Victor's eyes drift to the gun and magazine on the kitchen table, then back to me. He doesn't comment on it. Just observes it, like he's noting the color of the walls.

  "Do you hunt?" he asks me.

  "No," I say, thrown by the change in topic. "Do you?" I ask, trying to be polite.

  "I used to," he says. "Not anymore. Too much paperwork. Too many rules. Used to be you could just go into the woods and shoot a deer."

  Dad shifts in his chair. "There were always regulations, Victor."

  Victor doesn't acknowledge this correction. "You were good at math," he says to Mom, who stiffens beside me. "Better than Camilla. Got that from my side." He turns back to me. "You said you're not good at math?"

  "Pre-calc is kicking my ass," I reply.

  "Not from my side then," he says, as if checking off items on a list. "What are you good at?"

  I glance at Mom, who looks like she's silently counting to ten. "English. History. Science is okay."

  "Sports?"

  "I played soccer for a while. They don't let you play with superpowers, though."

  He nods, processing this information like it's data for a spreadsheet. "That makes sense. Your reflexes are good?"

  "I guess?" This feels like the weirdest interview ever.

  "Are we done here?" My Mom snaps, a little bit.

  Victor looks at her for a long moment, then back at me. "You think a lot before you answer," he says. "Except when you don't. Then you just act."

  I'm not sure if this is a criticism or an observation. "Yeah, so?"

  "Same as me," he says. "Same as my father."

  My Mom's feet tremble, like she's fighting her impulse to haul off and punch him and her impulse to run away.

  "They have a name for it now," Victor says. "Heard it on the radio. Can't remember."

  "What are you talking about?" Dad asks, his hand tightening on his cane.

  Victor ignores him, still looking at me. "You fidget when you're bored. Like right now." He gestures to my leg, which I realize is bouncing slightly. I consciously stop it. "I used to do that. Got beat for it."

  I stare at him. Rachel - sorry, Mom grunts. "Dad," she hisses.

  "Did you..." I start, then stop, not sure how to phrase it. What is this interrogation?

  "Did I beat Rachel?" Victor finishes for me, his voice still completely flat. "No, but I did hit her. When she deliberately disobeyed. Not as much as my father beat me. And never when she made a mistake. You never need more than one blow. My dad wasn't good at violence."

  "Liar," Mom seethes, although I'm not sure which part she's objecting to. Wait, what am I talking about?

  "That's not something to be proud of," Dad says, his voice sharp.

  "I don't do proud," Victor whips back, quiet and stiff, before turning back to me. "I--"

  I act before I think. My arm whips out like a snake, with a shooting sort of one inch punch to his sternum. Before I can realize what I'm doing, and unwind my fist, he's brought his arm up - not fast enough to kung fu grab my jab out of the air, but fast enough to catch it on his forearm instead of on his torso. He's not smiling. But he is looking at me. No, through me.

  Then, he nods. Before he says anything, my Mom steps up behind me, looming around me like a jacket. Then, she shoves me out of the way - I almost, but not quite, trip on the couch, and she gets right into Victor's face, nose to nose.

  "This conversation is over. Leave. Don't come back," she growls, baring her teeth like a dog.

  Victor doesn't look at her. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, which he sets on the coffee table. "Residence Inn. I'm there for a week." He finally looks up at Mom. "You ever get her tested for being on the spectrum? Autism? That's the word. Runs in families. Maybe for Antisocial, too. Could be valuable information for the two of you."

  Mom's face goes from pale to red so fast I'm worried she might have a stroke. "How dare you--"

  "Not an insult," Victor says, standing, cutting her off before she can start yelling. Her mouth snaps shut like a bear trap. "Just an observation. Read about it at a truck stop. They had magazines." He looks at me again. "My cats are in the truck if you want to see them. Box likes being petted. Coal doesn't."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He moves toward the door with that same economical precision I noticed earlier. No wasted motion. "Thank you for letting me see her," he says to Mom, with what I think is genuine appreciation, though his face shows nothing. "I won't come to the house again without calling first."

  And then he's gone, the door closing behind him with a soft click.

  For a moment, nobody moves. Nobody speaks. I can hear the game show still playing on the TV, contestants cheering about winning a washing machine.

  Then Mom sinks back onto the couch, her whole body seeming to collapse in on itself. "Oh my G-d," she whispers, her hands trembling. "Oh my G-d."

  Dad moves to sit beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "He's gone, Rachel. It's okay."

  "It's not okay," Mom says, her voice shaking. "He shows up after sixteen years, says... says those things, and then just leaves? And Sam--" She turns to me suddenly. "You are not to see him again. Do you understand me? You are not to go to that hotel or anywhere near him."

  "Mom--"

  "No." Her voice hardens. "This isn't negotiable, Sam. You have no idea what he's capable of."

  "He seemed pretty calm to me," I say, though I'm still processing everything that just happened.

  "He's always calm," Mom says. "Even when he's..." She stops, swallows hard. "He doesn't get angry like normal people. He just... decides. Like flipping a switch."

  "Is he right?" I ask quietly. "About me being like him?"

  Mom's eyes widen. "No. Absolutely not. You are nothing like him, Sam."

  "But some of what he said--"

  "No." Mom's voice is firm. "Having some similar traits doesn't make you like him. You have empathy. You care about people. That's what matters."

  Dad squeezes Mom's shoulder. "I should have asked him to leave as soon as he showed up," he says. "I'm sorry, Rachel."

  "Why didn't you?" I ask, genuinely curious.

  Dad looks uncomfortable. "He was... different than I remember. Quieter. I don't know. I also wasn't really in a position to defend myself."

  "Really?" This is news to me.

  "It was a complete overreaction," Mom says. "David barely touched him, and Victor just... lashed out. No warning, no escalation. That's what he's like."

  "He didn't seem like that today," I point out.

  "He's older now," Dad says. "And he knew we were watching him. That's what Rachel means about him being calculating. He came here for a reason."

  "To see me," I say. "That's what he said."

  "And to assess you," Mom adds. "Like you're some kind of... specimen. Did you notice how he was checking off traits? Math skills, physical coordination, the way you think..."

  "The autism thing," I say, remembering his final comment.

  Mom makes a dismissive gesture. "That's ridiculous. You're nothing like him."

  "How do you know?" I ask, not confrontationally, just curious. "Have I ever been tested?"

  "Yes, actually," she replies, kind of a snippiness leaking into her voice that I know she doesn't mean but still hurts a little. "You have ADHD. It was pretty definitive. You might be autistic, and that's fine. But you're not a sociopath. He is."

  There's something in her voice, though - a defensiveness that makes me wonder if she's ever considered it. If she's been afraid to consider it because it might mean I inherited something from Victor.

  "If there's any, uh, lingering autism... It's probably from me and Moe. If I had to guess," Dad contributes, chuckling nervously. "But I really don't think you have ASPD. People with ASPD don't... you know, go out of their way to do vigilante work out of a sense of justice. I don't think Victor really has a sense of justice."

  I look at the piece of paper on the coffee table. From where I'm sitting, I can see it's a page torn from a small notebook, folded once. Beyond the room number and motel name, what else did he write? Or is it just that?

  "I want to know more about him," I say.

  Mom's face hardens. "No."

  "Not from him," I clarify, though that's not entirely true. "From you. You never talk about him. I don't even know his last name."

  "Blanc," Dad supplies, earning a sharp look from Mom. "Victor Blanc."

  "I don't want to talk about him," Mom says, standing. "I need... I need a minute." She walks quickly toward the kitchen, disappearing from view.

  Dad sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Give her some time, Sam. This was a lot for her."

  "What about for you?" I ask. "You were ready to shoot him if he tried anything." I gesture toward the kitchen table.

  Dad has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "Precaution. He has a history."

  "Of violence."

  "Yes."

  "Against Mom?"

  Dad hesitates. "It's not my place to share those details. That's your mother's story to tell, if she chooses to."

  I hear the refrigerator door open in the kitchen, then the distinctive sound of a wine bottle being uncorked. Can't blame her.

  "Did he seem different to you?" I ask Dad. "From what you expected?"

  Dad considers this. "Yes and no. The directness, the flat affect - that's how I remember him. But he seemed more... I don't know, self-aware? Last time I saw him, he was just this force of nature that everyone tiptoed around."

  "And now?"

  "Now he's... old. Older," Dad surmises.

  I look again at the folded paper on the coffee table. Residence Inn. P.O. box in Roanoke. Cats named Box and Coal.

  "I'm going to check on Mom," Dad says, standing with the help of his cane. "You okay?"

  "Yeah," I say automatically. "Just processing."

  Dad nods and follows Mom into the kitchen. I hear their low voices but can't make out the words. Probably for the best.

  I pick up the paper and unfold it. Inside, in precise, angular handwriting:

  Room 118. Residence Inn. 13th and Juniper ish. Until Sunday.

  That's it. No phone number, no "hope to see you," nothing personal at all. Just information, presented as neutrally as possible. Like everything else. Just salt and pepper.

  I fold the paper again and slip it into my pocket before Mom can come back and throw it away. Not because I'm planning to go see him, I tell myself. Just because... well, I'm not sure. Because it's a connection to a part of my family history I know almost nothing about. Because I'm curious. Because some of what he said about me hit uncomfortably close to home.

  From the kitchen, I hear Mom's voice rise slightly: "...absolutely forbidden from..." before dropping again.

  "You know that's going to just..." Dad's voice murmurs back in through between the cracks. "...extremely stubborn. You know this, Rachel."

  I already know what she's saying. Don't see him. Don't contact him. Pretend he doesn't exist, like we've been doing my whole life. And he's saying, that's not going to work, because you raised a stubborn idiot who has no self preservation instinct.

  Well, he's right about that.