Agent Jackson frowned, brows furrowed as he studied Clio. “They told me you said you were sick?” He paused. “Yet they know, and I know, and you know that you don’t get sick, yet here we are.” He crossed his arms. “Spill.”

Clio shook his head again, more fiercely this time, stepping back.

He could smell Agent Jackson.

Humans had their own scent, yes, though it was much weaker than vis users and decidedly unappealing. 

What appealed to Clio at all was a disturbing draw he had no conclusion for. There was no name for what he wanted, or at least, not a name he was ready to identify.

The other PCA children, Three and Four, were much like the humans. Being only partially vis users biologically, they pulled at Clio’s darkness, though not strong enough. 

Not like Agent Jackson. 

Clio nearly had to hold his breath to keep from breathing him in, as the scent rattled the cage inside of him and he wasn’t sure what would happen if the locks were to click open, if he couldn’t keep the beast at bay.

“Um,” Clio said nervously, attempting to play the host and learning what a host was all in the same action. “Sit down.” He looked around. There was nowhere to sit. “On the bed?”

Agent Jackson chuckled and ruffled his hair, moving past him to sit. “Come on, kid, aren’t you pulling out all the stops? Bring on the horderves.” And then, to Clio’s horror, he clapped his hands, as though expecting to be served.

Clio’s mouth dropped open in his panic, and then he was scrambling to find a way to bring Agent Jackson some type of refreshment. There was nothing in his room, though, save for offering him a pillow.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Agent Jackson’s shoulders droop as the man sighed. “I’m joking, Clio. God, I gotta remember how much they fucked with your head. Come sit down next to me.”

But Clio was already in the bathroom, already having just remembered that a water carafe sat next to the bathroom sink with a single glass cup. As he measured out the water into the cup, his eyes caught onto a haphazard personal project stuffed under a towel, also on the bathroom counter.

It was a disassembled pencil sharpener. He had taken apart the small plastic tool to acquire the blade inside, then he had stuck the blade to the end of a pencil with globs of melted glue to assemble a homemade razor.

A while ago, he had started growing hair down there. And though it was pale and the color insignificant, the fact that he was growing hair, in general, around his genitals left him distrubed and fearful. What would the PCA do when they found out?

So he had begun shaving the area with his make-shift razor, hoping to keep their disappointment in him at bay.

But that was not why his attention was drawn to the object now.

There was another use for a blade.

Before he knew what he was doing, Clio had the blade in hand.

It wasn’t he himself who had moved, though. It had been the darkness in him. The blade was an instrument to fulfill a purpose, his darkness reasoned with him. If he knew how to use it. If he used it now, he could one day be free.

He would need to draw blood, he realized. Blood was the answer. The gift of blood, to someone else, will give him something that he needs.

You are strong, you are brave, you are smart, his darkness seemed to say. You can conquer this, if you let yourself. Once you are free, there is nothing, from the stretch to each end of the earth, that can stop you. Not even hell itself.

The dark instincts taking over, Clio sliced his thumb over the blade, emitting a low purr in his throat, a sound that he had never been able to make before. He didn’t know where it came from, yet at the moment he didn’t care.

The blood was all that mattered.

Once I give this gift, he thought, there is no going back.

He wasn’t sure how he knew what the gift of his blood could do, but the conviction was there, as if he had known all along. The darkness inside of him drew upon instincts that were curled up inside of him, just waiting to be stretched. 

They’d been tense for too long.

A bulge of bright red bubbled up on the pad of his finger, and, carefully, he dipped it into the water glass, where it was immediately swallowed up by the wate— there, but now invisible to the eye.

He rinsed his hand and took the tainted cup back to Agent Jackson in the other room.

“What took you so long?” Agent Jackson asked warily. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Wordlessly, Clio handed the glass to him, watching in anticipation as Agent Jackson now cradled his gift.

“Pft. You know, you really didn’t need to get me anything. I was joking,” Agent Jackson, sighed, looking as though he were about to place the cup down on the bedside table.

Incensed, Clio stepped forward. “Drink,” he demanded.

Agent Jackson’s head snapped to him, his eyes widened in alarm. “What…?” he whispered dumbly, disbelieving. 

Clio had used his powerful influential voice on him, as he had done with other test subjects within the lab. The same influence that had others do his bidding. 

A reasoning inside of him, from somewhere deep, knew that it was wrong, yet he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment, not when the momentous exchange was about to happen, for Agent Jackson to receive his gift.

“Drink,” he demanded again, and it was like the voice was the voice of the darkness, coming from entirely somewhere else. It was a thunderous, powerful voice that rattled the bits of loose objects in the room until everything seemed to vibrate.

Agent Jackson was staring with open alarm at Clio, yet he was now powerless to Clio’s influence. 

Bringing the cup to his lips, he drank down the blood-tainted water, and swallowing up Clio’s gift.