Chapter Two

Pretty much the only good thing about the holiday season was that there was no shortage of seasonal retail jobs. Currently, Jordan was at his second one of the day as a costumed elf assistant to Northgate Shopping Mall's resident Santa Claus, aka a chubby guy named Reid who braved the frigid weather to go out into the alley and chain smoke during his breaks. It wasn’t the most dignified of jobs, but hey, at least he was using his small size to his advantage for once.

Normally, he'd be in bio lecture right now, but with his uncle sick, that just wasn't an option. Even though the cancer was treatable, that didn't mean that the treatments were cheap. Neither he nor his uncle had ever been able to afford the luxury of health insurance. Even now that there was a tax penalty in place, it was usually just cheaper to pay the fine and use their savings to take care of any emergency health scares.

Unfortunately, said emergency fund had already been worn down to nothing by the rest of this year’s financial disasters, and if Jordan wanted to try and save his uncle's life, he was going to have to save up more money than his yearly salary and his college tuition combined. That meant no more classes, and no more FreeMart. He needed to be somewhere where he could eat, work, and rest all in one location without having to pay bus fare.

Enter Northgate, a glittering, soulless, pine-scented catastrophe. Here, Jordan was able to start his day at a furniture store selling overpriced sofas and off-brand mattresses to middle aged women and dumb men who wanted to buy all their furniture in one place. He liked this job because it allowed him to set a timer and sleep on the sample mattresses in back during his break. Then after his shift was over, he could go to the food court and get lunch from any of the vendors for sixty percent off thanks to his employee discount. After lunch he usually had about half an hour to get changed and report for a few hours of elf duty. Then he alternated between two different closing jobs depending on the day. Finally, after all that was said and done, he would come crawling back to the food court so that the staff could take pity on him and give him whatever leftovers they were planning on throwing out.

Most days he didn’t get home until well after midnight, which meant he only ever got about four hours of sleep tops. He had no idea how long he could keep this up, but it was worth it. He would do anything to help his uncle. Kenny was all the family Jordan had left.

That resolve didn’t make him any less exhausted though. He was half afraid that he’d fall on his face at any minute and hit the ground snoring in front of all the kids. Jordan blinked rapidly and stifled a yawn, forcing himself to pay attention to what was happening up on the tall chair to his right. It was his job to help the kids safely up to and off the raised platform and alert building security via his tiny, nearly invisible headset if there were any problems with rowdy parents.

“Ho ho ho!” Reid was shouting at the little girl perched on his lap.

The kid was absolutely adorable. Jordan was terrible at judging ages, but she was probably between seven and ten. She had light brown skin and big eyes with impossibly long eyelashes. Her thick black hair was tied up in a ponytail with choppy bangs resting against her eyebrows. She was wearing a candy striped t-shirt underneath pink overalls and tiny yellow snow boots on her feet. Combined, the ensemble made her look like a quirky 90’s cartoon character.

“What’s your name dear?” Reid asked her.

“Lucy,” the little girl responded. There was a nervous glint to her eyes, as if she was thrilled to be meeting the one and only Santa Claus, even if he smelled like cigarettes and had to lean away from her every couple of seconds to let out a hacking cough.

Reid gave her a big, authentic, toothy grin, which was honestly probably the only reason he’d gotten this job in the first place.

“Of course. Hi there Lucy. Can you tell me, have you been a good girl this year?”

Lucy craned her neck and looked down at the floor.

“Well...I think so.”

Reid reached into his pocket and pretended to read from a folded up piece of paper.

“Hmm...let’s see here. Yep. It looks like you made it onto the nice list young lady. Keep it up and I’ll have to get you something extra special.”

Lucy giggled and kicked her little legs up in the air. She cupped her hand around her mouth and leaned in to whisper something in Reid’s ear. Jordan was barely able to make it out.

“For Christmas can I get an orange race car with a dragon on it?”

Reid raised his eyebrows as if he hadn’t expected that. Jordan couldn’t help but smile. It was 2018 and boys could play with dolls and girls could play with race cars. What a time to be alive. Jordan didn’t know what had inspired this girl’s very specific request, but he felt weirdly proud of her for some reason.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Reid told her, careful not to make promises that Lucy’s parents might not keep. “Now why don’t you smile for the camera, all right?”

Lucy rested her head against Reid’s shoulder and smiled. She was missing one of her bottom teeth, but that didn’t stop her from unleashing her wide, cheesy grin. Jordan and Kelsey, the female elf on the other side of the platform, also craned their necks and smiled, but just a little bit. They’d been specifically instructed to look happy, but never happier than Santa. They were basically living props. They weren’t supposed to steal the spotlight or else parents might complain.

The photographer finished snapping and printing his photos and Jordan offered Lucy his hand which she promptly used to leap off the platform like a spider person. She didn’t quite stick the landing and Jordan ended up having to half-catch her between his arm and hip. Jordan was so skinny these days that he almost toppled backwards into the giant plastic Christmas tree. He grunted as he got his feet back under him and let Lucy go. She apologized and ran off, presumably in the direction of her parents and/or guardian. Jordan didn’t exactly get to evaluate the situation because that was the moment he heard the distinct crackling of his earpiece coming to life, followed by heavy breathing.

“Code seven,” said a panicked male voice. “This is not a drill.”

A few seconds later the muffled sounds of screaming and panicked scurrying filtered down from above them.

“It’s a white male in his mid-20’s or early 30’s,” the security guy continued. “He’s wearing a navy hoodie and cargo pants. I’m tracking his movement via security cams and he seems to be heading east toward the escalators. First floor begin evacuating. Floors two and three, initiate lockdown procedures.”

Jordan glanced over at Kelsey who was staring back at him with wide eyes. He might not have worked here long enough to have memorized the security codes but based on what the security guy had told them, code seven could only mean one thing.

There was an active shooter inside the building.