Page 13 of Rarely Pure and Never Simple
3
THE FIRST TRAIL
Despite the anxious offers of an infirmary bunk and more queries about ambulances, Blaze shrugged off the hovering staff and settled Damien in the car, wrapped in blankets. He seemed all right, just exhausted and shaky.
Several of the students had seen his fall from the classroom windows. The whole school had emptied out onto the grounds, teachers and pupils alike babbling with curiosity. Maybe it had been a dull week.
"You want to ask the kids anything?" Blaze didn't expect an answer since Damien's eyes had closed again, but he managed a head shake. "Well, I do. You just rest. Give me a couple minutes."
Blaze ignored the dirty looks from the staff as he approached a group of older kids with the file of photos. Maybe Damien thought he could operate on his locator trails alone. Great. Problem was, some weird shit was going on here. The whole thing shrieked of larger cogs at work and webs of conspiracy. He needed something more to work with than imaginary trails of light.
He zeroed in on the best-dressed girl, the one standing hip-shot, staring him down with attitude. This would be the pack leader of the local mean girl chapter.
She cracked her gum and tossed her hair as he approached. "Who's he, your boyfriend?"
Blaze let a nasty smile spread slowly across his face. "Why? Jealous?"
"Right." She gave him the mean-girl approved sneer. "Not in a couple thou."
"Good. 'Cause he's way prettier than you." Blaze zeroed in on the girl to her right who snickered at his childish put-down, opening the file to the first photo as he approached. "Did you know this boy?"
Caught off guard, the second girl leaned forward to look. "Who, Greg? Yeah. I mean, he went here."
"Were you friends?"
She shrugged. "Not really."
He turned to the next one. "How about this one?"
She scrunched her nose and shook her head. "Nah. She had the room next to mine, but we didn't clump or anything."
Mean Girl snatched the file, and Blaze fought to keep his expression steady as she pawed through the photos. Damien would most likely suffer a nervous collapse if she got them out of order.
"All the missing losers. You some kinda Fed?"
"No. The Guild sent me."
Her sneer took on a whole new level of contempt. "You're not Guild. You're probably not even vari."
"Didn't say I was Guild, little girl." Blaze took back the file in one hand and raised his other, fingers pointing skyward. "But vari? Yeah. You could say that."
He let the flame play at the tips of his fingers, the blue gaslight at the lowest end of his spectrum.
"A sparker," a dark-haired boy whispered from the center of the cool-kid group.
It was showy, flashy, and considered one of the most dangerous gifts. The kids always loved it. "All my life."
Cue the whispers.
"Freaking god. It's Blaze Emerson."
"Is not."
"Yeah, it is. I saw him on the news after he caught the Piper."
"Right? I hear he climbed up on the shack's roof where the Piper was and set it on fire while he wasonit."
"And then, and then—wham! He jumps off when the Piper runs out and flattens him before he can whistle a single note. Knocked the mind-control right out of him."
