Alex's room was dark when I entered it, but that wasn't a big problem. Unlike Max, she kept her floor clean, and I knew where the bed was. I knew it very well. Five steps forward, curving slightly to the left, and I was at the edge of it, a vague shape in the windowless dark.
I reached a hand down touched her, felt her shoulder, stroked my hand down across her arm. My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark, and I squatted down, moved my hand to stroke her cheek. It was wet, and I smiled a little. She'd been upset over the fact that I was going to the prom with Miranda, and to know that she'd cried over it felt like a little victory.
She opened her eyes and looked at me, looked at the clock, then blinked. "It... it's not even ten yet. I thought you..." She stopped, and I thought she was blushing a little, although I couldn't tell for sure in the dark.
I gave her a smile, said, "I thought I'd come back home and spend some quality time with my little sister." Standing up, I unzipped my pants, then pulled down the waistband of my boxers, put myself right in her face, then told her to get me hard. She nodded, knowing better than to fight... and that's when Max hit me in the shoulder.
That was pure luck. He was swinging a baseball bat, and if he'd hit my head, where I'm sure he was aiming, I probably would have been out cold, or too dazed to fight. I wasn't expecting it at all, and a combination of surprise, and well... being hit hard made me stagger sideways. He hit me again, but this time I got my arm in the way, took the hit there. I think it broke my arm.
I didn't have my wand out, but I didn't really need one for this. I did a quick 'McReary Timereary,' and this time ducked forward as he swung the bat. The tip clipped my shoulder, but it was only a glancing blow, and I kicked backward, driving him back so I could turn around, reaching for my wand as I did.
He swung again, stepping back toward me, but I was already jumping to the side with an 'Edgebono Utoosis' as I did. I pushed my duplicate toward Max, and he swung at it, giving me time to move around him and do it again, and then again. Three of me subdued Max, while the fourth made sure that Alex wasn't going to try to join in the fight.
He had a baseball bat, but we were bigger, stronger, and had him outnumbered. It didn't take long. I sent one of me out to make sure Mom or Dad hadn't heard, left two keeping Max pinned down. As for the real me... I went to Alex, pulled her off the bed, shoved her down onto the floor, then turned on the lamp.
"Was this your idea?" I asked, and she swallowed, eyes wide.
"Please... just punish me. Don't hurt him. It's Max. He... he saw you and me, and he thought, he -"
"He was waiting here in your room. Somehow, I find it hard to believe you didn't know that. I find it harder to believe that you two didn't talk about this."
Alex moved forward, on her knees, wrapped her arms around my thigh and leaned against me. "I tried to talk him out of it, really, I did," she pleaded, "He wouldn't listen, and he ordered me to be quiet and keep still, and..."
She was crying again, now, and I sighed a little. Of course. I'd put a lot of effort into turning Alex into a submissive little toy. I should hardly be surprised when she couldn't find it in herself to stand up to anyone else. That meant Max was the one I needed to take care of. Unfortunately, Max was my brother. Someone else, I might have simply killed. Max...
Justin let out a long breath, then looked up from the floor, met Rose's eyes. "He couldn't kill Max, of course, because the spell wouldn't allow it. Max had to live, for things to match up properly with our reality. He didn't figure that out yet, though, not then. At first, it was the difficulties that would have been involved with covering it up from our parents that stopped him. That was before he stole Evilini's magic, so he didn't have the power to erase something like that from their memories on his own, and he didn't trust a genie or something like that to do it properly."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Justin massaged a little. "Instead, he erased parts of Max's memory. Max had just learned about me... about him and Alex, so it didn't take a lot to do. And he wasn't as worried about damage, because well... it was Max. Max acting odd was normal, so it didn't matter if the memory erasing did other damage."
"I have to admit, you've piqued my professional curiosity," Rose said then, tilting her head a little to the side. "It's not often that we see the results of repeated memory erasure like this. Might I ask what spells you were using on Max? I gather he was the target, more than anyone else."
Justin looked at her for a moment, a bit surprised, then nodded. "Early on, I used 'cerebellum erasus' and 'non memento'." At Rose's barely-visible wince, Justin nodded. "Yeah, I know. Kind of a blunt instrument thing. But he didn't really care if he was damaging people's minds. Later, after he stole Evilini's power and memories, he used some of the subtler spells, but he was more interested in immediate results than in really understanding what he was doing. That's a big way we were different... other than the obvious ones."
He shifted a little in his seat, sat up a little straighter. "I erased Max's memory a lot, I'm afraid. Every time he found out about me, I had to. Until the competition, and then..." Justin broke off, looking down again. Rose didn't press him, giving him time, and after a minute, he said, "I'm sorry. I'm not ready to talk about that yet."
"That's all right," Rose said. "We'll come back to it. Right now, though... what happened with Miranda, after that?"
"I..." Justin took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he did, then started again. "I was horrible to her. We went out again a few days later. I let her have a nice date, think that I was a good guy, all that. Then after she was home, I teleported into her house, soundproofed her room, and raped her."
Justin closed his eyes tightly, and his voice grew thick. "I hit her with another illusion when I did it. Made her see me keep shifting back and forth between being me and being her father," he got out. She avoided me for about a week after that, and then I went and found her, and acted hurt that she'd been avoiding me, asked her why. She wouldn't tell me, of course, and I acted confused, kept acting hurt, made her feel as guilty as I could."
"We went out again after that. I made a duplicate, put the illusion on it, had it come into the restaurant where we were, then helped her when she started freaking out." Justin shook his head, still looking down at the floor. "Then she told me all about it, but, of course, I already knew. Still, I made the right horrified noises, and..."
He paused again, swallowed, then spoke quickly, hurrying through it. "I just kept ramping it up, seeing how far I could take it before she broke. Went there with a duplicate at one point, made her think she was dreaming of her father and I raping her together. I..."
There was another pause, and this one stretched out a good ten seconds before Justin gathered himself and spoke, his voice again thick with emotion, tears beginning to creep out from his tightly-shut eyes. "It lasted ten weeks. In the end -" Justin took a breath. "She ran a hot bath, got into it, and slit her wrists wide open. They said she killed herself, but... I killed her, really. To see if I could. I -"
Justin broke off, stood up, shook his head, wiping at his face. "I'm sorry," he said, holding out one hand, palm out toward Rose. "I can't finish this today. I'm sorry." He pulled out the IPP control, pushed buttons with one hand as Rose stood as well."
"Justin, you shouldn't -" she started, but then he was gone.
"Hey... do you have a minute?"
Miranda looked up from The Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology, which was open on the counter in front of her and blinked at Justin. She opened her mouth to ask why he was there, but then she saw the red rims of his eyes, the carefully-controlled expression on his face, and simply said, "Sure. We can go in back. Jack's stepped out for a minute, but it's okay if it won't take long...?" She ended on a questioning note, and Justin nodded quickly, then followed her into the back.
The office in back was cluttered, with boxes of books that hadn't yet been put on the shelves, the computer that Jack kept the inventory on sitting on the floor, a mini-fridge and coffee maker tucked into the corner. Miranda didn't bother sitting down, but as soon as the door was closed, looked to Justin. "What's wrong?"
"I..." He stopped for a moment, then started again. "I know this isn't going to make much sense, but... I just came from my therapist, in the wizard world. We were talking about..." Looking away, Justin ran his fingers back through his hair.
Miranda stepped a little closer, put her hand on his elbow, and Justin twitched as if shocked, but didn't pull away. She wanted to hug him, but wasn't sure how he'd take that right then, so instead, she said, "You're hurting. I can see that. Justin... I'm your friend - yours and Alex's. You must've come here for a reason, so..."
He nodded at that, gave Miranda a quick, grateful look. "It's just... that other Justin, in that other world we told you about... he did some horrible things to you. We were just going over those, and... and I know it doesn't make any sense, that you're not the same person, but I just suddenly had to come here and see that you're okay." He stopped there, and silence hung for a second, and then Miranda smiled a little.
She moved her hand down to Justin's, squeezed. "I'm okay. But I don't think that's all you really came for. Justin..." Her other hand went to his cheek, and she set her palm on it, felt the faint traces of moisture there. "Whatever he did to her... none of it happened to me. You never did anything to hurt me. You're still one of the nicest guys I know. Don't beat yourself about what you didn't do."
"Thank you," Justin said after a moment.
"No problem," Miranda replied. There was another silence, and after a moment, Miranda moved back a little, taking her hands from Justin. "How are Alex and the baby?" she asked then, starting to feel a little bit awkward, alone with Justin.
"They're doing great," Justin answered. "We had the ultrasound a few days ago, and the baby looks healthy. Lexie keeps popping over all the time, now that she can teleport again. Well, she says she's just coming over to use our Lair, but she always talks to Alex when she does."
He went on, with Miranda smiling and nodding, encouraging him to keep going. She'd just talked to Alex the night before, so she knew everything he was telling her, but the important thing was to get Justin talking about something else, something happy, since she knew he'd brood if he didn't. It took a good ten minutes, a few more than she'd meant to spend, but by the time he left, Justin was smiling again.