Exchange | Malum

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"Are you Calum Hood?"

Michael had a tight hold on his crushes hand. He was pale, and despite the fact that Calum was naturally darker than the frail lad, he was still paling, and he was shaking, but Michaels touch always managed to calm him down. "No, no, I'm not."

"Hm. . . you do realize that lying to the police results in an obstruction of justice, right?" Calum shook his head, because no, he didn't know that, and he wasn't sure about what he could reply without sounding like a smart-ass. Always defend yourself, that was rule number one. "This Calum Hood man was described as light brown, or tan, a bit in between, brown eyes, brownish-black curls, and a height exactly around yours. He also has a tattoo on his arm."

"Yeah, so?" Calum argued, pushing the police officer. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"So you admit you are him? Great." The cop licked his lips that were obviously imprinted with coffee from a local café. "I'd like to ask you a couple of questions if you don't mind."

"I do mind," Calum rolled his eyes, and Michael nudged his knuckles into the Maoris rib to get him to stop, but he just kept pushing it, and he was being an idiot. "Right, I should rephrase that. You don't have a choice. Move out of the way."

This wasn't a good idea. The smell of Tobacco took over rather quickly, which lead the police officer to jot something down in his notepad. "You are aware, Calum, that a use of drugs is illegal, and you will be charged for it if you are under eighteen."

"They don't belong to me," Calum frowned, just wanting an escape from all of the bad things happening around him. "They're my parents, you know, they belong to them oldies."

"I find that offensive," Joy smuggled, appearing out of nowhere. "We don't even know who this boy is that's talking to you. I mean we do, but he doesn't truly belong to us. We adopted him."

Calum's eyes nearly shot out of his head when hearing that. He was adopted? "I can assure you that they're wrong," the brunette mumbled, but the cop just continued to shake his head and jot things down in his notepad as if he was some type of reporter. "I need to speak to you alone, meaning that your little sidekick here is going to have to stop being clingy for a minute."

"He's not clingy!" Calum defended without a second thought, "he's just a little ball of sunshine and loves my company. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Just come on and stop wasting my time."

So Calum reluctantly left Michael alone with the Maoris parents, and to say things were awkward afterwards would be an understatement. Now for Calum to talk to the police officer. "Do you know anything about Aaliyah Janson?"

Calum remembered that name, but he had to lie, he had to keep his mouth shut. "Who?"

"Maybe this picture will jog your memory."

Grade school. Aaliyah had a sunflower in her hair that Calum gave to her. It was from his garden. She was standing beside him with a plush doll in her hand, and Calum was wearing a baseball hat and a soccer uniform. Aaliyah was going to Girl Scouts, that's what he could briefly remember from that photograph. "This is you, correct?"

"Y-Yeah," Calum stuttered out, still wondering what he had to do with this, or what happened to her, or why whatever happened lead the police to him. He hasn't done anything wrong. "I'm certain that you don't know what has happened to her?"

Calum just shook his head. He truthfully had no idea. "It was a couple of weeks ago, she was out running errands for her grandmother. Pulled into some alleyway, beaten up, brutally murdered."

"B - Brutally?"

"Unfortunately," the officer paused, "I'm not here to make accusations, but I'm here because reports have been filed stating that someone has seen you around beaten up, and we want to make sure that you aren't following in her footsteps. . ."