Chapter 2: Little Hellraiser
Jason had apparently been standing at the entrance of Little Red Wagon Early Learning Center long enough to attract attention, because the security guard — an older Black man named Earl who'd been watching the block for years — ambled over and squinted at him.
"You need something, son?"
Jason smiled. "Earl. It's me. Jason. Jake."
Earl stopped, looked him up and down — first puzzled, then his face cracked open into recognition.
"Well, I'll be. Didn't recognize you without that ridiculous man-bun. You back for the summer?"
"Graduated. Back for good."
"For good! That's what I like to hear. Your grandfolks would've been proud."
As the two of them talked, a commotion erupted from inside the building. A cluster of people pushed through the front door — two uniformed LAPD officers, a man and a woman, the woman carrying a small girl. Behind them, a mob of children spilled out onto the sidewalk, wailing at full volume.
A little girl in a red dress burst out of the building gripping a water gun. She was maybe five years old, her pigtails coming undone, and she was absolutely furious. She caught up to the officers and seized the woman's jacket with her free hand, leveling the water gun with the other.
"You big meanies — you put her down right now or I will SOAK you!"
Her voice was high and fierce and completely serious.
The center's teachers rushed out after her, urging everyone to calm down, please, let's use our words.
"What's going on?" Jason asked.
Earl straightened up with the gravity of a man who has seen some things.
"Those are officers from the local precinct. Ms. Carol called them."
He sighed. "There's a little girl enrolled here — four years old. Parents dropped her off two days ago and never came back. Nobody's answering their phones. She's been abandoned."
"They had to call the police. Standard procedure — take her in, try to locate next of kin."
"And that's why the kids are losing their minds?" Jason asked.
Earl watched the children — led by the red-dress girl — swarm the two officers, blocking their path, crying and shouting. He shook his head slowly.
"That little firecracker in the red dress is Maya. Started here about three months ago." He paused. "She's only known this other little girl — Lily — for about a month. But you'd think they were sisters."
Jason didn't know much about Little Red Wagon. Truth be told, the original Jake had never cared. He'd been too busy with parties, girls, and finding new ways to disappoint people. The school had just been a line in his grandparents' will — an obligation he hadn't wanted.
"Does this happen a lot? Kids getting left here?"
Earl's expression answered before he did. "More than it should. Families who use this place — they're not struggling, they're grinding. Night-shift workers, gig workers, people doing two and three jobs just to keep the lights on." He glanced at the door. "Sometimes the pressure gets to be too much."
Little Red Wagon sat on a corner of West Hollywood Boulevard where two different LAs collided. On one side of the street: smaller houses, old trees, working families. On the other: wine bars, boutique hotels, rooftop restaurants, valet parking, money moving fast and clean. The school existed in the seam between those worlds, serving the people who kept the expensive side running — the delivery drivers, the dishwashers, the night-shift nurses and hotel housekeepers.
The evening program ran from 5:30 PM to 1:00 AM for exactly that reason. Parents dropped kids off before their night shifts and picked them up after. It was the only childcare option that fit their hours.
Inside, the little girl named Lily was crying in the officer's arms, twisting to get free, reaching back toward her friends.
The children had formed a human blockade.
The female officer looked genuinely pained. "Kids, I promise, I'm not the bad guy here. We're just going to help Lily find her mom, okay?"
She looked over at the center's director. "Ms. Carol — a little help?"
Ms. Carol was a sturdy woman in her mid-fifties, a West Hollywood native who'd known Jason's grandparents for thirty years and had run the school since before Jason could remember.
"Let me try."
She crouched down to Maya's level. "Maya, sweetheart. The officer is going to help Lily find her family. That's a good thing, right? Can you let go so they can help her?"
Maya hesitated. Her water gun dipped slightly. But she kept her grip on the officer's jacket.
"She's my friend," Maya said, jaw set. "You can't just take her."
The teachers gently corralled the other children back. For a moment it seemed like things might de-escalate. Then Lily let out a fresh wail and reached her arms toward Maya — and the blockade collapsed back into chaos.
Eventually, with no better option, the staff held the children back while the officers made their move toward the parking lot.
That made everything worse. The crying hit a new register. It sounded like the end of something.
Every child was in tears.
Every child except Maya.
Maya wasn't crying. She was furious — chin up, eyes blazing, like a tiny general who hadn't accepted the outcome of the battle yet.
The other kids were caught and held back by teachers. Maya twisted free and ran.
She almost made it.
A hand reached out from the side and caught her by the back of her dress.
Jason.
The officers shot him a grateful look and picked up the pace toward their cruiser.
"Lily!" Maya screamed — and then she turned and sank her teeth directly into Jason's hand.
"Ow — !"
He let go on reflex. Maya bolted, sprinting after the police car, shouting until she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and went down hard. Her water gun skittered across the pavement. She watched the cruiser turn the corner and disappear.
Then, finally, she cried.
"You big meanies!"
Her voice cracked on the last word, all the fury draining out of it, leaving just a little kid sitting on a sidewalk missing her friend.
Forty minutes later, Jason was in urgent care getting his hand wrapped.
Ms. Carol sat in the plastic chair beside him, mortified.
"I am so sorry, Jason. You just got here and this is your welcome. I'll talk to Maya — this isn't acceptable behavior."
Jason thought about Maya's face when the car turned the corner. He shook his head. "Don't be too hard on her. She was looking out for her friend. Maybe we should've given them more time to say goodbye."
Ms. Carol sighed. "We let them say goodbye for almost twenty minutes. The longer it went, the worse it got."
"…Fair point."
"You haven't eaten. Come have dinner. I made a real meal — I knew you were coming today."
"You didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to. Come on."
Ms. Carol's husband, Ray, was already at the table when they arrived, a spread of food laid out that Jason hadn't expected — rotisserie chicken, roasted vegetables, corn bread, the works.
"There he is!" Ray stood up and shook Jason's hand, then noticed the bandage. "What happened?"
"Maya happened," Ms. Carol said flatly.
Ray let out a long exhale. "Yeah. That tracks."
They all clearly knew Maya well.
"How are your girls?" Jason asked, settling into a chair.
"Diane got married last spring, moved out to Pasadena," Ms. Carol said, serving his plate. "Keisha's in Atlanta on a work rotation — back next week."
"Time goes fast."
"Too fast. You want a beer?"
"No thanks." His head had only stopped hurting an hour ago. He wasn't going anywhere near alcohol.
"Good. Drinking'll kill you young. Have more chicken."
After dinner, Ray cleared the table and Ms. Carol walked Jason back to the school.
"I set up a room for you on the third floor," she said. "End of the hall — biggest one. Used to be the older kids' activity room. We converted it after your grandparents passed."
She offered to take his duffel. He kept it.
The room was generous — a living area, separate bedroom, balcony overlooking the side street, private bathroom. The furniture was dated but solid, most of it pulled from his grandparents' house. It smelled faintly like them, in a way that caught him off guard.
"If anything needs replacing, just say the word."
"It's perfect," Jason said. And he meant it. "Thank you, Carol. For everything."
She looked at him for a moment longer than necessary.
She was thinking about the last time she'd seen him — New Year's, hair bleached and braided, stumbling drunk through the school's front door at midnight, scaring the children half to death. He'd gotten in her face when she tried to remove him. Told her he owned the place and she worked for him. She'd written it off as drunk nonsense, but her opinion of him had hit the floor.
She'd quietly braced herself for the worst. Had even thought about what she'd do if she had to leave — felt guilty about it, given the promise she'd made to his grandparents.
But this person standing in front of her — calm, steady, genuinely grateful, nothing flashy about him — felt different. Like someone had turned a dial.
Maybe losing them both in one year had finally done what four years of college couldn't.
Please let it be real, she thought. Don't let it be a performance.
She said goodnight and left him to unpack.