Stigma, Chapter 6
[rewrite] [WIP] Yamato stumbles across something he was never meant to see... and now it seems someone may be determined to end his life, at any cost.
Digimon - PG-13 - English - Angst/Suspense - Words: 14455 - Updated: 06-13-16 - Published: 05-07-04
chapter five
Disclaimer: Toei's.
Stigma
by: butterflie
chapter six
[Wednesday]
Everything was a blur. His arm hurt--at least, he figured it must, because why else would he be kneeling on the stage clutching a bleeding wound? He felt like he was going to black out.
People were screaming everywhere. Girls, mostly. Normally at one of their concerts this wouldn't be unusual, but these screams were different. Panicked, terrified. Apparently some of the crazier ones were trying to make their way to the stage instead of away from it, because he could hear his bandmates yelling at people to stay back.
He thought maybe Ratsuii was also on his knees, kneeling down next to him, asking him was he alright, was he okay, he'd been shot and he wanted to tell Ratsuii to shut up but his voice was so far away and fuzzy that Yamato was half-convinced he was imagining it.
He'd been shot. In the middle of his concert. He could hardly believe it. It was a dizzying thought. It seemed crazy to everyone else, but Yamato knew who it was, what it was about.
God, his arm hurt. It burned. He wondered if anyone had called for help. He could feel blood on his hand. There was a faint metallic taste in the air. He'd never realized blood tasted like copper.
Someone touched his arm then, and there was a flare of pain. He screamed. "Sorry, sorry!" he distantly heard Ratsuii exclaim.
He was going to die. Not here, not now--the gunshot hurt like hell but it certainly wasn't enough to kill him. No, he was going to die later, at the hands of a fucking psychopath he probably wouldn't even recognize if he saw again. All because he'd had the misfortune of using that back alley as a shortcut at exactly the wrong moment. In that moment he felt an irrational surge of hate for Nyusumi, because if hadn't been for his damn craziness over practicing--
"Yamato? Hey, Yamato. Can you hear me?"
He blinked, and looked up into the worried eyes of Ratsuii. He swallowed and tried to focus. "Hey," he said, and his voice came out mostly normal, if laced with pain still. "I'm fine," he said, and then laughed, and if it came out sounding a little hysterical, well, who could blame him? "I mean," he tried again, "I'm not fine, but I'm fine. As much as the circumstances allow."
"Yeah, yeah." Ratsuii gave a little hysterical laugh of his own. "You'll be fine. Help's almost here."
The noise of the screams had mostly stopped now, filled instead with the confused babble of a large crowd of people all talking at once. Somehow Yamato managed to filter most of the noise out. The rush of blood through his ears was louder.
Ratsuii shifted back a bit, taking the weight off his knees, slumping down and resting his butt against the backs of his shoes. "This is crazy," he mumbled, and Yamato had to smile a bit at that. It was crazy, all right. Crazier than anyone else realized.
He heard someone approaching and looked up, wondering how they'd managed to get past the barrier that was a scared and pissed off collective of Ny and Kenji, but immediately understood when he saw the frantic form of his best friend crouching down in front of him.
He could tell Taichi wanted to touch him, to pat him all over and reassure himself that his arm was the only hurting part of him, but somehow, maybe because it was obvious how much pain Yamato was in, he managed to hold himself back.
He confined himself to a worried question. "You holding up?"
Yamato nodded.
Then help at last arrived, creating more hectic chaos, and he decided it would be okay to zone out for a while.
He awoke once, briefly, in the ER, but the noise and confusion and pain was worse than all the screams at his concert, so after a few moments he gratefully let his mind sink back into oblivion.
When he came to the second time, it was to find himself lying in a hospital bed and his dad sitting on a chair nearby. His dad was watching him, and it was clear to Yamato that he was barely holding it together. The man looked a wreck, and he wondered how long he'd been here, when his dad found out, how he reacted. Hearing your firstborn had been shot--that had to be a nightmare.
He also wondered what day it was. Surely it wasn't still Wednesday night? And where were Natsuko and Takeru?
"Dad," he tried to say, but all that came out was a hoarse sort of croak. His throat felt so dry. Luckily, his dad seemed to understand, because he took a glass of water off the nearby table, holding the straw up to Yamato's lips for him to sip at.
"Slowly," his dad cautioned him, and he tried to obey, but the water felt so good he couldn't help but drink it as fast as the straw would allow.
Finally he let the straw fall away. "Thanks," he managed to rasp out, and his dad merely nodded. Yamato closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
The third time he woke up, his father looked considerably better. Perhaps because his dad was actually asleep--quite probably the first real sleep he'd had in days. Yamato lay there for a bit, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and trying to take stock of himself.
He didn't seem to be in pain, but it was likely he was full of pain meds at the moment and the pain would return at some point in the near future. His right arm was covered in a thick swath of bandages, so he had no idea of checking the gunshot wound and seeing how bad it still was.
He felt a sort of hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up out of his throat at that thought. Gunshot. Not exactly words he’d ever expected to apply to himself. He wondered again what day it was, how long he’d been in the hospital. Had Natsuko and Takeru been by at all? Had Taichi, or any of his bandmates? Well, possibly not Ny, given his fear of hospitals.
He wondered how the general public was reacting. Things like that weren’t exactly common, surely it would have made the news. The papers were probably full of bafflement though. The band wasn’t exactly well-known yet, despite having been signed to an indie label. People would be wondering why this band, why him. Unfortunately he didn’t have an easy answer for them. “I watched some girl get raped and didn’t say anything so the guy that later killed her is now stalking me and probably trying to kill me too,” probably wouldn’t go over very well, if people even believed him.
He sighed. Whatever pain medication was coursing through him also seemed to be doing a pretty good job at keeping him calm, but he knew when it wore off he wouldn’t feel nearly as blase about the whole thing.
A tired sounding groan broke into his thoughts then, alerting him that his dad was waking up. He glanced over just in time to meet his father’s tired eyes, which quickly widened in relief when he saw his son awake and aware.
“Yamato! How are you feeling?” his dad asked, worry evident in his tone.
“Okay...” Yamato said, surprised at hearing his words come out a bit slurred. There must have been more meds in him than he thought. “Think the meds are keeping me out of pain for now.”
His dad nodded. “They will for a few days yet. The bullet only grazed your arm, but it was still a pretty bad nick.”
“Yeah.” He fell silent for a moment, hoping his dad didn’t want to discuss the shooting just yet. He really wasn’t up to that. “Where’s Takeru?”
He was alarmed to see his dad’s eyes cloud over with some unnamed emotion. Worry? Anger? Fear? He couldn’t quite tell and that scared him.
“Takeru hasn’t been able to visit yet,” his dad said, and Yamato could tell he was choosing his words carefully.
“Why not?”
“He’s just been... busy,” his dad replied quietly.
Yamato felt a knot of dread settle down in his stomach at his dad’s words and tone of voice. There was something his dad wasn’t telling him. How in the world could his brother possibly be so busy with his life that he couldn’t even come visit Yamato in the hospital? Yamato knew his brother, and he knew Takeru would have been by his side the second he heard the news, stubbornly refusing to leave until he knew Yamato would be okay.
Either Takeru hadn’t been told, or something else was wrong... He didn’t want to think what the “something else” might be.
[Wednesday]
A week after being shot, the doctors deemed Yamato well enough to leave the hospital. Yamato had been able to stay awake for several hours at a time for a few days now, since he’d woken up that third time on Sunday afternoon.
He hadn’t once seen sign of Takeru or even Natsuko, though several of his other friends had stopped by. Yamato had jumped at the chance to ask what they knew, but to his frustration none of them had heard anything about Takeru. He didn’t think they were lying either. Taichi had been the only one with any information, and it wasn’t much. Hikari had told him Takeru had been absent from school Monday afternoon.
So, the best Yamato could figure, no one had seen or heard from his brother since Friday. Of course, his brother could just have come down ill, but as that didn’t explain why his dad was being so cagey about Takeru’s whereabouts, he didn’t hold out much hope for it.
Something was seriously wrong, and that knowledge left Yamato with a permanent sense of anxiety and fear. His mind kept entertaining horrible thoughts, ones he couldn’t bear to see come true. He fervently hoped that he was wrong, and that Takeru hadn’t been likely taken and/or killed by the psychopath he’d had the misfortune to stumble across that fateful night.
“Alright?” his dad asked.
Yamato nodded. With his dad’s careful help, he’d gotten settled in his own bed, being mindful not to jostle his arm around too much. The hospital had given him a prescription for pain medication, but of course it wasn’t nearly as strong as the morphine drip he’d had, so he was finally feeling the pain. The new meds mostly just dulled the worst edges.
“Do you need anything? Food, drink, more blankets?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m good. I’ll call you if you that changes.” He really just wanted to sleep. The trip from the hospital to the apartment had tired him out more than he’d expected. After all, even if it was just his arm that was injured, he’d still been in bed a week, sleeping and recovering for most of it. It would take a bit of time for him to get his strength back.
“Okay,” his dad said agreeably. “I’ll just be down the hall in my room if you need me.” Then he left, leaving the door open in case Yamato needed to call for him.
Yamato burrowed down into the covers with a sigh once his dad had left. He may have needed to nap, but once he woke back up he was going to get some answers out of his dad about his brother, one way or another.
When he woke next, he was surprised to find himself feeling hungry. He hadn’t had much appetite in the hospital, at first probably just too doped up to care, and then later too worried about his brother’s conspicuous absence. But now his stomach was growling, desperate for sustenance, and he had to admit some oyakodon wouldn’t go wrong right then.
He called for his dad, and half an hour later the two of them were enjoying delicious chicken and egg over rice from his favourite take-out place around the corner. When they were done eating, his dad cleared away the bowls, taking them to the kitchen, and threw away all the trash, then cleared his throat.
Sensing his dad wanted to talk about something, and hoping it had to do with Takeru, Yamato looked at him expectantly, still propped up comfortably in bed from their meal. The words his dad spoke however, threw him for a complete loop.
“I want you to quit this band thing.”
Yamato looked at his dad in horror, not having expected that at all. No concerts for awhile, sure. Never being alone, okay. Maybe even slowing down a bit, well, he could understand. But quitting? His getting shot didn’t even have anything to do with the band, no way he could give it up! “What? Dad, no--”
His dad didn’t even give him a chance to form a full protest. “You got shot, Yamato! What if the bullet had done more than just graze your arm? What if the shooter had better aim? It’s dangerous! You could have died!”
“That’s not--” He stopped, at a loss. How could he say it? That being in the band had nothing to do with why he’d been shot? How could he tell his dad that? And if he did, then he’d still have to explain what had happened three weeks ago and ever since, and assuming his father even believed him he’d have to try and find a reason for why he hadn’t spoken up sooner, something he didn’t even really know himself...
It would never work. His dad would just think he was lying to save his position in the band. “Dad, you can’t take the band away from me,” he finally said desperately. “That band is my life!”
His dad scoffed. “Please, Yamato. It’s a hobby. Something to occupy your time with outside of school and homework. You forget I had my own band in high school as well.”
“No, Dad, it’s different from yours! You just started that for fun with your friends! But the Wolves are going somewhere, Dad, we’ve already been signed to an indie label, and we’re gaining a lot of fans, it’s only a matter of time before we go major. This could be the rest of my life--”
“I said I won’t allow it!” his father roared.
“Dad!” he pleaded, on the verge of tears. “Dad, please, I don’t think being in the band has anything to do with being shot, really!”
“I said no, Yamato! That’s final! Don’t argue with me anymore!”
With that pronouncement, his father stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Yamato scooted down into a laying position and turned, flopping face first into his pillows, and began to sob, burying his arms underneath him. He winced when the weight of his head and pillows put pressure on his bandaged wound, but didn’t move to find a more comfortable position. That pain was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
Boys typically weren’t his thing. Sure, they might have a hole to fuck too, but it couldn’t compare to the natural warmth and wetness of a young girl. And boys tended to fight back more, often turning into more trouble than they were worth.
But this one--oh, this one was really quite delicious. With that messy gorgeous blond hair and rosy-coloured skin deepened from a blush at his nudity, his face smeared so beautifully with tears and bruised lips swollen from forceful kisses, he was truly a sight to behold.
He usually didn’t hold on to his toys, but this one was different. This one was a warning, and he could take his time playing with him. He’d had the boy since Friday night, and it was already Wednesday evening, close to a week. It wasn’t in the news. He wasn’t even sure the parents had reported it.
Not that it mattered either way. He knew no one would find the boy until he was ready for them to.
Chapter 6 fin.
Digimon - PG-13 - English - Angst/Suspense - Words: 14455 - Updated: 06-13-16 - Published: 05-07-04
chapter five
Disclaimer: Toei's.
Stigma
by: butterflie
chapter six
[Wednesday]
Everything was a blur. His arm hurt--at least, he figured it must, because why else would he be kneeling on the stage clutching a bleeding wound? He felt like he was going to black out.
People were screaming everywhere. Girls, mostly. Normally at one of their concerts this wouldn't be unusual, but these screams were different. Panicked, terrified. Apparently some of the crazier ones were trying to make their way to the stage instead of away from it, because he could hear his bandmates yelling at people to stay back.
He thought maybe Ratsuii was also on his knees, kneeling down next to him, asking him was he alright, was he okay, he'd been shot and he wanted to tell Ratsuii to shut up but his voice was so far away and fuzzy that Yamato was half-convinced he was imagining it.
He'd been shot. In the middle of his concert. He could hardly believe it. It was a dizzying thought. It seemed crazy to everyone else, but Yamato knew who it was, what it was about.
God, his arm hurt. It burned. He wondered if anyone had called for help. He could feel blood on his hand. There was a faint metallic taste in the air. He'd never realized blood tasted like copper.
Someone touched his arm then, and there was a flare of pain. He screamed. "Sorry, sorry!" he distantly heard Ratsuii exclaim.
He was going to die. Not here, not now--the gunshot hurt like hell but it certainly wasn't enough to kill him. No, he was going to die later, at the hands of a fucking psychopath he probably wouldn't even recognize if he saw again. All because he'd had the misfortune of using that back alley as a shortcut at exactly the wrong moment. In that moment he felt an irrational surge of hate for Nyusumi, because if hadn't been for his damn craziness over practicing--
"Yamato? Hey, Yamato. Can you hear me?"
He blinked, and looked up into the worried eyes of Ratsuii. He swallowed and tried to focus. "Hey," he said, and his voice came out mostly normal, if laced with pain still. "I'm fine," he said, and then laughed, and if it came out sounding a little hysterical, well, who could blame him? "I mean," he tried again, "I'm not fine, but I'm fine. As much as the circumstances allow."
"Yeah, yeah." Ratsuii gave a little hysterical laugh of his own. "You'll be fine. Help's almost here."
The noise of the screams had mostly stopped now, filled instead with the confused babble of a large crowd of people all talking at once. Somehow Yamato managed to filter most of the noise out. The rush of blood through his ears was louder.
Ratsuii shifted back a bit, taking the weight off his knees, slumping down and resting his butt against the backs of his shoes. "This is crazy," he mumbled, and Yamato had to smile a bit at that. It was crazy, all right. Crazier than anyone else realized.
He heard someone approaching and looked up, wondering how they'd managed to get past the barrier that was a scared and pissed off collective of Ny and Kenji, but immediately understood when he saw the frantic form of his best friend crouching down in front of him.
He could tell Taichi wanted to touch him, to pat him all over and reassure himself that his arm was the only hurting part of him, but somehow, maybe because it was obvious how much pain Yamato was in, he managed to hold himself back.
He confined himself to a worried question. "You holding up?"
Yamato nodded.
Then help at last arrived, creating more hectic chaos, and he decided it would be okay to zone out for a while.
He awoke once, briefly, in the ER, but the noise and confusion and pain was worse than all the screams at his concert, so after a few moments he gratefully let his mind sink back into oblivion.
When he came to the second time, it was to find himself lying in a hospital bed and his dad sitting on a chair nearby. His dad was watching him, and it was clear to Yamato that he was barely holding it together. The man looked a wreck, and he wondered how long he'd been here, when his dad found out, how he reacted. Hearing your firstborn had been shot--that had to be a nightmare.
He also wondered what day it was. Surely it wasn't still Wednesday night? And where were Natsuko and Takeru?
"Dad," he tried to say, but all that came out was a hoarse sort of croak. His throat felt so dry. Luckily, his dad seemed to understand, because he took a glass of water off the nearby table, holding the straw up to Yamato's lips for him to sip at.
"Slowly," his dad cautioned him, and he tried to obey, but the water felt so good he couldn't help but drink it as fast as the straw would allow.
Finally he let the straw fall away. "Thanks," he managed to rasp out, and his dad merely nodded. Yamato closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
The third time he woke up, his father looked considerably better. Perhaps because his dad was actually asleep--quite probably the first real sleep he'd had in days. Yamato lay there for a bit, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and trying to take stock of himself.
He didn't seem to be in pain, but it was likely he was full of pain meds at the moment and the pain would return at some point in the near future. His right arm was covered in a thick swath of bandages, so he had no idea of checking the gunshot wound and seeing how bad it still was.
He felt a sort of hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up out of his throat at that thought. Gunshot. Not exactly words he’d ever expected to apply to himself. He wondered again what day it was, how long he’d been in the hospital. Had Natsuko and Takeru been by at all? Had Taichi, or any of his bandmates? Well, possibly not Ny, given his fear of hospitals.
He wondered how the general public was reacting. Things like that weren’t exactly common, surely it would have made the news. The papers were probably full of bafflement though. The band wasn’t exactly well-known yet, despite having been signed to an indie label. People would be wondering why this band, why him. Unfortunately he didn’t have an easy answer for them. “I watched some girl get raped and didn’t say anything so the guy that later killed her is now stalking me and probably trying to kill me too,” probably wouldn’t go over very well, if people even believed him.
He sighed. Whatever pain medication was coursing through him also seemed to be doing a pretty good job at keeping him calm, but he knew when it wore off he wouldn’t feel nearly as blase about the whole thing.
A tired sounding groan broke into his thoughts then, alerting him that his dad was waking up. He glanced over just in time to meet his father’s tired eyes, which quickly widened in relief when he saw his son awake and aware.
“Yamato! How are you feeling?” his dad asked, worry evident in his tone.
“Okay...” Yamato said, surprised at hearing his words come out a bit slurred. There must have been more meds in him than he thought. “Think the meds are keeping me out of pain for now.”
His dad nodded. “They will for a few days yet. The bullet only grazed your arm, but it was still a pretty bad nick.”
“Yeah.” He fell silent for a moment, hoping his dad didn’t want to discuss the shooting just yet. He really wasn’t up to that. “Where’s Takeru?”
He was alarmed to see his dad’s eyes cloud over with some unnamed emotion. Worry? Anger? Fear? He couldn’t quite tell and that scared him.
“Takeru hasn’t been able to visit yet,” his dad said, and Yamato could tell he was choosing his words carefully.
“Why not?”
“He’s just been... busy,” his dad replied quietly.
Yamato felt a knot of dread settle down in his stomach at his dad’s words and tone of voice. There was something his dad wasn’t telling him. How in the world could his brother possibly be so busy with his life that he couldn’t even come visit Yamato in the hospital? Yamato knew his brother, and he knew Takeru would have been by his side the second he heard the news, stubbornly refusing to leave until he knew Yamato would be okay.
Either Takeru hadn’t been told, or something else was wrong... He didn’t want to think what the “something else” might be.
[Wednesday]
A week after being shot, the doctors deemed Yamato well enough to leave the hospital. Yamato had been able to stay awake for several hours at a time for a few days now, since he’d woken up that third time on Sunday afternoon.
He hadn’t once seen sign of Takeru or even Natsuko, though several of his other friends had stopped by. Yamato had jumped at the chance to ask what they knew, but to his frustration none of them had heard anything about Takeru. He didn’t think they were lying either. Taichi had been the only one with any information, and it wasn’t much. Hikari had told him Takeru had been absent from school Monday afternoon.
So, the best Yamato could figure, no one had seen or heard from his brother since Friday. Of course, his brother could just have come down ill, but as that didn’t explain why his dad was being so cagey about Takeru’s whereabouts, he didn’t hold out much hope for it.
Something was seriously wrong, and that knowledge left Yamato with a permanent sense of anxiety and fear. His mind kept entertaining horrible thoughts, ones he couldn’t bear to see come true. He fervently hoped that he was wrong, and that Takeru hadn’t been likely taken and/or killed by the psychopath he’d had the misfortune to stumble across that fateful night.
“Alright?” his dad asked.
Yamato nodded. With his dad’s careful help, he’d gotten settled in his own bed, being mindful not to jostle his arm around too much. The hospital had given him a prescription for pain medication, but of course it wasn’t nearly as strong as the morphine drip he’d had, so he was finally feeling the pain. The new meds mostly just dulled the worst edges.
“Do you need anything? Food, drink, more blankets?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m good. I’ll call you if you that changes.” He really just wanted to sleep. The trip from the hospital to the apartment had tired him out more than he’d expected. After all, even if it was just his arm that was injured, he’d still been in bed a week, sleeping and recovering for most of it. It would take a bit of time for him to get his strength back.
“Okay,” his dad said agreeably. “I’ll just be down the hall in my room if you need me.” Then he left, leaving the door open in case Yamato needed to call for him.
Yamato burrowed down into the covers with a sigh once his dad had left. He may have needed to nap, but once he woke back up he was going to get some answers out of his dad about his brother, one way or another.
When he woke next, he was surprised to find himself feeling hungry. He hadn’t had much appetite in the hospital, at first probably just too doped up to care, and then later too worried about his brother’s conspicuous absence. But now his stomach was growling, desperate for sustenance, and he had to admit some oyakodon wouldn’t go wrong right then.
He called for his dad, and half an hour later the two of them were enjoying delicious chicken and egg over rice from his favourite take-out place around the corner. When they were done eating, his dad cleared away the bowls, taking them to the kitchen, and threw away all the trash, then cleared his throat.
Sensing his dad wanted to talk about something, and hoping it had to do with Takeru, Yamato looked at him expectantly, still propped up comfortably in bed from their meal. The words his dad spoke however, threw him for a complete loop.
“I want you to quit this band thing.”
Yamato looked at his dad in horror, not having expected that at all. No concerts for awhile, sure. Never being alone, okay. Maybe even slowing down a bit, well, he could understand. But quitting? His getting shot didn’t even have anything to do with the band, no way he could give it up! “What? Dad, no--”
His dad didn’t even give him a chance to form a full protest. “You got shot, Yamato! What if the bullet had done more than just graze your arm? What if the shooter had better aim? It’s dangerous! You could have died!”
“That’s not--” He stopped, at a loss. How could he say it? That being in the band had nothing to do with why he’d been shot? How could he tell his dad that? And if he did, then he’d still have to explain what had happened three weeks ago and ever since, and assuming his father even believed him he’d have to try and find a reason for why he hadn’t spoken up sooner, something he didn’t even really know himself...
It would never work. His dad would just think he was lying to save his position in the band. “Dad, you can’t take the band away from me,” he finally said desperately. “That band is my life!”
His dad scoffed. “Please, Yamato. It’s a hobby. Something to occupy your time with outside of school and homework. You forget I had my own band in high school as well.”
“No, Dad, it’s different from yours! You just started that for fun with your friends! But the Wolves are going somewhere, Dad, we’ve already been signed to an indie label, and we’re gaining a lot of fans, it’s only a matter of time before we go major. This could be the rest of my life--”
“I said I won’t allow it!” his father roared.
“Dad!” he pleaded, on the verge of tears. “Dad, please, I don’t think being in the band has anything to do with being shot, really!”
“I said no, Yamato! That’s final! Don’t argue with me anymore!”
With that pronouncement, his father stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Yamato scooted down into a laying position and turned, flopping face first into his pillows, and began to sob, burying his arms underneath him. He winced when the weight of his head and pillows put pressure on his bandaged wound, but didn’t move to find a more comfortable position. That pain was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
Boys typically weren’t his thing. Sure, they might have a hole to fuck too, but it couldn’t compare to the natural warmth and wetness of a young girl. And boys tended to fight back more, often turning into more trouble than they were worth.
But this one--oh, this one was really quite delicious. With that messy gorgeous blond hair and rosy-coloured skin deepened from a blush at his nudity, his face smeared so beautifully with tears and bruised lips swollen from forceful kisses, he was truly a sight to behold.
He usually didn’t hold on to his toys, but this one was different. This one was a warning, and he could take his time playing with him. He’d had the boy since Friday night, and it was already Wednesday evening, close to a week. It wasn’t in the news. He wasn’t even sure the parents had reported it.
Not that it mattered either way. He knew no one would find the boy until he was ready for them to.
Chapter 6 fin.