I don't own the Secret Saturdays, I don't own Doyle, and I don't own a specific male character who shows up somewhere in the middle of this, or another specific male who speaks at the end of it....
I do own a specific female character who deals with those two specific male characters....
I sort of own the character Anzu (I use his internal dialogue twice in this chapter, though I don't identify him by name when that happens).

Et cetera.

Child's Plight

He was hungry, and he was desperate.

He was desperate enough to try a bigger place, somewhere with more people.

He waited until after dark and snuck through the village. The few people outside were too many for his comfort. The slightest noise, the slightest hint that someone might be nearby, and he immediately darted into an alleyway, or behind a door, or crawled under a step, or hid himself in the debris.

His heart pounded, from fear and exhaustion, by the time he reached his target: the large inn in the middle of town.

He crept around the building and felt his way to where they left their trash. A door opened in front of him and the smells from inside surrounded him. He was tempted to stay put, just fill his lungs with the scent of so much good food, but instinct told him, as always, to hide. He scrambled around behind the door before whoever opened it could see him.

He was glad for his caution. A kitten sat at the door and begged for food, but the person who walked out kicked the small animal. The kitten darted away to hide in the shadow left by Doyle's body.

Doyle crouched in the shadows behind the door and trembled. He stared at the two women who came out. The first one, the one that had kicked at the kitten, carried a bucket of scraps. The second one was yelling at the first one.

They went around a corner, and were soon followed by a big man in a metal suit. He was yelling at the two women. The language was vaguely familiar to Doyle, though he couldn't make out what the man was saying. Doyle would have chosen to ignore them, provided they paid him no mind, except....

I know that voice! Doyle's eyes widened. The man's voice was changed by his mask, but Doyle had heard someone who sounded like that. One of Daddy's friends had that voice.

What was his name? Rock? No. It sounded like it, but Doyle thought it was some bird name. Rook?

If he was one of Daddy's friends, then maybe he'd give Doyle good food, and keep the bad people from hurting him. If he was one of Daddy's friends, then he was a good person; Daddy didn't make friends with bad people.

But was it the same man? He had to make sure.

Oh, no you don't. Not yet. He may have you someday, little human. But not until I've played with you a while longer.

Doyle crept around the corner to watch the man and women. The man was yelling at the second woman, but she seemed to ignore him. Instead, she....

She was hitting the first woman, and had cut her, and was hurting her. Doyle frowned. The man...Rook?...the man yelled at her, but he didn't stop her from hurting the first woman. What was going on? Would...would one of Daddy's friends act like that? Would one of Daddy's friends let that happen...even if the first woman was bad?

The man growled something at the second woman and shoved her aside. He was angry at her, but not enough to hurt her like she was hurting the first woman. He took a big knife from his belt and cut the first woman's throat. She dropped and didn't rise again.

Doyle scrambled back to the shadows. The man killed that woman. Was he a bad man, then? If he was a bad man...then he wasn't one of Daddy's friends. Daddy didn't make friends with bad people.

Doyle peered around the corner. They were still arguing. They didn't pay attention to him, or the woman on the ground, or the bucket she'd dropped....

The bucket! Doyle's mouth watered. That bucket had smelled like food, good food. If only those two people would go away, before anyone knew that woman was missing. He stared at the bucket and wished he dared grab it while they were there.

He looked up at a sound; the second woman was gone. Maybe the man would go, too, and Doyle could look at that bucket—

"See something you like?" Doyle jumped at the voice; how had she gotten behind him? The woman grabbed him and tossed him into the alley in front of the man. "Hey, I think I caught a spy. Want me get rid of him?"

"Marie...." the man growled and shook his head at her. "Isn't he a little small to be a spy?"

The woman shrugged. "It takes all kinds."

"And I thought I was paranoid," the man muttered. He removed his mask and crouched to examine the child...and gasped.

Ooh, interesting. No logical arguments for this brain. I'll have to appeal to the boy's instincts. A challenge. Fun.

Doyle was too panicked to consider the man's reaction. He grabbed the closest thing—the mess from the bucket—and started throwing it at the two people. "No!" he screamed. He threw mud and rocks and more goop. "You're not...you can't be Rook! You're a bad man! You're not Daddy's friend. Daddy doesn't make friends with bad people!"

The woman shouted in surprise, but the man didn't let her defend herself. Doyle ran away before the man could change his mind.

He barely noticed tripping three times as he raced to hide. He ignored the people that came out of their homes to stare at him as he ran by. The villagers, figuring it was just another vagabond, ignored him and went back inside.

He crawled under the half-rotten remains of a stairway and panted. He thought he heard them running after him.... It took a moment to realize that the pounding was his heart.

Doyle squeezed his eyes shut. Daddy said...fear is okay...even the hunter gets scared sometimes. But panic is for prey, for easy prey. Prey that runs too quick, maybe doesn't know where he's going. Panic gets you caught like prey. The hunter is patient. The hunter is calm. The hunter knows what he's doing. Be the hunter. He repeated that mantra until he slipped into a trance. "Be the hunter." His heart slowed, his breathing quieted...and his senses sharpened, not with fear, but focus.

The man's voice came from above. Doyle inched out from his hiding place to see where the man was. He looked up and saw the man and woman flying, searching.... Hunting.

The man called again.

Doyle huddled into the shadows. A new wave of fear threatened to overwhelm his trance. The man—the man who must be a bad man, the man who couldn't be one of Daddy's friends....

The man was calling Doyle's name.

Doyle shook; he prayed the man would just go away.

—

"What is your problem?" Marie asked. "First you want to terrorize people into giving you intel on your wife, but you get too squeamish when I try to do what you hired me for. Then you decide that little urchin ain't worth your time, only to drop your search to look for him? What are you thinking?" She sighed. "Are you thinking?"

"That was Jonathon's boy," Van Rook replied.

Marie wasn't sure he was talking to her; he was still stunned from when he'd seen the kid. "Eh? Who again?"

"My mentor...that was his son, I'm sure of it." He shook his head. "But that is not possible. They should have reached the clan by now. How could he be here?" He flew in another direction to continue the search.

Marie switched her radio to another frequency and relayed what Van Rook had just said. "Is this the kid your people have been looking for? What do you want me to do about him?" She glanced at the stairs where Doyle hid.

Epsilon took a long moment before answering. "Nothing, for the moment. Get the mercenary away from the child; keep him focused on his wife."

"Hmm? Wouldn't it just be easier to send the kid to you after Van Rook grabs him?"

"Maybe, if you could do it. But those of his profession tend to be paranoid when any nation's military is involved—even former military. That he hired you shows desperation on his part, not trust. If the mercenary decides he has to protect the boy, you will not be able to get within a thousand miles of either of them." Epsilon cleared his throat. "Aeron is close to the sister's age; if nothing else, he might be able to cultivate the boy for us. But we can't close in until we can be sure the mercenary won't interfere."

"Understood, sir." Marie switched the frequency back. She took one more glance at the stairs. The kid was good, she'd give him that, but the mercenary must have been shocked out of his wits not to have seen him there. She shook her head and laughed, and went to nudge her 'employer' back onto his wild goose chase.

—

The man and woman eventually left.

Doyle's senses dulled as he let the trance fade. He shook his hands to work out the cramps. They hurt weird, for some reason; he'd been holding something when he'd run....

He stared at the objects he'd been clenching. He'd grabbed up more rocks, or so he'd thought, to use as weapons when he'd run away from those people. Only...these weren't rocks.

He'd grabbed bones, probably from that bucket. He picked one up and smelled it. Cow? They must've been boiled, back at the inn; he'd seen some people flavor their soups that way. And these...these still had some marrow in them.

He breathed a prayer of thanks to whatever gods granted him this fortune. Though weakened from boiling, the bones were too thick for him to crack open, but maybe he could dig the marrow out....

Know what's really sad about Doyle's childhood? That fact that I'm calling that scene with the bones a happy ending....
Or is that what's really sad about me?

Sheesh.

Oh, by the way, "Marie" was originally created sometime in 2008...long before the episode "Kur Guardian." And I have never read the comics (though I'd like to).
"Marie," as I originally imagined her, looks a lot like Abbey Grey. Is there any other similarity? Only time will tell....
(Spooky? You tell me.)