Deadly Silence (complete) Chapter 62

Vivian was exhausted. Too much happened in too short a time. She felt like she could sleep for an entire week and still need more. Life… was hard. Not that it’d ever been easy, but things were getting well past the usual threshold and into seriously difficult territory.

Was her past catching up with her, or was what Samuel said, that it was about him, the truth? He’d barely told her anything about the situation, only lightly touched the surface of his reasoning, which was fine — Vivian didn’t need to know the details — but it left a lot of unanswered questions. If she wanted to know who sent the shooters she needed the details she’d so easily brushed aside.

*Why can’t my life just be normal?*

A knock on her bedroom door startled her as she lifted her face up from the pillow she’d buried it in so no one would hear her groans of frustration. There was no way dinner had already arrived, and the chances of it being Samuel back to talk some more were slim to none.

Wondering who it could be, Vivian slid off her bed and answered the door, startled at who stood on the other side.

“We need to talk,” Laurent told her, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at his sister.

Vivian met his gaze then let out a sigh. “Can it wait…? I’ve had a bit of a day.”

“Come on,” he said, ignoring what she’d said and taking hold of her arm. His grip was stronger than she’d expected and Vivian found herself being led to his room.

Unlike hers, Laurent’s room reflected his personality. The walls were painted a dark blue and framed posters of different bands, movies, shows, even some eclectic art were hung in a way that pleased the eye. He had a desk for school work, but the major focus of the room was his gaming setup.

A large television hung on the wall in front of two comfortable looking gaming chairs. There were shelves with different consoles on either side of the television plus what looked like a computer with another two monitors.

Another look around the room and Vivian noticed there were speakers in each corner, affixed near the ceiling, that were probably linked to the setup for optimal surround sound.

It made her think back to how plain her own room was and wondered if she even knew how to personalize it the way Laurent had done with his own space.

“Have a seat,” he told her, pointing to one of the chairs as he sat in the other.

Vivian did as he’d instructed, keeping quiet as he fiddled with a controller before handing it over. She stared at it for a second before taking it, wondering what she was supposed to do; she’d never played video games before, at least ones that weren’t on her phone — may it rest in peace — so she had a sinking feeling this wasn’t going to end well for her.

The TV turned on as Laurent leaned back in his chair, his long legs spread as he slowly swivelled the chair a little one way then the other, his eyes glued to the screen.

Turning her own chair, Vivian copied him as best she could — at least in where to focus her attention as she’d already tucked one of her legs up under her while the other kept the chair from spinning.

“You ever play this game?” Laurent asked as he nodded to the screen.

“I’ve never played video games before,” she replied with a shrug, awkwardly holding the controller in her hands.

“Seriously?” He laughed when he spoke, but it quickly died. “Alright, well, this one’s easy.”

The next couple minutes was spent listening to her brother explain the controls. The stick was to move, the bottom button was accelerate, another was the brake, sharp turns and how to use items. It all went a little over Vivian’s head but she tried to remember it all as the character selection screen came up.

Laurent chose a green dinosaur like creature and Vivian looked at all the options for a moment before settling on an angry looking guy sporting a crazy moustache and wearing a yellow shirt under purple overalls.

Wondering what any of this had to do with Laurent needing to talk to her, Vivian pursed her lips and decided to let him get to it in his own time.

The racing game was colourful, the music catchy and the sound effects hilarious but Vivian didn’t laugh. She was frowning by the end of the first race, not even able to finish it as she’d been in dead last and may have gotten lapped at least once by the other racers.

She’d hit nearly every obstacles, gotten blown up, ran over countless banana peels, shot at and she didn’t even know what else had caused her problems throughout the entire race. Laurent chuckled at her antics, as if she were doing it on purpose and not actually trying. She couldn’t help the fact her fingers just didn’t know what buttons to press and she needed to glance down at the controller every few seconds. Vivian had crashed. A lot. And After her first experience driving a real car that afternoon she concluded that video game driving was a lot harder; after all, she hadn’t crashed Gilbert’s car once.

“You are not very good at this game.”

“I’m aware,” she muttered, letting out a breath as she leaned back in the chair, eyes on the screen as the second race started.

Halfway through the race Laurent spoke again. “So what happened this morning?”

Mind focused on her successfully avoiding a string of banana peels, Vivian shrugged her shoulders. “My phone died.” It felt lame saying it again but she was too focussed on the race to feel bad about it.

“Uh huh… I heard someone trashed your things.”

That caught her attention and, now distracted, Vivian slammed into an exploding block. Was he doing this so she wouldn’t win? Because there was no way he saw her as competition. “My things weren’t trashed,” she muttered, watching her angry little man start moving forward again.

“So what happened then?”

“Someone gave my stuff a shower,” she replied, not even realizing what she’d said, so intent was she on not letting anyone overlap her this time.

“I see…”

It was only when the race was over that Vivian realized what she’d let slip. Who knew it would be Laurent who got the full truth out of her in the end. Surprised, she glanced over at him but he was looking straight ahead. “Why?”

“What did you do to make someone do that?”

Vivian couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “I don’t even know who did it.”

Now he tilted his head a little, looking over at where she sat. “Seriously…?”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she continued.

“Why’s that? Not gonna retaliate?”

Shaking her head, Vivian watched the countdown begin, muscles tensing as she tried to time it so her character wouldn’t start the race with a burnout again. “No. I’m not doing anything about it.”

The rest of the race was spent without either of them talking and Vivian was delighted to find herself suddenly fighting for seventh place with what looked like an ape. It’d taken a few races but she was starting to get the hang of the game.

“Why not? Why not tell Dad? Or a teacher?”

“Why should I?” She countered with another shrug. “I don’t care.”

Feeling his gaze on her, Vivian looked over at her brother and frowned. Why was he even asking about all this anyway?

“Why don’t you care? They ruined your stuff.”