Page 68 of Savage Reckoning

He simply shakes his head. “It’s just me, Doc.”

“You’re only sixteen—”

“Almost seventeen,” he reminds me.

“Almost seventeen,” I correct myself. “It can’t be that long since you left home.”

“Been on my own since I was fourteen. I was in care before that. Foster homes mainly.”

“I don’t understand…”

He shrugs. “It wasn’t working out. No one’s fault, not really. I don’t get on that well with other people, so I decided to try it on my own. The other kids thought I was odd. They used to pick on me, and I’d hit back, so there was trouble. I’d get moved on. So, I decided to get my own place and I was okay after that.”

“How did you get a flat at fourteen?”

“I lied. And I had the rent, so why would there be a problem?”

“How did you have the money for rent? Food, electricity?”

“I told you. Projects. I’ve never gone short.”

I have no ready answer to that. Unlike most troubled teens, Freddie has a saleable skill, and he’s found a lucrative market for it. Without his ‘projects’ he’d probably have been on the streets, begging or worse. As it is, he’s a loner. A misfit. Sooner or later he’ll end up in jail. Or fall foul of someone even more lethal than Jack Morgan.

“How did you learn so much about computers?”

“Here and there. School, to start with. There was an IT teacher, he was sound. I used to stay back at lunch time and mess with the equipment. I just picked it up, I suppose. Read a lot, too. Computers are easy, it’s people who are complicated.”

He’s right there. “Back to my original question. Where will you go from here?”

“Are they going to let me go anywhere? I mean, I sort of assumed…”

I take a chance. “I think, if you wanted to leave, Jack would let you go. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Oh.” Freddie studies his fingernails. “Maybe I will, then.”

“Or…”

He peers up at me through his myopic glasses, and I detect a flare of hope in his eyes.

“Or you could ask if you can stay.”

His eyes widen. “Stay here? With you?”

“With us. And not here necessarily. There’d be training, you’d move about in the organisation.”

“Oh. That sounds… cool.”

“Think about it. And talk to Jack.”

Freddie shrinks back into his chair. “Fuck. Do I have to? He scares me.”

“He scares everyone. It’s his job. But this is his call. If he sees potential in you, he might give you a chance.”

I watch from the window of my consulting room as Freddie makes his way back towards the castle. Despite his injured ankle, I detect a spring in his step that wasn’t there before. Here’s hoping…

My next stop is with Magda, who in my opinion is ready to leave the clinic and move back into her apartment in the castle. I suggest as much to her.

“What about all the steps?” she wonders.

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