The Avid Writer

Flee From The City

The next day came at him quickly. Arvid found himself seated in the back of a police vehicle as they drove out of his residential area, a fine estate of semi detached houses.

Behind him was another police car closely following the one he was in.

"Guys, I really appreciate you coming out like this for me."

The two men in the front seats looked back at him smugly, wearing the police attire, mostly black, including a black cap. The attire also included a green jacket with the word, 'Polis' in front.

One of the men on a low cut, with a lean build, olive skin and a thick black moustache waved Arvid off, leaning back into his seat. (Thankfully, he wasn't the one driving.)

"Arvid, we've been friends since Mattias and I mistook you for a thug and detained you at the station for two hours," said the man. "You don't need to thank us."

Arvid frowned. "You were the one that handcuffed me, Kurt! If not for your senior detective inspector being so kind, you would be done."

"To be fair, who walks around the street around 11pm and tries to force himself into a locked shop?" said the man that was driving, Mattias. He was a big man with slightly ruffled brown hair that was patterned to the left, his dark blue eyes stared at Arvid through the mirror, a smug look on his face.

"That was a mistake, I lost the keys to my cousin's place when she was out of town. I already paid to sleep in the storeroom of that shop that day!"

"Yet you forgot to ask for the keys to get in," said Mattias.

Kurt chuckled hard from the side.

"You two will never let it up, will you?" Arvid sighed, smiling faintly. These two were the only ones that could make him smile in the situation he found himself. "But really... thank you so much for helping me today."

He felt way better now with his three friends around. Not his first friends in Göteborg, but the ones he bonded with the quickest when he was still new in the city.

His days of struggling to earn a living for himself when he first came to Göteborg- they would always invite him over during the weekends to hang out and grab a bite at the local food shack.

Even the time he was looking for a place, shortly after getting a job at Gatensberg-Posten, it was Mattias that recommended his current home- thinking about how he managed the down payment for his current home. (About 2.5 million SEK, which came from allowances from his cousin,  and his parents- mostly from his cousin though.)

"It's ridiculous to think about it now, but I still had over around half of the price of the house to pay for," said Arvid.

"I almost feel like locking you up for your statement," said Mattias.

Arvid laughed. "You wouldn't."

"He's right, you're undermining our sacrifice here. It's already bad enough you're having us keep what happened to you away from our superiors," said Kurt. "We're risking our ranks as detective inspectors for this."

"Alright, it was just a something that came to mind," Arvid grumbled. "And you know why I said you shouldn't tell anyone else at your station."

He had explained everything to them in return for that favour- that they didn't tell their superiors at the station. Call him paranoid, but Arvid wasn't ready to test the scope of The Stone's influence. It still scared him how he'd been found out so quickly for merely making an inquiry at a police station.

He felt exposed. The injury didn't hurt as much anymore as the fact he had to leave Göteborg.

Mattias and Kurt both advised him to take up Maja's offer. Penelope was also informed and she said she would take the information straight to Gerald. Part of the plan for him getting out of Göteborg was making a request for some time off from work to recover from the trauma.