Chapter Text
Kay looked down at the file on the kid, the Bishop tagger, and silently swore. Christ, she knew he was young, her first thought at seeing his face was that he barely looked old enough to drive. She didn’t think that would be the actual truth; seventeen, a child, a literal child - Ben Evans, or Mekka, as he went by on Instagram. She glanced through, noting the fact he was a foster kid and that he’d run away from his last set of foster parents about five months ago.
Alvarez walked around from behind the kid, arms folded as he spoke, coming to stand at her left shoulder. “So what do we call you, Ben Evans, the runaway, or Mekka the elusive street artist, hmm?” He paused, staring at the kid, who slouched even further in a posture that screamed over-cocky teen. “Ben has been missing for five months-”
She continues where he left off, “While Mekka has a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.” She knows her voice is steady, she’s worked too hard on her poker face for it not to be, but a mental quiver in her thoughts is evident, as she takes in his loose hand wave, designed to look relaxed and carefree. She isn’t an FBI agent for nothing, though, and she sees the tension in his long fingers, and the quick flick of his tongue over his lips before he replies.
“Let’s go with Mekka, I like him more.” His tone betrays nothing, speaking as if he were casually conversing with a friend, not two very dangerous adults who held his future in their hands. She would have almost believed him, if she hadn’t seen the two minute flinches at the times Alvarez had spoken the name Ben.
Alvarez sat down and laid his hands down on the table, serious written into every muscle of his face. Their uncooperative suspect and only lead looked back, poker face just as strong. “Listen, since we can't hold you overnight, we’re going to get in touch with CPS and your old foster parents.”
Daniels watched as pure unadulterated terror and fear shot through Mekka’s face for a split second, barely there, but evident in the way he was tensed now, as if for a fight, or like he was preparing to run. She knows Alvarez caught the look too, and they made eye contact for the briefest of seconds before flicking their eyes back to Mekka as he started talking.
“Wait, ok, I’ll make a deal with you. I tell you everything I know about Bishop, the tagging, anything, but I walk, and CPS doesn’t get involved. I'm going to be 18 in 9 months, a legal adult.” He’s sitting properly now, fixing them with his eyes.
She met his eye contact just as strongly, and thinks. He's a minor, and normally they don’t make deals with minors that leave them without parents or guardians, but then she remembers the terror in his eyes, and how this is their only lead on Bishop, a murdering, thieving graffiti artist, and she nodded once, sharply. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Mekka slumped back in the hard chair, breaking eye contact with a soft sigh of relief, barely more than a breath. She stood, walking silently out of the room, leaving Alvarez to watch the kid, and an agent comes up to her.
“Agent Daniels, you’re going to want to see this.”
She took the photo he handed her and looked down at it. Anyone with a weaker stomach would have lost their lunch at the bloodied image. The figure in the painting was gruesomely injured, the only recognizable signs being a head of wavy hair bordering on curls and a red and black plaid jacket. It was Mekka. A horrific painted version of him, dead. “Where was this found?”
“It was painted on the side of a building in lower Brooklyn.”
Kay nodded. She needed to talk to Deakons.
------
“Well, this… Mekka can't go back into the foster system anyway, Bishop is the type to carry out this threat. Normally he’d be put in Witness Protection, but he still has information we need.” Deakons looked at Kay and Cameron, who had just joined her.
Cameron spoke up from his silence, surprising both of them. “The Deception team can take him in for a little while, till we catch Bishop, then he can go off and do whatever teen graffiti artists do?”
Deakons and Kay both stared at him in shock, and he scoffed, “Come on, I’m great with kids! And Dina will love him.”
--------------------
Mekka looked up as Kay and Cameron entered, and blinked at Cameron, before his attention was diverted by Kay speaking, “Listen, Mekka, CPS will not be getting involved in this -” his only tell this time was a slight relaxation of his shoulders, but they tensed up at what she spoke next. “We can’t let you go, though.”
He stiffened, “What? Why no-,” his next words were cut off as Kay slid the photographs of the graffiti across the table. A small ‘oh’ escaped his lips, and he slowly reached out and picked up the top photo. His skin paled even further, and he looked as if he might get sick. He threw down the photo and turned to Kay, lips pressed into a firm line. “So, what does that mean for me?”
She motioned to Cameron at her side and he smiled charismatically, “This is Cameron Black, he works as a consultant for us, and he and his team would be willing to host you until Bishop is brought into custody.”
Mekka eyed Cameron, and finally shrugged. “A few weeks ago, a graffiti writer stopped me in Brooklyn and said that he was Bishop, the Bishop.”
“How’d you know it was him?” Kay looked him steadily in the eyes, noting distantly that his eyes weren’t fully blue; in the left one there was a chunk of brown, bleeding into the iris.
He laughed slightly as he spoke, returning her gaze, “I watched him, he was amazing, he had the maddest skills I’ve ever seen.” Mekka shook his head now, with a flicker of disbelief as well as a long strand of brunette hair falling across his face. “He asked if I’d help him with his New York residency, so it was like, a dream come true.” His tone was wry, then, and something in Kay hurt at the way his eyes flicked down to his hands - which had been messing with the edge of his sleeve - and stilled them, shoulders tensing for a split second.
“And how did it work?”
Mekka pulled a photo out of his pocket with one hand and placed it on the table. Kay slid it towards herself and looked down. It was the piece that Mekka had done as Bishop, but with the date, time, and location written below. “He gave me this. Told me to show up there, do the piece and leave, so I did. Then I saw those guys busting the window out of the church.” Kay passed the piece to Alvarez as Mekka shrugged, voice taking on a quality that Kay couldn’t place. “And that’s when I realized Bishop was just using me.”
Kay nodded, “There was some larger plan.” She watched as agreement, anger, and one emotion she couldn’t place, but looked suspiciously like self-hatred, warred for place in his eyes.
“Yeah, and then the guy who paid me handed me this,” Mekka pulled out the same kind of photo, but with the Rockefeller center piece, and passed it to Kay. “But this time I was actually watching for the theft. The guy had a whole system.”
All three exchanged glances, and Mekka settled back into his chair, most of his nervous energy gone, and it was easy to see just how young he really was. “So, when do we leave?”
“Well, now I guess,” Cameron says, as Alvarez passed the kid his bag, “Do you have anything you want someone to pick up?”
He snorted, “I’m a 17 year old homeless kid,” - he held up the bag - “everything I own is right here.”
Kay made a note to herself to check the files of what Mekka had in his bag. This had nothing to do with the fact that he was wearing the same clothes as he had in his first appearance as Bishop.
Absolutely nothing.
----------
It took about half an hour to reach the team’s headquarters, and in that time Cameron hadn't stopped showing off his magic. At this point, Mekka was wondering who the actual child was; him, or Cameron? Of course, the calm couldn’t last, and it seemed like he blinked, and the two were standing on the doorstep of a tall brick building, Cam unlocking the door with a key he had pulled out of seemingly nowhere.
He was in no way prepared for the scene he saw inside the door. A woman with long dreadlocks was ordering about two men while brandishing a feather duster in a manner not unlike one would brandish a knife. Said men were cleaning as well, and Cameron marched inside, as if this were a completely normal thing to see on a Wednesday night. Mekka followed, and the woman turned towards them.
“Oh good! You two are here.” She pressed a warm mug of hot chocolate into his hands before he could blink, and smiled kindly up at him.Her expression was just as warm as the hot cocoa, and as he sipped at it, he blinked away tears. Don’t cry, don’t show weakness, it’s only hot chocolate, idiot.
“That's Dina,” Cameron noted, “She likes you. C’mon, let me show you your room.”
---------
Mekka let the door close behind him with a soft thump, crumpling to the ground with a silent sob and letting the tears race down his face unimpeded. He shook, heart pounding rapidly in his chest. A soft whimper passed his lips, and he pressed his hands to his mouth, muffling any further noise.
Somebody wanted him dead, wanted it bad enough to graffiti a threat where everyone could see. Another sob, and a new wave of tears as he gasped for air. He was seventeen, and already his life was over before it began - not that he ever had a life worth living, but he hadn’t planned on death. Mekka started shaking harder now, gasping desperately for air.
He curled into himself, wrapping his arms around his legs and pulling them into his chest, back pressed to the doorknob as his head fell on his knees, a curtain of hair providing some fragile semblance of security. Mekka took a long, shuddering breath in, before releasing it, just as slowly. The aching pressure on his chest lifted a little, and the next breath came easier. Another deep breath, another choked off sob, and finally the wave of panic washed out of him, leaving him drained and shaking. Mekka dropped his head back, leaning against the door as he wiped at the tear tracks with the edge of his sleeve.
With a muted groan, he dragged his aching body to the bed, sinking into the softness with a sigh. He curled around himself, then, and made no move to wipe away the silent tears trickling down his face.
And like most nights in his seventeen years of life, Mekka cried himself silently to sleep.