UnWholly (Unwind Dystology 2)

“You have no right to do this!” the mother yells.

“The truth!” demands Connor.

Then the father sighs, and says, “Yes, what he says is true. I’m sorry, Noah.”

Now Noah casts a furious gaze at his parents, and then turns to Connor. Connor can see tears building behind his fury.

“Are you going to hurt them?” Noah asks.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

Connor shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s not what we do. Someday you’ll be grateful we didn’t.”

Noah looks down. “No, I won’t.”

Trace, no longer having to hold Noah quite so tightly, escorts him back to his bedroom so Noah can shove a few things into his backpack; what little he can salvage from fifteen years of life.

While the rest of Connor’s team checks out the home, making sure there is no one else present to call the police or otherwise foul up the mission, Connor hands a pad and pen to the father.

“What’s this for?”

“You’re going to write down the reasons you decided to have your son unwound.”

“What’s the point?”

“We know you have reasons for doing it,” Connor says. “I’m sure they’re stupid; I’m sure they’re selfish and seriously screwed up, but they’re still reasons. If nothing else, it’ll help us to know what kind of pain in the ass Noah is, so maybe we can deal with him better than you did.”

“You keep saying we,” the mother asks. “Who’s we?”

“We’re the ones saving your son’s freaking life. That’s all you need to know.”

The father looks down pitifully at the little notepad.

“Write,” Connor says. Neither he nor the mother look up as Trace escorts Noah out of the house into the waiting car.

“I hate you!” he yells back at them. “I never meant it when I said it before, but now I do.”

Connor can tell it cuts deeply into these parents, but not as deeply as the scalpels of a Chop Shop.

“Someday, if he makes it to seventeen, he may give you a shot at forgiveness. If he does, don’t throw that chance away.”

They say nothing to that. The father just looks down at the pad, scribbling and scribbling. When he’s done, he hands it back to Connor. Rather than a manifesto, the man has written down his excuses in efficient bullet points. Connor reads them out loud, as if each one was an accusation against them.

“ ‘Disrespect and disobedience.’ ”

Those are always the first reasons. If every parent unwound a kid due to disrespect, the human race would go extinct in a single generation.

“ ‘Destructive behavior to self and property.’ ”

Connor knows a bit about self-destructive behavior and did his share of vandalizing in times of frustration. But most kids get over that, don’t they? It never ceases to amaze him how everything—even unwinding—is geared toward the quick fix. Connor looks at the third bullet point and has to laugh.

“ ‘Lack of personal hygiene’?”

The woman throws her husband an angry gaze for writing that.

“Ooh, I like this one!” Connor says. “ ‘Diminished prospects for future.’ Sounds like a stock report!”