It was an impulsive decision for Tennessee to steal a car parked in a corner of a Seven-Eleven parking lot.

Perhaps “impulsive” wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t due to kleptomania or a whim, but rather a certain intuition.

Until that moment on that day, Tennessee’s ‘business’ had been running smoothly.

Everything was going according to plan. However, immediately after finishing the job, his intuition sent a warning. It was a faint warning, but Tennessee, whose sixth sense was as developed as a beast’s and who trusted his intuition implicitly, turned around and left the area immediately.

Something feels off.

Tennessee frowned.

Since he had wrapped up this job, he planned to stay in his hideout for at least a few months. He also intended to meet the broker who gave him the job to ensure there were no lingering issues.

Tennessee reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. As he lit it, he slowly organized the tasks at hand. It was a road trip that would take several days. Since he had stolen a car, he would have to diligently switch vehicles before arriving, but that was a risk he was willing to take.

Pulling over to the shoulder, Tennessee checked the interior of the front seat and clicked his tongue.

The owner seemed to be a neat person; there were no notable items in the car. He glanced back and saw a box, but inside were only useless things like soccer cleats and children’s clothes.

‘I’ll cross into another state first and then buy what I need.’

After making that decision, Tennessee drove for a full six hours.

Unaware of what was inside that car.

It took Tennessee less than ten minutes to buy daily necessities from a small grocery store and return. He purchased only what was absolutely necessary, knowing exactly what he needed.

Sifting through the items he bought, Tennessee pulled out a piece of bread, took a large bite, and started the engine.

-Gurgle.

Tennessee, who had been rustling while eating the bread, stopped moving. It wasn’t a sound that would come from starting a car.

-Gurgleee.

Tennessee quickly drew his gun. He always kept his gun within arm’s reach. Because he never knew what might happen.

Bringing the car to a smooth stop, Tennessee opened the rear door. It looked no different from what he had seen in the rearview mirror. An empty back seat, a box piled with a soccer ball, a baseball glove, and lacrosse goggles. But looking now, he saw a gap beneath the box and in the rear legroom.

Tossing his cigarette butt aside, Tennessee lifted the box effortlessly.

“…….”

And he discovered a terrified child.

The child held up a pair of scissors threateningly, as if they were a lifeline.

The child shouted.

“D-don’t move!”

Tennessee had a gun in one hand, ready to fire at any moment, but he decided to play along with the child for now. He slowly lifted the box onto the back seat.

With his hair neatly slicked back with pomade and wearing a suit that fit him perfectly, Tennessee appeared calm and composed, but his mind was racing.

During a trip of over six hours, was there any chance the child could have gotten into the car? He hadn’t even spent ten minutes at the grocery store, so it would have been difficult to unlock the doors and crawl under the back seat box in that time. Nor would there be a reason to.

In other words, the child had been in the car from the beginning. And that meant he had gone from being a common car thief to a felon who had kidnapped a minor.

Sensing that ‘kidnapping’ had been added to his charges, he closed his eyes for a moment.

“If you move, I’ll stab you.”

The moment the child said that while trembling, a surge of irritation hit Tennessee.

Right now, he needed to keep a low profile. That was why he was enduring this hardship to hide away in a hole. And yet, because of one kid who had been hiding in the car for over six hours, he had suddenly become a kidnapper—and the kid was going to stab him?

Clicking his tongue, Tennessee immediately aimed his gun. The movement was so natural, as if he had been waiting for it, that the child didn’t realize it until he was staring down the muzzle.

“Since when have you been here?”

The child wasn’t at fault. He was just unlucky. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“From the beginning.”

I figured.

Tennessee slowly examined the trembling child. The child was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts. He had no coat or anything, and he was even barefoot. Second or third grade, at most?

“Put those scissors down. Can’t you see I have a gun?”

“N-no. If you shoot, I’ll attack too.”

Does he not know what a gun is? Tennessee wondered seriously. The opponent is aiming a gun, yet he’s clinging to a pair of scissors as if they were the horn of a powerful unicorn.

Should I just kill him now? If I kill him, how do I handle the cleanup? While Tennessee was contemplating this…

-Gurgle.

At the sound that had first made him look at the back seat, Tennessee suddenly felt a sense of futility.

For a moment, the whole thing was just absurd.

Right, what was the point of killing a kid who got caught because he couldn’t withstand hunger despite hiding for six hours?

Putting the gun away, he opened the driver’s side door. Following his movement, the child held his breath, scissors still raised.

What among the things he bought would be edible for a child? Tennessee pulled out a Lunchable and tossed it into the back seat.

“Eat that.”

Tennessee’s mouth was already full of the bread he had been eating earlier.

Without lowering the scissors, the child reached out tentatively. Looking at him, it almost seemed as if the child was the one holding the gun. It felt as though sparks were crackling in those blue eyes.

Eyes that were alive. A living child. Even though there was nothing he could do with a single pair of scissors, he clung to them desperately. Tennessee inwardly named them “magic scissors” and chuckled.

Soon, the sound of crunching crackers echoed.

What should I do with this brat? While Tennessee was thinking that, a wary voice came from behind him.

“Where are we going?”

“Texas.”

“Where in Texas?”

“Austin, Texas.”

Originally, Tennessee’s intended answer was something like ‘Why do you want to know?’, but perhaps because the child was so terrified, the answers flowed out easily.

He’d make a pretty good interrogator. Thinking this, Tennessee checked the rearview mirror. The child was still holding those damn scissors even while munching.

Tossing the finished cigarette butt, Tennessee turned on the radio. The child’s gaze followed the butt. He repeatedly switched between news channels and various other stations to see if a report had been filed about the man he killed or about this child.

Strange.

Tennessee checked the child.

Now that his hunger was satisfied and his tension had eased somewhat, the child’s eyes were half-closing as sleepiness set in. Now that those eyes, which held a fighting spirit unlike his age, were closing, the child finally became clearly visible. Perhaps because his hair was dark, his pale skin stood out.

Since a child like this was kidnapped late at night, there should be an uproar by now. Normally, police would be stationed at every turn, not to mention the state borders.

In the US, when a young child goes missing or is kidnapped, an Amber Alert is issued. It was a system to announce the child’s identity as an emergency alert through 911, police, radio, and media like TV news so the child could be found quickly.

In this case, it wasn’t a disappearance but a definite kidnapping, so the entire nation should have been buzzing. But it was too quiet. As if the guardian hadn’t reported it.

“You.”

The child, whose eyes had become slits due to sleepiness, startled and stiffened. Not forgetting to raise those magic scissors.

“What’s your name?”

“……I’m not telling you. You’ll just laugh at it.”

“You don’t know if I’ll laugh or not, do you?”

“……I still don’t want to.”

“Did your dad make that bruise?”

Tennessee asked, looking at the bruise on the child’s arm. It had been covered by the T-shirt, but it peeked through whenever the child raised his hand. It was the mark of a hand.

“No. Mr. Huston did.”

Mr. Huston. Not even a first name.

“Foster home?”

A silent affirmation.

“But why have you been switching radio channels for a while?”

“To see if an Amber Alert went out. Usually, when kids are kidnapped, an Amber Alert rings.”

If it’s an adult, no one cares if they go missing, get kidnapped, or are dragged to some underground dungeon to be tortured. But children are different.

“Mr. Huston won’t care if I disappear. He might even like it.”

That seemed likely. He was at an age where he could communicate, yet no one leaves a child alone in a car late at night to go grocery shopping. Or perhaps the child had sneaked in.

He ended up kidnapping him by accident, and it turns out the kid is half-abandoned. Whether to call this good luck or bad luck. Tennessee pulled out another Lunchable and tossed it to the child.

“What will you do if the police find me?”

The child reached out tentatively again.

“I’ll kill you, dispose of the body to remove the evidence, and then continue on my way.”

The cracker dropped from the child’s hand.

“Just kidding.”

“Not funny.”

“You have those magic scissors, right? To protect you.”

The child’s expression turned cold. However, while he dropped the food, he did not drop the scissors.

“Yeah, that’s how you protect yourself. You did well to hold the scissors when I first found you.”

The child’s expression became ambiguous. It was a look of pure confusion, not knowing if he was being mocked or sincerely praised, and if it was the latter, why such a praise was being given.