“On it,” she said as she ran up to the roof. The twins and I took off right behind her. Reese and Jay were already en route.
By the time the whole ordeal was over, Emmy had watched her friend get killed by a Pawn and there was nothing she could have done. So, as it stands now, both Emerson and the Triplex are out of our reach.
CHAPTER TEN: ADDICTION
All our endeavors to get Emerson to come back to the land of the living have failed. She’s completely shut down. Everyone has tried to figure out a way to get her to come back and be her old self again. Nothing has worked. Right now it feels like we are babysitting more than protecting a clue that could save the world.
I was on watch duty when Jay came up to me and asked if he should take a crack at trying to cheer up Emerson. I told him it was worth a try and he went up to her apartment. Her mom had been working less so that she could be there for her. Seeing her daughter lifeless was a great strain to Marla. She had bags around her eyes and had bitten her nails.
A few moments later, Jay comes downstairs with Emerson. She’s wearing faded jeans and a thick coat. Her hair is a tangled mess. It reminds me of the first time we met. I really wish we didn’t have to be here to do this to her. It’s one thing to watch someone die, but to be told that you have to get over it is cruel. And that is exactly what we have told her.
She’s been a zombie for three weeks now. I shouldn’t have let her stay in that state for this long, but it broke my heart to know that she was suffering. Still, I cannot allow her to stay this way for more than another day or two. We are running out of time. She is the only thing we’ve got going for us, and I can’t let her tune out the world. If she does, when she comes out of her depression there might not be a world to tune in to.
Jay sits her down on a bench across the street. I stand nearby to watch out for Akons. I give them enough distance that they can talk, but I am able to overhear them. Jay speaks to her with warmth and concern.
“Are you sure you want to be out here, Emmy?”
She nodded. That’s what she almost always did now. Jay tried again.
“Hey, I know this stuff is hard, Emmy, trust me. But it gets better.”
She just looks at him with deep sorrow. He puts his arms around her and zips up her coat protectively. He starts telling her his Core in hopes that it will help her come to terms with Sara’s death.
“I know how hard it is, believe me,” Jay said. As he continues to talk, I pick up on the sadness behind his voice. Jay rarely speaks about his Core. I listen intently.
“I lived on Adams and Crenshaw, the welcome mat to the hood. We didn’t live like boys in the hood with gun shots every minute, but we weren’t the Cosbys, either. It was my mom and dad, my sister, and I. My dad was a parking-lot attendant and my mom was a receptionist. We had lived in our neighborhood forever, it seemed.
“Everyone I knew had belonged to some kind of gang. My mother had the gang talk with me real early. She said, ‘You join, you die. ‘Cause I’ll kill you.’ That was her ‘stay away from gangs’ speech.
“Every time we could have done something wrong, she steered us back on the right path. She’d threaten to break our necks, our behinds and go upside our heads. I’m not even sure how she was planning to do the last one, but I was careful not to find out.
“But all in all, I was happy. My mom cooked better than anyone on the planet. I would wait until she turned her back and then sneak into the kitchen and pick at the food. She said that since I was spending all that time waiting to steal, I might as well learn how to cook. So, every day after school, I had to come home and chop, season—you name it.
“Later on I realized that it was just her way of keeping us off the street. She made sure we were in the kitchen or doing homework. There was no wiggle room on that. We got teased because we could never come out and play like every other kid. But you didn’t argue with my mom. She was barely five feet, but she could take you over her head and be ‘bout it. We were all afraid of her, including my father.
“One night we heard shots. That was not an everyday thing around my way, but it wasn’t unheard of. A few minutes later we heard cop cars. A woman down the street was screaming. Later that week we found out that her son James had been shot. The gang he was running with heard he was trying to get out.
“That was the fourth son she lost to violence. The other three were victims of drive- bys: two died on the street and the other one died on the operating table. She had had five sons. She was now down to one. His name was Will. He was nine years old.
“A few days later he asked me to help him write a letter to his mom. That way when he got shot, she’d have something to remember him by.
“I decided to look after him from then on. I went over there every day. I helped him with his homework. I helped him make dinner with for his mom and we played video games.
“One day I came over to check on his homework and he said he didn’t do it. I asked why, and he said he didn’t know what the point was. His mother was never going to stop being sad all the time and nothing he did was going to bring his brothers back.
“I went over when Will was still at school and I told his mom that she was missing out. She got mad and threw me out, but I came back. I kept coming back until she had no choice but to hear me out. I told her that she had to come back for Will. She couldn’t just drown in her sadness because she would lose the only reason she had left for living.
“Later that night, when my family and I were having dinner, Will and his mom came over. She put a loaf of potato bread on the table and said, ‘My son said you taught him how to make this bread. He was so excited to show me how, I had to let him. He did a great job. I didn’t know he was learning to cook. I was missing out. Thank you, Jayden.’
“A year later, the gang that his brothers had been a part of was looking for kids to be lookouts. They wanted them to stand on the corner and tell them when cops where coming. Everyone in Will’s class was scared or excited, depending on what they had been raised to believe about gangs.
“It was a week until my 17th birthday and Will wanted to get me a gift. I told him it was okay and that I didn’t want anything. He insisted on getting me something. I told him he could sketch me a car with rims and everything. He had a knack for drawing. But he wanted to impress me by buying me a real gift from the store.
“When the gang had come around scouting who had what it takes to be a good lookout, Will had asked them how much they would pay. He knew that being in gangs was wrong, but he didn’t plan to be in one. He only wanted to work for them for a few days so that he could get enough money to get me a good gift.
“They picked three lookouts. Will didn’t make it. He was bummed out about it, but he was determined to get the money for the gift. So, he went to the hangout spot and tried to get a job scouting. They paid him no mind. He had been in the local paper because of his brothers’ deaths. They wanted someone low-profile.
“I went around his way and I couldn’t find him. I asked some of his friend and they told me what he was up to. I went straight to the club on Jefferson where I knew I could find him. Just as I got there, some member of the rival gang drove by. I saw two guys pull out guns from the back seat of their cars. They were spaying bullets everywhere.
“I rushed in and tried to find Will. Everything was happing so fast. I saw the car making another turn about to strike again. I ran faster than my body could take me. I made it to the club’s entrance.
“I ran inside, and there were bodies on the floor. I looked, but Will wasn’t among them. I went to the back and didn’t find him. Finally, I made my way to the bathroom and burst open the door.
“I felt the bullet rip into my chest. Will had shot me. He peed on himself. He had thought I was with the gang and was there to hurt him. He looked so shocked; I think he was in more pain than me.
“I was bleeding badly. But I wanted him to get as far away as he could from the scene of the crime. I took the gun, wiped it and threw it among the bodies. I had Will help me to the back alley. He was crying and saying how sorry he was.
“I knew I was dying. The pain didn’t matter. The only thing I wanted was to run away with Will so that his life wasn’t ruined by a mistake.”
“But he wouldn’t leave me. I tried to get him to go, but he just sat there. The cops came around. They picked him up and took me to the hospital. I was in and out of surgery. I faced one complication after another. When the case came to trial, they tried him as an adult. My doctor wouldn’t let me go to court. The jury came back with a guilty verdict.
“His first day in prison, a fight broke out between two men. Will was caught in the middle and died of a fatal stab wound. An hour later, I was taken in to the operating room due to complications from my last surgery. I never made it out.”
I didn’t know the whole story. This is the first time I’m hearing the complete version of Jay’s Core. I could see where he got the power to glide from. As he was dying, he wished he had run faster to get to Will and save him. Knowing Omnis, he gave Jay the power to “convince” people because he had already had a way with them. That’s why he was able to get Will’s mom to snap out of her depression.