Page 62 of Surviving Enchantment: Part two
Emmers nodded.“It is very serious.”
Jerrik smiled.“Do you have kids, Agent Emmers?”
“No.”
“Oh.I thought I could play with your kids if you did.”Jerrik looked at the table.“Did Aunt Amy make cookies?”
“Yes, and we rescued these from Emmers.”Emily grinned and handed the small stack over to the boy.Emily got up to go and get some milk for him.
Jerrik took up a chair at the table and looked at Emmers and Amy.“Are you two dating like Mom and Dad?”
Amy shook her head before Emmers nodded.“No.He can’t date me.He would never hear from his family if he dated me.They have rules about that.”
“Why?You’re great, and you make good cookies.”
“Well, some cities have rules that are different from the rules in Redbird.Where I grew up, it was a rule that people who grew up and were twenty years old and were still human with no extranatural signs, those people had to leave and never come back.They also can’t have children with anyone from the local families.They don’t want to chance more humans being born to them.”
He frowned.“But, you are a giant.You are two giants and a fox.”
“That is new.When I was little, I was just me.The changes came later, and that doesn’t change the rules that I grew up with.My city doesn’t have a back button.They said I had to go, so I have to stay gone.But, hey, if I hadn’t left them, I wouldn’t be here right now, so sometimes things work out.”
Jerrik smiled.“I am glad you are here.And Agent Emmers is glad you are here.”
“Yes, but Agent Emmers and I can’t be more than friends because his people hate people like me, too.”
Emmers said, “Not all of them.”
Amy sighed and looked at him.“I am not going to cut anyone else off from family.I know how much it hurts.”
He frowned and reached out to touch her.She flinched back.“I can deal with friends.Nothing more.”
He sighed.“I am going to solve this.”
“Do what you like.No one has ever broken a shunning from my city.They pride themselves on keeping out theunfortunate.”
He blinked.“You are from Starell.”
“Yup.”
“Thank you.It gives me a place to start looking.”He took out his phone and started punching in information with surprisingly dexterous thumbs.
Amy sighed.
Jerrik said, “What’s he doing?”
“He’s looking me up.Watch.He’s going to change colour.”
He was reading the article that her grandmother had written when they threw her out, the smugness about expunging theunfortunategenetics from their city, and that even her own family wasn’t immune to the law of their land.
He turned red, then white, then his phone creaked.“Do they know what the wave gave you?”
“Nope.I have no means of contacting them, and if I return to the city, there is an automatic warrant out for my arrest.”
“Would you want to go back if you could?”
“I have a life here, but I would like to go back for funerals.”
“Is someone ill?”
