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Six days.
That’s what Jason tells himself as he lies on his hard mattress, choking down his sobs. Mr. Ayer is a light sleeper, and even if he doesn’t make good on his threat to sell Jason, he can still make Jason’s life a living hell. And Jason knows now that his foster father really meant that threat.
Jason had been so stupid, waiting around for the social worker and letting her take him away. He’d known that foster care was dangerous. But he’d been scared. Sure, he knew how to get him and his mom food when she was too weak to get it herself, and sure, his dad had taught him how to strip a car of its tires and sell them to the nearest chop shop, but then what? Where would he stay? What if he got caught? How could he possibly keep himself safe from someone when he only came up to their waist?
Jason had promised his parents that he’d graduate, go to college, and get a good job. Two-Face’s gang wasn’t hereditary the way the mob families were. Jason could get out.
But for that, he needed school, and to go to school, he needed a guardian. So foster care had seemed like the only option.
But now, if he runs then the authorities will be on the lookout for him. And they wouldn’t care much about a kid like Jason slipping through the system, but they’ll certainly be on the lookout at Catherine’s funeral.
Jason is going to go to his mom’s funeral, even if it means staying in this hellhole another six days.
The first time Mr. Ayer beats him, Jason goes to Mrs. Ayer and tells her what happened. His mom had stuck up for him on the rare occasion when his dad had slapped him, calmed Willis down and got him to apologize. And this was far beyond a slap.
The next beating comes that evening, after Mrs. Ayer tells her husband exactly what Jason had said, and it’s been far, far worse. It goes on and on, the seconds stretching out for eternities. Jason tries not to cry. The first time, he’d managed it. But now, the tears come rushing out, and once they’ve started, he can’t stop them. Mr. Ayer doesn’t like that very much.
That night, Jason packs all of his things in his red backpack and opens the—unlocked, surprisingly—window. But before he can climb down the nearby tree and out onto the street, a quiet voice stops him. “You don’t want to do that.”
Jason turns around to see Hannah, one of two girls in Mr. Ayer’s house, a grim expression on her face. “Don’t tell me what I want to do,” he replies. He keeps one hand on the windowsill and holds the backpack in the other. After Mr. Ayer’s demonstration of what he considered ‘appropriate discipline,’ putting anything on his back had hurt too much.
“Shh! He’s a light sleeper.” Hannah steps forward, into the window’s dim light. In the day, she looked delicate. At night, she looks like a ghost.
“I’m leaving,” Jason says, but he does drop his volume. His social worker sent him all the way out to the suburbs. If he doesn’t have a head start, he doesn’t have much hope of making it far enough to hide.
“I’ve had eight foster siblings,” Hannah says matter-of-factly. “One of them aged out. Jacob. He was seventeen when I got here, had been around for three years. He got the Wayne Scholarship to GothamU. One of them was Katie, and she’s here now. Do you wanna know what happened to the others?”
“That bastard said he’d sell me, if I didn’t listen right,” Jason responds. He’s pretty sure Mr. Ayer was messing with him. You can’t just sell a kid. That’s not how it works. He knows the social workers don’t care if Mr. Ayer’s beating him, but his worker had said she’d come back for a check-in. Surely people would care if kids just disappeared, right?
“Yeah,” Hannah says. “But first, those kids? Every one of them ran.”
“And what, they all got caught?” Jason asks. “I don’t think so.”
“Adrian got out. Maybe. If he didn’t get plucked up by some other guy on the streets.” Hannah shrugs. “It happens. Luke got cold feet three days later and came back on his own. Allison got caught when she tried to go to a shelter. Peter was spotted by a ‘concerned citizen.’ Nat got out for two months, but the cops picked him up shoplifting in the Bowery. And Faith tried to go to the cops about Mr. Ayer, and she ended up right back here. And after that, they all disappeared.” She sounds like she doesn’t care. Voice light and calm, as if she’s just telling him how things are and doesn’t really care that much about it. She must care, though, if she’s here warning him, when Mr. Ayer has made the consequences of disobedience painfully clear.
“So, what? He only sells us if we’re bad enough to run?” Jason is still caught up on the selling part. He knows that there are bad people out there who sell kids, but they’re, like, the mafia. Mr. Ayer has an office job that he complains about constantly. Jason doesn’t think he’s part of the mafia.
“Once you run,” Hannah says, “you’re a runner for life. No one trusts you. The others, he took them out of school, said they needed more ‘individualized attention’. And then he disappeared them and said they just ran away again. Social services didn’t ask any questions.”
Would everyone really just give up on him like that if Jason ran? Really?
Jason thinks about it, and he’s pretty sure the answer is yes.
“And if you don’t run?” Jason asks.
“It gets easier,” Hannah tells him. “He’s worse the first few weeks, ‘cos he wants you to run or prove you’ll take it. But once you learn the rules and he figures you’ll stick around… He wants to play happy family, sometimes. He’s got room for a third kid, and he likes having a foster son to drag to baseball games or whatever.”
Baseball games. Jason imagines sitting next to Mr. Ayer for the entirety of one of those games and pretending that he’s out with his dad. He thinks he wants to hurl.
“You run, Jason, and they’re probably gonna find you. And when they find you, you come right back here, and then you get diced up for organs or sent to some creep.” She looks pointedly at the window. “Why do you think that isn’t locked?”
Jason looks at the window and then back at Hannah. Her accent places her in… the Diamond District, maybe. Somewhere around there. Upper middle class, at least. Jason doesn’t think she would survive on the street. Jason thinks she knows that. But he doesn’t think she’s lying about what happened to the others either.
Hannah shrugs again. “Stay or go, I don’t care. It’s easier that way. But I thought I’d give you fair warning.” With that, she pads out of the room, footsteps silent in the way that they can only be when you need to be quiet to survive.
Jason stares at the window. He’d thought that maybe he could leave and no one would care. But if Mr. Ayer searches for his missing foster kids, actually reports them missing…
Turning up for his mom’s funeral could get him caught. Would get him caught. And getting caught wouldn’t just mean another beating. It would mean death.
Slowly, careful not to wake Mr. Ayer, Jason closes the window. He can last another two weeks.
“You need to learn the rules,” Katie says seriously. “If you don’t wanna get sold off, you gotta learn.” Mr. and Mrs. Ayer are off at some sort of dinner party, leaving Jason, Katie, and Hannah alone for the night with a locked pantry and orders not to touch anything, or else they’ll be sorry. Jason suspects they’re hoping Jason will run off. Jason doesn’t exactly fit with their fake little family.
Mr. and Mrs. Ayer are blond and middle class, and every time Jason’s Crime Alley accent comes on a bit too strong he can feel their moods lowering. Hannah, while she’s always sporting bruises and hasn’t been given enough to eat, looks like she could be their daughter with her brown eyes and pale, wispy blonde hair. Katie’s hair is more of a caramel color, but she’s only around eight years old and adorable. And, well, she’s a good actress. Always so quiet and careful when her foster parents are around, but quick with a smile or childish display of excitement whenever they want it. But the second the Ayers are gone, she’s bossing Jason around.
“I like you,” Katie tells him. “So you gotta stick around.”
Jason wants to tell her not to get her hopes up, but she’s eight. If she knows he’s planning to leave, she might not be able to keep it a secret. And then Mr. Ayer will know he’s gonna run. If Jason won’t do the running himself, Mr. Ayer could always fake it. Lock him up somewhere and report him a runaway.
Hannah narrows her eyes at him and then puts a hand on Katie’s shoulder. “Be careful,” she reminds Katie. “Sometimes people leave.”
“But Jay won’t,” Katie insists. “Right, Jay? ‘cos you’re smart. This place isn’t super bad. Mr. Ayer is a meanie, but he gets better, right Hannah?” She doesn’t wait for Hannah to answer. “And he isn’t as mean as my last foster. So you should stay, so you don’t go someplace like that.”
Jason shudders to think of a foster parent who could possibly be meaner than Mr. Ayer. He comes up blank. And yet, apparently, Katie has judged Mr. Ayer the superior option. Good for her, but Jason would prefer to take his chances on the streets. All his fear over finding a place to stay is pretty much drowned out by his certainty that staying in this place will break him.
“Hannah, Jay’s smart like—like Jacob, so he’s staying, right?”
“Maybe,” Hannah says. She turns to Jason. “If you are staying, Jason, you need to stop fighting Mr. Ayer on everything. You’re a fighter, but he doesn’t want a fighter. That’s what Katie was trying to tell you. Do you understand?”
Jason nods. He does understand. He’s a fighter. His mom used to tell him that was a good thing. That he had to fight, no matter what. Even when she couldn’t fight anymore.
Now, he just hopes it doesn’t get him killed.
He hadn’t even done anything. Jason had been trying to follow the rules, and he was succeeding. But according to Mr. Ayer, he was ‘staring at the pantry,’ and that was unacceptable.
The real reason, Jason thinks as Mr. Ayer’s polished dress shoe slams into his ribs, is that Katie likes me better. She was great at pretending she loved her foster father when he was around, but one too many glances at Jason for approval when she was supposed to be showing Mr. Ayer her spelling test and the man was in a bad mood. Hence the staring at the pantry thing. It probably didn’t help that it was past nine o’clock and Mrs. Ayer was working late—which Hannah suspected means she’s off cheating with her husband. If Mr. Ayer expects the same…well, this night was bound to go poorly in the first place.
Of course, Jason was responsible for making his guardian’s mood worse via back-talk, but if Mr. Ayer is this upset, it’s better that Jason take the brunt of it than Katie, who fled upstairs with Hannah after Mr. Ayer told them to get lost. But it would have been nice if they could have at least stayed in the kitchen, with its easy-to-clean-tile. Mr. Ayer has a thing about bleeding on his floors. They’re hardwood, apparently. So Jason has thattantrum to look forward to as well.
“—learn. Some. Respect!” Jason looks up at Mr. Ayer and is rewarded another kick to his ribs. And then another. And then another. And then—
Somewhere along the way, Jason stops thinking, stops talking. His ribs scream when he moves, and every kick jostles his body. He can’t think. He can barely breathe.
Mr. Ayer’s hand wraps itself in his hair and pulls him to his feet. The movement sends a wave of fire coursing through Jason’s chest and he cries out in pain. His face is slammed into the wall, and Jason tastes blood in his mouth. Mr. Ayer twists his left arm behind his back, and then Jason’s speaking, pleading—
“Please, please, just stop, I get it, I understand, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please—” Please just stop, it hurts, it feels like fire, there’s fire everywhere, fire in my chest, fire in my ribs, fire in my head. I think I’m dying. I think you’re killing me. I think you’re killing me. Please stop, just let me go, I’m sorry, I’ll stop, whatever it is I’ll stop, just let me curl up, just let me rest, just “Stop!”
“You don’t give the orders around here,” Mr. Ayer snarls. Jason can’t breathe.
The world spins again, and Jason loses his sense of time. All he knows is that he’s in pain. Someone’s hurting him. Jason can fix that.
He drives an elbow backwards into Mr. Ayer’s stomach, and the man doubles over, the wind knocked out of him. Jason spins around to face him, swaying on his feet, and watches as the man’s eyes narrow in rage. “You dare to…to me…I’ll kill you!” Mr. Ayer shouts.
He pushes Jason backwards, wrapping his hands around Jason’s throat. For a second, Jason’s mind is consumed by panic. He could do it. Mr. Ayer could kill him, right then and there, could choke him to death against the plaster wall in his living room in a Gotham suburb.
Jason tilts his face down and bites Mr. Ayer’s hand.
The moment of shock is all he needs. One second Mr. Ayer is crying out in shock and the next he’s on the ground after Jason kneed him in the groin. Hard.
Jason stands there for a moment, staring at his guardian. What does he do? If this was a movie, he’d tie him up and make his great escape, but Jason has no idea how to tie someone up. Mr. Ayer would escape in seconds, and things would be a thousand times worse. But if Jason stays, then he’s as good as dead. Mr. Ayer definitely won’t want to keep him like this.
He has to leave. Now.
Jason rushes upstairs, grabbing the red backpack that he’s kept packed since his first day. Before climbing out the window, though, he opens the door to Hannah and Katie’s room. “I’m leaving,” he says. “You should come with me.”
“You can’t leave!” Katie insists.
“He was going to kill me,” Jason tells them. “Maybe that other kid managed to wait him out, but I can’t. I don’t know if you can either. You should come with me. Three of us together, and no one will dare mess with us. We can do it.” Jason doesn’t really know how it works, but surely three is better than one. Surely with three, they could be safe.
“We’re not leaving,” Hannah says quietly. “But if you’re leaving, you need to go now.”
Jason’s gaze flickers between the two girls and the door behind him. “He’s angry right now. If I’m not here anymore, he’ll go after you, but I made him extra angry so it’ll be bad. But we can leave now. Just come with me, please.”
Hannah looks away. Katie crosses her arms, her feeling of betrayal reading clear on her face.
Jason leaves. He opens his window, not bothering to be quiet, and then climbs out. Looking out at the unfamiliar streets, Jason picks a direction and runs away into the night.
Ten days after her funeral, Jason visits his mother’s grave. He’d told himself he was waiting until he had something to give her, but he’ll admit now that he was probably just stalling.
“Hi, Mom,” he says, sitting down cross-legged in front of her gravestone. Carefully, Jason places three daisies down on her grave. He’d picked them out of a dumpster and they’re not exactly typical grave flowers, but he doesn’t think Catherine would mind. They’re pretty, and she can’t exactly smell the faint remnants of the garbage scent on them when she’s dead.
“I’m sorry I missed the funeral.” Catherine would forgive him, if she knew why, but Jason still feels the guilt like a hard lump in his chest. “It wasn’t that I didn’t wanna be there. But if I went I’d get caught, and the guy they put me with would’ve sold me off.” He can imagine his mom’s eyes widening with fear. “I got away! Don’t worry. I got away from him. It’s just, I was gonna wait until the funeral, but I couldn’t. You always said I was a fighter, and you were right. I fought, and then I couldn’t stay there anymore. So I had to leave.”
“I miss you,” Jason confesses. “I don’t think going to the funeral would’ve helped with that. I don’t think I can do anything else other than miss you.”
He sits there, for a while, just staring at the simple engraving on the grave.
CATHERINE JOHNSON TODD
19XX – 20XX
No Mother or Wife or Friend. No epitaph. Just the name, and the years she lived in.
Jason stands. The sun is beginning to set. It took a long time to walk to the cemetery, and it will take a long time to walk back to Crime Alley. If he wants to find shelter before the streets get even more dangerous, he needs to leave.
“Bye, Mom,” he whispers. “I’ll be back, okay? I’ll keep fighting, and I’ll be back. I promise.”
He walks out through the graveyard gates, ribs aching but a smile on his face.