Chapter Three
"I escaped three years ago," Jarod finished. "Had I known that Jade was still alive, I would of brought her. They . . . I was told that she was dead."
"No reason to apologize, lad," Hudson said gently. "You did what you could. That's all anyone could ask of you."
"Jade mentioned you a lot," Brooklyn added. "She speaks very highly of you."
"There's one thing I don't understand," Lexington frowned. "If you thought Jade was dead, who sent her the money and the bear?"
Jarod frowned as well. "Money? What money?"
"Someone planted well over two hundred dollars in Jade's jacket," Elisa explained. "And a quote."
"If you don't want to be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten," Jarod quoted, grinning. "Either write things worth the reading or do things worth the writing."
"That's the one," Hudson chuckled.
"Then, when I was in the hospital, someone sent me Jar-Bear," Jade continued.
Concern flashed in Jarod's eyes. "Hospital? What happened?"
"Severius tried to capture me again," Jade replied grimly. "You remember him?"
Jarod growled. Of course he did. How could he forget the man whose yearly visits gave an innocent child lifelong physical and emotional scars?
"What exactly is Jar-Bear?" Elisa asked curiously. "And why is covered in blood?"
"Jar-Bar is a gift a friend sent me as a child," Jarod explained. "Catherine Parker, the wife of the head of the Centre, had a really big heart. She told me that no kid should go without toys, so she gave me a teddy bear. I called it Cathy. It was always a mystery to me how she ended up working at a horrible place like the Centre."
"Maybe she wasn't all what she seemed," Goliath suggested quietly.
"She wasn't," Jarod said solemnly. "She was so much more. She was killed in an attempt to rescue eight of the Centre children, myself included."
"Eight?" Angela looked horrified. "How many children were prisoners there?"
"It's hard to tell," Jarod replied sadly. "I couldn't have been more than four when I was stolen from my family. Kyle, my little brother, was even younger."
Everyone except Jarod and Jade stared in shock.
"When I gave it to Jade, it still looked like new, except for the smell of salt from my tears," Jarod continued.
"The blood was all mine," Jade added softly. "I also added more tears. Being a prisoner himself, he wasn't able to comfort me every time I was upset. So, he gave me Jar-Bear and told me whenever I hugged it, I'd really be receiving a hug from him."
Everyone was silent for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. Their thoughts were of sadness and comfort and a little of in between. It was interrupted when Jarod chuckled softly. Everyone assembled looked at him started.
"Angelo," the man in question said, as if that explained everything.
Jade smiled in understanding, but she was the only one.
"Angelo's another of the Centre's projects," Jade explained. "Thanks to a . . . project in electric current, he's an empath. That means that he can sense what other people are feeling. He can touch a picture, for example, and know who took it, where that person is, and what he's feeling. Like the after affects of most pretends, he picks up that person's characteristics for a while."
Jarod looked at her in surprise. "You know about the experiment?"
Jade nodded grimly. "When I first met him, I was reluctant in trusting anyone. You know that mind-reading thing I used to do? I did it and I saw what happened. What they did to him . . . it's kind of like shock therapy, It accelerated the parts of his brain that controlled the empathy and multiplied his talent by tenfold. At the same time, it pretty much wiped out his memories. He always refers to himself in the third person. The worst part is, he was younger than I am now.
Elisa and the Gargoyles stared in shocked silence.
'Like me," Jade suddenly grinned, as if trying to change the mood, "he has a hobby of wandering through the vents. Angelo was so easy to befriend. He's really nice and in a strange way, wise. Of course, thanks to the experiment, it was hard to figure if he was in an empathetic mood or just . . . I dunno, babbling. That's why I really didn't pay that much attention when he kept insisting I'd see Jarod again."
Elisa was about to say something, when her cell phone rang.
"Hello? Oh, hello, Captain . . . What! Another one! . . . Mmm-hmm. Sure. We'll be right down."
Elisa hung up. "The perp we're after just kidnapped another kid. He kidnaps them before killing them," she explained, momentarily forgetting Jade was in the room. "This time it's the daughter of a doctor. Piper Hanson."
Jade let out a startled gasp. "Piper? But I was just talking to her earlier today."
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Forgotten Wanderer: He won't chow up in this chapter but will later.
A/N Jade is the only character that belongs to me. Well, actually, I do own Piper Hanson and her doctor dad.
A/N Short chapter, I know. But it's been so long since I've updated.