August Intruder- Chapter 216- Business Days (Patreon)

The first thing he did after returning to the United States was help with the Hunter program. Due to certain arguments and uncertainties, the Hunter program was not yet a done deal. The plan, from what he knew in the United States, was the government’s need to establish a Hunter Association that would govern the establish the Hunters in the country. There was to be no privatization of the association within the first few years, ten, if he was remembering correctly. That was probably where the real disagreements started.

Delvers were once an establishment controlled solely by the government in countries around the world. History told everybody that it was that way until it was privatized. Now, those companies running the Delving world wanted to be a part of the Hunter’s world too.

All in all, Callum found it hilarious. It did not concern him how the world wanted to establish the Hunter association. All he cared about was that the monsters now roaming the world and making a home for themselves in it be prevented from doing exactly that.

That said, it was the reason he had arrived in Tatelat a few days too late to see his—hopefully—soon to be protégé.

He stood outside the medical building with his cell phone in his ear and a slight frown on his face, staring at the black and white spots of the building. He had always found the polka dotted design of the school to be interesting in a way. It wasn’t necessarily beautiful but there was some artistry to it.

And it definitely stood out from every other school.

Callum let out a tired sigh as the person on the other end concluded what they were telling him.

“So what you’re saying,” he clarified. “Is that unless I am a family member or a classmate or I have been expressly requested by the patient, I am not allowed visiting rights?”

“Yes, Mr. Callum.” Mrs. Talwort sounded like she would rather be doing something else. “So, if you want to see the patient, you will have to wait until working hours to put in a request.”

“And what happens after I put in the request?”

Callum paused, losing track of the woman’s response for a moment. Something had shifted, changed. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. A frown creased his lips as he turned around. He sniffed the air, sniffed it again. His eyes narrowed as he realized what was happening. He was smelling everything very well.

Looking down at his chest, he placed a hand on it and took in a very deep breath. He let it out easily. The pain in his lungs was gone. He had no punctured lung. He jumped on the spot. His knees felt like that of a healthy and athletic teenager.

He wasn’t feeling any pain.

“How?” he muttered to himself.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Mrs. Talwort replied.

Callum was already shaking his head as he turned, trying to figure out what was really happening. Someone was taking his pain away.

[You have used Oath skill Don’t Cry Alone]

[Don’t Cry Alone] was an Oath skill that allowed him to sense the direction of pain, where it was coming from. He used it to find those wounded, tracing the pain he was already receiving. The moment the skill activated, the world lit up in colors, yellow, blue and red. Each color was levels of pain. He watched it move through the air like scents in an animated show. He turned, awe loosening his jaw.

“Impossible,” he muttered staring at the colors.

“You are leaving me slightly confused, Mr. Callum,” Mrs. Talwort said, not sounding the least bit confused.

“My apologies,” he replied, paying her only half his attention, eyes still watching the colors. “So, even as his benefactor I must follow these protocols?”

“Yes, Mr. Callum,” she answered. “Even the student’s classmates have to submit a visitation request that must be approved by the student.”

Callum watched the flow of all the colors, turning to follow them. “Wouldn’t that somehow hinder a sense of comradery?” he asked absently, not even paying attention to what he was saying. “Wouldn’t it defeat that purpose?”

“For all our superiority and age,” Mrs. Talwort said, “we are still a school in charge of teenagers. And teenagers aren’t the nicest people. We do not want people that our patients don’t trust coming to visit them willy-nilly. In an event where a student is bullied into hospitalization, we certainly do not want to bully we do not yet know about coming to find them. Is my explanation to your liking?”

Callum nodded absently. “Acceptable. That is good to know.”

He hung up the call as he stared at the final destination of all the pain. It was impossible. It had to be.

Right?

Then again, if it could happen to him, what made this impossible. His eyes settled on a floor in the medical building. All the pain flowed straight into that room.

It can’t be him? He watched the building, thinking of the boy he sponsored, the boy who had for a moment taken his pain away. Can it?

This level of pain absorption was not as high as his own. But he was the literal Oath of Pain. As much as the pain tried to kill him, he knew that it powered him. He knew pain, so surviving pain was easy. But whoever was doing this was doing it on a large scale.

Callum opened the door and walked in, his steps quick. He didn’t even know when he had started moving.

A nurse greeted him, telling him something about how he was not supposed to be here after hours. Callum couldn’t bring himself to care. Ignoring her, his feet picked up the pace and he found himself running up the stairs, hurrying as if to a fallen comrade. The red whisps of pain showed severe pain, the kind one got from losing a limb. There were four streaks of red, very deep red.

The boy would be going through a lot absorbing all that pain.

Callum hurried, taking the stairs two at a time, sometimes five at a time.

When he got to the floor, he saw the nurse sitting at the reception desk. The woman was sleeping. That was good. He would not have to explain himself. A yellow whisp of pain flowed from the man into the room.

Callum walked up to the door and opened it carefully. He walked inside without alerting the nurse and stared at the person responsible for it all.

Melmarc Lockwood, the child of sponsor, lay there in his hospital bed, groaning and tossing and turning. All the colors channeled towards him but not into him. For some reason they just disappeared when they got within a foot of him, as if they were being absorbed into the air. Still, something felt off about it.

Doesn’t matter, Callum thought, rushing straight to the boy’s side.

He hesitated when he got there, staring down at the boy’s exposed torso. Just like the boy, his brother in the bed next to him was sleeping without his shirt on. They weren’t even using a blanket or anything. Yes, they were Gifted, but with how cold the room was, courtesy of the air conditioning, being able to ignore the cold so casually was the purview of S-ranks with things like high endurance.

Focus, Cal, he told himself, shaking the observation.

He took his place next to Melmarc, sitting on the edge of the bed, and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Pity flickered through him at the gash he placed his hand on. He had heard that the boy had come out of the event with the sudden appearance of portals in a terrible state, but he hadn’t known just how bad it was.

Now he’s taking on everyone’s pain.

It doubled Callum’s determination to make a powerful Delver out of him. He would teach him every single trick he had learnt to deal with the pain he had to live with.

[You have used Oath skill Sharing Is Caring]

The colors shifted, realigning their destination. Tears stung the back of his eyes and Callum realized that for a moment the pain of heartbreak had left him, that he no longer mourned a father he did not know. He realized that Melmarc Lockwood hadn’t taken just his physical pain away, he had taken his emotional pain, too. He had taken everything—all of it.

“You will be great, kid,” he muttered with a smile as his pain slowly returned. “And if the world tries to stop you, I’ll stop it.”

He smiled down at Melmarc as he took the world’s pain away, adding the boy’s own to it. A tear spilled from his eyes as something tore a hole in his shoulder. He ignored it, knowing that it was nothing but pain, Melmarc Lockwoood’s pain.

Then it drove a deep cut into his forearm. Callum almost bulked under the weight of the sensation. His eyes fastened on Melmarc. How was the boy sleeping comfortably with all that pain. His eyes roamed all over him. The boy was not hooked up to any drip. There was likely no morphine to dull his pain either.

What the hell was going on? Why did they not—

Callum’s heartbeat very loudly, as if it had every intention of stopping. He gasped in pain, seeking air.

What is—

His mind did not finish the question when the world buckled around him. He got up. It was all he could do not to fall down. Still, he staggered, catching himself every so slightly. Then his world went blank and he dropped to his knee.

Don’t! he commanded himself, knowing what was coming. You are Pain.

For all his command and years of experience, he couldn’t. It was just too much. Unable to stop himself, his mouth fell open and he screamed. He let all the pain out, weeping as sound left him, as his body fought for relief.

Then his pain was gone once more, taken away from him.

Only then did he realize that he had closed his eyes. His pain returned slowly, this time, it was the level of pain he was accustomed to, normal pain. Melmarc’s pain was gone from him. He looked up and watched a mountain of a boy stand before him, looking down at him with confusion and compassion in his eyes. A larger boy came to stand next to him, but Callum could not bring himself to focus on the other boy.

“Who are you?” Melmarc Lockwood asked.

How? Callum questioned himself. To take the pain of the world around him was no skill he knew of. He had searched the world as far and wide as his authority as an Oath could reach. It was what had drawn him to Melmarc, considered him a potential successor.

But this? This was something else.

Not only had the boy taken the pain of the world and taken the pain of the Oath of pain. Now, he was performing another impossible feat of pain. He was withholding his pain from Callum.

It was impossible. Humans could not achieve such a feat.

Callum opened his mouth and answered the boy. “What are you?”

The second boy moved closer to Melmarc. “You think he’s some kind of pervert?”

Callum blinked in confusion just as Melmarc rolled his eyes in exasperation, proving that the boy next to him was only joking.

How could they be joking right now? Did they not understand the gravity of what had just happened?

The door opened behind Callum and Melmarc raised a hand to stave off something. Callum realized suddenly that he was still on his knees and got up quickly.

“Did you have one of your episodes again, Marc?” a male voice asked.

Callum put a few things together and guessed it was the male nurse he’d seen sleeping at the door. Still, his attention latched on to something else.

One of your episodes… again.

Melmarc had been going through this frequently enough for the nurse to be aware of it? How bad had it been?

“I’m fine, Drew, thank you,” Melmarc answered.

Only then did the nurse, Drew, turn his attention to Callum. Callum looked at him, and the three nurses outside the door. At first he wondered if it was his scream that had brought them here, then he saw one of the nurses that had tried to talk to him when he’d entered the building and figured at least one of them was only there because they had chased him up the stairs.

“And you are?” Drew asked. He had the look of a man ready to call security while being security.

He was a little larger than Callum, but Callum would not call him a large man. A fight between them if they were both normal men would go either way. But a fight with an Oath, Pain would kill him without lifting a finger.

Melmarc took a single step, somehow seeming to stand between Callum and the nurses.

“It’s fine, Drew,” he said amiably. “He’s a friend.”

“Yeah.” The other boy sounded fun but cocky. “The man’s with us. He’s got a VIP pass.”

Callum’s gaze moved to the other boy for a moment. He had been very quick to back Melmarc’s play, and he had done it so seamlessly.

“My brother just had one of his episodes,” the boy continued. “But, as we can all see, he’s doing alright,” he looked at his brother and added with a grin: “For now.”

Callum watched the tension wash out of all the nurses’ shoulders for a moment. At least they no longer saw him as a threat. It almost made him laugh. They had no idea just how much danger they would’ve been in if he was an actual threat. But that was not why he was here.

“Be that as it may,” Drew began, “visiting hours are over and he’s not supposed to be here.”

Melmarc turned and looked at Callum. He shrugged as if to say that rules were rules and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Callum pulled out his phone and held up a finger. “One moment.”

He dialed the vice principal’s number and put it on loudspeaker for everyone to hear. They waited in confusion while it rang for a little too long. Just when he thought the man would not answer the call, he did.

“Mr. Callum,” the man’s voice came through.

Judging by how attentive the nurses currently were, they recognized his voice.

“Good morning,” Callum greeted.

“While 2a.m is in fact morning, I would say it is too early to be greeting me good morning, wouldn’t you say so?”

Callum held back a smile. “My apologies. I just wanted to inform you that a bitt of an issue came up that has led me to currently find myself in the room of Melmarc Lockwood.”

“Mr. Cal—”

“And,” Callum continued quickly, interrupting him, “I understand the rules and regulations and would just like to say that while I am here, it would not be a bad idea to ask if the boy is alright with my presence just confirm if he is willing to afford me visitation rights.” He paused, hoping to word his next statement correctly. “I merely wish to avoid the embarrassment of being escorted out of the hospital… if you know what I mean?”

The vice principal sighed. The man knew exactly what he meant. Someone of his status being escorted out of the hospital was embarrassing. And while there were no cameras or the sort, it would still be something that he would not like. High value people understood the plights of high value people.

“Can Mr. Lockwood hear me?” the vice principal asked.

Callum nodded, moving the phone closer to Melmarc. “He can.”

“Mr. Lockwood,” the vice principal said.

“Yes, sir,” Melmarc answered quickly.

“The man standing before you is the Delver who sponsored your scholarship with us,” the vice principal informed him. “Are you okay with the request he has made? Do you feel safe with his presence there?”

Callum held his breath. Melmarc was the only thing standing between him and having to debase himself to being treated like some common man, even though he had found himself in this predicament from a wish to do good.

Melmarc looked at him. Callum wanted to say that he saw contemplation in the boy’s eyes but he did not. There was just something about it that was flat and controlled. It was as if the boy could just as easily choke the life out of him or hug him very dearly and he wouldn’t be able to tell. For some reason, it was a familiar gaze. It was as if he had seen eyes like that before. Eyes that hid and confused pain, eyes that smothered the world’s chaos just so that it would not succumb to it, or perhaps because it had already succumbed to it.

“I’m alright with it, sir,” Melmarc said, and the tension in the room snapped like string pulled beyond its capacity.

“Alright, Mr. Lockwood,” the vice principal said. “That will be all. And my deepest apologies for interrupting your sleep. Do have a nice rest of your morning.”

Callum held the phone up to the nurse. The action interpreted itself and the other nurses started to leave. The nurse in charge of Melmarc didn’t move, though.

“Good day, Mr. Callum,” the vice principal said, then hung up the call.

The nurse backed away from the room very slowly, as if waiting for Melmarc to object. When Melmarc did not, he closed the door and returned to his place.

Callum slipped the phone back into his pocket and returned his attention to the boys. The room was bathed in darkness. The only temporary light had come from the open doors that were now shut.

His awareness of the darkness must’ve shown somehow because the other boy reached for a remote on his bed and pressed it, bringing a section of the lights in the room on.

“Hi,” he said, holding his hand out for a handshake with a smile. “I’m Ark Lockwood.”

Again, Callum was hit with a wave, as if he was supposed to know the name. He kept the frown from his face as he tried to remember where he had heard it.

He shook Ark’s hand. “Hi. Your name sounds familiar. Have we met before?”

“Yep.” Ark nodded. He seemed like a very informal boy. “Yep. We met at my admission interview with the therapists. Also,” he hooked a thumb at Melmarc, “I’m his brother. Seeing as you paid for his tuition, the surname probably rings a bell.”

That made sense. Callum was sure it wasn’t what was disturbing him, but it did make sense.

“I’m Callum,” he said simply, releasing the boy’s hand.

“So,” Melmarc said very slowly, “Mr. Callum?”

Callum shook his head. “Just Callum is fine.”

“No surname?” Ark asked with a grin. “Just Callum? Or is Just the first name and Callum the surname?”

Callum remembered the boy now. He had been cocky during his interview, carrying some level of gumption. Callum had not disliked it then because he had been the one intruding on the interview. Even if he was intruding right now, he couldn’t say he liked it now.

Still… he was the one…

Callum’s brows furrowed. What the hell?

What was wrong with the brothers? He couldn’t feel any pain from either of them. It was as if they were both locked away from him. Was Melmarc withholding his brother’s pain too?

“I am so sorry for barging in unannounced,” he began, still trying to wrap his mind around the impossibility of the children.

“Your barging is forgiven,” Ark said simply. “On behalf of my baby brother and I.”

Callum looked at Melmarc and found the boy nodding in agreement.

“I’m so glad we could clear up the misunderstanding,” Callum said happily. “If it’s not too much to ask, would it be okay to have a word, Mr. Lockwood.”

“Marc is fine,” Melmarc said.

Callum nodded. “Marc.”

The question of who he was that Melmarc had asked had been answered by the vice principal. But as rude as the question of what Melmarc was turned out to be, it still hadn’t been answered.

Ark made a show of checking his wrist even though he wasn’t wearing a wristwatch. He did it twice, and Callum got the message but ignored him.

“May we have a word, Marc?” he asked.

With an eyeroll, Ark walked away, clearly unwilling to be a part of the conversation. The tired look on Melmarc’s face said that he was not surprised by his brother’s action.

“I’m really sorry to intrude,” Callum continued. “I just want to start by asking how your health is. I cannot begin to imagine what you would’ve gone through. If there is—”

“Hey, Callum.”

Callum paused at Ark’s voice. There was something respectful, jovial, yet very disrespectful about how the boy had spoken just now. Closing his eyes, Callum took a calming breath before turning to answer the boy. He caught a glimpse of Melmarc hanging his head for a moment.

He understood why when he looked at Ark.

“Since we aren’t being subtle about anything or reading hints,” Ark said, holding the door open. “Here’s the door. My brother will see you in three to five business days.”

Callum blinked.

Ark gave him a friendly smile that barely concealed his annoyance at Callum’s continued presence.

Callum looked at Melmarc.

“I’m really sorry,” Melmarc said, apologetic. “My brother gets cranky sometimes.”

“I’m not sure how to react to this,” Callum said, meaning it.

Melmarc nodded in understanding. “That is why I have apologized. He can be a bit too straightforward sometimes.”

“That is—”

“It was nice of you to stop by,” Melmarc continued as if he had not finished, “but as my brother has said, we will see you in three to—”

“Five to ten business days,” Ark corrected, interrupting him.

Melmarc winced as if he was truly sorry. “I am so very sorry, sir. I assure you that we mean no offence—”

“I mean,” Ark interrupted again, “I mean a little offence.”

Melmarc sighed. “Ark.”

“Yes, brother.”

“Shut up a little.”

Ark rolled his eyes but said nothing. Only then did Melmarc return his attention to Callum.

“Again, I am truly sorry,” he said. “But we actually have things we need to go through, and while I understand your official importance as my benefactor, we wish to offer no special treatment to anyone that is not family. Again, I am truly sorry about this, but can you come back during visiting hours in five to ten business days?”

Callum blinked. The boy was greatly professional, which rubbed him the wrongest way, but it was better than his brother. Still…

Unsure of anything right now, Callum’s feet carried him out of the room. He stood, blinking in confusion as the door was closed behind him.

The nurse looked at him, studied his face, then laughed a little.

“What just happened?” Callum muttered, speaking more to himself.

“The Lockwood brothers,” the nurse, Drew, said with a chuckle. “They’ll do that to you.”

Callum looked back at the door, then at the nurse. He pointed at the room. “That is normal?”

“Nope.” Drew returned to his computer. “That is Lockwood.”

Callum blinked again. Five to ten business days.

He breathed in, then let it out.

Did he just find himself having to make an appointment to see some kids?

Wow.