Callum smiled at Salem and tried to get him to interact with the train tracks he had been playing with.
"Don't you want to keep playing trains?" Callum asked, pulling over the large bin that they used to store it.
"No." Salem shook his head. "I don't want to relive this again."
Salem began destroying the intricate hub he had set up for his toy trains and carefully organizing the pieces in the bin.
"We're going to have to sell this if we're going to be able to survive." Salem pointed to the large bin full of the toy trains.
"Why would we sell them?" Callum laughed. "You're so silly!"
"An hour after you put me to bed, the police are going to come here." Salem said gravely.
"Oh!" Callum played along, still thinking he was playing a game. "And what will happen then?"
"They'll notify us of our parents' criminal activities and ask us where they went." Salem said. "And then, after about two weeks, we'll be notified that they set up a cartel in Mexico."
Salem took a shuddering breath, recalling the events that still hurt, thirteen years later.
"And then four years after that, we'll get news that they were shot and killed by one of their most trusted subordinates' power grab." Salem felt tears threaten to fall.
Callum saw his tears well up in his eyes and pickef him up and walked to the crib.
"Go to sleep." Callum wasn't smiling or laughing anymore. "I'm sure that won't happen. They love us, with all their heart."
Salem felt darkness slowly envelop him like a warm blanket.
As soon as he had fallen into the darkness, he was wrenched out of it by a loud knocking at his door and the people behind it calling.
"Seattle PD; open up!"
Callum answered the door as Salem pulled himself up to look over the side of his crib.
"Hello, young man." A blue-uniformed police officer greeted him. "Where are Praedae and Ferrum Argenti?"
"Our parents?" Callum asked innocently. "They went on a date."
The policeman's face crumpled.
"How long ago?" The policeman asked sympathetically.
"Four hours." Callum said. "Why? Did they do something bad?"
The policeman nodded sadly. "Can you let me and some of my friends search the house?"
"Yeah!" Callum said opening the door wide. "Can I watch?"
"Yes, little guy." The policeman was doing his best to hold back tears. "I'll get my buddies."
Callum seemed to have forgotten all about Salem's prediction.
Four policemen searched their home and came up with everything from emptied safes with a few stray hundred dollar bills and grenades, to safes with a few remnant bags of several illicit substances.
"Hey little guy," The policeman who had greeted them first came back to Callum. "I didn't want to have to say this, but.."
The policeman choked up, his breathing becoming ragged.
"I...I don't think you'll see your parents ever again." The policeman wiped at the tears that threatened to spill over. "They've done some bad, bad things, and we don't know where they went."
"They'll come back." Callum said determinedly. "They love us, so why would they leave us forever?"
"I-" The policeman found he didn't have words that the poor seven year old child would be able to understand.
"What did they do?" Salem asked, leaning forward against the side of the crib.
"I'm afraid you wouldn't understand." The policeman choked out.
"Try me." Salem respoded icily.
Callum looked bewildered at the brother he thought he knew.
The policeman let out a shuddering sigh and began listing crimes.
"Felony possession of drugs, seven thousand eight hundred sixty-seven counts of homocide, illegal vending of illicit substances, felony possession of unregistered firearms, money laundering, two thousand fifty-four counts of assault..." The policeman found he couldn't keep going.
"Why did you stop?" Salem asked. "You haven't finished their list of crimes."
"I don't want to." The policeman said sadly.
"But what does all of that mean?" Callum asked.
"They hurt many people." The policeman patted Callum's head. "And they did many bad things."
"But our parents wouldn't do that!" Callum exclaimed.
"I wish that were true." The policeman said sadly.
"So..." Callum thought for a moment. "Are they coming back?"
"No." The policeman smiled sadly at the innocent boy that was going to be destroyed by his parents' negligence.
"But they loved us!" Callum shouted. "They wouldn't leave us!''
"I wish that were true." The policeman said sadly. "I wish that were true..."