Devil in Detroit | Detroit: Become Human

𝐈𝐈. SYMPATHY

NOTE

TRIGGER WARNING. talks of abuse, physical and sexual assault, sexual and physical assault of a minor, suicide, talks of a minor performing sexual favors (not graphic), descriptions of injuries related to physical abuse (might be graphic), mention of rape (not graphic, more of the usage of the word, though the word itself is not used, it is implied).

CHAPTER TWO

DETROIT, MICHIGAN

( November 24th, 2032 )

GAVIN REED WAS NOT A man who enjoyed being around kids. Despite how good he was with them—getting them to calm down, to laugh, to smile when they were in pain—Gavin really did not like kids, and he especially didn't like teenagers. Little kids, they were easy not to get angry with—they were just too damn cute, and unfortunately too damn annoying. Teenagers, however, made Gavin grit his teeth. He knew he had been a shitty, fucked up kid as a teenager, landing himself in hot water with the law more times than he knew how to count, but fuck, the teenagers he had to interview? It was almost like they wanted him to get angry, just to see what he would do.

Gavin Reed had never encountered a teenager like Jacob Rae.

To be fair, it was always the wild kids that were sent Gavin's way. It was always the kids hooked on Red Ice that sat at his desk, telling him that they didn't mean to drive high and this would ruin their life if they got arrested for it, have some fucking pity. It was always the kids who had beaten their mothers black and blue, who had threatened to kill their baby brother, who had smashed a beer bottle over a woman's head to steal her purse. It was never the teenagers that Gavin knew needed his help, who he felt he could really make a difference with. Gavin was tired of giving pity to the teenagers who didn't make an effort.

Jacob Rae? Yeah, he could spare some pity.

Melissa Kennedy had taken her own life the year before. Gavin knew this because he investigated her death as a possible homicide, given how much her husband James seemed to hate her. But James had killed himself, too, soon after Melissa did, and Gavin was never able to connect him to Melissa's death, so he moved on. Only one detail about the case bothered him—James could never tell Gavin where his son Jacob was, saying he was out with friends or under the care of his grandparents in California. James died before Gavin could get him on a possible homicide charge in the disappearance of Jacob Rae, too.

And yet here Jacob was, sitting on the toilet in the Anderson house. Two dining chairs had been pulled into the bathroom after him. Gavin sat in one beside the tub, pen and notepad in hand, and Tina sat in one next to the sink, gently cleaning up Jacob's injuries as Gavin questioned him.

"And you said . . . sexual favors," Gavin clarified, voice gentle as he looked at Jacob. Jacob nodded, trembling as Tina wrapped up his hands, which had been cut by class when he'd escaped the basement. "Can you give us the names of the people you did these favors for?" Jacob shook his head. "Can't or won't?"

". . . I never even saw their faces," Jacob admitted. Tina paused, closed her eyes, and took a breath. Then she continued wrapping his hand.

"Alright," Gavin relented. ". . . The rest of these questions are just going to clarify the things we discussed. Is that okay, or would you like a few minutes to yourself?"