Chapter Seven

Hey, are you lonely?
Has summer gone so slowly?
We've found, the ground
And that damage is done.
It's cold as you fade into the sun.


Voah stared silently out the window of the car, looking at the headlights passing by his car, listening to the music playing on the radio.

The bodyguard drove nimbly around the rain-slicked asphalt of the turnpike.

Where'd it go...

The singer's voice seemed to pause, as if in thought.

...to?

He had made his last I.D. eight months ago, with almost nothing to go on.

A police officer had been infiltrating a drug ring when he was discovered. The enforcers brought him out behind the building and beat him to death, throwing him in a dumpster.

The police discovered his body, finding the bug they had planted on him.

The last message that was recorded on it was the only one that was able to be heard.

A barely audible voice was talking before there were signs of struggle and the recording cut out. The voice was talking about the next delivery.

The police knew it was the leader, but they needed an name.

Voah was still an intern at the station when it was brought to him.

It took him three months of pouring over the criminal profiles and listening to the message until it was engraved into his mind.

But you're alive!
Well, it's only fallen frames, they told me
You stand out, it's so loud
And so what if it is?
It's cold as you face into the wind
Where'd it go...

Again, there was a pause.

...to?

Four days after that Rebecca had called, telling him that she wanted to get together with him. That she needed to talk.

He went, confused.

He brought his gun with him.

He walked to her, seeing her sitting on the bench. She was biting her fingernails nervously.

He slowed, and she looked at him, anxiously.

She smiled. A plastic, fake smile.

He reached into his coat and continued walking towards her.

With a crack she slumped forward, a bullet in her chest.

He pulled out his gun and began running, firing blindly at where he thought the shot had come from.

A man stepped out of the bushes, holding a shotgun.

Without a second thought, Voah drilled two shots into his head, watching him fall to the sidewalk.

He sprinted to his car, scrambling to put the key in the ignition. Gunning the engine, he peeled back to his apartment, calling the police.

So what if you catch me,
Where would we land?
In somebody's life
For taking his hands
Sing to me hope as she's
Thrown on the sand
All of your work is rated again
Where to go?

The government was moving them now. Every three months they moved his mother and him to a different city, gave them new names.

Voah had made the most friends in Chicago, but now he was rapidly being distanced from it.

He looked over at Jane, who sat next to him, staring out the window.

"Jane?"

She looked over at him.

"Yes?"

He stared for a second.

"Nothing."

Jane turned back to the window.

But it's all wrong, you're so strong.
But this life's work
and choice took far too long.

A truck sped by the car.

Voah's thoughts went to his mother, who was still in jail.

She had thirty-eight more years.

Their last conversation had been four months ago.

"When I get out, it'll be fine," she had said, "don't dwell on what has happened."

She stopped.

"Your father wouldn't have wanted it."

And I was sure you'd follow through
My world was turned to blue
When you'd hide your songs would die
So I'd hide yours with mine

Voah opened the car door.

Jane looked at him.

"What are you doing?"

He couldn't look at her.

"Nothing."

He unbuckled his seatbelt.

The driver braked hard, trying to stop the car on the slick asphalt.

Voah leaned out, the momentum of the car pitching him out, smashing him onto the ground.

A truck swerved to avoid him, crushing the SUV that Voah had been in a moment before.

Two more cars hit the truck.

Darkness bit into the edges of his vision as Voah stared up into the sky, the rain falling onto his bloody face.

And all my words were bound to fail,
But I know you won't fail
See, I can tell.