by Tash McAdam
The crowd yells as the boxers trade blows. Jason’s distracted, trying to protect his face. If he suffers another punch in the jaw, he’s down for good. He takes a couple of hard hits to the ribs but pushes through them. Adrenaline keeps the pain down for now. And then he sees it, an opening. When Jack swings forward for a big right hook, there’s a gap under his defensive elbow.
Jason’s not quick enough, but he blocks the flurry of blows and waits. There. Jack pushes forward too far, up on his toes. Jason sways away from the glove and drives his fist right into Jack’s side. The impact crushes his glove. The air whooshes out of Jack’s lungs. He staggers, dropping his guard just an inch. It’s enough.
Jason puts his whole body into one more punch. It starts in his feet and swings through his whole body. His glove slams into Jack’s jaw. He actually watches Jack’s eyes glaze over.
Jack slams to his knees and then to his side. The ref counts it, but Jason already knows. He’s won.
Chapter Eleven
He floats on his victory for the whole evening. It’s fun watching the rest of the matches. Afterward Sunny takes them all for donuts and hot chocolate. He doesn’t seem upset that he lost his fight. Jason doesn’t even miss his curfew. But he could have stayed out all night, he’s so happy.
The next day he’s still walking on air. He has a black eye—again—and a bruised jaw. They’re the first injuries he’s ever felt good about. In the mirror he admires the purple bump on his eyebrow. He earned that bruise, decided to fight a battle and won. The marks feel like medals.
He didn’t get a trophy for the tournament. But the smiles and cheers were reward enough. He’ll have the memory of that forever. A moment when everyone around him saw him, Jason. They were on his side.
Walking to the gym after school, he’s almost bouncing down the street. The air is cold, but the sun is high in the sky. Even the Downtown Eastside seems brighter than usual.
Little Jay is outside the gym, talking on his phone. When he sees Jason he gives him a wide grin and holds out his fist for a bump. Jason heads in, still buzzing. People call out greetings to him in a way they’ve never done before. He gets more high fives and bumps on the way to the changing room.
He feels like he’s glowing. There’s a warm ball inside his chest. For months he’s felt like there’s ice inside him. Only ice, cold and hard and solid. Today the ice has melted. Jason feels as though he’s alive again. He can feel things that aren’t pain and sadness and loss.
The men’s changing room has four or five people in it, as always. Jason turns his back to them to pull his sweats off, stuffing them into his bag. He’ll have to get shoes for boxing, if he wants to keep it up. Barefoot’s okay for now, but most of the others wear special shoes. Maybe Ron will help him figure out how to pay for them, since he’s doing so much better now. Staying in school and getting his work done and everything.
Jason feels something hard prodding him in the back. He turns, laughing. He expects to see someone else wanting to congratulate him. Or maybe Sunny messing around. But it’s X. Standing there with both hands in his hoodie pockets.
“What’s up, man?” Jason asks, grinning.
“Where’s the USB, Jason Ross?” X demands sternly.
Jason’s stomach lurches.
X moves his hand, still inside the pocket of his hoodie. There’s something in X’s pocket, a familiar hard shape. And it’s pointed straight at Jason. He remembers the poke to his back, sees the cold look in X’s eyes. Terror washes over him.
The USB. X must have realized it is missing and somehow figured out that Jason took it. But how? It only takes him a moment to figure it out.
Becca Ross. Jason Ross. Not an unusual surname by any means. But a link to a missing USB. A USB with a trans flag on it even. Not so hard to put together.
X jerks his chin, moves his hand. His hand with what looks like a gun in it. “Spill, Jason. Where is it?”
There are still three other people in the changing room. X wouldn’t shoot him here, surely, in front of everyone. It would be loud and messy. And even if they kept X’s secret, there are two dozen more people out in the gym. A gunshot would be noticed.
And then Jason realizes what it all means. If X is this angry about a missing USB, it must mean he killed Becca. Or knows who did.
Jason shifts his weight onto his back foot. X shifts his own, clearly expecting a punch. But when Jason was younger, he played soccer. Although his dribbling was awful, he was great at penalty kicks.
X narrows his eyes at Jason like he’s daring him. A split second later he realizes his mistake. Jason’s sneaker-clad foot flies up. It connects with X’s groin so hard it makes Jason’s teeth snap shut. X makes a gasping, airless noise and folds to the floor.
Jason’s already moving. He leaps over X’s puking body and runs for the door. Hands reach out to stop him. The people who were clapping him on the back moments ago try to grab him, but Jason runs.
Chapter Twelve
He runs right through the gym and out the door. Hops the metal barrier like he can do parkour or something. He sees Sunny’s surprised face. He barrels past the entrance to the alley, hangs a left and sprints for the main road. He hears shouts behind him. He doesn’t know if X is up and chasing him or if others are. He doesn’t have time to stop and look.
Ahead of him he sees the number 20 bus pulling in to a stop. Jason finds a burst of energy made by anger and desperation.
The bus is closing its doors. Jason skids to a halt next to it and slams his hand against the glass panel. Behind him footsteps pound the pavement. The yells get closer. He chances a look. It’s Little Jay and two other big guys from the gym. They’re blasting people out of their way on the busy sidewalk.
A hiss brings his attention back to the bus. To his relief the doors jerk open again. He slips between them. The bus pulls away, leaving the men shaking their fists at Jason through the window.
Heart pounding, he taps his transit card and slips into a seat.
Where should he go? If he goes back to the group home, they’ll find him. They have his address, after all. And if X killed Becca, if he killed Becca... Jason’s vision grays out. In his head he sees Becca being held down while someone injects drugs into her arm.
A whining sound fills the air. For a few moments he doesn’t realize it’s coming from him. Blinking away tears, he glances around. People have moved away from him, except for the giggling meth heads. No one will meet his eyes.
He imagines what he must look like, sweaty from running, with all his bruises from last night.
The bus pulls in to a stop, and Jason leaps up and flies out the door. He almost knocks some guy off a scooter on the sidewalk.
“Jason!” The yell makes him whirl around, hands up.
Sunny is waving at him from a yellow cab. “Jason, get in,” Sunny says.
Jason looks frantically from side to side, expecting X and his thugs to roll up at any second.
“It’s just us! Let’s go!” Preet screams as she climbs out of the other side of the taxi. She runs across the road toward Jason, almost getting hit by a car for her trouble.
She grabs him by the arm and yanks him back across the road. Her fingers are tight like iron. Jason’s brain feels slow and stupid. He stumbles as she packs him into the taxi. Lucky turns around and makes a “WTF?” face from the front seat.
Sunny hands Jason the seat belt. Preet slams the door behind her, almost sitting on Jason’s lap. The taxi driver finds Jason’s eyes in the mirror.
“Where to?” he asks calmly, like nothing weird is going on at all.
“VCC Clark,” Lucky says as he slides down in his seat, pulling his ball cap lower. “Let’s go.”
Every time Jason starts to talk, Preet pinches his thigh. Not in a kind way. Her fingers are strong and hard. He’s definitely going to have a bunch of little round bruises. He wants to ask, “What are you doing here?” and “What happened at the gym after I ran out?” and “How did you find me?” But she
won’t let him talk. He doesn’t dare ask the worst question—“Are you taking me to X?”
Ten minutes of driving and as many painful pinches later, they pile out of the taxi at the SkyTrain station. Finally Jason is allowed to speak. “Why are we...here?” he asks nervously.
“It’s a good hiding spot,” Lucky replies calmly. He starts walking up a hill, away from the transit entrance. “C’mon. You have some explaining to do.”
They walk in silence, and Lucky leads the way through some old, worn fencing. They have to drop down off a wall into a little stand of trees. From here you can’t see the road at all. Broken glass and old tarps hint that it’s a refuge for the homeless.
“I used to crash here when home got too bad.” Lucky says. He leads them through a small, almost hidden path, and suddenly they’re in a little clearing. Lucky leans against a tree and then points at Jason.
“So what the fuck is going on?”
Chapter Thirteen
Jason doesn’t know where to start. So he blurts out the biggest thing. The thing so big he can’t even really believe it’s true. “I think X killed my sister.”
“Dude, what?” The disbelief in Lucky’s voice comes through loud and clear. “Why the fuck would X kill your sister? I didn’t even know you had a sister.”
“Had. Yeah. She died before I met you.” Jason crumples into a ball, resting his back against a fallen log. The whole story comes spilling out. The supposed overdose. The fact that Jason’s dad died of an overdose. That Becca would never in a million years have touched a needle. The box of clippings in her room. All the missing girls, going back years. The USB stick. The gun in X’s pocket.
When he’s done puking up words, everyone just stares at him with blank, shocked faces. Jason is out of steam though. He can’t fill the silence anymore. So he just waits.
“You...kicked...X...in the nuts?” Lucky asks in a strangled voice after a few minutes of heavy silence.
Preet shoves Lucky. “That’s what you take from this? Not the fact that Jason’s living a bad movie of the week? That we might be getting taught to box by a murderer?”
Lucky looks a little embarrassed. “Sure, but like...that’s wild. He kicked X in the nuts! X! He’s lucky he’s still alive.” There’s a pause, and Lucky pulls a face. “I mean, not because X is maybe a killer, but because, bro...he’s a maniac, you know.”
“Well, what are we going to do now?” Sunny asks.
We. He said we. And just like that, Jason is no longer alone. People know his secret, and they want to help. Tears sting his eyes, but he manages not to let them fall. Preet punches him in the shoulder in a friendly kind of way. Jason gives her a weak smile.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “X knows where I live. It’s on my forms.”
“So you can’t go home,” Sunny says. “Because, like, bringing a gun to the gym to threaten you with makes X look pretty fucking guilty if you ask me.”
Lucky nods in agreement, but Preet looks skeptical. “What if it wasn’t a gun?” she asks. “That’s a hell of a power move. He’s not going to shoot Jason in the gym, is he? It’s more likely he was just trying to scare him. Find out what he knows.”
“Well, it worked,” Jason says. “The scare part, I mean. I don’t know anything. My group-home leader, Ron, has the USB stick, so if there’s evidence on there, I don’t know what it is. Besides, the police wouldn’t listen to me before, so why they would now?”
“So it sounds like there’s two options,” Preet says. “Catch X doing something suspicious enough that the police would have to pay attention. Or steal the USB stick and hope there’s something really obvious on it.”
“And hope the police believe I took it from X,” Jason adds.
“Yeah.”
“You know,” Sunny says slowly, “Uncle Jay always covers the Friday-night shift because X has ‘business.’ ”
“It’s Friday tomorrow,” Preet says. “What if we follow X, see what kind of business he’s into?”
“You guys would do that for me?” Jason asks, shocked and touched.
Preet shrugs. “If it’s between helping you out or learning you’ve died in mysterious circumstances, I’d rather try to help. Less guilt that way.”
Lucky grins. “I always wanted to be a spy!”
It’s a rough night. The others take off for a bit, but Jason stays where he is. It’s too risky to be out in the open. Later Sunny and Preet bring him dinner, a shitty little tent that barely stays up and a couple of blankets. The ground is cold and uncomfortable. Every little noise jolts Jason awake and scares the crap out of him. Eventually he drifts off into an uneasy doze.
In the morning the rustle of nylon wakes him. He sits upright, his heart pounding. His fists swinging wildly, he manages to bring the tent down on top of him. It takes a minute to wriggle free of the fabric. When he emerges, he finds Lucky laughing his ass off, sitting on a tarp. The air is cold. Jason brings his blanket with him as he crawls out into the dawn light.
“Brought you breakfast.” Lucky holds up a McDonald’s bag. “Figured you’d be skipping class, so I also brought a book.”
Jason laughs when Lucky taps the cover of Us Weekly on the tarp next to him. “Thanks, I think.” He takes the brown bag from Lucky and practically inhales the food. There’s coffee too, he realizes. He grabs it and scalds his mouth getting it down. Lucky laughs again and punches him on the shoulder.
“Don’t just jerk it all day. Preet’s going to bring you lunch. Then we’ll come pick you up for Operation What the Fuck.” Lucky hands Jason a bag he hadn’t noticed before. “Here. Supplies.”
With that Lucky gets to his feet and stretches. “I have to get my ass to school,” he says. “We can’t all sit around all day like losers. See ya!” He holds his fist out.
Jason taps it. “Thanks, Lucky. Catch ya later.”
Lucky salutes him and picks his way back to the fence through the trees.
In the bag there’s an actual book. It’s an old sci-fi paperback. There’s also a couple of bottles of water, a pair of boxer shorts, some toilet paper and a Mars bar. Jason eats the Mars bar right away. He regrets it almost immediately. That was going to be the highlight of a boring, jumpy day.
Chapter Fourteen
In Jason’s sweaty hand, the phone Preet lent him buzzes as a text comes in.
LUCKY: Got him. Odlum and
Parker. Right on time.
Jason texts back quickly.
JASON: OMW!
Sunny sends a thumbs-up in return. Jason jogs down the street. The plan is to cover all the different directions X could head after leaving his apartment. They don’t want to lurk right outside, because there is nowhere good there to wait. It would have been really obvious. As it is, Jason’s been chilling in Mosaic Park for a good two hours. His butt is cold and stiff from sitting on the stones for so long. Hood up, he ducks into an alley and waits for Lucky to update him.
LUCKY: Heading toward Hastings, Sunny
SUNNY: Stay with him
PREET: I see him
Jason heads up a block so he’s not on the same street as X and waits for another update. The moon is covered by thick, misty-looking clouds. The few streetlights are the only thing lighting up the roads. For anyone else, it would be creepy, but Jason was raised in this ’hood.
PREET: He’s heading for the park
Jason speeds up a bit. Then he sprints north on Woodland and races past the high school. He doesn’t stop until he’s almost across the parking lot. On the other side of the main road he makes out a figure just before it disappears, heading toward the large park—and Jason’s favorite ice cream place.
PREET: Where r u?
LUCKY: Lapped you. I’m at the park
JASON Almost there
He sprints across the road as soon as the light changes. Then he presses himself up against the wall so he can peek around the corner. He’s scared that X will have somehow heard him over the traffic. The road is clear, though, so he carefull
y walks on. The man he thinks is X stays a block ahead of him. A cat bursts out of a bush. Jason jumps and only just manages to swallow his scream. The trees appear out of the darkness, big and pointed like witches’ hats. The streetlights seem far away here. There’s no light spilling over the spiky grass of the large park.
LUCKY: I’m in the bushes in the middle
Jason knows this park, even though it’s too dark to make anything out. He knows there are two big squares of grass. Between them are a bathroom, a small play area and an empty swimming pool surrounded by bushes. If Lucky’s in the middle, he’ll have a view of either side, even in the dark. But unless they get close, they’re not going to be able to hear anything.
X steps off the road and onto the grass, takes a couple of big strides up the hill and then sits down on an old bench. Jason can’t see anyone else right now, can’t figure out what X is doing. Maybe he’s just out for a walk. Maybe all his business gets taken care of at his place. He could be about to go for ice cream even.
A shape detaches itself from the darkness in the middle of the park. For a wild second Jason thinks it’s Lucky coming over, but the shadow is too big. It’s a large man, definitely not a skinny teenager.
Jason inches closer, using the parked cars for cover. He makes his way down the road until he’s hiding behind a camper van just two parked cars away from X.
“What are you doing?” X’s voice is so low that Jason has to strain to hear.
Jason points his phone in their direction. On the screen they are just dark shapes, but maybe the phone will pick up sound.
“Taking a piss,” the other man says, laughing quietly. The man heads for a parked car and pops the trunk. It’s facing away from Jason, so he can’t see inside. “Good enough?” the man asks X.
