Finding Home in Redemption

Chapter Twenty-Four

Brennan (Aaron), three years ago

After I graduated, I enrolled in the local community college for criminal justice and then transferred to a university. The night of my graduation, I got to surprise my dad with my acceptance letter to the police academy.

At twenty-three years old, I landed a job with my dad's station, and I started building my dream home on the land my mom gave me on my eighteenth birthday. I poured every single dream I had for my future family into that place, and I spilled more blood and sweat over that property than I thought possible.

I had been living on my own in my new home for three years, approaching my twenty-ninth birthday. I was on my way home from work, and the station put out a call concerning a young man walking around town without shoes, and they needed a responder. I was off the clock but didn't hesitate in turning around and heading back into town.

Evin Scott was in his early twenties and was in a scary state when I arrived. His breathing was erratic, and he kept saying he bought weed and that's all it was, but this wasn't a typical reaction to marijuana. When we got to the hospital, the doctor gave him a shot of whatever medication they use to bring down someone's heart rate, because it was getting dangerously close to two hundred beats per minute. Another shot and nothing was happening. They took a blood and urine sample and rushed it off to do tests, trying to figure out what this kid was on so they could save his life. I sat there and watched the monitor above his bed that showed his vitals and I started sweating. Within twenty minutes the results came back, and he didn't have a trace of anything. It was obvious what happened at that point, and I felt at a loss as I watched the doctor administer yet another dose into the boy's system.

Synthetic marijuana had recently become a huge hit in so many communities. It succeeded in getting you high, and it couldn't be found in urine or a blood sample. Laced with spice, the combination was deadly, and the doctor was trying his hardest to prevent that outcome. Sitting in the critical room of the Emergency Room I prepared myself to watch the death of a young man.

The monitor started beeping again, and the numbers scared me. The screen went from green to red and showed his heart rate had picked up speed again. One-hundred and ninety-five beats per minute. The doctor ran in with another dose which brought the number down twenty beats. It stayed there for a while until they came and administered another dose.

After a few hours, Evin's heartbeat stayed at one-hundred thirty-five beats per minute. His rambling were finally coherent. He was paranoid and nervous about what was going to happen to him. Honestly, I could have gone home at that point, but I kept having flashbacks to when I was a young kid. The life that illegal marijuana took that night and the life it almost took tonight.

It started bothering me, the fact that I hadn't been punished enough for what I was involved in as a kid. When the boy was in the clear and my paperwork was done I went home and started questioning what I was doing. I enjoyed being a cop, I did, but I didn't feel like I'd done anything noteworthy in my career.

I started thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in my career, and I thought about the boy I almost watched die. There was always a need for Narcotic Detectives, so I began the process of the change.

Within the year I was our station's only Narcotic Detective, and I was tasked with was seemed to be an impossible workload. I was supposed to get as many drugs as I could, off the street.

I had barely been working my new job for six months, when the Chief was contacted by the precinct near Taylorsville, Ohio. They needed a man to go undercover, so I drove to meet them immediately.