Moving threat

5: The first threat

A bright white light shines above my head. I could tell where I was even if I had no idea what was going on for the five seconds after I woke up. Doctor's office lighting was oddly familiar to me.

The shot.

Arthur was desperate.

And the worst sentence that I ever heard "You have to die now, Voltaire"

What was that? 

When I was five me and my parents were on vacation in South Africa. We were going to a Safari after I begged for months because I was "so into nature". We would fulfil my desire. My mom was a little suspicious about the safari, but my dad was so into it. Two minutes into the safari I saw a spider...

That was the first time I fainted. After that we figured out fainting would become a big part of my life, usually fear or situations of extreme stress bring me to faint, it gets dangerous when there's no one around that knows, so there's no one to catch you.

- I think she's waking up! - I hear Arthur's voice screaming.

- Hey - My hangover-sounding voice is ridiculous.

- Hi Genny, how are you feeling?

- Awoken? - He laughs.

After a little while I can finally sit down to find myself in a normal hospital, I try not to feel disgusted but it comes from deeper in me, for the first time ever I was in a public hospital. And believe me, I feel so guilty, why do I have to be different when for so many people this is the only choice?

- What do we have here, newcomer? - A doctor gets in the "room"

- I'm fine doctor, it was just a normal fainting from fear - It wasn't fine, somebody tried to kill me.

- Fainting is never normal - He looks at his clipboard - Miss Voltaire.

- You can look at her blood tests, everything is alright - Arthur confirms me.

Autumn comes later into the hospital with clean clothes for me, and with her, we can finally leave the hospital. Arthur and I don't mention anything in the way home, even if Autumn told us to. When we finally get home, I can finally talk to him alone:

- Did you hear it too? - I say drastically going into his room.

- A person yelling that you should've died? Pretty hard to miss, Genevieve - He's rude and under defensive mode, it sucks.

- Hey - I go to his bed and hug him - It's going to be ok. 

- What if that sound was a bullet? - He snugs his head on my shoulder - Genevieve, you're the only family I have, losing you means losing everything that matters.

I mean... Isn't he cute? Weirdly I started loving this moment. But, it's also really sad, I love my parents, even if they sent me here. Arthur had so many tension moments that they started lacking on the nice family moments, my family always had it. I think he just really needs me to be his sister, someone to go to Christmas dinner with.

But right now I have to put my rough person shoes on.

- Look, Artie - I pull myself away from him - If just stay here sobbing about what happened, we are are not gonna get anything done. We have figure this out, but I don't really think we should tell Autumn.

He gasps over my lack of sensibility, but I believe he understands that we have to do what has to be done.

"Hi Gen, how are things going, do you feel better?" My mom says on the phone.

"Hi mom, I'm ok now, but I have to tell you something..."

Telling my mom I just survived a murder attempt was hard, but what was even harder was hearing her say that things like that are normal for "people like us" the normality my parents reacted with leaves me a thousand times more worried.

My guess is that they are trying to make me feel a little more chill, and failing miserably. But do they have this handled? They clearly don't want me to go home, but I wonder if they are going to do something here. She wants me to go to school tomorrow, she says I have a bright future that can't be interrupted, I just think the thought of me taking over the company freaks them out.

When it happened, no one heard it, the music was way too loud and our car was parked a little far away from the house, well, that just makes us stupid. Arthur was scared, he took me to the hospital by car, yet he didn't know if I was really hit by anything.

Is it more dangerous here than in New York? I mean, if there's someone who wants to kill me here, there's twenty that want to kill me there... right?

- We're staying - I break into Arthur's room once again.

-What? - He gasps - I expected that from my parents, but from yours? Wow...

- They think the person just did it to scare us, they think it's normal for "people like us"- I gesticulate with air quotes.

- Oh my god! It's like they want us to die out here!

- They don't, they just want us to be prepared for when we run the companies, they receive death threats all the time. They love us, Arthur, even your parents, even if you don't necessarily believe in it.

- I don't know Genevieve, something's weird here.

- You know what Arthur, I don't care. We are going to school tomorrow! - I stand my ground.