“Fifty?!” Foxx gasped. “Okay, well, I guess good genetics are working here, but like…”
“No…” Wes frowned. “Y-you…” The human trailed off with a hesitant chuckle, the man’s cheeks were starting to get a bit red. Harlow would have assumed it was anger, but he was pretty sure it was embarrassment. Or…was he getting shy? “Actually, you cut me off before I finished. I just turned fifty-seven.”
“Bullshit,” the vampire snapped.
He glanced down and witnessed Foxx’s gaze going shiny, the man’s eyes widening right after. “Bloody hell. I mean, I suppose Tony looks Harlow’s age too, but…”
“And I thought I was aging well,” Harlow said with a snort.
“You are… Well, were.” Foxx’s lips pursed as he eyed him. “Considering the field of work you’re in, I think both you and Tony are lucky to not have more wrinkles.”
Harlow looked to Wes when the human cleared his throat. The man’s face was still a bit red. “Okay…I’m going to redirect the conversation now, as we are way off topic. Harlow, why don’t you pick up where you last left off. You were telling us about how you were moved to a new foster home after your first fight and spark of anger.”
“Well, first thoughts about killing someone, but close enough. Yeah, I was moved. This next place also had other children, but the atmosphere was completely different. The wife was fine, yet ignorant of what happened in her house. Thehusband was a bastard. To note, before moving there, I was held at juvie until my case was thrown out.”
“There was an actual case?” Wes asked. “And juvie… You didn’t mention that at all.”
“To be honest, they apparently were hesitant to send me to a group home, but couldn’t exactly put me in juvie with the older children. So, I was basically locked in a room and separated from the rest of the population the whole time, while they figured out what they were going to do with me, and if there were going to be any charges. You’d think, at this point, maybe they’d think about sending me to one of you guys…but no. Either way, there isn’t much to say about that. Besides that, I spent my solitude, which I was happy to have, thinking over what I did.”
“No regrets, I assume,” Foxx mused.
“No,” he laughed. “More what would have happened if I had killed him. I’d seen those scared straight documentaries. It was something the teens in that house loved to watch. You’d think some of it would have hit home for them…but apparently it hadn’t. I didn’t care about the so-called…'‘scare’ part of the films, but the lack of personal space I witnessed…was enough to make me understand that I did not want to go to jail.”
“When he says personal space, he means the constant touching by other people,” Foxx added, like the brat he was.
“Anyway, the reason I’m bringing it up is that while I had wanted to kill that teenager, I made the decision that if I was going to kill someone, the only way I could go through with it was if I was sure I’d get away with it.”
“So, from rage induced manslaughter to premeditated homicide. That’s quite an escalation over such a short span of time,” Wes noted.
“What can I say? I was a fast learner. Which is important because my second urge to murder came in that new foster home. The husband was a pedophile. I didn’t pick up on that,or on how off things were. Even if I did notice how quiet the children were compared to how bright and sunny the couple seemed. My lack of interest usually meant I kept to myself, so the other children not being super talkative didn’t really hit my radar.”
Foxx clutched his shirt. “Did…he do something to you?”
He grasped hold of his smaller hand. “Not much that happened to me growing up fazed me, or caused any damage mentally. All of the fucked-up shit was already there. So, there's no reason for you to be worried. Did he try? Yes. I was a small wisp of a child, and I suppose I looked like an easy target. I had just gotten in trouble, and I guess he thought I wouldn’t dare ‘act up’.”
Foxx giggled softly. “You would never be an easy target.”
“You are likely right, Harlow. This man probably saw you as a highly vulnerable target. Nonverbal, and already troubled.” Wes’ head tilted, the man obviously thinking. “And one he had easy access to. It probably means they didn’t disclose to the family what you got in trouble for. At least, not all the details. Fighting another child is one thing, but I wonder if they told him the age and size difference between you and the other kid, or the damage you caused.” The man’s brow rose in question. “I assume he was hospitalized for a while.”
“Brain bleed, and some broken bones. Maybe a month at least, I think.”
Wes smirked. “Then he was likely contacted about a troubled kid by the agency, and didn’t hear all the details, or he possibly didn’t wait for all the details. What he did hear, on top of the idea of having another kid in his reach, was too much to pass up, causing him to inadvertently screw himself.”
“Find it funny that his greed likely brought it on himself, do you, doc?”
“Not funny, but karma, in the grand scheme of things. He’s a repeat offender that likely never hesitated, and had no desire to stop his vile acts. Predators such as him have no place in society. In my job, I’d much rather comb through the minds of murderers and serial killers than that of a pedophile.”
“Well then, it’s good you are here because I suppose the label of serial killer could fit me.”
Foxx snorted. “I’ve killed more.”
Harlow rolled his eyes. “Brat, you are over seven hundred, and grew up in the Middle Ages. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t. Anyway, as I was saying, he tried, and at the time, all the little things I’d picked up on but was sort of ignoring just clicked, if that makes sense. What he didn’t know was that I had stolen a knife from the kitchen and had been keeping it with me…and that I had been sleeping on the wide window seat in my room instead of my bed.
“Not that I had been warned about him. But after overhearing some of the conversations that the other children at the last house had, about running into people just like him, well, I’m nothing if not prepared. As for not sleeping in my actual bed, that was me preferring to stare at the stars instead of the ceiling as I drifted to sleep. It was padded, and I was small, soo…” He shrugged.
“You didn’t kill him though,” Wes stated.
“Not at that moment, as again, the whole jail thing got in the way. But I did threaten him.”
