Chapter Text
Day Eight
Ben Richards had been hungry before. Of course he had; he was from slum side. It had been years, though, since he had been hungry like this: exhausted, aching, dirty, and at the end of his rope.
It wasn't that he had no money. Money was no problem, actually, because he still had mind-boggling 547 new dollars in cash, not to mention the money his runner's bracelet told him he had earned. That number defied understanding.
No, the trouble was that every person in the United States was trying to murder him, which made grocery shopping tricky, to say the least.
He thought wistfully of the takeout he had gotten two days prior. He hadn't had a choice but to get it, but he also hadn't had a chance to eat it, either. That choice, and the chance to eat, had been robbed from him when that douchebag guy had tried to report Ben's whereabouts to McCone and his goons via the reporting app.
Ben's stomach cramped petulantly, reminding him yet again that he hadn't eaten real food in four days. (Gum didn't count). Four days really wasn't that long, in the grand scheme of things, and Ben had no illusions that his time on The Running Man would more likely than not continue with longer stretches without meals. He didn't have to like it, though.
He and Sheila had done pretty well for themselves, all things considered. They hadn't been truly hungry in years, not since they had first been married during those bad first months. But Sheila had gotten that waitressing job at Diamonds — a horrible place to work if ever there was one, but it had paid the bills — and a couple months later, Ben had gotten his first Network company job, and between the two of them, they always had at least a little food on the table. Eventually, they had both moved up in the world enough to afford having Cathy. The day they decided they could afford to have a baby had been one of the most exciting in Ben's life.
The day Ben lost his most recent job, not all that long ago, his gut had clenched with the memory of the hunger. It always happened to him, every time he lost another job, and... well, he wasn't very good at keeping his jobs. Helped his guys a little too much when the Network would rather he let them suffer or die.
But he had gotten — somehow — supervisory roles at work, and that meant he had some obligation to look out for his guys, didn't he. Not that the Network saw it that way. And so they would fire him, and he would reactively remember what it was like to be hungry, and he would find another job, and the cycle would start over again.
Except it hadn't, this time. Because Ben had gotten blacklisted from all Network corporation jobs, this time; he knew it, even if no one would admit it to his face or otherwise.
Sheila's job at the Libertine paid well enough that they weren't hungry. They definitely weren't well-fed, though, and guilt consumed Ben every time he thought about how hard Sheila worked while he sat on his ass at home, useless and another mouth to feed.
He ate less than usual after he lost work. He always did. Little enough difference that he hoped Sheila wouldn't notice; big enough difference to make a difference, he hoped. But he could see her doing the same thing: eating a little less when she thought Ben wasn't looking.
At least, with Ben's winnings from The Running Man — even just what he'd won thus far — she would never have to go hungry again. And Cathy would never have to know what it meant to be hungry.
Ben's stomach cramped in protest again.
He leaned his head back against the bricks of the alleyway, wondering what he would do for food next.
Every time he went into a grocery store or a restaurant or a convenience store was another opportunity for someone to see him and report him. Every opportunity for someone to report him was another chance that Ben would end up dead.
He had promised Sheila that he would make it back to her, and he fully intended to keep that promise.
But how could he do that, if he couldn't even risk eating?
Someone cleared their throat, and Ben jerked to life. Shit! How had he failed to notice the backlit figure standing at the end of the alleyway? Light glinted on the tall man's eyes, making him look catlike in the dark.
Ben scrambled to his feet and slipped his backpack on.
"I'm movin', I'm movin'," Ben grumbled in a faked accent. He began trudging with an affected limp in the opposite direction.
"Not what I was going to say," came the reply, low and soft. "You hungry?"
Ben couldn't help himself. He stopped.
"'m fine," he lied, but his stomach cramped painfully again. Food, it seemed to beg.
The man at the end of the alleyway sighed audibly and began walking in Ben's direction. Ben resumed walking, too, a little faster this time. Still, with his fake limp, the man from the top of the alleyway gained on him quickly.
"Richards," the man murmured. "You're hungry."
Ben whirled around, a snarl curling his lip. (Oh, shit, the guy wasn't just tall, he was tall.)
"I don't know who you think you are—"
"You think I don't recognize Ben Richards in disguise?" came the low interruption, acerbically amused. "I'm offering you food, and a couple hours safe from the public. Follow me. Or don't."
The man turned away, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets. He cut a dashing figure in the dim blue-black of night, trim in the waist and broad-shouldered. If Ben had been less hungry, the man might've made his mouth water just from his silhouette alone.
Ben hesitated. Safety sounded heavenly. Food sounded divine. Even a sip of clean water would be miraculous.
And Ben would never cheat on Sheila (though Sheila had always maintained that Ben could have relationships outside of theirs, with caveats), but to be given safety and food and water by a stranger that was easy on the eyes, too?
It sounded almost too good to be true. Scratch that; it did sound too good to be true.
Yet, although the guy obviously knew who Ben was, there was no phone in sight.
Ben jogged up toward the tall man.
"Hey," he said, keeping his own voice low. "Why aren't you trying to report me?"
"I'm off for the night," the man said cryptically.
He kept striding lazily toward the street, apparently uncaring as to whether Ben was actually following.
Ben followed.
But then he screeched to a halt as the low light from the streetlamps brought his maybe-savior into relief.
That mask.
Chief McCone.
At the top of the alleyway, McCone stopped and looked over his shoulder at Ben. Now that he knew to look for them, Ben saw the light reflecting not on the man's eyes but on McCone's light-lensed aviators.
"Come on. I don't bite," McCone said drily. "I told you, I'm off for the night."
"Why should I believe you?" Ben demanded, a little shaken by how close he was standing to the chief hunter. Last time he had been so close to McCone, he'd ended up with his dick out on Freevee and nearly ended up dead.
"Why shouldn't you?" McCone pointed out. "No eye drones, no gun." He spread his gloved hands to show that they were empty. "Anyway, it'd be stupid for us to chase you only for you to die from hunger or thirst."
Ben hesitated a moment longer, but then he cautiously stepped towards McCone.
"I'll gouge out your eyes if you try to kill me, even if it's the last thing I do," he threatened.
McCone laughed.
"I'll hold you to that," he replied, amused again. "Now come on. I'm parked close by, but if I'm going to feed you, we don't want you on the street longer than necessary."
"Right," Ben muttered, following after McCone. He tugged his cap down lower over his eyes and tried not to look back and forth too obviously as they exited the alley.
The street was empty, not a soul in sight.
Ben exhaled slightly, though he knew better than to relax completely in the company of the chief hunter.
"My car's a block this way," McCone murmured, turning and walking down the street.
Dim golden lights above him illuminated him into life. McCone was wearing a dark green sweater and — were those leather tactical pants? How did that possibly even make sense?
He was wearing his beret. It was sort of remarkable that Ben hadn't recognized his silhouette to begin with, honestly, with that distinctive hat, those broad shoulders, and that trim waist. Though Ben supposed that McCone usually wore a leather trench coat that obfuscated his silhouette to some degree, so maybe that was why.
McCone was, rather startlingly, a full half-head taller than Ben: at least four or five inches. He wore the height with ease, too, without even the slightest slouch to his strong shoulders.
Ben mentally shook himself. Not that Sheila had ever minded, but he shouldn't be checking out someone other than Sheila anyway, let alone the man in charge of murdering him.
Not that he was checking McCone out. Definitely not. For one thing, he was too hungry to even think about something like that. That was a thing, right?
And he was hungry. Hungry enough that it had started disappearing into pain and a weird sense of not being hungry at all.
They made it to the black sedan perfectly parked at the edge of the sidewalk. (A car that drives for him, Ben thought to himself with no small amount of disgust.) It had windows tinted nearly black.
McCone pulled a set of keys out of his trouser pocket and went around to the driver's side door, unlocking it manually.
Ben tentatively took the handle on the passenger's side and let the door swing open, revealing gray suede interiors rather than the black leather he might've anticipated.
McCone had already swung into the driver's seat, filling the space with his enormous presence.
"I'm not going to kill you in my own car," he said wryly to Ben. "Look at the seats. It'd be a bitch to get blood out of them. Come on."
"Right," Ben said again, feeling very off-balance about the whole thing. But he got into the car, pulling the door closed behind him.
"Seatbelt on," McCone said, and if that wasn't the most surreal thing to hear out of The Running Man's chief hunter's mouth, Ben didn't know what was.