Remainder Two

by TheUnwieldyStatesman

What if Nicky, too, was in the car on that terrible night? What if more happened on that terrible night than just the crash? Aiden is left in a terrible balancing act of seeking revenge (or justice as he sees it) and trying to raise his nephew the right way. Jackson is left reeling, trying to find someone to cling onto.

It had been such a beautiful day. It was the end of October, and the Chicago weather would normally be in its mad dash to the deep freeze, but not that day. It was gorgeous, providentially so. The sky was clear, the sun was a warm beacon, and the air was filled with a gentle, angelic warmth. It was a Friday and though the days were short and the leaves were gone on most of the trees, the impulse was to go out, to make the most of that day. Summer had made a much appreciated encore appearance, almost teasing the minds of the people. She told all the men, the women, and the children to come out and enjoy this free performance. Millions answered the call of mirth, millions went out and used that idyllic day to wrap themselves in innocent enjoyment. Seventy-two degrees was a blessing at the end of October, an opportunity not to be missed.

They, the girls, had insisted on coming with Aiden and Jackson that afternoon. Nicky said that she wanted to spend the day with her idol, her brother. Lena, in the purest act of innocence, declared that she had to go because she had to keep "Mommy safe". Jacks was not disappointed to have them join. It was meant to be a boys' day out fishing, but the nine year old understood the common want and need to be outside, in nature on such a beautiful day. Jackson knew deep down that, at some point, he would get time alone with his uncle, the only male figure in his life. Again, and most imperatively, Jackson could not shake the feeling that he would get plenty of that time, though he could not think of the way that would come about. He dare not express his feeling, a vague and distant dread which looked like a shadow growing long under the lowering sun. It was there but he could not touch it, and if he pursued the feeling and form, it would run from him, taunting him with its substance just out of reach. Besides, it was just a feeling, he thought. It would pass as all things and people did. It would be silly for him to voice a concern that he could not explain. Aiden felt the same way, but the feeling was more complex. He had seen enough in his life to give color to the shadow. His notions were form but also substance upon the distant plane of thought. The terrible ideas that filled him were clothed in the flesh of real experience. They were made real in the space between his ears.

"Stop it, Pearce." Aiden said to himself, "You're being stupid. It's going to be an amazing day."

They, the boys, packed their normal tackle to get those fish to bite. Lena took a doll made into the image of a lamb that Aiden had bought for her a couple of years before. She adored that thing nearly as much as she adored him. And that day, it caught Aiden's eye in a special way. He thought that it looked particularly soft and white. He knew that Nicky probably just washed it, but it almost glowed in the sunshine, calling attention to its innocence and purity. He shook his head and focused on something else. Nicky packed a book, two actually, one for her, a crime novel, and a children's book with Bible stories in it, Lena's favorite. The girls would be tagging along and that was final. The drive to Pawnee was relatively short from Nicky's, so he was in no rush to get there. It would be a catch and release sort of day. They would go to the pier, fish a bit, then probably get a bite up there (where, of course, it was cheaper), and come back down to Chicago. The day would be light and easy, as far as he was concerned, specter lurking set aside.

Nicky took the passenger seat beside Aiden. Lena sat behind her mother in the booster seat. Jacks sat behind his uncle, resting his head on that usual spot on the car door. He decided he would take a bit of a nap on the way. In truth, he knew that he would actually drift in and out of sleep. He would absorb more of what was going on and know it because he was a smart kid. He knew it too. Lena was in a world of her own, occupied by her own thoughts of what a good day they would have. She also had the gift of intelligence, but it was like a seedling, still growing from the fertile soil of innocence. She would come to know the world when the time was right. Aiden looked at the kids in the back seat, his kids as far as he was concerned. "Make sure you two put on your seatbelts." (He had already put Lena's on and made sure that it was perfectly secure.)

They started to drive, and Aiden took the normal way out of the town. Nicky relaxed in the passenger seat of the car and glanced back and forth between the view of the remaining foliage and her brother. She loved him dearly, more than she could put into words or expression, and wished she could see him more often. She normally did not ask about why these terrible lapses of weeks, sometimes months had to pass between their visits, but that day, above all days, she questioned why it had to be that way. What in the world made their contact so sporadic baffled her and alarmed her inexplicably. It only took her a couple of minutes in the silence of the car to really say that she did not know him well as he was then, in that moment. She knew, of course, the base of his character, the foundations of his drive, and the plinth under his virtues, but she did not know what Aiden had built upon that spot of late. She knew all these things because she had been taught them the same way. Her mother taught her and instilled her the same strict Methodism; accountability; concern for the weaker; need to preserve life at all costs; and loyalty to God, family, and country. Every once in a while she even wondered if he had built it on sand, as was warned against in the Gospel according to Matthew, but he always managed to be more stable in the buffeting winds of life than she. He, from what she could ascertain about his mind, had always been rational and sane, so his mind was solid rock. What she knew about his current life was dismally inadequate and increasingly vague. She knew that he dealt in computers, their hardware, software, and firmware. She was also well aware that he knew how to program, and had been doing so since the early days when computers had no desktop environments: DOS prompt and whatnot. His knowledge of the field grew with the advances in the sophistication of the computers that surrounded him. Rather than Aiden being master over those machines that required commands, they seemed to have changed him. That was what Nicole could piece together. Aiden's countenance grew darker, shrewder, less trusting, and more vigilant as the internet, and its ever darkening shadow over humanity grew by leaps and bounds. Especially at that very moment, as she looked upon his profile, he looked pale, paler than he had even been before. His pallor not from lack of sun or from want of health, but it looked as if he had done something foul or as if something wicked had been done to him. That was what she could see. That spent, apprehensive look appeared to have cost him some degree of peace and sleep. He had bags under his eyes. He was worried about something, more worried than she had ever seen before. He looked as if he would shrink from the shadows, jump at the slightest touch or sound, and shoot anything that moved. His nerves were raw, his eyes fixed unwaveringly upon an indistinct point that skirted the horizon. That was what she could know from what she saw on that familiar, aging visage. She look and saw a ghost of his former self, something passing away, and a new Aiden about to swoop in. Something inside her did not want to be around to see what this ghost portended.

She also knew, in substance, that he called himself a freelancer when it came to his work in computers. As far as she knew, he moved, with varying frequency, from firm to firm, business to business, job to job, using his expertise to do… whatever computer people actually did. She knew knew the romanticized image of computer programmers she had created from watching television, but she knew that television easily misled and blinded. She created a more realistic image based on the very little Aiden would tell her. With that tiny ray of truth, she could see the beginning of the structure, a few beams going up. His new, cool demeanor could be counted as a facade, but she still did not know the structure she was studying. So, as she sat in that inexplicably nice sedan (with leather seats), she reaffirmed her commitment to getting to know the structure that was her brother, inside and out. She knew also that Aiden carried a gun and had a pistol on his hip in that moment. He concealed it, and, as far as she knew, he had the proper license to do so in Illinois. She had seen the license, printed with the right letterhead and raised seal. She also knew that Aiden was responsible with his firearms, locking them up at night and servicing them regularly. Aiden had never struck her as particularly Republican, conservative, or pro-Second Amendment, but he exercised his constitutional right to keep and bear arms nonetheless. And again, she stressed to herself that he was very responsible. She started on her mission immediately.

"You know," she started, "It's nice to see you again, to get a chance to hang out again, all four of us, alone together." She watched his profile and saw the slightest of grins pull his usually stern lips upwards. Her words 'alone together' rang through her ears as nonsensical but correct. "Well," she thought, "This might actually work."

"It is nice," he said. He agreed, but he knew why he had been away for so long. He needed to keep his distance for their protection. He had tried to get his way out of this one, as it violated his rule to law low for a month to six weeks before and after a job, especially a botched one like the one two weeks ago, but he could not deny his sister.

"We haven't seen you since June…" Nicky said, she chuckled, "And remind me to never throw a birthday party on a Monday again."

"I won't have to," Aiden laughed with her and at her, "I think you learned your lesson. If the birthday's in the middle of the week, take them out, and have the party on the weekend."

"Duly noted." She answered, "But who's gonna pay for all that?"

"I will." Aiden said. "It's easy for me. No kids of my own, so the money's always there. And aren't uncles supposed to spoil their nieces and nephews. If I'm right, I think I'm doing my natural duty by those two kids back there..."

"Those two back there are your kids and you know it." She crossed her arms in sisterly defiance. "You might be their uncle, but your avuncular and fatherly all at once, you know. You're a better role model than you know who ever would have been."

"I doubt that I'd make a good father, if it were to ever happen." he said half-joking, half ashamed, though he dare not let the second emotion show. "I'd be thrilled by the thought. I know it would be much responsibility, but I like responsibility. I still don't know if I'd be too good at it, not at first at least."

"That's not true, Aiden." Nicky said, wondering why he was beating up on himself, "You have all the prerequisites. At least you pretend to have them." She made a little joke because she wanted to soften this, the kids were in the car. Lena was in a world of her own, but, though his eyes were closed, Nicky was convinced of the fact Jackson was listening. And furthermore to that, Jackson was the smartest kid she knew. She saw how his mind worked, figuring out systems, sitting in silence, waiting, watching, analyzing, putting together the pieces, and reading people. Nicky knew her son; she saw the same inquisitive spark in Jackson's eyes as she had known in Aiden's when they were young. She dare not enter anything wrong into his head lest he add that to his repertoire of knowledge. He would be a man one day, but for know he was a boy, and he should be occupied with childish things.

She pivoted, "So, how's work been?"

"Fine." He answered quickly.

"You're going to have to do better than that." She answered.

"Well…" Aiden was going to tell the truth, some of it at least, "It was busy a couple of weeks ago. Now, it's calm. You know how it is, great bursts of activity followed by weeks, maybe months of amazingly boring tedium. It's not exciting right now, but it's paying the bills."

"One day you ought to teach those two back there how to do all that great computer magic." She said earnestly, "I can just about manage a spreadsheet and find recipes online. But then, that's all I need it for. That IT stuff looks hard, like learning another language, but the whole world seems to run on that stuff now. Soon we'll only be speaking in zeros and ones."

"Well, it could go either way. Some people use computers for good; others use them for evil. I just make sure that I do a good job at what I've put mind to."

"There have to be people who use their skills to… I don't know… Maybe they rob banks, maybe they steal intellectual property… I don't know. I can't think of anything else you can do with a computer besides breaking into places." She shrugged. "I know I'm pretty safe. I only use mine for mundane stuff."

"If all you do on the internet is vanilla, literally, then you're fine." Aiden said. The real reason she was fine was because he had her system protected with his expertise and programming. She did not stand out as a target, but she was too closely connected to him for Aiden not to take some precautions.

"Am I going to get a sister-in-law soon?" Nicky flipped the script on him.

"I'll keep you posted. When it happens, I'll let you know. " Aiden answered. His present lifestyle was not conducive to forming relationships. It would not be fair to a girl to drag her into his criminal activities. It would not be fair to bring her into a new world with no idea of how to move in it.

"It gets lonely not having another girl to discuss things with."

"I'm a girl!" Lena protested from the back seat. She jostled Jackson awake with her outburst. He usually would have been angry, but this time he was let it pass. He would never been able to tell you why. Nicky saw the whole thing before her. They, the adult siblings, both cracked a smile, but also wonder how long she had been listening.

"Yes you are." Nicky said. "And imagine if Uncle Aiden got a girl."

"And maybe you'll be a daddy one day!" Lena answered. That proved that she was not listening earlier.

"And you'll have some cousins to play with." Nicky said. The next comment was only for her, but Aiden overheard her. "My childbearing days are over."

"What makes you say that? I remember when we were kids, you said that you wanted to have twelve of your own one day, twelve people to look to you for guidance. That would be a lot to remember, but... " Aiden put the pressure on her. "You will find a man out there."

"Not in this town." She scoffed. "All the men here are too… too Chicago…"

"It's a big town." He reassured her. "There's hundreds of thousands of men out there. Not all of them are as 'Chicago' as you say..." He commended lightly.

"...Not to have you chase him away with your antics…" She answered.

"Antics?"

"The background checks, the visits… any sane man would run away. Lord even knows how you find out so much about them so quickly. It's as if you look at them and know instantly who and what they are."

"I have my ways. Besides, I was right a few times…" He was speaking of someone in particular, but that individual, that waste had been disposed of. Who that person is will be made manifest later. Aiden did not want to think of it.

"A couple of times, yes." She admitted. "And thank you for doing your due diligence, your vigilance. You always seem to swoop in right at the right second."

"That's what big brothers are for." Aiden said to her. He looked at the rearview mirror and made eye contact with his nephew. "Remember that, Jacks."

"I will," the boy said, feeling something, but not being able to name the feeling. An adult would not have easily been able to label the feeling either.

"Good." Aiden answered him. Then he turned back to his sister, his eyes still focussed on the road. He was about to make her. "I think I'll be available a lot more often now. I've found a more stable living."

"Well, I'm glad," she said, moving some hair from in front of her eyes. "I can't even imagine what kind of schedule you had to keep before. A threat to a system can come any time, day or night, and you have to be on top of it."

"That's the nature of everything these days. Everything is so fast. It's here and in a heartbeat it's all gone. All things are now given to us with speed and power. We cannot slow things down, we can't go back. We have to accept what happens and live with the consequences. I mean we never could reach back into the past and change things, but I don't know- Everything looks so much more permanent. I suppose since the computers are everywhere, watching, never forgetting, everything is permanent. It's being recorded and stored. At least memories fade, but the people coming up now will have to deal with a sort of photographic memory. They can't control it, can't interpret it as they wish, but they'll have to accept truth and facts in the harsh light of day."

"Is that a bad thing?" Nicky asked. "I mean the ability to forget is great and all, but imagine what these kids could do! This could be the smartest generation to have ever walked the planet. They'll just have to learn responsibility the same way we did. It's Stranger Danger 2.0, and they already know what this world is about. I don't think the world'll get any more dangerous, you know." She answered, thinking about this in a way she had never considered before.

"No?" He asked.

"No. It's just a new frontier." She answered. "It's like when the first settlers went out west. There was a vast land before them, and, if we ignore the Indians, we know that the people of that time were injected into a new frontier. The frontier was broad and all sorts of people settled. Good people, bad people, and those somewhere in the middle all came and used the same tool, the land, to do what they would do. The internet, computers, all this technology is the new frontier. I use it for recipes, others use it for whatever in the world can exist. It's just an infinite one. They ran out of land, but you'll never run out of bandwidth."

"It's like outer space." Jackson concluded.

"Exactly." His mother said. "Soon enough. Within your life probably, I'm sure we'll be colonizing planets, living on the moon, getting all our electricity from the sun. But space goes on forever and ever, so all sorts of people will end up out there. All new thing, new ways of living, will have good and bad; you just have to find it. It might be hard to find sometimes, but even in the worst times and places, there's something positive to consider."

Aiden shuddered slightly like a part of his soul escaped him. He could not know what made him do it, but something about her last utterance made something move up from him and pass into the ether. He tried to recapture it, but he knew it was futile. The feeling had come up and left him. He exhaled louder than he would have thought possible in that moment. It only served to remind him that something left him. He could only hope that something good would replace it.

"People can also hide in there." Aiden said. "In the internet I mean. At least in the Wild West, the sheriff would be after you if you broke the rules. But the internet can't actually be policed. Governments can try, but there's always a new place to hide."

"There were bounty hunters too." Jackson said. "We were talking about it in school today. Sometimes the sheriff couldn't catch someone because he didn't know where the criminal was or because he did not have enough time or deputies to get them."

"It's called taking the law into your own hands." Nicky said. "And it's bad. If someone is going to bring justice, it should be the police. Police officers are picked by the sheriff who is picked when people vote for him or her."

"But what's wrong with people 'taking justice into their own hands'?" Jackson asked, the phrase being new to him and that phrase feeling foreign on his lips. He understood about people picking representatives to do things for them. He had learned that very day in social studies that that was what happened in his country, but he could not understand why people should not be able to do what was right by and for themselves. He listened to his mother, hoping that she would make it perfectly clear for him. She had a way of clarifying all things for him perfectly, or at least she could make it clear how he felt. He was smart. But he was nowhere near able to start forming his own real, solid opinions. When he did disagree, it was in a visceral, childish way (as was normal). He would not need to be rational in how he felt, but he always yearned to be able to find the words to express himself the same way all the adults could. He waited patiently, though with burning anticipation for the day where he could be grown and call himself a man. He knew, at least, that he would need to get to double digits. He listened to his mother's answer to the question he posed.

"Well, Jacks… we all need to agree on what right and wrong is. What's wrong about people taking the law into their own hands is that other people did not give them the power to…" She struggled for a way to say this in a way that a kid of his age would grasp. He was precocious, so she knew that if she found the right way to say it, he would understand the fact and trap it in those synapses. "Police are special people, Jacks. They're brave, and they have to get trained. They have to follow all the laws. We want the people who protect us to not be criminals themselves. When you have people who want to do police work but are not cops, they break laws."

"Okay." Jackson did not accept that answer. The cops could not be everywhere at once, and he knew that. So he could not shake the fact that people should be able to do justice for themselves. He felt his mother was wrong but he would not defy her in this. He would simply accept what she said as being her opinion. He had learned the difference between fact and opinion about three weeks before in English.

Oddly, the trees were in full display as Aiden exited the undermountain tunnel that led into Pawnee Proper. The trees down in Chicago had been bare, but the trees up there still had some shedding to do. Aiden never noticed it before, but all the trees that stood at either side of the road made a for beautiful display. The long rays of sunlight acted a little fingers, trying to grasp at the road, trying to pick up the red leaves. And that was what Jackson noticed; all the leaves on the ground and all the leaves yet to be shed were red, brilliantly, majestically red. The roadway was red, soaked in red covered in deep swirling miniature cyclones of leaves looking for lofty escape. He had never seen so much red in any one place in his life. Then he looked at the trees. He saw how quickly the redness poured off of them. He marveled at how quickly the leaves, the part of them that allowed them to live could be discarded and pour onto the ground, forever lost and made useless. The fountain of red coming off and out of the tree impresses him, and Jackson figured that the leaves would all be on the ground by the time they returned. After that, he knew, the leaves would remain, then be washed down the drain and disappear. He was almost afraid of these things because it meant truly that the long warm days were gone and that the long cold winter, which he hated, was coming to stay.

"That's so pretty." Lena remarked as she watched the leaves fall like snow. She clutched her lamb doll in her hand right hand and held her Bible stories in the other. "Are we there yet?" She asked.

"Almost." Aiden said.

"Are we in Pawnee?" She asked.

"Yes, we are." Aiden answered.

"That's why it's so pretty." She answered. "We are where the trees are. There's no trees in Chicago."

"She's right you know. Gosh, I wish I could live out here." Nicky said. "The trees, the fresh air, the nice people, the simple country living. And Chicago is still close by."

"You always could if you want." Aiden said. "You said yourself that you'd be close to town."

"I'd miss the city too much. I'd miss the noise, the activity, the hustle, the bustle of it all. It's too quiet out here and the winters are too cold and dark."

"Are you telling me Chicago is warm in January?" Aiden laughed, "Get in between a couple of those skyscrapers then come back and tell me what you think."

"Of course it's cold, but it isn't dark. You're surrounded by people which is always great. I'll live in the city, you can bury me out here," She laughed and asked facetiously, "Deal?"

"Deal." He confirmed, "I would shake your hand but they're kinda full right now."

…

They arrived at the lake ten minutes later. Contrary to expectations, the lakeside was empty almost devoid of people. It would have looked to the outside observer as if it were a mother, father, and their two children, but it wasn't. Aiden and Jacks stayed close to the water and cast their lines into the placid, still lake. Nicky stood sat back a bit from the water, using the sunlight to read her book. Lena played with her toys, content and in a world of their own. Jacks and Aiden had a silent, mutual understanding that only fishing partners could understand. The silent, mutual understanding between people who fished transcended all conditions. They were in for a common goal: to catch, take a picture, and release. The silence between these two was peaceful and right. It was the purest type of quiet, the place of mind where even thought stopped in its tracks. It felt like restful sleep, yet, at the same time Jacks was as awake as one could be. His senses were tingling with It was exhausting, but also gave him rest. His soul was at rest, yet everything human in him wanted to burst forth and scream at the top of his lungs. He was calm notwithstanding his urge to protest.

Aiden felt the same way, calm but vigilant. His senses were tingling but it was a cool almost mentholated sensation, like an autumn breeze blowing through his soul. He looked down at Jacks who was by that point leaning on him. Aiden put a comforting, protective arm around his nephew. Feeling a bit of comfort from his calming yet haunting thoughts, Jackson took the embrace and leaned into it. Aiden needed the embrace too. He felt in control and like a protector, and that was Aiden's mission in life to protect, defend, and conserve…

Nicky had looked up from her book just in time to capture a glimpse of it. She reached for her phone and took a picture of the scene. What her phone recorded was like a postcard scene. They had their backs to her and just beyond them was the sunset off of Jackson's shoulders. Beyond them in the photo were the wooded shores of the lake, surrounded by trees that were also shedding in spectacular shades of ruby, crimson, and brick. Sky and lake reflected each other in a blue so blue that Nicky got lost in it, carried away in an azure dream, a romanticized vision of perfection. It was as if the Lord had given her the perfect image to take her cares away. She visibly relaxed and exhaled in a way that calmed her and jarred her. She put it off and ascribed the feeling that overtook her to fresh Pawnee air.

She sent the picture to Aiden's phone, and she knew that would, blow it up, frame it and hang it in her house someplace special. The moment was too precious for it to be lost forever. Her perspective was entirely too rare and unique in that moment to let it die. It would exist in perpetuity in her mind, in the cloud, and in the ether.

Some more time passed and the sky turned purple as the sun was setting. Nothing bit. Neither the boy nor the man were upset by the lack of activity. The slowness and stillness seemed to be preparation for excitement. A slow, insidious, vague anxiety started to dominate the two males as they packed up and went back to the car. Neither Aiden nor Jackson wanted to leave that spot. They felt safest in that moment, not letting anything change in the air, but they knew that the good feeling, shadowed by the coming uncertainty.

The sky was fading into darkness as they walked into the restaurant. It was the normal place that they went when Pawnee called their names. They ordered their usual food, except for Nicky. That night she ordered some lamb.

...

The sky was brilliant as all the stars made their lines across the sky. The moon was full that night and lit the outside world, bathing it in a warm and inviting light. They left the restaurant and went back to Aiden's black sedan. The warmth of the e day had left and the family was given a cool, crisp condition which awakened the senses and made the spine tingle. The brief trip from the restaurant to the car served to fill Jackson's lungs with a coolness that made him aware, almost painfully vigilant of all the goings on around him.

They got into the car and resumed their seats. Jackson now looked out of the window on his left and focused on the road, wanting almost pleading the white line to lull him to sleep. He would get no such help and was awake as he passed some of the trees that had given him pause earlier. Just as he expected, the leaves were gone and time was up. The ground, especially the roadway, contrary to his expectations, was clear. It looked as if a crew or a chain gang had come in and cleaned the leaves, but Jackson looked over and saw that the wind had had swept the leaves over to the far side of the road and into the brush. The strangely cleared road also caught Aiden's eye. Just a few hours before, Aiden could barely know what lane he was in since the road was so red with leaves. But now it was clean and everything could be seen with unsettling clarity. Neither of the boys felt right in the car, but both knew there was no sense in pulling over for just a feeling. Simultaneously, they took a glance to the right and found their little sisters asleep. They looked back over again, Aiden at the road and Jackson back out of the rear driver's side window. He, the young boy, now wanted to to speak to his uncle and get something . He did not know what to say or what that something was, however, so he stayed quiet and looked at the trees, some barren and others nearing their winter nakedness. Chicago was near and would soon be visible in the distance, but Aiden and Jackson felt as if it would take a million years to get there. Time was starting to slow down. Every second seemed to stretch into a minute, an hour, a day. And soon the world almost seemed devoid of light or color or movement or steadiness. That was how it was to them. The world had turned almost into a film noir. Their eyes almost looked through filters which rendered the world in black and ever-darkening shades of gray. Sound too seemed to close in on the them. All that they could hear was the hum of the engine and the slight whistle of the breeze and the gentle breathing of the girls next to them and their own lungs and hearts in their chests. Their ears, however, were not pacified. In fact, their ears were ready for the slightest sound, the smallest stimulus upon which they could focus.

That moment came as an expectation fulfilled too soon for comprehension. Turning his head, Jackson looked part way out the rear window. What he saw took his breath away as the darkness became complete as they entered the tunnel at speed. What's more to the suddenness of the next sequence of events was that it took place in all of ten seconds.

There was a man on a motorcycle, a sport bike, one of those imports. The bike was black as was the man's clothing. What Jackson would remember till the day he died was the man's eyes. To him, they looked like pools of hell impressed upon an average looking face. They were dark brown and were matched upon a tanned face with black hair. So powerful had that memory become that everything moving forward from that point was remembered forever, vividly, photographically. Consequently, the next moment of Jackson's life would be the most colorful and violent moment he had experienced. Jackson had not just been a witness as to this man's face, but they locked eyes. There was no way that the mad did not know that he was looking at a child, but he persisted in his plan. He and the mysterious man were for eternity and also fleetingly in a sick staring contest. He looked into the man's eyes longer and saw them disappear as the man pulled the visor down and blackout his entire visage. As that blackness covered the man's entire form, Jackson knew that his innocence was about to be ripped away from him, grievously stolen and burned like a log in an autumn bonfire. The grim reaper was approaching, and Jackson did not know how or when or why he would swing his scythe and turned and faced forward and found that his throat was trying to close up on him. He fought through in those three seconds to speak as he saw the motorcycle come parallel to him and surpass him all in slow motion.

Meanwhile in the driver's seat, Aiden's ears had picked up the sound of the the motorcycle approaching on his left. He looked over and saw the same man clad in black. The man's visor on his helmet was down and Aiden watched the motorcyclist lift his head towards the him and look into the car. There was no doubt, no doubt that the man could see the two girls sleeping in their seats on the passenger side. There was no doubt that the man saw the three innocents in the car.

Next, silently, Aiden watched the motorcyclist take his right hand off the accelerator and reach down to a holster which know shone at him like a flash of darkness. Behind him, Jackson had recovered his voice and started to try to warn him.

"Watc-" was all Aiden could hear before his ears were filled with the single deafening bang of a .38 firing, before his eyes were filled with the light, the unmistakable illumination of the muzzle flash. The light was there and it was gone like his picture being taken. Actually, a sick scene was playing itself out in front of him. He would try and grab control of the situation out from the jaws from uncertainty, but misfortune would clamp down and hold on. Aiden heard his tire pop and he lost control of the vehicle in the tunnel. Aiden tried to brake, but the fishtailing only worsened. Five tons of sixty miles per hour was not going to stop easily, and he knew it. He saw the car drifting to the right, towards the wall. He wanted to stop it but he knew he couldn't. He could only hope that the car slid against it rather than crash and come to a complete stop. The motorcyclist was gone and he knew that the four of them were in this together. The car drifted and was now on course to hit the wall at an angle rather than slide on it parallelly. Aiden could only shut his eyes and grip the wheel.

The sound of the impact would never leave Aiden's ears or Jackson's, for that matter. The audio they experienced, however, was different. Jackson's ears were filled with the sound of glass crinkling as a million cracks went from side to side. Then he heard the glass to his left and behind him shatter into millions of pieces. Some flew right past him, but none made a mark on him. His ears were filled with the sound of the fiberglass of the car crunching on impact and sliding against the wall of the tunnel. The stopping is where he felt the pain in his body as his limbs flew forward, but his core remained in place, held back by a perfectly placed seatbelt. As he felt himself being stopped from flying forward, the sound that rang through his right ear left an indelible mark upon his psyche, indelible to the point where he thought the reaction to that sound would remain with him into eternity. It sounded to him like a chicken drumstick being taken forcefully out of joint harmonically with the pop when one cracked their fingers, only amplified a thousand times. It was loud, distinct, and followed by the sigh of a child who had the air snatched from her. Once they came to a stop, and Jackson was able to regain his bearing, he looked over to his right and there she was. Lena was slumped over in her booster seat. Her head was cocked unrightly away from him. He knew right there and then that the sound that that striking noise, that chilling crack, was her neck breaking. He looked down at her chest and saw that it was not rising and falling. She was dead.

Aiden's experience in the front was different and markedly more violent. The sound of the impact was more percussive than crinkly to him. It sounded like a great boom that was forceful enough to push him back into his seat all by itself. The car shifted a bit in direction and came to rest at and angle, still abutting the wall. The car was just about fused to the wall at a forty-five degree angle. Aiden looked over at his sister and she was struggling. Her breathing was labored, and he needed to get out of the car. He reached over to his left and started to open the door. The door would not budge at first, so he put all of his strength into it and the door swung completely open and then fell totally off of its hinges. Aiden stepped through the hole and speed dialled 911. Aiden shouted something about a car accident, four people, the Pawnee Tunnel, need multiple ambulances. He went blank for a moment before heard the door behind him open and saw Jackson climbing out of the car.

"Are you hurt?" Aiden asked his nephew.

"No." Jacks answered, feeling the pain from the crash subside. "Are you hurt?" Jacks asked reflexively, and then feeling and meaning it, he asked again. "Are you hurt, Uncle Aiden?"

"No, I'm fine." Aiden's voice did not signal any physical pain but a mental anguish that would never part from the Pearce family.

Jackson almost spoke as if he was out of his body. Nothing felt real or right. Nothing felt provable or tangible. In fact, the words that came out of him poured forth with such numbness that Jackson writhed as he said them. He felt a bolt of lightning run through his spine. It wasn't the cool sensation that came with joyous excitement, rather it was like a fire moving up his back. The feeling was something like getting burned at the stake, with heat slowly crawling up his body. "I think Lena's dead." Jackson got out once the 'fire' reached his throat. "I… I think she's dead."

Aiden stopped in his tracks and changed his course. He turned about face and walked to where the Jackson's open door as peered in. His nephew was right. Lena's head had come to rest cocked much too much to one side. Her head rested completely on here shoulder and the spinal cord was severed. She died instantly in his estimation, and he took a strange half solace in that fact. There was no pain, and if there was, it was over in a second. He wanted to cry at the sight, but he did not have the time. He had to tend to the living, or at least see whether his sister was still in that category. He went the long way around the car and behind the trunk. He came back around to the carnage that was the passenger side of the vehicle. He walked past Lena and looked in once more. She was dead.

He walked up to the front passenger side and looked in. His sister was hurt badly, but he saw her chest rising and falling defiantly.

"Nicky." He called out in a meek voice.

She groaned in response. That made him frantic as he tried to pull off the door, but it was fused shut upon the frame from the heat and incredible force of the sliding on the tunnel wall. There was nothing he could do. She was too weak to move and get out of her position, and she was losing blood. Fast. Her blonde hair had turned red, and the smell of blood filled his nostrils. He watched as her breathing became shallower and shallower. Aiden could hear the sirens coming in the distance. Her eyes were open and she was blinking, but he was watching as alert agony was turning into mellowing pain and then sleep.

"Stay with me… the help's almost here." He said as he reached into the car, grabbed the door from the inside, and tried with all his might to pry the door open.

"Take care of him…" she groaned in a moment of clarity before her throat started to rattle the way Aiden had heard and caused so many times in his sordid past. "I'll take care of her…" Aiden realized then that Nicky was almost omniscient in the moment. Nicky knew as the darkness started to take her in that Lena had already been snatched into it. It was as if Nicky was determined to go in there so that Lena would not have to be alone in Heaven, a realm in which she firmly believed because of her aforementioned Methodism. She breathed her last and went onto whatever comes next in front of his eyes. Jackson looked out into the mouth of the tunnel whence the moonlight poured in and illuminated the space in an eerie, celestial way. Jackson would say till the day he died that he watched what looked like two puffs of smoke rose into the air. He turned to see that there was no fire an turned his head back to the smoke immediately. The two moved in sync upwards above the treetops and into the clear sky. When they hit the tropopause, he lost sight of them forever. He looked behind him and saw the ambulances arrive. He calmly walked back the scene, the crime scene as he would come to think of it. He found his uncle Lea in on the wall of the tunnel.

Aiden was already planning his vengeance for this. "I'm gonna find those sons of bitches. I'm gonna kill those fucking sons of bitches. Cut their fucking hearts out…" Aiden thought. His mind was stopped when he saw the other one left behind, the other remainder in this horror. His eye caught his nephew's, and it occurred to Aiden that he was in a new world, fatherhood. Jackson's father had 'disappeared' under 'suspicious circumstances', and Aiden was the only person who could possibly raise the kid, but he was in no state to do it…

"No, " Aiden thought as he wrapped his arm around his nephew, "I can do this."

The ambulances arrived along with a fire truck. and the paramedics ran over to the wreckage, but they soon apparent that there was nothing to be done. They went next to the living victims and saw that the boy and the man were intact, completely spared any physical damage in fact. Then the cops came to investigate because it became obvious that there was a crime committed in that tunnel. Because it happened on the Pawnee side of the highway, a sheriff's deputy spoke to him rather than an officer of the CPD. He was in an almost drunken daze in his head as spoke; he was drunk on adrenal, high on rising grief, and impaired by the ever-quickening fraying of his good sense. A pathological need to right this wrong, or, at the very least, punish the doers of this crime against a not only the dead victims but those left to grieve. Aiden felt that he was being interrogated as they asked him all of the pertinent questions. He spit the answers out the same way a gatling gun spit out bullets. The deputy had seen the same display on many other before, so he knew that Aiden wasn't drunk or lying to him.

"What's your name and age, sir?"

"Aiden A-I-D-E-N Pearce P-E-A-R-C-E. Thirty-eight."

"And the boy's name?"

"Jackson Pearce, spelled the same way. He's nine" Aiden told the cop who was writing it all down on a pad.

"Your son?"

"My nephew."

"And for the deceased? The older one first please."

"Nicole Pearce, also spelled the same way. She is…" Aiden was nowhere near ready to speak in the past tense about her."... my sister, thirty-three, And the little one is Lena, L-E-N-A Pearce, my niece. She's six."

"Now tell me what happened as best as you can recall…"

…

"Jackson," the officer walked up to him and spoke in a soft, caring, and most important of all genuine voice. He got on haunches and came eye level with the boy. The deputy could see that he was shaken, but he knew that the memories were still fresh. He continued to speak to the child. "Hi, my name is Officer Mitchell. I'm here to find out what happened, okay?"

"Okay." Jackson felt a presence behind him and knew it was his uncle. Aiden proceeded to wrap a slightly trembling arm around Jackson. Jackson felt comforted by the action, and he knew, deep down, that his own young presence was helping his uncle immensely.

"So tell me everything you saw." The officer said gently.

"Well, I got a bad feeling and I turned around in the car because I heard something behind us. I looked around and saw a man on a motorcycle coming towards us driving at us really fast. He did not have the shield over his eyes when I saw him, and he looked me in the eyes."

"Did you see his face?" Aiden asked before the cop even got a chance.

Jackson answered, talking freely, "I saw above his mouth and below his forehead."

The officer asked what was next gently, "Did you see what he looked like? Was he white or black or Asian or Hispanic?"

"He looked white or maybe Hispanic, he had dark hair, black hair. He looked me in the eye... He has brown eyes. He looked so..."

"You can tell me, Jackson."

"He looked so normal." That was what baffled Jackson the most. He looked like he had a family and friends. Those eyes looked like they had seen and known what joy was. Those eyes had seen and known love. But it was those same eyes that, once hidden behind the visor, locked onto the car and fired upon him. Jackson knew that people hurt other people, but he had always felt a sort of protection given to him by his youth, his being a child. But Jackson's sense of security was shattered, and the shards themselves were also taken away. Where once existed the thoughts of a child now lived a void. Jackson was having to put away childish things; he was forced to grow up. At least, his uncle would be there to help do it.

"Would you know what he looked like if you ever saw him again?" The officer asked.

For a brief moment, it was as if three men were having a conversation. The air around them grew heavy with the tension of the moment, and the urgency that characterized the present. Jackson looked into the officer's eyes, and the cop shuddered at the look in his eyes. The cop had been on the force for twenty-five years, and in all those years, he had never felt the chills the same way he did as when Jackson next spoke. It was as if all of the blood in Mitchell's body was replaced with liquid menthol. The officer felt uncomfortable for the first instance in many years. Officer Mitchell would later know that it was not Jackson's words but the probable repercussions of then that made him feel what an officer would never feel: out of control.

Jackson almost whispered what he said, "I will never, ever forget what he looks like."

The cop looked to Aiden after the words were spoken. He saw the gears turning in the older Pearce's head, and he knew that nothing, neither Hell nor high water nor the movements of Heaven and Earth, would stop Aiden from trying to create the justice himself. Aiden had the bearing of a cop in the officer's eyes, but Aiden's eyes were like those of a fox. That is to say, Aiden would become too attached to that which he pursued and would disregard the rules when he was on the hint. Aiden's eyes said that he would do what he called justice by any means necessary. The officer stood up again and looked Aiden in the eye. "I," He looked down at Jackson for a moment and spoke, "May I speak to your uncle alone for a moment?"

The men walked off and left Jackson alone, though Aiden kept an eye on him. The officer knew that he could not accuse Aiden of anything, and that he would furthermore have to be careful of what he said.

"Mister Pearce," the officer said, the stress lines becoming manifest on his face, "I want you to trust that we will be pursuing this. There's two murders here, two felony murders, and we take that sort of thing seriously. You don't have to worry about us finding these people; we will. Trust me. I want you to focus on helping that boy get better… and moving forward."

"Moving forward?!" Aiden asked in a hushed shout, "You're still taking pictures, officer. I won't be moving forward until the man who did this to me, who did this to Lena, who did this to Nicky, and who did this to Jackson–He's gonna have to watch his mother and sister get lowered into the ground–I can't rest 'til that bastard is punished."

"Just promise me that you won't break the law and permanently separate yourself from Jackson the way they are." The officer said, almost pleading with Aiden. "Justice, justice like we do it here in America demands patience, true longsuffering, methodical searching and building up the facts until we can put the story together. It will take time, but we'll get this bastard. I want him just as bad as you do, but we have to stay within the rules."

"Rules?" Aiden asked bitterly, still whispering, "Rules are nothing now. Why should I be constrained by rules when the people who did this are probably celebrating this right now? What are rules? They tie up the good and the innocent and leave them to fend off the monsters without defense. Rules? What are rules? They're handcuffs we choose to put on and walk through life with, while the others are who disregard them walk around with their freedom, totally unchecked by right and wrong. Don't tell me about longsuffering and patience while I'm left to grieve and suffer and the assailant gets to walk free and enjoy his life. Don't speak to me of virtues when innocent blood is spilled on the ground and cries out for vengeance. You might hear longsuffering and patience and all those other nice virtues, but I hear in my mind the cries to make this wrong thing right. I see the blood on the street and I see the need to make this crooked thing straight. No amount of your patience will make this thing right. Don't tell me about order and rules. If life were so orderly and lawful then those two would almost be home, ready to go to sleep, but now sleep, perpetual, irreversible, incurable sleep has been forced on them."

"Look," the policeman said, knowing that he could not stop whatever Aiden Pearce was going to do. He hoped that Aiden was just shouting and emoting in impotent rage, but nothing about Aiden said powerlessness. He was knocked back by the day's events, but the blackhat hacker was nowhere near knocked out. The officer did not know any of this when he spoke "I know what you're going to do. I can't stop you, because you haven't done anything, but make sure I don't hear about you ending up on the wrong side of the law."

"Look. My goal right now is to take care of him. All I want to do is get us home, and let that boy get some sleep. He's seen a lot today. And I don't know what tomorrow is going to look like. I won't be doing anything until I make sure my nephew is safe and some of his happiness can come back."

"Good." The officer said. "I can take the two of you home if you want."

…

Jackson watched the two men walk off and watched a sick scene play out in front of him. The jaws of life were brought in to cut the doors off the car to remove the bodies. The spatial facts of where the car came to rest made it better for the firefighters to remove his mother's body first. So, they snipped the front door off of the car. At the same instant as they removed the door, Nicky's body fell from its position and landed squarely on the road with a meaty thud. The indelible image of his mother on the ground, her hands outstretched to either side as if she was being crucified, would never leave him. Try as they might to get her arms to rest on her front so that she may be transported away, they fell defiantly almost in an alive way back to perfect perpendicularity with her chest. It took them thirty-three tries-he counted-to get her arms into position. Next, he watched as they removed his sister. They unbuckled the car seat, and without difficulty, they removed her. She was in a paramedic's arms briefly, and from her dead grasp, a book fell to the road, opened, text up. All had not seen it but Jackson, so, when their backs were turned and when he felt absolutely certain that the coast was clear, he walked over to the book, bent down, and looked at the page the book had opened to. There, depicted in illustrations suitable for kids, but not forsaking the meaning, the picture portrayed Abraham raising a knife above his head, ready to issue the final blow to Isaac atop Mount Moriah. Jackson knew the story well and looked over to the next illustration, which showed Abraham stopped, mid-swing by a voice from heaven. In the last illustration, he saw the ram in the bush whose horns were caught in the thicket. He backed away slowly and could not begin to imagine what all of this had meant. He stood still and waited to be saved. He watched as his mother and sister were placed into body bags, put in the back of the coroner's vans and driven out of the tunnel the same way they had come. It happened in Pawnee, so the bodies were taken to the Pawnee County Morgue, Jackson later found out.

"Jackson," He heard a gentle but hurt and tired voice behind him. He turned to see his Uncle Aiden resting a strong and reassuring hand upon his shoulder, "Let's get out of here. Let's go home. The officer called an unmarked car so that we can go home safely, okay."

"Okay."

…

They, the Pearces and Officer Mitchell, got into the car, a black Crown Victoria. Aiden sat in the back seat with his nephew and gripped him tight so as to stop someone from taking him, the last person of value left. Jackson had finally had the time to start processing all that he had seen and the steely numbness gifted to him by adrenaline had worn off and the heat of reality hit him. He started crying, silently, sobbing and looked for air every once in a while.

"You're safe now," Aiden said. Somehow to all three men in the car knew that was not the entire truth. (And, yes, Jackson had stopped being just a boy when that car hit the wall of the tunnel).

Notwithstanding his disbelief of the sentiment, those words were not what Jackson wanted to hear. Jackson, at least in that moment, was not crying about his personal safety. That thought had not entered between his ears yet. But he cried because of how wrong, how very, very unnatural and cruel the events of the evening had been to him. He felt robbed of everything. It was all snatched off of him and it hurt in his mind and heart the way it would hurt as if all his skin was ripped off while he was still alive and then, still conscious, he was burned. Jackson felt a physical pain in his chest as of his heart was being crushed by lungs filled with lead. Aiden felt much the same pain. He was sitting up in the seat watching as they entered Chicago. The bright city lights overpowered the stars, but looking to the moon, Aiden swore that he saw two stars, one bigger, one smaller, crowning the moon in what looked like a diamond tiara. Aiden

breathed out a tired, deathly breath. "They both like diamonds so much." He still used the present tense to think and talk about them and would do so well into the future. He held Jackson close as they made their forty minute drive back to the house. To them, it did not feel like forty minutes, but forty days in the wilderness. In that time they were not starved of food, but they were deprived of all that had made life normal and meaningful. Both of them felt a temptation to sink to the lowest point, but they, both of them, were too mentally and physically exhausted. 'Spent', that was the word that described their states in that moment. Aiden looked down at his watch and it was going on eleven o'clock.

The closer they got to the house the more the silence seemed to drown out why few thoughts all three in the car had. After half an hour in the car, Jackson had cried all the tears he could cry right then. He would have usually gone to sleep after a cry, especially one past his mind and past his soul. This cry had the opposite effect because it cleared him out and reinvigorated him. Jackson was more awake than he had ever been, and Aiden would later declare that Jackson's eyes were not red with tears, nor were they glassy and distant, but the were clear, limpid in fact and focused. Jackson was awake and sat straight up. The cool reinvigoration turned into heat. It was comfortably warm at first, but then the temperature seemed to keep rising, and soon he was burning in a personal hell. Soon the heat had become so much that he supposed that he was imagining a faint light in the distance illuminating the inside of the car. He blinked his eyes once, then again, and then a third time, but the light in the car grew more intense.

Aiden noticed it too and thought that he too was imagining things. So the older Pearce mimicked the younger and blinked three times. The car turned the corner that he had gone around a thousands of times in his life and saw more than just a gentle and brightening glow in the night sky. His sight was filled with flashing lights, the brilliant luminescence of red and white and blue lights from emergency vehicles. Jackson felt the same dropping in his gut that he had had when that motorcycle came into his vision.

"What the hell?" The officer whispered to himself as he drove up to the scene. He was met with an officer of the Chicago Police Department standing in front of a police tape stretched across the street and brought the police car back to a stop.

The deputy rolled down the window.

The Chicago cop started, "Sir, you have to turn-" Then he noticed the uniform. "Oh, you from PN?"

"Yeah, what's going on here?"

Not seeing the Pearces in the back seat, the CPD officer simply lifted the yellow tape. "See for yourself."

He drove through mindlessly and stopped as closely to the fire as he could. The Pearces exited the car almost as robots carrying out a command. The first thing that took them was the smell of destruction. It was not the same sort of hot metal and hot plastic smell of the crash. In fact, the smell that hit their noses was something altogether worse. Jackson could parse out the smell of the wood burning, the smell of the cloth too, he smelled some of those chemicals from under the kitchen and bathroom sinks and some of the food. Oddly and briefly enough, Jackson caught a fleeting whiff of some of the scented candles that his mother burned on the weekends. When they exited the vehicle, it was automatic, and their gazes were fixed upon the flames, which lit up the street in warm orange glow as if the sun was rising. Their eyes were fixed upon the flames that roared high into the air. Had it been the day, the smoke would have been visible for miles. Indeed, the smoke went so high that it was being picked up by weather radars. Jackson put together that the house was not merely burning as a coincidence, but someone wanted to destroy it. The windows had long been blown out by the heat and tongues of flame lashed out from the corners of the roof. They both blinked in horror as they made their way to the sidewalk directly across the street and watched on. The fire poured out of the windows liberally making a ferocious sound keeping even the fire fighters away from it. Aiden knew arson when he saw it, and he was glad at least, that he had an alibi and furthermore that a cop was his witness. Just as Aiden began to ponder the future, the roof started to buckle, making a sound like an old man moaning. It was slow at first, but once the collapse really started, the world seemed to fall apart for a second time. Jackson hugged unto his uncle's frame but did not look away as the roof fell down neatly into the space beneath. It pancaked onto the second story, but that floor could not handle the strain and went down in one, fluid motion with the roof. With a great thud, the two levels came to rest on the ground, but the brick façades remained. During the collapse, Jackson watched the fire shoot out of the windows like fire shoots from a rocket. Then the fire was followed by the spitting out of embers from the widows. Soon the street was filled with bright orange embers. That floated gently in the breeze, the same way the leaves had been in Pawnee. They danced and put on a magnificent display which almost made Jackson forget what the truth was. Almost.

When those little points of light faded, Jackson was again focused on photographing every little detail. He smelled the fire, and his sweat, and his uncle's. He looked at all the people in the space. He looked down at his own hands, then he looked up at his uncle and Officer Mitchell and the officer from the Chicago Police Department and the firefighters who showed up. They numbered twelve. Then he turned about him and counted the people, the civilians who were watching the fire burn from behind the police lines. He counted forty on one side and thirty on the other. Then he saw the media, cameras and reporters, almost hovering like vultures, looking for everything they could find. All of them, reporters and cameramen added up to twenty-two. None of the media had seen the Pearces yet and Aiden planned to keep it that way.

"Get into the car, Jackson." Aiden said, reaching down and wrapping his arm around his nephew. "We need to get out of here."

"Where do you want me to drop you?" The officer asked, walking back towards the car.

…

With some trepidation, the officer let them out where Aiden had said. Aiden was already thinking in chess mode, not wanting the cops to know exactly where he was staying. Aiden watched the officer drive off, and then, using his phone, he tracked the officer until he was certain that he was well on his way back to Pawnee. Officer Mitchell had offered to let them stay up in Pawnee at a hotel with a deputy sitting in a car outside to keep them safe. Aiden rejected this immediately, not wanting to draw media attention, or more importantly, the attention of anyone who wanted to 'finish the job'. The last thing Aiden wanted was for the media to get a picture of Jackson so that their assailants would have a picture. Officer Mitchell had tried to press them, even offering them a chance to stay at his home, but Aiden roundly rejected him again. The hacker added that he would find him if he needed him. Aiden had wanted to leave the world of hacking alone, at least for a bit, but that night, that awful, awful night forced him back into it. It was almost like war, Aiden abhorred the idea, but this fight was foisted upon him and seared in with that fire. He was forced to respond and to respond with so much force that the enemy would not and could not strike again. Aiden was playing the mutually assured destruction game, but he could not afford even the slightest damage. He looked down at the head of brown hair shivering next to him and knew why he had to fight and what he had to protect. He did not know the first place to start, and he did not know what form this fight would take. He just knew that he had to keep Jackson safe.

So they started on the walk back to the hotel in which Aiden had been staying. It was going on one in the morning and both of them were running out of fuel. Jackson found the strength to speak. The question came out quietly, and Aiden could hear the tiredness of Jackson's voice. He had probably been up for nearly nineteen hours at that point.

"Why is all of this happening?" He looked up to his uncle and received the worst answer that he could imagine.

"I don't know. I wish to God I did." And that was true. Aiden could not think of anything that he had done, either in the recent past or the even over the course of his life that warranted this. "But, I will tell you this Jackson. Whoever these people are, whoever did this to you and me and your mother and your sister, I'm going to find them and I'm going to make sure they pay for it. When people do bad things like this, it's wronger to let them get away with it because they might hurt us or another family like this again. And we can't allow that to happen."

"I don't think the cops will be able to help us. They took so much, my mom, my sister, my house..." Jackson said. He recited those things as facts, like how two and two equal four, but the impact was slow moving and had not penetrated into the depths of his mind tyet, "I think that you were right when we were talking, you and me and Mom. She said that we have to rely on the police when something happens, but they can't do anything about."

"No," Aiden said, "They can't. So, I'm going to have to find these people myself. I'm going to find them and make sure that they can't ever hurt anyone else the way they hurt us. When those people are dealt with, we'll be safe, here, in our city. And then we can try and build something new, you and me."

A sudden wind descended from the sky and had the effect of making them both feel as if they were wandering through the wilderness. Off to their left, they could see the greatest city's skyline with a million lights burning bright and beckoning them to join in. But the city looked like a mirage to the both of them. All they had in that moment was their clothes, this wind, their budding, deepening grief, and each other. Aiden especially wanted something else to grab onto. He had his nephew here, but Aiden wanted only to be attached to the reality more firmly for the child's sake. His mind tried with all its might to make two separate planes for Aiden to call home, but Jackson's small shivering body against his jolted his mind back to the truth.

The truth was so severe but so unavoidable that Aiden finally understood what it meant when someone said they were being driven crazy. Much like his car, however, he crashed on the trip, and he was staggering back to a cold set of circumstances with which he would have to wrestle. Now, however, he was wrestling with his hip out of joint, but he could not, would not let go of this. He wanted to scream and cry, but he knew that those displays would be wasted energy-like gassing a car in neutral. He committed silently to himself that no matter if he was crawling, rolling, stumbling, walking, or running he was always be moving forward.

He would never let Jackson out of his sight or let him venture from the protection under his wing. He would only sleep when and as long he needed to survive because sleep was for the dead. He would only eat because his body needed the fuel. He would not drink or take any drugs to keep himself alert. He would not be falling in love with anyone lest he be distracted and be caught off guard. He would not allow himself to feel anything for the sons of bitches who did this to him and his nephew. He would not allow any person to aid these criminals and would consider any person harboring them his enemy. He would not allow any other person to be a victim of this viciousness and would stop any crime he came across during his pursuit of the truth and vengeance. He would help any person he could along the way. Most importantly, neither Heaven nor Earth nor any of the beings in either would stop him from making good on this oath to himself. If need be, he would rise a thousand times from the dead to continue in this, his life's, his existence's work.

Jackson felt his uncle thinking as they continued their walk towards… wherever. Jackson felt like that was what the rest of his life would be. It would be a long solemn march towards the great wherever with only a few dirges in his heart to keep him glum company. The weather too was starting to change. The clouds were starting to come in. The moon was still visible, but some high, thin cirrus clouds formed around it, so the moon turned into a hazy ball. The wind was starting to pick up and the temperature was dropping as late October made her rightful claim over the air. A breeze, more like a sharp gust chilled them both to the core and something deep in the younger one rose and came out. It came out with a single tear that the wind dried almost as soon as it fell from his eye.

"Kill them all…" Jackson said out loud, angrily before feeling his body physically relax. Something in Jackson told him that his uncle was more capable of bringing justice to the world which had been so wonderful than any of those policemen. They were so concerned with making things look like right. Jackson did not have the time for this. The moment was too urgent for him to wait for things to be done 'the right way'. Hell, 'the right way' could mean that the men who did this could go on trial and walk. That way was too nebulous and his grief and agony was too clearly defined for the system. He lived in Chicago; he saw what happened in some parts of his city. He knew that 'the right way' was slow provided that it even moved in the first place. Justice was a rare thing in that town, so people had to get it for themselves, whatever that meant. "Just… kill them…"

Aiden tensed up the same amount as Jackson relaxed as if Jackson gave him a piece of his pain to carry. Aiden simply chuckled to himself, a wry little chuckle which made the tension leave him too. He would let the badness into the ether where it belonged. Aiden answered his nephew simply, "I will." With the new tension in Aiden's body, pulling the trigger would feel even better. Exacting his revenge and letting this go would be all the more cathartic for the both of them.

"Good." Jackson whispered, feeling the weight of his words and feeling nothing. What he had seen had been so heavy.

When that word passed between Jackson's lips and went out into the air, Aiden knew that Jackson had been ripped into a new world, an adult world. Not only was he brought into the new world, Jackson had been brought their the same way Aiden had, wrongly, and at way too young an age. It was the cross that all the Pearce men had to bear. All the Pearce women were saved, so it seemed that the men bore a double burden. Aiden thought back and chuckled only so that he could hear it.

"I was nine too when I had to learn to be a man." Aiden thought to himself. "It's come full circle."

…

Aiden and Jackson walked into Aiden's hotel room on the second level. Jackson was not entirely sure that he felt safe away from the home that he he saw eaten up. There was one bed in the room because Aiden had not anticipating sharing. The room seemed dark and cold even when Aiden turned on the lights. The sheets were black, and the comforter was gray like slate. The walls were a cream color that seemed to eat the light rather than magnify it. The room was clean, there were a couple of pieces of clothing out of place, but nothing that could not have been cleaned up in thirty seconds. The was a television (an old boxy CRT) set on the wall opposite the bed. In the deep end of the room, Jackson saw a sink with a mirror mounted above it. There were two doors on walls that were perpendicular to the sink. On the one side, Jackson assumed he was looking at a closet door, on the other he saw what looked like the bathroom. What hit Jackson the most was the smell of the room. Luckily his nose was cleared of the smoke and he got a good perception of real aroma. It smelled like Aiden's cologne and heat, and it made him safe as if he was wrapped in the strong embrace of his uncle. Jackson sat on the edge of the bed as he watched Aiden secure the door, and started to feel better. He looked towards the door and saw that the curtains were closed over the window so that no light leaked in and more importantly, no light leaked out. Underneath the window and curtains was a central air unit, capable of blowing out both hot and cold air with the turn of a dial and the push of a button. Between the bed and the door, there was a table had a single laptop on it, plugged into the wall. There was a chair right near the table that was right in front of the computer, and that spot looked like it was occupied very often. Right next to the bed, there was a wood nightstand. With two drawers, one on top and one on the bottom. He exhaled and felt even better when watched his uncle turn the heat on to try to make him feel alive again.

"You should take the hoodie off and your shoes and your socks too." Aiden said gently, "I'm going to get us a place bigger than this with your own room and your own bed soon. I promise."

"Okay."

"Maybe we'll even get a nice place near the Loop. You always like looking at the buildings, a nice place where we can hide out. How does that sound?."

"Yeah," Jackson said. "I always did like looking at the buildings. So does Lena." It struck the both of them that when Jackson spoke of himself he used the past, but when he spoke of one of the deceased, he spoke in the present.

"Anyway." Aiden said, getting the chair, putting it in front of Jackson. "You and I are in this thing together now. And I need you to help me."

"How can I help you?" Jackson said, finally feeling sleep calling his name. He started to remove his jeans too. Underneath, Jackson was wearing a pair of basketball shorts.

"Just keep being a good kid for me." Aiden started, as he took Jackson's clothes and started to fold them in his hands. "You're all I have right now. So please don't wander away. I want to keep you safe, okay…" Aiden's voice started to crack. There were so many more things to say, but he was not going to get to it all right now.

"I promise." Jackson said as he started to get under the covers. Aiden got up and tucked him in. Aiden moved to kissed him on the forehead.

"Try and get some rest, son." Aiden said from his heart.

"Alright." Jackson liked being called son because he had never heard that word from

Aiden stayed by his side and waited for Jackson's breathing to get slow and steady. Jackson was not actually asleep so he heard it all. When Aiden was convinced that Jackson was asleep, he started crying quietly. He was grieving for three: Nicole, Lena, and Jackson's innocence.