Volte Tre | ✔

~Chapter 2~

Enzo Armando Russo 

My smug look dropped from my face almost immediately.

The principal took another deep breath looking at my face, which almost always held a smile.

At that moment I felt a familiar sense of fear wash over me, a sense of fear that I hadn't felt since. It draining my ability to speak, move or even think. It was evident my sister and brother felt it too, based on the look on their face trying to mask the obvious expressions.

The principal said some words of "comfort" but it all soon tuned out in my mind.

He told us he "understood" what we were feeling but he got it all wrong. We weren't grieving, those bastards did not serve one tear from any child they had ever fostered. Instead scared, a feeling I thought I left in the past. 

 Our "foster parents'" death was not a coincidence, but instead a warning from them.

The ones who broke us beyond repair and took away everything, It can't be. Can it?

"No...no...NO" Carlos started to mumble to himself.

Conan and Ella looked at us in concern. Throughout all of our 6 years of friendship, they had never seen us like this, fearful. 

They knew something very bad must have happened for us to look like that.

"How did they die?" I asked

The principal cleared his throat softly a long moment of silence passing, having trouble letting out his words, "they...they were...killed in a car accident". He said looking at us with sympathy.

He was going to say some more details of the incident, but it was all we needed.  Imani abruptly stood up and left his office, Carlos and I slowly following after she wondered the same thing.

The principal's voices got further and further telling us to come back, but we didn't turn back, we couldn't.

We walked out of the school still In deep thought, and get into our car.

The car ride to our foster parent's house felt longer than usual, the silence unbarring.

For as long as I have lived I have only seen my siblings this distressed once after we were held captive for the first time, and never expected to see it again. 

The helpless and the vulnerable looks in both my sister's and brother's eyes pained me. 

"You don't think it's them do you?" Carlos asks, all amusement now gone from his face, displaying no emotion at all.

The horrid memories of them came rushing back. Things I wanted to forget. 

The pictures restrain me from sleeping at night. Remembering the actions they ordered that stained my conscience.

Imani's look softened listening to his words, giving him a sorrow-filled smile, "we don't know, but we can hope" she says looking out the window.

My grip on the wheel tightened, my scowl deepening.

Even though they did a lot of things to me; which will scar me forever, I know they did more to her.

Doing things she couldn't even explain to us. They broke her far more than they broke us, and I knew she was scared. Something a sibling would never want to see their flesh and blood go through.

We were supposed to protect her, but we couldn't. I lived so many years of my life feeling bad, and beating myself up; even though her words were reassuring telling me it was not my fault.