(Freddie's POV)
"She...would...kill you?" Freddie echoes.
"Yes, Freddie. She knows I'm with you. She knows I'm leaving the Comebacks. She knows all of it!" Sam slumps to the bed, covering her face. "Oh God. Why did I say to meet at the outskirts of Seattle? I could be well out of Seattle in just an hour."
"Okay..." Freddie is trying to process all of this. "If she's going to be at the outskirts of Seattle...I could just send the FBI over there."
"She's too clever than that." Sam says rustily. "She's probably expecting that."
Freddie goes silent. Finally, he says, "Look, you're exhausted. You have blood splattered all over you. You can hardly stand up. Go take a shower and then go back to sleep okay?"
Sam looks at him emptily, and Freddie says with annoyance, "You're sick. Come on. Just take care of yourself."
Sam blinks, then nods. "Okay. I will." She stands up stiffly and walks to his bathroom. Freddie lays down on the bed and presses his hand to his forehead.
Well, this sucks.
Seattle's top wanted killer is not only on the loose, but she wanted to kill the one he loves as well.
Can't get much saltier than that.
He presses his palm to his forehead and focuses on the sound of the shower, and he watches the early dawn air glow brighter and brighter. He yawns. He's exhausted. When's the last time he actually got to sleep a full night? It must have been a while, because-
The doorbell rings. His head snaps up. He could even hear Sam stiffen. "Who's that?"
"Don't know. Shut off the water." Freddie stands up and he hears Sam obey.
"Hold on, lemme get my knife." Sam shuffles out of the shower, whipping a towel over her and joining him.
"Just wait in my bedroom." Freddie orders, walking swiftly towards his door.
"But what if-" Sam begins.
"Just do as I say!" Freddie wasn't in the mood. He was paranoid now that if he opened the door, a trained assassin would be there and just kill him. Given the stats, that's probably what's going to happen. He glances through his peephole and his head, which was tense and fearful, goes dizzy with relief.
It was Lindsay. He easily opens the door, and the girl's hazel eyes snap open. "Freddie!" She gasps. "Oh, you're okay!"
"Of course I am." Freddie was confused. Why wouldn't he be okay? "What's up? Why are you here?"
"Freddie, everyone has been looking for you!" Lindsay tells him. "You missed days of work, with no explanation, and this is a cruical time to miss work as it is!"
Freddie realizes this and his face pales. Oh, he wasn't going to get fired, was he? "I..." he gets out. "A family member was gravely ill. I-I couldn't come in." He felt this sinking feeling. He really blew it this time, didn't he? "Am I fired?"
"No, but Mr. Mitchell's pretty ticked. He says you have to be in work today or you are fired." Lindsay replies.
Freddie checks the clock. It was 6:17 A.M. Work starts at 12. "I'll be there." Freddie mumbles. "I promise."
Lindsay ducks her head, and right before he shuts the door, she says, "Oh, and Freddie..."
"Yes?" Freddie looks at her.
"...I was worried." Lindsay confesses. "No one could get ahold of you. Me, Brad, everyone in the tech department..."
"I'm sorry." Freddie says to her. "It was really important."
Lindsay looks like she wants to say more, but being the submissive young woman she was, she just steps back and bows her head as Freddie closes the door.
He heads back to his room. Sam managed to shuffle her bloody clothes back on, and her dark blonde curls were wet and clinging to her head.
"Who was that?" Sam asks him.
"A coworker." Freddie tells her. "I'm in trouble. I haven't been to work. I need to go there today."
"So you can sentence more of my friends?" Sam spits at him.
Freddie lets himself remain calm. "You know I wouldn't do that. I'm trying to stop it, okay? I just need time."
Sam falls back onto her bed, sighing so loud that it made her eyelashes flutter. "So, this coworker of yours..." She looks up at him. "Who is she?"
"Lindsay." He replies. "She works as a secretary for the Tech department. Good friends of me and Brad."
Sam focuses on the ceiling, her blue eyes trained on the swirls of white. "She sounded worried."
Freddie suddenly understands what he's been given. "Yeaup." He stretches out the word. "Very worried. It's a shame I had to stress her out."
He can see Sam's jaw tighten and he feels a twinge of sastification.
Silence.
Finally, after about two minutes of silence, Sam says roughly, "So, is she like your girlfriend or what?"
"Nah." Freddie says, leaning back, feeling on top of the world. "She's just a friend. Besides, I'm already married."
That had a winning reaction. Sam has always had a good poker face while Freddie's always failed, but the disbelief and shock was clear on her face. "What? You are?" Is her gasp.
"Nooo." Freddie answers with a chuckle. "But I had you going, didn't I?"
Sam shoves his shoulder. "Don't do that again."
"But why?" Freddie asks simply.
Sam just shrugs. "Too soon?" She says calmly.
Freddie goes silent.
"Think about it." Sam shifts herself upward. "It's been three years. We're both very confused, and I know you're frustrated. But...joking about relationships with each other is just...too soon, you know?"
"I know you're not going to tell me anything yet," Freddie tells Sam. "But honestly...how bad can the truth actually be? Is it so horrifyingly bad that it was really worth leaving me like that? Leaving me broken-hearted? Whatever it was...I could have handled it."
Sam blinks, and seems to try to be thinking of something to say. "So, you want me to answer on a scale of 1-10?"
"That works." Freddie says.
"Eight hundred million billion." Sam answers, and leaves it at that.
Flashback:
(Matt's POV) March 19th, 2015 1:37 A.M.
Matt remembered, being so young, sitting in front of the tv with an earnest look on his face. Watching all sorts of movies and cartoons. He was young: only twenty-three. He had his whole life ahead of him. No, that wasn't true. He wasted most of it in juvy and in a gang. But that's besides the point.
He remembered watching the tv shows, watching the main hero go on an epic quest of epic proportions. He would grow up and be a man, and due to this life-changing quest, he finally found out who he was. The transition from boy to man. That's what it was.
But Matt never went on a quest.
He might as well still be a kid. Nothing ever destroyed the barrier between boy and man for him. He's just a big kid. That's all.
He pops the bottle of a Mike's Hard Lemonade, and almost feels sick at the sweet taste. He'd prefer stone-cold liquor, the delicious bitterness of it all. Mike's Hard Lemonade is for teenagers who want to look cool by drinking. Oh well. It's all he has.
He looks around his dirty apartment. This isn't a good place to live. Anyone with their right mind could see that. The apartment was already in pretty bad shape. On top of that, he got the worst room, right by the basement of it. Oh well. What's he going to do?
He drinks more of the aclohol and feels that same, stinging sensation. His mind wanders to the closest city to here: Seattle. He should probably head back someday.
HA HA HA. Is he crazy? He takes one step into Seattle and he dies. Simple as that.
He feels his heart go sick so he decides to clear his head. He sets his drink down on a filthy table and slips out of his apartment, tripping over some garbage as he does so. He heads down the stone steps that lead to the basement.
The apartment itself is not that warm, but the basement is completely unheated. Hardly anything is in the complete stone room that seems to stretch on for a while. He lets out a breath, knowing it was frozen but not being able to see anything. He can tell by the bitter cold, the way he was wearing absolutely nothing except a dirty tanktop and shorts that might as well be considered boxers, as well as no shoes.
That's right. Soak in the bitterness.
He lights his lighter and looks around. Everything is stone down here. He hadn't bothered to explore the pathways that lead out of this rock prison. He knew they could only lead to no good.
He continues to walk on the bare stone, sucking the warmth out of him. The cold air was beginning to make him feel dizzy but he didn't care. He didn't care at all.
He hears footsteps approaching, and fear strikes into his heart. He quickly puts the lighter out and hides behind a stone pillar. He hears some voices coming, and he tries to distunigsh them.
"We've come too far." It sounded like a young man's voice. "Can we go back?"
"Stop it, pansy." The other one, about the same age, snaps. "It's freezing out there. We need to get out of the cold."
"This isn't much better." The last one, also the oldest sounding, says.
The second voice storms upward, searching in the darkness. He stupidly crashes into a trashcan near the wall. Matt grimaces at their stupidity. If I was who I was a few years ago, Matt thinks to himself. They'd be dead. All three of them.
The guy pulls the empty trashcan aside and Matt can hear rustling. Suddenly, a match is lit, and Matt can see the guy's face. He's smaller-built with bleach blonde hair and he's wearing a thin hoodie. He lets the match fall into the trashcan and a small fire blooms. The three huddle around the trashcan for warmth. Matt can see their battle-scarred faces and it gives him nostaliga.
"Why are we hiding, anyway?" The older guy, with a thick scar over his forehead, growls. "It was them who got busted, not us."
"The fall of the Comeback empire effected us all." The blonde guy spat. Matt's hair goes stiff and he could feel the smaller hairs rising on his arms and neck. "They know about us, too, you know. They could bust us just as easily."
The fall of the Comeback?
That is something Matt has always wanted to hear, but now he fears for the welfare of the others in the Comeback. They were once his family. But...if they're caught like this guy says they are...
"Even so..." The older guy says rustily. "I don't see why treking into the unknown is going to help us."
"Look." The younger guy with short, dark hair says warily. . "I know we swore loyalty to the Fatherhood, but this is getting too freaky. What if we get caught? Our lives are ruined."
They're Fatherhoods? Matt grips his pocket.
"Oh, so you want to leave?" The blonde guy sneers at the other guy. "Be a pansy and run off? I should just kill you now."
"I'm not going to leave!" The dark haired guy almost screams. "I promise!"
"Shh!" The older guy shoves him hard. "You might be heard!"
You already are being heard! Matt hisses to himself.
"What about your family in the Fatherhood? You want to leave them behind, too?" The blonde guy challenges.
"No! No! No!" The dark haired guy presses his hands to his ears.
"Calm it, Cashmere." The older guy tells the blonde guy sternly. "As if you're one to talk about abandoning family."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Cashmere rounds on the older guy.
"It means, Windmill gave birth to your kid a few days ago and you have zero connection to him." The man crosses his bony arms over his chest.
"Oh really?" Cashmere sneers. "Well, we both know that Windmill has zero mothering ability so he will probably die out in the cold. Second, it was a one night stand and nothing more. Three, I have a girlfriend now. Don't come crying to me about family."
"I watched the kids I fathered die by the hands of Comebacks. I watched one get mauled by dogs. Don't come to me whining about fatherhood when you caused the pain for yourself. It's your own fault." The man growls back.
Matt searches in his pocket. He feels the knife he always carries. Oh God, he has it with him, right? He feels it and his heart almost gives out with relief. The bottle.
He gently pours some of the neon blue liquid onto his napkin and begins to stealthly approach. Oh, thank God he could walk like a cat. He slowly and slowly comes closer before whistling one long, loud note.
The three jump like startled cats. The dark-haired young one immediately darts off into the darkness, causing him to knock over the trashcan and trip the blonde one up. The elderly one follows easily. Right before Cashmere could stand up, Matt leaps on top of him and presses the napkin to his nose. He trashes beneath him until the effects of the chloroform seep in.
Pwned.
Cashmere falls limp and Matt quickly heads back up the stairs. He searches through the dirty contents of his room until he finds his emergency kit. He picks up the neetle and heads back downstairs. He injects the sedative drug into Cashmere's bloodsteam. He won't wake up for a long while, Matt thinks.
He takes a thin rope and ties Cashmere to one of the stone pillars. Those two will think he's dead, Matt thinks. They'll think whomever blew the whistle would have killed him, and they won't dare come back. Oh well.
He's not going to kill Cashmere yet. He remembers the hell the Fatherhoods gave him. Don't worry, Cashmere sneers. I'll drag it out for ya.
Maybe he's finally doing justice for running away.