A Victim of Circumstance

Disclaimer: This is a Fan-fiction story of the Book and TV series; Midnight, Texas and is in no way affiliated with the actual series. All characters and other materials related to the book and show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant.

However, this story plot and all Characters not affiliated with the show are Copyright © 2010 to Elemental-Zer0.

Author's Note: So, I've been receiving a few reviews that want more of a story than just oneshots… I'll give it a go here but I can't guarantee a stable plot yet nor can I guarantee reliable updates. We'll see how things go for now.

Prologue…

Grandma had always said to keep ahead of the game. Know the outcome before it happened. Now to do that you either had to be a psychic or a cheater. While Grandma Xylda was a psychic, she was also a cheater too. She cheated and swindled money from the unsuspecting fools that gladly paid for her services and she had no quarrels about doing it either.

Manfred had a slightly lesser opinion of swindling others out of their money. He was by no means a saint; he did have to eat somehow and the only living he knew to make was the same trade his Grandma had taught him. But he didn't always go as far as the old woman used to. Intuitively, he knew it would only lead to trouble, and he sometimes hated how right he could be.

Hightower was the name of a high positioned criminal lord who did not appreciate being swindled out of money he didn't think was worth the value it would cost him. Grandma Xylda had apparently been hired to rid him of some evil presence that wasn't actually present. Hightower had no idea and, being the superstitious man that he was, he'd hired Grandma Xylda to do an exorcism. She'd made a song and dance for him and declared the place free of evil spirits and he'd paid her handsomely. She was half way across the state when it turned out that the evil presence had been a string of pranks when the prankster had come forward. It wasn't long after the first dozen phone calls and stalkers that his Grandma has passed away due to throat cancer of all things. This had left Manfred alone, scared and not completely trained in the arts his Grandma had been teaching him. It wasn't too long after he'd inherited his Grandma's wheels that the first threatening phone call made its way to him instead.

Ever the morally righteous fool, Manfred had agreed to pay back the angry customer a full refund of his late Grandma's wrongful charges. However, Hightower had added interest to the refund and the price hanging over Manfred's head had doubled – he was now on a crime syndicates "Wanted" list. Manfred knew he was never going to earn enough to payback the price Hightower wanted, so he paid what he could, and ran.

Just like his Grandma had taught him.

Only, Hightower wasn't one to give up. He followed Manfred all the way to Texas and was closing in fast. Dallas wasn't too far from Midnight, a place Grandma Xylda had promised him he'd be safe. But Grandma Xylda was a pathological liar and Manfred really should not have been surprised to find a warning on his rented door when he came home from meeting with Bobo about an additional few months renting agreement.

When he saw the note, the floor almost disappeared from underneath his feet.

They'd found him.

"Damnit Grandma!" He cursed under his breath as he ripped the note off the door and rushed inside.

"What'd I do now?" Came her gravelly dead drawl from kitchenette. There she was, fiddling with her gypsy pipe as she always did when she had been alive, acting as innocent as a new born baby.

"You said I'd be safe in Midnight." He countered back irritably, noticeably upset but still unable to raise his voice at his Grandma. "They're here!" Manfred huffed out in exasperation flecked with a little panic. And he had just started to imagine living in Midnight for a while longer too.

"I said yer'd be safe, I didn't say they wouldn't find ya." Grandma Xylda threw back at him with her trademark dry wit and grin. "And ya still are! Safe that is! Ya got friends here now. Let them help ya out." She advised but Manfred just couldn't bring himself to ask for help a second time around. These people did not deserve to be put upon by his problems. Madonna had said it from the start, all he'd brought with him was trouble.

"My problems should stay my problems Grandma, no one else should suffer because of my baggage." Manfred replied as he started packing his things again. He'd barely managed to unpack anyway so it was a quick affair. "And that's a lesson you never seemed interested in learning either." He added over his shoulder as he quickly dumped his stuff into his camper-truck and left the key to the house on the doorstep under the welcome mat.

If the note was on his door, they were surely watching the place which meant he was probably already in a lot of trouble but he wasn't going to be irresponsible and drag his new friends into his dramatic issues. He'd lead his stalkers away from Midnight and hopefully try to solve this problem without too much damage. Though Manfred knew his chances of getting out of this alive were going to be slim, he just hoped that Hightower would be honourable and leave his friends alone.

He was only sixteen and half miles out of town before the anticlimactic chase began, and it was only another half mile further when the hoodlums had successfully managed to knock him off the road. His camper-truck was no match in speed or structural integrity in comparison to their reinforced four-by-fours. Manfred had known it was no use running to escape, he'd known his truck was no match; that he'd be caught up to eventually. But that still didn't stop the sheer panic that struck his nervous system alight when he saw them pull out onto the road behind him. It didn't stop him trying to get away. And it didn't stop the dread and gut dropping fear that gripped him when they rammed into him, or the utter assuredness that he was going to die right then when his truck came off the road and landed in a ditch behind a thick set of bushes.

The world had paused for a blessed few seconds. He couldn't hear their screeching brakes or roaring engines. He couldn't see their black bandana'd figures racing toward his drivers' side door to take him to their lord and master. He didn't feel the blood trickling down his forehead or the gash on his temple. He didn't feel the broken bone in his right wrist or how his breathing had started rasping due to the fractured ribs he'd gotten from the impact. It was just blissfully quiet and still.

And then his door was ripped open. The noise of his engine still squealing hit him loudly, the pain in his chest and wrist brought tears to his eyes and his head swam as though it was floating on a different plane of existence. He looked dazedly at the man who'd opened his door and stared straight into the eyes of a very determined and angry man, then saw the fist coming too fast toward his face. It was too late to duck.

Manfred was out in seconds.