About five minutes away from Max's house, David stopped driving and got out: he didn't want them to recognise his car. He walked along the pavement, heart thudding uncomfortably heavy against his ribs. His breaths were short and came in bursts, leaving pale clouds of glittering moisture before his nose.

He slowed down as he approached Max's road and started looking around more carefully and listening as hard as he could. All he heard was the relentless swooshing of cars going by in the distance and wind running through the trees. They almost moaned. The night was cold and muted, like someone had thrown a huge midnight blanket over the city, muffling the stars and trapping in the freezing air.

David grew more and more anxious the closer he got to Max's house. Finally he was one door over and knew he had no other option but to peer around the fence separating the two houses; he was just about to do so when he heard the front door open.

David shrank back against the fence and held his breath, trembling.

He waited. For a moment there was nothing, and David almost allowed himself to exhale, but then he heard a rough voice cut the night.

"He's not out here, you bleeding idiot!"

David closed his eyes.
Rahim.

"God Sasha, you're so fucking dumb. He's gone."

A second voice cracked the air- it was slightly slurred and sounded tired but victorious.

"Good," Max's mother snarled.

"You're pissed," Rahim said, and David cringed at the thump and whimper he heard. "You should know by now that this is what happens when you crack open the vodka."

"He was asking for it," Sasha snarled, and then David heard her retreat back into the house. Rahim stood in the doorway a little while longer, and then the door slammed shut and silence filled the air again.

He was asking for it, David repeated in his head. Terror bit at him like a savage dog. He was asking for it. What had she done to him?

After a few more minutes to be safe, David crept around the fence and tiptoed past Max's front door. Rahim had been right: there was no sign of Max in the front garden.

David past the house and continued along the pavement slowly.

"Max?" He whispered as loudly as the dared. "Max? It's David."

Nothing.

"Gosh darn it," David mumbled, biting his nails. "Where could he be?"

Suddenly a small sound reached his ears. He strained and stared around, the blackness of the night becoming more and more complete with every passing second. There were few street lamps on this road.

Then the sound came again; a quiet crackling noise.

The walkie talkie.

David face palmed himself for leaving his own devise in his car.

"Max?" He whispered again, sure he was close, but no reply came- only the crackling of the walkie talkie. 

David stepped along a few more metres and then pulled up short.

On the ground in front of him, half on the pavement and half in the road, lay a small, bruised, bloody figure, coiled up on the dirty ground. And he was curled around the walkie talkie.

David's heart skipped about three beats and then dropped like a stone to his navel.

"Max..."

No reply from the boy on the ground.

David stepped closer and knelt down on the cold wet concrete. He gently lade a hand on Max's back and he flinched violently and trembled like a rabbit. David tried again.

"Max, are you hurt? Can you stand?"

And again, no reply.

"Max," David whispered desperately. "What happened?"

But Max only whimpered and shook. David heart cracked in two and slid like ice to his stomach.

What had she done to him?

When it became apparent that Max either could not or would not speak or move, David reached under him and picked him up in his arms. Max looked like he might struggle but seemed like he didn't have the strength or enough motive. David cradled him like an infant. Max was unhealthily light and when David walked under a street lamp he saw the pain stretching the young boy's face.

They reached the car and David struggled for a moment with Max before managing to open the door and lay Max on the back seat, taking off his jacket and laying it over him. David shivered without it but Max only wore thin pyjamas and once in the artificial light of the car, David could see that he was cold and bruised and needed it more than him.

Once he secured Max and made sure he wouldn't fall off the seat, David pulled out into the road, and sped away, into the night.