4

[previous]

---

Gordon entered the bathroom and locked the door behind him before leaning back against the wall. He pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes and took a deep breath. Then another, forcing himself to keep them even and slow.

Now wasn’t the time for this.

God, but he was tired.

No doubt Scott was in the waiting room, wearing a hole in the floor from his pacing. John and Virgil were probably there, or maybe one of them had stayed home with Grandma. The waiting room wasn’t the ideal pace for her to be resting, especially with how bad the pain had been recently.

He wanted nothing more to just sink down to the floor, but he knew he had to let his brothers know how it had gone.
How incredibly lucky their dumbass little brother was. He pushed himself off the wall and turned on the sink, splashing his face with cold water. Then he dried his face and left the bathroom before he gave into the urge to yell.

Scott and John weren’t hard to find; Scott was still in uniform, and the two of them were both so stupidly tall it would have been impossible for Gordon to miss them. He didn’t see Virgil anywhere.

Scott spotted him first and immediately headed towards him, pulling John after him. Scott looked like he’d aged twenty years since the last time Gordon had seen him. John’s face was carefully neutral, but the tightness around his eyes told Gordon that he, too, was reaching his breaking point.

“How is he?"Scott asked before he’d even fully reached Gordon.

"He’s out of surgery,” Gordon said. He held his hands up to stop them from speaking. “There were clear signs of internal bleeding, they needed to open him up to stop it. He has a few broken ribs and there’s been some associated damage to his liver. They’re going to keep an eye on it, but for the moment it’s under control.”

“And?"John prompted.

"From what it looks like, he hit the door pretty hard and dislocated his left shoulder,” Gordon said. “He’s got a pretty nasty bruise from his seatbelt, he probably has whiplash. They were talking about taking x-rays of his collar bone. He has a concussion, but…it could have been a lot worse. He had a helmet on. The visor broke and left a nasty cut above his eye, but the helmet probably saved his life.”

Definitely saved his life. From the looks on their faces, Scott and John knew that as well as Gordon did. He quickly added, “He woke up on the way here. He was disoriented, but he was responsive and he recognized me. I don’t think he remembered what happened.”

“I’d rather he didn’t remember,” Scott said. His expression darkened. “After I get out of him who put him in that car.”

“Did your rookie find anything?” Gordon asked.

“She’s still looking,” Scott said, running a hand through his hair. “Can we see Alan?”

“Not yet,” Gordon said. “They have to do a CT scan, and more x-rays. It’ll be soon, I think. Grandma and Virgil at home?”

Scott and John glanced at each other, and Gordon felt his stomach sink. “What?”

“Grandma’s with Penny,” John said. Gordon narrowed his eyes.

“Where’s Virgil?"he asked.

"We don’t know,” John admitted. “He was out looking for Alan. He’s not answering his phone.”

“Oh,” Gordon said, keeping his voice steady through sheer force of will. He really wanted to yell. Virgil didn’t usually disappear like this. Virgil always answered the phone. Always. He was somewhat neurotic about it. Something was wrong.

All three of them jumped as Scott’s phone started ringing. Scott snatched it up, looking at the caller ID before he sighed.

“Kayo.”

Gordon tried not to feel disappointed as Scott answered the call. He stepped away from them.

“You should sit down,” John said, and it took Gordon a second to realize he was talking to him.

“Huh?”

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” John said. “You should sit down.”

“I’m still on call,” Gordon said.

“No, you’re not,” John said. “You’re officially off the clock as of an hour ago. I called. One of the guys dropped your stuff off about twenty minutes ago. Here,” he pushed Gordon’s phone into his hand. “Someone needs to call Penny and Grandma and tell them what happened.”

“Wait, they don’t know?” Gordon said, his eyes widening.

“Gordon, I didn’t even know what had actually happened until I got here,” John said. “All Scott told me over the phone was, ‘Alan’s hurt bad, come to the hospital’. ”

Gordon grimaced. “Ah. Grandma’s going to kill you, you do realize that, right?”

“Yeah. I know.”

---

Her phone sits on top of the quilt, spread over Ruth Tracy’s lap, and Penny’s just lost her third hand of canasta. John had said, before he’d left, that he’d given his grandmother a pill for the pain she was in, but whatever it was seems only to have sharpened the woman’s card sense, because Penelope’s been beaten soundly each time.

She wonders, as she peers at her cards, if Gordon’s brothers ask the obvious question of just where the pain meds come from. They must know better than to ask. Or they must not want to know. Scott would have to look so far the other way he’d probably just about snap his neck.

Penny had rumbled him the first time he’d come over to spend the night. They’d been out a few times before that, the sort of airy, unserious sorts of dates that could be afforded by a waitress and a paramedic. A movie, though what they could agree upon was nothing either of them were especially interested in. Coffee, once, though it had been in the same coffeeshop where Penny spends her workday, and so there’d been the awkward reality of all her co-workers grinning at her the whole way through. A picnic in the park, a walk along the river, and the sort of conversation that had been the clincher, because neither of them had talked around their problems. There’d been an intensity to the honest exchange of circumstances that had only served to pull them that much closer.

It had been after that particular conversation that she’d suggested that maybe the last flight of stairs up to his place might not be worth the trouble, and that maybe he ought to come in. There’d been a certain absence of ambiguity about her motives, and she was hardly too proud to admit that this was more or less what she’d been after in the first place. He’d gone to shower and she’d gone to sit on the bed in her room, where he’d left his bag.

And, well. If he hadn’t wanted to get caught at it, then he probably shouldn’t have left a full bottle of painkillers sitting so near to the top of his duffel bag. She’d only been curious to find out if he habitually carried condoms, or whether there was going to be a mad and embarrassing dash to the drug store down the street.

If he hadn’t caught her, catching him, she wonders sometimes if she would have left it alone. If she would have been desperate and lonely enough to look the other way, to draw the wrong conclusion entirely about Gordon Tracy, and the reasons he managed to stay so cheerful and buoyant and sunshiney, despite his job and despite his circumstances. Instead she’d looked up at the sound of an awkward cough from her bedroom doorway, with a pill bottle clasped in her hand and an expression of surprise.

And if he hadn’t been naked but for the towel around his waist and grinning at her sheepishly, Penny might have been afraid to have been caught by him.

But instead he’d just crossed the room and sat down on the bed, and had reached over to take the little bottle out of her hand and stash it back in his bag. “You don’t have to believe me,” he’d told her, and she’d done her damnedest to meet his eyes instead of being distracted by the curve of his torso, the way his towel sat just below his hips— “I’ve got about a million problems, Pen, and if the fact that I’m the worst kinda drug-stealing, cowardly, hypocritical bastard is one of ’em, then at least being a drug addict isn’t. I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb.”

“For your grandmother?” she’d asked softly. She’d swallowed and hoped that she knew what the answer would be.

He’d nodded and sighed. “Yeah. Umm. John, once in a while, he gets the most wicked migraines, poor bastard. If, uh. If we get to be a thing—and I’m not saying…I’m not saying we are…unless you wanna be, but you know, that’s just whatever, because that’s a whole other thing—anyway. You should come meet her sometime. Either way, even if we don’t keep doing…uh. This. You should still meet my grandma. She’s a hell of a lady. You’d like each other.”

It was what he’d said next, and the way he’d said it, more than anything, that had made her believe him. I’ve never known anybody, more than my gran, who deserved just a little less pain.

And he’d been right. Even if she hadn’t gone on to lean over and kiss him and run her hands through his still damp hair—when she’d gone on to meet Ruth Tracy, she’d seen the sort of beautiful, strong old soul that could raise five boys into the kind of adults her grandsons were, and still have a smile and a gleam in her eye from the confines of her sickbed.

So now Penelope sat on the end of Ruth’s bed, with cards spread out between them, and her phone on the bedspread. When it rings, before she can reach for it, a surprisingly quick hand reached out and caught her wrist. “My dear,” Ruth started, and her eyes were sharp and bright when Penny looked up to meet them, “I’m always happy to see you. And I’m glad that you’re here now. But if that’s one of my boys, you’re going to make them tell me just what the hell is going on, or by god, Penelope, I’ll stump out of here myself and get on a bus.”

She looks down at her phone, but the custom ringtone’s already given him away, because the bright and cheerful tones of Walking on Sunshine have filled the room. This is probably a question best put to Gordon, anyway, though in her heart she dreads the answer. “…Yes, ma’am.”

---

Technically, Kayo’s shift ended an hour ago, so the fact that she was in plain clothes wasn’t, technically, against regs. And Tracy had told her to follow her nose, and he was her TO, so technically this was an authorized operation.

Technically. Kayo was comfortable with technically.

Out of uniform, in skinny jeans and an old band shirt she’d found at the back of her closet, her leather jacket over the top covering her service weapon tucked away in its holster, she could still just pass as one of them. She knew the language of the street, even if these weren’t the streets she learned it on. Regardless of the city, the basics were the same.

Kayo smiled at the kid they called Shifty as she passed, letting him get a good look at her. There was always a kid called Shifty, and he always knew the score. She knew from the gossip in the breakroom that this town’s Shifty hung out by the gas station on Third, at the point where strip mall shops turned into small workshops and storehouses, the street running down to where the bigger warehouses were located.

Shifty was taller than her, but the kind of skinny you only got when meals were few and far between. Kayo went into the gas station, came out a moment later with a fist-full of brightly coloured packages, jerky and twinkies, the kind of things that kept, and could be crammed in a hoodie pocket. “Hey, Shifty,” she called out, tossing over one of the packages as her price of entry into this conversation. “What’s the deal with that crash tonight?”

A brief conversation and the rest of her snacks later, and Kayo was walking confidently down towards the warehouses. Half the street lights in this area were out, knocked out or just never replaced, and Kayo hooked her hands in her belt loops, flexed and ready to reach for her gun.

The word on the street was fear. Shifty had counseled she lie low, that ‘The Boss,’ whoever that was, was on the warpath, pissed that the big race had quite literally gone sideways into a ditch.

That there was a Boss calling the shots worried her. This wasn’t just a bunch of kids in hot cars, blowing off steam and hormones late at night, dangerous but innocent.

This was organized. That meant there was an organizer, and a reason.

Kayo slowed, ears pricking. She could just make out the faintest susurrations of voices, the tone implying a debate was in full flow. There was light, just visible under the transom of the human sized door set into the larger, hangar-style sliders.

Every other warehouse was dark, felt empty. Kayo circled her target, looking for another way in. She found it out the back, a broken window badly covered with a sheet of pressboard. A moment’s work, and she was climbing inside.

Inside was a large workshop, mostly empty but for a few cars up on roller racks so that mechanics could get at the underbelly. The arrangement of the room suggested to her that this space normally was crammed with vehicles.

This was where the race started.

Kayo flicked open her jacket, ready to draw, as she crept closer to the light pooling out onto the concrete from a little shack made of flimsy plywood and pressboard, built against the far wall.

The voices were clearer here, and Kayo listened, getting a bead on the argument.

One voice was trying to persuade the other…to do what, she wasn’t sure. The debate had descended into pleas and bargaining. She crept up to the window that looked out over the workshop and peered inside. Half-turned towards her, a small skinny figure in glasses was glancing between monitors propped up on a makeshift desk.

The figure with his back to her was bigger, taller, stronger. Kayo’s lips pursed, judging her odds of taking him in a fight. In a confined space, a gun was more a liability than a threat, but big guys fell hard if you had the leverage.

And there was a tyre iron, propped up on the wall beside her.

Kayo smiled in the dark, tucked her badge into the waist of her jeans so her shield showed, hefted her weapon and stepped into makeshift office.

“Police! Hands in the…Virgil?”

Virgil already had his hands half-up, an automatic reaction. Even so, the other figure was faster, hands almost stretching for the sky. “Kayo?” Virgil asked, blinking hard.

She lowered her weapon. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Virgil shrugged. “Same as you, I suspect.” He turned back towards the other figure, still with his hands in the air, his eyes darting between them behind his thick-rimmed glasses. “Officer Kyrano, let me introduce you to Brains.” Virgil sighed, sounding tired. “I think he knows what’s going on.”

Technically, she didn’t have enough evidence for probable cause, not enough of the pieces to make an arrest. But, she wondered, did Brains know that. She tapped her nails against her badge, an idle, casual gesture that caught and held his attention. “I think it would be in Mr Brains’ best interests if he started talking.” She let the tyre iron drag on the concrete floor as she took a step forward, saw Brains’ eyes widen.

Technically, this type of interrogation wasn’t illegal.

Technically.

---

[to be continued]

3

[previous]

---

John was, to most of the emergency services, a voice on the other end of the line, ordering, organizing, chasing and, very rarely, yelling at them to get where they needed to go. John’s voice was the thread that linked the emergency teams to the victims, brought them together for hopefully happy endings.

His face meant nothing. But the second he opened his mouth, every uniform in the place spun around to listen.

John wanted to scream; his heart was in his throat. But as soon as he barreled into the charge desk, his training took over, and he spoke his request quickly, firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument and ruffled no feathers.

He was aware of the stares as he was whisked up to emergency. A whispered conversation between two orderlies, and a Authorized Staff Only door was being opened for him. John strode down the corridor, his new escort struggling to keep up, as John homed in on the sound of heart monitors and sharply snapped commands.

Scott looked out of place here, the wrong coloured blues, his bulky jacket the wrong shape amid the light, sleek scrubs of the surgical staff. John diverted over, his escort melting away. “Scott?”

Scott’s head snapped around, his eyes wide and red-rimmed, his breathing shallow and shaky. John took him by the shoulders, gently turning him so they stood fully face to face. “Talk to me,” John said, his voice dropping automatically into a work register.

“They took him into the operating room. Gordon…they’re letting Gordon observe, so he’s not alone. He said it shouldn’t be long, that I should wait..”

He trailed off, and John tried a different tack. “What happened?”

“Street racing. A car crash.” Even as he watched, John saw Scott flicker between being a cop and being a brother. “Those were some souped up cars, Johnny. Seriously expensive, not the usual rust buckets those kids race. Kayo thinks so. I’ve sent her to make sure. We need evidence.”

“Evidence for what?”

Scott’s eyes darkened. “They hurt Alan, John. Whoever they are, they put him in that car and now he’s in surgery. They hurt him, and when I find them, I’m going to throw the book at them so hard they’re never getting back up.” Scott blinked, looking over John’s shoulder. “Where’s Grandma? And Virgil?”

John felt his lips thin. “I asked Penny from downstairs to sit in with Grandma. I…I didn’t want her to worry, and she can’t spend a night in the waiting room, not with how she’s feeling right now.” John took a deep, steadying breath. “And Virgil went out to look for Alan, and now I can’t reach him on his phone.”

Scott’s expression crumpled. “Well—shit.”

---

Virgil peered out the window. “You’re sure this is where he gets off?”

The bus driver snorted. “Hard to forget. He usually walks off that way.”

He pointed up the street, down towards a row of dark, sketchy-looking buildings. Virgil could hear Scott’s voice in his head telling him stories of stupid kids wandering places they shouldn’t and ending up hurt or worse. He hoped he wasn’t about to become one of those stories.

He hoped Alan hadn’t become one tonight.

“You want me to wait?” the bus driver asked as Virgil stepped off.

Part of Virgil wanted to say yes, but he shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

The driver didn’t seem convinced, but he nodded. “Be careful, kid.”

“Will do,” Virgil said, and headed up the street.

If he’d thought it looked bad from the bus, it looked even worse up close. Most of the buildings were clearly abandoned, covered in graffiti and God only knew what else. A few had lights on, but Virgil avoided them, hoping that his kid brother wasn’t stupid enough to wander into places like that. Another had a man standing out front as if acting like a bouncer and he looked seriously pissed. Virgil carefully stayed on the other side of the street.

At the end of that block, there was a garage, and one of the doors was open. The lights were on inside, and soft classical music played inside. Virgil took a deep breath and prayed that he wasn’t about to walk into a cover for a mafia or crime ring before sticking his head in.
“Hello?”

There was a clang like someone dropped metal on the ground and a strangled shout. Virgil stepped into the garage cautiously, looking around. He took another step and then jumped backwards as a head appeared from behind the car closest to him.

“Jesus,” he breathed. For a second, they just stared at each other; the other man was clearly as surprised as Virgil was, dressed in a canvas coverall stained with oil and grease. His hands, in spite of this, were remarkably clean.

Finally, the man spoke. “Can I h-help you?”

“Uh,” Virgil had to think for a moment to remember why he was there. “Maybe. I’m looking for my brother.”

The man studied him for a moment. “Hopefully you d-d-don’t find him here.”

Virgil blinked at him, caught off-guard. “What do you mean by that?”

“You should p-probably go,” the man said. “This isn’t the k-k-kind of place you want to be seen.”

“Wait,” Virgil said, still confused. “Listen, my little brother heads out this way sometimes, this is him,” he pulled out his phone to pull up the picture, only to see a black screen. Shit, he should have charged it. “Uh, never mind. He’s about this tall, blond, answers to Alan?”

“Alan?” the man said, straightening up. “Why are you l-looking for Alan?”

“I just told you, he’s my little brother,” Virgil said, trying to reign in his frustration. “Is he here?” He looked around, somewhat hoping to see Alan pop up from behind one of the other cars.

As empty as the garage was, this seemed as stupid a question as “Why are you looking for Alan?” and the man in the coverall gave him an appropriately bewildered look. “N-no, he’s at the race,” he said, as though explaining something obvious.

“Race?” Virgil asked. “What race?”

“You don’t know?” the man looked surprised. “I t-t-thought…this explains a lot.”

“What does that mean?” Virgil demanded.

“He’s one of my b-b-boss’ drivers,” the man said. “He’s racing right n-now.”

Virgil stared at him. Things were starting to click in his mind. “Alan’s been racing?”

“Y-yes,” the man said. He held out his hand, which Virgil shook automatically. “I’m Brains.”

“Virgil.”

“The races u-usually end around eleven,” Brains said. “I’ll l-l-let Alan know you were here.”

“Wait, I’m not leaving,” Virgil said. “He’s been street racing? Scott’s going to kill him. I’m going to kill him.”

“Y-y-you can’t stay here,” Brains said, suddenly looking anxious. “If my b-boss sees you here a-a-and hears you’re asking questions, it’ll c-cause trouble.”

“I’m not leaving without Alan,” Virgil said stubbornly. Street racing. He’d known Alan had been up to something, but he hadn’t expected it to be so stupid and dangerous. And illegal. He couldn’t believe this.

“You d-don’t understand,” Brains said, moving around the car to stand in front of Virgil. “He’s n-n-not someone you want to make angry. P-please, I’ll let Alan know you were here, but -.”

“If you let him know I was here, he’ll run for it,” Virgil said. “No, it’s better if I wait.”

Brains opened his mouth, clearly ready to argue, but one of the garage doors on the side of the building started opening. Brains whirled around, then turned back to Virgil. Then he grabbed Virgil’s arm and pulled him to the workspace near them, pushing him in the direction of the desk.

“Hide,” he whispered. “D-d-don’t let him know you’re here.”

Virgil, feeling utterly ridiculous, did as told, folding himself under the desk. He could hear a car engine revving as it entered the garage, and wondered idly what kind of engine purred in that way. He almost wanted to peek out to see it.

“You’re b-b-back early,” Brains said after the car engine shut off.

“Race was a bust,” another, deeper voice said. “Lemaire’s kid lost traction, took out half the cars, including ours. Tracy probably got picked up, if he’s even in one piece.”

Virgil’s blood ran cold. Alan.

---

Brains tried through willpower alone not to look where he’d stashed Alan’s brother. The Boss in his best mood wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate interlopers.

Now? Brains shuddered to think what he might do.

There was a lot of money on that race, and Brains had wanted for nothing as he had souped up each of the cars. The vehicles were an investment in The Mechanic’s business, and if Brandon had not only crashed but wiped out, then that was a lot of money gone.

It wasn’t as if there was insurance for underground street races.

An angry snapping of fingers brought Brains back to the present. “I need you to pack up shop,” came the snapped order that Brains was expecting. “There were cops all over the scene, we can’t have them snooping around, not now.”

Brains nodded frantically, not trusting his voice.

At least his being speechless and panicky was normal behaviour around the Boss. With a disgusted noise, he stormed off and left Brains alone.

Brains waited until he heard the far doors bang, the roar of a motor. Only then did he relax. “Y-you can c-come out now,” he murmured, taking off his glasses to rub his tired eyes.

Alan’s brother was bigger, and taller, and utterly furious, the kind of anger Brains recognized as being driven by fear. The worst kind. “Talk,” he ordered.

Brains moved to his computers, tucking his glasses back onto his nose. The system shutdown took a while, it was the first step in his teardown pattern. “You p-probably know as much as I d-do now,” Brains said tiredly. The computer beeped, a countdown appearing on screen as Brains activated the appropriate subroutine. “L-listen, I p-put in every safety device I can sneak p-pass the B-Boss,” he stammered, his anxiety already growing. He should know better by now not to get too close to the drivers. Crash or arrest, or just burned by the Mechanic, they never stuck around for long. “G-g-go find your brother. I h-hope he’s okay, really I d-do.”

Virgil stared at him for a long time. “Are you going to be okay?”

Brains blinked, stunned.

No-one had ever asked him that before.

---

[next]

2

[previous]

---

If Alan heard the phrase, “Life isn’t fair,” one more time, he was going to scream.

In his experience, life sucked, and he was fully aware of the fact. He didn’t need to be told it, time and time again. It wasn’t going to make anything better, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to make him okay with what was going on. All it did was make him angrier.

No shit life isn’t fair.

He checked his watch as he ducked into the garage he’d started hanging around months before. There was only one thing he really had any skill at, and it was racing. Once upon a time, he’d dreamed of being the fastest racer in the circuit, but he wasn’t a little kid anymore. Besides, he didn’t race for the fun of it.

It was hard to explain, but behind the wheel of a good car was when he really felt alive. When the world started to make sense, where he could leave his anger behind and not have to think about anything. He didn’t have to remember that his dad had just vanished on them, or that Grandma was really sick, or that his brothers were all going to be pissed when he got home. He didn’t have to feel guilty. Nothing could touch him.

And he was good at it. Really good. As in he had a reputation now as one of the best in the area. As in some of the regulars now bet on him. He’d earned his keep.

“You’re late,” the garage owner called as he walked into the room, pulling on his gloves.

“Sorry,” Alan muttered. He didn’t bother with an excuse. This wasn’t the kind of place you brought up your home life. And how was he supposed to explain that he hadn’t left until his brother had made it home because his grandma couldn’t be alone?

“Got a big one tonight,” the owner said, tossing a set of keys at Alan. Alan caught them, inspecting them.

He didn’t know the garage owner’s real name; it didn’t seem like anyone did. Everyone in the circuit just called him the Mechanic. He’d taken a chance on Alan one day when he’d been racing his brothers’ car, and now Alan was his number one driver. In exchange, Alan didn’t ask questions, and won races. That was all that was expected. Simple.

“Aren’t they all big?"Alan asked as he pulled on his jacket. The Mechanic didn’t laugh. He never did. It was a little unnerving.

He took his red helmet off of the stand it stayed on and held it under his arm as he headed to the car for the night. Alan got to play with all sorts of different cars, all of them as amazing as the last, but his favorite was the one he’d first raced in, a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, souped up, modified, and gorgeous. She was as red as his helmet and as smooth a ride as he’d ever had. He didn’t care what anyone else thought about her; his record with her spoke for itself.

"Don’t lose tonight, kid,” the Mechanic said. “We’ve got some big numbers on this one. You’ll get a sizeable cut.”

Alan nodded as he climbed in. His cut went towards buying the car he was currently getting situated in. He was nowhere near getting it, but it wasn’t like he could take the money he made home. Scott was a cop, and his grandma would never accept it. They couldn’t even know about the racing. They’d kill him.

He pulled up at the usual spot, taking his place in the line before opening his window to acknowledge the starter. He closed his eyes, pushing away all of his irritation and guilt and focusing just on the race.

After that, it was just as simple as hitting the gas.

Street racing had rules, despite popular belief. They were mostly common sense: don’t race on busy streets, don’t have passengers, don’t play dirty, don’t race in an area you don’t know. Alan knew this area very well. He’d made it his business to know every inch of every possible route. It was part of his secret of success.

There was a curve at one point, and it was a nasty thing, sharp and with a ditch just off of it. Alan had seen one guy go spinning off of it (he hadn’t been the best driver, not nearly careful enough in his turns and in a car he didn’t know how to handle). He’d survived with only his ego taking a blow, but Alan lived with four emergency workers. He knew – albeit through secondhand accounts – how nasty car accidents were. And ultimately he knew that even the glory of winning wasn’t worth doing something as stupid as taking the curve too fast.

Unfortunately, that night, he seemed to be the only one who knew that. And even more unfortunately, he missed the inside. So, when the inside guy’s tires started to lose their grip on the road, Alan was the one he spun into, hitting Alan’s front right side with his back left. And Alan was the one who lost control of his car.

Alan had just enough time to think, Oh, shit, this is gonna hurt. Then, nothing.

---

None of the others seem to understand why he goes out looking for Alan.

It’s not because he expects to find out where he is. It’s because he’s trying to learn to predict where the damn kid’s gonna go. And he’s getting better. He’s gradually narrowing down a list of his little brother’s favourite haunts; knows which of them are okay, which of them are kinda sketchy, which one his little brother needs to have his ass hauled out of. He usually tags Gordon in for this duty, if he’s available, and John if he’s not. If neither of them are around, then he let’s Alan slide.

Scott should be able to figure it out, being a cop and all, but then, Scott refuses to go out for detective. He says it’s because he likes patrol work, likes being on the front line. Virgil suspects it’s got more to do with the requirement for a degree. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have stopped him.

Half the time Virgil goes out, he does find Alan. Alan will be in an empty lot, skateboarding with a handful of kids he knows from school. Or Alan will be tagging meaningless graffiti in a back alley somewhere. Or Alan will have gotten on a bus and headed downtown, and Virgil will just need to wait until the same bus brings him back again, eventually.

It’s the half the time Virgil can’t account for him that’s starting to be concerning. Because Virgil’s starting to piece together a sense of structure, around the times when his little brother takes off. There’s a pattern. It’s a pattern designed to look like randomness, but there’s a shape to the negative space around the times he can’t find his brother.

He’s pretty sure it’s got to do with the reasons his brother goes downtown.

Well.

He’s finally got the time to find out.

So when Alan’s favourite bus pulls up to the bus stop, this time, Virgil gets on. He nods to the driver and drops the fare in, and looks up with a smile he’s been told is charming. He holds up his phone, hopes the crack in the screen doesn’t obscure his brother’s face too badly, and gets straight to the point, “Hey. This is my brother. He on this route often?”

The scoff and the eyeroll are as good as a yes, and Virgil winces. “Yeah. Sorry if he’s—”

He’s cut off with a grunt from the driver and the doors pull shut behind him. The older man gives him an appraising once over, challenging. “You gonna rope that kid in?”

Virgil shrugs, slips his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “If I can find him, yeah.”

A nod. “Sit up front. I’ll let you know where he usually gets off.”

“Thanks, man.”

Another grunt and the bus’s hydraulics hiss and lurch as the bus rolls away from the curb. Virgil drops his phone into his pocket and takes a seat up front.

---

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Scott rolled his eyes, clutching his paper cup like a lifeline as Gordon picked his way across the debris-strewn road towards him. “You got here quick.”

Gordon shrugged. He had a speck of blood on his sleeve, but otherwise it was hard to tell he’d been on call all evening. “Tiny little spray of rain, and every idiot in a V8 takes a header into a ditch. Was on my way back to base when I got the call. So,” he asked, eyes scanning the scene. “What have we got?”

“Kayo’s liaising with the fire service now,” Scott said, draining his coffee and crumpling the cup. “Bunch of guys street racing. High end stuff,” he added, tapping a hubcap with his boot. “From what we can get out of the few bystanders we caught, the guy on the inside lost it and wiped out the rest of his cluster. We’ve got a bunch of drivers trapped, no idea if there’s anyone seriously wounded, but from the swearing I’d say that at least the ones we’ve found are more concussions and bruises than anything.”

Gordon was already getting gloved up. “Concussion ain’t nothing to joke about, Scotty.” He grinned up at his brother, too bright in the dark night. “You should know, brother.” He rose as Scott chuckled darkly. “Point me at the victims. The other wagon was across town, they won’t be here for at least another fifteen, even with full sound and light.”

A yell further down the slope caught their attention, and they fell into step towards the hubbub without another word. “Got someone for me, Miss Kayo?”

Kayo rolled her eyes, unaffected. “A few managed to climb out once we broke the windows, but they’re all declining treatment.” Gordon made a face; Scott knew how it irritated his brother that people, hurting or in pain, were still thinking more about their insurance, or lack thereof, than their health. “Scott, these are some high end rides with a bunch of punks and street kids behind the wheel. Something’s not right here.”

Scott frowned, brow furrowing. “Well, then, probie. Go follow your nose.”

Kayo’s eyes widened almost imperceptible, but she nodded and headed off back up the slope. Gordon watched her go. “I like her.”

Scott ignored the subtle hook. “Come on, let’s find you a willing patient. Hate to have rolled you away from your midnight coffee for no good reason.”

Gordon let out a low whistle when he saw the vehicle the fire crew was working on. “Would you look at that baby. Cherry red means she goes faster,” he added as an aside.

“Fast enough to leave one hell of a dent,” Scott replied seriously, playing his torch along the gouge the crashing car had carved into the landscape.

The now-familiar sound of the hydraulic jack was followed moments later by the door popping. “Welp,” Gordon said, tugging on the strap of his kit. “They’re playing my song.”

He nodded his thanks to the fire crew, already heading off to continue stabilizing and cracking the wrecks as Gordon knelt down next to the now-open drivers seat. “Evening there, I’m Gordon. Can you tell me your—?” the words died on his lips as Gordon’s torch played over the blood-smeared face of his baby brother.

---

She only knows them because they live one floor up from her apartment. 501 to her 401.

The first encounter she had with the Tracys was with the fourth of them, because he’d come home at four in the morning, and the lock on her front door had been broken.

She’d woken to the sound of someone stumbling through her front room, and her hand had fumbled by her bedside for the baseball bat, leaning against the filing cabinet she’d found by the curb, pulling double duty as a dresser, and tripe duty as a bedside table.

There’d been a tremendous crash of someone tripping over her coffee table—well, rather, her piece of plywood and lopsided collection of cinderblocks—and she’d suddenly been infuriated by the sheer nerve of anyone who’d try to break in and rob her of what little she had.

So she’d climbed off her sagging futon, hoisted her baseball bat, and kicked open her bedroom door.

It’d been the uniform that had spared him immediately having his head bashed in, the uniform that had given her pause.

Certainly it had been nothing to do with the way he’d been startlingly handsome, all blond and bewildered and sprawled out on the cracked linoleum, when she’d managed to fumble the light switch on and demand to know what the hell he was doing.

It had turned out to be a perfectly understandable mix-up. One floor off. Broken lock. Four in the morning, and him just coming off a double shift. He’d even been decent enough not to mention the fact that she was only in her underwear and a t-shirt and had accepted a hand up to his feet, sheepish and shy.

The next morning there’d been a knock on her door, and brother number three had turned up, toolbox and a brand new lock in hand, and with a few choice comments to make about the landlord. She’d made him tea (lacking much else, Penelope at least always has tea) and they’d chatted politely, and she’d met her first neighbour. He’d introduced himself as Virgil and mentioned that his younger brother was Gordon, and she’d told him her name was Penny.

By the time he’d gotten done, her door had a new lock, her leaking sink had been tightened up, and the spider that lived in her bathtub had been relocated. And Penelope had finally made friends with her neighbours, all five of them, plus their grandmother.

And sometimes Penelope will catch a ride to work with John, or sometimes there’s a lightbulb that needs changing and she’s too short to change it herself, so Scott will stick his head in. And sometimes she’ll order a pizza and split it with whoever happens to be home when she does. Sometimes she’ll just come and sit with their grandmother, missing the company of another woman, in this big strange city where she’s so obviously out of place.

It’s brother number two who’s knocking on her door this time, though at an hour of the evening when it’s usually Gordon she’s expecting. Gordon gets home late. And Gordon doesn’t knock. Gordon has her spare key. Gordon talks in his sleep and half the time he’s too tired for any of the reasons she likes to have him over in the first place, but Penelope’s beginning to wonder if it’s not just falling asleep beside him that she might like best.

But it’s not Gordon, because Gordon’s working. So it’s John.

And when she opens the door, his eyes are bright and his hands are shaking and Penny’s not sure if she’s ever seen him so badly scared.

So of course she says yes when he asks if she could possibly come and sit with his grandmother. It’s just the neighbourly thing to do.

---

Originally, Kayo had joined the force to make a name for herself. Or, more accurately, to redefine what her name meant. She needed to show everyone, herself included, that she was nothing like her uncle and never would be. And she’d needed a way to shut up the cruel little voice in the back of her head that sounded exactly like her uncle, mocking her every move.

Despite that, she loved it. And she’d been pleasantly surprised by her partner. Sure, she’d had to prove herself, but Scott Tracy was a good man. He treated her with respect and unlike so many people in her life, never talked down to her or treated her like she was lesser than him. He was a little reckless sometimes, a little distracted others, but he was a good teacher and a great partner, and Kayo was appreciative.

He was also extraordinarily easy to read. Which was why, when she came back to let him know what she’d found, she immediately knew something was wrong.

He was wide-eyed and pale, staring at the back of the ambulance she knew his little brother drove. Kayo had a bad feeling about this.

“Scott?” she said, ignoring formalities. If he had a problem with it, he’d let her know.

“Huh?” Scott said, not looking at her. He only barely seemed to register her presence.

Kayo glanced at the car he was still standing next to, then at the ambulance. “What happened?”

Something had to have happened. Because she’d seen Scott handle horrible scenes before, and nothing had ever shaken him like this. There had been times when he was exhausted and they came up on a crash or a fight and he’d been a little quiet and tense, but never this bad. Not once.

“What?"Scott said, and he finally looked at her. And when he met her eyes, Kayo could see the truth.

Scott Tracy was scared.

"What happened?"she asked, aware that he was superior and that the tone she was using was possibly inappropriate to be directing at him. But he wasn’t acting like her superior and Kayo didn’t know what to do.

Scott turned his gaze back to the ambulance, its lights flashing. It started to pull away, the sirens turning on, and somehow he seemed to pale even more.

"My little brother,” he said. “Alan.”

The youngest, she reminded herself. Sixteen, rebellious, reckless. The one time she’d met him, he’d seemed distant.

Scott insisted he was a good kid. Kayo was pretty sure he was biased.

Then she realized what he was saying. She felt her stomach drop.

“He was here?”

Scott nodded, still watching the ambulance. “He was…he looked pretty bad.”

Kayo didn’t know what to say. The usual things they said to families wouldn’t work here, not when Scott knew exactly what she wasn’t saying. They didn’t know how it would turn out, they would do their best, they wouldn’t make promises because some things were out of their control. Scott knew all that. And Kayo didn’t have any family to compare the way he was feeling to.

So she did what she always did, and barreled on ahead.

“I found something,” she said.

Scott tore his eyes away from the ambulance, as lights and sirens came on, the vehicle pulled away from the scene and out of their sight. “And?”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

---

[next]

1

John had to pause on the fourth floor landing, willing his leaden muscles to hold it together for just a few more minutes of effort before they gave up completely.

In his ears, he could still hear the echo of voices, a thousand panicked phone calls, a thousand personal disasters, all asking, pleading, demanding he help them.

It had been a busy shift.

Steadying himself on the railing, John forced himself up the final flight of steps.

Inside, Alan was on the couch, his racing game blaring out of the tinny television speakers propped up on the rickety table in the corner. As the cars squealed and the virtual spectators squealed, John winced. “Turn that down, Alan.”

Alan didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Good evening to you too,” Alan said sarcastically. “Two seconds between arrival and bawling me out, that must be a record.”

John ignored him, too tired to argue. “Where’s Grandma?”

“Napping,” Alan replied, cursing and jolting himself almost off the couch as he tried to make his avatar on screen respond fast enough. “Hogging the bedroom.”

John shook his head – how she could sleep in this noise, he had no idea. As expected, she was sitting up in bed, reading. “Hey Grandma, how you feeling?”

She looked a little pale, rheumy around the eyes. “Storm’s a-comin’, Johnny,” she said, laying her book on her lap.

“How bad’s the pain?"he asked, already mentally running through his checklist.

She waved him off. "You’re worse than Gordon. You’ve off duty, relax, put your feet up, I’ll cook.”

John caught her in time to stop her tumbling off the edge of the bed as the pain hit, and eased her back to sitting. “We need to get you a new hip,” he murmured, mostly to himself.

She waved him off, lips thin with pain. “Don’t waste money on things that don’t keep,” she chided.

John stroked her hair off her temples. “I’ve got dinner, you rest up.

He managed to keep the reassuring smile on his face until he closed her door behind him.

In the short hallway, between the room Alan and Grandma shared and the one he and Virgil and Scott managed to rotate through, the sound of the game was head-thumpingly loud. "Alan,” John snapped. “Turn that off and do your homework.”

No response.

John stalked through the open door into the tiny sitting room off the kitchenette. The game on the TV was repeating its title screen music. The couch was empty, the front door open.

John slumped against the door frame and massaged his temples for a moment before he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He still had a few texts left for this month. Alan’s gone, again he texted the group.

He couldn’t leave Grandma alone. And if Alan didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be found.

John turned on the stove, began boiling water. They had some pasta in the cupboard, a tin of tuna. And grandma had been losing weight, she needed to eat.

The front door opened as he dumped the last of the pasta into the boiling pot. “In here,” he called out.

---

These days, Virgil was convinced the smell of smoke clung to him constantly.

He knew it wasn’t true. He’d taken a shower at the station before leaving, his clothes had been tucked away in his locker the entire shift. There was no reason he should still be able to smell it.

But he did.

Every step was a battle, one that was harder that day than most. He’d been pulled aside by the chief near the end of his shift and informed that his schedule had been switched around, he was being forced to take the next week off. Paid vacation, the chief had been quick to add, but time off nonetheless.

“You’re burning out, kid,” the chief had said. *“You can’t keep taking on those extra hours. This a job where you can’t afford to not be at your best. Now, you’ve got eleven days of vacation days all together. I won’t make you take all of them, but you’re not going to be on the schedule for the next seven. Get some rest, go hang out with some buddies. Get your mind out of the station. It’s for your own good.” *

Virgil had tried to explain to him that he volunteered for those extra hours because they needed that money. The time-and-a-half overtime rate was worth every bit of exhaustion he had to fight through if it meant they could afford to pay rent or eat. All of them took on extra hours. He could handle it. The chief had seemed sympathetic, but hadn’t changed his mind.

So Virgil was sent home. It was a school night, so theoretically Alan should be home, but he wasn’t counting on that. Grandma would of course be there. He couldn’t remember if any of his brothers were off.

His phone went off as he walked towards the door of their apartment building and he pulled it off, noting as he did so that the crack on the screen had somehow gotten worse, and grimaced.

Alan’s gone, again.

Virgil looked up and scanned around him, trying to see if he could spot Alan anywhere in the crowd. He doubted he would, because Alan was very good at disappearing, but he still had to make sure.

He found nothing, unsurprisingly, and tried not to groan as he entered the building and walked up the stairs. Stairs. He hated stairs. He hated elevators more (and specifically having to free people from them). But still. Stairs.

He unlocked the front door and heard John call from the kitchen. “In here!”

John sounded just as tired as Virgil felt, if not more so. He was standing at the stove, making pasta, and looked up when Virgil walked in.

“Hey,” Virgil said.

“Hey,” John nodded. “See Alan on your way in?”

“No,” Virgil said. “I looked, but, well—”

Alan’s difficult.

John exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”

“Scott’s gonna be pissed,” Virgil said, leaning against the wall. “How’s Grandma?”

He already knew the answer. She was in pain, sick, and losing weight. Gordon worked as a paramedic at the same station Virgil worked at, and he’d stopped by Virgil’s truck before he was officially on shift and expressed his worries to him. In his own irritated, sarcastic way. In short, she needed more care than they were currently able to give her with their own busy schedules and Alan’s tendency to vanish at any given moment. Gordon’s frustration with their youngest brother echoed Scott’s temper and Virgil knew it was going to come to head sometime soon.
Secretly, he hoped he wasn’t there. Scott and Gordon against each other were bad enough. The two of them against Alan was going to be deafening.

“The usual,” John sighed. “She won’t say anything, but the pain’s getting worse.”

“Gordon said something similar.” Though with much more profanity.

“She’s still losing weight,"John continued, stirring the pasta. "I don’t know what we’re going to do for food until next week. Alan’s got school lunch and we have a little bit left in savings, but we need that. And Grandma shouldn’t be left alone, but I don’t know how we’re going to make that work, either.”

“Actually, about that,” Virgil said, and John looked at him warily. “Chief took me off rotation for the next week. Paid time off. I tried to argue, but he all but kicked me out of the station.”

He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone. He knew the chief was trying to look out for him, but they were barely getting by. This was going to make things harder in the long run and Virgil knew they were going to feel it sooner rather than later.

---

Alan’s gone, again.

He must have stared at his phone for a little too long, because there’d been a soft chuckle from the driver’s seat, before the comment, “More grief on the home front?”

“The home front is grief in every dimension. Up, down, front, back and sideways,” Scott answered, and snapped his phone closed, dropped it into the breast pocket of his dark blue uniform. He permitted himself a single slow breath, exhaling hard, before he snuffed out the flare of anger at his baby brother. Nothing he could do about it, in the middle of his shift. If he remembered right, John’s off, and if Virgil isn’t yet, he should be soon. Gordon’s working the night shift, the same as Scott is, but he’ll be more likely to let his frustration show than the eldest is. Scott pities anyone who expects patience out of Gordon tonight.

“Bad deal, sir. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Gimme another ten minutes and we’ll get back to work.”

“Yessir. I’m just letting my manicure dry.”

In spite of everything, on the home front or otherwise, that gets a laugh out of him. “Right.”

He’d be alone, if she weren’t a rookie, and still in training. And she wouldn’t know enough to have asked the question, if Scott weren’t fond of her. If they hadn’t gone to get a beer after her first shift under his supervision, because he remembers his own first days on the force, and remembers swearing up and down that he’d never be such a bastard as the man who’d trained him.

So, in a roundabout way, even though he’s only really known her a few weeks, he’s made a friend. And he’s glad that she’s here.

And they’re in between calls, him and Kayo, and he’s halfway through typing up the report for the domestic disturbance they’ve just broken up. His brain’s still caught in the modality of needing to translate an internal stream of frustrated profanity into polished, situationally appropriate language. They’re on the other side of the city, parked in an empty lot, and if Alan’s only just taken off, there’s no way he’s going to cross his older brother’s path.

Not that he would anyway. Short of a concerted effort to find him, when Alan takes off, it’s usually just a matter of waiting for him to come home. Anything else wastes time and resources and energy. He’s not usually gone for longer than a few hours. No longer than a night, at the worst, and those are nights he usually crashes at a friends place. It’s not that he doesn’t worry about Alan. Scott worries plenty about Alan, when Alan takes off, but the balance of probability is that Alan will be fine.

It’s the way his absence ripples through the rest of the family, because now John won’t sleep. He’ll be up all night waiting by the door, agonizing over whether or not he should try and call someone who probably won’t answer, if he’s brought his phone at all. Now Virgil will go wandering off after the youngest, peering down back alleys and sticking his head in the doors of arcades and corner stores, or approaching little knots of hooded figures, hoping one of them might be Alan. And Gordon, if Gordon gets the news, will be in a fit of black temper and distraction, when his job demands that he remain detached, impersonal, and focused.

And the worst is the way Scott has to wonder when Alan stopped caring, about the way he makes his family feel. When he stopped caring that his actions have consequences, and stopped being able to tell that his brothers are doing their best, and even if they’re failing, that they hope it counts for something.

But for now there’s nothing he can do about it, except to keep an ear on the scanner, and hope that no one picks his kid brother up tonight.

---

Gordon shouldn’t have his phone on him at all, but he’d caught a bleeder early in the evening, and in a lull between calls, his supervisor had jerked her thumb at the lockers and told him to clean himself up. He only glanced at his phone to check the time.

Alan’s gone, again.

It’s the again that sets Gordon teeth into a snarl.

When had Alan’s runaway act become routine? Gordon yanked off his blood-stained top, swapped it out for a fresh uniform, his mind racing as he tugged aggressively at buttons and hooks.

This had to stop; life sucked, there was no denying that, and since Dad’s vanishing act, it had started sucking hard. But either they were all in together, or they weren’t going to make it. They needed to be able to trust each other.

Alan just needed to grow up.

Out in the main room, Gordon heard the phone ring, the shrill bell summoning them for another call.

Gordon slammed his locker door, hard enough to distort the cheap tin, and stalked off to his wagon.

***

Car crashes are crime scenes.

Not a lot of people knew that. But until the cause of the accident had been determined, a car crash was treated as secured until it was released by an officer.

When there were survivors, the police and the paramedics worked together, to save lives as best they could. But by the time Gordon nosed his ambulance through the ring of rubberneckers, his lights flashing off their faces, he knew it was too late.

There was an urgency when the victims were still breathing that melted away when they died.

Gordon pulled up next to the squad car, nodding at the dark-haired rookie leaning against the back bumper. “Kayo, right?”

“That’s me. You’re Tracy’s kid brother, right?” she said with an easy smile.

“Not a kid anymore. Anyone called it?”

Up close, even in the gloom, Gordon could see she was paler than usual. “There’s only one, a driver. His head was, umm?"she made a slicing gesture at neck level.

Gordon set his aching jaw. "Injuries incompatible with life.”

She blinked. “What?”

Gordon hoisted out his field kit; he knew he wouldn’t need it, but the fatality still needed to be officially called. “That’s what we call it, until the coroner report makes it official. ‘Injuries incompatible with life’.”

Kayo exhaled, hard and long. “Got it. Do you need me to?”

Gordon took pity on her; she was a rookie, and a decapitation was bad even for experienced officers. “Keep the bystanders off my ride, wouldya?” he asked with an easy grin, not waiting for a reply before he was striding towards the wreck.

Scott was in the thick of it, issuing orders, choreographing the various services who buzzed around the scene. “Hey, Scott,” Gordon greeted him, already snapping on thick latex gloves.

“Evening,” Scott nodded a greeting. “No rush,” he added thickly.

“So I heard.” He dropped his bag between his boots as he took up post next to Scott. Together, they watched the fire crew work to jam in the hydraulic jack enough to force the door open. The shattered windscreen caught and threw the red light back with a rich, oily sheen that Gordon knew presaged bad things inside. “Did you see John’s text?”

Even over the noise of the scene, Gordon heard Scott inhale through his nose.

“I guess we should be grateful he waited for John to get home, rather than bailing and leaving grandma alone,” Gordon probed carefully, watching Scott’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.

“I guess,” Scott agreed noncommittally. “He’s a good kid.”

Gordon snorted. “He’s a teenager, pissed off, and now fully aware he’s starting everything six feet behind everyone else.”

Finally, Scott looked over at him. “You were pretty pissed off at his age too, as I recall, but I don’t remember you running away all the time.”

Gordon shrugged, testing the fit of his gloves with steepled fingers. “I’m not Alan.”

“You’re not mad?”

Gordon laughed, stifling it quickly, mindful of the solemnity of the scene before them. “I’m fucking furious, and if I catch that kid, I’m putting a bell on him.” He thought for a moment. “Or maybe a leash.” His gloved hands rolled into fists, and he shook them out. “Alan needs to know that—as much as it sucks—he can’t keep taking it out on us. Especially not on Grandma.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Scott promised.

Before them, the car ripped open with a tearing of metal. Gordon waited for the sound to die. “Will he listen to you?”

“Worth a try.”

Gordon shouldered his heavy bag once more. “Except we’ve tried that, Scotty. He needs to know—what he’s doing?” Gordon paused, his mind already steeling itself for what was to come, but managed to find the thread of the end of the thought, “it’s incompatible,” he finished, the word tasting heavy on his tongue. “We can’t hold it together if he’s hell-bent on pulling us apart.”

“He’s a good kid,” Scott repeated.

Gordon snorted and turned to the wreckage, nodding at the fire chief’s beckoning wave. “Good kids can still wreck it. Just saying.” Without waiting for Scott to try and answer, Gordon clambered over the crumpled wreckage of car and bridge support, and went to confirm the end of a life.

---

[next]