A Curse Upon Thee 8

Chapter 8: On the Run

Emma was really beginning to dislike the sheriff’s station, and was hoping for any excuse to never have to be in it again. Recent events aside, the place had a taste to it like cheap coffee and cheaper floor wax, which was bad enough, sure.

But today, above all that, it smelled like money. 

Not the crisp, clean smell of fresh bank notes, but the apple-scented freshly-pressed pantsuit smell she’d come to associate with one Madam Mayor.

The woman in question, black pantsuit stark and clean, sat behind the sheriff’s desk—Graham’s desk, the man’s body wasn’t even cold yet—like she’d been born in the chair, manicured hands folded perfectly on the blotter.

Two guys stood behind her, “Blackwood Security” stitched on the pockets; not the same two that tried to go for Finn, of course. Apparently, the company just had a whole bunch of paid muscle ready to go at all times of the day. This town is just full of surprises, huh?

“Let’s go over it again, Miss Swan.” Regina’s voice was smooth as ever, performative and playful like nothing that was serious to you even mattered. “You walked out. You saw Mr. McHale. And what was he doing?”

“I told you.” The bondswoman shifted in the visitor’s chair as best as she could. The thing refused to give, not even moving with her as the hard plastic stayed bolted to the floor. Who’s gonna steal a chair from a police station, honestly?. “I walked out. Graham was on the ground. The kid, Finn, was standing there.”

“Standing over him?” One of the guards finally quit the quiet act. “You’re sure?”

“Standing near him.” The correction was automatic, the words snapping off clean. “Graham was already down. Finn looked…” What did he look like? “He was definitely confused. Shocked, honestly.”

“Shocked.” Regina tasted the word, the mayor almost rolling it around behind those perfect teeth before spitting it right back out. “Or nervous?”

“Who wouldn’t be nervous when a sheriff passes out right in front of you?” Emma pulled a face, the question making no sense. “Come on.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Emma’s eyes drooped, a sigh sliding out of her at the answer. “Yeah, and we all strive to live up to your shining example of stoic strength, now be serious.”

Regina leaned forward, the mayor’s lips curling up. “I don’t see how I could be any more serious, considering we’re investigating a potential murder.”

“He didn’t touch him, Regina.” Emma leaned forward, elbows on her knees, as she couldn’t deny what this clearly was. Not at this point.

Nothing about this was an interrogation. 

No, it felt more like a rehearsal.

Regina already had her story; she just needed Emma to learn the lines or at least give her lines she could roll with. “I was maybe ten, twenty feet away. Graham was… he looked sick. He’d looked sick all day.” Her throat caught on something she didn’t want to name. “The autopsy said heart attack. Whale said-“

“A massive coronary,” Regina agreed, and her face was all tragic porcelain grief that stopped dead at her eyes. “But stress can induce heart failure, Miss Swan. A struggle. A blow to the chest.”

“There wasn’t a blow.” I would have seen it. “I would have seen it.”

“What you think you saw was the aftermath.” Regina’s voice went as dark as her eyeliner and as sharp as the wing she woke up early to draw.  “And then you saw Mr. McHale assault two officers and run. He ran, Emma. Try and deny that right now.” The mayor tilted her head, barely even blinking. “If it was simply a medical emergency… why did he run?”

Emma opened her mouth.

Why did he run?

A half-second later, she closed it.

Innocent people don’t rabbit. That was the thing, though. Innocent people believe in their innocence. Foster kids rabbit. Guilty people rabbit. Years of tracking down runners let her know the tells and Finn was a natural runner, but he was still innocent.

“Panic.” Two syllables were all she had and they sounded thin, even to her.

“You mean, guilt.” Regina gestured to the guards as Emma stayed silent. “Look, Emma, woman to woman, without a sheriff in town, these men have to act on my authority. A fugitive who kills law enforcement is a threat to everyone.” She was quiet for a few seconds, waiting for Emma to say a single thing.

When her mouth stayed shut, Regina just sighed and leaned back in Graham’s chair. “That includes you, Emma.”

Green eyes trailed over the guards standing to the side of the mayor, the woman looking for all the world like the evil queen Henry described her as all of a sudden.

Blackwood Security, hmmm. The same logo she’d seen on the alarm system that first day at the mayor’s house. “This is just about you throwing your weight around,” Emma stood up, the back of the chair digging into her knees as she stepped onto linoleum. “You and your little rent-a-cops are doing a great job of that.”

“I ensure stability, Ms. Swan.”

“Yeah.” Her hands shoved deep into her jacket pockets, hiding the way her fingers were curling into fists as the leather creaked against her shoulders. “You ensure the story comes out the way you wrote it.”

The bondswoman turned for the door, boots heavy on the floor.

“Good luck with the manhunt, Regina.” The words came out flat and hard, every word a punch she wanted to throw in the local politician’s face. “But you might wanna tell your goon squad to be… I dunno, a little less obvious with the leading questions.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The yellow Bug rattled over the potholes on Main Street, engine whining to remind her she hadn’t gotten a tune-up since getting a new dent in her bumper.

One hand on the wheel, Emma had the other rubbing against the ache that had set up camp behind her left eye. Where are you, kid?

It had been three days and she’d put all her effort into trying to track the kid down. All over Storybrooke she’d looked for him and for what? At this point, she was starting to think she’d have better luck going door to door like a Mormon. 

Why was she doing this?

Well, for one,  she did hit him with her car. 

Emma would be a liar if she tried to pretend like that wasn’t at least part of it. When you send someone to the ER for a couple days and knock out their memory, you tend to feel like you owe them. But it was more than that. 

It was the look in his eyes when he talked about the “pressure.” The way he looked at Graham’s body like half his fears were coming back to bite him in the ass.

Emma shook her head as she passed the clock tower, pulling to a stop outside somewhere she’d been aiming towards since the second she’d left the station.

I guess I am hungry.

The bell above Granny’s door jingled as the bondswoman walked in, the smell of comfort food hitting her face like a warm wall. 

Her eyes trailed to the back booth almost immediately, the sound of a familiar voice making her head snap up like a dog smelling bacon. Henry…

The ten-year-old was right there, sitting up on his knees and practically vibrating with that energy he never seemed to run out of. Mary Margaret sat right next to him in a white little button-up that had never seen even the first button loose, both hands wrapped around a cup of tea. And Ruby, leaning against the booth with a tray balanced on one hip, looking like she knew something funny and probably dirty.

Emma walked over, a smile as forced as anything else on her face.

“Hi.”

“Emma!” Henry scrambled up and out of his seat, the kid launching himself at her before she could brace for it. A pair of tiny arms went around her waist as an ‘oof’ left her, the little guy’s face pressing into her jacket as she froze.

Nothing against Henry, but contact was still… weird. Ten years of nothing and now this kid just touched her like it was the most natural thing in the world. Alright… Her hand found his shoulder, and patted once. That’s enough of that.

Twice. 

“Hey, kid.”

“We were just talking about you,” Ruby smirked, the waitress blowing a bubble of bright pink gum that snapped loud enough to make Mary Margaret flinch. “Well. You and the fugitive.”

“So…” Emma slid into the empty spot, the vinyl cold through her jeans. “I’m guessing you heard.”

“Who hasn’t?” The young girl’s grin was all white teeth and red lipstick, a bit too happy for the topic of discussion. “Sheriff drops dead, new guy goes on the run… it’s the most exciting thing to happen in Storybrooke since…” She jabbed a thumb in Henry’s direction. “Well, since this little guy decided to jump down a mine shaft.”

“Ruby,” Mary Margaret hissed, actually looking around the diner as if the local nuns had shown up for dinner.

“What?” Ruby’s uniform strap slipped off one shoulder and she didn’t bother fixing it. “Am I lying? Town’s boring. Was boring. Whatever.“

“No, but… but you shouldn’t say certain things.” Mary Margaret’s hand went up to cover her mouth, the woman shaking her head. “A man died.“

“So the whole town really thinks this?” Emma cut through whatever half-baked etiquette lesson Mary Margaret was about to launch into. “That the kid did it?”

“Did he not?” Ruby leaned in, smile widening just a little bit. “Look, I don’t wanna believe Mr. Red’s a murderer. He’s got that whole bad boy thing going, sure, but actual murder? Really messes with the fantasy. Conjugal visits can only be so fun, y’know?”

“Ruby!” Mary Margaret’s hands flew to cover Henry’s ears, the motion so fast it was almost funny.

“What?” Ruby laughed, that throaty sound she did. “Not like he knows what conjugal means.”

“I can Google it,” Henry piped up, squirming free. 

Great. Emma didn’t doubt the kid could find his way around a computer easy enough, considering that was exactly how he ended up outside her apartment two months back. Perfect. 

“Look.” Emma’s hands went to the side of her head, the throbbing that had been building all day finally pushing itself past everything else on her mind “Finn… Finn didn’t kill Graham, okay? I was there.”

The table went quiet.

“Well,” she corrected, because technically, “there for the last part. Graham… Graham had been out of it all day. If he wasn’t sweating through his shirt, he was talking crazy.” Her finger traced the edge of the table as thoughts spilled out into words. “He grabbed Finn, sure. But Finn didn’t hit him. Didn’t touch him. He just…”

“Watched him die?” Ruby’s eyebrow went up.

“Watched him… collapse.” She shook her head, almost wanting to deny what had happened. “It happened fast.”

“I dunno,” Ruby mused, tapping a long red acrylic on the edge of her tray. “If Graham was trying to arrest him… and he resisted, I mean… that is resisting arrest. That’s a crime.” The tapping went on, tap-tap-tap. “And if that led to Graham’s heart attack? Let’s be real, that’s gotta be, like… involuntary manslaughter. Or felony murder. Criminal homicide, at least. Soooo…”

“Ruby!” Emma’s eyes flicked over to Mary Margaret, the woman’s mouth wide open at Ruby’s breakdown of the situation. “Stop it.”

“What? Is being a fan of Law & Order a crime too?” Ruby shrugged at the teacher’s scandalized expression. “I watch a lot of TV. It’s educational.”

Emma groaned, face dropping into her hands. This is my life now. This is what I’m doing with my time.

“What’s wrong, Emma?” 

The blonde dropped her hands and looked at the kid’s big eyes staring up at her like she had answers to give. “Apart from this conversation?”

Ruby snorted as Mary Margaret bit her lip, even the pure-hearted teacher struggling with a smile.

“Yeah,” Henry insisted, like that was obvious.

“Well.” A sigh pushed out of her, Emma slumping back against the vinyl. “I’ve been looking for Finn since… since y’know,” That much didn’t need to be said, honestly, Emma sighing again as she blinked out the window. “Look, I’ve checked everywhere I could think of.” 

And nobody’s talking. “He hasn’t been back here and I’m honestly at the end of my rope right now trying to find him. I know he’s not broke, but he can’t exactly buy anything in town. No car too, so unless he feels like walking three days to the next town, he’s screwed. So, where does a kid like that even go?”

“Have you checked the woods?”

The diner noise faded out for a second as Emma blinked down at Henry, kid’s eyes squeezed up tight like he was working on a Rubik’s Cube.

“The woods?”

“I mean,” Henry shrugged, “you found him walking out of the woods the first time, right? Maybe he went back.”

Found him. That was an interesting way to phrase slammed into him at thirty miles an hour but…

Emma stared back at Henry, blinking as her mouth worked with no words coming out. The woods. Miles of damp freezing empty pine forest. The place she’d hit him. The place Graham kept rambling about before he…

No… she frowned. No.

It was stupid, right? It had to be in the thirties at night up here, and with no shelter, no supplies, and no food… He wouldn’t…

Nobody in their right mind would hole up out there when they could find a warm corner somewhere in town. But… the kid’s fuckin’ crazy, isn’t he?

“…damnit.”

“Emma!“

“Sorry, Mary Margaret.”