The New York Mystery Crew: Jackson's Past (book 2)

Chapter 1: Nightmares

Warning: This story contains child abuse, self-harm, mentions of suicide, potential murder, and probably other sensitive topics! Read this story at your own risk!

On the night of March 3, 2018, 9-year-old Jackson Starr was tossing and turning in his bed, attempting and failing to get to sleep after a long day of putting up with his pregnant mom and annoying 7-year-old sister, Juliana.

Jackson had midnight black hair down to his shoulders, pale skin, dark brown eyes, and he was skinny and around five feet tall.

Jackson groaned and glanced at his fresh cuts that he had made a few minutes prior. He couldn't let his friends or sisters find out. His mom would be furious if anyone found out. She would literally kill him if he told anyone about his situation, so he cut himself to release the pain and he could focus on something else for once.

School was his getaway from his home. He hated it at home and loathed the day when he graduated school in this situation, so he thought he was lucky that he was a long way away from graduating collage.

His pet snake, Shadow, coiled around his body and blocked his new cuts from his view. Jackson smiled at her gratefully, as he probably would have made more if she hadn't coiled him.

Shadow was a black reticulated python with sapphire blue eyes. She had the ability to hypnotize people in a similar way to lamia's and naga's.

Shadow's coils were working their way up towards Jackson's neck and throat, massaging every muscle in his body on the way. Once she got there, she tightened her coils around it so Jackson made a *GULP!* sound as her coils winded around his mouth and nose, forcing him to completely surrender.

Jackson sighed in relaxation and quickly became hypnotized, as Shadow was probably the only hypnotic being he knew of that he couldn't resist the hypnosis of, besides 9-year-old Rachel Heart from his school.

Shadow's hypnosis didn't last long when Jackson was already tired, as it only helped him fall asleep, although he usually had nightmares whenever Shadow helped him sleep.

Of course, Jackson dreamed.

A girl who looked no older than fourteen was following him when he glanced around his surroundings. His breathing sped up and he decided to run, hoping that she would leave him alone.

She didn't.

She just chased him into a dark alleyway and cornered him in a dark area of the alleyway. "What do you want from me?" Jackson asked. The girl didn't answer, but pulled her hood up to reveal the person from Jackson's past.

The girl who murdered his brother.

She had her knife out and before Jackson knew it, she had stabbed him.

Jackson awoke with a cold sweat dripping from his forehead and sat right up in bed. He wiped the sweat off and put his glasses on and glanced around his room, hoping that the girl wasn't in there with him.

When his mostly nocturnal vision didn't catch anything, he sighed from relief and laid back down, not able to fall asleep for the rest of the night.

A/N: This is the first part of the second book! I don't think I've ever written a sequel to one of my stories before now, but here is the first part! I hope you enjoyed it and I'll try and upload the next part as soon as I can.