JC looked at his parents in stunned silence. No, it wasn’t possible. It
had to be a shock to them. It wasn’t something they would have hidden from him
all these years.
But their expression said different. Karen and Roy exchanged a glance. “We
always knew you were different, Josh,” Roy said, sitting down at the kitchen
table.
“And by different, we mean…” Karen began.
“A freak?” JC asked bitterly.
“No, not a freak,” Karen said. “But not exactly normal, either.”
“What about the fire?” JC asked. “Why am I dreaming about it? Why do I see
them on the bed like that?” JC’s voice was harsh. “Was that a lie, too?”
“Not exactly a lie,” Roy explained. “More of an omission.”
“Then I was there?”
The both nodded. “The fire department found you outside. Your clothes were
burned, but you were unhurt,” Karen said.
“Did I?” JC swallowed, unable to form the words.
Again they nodded. “Yes, the fire department said that you had probably
started the fire,” Roy said, his voice a whisper.
JC’s eyes filled with tears. “How? Why?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell
me? And why am I just now finding these things out?”
“We didn’t tell you because what would have been the use?” Karen said.
“We got you help. Help that made your…differences go away. We never thought
they would come back.”
“We just wanted you to be normal, Josh,” Roy said.
“But I’m not normal, am I?” JC spat. “I’m a freak with strange powers
who killed his own parents.” He laughed cynically. “No wonder I always felt
like you didn’t want me here.”
“We did want you here, Josh,” Karen said.
“We took you in, after all,” Roy pointed out.
JC looked at them. They really believed they’d given him a good home and a
normal life. They had no clue as to how he’d felt all his life. That knowing
he was an outsider, not their real child had made him try and be invisible. They
actually thought they’d done a good job, not knowing that JC realized they’d
been relieved when he was gone from home. How little time they spent with him on
the road. How very lonely it had been all his life.
But they did their best, JC realized. They did the best they could with a child
that wasn’t theirs, and not only that, a child with differences. So JC did
what he always did. He swallowed his own pain to make it easier for Karen and
Roy.
“Yes,” he said, his voice soft with resignation “Yes, you did, and I’m
very happy that you’re my parents.” He rose from the table. “I’m going
to bed…that is, if it’s alright I stay here tonight?”
“Of course it is!” Karen said, looking at Roy, who nodded. “Take Tyler’s
room, he’s away right now.”
They watched him walk out of the kitchen and down the hall. Roy took out his
wallet and removed an old yellowed scrap of paper. He lifted the phone and
dialed the number he’d hoped he’d never have to use again.
JC
just shook his head when he entered Tyler’s room. It was exactly as his
brother had left it. Sports trophies were still on the shelves, high school
pictures and pennants on the wall. JC’s old room had been converted into a
home gym while he and the group had been touring in Germany in 1997. He kicked
off his shoes and grabbed his cell phone from his jacket pocket before lying on
the bed. He turned it on, smiling as it beeped, telling him he at 14 voice mail
messages. He dialed and retrieved the first one. From Justin, as he had expected.
“Dammit, Josh! You can’t run away like that! What the fuck happened
here? Where are you? I’m gonna find you, you bastard! And when I do, you’re
in for serious ass kicking. Running off like that…scaring me like that. You
call yourself my boyfriend? Dammit! Call me back! I love you.”
JC went through the other 13 messages, each one from Justin, each one pretty
much the same. JC thought about calling him back, but paused, wanting a few more
hours’ distance to figure things out. His eyes started drooping as sleep
called, so he lifted a finger, flicking off the light switch from his place on
the bed. Sometimes it pays being a freak,he thought as sleep overtook his
tired mind.
A strange voice woke JC out of a blessedly dreamless sleep. He looked over at
the clock. 2:30. Who’d be up and talking to his parents at this time of night?
JC got out of bed and opened the door of Tyler’s room. He padded barefoot down
the hall but did not enter the living room. Something held him back. He peeked
around the corner of the room.
His parents were speaking to someone. His back was to JC, but he seemed a large
man. Graying black hair. And…a cloak? Who the hell wears a cloak? He leaned
back around the corner and listened to their conversation.
“No, you did the right thing in calling, Mr. Chasez,” the man was saying.
“These situations, when the subject relapses and the symptoms manifest
themselves again, are difficult to deal with outside of a hospital setting.”
A hospital setting? Relapse of symptoms? JC wondered, then knew. Knew
that this man was here for him. His parents had called someone, someone to help
take care of their freak son. To take away their freak son. JC slowly
backed up, intent on reaching Tyler’s room again, but his movements were
stopped. He turned around quickly and found a man standing behind him, a man
bigger than Lonnie. He grabbed JC by the arms and walked him into the living
room.
“Good, Isaac, you found him” the stranger said.
“Mom? Dad?” JC struggled against the hold of the big man. “What’s going
on? Who is this?”
“Josh, this is Dr. Essex,” Roy explained. “He’s here to help you.”
JC shook his head. “NO!” he yelled. “I don’t need his help!”
“Yes, you do,” Karen said simply. “Dr. Essex helped you when you were
little, Josh. He can help you again.”
“No,” JC pleaded. “No, please don’t do this.”
“It’s for the best, Josh,”
JC fought against the hold on his arms. He glared at the man called Dr. Essex.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” he declared.
Suddenly, a chair flew across the room, aimed directly at Essex. Karen and Roy
gasped as if flew by, but Essex merely smiled and lifted a hand, stopping the
chair’s motion and lowering it safely to the ground. “I don’t think we
need any more of that, do we, Isaac?”
JC watched in horror as Isaac lifted a syringe and plunged it into JC’s arm.
He looked at his parent’s dismayed faces, then blackness overtook him.