The lost

Chapter 11

"Victor, she clearly ran away from the orphanage, can't you see?! Look!! See?!", the boy that just came in sat on the couch with me and said quietly: "Do you want to go into my room? It's going to be pretty loud here for a while, trust me... When they fight, they fight loudly, but it's obvious that Niko only cares for him", I nod and follow the guy into his room. He sits beside his desk, and I sit on his bed. I look around. Nothing interesting.

"Oh, and by the way, my name is Jason", he starts typing on his laptop and I just sit there awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

"So... how did you and Victor meet?", Victor said that they don't know about the orphanage thing... they don't know anything about that situation. I think that Victor deserves to tell his own tale...

"Childhood friends"

"Was Victor in the same orphanage... as you?", I don't reply, just look at the floor. That's how I always deal with hard situations, breath slowly and look down, don't make eye contact, that's a recipe for disaster. That's just a death wish.

"I see... I wonder why he never told us..."

"Maybe he was too afraid...", I say quietly.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing..."

Then the girl that is "Niko", opened the door to Jason's room with a little irritated expression. He looked towards Victor that was standing in the middle of the hallway, frozen, just like a statue. Niko said: "Meeting, even you" She looked directly at me, that it made me jump a bit. I followed Jason and sat down on the couch. Niko was standing in front of me, Victor, and Jason, while we were sitting on the couch.

"Victor, explain, how do you know her?! Isn't she like 16?! You are 22 for God's sake!"

I could see Victor's panic expression, because we are the only one's that know the situation and Niko misunderstood it... I saw that Victor wasn't saying anything, so I started explaining first: "We are only childhood friends, we know each other ever since I was like 9 and he was like 13". Victor then took over the conversation and explained himself:

"We went to the same orphanage...

"Victor... I never knew you were in an orphanage..." Niko said quietly, looking a little like she knew that she did something wrong. But Victor continued:

"You probably noticed that most of the days I wasn't here... it was because I knew that one of these days Ash, or Asha would escape"

"Why would she need to escape?", Jason asked looking very confused.

"Let's just say, it was a high jacked tradition", before he could continue Niko stopped him and said: "What kind of tradition?"

"You get locked up in your room, before your 18th birthday, to clean your room. After that, you can choose how you want to exit your own life, either Mrs. Smith helps, or you do it yourself. It's easy as that...", I answered to spare Victor, since it's just tiring to talk about it... saying those words now... seems so, so wrong... I don't know these people and I don't know if I am going to live... since either Mrs. Smith finds me, or she doesn't... it's pretty much 50 – 50. Both Niko and Jason freeze after me saying those words. I then look after me bunny, it was sitting next to me. I pick it up and start hugging it.

"Victor, you have to report that to the police", Jason said. But Victor shacked his head...

"Did that already... not enough evidence, they said... but if they would just investigate the area, then they would know"

I quickly remember something. The book, where everyone writes their goodbyes, I have that book still... but it is in my bag that I had to let go of. If I can just find it... maybe that can be evidence? All the handwriting is different, and the book is just pretty old. Then I also can be a witness since it soon would be my turn to do it. I look around the room and say: "I know what we can do" ... And lightly smiled.