Page 2 of Hayes
He was happy to be fostered with the O’Neal family. Scout and Hoot were amazing and the coolest people ever.
“Hayes, do you remember your parents or other adults, besides the teachers?” asked Hoot.
“I don’t remember having parents or anyone around me, not really. There are brief glimpses of something now and then, but I’m not sure if it’s my imagination or real. I don’t really remember anyone, except the other kids and the teachers. They were terrible, by the way. None of them were very good teachers, at least not for us. Any one of us was smarter than they were.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Did they give you a last name?” asked Hoot.
“No,” said the young man, swallowing hard.
Wilson was sitting across from him. They’d spent a lot of time together playing volleyball the last few days. Wilson thought that Hayes was a natural talent, and if he wanted to, he should foster that into competition.
“Would you like a last name?” asked Hoot. Wilson grinned at Hoot, then at Hayes.
“You mean, just make one up and give it to me?” he frowned.
“No, son. I mean, I, we, Scout and I, we’d love for you to be Hayes O’Neal.”
“But that’s your last name,” he said quietly. Hoot laughed, shaking his head.
“I think you’re screwing this up,” smirked Wilson. “Hayes, Hoot is asking if you’d like to be adopted by him and Scout. You would become Hayes O’Neal. Legally.”
“Why would you want to do that? I’m not a little kid. I’m not a baby. That’s usually what people want to adopt.”
“Hayes, we want to do this because we genuinely want to be your parents. We think you’re the most amazing young man in the world. Now, I’m no genius. In fact, you’ll be able to teach me more than a few things. But there are a lot of things that I can teach you. If you’re interested in learning to use a gun or knife or how to defend yourself, I can teach you that. I can teach you about life and love. Many things. Many of the men and women here can teach you.
“The bottom line is, we’d love for you to be Hayes O’Neal. But listen carefully. If you don’t want that, then we’ll be just fine having you as our foster son.”
Hayes stared at the two men, his mouth opening and closing. Shaking his head, he folded his hands, looking down as tears trailed his cheeks.
“Son? Hayes, are you okay?” asked Hoot.
“No one, no one has ever wanted me. Never. You want me.”
“You’re damn right we do,” said Hoot. “And all those other people were stupid.” Hayes could only laugh at his new father’s way of speaking. Plain and to the point.
“Miss Scout wants to be my mom?”
“Miss Scout demands to be your mom,” said Scout, taking a seat beside him, wrapping her arms around the young man. “Sorry I’m late.”
“No problem, babe. I was just trying to convince Hayes that we think we’d be an amazing family.”
“We love you, Hayes. It’s only been a few weeks, and we already know that if you left our home, we’d be crushed. What do you say? Do you want to adopt us?” Hayes laughed, shaking his head as he wrapped his long, thin arms around Scout.
“I can’t think of anything that would make me happier.”
Not only had Hayes found a family, but it was also a family that fostered his interests, talents, and desires to do something to help the world. In fact, they included him in team meetings and made him feel valued.
“I’m not sure that will work,” said Cam in the morning meeting.
“I’m certain,” said the voice in the back of the room. They all turned to see Hayes seated in the back row, in the corner. “Sorry. I was curious and wanted to hear what you talked about. I’m certain it can’t be traced. I’m able to use a technology that I created to divert all trackers, tracers, and recording devices. They won’t be able to record what we send out. In fact, I can pretty much divert any recording devices, in essence, scrambling them.”
“Wait. You mean even if we send a recording of a conversation, they can’t record that and analyze it?” asked Luke.
“Yes, sir. It was really easy to do,” he smirked.
“Damn, that kid is brilliant,” nodded AJ to Hiro and Tanner.
For Hayes, it was the beginning of a life he never dreamed possible.
