by C. L. Stone
My face hurt. One of my hands stung sharply with pain.
They dropped me. I landed on sticks and bramble. I covered my hand protectively.
I wiped at my face as best as I could with my arm, my eyes were still blurred. I was looking at two glowing masks at first, at least until my vision cleared and the two merged into one.
Volto’s mask.
The glowing face leaned toward me. “Having to save you. Again.”
“Victor...” I mumbled, but my throat was both dry and tight at the same time. It was hard to talk. Was something wrong with my throat?
The Volto mask seemed to hover in the darkness, and it shook back and forth. It looked toward someone else, a shadow on top of shadow under all the trees. “See what I put up with?”
“You could have left her,” the other one said. Male, and again, familiar, but my brain didn’t want to piece it together.
“And lose our one advantage?” Volto leaned down toward me. “Not your fault they lie to you so much. You’re just caught in the middle.”
“You lie,” I said, feeling myself, my body over with my good hand, checking for anything else that hurt, adjusting how I was sitting. I wasn’t sure I could run just yet. I kept my hurt hand close to my chest.
“I’ve never lied to you,” Volto said.
I coughed once as I leaned forward to check my legs. I was sure I was in shock. “You’ve got a group now. Working with people from the school.” I guessed, mostly as it had to be the school.
“So?”
“You told me you work alone.”
Volto didn’t answer, only looked down at me.
Maybe it was the shock and the car crash, or the fact that I had seen two masks when my vision wasn’t great, but suddenly I considered everything and the answer was right in front of me. “You’re not Volto.”
The mask chuckled. “I am.”
“Now you’re definitely lying,” I said. I tucked my feet in closer to my body, readying myself to look like I was just getting off the brambles but I was more adjusting to run. “Volto works alone.”
“I am Volto.”
“The real Volto is much smarter,” I said, now angry, sure I was right about this. My hand throbbed with pain and I wanted to blame him. “He’s not breaking into houses, stealing things, and then trying to sell them on the dark web.”
“Someone has to fund this,” the other Volto said. “Might as well be the rich kid. He’s always got something lying around. Stop by his house all the time. He’s got loads of shit. Only security is always around...”
The voice, the mechanism, it was the same.
Like the mask we had, a real one. Only the person behind it was different. So Volto had multiple ones?
“Look, I don’t know who you are,” I said. “But you’re sloppy, risking the lives of people likely to get caught by the police for theft, and for what? A few dollars? A few thrills?”
“I saved you,” Volto said, the voice box getting louder.
“Fuck this shit,” the male companion said, his shape shifting in the darkness. “Let’s just leave her.”
The glowing mask whipped around, facing the other one. The glow illuminated his face.
Rocky. I thought I recognized the voice. It had been a while since I’d actually seen him. The only picture that flashed into my mind was when he and Silas had big fight in my front yard after he harassed me.
Jay and Rocky had gotten Victor and Gabriel high. Part of their plan in some way? They had to be involved in the truck and the trade but there had to be a couple more with them. Was this Volto Jay? Or someone else? I hadn’t spotted anyone in the scramble after the Jeep crashed into the truck.
As if realizing he could be seen, Rocky backed up. “Are you crazy? I told you we should all be wearing masks.”
“Only one wears the mask,” the other Volto said.
“Apparently that’s not true, either,” I said.
“Shut up!” Rocky said. He drew closer to the other Volto. “This was all stupid. You said it was an easy job, that we’d get paid, and you fucked this whole thing.”
“It’s not over.”
“Why are we here?” Rocky asked. “Why are we getting her? What’s this for?”
“I didn’t start it.” The other Volto leaned down and pointed right at my chest, pushing at it with a forefinger. “How many times do I have to save you after you’ve gotten in the middle of their schemes?”
“I believe this was your doing,” I said. “You stole their stuff.”
“And they tried to buy it back. And I was willing to let them buy it back because they can clearly afford to do it. But now we’ll just sell it to someone else. I can wait.”
Rocky shoved at the other Volto. “Shut up! You don’t think they couldn’t call the cops on us?”
“They won’t.”
“They know our faces! You said—”
“They never call the cops!” Volto said. “They never do.”
“Fuck this,” Rocky said and stomped away. “I’m out. Jay and I are definitely out.” He stopped walking and turned, although I couldn’t see him now, just hear him moving. “Sang, they told us a bunch of lies.”
“I believe you,” I said. I knew just how tricky the real Volto could be... and how not so smart Rocky could be. At least he had been working with Volto and knew so much. But was this really not Jay?
So someone else maybe?
Rocky continued. “The house... he said we were just taking it back. This is the first time I heard it actually belonged to them.”
“Yeah,” I said hesitantly, because the excuse sounded dumb.
“Then said we’d sell it. Never told us... never said it was yours... or that Silas... tell Silas I didn’t know.”
I couldn’t help it. My hand was in pain. I was so angry. I was worried about Victor. I wasn’t sure I could run yet, and I couldn’t outrun Rocky if I tried, let alone both of them. “But... you stole a lot. A safe out of the wall.”
Rocky raised a brow. “When?”
“You broke into Nathan’s house. All his things. The safe. The boxes of stuff that had been pulled out because Nathan was going to move.”
Rocky tilted his head. “We didn’t break into Nathan’s house. The one on your street? We only took a trunk.”
“Shut up,” the other Volto said.
So it wasn’t them? They just took the trunk from someone else? “Who is behind the mask, Rocky?” I asked. “Is it Karen? Or someone else from the school?”
“Can’t be Karen, she was the truck last I saw.”
“Wil?”
“Wil? What? Wait... I mean, I left the truck on foot after the crash...” He squinted at Volto. “You’re too tall. Is that you, Jay? Tell me if you’re fucking around.”
Volto’s hovering mask flew away from me, toward Rocky. “That’s it. We should leave.”
Rocky shoved at Volto. “Get off of me. Let me see.”
With that, Volto bolted, off into the woods.
Rocky chased the mask into the distance. They both disappeared quickly, not difficult to do among the trees.
I didn’t hear them after that.
I didn’t wait to find out. We could find Rocky later and ask. It was so clear now, how none of it from the start made sense.
Someone else had found a mask, too, only they used it. Or maybe they’d started out together and split.
This Volto... said they saved me. And Volto had done so a few times. But...
There was something else. The smell. I hadn’t noticed but now that the immediate sense of threat was gone, I picked it out.
The light jasmine scent. Something I associated with Volto a long time ago. I realized, now, that wasn’t always the case.
I should have known.
I wondered what happened because the last Volto... who I thought of as the real Volto... had been much more quiet, clever, and very clear with what he was doing. He was aware of what was going on around me, and often just warned me, or gave me
direction.
This one... was like the muscle, and I recalled a time of running around the bottom of a hospital away from someone trying to hurt me and Volto getting involved to save me.
There were two, running around with the masks. Two who seemed interested in the guys on my team, and myself.
I wondered how many times had been the alternative Volto, and the real one, what I thought of as the real one. The smarter one. The more subtle one. No wonder I’d been so confused at times when it seemed like he risked lives and also tried to help.
Which only left more problems, because now we had to figure out two instead of one.
Funebre
(Funeral)
Victor
There was only pain.
Every movement, from when he got pulled from the car.
By North.
And he held him. Held him so close Victor felt warm under the pain.
North wiped at his face, until Victor cried out.
Suddenly, North was gone. Eventually, he was forced to lie back and was carried into an ambulance.
And he was alone. At least, not with people he knew.
They spoke to him. People wearing EMS uniforms. People in police uniforms.
But he didn’t answer. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.
He didn’t trust himself. He left his name. That was it.
He did what they said. He breathed from a face mask that gave him oxygen. He lifted an arm when he could.
His face was pain.
His body hurt.
Sang...
He wanted to ask but couldn’t.
And then there wasn’t pain, only sleep.
♥♥♥
In the night, there was a melody on his mind. Something that sounded familiar. Some slow, sad song, maybe a nocturne, something appropriate for darkness.
Was it familiar or was he just making up the notes? He couldn’t tell.
He heard voices, but he couldn’t hear well over the song playing in his head.
“I want to know everything he said.” It was his mother’s voice. He knew that one. Louder now.
“He hasn’t said anything,” another voice, unfamiliar. “His name. And then nothing. He’s still out of it.”
“Is it a coma?”
“No, they gave him pain medication as soon as it was safe for him. He was in shock before. He’s been examined.”
His mother sounded angry. “I want to know how soon I can get him on a flight.”
“To another hospital?”
“To Europe.”
Victor wanted to react to this, but he couldn’t move. His body was too heavy.
Sang.
Where was Sang? Suddenly, just for a moment, his brain was utilizing every ounce of energy to simply remembering what was going on.
The doctor laughed shortly. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m serious. When will he be ready?”
“I can’t sign a waiver for him to be transported across an ocean.”
“I’d prefer it be done before he wakes up.”
Silence for a moment. “Are you seriously suggesting you’d risk his life... there’s no way any flight would allow an unconscious teenager to fly to another country. The country wouldn’t even accept him in his condition. No sensible airline—”
“I’d like another doctor.”
“Ma’am... you’re not going to get another answer.”
“Right. Now,” she said in her sternest voice.
More silence.
He needed to wake up.
Where was Sang?
Where did she go?
There was silence for so long, he was unsure if he’d even dreamed it all.
♥♥♥
He needed to wake up.
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.
&
nbsp; 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.