Zero Zero

10: when the world comes crashing in

frank's mom started the car, and we began to move again. this automobile drove much smoother than the van which ray drove. it didn't really feel familiar at all, not that I though of it. even the van had a sort of back-burner familiarity in the way it reacted to each bump and corner.

but here, whenever we'd go over speed bumps the gravity never really seemed to shift. and whenever we'd turn corners, it never felt much like we were being pulled off to one side or another. 

the fact that frank was no longer sitting on my lap probably had something to do with that. even with my limited experience in moving vehicles, I'd studied physics and simply studied the way things worked in films before. 

now frank sat across from his mother in the front right-hand seat of the car, leaving me alone in the back of the car. it felt a bit lonely, but I almost missed being kind-of alone. even if it had felt a bit awful at first, frank was really the only thing I knew in this world, I also knew nothing bad would come of it. 

he was a mere few feet away. and I could fucking breathe and stretch and move. it was nice.

I moved to the left side of the back seat, where I could see that frank was still there. it felt childish, but he was still the only person who knew both this world and the one that we had left. 

without him, I knew I wouldn't been good as dead, I'd still be as good as dead. not that we weren't already, but the odds were infinitely better thanks to him. 

"frank, could you explain what the hell is going on. please." his mother asked, cutting through their strained silence.

frank looked back at me, as if he expected me to somehow explain this. I said nothing. just gave him a confused and possibly slightly offended look.

while I could explain bits and pieces of our situation, there were a lot of holes in my memories. and I knew that telling her could land both her and us in deep shit: deeper shit than we were already in. 

but he left me alone after that. quickly swept his gaze around the car twice, looking for any sign of them, before opening his mouth to answer. only he didn't, for a moment. he just stared like a dead fish with his mouth hung slightly open for a few seconds before he actually spoke.

"I-I don't know what they told you when I went to the hospital, but I didn't run off or whatever." he said, "they transported me to this place, mom. it was fucking awful."

his mom told him again not to swear. she sounded so strangely serene about the whole thing, what frank was telling her. but I supposed people reacted to things differently. especially giant things like this.

"I don't know exactly where it was," he continued, without missing a beat after being told off, "but they were training me and g here and a all of other kids to be fucking assassins, or almost assassins, or whatever."

his mom sighed and gave up her attempts to filter his mouth for the moment.

"it's not always hits, sometimes it's spying or whatever, but it's horrible." he said, emphasizing his words with gestures as he spoke. "there's all these people working there and they're all cold and flat. and the place is the same, you should see the fucking place. but I can't really know who to trust, you know?"

he paused, like he was waiting for an answer. but it never came, whatever it was.

"'cept for you of course. and ray. ray is good." he said, giving up on waiting. "but how could they do all that shit and have no one poking their noses there? me and g are gonna need to cut and dye our hair, and get some different clothes soon."