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Kyle has spent most of his life following one rule and one rule only: Don’t trust adults.
Although it’s not saying much since he’s only seven years and three quarters old, the three quarters is very important to remember. It isn’t hard to connect the pain he’s felt to the adults in his life. It doesn’t matter if it’s his mother, screaming or hitting or locking him outside for days on end without any food and water, or his teacher calling him a liar and sending him to the principal for making up stories, because Kyle knows not to trust adults. Ever. Under no circumstances should you trust an adult.
Yet here he is stuffing a small, navy blue backpack with snacks, water bottles, and Mrs. Binky (A well loved stuffed tiger that was missing one eye and an ear). It’s been a week since the seminar, since the men and women in uniform came to his class and gave a speech on the UK’s military and all they provided and did for their country. It’s been a week since Kyle learned there was a military base exactly four miles south of his hometown; his teacher said it was the direction of Mr. Hilgrid’s house, and he planned to go there and never come back.
One of the soldiers that came to his class, a short woman with cropped blonde hair and eyes that were two different colors, had spoken about her unit and how they protected people, children, from things that wanted to hurt them. She had spoken so strongly, with so much confidence and strength, that the very rule, which has kept Kyle alive, had shattered into a million little pieces and in its place a new sensation took hold: Hope.
The weight of the backpack on his shoulders draws a strangled whine up Kyle’s throat, causing him to grit his teeth and blink away the hot tears. He’d foregone looking in the mirror when he had changed, a black hoodie that was a lot too big and a pair of pants torn at the knees, because he knew what he would see. Even as young as he was his body was covered in scars, old and new, with bruises in various stages of healing. The worst of his injuries was his back, where his mother had taken an electrical cord and whipped him until he’d lost consciousness. Even now, three days later, it was almost unbearable to even move, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to leave, to escape, or he was sure he would die. Whether by his own hands or his mothers.
With one last glance around his room, scanning for anything useful or sentimental, Kyle turns and climbs through his bedroom window.
~~~~~
The ground is mushy and wet this time of year, with leaves littering the ground and the air growing so cold it feels like your nose is gonna fall off, but he doesn’t have a choice.
Kyle doesn’t know how long he’s been walking, enough time for the moon to leave and the sun to make its way halfway across the sky, but his feet ache and his arms and face are cut to ribbons from sharp branches and even sharper rocks.
It didn’t matter how much time he’d spent in the woods ‘playing’ he told his mom, ‘hiding’ is what it really was, it didn’t matter because this wasn’t the woods behind his house. This was the woods that was untouched by people, that spread for miles and was only traveled by animals, he’d never been this far out. He didn’t know these trees, logs, streams, or rocks. He didn’t know any of it. He was careful enough not to get himself killed, a close call with a steep hill was proof of that, but not enough to keep himself from getting hurt. Blood dripped down his face and arms, it soaked his shoes and socks as blisters popped and skin rubbed raw, his back ached and burned, but he didn’t stop. One foot in front of the other, in a straight line, only moving when the terrain forced him too. He’d run out of tears hours ago, growing used to the near constant pain, the only reprieve being the short breaks he took to eat and drink more water, being careful to reserve his resources.
He’d taken to holding Mrs. Binky, clutching her close to his chest as he pressed his frozen nose into the fur atop her head. She was the one thing in his life he could count on, could expect to be there for him no matter what, and the one that could never hurt him. She was his best friend, even though a girl from his class said he should throw her away because she was ‘broken’.
She wasn’t broken, she was just hurt, like him, and she shouldn’t be thrown away simply because she was hurt. It wasn’t her fault his sisters wanted to ‘give her a haircut’ and had snipped off one of her ears and it wasn’t her fault that he’d taken her out of the safety of his room and his mother had seen her and threw her so hard against the wall she lost her eye because ‘he doesn’t deserve toys.’
Kyle doesn’t think he’s loved anything more in his entire life than he’s loved Mrs. Binky. She makes living, no, surviving a little easier.
~~~~~
A sound, so unlike anything Kyle has ever heard in his life, booms through the air, shaking the ground and trees with it. It’s enough to send raw terror shooting through his body and a scream up his throat. It hurts, burning and tearing the entire way up, but that’s what he gets, Kyle supposes, for not talking in almost a month. No words have left his lips in the past month, sounds on the other hand?
Another scream, more a squeak this time, leaves him as a second boom shakes the earth. His heart beats wildly against his ribcage and he has Mrs. Binky clutched so tightly he’s scared he’s hurting her. Images and voices flash through his mind from people and places he is so very far away from, and it forces the air from his lungs as a different, more familiar, kind of terror rolls through him.
This kind of terror is something Kyle is used to feeling, normally when he’s alone in his room or if someone does something suddenly loud around him, and they normally leave him feeling like he is dying and exhausted. Knowing he can’t do that here, not where anyone or anything can find him, he tries his best to focus on something around him. A feeling, a scent, sight, sound, something. Anything.
He’s spiraling, his breaths coming in fast, short pants as his knees go numb and he slumps to the wet earth below. Mrs. Binky is the only thing keeping him from drowning in this feeling completely and he clutches at her, holds on tight as his mouth hangs open but no sound comes out louder than a long, drawn out whine. It’s when the black spots are closing in and his lungs feel like they’re going to explode that he hears it, and it’s like a flip got switched. He’s able to suck in a breath and the anxious feeling of ‘i'm going to die, i'm going to die, I’m dying’ fades from the forefront of his mind.
It’s still there, lurking, but is squashed down by the cheers and laughter that ring through the air, weaving between the trees and rocks right into Kyle’s ears. It’s a sound he hasn’t heard since he leaped out of his second story window and ran into these cursed woods. A sound he himself has never been a part of, but has watched others experience from a distance. It’s the sound of people being happy, the sound that he made it.
The sound of hope.
~~~~~
The foliage gets tougher to get through the closer he gets to the sounds, but he’s able to crawl beneath it and pressed against the slick ground. Mud clings to the front of his body and twigs and leaves snag his backpack and hoodie, but he keeps shoving forward. Squirming his way like one of those lizards they’d learned about in science class a few months ago, secretly wishing he had the scales like one to make it easier.
But sadly he isn’t a lizard, so getting under the wood’s dense perimeter isn’t an easy task. When he does break through, yanking at his legs to untangle them from all the vines, he’s met with a sight that brings tears to his eyes and both relief and fear burning in the back of his mind.
The base is huge, far bigger than Kyle was expecting. Dozens of buildings are lined together with roads connecting to each of them. The buildings range in size and material, from tan to bright red brick. One of the biggest buildings is brick with a lot of space between it and the others. There are fields of nothing but grass and at the end of them, the closest to the woods, are targets of varying sizes. There are trucks and vehicles he’s never seen before, but those don’t hold his attention for long.
A helicopter is sitting in the middle of one of the fields, with its blades spinning lazily as people run around. Smoke is rolling from something attached to the side of it and a ways ahead of it a target, or what Kyle assumes was a target, lays nothing but black smoldering pieces.
A group of people are making their way towards the smoking pile on the ground, voices loud and cheerful. It’s an effort to drag his eyes away from them to continue looking around the base.
A huge fence surrounds the entire thing, coming so close to parts of the woods that the vines have begun to grow up parts of the metal. It’s so close to where Kyle came out of the trees that all he’d have to do to touch it would be to take a couple steps forward.
It’s only as his hand comes into contact with the fence, fingers curling around the thin metal, that Kyle realizes he’s even moved. He made it. He got out and he made it here.
The woman said they protected people, protected kids, from anything and everything. In his search for safety, for help, Kyle had shoved the fear of being discovered by his mother down down down, but it rose up quickly here.
This was it, once he crossed that line, went beyond that fence, there was no going back. He couldn’t return home and say it was an accident or that he’d gotten lost, a part of him was jumping for joy at the thought. The thought of never going back, or never seeing his mom, or that painful cord, again.
But another part of him was scared. This was different, new and unpredictable. At least when he was at home, hiding in his room, he knew what was going to happen, and maybe a part of him still loved his mom. Loved her voice when it was comforting and soft and her hands when they threaded through his hair. He loved pieces of her that she rarely showed, but still stuck with him.
After the seminar, he’d been running on false confidence and adrenaline, that had run out the moment he’d touched the metal fencing. Drained from his body, starting at the tip of his ears and going straight to the bottoms of his feet, leaching into the muddy earth below and leaving him feeling anxious and hollow.
Now, staring up at what could be his future, Kyle finds himself unsure. What if these adults aren’t good- what if he’s been lied to? What if all his running has been for nothing? If that’s the case, he’ll stay out in the woods forever. Just him and Mrs. Binky, eating tree nuts and sleeping under whatever logs and leaves they can find. He’s made forts like that before and they all turned out pretty good, if he does say so himself, but that’s plan B.
Plan A is to get to the other side of that fence, to get inside the military base.
In the end it isn’t that difficult to get to the other side, after finding a spot where the fence curves out at the bottom and making sure Mrs. Binky is safely secured back in his pack, Kyle finds himself one step closer to his goal. He’s pretty far from where he had originally exited the woods, instead of looking straight into one of the empty fields, he’s staring at the back of a small tan colored building. Some kind of emotion he’s never felt before fills his chest and brings hot tears to the back of his eyes, but he doesn’t have the time to decipher what it’s meant to be before footsteps are making their way around the building. Growing louder and closer.
Eyes growing wide, Kyle scurries in the opposite direction and around the other side of the building; only to slam into something hard.
All the pain he’d been able to ignore, from all the injuries he’s gathered since his journey started (and before), flare to life the second Kyle slams back into the ground. His breath leaves him in a rush and he can’t help the shrill cry that forces its way out of his chest, the pain not getting a chance to fade before the weight is pressing against him again, keeping him pinned to the earth below.
Sharp teeth snap inches from his face and it takes longer than it should for him to realize it's a dog holding him down. The animal is snarling and barking, jaws closing with audible snaps, and seeming to get closer after each one. Pure terror rolls through his body and fills his mind, causing him to let out a shrill scream. All of Kyle’s pain is forgotten as adrenaline races through his body and sends his heart racing.
A voice shouts from behind him, words in a language Kyle doesn’t know, and the dog races off, practically using him as a springboard to return to it’s handler. Without wasting time, Kyle forces himself off the ground and sprints in a random direction as tears cloud his vision, he finds himself stumbling and slamming into different objects, some he thinks are actual people, but he keeps moving. Keeps running.
There are shouts behind him, but he ignores them in favor of finding somewhere to hide, fear forcing his limbs to move faster. After passing quite a few buildings, and dodging multiple outstretched hands, Kyle grabs a random door handle and shoves.
The room he finds himself in is dark, almost pitch black with weird green dots on the opposite side, but he doesn’t stare at them too long as he searches for somewhere to hide. The light shining in through the open door is just bright enough to illuminate a stack of boxes that Kyle shoves himself between, uncaring as the rough wood scratches and tears at him. He makes it to the back of the boxes just as a hand grips the back of his hoodie and pulls.
The collar pulls taunt, momentarily choking him, as he’s ripped from his hiding spot. Whatever Kyle had expected to see when he was lifted up, an angry soldier or another growling dog, it didn’t prepare him for what he actually faced. The room surrounding him was still pitch black, but in front of him were four, glowing green, eyes.
All of the stories his mother had told him of monsters, of ones who took bad children into the woods and tore them to pieces before eating them, came rushing back as Kyle sobbed. She had always told him of monsters in the woods whenever she locked him outside, saying they were coming for him. He’d never believed her, at least until now.
Sobbing, Kyle brings his arms up and in front of his face while he tries his best to curl his body and look as small as possible. Of course, with the monster holding him similar to the way someone holds a kitten by it’s scruff, this wasn’t an easy task. Despite the tears and snot running down his face, mixing with the blood of torn open wounds, and the fear filling his tiny body, Kyle doesn’t regret running away. Doesn’t regret leaving his mother, even if it led him to be torn apart and eaten by this monster. Dying by this monster's hand is somehow less scary than by his mother’s.
A sense of morbid relief crashes through him, washing away the fear and bringing air back into his lungs. It’s a weird sensation, the pain and fear and relief swirling around together until they all become one. A feeling of deep numbness, that leaves Kyle cloudy-eyed and unfocused. So much so, he hadn’t noticed when light began to burn through his closed eyelids. When he blinks open his eyes, vision blurry from the tears and light, he’s not met with the face of a monster but of a man.
The man has a dark beard, with a mustache to match, and bright blue eyes that stare at Kyle with emotions he doesn’t understand. Atop his head is a helmet-looking-thing that has four rings that are glowing a faint green. He looks old, with wrinkles and grey hairs peppered in his beard, but he also looks scary. His features are as sharp as stone and his eyes have a look in them that is all too familiar to Kyle. It’s a look he’s seen in the mirror a million times, a look of past and present pain that never seems to go away or heal.
A sharp hiccup brings Kyle back to the present, and away from analyzing the man in front of him, as his body tries to calm down from the overflow of emotions it’s endured in the past few hours. The sound and jerking motion of his chest draws the man’s eyes away from his own and instead they travel down his body, taking in the torn and muddy clothes, open wounds, and shivers. Ignoring the growing ache, Kyle stays as still as possible, suspended in the air by his collar, eyes wide. Ever silent, he does nothing but watch with bated breath as the man completes his assessment before, once again, meeting his eyes. Slowly, and with a gentleness Kyle has never felt, the man lowers him back to the ground and releases him.
Once his feet meet the hard floor below Kyle is shoving himself backwards, though he doesn’t make it far as his back slams into the wooden crates he’d attempted to hide between previously, he’s trapped between a wall and the man in front of him. The man goes to move and Kyle flinches, a sound too close to a whimper forcing its way up his throat, and the man stills with his arms raised awkwardly between them and knees bent at an angle that can’t be comfortable. It’s then he speaks;
“Easy, lad.” He says, voice rumbling through Kyle, low and comforting, in a way he’s never experienced before. It’s a voice that both soothes and scares him, hiding emotions beneath its words that have the ability to either harm him or protect him. “ I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Yeah right, Kyle’s heard that one before, right before someone hurt him. Now he’s wishing he had grabbed some kind of weapon before taking off, not that he knew how to use it, but it’d be better than nothing. Either way, he doesn’t trust a word that comes out of that man’s mouth, out of any adult’s mouth. It’s his one rule.
With his arms wrapped tight around himself, protecting his vulnerable stomach, Kyle shakes his head. He’s watching the man, waiting for any hint of movement, and watching the people behind him. He hadn’t noticed them until now, until the lights came on and he wasn’t as focused on the man in front of him or the need to get away. They were all still, backs straight and waiting for something. For orders, he realized, they were waiting for orders from the man in front of him. One of the soldiers stood by the door, a dog seated at his side, and Kyle winces at the sight of the animal that had been so close to tearing him to pieces.
For the first time since the lights came on the man looked away from him. Turning his head enough to address the other in the room, his postures shift and he speaks in a tone that has Kyle tensing.
“Wait outside.” Within seconds, it’s just the two of them, and Kyle doesn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. The dog is gone, which is nice, but he is also alone with this man who he doesn’t know. He wonders if he could slip away while the man is distracted? It would be worth a try.
“I’m Captain John Price,” the man, John Price, says as his attention is back on Kyle, as if reading his thoughts. “But everyone just calls me Price. What’s your name?”
Kyle says nothing,
“Well, do you mind if I sit?” Price asks, motioning to the spot in front of him, and it’s then Kyle realizes the man hasn’t moved from his awkward, crouched, position. Not once, not a muscle out of place since he’d flinched earlier.
Something warm spreads through his chest that he’s sure he’s never felt before. He’s nodding his head in agreement before the thought even processes and the answering smile from Price has that warm feeling growing stronger and spreading throughout the rest of his body.
“Thank you, I’m getting to be a little too old for this.” Price laughs, groaning as his joints shift and pop and he lowers himself to the floor, sitting criss cross. The man’s laugh has Kyle’s shoulders loosening and he allows his arms to relax slightly, no adult has ever thanked him before. “You should sit down. You don’t have too, but you should.”
For several long minutes the building is completely silent and slowly, after what feels like hours, Kyle shifts to mirror the man’s position on the floor. It’s painful and slow, but he gets positioned with his back against the crate and his pack clutched tight to his chest, forming a makeshift shield between the captain and him.
“Those injuries on your arms and face, they your only ones?” Jerking his head no, Kyle watches the man’s lips pull down in disapproval. “Do you mind if I take a look at them?” He asks, shifting forward and Kyle jerks away, head shaking side to side violently.
“Okay, okay. It’s alright.” Price assures, retreating back to his original position. “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.”
That’s another thing no adult had ever said to him before, I'm sorry. Adults didn’t apologize, they never had to because they were never wrong. That's what his mother always said at least. Kyle had to say he was sorry all the time, it seemed everything he did was wrong. That he was wrong. For as long as he could remember, Kyle was always messing up and making mistakes. There wasn’t a moment his mother would let him forget how much he’s messed up or what he’s ruined for her. She’s his mom, so what she’s said had to be true. Didn’t it?
“What’ve you got in there?” Price’s voice, again, surprises Kyle out of his head. It’s an innocent question, with an equally innocent look on the man’s face to match, but it doesn’t keep him from clutching at the bag harder and glaring. Price doesn’t seem surprised and begins to move his hands, slowly, up to a pocket on the front of his uniform and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “Here, if you let me see what’s in your bag, I’ll let you hold onto this? It’s very important to me, just like I’m sure whatever is in there is important to you.”
Kyle isn’t sure what face he’s making, but it has a sad smile pulling at Price’s features.
“You don’t trust easy, do you kid?” He moves on, knowing Kyle isn’t likely to answer, extending his hand and holding the paper out. “I’ll let you hang onto this anyway, just remember it’s very important to me, so be gentle.”
For a long, tense moment neither of them move. Price doesn’t take his hand back and Kyle doesn’t reach forward, until he does. It’s slow, careful, as his eyes flicker from the hand in front of him to the Captain's face and back down again, that he takes the paper between his fingers and brings it back to his chest. For another long moment, his eyes stay on the Captain as his fingers rub over the paper and unfold it. It’s when it’s unfolded and Price’s hand is back in his lap, that Kyle dares look down.
It’s a photo, a well loved photo, if the faded image and wearing of the material is anything to go by. There’s six people in the photo, one woman and five men. One of the men is wearing a black skull mask, the image sparks a bit of excitement in Kyle, with another one having a mohawk, he wonders if he could get his hair done like that. There’s Price and a blonde woman and beside them are two men that are pretty nondescript in Kyle’s opinion. They look Latino, but he can’t be sure. They’re all posing for the camera in a close huddle, grins on their faces and hands forming various gestures he’s seen some adults do, but was told wasn’t appropriate. Written on the bottom corner, in faded blue ink, is the words ‘Task Force 141 & Los Vaqueros’.
Meeting Price’s eyes again, Kyle knows for certain this picture means as much to the Captain as Mrs. Binky does to him. Something warm spreads in his stomach, feeling good but also like his insides are getting twisted. He’s never felt that way before, the twisted anxious feeling yes, whenever he knew he was in trouble and his mother was waiting, but never the warm feeling before. Price trusted him, no adult has ever done that before. He handed him something special and wasn’t scared that Kyle could ruin it.
It’s a sudden realization, the idea that he could destroy the image in his hands. He could tear it to pieces before Price was even able to realize what was happening. He wouldn’t of course, despite everything, Kyle never wanted to hurt anyone or anything. When he saw others hurting, he felt like he hurt too. He knew that it was easy to hurt and be hurt, but he didn’t want to be the cause of that hurt for anybody.
With gentle hands, Kyle holds the picture back out to the Captain, and with it, his backpack. If the Captain trusted him, despite not even knowing him, with something so precious then maybe Kyle could trust him a little in return. It’s something he hasn’t done in a long time, since he created his most important rule. But he’s broken a lot of his rules since leaving his house, so what’s one more?
“Thank you.” Price says (an adult has thanked him twice in less than a few minutes) as he takes the photo and backpack. His touch is gentle, not causing any pain in its wake but leaving behind a warmth Kyle is positive he’s never felt before, and with gentle fingers he places the photo back into his pocket and unzips the backpack.
Regret blossoms in his chest the moment Price’s eyes widen in surprise and he opens his mouth to speak.
“Well, who do we have here?” He asks, pulling Mrs. Binky out of the bag with such care and a gentleness that only Kyle has ever treated her with, that his mouth is opening and he’s speaking for the first time in months before he’s even aware of it.
“Mrs. Binky.” It’s scratchy and hoarse, almost painful, but the surprised look on the Captain’s face has a tiny smile tugging at his lips. The surprise doesn’t last long, instead forming a smile so bright Kyle’s scared he’d go blind if he stared too long.
“Mrs. Binky, huh?” Price says, attention turning back onto the stuffed tiger as he does something Kyle had never expected, he takes one of her front paws into his hand and shakes it. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Mrs. Binky, my name’s John.”
Meeting his eyes again, Price holds Mrs. Binky out to him and with less hesitation, Kyle takes her. Bringing her against his chest, he leans down to rub his nose against the top of her head and breathe. It’s the first, real breath he’s taken since climbing underneath that fence and it brings hot tears to the back of his eyes. Sniffling, Kyles rubs the back of his hand across his eyes and nose determined not to cry. His mother always got mad when he cried.
“Mrs. Binky looks like she’s been hurt a time or two huh?” Price asks and all Kyle can do is nod. “It looks like you’ve both been dealt a bad hand in life up until now, huh?”
He doesn’t understand what the Captain means, but he nods all the same. When he meets his eyes again, brown meeting blue, he’s met with such a sad and open expression it has the tears spilling down his cheeks. Burning the cuts and making tracks through the blood and dirt.
“Bloody hell kid,” Price murmurs, voice low and soothing,“How the hell did you end up here?’
It’s rhetorical and Kyle knows that he isn’t meant to answer, that the Captain probably isn’t expecting him to, but so far he hasn’t shown any desire to hurt him and Kyle is just so tired of being alone, of not having anyone on his side. He wants to feel warm and safe. Accepted and cherished. He just wants to feel loved.
Maybe that’s why he opens his mouth and answers the man’s questions.
“We learned in school the military helps people,” Swallowing, Kyle tries to steady the trembling that’d taken root throughout his body. Price hasn’t moved an inch, eyes open and intent. Patiently waiting for him to continue. “Can you help me?”
Understanding dawns on his face and then such a deep rooted sadness that Kyle’s scared he made a mistake, that he messed up and ruined it all. Just like his mother said he would, but Price’s words wash away any worries he’s ever felt; instead, filing him to the brim and beyond with warmth, with hope.
“Bloody hell kid, yes. Gods, yes I will help you.”
And Kyle knows he made the right decision running away.