Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (the reading list .TXT) 📕

dry heaving for several more seconds my gaze panned up, directly into the local news camera on the street.

“And that’s a cut,” the woman said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifteen

The dream was too long.

I was falling into a pit of total darkness until I arrived at my destination. My surroundings were typical of a dystopian novel, with armed guards perched on every corner, making their presence known by shouting at each passerby.

Their language was hard to decipher, though it sounded western European. They shouted and hit citizens with the butts of their guns until a huge explosion caught my attention from behind me. I couldn’t turn or move despite screaming at myself from a distance. My feet were stuck in the cobble-made road as I stared at the guards. Their terror stretched across each of their faces, as they looked over my shoulder into the deep dark behind me.

I couldn’t turn around, and I surely didn’t want to. The monster behind me crept closer as I continued to scream at myself through a window several galaxies away. My voice traveled mere inches before it collapsed in the weight of my despair. It was a far cry from the light-years it needed to go, forming only coherent sentences in my mind.

The destruction all around me only shook me more as the creature came closer. The guards dropped their weapons and ran, but they too became frozen in time, unaware that their indecision would lead to a torment they could’ve never imagined.

The guards all burst into flames as I watched in disbelief, acknowledging the sheer unreliability of what my brain was processing. It didn’t seem real, though I somehow knew it was.

I gave one last pathetic scream from the window as the monster closed in the last few meters and then I woke up.

My feet felt swollen from the previous night and my stomach was unsettled. It was nearly three in the afternoon, nearly twelve hours removed from making a complete fool of myself in front of local news cameras. It was a weak showing to the community, and they would no doubt run the footage.

I would be mocked as a seasoned police detective that couldn’t handle a messy crime scene, though they would never know the truth.

LT Anderson confronted me soon after the cameras stopped rolling. He knew I was still drunk from the night before, and he pointed out Abraham was, too. I couldn’t even muster a response, though I recognized how incredibly awkward it was to have two detectives under his command show up inebriated during the most serious investigations in the city’s history.

He gave us a ride home and I staggered into the elevator, scooped a couple sleeping pills in the palm of my hand, and passed out. He dropped my car off soon after.

His anger didn’t affect me so much; that, I was used to. The disappointment in his voice, however, did. It reminded me of my father, whom, without a shadow of a doubt, was disappointed in me more times than I could fathom. His sternness and authoritative demeanor offered little sympathy when I needed it most.

No wonder he got along with LT Anderson so well.

I quickly showered and checked my phone. Although the events of the early morning elicited many thoughts in my head, no one reached out to me during the night, or day.

I still felt sick, so I officially diagnosed myself with a stomach bug mixed with minor alcohol poisoning. I’ve dealt with both simultaneously before, but it didn’t make it any easier.

My first instinct was to just go to the office and act like nothing happened, and then I thought to just call in sick. It was an unspoken rule that if you had an ongoing, and serious, investigation you didn’t call in sick.

It was unheard of.

I needed to be at my desk and face whatever hell awaited me there. I grabbed my coat and took the elevator downstairs and entered the parking garage. After sending Abraham a quick text about leaving for the office, I got in the Charger and started it up.

“Turn it off,” said a voice from behind me. My heart dropped into my stomach, as I froze solid in the driver’s seat. “If you make me say it again, you won’t have the chance to turn it off.”

I quickly turned the car off. My eyes subconsciously panned down to the bottom of my console where I kept my Glock 19, but it was gone.

“Don’t worry,” the voice from the back said. “I also took the gun from the glove box…and the knife under your passenger seat.”

My hands tensed up on the steering wheel. “Who are you?”

“I am exactly who you want me to be, Detective.”

“What do you want?” I said, my words trailing off at the end.

“There’s something special about you, Detective,” he said. “Something I need to know.” I didn’t answer, though my heart was racing in my chest. I was almost certain he could hear it as well. “Do you always desecrate your crime scenes?”

My brows narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I destroyed a poor man’s life without remorse, yes, but I didn’t make a spectacle out of it. Are you always so undignified?”

I kept my mouth closed for several seconds. Was he talking about the news camera crew last night? Did they already air it?

“I want you to answer me,” he said, his voice growing more aggressive with each word.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, hesitantly.

“Let me make it easier for you,” he said, his voice calming down slightly. “You threw up in the front yard of a house of the man I killed. It was caught on camera. That was my work in there. You disrespected everything I’ve worked for.”

“Worked