Partners in Crime (Remastered)

The Beginning(Prologue Chapter:1)

Jan 29

A warning before I start. If you're looking for a happy ending, leave. This isn't the place for you.

Alright, lets get into it I guess.

This is gonna sound cheesy, but it started when my little sister came home. I was..5, maybe 6, so you can imagine how thrilled I was at the time. A little sister to play with, and dress up with, everything a kid could ever want.

That is, until my dad started taking "later shifts." And coming home smelling like alcohol and weed.
I didn't understand what he was doing at the time, but once you run into enough dirtbags around cities, you tend to catch on.

Anyway

Yeah. My dad, who was supposed to be a cop, ended up hooking up with random women and getting high as shit almost every night, leaving my poor mother to go insane trying to take care of us kids.

I guess I finally got fed up. Took until I was 11, but i finally packed up all my important shit and left.

Now I know what you're thinking, I didn't take my sister. What, you think I was old enough to take care of myself, much less a kid half my age? Psychos.

I walked for a while. I had to cut through the city to leave, and I met some strange people there. Two girls who insisted I tell them if I was running away, or breaking any laws, and a boy with brown hair who seemed particularly interested in my eyes. I got outta there pretty quick.

Once I was out of the city, I passed an old graveyard, with a redheaded family. There was a little boy about my sister's age there, and an older kid, and it looked like another one on the way.

Eventually, I made it to the quarry. Had a lake in it and everything, and I loved it there. I wandered around for a while until I found an old cabin a few minutes' walk from the edge of the water, with an old man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch.

I went up to him, like the stupid kid I was, and said hello. I mean, he looked nice enough.
"Well hello there. You seem awfully young to be out here by yourself. Are you alright?"

I told him I was fine, and he seemed content with that answer. He got up from his seat, offering me a place to stay and a hot meal if I helped around the house, since I seemed to have nowhere else to go.

I agreed. Chores for housing and food. It felt fair enough at the time, and it was.
It was getting late, so he gave me one of his spare coats and a blanket, and let me sleep on the couch. It was musty, and old, but comforting.

Over the next couple months, we grew close. I later learned he was blind. While I stayed  I offered to help him with shopping, and take walks with him, which he gladly agreed to. I think we both needed the company. It was nice.

Then, on one of our walks, we came across a car. A small, red car, pulled over to the side of the road. I..regret not telling him about the bloody woman laying dead in the ditch next to it.

Inside the car, there was a boy, curled up asleep in the reclined driver's seat. He sat up when the old man tapped on the glass, and I saw the glint of a knife behind his back. He was covered in bandages. I remember thinking "Weird..maybe I'll ask him about it later.."
After all, he couldn't be much of a threat, right? He looked around my age, maybe only a year or two older.

They talked for a moment, the boy barely acknowledging me, before we headed back to our little house and had lunch. We were all hungry, but the kid we had found seemed to be starving. I tried making small talk, but all I got out of him was a name, Zack.

That night, I helped the old man set up an air mattress
"What's that"
"Its an air mattress, like a portable bed" I smiled a bit to him "But, it's for me. You can have the couch, it's more comfortable"

And we went through the motions again. The old man gave him one of his spare coats and a blanket, and sent him to sleep on the couch.

In the middle of the night, I heard the floorboards creak. And Zack was up, and moving towards the old man's room. I got up and followed, stepping around all the creaky and crackly floorboards.
He paused at the door, looking down at the old man and his tabby cat. And that's when I saw the knife again. He took a moment, before turning around to leave, and jumping out of his skin when he saw me
"Jesus fuck- Why are you so quiet??'

"Why are you so loud?"

He pushed past me, walking out the door and towards the city.

*****

By the time he came back, covered in blood and whiskey, the old man was awake and ready to greet him at the door.
The old man, stroked his cheek, and finally smelled the blood staining his bandages.
"Blood.."
"Yeah, I killed a guy. Felt like killin, so that's what I did."
...at least he was honest.
The old man sent him back to bed without another word about it.

One thing I loved about the old man, especially in that moment, was that it didn't matter where you came from or what you did, he didn't seem to care. What mattered to him was that you were safe, and had a warm place to sleep for the night.

It was nice, for a while. We went about the motions of life, Zack opened up a bit more. But one afternoon, he insisted on going out to get groceries alone. Said he only needed to pick up a few things.
And to this day, I still think I should've insisted. Maybe things would've been different.

Still, we let him go. And it was about 3 hours past when he would've come home, after the sun had gone down, that Zack got angry.
I don't blame him. All the shit he went through before that moment couldn't help. He got angry, smashed some old boxes, and sent a knife sliding across the room. He walked over, picked it up, and we went out looking for the old man.

I still remember the lights. Lights, but no sirens, and a crowd. 3 things you never want to see.
The white hair, and coat on the ground were really the only things that led us to what really happened. It pains me so much to think that I could've been there to stop it.

And yet Zack didn't really react, not initially at least. Not until we found the stupid goddamn teenagers that threw a wrench into our lives. The ones holding his cane, and wallet. Gloating about their little murder.
I stood there. And watched, while zack ripped their fucking throats out. And I smiled.

The bad guys always get what they deserve, right?