Page 25 of From the Noblest Motives
"We have to go," Damien blurted out.
"I'm not certain—"
Damien whirled toward her and cut her off. "We have to."
"He's probably hurt, Doc. Someone who can find him has to go down there. Someone thinking about his best interests." Blaze gave Damien's hand a squeeze. "Who's that gonna be besides us?"
Her sharp eyes darted from one of them to the other. "And what then? If you go to the rescue, what will you do when you find him? Assist an escaped fugitive and become fugitives yourselves?"
"Doc, we can't just leave him there. You know that."
She rubbed at her eyes, suddenly just a small and weary elderly woman instead of her usual formidable self. "I do know, Blaze. I do. Just keep in mind what the consequences might be. I'll give any assistance I can. Damien has the secure line."
Damien slid off his seat and moved around the counter with slow, deliberate movements, as if he were afraid of startling his foster mother rather than the other way around. Maybe he was, since he touched her arm tentatively and oh so slowly enveloped her in a hug.
"Damien," she whispered and buried her face against his shoulder. "Be careful."
"I'll be okay. I'm not alone now."
She sighed and pushed back from him to look up into his face. "It was good to have you home. Even for a little while."
The moment felt far too private, too heartrending for him to witness any more, so Blaze slipped out of the kitchen, mumbling about going to pack. He'd known that Dr. Parma had taken Damien in, had helped him heal as much as she could from the violent trauma of his early childhood. But he'd never thought about how Damien felt about her. He should have. It was important.
He had no idea how Damien was doing with his father's reemergence, either. But fuck it all, Damien didn't just offer information like that, and Blaze was hesitant to try to bully it out of him. He'd just clam up, anyway, refuse to speak, if it was something he wouldn't or couldn't share.
He'd tell Shudder, though. Probably. Blaze nearly missed a step picturing Damien with Shudder. What should have been a stupid, jealous thought had snuck right past envy to something else. He caught himself on the banister and had to adjust himself before he finished climbing the stairs, thinking as hard as he could about milk containers left in the garbage for three days.
When they left, Dr. Parma and Damien had both regained their normal reserved, contained selves, and Damien podded over to Blaze's apartment with him. They needed the truck, some supplies, and the foldable hover platform Blaze kept in the back of his closet. Sure, they could've caught a flight to Atlanta, which would've put them close to the prison, but with airport security and flight schedules, driving down would be just as fast.
And no government agency monitors the roads like they do the flights.
Throughout the packing and the first hour of the drive, Damien maintained a silence that was anything but comfortable. His fingers twitched. His feet were restless. He stared out the window and flinched from time to time as if an awful thought had ambushed him.
"Hey." Blaze said it softly, careful to keep his hands to himself. "You okay?"
"Yes."
"Uh-huh."
Damien let out the slow breath that was a Damien sigh. "I'm worried. My bones are itching."
"Yeah, I'm kinda jumpy, too. Trying not to think too hard until we get there." Blaze ran both hands around the steering wheel. "I say we don't even try to talk to the prison authorities. The fuckers wouldn't tell us anything, anyway."
"Agreed. Drones?"
"Are you asking if I have any or if we should use them?"
"Yes."
Blaze couldn't help a little snort. "As it happens, I brought a couple. And reconnaissance, yeah, first order of business."
Damien calmed after that. As Blaze had hoped, making plans, any plans, had helped, and his silence became more regular Damien silence. He even slept for a bit after the first hour. Good. He never got enough sleep.
The six-hour drive felt longer, of course. It always did when it was urgent. But they made it with plenty of daylight to spare and no tails that Blaze could tell. He searched for options as they got closer and settled on a mechanic's shop to park the truck, two miles up the road from the prison, where it sat among all the other older, hard-used vehicles waiting for repair. Then they hiked across country to reach the facility from the east side. No sense in pulling up in sight of the place, since reporters were probably trying just that by now and getting sent off. Less attention they drew, the better he'd feel.
"Anything yet?" Blaze hunkered down in the brush and pulled his smallest drone from his pocket.
Damien shook his head and knelt beside him to share a view of the drone's camera. "He came here. That's all so far."
