The wanted murderer L.S.

Raisin Cookies.

The night came and passed, just as the one before it and the one after, and Louis stuck to his new routine of sitting outside to wait for police cars.

Yet again, on the fourth evening since his encounter with-who he'd eventually processed to be-London's murderer; Louis was sat on his deck chair in the cold with a hot chocolate by his side.

He had a thick scrapbook full of the articles on his lap. His parents had helped him collect bits of news from the papers, and blurry pictures of the same man Louis had met, yet none of them were good enough to identify him. They were all blurry pictures of a person in black with brightly dyed hair; nothing more. His name was never stated either, nor was his age, date of birth, family, or anything else. The only identity he had was the title of "Murderer", and in the grand scheme of things - it didn't have much meaning.

Louis certainly hadn't died. After thinking back on the situation, he knew that he should've been scared as most others in his place would be, but he didn't understand why. It was often like that. Louis felt fear, but couldn't pick out what was dangerous and what wasn't.

When he was four, he'd jumped off a slide, with terrified both of his parents and caused a large commotion in the park. When he was thirteen, he'd fallen off a boat in a lake, to which everyone on
board had been incredibly loud and worried for his wellbeing. Last year, he'd built a small rocket in his back-garden out of papier-maché and fire-crackers.
Liam had got incredibly angry when it turned into a bonfire right in front of his little brother.

The police cars were approaching King Henry's Street. Louis could see the red and blue lights on the walls of other houses. He watched them get closer and closer until a motorbike sped past with a hooded man on, chased by seven cars this time. It seemed as if each night, the police became more desperate. Louis thought they'd be more strategic by this time; more knowledgable perhaps, but apparently not.

As Louis fell into a daydream where he was a policeman, and how he'd do a much better job than the real police were doing, a loud cracking noise erupted on the opposite side of the balcony.

Louis peaked around the corner of his chair and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He walked over to where the sound had come from and peered over the edge of the balcony. Vines crawled up the wall between his balcony and the next one along, and below were the perfect rosemary bushes in their perfectly perfect condition.

"Hello?" Louis asked into the void. "Oh, a squirrel!
Hello! Come here!"

Indeed, on the grass below sat a very plump grey squirrel, looking up at Louis curiously.

"Come." Louis said, clicking his fingers. "Look, what's this? Are you hungry?"

He took out a bag of cookies from his pocket and shook them. The squirrel, in return, twitched its nose and ran away into the nearby hedge.

"Oh."

He felt a huge wave of disappointment in his inability to tame the squirrel; so much so that he put his food away, folded his deck chair, and refused to go outside until the next morning.

He walked blindly through his dark bedroom until he met his bed which he flopped onto with a sigh.
He lay there for a few moments, wondering if he could find the squirrel, if the squirrel had a family, and if the squirrel got cold at night. His thoughts wandered around the bright valleys in his mind for a long time until he found his way out. At long last, he was back in his room where he sat up and turned the bedside lamp on.

As light flooded the room, Louis' heart almost lept out of his chest when he saw a man sitting on the black sofa in the corner.

"Ew— Why are you there?!" He shouted before covering his mouth with his hand.