Chapter Text
His mother stares stone faced at the man with the gun poised at Allen and he grins haughtily when only then does she relax her grip from the gun in her jacket and placidly fold her hands on her lap.
“See, that wasn't hard now was it?”
The driver in the front laughs and cuts off the radio, his passenger turns halfway around in their seat to get a better look at them and Allen tries to keep himself from constantly glancing at his mother. When she noticed him looking at him the first time she only stared back at him in scorn, silently saying: 'Sit still and don't do anything stupid.'
Allen mindlessly reaches up to scratch at his neck and the man beside him turns to look but that was a mistake: That's when his mother grabs the man's wrist and swiftly points the gun away from her, and just in time as it goes off when the man squeezes the trigger by surprise. Allen's ears ring and he isn't sure what to do, the woman in front of him had a grip in his shirt but he knows he has to escape. He bites without restraint into the hand that tastes like gunpowder and grinds his incisors to try and cut into the woman's skin. He's immediately shoved off.
The man sitting beside of Allen slumps and it's only then that he realizes the wetness that was beginning to soak the seats was his blood. He looks frantically for his mother and watches wide eyed at her brandishing a bloodied knife and reaching over the front seat for the driver.
“Allen get out of the car,” his mother yells at him.
He doesn't have time to think. He grabs for his bag from between his legs and soon after he's throwing himself out of the moving vehicle.
He thinks he rolls but the searing pain and burning that blooms across his chest makes him think he's being dragged and rubbed against the hot asphalt like an eraser across a mistake on paper except his own flesh was the only thing being removed. He tumbles endlessly and he distantly hears a loud crash, the car most likely slamming into the metal barrier and off the bridge. He feels winded when he's finally stopped rolling, his chest was heaving and blood was drenching his ruined shirt. He avoids looking down at his chest, the pain was overwhelming and confirming his wound's severity would only make him feel even more faint. He checks his hands instead as he sits himself up. The skin was torn with pieces of asphalt stuck between the flesh prickling with blood. His body felt bruised and it hurt so much to breathe. He looks up for his mother and she was standing a few yards away from him, staring wide eyed at his torso.
She quickly looks away from him to look around for something-- her bag, before she comes to him and drags him up by the arm.
“Move, we need to move. Here, put this on,” she takes off her jacket and shoves it into his bloody hands. When he's too slow to shrug it on she hisses at him to quit being a child. He clenches his teeth as he pulls the jacket on in a quick movement and the pain rips into him. As his vision spots with white his mother zips the jacket up for him to cover his raw chest and soon tugs him to follow her.
He hopes the blood isn't dripping down his front as he runs after her. He hopes he doesn't pass out before they make it to a hotel.
⁂
It was at some cheap diner that Allen first realizes the emptiness he constantly felt might have been loneliness as he stared vacantly at an ecstatic group of people who were talking animatedly in the booth across from them.
He knows his mother noticed his staring but she says nothing. He pushes the food around his plate and his mind drifts to a dangerous place of wondering what his father was doing. Did the men who so vigilantly hunted after him have friends, did they talk to their families? Did they even care about that sort of thing? He wasn't sure if he did anymore but he accounted that to the fact that he couldn't afford to care about anything beyond running and surviving.
His thoughts suddenly stall to a stop and blank to nothing as he eats his salty fries and greasy burger.
⁂
...
“Allen. Allen, look at me,” his mother grounds out. She was angry.
When he turns to face her she hits him across the face with a heavy smack. He doesn't find himself surprised. He keeps his head down as his face stings and throbs angrily. He gnaws into the soft insides of his cheeks to try and distract himself from the pain, to keep his expression from faltering.
“Allen I said look at me,” she commands again.
He tentatively looks up, bracing for her to smack him again but when she doesn't he finds the look she has on her face more frightening than the pain of being hit itself.
“What did I tell you?”
He moves his jaw, trying to settle on his words before he speaks, “You said not to get close to them.”
“And what else did I say?”
He knew what was going to happen, he knew what this was. He doesn't want to be here but he deserves this, he betrayed her word, potentially endangered the both of them so he deserved the coming punishment.
“You said I can't talk to them.”
She grabs his face and shakes his head as she speaks, “And what did you do anyways?”
He keeps most of his focus on his breathing, trying not to panic as he answers her, “I talked to them.”
She hits him, “And I told you not to.”
She hits him again, “What did I tell you?” and again, “I told you not-” and again, “to talk-” and again, “to them-” and--
Allen was curled up on the ground by this point, his arms curled protectively over his head and he breathes heavily, his ribs thumping with echoing waves of pain. She grabs his hair and forces him to get up on his knees.
“Do I make myself clear?”
He nods.
She shakes him, “Answer me. Say you won't do it again.”
He nods again, “I won't, I promise.”
She lets go and he drops heavily onto the ground and he tries to muffle his coughing. He forces himself to sit up and his face remains passive as he watches him mother walk out of the room with a phone gripped in her hand.
He waits a moment to let the pain settle into his bones before he stands himself up and goes to the bathroom to clean up.