The Music of the Mind Ch. 07

I crossed around the dance floor and headed up the hallway to the stairs, her note growing louder. I passed the hall to the bathrooms, and turned almost like a sleepwalker down the hall, following the sound of her. I picked up speed as I moved down this empty hall past both bathrooms to a door marked private. I could feel her, her pain was enormous, her violation, her suffering.

I threw my shoulder to the door without even breaking my stride. The cheap wood splintered and the door flew open. A lavishly decorated office met my eyes. A huge wooden desk, expensive chairs, and a leather couch. On the floor, in the middle of the room a man had her pinned to the floor. His hand was over her mouth and he had a look of feral triumph on his face as his hips rose and fell between her legs.

Rage burned through me. White hot blinding rage. I reached out and snatched his note to me. "GET OFF HER RIGHT NOW!" I wasn't gentle, I used no care. I shouted the command into his mind through the bullhorn of my rage. He stood slowly up and the girl simply curled up into a ball sobbing as his hand came away from her mouth. His cock stood out of his fly, enormous and covered in blood from his abuse of her. "SIT DOWN AND DON'T MOVE." I shouted into his mind. He stumbled back, and sat heavily in a chair.

I walked slowly across the room to the girl. Her skirt had been pushed up around her waist, and her panties lay torn off beside her. Her thighs were covered with blood, and she lay curled in a fetal position sobbing uncontrollably. I knelt down beside her and pulled her note to my mind.

As I reached out to lay a hand gently on her shoulder I reached into her mind and plucked large gentle notes to wash over the tumult of sounds ringing in her. "It's okay, he can't hurt you, you're going to be okay, it is not your fault, you're going to be okay." As the notes rang through her head I gently helped her up onto the couch, and covered her with a blanket that lay there. She cringed away from me even as I covered her. I could feel it in her mind, she didn't need a man, she needed a woman. I reached out to my friend's minds, and into all of them I said, "Go to the bathroom now."

I pulled back, and searched till I found the bouncer at the front door and pulled his note into my mind. "Go to the office now." I spoke to his mind. I had hardly pulled back before he appeared in the door. He looked at his boss now sitting with his blood covered limp cock hanging from his pants, and the crying girl on the couch and his face hardened at once.

"Call the police, this man has raped this woman." He nodded once and disappeared down the hall. I felt the girls draw near. I spoke into there minds, "Why is the door busted, go look."

Tuyen's face appeared in the door and took in the scene as the other girls appeared behind her. "Oh my god."

"Tuyen, all of you come help me." The other girls faces appeared behind Tuyen, and their faces took in the man and the scene. Then they slowly turned to me by the hysterical girl, trying in vain to calm her. My words seemed to take a moment to register, then they were all there, surrounding her with warmth and comfort radiating from them. Then I heard it. The man who had raped her laughed.

I stood and looked at him. He was zipping up his fly apparently recovering from my command, and he was smiling. Another chuckle escaped his lips, and he stood up and walked to sit behind his desk. The anger came back. Worse then before. All of me was filled with a rage I have never known. As he sat down he opened his mouth to speak, but the words never came. I wrenched his note to me.

He was pleased with her suffering. He got off on it. "You like the suffering?" I thought.

Then on autopilot, driven with rage and frustration, I gently pulled the girl's mind to me, and I fed all of the discordant notes from her into his mind. I let her emotions flow through me like a conduit. The man sat straight up in his chair and clutched his head. He began to tremble. I let all the pain he had caused pour into him. Nothing shielded him. My rage drove me on for how long I don't know. Then at last he sat slumped in his chair sobbing, muttering over and over to himself. "I'm sorry, oh god I'm sorry. . ." and the rage in me burned away.

His mind was a wreck. I could feel the damage, the devastation I had wrought upon him. It made me sick. I pushed his note away, and still he sat repeating his mantra.

I turned back to the girl, and my friends were trying to comfort her, to help her but she was almost in a trance. I reached in and tried with all my might to comfort her, to ease the pain of the moment, to allow herself to be comforted. As if a damn broke within her then, she suddenly clung to Suzan and held on for dear life. Her mind began to calm then, slowly as I helped it along. Suzan was speaking to her.

"It's okay honey, I'm a doctor, your going to be okay I promise you." The girl just nodded into her shoulder. Ellen on one side of her stroked her back, and Tuyen on the other stroked her hair. Jill stood and walked to me.

"Mike, did you . . . did you stop him?" she asked glancing at the now sobbing man. I nodded, and the furry must have still been in my face for she laid a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay Mike." She said, her voice an octave higher then normal.

"I should've been quicker." I said, almost in a daze.

"Quicker? How could you have been? Did you hear them when you went to the bathroom?" Oh yeah I thought, how did I know. I nodded.

At that moment two policemen walked into the room, one man, one woman. The woman headed over to the girl on the couch, while I motioned to the male officer.

"What happened?" He asked, all business.

"I heard a struggle, when I busted open the door that man was raping this girl. He had her pinned down and his hand over her mouth trying to keep her quiet." I gestured over my shoulder to the man as I spoke. I could see the cop's eyes look over my shoulder, and then I saw them go wide.

The next moments happened in slow motion for me. The officer pushed me to the side and down as he began to draw his gun. As I fell I turned to look and saw the man behind the desk raising a pistol from the top drawer. The officer was yelling a warning even as the man's gun came up. I could see that the officer would never get his gun up in time, that the rapist would have the drop on him, on us all. I tried to reach for his note, to tell him to stop. It raced toward me and in that moment I knew I was too late. His gun came up and instead of stopping to aim at me, or the Officer it continued in its arc up to the man's head. I don't remember hearing the shot, I just remember the cloud of red mist that exploded from the man's head, and the sound of his hand and the gun striking the top of the desk as his arm fell limp. His note, which had been almost in my mind, had simply vanished, leaving a vacuum of silence in its wake. His body slumped forward onto his desk, then rolled slowly off the side and disappeared behind it.

It was then I heard the screaming and time began to move again. The girl sat holding Suzan with her eyes shut, and her mouth open in a continuous scream. I realized I was sitting on the floor where the officer had pushed me. He stood slowly lowering his gun, before he broke into a flurry of movement talking on his radio, and moving to check on the man behind the desk.

On auto pilot I reached out to the woman, and calmed her mind. She stopped screaming, and I was surprised to see the grief in her mind was starting to take on a pattern. I wondered if I would ever be able to help her. Would I be able to help anyone? There was a man behind that desk, and he was dead because of me. I waited to feel the genie in my mind rip the gift from me, but the girl's mind still sung in me, and I continued to stroke her to calmness.

The next few hours are a blur to me. More police arrived, and soon I found myself standing on the sidewalk with my four friends after giving our statements. It was very late by then, and the cold fall air didn't seem to do anything to help me snap out of the daze I was in. My friends were all looking at me, and I could feel their concern without even reading their minds.

"That poor girl." Tuyen said looking at the ground.

"Meg." Suzan said.

Tuyen looked up, "What?"

"Her name is Meg, she told me." Suzan said looking a little uncomfortable.

"Poor Meg." Tuyen said looking down again.

"Come on guys, lets go." Jill said, starting back to her place. I followed but my mind was elsewhere. "Her name was Meg." I thought. She wasn't the girl, or the victim, she was Meg. She had a life, a future, and now what would happen to her. Had I helped her or made it worse? Was I a murderer?

The walk back was a blur, and I barely remember saying goodnight as I walked into my silent apartment and locked the door. I stripped as I walked to the bathroom, before turning on a hot shower. The water was scalding when I stepped under it, but I let it burn away the shame I felt, the pain. I had killed that man. I had used the gift to kill that man.

"NO." I felt no surprise at the genie's voice ringing through my mind.

"Go away." I thought. There was a flash of light then, and suddenly I was in my bed. The covers were warm, and I was dressed in my pajamas. They smelled like Cynthia.

"We will not discuss this tonight human. You need rest. In the morning, then we will talk."

I tried to protest, but sleep descended on me then like a settling fog, and when I slept that night, I did not dream.