Mind Reader 3

You. You’re Rachel?” And without waiting for me to answer, he pointed to Gavin and said, “And you’re Gavin. It’s nice to meet you two.”

I’m sorry. said a new voice in the mindspace. Controlled and clear and sad. Decidedly sad.

Gavin sighed outwardly, and screamed inwardly. No no no no no.

I began to cry. “No…shit...” The hair I had been braiding fell over my face with the rest of it, dark swathes of it that pooled onto the fake-wood table. The other kids beside and across from me, felt the first twinge of disgust and fear I recognized from all those years ago, when my mother found out. The girl to the left of me even shrank away a little bit, even though she had swapped a cookie for my fruit snacks just today at lunchtime. I liked her.

“Don’t worry,” Gavin said. It was the first time I heard him speak out loud in this room. His voice was thinner than in his head, and not shaky and frantic. Even if his mind betrayed him, the courage he possessed to be able to speak so steadily calmed me, ever so slightly.

“Rachel. We’ll be...ok.” But realizing that he didn’t know, he didn’t know anything, he added, “Right?” directly at the grey man, and he looked incredibly dignified, and I was jealous of him.

I mean, tears were dripping into my hair.

The grey man answered, “You won’t be harmed. We need to run a few more tests before we can gauge where you will be relocated, though.” He forced another smile.

“Wait, relocated?” Gavin broke in. “Where are we going?”

The man ran a hand through his overgrown, red-brown hair, and I noticed a white cloth sleeve peeking from his shirt, wrapped tightly around his arm up to his wrist. Or maybe...was that a bandage?

“ You three should go,” he told the NMRs. My classmates. “I’m sorry we scared you. You can get back to class now.”

They couldn’t have scurried out fast enough.

Would I ever see them again? I had never met any MRs besides Gavin, and now the grey man. Was it because...they were relocated? Because they were gone away? What happened to them? These thoughts brought on a new wave of tears, and sobs that heaved my shoulders up and down. At this, Gavin was a little embarrassed, and the grey man was inscrutable as ever.

But I felt a hand on my back, a steady, warm one, but I jumped anyway.

“You will be ok, Rachel,” said the grey man. He dropped his arms to his sides. “ Really, it’s not too bad, where I live.” Looking to Gavin, he added,“ Where you’ll be relocated.” What about our families?

“And where is that?” Gavin persisted.

“I’m not exactly sure yet. I told you, we have to run some tests. I promise you, you won’t go through any harm. But you have to come with me now.”

“What… what kind of tests?” I asked. “Why?”

The man sighed. The static in his head seemed to buzz, every so slightly, louder. “You’ll find out when we get there. But really, we need to get going. I’m passed the time limit, my supervisor’s gonna be pissed.” He ran a hand over his head again, a little self consciously. “Sorry for the language.”

I straightened up a little, brushing my wet hair out of my face. “ That’s okay. My first word was ‘shit’.”

The man laughed a little, but he didn’t find it funny. Or maybe he did. I couldn’t tell. “Makes sense,” he said. “Mine was something like that, too.”

“What’s your name, anyway?” Alvin asked abruptly, and for the first time, his shoulders tensed, and his arms crossed over his thin chest defensively. “We should at least get to know what your name is, if you’re taking us, blindly, to only you-know-where.”

Than, Grey Man actually laughed. It was real, and I knew it this time because some of the fog drifted off of him and I could sense the twinge of amusement deep, deep in there. “Fair enough, buddy. My name is Jordan.”

This apparently satisfied Gavin enough that he stood from his chair and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

That was my cue. If I didn’t consent too, I had a the mildly sickening feeling that I would be forced.

By somebody.

I wiped some of the wetness out of my eyes, hoped that my nose wasn’t too red, and imitated Gavin. The man, Jordan, put on a relieved expression. For effect, most likely, or for the sake of us, in some way or another.

“Thank you. Sometimes when I come to pick up new members, they take ages and ages. ” Gavin and I looked at each other darkly. Jordan didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he ignored it. “Alright, come on then.” He gestured towards the door with the not-bandaged arm. “We gotta run some tests, and they’ll be a little bit longer than this one.”

:)