Ev

"Good morning," I said when I saw Daniel rise and stretch, Monday morning.

"Morning," he replied, voice rough and weak at the same time.

The weekend that followed his suicide attempt was one of the most harrowing of my life. And I had been through some shit. I had contemplated bringing him to a hospital or contacting some sort of authority, but I hadn't.

I practically knew nothing about him. I had found him at a bridge and stopped him from killing himself but other than his name I knew very little. That would have seemed awful. Especially if he did have a family and they showed up. And what if he didn't have a family but his abuser found him? I couldn't risk it, so instead, I made sure I was there for him, talked to him, gave him food and water, both of which he barely touched, tried to help him go through it.

"How are you?" I asked him and readjusted in my seat by the table.

He shrugged. "Better than yesterday..." I smiled at him, not hiding the relief I felt. "Do you have work today?" he asked me.

"Yes, in fact, I have to leave soon," I said and looked at the clock on my nightstand, seeing that it was about eleven-thirty. "Are you going to be okay?" I asked, after thinking about it carefully. His eyes interlocked with mine.

"I'll be fine," he answered and pushed off him the duvet. He stood up and stretched his back, his spine cracking loudly.

I put on my combat boots and leather jacket and after I grabbed my backpack I left. The ride to the tattoo shop wasn't long and when I got there Teo was sitting and talking to a customer. His black hair was slicked back and from the perfect state of his beard, I could tell that he had groomed it that morning. He was generally really into always looking his best.

Momentarily his eyes fell on me and he smiled to himself. I greeted the customer and went to the backroom to leave my stuff. When I came back to the front, the customer had left.

"Hey, moneybags," Teo said playfully. "How was your weekend?" His Spanish accent was very prominent which made me think that he had his mind somewhere else.

"Rather dull. I drew mostly," I answered with a shrug. He rose a slit eyebrow at me.

"No street art?"

"Maybe next weekend. I was kind of out of it this time," I said.

"I'd rather we went out to a club. We haven't hung out for a while," Teo replied and nudged me with his leg.

"Yeah, we'll see..."

I missed going out with Teo, but the current state of my life barely left me any time to think about it. I wasn't constantly thinking about how to help Daniel, but I thought about it a lot. The only times I didn't think about it was when I was tattooing someone, when I drew and when I was actually talking to him. I wasn't sure why and how I had gotten so consumed by it. He had just gotten inside my head.

And it didn't really come as a surprise. The guy was living in my apartment. We shared a bed. I had been there for two of his suicide attempts and I had helped prevent both. Of course, he had gotten in my head. Very few people would be able to not be affected by this situation.

I looked at the clock quickly. Four hours. He just had to make it four hours alone. And then I'd go back and somehow distract him from whatever dark place his mind would be in. I'd go and... I don't know, I'd try to help. Somehow.

These four hours ended up going by so sluggishly I thought I would start losing my mind. I checked up on the time every other minute. The only time I didn't was when I was tattooing a kaleidoscope of butterflies on the outer thigh of a girl. She had come in around the start of the previous week and after settling on a design she had made an appointment for today.

Since it was her first tattoo I had done as much as I could in two hours, as I had figured I wouldn't be done within the three hours Marcie recommended for the first tattoo of someone. It would probably take another two-hour-session, maybe more. I wasn't exactly sure. But so far, she seemed happy with what I had done. That was always good news.

After she left, I went to grab my bag and went to the front desk to sit with Marcie for a bit. Teo had left a little before the girl had come in. Marcie had her hair tied up in a messy bun and wore dark red lipstick and nothing else on her face. She didn't need anything else.

"I decided on the design I want on my chest," I told her and pulled out my sketchbook from my bag.

"Show me!" she excitedly responded. I flipped through the pages and stopped on the galaxy and gave it to her. "Do ya want me or Teo to do it?"

"Either is okay with me," I said with a shrug.

I opened my mouth, ready to change the subject, but my mind went blank when my eyes focused on the television. Normally we didn't have a specific channel playing, as we didn't want to be distracted, but since no customers seemed to come in, Marcie must have been watching something. Currently, from what I could tell, a news broadcast was playing.

"Turn that up..." I said under my breath.

Marcie gave me a weird look and without commenting, she turned up the volume of the telly and focused her attention on it. A middle-aged reporter spoke up, next to her made-up face, a picture of a boy displayed.

"Eighteen-year-old Adam D. Maxwell went missing last Thursday night. His parents, Mayor Joseph Maxwell and Councillor Marianna Maxwell returned home after a business dinner to find it empty, their son nowhere to be found. They were advised not to alert the media, as the police investigated, since they were not sure whether this kidnapping was associated with terrorism. As no ransom has been requested, the police have ruled out the possible connection to terrorism, but the investigations have not stopped..."

Adam D. Maxwell. D. Daniel. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen as more pictures of Daniel were displayed. He was the son of two politicians. And they thought his disappearance was a kidnapping and maybe even associated with terrorism. Fuck.

The image changed as a video of his parents appeared. They seemed to be questioned by a bunch of reporters. His mother was clinging onto her husband, with eyes puffy and red. She seemed absolutely devastated. His father, on the other hand, looked a bit more composed but even he showed signs of sorrow. Black bags hugged his eyes and his gaze was laced with grief. Despite that, I couldn't help but notice all their similarities with Daniel. He looked just like them.

"...we're asking for your understanding and help during this hard time we are going through. If any of you have information about the whereabouts of our Adam, of our son, or of the individual that took him from us, please inform the authorities," his father said, his voice cracking every now and then. Both of them seemed too vulnerable for political figures. They looked like actually concerned parents.

"We just want our baby back. Our sweet, little Adam," his mother went on, a sudden sob dragging his name and making her brace herself harder against her husband.

"Fuck," I managed to say under my breath.

"Hm..." Marcie started, startling me as I had forgotten she was sitting next to me. "Do ya reckon that's how your Mum felt?"

I glared at her dangerously and took my sketchbook from her hands. I put it in my bag and started walking toward the front door. My heart was throbbing violently against my ribcage and for a second, I wondered if she had noticed how uneasy I was.

"I'll see you tomorrow," I quickly said, my accent thick and rough as I pushed the door open and walked out.

On the ride back to my apartment my mind was blank. I was trying to focus on the road and not anything else. If I lost my focus for a second, I was done for, I knew that much. I walked up to my floor, paranoid and all over the place. Maybe I had just hallucinated the past week and a half? Maybe my whole encounter with him wasn't real. It could have been a weird dream, right? A weird, twisted, fucked up dream. Maybe I hadn't stumbled across the suicidal son of two politicians and ended up sheltering him in my apartment.

I froze before my door, keys in hand, but instead of opening it, I pulled out my phone. I looked at my lock screen for a second and then unlocked it and went on Google. Adam D. Maxwell. I got redirected to the Wikipedia page of his father and read all there was written about Adam... Daniel.

Joseph Maxwell had a son with Marianna Maxwell, Adam D. Maxwell, on March 6th...

I stopped reading. March 6th. That was two days ago. When he had tried to kill himself. He had tried to kill himself the night before his eighteenth birthday. I opened the door and walked inside, ready to ask him what the fuck was going on, but I stopped short when I saw him.

He was laughing. He was watching something on my laptop, and it had made him laugh. Whatever I felt before walking inside, dispensed as I looked at the boy who had been almost completely unresponsive for two days, finally laugh. Sure, it wasn't intense, but even that was enough. The relief almost brought me to tears.

"Hey, Ev. How was work?" he asked me as he paused the video and calmed down. I opened my mouth and then closed it again.

"It was great. I started doing this amazing butterfly tattoo on a girl," I decided to tell him with a smile and took off my shoes. After I let down my backpack, I looked at him and bit my lip. "Something else also happened..." He hummed for me to go on, not looking up from the laptop, as he clicked something and then shut the laptop close. "Your parents are looking for you, Adam".

I watched as his expression blanched and panic distorted his features. He pulled his legs up to his chest and glued himself to the headboard of my bed as he started to hyperventilate.

"You... you talked to- to my parents?" he stuttered. The façade I had seen as I walked inside, just like that had shattered into this stuttering mess that reminded me of a wounded animal.

"I didn't!" I blurted out immediately. The panic didn't leave his expression. "I just saw them on the news," I added and squatted by the end of the bed to make myself seem less threatening.

"The news?" he repeated. I nodded and let out a low hum.

His eyes seemed to lose focus and he stared emptily at the black and white duvet. Seeing that glazed expression I was reminded of the state he had been in for the past two days. I didn't want him to go back to that state.

"Is Daniel your second name?" I asked him and shifted a bit to sit down cross-legged on the carpeted floor.

"Um-hum. I prefer it," he said and turned his eyes back to me. I gave a small smile and nodded.

"It suits you better," I agreed. At that, he smiled back, lifting a weight off my chest. It felt so good to see him smile. "Daniel did..." I hesitated for a second. He had just smiled. "Did your parents hurt you?"

"No," he said softly, and his eyes widened as my words registered. "No, they didn't".

I shook my head, not being able to understand whether the emotion I saw in Daniel's eyes was honesty, but not wanting to ask him about it either. I was already walking on mighty thin ice with everything I had asked so far. I started to rise up again when I heard him.

"What about Leonidas?"

"What about him?" I asked back.

"He saw me last week. What if he tells somebody?" he asked with a tremble in his voice. I started shaking my head and let out a small chuckle.

"Leonidas is kind of an anarchist. He won't talk to the police. Besides, he sized you up that night. He knows I didn't kidnap you," I replied.

"They think somebody kidnapped me?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it. Nobody knows you're here. You're safe," I assured him.

His parents might not have been abusing him, but somebody else was. And technically he was an adult. He didn't have to go back if he didn't want to. I didn't want him to go back. Not if it meant he would also return to his abuser.

A/N: I would love to hear any of your theories or ideas about where this story is going. If you have any please comment them and if you are enjoying it, don't forget to leave a vote!