by C. L. Stone
Kota nodded slowly. “I’ll do that.”
We returned to the garage and Kota, Nathan, and I watched together as Victor and Mr. Buble got into the dark town car. We stayed together as Mr. Buble started his car and backed up into the road, to drive off through the neighborhood and out of view.
Quietly, Kota reached over, holding my hand.
Nathan had done the same, a stronger grip, on the opposite side.
I said nothing, only looking out into the neighborhood. My parents’ house was within view of the garage. It was a reminder of how much we’d been through, how far we’d come.
It was that moment that I realized our relationship, the special one I shared with Kota, Nathan, and the others on our team, was starting the transition. It was like we’d been warned about by others. Mr. Blackbourne had said we’d have to believe this can work and show we can stay together. Others would come. They would question us. The Academy… if Mr. Buble found out about us, what would happen?
Were we ready to talk to them about this?
“What should we do?” Nathan whispered, as if he could still hear us.
“We can’t let him know,” Kota said. “At this point, I’m not sure they’d graduate any of us if they found out.”
“They don’t judge us like that,” Nathan said. “It’s not what they do. I thought maybe we should tell him.”
“The Academy doesn’t judge people,” Kota said. “But it made it harder for Lily and Liam and their team to graduate. I’ve been talking to her. They delayed graduation until they are absolutely sure they could work together and not have problems as a team. I’d like for them to graduate us before letting them know. They can’t take it back after. We’re close… if we can just find that money…”
I breathed in deeply, letting the air fill my lungs and only releasing when they felt so expanded they’d burst. The school. The job. If they finished, how many favors did that earn them? Enough to graduate, it seemed. In one big job, they’d have recovered money and restored the school to normality, allowing those that came after to take our place to start from a clean slate and with funds to improve the school.
Had they lost too many favors to be able to graduate though? Circumstances had changed from the start of the year.
“Maybe things have changed since Lily and their team graduated,” Nathan said. “It’s been years.”
Kota shook his head. “I don’t know…”
“Maybe we should go talk to her.”
This seemed to shake Kota up. He nodded firmly before turning back toward the house, letting me go. “That’s exactly what we’re doing today.”
Nathan caught up to him, tugging at his elbow. “We need some people to stay here. Whatever he might find out, and whatever Lily says… maybe Mr. Buble is right. We need to go.”
It wasn’t like Kota to get so excited he forgot something as important as family safety. He paused just inside the door of the house, considering. “We’ve been putting off moving everyone, but he is right on that point. Your dad could come back, and they couldn’t really keep him away forever. Not from his own house. It’ll be harder to move you out if he gets back before it’s done.” He looked at me, the glint in his green eyes shifting. “Your parents… they could see you here at some point, call the cops when they wish to have you brought back. We’re still working with the lawyer about their divorce. They might have agreed to this for now, but let’s not take any chances. Out of sight, out of mind possibly…”
“What if Volto follows?” I asked.
“Volto’s already here. Moving might throw him off, or he might follow us, and at that point, we’d be leading him away from other people to focus on just us,” he said. He turned to the door inside the garage, opening it. “I hate feeling we don’t want Mr. Buble here. He’s one of us. He’s helping. I’m always grateful for help, especially for an outside point of view…”
He trailed off as he walked inside. Nathan turned to me, his blue eyes glinting a bit, a worried expression.
He was getting out, too. It was a big step. The way that Kota talked too, it was like he was already considering leaving as well. He had his mom and sister, but when it came to Volto, he might be right. It might be that moving some of us away, we’d lead him out to us and he wouldn’t be around to cause damage to families, people who didn’t know he was out there and could cause so much harm.
I could feel trepidation in my heart and in the way Nathan’s serious expression focused on me. He knew it, too.
Everything was about to change.
Modulation
(The act of changing from one key to another)
Victor
The inside of Mr. Buble’s car was so spotless, it reminded Victor of Mr. Blackbourne’s car. In fact, the two were remarkably similar in how meticulous they were, with how they dressed and spoke and moved.
But why did he feel more unsure of Mr. Buble? Was he just used to Mr. Blackbourne? With the way Mr. Buble was dressed, with how he spoke, and the movements he made, the precision was something Victor always felt motivated to mimic, but thought it’d be weird or too noticed so only tried to do so in subtle ways.
However, dressed in Luke’s clothes, he did feel different. The jeans were tight at his thighs, the material heavier. The T-shirt cotton was rough to his skin. He’d worn his usual black slacks and white collared shirt so much that now dressing this casually felt odd to him.
His clothes were not the same.
He’d left his parents.
Sang and Nathan and himself would be placed in a different house.
As much as he thought he’d been ready for change, he hadn’t really thought of after.
After he left.
Sure, he’d thought of ideas of what it’d be like, but now faced with the reality, it was hard to remember what he wanted as a result.
Trees blurred together as they passed them in the car on the road. The sky was overcast. Grim. Dreary. His mood mimicked this.
He was free. Shouldn’t he feel better?
He didn’t understand his feelings about it.
In the middle of downtown Summerville, an area Victor rarely visited, Mr. Buble pulled into the lot of a small library. Summerville Library, the sign out front said. The building was one story, with a brown tile roof, brown bricks, and was lined in the front by tall oak trees. There was a stone bench off of the sidewalk near the front. The bench had a planter next to it, empty, probably as it was winter.
There were a few cars in the lot as they pulled in.
“It’s Sunday,” Victor said. “They’re open?”
“For a few hours today,” Mr. Buble said. “We’re early for them to open, but I’m familiar with the head librarian. They’ll allow us to enter if we remain quiet and out of the way.”
Victor considered that now the others would have time to get an idea of what to do with Mr. Buble. Mr. Buble and his ideas weren’t wrong… it just seemed like he was going very quickly and changing so much. He understood that was usually the conditions Mr. Buble worked under. Some teens and children needed immediate removal, and adults who acted as managers did things as quickly as possible to avoid any further trauma and to get their charges settled into a new life.
As he turned off the engine, he took off his seatbelt and turned to Victor. “Before we go in, I understand you were drinking and had taken a prescription that didn’t belong to you last night.”
At hearing him say this, what was left of Victor’s confidence and defense about what happened last night drained from him. It wasn’t incorrect, and with the way he said it, he felt like he had little excuse.
“I shouldn’t have taken the anti-anxiety medication,” he said carefully, worried. Would this affect his career with the Academy? He had been suspicious this was why he was singled out from the others to go with him. He’d gotten a good lecture from Dr. Green and the others that morning, but given Mr. Buble was now his manager as a result, he should have known this was coming.
“The drinking… my parents pushed it onto me, and it was way more than I ever anticipated I’d have to accept.”
“Did you ever say ‘No, thank you’?” he asked.
“…No?”
“Did you try to say you weren’t interested?”
“Not with my mom,” Victor said, lowering his gaze to stare blankly at the glovebox. “If I question her, if I don’t comply with what she wants me to do… she makes things very difficult. But I don’t think she realized how much my father was also asking me to drink, and the pill… it was all a mistake.”
Mr. Buble nodded shortly. “The Academy takes pride in allowing smart, capable… and brave people to join our ranks. Do you feel you were very brave last night?”
Victor shook his head slowly. “Usually Kota and the others are around and seem to know just what to say to them. I don’t know if I ever learned how.”
“Why do you think you were asked to join the Academy?” he asked.
Victor considered the question. “Because… I had potential? And I want to do good things for my team and the community.”
“When things get tough, we need to know you’ll stick with it, even when you feel anxiety or are afraid,” he said. “And sometimes our worst moments come to us because we’re afraid to say no or fear rejection from our families. When you aren’t truthful with people you’ve known all your life, how do we be true to ourselves?”
Victor lowered his head, unsure. “I know it now. I should have left a long time ago.”
“Leaving isn’t always the only answer. But you should never have to sacrifice who you are for others. If what you want is something they can’t accept, then at least you know you were always honest.” There was a short pause as if to check in to see if Victor had anything more to say. “When was the last time you tried to tell them what you wanted?”
Technically it was last night, but Victor didn’t answer him as it was only after a lot of alcohol and likely the pill as well. Maybe he had been wrong about this for a while. He’d given up telling them what he wanted a long time ago.
Being presented to girls so he might be interested in them.
The drinks at his birthday.
The car.
The school she wanted to send him to.
They did it, and he mostly just pretended to go with it all.
It was all things he didn’t want. He never bothered to even try to tell them anything. He just kept hiding things. His real life, what he was interested in… he just did what they wanted so he could get out and be free to be who he wanted.
Mr. Buble’s expression seemed to soften. “I am more concerned about you feeling disconnected from us. Not about the pill or the drinking, but not calling anyone and alerting them you needed them. Even if it had to be another Academy member. Someone could have been there within minutes.”
Victor slumped a bit in his seat, frowning. “I’m doing that now,” he said. “I want to change. I don’t want to be there. I’m tired of being the puppet.”
He nodded shortly. “We need to face them again, but when you do, I hope you’ll know we, the entirety of the Academy, will be behind you. Even if we’re not physically there.”
Victor pressed his lips together. He should have done more. He could have. He simply felt trapped. Pressured. But instead of blaming the others for not being there, he could have found other options.
“We should talk about it more later,” Mr. Buble said. “But think about it. In the meantime, we have tasks we need to complete.”
They got out of the car and approached via the front entryway together. The sensor blinked at them and the doors slid opened automatically. Not all the lights were on inside yet, and hallways to both the right and the left, off the main entrance, were dim.
Further in ahead, in a main library area, only a few lights were on, most of the light coming in from wide windows. No one was at the checkout desk, the counters tidy, the computer monitors off.
A bronze statue of a boy holding a lizard sat near the front. It sparked a memory in Victor. He had been here before, maybe not in so many years. The boy, he remembered, had appeared happy to him, his palm open, his lizard friend looking back at the human boy as if happy to be there, too. He’d liked the statue. The thought of having a lizard as a friend interested him when he was young.
They passed all of this, and rows of books on shelves, to go to the back behind a section of reference books. They picked a spot, a wooden table with two chairs, near the rear wall by the window. Mr. Buble lowered the window’s blind to block the glaring light.
As they made noise to set up, one of the librarians appeared, a thin man with a mustache and glasses tinted orange. At his lapel was pinned a white nametag: Mitch.
His fluffy eyebrows rose together in curiosity to see the two of them here. “The library is technically still closed,” he said. “I thought the door was locked…”
“Pardon us if we’ve made any disruption,” Mr. Buble said. He extended a hand, holding it out to Mitch. “Mrs. Herringer and I have a long-standing relationship. If you let her know Mr. Buble is here with a pupil, we’re just going over some material before Monday. We have no need to disturb anyone or the books on the shelves.”
Mitch seemed to ease up his tense expression. “I’ll let her know you’re here.” He walked away.
“I don’t recognize him,” Mr. Buble said as he returned to the table, opening up the laptop. “He must have been sent from another library. Maybe filling in…”
“Is that bad?” Victor asked him.
“I don’t know yet,” Mr. Buble said. “We don’t know him.”
Not knowing who people are was usually not a cause of concern unless they were in a location the Academy frequented. Perhaps Mr. Buble lived close enough to utilize this library. His friendship with the other librarians made that seem to be the case. Still, for now, Mr. Buble seemed to ignore Mitch and encouraged Victor to join him at the table.
In a hard-backed library chair, Victor’s back grew increasingly uncomfortable. On occasion, the librarian Mitch would pass the table, and Victor would look up and nod to him.
Mitch nodded at first, but only a couple of times. After that, he would barely inch his head but still look at Victor with those eyebrows lifted, staring at him.
Weird.
Mr. Buble adjusted the laptop to bend back and be used as a tablet. He never looked up at the librarian or acknowledged he was nearby, despite Mitch’s increasing interest in what they were up to.
Instead, Mr. Buble kept looking at the tablet screen in front of him, the glow from the light glinting on his glasses, and from the angle, this made him look like he didn’t have eyes at all. He’d been granted access to Victor’s secret spreadsheets, which contained information about Victor’s private funds, money he’d put aside with the help of Mr. Blackbourne, allowance money he set aside for the last couple of years. Victor also kept an account of his own money available through the Academy, although he hadn’t needed to use it.
Mr. Buble examined the numbers on Victor’s spreadsheet, occasionally checking the formulas. “So everything you’ve saved sits in a number of long-term investments?”
“Mr. Blackbourne helped a lot,” Victor said. “I’ve some in a mutual market savings account for short-term access, but it’s minimal. This year was supposed to be filling that account. We worked with projections based on me staying with my parents for another year.”
“You should still grow your savings instead of using it,” Mr. Buble said. “However, a portion of it could be used.”
“For what?” Victor asked.
Mr. Buble adjusted the glasses on his face a little. “Shelter. The first step. You and I are going to secure a location.”
Victor leaned forward, pressing a palm against his cheek. “Wouldn’t it be easier to stay at Nathan’s house?” He was a bit nervous about moving away from familiar territory. Nathan’s house often felt like his true home, since he
could go there any time to get away from his parents.
“It isn’t his house,” Mr. Buble said. “It’ll cost more favors to keep his father gone and away in the long term. Not that the Academy will want him to come back too soon, but let’s not waste a favor on an issue that could be easily resolved by relocating. However, his absence allows you to use it temporarily until suitable shelter can be achieved. All three of you must move out. And from what I understand, Mr. Coleman will be joining you soon.”
Gabriel? “He rants about leaving all the time.”
“His stepmother alone isn’t the problem. It’s her new fiancé.”
This jerked Victor so much, his hand shifted and he quickly picked his head up to stop it from dropping onto the table. “I didn’t know he asked her to marry him. When did this happen?”
“Mr. Blackbourne was alerted a few days ago. You’ve been busy preparing for your birthday event.” There was a short pause, and Mr. Buble’s face darkened with concern. “This fiancé has a history of violence. I’d like to see young Mr. Coleman relocated to prevent any incidents that might require the use of more favors. Then we can start the process of getting Miss Pam some assistance and counseling.”
Gabriel hadn’t said anything, although he’d been at Victor’s and occasionally over with Luke more often lately. He assumed Pam would kick out the new boyfriend if he was particularly violent in any way. She’d kicked out boyfriends before.
Should they get Pam away from him sooner?
However, if Mr. Buble was right, Gabriel was a priority. “So we already need a… four-bedroom place?” He was having a hard time picturing what was needed. What about the others? Would they have to plan ahead if they needed to move out?
He wished his head would clear. A fog took over the longer he sat still and was growing stronger just trying to think of what needed to be done. Was the pill affecting his senses still, or was he just tired and overwhelmed?
Mr. Buble was silent for so long, looking at the screen, Victor was sure he was just checking his math and hadn’t actually heard the question.
