“That was never my name. I never heard it before.”
“What is your name?”
“Keith,” he says. “Keith Knutson.”
“I’ll call you Keith, then.”
“No, don’t,” he says. “The family who gave it to me never wanted me. It wasn’t my real family.”
“Where is your real family?”
He just gazes sadly at me.
“What do you want me to call you? You don’t want me to call you 34, do you?”
“They called me Kiro? The ones trying to kill me?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe that’s my real name.”
“Do you like the name Kiro?”
He grunts. It seems like a yes.
“It’s a cool name. I’ll call you Kiro for now, but it’s a decision you can make yourself. I want you to be able to make a lot of decisions. That’s your right.” I slide my hand over his dark whiskers. “I’m going to get you back into the woods, back home, Kiro. And we’re going to be smart about it.”
He says nothing.
“I know people have been horrible to you. I know about the man who kept you in a cage. That professor.”
He shows no sign of hearing me. I know he does, though.
“I’ll help you. I’ve been in all kinds of places. I’m very resourceful. Not to mention I know how to drive.”
He turns his gaze to the sky.
“We’re going to get you back there, okay?”
He rests a finger on my knee, traces a lazy line across it, one light touch, wild with intensity. I think about how he pressed me to the wall, so out of control. A gorgeous force of nature.
“We have to be smart, though. There’s probably a manhunt after you involving the cops. Not to mention some really dangerous people trying to kill you.”
He turns his pained gaze to me.
Doesn’t he want my help? Well, it doesn’t matter. He needs an ally, considering his attempt to get home so far has involved carrying me out of a firefight while wounded and now lying naked in a patch of motel picnic area grass.
I have a nice fat expense account. I can help him get back to where nobody can find him.
There’s power in a good story. And for him, there’s also money. I can make sure he gets money without being wildly exploited. I can stand between him and the public. Get the story and the photos, but keep his location secret. I can use my power as a journalist to make sure things are run in a way where he can live free. Maybe I can make sure he’s paid and we can buy him tons of land. A place of his own. Land is cheap in northern Minnesota.
Most of all, I can figure out who is after him and why—that’s the only real way for him to be safe. Mob guys are hunting him. Cops are hunting him. And quasi-paparazzi sent byStormline. My money might be on the paparazzi finding him first, frankly.
But he might have allies out there. A real family. I have to figure this out.
“Here’s my plan, Kiro. We’re going to clean you up so that you don’t look like an escapee from an institute for the criminally insane. Then we buy supplies and get a car. Use the car to get as far north as they’ll let us go with vehicles. Can you get us the rest of the way?”
He seems…upset.