A Loner Mentalist Pt. 05

"Aw," Jacobs drawled with fake empathy, "feelin' a little down, sport?" He chuckled. "You don't know the half of it. Now, normally, whenever I come across a phony, I take their copy of my powers, their sanity and will to live. Then I just sit back and enjoy as they punish themselves for their transgression. But you? That would be too fucking good for you." Jacobs clucked and walked into the bathroom. Jack heard running water.

"I mean, it's one thing to copy my powers and use them, but it's something else to copy my shield. That I have never seen before and I've been dealing with thieves for most of my life." The water stopped running. "Oh, and the way you used my powers on dogs?! Disgusting. Utterly disgusting. My Momma always said I was special, a gift from God, and she was right! My power is proof of that. My power that you copied, you fucking phony, and then used to train dogs! Fucking guide dogs!

"I mean, I can't even come up with a fitting punishment for that. Plus, you're a pothead, for fuck's sake! You shouldn't even have the brain cells to pull off any of that! Taking your life and sanity is just...too merciful, you know?

"Yeah, I guess I'm just gonna have to keep you around until I come up with something fitting. The punishment should always fit the crime, right?" Jack could hear Jacobs rifling through something. "Don't they have any hair care products in here? What kind of a sleazy motel is this? Argh! Now, I've got to go face my audience looking like this! Momma's special man facing the crowd with his hair all...argh!"

Mia kicked Jack in the gut with all her might. After the horrible agony from his groin had broken his pain dial, this new one was barely registered. He did note that he couldn't breathe anymore, but he didn't really mind that. Death seemed like a pleasant alternative to whatever the cloaked figure would come up with for him.

"That was for making me stay up all night looking for you! You stole my shield from me, so I couldn't read your mind at that chick's place. I had to stake out her mind in the hope that you'd go rooting around in it." Jack heard Jacobs chuckle in derision. "Using the power to try and make cunts feel better. What a waste! And after you did that, poof! You once again vanished usingmy shield! I didn't pick you up again until you fell asleep. You have no idea how much effort it took me to locate you this morning." Jacobs growled in frustration.

Mia stomped on Jack's face. Again, his pain dial gave a tiny twitch to politely inform his brain of the event. Jacobs' shoes moved across Jack's very limited field of vision.

"I've got a show to do in the city in less than an hour and I've got a forty minute drive ahead of me. And look at these bags under my eyes! Unbelievable! While I'm off communing with my adoring masses, you are going to stay right here. And your ex-girlfriend is going to be guarding you to make sure you don't try anything funny."Jack told himself he must not hit Mia, or try to leave her sight. "When I come back, we're going to start your punishment in earnest."

Jack could hear the front door be opened and then closed. He lay there in a stupor for an indeterminate amount of time after that. His whole body was limp as his mind struggled in vain to process what had just happened.

At length, the agony coming from his groin had descended from infinity to just below ten, which made his brain start to receive it clearly. He groaned and winced. The agony broke through his lethargy and he reflexively began to attend to himself. Drawing deep breaths made his diaphragm and ribs explode with stitches. The whole left side of his face was throbbing.

He dragged himself across the carpet towards the mini-fridge, ignoring the nearly burning sensations that made against his skin. Mia followed him, never out of kick-range, but made no action to stop him as he reached in and retrieved a big fistful of ice. He looked around for a container to hold the ice so he could press it against his groin. There were none around. The mere thought of dragging himself across the carpet all the way to the bathroom to get a towel was very discouraging.

He reached for his T-shirt on the floor and wrapped the ice cubes in it. He gingerly pressed it against his groin and sighed in relief. He spared Mia a quick glance, fearing her kicking him again, but she gave no reaction. With a brief and hesitant touch he found out that his genitals were all in place, just very bruised. He iced his balls for a while, until they stopped shooting pure agony into his brain and began to try and shrivel back up into his abdomen to escape the freezing cold. He alternated pressing the wet T-shirt with ice cubes against the side of his face, his belly above his navel, and back on his balls again.

At length, the pain lessened enough to stop preventing him from thinking. He sat up against the side of the bed. He considered Jacobs' rant and frowned.Copying his power? That doesn't make any sense, whatsoever. Granted, I copied his cloaking power, but I didn't copy his power in the first place. I had it long before I had any clue he existed at all. It had been with me since... Jack couldn't quite remember when he had first felt his power, or used it. He bit the inside of his lip as he considered other arguments.

That guy is in his early thirties. I've seen visions of dozens of mentalists that had had power since before he had even been born. Hell, the last vision I had showed me the graves of mentalists that had died years before this asshole had even been born. Half the mentalists he had attacked probably came into their powers since before he had been born, too. None of what he said makes any sense. That guy is just plain crazy.

The more Jack thought about Jacobs' words and actions, the less sense he could make of them. He gave up on sifting through the man's madness.It's no use, anyway. He's obviously a loony tune. If all the misery and death he had caused by now hadn't given him a reason to stop and think it over, then nothing I can say will have any effect, either.

He considered his options, which were few. The phone sat on the nightstand, mocking him to make a call for help. Whomever Jack called, they would gather up a mob and come over to kill him for being a freak. He glanced out the windows. The outside world was going along with its own thing, ignorant of his presence.Good thing, too. They'd probably lynch me on sight.

He sighed bitterly. Honor and duty demanded he fight back with everything he had, no matter how hopeless the fight seemed, but he had exactly nothing. He idly considered trying to escape the room under cover of the night. The angry mobs outside wouldn't be able to spot him so easily, but he couldn't leave Mia's sight. He grimaced. He couldn't use force against her and he couldn't come up with a way to make her come along with him willingly. He gave up on that plan as he knew Jacobs would find him, anyway. Any thought of escape was futile.

Even though he knew no appeasement strategy would work on the cloaked figure, he decided to stay put and do nothing. As he sighed and tried to sit up into a more comfortable position, his hand touched something plastic under the bed. He grabbed it and pulled it out. It was his big bag of weed-laced chocolate chip cookies.Fuck it. One last high before that asshole makes Swiss cheese out of my brain.

He grinned feebly as he opened it and reached in for one. He glanced up, but Mia made no move to stop him. He chewed it slowly, enjoying the crumbling cookie and the soft, creamy spots of chocolate within it. He lost track of the time as he sat there, bereft of hope. He ate more of the cookies, more to give himself something to do, than out of any actual hunger, or desire to enjoy them.

"Eat up, pothead," Mia said and smiled at him. "That's the only fucking thing you're good for, isn't it? Getting high and wasting your brain. I'm about to step out on stage in front of thousands of adoring worshippers. You're too weak to even understand what that means, let alone work towards achieving something like that on your own. You're pathetic!"

Jack swallowed dumbly as he looked up at Mia's vacant eyes. Jack's skin went cold as he realized Jacobs was watching him through her eyes. He must have ordered her to repeat a mantra of some sorts, or hold a picture in her mind's eye so he could slip inside her mind at any given time. Jack's eyes watered. He began to realize just how fucked he was. There was no escape from Jacobs' clutches. There would be no respite from whatever torment he decided for him. He wept softly and wished he could just kill himself.

His heart skipped a beat when he finally realized that he hadn't been ordered not to try and kill himself. His spirits soared. Suddenly, death was not the ultimate bad thing that could happen to him. It paled in comparison to whatever Jacobs would be coming up with as punishment for him.

Jack pressed his lips tight and set aside the rest of the cookies. There was a possibility of escape and he needed to act fast if he was going to seize it. He considered Mia standing over him. He knew he couldn't use force against her, but he wondered if he could somehow get her to allow him to be alone in the bathroom for a moment. He'd only need a few seconds to break the mirror, grab a shard and start slicing away.

The high from the cookies kicked in and he sighed in annoyance.Great! This is just what I need when I'm trying to kill myself! Being as high as a kite.

The cartoon dog sighed next to him in commiseration. Jack nodded in acknowledgement and then did a double take. The cartoon dog from his visions was lying on the bed, with its head hanging off the mattress to be at eye level with Jack. Jack shot a nervous look up at Mia, but she gave no indication at seeing the cartoon.

Holy fuck, Jack thought at the dog,does this mean that I'm still clairvoyant?

The dog gave a sigh. It was the exact same sigh Spot would make when he would get tired of following Jack around the house and decided to sit in one place. Jack understood this sigh to convey the words, "This means that you're still a dumbass,dumbass."