Lost Cause [Imagine Dragons Fanfic]

3 - Meet

"Hi."

The sound of my voice makes him flinch and he nearly drops the money he's been counting. After a second he looks up and for the first time, I can see the bruise around his left eye.

It's blue-greenish and isn't only around his eye but also covering some parts of his cheek. For a second I forget what I wanted to say and I just want to find out how he got that.

But I can't just ask a stranger why he has a bruise on his face, especially not a kid who already seems intimidated by us. Which I can understand, he is sitting and the three of us are standing in front of him as if we want to show him that we are stronger.

I can clearly see the distrust in his eyes and I can see that he doesn't quite know what we want from him. To show him that we don't want to mug him or something I crouch down, Wayne and Ben doing the same a few seconds later.

"Hey, I'm Daniel, but my friends call me Platz and those two are Ben and Wayne." I introduce ourselves.

"I'm Dan."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you. I just wanted to tell you that you have an incredible voice."

"Thanks." Slowly the distrust in his eyes seems to fade.

"What's the name of the song though? I don't think, I've ever heard it before."

"It's called Skipping Stones. I wrote it myself."

"Wow. You wrote that yourself? I'm impressed!" Bens words make the boys cheeks flush a bit.

He looks like he wants to say something, but then his eyes see something behind me. For a split second, I could swear that I read fear in his eyes, but then he looks down and stuffs the money in his pockets.

"Look. I'm really sorry, but I have to go," he says while standing up and grabbing his guitar.

The three of us stand up too and exchange confused looks.

"It was nice talking to you, maybe we'll see each other again. But now I really have to leave. Bye." The kid says and without waiting for a reply he disappears into the crowd.

I watch the place where he was standing just a few seconds ago, then I turn around.

"Well, that was weird!" I state. Ben and Wayne just nod in agreement.

I take a last look at the place where Dan has disappeared.

"I guess we should go back to college now," Wayne states and we agree.

I turn around and want to start walking as I bump straight into someone's chest. I stumble back and look at the person I just ran into to apologize. Then I realize, I didn't just bump into someone, but a cop. Lucky me.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to...," I stutter half a sentence and feel my cheeks blush.

The officer in front of me just glares at me with an annoyed look and says: "You better watch out where you're going!"

"Y-yes, sorry sir," I reply, but the officer already walked by me, his shoulder bumping into mine as he passes me.

I watch him go away and disappear into the crowd just as Dan did a few seconds ago. What a nice cop.

"Wow, what made him so pissed off?" Ben asks as we start our way towards the campus.

I shrug my shoulders. "I don't know." But I have a feeling. And I don't like that feeling!

"But that boy was kinda weird too, especially that he had to leave that fast. I could bet that we probably won't see him again." Ben continues talking and Wayne answers something, but I'm not listening anymore.

Why did he have to leave that fast? He was talking with us and all of the sudden he has to leave? Then I remember. He looked at something, right before he got so nervous and left.

He was looking at something behind me. Right in the direction of...

No, that can't be it. I'm just making things up again, for sure. He didn't run from the police, or did he? But why should he? Unless...

"Platz?" Wayne asks and waves in front of my face.

"Huh? What?" I ask confused.

"We asked you if we should go to Taco Bell and get something to eat," Ben explains and faces me with a weird look.

"Oh yeah sure, why not," I reply and already forget what I've been thinking of. It was probably all made up by my mind anyway...