I wandered through the red light district and encountered a slightly lifeless daytime in the area. There were relatively few people who dined in restaurants during the morning. It did not take long until I spotted JJ smoking in the street intersection where many strippers stand by. I find it awkward, and never in my dreams have I ever thought she'd be standing there. She was wearing padded jackets on top of her flower-printed hoodies and bizarre zebra leggings. Seriously, she's not qualified to be a stripper, not in that clown outfit of all things she could wear!
"Yo!" She waved her hands as soon as she threw the cigarette butt on the cold floor. "Welcome to my new crib, baby! Wanna go for a ride? Twenty bucks discount, how about that?"
"Snap out of it, JJ."
She led me through a narrow alley between club buildings and extremely crowded lodgings. Whenever we stepped through the floors and stairs, it felt like the wooden floor would break down. If not the gratings of the floor surface, the loud quarrels inside the tenants' apartment on random floors break out. The walls are thin, and there could be barely any privacy in these living quarters, but I doubt if it's pretty okay for the price they pay for each room.
"JJ, can you find another place?" I whispered as soon as we entered her small crib, just like she described earlier.
"Nah, this is fine. This place is an excellent spot to get information. I don't even need to ask--- people like to talk a lot here." She handed me a hot cup of coffee and took it away in a minute as she ascertained if it was okay for a pregnant person to drink coffee. "Are you sure it's okay?"
I took the cup and drank it shortly and waited until she gave me her report. She gave me her notebook, and it was an informal report. But the content was substantial enough. I read some of her doodles---
Name: Kaye Langdon
Age:19
Sex: Female, Recessive Alpha
-she dropped out of middle school and was sent to N psychiatric hospital shortly after her brother, age 11, disappeared in August of 1988.
-she was discharged in 1990 and got caught shoplifting a few months after. She returned in '91 to the hospital and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and kleptomania. She escaped the hospital in '92. And she got involved in small-time larcenies from time to time since then.
-She checked into St. Serena Hospitals as an outpatient in '94 and got better quite miraculously three months after. Also, her alcoholic father died that same year.
-Her father, Kolt Langdon, died in a hit-and-run incident.
-Kaye visits the sanitarium twice a month and now works as a cleaner sometimes, waitress for three months, and still mugging rich fools.
"She looks younger than 19," I said, and JJ told me that my perception of age was problematic.
"Did you notice something suspicious through the days you observed her?"
She opened another packet of instant coffee and made another coffee for herself. She then lifted her bed and gave me some pictures of some vandals on the walls. They were the same as what was drawn in the notebooks.
"She drew those in N psychiatric hospital. She always blabbed about Mr. Stickman during her time there. And her brother, I doubt he's one of the skeletons or those missing omega you're working on." She loudly sipped her coffee and complained that her tongue was burnt.
I dissected those assumptions and asked JJ, "Do you think she was like you?"
"I'd like to think that I'm not like her. But when I followed her, it was like looking at my reflections." JJ chortled and then asked me. "Do you really think she is involved with whoever did that exhibit?"
"I don't know," I honestly replied. "Her missing brother, was he killed by Kolt Langdon?"
"Hmm, that stickman did more, just like those witches."
JJ turned quiet after that. I seldom share about my mental adversaries, but at that time, I opened up about what had happened to me earlier. "That fuzzy monster, earlier, I saw four of them. They talked about something, but I couldn't discern what they said. Anyways, it took a lot of time before they disappeared."
"Four? Didn't you have like seven of them before?" She asked me and made me recall those days when I could not tell what a nightmare and reality were. "Yeah, you kept saying their mouths were big and loud."
"Did I?"
"Yeah, you stayed in the locked padded room, and they put you in so many tranquilizers because every time you wake up, you go wild like someone was chasing after you."
"I couldn't remember that."
"Really? You were full-blown crazy. Did you know that you were my reference when I was acting before? Thank you, by the way."
"Thanks for that life-changing gratitude."
After talking to JJ, she sent me to the train station and passed by a busier red-light district. The snow was melting, and the roads were slippery. She helped me a lot by preventing my fall, I received an ample amount of care from her, and I will be forever grateful for that.
"Just please, find some other place, can you?" I pleaded, but she simply laughed it off. She kindly waved her hands again while watching the train car as I was moving farther from the platforms.
The trains moved quickly, and soon I already found myself inside Dr. Mendez's laboratory. They presented the results from the red hyssop flower I gave them. It had the same empirical formula as pheromones, but since it prioritized amplifying the scent, it lacked one nitrogen atom that serves as the determiner for Alpha pheromones. The artificial pheromone contained in the flower had a longer life span, and it contained a higher number of carbon atoms than that of omega's pheromones. Therefore it is more closely similar to the structure of Alpha pheromones, but its scent is more likely based on Omega's pheromones.
Dennis was so talkative, explaining to me about it, and he begged me to get more of them from where I got them from. I felt too weird and ignored his silly request. In the meantime, they halted using the nightshade plant and focused on helping Dr. Mendez with his research first.
I dismissed Dennis's continuous question about where I got my supply by asking the question that has bothered me for so long, "Do you know how it was preserved before pressing?"
"Oh, that's actually quite simple. The water was removed, and it was rehydrated with whatever pheromone or fragrance chemical. I'm still not sure which part of the process, but it was immersed in alcohol." Khalid hugged his omega from behind and showed me their over-the-top public display of affection while explaining his answer.
I get it— they're a pair. But do they have to show it right in front of my face? Are they bragging about how they complete each other by doing the same job while Caesar and I have so many conflicts even though we were in the same cases?
"My hubby, do you think the artificial pheromone had chemical reactions with alcohol and lost some of its key features?" Dennis cutely asked. They looked at each other magnetically and immediately went to the whiteboard, trying to do maths that weren't mathing.
I was utterly disregarded inside the lab, so I went downstairs and looked for Dr. Mendez. However, like a jinx, I met Kaye Langdon in the waiting room instead. She was eating a lollipop, waiting for her hyperventilating mother to calm down inside the other room.
"Hi." I greeted her, and she said, "Hi!" too.
"What happened to your mother?" I asked.
She swung her feet alternately and cracked the candy first. She paid attention to me after she swallowed it. "Panic attack," she responded briefly.
"It must be hard for her." I expressed sympathy like some would do. But through the years of treatment, I knew from my therapists that to get their patients to talk, they establish common ground first. In this case, what we have in common is our illnesses. So I tried to talk about myself, "I also get a panic attack after waking up from a terrible dream. What triggered your mom?"
She looked at me and then fixedly stared at the door, "My dad."
I don't know what took over me, thinking just because I used to be a patient, I could be as effective as my psychiatrists were in terms of getting pieces of information from people like us. I mumble, "That stickman drawing, you drew it, right? Some are your younger brother, and the bigger one is your father, right?"
She took another lollipop and cracked them. "So, what are you getting into?"
She sounded annoyed, and I started to feel wrong about how I worded it. "Sorry, I thought it must have been hard for you to witness all that."
"Do I look like I'm in need of your pity?" She stood up and looked down at me. She squinted her eyes and totally meant I offended her so much, and my attempt to communicate with her was a big blunder.
"No. Of course, I don't." I hurried to amend that. "You see, I used to go to a mental hospital, I lost my friends, and I can't remember what happened to them. Every day, I feel punished and guilty, knowing I might have left them or let them suffer alone. I don't know where to find them. I can't remember anything that can help me find them. And I feel guilty about that. And I keep seeing those monsters in my dream. I mean, that monster's eyeballs sometimes pop out or drizzle down out of it. And I don't recognize who that monster is." I hate myself for using my misery to avoid offending this kid. But I still couldn't help but say, "You know, I just want to tell you that, whatever happened to your brother or your father, none of it should be your responsibility... after all, you're only a child, yourself."
"You did a background check on me and even understood what that stickman did to my brother when the police themselves had no clue about it." She leaned closer and whispered in my ear. "Don't you dare write about it. I'm doing great now, don't make it harder for me again."
I messed it up.
I left and took a train back home. I recalled how JJ smiled serenely when she sent me earlier and made me realize how she was similar to Kaye. They suffered a different nature of affliction--- Jillian faked insanity and got depressed, and Kaye was genuinely plagued with it. However, their similarity lies in how they treat the source of their fear by names or symbols. They might have thought they were liberated when their oppressors died, but how long can their coping mechanisms last? How long would it take to become free of the restraints those monsters chained them with? I thought about the drawings again and Jillian's adoptive siblings she left at that foster home. And maybe, just maybe, they must be slaves to their own conscience. After all, even bystanders can be complicit in crimes.