16 No Treatment (2/2)

Pain throbbed in Karen's head as she closed the door to Diego's office just the slightest bit too fast.

That had been a massive waste of time, and now she couldn't do anything but await Stephanie's judgment.

She trudged to the elevator and pushed the button repeatedly, frustrated by the fruitless session.

What did Diego even expect from her? To just open up all her childhood memories and break into tears about the feeling of helplessness that she felt in the grasp of this Demon?

Karen scoffed at the thought when the elevator opened and slammed the button for the parking garage before inspecting her reflection in the mirror that adorned the wall.

Tired blue eyes looked at her, affected by the stress and stinging chemicals. Two furrowed eyebrows crowned them, while the dark blonde hair laid smooth down to her shoulders.

"I could really use a nap though… that… was a long day."

[---][---][---][---][---][---][---][---]

Her keys clicked against each other as she walked through the garage to her personal parking lot.

Maybe she shouldn't drive right now. Keeping her eyes open was already hard enough after this stressful day.

A car passed half by, stopping in front of her own before she could open the door.

The smiling face that got unveiled by the opened window had a welcome familiarity to it.

"Hey, jalapeño... want to take a ride and show me the way to your place?"

Karen could barely hide her laughter from his awful pickup line.

"Oh shut up, Sebastian. You are lucky that I'm really not in the mood to drive."

The grin on his face got only bigger when she hushed to the co-driver seat and let herself fall into its welcome embrace.

Sebastian tilted his sunglasses slightly when he turned to face her, but she gave him a slight push before he could bring another sentence like the last.

"Take that off, Romeo. Tell me rather how your day was."

His glasses flew onto the backseat with a casual throw while he steered the car through the underground parking house.

"It was fine. I got you the files of the kids for your new assignment tomorrow. Just had to do some paperwork after the… incident. How are you?"

Karen tried to ignore the knot in her throat and the returning headache at the mention of this topic. This session had made things only worse.

Light shone upon her as they drove out of the building, straining her eyes.

"I'm fine, even if Diego sees that differently. He works nothing like you said he would."

The reproachful tone in her voice caught his attention, which she regretted when he threaded into the traffic without looking ahead.

"What do you mean? I've just told some old stories. I don't even know how he works now."

Both of her knuckles turned white from the grip around her seat, while Sebastian reminded her of the reason she didn't enjoy driving with him.

Aggressive honking followed the almost crash she could view in the rear mirror as the driver on their side had to steer into oncoming traffic to avoid Sebastian's careless maneuver.

"Jesus! Look at the street, not me!"

His head turned back to the traffic ahead of them, just at the right moment to slow down before driving up on the frontal vehicle. Which left him scratching his head with a nervous smile on his face.

Changing the topic had worked, and the pain subsided, but Karen felt herself no longer able to relax in the co-driver's seat.

It followed an awkward silence before she regained the courage to talk.

"It's just… I don't know. I had such a strange, comfortable feeling around him. Do you know if he might use magic to get his patients to talk?"

It was only after he answered without looking away from the street that she moved back into a more comfortable position.

"Not the way you might think he does. I don't know how else to describe it, but it's more like the equivalent of a smile that he projects around himself."

Which could be exactly what someone able to erase memories at will would want other to think…

Karen's thoughts about this conspiracy theory got interrupted by a violent jolt as Sebastian drove the car too fast onto the driveway of their home.

"I don't know. Sounds pretty manipulative to me to lure others into a false sense of security."

An amused chuckle escaped Sebastian while he stopped the car inside the garage.

"You must really have a wrong impression of him then. Not that I could fault you, I and Diego make constantly fun of each other."

Her expression must have betrayed her doubt, because he got more serious after meeting her gaze.

"Karen, one of my jobs is to make sure that none of our agents abuse their powers. I know you are skeptical of magic users in general, but you trust me, don't you?"

The muscles in her jaw cramped when he looked at her with the same innocent blue eyes as always. An innocence she couldn't dare to lie to.

"I… I don't know anymore."

She could tell how these words hurt him by the way how all joy faded from his face.

"When you told me you had powers, you mentioned that monitoring was your primary job. And that never struck me like… Stephanie's powers, as an example. But when you smashed this steel door like nothing… I just… don't know anymore…"

There was a distinct warmth in his eyes when he touched her hand with his own.

"Come, let's talk about this with some coffee and sweets. I think we could both use it, right now."

[---][---][---][---][---][---][---][---]

Squeaking noises left the sofa as Karen sat down in front of the coffee table.

She felt awful for telling Sebastian that she didn't trust him anymore. Despite the secrets he had, she never pressured him on them before, so who could she really fault for his dark past.

And it wasn't really like he had a choice about his magical abilities, either.

The man she knew now was the one she fell in love with. Nothing about his past or physical abnormalities should change anything about that… right?

More air left her seat as she leaned into it. It had been a long day already, even without a personal relationship crisis.

Both of her eyes closed slowly, and Karen drifted into a slight slumber before she noticed.

"The coffee comes just right, doesn't it?"

She twitched slightly as Sebastian put the coffee down while waking her up.

"Yes… as tired as I am, I really shouldn't skip dinner as well. Maybe we should have gotten us a late lunch on the way home?"

His steps lead him back to the kitchen as she put the mug at her lips. It was just the right temperature, like usual.

"Perhaps, but we have something just as good. I found some of that awesome chocolate with the salted caramel in the fridge. Didn't even know we had it, but it will carry us until dinner."

A crisp crunch came from the chocolate as he broke it apart to reach her a row, then he sat down opposite of her and took himself one as well.

"So, do you think there's anything I could do or tell you what might help you to trust me again?"

There was this gloomy tone in his voice that made her heart feel like it would crumple at any moment. Karen wanted to trust him, see him like before, but how could she after the events of today?

"I don't know how. I know nothing about magic. How can I ever feel safe near someone who can literally mind control me, break my neck with a thought or turn me into an icicle?"

These words sounded to herself like an accusation, aimed at Sebastian as representative for all people like him. How things stood right now, she didn't know if she could train the children even if she may return to work.

Afraid of his reaction stared Karen at the restless steaming surface of her drink. It swirled around in circles, like her own thoughts.

Despite the restless state of her mind, Sebastian remained calm. He sat there, the hand at his chin, the chocolate in his mouth.

"Maybe that's exactly the point. If you knew more about the actual abilities and limitations, then it might relativize your fear."

A huge nip from the coffee and a bite from the chocolate helped her to think about his proposal.

The guilt she felt might have been the reason, but it didn't sound like such a bad idea to learn more about his powers.

It wasn't really like it could make things any worse, either.

"I guess it can't hurt. But where to start?"

Karen took the rest of the sweet treat into her mouth while grinding her teeth.

"Well, I think we can skip the basics and just concentrate on the limits of my abilities, for the start."

He had his point with that.

"So, what are they?"

Sebastian lifted the coffee mug in front of him to his mouth and took a nip.

"For the start. I have to touch things."

To her surprise turned he the cup around and flicked against it to drop the frozen content as solid cylinder onto the coffee table.

"Although I can use my ability to sense magic or energy like heat even from far away, I still need to touch things to manipulate them."

Before she could ask what he meant, or even get over the first surprise, put he the cylinder back into the mug and turned it in front of her eyes back into liquid coffee.

Her open mouth must have spoken out what she thought.

"It's not quite as impressive as it seems, really. I simply took the heat away, stored it, and put it back in."

Karen grasped for air at the way he played his surreal reality bending powers down.

"You act like that's nothing, but you're literally breaking the laws of physics. That's more than just impressive. And you can do that with any… energy?"

His eyes darted downwards, clearly flustered by the rather mediocre compliment.

"Well, yes. But there's only so much I can take in at once without hurting myself."

One of his hands wandered into the pouch of his pants, possibly to search for something.

"Albeit my ability is more versatile than most, it also is quite weak compared to other magic users like Stephanie."

While He fished inside his pockets with a strained expression, flashed an imaginary picture of Stephanie throwing Sebastian like a rag-doll through her office inside Karen's mind.

The daydream ended as the real Sebastian rejoiced over his finding. It was a little object that looked like a simple battery.

"I even have to use gadgets like this miniature mana container just so I can store some excess energy and keep up with others."

Sebastian sipped again on his coffee, only to shudder in response.

"Not to forget, my control over the output is rather… imprecise. The coffee is cold and I feel like I have a slight fever. Wait, I'll get myself a new one."

He moved into the kitchen while continuing his explanations.

"Really, magic is anything but unpredictable or mysterious. Even Demons have their limits and can't even do anything without having mana to begin with."

As painful as it was to remember, but she could agree on that point. The Demon that held her hostage did certainly have limits, or else she wouldn't have needed a hostage.

"Which is also the only reason my ability is so effective in the first place. I can basically make them vulnerable by taking their mana away. Even though that's not as permanent for them as for humans, it still allows us to kill them during that recovery cycle."

Which also explained the irrational fear that Karen had felt from her kidnapper as she saw him.

Fear that slowly creeped back into her skull.

"Oh, wait… I didn't even yet explain what mana is."

The sound of the slammed front door brought the topic to a premature end and spared her from the memories that threatened to return to her.

Just to drive away the last pieces of those moments took Karen herself some more of the delicious chocolate. Each bite anchoring her in the now.

It must have been Sophie that entered the house, since Jacob had to attend the training session.

Hopefully, the annoying girl wouldn't choose to be another thorn in her side.