When I get home that night I don't see my parents anywhere in sight. I head down the hallway and hear their voices coming from the office. I slip close to the door and listen in.

"It's just too fast, I don't think it's good for her. How can she adjust so fast to the real world when she's been gone from it for five years!!"

"I don't know, but whatever she's doing it's working. Why change it or try and stop it?"

"I'm just worried; what if this rapid progress catches up to her and something bad happens. What if she has a panic attack and we aren't there?"

"Someone will be there to help."

"How do you know that?! And what about her nightmares? She's having them again."

"It's only been one since we moved here."

"That we know of! I'm taking her to Dr. Roberts this weekend to see if he recommends taking her to a specialist or something."

"Babe, please. Let's just keep an eye on her for now. You know she doesn't want to go to the doctor."

"Well the next nightmare she has I'm taking her and that's final!"

I walk away from the door and head to my room before they catch me eavesdropping. My parents are right. My assimilation into the real world is happening too fast. They don't know how long I practiced leaving the house; two weeks it took me to reach the curb, but once I did leave that curb it's like the floodgates opened. I was exposed to the endless possibilities of a normal life. My agoraphobia seemed to disappear. I still get anxiety about large crowds, what to do in social situations, fear about my parents killer, but is that agoraphobia or something else?

Once upstairs I take a quick bath because cheer boot camp was excruciating and my muscles are sore. Then I finish up the small amount of homework my teachers have given on the first week of classes. I finish pretty fast and spread out on my bed waiting for Mom to call me for dinner and thinking about how to explain to Victor what I need.

I don't want him to know someone is after me. I also don't want to go into too much detail about what I suspect happened to my parents. If I fib a little will he notice? My parents always do.

At dinner I ask my mom at the last minute if it's okay that Victor is coming over for a computer project. I don't label it as a school project because they would know I'm lying. She agrees. About an hour after dinner the doorbell rings.

"Victor! Come on in."

"Hi Princess, I brought my laptop. It's easier for me to use, I hope that's okay."

"Sure, lets go to my room and work on it."

"Absolutely not Doodle Bug!!"  My dad interrupts with, "and who is this young fellow?"

"Dad this is Victor, we have to do some computer work. It's easier to use the computer in my room."

He gives me a pointed look, "Fine, but leave the door open."  He walks away in his silly burgundy bathrobe that he has had ever since they adopted me and Mom's pink slippers. Why does he wear those?

Once we make it to my room, I leave the door open, but only a crack. I can't have my parents overhearing what I'm going to ask Victor to do. I hope he can do it!

"Okay Princess, what class do you need this project for. Have they given you a PowerPoint presentation already?"

"Umm, no it's more of a personal project. Can we talk over here?"  I indicate towards the small attic space behind my bookshelf.

I open the door and crawl inside with Victor following. I need to make this quick before my parents find us in here.

I lean closer to him so I can whisper, "Okay, you know how when we went to the mall I told you I was adopted? Well I want to find something out about my parents and I was hoping you could help without asking a lot of questions."

"Princess, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, I'll help you with your project, but how do you think I can help?"

"Well you're good with computers right?" The instant that came out of my mouth I realized my mistake. Victor has never told me he was good with computers, nor have I ever witnessed him doing anything with a computer!!! All my information is from my secret Academy dossier. How am I going to explain this?!?!

"Ahh, did Kota tell you?"

"Mhhhmmm," I hope my lying only seeps through words spoken and not onomatopoeia.

"Tell me what you need."

"Well I need you to get the case file on my family's accident. It occurred about eight years ago on October 6th. The file has been sealed and I can't access it and I don't want to ask my adoptive parents."

"I'll start right now, give me a bit and I'll see what I can do. If it's a sealed file it might take me longer to hack into their system and find the correct clearance to access it, but I can do it."

"Thank you, Victor."  I say as I lean my cheek against his shoulder. Even in the darkness of the attic I can see him blush. We crawl out and he takes a seat at my desk with his laptop and I sit on my bed and wait.

After about twenty minutes he hands me a USB stick with the files on it. He tells me he has to get back to his house before his parents get home so I walk him out.

As he leaves my house and heads towards his car I remember the rose he gave me earlier today. "Victor, thank you for the rose earlier today."

He gives me a questioning look and asks, "What rose?"

My heart stops and I stutter, "The rose... and the note wishing me luck at cheer? You put it in my locker, right?"

"No, I didn't Princess," his fire eyes blaze as he leans in, "Trust me, if I wanted to talk to you I wouldn't send you a note."   He turns and gets in his car and takes off.

I walk back up the stairs to my room in a daze. Victor didn't put that stuff in my locker, which means my first instinct was right. I need to find out who this person is and fast! I race to my computer to open the files and start going over all the details. It's so much information; the first page has a summary where the case has been ruled as accidental, but as I flip further into the digital documents I find pages labeled 'restricted' and lines are marked out. I keep scrolling and finally get to pages that are encrypted. Luckily, I know how to do this from the basic training my parents gave me.

Once I've un-encrypted the last ten pages I skim through the entire thing and a few things stand out. The first being a second set of tire marks near the accident. Was someone else there? Did they orchestrate this? Next, there were sightings in the area around the time of the accident of a man in a black hoodie with a white mask. Several reports were called in to the station, but at the time were ignored because of the many Halloween shops popping up during the month of October. Detective Reynolds' notes question whether it was someone just being an idiot wearing a mask around town or if it's related to the accident. She describes the mask witnesses saw as a solid white mask with slits cut out for eyes; everything else was a blank canvas. She does research on the mask and concludes it is Venetian and commonly called volto; Italian for face. The same mask I saw all those years ago.

 Volto.

The last bit of information that interests me is some emails she recovered from my father's computer. One of them reads:

Dear Mr. Sorenson,

You and your family are in danger every second the package is not in my possession. I will collect one way or another.

Sincerely,

Your Best Customer

Detective Reynolds summarizes her conclusion that someone was threatening my family and that is why they were fleeing only to be run off the road on purpose. She questions why I wasn't with them. She couldn't find any connections or solid proof of abandonment or murder and therefore through the recommendation of District Attorney C. Nasrin Sr., she closes the case as an accident. The word 'recommendation' was italicized I notice, could she be leaving me a clue to look into this District Attorney? Maybe he has answers, maybe he was the one being threatened. Could that be why they closed the case so fast?

A quick Google search reveals that the DA died five years ago. Nothing comes up when I search Detective Julia Reynolds' name. No trace of her being in the police department, no social media profiles, not even a birth or death certificate. It's like she never existed.

I spend the rest of the night feeling like I've been torn to pieces. First, I find out Victor did not give me my little surprise earlier today and it was probably this Volto guy. Then I learn more about my family's case. The extra set of tire prints, threatening emails? It hurts that someone would want to do this to my family. What could they have done that was so wrong that someone out there would want them dead? And how am I going to pull myself together to be able to function tomorrow?

I fall asleep and dream about Volto. Different scenes flash through my dreams and he's in every one of them. I'm eight years old again reading the note left for me while he's watching through the window. Volto is watching my family's car fall over the cliff. I relive my last night in foster care with Volto breaking through the window. I go to the mall with Kota and Victor and Volto is following us in the shadows. I walk the hallways of Ashley Waters while he walks right past me holding a rose and note.

I finally wake up in a cold sweat and try to act normal so my parents won't take me to Dr. Roberts. I continue on with my day to day activities like nothing is wrong. Like I'm not freaked out by a murderer on the loose. I pretend I'm normal. Normal is after all what I've been trying to be this entire time anyways; it shouldn't be too hard.