Devil in Detroit | Detroit: Become Human

𝟎. LONE WOLF

PROLOGUE

DETROIT, MICHIGAN

( November 24th, 2032 )

RAPID POUNDING ON THE DOOR is what made Cole Anderson, then only three years old, begin to cry. The toddler was standing in the living room, holding himself up using the coffee table, stained with water ringlets that were years older than he was, and banging his toy truck on the table with enthusiasm. Besides that, it was a rather quiet morning, his father in the kitchen, keeping an eye on Cole out of the corner of his eye as he thumbed through the morning newspaper, taking a peek at the sports section.

Hank Anderson, known as the youngest person to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant in Detroit history, was not a man who was easily startled. He'd spent years with a gun at his side, locked and loaded, in the event of a home break-in, and this paranoia increased when Cole was born. Even before that, Hank was not a naive man—when he began to get interested in true crime cases during his teen years, he began to sleep with a baseball bat under his pillow, and then a crowbar during his college years. Unlike most of his friends—if he could even call the people he spoke to that—Hank Anderson was not one to jump from a loud noise.

So for the knocking on the door at 7:33 a.m. to make him nearly jump out of his skin, you know it had to be truly surprising.

Hank was on his feet in a millisecond, traveling to the door and opening it quickly, a million curses and insults on his tongue for whoever dared to knock on his door so early in the morning, so loudly that his son had begun to cry because of it. What could have been so urgent that someone would disregard social norms and aggravate a single father and his toddler son an hour before the lieutenant was meant to be at work, sitting at his desk with three cups of coffee in his system while his son waddled around at daycare? Who in their right mind believed that they had the audacity to disturb his morning routine?

He was expecting to see Gavin Reed, then thirty years old, standing at the door, perhaps with an urgent case that couldn't be spoken about over the phone. He thought he would come face-to-face with Chris Miller, only twenty-three and the newest face in the Detroit Police Department, maybe having rushed over from the station because they couldn't get ahold of Hank for whatever reason. He figured he might see Officer Tina Chen, newly married at twenty-five, sent to collect him and take him to the station for a reason that she couldn't tell him in front of Cole, who was beginning to quiet now that the frantic knocking had been cut off.

He was not expecting to find a fourteen-year-old boy, beaten, starved, and shivering, standing at his doorstep in the three-inch snow that covered his front porch with a thin shirt that was far too big for him and a wild look in his eyes that immediately set Hank on edge.

"What the—"

"Please, he'll be coming home soon, I can't— I can't go back there, please hide me, I'll do anything!" the boy rushed out, frozen where he stood. Hank kept the door half-closed, keeping Cole and the boy from seeing each other. He didn't know what kind of stunt this was, but he wasn't going to let it affect his son.

"Kid, I don't know what sort of prank this is—"

"It's not a prank!" the boy cried out, eyes glassy. "Please, at least call the police! I just escaped—" He pointed at the house across the street and Hank had half the mind to shut the door while the boy was distracted, but he held back "—from over there, he— he left me in the basement, he said he'd— he'd be back today, please don't— I don't want to go back," the boy pleaded, turning his gaze back onto Hank. Hank swallowed, looking down at him. He was too small for his age, too beat up to be completely lying. There was dried blood in his hair.