Page 36 of Rarely Pure and Never Simple
"But it's different now! Cory's dead!"
The kids volleyed back and forth in heated exchange, trying to shout each other down while Echo wailed in distress. Damien, his only expression a hint of a frown, waited until they ran out of steam.
"Others may be in danger." He finally broke in softly. "Katie and Cory… I was weeks too late. But if we can save anyone else, even one, that's the objective. I'm not here to take you away. I'm not here to tell the authorities. Not good with authority myself. But I need to know what's happened. Can you tell me what prompted you to leave the Academy? Or to change course and not go back?"
The kids shifted uncomfortably. Blaze chewed on his tongue to keep from interrupting. Damien had their attention, and his soft-spoken approach was better here.
Wave finally spoke, her words slow and careful, like she was trying to remember things right. "There were a couple of kids who didn't come back after break. We didn't think about it much. Scholarship runs out. Parents change their mind and want their kid to grow up to have some normy job instead of trying for Guild. It happens. But then Tara disappeared mid-term."
She fell silent, still rocking Echo in her arms, so Morphea took up the thread. "Yeah. It was weird. She went all quiet, like she was worried or something. Then she was gone. A few days later, Katie said she'd seen her again. Tara'd told her stuff. That's when the rumors started."
"What rumors did you hear?" Damien asked in that same quiet, nonjudgmental tone he used for almost everything.
"About vari kids being snatched. Only the poor ones, of course. Whispers about secret government labs and specialized work camps in the badlands and shit like that."
Hawkwind spoke up. "Then after second term, more kids disappeared. The rumors didn't seem like rumors anymore. I wasn't gonna get snatched up by some government death squad. I took the twins with me and I ran."
He lifted his chin as he spoke, daring the adults to tell him he'd been wrong.
Damien waited a few heartbeats so the defiance could settle. "How did you know where to run to?"
The kid had enough sense to look embarrassed. "We didn't. We'd heard of a safe camp for varis out this way, but we didn't know exactly where."
Wave gestured between them. "Morphea and I ran a few days after Hawkwind. He'd told us he was going. It just took a few more days for us to decide. Echo caught up with us and helped us find them a week later. She's the one who got us moving in this direction, too."
Surprise flitted across Damien's face. The kids probably missed it, but Blaze had spent a lot more time studying the man. "Echo, you're a locator?"
The girl sniffed miserably and shook her head. "N—no. I… I hear stuff. Thought stuff. I heard Shudder when he passed close. Hawkwind, he called the storm."
"Clever of them," Shudder said with a little chuckle. "I had to land near their camp, and that's when they came to me for sanctuary."
"But you weren't looking for Shudder when you left the Academy."
The kids took a minute to look at each other before glancing down or away, according to their personalities. Again, Wave answered for them. "No. Sorry, Shudder, but we weren't. Not when we left."
Blaze ventured a question, forcing himself to speak with minimal growl. "So who were you looking for?"
Wave's eyes met his, strange eyes the color of dark Atlantic storm seas. "When Tara came back… I never saw her, so I'm not even sure she did. But Katie said she had, and they talked. She said there was a place just for us. Not just a camp but a real place. One to call our own. Where no one would misunderstand us or try to use us."
"Like some kind of variant Shangri-La?" The sarcasm crept in no matter how hard Blaze fought it.
Those sad, gray eyes never wavered. "Yes."
"Was Tara ever here?" Damien asked, relieving Blaze of the eerie weight of Wave's eyes.
"I don't think so. Was she, Shudder?"
Shudder jerked as if startled out of a quicksand pit of thought. "Who? Tara? No one's come this way with that name, but most have new names by the time they get to me. If she had, though, no one's left me recently, and then you would have seen your friend by now and recognized her. So, no."
"Thank you, oh Emperor of Over-Explanation," Blaze muttered.
Damien waved his hand in a shushing motion. "Wave. Are you still looking for this place? Or have you stopped here?"
All the kids looked at Wave, expecting her to answer. Blaze had thought Hawkwind the leader of this little renegade band. This time, a rare occurrence, he'd been wrong.
Wave and Damien exchanged implacable stares for a moment. Then she straightened from rocking Echo. "We're stopping. It was a nice idea, a place like that. But it would be hiding. Shudder's work is important—"
Blaze snorted but found himself universally ignored.
