by C. L. Stone
He was in the dark, and slowly, very slowly, he forced his body upright.
A song—notes—stuck in his brain, continued. It was so loud. It almost overpowered his thoughts.
The rousing crescendo. He used it as if to draw energy into himself, like listening to fast songs while working out.
Up.
Sit up.
Until he realized he was sitting up, and that’s as far as he’d gotten.
The hospital bed was cold.
He was in a room alone. It was dark.
He slid forward, an inch at a time, until his feet were on the floor, and for a moment, he thought he was standing.
Until he was crashing to the ground, falling on top of himself. An IV stand toppled on top of him, onto his back.
His face. He didn’t feel it at first, but his face was pain. Every little cell felt like it was ripping itself apart.
Somewhere else in his body, too. His body in general ached.
His face was the worst of it.
No time to stop. He had to leave.
But he couldn’t move. He crawled, belly on the floor, but only an inch.
Against the floor, he rested his cheek, only that hurt to do.
Too painful to even cry.
Would he die right here on the floor?
Sang. Did they take her, too? To Europe?
His mother?
Why was he alone again?
He would die here. Die right here.
Sang would be safe if he did.
Where was she?
His mother wouldn’t be embarrassed.
His jumbled thoughts were all sadness. Darkness. Like where he was on the floor. It felt like a lifetime on the cold floor, the pain, the feeling like he’d lost everything.
He did lose everything.
His mistakes. Grave mistakes.
There were footsteps and by that point, he didn’t care. He was in too much pain to fight it.
He was corrected, placed back into the bed before he realized there was a voice. A familiar one. Speaking to him.
“Come on, buddy,” he said. “Where’d you think you were going, anyway?”
Victor moaned, and while he was trying to ask a million things at once, it came out as mostly random noises.
The face leaned in. The familiar face.
DepthCrawler.
He knew him.
Victor sniffed. His body was warming. There wasn’t as much pain now. Did he give him some medicine? DepthCrawler wasn’t a doctor.
Somehow, amid Victor’s mumbling, he managed, “Sang…”
Silence for a moment. His face disappeared. In the dimness, he wasn’t sure if he’d left.
“She’s safe,” DepthCrawler said. “Don’t ask for her, though.” He leaned in again until his face was visible. “Promise me, you won’t speak her name for a little while. She’ll be okay.”
Victor had to keep Sang a secret. He knew this. He knew better. He thought he was nodding. Hopefully he was.
“I’m here to make sure they don’t send you off,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’re behind you.”
Victor wanted to cry now, not from pain, but from knowing.
The Academy.
They were always by his side.
He didn’t have to die.
♥♥♥
Time passed.
Shadows on shadows, but someone was in the room.
For a moment, Victor thought no one was there. It was just a dream.
Someone hovered close. A male.
“Victor…”
Mr. Buble.
A drum of anger, at himself, at Mr. Buble, surged through Victor.
“Get out,” Victor said to him.
Silence.
Did he leave?
“Why?” his voice came again.
The anger swelled. “You said I wouldn’t have to stay with my parents.” Suddenly his mother, what she said came into his mind.
He’d crashed a car.
He’d been high at the time.
The police questioned him.
His mother wanted to get him out of the country.
Out of the country before they could even have a chance to press charges.
To ruin the family.
Mr. Buble didn’t answer.
“They’re going to send me off. They’re going to send me… not me… I won’t exist.”
Still, no answer.
Was he even really there?
It was true though. He had no choice now. They could send Academy, but he’d be halfway across the world when his mother made arrangements.
Perhaps too far for them to follow.
They promised.
They all said.
Follow us. We’ll be there.
Yet there were some places they couldn’t follow.
Lacrimoso
(Tearful)
Sang
The news headline that evening said that Victor Morgan, 17, was alone in a car crash heading home from a rock concert at the coliseum.
An ambulance on the scene claimed he was inebriated.
I sat down the next morning, exhausted, having stayed up all night for news.
The vision of what had happened was trapped in my mind, replaying over and over.
Victor, too high to drive, racing off down a two-lane road and crashing into a couple of cars when trying to pull over. He’d turned too far and overcorrected himself. The car had flipped, landing in a ditch off the side of the road, the only thing that likely saved our lives was that ditch had provided some protection in the way he landed the car.
When I returned to the car, there were ambulance and police.
I couldn’t go to him. I had no way to know, for such a long time, if he was even alive. I had to walk a good way away to eventually run into Mr. Buble with North, out looking for me, pulling me away from the scene. I had no idea how they knew… how they found me.
North went back for Victor and stayed with him to make sure he was okay and to go along to the hospital. Mr. Buble stayed with me and carried me off.
Too many witnesses.
And too soon, North was sent back. His parents requested no one else be around him. We had no choice.
We were lucky I hadn’t been caught in any of the photos, because one of the cars that stopped to report the accident was a photographer for the newspaper, leaving the concert early after covering the event.
And he had recognized the car and Victor instantly. There was no chance to hide this.
Inside Mr. Buble’s home, on one of the lower bunks in the upstairs FROG bedroom. Dr. Green sat down next to me. He was in a plain light blue T-shirt and jeans.
“We can’t help him at this point,” Dr. Green said, using a light to check my eyes. “Don’t blink.”
I tried not to, although I did a few times. He had checked me out last night, but he wanted to do it again. I had a brace on my wrist, for a fracture, and I was bandaged from cuts on my face and along one arm.
Dr. Green stayed with me most of the night. He’d given me medicine. He stayed by me, with the others coming to check on us while we were here.
He looked into my eyes, and when he stopped, he put the light away and checked around my head, gently massaging my scalp. “Any pain here?”
“No,” I said.
“You might later notice some aches,” he said. He shifted his hands to my neck. “Try turning…” He showed me how to twist my neck and look around, while he touched and massaged at my neck a little.
I was wearing someone’s black T-shirt and boxers, I wasn’t sure whose. I’d slept and really hadn’t slept at all. “When will Victor get back?” I asked him.
Dr. Green sighed and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Listen, pookie. Victor’s in a bit of a pickle. Nothing that can’t be handled, but for now, he’s with his parents. I think they had him sent home. A little early, if you ask me.”
; I pressed my lips together, looking away from him.
“No, don’t pout,” he said, and he picked up my chin until I was looking at him. “It has to be that way. We couldn’t pull him from the car and not have him around, okay? The car was totaled. It would have been much worse if we had taken him out and left the car without a driver. Besides, we needed the ambulance. He was hurt. Unfortunately, the best place for him right now is with his parents.”
“Where they want him to be,” I sputtered, very unhappy with this.
He smoothed a hand over my cheek. “No, pumpkin. He was at the hospital and he’s okay, he’s just resting now. His insurance and his mother will do their best, but he’ll have to face charges…”
Charges! I reacted, pulling away from him, breathing in sharply. “But…” I couldn’t think of what to say.
That was it. His mom would prove she was right.
Was he out of the Academy now?
Would he have to stay with them?
Dr. Green shook his head, trying to reclaim me by taking my shoulders and holding to me. “Sang, sweetie, calm down.”
I breathed in deeply, trying not to panic.
“Do I look worried?” he asked. He looked me square in the face with those light green eyes, and a couple of locks of his sandy hair hanging across his forehead.
I shook my head slowly at his question.
“Do you trust me?”
I nodded.
“So if I said, don’t worry, should you trust me when I say that?”
I hesitated but then nodded slowly.
He smirked and then pulled me in for a hug. He kissed the top of my forehead and held me close. “Victor will be fine. Physically, he’s got a little bump on his noggin and a broken nose, and a few bruises. Nothing permanent. We should be grateful. Whatever happens with his parents, we’ll figure it out. It’s a better outcome than what could have happened. He’s alive. That’s the important part.” He patted me a little and then smoothed his palm across my back gently. “Now if you’re feeling it, get up and get dressed. We’ve got to join the family meeting downstairs.”
He tried to release me, but for the first time, I tugged him back.
I wasn’t ready to let go yet.
He chuckled, and then looked around the room, as if trying to double-check. “Lay back on the bed,” he said.
“Right now?”
“Just for a few minutes.”
I did, and he cuddled up beside me. He positioned himself so I could bury my head into his chest, and he sank his nose and lips into the top of my hair. He held me like that, just holding on and letting me feel comfortable next to him.
Like a security blanket.
For a long time, he just stayed with me, and I was listening to him breathing. He’d stayed close in the night but not this close.
He was comforting. He always was.
And then I remembered something.
“Dr. Sean,” I said.
He chuckled. “Yeah, pookie?”
I didn’t know how to say it, but I remembered something.
He’d sent a hand signal to me when I was still under control of my parents at my house. And I hadn’t known what he meant.
I did now.
And I showed him now. With my good hand.
The sign language for I love you.
My heart raced, despite the medicine in me that made me drowsy.
He looked at my hand, at my fingers. For the longest time he just looked at it.
Slowly, he raised his hand, and he did the same.
My eyes watered and I blinked. I didn’t want to cry about it.
I felt good.
I cared so much about them all. Victor. I wanted to tell Victor.
I lost my chance so often with him. Twice now.
I couldn’t miss my opportunities anymore.
Sonata
(A piece played as opposed to sung)
Sang
We couldn’t stay like that for long, not at the risk of someone coming up to check on us, especially in Mr. Buble’s house. So eventually I had to let go. I didn’t get dressed except to put on someone else’s pajama pants that were too long for me. I followed Dr. Green downstairs into the main part of Mr. Buble’s big house.
Gabriel was at the head of the table, talking to Mr. Buble and Mr. Blackbourne. The others either sat around Mr. Buble’s table or stood by.
“So Jay and Rocky were in there inside the bathroom, surprise to us, and we were really sure they were there for the thing going down,” Gabriel said. He was waving his arms for emphasis, revealing several fresh scabs and bruises. “Fucking Jay was talking about having to do a drop-off here after the concert.”
“He was driving the truck,” North said across the room. He was standing against the wall, all black but with a black sweater instead of his T-shirt… likely because the shirt I was wearing was his, I thought.
It was his eyes that bothered me. Red. Swollen. I’d only seen it once before. Angry. Too sad. Hurting so bad on the inside. And yet as he spoke, he seemed to remain calm.
He continued, “And after the Jeep crashed into it, he rolled it right back into the SUV we borrowed for the night, too. So he was actively attacking us.”
“So there is some connection,” Mr. Buble said. “This Jay, and possibly Rocky. And anyone he might be with.”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “He opened up a bit as we were smoking with him, which is what we wanted. He…” Gabriel closed his eyes, leaning back in the seat. “He said something about this being a job he picked up.”
“But did he know who hired him?” Mr. Buble asked.
Gabriel shrugged. “It was via email and then Facebook. But we should get more details if we snoop. I bet Victor…” Gabriel trailed off, as if remembering what happened.
I glanced around at the others. We were all here, and the moment Victor’s name was mentioned, they all seemed to flinch at the same time.
We were all worried, despite knowing he was alive and things would be fine. Not seeing him, maybe, not hearing from him now, that was the worst.
“It was Volto,” I said quietly.
They turned to me now. I’d talked a little about what happened from when Volto pulled me from the car until Mr. Buble and North found me.
“It’s two people,” I said at the end. “Volto… something happened I guess, but I have a feeling they’re not even working together, maybe they were but certainly not right now.”
“Great,” North said. “And it’s not any of these guys?”
“Rocky might know,” I said. “You’ll have to talk to him. He was pretty mad. He might have caught the second Volto and found out. He also said Volto had lied to them about what was going on about the whole thing.” I considered the conversation again. “I really, really think maybe… it wasn’t them that broke into the house. That this second Volto stole back the trunk. The trunk with our equipment inside. They didn’t know about a safe, or other items.”
“We didn’t get to the trunk to trade,” North said. “And that’s the only item they had. But it was there. Jay took off after the crash in the truck. They didn’t wait around. Mostly scattered. Probably scared of cops.”
“And it’s likely they know about me being somewhat associated with you now,” Mr. Buble said. “They won’t trust me. Or Mrs. Ruiz, if we tried again.”
“I can follow up with Jay and Rocky,” North said. “And Karen and Wil. They didn’t exactly see me at all. Just Silas. There’s a chance he might just think Silas was helping you, after you said something to them and they attacked you. What did they say to you, anyway?”
Mr. Buble was silent for a long time, as if considering his words carefully. “I took a path of most resistance. I took a bet that agitating the leader, the big one with the muscles…”
“We didn’t know him,” Silas said. “But I’m pretty sure he goes to the school. He looked familiar.”
Mr.
Buble continued, “I wanted them to fight. I wanted to see how strong this group was. You said Volto was clever. None we talked to were him, maybe, or maybe someone was but wasn’t wearing the mask. I know I’m new to this, but I believe that they were hired and had very little idea what was going on. I’ll believe all they knew is that they needed to help with getting the trunk and the drop-off and would be paid.”
“So Volto hired someone else to break into the house?” Gabriel asked. “And then hired kids from school to sell it off? That’s fucked up. They could go to jail forever and they didn’t even know.” He shook his head, folding his arms and sitting back. “For Volto, even a fake one, this seems really risky.”
“This Volto knew we would never call the cops,” I said. “And they were right. We don’t. Not in the same way most people would.”
“That protection is for you, not for them,” Mr. Buble said. “We don’t have to extend them any courtesy. They broke into the Griffin house and there’s already a police report. We could still claim they broke in. It’s likely the police could match prints. Or find some connection that would lead to the actual thieves.”
“It’s still a risk to do that,” North said. “I could get more information from Jay and Rocky by joining them and figuring out who at least this other Volto is. That one has to know who the real one is.”
Mr. Buble’s dark eyes drew off into the distance, as if considering. “Do we teach immediate lessons? Or do we allow for second chances? Do we strike at the heart, or cut off the head?”
The open questions echoed in my mind. I glanced at the others, everyone but Victor, sitting or standing around the table. Meeting some of their eyes as they looked back at me.
No one seemed certain.
Not until Silas spoke up. “Saying something to the police about them risks Sang. We’re back to why Volto can get away with everything he does.”
I lowered my head, realizing that was true. Notifying the police, Rocky would say I was a witness. He helped save me from the car.
Maybe that’s why the other Volto came for me. It forced me into the middle, forcing them to make the choice of not calling the police.
Maybe this other Volto was somewhat as clever as the original.
Gabriel slapped his hand onto the table’s surface. “Fuck this. Sang can get into the Academy without being a ghost bird whatever.”
