The next few weeks felt directionless to Adam.
Frankly, he had no clue what to do and constantly looking over his shoulder was already getting old. The guy who gave him the new license plate was also able to make him a fake ID. With that, he was able to pay for the shadiest, crappiest apartment he had ever seen. Everything about that place was sketchy — the best he could hope for, if he was being honest — and it freaked Adam out. He spent more time in his car than anywhere else, and tried to ignore the law-breaking license plate.
Funny. When Scott was alive, Adam had managed to be merely a bystander in the crap his friend tried to pull. Now, he was front and center.
Adam Radford wasn't off to a good start.
There was a new test. Or game, or whatever these freak shows called them. All the way in Mexico, with a bunch of people who were giving fake treatments to dying patients. Adam didn't like to try and compare or rank how shitty people were, but both sides of the operation were filled with scumbags.
Reminded him of how disgusting people could be.
The test subjects, if that's what they were supposed to be called, were killed in the most horrific, disgusting ways Adam had ever heard. A lady was decapitated after cutting her leg off, a man had to perform brain surgery on himself. Another died in poison gas, and one more barely survived an explosion by cutting the bomb out of his skin.
Adam shuddered. These people were fucking sick.
He couldn't help but wonder why the same people who chose scammers who were capitalizing on the desperation of dying people, had also picked him.
He shook his head. It didn't matter anymore.
Some woman was doing a report on the victims. She was writing a book and everything, apparently calling it Jigsaw: The Conundrum of Carnage. This whole thing had prompted her to hold a small presentation of it. Adam knew it was all some way to dramatize everything and get more sales, but something was better than nothing. An investigative reporter could give him all the answers he needed.
At least that was the plan. The whole speech, she had just gone into more graphic details about the killings. He really would have preferred not to know that the woman cut her leg off to get to her bone marrow, but there he was anyway. Adam waited until her speech was done and everyone else had left. She was looking through something in her notepad, getting ready to leave.
Pamela Jenkins, that was her name. She had said it at the beginning of her speech but not much after. Her blonde hair fell in her face, and she pushed it out of the way of her glasses. Pamela scrunched her nose and held that pad closer, then smiled at it.
Something about that smile, Adam couldn't stop his lip from twitching.
"Excuse me," he said as he approached her.
"Not signing stuff right now."
"No, I," Adam paused when she looked up at him and sighed. "I-I really liked your speech."
That was stupid.
I really liked your speech?
She smiled anyway. "Thanks." Pamela went back to looking at her notepad. "Was nice to see that someone was actually paying attention. Most were just sitting there with dumb looks on their faces."
Yeah, when she was delivering her presentation, people seemed to ignore her. Like they wanted to show up because they were curious, then lost interest only a few minutes in. He wasn't sure if they were just too shy to get up and leave, but anything was better than giving the presenter annoyed glares every five seconds.
"Don't worry about them," Adam told her. "They just don't know what pure talent really is, even in the face of it."
Wow, nice one.
He was embarrassing himself, and all because he couldn't keep his head in the game and ask questions.
But something about her, he almost felt normal. Accepted, something he hadn't felt in a long time. She wasn't giving him condescending glares or judging his every move.
"And you do know?" Pamela asked with a smirk.
Okay, this was his chance. She was over there, grinning ear to ear, bobbing her head around after her witty little remark. Pamela wanted the banter to go on, he could see it in her eyes.
Say something cool, say something cool, say something—
"Yeah."
Fuck's sake.
Pamela looked down and pushed her hair behind her ear. The movement sent whatever perfume she was wearing in Adam's direction. Some fruity scent that just kinda fit her. Adam forced the thought out of his head. He didn't come all this way to talk. Pamela could be the only one who knew about Jigsaw, and the more he knew about Jigsaw, the more he could find about Hoffman.
"Do you know much about Jigsaw? Like, who he is?"
She shook her head. "No, for all we know, he could be a she with a really deep voice or some way to scramble audio. Whoever they are, they're good at what they do. Bet they have ties to the force or something."
"Maybe it's a—"
"You wouldn't know, don't even try. Whatever your guess is, I've already looked into it." She chuckled. "My money is on this detective who's had lots of uh — brutality, we'll say — but I'm just speculating."
He wanted to tell her that Jigsaw was an old dude who was very good at playing dead. Help narrow down the list so she could look into the apprentices, as they apparently like to be referred. But how could he possibly tell her that without mentioning who he is? Surely, she had heard of the bathroom. One slip-up and he'd be fucked.
This was a mistake. A massive, stupid—
"Mind telling me your name, by the way?"
"Adam."
"Well, Adam, did you have specific questions about him?" She smiled. "Any that could wait until my book is out, maybe?"
That got a laugh out of him. An embarrassing snort that made him throw his hand over his mouth and blush.
She didn't seem to mind.
He asked her, "Do you think Jigsaw is working alone?"
"Oh, definitely not. One person couldn't do all that."
An understandable conclusion, at least Adam didn't need to convince her that there could be apprentices.
For his sake and hers, it was a good idea to try and steer her in the right direction.
"What uh," he started as he ran his fingers through his hair. He tried to flick it up before abandoning it and letting his hand rest back at his side. "What cases, I guess, do you have for Jigsaw?"
"Well, there's a guy who went through barbed wire, one who got blown up in a safe room, and Mexico off the top of my head."
He nodded at her. So, she didn't know about the bathroom. Adam figured she wouldn't, but anything helped.
She told him, "I really don't know who Jigsaw's helpers could be. I know I like to make the story more dramatic but between me and you — person to person — I just don't know yet. I'm gonna find out, though."
Something about that really got to Adam. Pamela let herself be vulnerable. She didn't feel like she had to lie to him or manipulate the truth in a reporter way to make herself look good. She understood that it was okay that she didn't know everything.
So, she either felt safe near him or couldn't care less what Adam thought.
Pamela took out her pad and a pen. "Here, lemme give you my number. I'd love to keep you updated."
Adam's heart leapt out of his chest, and he blushed like a love-obsessed teenager.
This whole thing was going so much better than his other attempts at talking to women. He thought about when he talked to the woman before Pamela, and how he had called her Rockstar because he thought her hair was cool. He had muttered off all sorts of stupid shit and even asked to take her picture when she tried to leave.
Rockstar ended up being one of the apprentices, Amanda. She was the reason he woke up in that bathroom in the first place.
At least it couldn't go worse this time around.
Adam smiled and nodded when she gingerly handed him the paper. She signed her name and put a little smiley face next to her number.
Time for Adam Radford to get his first phone.
"Thanks," he mumbled. Adam's eyes darted around the room, and he felt nauseous, but he made himself ask the question anyway. "D-do you want me to only text you about Jigsaw or…"
She chuckled. "Whatever you want, Adam."
His heart felt like it was about to explode.
It was stupid, he knew it was. It was dumb of him to blush like this over someone he had just met. But between the punk he had dated last and Rockstar, now there was just a normal girl who genuinely seemed to care what he had to say.
He had marched around all over the place with his hands on his pockets and his head to the ground, blasting his comfort music and actively trying to shut out the world. That was his normal.
Adam caught another whiff of her perfume as she played with her hair.
"You have any family around here?" He asked her. "Things you do for fun? I'm… I'm new to the area and am all ears for recommendations."
His mother always recommended that kind of excuse when talking to women. She would recommend saying he was new to the area or to something they were interested in. Worked pretty well. And he'd take any excuse to keep this going.
"Just my brother, Will." She looked down. "I uh, I've been thinking about trying out this Italian restaurant nearby. But I sure am not taking my brother there."
She shifted around and chuckled at the ground, and Adam followed her lead. Even he could pick up that hint. She may as well have told him to ask her right there.
"I like Italian."
That was the best he could do. She gave a disappointed sigh. She wanted him to actually ask her, and he couldn't blame her.
Why couldn't Adam come up with the words?
He thought about how Mom would tell him over and over that he was a much better person than he thought. How he always beat himself up and she wished more than anything that he would stop. Adam thought about when Scott would physically push him closer to girls when he tried to avoid them.
But neither of them was there to help him this time. It was up to him.
He looked her in the eyes and smiled. "Would you like to go with me?"
Even though he was expecting to tremble so hard his knees would give out, and he thought he'd be sweating like an animal, Adam's grin stayed plastered on his face. And his heart wasn't racing anymore.
It all just felt right. Adam couldn't explain it.
She returned the grin. "Yeah, I would. Just text me when you're free and we'll figure something out."
Right, with the phone that Adam would get his hands on. His buddy's fake ID was really paying off, at least there was that.
It almost felt like they had already met. Like they had known each other their whole lives, even though they had just met a little bit ago.
But he had to get going. Even if she didn't know much, he'd find a way to feed her little bits here and there. Just enough so that she could get more information her way, and together they could figure it out.
In the meantime, he had someone to help him sort through all this crap.
He was so glad he went on this otherwise useless trip.