To Love A Witch (A Novel Nibbles title) (2 page)

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.

Jake grabbed a beer from the fridge and plunked
down in front of his computer. He had the sneaking suspicion some
critical details had been left out of the background briefing for
his current zone assignment.

Time to rectify that. He wiggled his fingers and
prepared to do some hacking. Not that he needed an excuse, but it
was for a good cause.

First he accessed files at the Franklin County
Youth Detention Center. Their security was absurdly lax, but some
thoughtful soul had computerized twenty years of inmate records.
His red-haired girl said she’d been inside fourteen years ago. He
should be able to find her.

He ran a quick scan through the current inmates.
It was entirely possible she was fifteen and a good liar.

Unlikely, though. The look of her right after
she’d yanked off her ball cap was imprinted on his brain. Furious,
surrounded by cascades of flaming hair, and sexy as hell. He was
pretty sure his sexy-chick radar didn’t point at
fifteen-year-olds.

Confirmed. No hot redheads amongst the current
residents. He did see Tattoo Boy, though. In for three years. That
sucked. Jake couldn’t imagine living in puke green for that long
without losing his sanity.

Pulling up the historical records, he scanned
for the younger version of his fiery witch. He almost missed
her—red hair wasn’t obvious in black-and-white mug shots—but that
was the same face. Fairy-dust features, big eyes, and a really big
chip on her shoulder, even then.

He clicked into her detailed record and got his
second big surprise of the day. Romy Daniels. Romy was the name of
the woman who ran Delinquent Drama. He’d kidnapped the adult in the
room. Whoops.

Her own darn fault for hiding in the back row
and looking prepubescent.

The story in her file was exactly the kind of
thing Sentinel was supposed to prevent. A series of foster homes,
and then locked up at fourteen for repeat arson offenses. No one
would take in a kid who set fires while everyone else was
sleeping.

He tried not to beat on his laptop; it was just
the messenger. Witches with fire talents usually came into their
power as young teens—and it tended to involve a lot of accidental
firestarting. Romy probably started fires while she slept and her
control was at its lowest.

The cure for that was a couple of training
sessions and careful monitoring, not three years of lock-up in a
concrete hell.

He sent Duncan a pretty insistent instant
message. A few minutes later his friend’s face popped up on-screen.
“Hey Jake. Long time, no see. When are you going to come ogle babes
on the beach with me?”

Jake grinned. Duncan never changed. “I need to
know the inside dirt on what happened in this zone for the last
couple of decades.”

His recruiter and long-time friend frowned.
“Why, what’s up?”

“I followed an alert today. Found my witch in
juvie.”

Duncan winced. “Hate it when that happens.”

“It’s the second time in three months. And this
time my witch wasn’t
in
lock-up, she works there. Dunc, she
spent three years in juvie as a teen. Arson.”

“Fire witch?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah. At least four reported
firestarting incidents in the year before she got put away. How did
they miss a fire witch in this zone for that long? She should have
been setting off alerts left, right, and center.”

“I don’t know. There were some rumors about the
old guy who monitored that zone. He had a higher rate of reported
false alerts than most of us.”

Meaning he decided the kid setting off the
alarms wasn’t really a witch in need of help. Jake tried to keep a
lid on his temper. Duncan was just a messenger, too. “What
else?”

Duncan squirmed. “Now we’re moving into the
territory of really unsubstantiated rumors, but almost all of the
witches he found were boys. Sentinel keeps that kind of data pretty
quiet, though.”

That did it. “What the hell, Dunc. Two-thirds of
witches are girls. No one thought it was a bit strange when he
didn’t find any?”

“Some of the old-guard monitors have old-guard
ideas. That’s why I recruited you, remember?”

Jake definitely remembered. Duncan had followed
him around for three months, getting him drunk and talking up the
benefits of doing your civic witch duty while having an awesome
time seeing the world. He’d been a little restless, and a lot
bored, so he’d signed on.

He scowled into the monitor. “Some of that old
guard still works in Sentinel headquarters. Are they covering for
the old fart?”

Duncan sighed. “Probably. Jake, don’t do what I
think you’re gonna do.”

Jake put on his best innocent face. “And what
would that be?”

“I can’t believe you think I’d still fall for
that face.” Duncan laughed and toasted Jake with a beer. “If you do
that which shall not be named, be careful. I hear they just
installed a new firewall.”

For all his beach-sloth ways, Duncan heard a
lot. “Thanks, pal. I’ll catch you later.”

Taking a swig of his beer, Jake prepared to hack
the Sentinel system. Their security was not at all lax. It was,
however, a bit overconfident. They expected everyone to come
crashing through the front door. Any good hacker knew that was just
plain stupid.

Or at least they did once they grew up. He’d
done plenty of front-door crashing in his teenage years.

Duncan was right; Sentinel did have a new
firewall in place. Fortunately, it was the same one as the New
Mexico Police Department, and he’d finessed into that just last
month. A couple more finger wiggles, and he was in.

Viewing personnel files for Sentinel employees
was probably several kinds of illegal. That didn’t much bother him,
but he did have his own sense of ethics. He kept his nose out of
Duncan’s file, however much fun it might have been to snoop.

The historical records were supremely well
organized. Sentinel was good at paperwork. Jake located the file
for the previous monitor of the New Mexico zone. Alvin Minton. He’d
held the post for forty freaking years. That was some serious
longevity.

His personnel file held hints of issues. A
couple of suggestions that his incident reports were lacking in
detail. One letter of reprimand for slow follow-up on a
yellow-alert case. Yeah. Some poor kid sat in a mental ward for
three months while Alvin took his sweet time following up.

Jake toggled over to the main Sentinel database.
HR records might sometimes circumvent the truth, but data didn’t
lie, and Sentinel was obsessive about keeping good data
records.

He pulled up all the alert and incident reports
for the New Mexico zone during Alvin’s tenure. Deciding not to
hand-count forty years of data, he dumped everything in a
spreadsheet and ran a series of formulas and calculations.

Fifteen minutes later, he stepped away from his
laptop, his temper just barely leashed. He’d hoped Romy had been
the one kid that had slipped through the cracks. Far from it. Alvin
had dropped more kids down the cracks than he’d kept out.

In forty years, there had been 167 alerts. Alvin
had written up eighty-one of them as false alarms—and every last
one was a girl.