Page 42 of Silenced

It’s a living room. Sort of. With a dining area. Sort of. It’s modern and filled with the furniture the bedroom isn’t. There’s a TV and knickknacks and even photo frames with pictures of either three boys huddled together or a single teenager with sparkling eyes…

Why do I remember his face?

That teen is different from the others who, despite posing for photos, are serious. Somber.

They’re actually quite ghoulish.

With the soft features of childhood, the ancient souls that peer back at me through ageless eyes are disconcerting.

By comparison, the one on his own is either grinning at me from beneath a Yankees’ cap that, along with a mop of bright blond hair, covers half his features or is dressed in a varsity jacket from high school with a cocky smirk he aims at the camera.

He couldn’t be more different than those three boys who stare at me with a fierceness I haven’t seen on a kid’s face before.

The sensation plagues me as I check out the rest of the space. My gaze continually darts over to those pictures even as I take in the warm brown leather of the couch and the art that dots the walls as well as the massive bookcases in here—sheltering what has to be over a thousand books.

It’s quieter too, I note.

Even more so than it is in his bedroom.

That is until a soft hum sounds in the space.

Air regulation.

“Is this a safe room?” I sign, aiming the words at him from his place at the dining table.

I’m stunned when he nods.

The notion is both disturbing and reassuring.

The man has a thirty-million-dollar painting above his bed so it’s fitting he’d have an emergency solution to a home invasion, but somehow, I get the feeling the home invaders would have to be insane to break intohishouse.

I bite my lip. “Will you lock me in here?”

This time, he doesn’t look at me as he shakes his head and, instead, retrieves something from the tray—a napkin. One that was shielding a plate of breakfast foods.

My stomach gurgles and I press an embarrassed hand to it as I peek at the dish in front of him with an eagerness I can’t hide.

He tilts back in his chair, spreads his legs slightly, then pats his knee.

My mouth gapes.

Is he for real?

I retreat a step, simultaneously snarling and signing, “I’m not that hungry.”

His eyes narrow and, with angry flicks of his hands, he retorts, “If you want to eat, you will sit here and let me feed you.”

It gets worse.

“I’m a grown woman! I don’t need you to feed me!” I spit then, with an annoyed hiss, remember that he can’t understand me so I sign that to him.

He just looks at me.

And that sense of inexorability plagues me again…

There’s a timelessness about him.

It’s as if he can wait a thousand lifetimes without losing patience.

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