The Killing Bind

Chapter 10: Atticus Berk

Fifty-Seven Miles East of where Christopher Martin resides, is a fast-food restaurant. A Subway. The restaurant. Not the place where you ride trains underground. It was a good place to eat. At ten-twenty-five, the place was mostly deserted. Atticus Berk liked to go eat at this time. The time where people are less. He liked to alone. He was solitary. Liked to work alone. Eat alone. Be alone. He doesn't care about a single human being in the world. What he did care was getting the people who doesnt have an ounce of mercy. It was like getting his own justice

Berk was in his car. It was a Lincoln MKX. Two thousand nine model. 265-horsepower V6 engine that earned decent fuel economy for the time. He changes his car. He had his reasons. He was on his way to Subway. He was about to get dinner. He wasn't poor. Not at all. He was fairly rich. He doesn't live like it though. He lives in a place for some time. When people find where he is, he moves. People who search for him are not only the bad guys. The people on the good side, the authorities also search for him. They don't have luck finding Berk though. It was a game of cat and mouse. The only player being the authorities. Berk doesn't play. He chose to live this life long back ago. It was his choice. The authorities are not hunting him. They want him, but he doesn't want to be found. He likes this life. He's adapted to it.

He has a had a pretty good life until one specific moment. That moment is what led him to lead this life. That moment led to him being hunted by the authorities. That moment is when his life changed. He drove his car straight. He saw a bright white and a faded yellowish green sign. He knew what it was. That is where he goes every night for dinner for the past nine days. For lunch and breakfast as well.

The last place he lived was Manhattan. He lived there for nine months and twenty-three days. He knew where he lived and how much days he stayed there exactly for the past nine years.

He now lived in Baldwin Park. Baldwin Park is a city located in the central San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The place is an average size. Almost eighteen-kilometer square. As of the 2010 census, the population was 75,390, down from 75,837 at the 2000 census. It rose back to 75,700 as of 2016.

He chose to live here because of two reasons. One was because he never went there. Second was not a good reason. It was rather bad. For him, it was a good reason. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Baldwin Park is one in forty-five. Based on FBI crime data, Baldwin Park is not one of the safest communities in America. Relative to California, Baldwin Park has a crime rate that is higher than fifty-nine percent of the state's cities and towns of all sizes.

FBI. A common word in America. Berk was very common with the word. He used to be one of them. An agent. FBI. They are the authorities that are hunting Berk. There are two outcomes if the FBI catches Berk. One, he gets arrested for what he has done years back. Even if he did the right thing. A right thing in a bad way. The second would be he gets congratulated and called back in to the FBI. He was leaning towards the first option, not that he intends to get caught.

He reached the place where he was going. He got out of the car. He was six-two. Thirty-nine years old. His blue eyes shined in the night. He had brown hair. He cut his hair recently. Not on his own, but at the barber shop. It was short. He didn't ask for it. He told the barber to choose. He liked the outcome. It was looking good. Especially with his clean-shaven face. His body was the lean and mean type. He wasn't a bodybuilder, but he certainly could knock someone out. He was lean and he certainly was mean. He was wearing a pure white slim fit T-shirt, which showed his body figure. He wore a blue blazer, which was just the right size. It showed his body figure. It didn't stick to his body like he was wearing a twelve-year old's shirt. The thing was, none of this was expensive. He was an light spender. He didn't know where he bought it from. It was either from a convenient store or a cheap department store. It had the tag of Old Navy. Which he was pretty sure was a knockoff. His shoes were the same story. Same goes with his pants.