Alejo wasn’t good alone. He could get a job done, sure, but being alone for too long left him bored and usually looking for a way to distract his mind from the nightmares of yesterday. With Sparrow busy and Marina at the dog pound, he had been left to sketching and lingering in the sewers alone for enough hours that he’d started to feel claustrophobic. So he’d traded the tight feeling of the sewers for the empty, vast feeling of the streets.
At first, it had merely been an exercise in killing as many of the undead at “the front door” of their underground home as possible, and then it have become an actual supply run. He’d come across a Walgreens that had been picked clean of the obvious essentials. But even with the medicine and food gone, there were still goods to grab. Alejo left with two double-bagged bundles of sunscreens, baking soda, a child’s walkie talkie set, orange flavored hard candies, and one prized item he’d spotted had trapped under some of the overturned shelves- a swiss army knife. Not as deadly as the short-handled sickle he’d started keeping at his side at all times, but still useful.
With some goods to bring back, Alejo had started to head home. First on rooftops, then streets as the ability to hop from building to building was limited. The shadows were his friends, even at night. And it proved a good way to go as the sounds of gunshots and scream of metal on metal broke out. He hid by the stoop of what looked like an old apartment building, head down and two hands on his blade before raising his body a little. His first thought was to his goods. He didn’t want to loose them; sunscreen was hard to come by, and baking soda had a thousand uses.
Across the street was the man who had caused the metal sounds. The man spoke, and he was either trying to be funny or propositioning him. Weirder things had happened on the streets at night for Alejo, but he couldn’t help but raise a brow. There was a part of him that felt a tug of pain at that. He’d had a male partner before, and that had been the relationship that nearly ended his life. But it had also made him a better man. The reminder always lingered in the back of his mind, a little cluster of anxiety and nostalgia all tied around that man and the drugs they’d once shared.
But then it struck Alejo that maybe, just maybe, the man who was speaking was more afraid of Alejo than Alejo was of him right then.
“You could tell me why you’re making such a great noise when such a thing is not advisable,” Alejo said. His voice carried a heavy accent, a mix of Brazilian and Mexican from an adolescence of living around the cartel while dreaming of Rio and the little sister he’d left behind.