Leaving Vilas Avenue
At first Tess couldn’t process what she was seeing.
The hulk had returned, entered the house, and was holding a gun to Aunt Vivian’s temple.
Had the voices found a way to create visions?
Because what she saw did not sync with the reality that she and Vivian were about to flee to the island where they’d be safe.
Tess had believed that. But after five seconds standing motionless at the top of the stairs, that belief crumbled and the joy she had felt moments before collapsed like an imploding building.
She struggled to breathe and felt the radio slipping from her arms as she slumped against the banister.
“Hold on to that,” said the man with the gun. “If you break that radio, I might have to break Miss Harbottle.”
“Aunt Vivian?” said Tess, renewing her grip on the radio and steadying herself slightly. “Aunt Vivian, what’s happening?”
“It’s all right, Tess,” said Vivian. “He’s not going to hurt you.”
“But you…the gun…”
“Just come down the stairs slowly,” said the man. “And keep hold of that radio. We’re all going to go for a little ride.”
Tess felt she had no control over her own body.
She had made no conscious decision to obey the man and descend the stairs, yet her feet moved, and she came closer and closer to Aunt Vivian’s inappropriately calm face.
The radio seemed to fuse to her chest and after a few seconds she found herself standing just feet from the man in black.
“What does PC stand for?” asked Tess, nodding at his lapel pin. She had no idea why she asked the question. What possible difference did it make? But her entire being was on autopilot, as if her psyche had decided that feigning normalcy would effectively combat the emotional carnage of the moment.
“Curious little girl, aren’t you?” said the man.
“She’s not a little girl, Montag 5,” said Vivian. “She’s a grown woman.”
“As much as I’d like to stand here and argue semantics with you, Ardan 1,” said the hulk, “we have places to go. Now, Miss Maxwell here is going to put that radio in the trunk of my car and put herself in the back seat. She’s going to do it slowly and quietly and if she doesn’t, the last thing her ‘aunt Vivian’ is going to feel is a bullet entering her brain. ”
“Who’s Ardan 1?” asked Tess. She didn’t want to stand there asking questions.
She wanted to take action, to kick the gun out of the hands of the man in black and throw him to the ground like some sort of Marvel superhero.
But her body wouldn’t let her. She had read of people being frozen by fear, and now that she stood close enough to see Vivian’s skin pulled taut around her temple where the gun pressed into her, Tess felt fear flowing into her veins like cold saline solution from an IV.
Vivian was the only person who had consistently loved and cared for Tess since Harry’s death but if Tess couldn’t convince her body to get going and obey the man in black, Vivian might end up a crumpled heap on the floor, dead in a pool of blood.
“You have a lot to explain to her, Ardan 1,” said the man, gripping Vivian’s arm with his free hand and shoving her toward the door.
“But we’ve got a long ride ahead of us, so you’ll have plenty of time.
Now, as I’m sure you remember, I have many fine qualities, but patience is not one of them.
So, what’s it going to be, Tess Maxwell?
Are we all going together or is Aunt Vivian staying behind and staining the carpet? ”
Tess felt a haze descending over her eyes.
Her own voice echoed in her head: Not hollow, empty.
Words she had spoken to her therapist at college.
A therapist who had told her feeling that way was a perfectly normal human reaction.
If she could replace fear with emptiness, she might be able to move, to save Vivian.
She seemed to watch her body from above as it walked through the front door, down the porch steps, and toward the black car.
She saw the gun glinting in the sunlight and fear assaulted her, but she warded it off by feeling nothing. Not hollow, empty.
“Jesus, put the gun away. Somebody’s going to see you.”
The voice of the second man in black, the wisp, who stood by the black sedan, pulled Tess toward reality and enough out of what had felt like a hypnotic state that she seemed to have control of her body again. She took another step toward the car, and the man Vivian had called Montag 5 spoke.
“Secure the radio and get in the back seat with the girl. I want the old lady in front with me. Either of you set a foot out of line and she gets it in the gut.”
“Hey, I’m on your side,” said the man, lifting the radio from Tess’s arms.
“I’m not taking any chances,” said Montag 5, “and I’m not trusting anybody.”
“Lovely to see you, Nemo 7,” said Aunt Vivian.
“Who are you people?” whispered Tess. “And why can’t you leave us alone?”
“Tess, stay quiet and get in the car,” said Vivian calmly.
“Listen to what she says,” said Montag 5.
The man called Nemo 7 slammed the trunk closed, having placed the radio inside.
He opened the back door for Tess with all the gallantry befitting the doorman at a five-star hotel.
Tess sensed something different about this man as she stepped past him and slid into the back seat.
He didn’t possess the power and anger of Montag 5, yet for some reason Tess felt he was the smarter of the two kidnappers.
Montag 5 shoved Vivian into the front passenger seat and kept the gun trained on her as he walked around to the driver’s side. Thirty seconds later, they were driving down Vilas Avenue, the morning sun flashing through the windows as they moved in and out of the shadows of the trees.
“Well,” said Montag 5 when they reached the end of the block, “isn’t this a cozy reunion.”