She might not like kids, or care who had actual legal custody, but she wasn’t going to hand him over to someone without the proper cues and codes. And not just because it would be bad business. Lonejacks—the freelancers and independent contractors of the Cosa Nostradamus—might not play together well, traditionally, but kids got breaks adults didn’t. Survival of the species, if you were being blunt about it.
That motivation—that need—had sent Wren into the proverbial, nonactual dragon’s lair to rescue teenagers last summer, and she had almost died because of it. This sweet-eyed kid could have—probably would have—been one of them, if he were a decade older—lost, disenfranchised, unaffiliated Talents in their teens, looking for the brass ring. She could have been one, if John Ebeneezer hadn’t grabbed her ear in a candy store one day almost fifteen years ago and read her the riot act about using Talent for shoplifting. There was a reason Talent used the one-on-one mentoring system—okay, mostly it was because of hidebound issues of paranoia and security. But also because you needed to care about your student to keep them safe, and you had to care about your teacher in order to learn. This kid didn’t have anyone.
*Kid* She risked pinging him, the current so soft as to barely reach across the street. It was easier if you had a sense of the person you were trying to reach—if you knew them personally, or had a blood-tie to them—but line of sight was almost as good.
Confusion flooded into her brain, answering at least one question—the kid was acting purely on instinct, not a scrap of training in him. And if she wasn’t careful, she could send him into panic. Not good. Wren pulled back the ping, raising a careful barrier between the two of them. If he tried to reach out, he’d encounter null space, and think that he had just imagined the call. She hoped.
She calmed herself, pasted an open, reassuring expression on her face. “Come on, kid. Time to hook up with your dad.”
His hand was still wet, but she took it anyway, feeling the little fingers curling into her palm. His little legs had to walk twice as fast to keep up with hers, but she resisted the urge to pick him up, just in case she suddenly needed her arms free, for whatever reason.
God, please, let this transfer go smoothly. She really just wanted to go home and have a drink.
An hour later, she was willing to forgo the drink, just to be home without a sticky little paw or pair of big, blue eyes anywhere near her. The kid was cute, but enough was enough. Where the hell was his pickup?
“Daddy was a blond, huh?”
Wren turned to face the man who had spoken.
“I beg your pardon?” She and the kid had walked a circuit of the park, and were now sitting on the swings, as per instructions. Or she was, anyway. The kid had taken one look at the swings, far too high up for his little legs, and promptly sat down in the dirt at her feet, scratching at it intently with a stick.
“His coloring and yours, they don’t quite match up. So I figured Daddy was a blond.” The voice was friendly, even jovial, but the face—surprisingly round—was set in grim lines. Mocha-colored skin and black walnut eyes, shaved head, full lips, and artificially whitened teeth. He did not look like a man who would ordinarily care about genetics, kids, or the combination thereof, not even to hit on their supposed momma.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It was dark.”
Spoken, the code exchange sounded even worse than it had on paper. But the words matched. This was the handover.
“Hey, kid.”
Kid looked up at her, then looked at the man, doubtfully.
“He’s going to take you to your dad,” she told him.
“No he’s not.” Kid sounded pretty damn definite about that.
The guy laughed. Not nervously, not overconfidently. It sounded as though he really was honestly amused.
Wren looked at the kid again. Talent. Untrained, possibly totally clueless, and four years old. His judgment wasn’t to be trusted.
Except that it was marching with her own. Something about this guy was off. Damn it, and things had been going so well until now. For her usual values of “going well,” anyway.
“Is there a problem?” the guy asked her, not sitting down on the swing beside her, but standing, not quite too close, next to the kid. His body language was calm, open, and approachable. He could be grim because he didn’t like little kids. Or because he didn’t like her. Or maybe he had trouble finding a parking space. Maybe he was just a grim but otherwise likable guy.
“No. No problem.” The code phrases matched. Her part of the job was over. Wasn’t that what she had wanted?
Grim-faced guy looked down at the target. “Marc junior, is there a problem?”
Kid looked up at the man, his expression still blandly innocent, and said “No sir. No problem.” He had the slightest lisp when he said ‘sir.’ His hand was clammy, reaching up and gripping her hand again. Great.
“Then let’s get this done,” the guy said. “The kid goes with me.”
Wren wasn’t a precog, but she did have a significant skill in psychometry. Touching something, especially something with a lot of emotional importance, gave her the history of the object. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but always accurate.
Moving swiftly, letting go of the kid’s hand, she stood and shifted so that the guy had to pivot to follow her As he did so, her now-free hand darted out under his sports coat, slipping his wallet out of his back pocket even as she opened up to her current, letting the information flow into her brain.
The images were clear: Guy had bought the kid, cold hard cash. Wren didn’t know if the seller was Mom or Dad but she did know that both had been approached, by either this guy or his employer, and both Mom and Dad had been willing to listen. One of them had closed the deal, probably Dad, and now Wren was being used to deliver.
Kid was right. She didn’t like either one of his parents, either.
The moment her hand let go of the leather of his wallet, she was in motion, grabbing the kid up and running like hell, expecting any minute to hear the sound of a gun being cocked, feel the burning sensation of bullets entering her skin, or the shouts for her to stop, the claims of child-napping, or something else that would galvanize other people in the park against her.
Damn, what she wouldn’t give to be able to Translocate right now!
The swings were just off the paved walkway, barely inside the park proper, along with one of those round whirling things, a slide, and a couple of seesaws. There was maybe a hundred yards of grass ahead of that, then a grove of trees. Too manicured to be really useful, but it was the only cover around.
The gunfire came just as she started to think that they were going to make it to that relative safety. The screams of parents as kids scattered off the playground made her heart jump into her throat, but she didn’t stop running. The kid was a heavy weight under her arm, but she didn’t dare put him down. Her legs were short but his were even shorter, and there was no way he’d be able to keep up.
A bullet zinged past her ear—from the front. “Oh, fuck this,” she muttered, realizing that the guy had brought backup. Would they risk hitting the kid?
No more time to worry about maybes and mights, she decided. Nulls with guns now scared her more