A Killer's Lover

8

What the hell was Scott going to do with a teenager?

There was no way that he was bringing him into his job. Besides, the child looked spooked beyond belief. Scott was afraid that if he showed him exactly what he had gotten into, the boy would have a seizure.

"Where are you going?" Scott grunted, making a U-turn in the road. He wasn't even going to continue going toward the wrong side of the tracks.

The kid shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

"Didn't your parents tell you not to take rides from strangers?"

"Well, my parents don't really want anything to do with me at the moment." He said it causally, as if he was mentioning his latest assignment at school. Either way, Scott felt a small tinge of guilt wash over.

"Shit, I'm sorry." See, that was the line between being a cold killer and just a man with a radical job. He had the empathy of absent family to relate to him on a deeper level than anybody knew.

Well, absent mother and a lunatic father.

But there was no way that he was keeping him in his possession long enough to get into that kind of business.

"It's fine." He leaned his head against Scott's window.

"Okay...I'll just drop you off at the bus station. That way, you can get yourself a ride that's farther away than I can get you."

"But I don't have any money."

Scott looked over at him briefly, before putting his eyes back on the road. Something had happened to the kid. Who doesn't bring money when they run away?

"What's your name?"

"It's uh...it's Mitch. Mitch Grassi. You?"

"Scott Hoying."

"It's nice to meet you, s-sir." Scott looked over at him, raising an eyebrow.

"You grew up in one of those proper neighborhoods, didn't you?" He asked, making an abrupt left turn. "One of those places that have those stupid 'community picnics' and whatever."

"Oh, no. But my parents were kind of...upper middle class."

"Were?"

After that, Mitch bit his lip. Scott wondered if he hit a nerve without realizing it. He went quiet for a few seconds, as well.

The bus station was rather empty at night. No buses would transport people past nine, so Mitch was going to be stuck there overnight. But Scott knew what the worser alternative was.

Everything else happened all at once.

Suddenly, flashing police lights blasted from a car behind them. The siren was all too familiar for Scott, sadly enough.

But today, after speeding, killing a man, and having a possibly missing kid in his car, he knew that now wasn't the time to be caught.

Scott looked over at Mitch, who was looking back at him with wide eyes.

"Please drive! Anywhere but here!"

And that was the only encouragement he needed to take off down the road once again.

-

Scott didn't remember driving into the woods.

He didn't remember how he had even gotten into the woods in the first place. The last thing he remembered from the night before was driving out of Arlington with the kid.

The kid.

The blond sat up in the driver's seat, which he had reclined all the way back. Mitch wasn't in the passenger seat, but had somehow crawled into the back seats to curl up. The image made Scott a bit sick to look at, considering the fact that he sometimes had to transport lifeless people in body bags in the very same spot.

"Hey, kid." Scott hesitantly shook the boy's knee until he stirred, and his eye popped open. "It's the morning."

"Shit," Mitch mumbled, sitting up groggily. "Did we get away from the police?"

"Apparently. Look around." Scott watched as Mitch's eyeballs adjusted to the light from the new day. It was almost like he had been living in complete darkness his whole life, because the expression that was evident on his face seemed thrilled.

"Whoa."

"Why so happy? It's just trees," Scott rested his head on his arm, which he propped up against the window. Annoyance, some slight headache, and a crap ton of guilt poured into him all at the same time.

"But I mean...I haven't been in the forest in a long time." Mitch unbuckled his seatbelt, before hesitantly getting out of the car. Scott had to eventually follow suit. He had to admit, it felt great to stretch his legs a bit in the middle of the clearing.

"Oh...I guess that makes sense." He watched as Mitch looked up into the shady canopy of trees, smiling for the first time he'd seen. A nature whiz...wasn't surprising to Scott.

Mitch looked over at him after a while. "So, what are you like, Mr. Scott?"

"First of all, it's just Scott," he cringed. "And I mean, I'm not all that interesting."

Scott knew how to lie to people. He knew how to stand, how to act, how to make it work in his favor. A huge chunk of his missions have relied on it.

"Yes, sir. I tried the wine first."

"Oh course not, madame! Your son went to bed already. In fact, I escorted him myself. Now, let me escort you."

"The edge is secure, bro. I wouldn't let you fall..."

For some reason though, Scott felt bad for lying to Mitch. He didn't know how to construct his story in a way that would be easy to tell, to understand, and to go along with. All of his covers suddenly seemed as if they weren't good enough.

Like a teenager would care.

"Accounting," he heard himself say. Lame. "It's nothing worth talking about."

"You don't strike me for a cubical type of guy," the boy said offhandedly, no longer looking at Scott. It was a good thing, too, because otherwise he would have seen the blond's surprised expression.

"You don't strike me as a runaway," Scott retorted. "If I'm going to assist you any further, don't you think I deserve to know a bit about you first?"

Mitch was quiet for a few seconds, as if planning out his next words very carefully until, "fine."

"Great," Scott said, satisfied. The kid had to prove himself. The blond didn't like the idea of having to babysit a wuss. "Start back from the day when the story went crazy."

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