'No, Jackson's a good boy. A little quiet, not too many friends, but he'd never do something like that...'

Blue eyes scanned the landscape as the passenger train sped by the partially frozen Hudson River. The ground on either side of the river was covered in several feet of snow, so it had been slow going because the tracks were considered relatively hazardous, but they had almost reached their destination of Yonkers.

'His father was never home. Well, until his business in New York City closed. He wasn't very friendly, never participated in school events. Neither did his mother though...'

The train had slowed again, and although Jackson thought it was because they were arriving at the station, there wasn't enough around them to warrant stopping. Leaning on his right elbow, the eleven-year-old tried to reach up to scratch his nose with his left hand just to have the hand stopped after about a foot. The handcuffs that attached him to the armrest made a loud rattling noise and he could hear his social worker lowering her magazine in response.

'I lived next door to them for ten years... my daughter used to baby-sit Jackson when he was really young. They started leaving him home alone when he was about five though, as soon as he started kindergarten. Well, no, we didn't call the police about it... is that illegal?'

Jackson sighed, his breath making a little fog circle against the cold window. In the reflection, he could see the social worker look down at the magazine once more, so he dropped his forehead against the window and sniffled a bit. After a moment, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the open, forgotten book on the tray table in front of him.

'When we got to the scene, the parents had already been dead for at least three days. Michael Rippner was on the kitchen floor next to the table with his face unrecognisable because of the trauma inflicted by the axe, which was found next to Alice Rippner. She had been hit on the side of the neck with the same axe, and bled to death rather than suffering from blunt trauma. We think she may have been awake for at least fifteen minutes after her son attacked her. The boy? He was sleeping upstairs...'

'Sorry for the delay, folks,' came a voice over the loudspeaker, and all of the passengers looked up except Jackson. 'There are a few obstacles that we're working on clearing off, but once we get the tracks clean, it should only be about ten minutes to Yonkers.'

The social worker sighed and shifted in her chair, obviously ready to be rid of her charge. Slipping her magazine into the pocket of the chair in front of her, she leaned back and looked past Jackson to the icy landscape. For a moment, she was almost tempted to strike up some conversation with the boy, but quite honestly, she found him terrifying. He reached out with a pale hand and closed the book in front of him, a hardbound tome called Hostages to Fortune.

'As the judge presiding over this case, after testimony from both sides, I believe that Jackson Rippner's parenticide was completely in self-defence, an eventuality caused by constant mental and physical abuse from his parents...'

There was something deliberate about every movement the boy made, she realised as she watched him. The psychiatrists who had been assigned to his case made a lot of mention of his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but this was the first time she'd seen it in action. His pale hands brushed the cover of the book delicately as he worked on centring it perfectly on the table, and once it seemed to his liking, he stared at it before picking off a dark hair that was clinging to the binding, smiling lightly until he noticed that she was looking at him. Turning slowly, he looked at her emotionlessly with those icy eyes, and she felt a chill run down her spine. No wonder all of the children at his school had taken to calling him Jack the Ripper.

'It is the decision of this court to release Jackson Rippner into the care of his aunt, Edith Liddell of Schenectady.'

Jackson's handcuffs jarred loudly against the armrest as the train built up speed once more. Leaning over, the social worker started collecting a few things that were under the seat, looking over at Jackson's feet, which were dangling a good few inches off of the floor. Such a tiny boy, thin and pale, seemingly harmless and weak, and yet he'd managed to kill both of his parents. When asked by his frantic neighbours about what happened, he'd seemed more concerned with the state of the kitchen than the condition of his parents. The psychiatrists believed it may have had something to do with denial of his act, but his aunt assured them that he'd been that way all of his life.

'Hello, 911? This is Edith Liddell. I have an emergency. My... my nephew has a knife, and he's trying to kill my son. We're in a different room than him now, but my son is bleeding and we need help! Please, please send someone, fast!'

So now, on his eleventh birthday, Jackson was being transported from a domestic life in Schenectady to a supervised group home in Orangeburg—Rockland Children's Psychiatric Centre. Considered to be dangerous since the attack on his cousin a few days earlier, he was always supposed be restrained and was not permitted to use silver cutlery. The psychiatrists at the centre were excited to hear of his coming—they believed from reading about the boy that he could help them on their research regarding juvenile dissociative identity disorder, juvenile generalised anxiety disorder, and juvenile obsessive-compulsive disorder. In other words, he was 'a great find.'

'Yes, Mrs Liddell, we know exactly where to place Jackson. He'll be very safe and very happy, and he'll be no threat to others.'

The train finally stopped at the nearly snowbound Yonkers station and his social worker quickly undid the handcuffs from the armrest and slipped one cuff onto her own wrist. Grabbing the meagre bag of Jackson's things from the overhead rack, she led him out to the platform where she knew orderlies from the Centre would be waiting. Their feet crunched on fresh snow, and a moment later the social worker was surprised to feel Jackson suddenly grab her around the forearm fearfully. Before she had a chance to look down and talk to him, however, a burly man walked up.

'Is this Jackson Rippner?'

'Yes,' she said, reaching down a hand to push him forward. 'He's an escape artist, so you better be prepared.'

'We are,' said the man with dark certainty as he led them to the edge of the platform and down a flight of stairs. Waiting in the car park was an ambulance and as they came up behind it, another orderly jumped out of the driver's seat and walked around to open the back. The social worker was taken aback by the gurney waiting inside.

'Is that really necessary?' she asked in a small voice. 'He may be really good at getting away, but he's only eleven.'

'State law,' the second orderly replied tersely as he helped them up into the ambulance. 'Anyone being transferred to a psychiatric hospital must be in restraint.'

For a split second after she removed the handcuffs, the social worker was convinced that Jackson was going to run away, but the orderlies were fast; they grabbed him and laid him out on the bed so that he had no choice but to stay with them. They swiftly closed the padded restraints around his wrists, ankles, and waist—all were nearly too big for the tiny boy—and then stepped out of the back, pulling the social worker with them before they slammed the doors shut on Jackson. After a short farewell, the two men got into the cab and soon they were driving away, leaving the social worker standing in the snow alone before she moved back towards the train to New York City.

By the time they arrived at the psychiatric hospital a half-hour later, snow had started falling once again. One of the orderlies carried Jackson from the ambulance and into the building; Jackson, still frozen from the cold of the back of the ambulance, didn't fight against the man's warm arms but rather curled slightly into him as the blustery snow melted on his back. The man, who had a couple of children at home, felt sorry for the boy, but experience at the hospital told him that he was just the same as any other child who feigned innocence. Regardless, he just held him closer as the nurses opened the door for him.

'Jackson Rippner,' the orderly said as he kept a firm grip on Jackson.

'Dr Thomas is waiting for him,' said the nurse behind the counter, ticking off a box on her schedule. 'She's with the other children in the game room.'

The orderly nodded and walked down the hallway, slipping Jackson onto the floor as they reached a door with tempered glass. Jackson, short for his age at four feet, four inches, craned his head up to look in the door, his arms tight across his chest as he shivered a bit. The man opened the door and led him to a middle-aged doctor with long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. With a smile, she bent down and put a hand on his upper arm.

'Hello, Jackson, I'm Dr Thomas. How are you today?'

Jackson stared at her for a few long moments, so she just made a little laughing noise and stood, pulling him to her legs with a hand running through his hair as she spoke to the orderly. Looking about the room with a great amount of distaste, Jackson tried to size up the other children. There were seven others watching television on the other side of the room, three boys and four girls, and they all seemed to be unwilling to mingle with one another. A couple of nurses were sitting near the group of children, neither seeming too concerned with their behaviour. As the orderly left, Jackson turned his attention to the door before being pushed towards the other children by Dr Thomas. After turning off the television, she smiled at the group.

'Children, this is Jackson Rippner. He just came down here from Albany.'

'Jackson Rippner?' snorted one of the children. 'Sounds like Jack the Ripper.'

Jackson bristled and tensed against Dr Thomas's touch, but she kept him firmly in place. 'Patrick, that's not very nice. Apologise to Jackson.'

Patrick rolled his eyes. 'Sorry, Jack.'

A couple of the children laughed, pressing their hands against their mouths as they did so. Jackson glared at each of them in turn, which made of one of the laughing girls gasp. Dr Thomas squeezed Jackson's arm.

'Jackson, why don't you introduce yourself to the group.'

She pushed him forward and he stumbled a bit, which made the children laugh again, but he regained his composure quickly.

'My name is Jackson—it's never Jack,' he said, coldness dripping from each syllable. 'My parents are dead and I was sent here today because my aunt decided she didn't want me in her house anymore.'

'How old are you, Jackson?' prodded Dr Thomas.

'I turned eleven today,' he spat, giving her a glare as he frowned.

'I wouldn't want you in my house either,' said one of the other boys smugly.

'She didn't want me there anymore because I tried to kill my cousin,' Jackson replied with a grin before Dr Thomas could intervene.

Silence fell over the group and the girl who had gasped earlier looked between Jackson and the boy before breaking down in tears. A nurse went over and led her out of the room without a word. A couple of the other children shifted uncomfortably in their seats, none of them looking Jackson in the face.

'I killed my parents too, but it was much more of a Lizzie Borden murder than a Jack—'

'Jackson!' hissed the doctor, her immense displeasure frightfully apparent in her voice.

'Sorry, Dr Thomas,' he said, turning around to give her an innocent smile.

The doctor looked over at the other nurse who was in the room before continuing. 'Everyone, please introduce yourselves to Jackson. Amy, why don't you start?'

In response, the Asian girl the doctor spoke to shook her head quickly, rubbing scarred arms nervously as she avoided Jackson's eyes. He laughed at her and she looked up at him with tears stinging her eyes, which just made him laugh louder until Dr Thomas came up behind him and tried to cover his mouth with her hand.

'Stop it, you fucking nut case!' said a tall, well-developed girl as she scooted over to Amy on the couch, putting her arms around the other girl.

'Paula!' said the doctor, pressing her hand hard against Jackson's lips as he continued laughing. 'Jackson, sit down.'

Immediately, Jackson fell silent and walked over to sit on the couch next to Amy, who scooted closer to Paula to get away from him. The children all looked at him unhappily, but it was one of the boys that spoke first.

'I don't want to room with him, Dr Thomas. Please don't make me room with him.'

'All of the boys will be rooming together,' she said before pointing at the boy, who was opening his mouth again. 'No ifs, ands, or buts.'

The boy closed his mouth and gave Jackson a dirty look that was returned in kind.