Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: Do any of us really own anything? Can anyone claim to possess the lives of these characters that we hold so dear? You betcha. But it isn’t me. Don’t own them. Just borrowing them. This is just my feeble attempt to keep the Pretender alive and well until we finally get to find him again on DVD release. If anyone tries to sue, I’ll disavow all knowledge.
-
The Straight Path Lost Part 5
- By Phenyx
07/02/04
-
Sydney stood at the screen door and watched the man sitting on the porch. The psychiatrist was becoming more concerned about Jarod with each passing day. Sydney’s protégé was doing what he had done almost constantly for the week that had passed since Parker had risen from her sickbed. Jarod was intently focused on his laptop computer, watching a twenty-four hour news channel spew inane factoids about the terrorist cell that had been uncovered at The Centre.
The capture of the pretender known as Alex had set into motion a series of events that left the entire country in a state of shock. The Center was now under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. Accusations of conspiracy among government officials and secret military connections were racing through the most powerful and influential offices around the globe.
The media was latching onto the most minute of details, dragging forth any number of obscure “specialists” to interview on whatever topic seemed relevant at the moment. The consequences of isolation, the chemistry of brain washing, and the effects of torture on children, all were discussed at great length on a variety of stations.
Jarod was fixated on every word. He sat, curled up in a wicker chair, frowning at the monitor before him. Sydney’s worry deepened when he noticed Jarod chewing at his knuckles. The pretender gnawed at the knuckle of his left hand, at the joint between the second metacarpal and it’s proximal phalanx bone.
It was a nervous habit that the pretender had not displayed for years. During Jarod’s adolescence, he had begun to bite at his knuckle the way some teens chewed their fingernails. Within a matter of weeks, a bloody lesion had developed and Sydney had been forced to extreme measures to stop the boy’s self-mutilation.
Stepping quietly onto the wooden porch, Sydney approached his protégé. With a gentle caress across the back of Jarod’s hand, Sydney said simply, “That flesh is tender, Jarod. Please stop.”
The younger man’s reaction was immediate. Jarod straightened in the chair, his hands slipped to his sides and his fingertips curled beneath his thighs. As the dark eyes looked up at Sydney expectantly the psychiatrist sighed. Jarod wasn’t aware of the conditioned response. The fact that the combination of tactile and verbal cues still worked so well was an eerie reminder of the depth of Jarod’s Centre training.
Sydney squelched the guilty stab from his conscience, easily done after so many years of practice. He leaned against the porch railing and met Jarod’s innocent gaze unflinchingly.
“Tell me what’s bothering you, Jarod,” Sydney said kindly.
“Nothing,” was the reply. “I’m fine.”
With a disappointed shake of his head, Sydney leaned forward and took Jarod’s left hand between his palms. Rubbing his thumb across the angry red marks on Jarod’s knuckle Sydney said softly, “I haven’t needed to tend this kind of wound for a very long time.”
The pretender shrugged without comment.
“When you were a boy,” Sydney remembered. “This behavior was triggered by Miss Parker’s departure to Europe. You were very upset to learn that she would be finishing her education over seas.”
Jarod glanced away in an attempt to hide his chagrin. “Was I so obvious?” he asked.
“Only to me,” Sydney answered with a smile. “The habit didn’t manifest itself until she’d been gone for a couple of months, so no one else ever made the connection.”
Jarod sighed. “I didn’t realize she’d left until then.”
“I know.”
“She never even said goodbye,” Jarod said in a forlorn voice. “I think that’s what bothered me the most.”
“You were a lonely boy,” Sydney added. “And she was important to you. On some level you must have felt abandoned.”
“It wasn’t her fault that her father sent her away,” Jarod said.
“But the reality, the logical reasoning behind things, rarely has much impact on the feelings that are generated,” Sydney observed. “You can’t help how it made you feel.”
Jarod nodded, a troubled frown creasing his brow.
Sydney tilted his head curiously. “Does having her back in your daily life distress you?”
“Oh no,” Jarod said. “Not at all.” The pretender glanced up at Sydney, a sly grin spreading across his face. “Well...” he continued. “She does bother me in a way. But it is not the way that you think.”
Sydney smiled. “You find the sexual attraction to be distracting.”
Jarod’s head nearly spun around in shock. Wide brown eyes stared up at Sydney in a wonder that bordered on fear. “You know about that?” he cried.
The psychiatrist did his best not to laugh out loud. “Anyone who has ever been in the same room with the two of you knows about it.”
“How?” Jarod moaned. “We’re at each other’s throats half the time.”
“Yes,” Sydney said wryly.
“She hates me,” the pretender declared.
The psychiatrist hid his amusement. Jarod was more caught up in Parker’s spell than Sydney had realized. “Miss Parker’s feelings are something you should discuss with her, not me,” Sydney said kindly.
“Do you think so?” Jarod asked. At Sydney’s nod Jarod sighed. “I think she would beat me within an inch of my life if I even hint at anything of a romantic nature,” he said.
“Perhaps,” Sydney agreed. “But she’s a beautiful woman. It could be worth a beating in the long run.”
Jarod stared up at Sydney with wide eyes. After a moment, the pretender began to laugh, delighted ripples of sound flowing from him. “Sydney,” he chortled. “You’re teasing me.”
Sydney smiled affectionately at his protégé. “Just a little,” he admitted. “But is good to see you smile. You’ve been terribly hard on yourself lately.”
Jarod’s amusement vanished and he looked away, trying to hide his anxiety.
“Jarod,” Sydney urged. “Please tell me what’s wrong. I don’t understand why you are so upset when everything seems to be coming together for you. The Centre can’t hurt you anymore. Your family is safe.”
The pretender nodded. “I’ve never been so close to having the life I have always dreamed of,” he whispered. “I’m about to lose it all. And that scares me to death.”
“Lose it? Why?” Sydney frowned.
“Can’t you see, Sydney?” Jarod asked woefully. “Don’t you understand what is happening?”
Placing a hand on Jarod’s shoulder, Sydney begged, “Tell me.”
“Alex,” the pretender growled. Shrugging away from his mentor’s touch, Jarod stood angrily and began to pace. “They are crucifying him. One minute they are claiming he’s a lunatic, the next he’s an evil genius bent on destroying democracy.”
“You aren’t worried about Alex’s well-being,” Sydney said.
“No,” Jarod snarled. “I should be, but I’m not.” With a hiss of frustration, Jarod strode across the porch and yanked open the door. He hurried into the house, as though attempting to escape the conversation. Sydney rushed after him.
Catching up to the younger man in the kitchen, Sydney could see the near frantic look in Jarod’s eyes. The pretender was trapped between Sydney and his family as the latter gathered at the table in preparation for a meal.
“Jarod?” the major asked warily. “Are you okay?”
Jarod abruptly seemed very calm, an icy stillness falling over him. Sydney tensed, knowing his pupil well enough to realize that this composure was a thin mask for the emotions churning beneath the surface. “I’m fine,” he said softly.
“Bull shit,” Miss Parker said from her seat at the table. Her hair was haphazardly pulled back with a clip, the extent of her styling ability curtailed by the arm that was still immobilized, tied to her body with a sling.
“We were discussing the situation with Alex,” Sydney explained to the group. “Jarod seems to be concerned about the way Alex is being portrayed by the media.”
“Don’t fret over that psychopath,” Margaret said in a bright tone as she placed a dish of warm rolls onto the table.
“Sociopath,” Miss Parker murmured. “Alex is a sociopath, not a psychopath. There’s a difference.”
Sydney caught the quick glance that flickered between Jarod and Miss Parker. He briefly wondered what it meant.
“Either way,” Margaret went on. “It has nothing to do with us.”
Jarod’s voice grew louder as his frustration began to change to anger. “It has everything to with us, with me. How can you not understand?”
“Jarod,” the pretender’s mother frowned. “That man is a murderer, an assassin.”
“And you think that I’m not?” Jarod’s voice was low, cold and dangerous. Yet, his dark eyes shimmered with pain-filled tears. “I was the Centre’s best and brightest pretender. Alex was always a pale second to my talent.”
“Jarod, don’t,” Sydney pleaded. The pretender’s anguish rolled off of him in waves of almost visible despair. Sydney felt the younger man’s pain as though it were his own. Years of pent up guilt and self-hatred were boiling to the surface. And there wasn’t a damn thing Sydney could do to stop it.
“Alex is a killer,” Jarod went on. “But I have a far larger body count tallied on my scorecard.”
“I don’t believe that,” the major stated firmly.
Jarod laughed, a sorrow filled cackle. “Shall I enlighten you, Father?” The pretender turned his back on his stunned audience to glare angrily out the window as he spoke. “Simulation 1141,” he hissed. “It was supposed to be a rescue operation. An ATF operative’s cover was blown. He was being held in a drug lord’s processing facility in a small village in Columbia. The assignment was to retrieve the agent and take down the facility with a minimal incursion force.”
“You don’t need to do this, Jarod,” Sydney said softly.
The pretender leaned his forehead against the glass pane in resignation. “They need to understand, Sydney.” With a heavy sigh, Jarod continued. “I came up with a plan that required only two operatives. Disguised as farmers, they could enter the village in a pickup truck. No one would think twice about two men hauling fertilizer.
With a simple detonator, they could blow up the truck and portions of the processing plant. In the ensuing confusion, they could rescue the prisoner. No worries.”
Jarod heaved a broken gasp as he fought tears of shame and pain. “The Centre didn’t even sell the simulation,” he said. “They gave it away, used it as a demonstration for a higher profile client. It was as simple as a few mathematical ratios, a bigger truck and a different target.”
“One hundred and sixty–eight people died at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Nineteen of them were children,” Jarod said. “They died because I thought up an economical way for one man to do a great deal of damage.”
“You... you couldn’t have known,” Margaret said in a voice little more than a whisper.
Jarod turned and gazed sadly at his mother. “Ignorance is no excuse for murder,” he replied. Running his hands through his hair, Jarod thudded his back against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. “Ignorance is no excuse,” he repeated to himself.
“One bit of good news though,” he chirped with a false cheerfulness. “The World Trade Center wasn’t me.” A haunted look of woe filled those dark eyes as Jarod said softly, “It was one of us. I have no doubt of that. I wasn’t the only pretender raised in those dark halls. The destruction of the Twin Towers had the Centre written all over it. It was beautifully planned, so precise, so efficient. It was god damned pretender poetry.”
Jarod gazed up at the ceiling, absently wiping moisture from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I could find out, I suppose,” he sniffed. “It wouldn’t take much to dip into the mainframe and find out whose simulation led to the attack.”
A small mewling sound crossed the room. “Please, don’t.” The voice was raspy and weak, as if dragged from a soul on the very edge of oblivion.
Sydney, so focused on Jarod and his distress, had effectively been ignoring everyone else in the room. But now his attention was drawn to the figure curled on the floor in the far corner. The boy was in a fetal position with his knees pulled in close to his chest. His face was wet with the tears that still flowed silently down his cheeks.
“Jack!” Jarod wailed. The pretender lost his battle with his own misery and burst into sobs. He literally crawled across the room, batting away Sydney’s attempts to help him. When he reached the youngster’s side, Jarod pulled the boy into his arms. “I’m sorry,” the pretender groaned as he wrapped his body around the child in a protective embrace. “I’m so sorry.”
“We killed them, Jarod,” the boy sobbed. “All those people died because of us.”
Sydney stood helplessly as the two pretenders clung to each other and wept. When the psychiatrist tried to soothe them, Jarod turned on him angrily, nearly snarling.
“Leave us alone,” Jarod cried. “Please, Sydney. We are what you’ve made us. You can’t unmake what we have become. You can’t fix this. No one can.”
The pretender’s words struck Sydney as harshly as if they had been physical blows. The older man flinched away, wounded by the honest bitterness in Jarod’s tone. Sydney glanced around the room sure he would find only rage and recrimination on the other faces. But he saw no accusations in the eyes of Jarod’s parents. He found only sorrow and tears.
Everyone was crying. Not even Miss Parker was immune to the tragedy unfolding before them. Sydney looked toward her, praying he would see forgiveness in her expression. She stood and came to Sydney, stepping into his arms and allowing him to draw comfort from the act of comforting her.
After a long moment, Parker looked up at him and nodded. Moving away from Sydney, she crouched on the floor beside the distraught pretenders. With her good hand she cupped Jarod’s cheek in her palm. “Jarod,” she called gently. “You were only a boy. Don’t blame yourself.”
She turned slightly, transferring her hand from Jarod’s face to the boy’s. “Jack, look at me.” Miss Parker urged. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Wide brown eyes peered at her over Jarod’s bicep.
“You are a good boy,” she whispered. “It wasn’t your fault.”
--
-
The Straight Path Lost Part 5
- By Phenyx
07/02/04
-
Sydney stood at the screen door and watched the man sitting on the porch. The psychiatrist was becoming more concerned about Jarod with each passing day. Sydney’s protégé was doing what he had done almost constantly for the week that had passed since Parker had risen from her sickbed. Jarod was intently focused on his laptop computer, watching a twenty-four hour news channel spew inane factoids about the terrorist cell that had been uncovered at The Centre.
The capture of the pretender known as Alex had set into motion a series of events that left the entire country in a state of shock. The Center was now under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. Accusations of conspiracy among government officials and secret military connections were racing through the most powerful and influential offices around the globe.
The media was latching onto the most minute of details, dragging forth any number of obscure “specialists” to interview on whatever topic seemed relevant at the moment. The consequences of isolation, the chemistry of brain washing, and the effects of torture on children, all were discussed at great length on a variety of stations.
Jarod was fixated on every word. He sat, curled up in a wicker chair, frowning at the monitor before him. Sydney’s worry deepened when he noticed Jarod chewing at his knuckles. The pretender gnawed at the knuckle of his left hand, at the joint between the second metacarpal and it’s proximal phalanx bone.
It was a nervous habit that the pretender had not displayed for years. During Jarod’s adolescence, he had begun to bite at his knuckle the way some teens chewed their fingernails. Within a matter of weeks, a bloody lesion had developed and Sydney had been forced to extreme measures to stop the boy’s self-mutilation.
Stepping quietly onto the wooden porch, Sydney approached his protégé. With a gentle caress across the back of Jarod’s hand, Sydney said simply, “That flesh is tender, Jarod. Please stop.”
The younger man’s reaction was immediate. Jarod straightened in the chair, his hands slipped to his sides and his fingertips curled beneath his thighs. As the dark eyes looked up at Sydney expectantly the psychiatrist sighed. Jarod wasn’t aware of the conditioned response. The fact that the combination of tactile and verbal cues still worked so well was an eerie reminder of the depth of Jarod’s Centre training.
Sydney squelched the guilty stab from his conscience, easily done after so many years of practice. He leaned against the porch railing and met Jarod’s innocent gaze unflinchingly.
“Tell me what’s bothering you, Jarod,” Sydney said kindly.
“Nothing,” was the reply. “I’m fine.”
With a disappointed shake of his head, Sydney leaned forward and took Jarod’s left hand between his palms. Rubbing his thumb across the angry red marks on Jarod’s knuckle Sydney said softly, “I haven’t needed to tend this kind of wound for a very long time.”
The pretender shrugged without comment.
“When you were a boy,” Sydney remembered. “This behavior was triggered by Miss Parker’s departure to Europe. You were very upset to learn that she would be finishing her education over seas.”
Jarod glanced away in an attempt to hide his chagrin. “Was I so obvious?” he asked.
“Only to me,” Sydney answered with a smile. “The habit didn’t manifest itself until she’d been gone for a couple of months, so no one else ever made the connection.”
Jarod sighed. “I didn’t realize she’d left until then.”
“I know.”
“She never even said goodbye,” Jarod said in a forlorn voice. “I think that’s what bothered me the most.”
“You were a lonely boy,” Sydney added. “And she was important to you. On some level you must have felt abandoned.”
“It wasn’t her fault that her father sent her away,” Jarod said.
“But the reality, the logical reasoning behind things, rarely has much impact on the feelings that are generated,” Sydney observed. “You can’t help how it made you feel.”
Jarod nodded, a troubled frown creasing his brow.
Sydney tilted his head curiously. “Does having her back in your daily life distress you?”
“Oh no,” Jarod said. “Not at all.” The pretender glanced up at Sydney, a sly grin spreading across his face. “Well...” he continued. “She does bother me in a way. But it is not the way that you think.”
Sydney smiled. “You find the sexual attraction to be distracting.”
Jarod’s head nearly spun around in shock. Wide brown eyes stared up at Sydney in a wonder that bordered on fear. “You know about that?” he cried.
The psychiatrist did his best not to laugh out loud. “Anyone who has ever been in the same room with the two of you knows about it.”
“How?” Jarod moaned. “We’re at each other’s throats half the time.”
“Yes,” Sydney said wryly.
“She hates me,” the pretender declared.
The psychiatrist hid his amusement. Jarod was more caught up in Parker’s spell than Sydney had realized. “Miss Parker’s feelings are something you should discuss with her, not me,” Sydney said kindly.
“Do you think so?” Jarod asked. At Sydney’s nod Jarod sighed. “I think she would beat me within an inch of my life if I even hint at anything of a romantic nature,” he said.
“Perhaps,” Sydney agreed. “But she’s a beautiful woman. It could be worth a beating in the long run.”
Jarod stared up at Sydney with wide eyes. After a moment, the pretender began to laugh, delighted ripples of sound flowing from him. “Sydney,” he chortled. “You’re teasing me.”
Sydney smiled affectionately at his protégé. “Just a little,” he admitted. “But is good to see you smile. You’ve been terribly hard on yourself lately.”
Jarod’s amusement vanished and he looked away, trying to hide his anxiety.
“Jarod,” Sydney urged. “Please tell me what’s wrong. I don’t understand why you are so upset when everything seems to be coming together for you. The Centre can’t hurt you anymore. Your family is safe.”
The pretender nodded. “I’ve never been so close to having the life I have always dreamed of,” he whispered. “I’m about to lose it all. And that scares me to death.”
“Lose it? Why?” Sydney frowned.
“Can’t you see, Sydney?” Jarod asked woefully. “Don’t you understand what is happening?”
Placing a hand on Jarod’s shoulder, Sydney begged, “Tell me.”
“Alex,” the pretender growled. Shrugging away from his mentor’s touch, Jarod stood angrily and began to pace. “They are crucifying him. One minute they are claiming he’s a lunatic, the next he’s an evil genius bent on destroying democracy.”
“You aren’t worried about Alex’s well-being,” Sydney said.
“No,” Jarod snarled. “I should be, but I’m not.” With a hiss of frustration, Jarod strode across the porch and yanked open the door. He hurried into the house, as though attempting to escape the conversation. Sydney rushed after him.
Catching up to the younger man in the kitchen, Sydney could see the near frantic look in Jarod’s eyes. The pretender was trapped between Sydney and his family as the latter gathered at the table in preparation for a meal.
“Jarod?” the major asked warily. “Are you okay?”
Jarod abruptly seemed very calm, an icy stillness falling over him. Sydney tensed, knowing his pupil well enough to realize that this composure was a thin mask for the emotions churning beneath the surface. “I’m fine,” he said softly.
“Bull shit,” Miss Parker said from her seat at the table. Her hair was haphazardly pulled back with a clip, the extent of her styling ability curtailed by the arm that was still immobilized, tied to her body with a sling.
“We were discussing the situation with Alex,” Sydney explained to the group. “Jarod seems to be concerned about the way Alex is being portrayed by the media.”
“Don’t fret over that psychopath,” Margaret said in a bright tone as she placed a dish of warm rolls onto the table.
“Sociopath,” Miss Parker murmured. “Alex is a sociopath, not a psychopath. There’s a difference.”
Sydney caught the quick glance that flickered between Jarod and Miss Parker. He briefly wondered what it meant.
“Either way,” Margaret went on. “It has nothing to do with us.”
Jarod’s voice grew louder as his frustration began to change to anger. “It has everything to with us, with me. How can you not understand?”
“Jarod,” the pretender’s mother frowned. “That man is a murderer, an assassin.”
“And you think that I’m not?” Jarod’s voice was low, cold and dangerous. Yet, his dark eyes shimmered with pain-filled tears. “I was the Centre’s best and brightest pretender. Alex was always a pale second to my talent.”
“Jarod, don’t,” Sydney pleaded. The pretender’s anguish rolled off of him in waves of almost visible despair. Sydney felt the younger man’s pain as though it were his own. Years of pent up guilt and self-hatred were boiling to the surface. And there wasn’t a damn thing Sydney could do to stop it.
“Alex is a killer,” Jarod went on. “But I have a far larger body count tallied on my scorecard.”
“I don’t believe that,” the major stated firmly.
Jarod laughed, a sorrow filled cackle. “Shall I enlighten you, Father?” The pretender turned his back on his stunned audience to glare angrily out the window as he spoke. “Simulation 1141,” he hissed. “It was supposed to be a rescue operation. An ATF operative’s cover was blown. He was being held in a drug lord’s processing facility in a small village in Columbia. The assignment was to retrieve the agent and take down the facility with a minimal incursion force.”
“You don’t need to do this, Jarod,” Sydney said softly.
The pretender leaned his forehead against the glass pane in resignation. “They need to understand, Sydney.” With a heavy sigh, Jarod continued. “I came up with a plan that required only two operatives. Disguised as farmers, they could enter the village in a pickup truck. No one would think twice about two men hauling fertilizer.
With a simple detonator, they could blow up the truck and portions of the processing plant. In the ensuing confusion, they could rescue the prisoner. No worries.”
Jarod heaved a broken gasp as he fought tears of shame and pain. “The Centre didn’t even sell the simulation,” he said. “They gave it away, used it as a demonstration for a higher profile client. It was as simple as a few mathematical ratios, a bigger truck and a different target.”
“One hundred and sixty–eight people died at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Nineteen of them were children,” Jarod said. “They died because I thought up an economical way for one man to do a great deal of damage.”
“You... you couldn’t have known,” Margaret said in a voice little more than a whisper.
Jarod turned and gazed sadly at his mother. “Ignorance is no excuse for murder,” he replied. Running his hands through his hair, Jarod thudded his back against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. “Ignorance is no excuse,” he repeated to himself.
“One bit of good news though,” he chirped with a false cheerfulness. “The World Trade Center wasn’t me.” A haunted look of woe filled those dark eyes as Jarod said softly, “It was one of us. I have no doubt of that. I wasn’t the only pretender raised in those dark halls. The destruction of the Twin Towers had the Centre written all over it. It was beautifully planned, so precise, so efficient. It was god damned pretender poetry.”
Jarod gazed up at the ceiling, absently wiping moisture from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I could find out, I suppose,” he sniffed. “It wouldn’t take much to dip into the mainframe and find out whose simulation led to the attack.”
A small mewling sound crossed the room. “Please, don’t.” The voice was raspy and weak, as if dragged from a soul on the very edge of oblivion.
Sydney, so focused on Jarod and his distress, had effectively been ignoring everyone else in the room. But now his attention was drawn to the figure curled on the floor in the far corner. The boy was in a fetal position with his knees pulled in close to his chest. His face was wet with the tears that still flowed silently down his cheeks.
“Jack!” Jarod wailed. The pretender lost his battle with his own misery and burst into sobs. He literally crawled across the room, batting away Sydney’s attempts to help him. When he reached the youngster’s side, Jarod pulled the boy into his arms. “I’m sorry,” the pretender groaned as he wrapped his body around the child in a protective embrace. “I’m so sorry.”
“We killed them, Jarod,” the boy sobbed. “All those people died because of us.”
Sydney stood helplessly as the two pretenders clung to each other and wept. When the psychiatrist tried to soothe them, Jarod turned on him angrily, nearly snarling.
“Leave us alone,” Jarod cried. “Please, Sydney. We are what you’ve made us. You can’t unmake what we have become. You can’t fix this. No one can.”
The pretender’s words struck Sydney as harshly as if they had been physical blows. The older man flinched away, wounded by the honest bitterness in Jarod’s tone. Sydney glanced around the room sure he would find only rage and recrimination on the other faces. But he saw no accusations in the eyes of Jarod’s parents. He found only sorrow and tears.
Everyone was crying. Not even Miss Parker was immune to the tragedy unfolding before them. Sydney looked toward her, praying he would see forgiveness in her expression. She stood and came to Sydney, stepping into his arms and allowing him to draw comfort from the act of comforting her.
After a long moment, Parker looked up at him and nodded. Moving away from Sydney, she crouched on the floor beside the distraught pretenders. With her good hand she cupped Jarod’s cheek in her palm. “Jarod,” she called gently. “You were only a boy. Don’t blame yourself.”
She turned slightly, transferring her hand from Jarod’s face to the boy’s. “Jack, look at me.” Miss Parker urged. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Wide brown eyes peered at her over Jarod’s bicep.
“You are a good boy,” she whispered. “It wasn’t your fault.”
--
