Victor, Victorious

Chapter Eight

After leaving the alley, Colin and Courtney had tried hurrying home. Colin's broken fingers hurt a hell of a lot more than he'd initially thought they did, so the sooner they got to their mom, the sooner she could tend to his twisted digits.

Only, the siblings seemed to get stopped at every crosswalk. Every red light.

The pain in Colin's hand worsened, felt like knives' blades jammed into his knuckles. Normally, he would've whined. Cried.

But he didn't feel normal anymore. He felt angry. Pissed off, actually.

Victor Villa did this to him. Victor Villa would pay.

Standing at one of the red lights, Colin screamed, "TURN GREEN, ALREADY!"

The light turned green.

"Well, someone's listening to you," said Courtney.

Yeah, thought Colin. The light's listening.

After he'd been hit by the lightning bolt, a faint hum enveloped his brain. Almost like the endless chatter of a refrigerator. And Colin could suddenly understand what it was saying. Not words, exactly. An electronic language previously foreign to him.

But, now, he suddenly felt fluent in it. Confident using it.

At the next red light, he shouted again, "GREEN!"

The light listened, as if Colin had been instantly able to translate English into something the light could understand.

"You see that?" Colin asked his sister.

"So what?" said Courtney. "Stop screaming. You're gonna make me deaf."

Steps away from the next red light, Colin thought, Green green green.

The light obeyed.

Holy crap. Awesome!

He turned the other necessary lights at the intersection red. There was no reason to cause car accidents.

Colin continued to silently pave their path green. He stopped them, however, a half mile from home. His fingers were stinging, swollen, purple sausages now.

"Courtney, wait. I don't think I can make it home and wait for Mom. My fingers...We've gotta call her. Now."

"You sure? She'll be off work in like an hour."

Their mother worked at a bank but, ironically, barely made ends meet. Because she couldn't pay the bill, their cable and Internet had been turned off a couple days before.

"I think I need to go to the hospital. Call her, yeah?"

"Okay." Courtney pulled out her phone.

"Tell her I tripped on something and fell on my hand."

"Maybe I should just tell her the truth."

"No! She's already gonna freak out, as is! This is about my fingers and nothing else!"

"Alright. Jeez, calm down. Where do I tell her to pick us up?"

"Over there." He pointed with his good hand. "El Gallito." A taco shop.

"Fine."

Colin stepped away from his sister, trying to shake the pain out of his fingers. Nope. That only made things worse.

Victor Villa was a dead man.

Colin took a deep breath. Focused on the humming telephone wires overhead. Could hear dozens of conversations zipping back and forth above him.