Detective Hajiri; Volume One

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Just five more days, Hajiri."

"Just four more days."

"Only three more.."

Hajiri wondered if he was trying to cheer him up. "You'll be rid of me soon.." But that wasn't a comfort to him. Not only could Julian make a good hostage or shield if it came down to if, but he rather enjoyed the company. In fact, he needed it.

Hajiri didn't understand the kid's attachment to him. Likewise, he couldn't really understand his attachment to the kid. Because he'd ever felt fear like this.

He'd been an adrenaline addict since he was young, and found himself in precarious situations on dozens of occasions. But he was always wrapped in a safety net, too. Throw out

his last name and watch the tide change. Watch the fear fall. That privilege was long gone now. Hajiri realized how badly he didn't want to die.

It was primal, it was survival. It came with the gripping guilt of every life he'd taken, all the terror he caused. He understood it now. And Julian was a living, walking, breathing monument to all his crimes.

And so, he needed Julian. Like a child needs a parent, or like a parent needs a child. Like that child hates correction, like that parent hates their own anger.

Like he longed for his lost family.

"He loved storybooks.." He found himself telling Julian one night, just one day before he turned sixteen. "He would've been about your age ...."

Just then, the attic door swung open. Men clothed head to toe in black swarmed the pair, seizing Hajiri by the arms.

Hajiri delivered a swift uppercut to one of the guys, his sunglasses flying off his face and to the floor. He kicked sideways at another crook, who's legs buckled.

But the first came back from behind, grabbing his torso as the teen wrestled with all his might. He kicked backwards forcefully, as another man was already on him, jabbing a pistol into his chin.

They mostly ignored Julian, who grabbed desperately at their clothes, trying to pull them away. One perpetrator swung backwards at him, brushing him off like a bug. The kid then managed to dislodge his gun, holding it to the men and shouting, "Let him go! Let him go!"

Two of the kidnappers responded by pointing their own guns at the kid, inciting a standoff. Julian was frozen, there was nothing he could do.

The owner of the house emerged from the door, but only asked that the gunmen be more quiet.

"You rat!" Hajiri spat, overwhelmed by his attackers. He'd fended them off intensely, but couldn't hold his ground forever. In the meanwhile, he'd been hit across the cheek and his lip reopened. "I trusted you! I trusted you!"

The kidnappers handed the house owner a wad of cash as they dragged Hajiri out, arms twisted behind him.

Julian stood alone, gun quivering in his hands, still pointed at the attackers. Hajiri managed to wrestle one arm free for a moment. A moment that would be burned in Julian's memory forever.

As they stole him away, the fugitive gestured towards his heart. He could hear him shout in English, "Please shoot.. please.."

Julian stood unmoving, watching the flame die to fear's biting chill. Unfiring.

And so the moon rose in the day and the sun shone in the night. The flowers grew in the autumn winds and leaves fell in the spring. The wolf howled at an absent sky, and the pale boy turned himself in, one day to sixteen.