Chapter Text
The moon has already reached its highest point above the horizon, filling the darkness of the night accompanied by millions of stars shining in the sky. Small glimpses of moonlight fell through the branches of dark high pines, crickets sang their usual symphony while somewhere far away you could hear a few owls calling into the gloom.
Putting his last few remaining things such as several hunting knives, binoculars and gun cases in his backpack, Don decided to call it a day and end his hunt for tonight. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite successful this night, if not completely wasted. He sighed and threw the backpack over his shoulder, as he started walking through bushes and scrub.
Maybe if he's lucky, one of his traps caught something so that he wouldn't have to drive home without any prey. Remembering, that he also has put a few bear traps not that far away in the deepest parts of the forest, Don went on to pick them up again.
He winced and pricked up his ears, when, in the symphony of the night, he heard something metallic lashing out in an echo. Recognizing that noise right away, Don trottened in the direction from where the sound came from, leaves rustling under his feet.
Maybe he finally did caught a bear.
Maybe he had luck and it was a real doozy.
Maybe-
Don froze, he couldn't believe his eyes. In the moon's twilight he believed to actually recognize the outlines of a living being, moving right in front of him. His reflexes set in and he pulled out his rifle with anesthetics in it, pointing it on the creature. As he slowly came closer, trying to not draw any attention to himself, the huntsman hesitated in an instant.
The bear trap had been triggered, indeed, but to his horror not from a bear but a human.
A child, in particular.
The tiny figure - a boy, not older than ten - was standing there on shaky legs between a few trees, trembling, while one of his bare feet was stuck in the trap. The child only wore some kind of hospital gown, the hair unkempt and a few dirty hair strands fell into his slim face, which was hidden from Don's view as the boy looked down on his blood strained foot and desperately tried to get it out. The sharp jaws have plunged so painfully deep into the flesh above and into the ankle, that every attempt of pulling out the limp looked even more tormenting.
The huntsman heard a cry leaving the child's throat, sounding so brittle and bitterly as if he was losing his breath.
Oh my fucking god.
A cold shiver ran down Don's spine at this horrible sight. He lowered the rifle, dropped it with his backpack on the ground and ran over to the boy, eyes widened in terror, gasping: "Hell, kid, you alright?!"
Without thinking, Don kneeled down in front of the boy to release the trap. He pushed both of the springs down at the same time, the clamps fell open and the jaws opened. Blood ran all over his hands, covering the trap, the ground, painting everything in dark red. The wound on the child's ankle was very deep, that when he released the trap, the boy shrieked in pain, his whole body was trembling, tears streamed down his flushed cheeks. But before Don could even do something to help him, the boy already had lost his consciousness and the small body collapsed right in front of the shocked huntsman.
A brief moment after, everything had happened so fast.
Don had pushed all the hunting stuff off the backseats of his jeep and layed the boy on them. To his relief, he found his medkit for emergencies in the trunk of his car - alongside with a hunting blanket he actually anticipated to use for himself that night. He tried his best and thankfully managed to stop the bleeding, carefully bandaging the wound on the boy's foot. While doing this he noticed the numerous injuries on the child's body; dark blue bruises, severe cuts on arms and legs, some already covered with other older patches and bandages, scraps on his face and forehead. As if that wasn't already enough, the boy also now had a very deep and probably painful wound on his foot because of his frickin trap, Don thought cussingly.
Poor little boy.
What kind of monster would do such awful things to a helpless little child? The whole time, Don wondered where the kid came from and what he was doing in the woods all alone in the middle of the night.
The boy still wasn't awake even after Don had wrapped him in the blanket and threw all his stuff into the car to drive as fast as he could to the nearest hospital or emergency station, anywhere he could get medical supply.
The kid needed help, for god's sake.
Don felt his hands trembling in great distress while they gripped the steering wheel of his car. Almost every other second passing by, he looked into the inside mirror, just to see the child's face buried in the blanket while his eyes were still closed. But Don could hear him breathe softly- a sign that he was still alive. Never before in his life had the older huntsman felt that nervous and troubled like in this moment. He felt his mind drifting away more from second to second as he saw the dark forested street in front of him. No soul was out here, except him and the boy.
Don had no idea how many minutes had passed, when he heard the child slightly shifting and slowly blinking his eyes open, to his relief. The boy raised his head, still looking very dazed. But the man left out a relieved sigh.
"Gosh, you're awake. Don't worry, ain't that far to the hospital now." He spoke to the boy, who still wasn't very aware of where he was right now. "We'll be there in 10 minutes."
Sure, waking up in a stranger's car must be confusing and, all the more, terrifying but Don hoped the boy wouldn't start screaming or something like that as he still had to focus on the road. Unfortunately, exactly that happened. The boy sat up, probably feeling the pain in his right ankle while he glanced at his surroundings in fright. He flinched as he noticed being inside a car that brought him to an destination unknown.
"No...no! No!" He squawked, narrowing his eyes and started to punch his fists against the car's doors in fright.
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?! Stay there!" Don hissed at him as he wasn't able to do something else to stop the boy.
Thinking fast, he steered the car to the roadside and stopped there, the boy still rambling on the backseats. Don unbuckled his seatbelt and turned around to the kid.
"Now will you stop that?! I'm just tryin' to help you!" He snapped, clenching his jaw.
Instantly, the boy stopped moving and big green frightened eyes met his.
"No! No hospital..." The child screeched as he winced and his face paled. Fear swept across his face while his facial features screwed up, probably still being in awful pain.
Don glanced at him in disbelief about what he just heard. When was the last time the kid had actually looked at himself?!
"What do you mean no hospital?" He uttered in a confused tone with widened eyes glaring at the terrified boy. "Look at you, you've got some really nasty wounds there all over you! You passed out right in front of me!"
Somehow mentioning the word 'hospital' made the kid wince once again and Don just couldn't understand why that was the case.
What was the child so afraid of?
"No hospital... Please." The boy repeated, this time without screaming, instead sorrow clouded his facial features, his upper lip trembling, cheeks flushed.
Don's facial features eased, his scowled face became softer when he saw tears glistening on the child's cheeks. He must be very scared of him right now. Being grouchy sure isn't helping here.
"A'ight. No hospital then." Don sighed and it seemed like the kid relaxed slightly too.
Although he normally didn't have to tend to the wounds his traps caused, Don decided to leave it that way and change the topic, for the kid's sake. He would have to figure something out later.
"Would you at least tell me what the hell you were doing out there in the middle of the night?" The man asked instead, still looking into the boy's widened, tear-filled eyes.
"Escape..." Was the short answer.
"Escape from where?" Don bugged him, tilting his head. "Who did this to you, boy?"
"Bad people."
Don couldn't make anything out of that answer. Did the kid got abused by someone? Maybe by his parents. Maybe not. Everything about that child appeared to be a mystery. Why didn't he want help from the doctors? Where did he escape from? All these questions circled in Don's head, making him dizzy.
The boy turned away his head so he didn't have to look into the man's worried eyes. Probably he was embarrassed by crying in front of a total stranger. Don eyed him a moment or two, then turned back and started the car's engine. For the rest of the drive both remained silent, neither of them has said one single word. The boy had stopped crying and buried himself deeper into the blanket, staring right forward the whole time, staring at Don.
Soon enough the car stopped.
"Okay, we're there. Home sweet home." Don mumbled to the kid on the backseat. "Stay there."
He opened the driver's door and stepped out of the car, hoping, the boy wouldn't try to run away through the backdoors. Don could see him fidgeting nervously on the seat, looking around himself disoriented, still in fear. The startled boy flinched again when the man opened one back door.
The boy had pressed his back so tightly against the seat, shielding his upper body with his trembling hands while he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for something terrible to happen now. But there was nothing. The man just stood outside of the car's opened door, looking down on the shivering child. Slowly the kid had opened his eyes and lowered both of his little hands, a mix of fear and surprise dawned on his face. He winced ever so slightly when Don broke the silence.
"C'mon, kid. I'm not gonna hurt you." He assured in a calm quiet tone, not wanting to scare the child even more.
Don waited patiently for the boy to step out of the car but nothing happened. He was still sitting there, not moving an inch, peering at the man. What was he waiting for? Or was the child still afraid of him? Don had to admit, he would be scared too if a stranger would just take him with them, bringing him to their home somewhere in the forest.
Though, Don hoped that the kid would stop seeing him as a threat, but rather as someone who just wants to help.
The man had eyed the child full of expectation for him to finally come, seeing, how he got more anxious from moment to moment. The little boy was still shivering under the huge blanket, staring into Don's confused face. Don had the feeling he forgot something but it just didn't come to his mind, what it was.
"What are you waiting for, boy?" He urged, still waiting for some kind of reaction.
The child winced at that sudden question, which sounded more like a demand, and Don could only see the fear in the boy's eyes when he slowly lifted the leg from the seat to step on the ground. He gnashed his teeth and whimpered in agony as he put pressure on his foot.
Don finally got the point. How could he forget about it?!
"Right...You can't walk." The man determined, remembering the injury on the child's foot. He thought about what to do next. "That's why I wanted you to bring to the-"
Don hesitated before speaking out the word. It probably scared the boy when he was mentioning it, so it was probably better to avoid saying it in front of him.
"Well, you know." He finished the sentence.
When Don came closer, he could clearly see the tension written all over the boy's face. He probably didn't want to get touched by anyone right now but Don couldn't think of something else to get him out of the car. The man carefully put his hands on the child's shoulders, pulling him as gently as possible to the door, into his arms. To his astonishment, the kid let him do this, not punching him, trying to free out of his grip like Don had expected him to do.
"Yeah, that's fine. Lemme see your leg, boy.", He muttered to the boy, pulling away the blanket to look at the wound on his foot.
It still looked awful, blood sticking at the sides of the bandage as well as underneath it. Don assumed the ankle was most likely broken, probably the trap had pulverized all the blood vessels and veins too, destroyed the muscle tissue. Of more he didn't want to think about. The pain must be terrible.
Just when he reached his hands under the boy's knees and on his back to pick him up from the seat, the child resisted.
"No..." He whined quietly and pursed together his lips.
"What's wrong, boy? You don't wanna be carried inside?" Don frowned and glanced at the kid who was ever so slightly whimpering in pain.
The boy shook his head and the man let him go again. A bit awkwardly Don then was standing there, giving him a confused look.
What now?
"Kay..." He sputtered. ,,I mean...uh... you can also stay here in the car. I'll turn on the heat, so you don't freeze."
Don carefully closed the door again and went back inside the car on the driver's seat, starting the car and turned the heater on. Switching to neutral gear and pulling up the handbrake lever, Don then looked back to the boy again, still sitting on the seats.
"See, it'll get warm in here right away."
Don saw the child had calmed down and eventually stopped shivering as the heater began to warm the car from the inside. He couldn't help but smile when the kid seemed to finally feel comfortable, noticing that the fear almost completely vanished out of the boy's face. He lay there, the most relaxed since meeting him, the way too big blanket wrapped around his small body, his facial features seemed to ease too as he started to fall asleep from all the exhaustion. Although Don wondered how in such a brief timespan, the kid got calm already, considering the fact, that his heart was pounding in his chest like furious before when Don had tried to lift him up from the seat. That wound wasn't that little of a deal after all and he just hoped, it wouldn't infect that much overnight. He believed to know what to do to help the boy, but wasn't sure if the kid would let him help. And it sure was a tricky situation for both of them, because Don did feel responsible for the kid. It was his trap the boy had stepped into. It was his trap, his fault, whether he liked it or not. And justice always finds its way, after all.
After a few minutes only listening to the soft breaths of the child, Don then muttered to him, without looking back: "Hey, boy, what's your name anyway?"
"Six" The child replied wearily.
"Your name is Six?"
The kid nodded slightly in response, his eyelids soon getting heavier and heavier.
How weird. Don chuckled. "Well then, Six, I am Don Warner. Nice to meet you."