The Chase

Mapleview, North Carolina.
December 1st, 1988.
10:00 A.M.

During the time when Amory was missing from the 1980s—and during the time when the remains of Canterbury Lab were undergoing heavy construction, Maple Branch Road now sealed off from the rest of Mapleview, allowing no civilian access—Aravali adjusted well to his new job among the misfits of Moonvale.

He took on the regularly scheduled therapy sessions for each patient, first speaking with Donna, then Iggy, then John, and then Raven, one private session each day, and the final session of the week belonged to Crowe. Elaine offered to allow Aravali to read the patients’ files before the sessions, but he declined for now, feeling as if he ought to get to know them personally before anything else could affect his judgment of their general character and wellbeing. So, throughout the first week, he simply got to know them best he could.

Donna’s session was normal and rather pleasant, and she spoke kindly and politely about her life experiences in the far-gone past, recalling only loose details and vague circumstances, but Aravali expected as much, since Multiple-Personality Disorder usually came with memory loss.

The next day, he spoke with Iggy, which was an odd sort of delight, Iggy telling him stories of the wild endeavors he’d undergone during the 60s and 70s, some of which he couldn’t remember very well. However, whenever drug use came up in conversation, his knowledge of the topics at hand seemed suddenly precise and on point.

John’s first session felt like a polite sort of interview, in Aravali’s opinion. The man expressed his long history of working in construction, and he muttered about his frustrations regarding his disorder a few times, stating that he’d never felt paranoid before he started hearing things, and it was greatly aggravating him. Nevertheless, he ended the session with a smile, giving the doctor a handshake before he left.

Raven spoke with him pleasantly, albeit sparingly, as she didn’t seem to talk very much. She revealed that she, her older brother, and Crowe were all old friends at once point, and she briefly discussed an event that had transpired during one of her lonesome traveling adventures to New York. She also spoke of Crowe a bit, and she ended the session with a smile and a wave.

Finally, Aravali entertained his second session with Crowe at the end of the week, and—once more—they discussed his past before the conversation drifted into stranger areas, Crowe periodically mentioning events that were supposedly meant to unfold in the future.

The routine was a nice one, arriving to Moonvale each morning, unlocking the front doors and walking inside, glancing to the right and seeing what the patients were up to in their lounge area. He’d call the scheduled patient into his office during their hour of therapy, he’d join the patients and Elaine for lunch, and he would sometimes accompany the patients outdoors when the weather allowed him to. He sometimes sat in the lounging area and chatted with the patients, watching TV with them and trading conversation whenever he was finished with his work, and late into the afternoon, he made the drive home, cooking a quick dinner and cleaning whatever he felt he needed to in the kitchen and the living room. He still hadn’t entered his mother’s room, but for now, he felt no desire to.

Today, as he walked into the asylum and lowered his keys, he felt the same sense of peace, settling into his new routine and slowly easing the doors shut behind him. He pocketed his keys and glimpsed to the side, noticing that music was playing in the lounge area rather than the faint ambiance of a TV show.

Aravali slowly stepped inside, narrowing his eyes and staring at the center of the room.

Crowe was wearing a sleek black outfit today, neatly buttoned up the front and hugging his slender figure quite well—and he was smiling, holding out his hands toward Raven and gently beckoning her closer with his fingers.

Raven wore her slim black overcoat over the rest of her clothes like usual, its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and she fidgeted with one of them, blushing and shaking her head at him.

“C’mon,” Crowe urged, nodding along to the music and waving her over. “Took me forever to get this song to play. Please?”

Raven looked down, releasing a breathless little laugh and cupping her face. “Ahhhgh… I don’t know how to dance…”

“That’s okay… you don’t have to,” Crowe assured. “The man’s supposed to lead. So… c’mon… and just follow my lead.”

Raven’s eyes flickered up to him, unable to hide her smile, and she slowly lowered her hands from her face, meandering over to him and releasing a heavy cloud of breath.

Crowe slid his arms around her, hand placed gingerly on her waist, and the two of them began to move rhythmically and gracefully around the middle of the room, Crowe leading her to and fro to the beat of the song.

Aravali stood near the doorway, leaning on the wall and watching with folded arms. He flashed a smirk at them, then glanced across the room at the radio, wondering what the song was called, as he was certain he’d never heard it before.

“You’re in love, with a psycho… you’re in love, with a psycho-o… and, there’s nothin’ you can do about it… you’re never gonna be without it…!”

Donna and John both turned around on the couch, facing away from the TV and watching the two dancers. Iggy, who was on the far couch against the wall, raised his head and lowered his magazine, observing them as well. Everyone watched Crowe and Raven move smoothly around the room until the song ended.

When the radio fell silent, it seemed to power off, interrupted by no radio DJ and no more songs. Raven stepped back, flushing and giggling, shaking her head and looking both embarrassed and delighted. Crowe gave her a formal sort of bow before straightening up and smiling at her.

“Now… let’s do that again sometime,” he said.

“Okay,” Raven grinned, snickering again. “What song was that? Did you call and request it?”

“Yeah…” Crowe paused for a second, looking away and wiping his eye with his thumb.

“Liar,” Raven said, biting her lip and resisting the urge to smile even wider. “I can’t believe you did that just to try and get me to dance. Why do you have to drag me outta my shell…?”

“Aww, c’mon… it’s fun outside the shell,” Crowe told her whimsically. “I’m not saying you have to live outside it, but popping out of it for some fresh air now and again is good for you.”

Aravali pushed off the wall, still wearing a half-smile, and he quietly walked out of the room.

Crowe glanced over just in time to see him leave, then wheeled around and faced Iggy, who was still sitting on the far side of the room with a magazine.

“Oy,” Crowe called, strolling over to Iggy. “Did you notice the doctor man? I didn’t even see him walk in.”

“Ahhm… well,” Iggy sputtered, shaking his head once and making a loose wave of the hand. “Too immersed in the moment… I guess.”

Crowe squinted at him. “What?”

“You,” Iggy said, giving him a nod. “You were too, ah… immersed… in the moment. Looked that way to me.”

Crowe opened his mouth to respond, then fell silent, his eyes wandering down and fixating on the front cover of Iggy’s magazine.

The cover showed a brilliant portrait of the Twin Towers in New York City, and Crowe found himself staring deeply into it.

Iggy blinked, looking down and flipping his magazine around. He surveyed the cover for a second, then glanced up at Crowe again. “It, uh… it’s New York. Apparently, there’s some event going on there, and… there’s a story about it in here…”

Crowe said nothing, still glaring down at the magazine, strangely expressionless now.

“Right,” he eventually replied, his tone flattening. “Sorry, I was just… mourning.”

Iggy stared, his eyes narrowing. “Mourning…?”

Crowe hesitated, eyeing the magazine once more and releasing a deep, grave sigh.

“Everyone who dies there,” he murmured under his breath, just before turning away and walking over to the TV.

Meanwhile—Aravali stepped into his office, walked around the desk, and sank down in his chair, flipping through some of his paperwork for a moment before realizing he had nothing to fill out right now. So, he leaned back, let out a breath, and glimpsed up at his clock, wondering what he would do to kill time until lunch. He wasn’t scheduled to see any of the patients for a session today, so he had more time to spare than usual.

Then, Elaine appeared in the doorway, holding an armful of folders and giving him a wave.

Aravali raised his brows, straightening up in his seat. “Oh… good morning.”

“Morning,” Elaine replied, approaching the desk and placing the folders down on it. “You said you wanted to wait until you had a session with each one of them before reading any of their files… so, now that you’ve done that… here they are.”

Aravali nodded, placing a hand on the files and staring down at them. “Right. Well… they’ve pretty much told me everything, so… I don’t imagine I’ll find anything surprising in here.”

He picked up the nearest folder and flipped it open, Elaine giving him an intense sort of stare before turning on her heel and preparing to leave.

Aravali glimpsed up and called out to her. “Thank you.”

Elaine stopped in the doorway, giving him a smile and a nod before walking off.

Aravali looked down, flipping open Donna’s file first and giving it a thorough once-over. As expected, he saw that her diagnosis was labeled Multiple-Personality Disorder. There was a brief bio beneath the diagnosis, describing her in a summarizing sort of way, and he saw numerous visits to institutions listed on the second page, most of them from many years ago, when Donna was much younger. He shrugged and nodded as he skimmed over it all, finding nothing out of the ordinary—until he reached the bottom of the list on page two.

The most recent institution on the list, just under Moonvale, was a place that caught his eye instantly—and he paused, holding the paper slightly closer and rereading it again.

“Canterbury,” Aravali uttered, making an odd face.

He hesitated momentarily, thinking back to his first impressions of Donna and recalling no instance where she mentioned being institutionalized at Canterbury. He thought it an odd coincidence that Donna was once in the same place as Crowe, but perhaps it made sense that she hadn’t mentioned it. After all, it never came up in conversation, and beyond that, her disorder was one that was known to come with frequent memory loss. Perhaps she didn’t even remember being at Canterbury.

Aravali shook the thought away, pulling Iggy’s file closer and flipping it open. Just as he found before, the file displayed the patient’s full name, diagnosis, and bio, and the second page showed all of the facilities Iggy had been in before.

And—again—the second to last name on the list was Canterbury.

This time, Aravali stared into the paper intently for nearly a full minute, his brow hardening, thinking this was a most unlikely coincidence. Maybe two patients had visited the same place just before coming here—but three? It was strange—and not just because it was an unlikely event. No, the strangest thing about it was what Crowe had said about the place when the two of them first spoke.

Canterbury was not a mental asylum at all.

No—according to Crowe, Canterbury was a laboratory, where unknown entities were running scientific trials and procedures on whomever arrived to their facility. It was not a mental health institution in any way whatsoever, as far as Aravali knew.

Now feeling curious, he opened Raven’s file and skipped to the second page at once, spotting the word Canterbury just above Moonvale yet again. He found Canterbury listed in John’s file, and of course, he spotted it in Crowe’s as well.

Aravali lowered all the papers, placing them on the desk, resting his hands on top of them, and simply staring forward in befuddlement, wondering why all of the five remaining patients in Moonvale were once Canterbury lab subjects. Nothing seemed to connect any of them to one another, save for their admittance to Moonvale now—but it was too seamless and strange to be a mere coincidence.

Then, something occurred to him, and Aravali flipped John’s file open again, rereading the list on page two and seeing only Canterbury and Moonvale listed. He opened Raven’s file and glanced over at it, noticing that she also had no prior visits to mental health institutions before Canterbury. Donna’s file contained a short list of mental health facilities she’d visited when she was much younger, but there was a significant gap of time between her prior visits and her more recent ones, nearly seventeen years. When he reopened Iggy’s file, he saw that Iggy had spent some time in two rehabilitation centers during the early seventies, but there didn’t seem to be any mental health institutions on his list before Moonvale.

Aravali’s eyes traveled from page to page, from file to file, and he let out a deep, thoughtful breath, coming to another realization.

The way all of these files read—it looked as if none of the patients here had a serious problem with managing their mental health until just after their visits to Canterbury Lab.

And that—he suspected—truly couldn’t be a coincidence.

“The hell are they doing to people in that place…?” Aravali murmured, opening Crowe’s file once more and scanning over his bio.

“Mind control,” someone else answered from the doorway.

Aravali glimpsed up from the papers, spotting Crowe leaning on the doorframe, his hands pocketed and his face rather expressionless.

“Well… attempts at mind control,” Crowe added, shrugging and sauntering into the room. “They never got any good at it… from MK-Ultra to Canterbury… they just never seemed to get it right. Granted, Canterbury was probably the closest they got, but even then… something big got in their way.”

Aravali swallowed, giving him a peculiar look. “Uh-huh. Is that what they told you, or…?”

“No. It’s what happened,” Crowe replied, sinking into the chair across from him.

Aravali slowly nodded, pausing and saying nothing. He wasn’t sure how much of Crowe’s synopsis was true, but he found himself wanting to hear more regardless.

“Government’s really good at messing things up and then wiping the slate clean to cover their tracks,” Crowe told him with another shrug, cracking an odd little smirk. “Why d’you think they’re after us now? They were fine letting some ex-patients roam free, until they found out their little science experiment didn’t actually work right.”

Aravali stared, sighing and looking down.

“C’mon… MK-Ultra, Nuremburg, Unit 731, the Tuskegee Experiments,” Crowe listed off. “You can’t tell me it doesn’t happen. They’ve done it loads of times before… and those are just the ones we know about.”

“Well, I just don’t think that’s…” Aravali started, glancing up and instantly falling silent.

He stopped, narrowing his eyes and squinting at Crowe fixedly, only just spotting something strange on his face.

“You’re bleeding,” Aravali noticed, nodding once at him.

Crowe blinked, turning away and wiping the spot of blood from beneath his eye.

Aravali examined him. “Why’re you bleeding from your eye?”

“I dunno,” Crowe mumbled, seeming to avoid his line of sight now.

Aravali continued to study him rather closely.

“Oy—y’know what,” Crowe said, waving a finger at him. “Miss Morgan said Raven can have a day pass now—so where are we at on that little field trip into town? I wanna get some painting stuff, and I wanna take Raven out somewhere.”

Aravali hesitated, eyeing him skeptically.

“You want me to take her out somewhere,” the doctor corrected. “And then you want to take the credit for it.”

“Well. Yeah,” Crowe laughed. “I mean, be fair—I’d take her out myself if I could. I just don’t think you’d hand your car keys off to a loony, and I know Miss Morgan doesn’t. She does let me run errands in her car sometimes, but she really doesn’t like to…”

“Really? Well, color me surprised.”

“Can we do that soon?” Crowe asked, scooting to the edge of his seat. “I got this vision last night, and I really wanna paint it before I forget what it looks like.”

“Right… all right… fine,” Aravali nodded, collecting the papers on his desk and sorting them back into their respective folders. “We can do that tomorrow.”

“Why not now?” Crowe wondered.

They both paused, Aravali sighing and staring curtly at him.

“You’re awfully pushy today,” he observed.

“Yeah,” Crowe replied unabashedly.

They fell silent again.

Aravali then let out a laugh, glancing over at the clock and making a halfhearted shrug.

“You’re lucky I just happen to have some time to kill right now,” he muttered.

“ Yesss! ” Crowe beamed, punching the air with glee.

He swiftly leaped from the chair and headed straight out of the room, his black coat fluttering at his heels.

Aravali watched him go, chuckling and shaking his head before he too walked out of the office.

Crowe vanished into the lounge area—but before the doctor could join him there, Elaine appeared in the hallway, stopping just outside of the office and meeting Aravali’s eyes.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

Aravali fell still just outside of his office, giving her an odd look. “Ahm… for what?”

“For group,” Elaine clarified. “Today is group therapy day for the patients.”

Aravali’s mouth slowly drifted open, his mind suddenly racing, trying to remember when she had told him about the patients entertaining weekly group therapy.

Then, Elaine’s expression flattened, and she closed her eyes, shaking her head and releasing a stressed cloud of breath.

“I forgot to tell you,” she realized. “I’m sorry… there’s been too much for me to keep up with.”

“Oh, no… I understand,” Avarali replied. “But, um… is there any way we could do that later in the afternoon? I might’ve just told Crowe that I could take him and Raven out to use their day passes today.”

Elaine prepared to respond, pausing and squinting curiously at him. “You did…?”

“Yeah. He seems slightly stir-crazy,” Aravali said with a laugh.

Elaine stared for a moment longer. “Huh. Well… most doctors wouldn’t take the patients out so shortly after starting here. You sure you trust them to behave?”

“I don’t see why they wouldn’t,” Aravali told her genuinely, pulling his keys from his pocket. “They’re just people… and they’re not all that unordinary, to be honest. I think they’ve just been cooped up for too long… and that’s not what you want when you’re trying to mentally heal.”

Elaine hesitated again, then made a sideways nod. “Well, that’s fair… but you might end up staying here late today if you put off group until the afternoon.”

“Fine with me,” Aravali shrugged, spotting Crowe and Raven emerging from the doorway down the hall. “We won’t be gone long.”

The doctor marched away to join the two patients, both of whom were smiling and waiting eagerly by the front door.

Elaine watched them with a thoughtful sort of expression before turning and walking off.

Crowe and Raven moved toward the doors, but Aravali stepped into their path, pausing and giving them a serious look.

“Before we go—ground rules,” Aravali said, raising a finger and meeting each of their eyes. “One—no running off in the store. Two—no running off and trying to disappear. Three—we all stay together until we get back here. Okay?”

“Those are all basically the same rule said in three different ways,” Crowe uttered with a laugh.

“Then I’m sure the message must have sunken in by now,” Aravali replied swiftly. “If you two wander off—then I won’t be taking you anywhere ever again. All right?”

“We won’t go anywhere,” Raven assured, wearing a prominent smile, a rare expression for her.

Aravali observed the look on her face, pleased to see her so content, almost excited about something. It wasn’t a demeanor he’d seen from her much since he’d started here.

“Well. Alrighty then,” he said conclusively, flipping his keys around. “Let’s go.”

He turned, unlocked the front doors, and pushed them open, allowing Crowe and Raven to stroll outside. The doctor stepped out and pulled the doors shut, locking them again before rejoining the other two. They all headed down the stairs, thumping onto the gravel and walking over to the black Oldsmobile Cutlass.

“Blimey. Lookit that. I can walk outside and nobody’s trying to gun me down,” Crowe smirked, wheeling around and gazing off to the side, where the metal bars wrapped around the Moonvale grounds from the side of the building. “I feel like a free man again.”

“Yeah,” Raven breathed, giggling and shifting closer to his side, smiling at all the trees around. “It’s nice to just be able to be a person, and go out somewhere…”

Aravali unlocked his car and popped the diver door open, turning and seeing Crowe and Raven standing in the middle of the gravel stretch, both of them pausing to observe the simple sight of the world around them, the world outside of the mental hospital. They seemed to enjoy the simplicity of strolling out of the facility and seeing the open world beyond it.

After a moment longer, Crowe slid his arm under Raven’s, gently giving it a tug and guiding her onward. Raven smiled and lowered her head, blushing slightly as they walked arm-in-arm over to the car.

Aravali opened the back door for them, and Raven slid inside first, Crowe plopping down beside her and pulling the door shut. Then, the doctor sank into the driver seat and closed his own door, just before starting the car and fastening his seatbelt. He began to back out of his usual parking spot, turning the car slowly and cruising across the gravel path, rolling beneath the canopies of trees, autumn leaves gently fluttering down as they went.

As Aravali drove, and as Crowe and Raven made hushed small talk in the back seat—interspersed with a few chuckles—the radio played a soothing melody as the Oldsmobile coasted into town.

“Here comes the rain, again… falling on my head, like a mem-or-y…”

About five minutes into the drive, Aravali stopped at a red light at the four-way intersection just beside the shopping center. He glanced at the rearview mirror, seeing that Crowe was trying to comb Raven’s hairs back into their normal style for her, and Raven was repeatedly giggling and ducking away.

Aravali flashed a faint smile, looking forward just when the light turned green. He drove onward at a steady pace, then made an easeful right turn, pulling into the shopping center and slowly approaching the arts and crafts store on the corner.

Strangely, he felt quite content himself now; something about escorting Crowe and Raven out on a nice field trip was rather warming, especially since they seemed to be enjoying it so much. It was a nice and peaceful sort of happiness, just traveling through the town on a minor errand.

As he pulled into a parking spot and brought the car to a stop, he let out a deep sigh, only just realizing that he hadn’t felt this sensation in quite a while now.

The last time he ever felt truly useful to another person was when his mother was still alive, when he’d run her errands for her and do her most arduous tasks for her. Admittedly, he’d felt a bit of a void ever since her passing—but now, he was right where he was meant to be again, looking after people where and when he was needed.

He turned the car off, the engine and the radio both falling silent.

Crowe peered at him from behind the diver seat. “Oy—are you gonna let me get an easel and everything? I wanna go out to the gazebo and paint today, if I can.”

“Yes, yes, whatever you want…” Aravali nodded and opened his door.

“Well—I’ve got some money, I’m just asking because we might have to cram it in this car,” Crowe remarked as he and Raven emerged from the back.

The three of them crossed the parking lot and entered the store—and they spent more time inside than they planned.

After Crowe had filled up a shopping cart with a stand, three canvases, and several paints, he and Raven lingered in the discounted Halloween section of the store for a while, where the leftover Halloween goods were on sale, trying on masks and acting out several horror movie scenarios with each other, usually resulting in laughing fits just after. Aravali stood at the end of the aisle alongside the grocery cart, watching with his arms folded and choking out a breathless little laugh here and there.

Eventually, he called out and told them to stop, and they headed for the cash register. Aravali flipped out his wallet and paid for all the goods—even though Crowe briefly argued against it—and then, they carried everything out to the car, managing to fit all of it into the trunk before reclaiming their seats again.

Aravali backed out of the parking spot and began to cruise out of the shopping center, rolling onto the road and driving through town once more.

“Not a bad first date, is it?” Crowe smirked at Raven. “I’m hungry. You hungry?”

“Who the hell said it was a date …?” Raven laughed.

Crowe chose not to hear this; he scooted to the edge of the back seat, sliding his hand over the driver seat and tapping on the doctor’s shoulder.

“Could we hit a drive-thru?” he asked.

Aravali glimpsed back at him for a split second as he drove, sighing at the windshield. “You have lunch at Moonvale, y’know.”

“Ahh, c’mon… we had to have missed that by now,” Crowe pleaded, his smile growing. “Let’s go have a bite. C’mon. Please?”

“We’ll buy!” Raven promised.

“Yeah—we’ll pay,” Crowe agreed. “C’mooon.”

“Oh… fine,” Aravali sighed once more, nodding and shifting over to the right lane. “But you better finish everything before we get back, or the others are gonna think I’m playing favorites.”

“Hah. You sound like a parent,” Crowe snickered.

“I feel like one,” Aravali mumbled.

He approached the nearest restaurant—the Burger Chef—and pulled into its small parking lot. After another half an hour of waiting behind other customers, and of struggling to get a decisive order out of Crowe and Raven, Aravali drove off again, this time with a car full of paper bags and heavenly-smelling burgers.

“All right… I’m taking the long way back,” Aravali decided, glancing at his watch before returning his attention to the road ahead. “I’m going on the back road that goes a little ways east before it leads you toward the edge of town. That’ll give you plenty of time to eat before we get back there. So hurry up.”

“Ari—you got a mushroom burger to eat,” Crowe said, pulling a large, warm, and halfway-wrapped burger from the bag in his lap. “How’re you gonna do that and drive at the same time?”

“Tch. Please,” Aravali scoffed snidely, giving him a caustic smirk in the rearview. “I was a college student with a side job. I excelled at multitasking whenever I had no damn free time to work with.”

Crowe laughed and handed the burger up to him, and Aravali took a bite out of it, driving with one hand as he turned left at the intersection. Only one other vehicle turned left along with his—a black truck with tinted windows, driving quietly behind him—but he didn’t notice or care, simply savoring the delicious taste of mushrooms, Swiss cheese, and gravy.

“Y’know what we should do?” Crowe mumbled with a mouthful of food, gesturing with his own burger as he spoke. “We should hit the bank so I can get my gig money outta my account… and we should hit the Burger Chef and the arcade every Saturday, too. Make it a weekly thing.”

“Arcade?” Aravali barked, hitting a high note and shooting him another look in the mirror. “Now who said anything about going to—?”

“Oooy—not nooow ,” Crowe clarified, waving him down. “Christ—I meant later, whenever we’re all on board. I dunno if Miss Morgan would give everyone else a day pass, considering the problems they have, but can’t hurt to try. It’d be nice.”

“I don’t think Miss Morgan and Dr. Chavan would give them all day passes,” Raven murmured sheepishly to him. “But I think it’d be cool if we all did a movie night thing every Saturday. Someone could order all of us some Burger Chef, and then we could all eat and watch whatever movies are on TV together.”

“Oh, I like that,” Crowe smiled. “Yeah, that’d be a lot more likely to actually work out… but… we’d need someone to commit to going out and getting us Burger Chef every Saturday.”

There was a long silence following this statement, and Aravali stared directly forward as he drove, avoiding the rearview mirror and knowing for certain that Crowe and Raven were both staring at him expectantly through the reflection now.

Then, he sighed yet again, making a single, mild nod.

“That’d give Elaine a break from cooking, too,” Aravali mumbled softly.

“Hah. There we go,” Crowe grinned, reaching up to the front and patting Aravali’s arm. “Now you’re on board.”

“Yeah, okay… just don’t take advantage of me too much, Crowe,” Aravali muttered with a laugh. “The only reason I can do so much for all of you is because I have more extra money than I used to have. I’ve got a high-paying job and no extra people to help feed or support anymore… so… you lucked out in getting me as your doctor. Doesn’t mean I wanna be bled dry, though. I wanna make that clear.”

“Aww… you don’t bleed your friends dry, mate,” Crowe beamed, slapping his arm again and giving it a shake, nearly making his drop his mushroom burger. “Trust me… whenever I can do something for you, I will.”

Aravali breathed out a laugh, shaking his head once and slightly slowing the car as he drove around a long, smooth curve.

The back road stretched on past numerous trees and the occasional field, autumn leaves all around and scarcely any traffic at all—except for the black truck behind them.

Then suddenly—Raven gasped, dropping her burger and wincing terribly. She sank into the corner, her back pressed against the side door, her eyes sealed shut, and her hands clasping tightly over her ears.

Crowe stopped eating, glancing over at her. “What’s wrong…?”

Raven didn’t answer, breathing shakily and gnawing on her bottom lip.

Aravali glimpsed back at her in the rearview.

“I saw a crash,” she exhaled, her voice high and trembling.

Crowe narrowed his eyes at her, and Aravali eyed her in the mirror again.

“I saw, and heard, and felt… someone hit us,” Raven breathed fearfully, looking to Crowe with a watery, serious stare.

Crowe stared into her with an uncharacteristically severe visage now, scooting gently closer to her and placing a hand on her arm.

“Where’d they hit us from?” he asked, softening his voice.

“What? Crowe—don’t feed into her hallucinations,” Aravali ordered from the front. “Raven—whatever you just saw wasn’t real. Listen to me. You’re fine , all right? We’re all fine.”

Crowe continued staring intensely into her, still waiting for her to answer, acting as if he simply couldn’t hear the doctor anymore.

Raven met his profound stare, inhaling shakily and clearing her throat once more.

“They hit us from the back,” she uttered faintly.

Crowe straightened up, turning his head and staring out the back window.

And there—he spotted it, the black truck with the darkened windows, driving directly behind them and seeming to gain more speed.

Aravali looked to the rearview once more—but before he could check on Raven, he saw the black truck behind his car, its engine revving loudly, and its front bumper soon became impossible for him to see, as the truck was riding dangerously close to the back of his Oldsmobile Cutlass now.

“Speed up, Ari,” Crowe said gravely, his eyes locked onto the truck behind them. “Now!”

Aravali didn’t respond, still glancing between the windshield and the rearview. He tightened his grasp on the steering wheel, thinking it bizarre that this mysterious black truck was riding his bumper so closely, but—

BANG.

The truck thumped against the back of the car—jolting the Oldsmobile forward and making Raven gasp. Crowe’s bag of food hit the floor, and he grabbed the back of the driver seat, quickly straightening up and smacking Aravali on the arm.

“ Go! ” Crowe yelled.

Aravali’s heart leaped into his throat—a bolt of fright shooting up and down him like lightning—utterly shocked that someone had actually hit the back of his car. He gave another baffled look to the rearview, then pressed his foot harder to the gas, making the Cutlass roar irritably as it gained speed down the narrow back road.

“What in the hell is this guy’s problem…?!” Aravali breathed, racing down the road as the black truck continued to speed behind him.

He tried to put distance between himself and the mysterious truck—but the black truck soon gained even more speed—

BAN—THUMP.

The black truck hit the back of the car again—making everyone jerk around in their seats—and Aravali nearly lost control—the car weaving into the left lane before he corrected and steered back into the right one.

His heart hammered—eyes darting between the rearview and the windshield—terror overtaking him all at once. He’d never been in such a situation—never dealt with such awful and obvious danger—but just when the truck blasted forward to hit him once more—

RRRRRR.

Aravali gritted his teeth and floored the gas—and the car jolted forward abruptly—the engine making an agitated noise as the Cutlass began barreling down the road haphazardly.

Crowe and Raven were thrown back against their seats—Crowe glimpsing at the back of the driver seat in surprise.

Aravali’s expression fell instantly stony—now glaring into the rearview mirror, eyeing the truck behind him with hateful apprehension.

“You wanna toy with me? Fine,” he grumbled, shifting into third gear. “I know this town like the back of my hand.”

The car made an even nastier noise—then it exploded forward at a speed no one would call safe on a back road, trees whizzing and zipping past all of the windows as Aravali drove away from the black truck with haste.

Raven’s eyes shone with surprise, and Crowe took her into his arms, clutching her tightly and cradling her head as he stared out the back window, seeing that the black truck was falling behind now.

Aravali drove on—heart bashing the back of his ribs, possessed by a white hot adrenaline like he’d never known before. His eyes flickered to the left, scanning the side of the road and searching for the next turn-off, knowing full well what he would do now.

Moments later—it appeared, a small dirt road leading into a thick conglomeration of trees.

Aravali hit the brakes, bringing the car to a brief slowdown before he made an abrupt turn. The car soared off to the left—flying off the street and skidding onto the dirt road—Crowe and Raven nearly falling over sideways in the back seat.

Aravali quickly leveled out and hit the gas again, racing down the tiny dirt road as the car thumped and bounced roughly against the uneven terrain. Nevertheless, he carried on—and the car emerged from the trees moments later, a wide open field to the right and a single open barn visible to the left.

The doctor made another sudden turn—and he raced across the patch of dirt around the barn. The Oldsmobile did a rapid lap around the old red building, and Aravali drove into it from the back, the vehicle suddenly engulfed in the barn’s shadow. The barn was clearly no longer used, its front and rear doors both gone—and Aravali turned the steering wheel, scooting the Oldsmobile closer to the right wall, hiding it from the sight of the dirt road best he could.

At once—he put the car in park, let out a breath, and waited, gazing out the windshield and observing the only visible part of the dirt road through the barn’s open front.

Crowe and Raven remained entirely still and silent in the back, holding one another and staring outside as well.

The dirt road outside had a thin cloud of dust all around it now, leftover from the Oldsmobile’s tires leaving a dust trail in their wake. And—moments later—they were all able to hear the distant roaring of the truck’s engine approaching from afar.

The three of them watched quietly from inside the hidden car.

The black truck appeared in their view—and it shot directly past the barn, speeding further down the dirt road and instantly vanishing from sight.

All of them remained still, listening intently as the echoing engine of the truck faded away, leaving their earshot as quickly as it had arrived.

Then—Aravali shifted gears again and drove forward, pushing the gas and quickly bringing the car out of the barn. He drove back up the dirt road from where he came, hurrying to leave the scene before the inhabitants of the black truck might realize their mistake. He rode hazardously over the humps and bumps in the road, not seeming to care how rough it was on his car—then he brought the Oldsmobile back onto the road, leveling it out on the pavement before he swiftly drove away.

For a long, tense moment, none of them spoke, and Aravali let out a long, trembling sigh as he drove onward. He felt entirely rattled and bizarre, shocked, but also calm, calm in a deep, primal way he’d never felt before, almost as if he wasn’t even in his own life anymore, as if he was merely coasting through a strange, vivid dream now.

Crowe slowly released Raven, grasping the back of the driver seat and giving Aravali a look from behind.

“Hey. That was brilliant,” he said, cracking a hint of a smile. “That was really brilliant.”

Aravali said nothing at first, simply driving and staring fixedly forward. Seconds later, he released another breath, managing a mild little shrug.

“The really brilliant part is the fact that the dirt road leads to a construction site for a bridge,” Aravali mumbled.

Crowe raised his brows, trading thoughtful glances with Raven before giving the doctor another intrigued stare.

“Ahm… is the bridge built yet?” Crowe wondered.

“No,” Aravali replied vacantly. “Those people—whoever they are—they’re speeding directly towards a drop-off now.”

Crowe’s mouth drifted agape, a shocked little laugh escaping him. “Whoa… okay, wow… God blind me, Ari. You’re a secret badass.”

Aravali didn’t respond, simply sighing and continuing his drive, hoping to just return the patients safely to Moonvale and leave this sudden and hectic event behind them.

The drive back didn’t take long—though it felt like it took an eternity.

Aravali pulled into his usual spot beside Elaine’s car. He powered off the engine, released a deep cloud of breath, and loosened his hands from the steering wheel, remaining seated and staring dazedly forward, still hardly able to process everything that had transpired.

Crowe and Raven swapped glances in the back seat, then popped their doors open and emerged from the car. Raven gave a somber glimpse back to the Oldsmobile before wandering up the gravel stretch, thumping up the stairs and approaching the front doors. The doors stood partly open, and Elaine was standing there, apparently having been awaiting their return. She waved Raven inside, then peered across the driveway at the other two.

Crowe didn’t cross the gravel stretch, turning back to the car and sighing. He walked over to the driver door just when Aravali pushed it open, turning in his seat and extending a single leg out, but he didn’t move to stand, one hand hanging off the edge of the steering wheel, gazing down at the gravel almost trancelike. His hands were shaking just the slightest bit, and he huffed out another breath, trying to will the shock away and running a hand down his face.

Crowe stood over him, hands pocketed in his black overcoat, simply observing him.

Aravali frowned down at the ground for a moment longer, then finally raised his head, meeting his eyes with a distant stare.

Crowe cracked a smirk. “That was amazing. Y’know that?”

Aravali said nothing, inhaling heavily, breath trembling as he did.

“Honestly—that was amazing ,” Crowe reiterated. “A lot of people wouldn’t have just taken charge like that in the heat of the moment. Especially not someone who hasn’t really been through anything before. No offense.”

Aravali hesitated still, looking down at the gravel again and releasing another deepened sigh.

“None taken,” he uttered moments later. “I really didn’t know I had that in me, to be honest…”

Crowe let out a laugh, nodding approvingly as his smile seemed to grow.

Aravali raised his head again, still thinking of very little to say. He could scarcely believe that some random stranger in a black truck had tried to run them off of the road, and for no apparent reason; it boggled his mind, and the longer he sat here dwelling on it, the less sense it made to him. He couldn’t think of any reason someone would pursue him in such a way.

“I think something inside you woke up today,” Crowe remarked, snapping him back out of his thoughts. “I really do.”

Aravali’s mouth drifted open, trying to respond and momentarily drawing a blank. Then, he simply tossed up a hand, glancing to the side and sighing.

“Well, I couldn’t let…” he mumbled, meeting Crowe’s gaze again. “I couldn’t let anything happen to either of you.”

Crowe maintained his smile, nodding with understanding. And, as the doctor stared down at the ground once more, his patient continued to eye him, his smile fading as his expression became a more serious one.

“You knew they were after us right from the get-go,” Crowe muttered. “You knew that bloke wasn’t just some crazy driver. You knew they were gunning for Raven and I.”

Aravali looked up yet again, falling expressionless now.

“Something in the back of your mind knows,” Crowe added, his tone softer and darker. “Even if you don’t believe it… you saw it, and you reacted to it.”

“Crowe…” Aravali hung his head, feeling exhausted, running both hands down his face this time. “Why would anyone be after you…?”

“They’re not just after me,” Crowe replied, gesturing to the mental hospital right behind him. “They’re after us .”

Aravali continued to ogle him in bewilderment.

“Crowe,” Elaine called out from the stoop, stepping fully out the front doors. “Do you plan to come back inside sometime today?”

“Oooy—calm down, ya’ bloody authoritarian,” Crowe shouted as he wheeled around to face her, extending an arm and pointing to the back of the Oldsmobile. “I’ve gotta get my stuff outta the boot first!”

“Well—get a move on,” Elaine ordered. “I need you both back in here right now.”

Crowe and Aravali traded looks, then Aravali arose from the car, unlocking the trunk and allowing Crowe to get his new painting materials out.

As the two of them unloaded the trunk of the car, Aravali suddenly felt ridiculous, unpacking general art supplies as casually as ever, right after they’d nearly been killed on the road. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure what to do now. He hadn’t even considered calling the police; he’d only been focused on returning the patients to Moonvale as quickly as possible. And beyond that, he wondered if he ought to tell Elaine what had happened…

Crowe sauntered up to the front doors with his bags of paints and brushes, and Aravali closed and locked his car, marching toward the building with the canvases and the stand tucked under one arm. When they both approached Elaine—Aravali instantly noticed a particularly grave expression on her face.

Elaine stepped aside and motioned for them to enter. Once they were all inside, she locked the front doors and grabbed Aravali’s shoulder from behind before he could walk off. Crowe wandered down the hall and disappeared around the corner, but Aravali remained standing near the front doors, turning and giving the orderly a peculiar look.

Elaine let out another breath, meeting his eyes with disdain. “Donna’s in solitary now.”

Aravali paused, his mouth easing open for a moment. He turned, propped the canvases and the stand against the wall, and faced her properly again.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Well…” Elaine nodded sideways. “One of her personalities… the most problematic one… emerged today. And… she started to threaten John. She even resorted to grabbing a vase in the lounge and shattering it, and she advanced on him as if she planned to cut him.”

Aravali stared, feeling surprised and genuinely dumbfounded. Donna was easily the shyest and most timid of all the patients here, and he could hardly imagine her pulling such a stunt, even if it was actually done by an alternate personality of hers.

“Christ… I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Sorry I wasn’t here, I just… we were out for longer than I planned, and something happened…”

“Donna’s most problematic personality makes appearances very rarely,” Elaine informed him. “And that personality refuses to name itself, too. But—it’s still in full control right now. So, if you’d like to take this rare opportunity, you can go and speak to her. Try to learn all you can.”

“I… ahm…” Aravali uttered, turning and glimpsing into the lounge, where he was able to see Raven hunched on the edge of the couch, frowning and cradling her own arms. “Right… just… let me go and talk to Raven for a second first, and then I’ll head off to speak to Donna.”

Elaine nodded, her eyes narrowing, peeking past him and surveying Raven at a distance. Then, she looked to the doctor again, this time quizzically.

“What happened?” she whispered. “Why does Raven look like she’s shaken up?”

“Because she is,” Aravali told her grimly. “Long story… just… let me go talk to her.”

He turned and marched away without a second thought, entering the lounge and walking over to Raven. He sank down on the couch beside her, leaning forward and clasping his hands, glimpsing at the TV for a moment before his attention landed fully onto her.

“Are you all right?” Aravali asked her.

Raven continued staring into the TV with a deadpan visage, her brow hardened, looking both distant and disturbed.

“I know you’re in a bit of shock… but I’m not about to let anything happen to any of you,” Aravali told her. “You’re perfectly safe.”

Raven inhaled a deep, shaky breath, blinking and turning toward him. When she met his eyes, she seemed to wear a rather exasperated expression, looking unconvinced.

“You don’t even know what’s going on,” she murmured in a soft, broken whisper.

Aravali stared at her, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What do you mean?”

Raven maintained her vacant gaze, sighing heavily.

“I mean,” she exhaled. “If you knew… then you wouldn’t still be here.”

Aravali paused, glimpsing down to the side and pondering on this for a second. Then, he scoffed out a breath, making a mild shake of the head.

“Try again,” he said.

Raven stared into him, gulping and reading him rather intently.

Aravali returned her gaze with a soft, comforting half-smile.

“It’s my life’s passion to be there for people like you,” he told her genuinely. “And I don’t mean broken people, either. I just mean all of you decent, interesting, and fun people who were handed some bad life circumstances… which unfortunately landed you here. People who find themselves in places like this are often overlooked by everyone else… and it means quite a lot to me to… not overlook you.”

Raven still simply stared, saying nothing, though her eyes began to shine in the fluorescent light.

“So… whatever the situation might or might not be, and whatever may or may not be going on,” Aravali said firmly, leaning slightly closer to her. “I guarantee you… I would still be here, and I always will be.”

Raven’s mouth drifted agape, eyeing him strangely.

“You don’t even know what it is,” she breathed wispily. “What if it’s something so bad that you can’t even…?”

“Listen. Listen,” Aravali said gently, grasping her arm and giving her a deep, profound look. “It is… my job… to look after you. That’s where I belong, and that’s what I wake up every day to do. Everything outside of that is just details and semantics. Okay?”

Raven gazed into him, gnawing on her bottom lip, and she sniffed and turned away.

“Okay,” she mumbled faintly.

Aravali nodded, patting her on the back.

Elaine stood in the nearest doorway, leaning on it with her arms folded, watching the two of them from a short distance away. She observed them fairly closely, wearing a thoughtful face as she did.

When she turned to the side, she spotted Crowe standing just beside her, and he was also gazing into the lounge room, watching Aravali and Raven from afar. He stared at the two of them for a second longer, then turned to the orderly, his expression flattened.

Elaine perked her brow at him questioningly.

Crowe responded with a single shake of the head.

“Tell you later,” he muttered, just before turning and marching off.

Elaine watched him go, then faced the lounge again.

Aravali stood from the couch, giving Raven a reassuring smile and a brief goodbye. Then, he marched around the couch and headed for the farther doorway, intending to go upstairs and visit solitary now.

As he walked out of the lounge and headed down the back hallway by himself, he dug his keys from his pocket, hoping to speak to Donna and calm her however he could. He wasn’t sure when he should tell Elaine about the harrowing events that had happened on the road today, but right this second, it didn’t matter; there were more immediate matters to attend to first.

So, he pushed all the lingering troubles of the day to the back of his mind, marching onward and planning to manage every problem he was meant to.

When he reached the lonesome hallway containing the solitary room, he unlocked it and slowly pushed it open, stepping into the padded room and spotting Donna just across from him. She sat against the far wall, slumped slightly to the side, her hairs messy and askew as they hung over her face, her arms and torso trapped in the tight confines of a white straightjacket.

As Aravali walked inside, Donna barely lifted her head, peering out at him from between her dangling hairs. She wore a smile now, a strange, eerie, and peculiar one, one that looked as if it did not belong to her at all.

“Well.” Aravali sank down to the floor, sitting just across from her, folding his legs and placing his fingertips together. “I heard you had a rather exciting day today.”

Donna squinted at him, her smile as prominent as ever.

“I heard you did too,” she said in a soft, hissing sort of voice, sounding entirely different from her usual self.

Aravali eyed her, placing his pointer fingers together and gently thumping them against his chin. He thought it somewhat strange that she’d say such a thing, especially after his encounter on the road—which she couldn’t have possibly known about yet—but, nevertheless, he simply dismissed her words, thinking that she must have been purposefully responding to him with overly cryptic replies.

He gave her a surveying look for a second before speaking on.

“What made you attack John?” he wondered.

Donna blew a strand of hair from her eye, laughing breathlessly.

“He needs to be reminded why he’s alive,” she said strangely. “He’s alive to do what he’s told… and that’s all there is to him. Doctor .”

Aravali hesitated for a moment, simply studying her and noting every visible difference in her now, from her expression to her voice and her oddly craned sitting position, which was unusual body language for her. Right now, every detail about her seemed to indicate that she was, indeed, a wholly different person from the Donna he usually saw and spoke to.

“What do I call you?” he asked respectfully, lowering his hands to his lap.

Donna smirked again, cocking her head at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know…?”

“Yes… I would,” Aravali replied. “That’s why I asked.”

The two of them fell silent, and Donna leaned slightly nearer, gazing deeply into him in an almost invasive way.

“Ohhh,” she breathed. “You’re a different kind of doctor… not just going through the motions and getting a paycheck like all the other ones did. You actually care , don’t you?”

Aravali didn’t respond.

Donna’s faint, crooked smile seemed to grow the slightest bit.

“Okay,” she uttered. “You can call me Lily.”

Aravali made a nod. “Is that your name?”

Donna kept smiling. “Close enough.”

“All right… Lily,” Aravali said, straightening up and clasping his hands together. “I’d like to know what possessed you to attack John today.”

Donna’s eyes narrowed curtly. “Heh… possessed…”

Aravali gave her a questioning look. “What?”

Donna grinned, revealing her teeth and cackling breathlessly at him.

“Guess what,” she said in a low, ominous tone. “I’m a demon.”

Aravali continued observing her, making another nod and showing no reaction.

Donna stared at him, tilting her head to the other side and narrowing her eyes at him sharply.

“Whaaat,” she exhaled. “You don’t believe me…?”

“No… it’s not that,” Aravali replied calmly. “I just happen to know that people with Multiple-Personality Disorder can have a wide variety of personalities… and they aren’t just other people. They can be monsters, or characters, or animals, or spirits… they can be pretty much anything.”

“Awww,” Donna snickered. “Look at you… chalking it aaall up to a mental disorder…”

Aravali flashed a smile. “You do know where you are, don’t you?”

Donna laughed, tossing her head back and chortling in a raspy, hearty way that he’d never heard from her before now. Then, she leaned forward again, hunching down even more, murmuring a rhythm under her breath. She hummed a tune for a moment, and then, her mumbling drifted into song lyrics.

“ I will keep quiet, you won’t even know I’m here …” Donna chanted into her lap. “ You won’t suspect a thing, you won’t see me in the mirror …”

She slowly began to raise her head, her eyes finding him again.

“ But I’ve crept into your heart… you can’t make me disappear… ‘till I make you,” she sang. “I’ve made myself at home, in the cobwebs and the lies… I’m learning all your tricks, I can hurt you from inside… I made myself a promise, you’ll never see me cry… ‘till I make you …”

She tapped her foot to the floor in a steady beat, grinning at him with a predatory smile.

“ You’ll ne-ver know what hit you ,” Donna exhaled in a rhythmic breath.

Aravali raised his brows at her. “That’s nice. What song is that?”

“The Devil Within,” Donna told him, still beaming bizarrely.

“Huh,” Aravali muttered. “Who does that song?”

“You wouldn’t know them,” Donna replied, leaning back and blowing hairs from her face again. “They’re not a thing yet…”

Aravali squinted at her. “Hm. I’ve heard conversations like this before. I don’t suppose you believe you can see the future too, do you?”

“Pffff… bitch, please,” Donna cackled. “Donna can’t see shit. I can .”

“I see.” Aravali nodded at his lap, then leaned closer, examining her interestingly. “So… if I have this correct… you believe John only exists to do some kind of errand work for you?”

“For me?” Donna said, hitting a high note and releasing several more strange laughs. “Nooo… for… us . We are Legion .”

Aravali surveyed her curiously. “Well… generally speaking… all personalities have specific roles to play in the headspace of a person with your disorder. Might I ask what your particular role is in Donna’s life?”

Donna suddenly stopped—and, for the first time so far, her smile finally faded away.

She leaned forward again, glaring into him intensely.

“I don’t have one,” she told him in a soft, raspy whisper. “I’m not a shattered little piece of her amnesiac fuck-all mind, you stupid bitch— I just high-jacked her fucking vehicle .”

Aravali said nothing, merely observing her in silence. He had to admit that this personality was rather unsettling, and it seemed fully dedicated to the role of a demon possessing a vessel—but he couldn’t think of any way to help Donna as of now, aside from simply leaving her alone and waiting for Lily to fall dormant again.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything you actually want to talk about right now… is there?” Aravali tried to clarify. “Because… I’m gathering you don’t really want to be bothered.”

“Oh, look at you… you’re a fucking genius,” Donna sneered, cocking her head at him again.

Aravali’s mouth flattened, making a few nods before climbing to his feet. “Well… I’ll leave you be, then. Goodnight.”

He turned and walked toward the open doorway, taking a single step out of the room before—

“Tell Crowe that Vincent knows where we are.”

Aravali paused, grasping the door’s frame and sighing deeply. He turned back to Donna, narrowing his eyes at her.

Donna merely smirked, raising her brows at him. “You tell him that, and you just watch the look on his face. You’re gonna die just like everyone else who got in our way.”

Aravali merely stared, making a loose little shrug. “Sure…”

Donna breathed out another laugh, blowing hair from her eye as she did.

“Ask the other doctors,” she told him in a soft, hissing tone. “Ask the other patients, and ask the other orderlies. Go ahead.”

Aravali gave her a peculiar look.

“Ohhh,” Donna breathed, her eerie smile seeming to grow. “Yeah… that’s right… you can’t. Because they’re dead .”

“M-hm,” Aravali mumbled disinterestedly, stepping fully out of the room. “Goodnight, now.”

He walked out of the room, shut the door, and secured it, then pocketed his keys and marched down the hall by himself.

After returning to the bottom floor, Aravali slipped into his office. He shut the door, moved around his desk, and sank down in his chair, releasing a stressed cloud of breath and resting his head on his hands.

For a long, quiet moment, he simply sat there, no sound occurring aside from the gentle tick-tick-tick -ing of the clock on his wall, a safe and serene sort of environment, which was a stark contrast to the frantic urgency he’d felt in his car not long ago.

He couldn’t make sense of it.

Of course he couldn’t simply believe everything that Crowe was alleging, that some shady goons from a secret government institution were stalking and targeting the inhabitants of Moonvale. That belief was as bizarre as it was insane, and he simply couldn’t think it probable or likely at all.

But—what other explanation could there have been?

It was entirely possible that the stranger in the black truck was simply a short-tempered lunatic who was taking out his anger on others for no good reason—but, to be honest, Aravali didn’t think that scenario particularly likely, either. It was one thing to tailgate a person on the street and to drive aggressively out of anger—but it was quite another thing to actively hit, pursue, and attempt to do random harm to others on the road. Who in the world would have taken such drastic measures simply because they were angry or in a bad mood?

No—the person in the black truck seemed to have been acting that way very purposefully, trying to run the Oldsmobile off the road for some reason. He’d chased them, hit them, and even sped after them down a dangerous and isolated dirt road. That stranger acted as if he’d had a true vendetta against everyone in the Oldsmobile Cutlass.

But why?

Crowe’s face flashed through his mind, all of his odd and cryptic beliefs invading his thoughts, but Aravali shook his head down at the surface of his desk, frowning at it and thinking that it simply couldn’t be.

Crowe believed that the people in charge of Canterbury Lab were targeting the patients of Moonvale—but why would they do such a thing? Even if Canterbury truly had done some form of harm to all of their ex-patients, what reason would they have for further pursuing those patients after they were all long gone from the facility?

Aravali’s hands lowered, fist clenching shut atop his desk, glaring down at the edge of it and feeling rather frustrated. He sat in silence for a while, pondering on it all—partially feeling foolish for even considering such a wild conspiracy—but also wanting very much to learn more.

After all—everything seemed to boil down to Canterbury Lab.

It seemed he wouldn’t garner any further answers until he learned more about that place.

Knock, knock, knock.

Aravali blinked, glancing up at the office door and forcing his thoughts away. “Ah… yes?”

The door creaked open, and Elaine then leaned inside, giving him a curious look.

“I just wanted to ask… are you doing group today?” she inquired. “Crowe is outside in the gazebo, using his painting supplies… but I can’t let the others go outside without supervision. Crowe is the only level-three patient that can go places on his own, and I didn’t want to take everyone else outside if you planned to do group soon, so…”

“Oh… no… go ahead,” Aravali mumbled, waving her off and looking down at his desk somewhat distractedly. “I’ll do group for them later, if you don’t mind… just… gathering my thoughts at the moment…”

Elaine nodded softly, surveying him and hesitating. Then, she eased back and prepared to shut the door.

“Elaine,” Aravali called out impulsively, raising his head again.

Elaine leaned back into the room and raised her eyebrows at him.

Aravali paused, opening his mouth for a second and sighing.

“I was just… wondering,” he uttered. “Ahm… well, you… you know that all the remaining patients here once visited Canterbury Lab, right?”

Elaine nodded.

“All right, well… do you have any idea what they did with the patients there?” Aravali asked. “What type of place is it? What exactly do they do there…?”

Elaine stared, not answering him right away. She took a moment, then lowered her head slightly, stepping into the room and pushing the door shut behind her.

“Well,” she said, cupping her hands in front of her. “I’m not entirely sure about the details, but I know they run medical trials in that facility. It’s one of those things wherein you agree to undergo certain experimental procedures in exchange for compensation of some kind.”

“Right,” Aravali muttered. “But… do you have any idea what sort of experimental procedures they ran there?”

Elaine paused, sighing and shrugging. “I have no idea.”

Aravali nodded quietly, glimpsing down and pondering on this, still making no sense of it at all.

Elaine observed him, gently curling her lip.

“I wish I could tell you more,” she told him, her voice softening. “But I have asked them all these things before… and none of them have a very clear memory of the place.”

“Crowe does,” Aravali murmured thoughtlessly, hooking a finger over his mouth and gazing off to the side.

Elaine stared at him.

Aravali turned back to her, tossing up a hand. “Well… he seems to have some memory of the place. Perhaps it’s not all clear, but there’s definitely something there. He’s spoken about it before. The problem is, I can never fully tell the difference between his real memories and his paranoid delusions.”

Elaine continued to stare.

“What makes you think it’s paranoid delusions?” she mumbled.

Aravali blinked, glancing up at her and squinting at her strangely.

“That’s… why he’s here,” he said, patting on one of the files on his desk, the one belonging to Crowe. “He’s here because of slight paranoia and his delusions of grandeur.”

Elaine nodded faintly, her mouth seeming to flatten.

“Well… to be honest, he doesn’t fit the bill of a paranoid schizophrenic, or anything of the like,” she stated. “In all truthfulness, he isn’t the type to entertain such delusions at all… and, if you look at his file… he’s never had a problem with delusions of grandeur before now.”

Aravali fell momentarily silent, giving her a curious look.

“So… what’re you saying?” he asked. “Are you saying his assessments are… not… wrong? ”

Elaine didn’t respond, biting her lip and releasing another breath.

Aravali examined her, making a slight shake of the head. “That’s not possible, Elaine. You have heard him speak, haven’t you? He claims to know what will happen in the future—and he’s certain that some nameless goon squad is after him. He is fairly level-headed-but these things he says—they can’t be real. They can’t be.”

“I’m only saying you shouldn’t discount too much of what he says,” Elaine clarified. “Particularly regarding Canterbury. He has the clearest memory of the place out of all the patients—and he also left that facility more recently than anyone else here. So, if you want to learn more about that place—and how it might have affected the patients—then you should take his word on it seriously. It’s not as if Canterbury has a lot of information about it available to the public. Believe me, I looked—in the library, the tabloids, the magazines—there’s hardly ever any mention of them anywhere. Listening to Crowe is your best bet of learning anything about the place, if you really want to.”

Aravali nodded and lowered his head again, gazing down at his desk and beginning to feel exhausted by this tireless day.

Then—it struck him.

Something appeared in his mind—a sudden realization—and he raised his head once more, staring at the chair across from his desk as his mouth slowly drifted open.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “I’ve got all the newspapers in the world in a bedroom at home. I bet the information I want is in there somewhere…”

He glanced up at Elaine.

“Would you mind if I rescheduled group for tomorrow?” he asked, rising from his chair.

“You can schedule those things however you like,” Elaine shrugged. “But are you sure you want to leave right now? Given the circumstances.”

Aravali paused and squinted at her. “Being…?”

Elaine tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing.

“Well… Crowe had a lot to say about your little road trip today,” she informed. “And… if the person who tried to run you off the road happens to see you out and about again… then, well… that’s not something you’d want to have to deal with, I imagine.”

Aravali opened his mouth, then chuckled and shook his head, moving to walk past her. “Well… I appreciate the concern, but I hardly think some lone lunatic is gonna hunt me down.”

He walked out the front doors.

Just when he left the building—Crowe appeared in the doorway of the lounge, glimpsing over at the front doors and smacking his lips.

“Awh… is he gone already? I wanted to show him my painting,” Crowe griped. “I painted a haunted-looking mansion that’s—”

“Crowe,” Elaine said sharply, turning her head and giving him a pensive sort of look.

Crowe stared, squinting oddly at her. “What? Whaddid I do?”

Elaine’s nostrils flared, and she glanced over at the front doors again, then back at Crowe, releasing a stressed cloud of breath.

“Your little fan club is trying to do to him what they did to everyone else here,” she hissed. “He’s going back home—by himself—which is not what he needs to be doing right now.”

Crowe slowly took back, his expression falling severe.

Elaine then reached into her pocket, lifted Crowe’s arm, and solidly planted her keys directly into his palm.

“Pinecrest Avenue, Greenacres Apartment Complex, apartment thirteen,” she stated. “Go.”

Crowe nodded—turning on his heel and heading for the exit without another word.

Elaine watched him go, then sighed and moved past the front doors to the stairway, marching upstairs to start on dinner.

Aravali pulled into the parking lot and stopped in his usual spot before heading off.

He crossed the parking lot, walked down the sidewalk, and turned to the metal stairway, speed-walking up them faster than usual. He didn’t bother glancing to the right—didn’t bother noticing the vehicle sitting on the corner of the church’s parking lot across the street, where it had been periodically parking all week long. He simply unlocked his home and walked in, swiftly shutting the door before marching through the kitchen and rounding the corner.

He stopped at the door to his mother’s bedroom.

His arm reached out, hand open and ready to grab the doorknob—but something halted him there, and he found himself standing still, arm held outright, staring at the door and releasing a deep cloud of breath.

His mother had kept and cataloged countless newspapers, tabloids, and magazines from the last couple of decades—and Crowe had mentioned that Canterbury was in legal trouble in the past. It was entirely possible that an article on Canterbury was in that pile of newspapers somewhere.

But as he stood here, gazing into the peeling white paint of a door he hadn’t opened in weeks, it still felt difficult to try, as if turning the knob and pulling the door open would unveil something he most assuredly didn’t want to see.

Of course he wanted to know more about Canterbury, wanted to unveil more about whatever all of his patients had been through—and after the wild, unexplainable adventure he’d encountered this evening, he found himself craving more answers—but this door seemed to be returning his stare now, challenging him, almost as if it was sentient, sentient and cruel, existing only to remind him of everything he’d rather forget.

Aravali stared at the doorknob, inhaling deeply and slowly grasping it.

He turned the knob, eased the door open, and pushed it fully inward—revealing his mother’s bedroom at last.

Aside from the TV placing softly from the far wall in the living room, no sound stirred inside the apartment, and the room was inhabited by a strange, serene silence, the late afternoon sunlight bleeding into the room from the window above the bed. The bed resided in the center of the room, with old white comforters tossed messily to the side, thick ones decorated with elegant flower designs, still left unkempt and undone from the last time his mother had laid there. The nightstand beside the bed still had its lamp turned on, a small book sitting beneath it with a crooked bookmark protruding from its top, marking the last part of the book his mother had read. Beside the book were two prescription bottles of medications, neither of them empty and finished, and next to them were her small, moon-shaped reading glasses. In the far corner was her clothes hamper, which had just started to overflow before laundry day would have solved the problem for her, and on the other side was her closet with the white sliding door, always standing open and revealing all the clothes she had hanging from the rack, many books and small boxes on the shelf above them. The pile of newspapers resided in between the nightstand and the corner beside the closet, and there were three tall stacks of them, the occasional magazine interspersed between them all, the stacks sloppy and spilling papers off of the sides in some areas.

Aravali took a single step inside, glancing around.

Across from the foot of the bed was a nice mahogany dresser, complete with a large mirror, and he just caught his reflection in it as he eased deeper into the room. The top of the dresser was still covered in random items, the hairbrush sitting off to the right where his mother would use it every morning, as well as a bar of deodorant, a small and expensive bottle of cherry blossom perfume, and a pearl necklace that she’d wear for special occasions, never on an ordinary day. He turned, staring at the items on the dresser, then faced the bed again, his eyes traveling over everything in sight, all the last things she’d touched and used, the blanket, the book, the glasses, and the hairbrush, all of them just as she’d left them, as if she expected to use them again… almost as if she was still here now…

Aravali slowly moved alongside the bed, stepping closer to the stacks of papers in the corner, but his attention was on the bed now, on the messily-tossed flower comforters, and the pillow to match it, still slightly wrinkled in the center from the last time she’d laid here.

He sank down, sitting on the edge of the bed and facing the spot where his mother always lay, softly gliding his hand over it, gazing into it almost trancelike. And, as he did, he took in a long, trembling breath, emotions suddenly fighting to arise, everything slowly overwhelming him, gulping and trying to hold it inside best he could.

His eyes began to water, hot tears invading his vision as his heart gave an uncomfortable thump, a tear rolling down his cheek.

Then—he shook his head and forced it away.

He coughed and cleared his throat, turning to the newspapers and grabbing a small portion of them off the top of the nearest stack. He flipped them open and instantly began busying himself by skimming over all of the articles, searching each and every page for the word Canterbury.

Meanwhile—Elaine’s car pulled to a stop beside the Oldsmobile Cutlass in the parking lot—and Crowe powered off the engine, stepping out of the car and walking toward the apartment complex. He scanned over the nearest doors—the ones facing the parking lot—seeing that apartments ten, eleven, and twelve were in a row, number twelve being on the corner just beside the sidewalk that spanned on past the building.

Crowe peered around the corner, thinking the higher-numbered apartments must’ve been beyond here.

So, he broke into a brisker stride, marching down the same sidewalk that Aravali walked every day, turning and gazing up the metal stairway. His eyes narrowed, seeing that the first apartment in sight—just up these stairs—was apartment number thirteen.

He grabbed the railing and began to walk up the stairs, each footstep making a faint metal thunk.

When he reached the top—a glint of movement caught the corner of his sight, and he hesitated before knocking on the door, turning to the right and gazing at the parking lot across the street.

A black car with tinted windows sat there—and two men stood in front of the car, speaking to one another in hushed tones. Both of them wore suits of black, and dark trilby hats to match.

Crowe grimaced, slowly grasping the balcony and leaning slightly over it, glaring down at the two men from afar.

The two suited men upturned their heads, seeming to notice him, and they both stopped talking to one another at once.

There was a long, tense pause, and the staring contest across the street slowly became intense.

The two suited men seemed very fixated on him, staring him down in a way they never did Aravali, most assuredly recognizing him.

Crowe’s expression seemed to darken more by the second, his grasp tightening on the metal railing, his focus homing in on the two of them as a deep, steady anger began to arise.

Then—a slow, tiny trickle of blood began to ooze from the corner of his eye, gently running down the side of his face.

Suddenly—the black car’s side mirror made a faint pop —the glass of it shattering in place.

The two suited men turned their heads, staring at the side mirror for a second before gazing up at Crowe again.

Crowe’s visage hardened into an even angrier face, slowly cocking his head and shooting them a grave, stoic, and warning sort of look.

The suited men exchanged glances for a moment.

Then, hesitantly, they both withdrew, approaching the driver and passenger doors of the car and yanking them open. The men sank into the car and pulled their doors shut, and seconds after, the car slowly backed out of its parking spot in the corner, turning around in an easeful circle before rolling across the church parking lot and driving away.

Crowe glared after them until they were out of sight, and even for a moment thereafter.

Sighing heavily, he released the balcony and turned back to the apartment, wiping the thin line of blood from his face before knocking on the door.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

Aravali—still sitting on the edge of his mother’s bed, now with many newspapers scattered around next to him—raised his head, narrowing his eyes out the doorway and wondering if he’d heard correctly. He never had visitors, especially not so late in the day, but he was certain he’d heard a knock at the door.

He sniffed, his eyes watery again, and he shook it off and stood from the bed, marching out of the room and approaching his front door. Just when the knocks began again—he unlocked it and pulled it open.

Crowe stood before him now, flashing a smirk and offering him a wave.

Aravali blinked, squinting at him strangely. “What’re you doing here…?”

“Our own mental-health mother goose sent me out on a babysitting errand,” Crowe replied, holding up Elaine’s keys for a second before sliding them back into his pocket. “She said you left in a hurry, and she wanted me to offer to help with whatever you’re doing.”

Aravali stared, ogling him in confusion. “Okay… and… she just let you walk out of Moonvale? With her car …?”

“You can call her and ask if you want,” Crowe replied with a shrug. “So, whatcha up to? Whaddid you run home for?”

“I just, ahm…” Aravali glimpsed away, sniffing again and wiping his eye just before another tear could escape. “I just remembered something I had to do…”

Crowe paused, eyeing him surveying his face rather intently.

“Have you been crying?” he asked.

Aravali barely shook his head, gazing emptily into the side of his kitchen before meeting his eyes again. “Sorry, I’m just… I’ve had a very long day, and I’m a bit distracted right now. Here, just… come in, come in…”

He stepped back and waved inward, and Crowe walked into the apartment, Aravali closing the door behind him.

“You know I’ve actually got to call her now, right?” Aravali said, striding over to the edge of the kitchen table where his phone sat. “I don’t have any way of knowing if she actually sent you here, or if you just stole her car and ran off.”

Crowe laughed, glimpsing behind him and reaching over, locking his front door before facing him again. “No hard feelings. I’d think that of a person like me just as well.”

Aravali grabbed the phone, dialing the number for Moonvale before raising the phone to his ear. After three rings, someone answered.

“Moonvale Mental Hospital,” Elaine’s voice entered his ear.

“Hi, Elaine… it’s me,” Aravali replied, glancing over at Crowe. “Uhm… did you send Crowe here with your car…?”

“Yes, I did,” Elaine confirmed. “I can trust him with minor errands here and there, and I just thought he ought to help keep an eye on you.”

Aravali made a face. “Keep an eye on me… why?”

Click.

Elaine suddenly hung up.

Aravali lowered the phone, stared strangely at it, and planted it back on the receiver, then sighed and turned to Crowe.

They were both silent for a moment.

Crowe simply stared, his hands pocketed and his eyebrows raising. “So… you’ve got a nice place, here. Spotless as hell. You look like you’ve been preparing to entertain some company here or something.”

“No, I just…” Aravali muttered, waving loosely back at the living room. “I just had a lot of cleaning to do after I was left here without any… roommates, or anything… needed busy hands, you know…”

“Ahh. Gotcha,” Crowe nodded, glancing around. “So… what’re you up to? What’s the big urgent thing you had to run home for?”

Aravali stared, his eyes narrowing sharply.

“What’s going on?” he asked, giving Crowe a suspicious look. “Why is she sending you out here like I need to be supervised?”

“Well… because you do,” Crowe replied bluntly, chuckling as he did. “You’ve had some visitors mulling about outside, mate… and they’re not the nice kind. They’re the shadow government kind.”

Aravali opened his mouth, prepared to reply with the same skepticism as always, but a million things made him fall silent.

He couldn’t rightfully call it all paranoia now.

“Okay… Crowe… I just… I need you to level with me,” Aravali sighed, raking his hairs back. “Just tell me every last thing you know about Canterbury Lab.”

“What? I’ve been telling you, Ari. You don’t believe me.”

“Just—say it,” Aravali ordered, snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Say all of it, and tell me everything. Where is Canterbury Lab now?”

“It doesn’t exist now,” Crowe knew. “My mate Amory blew it up when he left.”

There was a long, strange silence following his words.

“I mean… I reckon Vinny and his boys have some home base being built back up again, seeing as how they keep sending people after us… but the lab itself, the one we knew, it definitely isn’t around anymore,” Crowe pondered aloud.

“Amory,” Aravali uttered, squinting questioningly at him. “Who is Amory…?”

Crowe sighed, looking away.

“Someone who’s taking his sweet bloody time getting back here,” he grumbled. “I had a gig that night, went out and drank for a bit after the show was over… and… I fell asleep at the pub for about an hour. That’s when I had that dream, where I saw… my mate, Amory… going nuclear. Then, I woke up and went to make my way back to the lab… and… sure enough… it was… exploding, and crumbling, and earth-quaking like mad.”

Aravali stared oddly at him, Crowe continuing to stare off to the side.

“But it’s good that he went nuclear,” Crowe added, his tone darkening.

Aravali’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Well… because,” Crowe muttered. “It’s bloody evil there.”

Aravali stared quizzically at him for a moment.

“Evil in what way?” he asked.

Crowe returned his stare, his expression uncharacteristically grave now.

“I could feel it there… hell, a lot of us could,” he disclosed. “That place… that whole area, there… I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know why… but there was just this… ominous… connection. There was this… this evil in the air… and it took me a long time to work out what it was. It came to me when I remembered everything that that bloke Valek said to us when we were kids. He’d explained it all from the start. It was everything on the other side… reaching into us… into a bunch of warped, vulnerable minds… and mucking with us. Some of it wasn’t exactly evil, but… some of it was. You can tell it a bit more if you talk to Donna on the right day… or if you see John go into another mental breakdown. There was some extradimensional evil there… and it bled into some of us. Not all of us… thankfully… but… some.”

Aravali fell silent, pondering on this and trying to work out any shred of sense from it he could.

“When you say… extradimensional evil,” he said. “What do you mean by that?”

Crowe sighed disdainfully.

“D’you know the difference between a martian and an alien?” he said.

Aravali’s expression flattened. “Crowe, please be serious right now—”

“It’s not just some stupid loony question that I ask people to sound quirky and interesting, Ari—there’s an actual answer ,” Crowe cut him off, raising his voice and taking a step forward.

Aravali let out a breath, falling silent and waiting for him to explain.

“The difference… between a martian and an alien… is that martians… come from Mars,” Crowe informed, raising a finger. “Martians are extraterrestrial beings that come from another planet… and they’re a thing of fiction. They’re just some sci-fi creation used to entertain people in films and comic books. That’s all they are. But…”

He sauntered slightly closer, his finger still raised, eyeing the doctor rather thoughtfully.

“An alien… is actually… a whole other thing entirely,” Crowe stated knowingly. “It’s not extraterrestrial… it’s extradimensional, and it comes from realms beyond ours, all connected to ours, but not usually visible to ours. In science, they’d just be called aliens… but in religion… they’d be called demons. Me personally? I think they’re both one in the same. I think that what all that secretive government science calls an alien is the same thing that a God-fearing man would call a demon… because any time that I’ve ever seen anything from them, it is always something bad. It’s always something gratuitous and horrible, like John wanting to attack me because they told him to, or like Donna going insane on him for not wanting to follow their orders anymore. And y’know what?”

He stopped inches away from Aravali, giving him a firm, intense look.

“I think our old buddy Valek… the guy who ran Canterbury… I think he is long, long gone to them,” Crowe disclosed. “I think he knows all about them, and I think he and they have been working together for a damn long time now. Christ… he might be one of them for all we know. He definitely has the right bloody name for it, and his son is no better. Vincent is nothing but a self-preserving freedom-killing authoritarian, and he really does look possessed, especially in the face. He’s just got that look… and them weird eyes…”

Crowe finally went quiet, sighing heavily and sliding his hands into the pockets of his stylish leather jacket.

Aravali wanted to respond, but his mind was racing feverishly now, too many things compounding him all at once again. He remembered Donna mentioning someone called Vincent, and she, too, seemed rather convinced that she was a demon inhabiting the body of a human—but he couldn’t simply take her word for such a thing, especially considering how insane the sheer thought of it was.

Still—he felt a grave, festering knot beginning to form in the pit of his stomach, Donna’s wicked face flashing through his mind, and that stare, one that did not belong to her…

A mad little part of him considered it—that everything he was hearing might, just might, be true—but it was simply unthinkable, purely the stuff of fiction.

But what if…?

“Okay, I…” Aravali uttered, loosely grabbing around for the back of the nearest chair. “I need to sit down…”

Crowe stepped forward and scooted the chair out properly, allowing him to sink down into it.

Aravali sat still for a moment, propping his arm on the table and resting his head in his palm, simply gathering his thoughts. After a minute or so, he lowered his hand and sighed, raising his brows tiredly up at Crowe.

“All right… assuming that I believe… even half of this,” the doctor said, sounding exhausted. “Why would this Valek person… and this Vincent person… send people to my home?”

“Ah… well,” Crowe uttered, sitting in the chair beside him and leaning on the table. “Same reason they sent folks after everyone else who used to be at Moonvale. Everyone else got ran off or disappeared. The others there were the only things standing between Canterbury and us. Only… now… there’s just Miss Morgan and you.”

“And Elaine knows about all this…?” Aravali tried to clarify.

“Oh yeah,” Crowe mumbled, nodding grimly. “Yeah, she does…”

Aravali gave him a deep, investigative stare.

“So… she sent you here,” he said. “Why?”

Crowe’s eyes wandered upward, landing on his.

“Elaine expects some danger to come to me… so… she sends you here,” Aravali stated. “I imagine she thinks you can hold your own fairly well if she expects you to handle some shadow government goon squad all by yourself. What exactly does she know that I don’t?”

Crowe’s mouth slowly opened, looking as if he was about to speak, then he sighed and shook his head down at the table.

“Ahhh… you’re not ready for that part,” he uttered. “You’re really not…”

Aravali straightened up in his seat, feeling a peculiar spark of determination inside, his hand balling into a fist.

“I don’t care,” he decided. “I need to know.”

Crowe met his eyes again, staring at him and seeming to search every inch of his expression, sighing again.

“You haven’t seen the kind of thing I’m talking about,” he mumbled.

“Doesn’t matter,” Aravali replied challengingly. “Try me.”

“You’re already having a hard time processing all this, Ari. Why do you wanna see more than you can handle?”

“Because,” Aravali griped, rising from his seat and looming over him. “I am responsible for every last one of you—and I can’t manage the situation if I can’t adapt and handle the situation. So—Crowe— try me . Now .”

Crowe slowly straightened up in his chair, leaning back and hooking a finger over his mouth, staring into the doctor for a long, reflective moment before he finally made a single, mild nod.

Then—the radio beside them suddenly sparked to life.

Aravali sat back down and glanced at it, a song he’d never heard before echoing from the static, slowly growing louder and clearer.

“I’m not the on-ly-one, a-a-a-ah… I’m not the on-ly-one…”

“You remember me saying how that place was…?” Crowe muttered, his voice slightly hoarser than before, posting his arm up on the back of the chair. “Well… it made us pretty damned different. We can do things that nobody else can do. And this…”

He waved over at the radio.

“This Nirvana song I hear… from years ahead… it’s one of my favorites,” he informed, cracking a strange half-smile. “Because I can see, and hear, and feel through time , Ari… and I’m really not the only one.”

Aravali stared into the radio with a mollified expression, another wave of shock overtaking him, his eyes shifting back over to Crowe.

Just when he opened his mouth to try to speak—he spotted something else that instantly seized his attention, a single trickle of blood oozing from Crowe’s eye, rolling steadily down his cheek as the music grew clearer.

Aravali glanced between him and the radio—then reached out and smacked him hard on the side of the head.

“ Ah —Christ—what the hell was that for?!” Crowe griped, jolting back and clasping his head as the radio suddenly returned to static.

“ Stop ,” Aravali demanded. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing , exactly—but I’m guessing it’s not something you should do flippantly if it makes your Godforsaken eyes bleed.”

Crowe almost unleashed a retort, then choked out a laugh, looking down and snickering. “Right, okay, fair point…”

“This—this is all just—a lot to take in,” Aravali sighed, pressing his fingers to his temples.

Crowe stared at him, then smirked again, pushing off the table and standing. “Y’know what I think… I think you need a bloody night off , sir. Let’s go somewhere. C’mon.”

Aravali dropped his hands to his lap, ogling him incredulously.

“Come ooon—you might as well get outta the house anyway, with that damn gang of assassins lurking about,” Crowe insisted, grasping his sleeve and yanking him upright. “Let’s just take a breather from all this stress-inducing rubbish—and let’s go somewhere and have a drink.”

“Crowe—”

“C’mon—I’ve still got an active day pass going, and so does Raven. We can swing back by Moonvale and grab her.”

“Crowe, I don—”

“Look here,” Crowe said, facing him fully and perking his brow at him. “Either I go out drinking alone—or, you can come with me, and you can be the proper babysitter you really wanna be. M’kay?”

He held up Elaine’s keys, turned, and marched over to the front door—unlocking it and walking out without waiting for a reply.

Aravali inhaled, cocking his head and making a grave face at him from behind just before following suit.