Tiger Chronicles: Exodus

Chapter II: Trust No One

…

If you recognize it, I don't own it.

...

Questions were asked after Bruce Victor, pastor of Righteous Light Church, was arrested for assaulting a twelve year old boy in broad daylight. More questions were asked when it was revealed that for six years, Pastor Victor had not only condoned, but encouraged the violent and systematic abuse of Kyle over a crime there was no evidence he had committed.

Among many of the pointed queries was one directed at the youths who attended Righteous Light- why didn't you say anything?

And so the tales of Andrew, Shaniqua, and Jesse were brought into the light of day.

Andrew Vales, 10, had been the first to ask, after having seen Mr. Mallory stomp on a downed seven year-old Kyle's hand repeatedly and everyone laughed, what he possibly could have done to deserve that. When he found out he had supposedly stolen a lot of money, he asked if they had ever found that money. When replied to in the negative, he asked "then how do you know he stole it?"

Mrs. Jennings caught wind of this, and suggested to Pastor Vincent and Andrew's family that the boy was rebellious, that he envied Kyle's bad boy reputation, and he ought to be sent somewhere to correct such budding un-Christian behaviors. Namely Grindstone.

Andrew was reported to have committed suicide. "Common occurrence among incorrigible cases." Grindstone had said. "We are truly sorry."

Shaniqua Lance, 8, had watched a nine year-old Kyle bleed through his shirt from badly healing wounds as his teacher tore apart his ten page paper for English, saying that a thief didn't deserve anything but a zero, and, being privy to why everyone hated Kyle, asked if maybe three years of punishment over $153.47 he had never been proven to possess wasn't a little too severe.

Jennings found out, made some calls to her parents, made a few embellishments about her badmouthing her teachers and planning to join a gang, and Shaniqua was shipped off to Grindstone.

Her parents were devastated at her suicide, but Jennings assured them with the old adage that "Good wombs sometimes bear bad sons… and daughters."

Jesse, 12, watched three grown men, including Kyle's own father, beat the then ten year-old boy before the congregation with belts, and done what he felt Jesus would do- he helped him up after they stopped.

Jennings, determined to make sure her fun lasted as long as it could, smashed all her windows, burned her flowerbeds, and then made a frantic call to the police that Jesse had tried to break in, raving about trying to show up Kyle.

Grindstone. Suicide. "We're sorry."

Each of the three incidents reinforced the unspoken but very clear message- question the punishment of Kyle, OR help him in any way, and you died. End of story. There was little mourning outside of the families of the three who had dared to interfere in the quasi-religious ritual of making sure Kyle stayed on that twilight of wanting to die, but never being allowed to do so.

Heuristics, or that answering questions meant more questions were poised, demanded that some reason be given to Mrs. Jennings' dedication to silencing any questioning of Kyle's nightmare. A veteran police officer, acting sympathetic to Mrs. Jennings, managed to glean the reason out of her.

In the end, it was discovered that what had transpired was not a result of revenge, money, envy of youth, or even a devotion to Malefideism.

One child had been tortured for six years and three had been tortured to death, all because Mrs. Jennings was bored.

…

On paper it sounded like a decent idea, Calvin admitted, as he looked at the "New Exodus" website.

Half-protest, half-getaway, it was meant to provide a means for teens affected by Malefideism to get away from what were likely very dangerous situations, and raise awareness that the methods used by Malefidians weren't "strict"- they were lethal.

In reality…

"That's just a massacre waiting to happen." Hobbes said succinctly.

As grim a prediction as it was, Calvin was forced to agree. Malefidians, it had been proven time and time again, did not listen. Their "War Chant" said it all- Kill, Steal, Destroy.

Malefidians had coined a new pseudo-legal term: "In accusatione satis est.", literally "the charge is enough", or that by virtue of having been accused, a minor defendant was guilty of something. It was a completely illegal method of doing things, and yet those who felt they were above the law- judges, cops, teachers, complete strangers- cited it as if it were common law, inviolable as the rest of the constitution.

There was talk of declaring Malefideism to be a terrorist organization, but talk was cheap. Until the Malefidiot child rapists and Judge Highweller wannabes were given a reason to be afraid, they would get bolder and more aggressive.

"Any more word from Jason?" Hobbes inquired.

"Still house hunting. Lawsuits and insurance will pay for it, but…" Calvin sighed. "They don't feel safe in Stirwood anymore."

"Well, that's only natural." Hobbes asserted gruffly. "He gets kidnapped and has to kill his way out, gets expelled for defending himself and with phony charges, they send an assassin disguised as a tutor, his home gets attacked and they have to resort to siege warfare, then the S.W.A.T. team shows up late and arrests the kids… it's not exactly a glowing review of Stirwood."

Even Newden was safer. Sure, someone had tried to nuke it, but he had seen to it that had failed miserably with not one innocent casualty, the evacuations had been orderly, order had been restored quickly, and the last incident of Malefidiots trying external parenting- trying to accost a kid at a pizza-slash-arcade restaurant- had ended with five of the "Concerned Elders" in Intensive Care and the sixth soiling himself.

He looked back to the New Exodus site.

"You're going to go there, aren't you?" asked Hobbes.

"Mmm hmm."

"Even though it's a death trap?"

"Yep."

"Even though it'd be a lot safer to just try and get in contact with them via text or email?"

"You know it."

He knew, deep down, Hobbes was just looking out for him, but they'd had this conversation before. The gun begat responsibility, and part of that responsibility was making sure that the people he had started a war with did as little damage as possible… or at least, that was Calvin's position.

"Let me just recap the list of people trying to kill you, right now." Hobbes said crossly. "R.A.W., any leftover Highweller fans, Malefidiots, and from the looks of the video the Fox kid took, Satan himself." He counted the four off on his paw. "So of course you want to go out and thumb your nose at them."

Calvin opened his mouth to respond-

"If you die, it will be a devastating blow to everyone who looks up to you!" Hobbes snarled. "That's why they were willing to nuke Newden- because to them, any expense, any sacrifice is worth killing anyone who is brave enough and strong enough to oppose them!"

"And what if they decide to just kill everyone in this Exodus camp? What then?!" he retorted.

"Then you can react, being aware of them without them being aware of you. If you're there, and anyone- R.A.W., Malefidian, what have you- sees you, you're the first priority target. If they don't see you in the initial attack…"

"You make it sound like it's inevitable." Calvin said, not so much irritated as he was concerned.

"If not R.A.W., then Malefidian or yet another happy "we kill kids for fun" group." Hobbes said sadly, looking out the window. It was eight in the evening, but still fairly light out.

"If you don't care about your well-being, let me put it this way: Every time you get dragged into these adventures, your mom and dad age another twenty years mentally. Doesn't matter that you're saving lives- hell, if they knew you were out disarming nukes…"

His parents.

He had completely, utterly neglected to take into account how this must stress them. The truth of what he'd done for Newden during the Good Friday crisis would give them heart attacks. If they survived, he'd never be let outside the house again…

Hobbes' predictions, he knew in his heart and mind, weren't merely attempts to get him out of the line of fire. There would be attackers. This many adolescents and teens banding together to get away from Malefidian parenting was the sort of bait the typical Malefidiot would not be able to resist.

Making contact with them was imperative. Every day this camp went on was another that any number of hostiles had to prepare an attack. Malefidiots would just storm the area and kill or torture to death as many as they could. R.A.W. would kill the oldest and capture the youngest for…

…he could not think on that. His therapist had warned him nothing good would come of contemplating the use of the horrible devices he'd seen.

"Okay, okay." He conceded, as Hobbes let out a breath. "We do this smart…"

…

Barry Wilkins did have an idea for how to handle this "New Exodus" camp, and it involved napalm in large quantities.

His wiser inclinations made him keep his mouth shut however. A firestorm-induced death, with all the suffocation, rapid burning, and shock it induced would be considered a 'quick kill' by R.A.W., and he had enough experience to know that, barring extreme circumstances, suggesting that was a great way to find out just how painful the breaker's ministrations could be.

"High Father has stated we are to bide our time." Judge Grant noted with no small amount of displeasure. "After the metahumans interfering with the Newden bombing, anything that could be linked to us could have this…" he blinked incredulously at the dossier. "…Superman coming down on our heads, to say nothing of the Newden freak…"

With extreme effort Barry held his expression as close to neutral as he could. He was grateful, immensely grateful, that the interference he encountered was so extraordinary that not even R.A.W.'s ultra-Darwinian mentality could fault him, but all that meant, he had quickly understood, was a stay of execution.

Allegedly, this Superman abided by a strict "no killing" policy. As Barry had learned from watching and doing, there was plenty you could do to someone that made killing a mercy.

That, and his failure, no matter how much of a "God says fuck you" cosmic screw-over it was, pissed him off.

There they were, the five of them, in the White Room they used for planning and execution of the schemes R.A.W. assigned to them. Grant, Landers, Derricks, Gathwells, and himself. Malefides was nowhere to be seen- just as well, they only had five chairs.

He tried not to dwell on the fact that he had proposed what amounted to the ultimate table-flip- using multiple nuclear bombs- to deal with one person, got that insane proposal approved, highlighting the desperation of the matter, had his nightmarish, pants-shitting scary theory proven correct, revealed his trump card, had that destroyed as well, and now the thing that could somehow tell nukes to become relatively harmless high-explosives was aware of what they were willing to do.

"…if we just roll over and play dead, it shows he's won." Protested Judge Landers, fruitless as she must have known it to be.

So many win conditions for the enemy. If Calvin died a martyr's death, his legacy would inspire others. If he found out where they had their strongholds, and he could will nukes into life, he would leave not even ash…

…then again, not even Gathwells knew where they were, and chances are if these metahumans had any idea, they'd be dead by now.

"…if we attack, and they find a way back to us, then we have lost." countered Derricks.

"They won't." Grant said, with a sudden level of calmness. "They have no idea of where we have our main bases, or how they're linked. They're still searching deserts and ocean trenches for us."

A chuckle from Landers. A satisfied hmph from Derricks.

"Landers is completely right. We cannot allow this opportunity to go unexploited."

Barry whipped around-

There was Malefides, smiling with hands steepled, in a chair of quality that Barry knew wasn't available to some schmuck of his level…

He had known, after watching the footage of that smiling bastard shrugging off punishment that would kill an entire R.A.W. hit squad and throwing cars around, that Malefides was not what he seemed to be. Like a child hiding under a blanket, hoping that not seeing the monsters meant they would go away, he had not pried deeply into what Malefides was…

But every single instance of these things he should not be able to do confirmed that silent hypothesis he'd formed in the back of his head. If his old pastor had seen this… thing that presented itself as a man, he would be screaming every bible verse he knew.

Seeming to deem the reactions of his startled allies- fuck, was he considering Him an ally?- inconsequential, Malefides (or the thing wearing his skin) continued. "My followers have painted the youth of the day as monsters, demons, warmongers, craving destruction and depravity. I say we give this statement truth. Beer and food laced with aphrodisiacs and drugs to enhance paranoid beliefs, such as your psy-warfare department is working on, Grant. Small arms, telling them they need to be ready to defend themselves."

Barry understood immediately, a fact that make him proud and vaguely terrified. "…then we convince their parents to come get them?"

Malefides smiled, and Barry felt the prayer he was about to say in the back of his mind disintegrate into infinite specks of dust. "Exactly. An orgy of hormonal, drugged teens with guns turning on their poor, worried, long-suffering parents."

That would accomplish a fair bit, Barry admitted to himself. The Exodus protest being shown to be nothing but a drug-fueled orgy would destroy any validity that the protest had about Malefideism's teachings. It would martyr Malefidians, driving them into R.A.W.'s arms, and give truth to the lie- the world would see that, left to their own devices, the youth of today reverted into savagery.

"R.A.W. won't need to ever show any involvement." Malefides said with a closed eyed shrug. "It'll just look like at best a bunch of abused teenagers lashing out, or to our more devoted, that we were right all along."

It was, as it always was, cruelty for cruelty's sake. From what Barry understood, R.A.W. had more money than God and Bill Gates combined- any monetary gain from ransoms or theft was appreciated but not the main focus. It had always been, even before Barry had ever set foot, about making misery.

Yet…

"…and if your plan fails?" he asked.

Not because he didn't think it was a good idea, mind, but because-

"In case our dear reality-raping friend or another outside factor renders my operation moot, I trust you know what to do." Malefides said simply, not even looking at Barry.

Napalm it was, then.

…

Colorado was chosen as the state to hold the "New Exodus" protest-slash-camp, partially owing to several large campsites whose owners were sympathetic to the cause.

To put it bluntly, the result looked like a tent city for homeless people. A bit cleaner, but a tent city nonetheless.

Jeremy Duncan, blonde, 17, and for once in his life, absolutely, completely, legitimately PISSED OFF, couldn't care any less what an outsider thought of the appearance.

For now, at least, here was not home, and that was good enough for him.

The tent he had was small by most standards, but it would have to do.

"So what's your story?"

He turned to look at a boy about his age, buzzcut hair, grey shirt, tattered jeans. There were several partially healed cuts on his arms and face, his lip was healing from a split, and he had a fading black eye.

Jeremy assessed him for a second. What the hell, it wasn't like it could hurt at this stage- "My teachers and my parents wanted to do a real life PSA about how raping someone means hell for the rapist. So one of my teachers claimed I raped her, my mom and dad lied and said I'd told them I'd talked about wanting to do it…"

"Oh fuck, you're that guy? Duncan?" Both eyes lit up in realization. "Fuck man. Did your dad actually knock you down and kick you?"

Jeremy nodded. "Fucking stomped on my face. Told me later he had to make the experience as real as possible. Didn't get your name."

"Nick Cooke."

The truth had come out when his friends and girlfriend, the only group of people that knew Jeremy wouldn't even consider such things, had done a little digging, found witnesses that had seen Ms. Butcher, his accuser, during the time the alleged rape was taking place, found proof he was somewhere else…

"What the hell did they say to you after everyone found out it was a hoax?" asked the man.

Jeremy paused. Just thinking about it made his blood boil, and even now he had an inexplicable urge to break something very important. "First… first they said they knew all along I didn't do it, and that they were lied to. Then, when the teacher who said I raped her cracked and told the police everything, they said it was for my own good."

The boy made a derisive noise. "For your own good. Yeah. My old man said that every time I got a B and he got the bat. Mom tried to point out cracking my skull open didn't help, but that just made him madder."

"Jesus." Jeremy said, disgusted.

"She keeps saying I need to give him another chance, and he keeps saying he'll get help." The boy shook his head.

"Yeah, you hear a lot of that here. Mine promised they never meant to hurt me more than absolutely necessary." Jeremy shrugged. "This coming from a mom who tells people I parked a car on top of the garage."

Nick helped him get the last peg set into place.

"She do that often?"

"Exaggerate? All the freaking time. I don't know if it's a disconnection with reality, or if she just can't stand not being the center of attention, but it's always how she and dad are dealing with some non-existent catastrophe I caused."

They looked up. Tents for miles around, port-a-potties being wheeled to areas, some teens playing football, a few just sitting on the ground or in chairs, looking into the distance dazedly.

"You think this will change anything?" Jeremy asked aloud, his rage having cooled finally.

"I dunno. Like they say, you never really appreciate what you have until it's gone. Maybe some will wise up and stop listening to a fucktard who tortured his own daughter."

If not, Jeremy thought resignedly, at least they could have a little time away from the lunacy.

One day three months ago, he had gone to school like any other, then suddenly, in the middle of lunch, two uniformed officers had slammed him face-first into the cafeteria table and arrested him.

Ms. Butcher, a teacher who had delighted in Jeremy's misery since the day she had met him, had made a phony rape report.

After many, many blows at the hands of his parents, Butcher, and police, Jeremy realized that absolutely no one cared about his side of the story. The officer interrogating him, in between gut punches, told him if he didn't confess, he'd take him to some desolate highway, shoot him, and leave his corpse to rot.

He was about to confess when another officer came and pulled his interrogator off of him. His friends had made several disturbing discoveries on his behalf.

The rape accusation was not entirely Butcher's idea.

It was lunacy at first, and he had required proof in the form of one shaken counselor's testimony and a swiped email, but he soon understood the grim truth- his parents and most of his teachers had conspired to frame him for rape.

There was a mediation session just a few weeks ago, which boiled down to We were completely in the right to frame you just for a little teaching scenario, and if you don't make a public statement it was all your idea we'll make sure you never graduate.

As soon as his mother started quoting "Get with The Program" with that glassy-eyed squawk, he knew logic wasn't going to work, so he had left in the middle of the night to come here, hitching a ride with Pierce, a sympathetic friend, leaving behind a bat-shit insane mother doing some sort of insane dance in a white bathrobe and a dejected father with a broken nose.

His hand still hurt. But goddamn, it was a good hurt.

His high school was a wreck- this shockwaves of the debacle had all the sane parents withdrawing their children, teachers who weren't part of the conspiracy resigning, not to mention Butcher's arrest and total disgrace.

His dad's dentist business was in the toilet. No one wanted a parent who was willing to ruin their child's life for a public service announcement working on their teeth.

No, this… vacation wouldn't solve any of his problems. A betrayal of trust of this magnitude and all the ramifications its exposure brought about would not be laid to rest in just a few days.

Imagine then what must have brought the others here. A voice in the back of his head prompted.

He didn't want to imagine. He wanted to rest.

"Oh, hey-" said Nick. "You hear about those terrorists attacking Newden?"

Who hadn't? "Crazy, man. Crazy. News says some people brought nukes into the city. Most schools in Cleveland, where I'm from, were closed."

"Yours didn't?" Nick asked with a raised eyebrow.

"With everyone jumping ship, ours was already closed. No teachers, no students, no class." Jeremy said with a shrug. "Anyway, from what I heard in between bullshit storms, the nukes were to kill just one guy."

"You're shitting me. Who would you need five nukes to kill?" Nick responded incredulously.

"Some kid named Halgins."

…

"In light of recent events, we feel it necessary to reiterate what occurred with Jeremy Duncan and his family."

"While the tactics used were severe, the intent of the exercise of accusing Jeremy of rape was meant to serve as a warning to other students about the damage engaging in such criminal activity can cause. While Jeremy was asked to pay a high price for this lesson, restitution would have been made when appropriate had he been understanding."

"However, due to the actions of several of his friends and his own unwillingness to obey, the lesson has been ruined. A loyal, stern but fair teacher is in jail, awaiting trial. Many teachers have abandoned our school. Students have left us out of anger and fear."

"As a consequence of your actions, grades for all students this year are a flat zero. This, we believe, is a severe enough consequence to get the message across that obedience is demanded regardless of how unpleasant our teaching methods may appear."

"The faculty- what remains of it- is deeply ashamed of our students, especially Jeremy and his allies, and hope that this sort of severity will cull your future rebellion. Future incidents of divisiveness will be punished much more harshly."

-Principal Thorn of Klein High School, Cleveland.

…

Where Kyle was, he didn't know.

If this was hell, he expected more fire. Now, he floated in blackness.

Pastor Victor. A fist. Lights out.

It wasn't nice, really, being consistently right about the people around him.

"But two plus two is four, even if you don't like four."

Who-

"I'm you. Or, rather, your inner self. Your ego."

Into his field of view stepped a… it was him, and it was not him. It was how he wanted to see himself. No scars. No limp. Clean. Strong. Better.

Not-Him frowned. "You've seen better days."

A pause. "No, actually, that's a lie. Even before the accusation, you weren't being treated well. You've forgotten partly because what's happened, and partly because of all the kicks you took to your head, but even before all this, life sucked."

"What?" he heard himself ask.

"Age 4. Mrs. Jennings' house."

And suddenly, as if he was watching from a camera, a vision came into place.

He remembered this vaguely… his parents had dropped him off at Ms. Jennings to be babysat.

A command to sit at the table and be quiet, which he obeyed. Then he hears himself ask, after thirty minutes of sitting in silence while Jennings watched TV.

Suddenly, she got up, and got a fireplace poker… and he remembered.

How he survived that beating, he didn't know. Jennings knocked him out of the chair with the first swing, sending him sprawling to the ground. Then she just kept pummeling him…

"Wow." Said Not-Kyle. "That is brutal. And what did mommy and daddy say?"

Fast, discordant images from his perspective, as he lay in a hospital bed, as he limped through a painful recovery, impeded by Jennings tripping him during church…

"You need to forgive, Kyle." His father said sternly.

"Jesus says you have to forgive." His mother chided.

"Tattling isn't forgiveness."

"You have to say you just fell."

Not-Kyle pursed his lips. "Not… exactly very protective."

Images of being tripped and kicked by Mrs. Jennings while he limped assailed him.

"Age 5. Mr. Mallory's house. A whole year before you were ever accused…"

Something in his blood froze.

"You remember, don't you?" asked Not-Kyle sadly. "The… 'games'. How he made you pull down your pants. How he made you touch him. How he touched you. How he beat you."

No

"It went on for months. Your mom and dad said he just had urges and you needed to forgive, and if you ever told, you would have to go back to Mrs. Jennings house, and they'd tell everyone you were a bad Christian…"

NO NO NO NO NO

"You always wondered, 'why did they let him do those things to me? Why did they send me there, over and over and over, when I told them it hurt to take a shit after what he did?' You never found out before Jennings accused you and the abuse got serious, did you? Well, I can tell you…"

Kyle wanted to shut his ears, block it all out, send the memories of pain and shame back to where they came from, some dark closet in his mind, but his eyes and ears would not close here, in this abyss…

"He paid them."

He choked.

"You remember the shiny new television? Or the new car? Or mommy's new necklace? That's why they kept sending you back."

He wanted to call it a lie, that there was a line his parents would not cross, that they still had that innocence… that they wouldn't… that they couldn't…

But he remembered the new TV. The new car. The pretty new necklace his mother had snapped at him not to touch…

Always after the 'games'.

"No one ever said they're sorry, did they?" asked Not-Kyle, shaking his head. "No, of course not. Kyle doesn't deserve a 'sorry'. Kyle gets told to forgive, forgive, forgive and forget, or he gets a spanking. Never mind he can't sit down already. Kyle can take it. We'll pimp him out to sadists and child molesters and expect him to be fucking Jesus 2.0, but if he so much as gets accused of… of taking chicken feed… not even two hundred bucks… we'll turn on him and beat him bloody every day. These holier-than-thou fucks want you to forgive instantly, and want six years of penance over… what? Less than two hundred fucking bucks?!"

He tried to scream, but couldn't. It was like he had no lungs…

"One last question, Kyle… do you ever remember being happy?"

And suddenly black void became sterile white ceiling, and he sat up, gasping and retching…

A nurse grabbed a pan for him to puke into…

When he was done, shaking and shivering as horrible memories compounded with endless misery slammed into him without end, the nurse asked, in the kindest tone he'd heard in his entire life, "Are you okay?"

Do you ever remember being happy?

"No." he sobbed brokenly. "No."

…

An Xiao was a girl who practiced logical thinking over magical thinking. Experience, both personal and vicarious, had repeatedly taught her that there was no Deus Ex Machina that would make everything right when problems appears.

If your mother couldn't protect you from your father the first eleven times he'd blown up and started hitting you, for everything from a B-grade to contradicting his lies, then she wasn't going to find the courage in time for you to be able to crawl away with most of your limbs intact.

He'd only stopped kicking her in the stomach as she lay sprawled on the floor because a business call came for him. Her mother had shrunk into a corner, mortified but silent.

Not that she didn't have a plan.

An sat in a lawn chair, trying to find a good position that didn't hurt.

Here, at the Exodus, her story was not uncommon.

You had the abused, the neglected, the people whose complaints ranged from that their parents disagreed with their hobbies to that if they didn't get away, they would be beaten to death…

Mostly older teens, but there was a strong sense of comradery here- the world had beat them down more than enough. They didn't need to do it to each other.

Offhandedly, she thought of Jason, who had gone so far as to make a thinly-veiled death threat forbidding any retaliation against her on his behalf.

Her father had promised, as so many abusers had, that'd he'd never do it again each time he'd hit her. That he'd get help.

Maybe the Fox kid took requests…

Beside her sat a brown haired girl in grey sweatpants and a purple t-shirt, looking for all the world like she didn't care if she lived or died.

Her eyes rolled her way.

"Parents thought it'd be funny to force me to strip to my underwear and get in a slime tank in front of my school. I can never go back." She said sadly.

To be fair, the question An was going to eventually ask- what all comers to Exodus asked and were asked- was "what's your story?"

"…why?" An asked. It baffled her, why someone would resort to such a drastic invasion of privacy and decency…

"Our new pedo-principal has a fetish. He offered them 500 bucks to make me."

Sadly, stories like that weren't the worst she'd heard. Lots of kids who'd been kicked out for being gay. Whole bunch who had left before their parents use of "Get with the Program" got them killed. Others had some messed up sexual abuse, everything from a rapist relative to their own parents pimping them out to get fast cash.

"You?" she asked, looking drained.

"My dad beat me for not going along with some bullshit lie he made up to get another kid kicked out of school. Mom did nothing." An kept it short and sour, she'd save the longer version for a book.

"Malefidiot?"

"Yep. Yours?" An asked.

The girl just looked into the distance. "Mom was always crazy, and dad was in denial. They probably will be Malefidiots before this is all over." She looked like she wanted to cry, wanted tears to flow…

…but couldn't.

An knew. There was a point where you couldn't cry anymore. Your body just refused to waste more energy sobbing and sniveling, you can feel the despair and the worry crushing you into the dirt…

…but you couldn't cry.

"You know what gets me?" The girl looked up into the sky, clouds gathering and darkening- rain.

"They didn't understand why I was upset."

…

"Calling someone beyond redemption is not something to be done lightly."

"We want to believe that most people who have made mistakes can be rehabilitated. That they can reform. That no one is inherently so evil that there is no chance they can ever be redeemed."

"I have no choice but to call Malefidians beyond all redemption."

"If you pick up a how-to-guide on sadistic abuse written by a child abusing phony pastor who spawned a child abusing cult, and you feel anything besides disgust and revulsion, chances are you were already too far gone to be saved. The book didn't make you an abuser. The book gave you ideas and an excuse you were eager to use."

"I don't think it unfair to say that when someone makes a point of going out with the explicit mission of raping a girl or torturing a boy to death, they have crossed a line that separates humanity from monsters."

"So I won't pretend that I'm trying to save any Malefidiots any more."

"I'm addressing those of you who are sane enough to reject a book that suggests daily flogging and gaslighting as the very least of the horrors one can inflict."

"Don't let these people near your children. Don't let them near anyone else's children. This is not prejudice, it is a learned bias. The leader of Malefideism encourages raping and murdering children."

"I know some of you have heard about what I've done. That I've killed people. It's a very logical conclusion that when someone my age has a death toll to their name, they are not to be trusted. That there is something seriously wrong with them."

"Fair enough."

"You don't have to trust me. But for your children's sake, don't trust anyone who follows Malefides."

-Calvin's Blog, "Beyond Saving"

…

Kyle lay awake in a hospital bed.

They had pumped him full of enough sedatives, medications, and painkillers to make an atheist blue whale see Jesus, and yet…

He couldn't sleep.

His parents had whored him out.

His parents had whored him out.

With that fact in place, what else were they capable of?

Did they know all along that he hadn't stolen the money?

Were they punishing him as part of some sort of sick game?

What weren't they capable of?

"Do you really want to find out?"

He tilted his head.

Not-Him sat in a chair that had not been in that corner before. Ordinarily, this might concern him, but seeing as he couldn't pronounce half the shit they pumped into him, he felt entitled to talk to whoever he felt like- ceiling fan or hallucination.

"No." he answered. He knew enough that when parents started pimping out their offspring, they didn't have their child's best interests at heart anymore.

"They will overcome this." Not-Kyle said sadly. "They'll sacrifice Jennings, or Mallory, and they'll say they never knew. Let's remember- you're dealing with experienced liars and sociopaths here. If all they have to do is sacrifice a few of their own to save their own skin, they'll do it without batting an eye."

"Then, when they feel threatened by what you say about them… or what you might say about them, they'll arrange for you to…" and here Not-Kyle did air quotes, "…run away. Or hell, they might skip the turning on each other all together and just do what Jennings did to those three kids, ship you off to Grindstone to die."

That settled it, then. He would make sure that the police knew about the full extent of everything he'd been through, so that there was no way in hell they'd release him back to his parents-

"Let's say that works." Shrugged Not-Him. "Let's say they're content to just sacrifice Jennings, for example, say she did all the beating. They'll collaborate, say you're delusional, get it all dumped at Jenning's feet, and then leave you behind. They will pay for nothing they've done while you try to sort out life in a foster home. That's the best case scenario in that situation."

Something churned in his gut.

It wasn't right.

He had been punished all his life, whether it was for someone's urges or something that wasn't ever done, and it would be all too easy for nearly everyone involved in his pain to just get off easy…

"But what can I do?" he asked desperately. "All I have are some scars and a story."

"You've forgotten what else you have." Not-Kyle chided.

"What?" He had no recordings, no special abilities, no friends, no resources…

"You have hatred." Not-Kyle told him. "And let me assure you, with my help, you'll find that all you need is hate."

"Because you see, hate sustains. If you didn't hate them enough to deny them the satisfaction of your death, you'd have killed yourself a long time ago."

Was… was that the only reason?

"Think about it. You know for a fact that God either hates you, or doesn't care enough about you to mention to the one person supposedly preaching his words, "oh hey, that kid you're kicking the shit out of? Yeah, he didn't steal anything. Also, the Mallory guy in your congregation raped him, so tie a millstone or whatever to him and drop him in the deepest body of water you can find." You also know your parents don't love you, and that the reason they want you to forgive is so that they can go back to pimping you out to Mallory whenever they need a new toy."

"Okay, fine!" Kyle snapped. "I hate them. I hate all of them. But how the hell does that help me?!"

"Without true hatred," Not-Kyle explained calmly, "a human has limitations. Conscience. Ethics. Morals. When these… cobwebs are swept aside and you can focus on your hatred, not just crass rage but true, genuine hatred, when you decide that the only acceptable outcome is that everyone who has wronged you must die, then and only then can you make any progress."

Silence.

"So what do I do? Get a gun, and start hunting them down one by one?" he asked quietly.

"That's one way of doing things…" admitted Not-Kyle. "…but with people like, say, Jennings, you may want to be more… creative…"

…

Agatha Brown pretty much loathed every single woman on her block, but there was a special place in her hate engine of a heart for Laura Jennings.

As a corrections officer in a female wing of prison, Brown had seen a lot of scum. Abusive mothers. Teens gone wrong. Women who personified a black widow, bedding men and women, then killing them for money…

…but Jennings was the kind of cancer that poisoned the air around her.

From what she'd heard, the woman had accused a child six years ago of stealing from a church and began a campaign of abuse and encouraging others to abuse him. Depending on how much you could wrangle from the investigators, however, the abuse might have started years before the accusation. Police had found blood stained knives, fire pokers, and homemade whips in her house, along with photos that had made a judge deny her any hope of bail.

Now she was going to escort the sack of shit to take her medications.

For her, the story hit close to home. Her grandmother had always enjoyed beating the shit out of her as a kid, and her parents had turned a blind eye to it for years. When the old hag was on her deathbed, Brown, then 13, had been asked to give her forgiveness.

She had sweetly told the dying woman to burn in hell, flipped her the bird, and walked back to the car despite her father's demands for apology and forgiveness and her mother's wails.

As it was, she was not allowed to just toss Jennings in a cell and let her starve to death. It would be more than fitting- it would be humane compared to what she'd done, but she needed the job more than she needed catharsis.

The old woman had been placed in a solitary cell after two women had heard about what she'd done and proceeded to beat the ever-loving hell out of her, knocking loose three teeth and breaking her arm. If it were up to her, she'd have let nature take its course then handed the responsible parties a mop…

"Jennings, on your feet, time for meds." She fumbled with her keys.

There was no sound from within the cell.

"Make no mistake, I don't give a fuck if you're sixty or six-hundred, if you screw with me I'll-"

There was a splotch of black-red visible through the window.

Oh, hell.

That would be all she needed at the start of her shift, a suicide. She sighed as she opened the door…

…and something that…

…might have been human…

…spilled out…

There were wide strips of something on the blood-covered floor and

Oh God

A hand, or part of one in the corner besides an eye, and…

Brown turned away and grabbed her radio. "We've… we got a problem in Cell B-1726…"

Understatement of the year.

…

Dr. Walters noticed Kyle was smiling this morning.

He thought about asking him what made him so happy, then decided against it.

Whatever it was, he deserved it after what he'd been through.