To Love A Witch

Chapter 2

  

Romy was trying not to freak. She’d hallucinated a time or two in her life, but this wasn’t one of them. Her teenage assailant had just aged a whole bunch.
“Who are you, and what do you want?”
The wanna-be kidnapper held his hands up. “Take it easy. I’m here to help you.”
Romy waved her sparks closer to the gas tank. “Try again.”
“I’m Jake. To make a long story really short, you set off an alert with all that firepower of yours. I’m here to take you to a better place.”
Romy took a couple more steps backward and wished with all her heart she could get the magic to calm down. It had been at least ten years since she’d sparked with anyone around to see, and she needed better control if it was going to be a potential weapon.
She tried again to focus on the stranger. “What do you mean I set off an alert?”
“I work for the Witch Sentinel System. It’s my job to find kids with magic in this zone and check things out—make sure you’re in a good situation. Juvie qualifies you for immediate rescue. I can take you someplace better.”
He didn’t look like a dirty old man or a serial killer, but she was well aware that evil came in many shapes. She was incredibly lucky he hadn’t grabbed one of her kids instead. “Kidnapping’s a felony. Swiping screwed-up kids earns you a special place in hell.”
Jake just raised an eyebrow. “You want to stay in lock-up?”
Romy could feel the sparks flaring again. She tried desperately to tamp them down. Surely someone inside would notice she was missing soon. “No one wants to stay in lock-up. I’d have left with any guy who promised me a way out. How many girls have you taken?”
She kept inching backward. A few feet more and she just might risk blowing him up. People who preyed on kids got no chances in her world.
She saw Jake’s temper fire up, and then abruptly die. “I’m not taking you for any of those reasons you’re thinking.” His voice was suddenly very gentle. “No kid your age should even know about stuff like that.”
“I know plenty.” Her certainty was wavering. She’d met a few girl-snatching perverts in her time, and he wasn’t sticking to the script.
Jake just looked at her for a minute. “You don’t have to come with me. Most kids want to, but you don’t have to come right now. It’s tricky for me to talk with you in juvie, but I can probably arrange to get on your visitor list.”
His quiet offer made her ache. As a teen, she’d spent three years in lock-up without a single visitor.
“Who are you?” she asked again, backing off slightly from thoughts of torching him.
“I’m Jake Hayes. I work for an organization that tries to make sure young witches get to grow up in safety. Normally we find you before your magic lands you in trouble, but this zone hasn’t been very well staffed. I just got assigned a couple of months ago, but I’m truly sorry for whatever you’ve been through. I wish we could have gotten here sooner.”
No one had called Romy a witch in ten years, but it was hard to deny when you still had occasional sparks flying out of your fingertips. “What, you’re some kind of witch social worker?”
He grimaced. “Guessing you’re not a fan of social workers. I’m the monitor for this zone. When someone uses magic and sets off the Sentinel alerts, they send me out to assess the situation.”
“So far, that sounds like a social worker. Lots of assessing, no action.”
Jake started laughing. “Really. You get busted out of lock-up by social workers a lot?”
He had a point. “So you just drop in, grab a kid, and run?”
“Not usually. Most kids are fine, and we just keep eyes on them as they grow up. In some cases we put secondary supports in place. A witch-positive teacher or neighbor.”
“Witch-positive?”
“Someone who’s had exposure to witches and can help a kid adjust. If kids have a lot of power, or control issues, we hook them up with a trainer.”
Romy was pretty sure her sparks were finally under control, courtesy of long, lonely practice. No one had ever offered her a trainer, a friend, or anything else. “So why’d you grab me?”
Jake nodded toward the Youth Center. “We figure it’s pretty much a given that no kid should live in juvie. Or a mental ward—occasionally we find one there, too. We get you out, find you a better situation. Usually we place kids with families that have experience with magic.”
Her temper had always been her enemy. She spoke with the quiet precision that made anyone who knew her well head for cover. “So I set off some alarm somewhere when I played with fire, and you swoop in and take me away to some place where people actually care?”
Jake didn’t know her well. He looked relieved. “Yeah. I’m sorry that I’m a little late to the rescue, but I can help you now.” He looked over at the Center. “Ideally, you come with me before a search party comes out of there looking for you.”
Romy swept off her ball cap and let go her blazing fury. She could feel her hands getting hot again. She no longer cared. “You’re about fifteen years too late riding to my rescue, Jake. I spent three years locked up in this place, but I got out twelve years ago.”
He just gaped.
She swung away and walked back toward the Center, furious and aching.
She’d spent half her life wishing for a knight in shining armor. Unfortunately for Jake, it had been the first half. She’d stopped believing in fairy tales when the fires started and no one rode to her rescue at all.
Darlene came barreling out the door. “Honey, are you okay? Where’d you disappear to?”
“I’m fine. I just needed some air.”
“Uh huh. Who’s the guy?”
Romy turned around and looked at Jake. He was still gaping. “Nobody to worry about. Just another one of those people who wants to help a delinquent for a day.”
She opened the door to the Center and waved Darlene inside. “So, did the kids stage a revolution while I was gone?”
“Nope. Skate’s got them under control.”
Romy nodded. Skate had reformed a lot in the last year, but no one messed with him. “How’s the dance number coming?”
Darlene snickered. “Better with you out of the back row, girlfriend.”
“I never welch on a bet. Skate earned his GED, so I can learn a five-minute dance routine.” She hoped. It had taken a big incentive to get Skate to crack the books. She suspected the choreography for this particular number was his way of getting even.
“You keep starting that last bit heading the wrong direction. You gotta go left, then right.”
Romy sighed. “Yeah. So Skate keeps telling me.” As an actress, her left-right dyslexia was a pain. As a dancer, it was a major liability, but since Delinquent Drama was her brainchild, she didn’t get the luxury of whining.
They walked back into the drama room, and Skate looked gleeful at her return. She reminded herself she was in charge. “Good work on the dance number, guys. Now let’s run through the rumble scene.”
Not that most of her kids needed a lot of practice staging a knife fight, but it was a sure-fire way to distract Skate from her pathetic dance skills.
The Sharks and Jets cast members lined up on opposite sides of the stage. “Remember the ground rules—no blood, and take it easy on the body blows.”
“What is this, fighting for wimps?” That was Manny, one of the newest additions to her program. She kept quiet to see if the others could handle him.
Tina, the girl playing Maria, sauntered over. “Real fights are easy. Making it look real? That’s a lot harder. Besides, you get to die. Don’t complain.”
Manny shut up. Tina had a real way with troublemakers—a far cry from the rebel she’d been a year ago. Her audition for Maria had been one of Romy’s proudest moments. And damn, the girl could sing. Almost as well as she could fight.