Avenging You

Chapter 4

Parker

Our flight finally lands and at this point AJ is bouncing out of his skin. He’s had to stay still for so long, but I’m so proud of him because he did so well during our flight.

I rent our car and I decide to take him to a park before heading to my old home. I’m really dreading seeing the old place especially because it looked like there wasn’t going to be anything left of it. I’m just hoping that everyone made it out to the bunker.

We get to the park and I watch as AJ runs as fast as he can towards the playground and immediately goes down a slide before turning around and climbing back up. I watch him amused and sit down on a park bench next to another mother who is there with her baby and there’s only one other kid running around so I assume that one is hers too. She smiles at me, “Beautiful day, huh?”

I nod in agreement and she says, “Is he your only one?”

“Yeah, he is. And you have two?”

She nods and says, “They’re a handful, but I love it.”

Suddenly, I can’t help but get a bad gut feeling. I glance over at her and I notice her messing with her phone which normally is nothing. Everyone has cell phones nowadays and most people are constantly on their cellphones. 

I don’t know how else to describe it, but her aura has changed. I can feel that she doesn’t have good intentions. I call out as I stand back up, “AJ, come on!”

She looks up at me surprised as she says, “But you just got here.”

I bite my tongue and say curtly, “And now I’m leaving.”

AJ runs alongside me and I get him in the car quickly and drive away as fast as I can. I say, “I’m sorry that we had to leave so fast, lovebug.”

He says, “It’s okay, mama, I know she was bad. Her color was really dark.”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion… She was a white woman wearing lighter colored clothing. I ask, “What do you mean, AJ?”

“She had a dark color around her.”

I nod and know that I’m going to have to be careful with my questions so he doesn’t feel like I’m interrogating him and I ask, “Do I have a color?”

I glance back at him through the rear view mirror and he nods and answers with amusement laced in his voice, “Yeah, mama, you have the biggest color of anyone.”

I smiled at his tone of voice because he sounded proud of me for having a big color, whatever that means. I ask, “What’s my color?”

“Light blue, just like anybody that has powers and are nice.”

He has powers. I can’t believe he has powers so young. I thought you had to be thirteen unless you experienced something traumatic and AJ has never had anything bad happen to him.

I nod and ask, “How long have you seen that, love?”

“I don’t know… always?”

“Well, this is the first time you’ve told me about this, and it sounds so cool! What colors do you see?”

His eyes seem to light up as he tells me everything, “People without powers are yellow, people with powers are light blue and if they’re really powerful the blue is wide. Like mama, your blue goes really wide!” He spreads his arms out as if trying to show me how big my blue is. I smile as he continues, “People with powers and that are bad are purple. That lady was purple, I tried to change the color to get her focused on something else, but she was super into you, mama.”

I lick my lips as I try to understand all of the new information he just gave me and I ask, “How did you try to change her color, love?”

“I don’t know, I’ve done it before. When I see the purple and they’re trying to go towards you I distract them and around that same time you want to leave. That’s why I never get upset when you want to leave because I know it’s because you want to be away from the bad people.”

I nod and stay quiet as I try to process everything. He actually is making a lot of sense… any time I have ever told him we had to leave in a hurry he always has been okay with it and never put up a fight. Meanwhile most toddlers would scream when they’re parents take them away from something they were enjoying, but AJ never did.

I hear AJ speak up, “Mama, do you think we’ll get to see RyRy?”

I smile, “I don’t know baby, I hope so.”

AJ knows about the little family I had. He’s seen pictures and when he was two, I showed him a picture and pointed out Ryan and he couldn’t say the name, but he could say RyRy and the name stuck.

He asks, “Do you think I’ll get to meet anyone from your family?”

“I think so, AJ, but only time will tell.”

He sighs, “It’ll be nice to know someone else that knows my daddy.”

I nod, “Yeah, that would be nice.”

I have a hard time not having flashbacks as I drive through this town. All I can focus on is Ashton and all I can think about is how he should be with me and AJ right now. He would’ve been so happy knowing that AJ was born on his birthday, he would’ve been so happy just having a child it wouldn’t have mattered whether it was a boy or not. If things had gone according to plan we probably would’ve already had a second baby or I would be pregnant right now.

AJ asks, “Are you okay, mama?”

I try not to cry as I answer, “I’m fine, baby, why?”

“The blue got darker… it always does that when you’re sad.”

Well, that’s interesting. There’s so much to learn about his power and I don’t know how to learn without probing unless I just wait for things to spill out like they just did.

I decided to tell him the truth though, “I was just thinking about your dad.”

I glance back in the rear-view mirror and see his face light up with excitement because I don’t talk about Ashton much because it always makes me sad. He asks, “What about him?”

“Just, how thrilled he would’ve been to have you. What our lives would be like now if he was still here.”

“Do you think he would want me to have a new daddy?”

My eyes widened, shocked by his question and I answered, “I think he would want us to be happy. Whether or not that includes another daddy he would just want us to be happy. I’m happy, are you AJ?”

He nods, but I see him frowning and I ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I know you get sad, mama. If I had a daddy, I think you wouldn’t be so sad.”

I sigh, “Honey, I miss your dad. He was my best friend and yeah, I get sad sometimes. But overall, I am happy with my life with you.”

He responds, “I’m happy with you, mama.”

I smile as I continue our drive. Just a few more minutes and we’ll be back home…