Survivor - Connor x OC

Flicker

Lorde - Flicker

Taylor trailed Connor and Hank into the small house, glancing around at the multitude of police officers that were standing around. Some of them she vaguely recognized from the station, others she hadn't met, but mostly she was wondering why there were so many on scene. There was a middle-aged woman standing in the living room on the right, wringing her hands nervously as she spoke to a pair of officers, frowning.

"Call came in about an hour ago," Chris stepped forward, and she gave him a small wave. In the kitchen she spotted a young boy who looked to be on the edge of puberty, possibly twelve or thirteen. He was also speaking to a police officer and had noticeable bruises along his arms and neck.

"What happened?" Hank asked, surveying the scene as well.

"The mother called the police, said the family android had gone crazy and attacked her son. It was choking him when she came into the room, so she grabbed the lamp off the table and hit the android until it let go." Chris explained.

Taylor glanced over at the boy again and found that his dark eyes were fixed on her as well. He smiled at her, and she got the sudden feeling of a cold finger sliding down her spine. She shifted to Hank's other side and turned her attention back to Chris.

"Where's the android?" Hank said next, also looking over at the kid in the kitchen. If he noticed her sudden discomfort, he didn't comment on it.

"It hid in the closet in the kid's room. Still there." Chris shrugged, looking over his shoulder toward the narrow hallway that must have led toward the bedrooms.

"Alright, we'll take it from here, Chris." The two nodded to each other before Chris moved away, resuming his post while Hank moved deeper into the house. When he noticed Connor and Taylor following him, however, he snapped, "What is this, follow the leader? Find something to do! Christ."

"Do you have any theories about the deviant, Taylor?" Connor followed the Lieutenant with his eyes as he walked away, looking like a kicked puppy. Taylor tried not to smile as he turned to look at her instead, awaiting her response.

"Hard to say without knowing the circumstances. The deviant is still here, and so is the kid." She turned her head to look back toward the kitchen, where the boy had been a moment before, but he had disappeared. She blinked.

"We should question them." Connor agreed, nodding.

"You're Taylor Kolbeck." The blonde jumped as the voice came from behind her. She turned the other way, finding the boy standing on her other side. He was still smiling up at her, standing just a couple of inches away. She took an automatic step back, bumping into Connor, who placed his hand on her back to steady her.

"Y-Yes. I am." She should have stepped away from Connor, but she didn't. She was staring into the boy's eyes, transfixed, and the presence of the android beside her was comforting. He didn't lower his hand either; perhaps he could detect her stress levels rising. She attempted a smile. "What's your name?"

"Andrew." His eyes were brown, but nothing like Connor's. They were dark enough to almost blend into his pupils, like twin pieces of coal that shifted between her and the android, still smiling. A perfectly normal adolescent boy. Why was her heart pounding in her ears?

"Can you tell us what happened with the android, Andrew?" Connor's voice came from somewhere just over her head. She really was standing too close. She shifted her body slightly away, Andrew's eyes following the movement.

"Sure. I was in my room playing with Tyler. Our android. Cops and robbers." He paused, almost as if for dramatic effect, glancing between the two of them with his eyebrows raised. When they didn't react, he continued, "We play all the time, but Tyler got real mad. He grabbed me and started to shake me. Then he started to choke me. I tried to pull him off, but he was too strong. I thought I was gonna die, but my mom came in and Tyler let me go and ran in the closet."