O brave new world

Untitled Part 21

A car comes down the road towards me. Mr. Blackbourne's BMW. God he must be mad that he had to come looking for me.

The car stops and the passenger side door opens. I hurry over, not wanting him to get even madder. Scrambling inside I shut the door behind me. The car takes off down the gravel road again.

Mr. Blackbourne doesn't say anything. Nada. Zip. The silence stretches.

Finally, I can't take it anymore and turn to face him. Only the driver isn't Mr. Blackbourne.

Dark eyes look into the deepest darkest crannies of my soul. His face is white. Not a natural white, more like a... mask?

I clench my knife, taking a few deep breaths. This is Volto. He may be creepy, but he won't hurt me. He is not a rapist or a murderer or a robber; he would have hurt the boys. But he didn't. So he's fine. My mother's drills still won't let me let go of the dam knife.

"Hello, Sang" the voice is mechanical. Voice distorter, Kota had said. Volto uses a voice distorter. "Please put on your seatbelt."

My hand won't let go of the knife. I can't move my hand without showing him the knife. I can't show him the knife or my advantage will be gone. I can't do anything but sit there, frozen, trembling, staring at my certain death through the beautiful glass front of this death machine.

In one quick motion Volto has me buckled.

"The Academy calls me Volto" Volto says. "I don't know if they've told me about you."

- They said you were dangerous

My hands are moving again. This is Volto. Volto is not evil, just creepy. I'm safe.

Volto looks at me sharply. "You're deaf? But I was sure... Goddammit, this makes everything more complicated." We sit in silence again.

A moment later Volto is speaking again. "If you look in the side compartment on your door, you should see an empty notebook. Oh, goddamit, you're deaf! You can't hear me. Do you lip-read? Because that would be pretty practical about now."

I find the notebook and pull a pen out of my bun.

I am mute, not deaf

"Well, thank god, that makes everything so much easier" Volto says, skimming over my writing. "I'm not planning on harming you, I just want to talk."

I know.

"You know?" The voice distorter cuts out most of the feeling behind the words, but I can just imagine him sounding incredulous. "Last I heard the Academy was conducting a witch hunt against me, and now you're saying you're not afraid of me at all?"

I'm not afraid. The people on the outside are good people.

I ponder for a moment, than decide to add some more information.

Kota said you were dangerous, but he's scared, like my mother. People outside are good.

Volto takes a while to read everything I've written. "Please, can you clarify what you mean with outside? And what does this have to do with your mother? I'm certain she's very worried about you, actually. You should go home instead of hanging out at some random twenty-year-old's house."

My mother is dead, so Mr. Blackbourne's taking care of me for now. She wouldn't let me out of the house so that I would stay safe from all the bad people out there. But she was scared. There are so little bad people out there and so many good ones that you can disregard the bad ones for the most part. It's like physics and disregarding air friction. She didn't understand. I never went outside until they rescued me.