Chapter Text
Edgar Allan stood tall and proud as usual. Young Nathaneil Wesniski was mesmerised by the sight of it, with its high walls and dark aura. The car stopped outside just shy of the gates to Evermore, the Exy stadium they were there for. For a moment, Nathaneil sat with nervous anticipation of what was to come, almost making him sick, when his father finally spoke after the silent car ride. Neil liked the quiet, but it had to end.
“You will not mess this up or so help you God, child. You will behave. You will pass the trial. You will do what is asked of you no matter what, and you will not complain. Do I make myself clear, Nathaneil?”
A nine-year-old auburn-haired boy with big pale blue eyes stared back at his father from the other side of the limo they were in.
“Yes, sir.”
With that, Nathan got out of the car, and Nathaneil took that as his cue and got out as well. The guards at the gate gave his father respectful nods and opened the gate as the car drove away, and Nathaniel knew there was no going back after this.
They walked through the stadium, going through the stalls to underneath the stadium, to the rooms beneath Evermore. More guards in suits with guns were all around them. Nathaniel took long strides to try to keep up with his father down the dark, twisting corridors. Eventually, they came to a dark door at the end of the seemingly never-ending halls.
There were more guards posted outside it, but they opened the door and let Nathan and his son in with curt, respectful nods. Inside the room were more guards and two young boys off to the side, just a bit older than Nathaneil, maybe ten or eleven he guessed. They were staring at him like predators looking for prey. Neil tore his gaze away quickly, focusing on the other men in the room—Kengo Moriyama. He heard his father talk about him occasionally, and it was clear that was him since Nathan Wesniski bowed. The Butcher of Baltimore would only bow if this was Lord Moriyama, and beside him another shorter man in Ravens staff uniform, who had to be Tetsuji Moriyama. Finally, after curt, whispered greetings, Kengo and his father turned their gazes to Neil.
“Nathaneil Wesniski,” said Kengo.
Neil didn’t say anything, remembering his father told him to be quiet. Kengo took a few steps closer until he was in Neil’s personal space. It took everything in him not to flinch when he grabbed Neil’s chin with his thumb and forefinger tight and held it up to look him in the eyes. Neil tried to keep his expression as blank as possible but knew at least some nervousness must be showing on his face.
“You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?”
Big pale blue eyes stared up at him in shock, his stomach twisting into a knot, and he swallowed hard. He could have sworn he saw Kengo’s eyes darken, but he stepped away a moment later, no one in the room showing any reaction to the inappropriate interaction.
“Well,” Nathan said, disturbing the silence.
“You understand,” Kengo said, voice calm, measured, “that he must prove himself before the transfer is finalised?”
“I understand your procedures, my lord.”
One of the boys finally spoke up. It was the shorter one with perfectly cut black hair, but he was clearly older than the taller one with shaggy brown hair—Riko was the one who spoke. Neil could tell because Riko Moriyama had number one tattooed onto his cheek, whilst Kevin Day had number two, and soon, Neil thought, if this deal went through, he would be made to get number three if he was good enough.
“Let’s get to the fun part then. The court should be set up for his trial.”
The door clanged behind Nathaneil as he stepped onto the court. The big lights brightened the field. He was dressed in small black exercise shorts and a Sub Ravens jersey with all his protective gear underneath. He was alone on the court. Nathan Wesniski stayed behind, arms crossed, silent, reminding Neil not to make a single mistake or surely he would be paying the price. He had been on a little league Exy team since the age of four and had personal trainers in the sport. He was as good as any nine-year-old could be. Kengo stood beside his father, with the two boys beside him on the other side of the plexiglass.
“First drill alone. Exy exercises. Precision, control, endurance,” Tetsuji said in a calm voice.
“Alone,” Tetsuji said again. “Thirty minutes. If you fail, we stop.”
Neil nodded, his small hands tightening around his racket. He understood failure. He understood what it meant on this court, with these men watching.
He moved precisely, remembering everything his trainers ever taught him and determined not to let down his father or suffer the consequences. Kevin watched silently from behind the plexiglass, tall and imposing, arms crossed. He didn’t move. He didn’t comment. He just watched, scrutinising, reminding Neil someone was observing. Riko leaned against the wall beside him, looking bored but tracking each one of Neil’s movements.
After thirty minutes of intensive drills and exercises, trying his best, he was already exhausted, but he knew he had to push so he didn’t show how tired he was when he was done and called over by Tetsuji, with Kengo beside him.
“Not bad,” Tetsuji said, his voice calm and evaluating.
Nathaniel didn’t respond. He knew his words weren’t valued and his father told him not to speak. He just stared at Kengo, trying his best to have a blank expression. Kengo must have seen something because he gave a shark-like wicked smile that made Neil want to run away and said,
“Next, with your peers.”
He got a ten-minute break as Riko and Kevin went to get changed. It was short, and he had enough time to get his breathing back to normal and drink some water provided to him by some staff. When Kevin and Riko returned, they stepped onto the court, immediately getting started, no speaking yet. The coach explained it would be a small scrimmage where Neil would try to score on Riko and Kevin for fifteen minutes, then Kevin and Riko would try to get past Neil to score for fifteen minutes.
Nathaneil was fast, ridiculously fast, faster than Kevin and Riko. He was slippery and could get away easier, but if he wanted a goal, he needed to check. Neil was not strong; he was scrawny and lean, built for speed, and Kevin and Riko didn’t care. They checked him with unregulated force that in a real game would have gotten them a red card. In the end, they got past him multiple times, and Neil only managed one goal in his fifteen.
He was nervous after and very scared that he let his father down. As soon as the drill was over, he looked over at his father, breathing heavily. His father had a blank expression on his face but fury in his eyes, and Neil knew he was in trouble. When all three boys were called back, Kengo told them to go to the locker room and get changed while he, Tetsuji, and Nathan discussed business and Neil’s trial.
Riko and Kevin led the way, Nathaneil trailing behind them. When they made it into the locker room and the door shut, almost immediately Riko cornered Neil, with Kevin a bit behind.
“So,” Riko asked casually, as if he wasn’t trapping Neil against the cold tile wall, “how old are you? You definitely look younger than me and Kevin.”
Neil debated answering, but there was no one else around, and if they were going to be his teammates, he wanted to have a good first impression.
“Nine.”
“Nine,” Riko repeated, staring at him intensely.
“Yeah, um, you?” Neil asked, trying to make conversation since he was still up against the wall.
“I’m eleven. Kevin’s ten and a half.”
Neil nodded his head as if that was the most interesting thing he had ever heard in the world. After that, Riko backed off a bit to let him get changed but watched the whole time. Once Neil’s borrowed jersey was off and padding off, Riko spoke again.
“You are pretty. Well, your face anyway. Too bad the rest of you is mutilated.”
Riko said it casually with a cruel smile, but that struck something in Neil. He had always hated how he looked, his scars on his torso the worst. There were burn marks littering his flesh, while sharp knife slashes and lacerations went down his chest. Neil looked at him with his father’s cruel smile on his face and anger burning in his eyes.
“Aww, you think I’m pretty? How nice. Too bad I think you’re ugly as fuck and don’t care about your opinion on my scars.”
He said it as casually as Riko had said his comment, but it clearly caught both of them off guard. Kevin stared at Neil with shock clear on his face, his jaw hanging open, and Riko also looked at him in shock, but anger was also clear in his features. It almost made him smile for real. He knew he had a sharp tongue. He had been punished for it on multiple occasions, but sometimes it was just too hard to resist.
“Pick your jaw up off the floor, Day. You don’t want flies flying in there.”
Yep, Neil thought, pulling on the shirt he came here in, there goes my good impression. Oh well.
When Kevin and Riko snapped out of it, Riko came at him with his arm cocked back. Honestly, he was expecting it, and it didn’t hurt half as bad as when his dad hit him, and Riko was only eleven. Once Riko was done, he grabbed his collar and spoke into his ear.
“You’re going to regret that when I own you, pretty boy.”
He shoved him down and walked away to continue changing. Kevin kept looking at him, and Neil looked back and gave a thumbs up because honestly, why not. Kevin looked incredulous as he turned away. After that fun discussion, they all got changed in silence, after Neil wiped the blood from his nose, and walked out of the changing room, with Riko in the lead, going back to the room before the court. There, Neil was told he was sold for seven million and he was now property of the Moriyamas, and that he was to go home to get his stuff and come back and stay in Castle Evermore with Kevin and Riko tomorrow. Yippee, Neil thought, going from one abusive mafia home to another.
……
Later that evening, once home, he packed his bags after a short beating from his father, of course, after only scoring one goal and telling him how “lucky” he was Tetsuji saw potential in him and Kengo took an interest. Yes, he felt very lucky, with his black eye, throbbing nose, and sore ribs.
After that, his father left to take care of business and left the money he got for Neil in his office on his desk.
Nathaniel’s mother came to find him when the house seemed quiet and told him to shut up and do as he said. She told him to grab the duffel bag he was going to bring to Castle Evermore with him, and she went into and got the money off Father’s desk. Neil knew this was wrong, so wrong. They would be dead if caught, worse than dead. His father was a cruel bastard. He was almost hyperventilating when his mother kneeled down and grabbed his face between her hands.
“You, my beautiful boy, are not being sold like cattle. I will not let that man take you away from me, so we are leaving. We are going to be running for the rest of our lives. You understand that, right, Neil?”
Neil is the nickname his mother gave him when he was younger and could not pronounce Nathaneil. He prefers it over his true name anyway, and his heart always warmed when his mother used it. Neil nodded, still unbelieving that this was actually happening. He was running. From his father. The Butcher of Baltimore. He and his mother were running. Away.
He was in a trance, repeating those sentences while they snuck out the back, gathered weapons, and got to a car a contact had left there for his mother with their new papers and identities. This was really happening. Neil was happy. He was so happy that they would never deal with that monster again, that yes, they would always be looking over their shoulders, but they would be safe and away from the monster that is his father.
They drove directly to the airport and headed for Europe. Neil never stopped shaking, scared that someone was tailing them, his mother the same. They stayed like that until they got to a small safe house in Germany and finally rested.
………..
BASICALLY TWO YEARS LATER
Snow fell in thin, quiet sheets over the rooftops of a nameless town somewhere outside of France. The house they were staying in was narrow and forgettable, squeezed between two others like it had been trying to disappear its entire life.
Neil liked it.
Forgettable meant safe.
He woke before dawn, like always. For a moment he didn’t move, just listened. The hum of the old radiator. The faint whistle of wind at the windows. His mother’s breathing from next to him on the double bed. They always slept in the same bed together, back to back, and a knife under each of their respective pillows. After almost two years on the run, they both knew attacks could come at any moment. His father and the Moriyamas still searching for him, and more importantly their seven million dollars.
He and his mother had money hidden all over the world, and his mother beat into him every location of that money. He knew they would be up soon. They had to move. They had been in France for too long, and people were starting to search for them in Europe, so they were heading back to the States today to hide in plain sight, as they say.
Neil was disappointed and scared. He didn’t want to go back to the States, not only for fear of his father, but he had grown to be very fond of Europe and had picked up many languages—his mother beat it into him—French, German, Spanish, Russian. He was fluent in all. He also had tutors when he lived with his father from the age of three, teaching him Japanese for when he was to be sold to the Moriyamas, so he was fluent in that too. Bitterly, Neil wished he could forget the stupid language altogether, but the lessons were so beat into him he knew he would never.
A few hours later, Neil and his mother were on a one-way flight from France to Seattle. He had just dyed his hair freshly black and got new dark brown contacts before he left. He was in a ratty oversized gray hoodie and jeans that were rolled up at the ankles because they were too big. His mother was similarly disguised, her hair once auburn like his also dyed black and cut short, baggy clothes on with sunglasses.
Once they got off their flight and were in the airport, they got a taxi. They didn’t notice who the taxi driver was before it was too late.
His father.
His father.
His father.
His and his mother’s worst nightmare came back to life with a vengeance. Before they could even make a sound, his mother was being stabbed. She didn’t let that stop her, though. She was not a weak woman. She punched him in the face and they both got out and ran for their lives. People were chasing them. Guns were firing. It was all white noise to Nathaneil. He was panicking badly. He needed. He needed. He didn’t know what he needed, so he kept running and running and running and running with his mother’s bloody hand in his.
When they were mostly alone, with only the few people who could keep up still chasing them, they hijacked a car. The man was screaming when they opened the door, but Neil didn’t care. This was his and his mother’s life, so he threw the man with all his strength. He wasn’t that strong for basically an eleven-year-old, but he was desperate enough, and the man was pretty shocked. Once he was out, his mother got in and Neil got in the passenger side, and with that they sped off.
Neil was in a daze. He saw some of his mother’s blood and started hyperventilating.
“No, Neil, stop. Listen to me. It’s shallow. I’ll be fine. We need to stay calm and we need to keep moving. Remember I taught you to always keep moving. Someone must have seen us in the French airport or on the plane and tipped that man off, but we’re fine. We are always fine. I want to hear you say it.”
Neil just stared at her.
“Goddamn it, Neil, fucking say it.” She slammed her hands down on the steering wheel, making him flinch.
“We’re fine,” he replied.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You’re fine,” he repeated.
He repeated these statements over and over again in his head like a prayer, saying it in all the languages he knew.
Je vais bien.
Mir geht es gut.
Estoy bien.
Ya v poryadke.
Genki desu.
He fell asleep that way. After they lost any tails, of course.
A few hours or days later—he really didn’t know—his mother was looking deathly pale. She was still speeding around roads though. They had made it to California and the sun was coming up. It was beautiful, but he was getting worried about his mother when finally she pulled up to the side of an abandoned road and turned to Neil, her expression the most serious he had ever seen. But she also looked deathly pale and was shaking.
“Neil, you keep running. You always keep going. You always keep moving. You never stop for one second. You never look behind you and you never ever trust anyone other than yourself.”
And that’s when Neil noticed the blood on the floor, steadily dripping out from under his mother’s black jumper. She had been bleeding out this whole time, and now her strength was gone. She leaned back in her seat, wheezing, barely able to talk after the words she already gave to Neil, and closed her eyes, still muttering that he would be fine under her breath.
He was frozen in place, tears streaming down his face, staring at his mother in shock. When she finally stopped muttering to herself, everything was too quiet. Eerily silent. Neil wanted to scream.
He reached over and tugged his mother’s wrist that lay limp at her side.
“Mom,” he said, broken, and broke down. Sobs came out, and he knew he was gone. It was an out-of-body experience. His world shattered.
A few hours later, after he pulled himself back together, he took their duffel bag out of the car. They only used one. Safer if they carried less. They had three outfits each, and that’s all they needed. He looked through the bag again and found his mother’s cigarettes and a lighter. He flipped the lighter a couple of times and then put it back.
He walked to the nearest gas station, luckily only about twenty minutes away. He was numb and bought a can of gas. He walked back with it, not even feeling the weight in his hands. When he got back, he smelled it. His mother’s decay had already set in over the last few hours.
He poured the can of gas around the car and on her body. When he was done, he took the lighter, lit it a few more times, then threw it in the car. It lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, and Neil could almost laugh at the irony. It was December after all. His birthday almost here. He would be eleven. Almost two years on the run. And now he was alone.
He stayed for the next few hours as the car burned, and when the smoke finally cleared away and there was basically nothing left, he collected his mother’s bones, threw out everything in the duffel bag that wasn’t her cigarettes, put the bones in, and started walking.
He walked almost sixteen miles to the closest California beach and then started digging. Once he was sure the hole was deep enough, he buried what was left of his mother. After he was done, the numbness was still there, but also he was tired. So fucking tired. He just wanted to lay down and bleed out like his mother. Jeez, that was dark. Suicidal at eleven, basically. He laughed, broken, more tears coming down his face. He was delirious, manic, and he lay down and slept.
He didn’t know how long he was asleep for. All he knew was he needed to keep going. Needed to keep his promise to his mother.
“Promise me you will always run, Neil.”
“Promise me,” she screamed.
“Yes, Mom, I will. I will. I promise.”
“Don’t you fucking dare make me regret upending our lives, Neil.” Another hit.
“I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”
Yes, Neil would keep moving and keep all his “happy” (awful) memories at bay. He hitchhiked into a town in California and made his way to a bus stop. From there, he took a one-way ticket to wherever the bus was off to, in hopes to make it to Mexico. He didn’t have any papers anymore, but he knew his mother’s contact in Mexico.
A few days later, Neil was at the Mexican border, finally having made it. Neil was far from relieved though, because just then a black SUV pulled up, and before he could even think of running, two men with guns stepped out and they were pointed directly at him. The men wore crisp black suits and were Japanese.
Japanese.
Moriyama.
Nope, nope, nope.
He was panicking. This was just a coincidence. But that delusion all melted away when he heard the two words he never wanted to hear again.
“Nathaniel Wesniski.”
He fucking bolted.
It did not work.
He was down.
Oh well. RIP me, I guess, he thought. Mom, I’ll be with you soon.
One of the men had grabbed him and had a gun to his head. He had made his peace with dying when he was shoved into the car and someone pressed a cloth over his mouth.
His last coherent thought—
Chloroform.