The Bear House

Act 3. Chapter 9: The case of the questionable identity

Act 3. Chapter 9: The case of the questionable identity

As dramatic as it always goes, the rain drenched Colin and Jacques on the way to the rougher parts of Sussex in the middle of the night. Colin offered his own vest to the boy since his current jacket is thin, and his binders are not the best quality kind. Jacques accepted the vest, afraid that his chest area might get visible again.

"I'm surprised Powley didn't buy you a more preferable binder yet." Colin said between breaths.

"Well, he did? But it got wet in the sea."

"Sea?"

"When we were dragging the dead bodies. Long story, I will tell later."

They passed through several crossing lanes, some sloped, some flatlands. The lack of the living and the solitary street lights made the reality looked a bit distorted. The two of them have journeyed to these parts in one of their late-night drug sneakings. It reminds them of the nights when Colin would refuse to go to their dingy apartment, and when Jacques, ever so free, would accompany him. Those were their dark days, so distant, and different. With that in mind, Jacques was worried Colin might miss his peaceful prison in the Bear House. Isn't the 'free' world a prison, too? Just with more complicated bureaucracy and unsuspected villains? Jacques would understand if Colin chooses the lesser evil.

"Mate, do you remember when you decided to help me run the safe house?"

"Yeah, mate." Colin chuckled. "It was unsafe house. The police could just barge in anytime."

"So we keep moving shack to shack. But hey, you can still be with us. I'm sorry about your mother, though. That you are not her heir." Jacques mentioned. The news of Ms. Keller's death laid the spotlight to Colin's life again, and eager tabloids acquired the information that Ms. Keller, a single woman, had not declared Colin her heir, and so all her riches goes to relatives and charities. It was all over the papers so Colin found out eventually. Not that it surprised him.

"It's alright. I'd rather die than fit myself in normal, bro."

"By the way, may I ask about the frog?"

Colin clutched the jar to his chest, suddenly aware it was there this whole time. "Uh. No?"

"Aight." Jacques cut the conversation short and ducked both of them in the nearest trash cart. They peaked their heads in the dark, hoping that nobody had seen them.

"I saw the two of them here!" One policeman said.

"Quick! Scan the area." Another one said. "Kill the lady boy."

Shit. They want us dead.

*

They managed to duck around until they reached the shack, though it is only a matter of time before the local police find them. They dried themselves while Jacques explained everything he and Powley had gone through, and he's surprised that Colin knows half of them. However, there are a few things Colin doesn't know, like how he's been living with Arthur Goldie's impostor.

"So Arthur, THE REAL ARTHUR, has a Tiktok and this impostor I'm living with is not that?"

"Yes!"

"And you've been investigating to find me all this time?"

"Yeah, since last last Monday, that's why I was absent!"

"Thought you were on a date with that hotshot rookie."