Page 95 of The Circle

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

There was once a young boy. A laaitie like any other. He was carefree and liked to play outside. He liked to chase fireflies and climb trees. All the things a young boy might like to do. A happy boy, one might go so far as to say.

And a slap took it away.

He fell from the tree in which he was playing and the man he called Father slapped his face instead of patching his wounds.

Some years later that same young boy would endure another fall. This one from a much greater height and precipitated by a bullet entering his body. And this time, his father would scoop him up and ferry him away to safety. He would save his life.

Or, at least, would save some form of it.

Because by the time the boy was a man and took his great fall, he no longer needed nor wanted his father to care for him. He had the care, attention, and love he desired. Because he found it in the company of two others who, like him, had taken great falls of their own. Both literal and otherwise.

And, to greater or lesser, complicated, messy, amazingly improbable degrees, the three joined to form something like a parachute. And the boy-become-man came to learn—through trial and error, failure and success, great fokken displays of carelessness and great fokken displays of righteousness—that the only way he could possibly survive another fall… would be with his parachute intact.

I have ever believed that the only thing that can take the life of Alec van den Berg is Alec van den Berg. That if I am not ready to die, death cannot come for me. That I, having accepted and become death incarnate, cannot be intimidated or beaten.

It is now time to truly put that theory to its test.

I walk over to stand between Christine and the rifle young Liam is pointing at her.

“Hello, Liam,” I say with a politeness he honestly deserves, considering the last time we saw each other I left him unconscious.

He looks dead nervous.

“Ag, man. C’mon. Put that thing down. You don’t want to shoot anybody.”

Liam hazards a look at the other gun-toting laaitie and then at my dear old vader.

“Alec,” dear Dad says, “I want to encourage you to think before you do anything rash, my only seun.”

Something about him highlighting that I am his only remaining child strikes at my heart, but not enough to make me waver. I must see this through.

“I’ve been, I think, more than gracious,” my father continues. “I could have handled this situation dozens of times prior to now, and in far less cordial ways, but owing to the… history you have together, I have chosen to exhibit what I believe is an almost preternatural level of patience. Did you not enjoy the train? I thought it would give you ample opportunity to spend one last bit of time together. Was that not generous? I don’t expect a thank you, but you could be appreciative enough to stop attempting to intimidate my security laaities.”

I push the barrel of Liam’s rifle out of the way as I make my way up the small steps that lead to the stage. As I approach him, my father stands to face me.

He looks nothing like my father. Nothing like the man I remember. Not upon casual observation. But looking deeper, staring into his eyes, I see him. I see inside. I see the man who looked me in my own eyes and told me that the world was mine. I see the rogue who scared me. The monster who haunted me. The antihero I strove to be like.

And I feel… nothing.

No fear, no sorrow, no regret, no love, no hate, nothing.

It’s not an act. It’s not designed to elicit a response. It’s simply reality.

“Why Austria?” I ask. I didn’t plan to ask it, but I find myself genuinely curious. Either he or I will not be leaving this place today. I have made my peace with that. I may as well get the answers to as many unresolved questions as I can.

“You know how I love the opera,” he says, cheekily.

I nod. “Why all the guards? That seems very much unlike you.”

“Perhaps,” he says. “But things change. I know I certainly have!” He laughs an orgiastic, phlegmatic laugh that well attends his poisonous spirit. “Besides, Zander van den Berg made a grave mistake not maintaining a security force, as it turns out. Alexei Gorny is not keen to replicate those types of errors in judgment.”

I laugh a bit as well and shake my head.

“I’m glad you can see the levity in this, my dear Alec,” he says.

“It’s not that.”