He was good for two weeks.
After the fourteenth day of attempted moral adjustment, he honestly just got bored. Ms. M was a nice woman. She sheltered and encouraged goodness, and he swore to himself that he wouldn't do the lady any future harm, but his time in hero-ville was over. The boy simply couldn't deny his true nature. He'd retreated back up to his room on the top floor while Marryam Miller slept through the night.
The small fragment of a mirror still remained where it had before. Jasper found himself shocked by how different he appeared. With the dirt cleared off of his skin and the cuts practically healed, he almost could've looked normal. But the scar on his face made sure that wasn't a possibility.
The rest of his days passed in an endless stream of mediocre events. He wanted more than anything to feel the familiar high of adrenaline, but with cops still searching after the Southbend High incident, he knew that his best bet was to lay low. And when the police drove by outside, arresting the balloon man, Jasper smiled. He'd meant for that fire to be fatal - after all, a man with a doll sticking out of his back pocket didn't exactly ease Jasper's suspicion that Bill was responsible for the death of the town's favorite young girl. The boy wasn't the noblest of people, but he certainly believed in punishment for killing somebody so innocent. Especially someone who looked so much like Sandra.
The laying low part was easy. He could resist his chaotic ways for long enough. But it was the silence that caused him the most suffering. It was the lack of anything that caused him to think back to everything, including that day with his sister on the sailboat. The boy was tattered and scarred like hell, but nothing was more permanent than his irrational fear of water.
Clouds began to clear in his view of the sky. It was getting closer to summer. He would've been graduating his junior year at Southbend. Instead he sat in his makeshift room, blowing saw-dust from one corner to another. There was a tension within him that he could't deny. It had been way too long since he had felt the warmth of the blazing sun. He was tired of eating whatever rations he could steal from the other apartments. He was tired at beating himself in hang-man. The temptation to leave was too hard to resist.
He curled his fingers around his small, black lighter. The boy drooped a hood over his head, shielding his dark brown hair and hopefully hiding his face. He had a plan. Chaotic, dangerous - maybe even a little impulsive - but definitely a plan.
He would start at the police station.
