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

for?” I asked. I blinked a few times before I realized it was The Sparrow in my backseat. “You’re The Sparrow?”

“Like I said, I’m whoever you want me to be.” He repositioned himself in the backseat and pressed something against my back. “You probably noticed Mr. Burnley died from a shotgun blast to the back of the head. I have that same shotgun here with me and it’s aimed at your spine.”

“What do you want?”

“What I want is simple. I want you to call off this investigation…sabotage it, something. Just stop doing what you’re doing and all will be in order.”

“I’m a cop,” I said, more confidently. “I have to investigate crimes, especially homicides. You have to know that.”

“Let’s not play coy here, Detective. It’s obvious by now that my victims, and I do use that term lightly, have a special…history.”

I was silent again. I knew Henson was on the registry, but I wasn’t able to look into Burnley yet. I was certain the office already had him ID’d. I quickly came to the conclusion that we’d find the same about him.

“You’re not this dense…that I know,” he said, mockingly.

“Then, that means you have to spare me,” I said, unconvincingly. “You’re targeting those with a history as sexual abuse perpetrators. That’s not me. Don’t you weirdoes have some set of principles you have to follow?” I clinched my eyes shut, fully expecting the shotgun to rip me in half.

He exhaled heavily through his nose and whispered something under his breath. He then responded to himself a few seconds after.

“You know, Detective, I do hold principles close to my chest. It’s obvious that I kill the vilest known to all of mankind. But know this: you hold my alleged principles much closer to your mind than I do mine. Sometimes its hard to act on what we truly believe through all the fog.” I then felt a sharp pain through my shoulder blade, and looked down to my right to see a blade piercing through my coat.

I cried out in agony as he slowly retracted the blade. I placed my left hand over the wound and screamed out again, unable to stop the immense pain.

“Do not make me come back here,” he said and opened the door, slamming it shut. The blood was pouring out rapidly and I wasn’t able to stop it with just my hand so I started up the car and threw it in reverse, smashing the car behind me.

I swerved through traffic on my way to St. Andrews Hospital, nearly three miles from my home. People honked and tossed up the finger in my general direction. I got the attention of a traffic cop on the side of the road and he quickly pulled behind me as I turned onto the freeway.

I winced and moved my head down to my right side, somehow taking some pressure off the wound. I screamed out once more as I turned onto the off-ramp and quickly in the hospital parking lot. The wound pulsated with a pain so excruciating I almost passed out after slamming on the brakes under the emergency room awning.

The officer jumped out of his car and drew his weapon at me, but when he looked in, he saw my condition and helped me out.

I grabbed my shoulder again, applying as much pressure as my blood-loss would allow. A nurse in scrubs came and sat me on a wheelchair and the blurring of faces was the last I saw before I saw the thing behind me in my dream.

Chapter Sixteen

My body lie numb on the hospital bed for hours.

Although I was conscious, I couldn’t open my eyes. I could hear LT Anderson and Abraham’s voices coming from the shadows behind my eyelids, dancing as silhouettes against the deep black.

A nurse came in twice during my consciousness and checked my vitals. The cold steel of the stethoscope and various other medical instruments pierced through my nerves, helping me feel the world outside my own mind. It took several minutes of this state for me to realize where I was, and several more before figuring out what happened.

I wiggled my toes in an obvious, awkward fashion so as to raise as much suspicion as possible. Abraham made a comment about me moving and the room grew silent.

I wiggled them again.

The commotion grew more and more as LT Anderson called for a nurse. After she arrived, she once again placed the cold metal against my pale, newly sensitive skin.

“Mr. Trotter,” she said softly in my ear. “Mr. Trotter, if you can hear me, can you move your fingers?”

I tried my hardest and got no reaction at first, but that soon changed and the room erupted. It was hard to tell how many, or who, was in the room with me.

I started to gain more and more feeling in my body, as the morphine started to wear off. They had me sedated with some heavy medication that made it difficult to regain my motor skills quickly.

“I think he’s finally waking up,” Abraham’s voice called out. “It’s been three days and he’s with us again.”

The nurse came to my aid and attempted to help me sit up; LT Anderson was on the other side…this distinction was easy to make with the rich Lonsdale cigar stench on his shirt collar.

“There ya go,” he said, sitting me in an upright position. My eyes were fully open and my mind fully clear. The bandage covering my right shoulder was bulky, giving way to the notion that the wound was severe.

“Someone please tell me what’s going on,” I said. My voice was extremely hoarse and dry. The nurse handed me a small plastic cup with water.

“You came in with a knife wound in your right shoulder,” the nurse explained. “It entered