It didn’t feel like a prison. At least, not on the surface. There were no bars, no guards with jangling keys and batons, no hard cot or moldy food. The house was nice, a two-story suburban affair with a well-stocked fridge, books lining the shelves, even a television and blu-ray player with an assortment of movies. The windows overlooked a quiet, pleasant neighborhood full of children playing, men mowing or watering their lawns, and women chatting. The house appeared to be a completely normal home in a completely normal, average neighborhood.
That, of course, was an illusion. Whether the people out there were real or complete fabrications, Sean Gerardo couldn’t say. What he did know was that he was trapped here in this house as thoroughly as though it was a simple eight by twelve foot cell. Any attempt to open the doors or windows failed. They were stuck tight. Attempting to break the glass, use the phone, shout to the people outside, and anything else he’d tried was equally fruitless.
He should know, he’d tried everything repeatedly in the three and a half weeks that he’d been here. Nothing worked. He’d received a single phone call the first day informing him that someone would be around to talk to him about his ‘traitor’ teammates when they had a chance, and then… nothing. He was just stuck here in this house, alone. He had food, he had entertainment, but no interaction. He could go nowhere and talk to no one. His life, for nearly four weeks now, had revolved around being in this house.
Stuck here like this, he’d had time to think about what had happened that night back at Crossroads. That girl, Harper, she had shown up while Sean, Columbus, and Doug were being taken from the dorm by those Committee goons. And then… well, somehow Harper had taken down most of the goons. Which was just– yeah, almost four weeks later and Sean was still utterly flummoxed by that one. The hell?
Either way, she’d taken down most of the Committee’s guys before starting to free the boys from the weird magical bonds they’d been put in. But just as she’d gotten through Doug and reached for Sean, he’d found himself suddenly flying backward through the air before another of those thugs caught him by the hair.
Columbus, Deveron, Vulcan, and Harper had all taken a step that way, but the Committee’s lackey had been prepared. He used an enchanted medallion to project some kind of blindingly powerful forcefield. From what Sean had heard later, the shield itself wasn’t made by that guy himself. Apparently certain Committee members empowered objects like that for their people to use in an emergency. So it was a Committee-level forcefield surrounding Sean and the guy holding him, while more reinforcements were on their way.
Columbus had tried to stay, but the others basically dragged him off. The last thing Sean had been able to do before his captor yanked him through a portal was to shout for Vulcan to follow the others, to listen to Columbus. His last sight was of his mechanical friend whining before being pulled away by Deveron.
That was three and a half weeks ago. For almost a solid month, Sean had been locked up in here. Even with the movies and books, he was going a bit stir-crazy. He missed his friends, his team, his dog, everyone. Which was also probably the point. They wanted him to be good and ready to actually have someone to talk to when they finally showed up to interrogate him.
There wasn’t an exercise room in the house, but Sean had made do by dragging most of the furniture out of one of the bedrooms, fashioning makeshift equipment by doing things such as loading as many books as possible into a couple bags and tying them to a broken broom handle to function as weights. He also used the furniture itself, buckets of water he’d filled up, anything he could get his hands on that would work, he repurposed. He cleared space from the front door all the way down the hall, through the living room, and into the attached den, using that as a track to do sprints back and forth for hours at a time. He did pull-ups in the doorways and practiced his accuracy with the knives in the kitchen. Everything helped, both to keep him in shape and to occupy his mind through these weeks of no communication.
At the moment, he was keeping himself busy by fixing food in the kitchen. The fridge, freezer, and cabinets seemed to restock themselves about every week as needed. He never saw anyone do it, he’d just wake up and find them that way.
Sean wasn’t the best cook, but he’d been bored enough to try things over the past few weeks, and there were recipe books in the kitchen. He’d burned a decent amount, and had even had the thought to try to force someone to talk to him by starting a fire with the stove. But he honestly didn’t know how much attention they were paying to him. If they only checked in once in awhile, that could get bad quickly. Not to mention they might take away his ability to cook, which would make this place even worse. Because he was finding that he liked cooking.
Either way, something needed to happen. And finally, as he was flipping through a recipe book to see what he could try for dinner that night, it did. ‘It’, in this case, was the sound of a key in the lock of the front door.
For a moment, Sean didn’t recognize the sound. His head turned a bit as a frown of confusion touched his face. Then he got it. Eyes widening, he dropped the book and ran for the front hall.
He made it just in time to see the door open and two figures step inside. At the sight of them, the boy froze very briefly before lifting his chin. “Great,” he started simply, “now they’re sending total strangers in to gawk at me.”
“That’s not funny, son,” Elias Gerardo retorted.
“Yeah…” Sean agreed slowly, “probably depends on which end of the neglect you’re standing on.”
Folding his arms with a simmering stare, Sean’s father stood beside his wife, Andrea Nores Gerardo, both of them staring intently at their son.
Elias looked a lot like Sebastian, Sean’s uncle. He was slightly taller than his older brother, at five foot nine inches. His hair was also worn longer, but he had the same thickly muscular arms and gray-blue stormcloud eyes. Andrea, meanwhile, was an almost painfully rail-thin woman, who looked as though a single touch would make her shatter into glass shards. Several had mistaken her for being a walking skeleton in the past, though her son knew from experience that she was much stronger than she looked.
Shrugging at them, Sean replied, “I dunno, maybe you’re right. My sense of humor might be on the fritz after sitting here by myself for a three and a half weeks.”
The words made both of his parents exchange brief looks, before his mother spoke. “We need to talk, Sean. Let’s go sit down and we can discuss this… entire situation.”
“I’m cooking,” Sean informed them before turning on his heel to walk back to the kitchen. “You’re welcome to stick around. Not that I could stop you. Hey, you know if anyone else is coming? You know, if you guys don’t like what you hear, does someone get to come in and play bad cop? I need to know how much food to fix.”
“You shouldn’t be in here, Sean.” That was his father. Elias followed him to the kitchen, with Andrea following behind. “That’s why we came, to tell you how to get out, how to get out of all of the trouble you’re in now.”
Picking up the cookbook once more, Sean murmured, “Let me guess, sell out all my friends.”
The book was plucked from his hands by his mother, who tossed it aside. “They are not your friends,” she snapped as the book landed on the nearby table. “They’ve gotten you all twisted around. And that stops right now, do you understand? You are going to answer every question the people here ask you. You are going to tell them everything you know about the Chambers girl, the Atherby camp, Sinclaire’s plan, all of it. You will answer everything, mi hijo.”
For a few long seconds, Sean met his mother’s gaze. The woman had barely had anything to do with him for as long as he could remember. And yet, despite that, she was also his mother. He’d never been able to deny her, or lie to her. What little attention she and his father did pay him had been so precious that he’d never found it in himself to argue or deny anything they wanted, for fear that they would pay even less attention to him. He never wanted to give them a reason to withdraw more than they already had.
Now, after several long moments of tense silence, he simply replied, “Where’s Ian? Does he know about any of this?” Sean’s brother had been much less absent than his parents in his life growing up, though even he had been gone a lot more lately. It was Mateo and Uncle Sebastian who had basically raised Sean in all but name. But the odds of either of them showing up here was probably slightly less than the odds of Flick herself waltzing in.
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Actually, after spending most of a year with that girl, Sean was putting higher odds on her.
“Your brother is… busy,” Elias informed his son. “And we’re not here to talk about him. We are here to tell you how this is going to play out. You need to play ball here, Sean. We know you’ve been twisted around by that girl, that woman, those… people. But it stops now.”
Shaking her head, Andrea sighed. “Do you have the slightest idea what they’re doing, what they’ve done? Sean, they have restarted a conflict that nearly tore our entire civilization apart the last time. They’ve brought it back, and now everyone is fighting again. For what? For monsters? For beasts that will think nothing of killing you and everyone you care about? Why? Why would you side against your own family, to serve those creatures?”
“Oh, Madre,” Sean murmured as his own head shook as well. “You’d be surprised.” The thought of throwing Sebastian and Mateo in their faces came to mind, but was just as quickly dismissed. If they didn’t know about that, he wasn’t going to hand them anything about it.
Tugging out a chair from the nearby table, Elias pointed to it. “Sit.” His tone was firm, brooking no arguments or other such nonsense. In that moment, Sean found himself doing just that without thinking about it. He sat in the chair almost before he even knew it was happening.
That wasn’t any kind of superpower, he knew. It was just his father being his father.
Both Elias and Andrea sat at the table opposite him, the latter speaking first. “We’re going to get you out of this… situation, Sean. The Committee are prepared to wipe your entire slate clean. You get a completely fresh start, like none of this ever happened. They’ll chalk it down to you being mislead by a team and a headmistress who betrayed and tricked you.”
“So,” Sean dryly retorted, “while we’re making up lies, can I have a unicorn too?”
There was a loud bang as his father’s hand slapped down hard against the table. “Is this a joke to you?! Do you know what you’re facing here? Do you know what they want to do to you? They think you’re a traitor, son. If they can, they’ll make an example out of you.”
“They will Nothing you, Sean,” Andrea quietly informed her son. “They will banish you. They will make you human again, erase your memory of everything, and shove you out into the Bystander world. You will have nothing. You will not be a part of this world, or our family. We’re stopping that, for now. But if you don’t play ball…”
Sean coughed once, shifting up in his seat. “And by play ball, you mean betray all my friends. Not to mention everything I believe. Oh, and help perpetuate the murder and genocide of every non-human species on the planet that the Seosten point you at. Let’s not forget about that one.”
Staring at him blankly, both of his parents simultaneously demanded, “That who points us at?”
“Oh, right,” Sean muttered, “that bit wasn’t explained, was it?” He paused, squinting at the two of them for a long, silent moment before shrugging. “You know what? Fuck it. Seosten. That’s S-E-O-S-T-E-N. Say-Oh-Stun.”
“And what, exactly, do you think a ‘Seosten’ is?” Elias asked while squinting at his son.
Sean didn’t answer. Not at first, anyway. Instead, he leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling, mouthing something under his breath. Dozens of thoughts bounced wildly through his head. They’d been so careful for so long not to let anything they knew get out. But now? Now the rebellion was back on. Now everyone knew about Joselyn and all of that. Why shouldn’t they know the rest of it? Why shouldn’t they know the whole truth?
Because they wouldn’t believe it, for one. But at this point, he didn’t particularly care what they believed.
So he told them. Opening his mouth, Sean told his parents about the Seosten. He told them where they came from, why they’d set this whole thing up, their war with the Fomorians, how they infiltrated the place, that Columbus had been possessed by one, all of it. He told them how the Seosten had turned Earth into a training ground for Heretics so they could take their bodies and use them as what amounted to biological-mech suits against their own enemies, that they secretly controlled both Crossroads and Eden’s Garden, everything. Everything. It took most of an hour for him to get through all of it, because more kept spilling out. Partway through, he took a glass of water and sipped it. Other than that, and clarifying a few things as his parents asked questions, he spent the entire time talking.
Finally, he finished, sitting back to stare at his half-empty glass. Or was it a half-full glass?
“Anyway, that’s it. That’s basically the whole story, barring something I might’ve forgotten here or there. That’s the truth about this whole fucked up situation that you guys have been part of.”
“Dios mío,” Elias murmured, his tone shocked nearly into silence. “We… we had no idea.”
“We are so sorry,” Andrea added, sounding equally taken aback. “My poor boy. We knew it was bad, but this? This is our fault.”
“Wait… what?” Blinking, Sean looked up from the glass to his parents. “How are the… Seosten your fault?”
“We left you alone for too long,” Andrea replied, staring at her son. “We are so sorry. We should have taken more responsibility. We should have kept you with us. Maybe if we did, you wouldn’t have fallen for such… such absurd nonsense.”
“What?!” Sean blurted, his own eyes widening. “What–nonsense? It’s true! Listen, how would–”
Face twisting up a bit, Elias swallowed hard before forcing the words out to interrupt. “Son, you’re confused. Look, listen to yourself. Think about everything you just said, about how… how crazy it sounds. An empire of super-advanced magical bodysnatchers are behind all of this? Seriously? All those monsters out there are just nice fluffy do-gooder innocent victims? Do you know how many humans I’ve seen those things rip apart? How many little children have been eaten?”
“That’s the point!” Sean snapped, rising from his seat. “There’s good guys and bad guys! There’s good Strangers and bad Strangers! Why is that so hard for you people to understand? And you’re willing to believe that everything that isn’t human is evil, but not that the Seosten exist?”
“Oh sure, they might exist,” Andrea allowed. “Actually, I’m sure they do. But they’re not behind Crossroads, Sean. That’s ridiculous. In fact, I’d wager they’re behind you thinking that they’re behind Crossroads. They’ve got you all… twisted up.”
“Yes,” Elias agreed. “That’s it. That’s probably what happened with Joselyn too. They got her all confused. They manipulated her, just as they’ve manipulated your team, Sean. They got her to start a Heretic civil war just to weaken us, and now they’ve got her daughter and Gaia doing the same.”
“That’s–no!” Sean’s head shook. “Damn it, that’s not what happened! That’s not what’s going on. You have to listen to me. The Seosten–”
“We’ve heard enough.” That was Andrea, standing from the table. “We are so sorry, Sean. We should have been there to help you learn to differentiate truth from lies. Maybe you wouldn’t have fallen for this manipulation then. Things would be different. If we’d known, we could’ve stopped Ian from–” She stopped then, at a glance from her husband.
“Stopped Ian from what?” Sean blurted, staring back and forth between them. “What did Ian do? What’s going on?”
“Never mind,” Elias insisted, standing as well. “We’ve been here long enough. Now that we know about this ‘Seosten-are-behind-Crossroads’ lie, maybe we can combat it more effectively. Thank you, son. And don’t you worry, we’re going to get you all the help you need to make sure you get better. We’re not going to abandon you, I promise.”
“You–you–what?” Sean floundered a bit, his mouth opening and shutting. “Just stop! I’m telling you the truth. You guys are wrong. You’re wrong! The Seosten want humans to hate every other species. They want us to hunt and kill them because it’s practice for the Fomorians. You know the Fomorians! You know they exist, you know how dangerous they are! This isn’t just a story! Think about it logically, if every other species was really–”
“That’s enough,” Andrea interrupted, already turning with her husband to leave the kitchen. “You’ll see, Sean. You’ll spend some time in here and forget about all this nonsense. We’ll have someone come in once a week to talk with you until you understand that your conspiracy theory was nothing but paranoia. No matter how long it takes.”
“You’re not listening!” Sean shook his head, quickly following after them. “Just stop, this isn’t a paranoid fantasy. It’s not delusion. It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. You–fuck. Yes, I know how it sounds. I know! But I’m trying to tell you the truth about all of it. If you’d just—” Groaning out loud as he realized just how fruitless the whole thing was, Sean blurted, “You really think you can keep me in here long enough to make me change my mind about this whole thing? It’s already been almost a month. Flick and the others, they’re going to get me out of here.”
For a moment, his parents paused. His father’s hand rested on the knob of the front door as he exchanged a look with his wife before turning back to Sean. “Son, I wouldn’t count on your friends coming any time soon. At least, from your perspective.”
Sean blinked at that. “From my perspective? What?”
His mother spoke then. “You think you’ve been here for almost a month? Sean, that’s the time dilation spell. They use it to isolate a prisoner, like you, for much longer than they’re actually imprisoned. It hasn’t been a month. It hasn’t even been a week. Or a day. Sean, you’ve been in here for six hours.”
“So you see,” his father put in, “even if those people you call your friends do find you, it’ll be weeks from now. Or months. From their perspective. From yours…
“It’ll be years.”