30. This is a Human Brain
30
THIS IS A HUMAN brAIN
KRYPT
There’s a memory trying to creep its way in. A time when my mother, Gia, looked at me like I wasn’t even human. Her blond hair, so different from mine and Killian’s, curtained her eyes, but I could read her lips.
He’s sick, Owen. We need to… end him before he kills us or hurts Killian.
My dad, Owen, looked at me then. His lips said something about me never hurting Killian, but there was agreement in his eyes. My parents were going to kill me. For being sick.
Do you see him?! Look, Owen! See! See him for what he is! Open your eyes and see!
C. C. C. C.
I hate the letter. I hate blonds.
The memory is real, but it doesn’t shift into what actually happened. I was fourteen at the time, and that very night, I killed my own parents. Killian helped. It was the first time I really gave in to my sickness, let out my monsters, and ruined a set of lives that wanted to end me for being born this way. I stabbed my mother in the throat and watched her die while Killian gave our father fourteen stab wounds to his abdomen. One for every year he treated me like a monster.
But that part never comes.
In this version of the memory, Gia smiles at me and says, “Don’t worry, darling. We’ll get you the help you need. We love you.”
My brain stutters. Memories and realities aren’t meshing… but fuck, I want them to. I want it to be real. I want just one look from the woman who birthed me to be full of love and understanding. Compassion and acceptance.
“She loves you, Keegan,” someone says. “Come here.”
I get up and walk over to the voice.
“She misses you. Kneel.”
I kneel.
“She wants to talk to you. Stand up.”
I stand.
“She doesn’t think you’re sick. Kneel.”
Sick. Sick. Sick.
A burn on my chest and a man who sees me. A mouthy, suicidal idiot who bargained his life away and became mine. In sickness, we found our health. Clarity comes in flashes, this reality blending with the one playing out in my head. Gia loves me. Remiel holds eye contact with me. My parents are alive and supportive. Remiel wants me, but he doesn’t need me. He chooses me. Picks me.
Like Gia never did.
I blink away the false past and cough out a sob that has no place in my life. My body becomes mine again, and the walls in my mind fortify, solidifying into something impenetrable once more. Jesus, that was close.
My dry throat tickles and my eyes burn like I haven’t blinked in days. The soft green walls and the trickling water fountain come back. Brown leather couches and a cool mug of tea remind me where I am.
“What was it?” Axel asks from his leather chair. “The mention of your mother? What snapped you out of it?”
I place a hand on the couch, shaky and embarrassed about it. This is the closest he’s come to controlling me, and I loathe the way it feels. Like I failed. Like I’m undeserving of my name. But mostly, I’m conflicted. Because I have a trigger word. It used to set me off on a homicidal path, but right now, it saved my life.
I walk to the window, pressing my forehead to the glass. But it isn’t glass. It’s a mural, painted on the wall of this underground room, the likeness of sunlight so well faked I can almost feel it. Sweat slips down my neck, my hands shake, and I squeeze my eyes closed to ground myself with images of Remiel.
“I’m not your enemy, Krypt.”
“No?” My voice cuts my throat, raspy and abrasive. “How long have I been here against my will?”
Because the tracker didn’t work. He tricked me. Told me a story about Reaper Corp, made me believe we were fighting the same enemy, and then brought me here after he removed the tracker. Where here is, I don’t know, and now Director can’t locate me. I’ve been in a state of severe concentration for… days. Weeks? Trying to withstand his hypnosis and brainwashing methods.
“Eleven days,” he tells me casually. “Please, tell me what snapped you out of it.”
Rage wants to build inside me, but I don’t have the energy to let it become anything productive. I squeeze my eyes, breathe through my nose, and then face him. His one eye is alert and focused, trying to decipher what triggered me out of his control, but the other is closed and relaxed. Sometimes his eyelid flutters, but when it doesn’t, it means he’s calm. In control of himself.
“Where are we?”
“My lab.” His smile is so pretty. Too pretty. Perfection on an imperfect man. Deceiving.
“Which is where?”
“I took your tracker out for a reason, Krypt. I need time to work before your band of brethren come for you. I need to prove to them we can work together.” He taps a digital pencil on his tablet. “Trigger?”
“So go to your fucking father! He’s Vile! Leave me the fuck out of it.”
Axel clicks his tongue and taps the pencil. “But your mind is what I need. That was the closest I’ve come to controlling you, and I need to know why it failed so I can implement it into my methods.”
“You can’t implement it,” I tell him. “Because you’ll never know everyone’s trigger word.” I fist my hands.
Axel’s gaze drops to my covered chest. Right where the word is tattooed over my heart. He smiles coyly, then makes a note of something on his tablet. My trigger word. Setting everything down, he stands, straightening his pristine suit. Why he wears it in an underground bunker is beyond me, but he seems to prize appearances.
“Have a look at this.” He clicks a button and a white screen comes to life. It’s a medical image I can’t read. A scan of some sort. “And trust that my motivations for doing this are purely for science, but also… my act of good faith.”
I’m too tired for this shit. Axel Graves fucking loves to show and tell, and I’m sick of listening to it. I sit down on the leather couch, my body sagging in exhaustion.
“This is a human brain. And this is a mapping video showing real-time blood flow to certain areas of the brain.”
“I’m not a fucking doctor. I don’t know what this shit means, so fuck off.”
“I have a point. I promise.” He uses a goddamn laser pointer, of all things, to highlight a section of the brain. “This is the limbic amygdala and the frontal cortex. And since you’re not a fucking doctor and I won’t fuck off, I’ll just say that this particular activity map shows less connectivity between these two parts.”
“Don’t care.”
“Now, mind you, there haven’t been a lot of studies done because the criteria are hard to meet, but listen to this. In a normal person, the connectivity between these two parts differs significantly from this one. It’s not regulating circuitry correctly, if that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t, and I still don’t care.”
“Ah, but you will.”
“Why? Is it my brain?”
Axel’s pretty smile comes back. “Basically, when these two sections aren’t functioning as well as they should be, the patient would have a much more difficult time regulating emotions. Actually, it can cause quite extreme emotional pain.”
I stare at the screen, unseeing.
“As in, the kind of emotional pain and lack of emotional regulation that could, perhaps, lead to suicide.”
My eyes flick to him. My body gets hot. Exhaustion tries to win, but alertness takes over.
“A suicide curse might not be real, Krypt, but brain matter doesn’t lie.”
I stand, grabbing the edge of the couch to stay upright. I haven’t uttered a single word about Remiel, but he knows.
“I had his mother slice him so I could stitch it up and… have him for a bit. I know you assume I put a chip in his brain, but I didn’t, as these scans prove. I wanted to study his brain, like I’ve studied many of the Sauder males’ brains. As you see, Remiel, much like his brothers and many of his relatives, has noticeably less functionality in this part of his brain. The curse isn’t real, but the genetic makeup is.”
Is that why Director looked at his brain scan and lied about it? Does he know? How would Director know from a still image when this one sparks and moves?
“The good news,” Axel goes on, “is that we can improve some of his regulatory responses with medication. There’s no cure for this since it isn’t technically anything diagnosable, but we can aid him in how he manages extreme emotions. This is my act of good faith. I am not your enemy,” he repeats.
I am Krypt, the Vile Boy. I don’t know how to react to situations with anything other than rage or violence. I don’t know how to be relieved without thinking he has an ulterior motive. Is this something I can protect Remiel from, or is Axel going to use the one man I need as motivation to get me to do what he needs me to do?
I’m broken. Caught somewhere between wanting to give up and never wanting to stop fighting. The problem is that I don’t understand what I’m fighting against. There is no clear enemy. Axel says he’s not my enemy, and he’s showing me something to help Remiel, yet I’m locked in his bunker, undergoing manipulative brainwashing. He’s using me to perfect his methods, but do I have a right to be pissed off about that when I did the same thing to Remiel?
I used him. Took him as my own, made him rely on me, and then left him. Axel Graves is not inherently different from me; we just have different needs and interests. But we still go about getting what we want the same way.
“I found these in your pocket,” he says, holding up a small stack of my calling cards. “I’d like you to write out two of them. One to Remiel Sauder to let him know you’re okay. He’s been suffering and trying to find you. And the other to Director. I think it’s time we all come to an… arrangement.”
He’s been trying to find you.
Does that mean he’s still mine even though I set him free?
I can’t stop looking at the brain map. “What medication?” I don’t take the calling cards. There’s a small part of me that respects him for not writing the messages himself. He has the cards. He could have sent one to Remiel and Director on his own.
“We can experiment safely. Director is better at pharmaceuticals. Mostly, medications for bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression will be our starting point. Perhaps even some antipsychotics. Rest assured, it will be done safely and with Remiel’s consent.”
“Remi,” I correct him. I’m the only one who gets to use his full name.
Axel smiles at me, and I’m struck once again by how pretty it is. Pretty, but entirely unappealing. “Might you help me bridge this gap between my organization and yours?”
Axel Graves and Vile House.
“To protect Moros?”
“To protect Moros.”
I don’t trust him one fucking bit, but this is my chance to get a message to Remiel. I take the cards.