Put That Kid Down

Chapter Twelve

When David came back to an empty cabin, he was a little embarrassed to admit he panicked. His first thought had been what if there was a second attacker? But there were no signs of a scuffle, and he knew that if it really came down it, Max would fight back.

...Right?

He did have a habit of freezing, but... There was no blood, no body, and no frenzied attacker was going to take the time to hide Max- Max's corpse- David had to take a minute, clutching his heart and leaning his other hand hard on the back of his chair, head ducked down as he breathed deeply.

Okay.

Max was probably alive.

He had to be.

That's when the second thought crept in.

If he was fine, he was awake, and he had left of his own free will. David held no delusions about Max's incessant curiosity and he would have expected Max to be digging unashamed through David's drawers if he'd woken up before David returned.

Which meant something prompted him to leave.

It could have been another escape attempt, but those had been trailing off, recently, and David didn't really believe it to be plausible when Max was so caught up in discovering what David was hiding.

No, Max wasn't off on an unprovoked escape attempt to take years off David's life and put gray in his hair prematurely.

It was possible his friends or Gwen had come to get him, but...

David's blood ran cold.

He'd thought he'd avoided it. He'd thought he could just keep Max at bay with denial and positivity.

Maybe he'd thought wrong.

Counting up the minutes in his head, David knew he'd been especially efficient, what with Max supposedly sleeping nearby. That wasn't a lot of time for Max to wake up when he wouldn't have been concurrently awake while David was... fighting. A breeze tickled David's wrist and he turned slowly, not wanting to see it but still needing to confirm it with his own eyes.

The window was open.

Just a crack.

Just enough to listen, if not watch.

David turned away the sugar snaps on the tip of his tongue at the last minute with an emphatic, "Shit."

Probably, Max had been spooked. Probably, he was off telling Gwen right now. Probably, David should run.

He hoped not. Because he wasn't going to. Not unless he had disbelieving law enforcement ready to drag him downtown without listening to what he had to say. He knew Sal, at least, would listen to him. Even if he still arrested him. Even if he still thought he was deluded. Maybe it would plant a seed of doubt, make Sal check up on the camp - or, worst came to worst, shut it down. Maybe David's escape - and he would escape, once he'd said his piece - would hasten that result.

David squeezed his eyes shut and hoped it wasn't going to happen.

Harrison was out of his shell, working hard to learn how to bring something back once he'd vanished it. Nurf was halfway decent, at times, and his bullying had become oddly patriarchal, as if he were trying to be nice about being mean. Erid had really... not changed much, but she was learning new tricks and she seemed to enjoy everyone's quirks. Nerris practically glowed when she was arguing with Harrison, and Dolph loved getting the opportunity to do arts and crafts with people on those activity days. Space Kid soaked up the often misguided advice he got and flourished with even that attention. Even Preston was learning to add a please on the end of his demands. As for Neil, Nikki, and Max... They'd become friends. Real friends that could smile at each other and mean it. That defended each other.