Chapter Text
Frank jerks back into awareness, yanking the car back into the right lane.
“You did it again,” the kid says, tightly, “Let me drive.”
“You ain't driving.” Frank’s not sure he’s even old enough to have a license. It's what drew Frank’s attention at the bar, the first time he’d got a good look at him. A kid with the punk looks and fuck-you-attitude screaming that he was try to seem tougher and older than he is.
“You keep falling asleep,” the kid glances at him out of the corner of his eye, “You're gonna drive us into a fucking ditch. Pull over.”
“Are you gonna keep an eye on me? Make sure I don't bleed out?” Frank says, sarcastic and biting as he can. If he pulls over now, the kid will rabbit the second his back is turned. He needs a place with more control.
“Fuck off.”
“Wow. Does that usually get you your way?”
“You know what, fuck it. You can go kill yourself, I don’t care. But do it later. I’m also in this fucking car, and I’m not dying in a crash when I’m not even the one driving.”
Frank ignores him. He isn’t going to crash. The road winds ahead of them, stretching seemingly endlessly into the dark.
The kid barely lasts thirty seconds before he breaks the silence. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Jesus Christ.”
The kid ignores him. “Where the fuck are we going?”
Frank keeps his gaze firmly on the road.
“Whatever. Jesus.”
They drive in silence for another thirty minutes before Frank spots a motel. It’s a seedy-looking thing, built for truckers and folks looking to avoid questions. It’ll do.
He jerks the truck into park, lets the engine sputter out.
“Go get us a room.” Frank can’t go in. The clerk would take one look at him and call the cops.
The kid pops the door as Frank unlocks the car. Frank reaches across him and shuts it.
“Hey. Do not do anything stupid, you got it?” All it’d take is a phone call and the cops will be on his ass again. But here’s the thing—for some reason, this kid doesn’t want the cops involved. Frank doesn't think he'll call for help.
The kid confirms his suspicions instantly. The smart thing to do would be to take the out for what it is and call the cops as soon as he’s out of the car. Instead, the kid bristles.
“Why the fuck should I do anything you say?”
“You see anyone else helping you? Now get the fuck out of my car and get us a room.”
The kid clenches his jaw. “I'll need money.”
Frank digs in his jacket pocket, ignoring the way his ribs scream at the motion. Pulls out a wad of twenties, sticky with blood. Some of it isn’t even his.
“That’s subtle,” the kid says, but he snatches the money and heads into the motel.
Frank watches him as he talks to the clerk. It takes longer than it should, and for a split second he thinks he miscalculated. But the clerk stays relaxed, doesn’t glance his way once. She goes back to reading her book before the kid even leaves the check-in.
He keeps the kid in front of him as he limps into the room, ignoring the way the world wants to spin at the edges. Shit, he’s lost a lot of blood. He’s out of practice with pushing through, too, let himself get soft.
He should’ve known better.
Frank locks the door behind him when they enter the room. “Let's go. Sit on the bed.”
The kid slouches into the room, but he doesn’t sit. It doesn’t matter that much. Frank’s still between him and the door.
First step, get patched up. Frank’s right leg isn’t taking his full weight, blood seeping down to soak into his sock. He knows a bullet wound when he feels it, the way the pain radiates to the entire half of his body. Can’t be too bad, though, since he’s still walking.
With the dresser taking his weight, he’s able to shove off his left boot. But the right foot—trying to raise it sends fire through his entire body. He can’t bend down enough to reach it with his ribs like this, either. He hisses out a curse under his breath, keeps trying. Eventually, he manages to slide the boot off.
The kid is staring at him, eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you?”
Frank tests his weight on his leg. It doesn’t buckle, but it sure as fuck doesn’t feel good. Another hot pulse of blood runs down his leg. “Just call me Pete.”
The kid doesn’t bother to hide his skepticism, raising his eyebrows. “Pete?”
Everyone’s a critic. “Yeah. You got a name?”
“It’s Noah.” The kid’s a shit liar, which is good news for Frank. He doesn’t call the kid on the lie, yet. As long as he doesn’t lie about the big stuff, he can be Noah.
Frank eases himself off the dresser with a grunt, digs the medkit out of his bag. Hopefully, he won’t need stiches.
He gestures for Noah to move. He doesn’t.
“What's the plan?”
The plan is for Frank to patch himself up without leaving ‘Noah’ a clear path to the door.
“Just go. Get in the bathroom.” The kid bristles again. “Christ, does everything have to be a fight with you? Go on. Go.”
Frank herds him into the bathroom, tossing the medkit in the sink. He gives himself five seconds to brace himself, then gets to work. He slides off his belt, starts to shoves his pants down enough to get a glimpse of what’s going on.
“Jesus fuck, what are you—” Noah hisses out a breath when he spots the wound, “Well, shit. That’s nasty.”
The kid sounds almost impressed. Frank cranes his neck to catch a glimpse, and swears. He’s going to need both hands for this, which is unfortunate. At least two of his knuckles are cracked.
“I don’t wanna see your ass, man. I’ll go and—"
“Open up the kit. Now.” Miraculously, the kid does. Frank prods at the wound, hissing behind his teeth. The bullet’s still in there, barely under the skin. “Must have been a ricochet. Didn't go too deep.”
Frank snags the tweezers from the kit, starts to twist—“Son of a bitch.”
Yeah, okay. Ribs and twisting aren’t good. He can’t get the right angle. He thrust the tweezers in the kid’s direction.
“I'm gonna need you to do this for me, all right?” The kid stares at him like he asked him to spin cartwheels on the carpet.
Goddamnit, Frank needs this done before he drops. “Come on. You owe me for saving your ass. Just pick it up and do it, for Christ’s sake.”
The kid grabs the tweezers, crouches down. “Wow, this is fucking nasty.”
Frank grits his teeth as the kid jabs at the wound. “You’re weirdly chill about this, dude. Is getting shot, like, normal for you?”
“Well, not in the ass. First time for that.” He feels the bullet shifting as he struggles to get a steady grip. “Get it. Get it—”
The bullet clinks into the sink. A fresh wave of blood wells up, running down his leg.
“I need you to stitch up the wound.”
The kid balks. “Stitch the—fuck no. Come on, man, do you really want me to macrame your ass?”
“I don't give a shit what it looks like.” Frank says, through gritted teeth. “You close up the wound. Do it now.”
The kid hesitates, but grabs the needle and starts threading it. “Look. I’m sorry about your girlfriend, or whoever she was.”
Frank’s about to tell him to get it over with when the kid stabs him with the needle, no warning at all. He grunts, clenching his teeth.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but my brother was supposed to pick me up hours ago. He’s probably losing his goddamn mind, so give me your phone and I’ll—"
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The fuck is this kid thinking? Lying to Frank won’t save his ass. It’ll just get them both killed faster.
“You done?”
“Dude, just listen to me, okay? I need to go—"
“With the stitches. Are you done?”
“Fuck you, man.” Something hardens in the kid’s eyes—a decision made. He knows Frank isn’t buying his bullshit. He’s going to bolt. Get himself killed.
Goddamn it.
Frank leaves the bathroom, lets the kid trail after him.
“Get on the bed,” he says, tossing the kit back in his duffle. Digs for a bit to find zipties. He needs to sleep, and needs to know for sure the kid isn’t going anywhere.
Fire shoots up his bad leg, buckling his knee. Frank swears, catching himself on the edge of the bed.
The kid fucking kicked him.
Frank shoves himself back up. Noah’s already at the door, fumbling with the deadbolt. He isn’t scared enough. Not of the people after him, and not of Frank.
Frank can knock some sense into him.
It takes two steps for Frank to catch up to him, getting a grip on the back of his neck and yanking the kid back and away from the door. Noah swears up a storm, trying to land a hit on Frank, but the angle’s all wrong for him to get any real leverage. Frank tosses him headfirst onto the mattress.
“Get your ass on the goddamn bed. ” Frank doesn’t bother being gentle about it. Anything he dishes out is gonna be a hell of a lot gentler than what’s waiting for the kid out there. He snags the zipties from the top of his duffle. “Give me your hands.”
The kid shoves himself back onto his feet. “The fuck? No, I’m not gonna—”
“Give me your goddamn hands.”
Noah doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Instead, he puts his fists up in a half-decent boxer’s stance. The kid’s fucking lucky Frank doesn’t actually want him hurt, because nothing’s stupider than squaring up against the man with five guns within easy reach.
Frank dodges the first punch, snagging the kid’s arm to yank him off-balance, then grabs him by the the shirt and slams him down onto the bed.
The kid puts up a decent fight, to his credit. Frank’s still got all the leverage and a lifetime of training, though, so it takes approximately ten seconds to get the kid’s wrists pinned, cinching the zipties tightly around them. He drags Noah’s arms up and uses the second pair to secure them to the headboard.
Noah’s wild-eyed and spitting mad, when he steps back. Tough luck—he’s in this for the long haul, now.
“Fuck you!” The kid spits, yanking at the ties, “Jesus, Mary, fuck, you fucking asshole—”
Frank tunes him out, easing himself onto the other bed. Goddamn, he hurts. He wants to sleep for the next week. He’ll settle for six hours.
“Hey, hey! You goddamn—What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m getting some sleep.” Frank shuts his eyes.
“No—no, you can’t just—” The bedframe rattles, “Shit! You fucker, you can’t just—shit, shit.”
Frank doesn’t answer. The kid will tire himself out soon enough. Noah keeps struggling, swearing under his breath, but he isn’t going anywhere.
Frank tunes him out and finally drifts off to sleep.
~*~
Something is wrong.
Frank isn’t sure how long he’d been asleep when something jolts him awake. There’s no reason for it, not that he can sense. The room is silent and still, nothing out of place. The door to the room is still shut. But Frank hasn’t lived this long by ignoring the pull in his gut.
Something is wrong. Whatever it is, it’s behind him.
He slides his fingers under the pillow until they brush his pistol. He inhales, long and slow, then whips around, already aiming.
There’s somebody sitting on the kid’s chest.
He’s firing as soon as he registers it, bullet tearing clean through the person’s torso. They fall to the floor with a crash, the flash of the muzzle fire illuminating the room for a split second before plunging it back into darkness.
Not somebody. Something.
It’d only been a split-second, glimpse, barely anything more than a silhouette, but he can feel it in his gut. It’s shape was wrong—too long, too spindly, too-sharp angles. Not a human. Something else.
Frank rolls out of the bed, keeping the gun trained where the creature had fallen with one hand, flicking on the lamp with the other.
The thing sprawled out on the floor is a fucking nightmare, half-rotting skin stretched unnaturally over too-sharp bones. Its jaw hangs open, hinged nearly ear-to-ear in a gruesome imitation of a smile, displaying row after row of black-stained, serrated teeth. Its head is lopsided, half of the skull visible through shreds of crusted and oozing skin, cracked like a piñata someone went at with a steel bat.
Frank’s bullet had torn straight through the torso, where the heart should be. It’s motionless, but the skin shifts, like dozens of bugs are crawling under its skin.
Frank plugs it again for good measure, this time through the head.
The still kid hasn’t made a single sound. Frank whips around, and he’s perfectly still on the bed, eyes closed even as blood drips from his arms.
“No, no, goddamnit—” Frank launches himself over, shoving his fingers against the side of the kid’s throat.
He finds the pulse immediately, pounding rapid-fire, and something loosens in his chest. But the kid isn’t moving at all, arms fall limp as Frank cuts the tie pinning them to the bed. He’s not bleeding enough to be dangerous, so what the fuck is wrong with him?
There’s—what can Frank even do? CPR is useless when the heart’s still beating, and he can’t call an ambulance with the fucking monster on the floor. He’s just about to smack the kid, see if that stuns him out of it, when the kid sucks in a breath, hard enough he chokes on it. Just like that, he jolts back to life, flailing away from Frank.
Frank catches him by the upper arms before he falls off the side of the bed.
“Easy, easy, you’re okay—”
“Don’t fucking touch me! Get off, get off, don’t touch me—"
Frank lets go.
Noah scrambles back, a move made awkward by the fact that his hands are still bound in front of him. He staggers up, then bolts towards the bathroom. The sound of retching follows.
Frank stares at the…thing…laying on the floor. It doesn’t move. There’s clumps of curly dark hair attached the the skull, stringy and damp looking, and one of the eyes is bulging unnaturally from the socket on the side that’s caved in. Frank has no goddamn clue what the fuck it is, and hopes to god he never sees it again.
He tosses one of the comforters over it, hiding the sickly grin from view. Then he heaves it up, unsettlingly light, and shoves it into the trunk—he’ll dump it in the woods in the morning. Once it’s out of sight and he’s checked for the third time that it’s not moving, he makes his way to the bathroom, scooping the medkit out of his duffle on the way.
The kid is curled over the toilet, sickly pale in the fluorescents. The light catches on the shining trails down him face, the droplets of red dripping from his forearms.
He startles back when Frank crouches next to him.
“Woah, easy. Just me. I’m checking your arms, alright?” He catches the zipties, ignoring Noah’s half-hearted attempt to jerk his arms back, and examines the scratches.
The kid’s jacket is shredded, making it impossible to gauge how bad it is. Frank grabs the scissors from his kit, cuts the zipties, then the sleeves above the worst of the damage, right below the elbows. The kid is shaking enough that he has to be careful about it.
He examines his forearms. There’s five cuts on each arm, clean and even like whatever that thing was had raked its claws straight down. They aren’t deep enough to need stitches, but they sure as hell are gonna need cleaned.
He snags some alcohol wipes from the kit.
“This is gonna sting,” he warns. He waits a couple beats for that sink in before he lowers it to the kid’s arms.
He works quickly, methodologically, glancing up at the kid once in a while. The kid doesn’t make a sound the entire time, something raw and empty in his eyes.
Frank’s gaze is drawn to his wrists. They’d been mostly covered by a set of leather bracelets, knocked askew at some point, exposing some of the skin on his wrists. They’re bruised, badly, more vivid than what could be explained by the night’s events. A couple days old, at least.
In the gaps between bracelets, a set of scars stand out pink against black and blue. Like he slashed the shit out of them, recently. Within the past year.
Frank inhales, long and slow. Wraps Noah’s arms, adding a few extra layers to the wrists, then sits back.
“You okay?” He asks. He already knows the answer, but that’s not the point.
Noah scoffs, roughly scrubs at his face. Just like that, the empty look is gone, replaced by a brittle sort of anger that screams trouble.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Frank tries again. He doesn’t think the kid is, but those bruises…this more than just running from the folks at the bar. He had escaped. It tracks with the first time Frank saw him, barefoot in the gravel of the motel’s parking lot.
The kid’s not barefoot now. Where the fuck did he get shoes?
Noah just glares at him, baring teeth. There’s a bruise forming high across his cheekbone, red tinging towards purple.
Frank sighs, shifts on the cold linoleum to ease some of the weight off his bum leg. “Okay, then. I’m gonna ask you a question, and you’re going to answer honestly.” Frank leans forward, scanning Noah's face, “That thing. Do you know what it was?”
The kid shuts his eyes, leaning his head against the edge of the tub. “No.”
He doesn’t even try to sound convincing. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Kid—”
“Don’t fucking call me that. I’m not a kid.”
“Yeah? If you’re over eighteen, I’ll eat my boots.” Frank’s willing to bet the kid is sixteen, at most. Barely old enough to get a license.
“Hope you like the taste of leather, then, asshole.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive, Noah. I can’t do that unless you tell me what the hell just happened.”
“Fuck off.”
“People are dead, do you understand that? A lot of people died, last night.” He gives that a couple beats to sink in, really sink in. “And you know why. Does that—that thing, does it have anything to do with the people are coming after you?”
Noah doesn’t answer, glaring determinedly at the floor, which is telling in itself.
Frank’s putting the pieces together, but he’s missing chunks. Important chunks. The creature, whatever it was, it doesn’t belong to the people coming after the kid. If they could sic something like that on him, they wouldn’t be hiring hitmen to do the job for them. And they wanted him alive, else they would’ve slit his throat in that bathroom long before Frank burst in. It’s not theirs.
So it’s someone else’s, or something tied to Noah himself.
“You gonna give me an answer, here?”
Noah smacks his fist off the side of the tub. “How many times do I have to fucking tell you? I. Don’t. Know.”
“Ah, bullshit.” Frank needs to know all the fucking pieces before they both wind up dead. “You ain’t a college student. Why aren’t you screaming right now, huh? Why didn’t you say anything to that woman at the front?”
“Fuck you,” Noah spits, “It’s none of your goddamn business.”
“They’re coming after us both, now, kid. The way I operate, I kill the enemy before they get to me. And you know what? I’m goddamn good at that. But I need to have all the facts, or else we’ll both end up in the ground.”
The kid doesn’t back down. “I didn’t fucking ask you to step in, you did that all on your own.”
“I’m not playing around here, kid.”
He scoffs, pointedly looking at the wall behind Frank.
“Look at me, right now.” When he doesn’t, Frank shoves himself into the kid’s space, forcing eye contact. “I am trying to get both of us out of this alive. Give me something here, something to work with.”
He hesitates, long enough that Frank thinks he might spill the beans. Then, he shakes his head.
“Alright.” Frank says, biting down on sharp frustration, “Fine. Give me your hands.”
“Are you serious?”
“Give me a reason to trust you, and then we’ll talk.”
The kid glares at him, with whole lot of venom from a kid who owes him him life. Frank shakes his head and reaches out, batting aside Noah’s leg when he tries to kick him. The kid’s got nowhere to go, pinned between Frank and the edge of the tub.
Frank’s more careful with the ties this time ‘round, leaves them a little looser, even as Noah spits curses at him and does his damnedest to land a hit. The kid doesn’t stop struggling ‘til the tie is cinched—he don’t give up easy, that’s for sure. It makes things a hell of a lot harder for Frank.
See, Frank’s great at getting answers out of people. Fucking fantastic. He’s got the medals and commendations to prove it. The problem is, the techniques he picked up in Afghanistan aren’t exactly the type you use on a kid.
“Come on, let’s go.” He hauls Noah upright with a grip under his arm, makes it about a step before the kid digs his heels in. “What, you want to stay in here?”
The kid snarls, but his eyes flick past Frank, to the door.
“I got rid of it. It’s gone. Unless there’s more coming.”
And that is where things get interesting, because Noah shakes his head.
Frank raises his eyebrows. “There’s no more coming?”
“Not—no. Not for a while.”
“How long is a while?” Noah just shrugs, so Frank jostles him, rough. “Give me a goddamn answer.”
“A couple days. At least.”
“You gonna tell me how you know that?”
Predictably, the kid gives him jack shit.
“…Right. Still want to stay in here?” This time, kid doesn’t struggle when Frank hauls him out of the bathroom.
It's out of character enough that Frank is prepared when Noah tries to bolt. He sidesteps the kick aimed at his bad leg, gets a hand the back of the Noah’s skull, and shoves him facedown onto the bed.
“We do not have the time for this, kid.” Noah snaps his teeth at Frank as he ties his hands back to the headboard, “Are you fucking serious?”
“God, fuck! Fuck this, fuck—” Noah's voice cracks, halfway through the last word. “Fuck you!”
Frank sighs. “What part of this aren’t you understanding? Kid, they are going to kill you. I’m your best shot at making it out of this.”
“As if. I’ll be fine. Just let me fucking go.”
“What does that mean, ‘as if’? Huh? You don’t think they’ll kill you?”
The kid shrugs. For all the nonchalance that movement screams, there’s a flicker in his eyes. He hadn’t meant to let that slip.
“See, that’s interesting. I was wondering about that. Because we both know they could’ve killed you in that bar, easily. So why didn’t they? I’m guessing they were the ones that fucked up your wrists, too, how come they didn’t kill you then? Do you know something they want?”
If Noah knew too much, they’d just be trying to kill him. But if he knows something they don’t, they’d need him alive.
“My wrists are fucked up because you’re a fucking psycho who tied me to a bed. But sure, whatever.”
Frank’s willing to bet that it’s not something that the kid knows. Folks like these would have no qualms about torturing it out of him, and he’s got none of those marks. The kid can’t have something they want, either, ‘cause he’s got jack shit on him. There’s not many other alternatives.
“Unless it’s just you, that they want.” The kid freezes, just for a split second, before scoffing again.
Bingo.
“See, here’s what I’m thinking. If they want you, specifically, then it’s either because of someone you know or something you can do.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Explain it, then.” Frank waits a beat. “No? Alright. So maybe you’re the kid of someone important, those guys were trying to get some money, and you escaped. Why didn’t you call the cops? You had the payphone. Hell, you could’ve asked any stranger on the street to call the cops for you, they would’ve done it, no hesitation. But instead, you go to a dive bar and call your ‘brother’?”
The kid sneers. “God, do you ever shut up?”
Frank ignores him. “Maybe it’s something illegal—this kind of manpower points to organized crime. So, maybe your family’s wrapped up in some bullshit and you got stuck in the crossfire. But that doesn’t explain the corpse in the trunk of my car. And if you knew enough about your family’s business to not go to the cops, you’d have some sort of clue to who these people are. ”
“Maybe I do.”
“You don’t. You’re a shit liar, Noah, and that’s the one goddamn thing you’ve said that’s been true. So then, why would they want you? Not your family, not something you know, you. Something that you can’t go to the police over, that can’t tell people about.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, man,” Noah says, tightly. There’s an edge in his voice that wasn’t there before, which means Frank is getting close.
“Right. So here’s what I’m thinking. You remind me of something a guy said to me, once.”
“Yeah? I pity that fucker, having to deal with your ugly-ass mug.”
Frank ignores him. “See, he’s real pain in my ass, but he’s smart as hell. He told me that when you’re like him, you gotta be careful, ‘cause everyone wants a mutant on a leash these days. Gangs, the mob, the goddamn government. That kind of thing, it sticks in your sticks in your head.”
The kid’s face drains of color the moment the word ‘mutant’ leaves Frank’s mouth. He’s hit the nail on the head.
“There a point to this?” Noah says, landing somewhere south of casual.
“Yeah. Cause here’s the thing, kid. Enhanced folk, they do shit that’s unexplainable, ‘specially if they can’t control it. We’ve seen some unexplainable shit today, haven’t we?”
“Fuck you.” Noah jerks at the ties pinning him to the headboard. “If I were some fucking mutant, why would that thing attack me?”
“Anyone’s control would get shaky after the last twenty-four hours. Prove me wrong—give me one other reason you know that thing ain’t coming back.”
“I—"
Frank doesn’t give him a chance to lie. “So here’s what I have on my hands. I got a kid with trained hitmen trying to catch him, alive, who’d rather get caught again than get the police involved. And unexplainable shit starts happening right after. I think it paints a pretty clear picture, doesn’t it?”
Noah tries his damnedest to kick at Frank. He’s panicking. Frank grabs him by the ankle, forces it down.
“Look, kid. Listen to me. Listen. I don’t give two shits what you can do. I’ve got no stake in mutants. Hell, I hunt down the people who do.“
“Then why won’t you let me fucking go?”
“I’m not in the habit of throwing kids to the wolves.” Noah opens his mouth, and Frank cuts him off. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You’re a kid, and you need help. These folks, they ain’t gonna stop ‘til they have you on a leash. And they’re after us both, now. I don’t have to track them down if they’re coming after the both of us.”
The kid stares at him for a long moment.
“Okay. How about this? I’ll cut you loose. The second these assholes are in the ground, I’ll take you wherever it is you’re going. Hell, I’ll drop you off at a bus station with some cash, if that’s you want. But you have to quit this, this running shit. I can’t fight a war on two fronts. Okay?”
Noah doesn’t say anything.
“The outcome is the same either way. You’re sticking with me, whether you want to or not, until these guys are in the ground. It’s just a matter of how comfortable you’re gonna be in the meantime.”
The kid leans his head back against the headboard, closing his eyes. “Fine. Fucking—fine. Just cut me loose.”
“You promise?”
“What, you want me to pinky swear?”
“I want you to take this seriously. This ain’t just your life on the line here.”
The kid knocks his head back against the headboard, eyes still closed. “Fuck. Okay. Okay, I promise. I won’t run.”
Frank stares at him, hard, for a long moment before grabbing his ka-bar.
“You’re gonna do exactly as I say. You step one toe outta line, and these are gonna come back.”
Noah shifts away from him, rubbing his wrists. “That wasn’t part of the fucking deal.”
“No, it wasn’t. ‘Cause it ain’t negotiable. I’m telling you, now.”
He takes a moment to look at the kid, really look at him. He looks like absolute shit. Frank’s sure he doesn’t look much better, but his shit can mostly be fixed with a quick hose-down in the bathroom. Noah looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, circles under his eyes so dark Frank can’t quite tell if a black eye is forming under one of them. He’s got the hollow-cheeked, gaunt look of someone who ain’t had a full meal in a long time.
“How long were you with them?”
“What?”
“Give me a timeline, here.” Frank needs to figure out how much time he has before they come back. “When’d they catch you? How long did it take before they caught up again?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Ten—eleven days ago? I ran into you the first time a couple hours after I made it out.”
They don’t have a tracker on him, then. Would've taken a lot less time than twelve hours if they had. Which means they’ve got some time.
“Right. Let’s go.”
“Where?” The kid’s still looking at him like he’s trying to figure out the best way to tear out Frank's kidneys, which means Frank is going to have to keep a close eye on him.
“Out of town. Figured we can grab some grub on the way.”
That gets the kid’s attention, just like Frank had thought it would. One constant with teenagers is that food is the best motivator you can give.
There’s not exactly much to pack, which means Frank’s bundling the kid to the car within five minutes. For once, Noah doesn’t try to bolt, even if he tries to shake off Frank’s grip. Neither of them mention the blanket-wrapped corpse in the trunk, even though they both know it’s there.
After a solid thirty minutes of driving, the kid breaks the silence. “Who the hell are you, man?”
“I’m Frank,” then, after a beat, “Castle.”
“No shit,” the kid says, and for the first time, he doesn’t sound like he wants to take a hammer to Frank’s skull. “My name’s Ronan.”