Several months ago, Machias was running again. Sirens blared in the distance as he pulled his hood over his head, ducking under some bushes and climbing the fence behind them. He glanced back only when he heard the K-9s furious barks, grimacing. He would never get used to this.

He hopped the fence, damn near plummeting into the foul smelling trash cans below, pushing himself off the top of the lid before he could plunge into it. He hauled the sack of jewelry he’d taken over his shoulder and prepared to run off again before he heard the soft wails beside him. Glancing warily to his side, there. A kid. A kid perhaps the age of five, at most.

He didn’t know how he did it, didn’t know why he did it, but he made that kid believe that he was going to keep ‘em safe. Maybe he didn’t want to alert the police of where he was. Maybe he was sympathetic, an emotion he didn’t know he possessed. But either way, he scooped that child into his arms and continued his sprint to “safety.”

That was a few months ago. Now Machias was stuck with some child on his lap, trying to coax them to sleep by reading some story he found in a Dollar Store. “And so the duck,” he mumbled with a bored yawn, “Became very sad, and told his friends, ‘But I just wanted to play.’”

Sighing again, Machias leaned back lazily against the couch, flipping the next page and glancing at the kid, hoping their eyes were shut. They weren’t. “Goddamnit, go to sleep already,” Machias grumbled.