The Black Heron_Dirty Magic by Jen Pretty

Author:Jen Pretty [Pretty, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

chapter 15

I had never laid eyes on Scott Anderson. He wasn’t anything like what I pictured either.

He was maybe ten years older than me but had kind, deep blue eyes. His face was angular but in a chiseled way that suggested he was active and fit under his clothes. I pushed that thought away. I had things to do—no time to consider attractive men.

He strode across the parking lot of my new youth shelter and right up to the door. There was a video camera on his shoulder.

He grinned at me. “Thanks for calling me.”

I smiled and shook his free hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”

He hitched the camera up higher on his shoulder and pushed a button. “Let’s do it.”

I talked. I talked about the difficulties Supes had in the city. The trouble they were facing with the new laws. The danger of sending kids to the Supe Rehab. At one point, I pulled off my shirt and let him get a good video of my back. I let him interview a few of the older kids. We laid it all out there.

By the time he left, I had witnessed him cry twice, covertly wiping the tears away. Once in the bathroom where I had laid myself bare for him. And once, when he talked to a young man, Eric, who had been abused at the hands of his own father before he ran away. My scars were nothing compared to Eric’s. Cigarettes had burned round circles up and down his arms. His crime had been the ability to breathe underwater, a skill that displayed itself when his father had tried to drown him in the creek that ran behind the family’s home.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Scott that many Supes had the same story. The law didn’t protect us. And it actively went out of its way to hurt us.

The shelter was going to be a safe space for Supe kids. A home for the forgotten.

Scott promised to get the story on the air that day. I had nothing else to do but call my lawyer.

“Tell me,” Partridge said as soon as the call connected.

“I hit a bunch of police cars with lightning, raided a police bus full of Supe kids headed for the Rehab center, brought the kids back to the youth shelter, then told my whole story to a reporter who is going to air the story today.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Alright. I’ll be there.” He paused for a long moment. “The sun’s up.”

“Yeah, I’m dead on my feet. Can I go to sleep or—”

“Yeah, go sleep.”

“Oh, one more thing,” I said. “Angel, one of the kids wasn’t with them in the bus. They said she was taken, but I don’t know where she is.”

“Shit. Getting a kid out of there is going to be difficult.”

We both knew he meant the Supe rehab. It was where all the kids went if they didn’t have an adult who claimed them. I didn’t want to tell him I had every intention of going after her.

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