Chapter Six

The humidity hit me the moment I stepped off the plane, and I took my jacket off as I looked around. It was hot, the beginning of the summer holidays and the new school year would only start in three months.

Upon arriving at the farm, Alexander smiled and unlocked the front door. They had been living on the farm for two weeks and they had already settled in. I felt awkward and out of place because the house was not a typical farmhouse.

It was wealth on a huge parcel of land. The house was a mansion and the inside reminded me of pictures I had seen in magazines. Their voices muffled as they moved around on the upper level of the three-story house, and I turned to find Alexander watching me.

“Come on, I’ll show you your room,” he said.

The top floor was occupied by Alexander. The second floor was where our bedrooms were located and the ground floor held the dining room, kitchen, living room, library, a music room, a large study and a foyer where guests were received.

My room was big with a king size bed. One door led to a bathroom and another door led to a walk-in closet and dressing room. To my utter amazement, the closet was filled with clothes and shoes, everything in my size. I’d never seen that many clothes in one closet.

The bathroom held toiletries and thick towels, expensive stuff I’d never even dared to dream about. It all felt surreal, like I would wake up from this dream at any moment. The clothes all looked expensive, brands I recognized, and I was glad Alexander had left me alone to explore my room.

The room itself was painted a deep mint green, a color I loved. Bookcases were filled with every type of book a teenage boy could want and my fingers skimmed over the titles. On the wall directly across from my bed was a mounted television and in one corner of the room was a desk.

On the desk stood two boxes that had my heart beating faster against my ribs. A new phone and a new laptop just sat there, waiting to be opened. It felt like I was hallucinating, and I opened the large sliding doors that led to a patio.

The patio wrapped around the house and on one side was his and Castiel’s rooms. Sloan’s room was at the end of the hall and across from me was Miles and Endri’s rooms. Their rooms were similar in design but decorated differently.

Once I got the new phone set up, I punched in Joe’s number. I knew it by heart and would for the rest of my life. He’d been the one person to really see me, and even if I trusted nobody else in my life, I trusted him.

“Hello,” his voice came over the phone and the stiffness in my shoulders disappeared.

“Joe …”

“Kage! Where are you? I’ve been worried sick,” he said.

“I’m sorry. When I got home yesterday, my case worker came to get me. I was adopted and given to my new family yesterday. He lives in North Dakota,” I said.

“Shit. Are you okay?” Joe’s voice was filled with concern, and I smiled.

“So far, yeah. I don’t know what his deal is yet but I’m not the only one here. He has four other sons and Joe, get this, he’s freaking Alexander Hawthorne!”

“The hockey player?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ve got my own room though and I know, left, right, double punch to the gut,” I said, and he laughed.

“Keep your fists up, Kage, and remember that you can always call me, anytime. My door will always be open for you,” he said.

“Thanks for everything, Joe.” The call ended a few minutes later and the knowledge that I had somewhere to go if I needed to run calmed me. I didn’t trust this peace, all this new stuff and I looked at the farm only as my new prison.

It seemed that everyone had a unique talent and Alexander catered to them all. Miles was very much into video games, writing the software, designing the games and building it into a downloadable application that he sold.

Endri was an artist, he preferred to sketch, and he was brilliantly talented. Most days he seemed lost in a daze as he stared at his sketchpad for hours, drawing or dreaming as he did most times.

Sloan played the piano and he had a music room on the first floor where he spent hours playing, it was mesmerizing to watch him.

Castiel was an academic and he wanted to be a neurosurgeon. He always had his nose in some medical journal or handbook, and he was probably the most intelligent teen I’d ever talked to.

I wasn’t unique or special and I doubted that I really had talent in anything. I liked to read, mostly because that was how I spent my time in the foster houses where I lived when the grownups would drink or fight.

The library had books on every subject known to man and I had started to read Alexander’s philosophy books. It interested me to know how other people saw the world, their own lives and other people’s lives.

It drowned out the voices in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough to amount to anything, words I’d heard for eleven years daily. I’d always liked to read, and Alexander’s library felt like a sacred place to me.

The first night in my new house was a restless one and I kept waiting to see if Alexander would come to my room. He never did and at some point, I did fall asleep. Alexander knocked on our doors, he never barged in, he showed us respect and in return it was easy to respect him as well.

The one thing that I probably loved the most, was the food. There was always food in the house and that first night when I went downstairs for dinner, my eyes had bulged. It was the first of many hearty home cooked meals I’d come to love.

Living in Jamestown was different to anything I had known or experienced before, and Alexander Hawthorne became the man that truly saved me.