“Yeah. About four months ago. I’m well now, the cast is off, but…ghosts like to chase me.”
“They will,” Mack agreed sourly. Anger had him flexing his jaw, made his eyes snap with fire. It wasn’t just memory, I don’t think—it was empathy. Mack knew precisely what Gwyn had survived, and he hated how this sweet kid had gone through such. “The mean-spirited ones, at least. People don’t change in death. Ninety percent of ghosts won’t mess with you, as they’re on their own business. But that ten percent seems determined to do nothing but pester you.”
I had a feeling it was higher than ten percent in this town. I mean, look who had been called to handle it.
“I get hassled constantly.” Gwyn spoke directly to the phone, and her expression was shifting, changing from overwhelmed to hopeful. “I can’t sleep fully at night. Someone always wakes me up. Any poltergeist activity is blamed on me. Sometimes I’m not even in the room, and they still blame it on me.”
“What about when you’re injured?”
“My parents make me deal with it. My broken arm was the only time I was allowed to go to the ER, and it was the school who called the ambulance, not them.”
There were no words to explain the depth of rage washing over me. I didn’t care how a child was hurt, you fucking got them proper medical attention. You didn’t just throw bandages and a lecture at the kid! Gwyn was very clearly struggling. Why couldn’t her parents see that, at least?
“Gwyneth, the next question I ask isn’t going to be easy to answer, and it’s all right if you need to think about it. We have a provision in the FBI allowing me to remove a child who demonstrates Medium talent if they are in a problematic environment.”
It was a very narrow rule, I’d bet. CPS normally would step in here, after all, but because she was a psychic child, she fell into a different category. Someone we could take in without needing CPS involved. After all, normally the Feds weren’t equipped to take kids—CPS existed for a reason—but CPS couldn’t protect a psychic. They just didn’t have the right talent or training for it.
“From what you’ve described, you fit. Your basic needs aren’t being met, and frankly, you fall under the category of neglect and abuse. I’ll need to send two agents into your home and interview your family to verify and cross all the t’s, but Mack and Brandon can do the interviews for me. What I’m asking is, if you qualify, do you wish for me to take you out of your parents’ house?”
I think Gwyn almost instinctively said yes, which was a sad state of affairs. My heart broke a little at her expression. Her eyes were bright, face crumpling into something that looked almost like desperate hope. I’d never have even been tempted to leave my home, but my parents would have believed me, too. They’d have helped, not hindered, not put my life in danger over their own beliefs. Gwyn had to literally bite back her yes and think through the question logically.
“But where would I go?” She darted a look between me and Mack.
“I would place you with another Medium. We have either active agents or retired ones willing to take in a young Medium and help train them. You’d live with them and learn until you’re ready to graduate. The caveat to this is you, in turn, will need to work as an FBI Medium for five years once you’re an adult.”
Gwyn chewed on her bottom lip, staring at the phone, hard in thought. “But that’s, like, an instant good-paying job, right? I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
“It also means we try to find you an anchor once you hit eighteen. Which, granted, Mediums need anyway.”
She blinked, then stared at me hopefully. “An anchor like Agent Havili?”
I was flattered by her reaction and had to grin.
Sylvia’s laugh was low and throaty. “We all want a Havili, kid, trust me. Brandon, your parents needed to have more than three kids.”
“Tell me about it. Not enough of us to go around.” I was only mostly kidding.
“But how does that sound to you?”
“I think it sounds good. I don’t…” Gwyn rubbed her face. She blew out a breath noisily before admitting, “I don’t know what to do, in a way. I think my parents do love me, but they don’t believe me. It’s getting more and more dangerous for me here, and they won’t even let me protect myself. I’m afraid of what will happen.”
It would only get worse. She was like a beacon on a dark night already. As her power matured, she’d grow ever stronger, ever brighter, and increasingly attract more ghosts. In this creepy, haunted town, she’d be a very obvious target with nowhere to run. I was afraid if we didn’t take her out of here, she wouldn’t live to see graduation.
“Leaving your parents’ house doesn’t mean you’ll lose all connection with them.”
From Gwyn’s face, she wasn’t sure how to feel. She tried to smile, but she still sat hunched in, defensive.
“But it does mean you’ll go to a safe place where you can learn how to use your abilities. How to protect yourself. I can authorize doing so on a trial basis as well.”
“Oh.” Gwyn sagged in relief. Now her smile was true, and she straightened her shoulders, appearing much more confident. Dare I say excited? Her grey eyes, full of cautious hope, darted between me and Mack multiple times as she spoke. “Yeah, let’sdo a trial basis. That sounds better. Um, can I stay with Agents Havili and Lafayette?”
Sylvia startled audibly. “Why them?Because you know them?”
“Well, and…” She peeked up at me through her lashes. “Agent Havili can’t even see ghosts, but he still noticed something was wrong.”
And went immediately to protect her. I was probably the first, ever, to do so. My heart broke a little. The urge to continue protecting her rose and firmed quickly within me. This poor kid. She might have imprinted on me like a duckling, but I understood completely. Why go off with a stranger when the man who had proven he would move to protect you was sitting right there?
I’d always liked kids, and she was so like Mack, I didn’t want to pass her off to someone else. But I wasn’t sure how my lover felt about taking in a teenage girl to raise and train. We’d only just talked about this very possibility last night. I glanced over to see his reaction.
