppy go quiet. The thought that his mental power could extend to animals, as well as humans, was making him deliriously happy. The entire neighborhood was beginning to complain about the noise, but Janice simply refused to have Spot indoors to pee on the rugs and "spread his stench everywhere". Gossip was starting to spread about how Jack was molesting the puppy and would one day grow up to hurt people. Jack came up with a plan to test his power. He stayed up all night and patiently listened to the dog's whining. By the time Spot finished and fell asleep, Jack was halfway there, himself. He roused himself and did his meditation exercises. He meditated until dawn came. He managed to put his mind to sleep and still be awake at the same time. He got up and proceeded with his plan. He poured Spot's bowl of puppy chow and set a small mirror on the floor. He stared down at it and let the image of him holding a bowl of chow, as it would be seen from a small puppy's perspective, sear into his brain. He then walked out and opened the dog house. As soon as Spot saw him standing there with a bowl of chow, Jack felt such relief and joy that he started to cry and laugh at the same time. He set the chow down and hugged and kissed and rubbed the puppy all over. Soon, he felt a hunger like no other and he set Spot down to eat, knowing the puppy must be hungry by now. He knelt down beside the dog and opened his mouth, looking at the bowl of dog food. Jack snapped out of it with a start. He had almost eaten dog food on all fours. He jumped up in alarm and disgust. Spot ignored him, wagging his tail like a lunatic and scarfing down the contents of the bowl. Jack realized that not only had he felt the dog's emotions, but they had nearly overwhelmed him. He went to the house and got himself a human breakfast, embarrassed that he was emotionally owned by a puppy younger than him, even when one counted dog years. He started to worry about his ability. What if it turned out to be a curse? What if he got his mind replaced by that of a dog? He mentally chastised himself for thinking that. This was not the time to dwell on nonsense. He shoveled cereal into his mouth and frowned. There was no way he was going to get owned by a dog again. He went to the base that day and managed to talk to one of the marines that trained war dogs. He told the sergeant he wanted to train Spot to surprise his dad when he came home on liberty the next time. The sergeant gave him a lot of good advice and explained to him the basics of a dog's psyche. Jack thanked him and went to the library. He got a few books on dog training and set to work on his project of using his psychic abilities to train the dog and hone his power at the same time. Within a day, he got the puppy to stop fearing being alone and yelping half the night away. By the end of the month, Spot was sitting, staying and rolling over. By the time his dad came home for his next liberty, Spot could fetch things, not just play fetch. Jack's dad mussed up his hair, commented on how much he taller he had grown since he saw him last, and praised his work with Spot. Before Spot turned six months old, Jack put so much knowledge into the dog's head, that he could practically understand English. Jack showed the sergeant what he had taught Spot one day and the sergeant was very impressed. He told Jack of a charity organization that trained assistance dogs and asked him to join them as a dog trainer. Jack went over, mostly out of curiosity, and saw what they did. When he met some of the people the dogs helped, he realized he was presented with an amazing opportunity. If he devoted as much free time as he could to rapidly training superior assistance dogs, he would be fulfilling his duty to his fellow man, just like the late lieutenant White had taught. He had set out to become Professor X, but he decided that this was an even better way to go about becoming a real life superhero. He trained dozens of dogs, improving the lives of as many people in need. His understanding of his powers grew with experience and use. He couldn't just think of a person and read their mind, or make them do what he wanted. He needed to be able to quiet his own mind, disregard the input from his own senses, and match their emotional state in order to achieve a connection. With the dogs, that was very easy. They had simple emotions and it was in their nature to have an alpha dog, a leader. He would establish himself as their alpha and they instinctively matched their emotions to his, enabling him to read and train them with ease. Humans had infinitely more freedom with what they could fill their heads with and that made them vastly more complicated. He had a trick that enabled him to get a brief glimpse of a person's emotional state. He would modify one detail of his appearance to be very visible. Most often, he would fold one side of his shirt collar down, as was normal, and turn up the other side until it almost poked him in the corner of his mouth. He then concentrated on that visual detail, meditated on it, even as he walked. It was his gateway into a person's mind, them perceiving it and thinking about it. However, once past the gate he was routinely lost. Every person's mind was a unique labyrinth and no two people reacted in the same way to seeing half his collar turned up. His greatest successes were at the movies. He would watch a movie twice in one night and then sit in on the third showing in a row and manage to tune out the movie and meditate. At certain points in the film, he could match the emotions of everyone around him and then he would feel their thoughts. Once, he matched a young man's emotions and read his mind. He was on a date with a co-worker, but too afraid to put his arm around the pretty girl. Jack made him think of how it would feel to touch her warm skin under his fingers and projected that thought into the guy's mind. He could feel the girl's soft skin under the boy's fingertips as his arm slid down her bicep. They soon started making out and Jack lost his connection, due to the sensations he was unfamiliar with. For a long time to follow, that would be his biggest success in making a human do his bidding. While he had been absorbed in his dog training and trying to teach himself to read minds at will, he had completely missed the drama that was unfolding between his parents. His dad had found out about Mark all on his own and he initiated divorce proceedings. Janice was exposed in court as a cheater and the humiliation made her lash out by suing for sole custody of Jack. When the judge asked him, Jack firmly opposed the idea of living with Janice. His father, on the other hand, didn't even show up on the custody hearing date. He sent a naval officer, who was also a lawyer, in his stead. The officer made it known that Jack's father felt Jack was better off with his mother. Jack was stupefied with the turn of events and he cried after the hearing, thinking that his father had also found out that he had known about Janice's infidelity and was punishing him for withholding it from him. The day after the hearing, Jack was sitting by the phone, waiting for the time when he could make his shore to ship call. His leg was skipping in place as he wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. He had no idea how he could apologize for what he had done. The words simply wouldn't come to him. All he knew was that he had to try. He had to hear his father's voice. The time came and he made the call with all the enthusiasm of a death row convict taking his final walk. While he waited for his father to come to the phone, he had to resist the strong urge to hang up and run. "Keep it together," he muttered to himself through grit teeth. "You hid the crime, Jack. Now face the music!" "Hey, Jack," his father's voice came on the line. "How are you?" Jack was shocked to hear his dad sound so cheerful and calm. He could only stammer out a, "Um, I-I'm fine, uh..." "Good! Glad to hear it. Is your mother ok? Is there anything wrong?" "I... Uh, no, she's fine..." "Good, good. So, how have you been doing?" "Uh, Dad... I, uh, I'm sorry," Jack said and then had to cover the receiver's microphone as he stifled a sob. "Oh, Jack," his father softly said. "Don't do this! Don't beat yourself up about the divorce. It's not your fault. How could it be?" Jack drew a deep breath to get his choked up throat to open up again and allow him to speak. His father's words made him stop weeping in an instant. "What?" "Look, I know that a lot of the kids, a lot of the time, blame themselves for their parents' divorce. That's just silly. I don't want you to do the same. None of this was your fault." "But, Dad, I didn't tell you about Mark!" "Well, how could you? You're not a trained spy and it's not your job to keep tabs on your mother wherever she goes. She hid this thing from both of us and she hid it well." Jack was stunned speechless. His father had no idea that he had known about Mark for ages. He couldn't even begin to figure out why his dad gave up on him at the custody hearing. "Jack? Jack, are you still there?" "Uh... yeah. Yes, I'm still here." "Oh, good," his father said. "For a moment there, I thought we got cut off, or something. Now, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?" "Huh?" "Why did you call me, Jack? Was it something important?" "Uh, no, I, uh," Jack shook his head and cleared his mind. "Yes. Yes, I did want to talk to you about something." "Mm-hm, I'm listening." Jack hesitated for a few seconds, but then said, "If you're not mad at me, then why did you... why are you... what's with the Navy guy at the hearing?" "What do you mean?" "Why are you agreeing with Mom about where I should live?!" His father sighed and fell silent for a few moments. Jack gripped the receiver like he could keep the man on the line with a strong enough grasp. "You don't need me anymore," his father finally said. "What?! No! Of course I do, I-" "Jack," his father said, interrupting him, "you're sixteen years old. When I was your age, I didn't need, nor want, anyone around telling me what to do." "What? No, Dad, I-" "I know you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, Jack. You're not a little boy anymore. You've practically been running the household for years now. You know how to cook and clean and all that stuff." Jack got up from his seat and paced as he spoke up. "Yes! Yes, that's exactly what I mean! I don't need supervision! I can manage everything on my own. I can live with you, instead of with Mom!" "Jack," his father softly said. "Seriously, Dad! All you have to do is say you've changed your mind and the judge will say I can stay here, with you." "It's not that simple, Son." "Yes, it is! Dad! You should've seen the way the judge was looking down on Mom the whole time. I'm sure-" "Jack," his father firmly said, interrupting him. "For me to get custody of you, I'd have to be a full-time parent, Jack. I'd have to come ashore and ride a desk." "No, Dad, I told you! I can manage on my own. You don't have to-" "And for me to leave the ship now would mean a terrible hit to my career, Jack. I can't do it." Jack blinked away tears. Was his father choosing his career over him? He drew a deep breath and calmly said, "Dad, I-" "And I'd only be needed until you turned eighteen," his father said, interrupting him again. "Then you'd be free to live on your own and I'd be stuck behind a desk somewhere, with my career in the toilet. No, Jack, I thought this through and I've decided this is best for us all. I stay here, on the ship, and you go with your mom. She'll need you to help her get through all this." "What? Forget Mom! She brought this on herself!" "Jack," his dad admonished. "I don't want to hear you talking like that about your mother!" "But, Dad-" "No! I don't wanna hear it! You don't know what things were like between us and you've no right to judge. Do you understand me, young man?" Jack rolled his eyes and sighed before saying, "Yes." "Good," his father said. He sighed. "Look, Jack, things will be so much better for you if you went with your mother. I remember back when I was your age, my dad and I were like two cats in a bag. We had nothing to say to one another and we were always on the verge of coming to blows. We did come to blows a few times, actually. I don't want the two of us to start acting like that." "We won't, Dad! I promise!" "Jack, it's not as simple as all that. I have to stay aboard ship. It's the only thing that makes sense for my career." Jack frowned. "Are you choosing your career over me?" "It's not like that, Jack!" "Oh, really? Then what is it like, Dad? Explain it to me, cause it seems like it from where I'm standing!" His father gave a heavy sigh and Jack could hear the background noises on the line lessen, as if he had moved someplace quieter. "Look, Jack, you know why I have to go on. I took you to see him." "To see whom?" "Your namesake, Jack. I took you to see him, almost four years ago. You remember Jack White, don't you?" "Yes. Yes, of course I do." "Well... Jack, the man gave his life for mine and he was career Navy. He was going to go all the way to the top. He's no longer with us, so I'm going to do that for him. I'm going to go all the way to the top." "Dad, you don't have to do that." "I think I do, Son. I really do." "No, Dad... I mean... what if he would have wound up changing his mind and, and going for something else entirely?" A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 "It doesn't matter, Son. That was his dream, his life's goal when he sacrificed himself for me. That was the future he had given up when he gave me mine and that is the future I will make true for us both." "But, Dad... what about me? You, you only married Mom and had me because he had saved you. You said so yourself! What about me, Dad?" "You're a man grown, Jack. You don't need me." "Don't say that, Dad! I need you. Of course I do." After a long pause, his dad said, "Son, I've thought this through and this is the best for all of us." The terrible guilt Jack had felt over not telling his father about Mark had been banished by the revelation that his dad didn't really didn't want him around. The emotional void was now filled up with anger. "Is that so, Bert? Is that the best for all of us?" "Yes, Jack. One day, I think you'll look back on this day, without the emotional baggage of today, and you'll agree with me." "No, Bert," Jack said. "I agree with you right now." "You do?" his father asked, sounding surprised. "Yes, Bert. Me going with Mom is the best for us all. You don't love her and she doesn't love you, so it makes sense to get a divorce." "We'll always-" "And you don't care about me, Bert," Jack said, interrupting him, "and I don't care about you, either, so it makes sense for you to dump me on her, I guess." "Jack!" "The only problem is that Mom and I don't care about each other either, so I guess that's going to be bad for the two of us. But hey! At least you get to pursue the dreams of a dead guy, right? That's gotta count for something!" "You don't mean that," his dad softly said. "And how would you know that, Bert? Goodbye!" Jack hung up and ran upstairs to cry. The court awarded full custody of Jack to Janice. Knowing that neither parent really cared about him, Jack wasn't bothered by it. Well, Janice must care about me a little, he thought. Why else would she not tell Bert that I had known about Mark for years? He had humiliated her during the divorce proceedings, she would have fought back with everything she had. That thought made the whole thing much more bearable for him. Once the divorce was final, Janice's beau, Mark, dropped her like a hot potato. She was left jobless and all alone, with no friends, or relatives to speak of. Just Jack. The alimony Bert was paying her for Jack was too small to do anything with it and it would stop on his eighteenth birthday, so she needed to get a full-time job. She couldn't find a job in their town, mainly cause its existence revolved around the naval base and everyone hated her for betraying her husband. She moved them to a smaller town where she managed to get a job as a cashier at a supermarket. The only thing that Jack hated about the move was the fact that after six years in the same crowd, he had finally managed to shake off the results of his first day incident. He had qualified for his school's basketball team and was on the verge of getting with a girl. In the new town and new school, he was the outsider and had to start from scratch. The school had a stellar reputation and the statistics to match it. It was amongst the leading in the state with regards to discipline and was reputed to have a harmonious student body. The school's reputation gave Jack hope that his social status could be radically improved. Their varsity basketball team was a fixture of state playoffs, unlike his previous school, so he knew they were definitely too good for him to join. He hadn't been a starter on his old school's team and he didn't even bother trying out for this one. He kept up with his dog training and studying and it took him a while to get his bearings and try to find his place in the new environment. Despite its reputation, it was quite hectic for a newcomer like Jack. He might have had a chance to reinvent himself and establish a new, more impressive social identity, but a gaggle of girls from school saw him walking around town with a blindfold, being led by a German shepherd he was training to be a guide dog. Perhaps it had simply been a slow day for gossip and fun, or the sight of a kid their age doing something useful to others was offensive to the girls. Whatever the reason, they decided to mock him and his efforts. They snuck up behind him and made faces while one of them snapped photos from in front of him. Jack was training the dog to ignore such distractions and it did. The girls flashed their bra clad breasts and held up gang signs right behind an oblivious Jack. The photos were online and seen by most of the school before he even came home that evening. He didn't know about it until the whole school was laughing at him the next day. He was labeled Dog Boy and the entire student body had fun at his expense for weeks. Every time he walked down the school corridors, they would mimic the funny poses and faces the girls had made behind his back. When he sought out help from the school counselor and the vice principal, he saw the lie the school's reputation was built on. The school's administrators never acted on any kind of complaint from any of the students and never reported them to any authorities, either. Instead, they bullied the students who dared speak up and forced them to keep quiet and "not make trouble", insisting their chances of an academic future would be ruined. This resulted in an impeccable disciplinary record for the school and a complete nightmare for most of the students that attended it. For the bullies, however, the place was El Dorado. The administration and the students exiled him to the fringes of the school's social structure. Finding a girlfriend was utterly impossible, which was doubly frustrating to him, since there were pretty girls everywhere. They habitually wore little, and what they wore was more revealing than not. Every day, hot chicks would walk right past him, like he wasn't even there. They were within arm's reach, but they may as well have been on another planet, for all the good that did him. Even looking too hard could get him into trouble. He wasn't a pervert that ogled every girl in sight, but he could hardly stop himself from stealing a few longing glances, every now and then. Most of the girls had boyfriends, particularly the hot ones that showed skin even in winter. Most of those boyfriends were ok guys that didn't overreact to seeing another guy checking their girlfriends out, but the jocks were a whole different story. Checking out their girlfriends, which were hands down the hottest ones in the school, routinely got you jumped and beaten up after school. Jack didn't want trouble. He kept his head down, studied as hard as he could with all that beauty around him, trained his dogs, and tried to work on his mental power. His dog training hadn't been a paying gig, at first. The charity merely supplied the puppy and the cash for the necessary chow and veterinarian bills. However, his power allowed him to train dogs faster than any regular dog trainer could and he could also train a dozen dogs at the same time, while a regular trainer could only split their time between a few. His ability was soon noticed by a private security firm. After he showed them what he could do with a dog, they hired him to train guard dogs for their clients. One day at school, the quarterback saw Jack gazing at his girlfriend's ass encased in skintight jeans. He promptly strode over to Jack and slammed him against his locker. A teacher heard the noise and walked towards them, making the six-and-a-half foot tall beefcake back off, but not before whispering, "Outside, loser," in Jack's ear. Jack skipped last period that day and ducked out of school early. He went home and trained two German shepherds to follow Spot. He trained Spot to lead them to his school, just in time to greet him at the front door when he got out of classes. When Jack left school the next day, the quarterback and his posse were waiting for him. They were spread around, in case he tried to make a run for it. Instead, Jack walked right for the quarterback, whistling a happy tune. The rest of the mouthbreathers slowly converged on him, discreetly hemming him in towards their leader. Jack wondered if they trained the maneuver during football practice. He soon found himself surrounded by a wall of plus-sized letterman jackets and facing the quarterback. "You're new, ain'tcha," the quarterback asked. "That's ok, loser. I'm gonna teach you how things go around here and you're gonna thank me when we're done." "Nope," Jack calmly said and snapped his fingers. At the sound of the snap, the three dogs no one had noticed padding over began growling menacingly. The jocks jumped in their skins and spun to face the dogs. The German shepherds had their giant fangs out on display as they snarled at them. Their growls were the low, dangerous rumbles that started in the back of the throat and threatened to end up in the back of someone else's throat. Spot, on the other hand, had his teeth hidden and displayed some of his pedigree as he kept his head low and shot them the intimidating look Border Collies were famous for. It was actually scarier than the shepherds' display, Jack had to concede, as it made Spot look positively deranged. The jocks froze in place and slowly raised their hands in a gesture of peace and surrender. Jack shoved the quarterback to the side and strode past him before turning around and facing the jocks with his shepherds at his sides. Spot stood in front of Jack, still staring up at the quarterback's wide eyes with a glare that might as well be from the Grim Reaper itself. Jack had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the looks on their faces. Jack reminded himself he was there to intimidate, not humiliate. Training dogs had taught him that intimidating a pack leader amended the hierarchy of the pack, with the former alpha becoming number two. Humiliating a pack leader ran the risk of the former leader being turned out of the pack altogether and running rabid. Jack wanted the jocks to fear messing with him. Nothing more. He looked away from their silver dollar sized eyes and exorcised the smug sneer from his face before clearing his throat to catch their attentions. They weren't even looking at him, they were staring at the snarling dogs around him. "Hey, hey," the quarterback whispered in a terrified tone of voice, "let's be cool, Dog Boy and..." "Shut up," Jack commanded, "and hold still!" "Whuh, wh-why," one of the scared jocks asked. "So my dogs can sniff you," Jack said. He snapped his fingers again and the shepherds stopped growling. "They're gonna get your scent and memorize it." The shepherds stepped towards each jock before them and took a good sniff of their groins. "These are two of the attack dogs I train for Alpha Security Solutions. These two were actually rejected for excessive aggression. If anything should happen to me, they'll find you and bite your faces off. As well as a few other things." The dogs finished sniffing all the jocks and returned to flank Jack. "Are we clear here?" The jocks just stared at the menacing dogs before them. "I said, are we clear here?!" The jocks squealed out a bunch of whiny affirmations. "Then we're done," Jack said. He snapped his fingers again and the three dogs barked and fainted a lunge towards the jocks. The jocks shrieked in terror, turned and ran. Jack smirked and petted Spot before turning around to go home. His little escapade didn't result in any disciplinary action, nor was he sent to the Vice Principal's office. Either the teachers weren't told about it, or they chose to ignore it, like they ignored all the bullying the school was rife with. Jack didn't get away with his little stunt, however. There were repercussions. Everyone was talking about the crazy stunt Dog Boy pulled off. Jack hadn't known about this at first, since everyone just shut up around him, as they usually did. The only people talking to him were his new friends John, Steve and Rob. Those three had sought Jack out as soon as they heard of the confrontation. The four of them bonded over their shared love of comics, but Jack didn't really go into any of the other things they were into, namely video games. He showed them his work with dogs, greatly impressing them. Though they weren't exactly Four Musketeer material, Jack was grateful for their friendship. The three of them explained to Jack that he was envied by the rest of the student body, because they all felt that he was better than them. They also hated him for that and they called him Dog Boy to make themselves feel better. Even though Jack had been taught by his father that bullies always lashed out at those they felt were better than them, he could scarcely believe his situation. He doubted it, at first, but the boys pointed out proof after proof, convincing him that everyone else felt inferior next to him. They said they fully understood his situation since the student body had also felt inferior next to the boys' intellects. They, too, had been picked on. "Wait," Jack said, "had been picked on? As in, you no longer are?" The guys nodded and Steve said, "Yeah, dude. No one picks on us anymore." "Wow," Jack said. "That's great! How, uh, how did that happen?" "We did this... sort of grassroots campaign," John said. "It changed everyone's minds about us." "Tell me more," Jack said. "See, you can't go around arguing to defend yourself from bullies," Rob said. "That only makes you seem more confrontational and it makes the conflict between yourself and the bullies cement itself in everyone's minds." "Yeah, you don't want that," John said, shaking his head. "What you need to do is approach every single one of the people that are either bullying you, or indifferent to the whole thing," Rob said. "You have to get them when they're alone and amenable to having their minds changed, i.e., when they're not pissed off about anything. You engage them in polite conversation and get humanized in their eyes. You have to make them acknowledge to themselves that what's being done to you is wrong. After that, the situation pretty much fixes itself." "That makes total sense," Jack said. "Who should I start with?" "Whoa, whoa, whoa, man," John exclaimed. "You can't go around doing that!" "What?! You just said that I-" "Not you personally," Rob said. "If you go talk to a bully, they're not going to listen to you, are they? No, they'll just see it as the next round of your conflict. No resolution, no progress." "And if you go talk to a neutral," John said, "then you'll come across as needy. Nothing turns people off you as quickly as desperation." Jack folded his arms across his chest. "I'm hearing a catch-22. I don't like catch-22 situations. How did you guys do it, if you couldn't go talk to people?" "We got others to talk for us," John said, smiling. "Do you remember that movie 'American Pie', where the dorky guy pays a girl to talk him up with all the other girls, so he could get laid?" Steve asked Jack. Jack nodded. As a big fan of Alyson Hannigan, he had seen all the American Pie movies, though he hadn't found them to be particularly funny, or good. "Well, it was like that," Rob said. "We paid a bunch of people to go talk to others on our behalf and, after a lot of time and effort and money, it worked. No one is picking on us anymore." "I got money," Jack said. "I can pay! Who are these people? Tell me their names! I'm hiring them right away!" His friends looked at each other before Rob said, "Uh, they've graduated!" John and Steve nodded. "They graduated. They were seniors. We hired the seniors to talk on our behalf, cause everyone listens to what the seniors say." "Yeah, man," John said, "the seniors rule the school." Jack sighed. So close. "Do you know anyone in the current senior class who could do this kind of campaign for me?" "No," John said. "But we can do you one better than that!" "What do you have in mind?" Jack asked. "Us, man," John said and spread his arms. "We can do the campaign for you!" Rob and Steve smiled and nodded. "Seriously? You guys would do that for me?" "Hell, yeah," Steve said. "You don't even have to ask. We're on it, dude!" Jack smiled and then said, "Wait! Can you guys even do the campaign? No offense, but, uh..." "Chillax," Rob said. "The three of us masterminded our own campaign. The seniors were only mouthpieces. They approached whom we said and spoke the words we came up with." "And it totally worked, man," John said. "We're three of the guys now. We can do this thing for you. Trust us!" Jack had spent years being on the bottom rung of his old school's social structure, so he didn't feel very confident with his interpersonal skills. He nodded. "Ok. You're hired! How much do I pay you?" His friends looked at one another again and seemed to hesitate. "And what will I be doing while you're talking me up?" "Nothing," John said. "You'll do nothing." "No, but, when I meet someone from school around town, or when I'm alone with them inside the school, what then?" Jack asked. "Nothing," John said. "I just ignore them?" Jack asked. "Doesn't that work against me? Don't they already think that I think I'm above them? Won't that just make me seem more haughty?" Rob put a hand on Jack's shoulder and quietly said, "No, look! The kids at school envy you. Right?" Jack nodded. "They think you're better than them. That makes them defensive around you, right off the bat. Whatever you say to them, they'll judge it through the lens of your perceived superiority. Anything you say, any way you act, they'll misinterpret." "Yeah," John said. "If you act nicely, they'll go, 'oh, look at that superior asshole, acting all nice, like the dog training and the money and the independence weren't enough to make me feel bad about myself, already'. And if you act like a jerk, they'll just say, 'well, he might be rich and important, but he's a total douchebag'." "If I acted nice, they'd feel worse about themselves?" Jack asked. "What the hell?" "Teenagers don't need an excuse to feel bad about themselves, but they'll take one in a heartbeat," Rob said. "And they'll cling to it." "Whatever you say, you'll just be digging yourself deeper into the hole," John said. "The only way you can act around others that will work to your benefit is to be aloof," Rob said. "It's the exact opposite of being desperate." "Yeah," John said. "As soon as people realize you don't need them, they feel the need to be around you." "It's crazy, but it's true," Rob said. "You can see it in the way chicks keep falling for assholes that don't appreciate them." Jack nodded to himself. Everything they said made sense. "Ok, I guess I'm convinced. We'll do this your way. I'll hang back and wait for them to come to me." He frowned. "But, seriously? They think that I feel superior to them?" "Yeah, dude," Steve said and gestured. "Lookit the dogs, dawg! Lookit-" "No," John firmly said, holding up a finger at Steve. "No ghetto talk!" Steve shut up and gave a sheepish smile. "So, I guess you'll really be doing this for me," Jack said. "I want you to know that I appreciate this, you guys. I really do. It means the world to me. Now, how much do I have to pay you for the campaign efforts?" The three guys looked at each other uncomfortably. "Seriously, just name your price!" Rob wiped his chin and said, "Look, we're friends. We're doing this for you, not for money. Let's just leave it at that." "No, I don't feel right about that," Jack said. "I mean, you guys are going to spend a lot of your free time doing this and you should be compensated for that." "Tell you what," John said. "You buy us some new comics every month and we'll call it even!" Rob and Steve eagerly agreed. A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 "Deal," Jack said and held out his hand. "Put 'em there!" Steve, Rob and John put their hands over his and held them there. Jack's heart fluttered at the realization he finally had friends. He hid it well, not wanting to make them see him as a sissy. "All for one and that one is Jack," Steve said. Rob and John echoed his line and then they ended their hand pile. Jack laughed. "I guess we are just like the Four Musketeers." "Eh, not just yet, my fair D'Artagnan," Rob said. "You're still a hothead fresh off the stagecoach from Gascony." He smiled. "But, don't worry! We'll make a Musketeer of you, yet. Trust us!" The guys launched their campaign for him and he could often see them talk to people about him. For all their glad efforts, the campaign was very slow to take off. Indeed, it quickly started to look like it would never come to fruition. The huge amount of good he was doing in the real world, beyond the halls of the school, seemed to be simply too much for the petty souls to get over. Jack was always called Dog Boy and no one but his friends wanted to even give him the time of day. Jack wasn't too bothered with the isolation. He had hoped for better, but he had gotten used to it in his old school. With the money he was getting for training guard dogs, he bought himself a smartphone, a computer, and updated his wardrobe. Pretty soon, he had enough cash to buy a used car and he drove it to school. With his friends talking him up in front of everyone they could get alone and his new duds and car, Jack let himself dream of finally being able to go on a date with a girl. He wasn't hoping for much, just some one-on-one time. He wouldn't even insist on a goodnight kiss if the date went well. Hell, he'd settle for making a strictly platonic friend of a girl. Any girl. Sadly, his reputation as a higher being was too big a deterrent for the girls. Being a rule breaker and bully was very attractive to the school's females, but training dogs and helping people was, apparently, a put off. Girls ducked out of his sight whenever they saw him coming their way, or they'd embed themselves tight into a group and pretend they hadn't seen him. Even when he found himself alone with a girl, she'd be too evasive for them to have a normal, get-to-know-you type of conversation, let alone for him to try and charm her. Worse still, those talks, as rare as they were, involved the girl telling him she had a boyfriend, right off the bat. The entire female population seemed to scamper away from him and into the arms of the first boy they could find, just so they wouldn't risk getting hit on by Dog Boy. It was as if he had a bad odor about him and he just couldn't smell it himself. Every time he tried to hook up, some unsuspecting guy suddenly got a girlfriend. Whenever a guy from school heard a girl had claimed she was dating him, he'd text her an ultimatum to go through with it, or he'd tell Jack they weren't really dating. As a result, the town was full of teenaged couples on dates, each and every night of the week. Jack now had money to go out almost every evening and he drove through the town a few times. The huge numbers of couples he'd see on his drives made him sick of it all and he started spending his free time on his computer. The security firm paid him cash on delivery and he became financially independent of his mother, though she hadn't noticed it at first. She rarely talked with him, since the divorce, and spent a big portion of her time ignoring him and getting drunk, so she missed it when he had stopped begging her for cash. Then she didn't notice when he bought himself a computer, a smartphone and updated his wardrobe. She was so busy stewing over her failures and ignoring him that she even missed the car for the first week. She had figured it belonged to one of the neighbors who didn't have room in their garage to park it there. Jack had to literally drive up in it from school and get out right in front of her for her to finally notice the changes. She immediately thought that he was dealing drugs and began berating him over it. He trudged up the stairs and went into his bedroom to go play a game online. He tried ignoring his mother, but she was nearly hysteric as she ranted about his criminal activities. He rolled his eyes and told her about his job with the security firm. He had to repeat himself a few times and shove one of their business cards into her hand for her to finally hear him. She went quiet for a few moments and he took advantage of it to go online and start playing a first person shooter game his friends had been raving about for weeks. She went downstairs and called the company. She demanded that she be in charge of his finances and that his payments be made through a bank account she'd open for him. The voice on the phone softly laughed and flat out refused her request. They bid her a good day and hung up the phone. This did not sit well with Jack's mother. She stomped into his room, doubtlessly feeling humiliated after being dismissed out of hand by the people at the security firm. "Jack, you are to give me control of that money," she said. "You are too young to have it at your disposal. It's not even legal for someone of your age to handle money. You have to pay taxes, Jack!" "The firm is already paying my taxes," he said, not looking up from his computer screen. He was getting killed and called a noob, over and over again. His friends tried to cover for him, but there was only so much they could do. "Jack, this is serious," she said. "You need to let me handle your money. You're too young for such a responsibility." "Fuck you," he hissed into his microphone as Rob called him a noob, too. His mother took that as an insult and was about to explode at him, but she knew that wouldn't do her any good. He had always been stubborn. She took a deep breath, calmed down and changed tactics. "Jack, sweetheart," she softly said, "I'm only thinking of you, here. These people might try to take advantage of your youth and pay you far less than you deserve. I'd like to see what-" "I already know what military, police and civilian dog trainers are getting paid, Mom," he said. "I assure you, I'm getting top dollar." She floundered for only a second before smiling and happily saying, "I'm so proud of you for taking responsibility, Jack. It's an amazing accomplishment. What you did. I'm genuinely impressed." Jack spared her a sardonic look while he waited to be respawned for the umpteenth time. Her supposedly honest tone of voice actually came off as patronizing. "But, don't you want to just have fun, Jack? Just be a carefree kid that doesn't need to worry about money all the time? You don't need to-" "Lay off it, Mom," he said, angry that he missed his opponent and let them get away. "I'm not giving you control over my money." He continued playing his game, chasing an opponent halfway across the map, only to run headlong into a trap and get killed. His mother's facial features hardened during those few moments and she said, "Very well, then. You leave me no choice. Get out of my house!" He looked up at her and ignored the taunts coming from his headphones. "What?" "If you think I'm going to slave over a cash register, day and night, while you do nothing but have fun and play with dogs, then you are sorely mistaken, young man! You get the hell out of my house!" Jack raised an eyebrow at her and said, "Fine." She had long ago stopped inspiring awe and fear in him. After she had stabbed his father in the back, she no longer inspired any respect in him, either. His calm response made her face turn red in anger. "Fine? Fine?! That's all you have to say to me?! Fine?! Well, then, fine! You pack your shit and get the fuck out! I'll call the police and they'll take you away to a group home, where you won't be able to train any more dogs! They won't even let you keep Spot. And you won't be getting any more money, mister smartypants! You're gonna get picked on by all the teenaged psychos they got locked up in there. They're gonna teach you a lesson and then we'll see whose life is in tatters, when you're tossed out on the street at eighteen and you have no skills, no job, no diploma to get a job with... then we'll see how long it takes you to start sucking men's dicks in cars!" "Nope," Jack calmly said and turned his attention back to his game. The mention of sucking dicks by his mother was almost enough to make him flustered. His mother's jaw dropped at how calmly he disregarded her rant and she struggled for words as her arms flailed impotently at her sides. She wanted to strangle him to death for his insolence, but the fact that he was way bigger than her and always had a dog around, gave her pause. Spot was lying next to his chair even then. "Nope," she hissed in disbelief. "Is that all you have to say? Nope?" "Uh-huh," he said, trying to get a shot with the sniper rifle. He wished she would just leave him alone, like she always did. "You're just like your father. You'd rather see everything go to Hell in a hand basket than share. You'd rather be poor than share your wealth. You would rather shoot yourself in the foot than-" "Oh, my fucking God, Mom! What the fuck are you on about?!" "The fact that you would rather have your life ruined than share it with me!" Jack sighed and logged out of his game. He looked up at his mother in annoyance. "Look, the reason we're not sharing our lives is because you don't want me around." He cut off her protests with a raised hand. "Don't even! We both know you only fought for custody to hurt Dad. You don't give a shit if I live or die, do you?" "How dare you, young man? How dare you!" "As for you ruining my life," Jack said and then shrugged with a smile. "Go ahead. Try. Give it your best shot. Or your worst. But, to be sporting, I will share a little tidbit of my life with you. I am a legally emancipated minor." "What?" "Yeah," he said. "The firm's lawyers petitioned the court on my behalf and I was granted legal emancipation." She gaped at him in shock. "How else could I earn money without you taking it from me? If you want to kick me out, fine. Kick me out. I'll just find a house of my own, with a big yard for the dogs, and get on with my life. No one will come to haul me off to a group home, or whatever." Jack would have done all of that on his own, years ago, and moved to a new town with a new school, but he knew he would be greeted with the same kind of derision and disrespect there as he had been greeted in this school. Compared to the crap he had gone through in his last school, this one was actually an improvement. His friends said all high schools were the same, cesspools of bullying and inequity, and he agreed with them completely. Only college seemed like it might be a different kind of setting. She looked at him with an expression that was a mixture of grief and betrayal. "Your move," he said. He added a sarcastically sweet, "Mommy." She blinked away some tears. "This isn't fair," she said. Jack rolled his eyes at the thought of her launching into another lamentation of her life. "This situation where you live here and I pay rent and all the bills and you just earn money for fun. If you want to stay here, with me, then you have to pay half the rent and half the bills." The way her voice suddenly became calm to the point of being emotionless made him take notice of her words all the more. He conceded her point and felt like a complete cad for hiding his money from her. He swallowed back a lump in his throat. "That sounds fair. Deal." "And you'll be the one that pays everything for as long as you have been hiding this from me." The thought of parting with that much money made his guilt recede. "No deal," he said. "It's only fair," she said. "Counteroffer," he said. "The firm's receptionist is knocked up. She'll go on maternity leave next month. Finding her replacement is up to her and she's been dragging her heels about it. I trained her dog for free, so she owes me one. Instead of paying full rent and bills, and as an apology for being less than completely forthcoming, I get you the job." His mother looked to be thinking it over. "It's about fifty percent more than you make at the supermarket and the hours are fixed." "Dental?" "I think so," he said. "Yeah." "Deal," she said. She held out her hand and he stood up to shake it. From then on, his mother and he were more roommates than family. Her new job and smaller expenses improved her outlook on life and she became far more agreeable to be around, though she was still no doting mother. By the time Jack turned eighteen and was close to finishing senior year of high school, he was on the verge of going insane. His contact with the opposite sex was ranging between minimal and nonexistent. He had yet to have more than one conversation with the same girl in the same month. He had all but made peace with the fact that he was going to go to college a virgin, but was he out of line to ask for a kiss? Just one kiss? Even a practice one? Here he was, a young man of nearly six feet in height, a cute face and wiry frame, that could, at times, read minds and even mildly influence them, and he still hadn't had his first kiss. His friends had tirelessly worked on fixing his social status, but they had very little luck with it. Since he had absolutely no luck getting anywhere with real girls, he let his imagination run wild. In his daydreams, he was adored by a harem of hot girls and his biggest worry was in which order he was going to pleasure them. In most of his fantasies, the girls were willing and eager, but in some, he found himself dreaming that he had made them such with the use of his power. As surprised as he was with those fantasies, he was floored to find that they excited him the most. His dick would be hard for half an hour after he indulged in those. That arousal, in turn, made him feel ashamed. He knew for a fact that he would never do as dishonorable a thing as actually subjugating a girl's mind and making her his sex slave. Even with his constant isolation from girls, he wasn't tempted in the least. The one thing he found was that the more he let himself indulge in such fantasies, the less the burden of his social isolation weighed on him. He decided that the fantasies were ok, so long as he kept them to himself. He stopped feeling so ashamed of them. He even caught himself idly thinking on the how of them, every now and then. As a purely theoretical exercise. He had long ago determined that his power worked best when he could mimic the emotions and thoughts of the subject. For years, he had meditated to suppress his own emotions. He would calm his mind and instill it with just the emotion he guessed his subject was feeling. During the time he spent training the guard and attack dogs, he slowly came to suspect that the stronger the emotions involved were felt, the stronger the mental link became. He decided to try the opposite approach to things. He had more anger, loneliness and frustration inside himself than he could handle. He joined the school's theatre company and worked hard with the drama teacher to be able to tap into those emotions and convert them into whichever emotion he needed to mimic. The acting techniques and his meditation exercises worked hand in hand to make him both a decent actor and a better mentalist. Having honed the ability to fuel his power with every bit of emotion he could muster, his dog training became a cinch. He would completely take over the dogs' minds and simply put knowledge into them, making his training gig a chore, instead of a job. He even began to idly wonder if he might really be able to one day use his power to get himself laid. Every time he asked himself that, an image of Jack White's gravestone would pop up in his mind's eye, nipping that line of thought in the bud. One day, in early spring, he was walking through the school's corridors, thinking of a particularly tough AP exam he had coming up. He was so preoccupied with his considerations that he didn't notice the posters on the walls until he nearly bumped into the janitor who was taking them off. When he looked at the posters, he gasped in shock. The only three people he could call friend, Rob, Steve and John, were on the posters, naked and duct taped to the school's flagpole. There were different photos on the posters and Jack could see the pictures were the product of several cameras and taken during a lengthy period of time. It was an incredible humiliation and Jack was seething with rage when he saw it. He dialed their numbers, but they all went straight to voicemail. He ran around the school and tried to find his friends, only to see everyone move away from him when they saw him coming. As he walked down the hall, he heard some kids talking around a corner. He crept closer and listened. They mocked his friends as they looked at the photos and amused themselves with guessing who could possibly be crazy enough to do it. Jack grit his teeth and listened, resisting the urge to tell them off. None of their theories sounded plausible, but he kept count of them, anyway. When a new kid joined the group conversation, she giggled and told of how John had run away from school when he saw the photos. They laughed and Jack rounded the corner to stride past them on his way to the parking lot. They all shut up and stiffened, except for one girl that quickly walked off in the opposite direction. Jack left school and drove to John's house. John's sister answered the door and said John was at school. Jack thanked her and left without telling her that wasn't true. He found no one at Steve's place, or at Rob's. He drove to the employees' parking lot behind the bowling alley. It was a quiet and mostly unused place where the boys liked to meet up. Sometimes, they would simply hang out there for the entire night out, using a nearby bench as a couch. Jack found them on the bench, sitting dejectedly. "Guys," Jack said, concerned, "what the hell happened? Who did that?" His friends just hung their heads and kept quiet. "Tell me and I'll make them pay!" "Yeah," Rob asked. "What are you gonna do? Sic Cujo on them? Forget it!" "Well, if not me, then the vice principal will," Jack said, only to be cut off by Rob. "The vice principal, much like the principal and the PTA," Rob said, "feels that psychological and physical abuse is good for the soul. Toughens a young man up. Besides, it's all online now, and it'll never go away." Steve looked up and gave a bitter smile, despite his black eye and swollen lip. He gestured at his face and said, "My dad already made his feelings on the subject known." Jack stared at him in horror. "He says if I let people bully me, then that's what I deserve." "What the fuck," Jack whispered in astonishment. "How would your dad fare if he went up against our school's football team? I bet they'd be able to beat him into a pulp!" Steve shrugged and looked down again. "Guys, we have to do something about this! We can't just let this slide!" "I'm going home," Rob said and got up. "Rob, wait," Jack said, but Rob just turned around and got on his bike. John and Steve followed his example and the three of them morosely pedaled away from Jack, each going off in his own direction. "Fuck," Jack swore. He went home, too, and went online. Everyone in the school was buzzing about the flagpole boys and sharing the photos so it took him a lot of time and effort to figure out who had posted the stuff originally. It was three older guys that had graduated in the past few years. Jack quickly noted the one online friend they all had in common that still attended his school; Mia Newman. Mia Newman looked like Megan Fox with bigger tits, a cuter smile and no tattoos. She was also the head cheerleader and would routinely mesmerize the entire student body with her own body at every pep rally. Guys wanted to be with her, girls wanted to be her. As hot as she was, her social standing in the school was only partly due to her looks. She also knew how to use them. She routinely dated only older guys that drove her everywhere. Each day, a different one would squire her around like she was the queen of the universe and discussing her beaus and what-all she got up to with them was a favorite pastime for the female students. A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 Her looks and dates weren't the only things she capitalized on. Somehow, she had built up a tremendous reputation for herself. Everyone in the school considered her to be able to manipulate anyone into doing anything she wanted. If she was displeased with a girl, she could arrange for her boyfriend to dump her. If a boy displeased her, he soon found himself at serious odds with the jocks. In public, she was a perfectly charming young lady with a spotless disciplinary record, even if her academics were appalling. In private, hushed whispers were shared of how everyone needed to conform to her expectations, or risk incurring her wrath. Jack didn't know if her reputation was based in truth, he knew his own was about as far from it as it could get, but he knew it didn't matter in her case. If everyone believed she had a hold on the entire school body, then she really did have a firm hold over the school body. When he considered the fact that she had only moved there in her sophomore year and that she had managed to rise to the top of the school's food chain by the end of her junior year, he started to think there was some truth to it. Her stranglehold on the position seemed to be increased as they started their senior year. Staring at the profile photos of the guys that posted the pictures originally, Jack realized he had seen them before. They had been some of the guys that drove Mia around, he was positive. Jack needed no further proof to know she was behind all of this. He didn't know why she had done it, but his impression of her was that she was a mean-spirited young woman who only kept from doing overtly evil things to keep her reputation intact. He got undressed and lay in bed, thinking about Mia. He frequently thought about her. Usually, he needed hand lotion and tissues to think about her, but tonight, he thought about how he was going to punish her for what she did to his friends. Honor demanded it. Two wrongs didn't necessarily make a right, but a wrong ignored was a wrong repeated. He imagined taking her mind and turning her into his plaything. He imagined making her want him and lust after him and publicly declare her love for him, just so he could give her the cold shoulder and humiliate her in front of the whole school. He discounted that fantasy as too soft. He imagined turning her into a cock hungry slut that fucked strangers out in the open. That sounded more like it. A public humiliation, just like what was done to his friends. He felt glad he thought of it, but then he came up with an even better scenario. He'd take her mind and make her stuff things up her ass, live on the internet for everyone to see. She was eighteen, she could totally start her own porn site. He almost giggled in glee as he had tried to imagine what the Facebook comments on those would be. He'd also make her not charge for her videos and tell everyone she knew, or would ever meet in the future, about her hobby and invite them to watch her debase herself. He also decided he would first make her give his friends a blowjob to make up for what she did to them. He took a deep breath and resumed practicing his meditation. He burned for revenge and he needed to be able to focus his wrath. He would also need to find out intimate details about Mia if he was going to actually accomplish anything. Rob, John and Steve each got a note from their doctors and were excused from attending school. The principal made a brief announcement at the start of the following school day that made for good soundbites, but also made it clear nothing would be done about this violation of students on school grounds. Jack couldn't believe it. The cat was out of the bag and this incident was already reported and registered with all the relevant authorities and still the fucking principal refused to do anything about it. He flexed his fists in anger. Someone needs to punch that decrepit old fart right in the nose. Maybe it'd restore the blood flow to his brain. He cleared his mind and focused on his target. Mia Newman was sitting on the other end of the classroom from Jack and she shamelessly flirted with the male teacher, a middle aged man that probably never in his life even dreamed of a hottie such as her paying any attention to him. Mia knew she was untouchable in this class and she interrupted the lecture several times to make biting comments about other girls' clothes and style. She was feeling particularly mean that day and she didn't let up with her jibes until she made a girl quietly cry in her seat. The teacher stood there like a piece of lumber and allowed her to hijack everyone's time for her own, petty purposes. Jack's wrath simmered and he patiently waited for the chance to use it. Mia and he shared their next period, as well. When the bell rang, he got up and practically ran to the next classroom. As usual, everyone cleared a path for him in the hallways. Jack hated them stepping out of his way, as if they were unworthy peasants, since it was another way they mocked his perceived superiority, but this time he was glad for it. He got to the classroom well ahead of everyone else. He sat at Mia's seat and propped up his phone against his backpack, with the camera pointed at his seat. He set the timer and ran to sit in his own seat to glare at the lens. The phone snapped a picture. He collected it and was sitting in his own seat when the rest of the kids filed in. He stared at the photo and tried to imagine what it would be like for her to look over at him and see him glaring at her. He guessed she would be startled and then scared. He drew on his anger to fuel his power. Class started and Mia raised her hand to interrupt the teacher. The teacher was female, close to retirement age and didn't put up with any crap, so she fixed Mia a glare before tersely asking her what she wanted. "Ms. Abramowitz," Mia politely asked, "isn't it against school policy for hats to be worn in class?" The teacher's eyes flicked over to another girl. "It is," she said. "Miss Rivers, take off your cap, please." Martha Rivers took off her cap and let her hair spill out. Half the class let out small noises of surprise or appreciation. Rivers' customarily shaggy pile of curly hair had been straightened and styled into a sexy, swept back cut. "Ah, look, everyone," Mia said, in a faux-sweet tone of voice, "Martha's pretending to be pretty." The class giggled at the putdown and Martha sank lower in her seat. Jack's anger hit the roof. He glared at Mia and kept the image from his phone in his mind. "That's enough, Miss Newman," the teacher scolded, making the class quiet. "Now, back to the subject at hand!" Mia's smug smile didn't leave her face as she cast her eyes about the classroom. She was winking at the other students and nodding towards Rivers. When she caught Jack's glare, however, she froze. Jack felt startled at the intensity of Jack's gaze, particularly the hatred in it. He felt afraid that Jack knew he had organized for his friends to be humiliated yesterday. He brushed off his concerns. Jack didn't know jack shit. He couldn't know anything. No one knew anything except what he wanted them to know. Jack tried to think of something he wouldn't want the class to know at this time and it came to him. He remembered trying on his mother's makeup for the first time at the lake house, when he was little. He had wanted to make the boy from across the lake like him and think he was pretty. He remembered how much the other kids had laughed at him and called him Bozo cause he had put on far too much makeup. He had wanted to be pretty, like his mom, but he had wound up being laughed at, like Rivers, just now. Jack blinked and refocused his eyes on Mia. She looked down at her hands, ignoring him. He faced forward in utter confusion. He couldn't remember ever being at a lake, let alone staying at a lake house. He had never, ever tried to put on his mother's makeup. He faced forward and tried to straighten things out in his mind. The vivid memories of kids taunting him that he looked like a clown were very confusing, particularly because he had never seen those kids before in his life. He nearly slapped his forehead as he finally figured it out. Those had been Mia's memories. He had gotten into her head and it felt like his own, confusing him. "Damn, I'm gonna have to learn how to better keep my focus," he thought. His lips curled up into a grin when he realized that he had not only got into her mind, he had directed it to bring up the humiliating memory of her childhood. His powers had definitely grown. He looked up at the teacher. She had just turned around to face the blackboard. Only a fraction of a second had passed while he was in Mia's mind, yet he might as well had spent the entire summer evening at her lake house with her. He had the memories of it. "If we're laughing at people trying to be pretty," Jack said and openly faced Mia, "why aren't we laughing at you, Bozo?" "Mr. Watts," the teacher sternly said, "this is a classroom, not a coffee shop! You will face front and pay attention, young man! I don't want to hear another peep out of you for the rest of this class." She swept her hand over the whole class. "Any of you." "Yes, Ms. Abramowitz," Jack cordially said. "I just wanted to point out that when Mia tried to pretend she was pretty, little children chased her all the way home, taunting her for putting on too much makeup and winding up looking like Bozo the clown." "Mr. Watts," the teacher reproached him. Mia gasped in horror at Jack's words and quickly swept up her things and left the classroom. The teacher watched her go and alternated quick, angry looks between Jack and the slowly closing door. He knew he was in for a visit to the vice principal. He sighed and closed his book. It didn't matter to him in the least. Even if he hadn't been feeling ecstatic at dominating Mia's mind for a split second, he wouldn't sweat the office referral. Finally, her features softened and she said, "Class, open your books to page seventy five." She turned to face the blackboard and Jack could swear he saw her lips start to curl up into a grin before she did. Mia was nowhere to be seen for the rest of the day. Jack had a pleasant school experience and he wasn't certain if it had been all in his head, or if everyone else was acting as if a weight had been lifted from their shoulders, now that Mia wasn't there. His little exploit of making Mia Newman run away in humiliation made the rounds in record time. Most of the school, particularly the devout members of the Mia Newman worship society, decided it was further proof that he was a thoroughly unbearable individual. The rest began to see him in a new light. A light which suggested he might not be as bad as his reputation made him out to be. When Jack was leaving the school, he got far more nods and greetings than ever before. It was just a scattered display of basic politeness, but to Jack it felt like he was being hailed a triumphant hero by the adoring masses. He nodded back politely and found himself grinning as he turned towards the parking lot. "Hey there, Dog Boy," Mia said, spitting out his nickname as if it was the foulest of curses. Jack faced her, still grinning from his triumph, and said, "Oh, hey, Bozo! What's up?" Mia's pearly white teeth adorned her smile as she said, "You think you're so funny, don't you?" He shrugged, but his grin fell as he looked at her face. Her smile didn't reach her bright, blue eyes. The look she was giving him was one of pure hatred. "I'll show you what's funny!" She made a small gesture and Jack noticed three men had crept up to him while he had been facing her. They rushed him from three directions at once, pinning him against someone's car and grabbing his flailing arms. Jack looked down to try and stomp on their insteps and a sack was pulled down over his head. He kicked blindly and struggled to get free, but the trio overpowered him and dragged him away. "Get the fucker's phone," Mia ordered. A hand reached into his pocket and removed his smartphone. He was stuffed into a car trunk and it was hurriedly slammed shut, trapping him inside. He tore the dark sack off his head as quickly as he could, but his vision wasn't greatly improved. The trunk was as dark as the grave. He gulped at the ominous phrase that had popped up in his mind. He heard faint laughter from outside the trunk and then the sounds of four car doors opening and slamming shut after four people got in. The engine turned over and Jack kicked and punched at the lid of the trunk. He started screaming for help. The car's stereo began blaring, drowning out any sounds he was making with its lung-collapsing bass line. The car pulled out of the lot and started driving off into the unknown. Jack's adrenaline tore through the roof as the fact that he was kidnapped and will most likely wind up seriously hurt finally registered. In the grips of panic, he lost track of the time and direction in which they were taking him. All he knew was that it was someplace far away. He began to fear that he was going to be killed at the destination. He blinked back his tears and tried to fight back against the panic. He needed to do something to save himself. Even if he had his phone with him, he couldn't tell the cops where he was, or even what car he was in. All he had at his disposal was himself and anything he could think of. He giggled hysterically as he remembered he had mental powers. He had never even imagined finding himself in a situation like this and he didn't really believe he could use his powers to get out of it, but he had no choice. It was do or die time. He desperately hoped the die part wasn't a real option. He took a few deep breaths of the air that smelled of motor oil and worked to channel all his fear into his powers. He focused on the music that was still pounding away from the cabin and let the rhythm overwhelm him. He imagined sitting in the driver's seat, holding his hands on the wheel. He got nowhere, so he imagined holding one hand on the wheel and holding his other elbow out the window. Jack sat in the driver's seat and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. His eyes darted from mirror to mirror, fearful of spotting a pig car following them. Mia was a very hot piece of ass, but he was going to be done with her after today. The fucking bitch had lied to him and convinced him that if he ever did anything with her before she turned eighteen, he'd go to jail for statutory rape. He'd get beaten and raped every day in there for being a pedophile. Just this morning, he had learned about the age of consent and what it was in their state. None of what she had told him had been true. He was beyond cheesed off with her. For over a year and a half, he had driven her around, bought her clothes, taken her out to eat and all he had gotten in return were chaste kisses on the cheek. Even after she had turned eighteen, he had gotten nothing more than that from her. That was going to change today. He glanced at the other two guys in the car with them. They had been her patsies, too. The three of them had come to her school's parking lot when she had called. He hadn't wanted to molest another kid from her high school, but she insisted he had hurt her. She assured them that the kid in question was over eighteen, just like the three from the other day had been. After she laid out her plan, Jack had agreed to be the wheelman of their little exploit. He had a plan of his own. When he tells the other two guys the truth, the three of them were going to rape her raw. Right after they deal with the guy in the trunk. Jack turned his thoughts to what could possibly go wrong with the kid in the trunk. As they cleared the city limits and headed towards the woods, where the guy in the back seat had his hunting cabin, he realized nothing could go wrong. They had the kid at their mercy and the cops weren't going to just happen by and stumble across them. Jack focused hard on the lingering fear he was feeling and asked himself if there was anything else he was afraid. An image of a clown came to mind. Jack looked in the rear view mirror at Mia making out with the guy in the back seat. The guy opened his eyes and met Jack's gaze. He winked lewdly as he sucked the spit out of Mia's mouth and tried to reach inside her Daisy Dukes. Mia giggled and broke their kiss. "Not now," she said. "We've got a job to do and I want you to keep your strength up for it." "Oh, I'll keep it up for you," he said with a voice full of lust and assaulted her mouth again. She squirmed until her face was out of his grasp and then turned her attention towards the third guy in the front seat. Jack could read the guy's frustration on his face and converted all his fear into the emotion. He let the music carry him and he found himself sitting next to Mia, squeezing her smooth, tanned thighs as she flirted with his friend in the front seat. He wanted to fuck her pussy so bad. He was going to split her open as soon as they dealt with what's-his-face in the trunk. After they tied the fucker to a tree in the woods somewhere, he was going to drag her to his cabin and finally do her. He had been thinking about her pussy ever since he had met her and now they were driving to his cabin. He didn't give a shit if the other two guys stayed to watch, or even if they got in on the action. He only cared about sliding his hard cock between her firm buttocks and into her tight box. Jack thought about what could go wrong with the kid in the trunk and came up with nothing. He was theirs to torment at her behest. He didn't feel too bad about the kid. The woods had their share of dangerous animals, but it wasn't like they had tarantulas, or anything. He wrapped his hands around Mia's front and squeezed her firm tits through her bra. She smiled and asked him to wait until after. He looked at his friend in the front seat and they shared a look of understanding. Both were done with being teased and strung along by this cunt. She had promised them everything after she turned eighteen and that promise hadn't been fulfilled. Jack let the music carry him yet again and found himself sitting in the front seat. He faced forward and ignored his buddy groping Mia, though he was definitely running out of patience with that bitch. He had bought her clothes, her phone, her makeup. She owed him some pussy. Her ass was his, as far as he was concerned. After today, there were going to be no more excuses. He was going to stick his cock all the way down her throat and then he was going to do a tour of her holes. "My holes," he corrected himself. "The bitch belongs to me." Jack asked himself what could go wrong with the kid in the trunk and fretted over the possibility of snakes being in the woods. He told himself there probably wouldn't be any snakes there. He couldn't even remember the last time someone was bitten in the woods they were driving towards, but that didn't make him any less afraid of hearing a snake hissing at his heels. The loud music was throbbing into his ear, rendering him half-deaf, so there was hardly any chance he could hear a snake hiss. He reached over and turned the music off. "We're out of the fucking city," he said. "The kid can holler 'till his ears bleed. No one will hear him out here." His sight grew dim and he squinted and blinked repeatedly. Without the beat of the music to give him common ground with the guys in the cabin, Jack found himself in the darkness of the trunk again. He gasped for breath as if he had run a marathon. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. He struggled to keep his wits about him and not pass out. He could hardly believe he had managed to slide from one guy's mind to the next like that. He kept his elation in check as he strived to sort out what he had just learned from their minds. They were probably going to hold him down for Mia to humiliate and then tie him to a tree and just leave him there while they raped her. It was spring and the nights weren't cold enough for him to freeze anymore, but they may as well shoot him in the head if they really do wind up leaving him in the woods. A Loner Mentalist Pt. 01 There was nothing he could say to change their minds, he felt sure of it. No amount of begging, pleading or reasoning would do the trick. Especially not if Mia was there to counter all of his arguments. He felt like he was out of options, but then he remembered their fears. They had phobias. One feared clowns, the other spiders and the third one feared snakes. It wasn't much to go on, but he was desperate. After a minute of thought, he twisted his backpack off his back and opened the zipper to reach in. He groped blindly inside it until he retrieved his pen and sketch pad. He put his pen to paper and drew two big touching circles. He shaded them both as best he could, guiding his pen by feel, and then drew eight broken lines radiating out of one circle. He ripped out the drawing, took a paperclip and attached it to the front of his shirt collar. His second drawing was just a big, squiggly line, meant to evoke the idea of a snake. He ripped it out and set it aside. The car turned off the asphalt and started to drive up a bumpy, unpaved, country road. "Shit," Jack swore. He pressed his sketch pad flat against the trunk lid with his left hand. With his right, he did his best to sketch a smiley face on it. He shaded a nose in the center of the face, or at least, where he figured the center was, and then ran his pen around the top of the face to make curly, clownish hair. He didn't need the drawings to be perfect, just good enough to give the guys a frightful idea he could build on. Before long, the car pulled onto a side road. Judging by the bumps and even slower going, Jack guessed this dirt road was even less used than the one they had left. It was probably a poorly maintained access road for this cabin they were taking him to. His heart began thundering in his chest. The showdown was coming. He struggled to focus and channel his emotions into his power again. He was feeling a strange, new kind of fatigue. His body felt ready for action, even though the protracted rush of adrenaline was leaving him a bit shaky. It was his mind that was tired. He wasn't sleepy, though he wouldn't say no to a nap, right about then. Stringing two thoughts together was slowly, but steadily, becoming more and more difficult. It was like trying to do AP math in his head after being awake for a week straight. The car came to a stop and Jack armed himself with the last of his willpower and his blind drawings. He pressed the clown face over his face and held the snake line as a weapon. He checked that the spider was still attached to the front of his collar. Car doors opened and closed, shaking the car. Jack let out a practice hiss. He drew a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He clothed his mind in fear and tried to imagine the startling sight of himself lying in the trunk, covered in paper drawings. "Ready," he heard one of the guys ask from the other side of the trunk lid. The lid popped open and Jack became startled. He told himself he was startled to see the boy in the trunk of his car had transformed himself into Pennywise. He screamed in fright and ran for it. Jack was startled and he told himself it was because the kid was covered in tarantulas. The thought that these ugly, hairy things had been in the trunk of the car he was riding in made his stomach clench. He screamed in fright and ran for it. Jack was startled and he told himself it was because of the hissing snake the kid was holding. He didn't know where it had come from and he didn't care. He screamed in fright and ran for it. Jack smiled when he snapped back to himself. The trio was running away in fear and now was his chance to get out of the trunk, take the car and drive back into town. He didn't know how long the guys were going to be running scared. He knew he had to hurry, but he had a hard time figuring out exactly how to get out of the trunk. His mind was utterly exhausted, unable to put two and two together, anymore. He vaguely remembered that he had limbs, he just didn't know which were which. There were white, boxy things on the ends of two of his closer limbs. They were very thin. They bent and bore marks on them. He didn't know how to move, but he had to try. He sent impulses of movement to every muscle that would answer. His body shimmied in the trunk and he started to receive messages from his nerves. He wasn't sure, but those might have been pain, or discomfort. A shape entered his field of vision as he cast his sightless gaze about. The shape made sounds at him. He could barely remember that everything that was going on at the time was linked to Mia, but he had no idea if the shape and sounds were hers. He used the shape as his marker and strained to move towards it. He flailed for a few seconds and then realized that his limbs had made it out of the trunk, where he wanted to be. He smiled in triumph and willed the rest of him to follow. His body tried, but couldn't do it. He got the idea that maybe he should use one of his limbs to assist. The idea was a vague one, like the memory of having overheard something unimportant a long time ago. As he struggled to work it out, the shape moved him and he found himself suddenly touched by something big and brown and hard and cool. It was touching him from head to toe and Jack was all smiles as he worked out what his own shape was supposed to be. He had his head on one end and feet with toes on the opposite end. A smaller thing landed on his back and Jack placed the back as the upper rear part of his body. Mia growled at Jack Watts, lying at her feet and drooling like a stroke victim. When the guys went to drag him out of the trunk they screamed like scared, little girls and ran into the woods. She had thought that Watts had died in the trunk by choking on the exhaust, or whatever, and her heart beat a mile a minute in her chest, making her think she was going to die herself. This was supposed to be a prank, a humbling experience for the little shit, not murder. She had slowly walked around the car and was very much relieved to see him alive in the trunk. Her relief faded when he started imitating an overturned turtle. She feared he had had a stroke, or something. He looked ridiculous, like he couldn't even understand the world before his eyes. She began to suspect that he was faking it. When he pushed his hands and legs out of the trunk, she pulled and deposited him on the ground. She had hoped the fall would make him stop acting, but it didn't. "Oh, fuck," she said. Jack was obviously hurt in some way. If this ever got to the cops, they'd arrest her and charge her with a crime of some kind. She had to get away from there and get the guys to come with her. As long as the four of them kept quiet and kept this a secret, the cops would never know enough to arrest them. She shut the trunk and jumped behind the wheel. She drove around Jack and honked the car horn, calling out for the guys to come back. They weren't answering her, so she turned the car off and got out to search for them. They hadn't run very far and she found them huddled together behind a fallen tree and looking more scared than she had ever thought possible. "Come on, guys," she said. "We gotta go!" They kept hiding behind the fallen tree and gave no indication of having even heard her. She rolled her eyes and wondered if whatever had turned Jack into a retard was contagious for men. "Guys, get up! The car's that way!" The guys curled up into little balls. They shook their heads and silently stared at the ground in front of them. "Jesus H. Christ on a cracker!" She pleaded and cajoled the guys for a few minutes before they agreed to follow her to safety. She led them back to the cabin. When the car came into view, the guys flinched as one and ducked behind cover. It took her another five minutes to convince them that the car wasn't dangerous. Dave, the guy that owned the car and was always happy to give her a ride whenever she needed one, looked to be scared shitless of it. She tried posing provocatively, but the guys ignored her. "Boys," she said in a flirty voice, "the first one to get in the car gets to spend the ride in the back seat with me!" When they ignored her offer and kept watching the car like it was haunted, she was stunned. No one had ever refused an offer from her before. She undid the button on her Daisy Dukes. "I won't be wearing all of this on the way back." The guys kept ignoring her so she walked over to Dave and slapped him. He gave her a look of surprise and she rolled her eyes at him. She couldn't believe he could ignore her after that handjob she had given him earlier. "Dave, are we getting out of here, or what?" "Yes," Dave said, seemingly starting to get a grip on himself. "Yes, but not in the car." "Why the fuck not," she almost yelled at him. "It's your fucking car, asshole, and we're not gonna walk all the way back to town." She shoved him in the shoulder. "Dave! What the fuck's going on here? Why did the three of you run off like that?" Dave and the guys refused to answer her questions so she rolled her eyes at the sky and gave up. She walked over to the car. They guys yelled at her to not get in, but she did. She started the engine and the guys cautiously began to move towards the car. They kept yelling questions at her about whether or not she was alone in it. She leaned out the window. "Yes, I'm fucking alone in here! Who else do you think would be in here?" The guys nervously licked their lips as they crept closer to the car. Their eyes darted all around themselves, as if they expected a monster to jump out and grab them at any moment. "Oh, for fuck's sake," she whispered in frustration. She honked a few times and sighed as she waited for the guys to find the balls to approach the car. "Open the doors," Dave said. "What?!" "Open the fucking doors, bitch," Ramon yelled. Mia's brow drew down in displeasure. Ramon had always bought her stuff, like her phone, but he was rapidly crossing the line of no return. She reached behind herself and opened the door. Then she climbed onto the passenger seat and opened the two doors on that side of the car. The guys crouched down and started cautiously approaching the car, peering into the cabin with suspicious looks on their faces. They reminded Mia of cavemen in movies that saw fire for the first time. "Fucking nutjobs," she grumbled into her chin and wondered if there were any men left in the world, or if they had all gone extinct to be replaced by whiny, little bitches. After a few more minutes, during which she pointedly ignored the guys and their paranoia, they finally got in the car. She put it in drive and steered the car back towards town. She drove past Jack Watts lying on the ground and spared him one last look in the mirror. She told herself that if he died up here, it wasn't her fault. She put the pedal to the metal and tore off down the country road, making the car bounce violently. Jack lay on the ground for an indeterminate amount of time after that. He struggled to understand the world around him, but forming thoughts was slowly becoming a feat well beyond his abilities. He couldn't even rally enough awareness to be afraid anymore. His consciousness twinked out, without him even realizing what was happening.