The figure took us outside. Marcus and the other prisoners were put into a separate vehicle from ours. As he left, Marcus looked at me, without saying anything else.
Master Ren was on my mind; I thought one of those figures was him. Besides, I absolutely had to talk with him about it, because I didn't know what had happened to him in that fight.
I don't remember exactly how we got home that night. One of the masked figures took us as far as a safe area and put us into a vehicle waiting there; the new driver dropped us off at the 4th District, at our home, without asking a single question. Throughout the drive nobody spoke a word; there was only the sound of the engine and Elisa's and Elena's sobs. After a long while I turned to Elena, wondering how she was, and looked at her face; she looked back at me with a smile, trying to comfort me. Then she looked silently out the window, that horror still in her eyes. The driver, before dropping us off, turned and looked at us — his face was masked too, only his eyes visible. "Forget this night," he said briefly. "Don't tell anyone. It'll be safer for you, and for others."
We got out of the vehicle; my legs were shaking, and I was holding Elisa's hand tightly. The vehicle drove away silently, its headlights shrinking and disappearing in the darkness.
When we reached home, Master Ren was inside, sitting at the table; his eyes were red and he was dying of worry for us. Then, the moment he saw us, he stood up with an enormous relief. "Thank God, thank God. If anything had happened to you I would never have forgiven myself," he said.
Elisa ran to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and wept sobbing, her whole body trembling. Master Ren embraced her, stroked her hair, tried to comfort her a bit more and moved to the couch. Elena laid her head on his knees and stretched out on her back; meanwhile Master Ren went on tenderly stroking her head.
Elena, in a still-trembling voice, began to tell what had happened — our kidnapping, the place we were held, then the masked rescuers who came that night, and that merciless scene we saw. As she told it her voice sometimes broke off, sometimes sped up, as if she were living it all over again as she remembered. Master Ren listened, giving the appropriate reactions on his face — shock, anger, relief — but as I watched him, I noticed that these reactions were a notch too perfect. As if he had rehearsed it beforehand; the timing of every expression was a notch too flawless.
Then Elisa asked him what had happened to him; she explained that we hadn't been able to see him.
Master Ren told them that reinforcements had come in the fight and that they had beaten him with overwhelming numbers. And truly, as he said, his face was bruised all over. That was probably why he hadn't been able to rescue us.
Then, sincerely, "You're alright, though," he said finally, taking Elisa by the arms and looking into her face; there was real worry in his eyes — that part wasn't fake, I was sure of it. "That's what really matters."
All this time, I only stood in the corner and watched him, arms folded across my chest, never taking my eyes off him. At one point Master Ren looked at me — only for an instant, but there was something in that look, a questioning; as if he were asking inwardly, "I wonder whether you saw me?"
That night nobody talked much. Elena stayed with us for safety reasons and slept in Elisa's room; the two of them fell asleep holding each other, as if that way they'd feel safer. I withdrew to my own room but couldn't sleep, my eyes fixed on the ceiling, repeating the same thought for hours. I looked out the window, searching for my friend the moon, but unfortunately it was cloudy that night. My heart tightened. I looked in the mirror to see what state I was in. I didn't have much of a problem, just a few scratches and redness on my wrists. The real problem was in my mind; those screams and stories... Toward midnight I quietly got up and went down to the kitchen. Master Ren was still there, with the same book, but he wasn't reading anymore — he was only staring into space, and the cup in his hand had clearly gone cold, no steam rising from it now.
"Can't sleep?" he asked when he noticed me, his voice soft.
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"No," I said, and sat down across from him; the sound of the chair echoed in the silent kitchen. We stayed silent for a while, both of us looking each other over, it seemed, and then I gathered my courage. "Master, tonight... do you know who rescued us?"
Master Ren's hand paused for a moment above the cup he was holding — a very small movement, almost imperceptible, but I had seen it, I had recorded that small hesitation in my mind.
"No," he said, his voice flat, with no change at all in his eyes. "But whoever they are, they did you a good turn. That's a rare thing in this city."
I looked at him for a long time, into his eyes, trying to read every wrinkle, every expression on his face. There was a question inside me — should I ask directly? "Was it you?" But at the same time, if the answer was "yes," I didn't know whether I was ready to hear that truth. And on the other hand, if he said "no," it would be a lie, and I would notice that lie too, and maybe that would be worse for both of us — a trust built on top of a lie was not trust.
In the end I didn't ask. "Good night, Master," I said, got up and went back to my room, my steps heavy.
But that night, lying in my bed, I knew one thing for certain: in Master Ren's life there was a much larger and more dangerous world that I knew nothing about. And that world had now become a part of my mind too, whether I wanted it or not.
The next morning, Elena left early and went home — her family had probably been worried, as could be understood from the notifications that kept coming to her panel. As she left she looked at me, the traces of that night still in her eyes, faint shadows under them from lack of sleep. "Kai," she said, her voice low, stopping in the doorway. "Are you alright, Kai?" She had asked it with a worry coming from within, in a way that made all the other "are you alright" questions seem unimportant. However blunted certain feelings have become in this world, I think love still exists.
I didn't answer, I only shrugged. Elena looked at me a moment longer, another question in her eyes, but she gave up asking, then nodded and left, her steps echoing away down the corridor.
I didn't go to school that day — Master Ren had said "rest for a day"; but he had forgotten to inform the school. Elisa and I stayed home, but she wasn't as cheerful as before either; she was constantly murmuring something, staying silent, turning the spoon in her hand aimlessly in her food.
That day, in a message from the school, I got a note from our class teacher — Ms. Laura had noticed my absence that day and sent a short message: "Are you alright, Kai?" I thought about what kind of excuse to invent for her, wrote and deleted many messages. Then I looked at the ceiling; I think I was very stressed. After thinking a bit I sent a classic message saying I was fine, and went back to my thoughts.
In the afternoon Master Ren went out — he said "the market," but by now I knew that not every "going out" of his had a real explanation. Listening to the sound of the door closing, I felt a strange emptiness inside me. After he left, I sat down next to Elisa on the couch, a pillow between us; outside a light rain had started, and the sound of the drops hitting the windows filled the room.
As the raindrops went on striking the glass, it fell to me to break that heavy silence between us. From the way Elisa gripped the pillow in her lap, I could tell her mind was still wandering the dark corridors of that night. For a seventeen-year-old high school student it was a trauma impossible to digest; and considering the atmosphere of insecurity in the city, even if she tried to act mature, the weight on her shoulders was heavy. Even though we always hear that this happens to someone, living it is an experience far beyond hearing about it.
"You know," I said, keeping my tone as calm and even as I could, "the sound of the rain always silences the world outside a little in this house."
Elisa lifted her eyes from the glass and turned to me. The faint shadows under her eyes gave away her sleeplessness, but the dullness in her gaze had given way to a clearer awareness.
"The world outside doesn't look like it's about to go silent, though," she said, her voice low and mature. "What happened last night... it isn't something that will pass easily, Kai. I'm trying to control my mind but those moments keep coming back."
"It'll take time to pass, and that's completely normal," I said, looking straight into her eyes. "You don't have to pull yourself together right away. But remember, we didn't stay trapped behind those locked doors. We're here. We're safe. The Master got through it safely too. And if we run into a situation like this again, I won't stand at the edge and watch."
Master Ren didn't go home that night after the vehicle left.
He walked back into the warehouse and stood in the middle of the floor and looked at what was there, and then he crouched down beside the man whose head he had taken off and stayed like that for a while, and the woman in the dark cloak came and stood behind him and neither of them said anything…