Redemption [| PHILLIP GRAVES |]

CHAPTER XXVII: Old Habits

Graves had just finished reading out Rodolfo's letter to him as he went to rest in his bed for a couple minutes to dry down for a moment. He still needed to give out the rest of the letters to the other members of the team, but he couldn't do that with a swollen face from crying. He admits that he should've died instead of Rodolfo, because clearly to him – he didn't deserve that death.

Part of him wanted to know who killed him as well.

That's for him to find out in his future endeavors.

He was constantly asking himself questions on who could've done it despite not being there in the site of incident. There were many possible people on his mind, but most of them seemed incorrect because it wasn't that clear to him and it was also very faded. Those people in his mind were never that lethal, to the point they could kill Rodolfo. Sure, they could perform criminality, but let alone killing Rodolfo is impossible because he is a strong figure in general, his only weakness being a soft person.

Who could've done it?

After just laying down on his bed, doing absolutely nothing while staring at the ceiling – he finally let all of his emotions go as he stood up and went to his bathroom, cleaning himself up from the sink as he observes himself in the mirror. He noticed a few factors that underwent changes.

First being his hair. He noticed that it has gotten a bit long in the past couple of weeks or maybe even months. It wasn't his original hairstyle anymore, but it still looked pretty similar to that. It was just a bit messy in general, and the side swept didn't look the same anymore – and he could've sworn that he was growing a small mullet as well. Graves always liked shaving his sides, but due to the number of distractions lately – he couldn't, and will probably not choose to do anything about it anytime soon. He kind of liked it.

Second being his facial hair and features. He was kind of growing a beard now since as specified, he wasn't able to shave – but on first opinions, he was digging his new facial hair since it came out good. He doubts that it would never be like Price's beard, but it was still kind of handsome to think about. Very egotistical of Graves indeed.

Next, but lastly – his facial features. Graves had burn scars everywhere on his face. Some were noticeable, but some weren't – but it still looked kind of messed up. It was healed and dried up which was good, but it was still kind of lingering within the premises of his skin. Now, the one thing he noticed was the linear scar on the top side of his face as it slid down his right eye. He doesn't know where he even got that, but it was wide enough to be noticed – dry, yet obvious once again.

Once he was gone taking a fresh compression of water onto his face, he stood out of the bathroom – having an absolutely wet approach because he didn't bother to take a moment to dry his face. Stupidity at its finest.

He goes over to his desk and grasps the box with his mere hands, recalling Rodolfo once again and thought it was so absurd, yet he couldn't help but miss the man.

"Fuck. I hate missing you, Rudy." He whispers to himself as he looks at the box, the essence of the man still around the small object.

He hurried up to his door and proceeded to find the rest of the team so that he can give out the letters dedicated to them by Rodolfo.