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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: see Chapter sixteen
~~~~~~~
To End The Evil
Part 61
Action
The car silently drove up the street toward the Centre, a whole bunch of cars following just as quietly.
Jarod swallowed with difficulty when the Tower came into view.
Big clouds were chasing each other over the sky above the horizon. The water was rough. There were burly waves crashing onto the shore that could be overseen from here. The winds were making the otherwise warm July-day chilly.
The moment the cars came to a stop directly in front of the building, the first agents got out. One could hear car doors clapping and people shouting orders. Guns were drawn and agents, policemen and other armed personal hurried up the stairs to enter the big hall.
Jarod stayed behind, waiting directly next to the car he had arrived with. He neither had the permission nor the desire to go into the Centre.
Now that he was near the building that had stolen a huge part of his life, he had to fight with his emotions. He felt as if all his feelings had been ripped out of his soul and thrust into a mixer. The out coming cocktail had been reinserted.
He had a hard time fighting and encrypting this cocktail. There was anger, hate, sadness, happiness, fright and hope all at once.
~~~~~~~
Everything went in a blur.
The scene was crawling with people either arrested or arresting, people with agency bandages in their pockets or with handcuffs around their wrists.
It was still daylight. The agencies had scheduled the raid to take place in mid afternoon.
Raines had been lead out of the Centre some time ago. The old man had seemed even more fragile and morbid as he had in the artificial light in the Centre’s corridors. He had calmly walked alongside the agents, not trying to make any difficulties.
Raines had acknowledged his defeat. He had raised his head once when they had moved past Jarod but he hadn’t so much twitched an eye.
By now dusk was slowly descending on the scene. Officers were setting up big searchlights and the red and blue lights from the police cars were also flashing, putting the area into a strange light.
Someone walked up from behind. Jarod didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.
“Danny,” he acknowledged without looking at the agent.
“You have eyes in every corner of your head, haven’t you?” Danny asked and the amusement could easily be heard in his voice.
“You learn to have ears and eyes wherever you are, especially when you are around the very place you tried to stay away from for such a long time,” Jarod explained, his eyes still trained onto the entrance of the huge building.
Danny nodded quietly. “I’ve watched you for some time now. You have been standing here for the better part of our stay without so much as stirring a muscle and with your face unmoved. You seemed as if you were in your own little world. I didn’t think that you would notice my coming up,” he chuckled, “… hell I wouldn’t have thought that even a bomb had you looking up.”
Jarod snorted, slightly amused. “Believe me. Even if I’m not running around agitated I keep a close eye on my surroundings. As I said, it was necessary to learn that quickly after escaping,” he paused and finally turned toward the agent. “It kept me alive.”
Danny saw the emotions running through Jarod’s eyes. “Why don’t you go home?” he asked. “Jarod, you are torturing yourself by being around this place.”
Jarod smiled sadly. “You can’t understand that, Danny. I have to be here. I have to see with my own eyes that the people who ran this place are arrested and locked away before I can go on.”
Danny crooked his head and then nodded. He looked at the entrance of the Centre. “I admire you, Jarod,” he said after a short pause.
Jarod, who had already turned back toward the scene as well, looked up sharply and his head snapped over toward his friend. Confusion was written all above his face. “Trust me. There is nothing to admire in my life.”
“Yes, there is. The fact that you came out of this hellhole for once is remarkable,” Danny said.
Jarod shrugged his shoulders. “It was more a case of survival than heroism.”
“That may be but from what you told us, not everyone was so lucky to get out with his mind intact,” Danny mentioned.
Jarod nodded sadly. “I was on the verge to give up,” he admitted and looked at the agent again. “And not only once.”
“What kept you going?”
Jarod turned towards Danny, taking his eyes away from the Centre’s entrance. “There is so much in this world that is worth fighting for. Most people can’t understand that but if you lead a life isolated from the outside for such a long time, you keep uncovering the small things of everyday life once you are free. There are moments that, for me, have a great value while for many people they are just….,” he struggled to find the words, “… normal.”
Suddenly there was an animally scream. “Jarod!!!”
Jarod froze as if caught in the act. It took him everything to keep from wincing at the whipped scream. He hadn’t paid attention to the surroundings anymore. He had let himself be lulled into the conversation with Danny.
The stage of shock stayed only fleetingly and then, Danny witnessed a transformation in his friend’s features.
Jarod’s expression turned from shock into… there was no word for it. Maybe coldness got the closest to what Danny saw. Jarod’s features hardened and his eyes took on an icy expression. His shoulders straightened and his whole posture changed.
He slowly turned around to a man who was held back by several agents.
“Lyle,” he replied evenly.
“I knew that it was you who brought the feds in,” Lyle growled.
Jarod started walking up to Lyle but Danny stepped around him and into his way to block his advance. Jarod shot the agent a hard look. “Move,” he ordered sharply.
“Jarod,” Danny cautioned.
“Daniel, move!” Jarod commanded, a dangerous sparkle in his eyes.
Danny returned Jarod’s look but stepped out of his path.
Jarod walked up to Lyle. “Yes, Lyle. It was me who brought the agencies into the case,” he said calmly.
“You son of a…,” Lyle roused and struggled against his captors.
“Shut up, Lyle. It’s over. You shouldn’t have underestimated us,” Jarod snapped, interrupting his enemy’s tirade.
Lyle’s features hardened when realization that his sister was in this together with Jarod even though she was nowhere to be seen, sank in. “I’m going to kill you,” he screamed.
“No, you won’t,” Jarod shook his head firmly.
Lyle suddenly brightened and his face took on a mad expression. He grinned. “He is no real agent, do you know that?” He addressed to the people around. “He is not a federal agent and he is no police officer or something like that either,” his wicked gaze came to rest on Jarod and bored into him. “He is a science experiment, a lab rat,” he smirked victoriously, his eyes wide.
Danny tensed when he saw Jarod balling his fist, ready to step between the two men.
Jarod breathed to get his feelings back under control. Then, he straightened again, holding his head even higher and more proudly than before. “No, Lyle. Not anymore,” he replied.
Lyle’s face fell. He had hoped to provoke a reaction from Jarod with his words but he wasn’t rewarded with the one he had hoped for. He had wanted Jarod to get furious and attacking him. It would have been his triumph; a triumph that he could take with him even in his worst defeat.
“I’m not a science experiment anymore, Lyle,” Jarod repeated. “And you know why?” He paused again. “Because the lab I was held in just imploded. It was defused and it crumpled. You have no more power over me or anyone else. You failed and everything is over!”
Lyle shrank back as if burned and stared at his enemy.
“It’s over,” Jarod said again when Lyle was led away his struggles weak and ceasing the further he was lead away from Jarod.
Jarod swallowed and breathed deeply when Lyle was out of sight.
Danny put a hand on Jarod’s shoulder, making him jump. “You ok?” Danny asked concerned.
“I will be,” Jarod nodded and looked up at Danny. The old features were back in place. Nothing reminded of the total stranger that had talked to Lyle.
Danny nodded and then moved over to another agent that came towards them to pass on information.
A small smile graced at Jarod’s lips when he realized that one of his worst demons had just been arrested.
Danny turned back toward his friend again after he had talked to the agent. “Jarod. You wanted me to inform you when we found a young boy… Master Parker,” he called.
Jarod looked at Danny and quickly walked towards him. “Yes. Did you find him?”
“Yeah,” Danny nodded. “He is over there with the paramedics.”
Sure enough there was a frightened squeal coming from where the ambulances were. Jarod sprinted past Danny and dodged the people in his way.
Finally finding the ambulance that held the little Parker boy, he slowed down and calmly approached the boy. The child was fighting against the persons holding him and screaming in terror.
Jarod crouched down in front of the boy, just inside the ambulance with his back towards the door. In his panic, the child didn’t register his presence at all. He was concentrated on flailing his arms and kicking.
“Hey little man,” Jarod called gently.
He was rewarded with a frightened shriek. The kicking and screaming resumed but Jarod had at least part of the attention of the little boy.
“Your sister sends me,” Jarod went on. The boy halted in his movements and frowned suspiciously but when a paramedic saw his chance and advanced, there was another blood curling scream and the boy threw himself against the hands that tried to push him down.
“Let go of him,” Jarod said, still with his voice low so as not to startle the already frightened boy any further.
There was no reaction from the paramedics.
“Let go of him,” Jarod barked shortly. The paramedics looked up startled. Upon seeing Jarod’s gaze, they slowly let go of the boy.
The child hurled himself out of the remaining arms towards the open space behind Jarod.
There was a collective gasp and some hands reached out to the fleeing child but they weren’t fast enough to get him. Jarod’s arm snatched out the moment the tiny child’s body flew past him.
Another wailing scream erupted but Jarod just held the little boy close, whispering nonsense into his ear to calm him down. The boy continued kicking and screaming but finally relaxed somewhat at Jarod’s quiet reassurance. “Hush now. You are ok, little man. Everything will be all right,” he murmured over and over.
Jarod fingered in his breast pocket for the photo he kept there. It was the same picture he had used to convince Catherine Parker’s friend in Europe that he was a friend of Catherine’s daughter and that she could hand the evidence over.
Ever since then, this photo had been stored in the pocket of his leather jacket so that it was always close to where he was. This photo meant a lot to him just as the real person, which was next to him in the picture, did.
“Remember me telling you that your sister sent me?” He quietly asked.
The boy stopped in his movements and there was the tiniest of nods against Jarod’s broad chest.
“She didn’t visit you for quite a long time, did she?”
Again there was a soft nod, a little more encouraged than the last.
“You know, she didn’t forget you. She always thought about you but she just couldn’t come. There are many people outside right now, right?” Jarod posed another question to provoke a reaction and again he felt a soft nod.
He had told the little boy the truth. Though Parker didn’t say it, she often thought about the little boy.
“We did this together. All these people are here because we wanted them to be here and do all the things they are doing now,” he said. That brought another reaction Jarod had been hoping for.
The reassurance that his sister was responsible for what was happening around the small boy was enough to make him relax further and look up at Jarod with questioning eyes.
“Meli?” He asked softly.
Jarod smiled at the nickname. “Yeah, she did that and look what I have here,” Jarod went on and showed the boy the photo he had held in his hand for several minutes now.
The child stretched out his hand to grasp the picture and Jarod gave it to him.
“Meli here?” The boy questioned and looked up at Jarod with pleading eyes.
Jarod shook his head softly. “No, she is not here, little one,” he bent down to whisper something into the boy’s ear. “But I will bring you to her in no time.”
The child looked at him again. The small eyes were vulnerable but yet they stared at Jarod trustfully.
“You want that?” Jarod asked.
The small head bobbed up and down fiercely and Jarod smiled. He stood up, the child firmly secured in his arms, and climbed out of the ambulance.
“Hey, you can’t take the boy with you. He might need treatment!” One of the paramedics called loudly.
Jarod kept going and Danny rushed to his side. “Jarod, they are right. You can’t take the boy with you. They need to check him through.”
“Danny, I’m going to take him with me. He is not ill and if he is, you know that I am more than capable of treating him and the people I will go to are equally capable,” Jarod snorted.
“Yes, I know that but you can’t just take him with you,” Danny reasoned.
“He needs people who take care of him and who treat him like a little boy and not people that are complete strangers and just treat him as a patient. And believe me, I know at least some small part of what he is going through right now and I intend to give him the kind of support he deserves,” Jarod explained and held the boy just a little tighter to him.
“He means something to you,” Danny realized.
“Yeah, he does,” Jarod answered without going further into the theme.
“We might need him later on to ask him some questions,” Danny objected.
“You can ask him all the questions you want to but right now he wouldn’t give you any answers anyway. The boy is scared to death. I will bring him back here so that you can pose the questions when the time comes,” Jarod replied.
Danny sighed and finally relented. “I trust you Jarod. Don’t make me regret that.”
Jarod paused in his steps and turned to Danny with a calm face. “You won’t. I promise,” he said and his words and his eyes communicated his serenity and gratefulness.
Danny nodded curtly and stalked away when another agent called his name.
Jarod sighed and gently stroke a hand over the boys back. By now the small child clung to him with an iron force.
Suddenly a hand fell on Jarod’s shoulder.
Jarod swivelled around to find Angelo standing behind him, a big grin on his face.
“Angelo,” Jarod breathed and drew his old friend into a hug.
“Friend tense,” Angelo stated with his head crooked to the side. “Tense but… hopeful.”
Jarod’s smile grew. “Yes, Angelo. That’s right.”
“Evil gone,” Angelo blinked. “Go now.”
Jarod nodded. “Yeah, we will go now.”
“But come back,” the empath frowned and then brightened. “Make better.”
Chuckling, Jarod led Angelo away to his car.
“Jarod, I’ll contact you soon. We will need your testimony and perhaps more information. And the boy,” Danny called behind him.
Jarod just waved a hand and put the boy down in the backseat. It took him some time to get the child as far as to let go of him but with some patience the boy relented and released him.
Jarod then got into the car himself to start the drive back to Parker and then the journey back home, to the people that meant the world to him.
To be continued…
~~~~~~~
Part 61
Action
The car silently drove up the street toward the Centre, a whole bunch of cars following just as quietly.
Jarod swallowed with difficulty when the Tower came into view.
Big clouds were chasing each other over the sky above the horizon. The water was rough. There were burly waves crashing onto the shore that could be overseen from here. The winds were making the otherwise warm July-day chilly.
The moment the cars came to a stop directly in front of the building, the first agents got out. One could hear car doors clapping and people shouting orders. Guns were drawn and agents, policemen and other armed personal hurried up the stairs to enter the big hall.
Jarod stayed behind, waiting directly next to the car he had arrived with. He neither had the permission nor the desire to go into the Centre.
Now that he was near the building that had stolen a huge part of his life, he had to fight with his emotions. He felt as if all his feelings had been ripped out of his soul and thrust into a mixer. The out coming cocktail had been reinserted.
He had a hard time fighting and encrypting this cocktail. There was anger, hate, sadness, happiness, fright and hope all at once.
~~~~~~~
Everything went in a blur.
The scene was crawling with people either arrested or arresting, people with agency bandages in their pockets or with handcuffs around their wrists.
It was still daylight. The agencies had scheduled the raid to take place in mid afternoon.
Raines had been lead out of the Centre some time ago. The old man had seemed even more fragile and morbid as he had in the artificial light in the Centre’s corridors. He had calmly walked alongside the agents, not trying to make any difficulties.
Raines had acknowledged his defeat. He had raised his head once when they had moved past Jarod but he hadn’t so much twitched an eye.
By now dusk was slowly descending on the scene. Officers were setting up big searchlights and the red and blue lights from the police cars were also flashing, putting the area into a strange light.
Someone walked up from behind. Jarod didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.
“Danny,” he acknowledged without looking at the agent.
“You have eyes in every corner of your head, haven’t you?” Danny asked and the amusement could easily be heard in his voice.
“You learn to have ears and eyes wherever you are, especially when you are around the very place you tried to stay away from for such a long time,” Jarod explained, his eyes still trained onto the entrance of the huge building.
Danny nodded quietly. “I’ve watched you for some time now. You have been standing here for the better part of our stay without so much as stirring a muscle and with your face unmoved. You seemed as if you were in your own little world. I didn’t think that you would notice my coming up,” he chuckled, “… hell I wouldn’t have thought that even a bomb had you looking up.”
Jarod snorted, slightly amused. “Believe me. Even if I’m not running around agitated I keep a close eye on my surroundings. As I said, it was necessary to learn that quickly after escaping,” he paused and finally turned toward the agent. “It kept me alive.”
Danny saw the emotions running through Jarod’s eyes. “Why don’t you go home?” he asked. “Jarod, you are torturing yourself by being around this place.”
Jarod smiled sadly. “You can’t understand that, Danny. I have to be here. I have to see with my own eyes that the people who ran this place are arrested and locked away before I can go on.”
Danny crooked his head and then nodded. He looked at the entrance of the Centre. “I admire you, Jarod,” he said after a short pause.
Jarod, who had already turned back toward the scene as well, looked up sharply and his head snapped over toward his friend. Confusion was written all above his face. “Trust me. There is nothing to admire in my life.”
“Yes, there is. The fact that you came out of this hellhole for once is remarkable,” Danny said.
Jarod shrugged his shoulders. “It was more a case of survival than heroism.”
“That may be but from what you told us, not everyone was so lucky to get out with his mind intact,” Danny mentioned.
Jarod nodded sadly. “I was on the verge to give up,” he admitted and looked at the agent again. “And not only once.”
“What kept you going?”
Jarod turned towards Danny, taking his eyes away from the Centre’s entrance. “There is so much in this world that is worth fighting for. Most people can’t understand that but if you lead a life isolated from the outside for such a long time, you keep uncovering the small things of everyday life once you are free. There are moments that, for me, have a great value while for many people they are just….,” he struggled to find the words, “… normal.”
Suddenly there was an animally scream. “Jarod!!!”
Jarod froze as if caught in the act. It took him everything to keep from wincing at the whipped scream. He hadn’t paid attention to the surroundings anymore. He had let himself be lulled into the conversation with Danny.
The stage of shock stayed only fleetingly and then, Danny witnessed a transformation in his friend’s features.
Jarod’s expression turned from shock into… there was no word for it. Maybe coldness got the closest to what Danny saw. Jarod’s features hardened and his eyes took on an icy expression. His shoulders straightened and his whole posture changed.
He slowly turned around to a man who was held back by several agents.
“Lyle,” he replied evenly.
“I knew that it was you who brought the feds in,” Lyle growled.
Jarod started walking up to Lyle but Danny stepped around him and into his way to block his advance. Jarod shot the agent a hard look. “Move,” he ordered sharply.
“Jarod,” Danny cautioned.
“Daniel, move!” Jarod commanded, a dangerous sparkle in his eyes.
Danny returned Jarod’s look but stepped out of his path.
Jarod walked up to Lyle. “Yes, Lyle. It was me who brought the agencies into the case,” he said calmly.
“You son of a…,” Lyle roused and struggled against his captors.
“Shut up, Lyle. It’s over. You shouldn’t have underestimated us,” Jarod snapped, interrupting his enemy’s tirade.
Lyle’s features hardened when realization that his sister was in this together with Jarod even though she was nowhere to be seen, sank in. “I’m going to kill you,” he screamed.
“No, you won’t,” Jarod shook his head firmly.
Lyle suddenly brightened and his face took on a mad expression. He grinned. “He is no real agent, do you know that?” He addressed to the people around. “He is not a federal agent and he is no police officer or something like that either,” his wicked gaze came to rest on Jarod and bored into him. “He is a science experiment, a lab rat,” he smirked victoriously, his eyes wide.
Danny tensed when he saw Jarod balling his fist, ready to step between the two men.
Jarod breathed to get his feelings back under control. Then, he straightened again, holding his head even higher and more proudly than before. “No, Lyle. Not anymore,” he replied.
Lyle’s face fell. He had hoped to provoke a reaction from Jarod with his words but he wasn’t rewarded with the one he had hoped for. He had wanted Jarod to get furious and attacking him. It would have been his triumph; a triumph that he could take with him even in his worst defeat.
“I’m not a science experiment anymore, Lyle,” Jarod repeated. “And you know why?” He paused again. “Because the lab I was held in just imploded. It was defused and it crumpled. You have no more power over me or anyone else. You failed and everything is over!”
Lyle shrank back as if burned and stared at his enemy.
“It’s over,” Jarod said again when Lyle was led away his struggles weak and ceasing the further he was lead away from Jarod.
Jarod swallowed and breathed deeply when Lyle was out of sight.
Danny put a hand on Jarod’s shoulder, making him jump. “You ok?” Danny asked concerned.
“I will be,” Jarod nodded and looked up at Danny. The old features were back in place. Nothing reminded of the total stranger that had talked to Lyle.
Danny nodded and then moved over to another agent that came towards them to pass on information.
A small smile graced at Jarod’s lips when he realized that one of his worst demons had just been arrested.
Danny turned back toward his friend again after he had talked to the agent. “Jarod. You wanted me to inform you when we found a young boy… Master Parker,” he called.
Jarod looked at Danny and quickly walked towards him. “Yes. Did you find him?”
“Yeah,” Danny nodded. “He is over there with the paramedics.”
Sure enough there was a frightened squeal coming from where the ambulances were. Jarod sprinted past Danny and dodged the people in his way.
Finally finding the ambulance that held the little Parker boy, he slowed down and calmly approached the boy. The child was fighting against the persons holding him and screaming in terror.
Jarod crouched down in front of the boy, just inside the ambulance with his back towards the door. In his panic, the child didn’t register his presence at all. He was concentrated on flailing his arms and kicking.
“Hey little man,” Jarod called gently.
He was rewarded with a frightened shriek. The kicking and screaming resumed but Jarod had at least part of the attention of the little boy.
“Your sister sends me,” Jarod went on. The boy halted in his movements and frowned suspiciously but when a paramedic saw his chance and advanced, there was another blood curling scream and the boy threw himself against the hands that tried to push him down.
“Let go of him,” Jarod said, still with his voice low so as not to startle the already frightened boy any further.
There was no reaction from the paramedics.
“Let go of him,” Jarod barked shortly. The paramedics looked up startled. Upon seeing Jarod’s gaze, they slowly let go of the boy.
The child hurled himself out of the remaining arms towards the open space behind Jarod.
There was a collective gasp and some hands reached out to the fleeing child but they weren’t fast enough to get him. Jarod’s arm snatched out the moment the tiny child’s body flew past him.
Another wailing scream erupted but Jarod just held the little boy close, whispering nonsense into his ear to calm him down. The boy continued kicking and screaming but finally relaxed somewhat at Jarod’s quiet reassurance. “Hush now. You are ok, little man. Everything will be all right,” he murmured over and over.
Jarod fingered in his breast pocket for the photo he kept there. It was the same picture he had used to convince Catherine Parker’s friend in Europe that he was a friend of Catherine’s daughter and that she could hand the evidence over.
Ever since then, this photo had been stored in the pocket of his leather jacket so that it was always close to where he was. This photo meant a lot to him just as the real person, which was next to him in the picture, did.
“Remember me telling you that your sister sent me?” He quietly asked.
The boy stopped in his movements and there was the tiniest of nods against Jarod’s broad chest.
“She didn’t visit you for quite a long time, did she?”
Again there was a soft nod, a little more encouraged than the last.
“You know, she didn’t forget you. She always thought about you but she just couldn’t come. There are many people outside right now, right?” Jarod posed another question to provoke a reaction and again he felt a soft nod.
He had told the little boy the truth. Though Parker didn’t say it, she often thought about the little boy.
“We did this together. All these people are here because we wanted them to be here and do all the things they are doing now,” he said. That brought another reaction Jarod had been hoping for.
The reassurance that his sister was responsible for what was happening around the small boy was enough to make him relax further and look up at Jarod with questioning eyes.
“Meli?” He asked softly.
Jarod smiled at the nickname. “Yeah, she did that and look what I have here,” Jarod went on and showed the boy the photo he had held in his hand for several minutes now.
The child stretched out his hand to grasp the picture and Jarod gave it to him.
“Meli here?” The boy questioned and looked up at Jarod with pleading eyes.
Jarod shook his head softly. “No, she is not here, little one,” he bent down to whisper something into the boy’s ear. “But I will bring you to her in no time.”
The child looked at him again. The small eyes were vulnerable but yet they stared at Jarod trustfully.
“You want that?” Jarod asked.
The small head bobbed up and down fiercely and Jarod smiled. He stood up, the child firmly secured in his arms, and climbed out of the ambulance.
“Hey, you can’t take the boy with you. He might need treatment!” One of the paramedics called loudly.
Jarod kept going and Danny rushed to his side. “Jarod, they are right. You can’t take the boy with you. They need to check him through.”
“Danny, I’m going to take him with me. He is not ill and if he is, you know that I am more than capable of treating him and the people I will go to are equally capable,” Jarod snorted.
“Yes, I know that but you can’t just take him with you,” Danny reasoned.
“He needs people who take care of him and who treat him like a little boy and not people that are complete strangers and just treat him as a patient. And believe me, I know at least some small part of what he is going through right now and I intend to give him the kind of support he deserves,” Jarod explained and held the boy just a little tighter to him.
“He means something to you,” Danny realized.
“Yeah, he does,” Jarod answered without going further into the theme.
“We might need him later on to ask him some questions,” Danny objected.
“You can ask him all the questions you want to but right now he wouldn’t give you any answers anyway. The boy is scared to death. I will bring him back here so that you can pose the questions when the time comes,” Jarod replied.
Danny sighed and finally relented. “I trust you Jarod. Don’t make me regret that.”
Jarod paused in his steps and turned to Danny with a calm face. “You won’t. I promise,” he said and his words and his eyes communicated his serenity and gratefulness.
Danny nodded curtly and stalked away when another agent called his name.
Jarod sighed and gently stroke a hand over the boys back. By now the small child clung to him with an iron force.
Suddenly a hand fell on Jarod’s shoulder.
Jarod swivelled around to find Angelo standing behind him, a big grin on his face.
“Angelo,” Jarod breathed and drew his old friend into a hug.
“Friend tense,” Angelo stated with his head crooked to the side. “Tense but… hopeful.”
Jarod’s smile grew. “Yes, Angelo. That’s right.”
“Evil gone,” Angelo blinked. “Go now.”
Jarod nodded. “Yeah, we will go now.”
“But come back,” the empath frowned and then brightened. “Make better.”
Chuckling, Jarod led Angelo away to his car.
“Jarod, I’ll contact you soon. We will need your testimony and perhaps more information. And the boy,” Danny called behind him.
Jarod just waved a hand and put the boy down in the backseat. It took him some time to get the child as far as to let go of him but with some patience the boy relented and released him.
Jarod then got into the car himself to start the drive back to Parker and then the journey back home, to the people that meant the world to him.
To be continued…
