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

The Sparrow, then we would have to get to the house quickly to question him.

His voice could jog something in my mind. We had him on recording. It’d be easy to identify.

“Do you remember his name?” I asked, taking out a notepad.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, fishing out his own notebook. “Brooks…Brooks Ingram.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Brooks threw down his computer stand and smashed his tower with a stomp of his foot.

“They’re coming,” Madison shrieked from the darkness of the hall. It was blackened although the sun still shown high above. Her shadow was somehow darker than her surrounding, cascading an aura around her like Brooks had never seen before.

In his bones, Brooks’ confidence left his body as soon as Detective Morelli left. He was to kill him next, this much he knew, but he was also afraid he would tell the local PD about him and link him to The Sparrow killings. Madison urged him to leave his house, and he was doing so in a fit of rage.

“Take what you need and get out!” Madison grew angrier and her presence was unavoidable.

Brooks ran upstairs and grabbed his razor and clippers. He hastily packed a backpack with food from the cupboard, and ran outside.

He went to throw his bag in his car, but saw his neighbor’s car running in the driveway from across the street. They were nowhere to be found and, without a second thought, Brooks ran across the street and threw his bag in the neighbor’s car.

He slammed it into reverse and sped down the road towards the city center. He grabbed his face as anxiety took over his limbs. His fingers fumbled around the radio as he turned it to a station playing classical Mozart. With his eyes closed, he allowed his instincts to do most of the driving, as he couldn’t bear to open them.

“I’m not going to prison,” Brooks said out loud.

Madison was seated in the middle of the backseat, perfectly aligned with the rearview mirror.

“Say something!” he implored. His conscience was bleeding through. “Say something, Madison!”

“You will never go to prison, Brooks,” she said, calmingly. “You still have a lot of work to do.”

Brooks could feel the ember inside him begin to reignite, forcing a flood of ambiguous emotions to skate across his mind and body. He was all the sudden…not untouchable.

“They know who I am,” he responded, nervously. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“They know who you are, but not where you are,” she said, smiling slyly in the mirror. Brooks couldn’t understand why she was so calm when he was such a nervous wreck.

They were supposed to be as one.

Brooks took a hard right and went through a quiet neighborhood; the same neighborhood Isaac James found his last remaining minutes. The house was on the right as he drove past, but Brooks couldn’t force himself to look over.

It felt like everyone was looking at him, as if they knew something he didn’t

An older man was washing his car in the driveway and raised his hand to wave, but Brooks pressed on, going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit.

“They all know what I did,” he said, almost in tears now.

“There’s no way they know. Just go back to the old house like we always planned.”

Brooks swerved through the neighborhood and found his way down side-roads on his way to familiar territory.

“There’s nothing I can do to take it back,” he said. “They’ll keep looking until they find me.”

“You don’t want to take it back.”

As much as Brooks hated to admit it, Madison was right. Brooks could not wait to strike again. The notoriety was something to be feared. He certainly wasn’t feared at work. The animals he killed as a child didn’t fear him because they didn’t know the end was near.

The vile he killed were definitely afraid.

He’d gotten their attention. He’d gotten all of their attention.

“Keep calm, Brooks. This will work out. You will be able to accomplish what you were designed to accomplish.”

The presence inside the car grew sweeter the closer he got to the house. The neighborhood was worn and battered on this side of town.

Straight working class.

“Just pull into the carport, and we’ll take it from there.”

Brooks pulled in and turned off the car. He saw there was almost a full tank of gas, so if he had to make a run for it, he had the means.

He slammed his head back on headrest and could feel Madison’s presence leave the vehicle. It was stressful when she was around, so he felt better when she left.

The old key still unlocked the backdoor and he walked in. The place was un-lived in for nearly twenty years, but it looked like someone bought it just a few years ago and started doing some remodeling.

The job must’ve been too big and they halted construction. Much of the materials were still around covered in dust and mouse droppings.

The kitchen was as he remembered it. The tile was half old and half new.

The window his mother looked out as he played in the backyard still had the signature pane with the slight crack at the top. He turned right and walked into the living room where he used to watch scary movies with his sister, Jody, far past their bedtimes. He closed his eyes and could still hear his mother’s calls from the other room that either they brush their teeth for bed or they wouldn’t be able to get dessert the next night after dinner.

The wholesomeness of the moment was short-lived as, from the darkness, he saw the outline of his father…Garrett Ingram. He was an imposing figure, hulking over his younger self.

Brooks imagined slitting his father’s throat many nights in a row…in fact that’s how he