The Perfect Crime [ABANDONED]

Lock Picking

Michael was trying to sleep. He really, really was. He had given up coffee, soda, energy shots. Hell, he had even stopped drinking Powerade at practice in case that was what was keeping him up. Adam had slowly, over the past month, stopped having as many nightmares. The youngest Milligan was looking better and better every day. He seemed to feel better about his scar too, and he had stopped wearing his hat around the house. He still wore it out, but he was better.

Dean was doing great too. He had told Michael about him and Castiel, and Michael was happy for his best friend. He wanted Dean to be happy, and he could see his jade green eyes light up with excitement whenever he talked about Castiel. He helped Dean set up dates. They usually went out of town so no one would see them together, and Michael figured he should feel bad since Dean was sneaking around behind Lisa's back. But there was also that little tid bit of information that Dean always forgot to mention.

Dean and Lisa weren't technically dating. They had decided during the years that they had lived six hours away that they wouldn't date so they both had the oppurtunity to see other people. And now that Dean was back, they hadn't really started dating again. And Michael knew that Lisa wasn't in love with Dean either. He wasn't going to feel bad for helping his best friend be happy.

Sam was almost never home, and when he was, he was with Gabriel. Gabriel seemed to be recovering quickly, and he was always speeding somewhere on his wheelchair. He had gotten in trouble at school for giving people rides on the back of the chair down the hallways. Life for the Novaks and the Milligans was good.

Except for the fact that it was Saturday, and since Monday, Michael had gotten a total of seven hours of sleep. He looked at his watch. It was four a.m. and he hadn't slept since two a.m the morning before. The worst part was that he was exhausted. He was so tired that he was slacking off at practice. The game the previous night had almost killed him. He had thrown two interceptions and fumbled the ball once. Every sac he endured felt like his body was getting thrown off a cliff directly onto a pile of sharp rocks. He had still managed to throw four touchdowns and they won by a field goal, but they should have destroyed the other team. Michael was failing his team just like he failed everyone else.

Maybe he just needed to burn off some energy. Maybe he just needed to get so exhausted that he legitimately passed out and slept for a full twelve hours. Oh god, twelve hours sounded amazing. He slid off his bed and poked his head into Adam and Sam's room. Both boys were sleeping peacefully. He could afford to go for a run. He jogged down the stairs and pulled on his hoodie. It was fall now, which meant the days were far shorter and it was still pitch black outside. He needed a flashlight. He searched the garage thoroughly for one, but to no avail. Maybe the basement. He realized strangely that he had never been in Bobby's basement. He reached the door and twisted the knob, but nothing happened.

The door was locked.

How weird. Michael sighed and tried to push the door open. No luck. Why would Bobby lock his basement? What could he possibly have down there.....Michael shivered at the thought of Alistair's basement. Their foster dad had thrown Sam and Adam down there so many times Michael had lost count. Michael hadn't spent much time down there, but that was because Michael was Alistair's favorite punching bag. Michael could feel his heart rate speed up at the thought of Alistair. What if this was going to turn out to be just as bad as their last foster home? When they had first moved in with Alistair, everything had seemed fine. But then things had taken a bad turn and after that things were horrible. What if that was going to happen here too?

Michael needed to know what was in that basement.

While Michael seemed like the better behaved out of himself and Dean, there were a couple o skills he had picked up in the system to survive. When he was ten, he and Adam had been put in a really bad home, and after Adam had ended up in the hospital after one incident, Michael had taken the few belongings he had to his name and ran away with his brother. Being ten with a seven year old on the streets was bad. Michael didn't like to think about those days. That was when he had really learned not to trust anyone. He always had one thought and one thought only. Keep Adam safe. He had done things he didn't like to think about to keep his brother safe.

He didn't think he would be needing those skills after he ended up back in the care of CPS and was transferred to another foster home with Adam. Apparently, however, he did. Which is why he was on his knees in front of the door picking the lock on the basement door with a coat hanger. He pushed the door open as he heard the lock mechanism click. Michael climbed to his feet and pushed the door open.

He expected to find himself in a basement like Alistair's. It was not like that. It was furnished, the main room set up as a sort of game room. Why would Bobby keep this hidden? There was a pool table in the center of the room, a fully stocked mini-bar against the wall in the corner. Michael rubbed his forehead as he recalled the headache after his last party. That had been a month and a half ago or so, and he wasn't planning on drinking again for a while. He crossed the carpeted room to a door against one of the walls. He pushed open the door cautiously, still unsure of why the door to the basement was locked. He knew some of his past foster parents would lock up their alcohol cabinets, but Bobby left his unlocked, so it wasn't to stop the boys from getting into the alcohol.

Michael stepped into the room. It looked like an office. There was a desk and one of those spinny chairs that had gotten the better of Michael's ADD when he was younger. He went to the filing cabinet, but it was locked. Michael frowned and sat down in the chair, automatically doing the natural thing which was to spin around in it. He wondered if his ADD was what was keeping him up. He'd have to look into that.

Michael was about to leave the office when he saw the corner of the photo sticking out of the desk drawer. He grabbed the corner and pulled, yanking out the picture.

As soon as he saw what it was he dropped it, his heart speeding up to double its normal rate. His hands were shaking as he reached down to grab the picture again. Surely he had mistaken the image. Clearly it was something other than what he thought....

When he grabbed the picture and flipped it over he found that he had not been mistaken. The picture was of a body. A dead body. It wasn't the first one Michael had seen. His time on the streets with Adam had left him in some pretty bad areas, and he had stumbled upon a lot of things that a ten year old shouldn't have to see. So he could recognize a dead body when he saw one.

He could think of several different reasons why their foster father would have a picture of a dead body hidden in a locked drawer in a locked basement. None of them were good. Michael pulled out his phone and took a picture of the photo. He would just have to take this to the police. He crossed the room to the filing cabinet. Michael wasn't going to pick the lock, take some pictures, wake up Adam and Sam and Dean, and get them all out of the house quietly. He knew he needed proof of what he had seen however. He had run away from one too many foster homes with no proof other than a couple of bruises and been sent right back.

Michael didn't trust anyone.

He had never picked the lock on a filing cabinet before, so it took an incredible amount of focus. He was so focused in fact, that he didn't even hear the door open behind him. Michael only noticed there was someone behind him when he felt a pain in the back of his head and then saw nothing but darkness.

This chapter was supposed to be longer, but it's one am and I've got a job interview tomorrow and I only got four hours of sleep last night. So I'll publish part two of this chapter later today technically lol. Hopefully. No promises.

Quote in the next chapter!

I have the honor to be your obedient servant.