Breakdown - 21. 20 Catch And Release

Cam’s heart was beating so fast he could hardly breathe as he got off the bus. He scanned the crowd, wondering if he would see Aziel waiting for him with a new phone in his hand. He jumped when one of the station’s staff touched his shoulder.

“Do you have a bag, sir?” he asked.

Cam swallowed and nodded, going to fetch his only worldly possessions from the bus platform. Hands shaking, he pulled the bag over his shoulder and walked out of the station. He stood on an unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar city, panic gripping his heart. Aziel was behind him now, and Cam just had to pray he never made any mistakes that would allow Aziel to find him.

This was a new city, and a new chance. Cam didn’t want to end up like Derek, dying with a mouthful of foaming spit in a gutter. The image would haunt him for the rest of his days, and Cam kept it in the forefront of his mind whenever he thought of the silver sting that Aziel promised him when the little phone rang.

Galvanized into action, Cam flagged down one of the many taxis that were waiting outside the bus depot.

“Where you want to go?” the man asked, his thick accent making it difficult for Cam to pick out the words. He stared blankly at the dark eyes in the rear-view mirror.

“A hotel,” he said. “A reasonable one.”

The driver nodded. They took off from the curb and Cam clutched his bag of money and clothes to his chest. He sat in the middle of the backseat, gazing out each window in turn. The sky was dark now. The city’s nightlife was loud around him, but he felt deaf to it. All he wanted was to find a nice bed, have a nap, and maybe a shower. Tomorrow he would go see about a bank account, so that he didn’t have to carry around a huge bag full of money all the time.

Aziel was sitting in his office at home. Mark was at work, and would be for another two hours. There was a soft smile on Aziel’s face as he started his hack into the security systems at the bus station. Using the information on the credit card as to time of purchase, Aziel found the record of ticket purchase at the bus station and cross-referenced them. Finding the ticket that matched up on both sides, Aziel knew where Cam was going.

He matched the time of this purchase to the other ticket on the next leg of his journey, knowing by the price and the details available on the bus station website that this was a connection journey. It didn’t take Aziel long to figure out where Cam was going.

Detroit.

So, after he’d determined which station Cam was going to arrive at and at what time, it was just a matter of hacking their security system and looking through all the security tapes around that time. The tapes would be kept for 24 hours before they were deleted, and it was all digital now. Aziel often marveled how the modern age had made his job so much easier… He didn’t even have to fly to Detroit and sneak into the station.

It had taken Aziel the better part of an hour to find the correct bus. With Mark arriving home in less than an hour, Aziel knew he had to hurry through the tape. Tapping the arrow keys to advance the tape frame by frame as the passengers disembarked, Aziel patiently waited for his blond whore to climb down the steps. Or perhaps he would his hood up on the green and white jacket.

All the passengers exited the bus.

None of them looked like Cam.

Aziel paused, and then carefully checked all his times again. The bus had been a full house; there were lots of passengers and it was possible he just missed him in the shuffle. He quickly backed up the footage and then scrolled through it again. No one even looked remotely like Cam.

The assassin felt a frown creeping onto his face. It darkened his ice-blue eyes. He put the back of his fingers to his lips, thinking. Did he have the wrong bus? The wrong time? No, everything checked out according to the ticket that had been purchased with the credit card.

Suddenly Aziel’s eyes widened in a mixture of shock and outrage.

Had this been a decoy? As if Cam would dare…

Aziel sat back from his computer, chuckling softly to himself while his emotions boiled. He let the security tape play at normal speed and gazed out the small window in his study. He could see the tops of high-rise buildings and the distant murky horizon. He looked back at the computer monitor.

A decoy. Why hadn’t Aziel expected something like that? Well, quite simply, he hadn’t expected that Cam would be that smart, especially after all the drugs that Aziel had pumped through his system. He had purchased this ticket the day of travel; Aziel had assumed that the location had been random. Cam wouldn’t be at home anywhere in specific, unless there was something in his past that was dragging him back.

But now, Aziel mused, the dice were really rolling. It pissed him off to think that such a low-brow toy could elude him. Aziel forced himself to take a cool, soothing breath. He reached forward and shut down his hacking program, as well as the website that he was working in. He stared at the background of his computer. It was a picture of some elf-boy scantily dressed. Aziel had told Mark to stop changing his background, but it seemed Mark was content to do whatever he wished.

How could Cam have eluded him so quickly? The answer was obvious once Aziel started to look for it. He’d kept his grades up at school, there had hardly been a dip as the ‘treatments’ had begun.

School.

Aziel sat forward and grabbed a yellow pad of paper. He scored a line across the bottom of the page, separating this next message from his other writings that were supposedly related to his job as a lawyer. He quickly scratched out a cryptic message to himself. He enjoyed leaving these little messages for Mark to find.

School in the west - Expect prompt registration.

Aziel sat back again, tapping the pen against his lips. He heard the front door open and close. Mark shouted something into the house, probably a greeting. Aziel dropped the pen and stood, moving out to the front room. He smiled at Mark, but his mind was ticking over in darkness. If this next lead went cold, he might have really lost Cam for good.

“Aziel!” Mark said excitedly, skipping across the plush carpet to collide with Aziel’s firm body. “I got a huge tip today!”

“I heard you get those when you bend over,” Aziel commented, reaching down to grip Mark’s ass.

“Hey!” Mark whined, sticking out his bottom lip. “Why do you always assume I do something sexual when I get a good tip?”

“Because that’s the only reason I would tip you,” Aziel replied, his face expressionless. “Just a little bend when you go to pick up something at a neighboring table. Show off that tight little rear of yours in your fitted dress pants.”

“Aziel, you’re disgusting,” Mark huffed.

“How much was the tip?” he asked, finally daring to smile a little. His expression didn’t entirely match the feeling that was welling in his breast, but he could fake it until Mark managed to cheer him up.

“Four hundred dollars,” Mark said. “From one guy.”

“What did you let him do? Grope you?” Aziel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Aziel!” Mark whined. “Why are you in such a bad mood tonight?” He reached up and looped his arms around the assassin’s neck and put his cheek to his shoulder.

Aziel froze. It always amazed him how he was completely unable to hide his emotions from Mark. It was like the boy could see right through him. Sometimes, Mark would say things that suggested that Mark knew more about Aziel’s profession that he let on. But Aziel didn’t think that was true, he thought it was just his paranoia.

“Bad day at the office,” Aziel said, the most truthful statement he had said about his job in a long time.

“Want a shoulder rub?” Mark asked, drawing little circles on the back of Aziel’s neck, close to his hairline.

“…” Aziel didn’t answer, his hands cupped around Mark’s rear.

“Sit down, Aziel,” Mark commanded, pushing away from him. “You can tell me all about it while I rub out your bad mood.”

“That will involve more than just my shoulders,” Aziel commented.

Mark laughed musically, shrugging out of his jacket. “Oh, don’t I know that!” He chuckled. “Let me go get changed out of my work clothes, and I’ll join you on the couch, okay? We’ll watch something fluffy, like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.”

“I hate those shows,” Aziel grumbled as he went to sit on the couch.

“But they’re vapid and pointless,” Mark called, disappearing down the hallway.

“Exactly,” Aziel said under his breath.

Mark returned wearing his low-fitting jeans and a black and red T-shirt. It was his favourite shirt, Aziel usually had to remind him to wash it every once and a while. He grinned and knelt on the couch, wrapping his arms around Aziel’s neck.

“No tell me, Azzy-wazzy,” Mark began. “What happened to upset you?”

Aziel looked up at him, blue eyes narrowed. “You did not. Just call me. Azzy-wazzy.”

Mark laughed and kissed his forehead. He kissed over his cheeks and then over his eyelids that shuddered his ice blue eyes. Aziel’s hands cupped his hips, and he sighed softly. There was no point in arguing nicknames with Mark. They’d done this a few months ago when Mark thought it was funny to call him “Az-bunny.”

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Mark whispered, sitting in Aziel’s lap. Aziel leaned back on the couch, unsure of how he would tell Mark exactly what was wrong.

“A job isn’t going as expected,” he said. “There’s… an unforeseen circumstance. I think it’s going to be difficult for me to get back to where I want to be.”

Mark hugged him tightly, laying his head on his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Aziel. You’re smart. Really smart.” He smiled up at him. “You’re the smartest person I know.”

“Considering your social circle, I don’t know if that’s saying much,” he replied with a chuckle.

Mark pouted. “I guess if being mean to me cheers you up, I have to be your punching bag, huh?”

Aziel shook his head. “I’m still waiting for my shoulder rub,” he replied. Mark smiled at him and jumped up to comply, standing behind the couch and rubbing Aziel’s broad, muscular shoulders. Mark’s fingers found all the knots and slowly started to work them out, rubbing the tight flesh with the most aggressive care he could manage.

The assassin sighed pleasantly, looking at the blank TV screen and let his mind tick over the events.

He would let Cam run for now. The longer he was out there, the more mistakes he would make and the easier he would be to find. For now, he would start with a list of bus tickets, a list of everywhere that the big bus stations were headed. He would make a list, figuring out which ones were paid for in cash.

From there… Aziel would see exactly how well his experiment was going…