twenty-two
Jaden counted the money and was pleased when he came to the total: $3,734, a large sum. Once he pawned the pistols, he could expect over four thousand.
The backpack held something else, an item he did not remember packing: a small bag of Meth. The woman had said this baggie of drugs would “take his problems away.” Jaden knew from experience that meth would solve nothing. Yet somehow the little bag had found its way into his pack.
Drugs sold for a reason. Nothing was as important to an addict than her drug. Nothing. If the effects of these tiny crystals were enough to neglect everything around her, it must have quite a kick. Maybe they would make him feel better.
“You can’t be serious,” Seth said, sitting across from him. “Throw them away.”
The meth was the center of his focus, Seth’s face was blurry in the background. Jaden twirled the bag in his fingers, thinking, wondering about how they would make him feel.
“Cut the bag open, dump it in the rain,” Seth said.
Jaden unzipped a front pocket of his backpack and shoved the baggie inside for safekeeping. To distract himself, he thought about the guns.
Without touching it, Jaden emptied the Ruger’s chamber. The second gun was not loaded. Practicality dictated he sell them, as his funding was sure to run dry. Guns made him nervous anyway, and he would never use them. When it came to self-defense, a gun was a cumbersome choice.
Except for one thing.
Jaden picked up the empty revolver, held it in his hands. He’d never held one before—it was heavier than he expected. Cold. The Ruger had fewer moving parts than a semiautomatic pistol, so it was less likely to misfire. It was a reliable weapon, not prone to mistakes, unlike a human hand.
Glass was slippery. Cutting his wrists had been excruciating, his neck even more so. The pain he’d have to endure might cause him to hesitate in a time of crisis. Even a momentary pause could be the difference between freedom in death and a life of slavery.
But a gun. That was different. The bullet would travel so fast through his brain that even if he did survive, the people who’d held him would have to end his life anyway. The brain, that’s what controlled everything they wanted, and if it was jelly on a wall, he was no use to them. It would be fast, painless. The pull of a trigger. Effortless.
If it came to that, if he was cornered with nowhere to run, he would shoot himself. How poetic. The plan calmed him. Jaden would never go back. It was life outside or no life at all. He put one cartridge back in the gun and shoved it in his backpack.
Dawn crested behind gray clouds and Jaden set out in search of a new home. Most of the apartments for rent were upwards of $900 a month, and with no income, his large cash supply would dwindle to pocket change in a week. Then there was the added bonus of him being well underage, dismally stupid about current events, and having no identity other than the one he wanted to keep hidden. Renting was out of the question.
Joseph’s influence was a question mark. The equipment and real estate, sizable staff, and endless food supply confirmed that a large organization was responsible for his confinement. His only clue for their identity was the pyramid symbol tattooed to his forearm, the same symbol embroidered on Dalton’s staff’s shirts. Joseph’s group was a large one, and Jaden wasn’t sure how paranoid he should be.
The public showed him little attention. San Francisco and now Seattle shielded him with masses of people: he would raise no more suspicion than the next underage boy roaming the streets. When he needed a job, though, the eyebrows and questions would come up. Who are you, where are you from, what’s your name, where are your parents. The typical questions.
Sleeping under bridges and in parks, brushing his teeth in public restrooms, would eventually demand attention. Jaden hadn’t showered since leaving the house in Livermore. He sponged himself in park bathrooms at night when they were supposed to be locked, but it was a temporary solution. With only a backpack, buying a new wardrobe of clothes was also a non-option. Everything depended on him finding somewhere to live.
It rained intermittently throughout the day. Perpetually wet and cold, Jaden wandered the city, searching for a home. He feared he may catch a disease if he couldn’t get dry soon.
Seattle was not San Francisco. Perhaps due to the inclement weather, there weren’t many homeless men roaming the streets. If you had to be homeless, do it somewhere nice, Jaden thought. Maybe Seattle was the wrong place for him but, knowing little about American geography, he didn’t know where else to go or how to get there. He was here. And, as he thought of it, would his problems change in, say, Las Vegas? No, he’d still be homeless, on the run, trying to stay hidden.
Jaden followed a homeless man (when he found one) at a distance, thinking maybe he would sleep close by.
“I’m not sure that’s a wise idea,” Seth said, appearing suddenly.
“I have to stay somewhere, Seth, you wouldn’t understand.” Jaden continued, hitching his backpack straps tighter. He had roved the streets for days. Wet, cold, hungry and tired, Jaden was not in the mood for Seth’s wisdom.
“Joseph knows the problems you’re facing, too. He’ll have people watching homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and anywhere else you would try and hide. Don’t you see that?”
Jaden stopped and faced Seth. “Then where the hell am I supposed to go? Why don’t you offer me a solution for once instead of telling me what not to do all the time. What’s your great idea that’s going to get me out of the rain? Really, Seth, what am I supposed to do?”
Seth crossed his arms and sighed. “I’m only trying to help you.”
“Then DO IT!” Jaden yelled. “Help me! Don’t just pop into my head whenever you feel like telling me off.”
Seth followed the homeless man with his eyes. “Don’t yell at me.”
“Oh fuck off,” Jaden said, leaving Seth behind as he continued on.
“Hey,” Seth replied, catching up, “I was the one who got you out. That was my idea. I am helping you. I’m making sure you don’t get caught.”
“Damn it,” Jaden muttered. “If you know everything, then how big is that whatever it is? How many people are in it and how powerful are they? What, can they zoom in with special spy satellites and see me right now, or what? I don’t even know who the fuck I’m running from!”
Seth put his finger to his lips and pointed at three staring homeless men.
“Hell, they’re all crazy anyway, I fit right in. Talking to someone who looks just like me and appears at random telling me shit I already half-know, coming out of a mirror and ordering me around.”
“I don’t order you around,” Seth said, and his tone made Jaden stop. The rain affected Seth, his hair was soaked, sticking to his face. His clothes were drenched, hanging from his thin body. Usually confident, Seth appeared lost and confused. Hurt.
Jaden felt guilty. “Sorry,” he said flatly.
“Do you want me to go away?” Seth asked.
“No,” Jaden said, and he meant it. Seth was right, he had helped him. Seth was always there when Jaden needed him. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“I don’t want you to get caught,” Seth said. “I only want to help.”
“I know.” They walked again, their feet in sync. Wherever they were it must be a homeless haven. Down the street there was a large gathering of homeless men.
Jaden was too clean for this part of town, despite his dirty clothing. He had been looking for a place like this since arriving in Seattle: the industrial business district, with plenty of buildings and few people. To his left was an old brick warehouse, three stories high. A massive steel door was slid open wide enough for a person to enter it. Jaden covered his nose and squeezed inside.
Both the second and third stories were unused, as the first floor staircase had given way. Dozens of homeless men had taken residence on the ground floor. The floor was littered with garbage, empty bottles, still smoking cigarette butts, old and rotten food, dirty clothes, and a number o
f items he didn’t want to think about.
“You can’t be here,” said one man, pointing a gnarly finger at him. Jaden retreated as other men joined the first. The homeless man barricaded the entrance with his body. Being outside, in cleaner air, allowed Jaden to properly survey the building.
The warehouse was perfect: in a remote part of town, abandoned and seized by the homeless population, neglected by law enforcement. As Jaden meandered away, under the skeptical eyes of the paranoid homeless, he devised a plan to take the building for himself.
He spent the night on a hill, watching ships floating across Puget Sound, confiding the details of his plan with Seth. Seth was wary, but agreed it was a good strategy. Anything Jaden did risked exposure, but with winter coming, he had to take a chance or freeze.
At five in the morning, when the city was quiet (it was Saturday), Jaden set off toward the warehouse. It was pitch dark, but his eyes had adjusted to darkness. The cold was unshakable; he had been shivering all night. He rubbed his freezing arms, worrying for his concentration and focus.
Buildings with three stories usually had fire escapes, even in a city surrounded by water. Sure enough, a rusty ladder was bolted to the south side of the warehouse. Using the long sleeves of his sweatshirt as gloves, Jaden climbed. One of the first items of clothing he needed to buy was a jacket, then mittens or ski gloves. He made a mental note.
Once at the top, Jaden pulled open the formerly locked fire door, and tiptoed down a steel spiral staircase into the building. The smell wasn’t as bad up here. The wood creaked when he walked; he feared the floor would collapse. He took the spiral staircase to the second story, and crawled on his hands and knees to the edge of where the floor had fallen in.
Most of the building’s residents were still sleeping. Some stirred; most snoozed. A few oil lanterns glowed: the only sources of light.
Until now, his psychokinetic ability had been used for self-defense, or to follow an order. Throwing trucks into helicopters, while grand in scale, had still been self-defense. He had never used PK for himself, just to use it. As he edged himself over the second story drop-off, he suspected that the next act would be fun.
There were twenty-seven homeless men in the building (based on the number of beating hearts). A few dogs and other critters lived here, but those hearts were smaller, drummed faster, and did not concern him.
Jaden cracked his knuckles.
The enormous steel door opened with a crash, rousing everyone in the building. Startled awake, everyone stared for the source of the sound. No one was at the door. Then the door slammed shut. It opened again, then crashed: BOOM!
A few men approached the opening-and-slamming door, their movements cautious.
The door slammed shut. Silence.
Buzzing and murmurs replaced the door’s clamoring.
Then the mumbling died as boxes turned over, dumping people and objects to the floor.
Those not already standing, hurried forward, clustering together as one horde.
“Who’s doing that?” Someone wheezed, while others armed themselves with bats and crowbars, wielding them like swords, suddenly everyone was a samurai warrior.
The question inspired Jaden to cinematic greatness.
An old corduroy trench coat floated to a oil lamp, which lifted off the floor and hovered above the coat’s sleeve, where a hand would have been.
Jaden stuffed a fist in his mouth to keep from laughing as moans and wails of terror delighted his ears.
A brave man rushed at the coat and beat it with a bat.
Shoes, boots, even rocks, shot from every corner of the building and pelted the man until he dropped the bat. The coat circled the men and additional oil lamps joined it, lighting their terrified faces. The lamps became an orange blur, orbiting so rapidly, individual lamps couldn’t be discerned.
The door opened and slammed, opened and slammed.
Boxes and shopping carts rose and fell to the floor, crashing and clanking, mingling with the fearful moans and screams from the crowd of twenty-seven men.
Then everything stopped.
An oil lamp hurled itself at the closed door, splashing oil everywhere. Flames danced and licked at the walls.
The trench coat drifted to the door, and with one sleeve, pointed outside.
With an eerie whine, the door opened and the coat fell to a pile on the floor.
There was a moment’s pause, then every man scrambled for the exit, pushing and shoving one another to get out, yelling and snarling, tripping on fallen items, jumping over the small flames.
Where there had been twenty-seven men there was now one, lying on his back on the second floor and laughing harder than he ever had.
Not surprisingly, no one returned. Seth was worried that Joseph would learn of the haunted Seattle warehouse, rumors the homeless would sure to spread. Rumors that may expand beyond Seattle. But it was a necessary risk, as he had agreed yesterday. He and Seth wondered how Jaden was first discovered six years ago; their best guess were the police reports filed by CPS. If their theory was correct, Joseph’s organization had access to law enforcement files.
Rumors of the haunted building would disseminate throughout the homeless community, a warning to anyone who didn’t want to lose their head to the Trench Coat Ghost. To be safe, Jaden would keep the door locked when he was not coming or going.
Most of the items left behind were garbage. Jaden siphoned everything into hefty bags he bought at a grocery store. Once filled, he deposited them throughout the street, filling up dumpsters. PK made clean up a breeze, and he found himself enjoying the ability for a second time.
He didn’t like the idea of sleeping on the bottom floor, something about being upstairs felt safer and more secure. If someone wanted to come after him, they would have to come up a level, and the third floor above would serve as a buffer. Since the stairs had rotted away years ago, he would have to get a ladder. Coming and going by fire escape would get old.
Bleaching and scrubbing the floor took two days. There was one toilet on the ground floor but it did not flush. There was no shower either—why would there be? It has been an old warehouse, not an apartment complex. A lot of work lay ahead of him. The first task was securing the building.
During the nights, Jaden collected heavy things, like rocks, dislodged bricks, and discarded phonebooks, and put them in the abandoned crates and boxes. When he had a couple dozen, he used them to block the door, so anyone who tried entering would be met with a wall of heavy obstacles. As for the cellar door on the roof, Jaden chained it from the inside. It was a temporary solution.
“I need to borrow a truck,” Jaden said to Seth as he duct-taped hefty bags over the downstairs windows of the building. “Only for a day so I can get the supplies I need. I’ll return it as soon as I’m done with it and wipe it clean,” he said, talking himself into it. “I saw one for sale a few blocks up.”
“That old blue one with the cracked windows?” Seth asked.
“Yes,” Jaden said.
“Do you think it even drives?”
Jaden shrugged.
Stealing a car in the city where he wanted to live required extra caution. As he lay in his sleeping bag on the floor that night, Jaden made a list of things he needed for the building: wood planks for the rotted floor, bricks for the ground floor windows, tools, and food supplies. But he didn’t know how much everything would cost.
The library was helpful. He found a fourth grade math book and caught up on his multiplication and division whenever he needed to sit and rest from cleaning. No formal ID meant no library card, so Jaden copied formulas and problems from the book, then practiced every day. The math was useful: he calculated the floor area of the building (1,100 square feet) and would be able to make accurate estimates for general costs.
October drew to an end, bringing a colder and wetter November. Jaden wore the corduroy trench coat, freshly washed at a Laundromat, as he walked to the truck a few blocks away. Either the truck was wort
hless because it didn’t run, or the owners were tired of showing it. It sat in a grassy lot, alone and unattended.
Jaden popped the lock and sat on the torn bench seat, hoping the engine would turn over. It revved, whining in protest, then finally came to life. The truck wobbled severely, making it difficult to see out the side mirrors.
He drew a baseball cap down to his eyebrows, hiding his young face. Putting the truck in drive, and ignoring his churning stomach, Jaden eased on the gas and the truck lurched forward. Jaden breathed a little easier, but the hardest part was yet to come.
Jaden knew nothing about building. He parked the truck at a hardware and lumber store and grabbed a heavy duty cart, heading toward the aisle with the wood. The tall shelves of lumber dwarfed him. Jaden felt smaller by his idiocy. Pine, cedar, oak. What was the difference?
A older man with an orange vest came and stood beside him. First he looked at the wood, then at Jaden. His name badge identified him as “Ron” but he resembled “Santa.”
“Whatcha need?” he asked.
Jaden eyed, then sidestepped him. Maybe he would buy the cheapest wood, whatever got him out of here fastest.
“You okay kid?” Ron asked.
Jaden nodded without glancing at him, examining his rough sketch of the building. Ron was the first person to pay attention to him since escaping. It was unnerving.
“Whatcha got there?”
What Jaden wanted more than anything was for Ron to get the hell away from him. It might take a minute or two to figure this out, but he didn’t need help.
Jaden didn’t answer Ron, instead he scribbled numbers on a legal pad, trying to calculate the amount of wood he would need, and how much it would cost. Jaden’s lack of response piqued Ron’s interest in him. He did not give up and go away as Jaden hoped.
“Shouldn’t you be in school, young man?”
Jaden Baker Page 32
