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

stole the file from his hard drive. It was the only way I could keep from having this get out.”

“So, you are in fact a vile,” he screeched from beside me. “That will make this next part so much easier for the both of us.”

I felt the freedom about to take hold, but I wanted to stay there in that captivity.

My actions forced me to deserve it. For an instant, I wanted Brooks to end my life.

It was the same when I stood on my balcony several months earlier before his first kill. I’d teetered on the edge then, and was tethered by sheer ambivalence.

There was no doubt I would’ve jumped if I were there now.

The pavement below would not be forgiving…and I was not worthy of forgiveness.

Brooks pulled up his pant leg and revealed a long sharp buck knife in an ankle holster, and turned his head in an effort to unbuckle it.

My hand slipped free and I had a choice to make, much like two January’s ago. Would I make the biggest mistake of my life that would cost me everything, or do everything I could to survive?

With my freed hand and in only a moment I grabbed the knife from the workbench and drove it into Brooks’ chest, feeling the knife penetrate bone and flesh alike.

A shot rang out and I felt a deep warmness in my abdomen, knowing that it was the deciding factor of my fate.

I took a chance, but it was still left up to a coin flip.

The sounds of sirens filled the room along with blue and red lights dancing along the walls.

“Lincolnshire PD!” A very familiar voice called out from down the hall. “Let us know if anyone is present!”

***

Brooks was lying in his own blood when the other officers entered the room.

He could see the silhouette of a girl standing over him, and could feel her presence. Madison dissipated into the darkness and he could no longer feel anything.

The blood poured out of his chest and the room was hazy. He knew Madison wasn’t real anymore. It’s likely she never was…after death, that is.

He would take responsibility of the deaths now; she was no longer in charge. His head slouched to the side and he saw the sunrays peering through the window down onto his mother’s bed.

She was facing him; her brown hair was full and neatly brushed. She smiled and held her hand out to him to caress his face.

After closing his eyes, he could feel her gentle touch, which was all he ever wanted.

Jody was seated at the foot of the bed smiling in child-like wonder.

Nothing was wrong with either of them.

No cancer.

No suicide.

Just a mother and her son…and her Sparrow.

Chapter Sixty

Soft cotton behind my head was the first thing I felt after the night in Brooks’ childhood home. The doctors came and went, stitching my abdomen up; I was shot deep by the psychopath and cut wide by the doctors.

Their voices rang softly in my ears as they told me various prognoses of various medical interventions.

LT Anderson came and went several times from my bedside, not knowing what to say. He did mention, however, that Harlow was in recovery from her shoulder wound.

“Her loss of blood almost cost her the life she’s always known,” he told me. “She’ll resume work in a matter of weeks, much like you did when he stabbed you in the parking garage.”

I learned, throughout my physical agony, that Brooks had died in his mother’s old bedroom after I stabbed him. It wasn’t the sense of hope I had hoped it would be.

My views towards Brooks never wavered from a cautious respect to a more serious dread. It was always somewhere in-between.

In the weeks that followed, I began to walk again, waving at Harlow from the window as I took ten steps in a row. She smiled and waved back, her arm hung flaccid in a sling.

She wondered why I did what I did, though not at Brooks’ home…more than a year earlier. Her lips never spoke about it while we both recovered, but the tension between us made it obvious.

LT Anderson came into my hospital room, having no doubt gotten my letter.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this, Trotter?” He asked. “You are the hero of this city. Your life is paved before you. This could destroy everything you’ve worked for up to this point. First Dugger, and now Brooks. They love you.”

“I have to,” I said, motioning to the document in his hand.

“For what?” He responded. “There’s no legal obligation here. We keep this thing where it is — dead in the water.”

I thought back to when Brooks was in my backseat. He told me that his principles were not as rigid as I thought they were, but I knew better. He did everything he could to rid the world of people he deemed “vile.” Even the people who weren’t sex offenders were standing in his way. I was glad he spared me.

In a sick sort of way, I respected his motivation for doing what he did.

“Sometimes it’s hard to act on what we truly believe through all the fog.”

LT Anderson would soon make it public that the Nightstalkers caught me on that night two January’s ago. He did so reluctantly, but bravely.

As I gained my strength, the public’s perception of me grew sour, then indifferent.

“Time will always heal this,” my father said when I called him. He told me he loved me and I never got to speak to him again.

Vivian asked why I went public with something so horrifically embarrassing after stopping a vengeful psychopath. She still didn’t understand after I told her.

I didn’t feel