It took longer to get to Hangman’s Alley than it should. It shouldn’t have taken four hours to get there. Marian knew where it was, enough people had pointed it out to her since she first arrived in the Commonwealth, but finding it was still a bitch. She had circled around the same area three times before she happened to see some people playing in the dirt as she passed the alley for the fourth time.

She slowed down enough to face the people. She should have been scared, she should have wanted to turn around and go back. Instead, she was still frustrated enough from trying to find the place that she didn’t care if she had to fight a band of raiders at that moment.

One of the settlers who was tending to a crop looked at her. The person didn’t bother to stand up but continued to weed the dirt around the carrot.

“Help you?” she asked.

“I’m looking for someone,” Marian responded as she walked into the alley.

“Aren’t we all?” the settler replied.

“I believe he’s been here,” she continued.

“Look, if you’ve been robbed by your boyfriend and are looking to get your money back, go talk to Nick Valentine. Otherwise, stay out of my carrots.”

“That’s who I am looking for,” Marian corrected.

“He’s over in Diamond City. I’d tell you to get lost, but I think you are.”

Marian stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. Did he not come here? Was Ellie wrong? She was a bodyguard, not a detective, she didn’t know where start looking if Nick never came here. She was out of her lane and needed to get back into hers. But she made a promise and was going to keep it.

The bodyguard was trying to decide what to do when she heard a voice call out from the makeshift wall further inside the alley.

“Oh my god!” the voice announced. “Dunya Rasumihin! I can’t believe it’s you, I’m so glad you made it here from The Capital Wasteland. But you look hungry, come, there’s food for you. Did I hear right that you are looking for someone? Nick Valentine you said? Is he that robot in a trench coat? He came by several weeks ago. Mr. Collins hired him to find his missing boy. Tragic that. Well, here’s some food. I’ll take you to see Mr. Collins after you finish eating.”

The entire time the owner of the voice talked she was also moving. She went from running from the door in the wall, to wrapping an arm around Marian and guiding her back through the door, to sitting her in a seat near a firepit and handing her a bowl of vegetable soup.

Marian was hungry. She had planned on eating when she settled into the living area she stayed in when she was near Diamond City. She also planned on sleeping. Both of those plans had been delayed by the news Ellie gave her. Now she found herself eating vegetable soup, trying to remember who it was who gave her the soup and who was indebted to who at that moment.

Someone who’s life she saved was the safe bet. She normally demanded free food from people who owed her their life. She saw a meal for a life as an equal trade, most other people didn’t and often demanded to feed her for the rest of her life. Was this woman one of those? She’s known people who feel like they owe her for other reasons.

There was one family who insisted that she visit them while they feed her and give her a place to sleep in exchange for her to read books to them. She never saw that as a fair trade, but they insisted that she made the greater sacrifice. When they asked her to call them by familial terms like “mom” and “dad”, she walked away and never revisited them. That was years ago, they should be bitter against how she treated them by now.

“Where’s mom, Kaylee?” she asked the oldest daughter of the family.

Kaylee went quiet. A young woman only a few years younger than Marian. Probably married by now, probably has enough kids to keep her house as loud and full as Marian remembered her parents having.

“They didn’t make it,” she finally said, looking away. “Most of us tried to get out after Tanya was drafted. The Brotherhood of Steel didn’t like the idea of losing a farming family as successful as us. Mom and dad were old, they couldn’t run like the rest of us could. At least…at least they didn’t have to walk through the wasteland with the rest of us. At least they didn’t have to watch everyone else get eaten by centaurs, or attacked by deathclaws or…” Kaylee broke off, unable to finish talking.

Dunya stood up and gently placed her hand on Kaylee’s shoulder. She should have helped them leave the Capital Wasteland. She could have snuck them out, one at a time, to a safe location and then walked them all North. Kaylee was from a large family. She had six brothers and sisters, but there was always a place at the table for Dunya.

She needed to get herself out of debt from the Bobrov Brothers. She needed to get back to the Capital Wasteland. She needed to save as many friends as she could from other monsters.

“I’m so, so, sorry,” Dunya finally said.

Kaylee was quiet, perhaps for the first time since Dunya met her when she wasn’t reading to the family. She remembered Kaylee was good with brahmin, she would be a boon to this settlement, but she will be lost without her family. Dunya hoped Kaylee will find a new family.

“I promised to have you talk to Mr. Collins,” Kaylee finally said. “He’s in charge of the ammo booth. He’s really nice. He has a nice family. Mrs. Collins is a provisioner, so she’s always gone, but Mr. Collins is good with his sons. Well, as good as you can be with a boy like Davey.”

“What’s wrong with Davey?” Marian asked.

“He’s a really nice boy, and really smart, but he gets angry really easy. His dad does what he can to get him to stop, but Davey just gets angry all the time over small things, too. Now he’s run away, and his dad had to hire a detective to find him. Everyone is helping Jasper right now. Poor kid is probably blaming himself. Jasper is his big brother. He’s the one who first noticed that Davey was missing.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Dunya remembered how she got angry all the time. She was always punished for getting angry, but she couldn’t help it, no matter what she did. She also ran away a lot when she was a kid. Someone always found her and brought her back. She would be given extra duties as punishment. She remembered how Christopher would follow her around while she tried to focus on those duties. He would keep reminding her why she was being punished and pointing out how it seemed to always happen. She didn’t remember the things he said to her, she just remembered how she always felt when he was around. She couldn’t get angry; it was her fault for running away in the first place.

“Has Davey’s temper been calm lately?” Dunya asked.

“I think so, I’ve only been here for a few weeks. To tell the truth, I don’t think I’ve seen the temper everyone talks about. He and Jasper seem to get along well also. They would run off together to do the kind of things boys do when they are away from adults. You know how kids always need to be away from adults. Especially at their age.”

Dunya took a moment to breath and remember that was the past, she didn’t have to deal with Christopher anymore. But the parallels were painful. “Instead of speaking to Mr. Collins, can I speak to Jasper instead?”

“Sure,” Kaylee answered, “he’s over there.”

She pointed at a teenager who was hurrying down some steps from the sales booths. Dunya wished she could run up those steps to buy some much needed ammo, but she gave all her caps to Yefim just a few hours ago. Instead, she walked up the boy.

“Jasper Collins?” she asked.

“What’s it to you?” Jasper responded.

“Name’s Dunya Rasumihin,” she introduced herself. “Nick Valentine’s partner. I was wondering if you can answer some follow up questions for me.”

“Look, everything I had to say about Davey, I told your partner. Now bug off, I have work to do for my dad.”

“I must insist that we talk. I can talk with you here, but I think you’d rather speak with me privately.”

“What are you getting at? I told your partner everything!”

“I’m willing to believe you answered all of his questions, but I don’t think you told him everything,” Dunya gambled. “I am willing to bet you didn’t tell him what you asked him to do the night before he ran away. How many times did he say ‘no’ before you threatened him?”

Jasper’s face went pale. Dunya’s gamble worked. It worked better than she hoped for. She spent nights growing up believing that Christopher would kill her if he thought he could get away with it. Jasper at least had something of a conscience. It would make the work easier for her.

“We can talk by the waterfront,” Jasper finally said before walking out the South end of the settlement. The kid looked scared enough to cry.

Dunya had to remind herself that this wasn’t Christopher. That he wasn’t going to hurt her the way Christopher always did. Davey was a different matter, but she could cross that bridge when she came to it.

The two of the sat down at a table that looked like the rubble had been moved recently. Some rubble even lay on the ground next to the table. Dunya took a seat that faced the river. It looked very relaxing. She tried to imagine what the city must have looked like to the people who lived there before the bombs dropped. The lights at night must have made the river gorgeous.

Keeping up the lie of being a detective, Dunya turned her focus back on Jasper. He fidgeted in his chair, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there. She would rather let that kid stew in his guilt, but time was a resource that she had to use as sparingly as she did with anything else she had.

“It’s hard being a teenager, isn’t Jasper,” Dunya began. “All of those hormones, and no guidance on what to do with them. It’s hard, I know it. Heck, everyone who has ever been a teenager knows how hard it is to have an increase of hormones that they never had to deal with before. So, you go with someone who you’ve been dominating for years, how long has he been fawning for your approval Jasper?”

Jasper looked away. The exact amount of time wasn’t what was important.

“Your parents tell themselves that what you’ve been doing is just sibling rivalry. Tit-for-tat if you would. Problem is, the tat is always shot down. If Davey ever stepped out of line, even by an inch, you, or your parents, would remind him of his place. Wouldn’t you?”

Dunya didn’t need to see Jasper’s discomfort to know she was on the right path. She could relate to Davey, even if she never met him. She was taking pleasure in toying with Jasper’s guilt.

“I can tell you don’t want Davey hurt, but you would like him to just go away,” she continued. “Problem is, he can’t go anywhere. He’s too young, and you’re too young. But he did leave, didn’t he? He got tired of trying to make you happy. I know what he had been doing to make you happy, and if anyone else found out, you would be in a lot of trouble, wouldn’t you?”

Would he? Dunya never told anyone about what Christopher did. She was too afraid of what he would do to her. She didn’t even tell Peter, but he couldn’t have protected her anymore by then. All she could do was hold onto their pact for hope.

“What do you want?” Jasper asked. Maybe she went a little too far, but someone needed to protect Davey. Jasper’s eyes were watering at this point. His guilt was bigger than his hatred. “I had Davey…you know…it felt good having him…do that to me…the day before he disappeared. But I never…I never put it in him. Not anything but his mouth. He was always the good kid, always everyone’s favorite. I work ten times harder than him, but everything always came so easy. I hate him, I really do. But I don’t want him to die. I just wanted him to know he isn’t as great as he thinks he is.”

“You’ve been wearing him down for years,” Dunya explained. “The relationship you two have has been solely his responsibility, and you’ve done everything you can to make it hard for him. That’s why he keeps getting angry. That’s why he keeps running away. That’s why he keeps hurting himself. Because he can’t get anyone to see that you’ve been hurting him, and he feels like he’s nothing more than a failure because of it. What you did that day, may not have been out of the ordinary for you two, but it was the last he could take.”

Jasper was crying now. Dunya was hoping that he did care about Theo enough to fear more for his little brother’s safety than his own at that moment. It didn’t matter what Jasper’s motivation was, as long as he was scared enough to tell her what she needed to know.

“I want you to tell me where Davey goes when he needs to get away from you. I know he has a place, and I know you know where that is. I’m sure you’ve chased him down there more than once and brought him home so you could avoid getting in trouble if he did really run away this time. Where is that?”

“The Boylston Club, over by the Commons,” Jasper admitted. “He liked listening to the radio there.”

“Where you two there the day before?” Dunya asked.

“No, we were in the underpass,” Jasper admitted.

“Thank you, Jasper,” she said, letting go of her vindication, “that’s all I need to know.”

“You’re not…you’re not going to tell anyone?” Jasper asked standing up.

“I haven’t decided,” Dunya admitted. “One thing I will tell you. If you’re not careful, then eventually Davey is going to run away into that river there. I’m sure he’s already thought about it.”

Jasper’s eyes widened with fear. Rather it was the idea of his brother dying, or the idea of his parents turning his dead brother into a sinless saint, Dunya didn’t know or care. The point was, he needed to know how easy it was for someone who is trying to disappear from a bad situation to do so in a more permanent way than just running out a door.

The teenager wiped her face with his sleeve, trying to hide his tears. Then he turned into the alley to continue helping his dad. Dunya stood up and walked around the buildings towards the Boston Commons. She was several weeks behind Nick Valentine and had a lot of catching up to do.