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Finn had to reach out for the back of the chair as his knees wobbled in relief.
“I know you’re due to collect them tomorrow after school, but you have my permission to sign all three out at lunchtime. I think stretching nerves and possible tempers won’t do anyone any favors. Elijah has an individual assessment in the morning then P.E., but the afternoon involves regular lessons which I think might be asking a little too much of all of them to be honest.”
Finn was stunned. “I don’t know what to say. I’m so grateful. And yes, of course we can be there at twelve.” It was going to make tomorrow so much easier. It meant they would have some quiet time to settle the kids before the rest of the family arrived.
They’d actually gone back and forth on this very issue anyway. Talon and Finn had thought a quiet evening might be a good idea, but both Elijah and Henry had seemed really upset not to see the others after the disappointment of the yard clearing weekend. Asa had confided to Finn that he would help with Zuri, and didn’t mind tackling diapers. Finn had been delighted because he knew Asa wanted to be trusted and valued. He also wanted them all to bond, and while Zuri was their sister, they had spent barely any time with her.
So here they were, standing in the yard chatting to Mr. Dwyer waiting for the lunch bell to ring. Their teachers had been notified.
“I know we haven’t had a chance to speak much, Agent Mayer, but I would be very interested in any and all educational collaborations for enhanced children.”
Finn smiled, genuinely delighted. “When we started this, the age of transformation was usually older, but we’ve found an increasing incidence of younger children developing the mark.”
Dwyer nodded. “So I understand. I’ve been keeping abreast of whatever information I can access. That wasn’t sensationalized by some reporter,” he added dryly.
“I actually have a development group that addresses education for enhanced children,” Finn said.
Dwyer smiled. “So I understand.”
“We meet on the last Thursday of every month, so that’s three weeks away. I can send—”
“I’m great friends with Amy Sullivan.”
Finn chuckled. Amy Sullivan was the rep from the Florida Department of Education. She also had applied to become a foster parent, specifically for an enhanced teenager her husband—a heating and cooling engineer—had found sleeping rough in an abandoned warehouse he was working in before it was demolished for a new road.
He loved how it seemed to be coming together.
“I’d also like to add, on a personal and confidential note, that I was a foster-child from the age of seven, until I aged out of the system,” Dwyer said quietly.
“We need people like you,” Finn said sincerely.
His rather thick moustache twitched. “Likewise.”
Then they heard the bell ring and kids streamed from the doors to the play areas.
“Shall we?” Mr. Dwyer waved a hand and Talon and Finn strode forward to collect their new family.
Chapter Eight
In the middle of the barbeque, Kai set the yard on fire.
Despite at least thirty different people from various branches of law enforcement being present, Kaisomehowhad not only managed to acquire but had successfully smuggled an assortment of fireworks into the party.
Because it would be so cool to impress his new cousins.
He’d also decided, when the captain’s back was turned for maybe 0.0000003 seconds, that he didn’t think the burgers were cooking fast enough because he was likely to die of starvation, and he squirted some of the barbeque lighter fuel at the flame.
The flame roared and caught the fat from the sausages and spat sparks everywhere. Suitably chastised, Kai decided he’d better practice being a good cousin out of the way of the uncles. So, he picked Henry to practice on. Henry would love some sparklers, and Henry understood they had to play with the first one out of sight, just to test it. But he had to promise to be careful while Kai found something to light it with.
And that, as Kai protested afterwards, wasn’t his fault. If Henry had done what he was told, he wouldn’t have decided to suddenly run to the grill while Uncle Vance was marinating something that had once been in a cow with his secret sauce. Henry had been quick and silent and shoved his sparkler into the coals.
Kai had seen it happen in slow motion, funnily enough in exactly the same way it had been described to the Tampa fire department afterwards.
The sparkler had lit, Vance had yelled in shock, Henry had panicked, Vance had tried to grab him to keep him from being burned, and the grill had tipped over.
Now, because all those responsible law enforcement guys had been there in the first place, the grill wasn’t somewhere silly like in the middle of the trees where it could catch fire or anything like that. Unfortunately, and that was where Kai got a little muddled in the retelling, he’d hidden the bag that he’d told Connie contained art supplies for him to play with his new cousins, but that really contained fireworks because they were so much better. Out of sight. Under the grill.
And that set off three more sparklers, two roman candles, a Catherine wheel—which was a real disappointment—a bottle rocket, which was astonishing, and finally something called a skyrocket which Kai had been assured by Neil, who had swapped it for Kai’s lunch, was awesome.
