Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 10: Recibió Su Merecido

ALEC

A FEW DAYS LATER

"Check," Kishan muttered boredly, sliding his knight piece across the chessboard.

"Checkmate," Alec countered indifferently, flicking Kishan's piece with his own to emphasize his triumph. Kishan stared at the board for a few seconds before he threw himself back into the opposite sofa cushions and groaned in defeat. "That makes the score three to nothing."

"Jeez, who knew you were secretly a sadist when it came to chess..." Kishan muttered dejectedly as he glared accordingly at the chessboard as though it had wronged him.

Alec protested, "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Oh nothing..." he replied. "I'm going to grab a drink, want anything?" he asked and Alec shook his head. He muttered something about not rushing it, seeing how he was not eager to lose a game to Alec for the fourth time in a row. Maybe it would be best if they did something else—not that there was much else to do.

As Kishan left, Alec ran a hand through his hair as he checked for any updates from the Captain, but so far nothing. There hadn't been any word about the case from the Captain since he called to the day they arrived to tell them he was glad they made it there alright. No word on any progression or even lack of since then, and Alec didn't like it. He didn't like the feeling that he could be doing more, working harder to prove his friend's innocence so that they wouldn't have to be stuck here.

But there was little he could do from a safe house. With no updated information, or proper resources to even look up on files. He felt stuck. And even worse, it was all they could do to keep themselves occupied throughout the day.

Kishan, for the past few days, had probably been the most neutral out of the three of them—claiming that being bored was a 'life skill' that Alec oh so clearly had yet to master. He and Alec mostly kept up reliving a few old academy memories, and even a few stories of what Kishan did at the bureau...before the whole frame job. Alec noticed he didn't like to talk about it, and his demeanour noticeably became strained and visibly uncomfortable the closer they got to the subject, so Alec, respectfully, didn't pry too far into. Though he wanted to.

Then, of course, there was the bounty hunter—if she was even still here that was. It was rather hard to tell.

She hadn't shown much, Alec only caught sight of her a few times in the past few days, bringing things to the basement and leaving them there, or when she occasionally came out to eat something. Though it seemed she was rather tense about something. Which was strange because there didn't seem to be anything wrong. That he knew of at least.

He tried to ask her about it—really, he did. Finding it within himself to show one ounce of concern for her...But as expected, all he got in response was a cold shoulder and a snarky remark about him not anything better to do than to bother her.

Some partner she is if she's not even present ninety-nine percent of the time...

Or perhaps was that better?

They didn't get along. Which was proven on multiple occasions. Maybe it would be better—or at least not cause and heated conflicts—if he did just let her keep her distance and do...whatever it was she was doing. Maybe.

But still. Alec wasn't always used to working with partners, but that didn't mean he didn't know how. Partnership worked like a simple mechanism, if one piece was not in sync with the other, something would fall apart, sooner rather than later. He had worked on enough duo cases to know that. If you wanted something, you had to be openly willing to ask in order to know. And in this case, Alec wanted to know if he could trust Maize.