Everything he’s saying makes sense. In his rational, warm voice, it sounds like the end of the discussion. But I’ve lived with my father for seventeen years. I’m his son. He can be as much of a closed book as anyone—other than my mom—but I can still tell when he’s hiding something.

“Is that all it’s about?” I push. “Hiding information from bad people?”

“What else would it be about?” he asks, and for a brief moment my dad is gone, replaced by some cold-blooded scientist examining a specimen.

“Well, like you said, there’s things we don’t know about the human brain,” I say, thinking of Caitlin and debate and throwing someone’s words back in their face to make a counterargument, “so isn’t it possible that there are some dangers in the brain itself?”

“Many would argue that there’s nothing more dangerous than the human brain.” My dad nods and I just barely resist rolling my eyes.

“Spare me the philosopher platitudes,” I groan. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” he says innocently. “What do you mean, boychik?”

Part of me wishes I could get the cold scientist back—I might get more out of him than my constantly concerned dad.

“Just…” I start, frustrated. He’s better at this than me. He knows how to argue and counterargue and keep me distracted, and all I want to know is if my boyfriend is in danger because his therapist has sketchy clients, and I have no idea how to get that information.

“Is there a chance that there are people out there with brains that … well, that are dangerous?” I ask. “And not just in the ‘people have the capacity for evil’ kind of way,” I continue, “but in, like, their brains are actually, physically dangerous.”

My dad leans back against the counter and fixes me with an inscrutable look. Oh god, he’s onto me. But how could he possibly be onto me?

“Physically dangerous in what way?” he asks lightly.

“Like, okay,” I say, hating how imperfect my speech is in this moment, “like, a mind reader would be an extreme example. And obviously that stuff isn’t real—”

My dad has tensed just slightly, and both my arms are immediately covered in goose bumps.

“But if we don’t know a lot about the human brain,” I continue, ignoring all the unspoken things that are hanging between us, “then it’s possible that the human brain can do, like, inhuman things, right?”

He stares at me, head tilted, before putting his mug down and crossing his arms.

“It’s certainly possible,” he says to the ground, his voice still in that casual “this is all hypothetical” register that never struck me as odd before now, “but, while there’s been plenty of speculation, nothing has ever been proven.”