Chapter Five

Jackson

Over the past few years, Agent Jackson had been actively avoiding Clio, in a lame attempt to protect the kid from the hovering curiosity of the invasive research of the PCA. So far, they hadn’t ordered any type of special close contact, though he wouldn’t have put it past them.

He still visited Clio, partially to get Winslor off his back about the matter, and partially because there was that insistent, primordial call from within him, its goals and communications were too primal for him to understand, that would always want to be near Clio and be blessed by his presence, as though the little incubus were a salient being come to shake the earth for those didn’t speak of him in reverence. 

Aside from the perpetual discomfort he felt being away from Clio, time away from the boy, he could tell, was having troubling effects on Clio as well. The kid seemed to draw into himself, as though claiming shelter from some storm that the rest of the world couldn’t see, his eyes glassy and distant. His slender form hunched often, and his face looked pinched, as though he were on the brink of spilling the truth of a pain. Though he said nothing. In fact, every time Jackson saw him, he spoke less and less.

But that was not the only thing that had changed about Clio. 

Having turned sixteen, the age was gentle with him, gracing him with minimal effects of the number, and overall kept Clio the lithe and small structure of a youth who could only pierce adulthood from a distance.

And every time he saw him, Clio grew more and more lovely. It was an odd thing to notice, though notice it he did. Clio was all slender grace, a long pale figure of clouded hair and looked far more the character from a fairytale than a nightmare.

But as he’d opened the door to allow Jackson to enter his room, Jackson couldn’t help but to note how lost the kid looked, and how he wore the PCA-produced hospital wear of someone who would always and forever be a permanent lab rat, and the effect was ruined.

Guilt washed through Jackson, but it was truly something he needed to move past. 

Jackson was only ten points away from completing his PCA task points tally. And he’d made a decision.

He couldn’t live like this anymore. 

Watching the kid sink into himself. 

Lying to him. 

Waiting for the PCA to end it. 

He’d wanted to be that for Clio: a friendly face, before the PCA pulled the plug on CL-10 and the child demon slipped under, perhaps not even recognizing in those final moments that the agency he had thought so highly of was the one to end him.

But he couldn’t watch anymore. 

More immensely, he wanted to protect himself, more than he wanted to make Clio feel safe and happy, to keep up the illusion. He wanted to protect himself from the pain of losing that boy, for there was nothing waiting but a loss he couldn’t stop. 

And he was a selfish fuck for it. 

When Clio had returned from the bathroom (after he’s sprinted off without explanation), Jackson was somewhat made wary by the deep, intense look that was measured at him, holding a glass of water in his slim fingers. 

“Pft. You know, you really didn’t need to get me anything. I was joking,” Jackson said with a sigh.

Wordlessly, Clio stepped forward and offered the glass in his small hand. “Drink.”

Jackson’s eyes widened as he took in something he hadn’t noted before: Clio’s eyes. They were glowing red. 

Shocked, he choked on his words, thoughts scrambling as his mind attempted to form some type of rational solution for the glow he was witnessing emanating from those eyes.

“What…?” he asked stupidly.

“Drink,” Clio repeated, and it was as though the ground shook with an invisible force that was behind those words. It did not sound like Clio’s voice, but distinctly other. A note in it that he could not define that called to a part of him that was equally undefinable.

His body not his own, Jackson could only obey. He took the glass as the voice commanded, as the vis inside of him bowed to its maker, and swallowed down the contents of the cup.

As soon as he’d done so, something inside of him seemed to both snap and tangle together.

Energy, having been pulled from the depths of crevices he knew not of, changed his entire anatomy. He was stronger now. With the water he had drunk, he felt faster, invincible. It was as though a veil that he had been wearing all his life that had been clouding his vision had been lifted, and the world around him was finally placed into full, sharp perspective.

His wolf howled inside of him, blissfully excited.

But there was another change inside of him, too.

It was Clio.

Clio, Clio, Clio, Clio, Clio, Clio, Clio, Clio, Clio.

Clio was all he could think about, all that was important in this world and the next. He was there, between one thought and another. It was no longer the weight of gravity that anchored him to the earth, but Clio. All his goals, all his concerns, everything was centered, now, with the boy in the middle of it all.

Even his own livelihood was a low-steeped second to the boy in front of him.

Even his brother.

“What did you do?” Jackson growled, clutching his throat, shocked by the change rippling through him.

All at once, Clio’s eyes dimmed to their normal state and he seemed to come back to himself, eyes round as they settled on Jackson. “I…”

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Jackson roared, shooting up from the bed, his grip latching onto Clio’s shoulders.

All the while, his mind was at war with itself. He wanted to be angry, furious, resentful, yet there was a new-formed block inside of him; a mountain that had been placed in his way that made an obstacle for any negative feeling he could possibly have towards Clio.

“I…I don’t…” Clio was shaking. His wide, disbelieving eyes swelling with tears as he realized Jackson was emotionally outraged outwardly.

Jackson let out a guttural, ferocious roar and dropped the boy, his fist slamming into the nearest wall, caving the plastering.

Without having consciously initiated the change, his body began to shift. Fur sprouting and bones snapping, he dropped to all fours, fully having adapted his wolf form in a matter of seconds. 

Not even a full few seconds later, a blaring alarm went off in the room.

PCA guards rushed into the bedroom, and with guns loaded with tranquilizers for situations such as this, took Jackson down.

The last thing he witnessed was them taking Clio down, too. With how furious he was, he tried not to care.

But that had been taken from him, too.

The world went black with his resentment that lost against his new obsession: Clio.