Chapter 1: In Which We Smell Not
He walked on, doggedly. They had shot at him, knowing it wouldn't kill him, but still, it hurt. And it was, as they knew it would, slowing him down. He thumbed at an approaching car.
In twenty-eight years, he had never been out of the facility before, but sometimes, it almost seemed he must have lived life outside. It had been a guilty escape for him to drift through the minds of the staff, vicariously experiencing enough of their lives that he knew for instance, about guns, and about how to hitch a ride.
The car slowed and stopped.
Ha! The thumbing thing worked.
He climbed in, and sank thankfully into the backseat.
"Where are you headed?" The driver was a bespectacled man of stern countenance, who froze suddenly when he caught a whiff of blood. The blonde kid in the front passenger seat also wrinkled his nose and whirled to face him.
Please please please ignore it, it's nothing, nothing!
His would-be driver fidgeted at his glasses, brows furrowing at an itch in the back of his mind. "Where are you headed?" he asked again, and frowned at the déjà vu, unaware that he had in fact already asked that question.
"Anywhere." Away.
It was a silly answer, but he was too exhausted to think. And thankfully, all it elicited was a raised eyebrow followed by a shrug and a nod.
The teen however stared at him a moment longer. Tsuzuki smiled at him nervously, and drew his stolen coat more securely around himself, banking on the dark of the coat, and the dark of the night, to hide the spreading stains.
