Ghostwriter

Chapter 25

Red Hood barrels through the woods with Red Robin at his side. Their cowls/hoods give them night vision that enables them to see in the pitch-black dark. 

Jason berates himself for sending Antigone out here in the middle of the night. While it was the best place to hide... it was also the best place to get caught. 

And based on the wide trail, beaten down by a handful of pairs of feet, someone picked up the two's trail long before they did. Now their only hope is to find the group before the group finds Antigone.

They come to a grinding halt when they see the boy from earlier knocked clean out. 

No.

Red Hood cusses.

Red Robin bends down to examine the boy's head. "He'll be fine. He just hit his head a little. I'm surprised they didn't kill him."

Red Hood scans the area. The ground's been flattened: small group of people were here earlier. Two heels—Antigone's--- lie on the ground, at least two yards apart from each other. One digs into the ground near the boy. Red Hood picks it up. 

Red Robin takes out neon tape from his belt and circles a tree with it to mark the area. "There's not enough blood on the scene for them to have killed her. Plus, her—" 

"I know she's not dead yet, Burger King. That doesn't mean we've got a lot of time before she is." Red Hood glares at his brother. 

Red Hood stomps over to the boy. His hands fumble for something in his belt. He takes out the canteen of water. He splashes the kid in the face with it. 

The boy jolts awake. "Wha-wha—" 

"Where did they take her?" Red Hood grabs the boy's shirt.

"Who? What? Wait, where am---" The boy's face twists as he remembers. "You mean the girl in the yellow dress?" 

Red Robin's gloved hand falls on Hood's shoulder. "Red Hood, he's not a criminal. He's a victim. Let him go." 

Red Hood releases his grip, and the boy falls to the ground. "Yes, the woman in the yellow. Who else? Start talking, now." 

Red Robin kneels down next to the kid. "Hey, it's ok. You're not in trouble. We just need to know so we can help her, too. Just start from the beginning when the group came." 

"Are you good cop and he's bad cop?" The kid points at them. 

"We're not cops. Talk, now." Red Hood gets in the kid's face. 

The boy scrambles backwards. "Ok, ok! We, um, we stopped to take a small break, and we started talking... and I got kind of mad, and I picked up a stick, and---" 

"Why'd you get mad?" Red Robin tilts his head. 

"I, um, I asked why they wanted her so bad. Turns out her sister is a dead cultist and in order to get revenge she published her sister's diaries or something and so then Transfuse got mad," Jason highly doubted that she worded it like that, "and then Transfuse did this thing. And... my uncle... my uncle..." 

The boy's eyes well up with tears. 

They piece it together. The boy's uncle died, and he somehow blamed Antigone for it.

The little crap-ball. 

Red Hood huffs. There's always collateral in a fight; but if the fight is not fought, then no one wins and even more die. Doesn't mean you need to be ok with the collateral, but you do what you have to acknowledge that it happens and then you move on. That's a lesson that every Robin learns early on.