Chapter Four (Part One)

Kaiden couldn't keep Katelyn out of his thoughts as he waited patiently for the police to finish phoning social services, who would apparently set him up with everything that he needed in order to live an independent life. He hadn't had any form of identification on him, but this wasn't an issue after they ran a brief background check and confirmed his identity.

The records on file showed that he still lived in western Alberta, in the small-town apartment where he'd lived with his mom. Apparently the rent was still being paid, and he was listed as having switched to home schooling with a private tutor that periodically made detailed updates which spoke to the legitimacy of their lessons. This was also corroborated by his legal guardian, a stranger named Joseph Smith.

In order to avoid alerting his conniving relatives of his survival, Kaiden told the cops that he had hitch-hiked all the way to Cochrane from White Moose, the town where he used to live.

It turned out that his grandfather had never really adopted him, which confirmed all sorts of suspicions in his heart. The reality of things was that he had been fooled into allowing himself to be kidnapped by his greedy relatives, who had evidently planned to murder him and pass it off as a missing person's case, or something along those lines. If they had gone so far for the sake of his inheritance, then there was little doubt that his parents' deaths were unrelated. He was sure of it.

It wasn't long before the officers sorted out his situation, at least enough for the immediate future. Now that he was sixteen, he could legally live on his own and request that his matters be kept private by the police and the social program that would be helping him out for the near future. Since the only person he would have to notify—his so-called guardian, Joseph Smith—didn't exist, the Collins family would never hear from him again. At least, not until he was capable of exacting his revenge on Alexander.

"We'll set you up here for the next couple of days." The one speaking was the cop that he'd spoken to the most throughout the surreal  process. "Just go to the front desk, tell them your name and they'll give you the key to your room. Got it?"

The bald, stocky man had just driven Kaiden to a nearby hotel, one of the bigger establishments in New Cheshire, which was a mid-sized satellite city within the Greater Cochrane Area. They were sitting in the cruiser just out front of the huge building's entrance, the cop giving him directions for the coming days.

"Here." The man handed over a used cellphone, likely confiscated and wiped for unexpected situations like this one. "Keep this on you. You'll get a call tomorrow at noon. That'll be your social worker, so make sure you answer it. And—" he dropped an envelope on Kaiden's lap—"everyone at the station pitched in a bit. Good luck, kid."

"Thanks," he said, glancing at the writing on the man's uniform. "Really, thanks for all the help Officer Carmichael."

He bid the man farewell and walked through the sliding doors of the hotel's entrance, entering into a huge lobby that was empty save for a handful of guests that were in the midst of checking out early.

It wasn't long before he was up in his room and sprawled out on a king-sized mattress, dressed in a soft robe of white cotton that had been in the hotel's closet.

Finally alone with his thoughts, Kaiden reached over and retrieved his new phone from the night table. If he wanted to improve his physique with the Sun and Moon Meditations, then he would have to find a good spot to train in. This meant somewhere with an abundance of celestial energy, which usually meant a raging river or an ancient mountain.

Niagara Falls would definitely be a great place. Maybe that little island right before the precipice? Kaiden typed up a search on the web browser of his new phone and then frowned. Six hundred kilometres away? Relatively speaking, such a distance wasn't too far by Canadian standards, but even so he didn't have the means to continuously make trips between New Cheshire and Niagara. It had to be something within the area.

Maybe I'll find something at the lake? Something told him that his meditation method would work better if he were at a beach, of which there were plenty within the area.

After digging around a bit, he found a bus that would bring him to a nearby lakeside town, so he bookmarked the page so that he could go there as soon as possible.

He wound up looking into news stories of the past two years, much of which he had missed during his surreal time at the Collins Estate.

What's with all this garbage? He grew bored of the news after a short while, wondering to himself if the media had always been so opinionated. Tossing his phone aside, he thought about the friends and classmates that he'd left behind at his previous school.

I wonder how they're doing? His best buddies and the girls he'd liked; they all seemed so distant now, as if they were people he had known in another life.

Glancing at his phone, he hesitated over logging into social media, eventually letting out a tired yet determined sigh as he retrieved his phone and placed it back onto the night table. He doubted that he'd ever see any of them again, so it was best to completely sever contact so that he could start anew as a different person. He had legally changed his surname to Campbell, one of the most common surnames in the country and thus among the most discreet choices to help him avoid his relatives' attention. This being the case, for the sake of his revenge, even if he happened to encountered someone from his previous social sphere by chance, he would have no choice but to pretend that he didn't recognize them.

At some point, Kaiden fell into the most wonderful sleep that he'd had in years. He woke up with sluggish limbs, but jolted upright when he saw that he had slept through all of the alarms he'd set the night before, and had missed two calls from the same number.

"How is it already one o'clock?" He called the number back with frantic fingers knowing in his heart that the caller was his assigned social worker.

Shit. Shit! Please answer...

The social worker answered on the second ring. Thankfully, the woman that had been assigned to his case was very understanding, and assured him not to worry about missing her calls.

He met her in the lobby a short while later, at a pair of opposing sofa chairs that sat on either side of an artificial fireplace, one of a dozen or so similar setups in the area. In her early twenties, she was a short woman that composed herself in a prim and professional manner. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a fiery ponytail, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses resting at the centre of a fair face that was speckled with pale freckles.

"Emily Common," she smiled, offering him a hand and then motioning for him to take a seat.

"Kaiden Collins. Well, Kaiden Campbell now, I guess."

"Not quite, actually. The name change application could take over a month to process."

"That long?"

"Normally, anyhow. Considering your situation, we'll be able to fast track you. In a couple of weeks, I'll help you take care of getting your passport and health card."

"Great, thanks a lot."

"Don't mention it." She had brought a black binder along with her, which was currently sitting at the centre of the table. As she went on about how it was her job to help him out, she opened it up and began to go through its contents, page by page.

"So, you'll be set up in an apartment in the downtown area. Honestly, it's not the best part of the city, but it's the only place where affordable housing is still available."

"Is this because the housing crisis that's all over the news?"

"Crisis is an understatement," sighed Ms. Common. "But luckily we take extra care of youths like you, so there's nothing to worry about as we move forward with getting you situated." She outlined exactly where he would be living and how much his monthly expenses were expected to cost. "Now," she said, turning to a new page, "we'll cover your rent until you finish high school, and you'll get a few hundred dollars each month for groceries and toiletries and all that."

School? He'd almost forgotten about it,  intent as he was on strengthening his body using the Sun and Moon Meditations. He was planning to murder Alexander, after all, so school hadn't really occupied a place in his thoughts for the future.

"Uh, about school. Will I be starting soon, or...?"

"No, you'll be waiting until next fall for a new semester to begin. It's too late in the school year to suddenly drop you into a random class, mostly since we haven't gotten a good feel about where you're at with your studies."

"Where will I be going? Like what school?"

"We'll deal with that another day. For now, we'll go through your lesson plan and see about getting you a part-time job."

Ms. Common sat with him for over two hours, explaining the course that the government had chartered for him. Tomorrow, she would take him out to buy a new wardrobe and to pick out some second-hand furniture to fill his apartment with. She would also pick up a driver's handbook for novices, so that he could get his beginners licence in the following week.

"Oh," said Ms. Common, "before I forget, we got you an unlimited buss pass. This city might only be a tenth of Cochrane's size, but it's still pretty big. This'll help you get around."

She took her leave a short while after he thanked her and accepted the blue laminated card, which he slipped into his pocket along with the key to his hotel room.

He waited around for about five minutes before he went to grab a quick meal at one of the hotel's restaraunts, after which he promptly left the building. Following the GPS on his phone, he found the nearest stop for a bus that was heading eastward, and he caught one about ten minutes later.

So this is New Cheshire. (Italics)

He stared out of the windows with wide eyes, taking in every land mark and notable business in sight. This city was his new home, and it was also the place where he would reinvent himself in the image of revenge.