Canaan’s fiery amber eyes shot open, wild and eager for his kill like a lion before the pounce. With alarming speed, he reached for the pistol hidden under Damon's graduation gown and shoved the muzzle against the dean’s throat. With his right hand, he clutched the older man by his jaw and inhaled the musky scent of fear and sweat radiating from him.

“Keep your mouth shut and don't move if you know what’s good for you, old man,” he threatened, his German accent thick like the weapon in his hand. “This never happened. Do you understand?” Before the dean could finish nodding, Canaan flipped the pistol and clocked him across the jaw with the safety, unlocking it at the same time. Garret started to rush toward him but Canaan pointed the handgun at him, freezing him in place. 

Garret, forgotten amidst the commotion, raced to stop Canaan from doing anything Damon would regret. He wouldn’t hurt him, but he’d do anything to bring Damon back. “Canaan, that’s enough.” He interrupted Canaan’s concentration.

Garret was suddenly right behind him, ready to grab him at any sudden movement. Without taking his eyes off her, Canaan cocked his arm behind him, the gun pointed straight at Garret. “Stay out of this, Kätzchen. This is between me and the whore here.” His lips curled into a sneer.

Despite Canaan’s tenacious resolve, he showed the slightest wavering in his trigger finger. Somewhere in there, Damon sensed Garret was in danger and was fighting the darkness. He held his breath with hope seeing Canaan losing his grip.

With his hands raised in surrender, he cautiously stepped forward. Canaan shot at Garret, his impeccable aim faltered and the bullet flew past Garret’s ear, just grazing his hair. A squeak came from Maria watching her son so hungry for danger.

“I said back off!” Canaan shouted, straightening his arm.

“You’re better than this, Canaan!” Garret had to stall him. Someone surely would have called the authorities by now. He needed to get Damon back before that happened and took him away. “Damon, it’s me. I know you’re in there and I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. Just come back to me, please.” he begged, trying to reach out to his best friend.

“Tough luck, dip fuck. I’ve been waiting for this moment long before we got to this shitty school. You’ll have to try harder than that.” His voice like hard gravel. He swung the pistol back to Damon’s mother, lodging it against her cheek.

He flicked the safety off then back on, toying with the gun before pressing it to the poor mother’s temple. She unintelligibly rambled apologies to her son and to a god once forgotten. He slowly pulled the safety off one last time, savoring the click of the gun’s hardware and licked his lips, his mouth forming a most wicked grin. Ms. Maria Masters let out a silent scream, too terrified for the sound to leave her throat.

Suddenly Canaan’s eyes rolled into his head and his body fell to the floor in a convulsing heap. Dr. Reder pulled out a Taser gun and shot Canaan directly in the neck.

“Fun’s over, son.” He said to the now unconscious Damon, his body seizing from the shock. Ms. Masters jumped from her seat and, despite the now safe conditions, hid behind Dr. Reder.

As the tremors racking Damon’s body gradually subsided, Garret dropped to his knees beside him. He turned him to his side before he started foaming at the mouth and checked his vitals. He let out a brief sigh of relief when it seemed he would be fine then stood to face the apathetic doctor. “What the hell! You could’ve killed him that close, you know!” he yelled, anger boiling in his veins.

“But I didn’t. And you’re welcome.” He stared at Damon as if he’d wake up any moment but continued speaking to Garret. “What is your relation to Damon Masters?”

Garret looked around the auditorium for any familiar faces left. His other classmates and all the attendees had already vacated. If his family had shown up, they didn’t stick around, which was fine by him. His father’s disapproval for taking up an art major instead of becoming the heir to the family business kept his family from ever showing up at his school. Even his baby sister who he trusted was forced to live a predetermined life. “I’m his friend, Garret Macrae.” He answered.

“Are you aware of his condition, Mr. Macrae?” The doctor asked. Dr. Reder took out a small notepad and pen from his coat’s breast pocket and started jotting notes. Despite the news that Garret knew all about Damon’s secret, the man seemed unconcerned.

“Yes.”

The balding man in the suit extended a hand to Garret. “My name is Dr. Reder. I’m the chairman of Krieger Institute, one of the nation’s top mental hospitals. We heard about Damon’s special case eight years ago, and I’ve been monitoring him since.”

“So, you’ve been studying him like a lab rat?” he queried, his voice went up an octave at the incredulous thought, unable to hide his concern. Garret wasn’t sure he liked where this was going, but he tried to follow along. Damon never mentioned much of his past other than the blackouts and that his father was killed. If this man was a part Damon’s past, he needed to take this chance to learn as much as he could. Instead of taking the doctor’s hand, he crossed his arms defensively. Dr. Reder casually clenched his hand into a fist and slowly dropped it back to his side.

“Damon is very special, Garret. There are very few cases of dissociative identity disorder recorded and understanding the mind of someone like him can aid our research monumentally. You see, through the technology built into his bracelet, we’ve been recording his development. We’ve noticed more and more spikes in his adrenaline lately, leading a dramatic increase in transitions. I came today with the help of Ms. Masters here to see if these transitions are as dangerous as the recordings suggest.” He paused to remove his glasses and subconsciously study them, then put them back on and studied Garret. “Obviously, our findings were accurate. It looks like for his safety and the safety of those around him we’ll have to bring him back to the Institute. As you can see, he is too unstable to live a normal life.”

“Too unstable?” Garret knew Damon had no control over his transitions but was taking him away too extreme? “He’s made it four years here as a normal college student. If he was such a danger, why didn’t you take him sooner?”

“That is none of your concern.” He could tell Reder didn’t have an answer. The doctor crooked a finger and his guards came over. “Get Damon out of here and clean up the mess he made before the authorities show up,” he ordered.

Two burly men in white smocks came in from the double doors right on cue. They both huddled over Damon’s sleeping body and the one on the left picked him up and hauled him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The one on the right took out of his coat pocket a needle filled with a suspicious clear fluid inside. He took the cap off, pushed Damon’s flowing red hair out of the way and injected the needle into the vein just above his collarbone. Garret was too dumbstruck with the whole debacle to realize what was happening before him. They were sedating the already sedated man.

“What are you giving him?” Garret asked, worry lined his brow.

“A perfectly harmless beta blocker.” Said the doctor, “He won’t remember anything from his switch.” Garret raised an eyebrow at the doctor knowing full well Damon couldn’t remember anything from his transitions even without using drugs. What the doctor didn’t tell him was along with keeping him asleep longer, the concoction he injected Damon with suppressed the alters’ abilities while Damon was himself. He had another serum in the works that could awaken a specific alter and hopefully enhance its abilities.

“Stop!” he interjected before they could leave. “He stays with me. You can recommend a psychologist, but he’s not going anywhere without me.” He said, ready to take Damon from the two men that dwarfed him, regardless of who would win. Dr. Reder held a hand out and the two suits waited on standby. He pursed his lips and contemplated the situation. Garret was like an open book to him. He needed Damon to need him. The idea of a dissociative codependent relying on another codependent greatly intrigued him. There might be a use for Garret in Dr. Reder’s project after all.

He turned to Damon’s mother whose arms were crossed, still angry she was used as bait to precipitate a switch. “Ms. Masters, is it okay with you that we leave your son in this man’s care?” he added, “You’ve only just met him, after all.”

“That monster is not my son,” she said coldly. “As long as our terms stand, he’s all yours. Just keep him away from me.” She lowered her gaze and clutched her purse like it was all she had left in her life.

The smocked suits looked at each other and shrugged. The one on the left set Damon in the chair beside Garret. 

Before Dr. Reder left with his subordinates he asked Garret, “Tell me son, why do you think you could a better job taking care of him than us?”

Garret didn’t have to think about how he noticed how Damon’s mother publicly disowned her son or how Dr. Reder was treating Damon like a science experiment; just another statistic to report in the Psychology Journal. He didn’t have to think about how Garret needed him as much as Damon needed Garret.

Confidently he raised his chin and squared his shoulders with a straight answer: “That’s easy. Because I love him.”