Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Miles
The dragon egg was still going strong at my house, and so far, I hadn’t found anyone willing to take it.
I had a nice setup that Fatma from The Ringshire Faerie Sanctuary helped me with, since she’d dealt with eggs and hatchlings before.
She couldn’t take the dragon, though, because her sanctuary was already very full and there wasn’t enough land for a full-grown dragon.
But she’d been willing to hook me up with everything I needed to build a suitable nest, plus she gave me some supplies and pointers for when the hatchling was born.
Since it was looking more and more likely that it would happen in my house before we found a better place for it.
For now, it was nice and snug in a nest filled with blankets, pillows, and heating pads in my living room.
Since it was safe and didn’t look to be hatching, Win and I came over to help Lyric.
We’d gone out to brunch with the twins and Lyric the day after the egg fiasco, and it’d been a nice time. We needed to get together with them again soon. And I really needed Higgins to come through.
Lyric had less than two days before the animal and faerie shelter was sending their inspector. They were close to being ready, but we came over to help out with the last-minute things.
The guy was coming on Tuesday morning, and if all went well, Lyric would be bringing a baby griffin home that afternoon.
The biggest job we had to do was setting up a big net in the backyard so the griffin had a safe place to fly and couldn’t get out of the yard. We were still working on that because we’d had to wait for supplies to come in.
We’d already helped Lyric set up several perches throughout the house—just like my house—plus a bunch of other little things they had to do to make it griffin-safe.
We finished setting up the last post that would hold the outdoor net, and Lyric fell to the ground, dramatically clutching their chest like they were dying. “Oh my goooooooddddd, that was sooooo rough.”
Winter snorted. “Yeah, it was really difficult to just stand there, holding the post while I did everything else.”
Lyric looked at him. “You’re right, it was.”
That made me laugh, and my phone rang, startling me. I glanced at the screen. “I should probably take this.”
Lyric waved me away from the ground. Win gave me a nod, but he was distracted, still examining the post to make sure it was in all the way.
I walked to the other side of the yard, answered the call, and said, “Hello?”
“Hey, Curbelo,” Higgins’s voice said over the line. “How are you doing?”
I puffed out my cheeks for a moment. “I’m good. I’m helping a friend set up their yard for a baby griffin that can’t be released back into the wild.”
There was a short pause before he snorted. “You know, as strange as that sounds, I’m not even surprised.”
That made a very reluctant smile form on my lips. “Yeah, well, you know me. Always willing to help animals and faeries.”
“Ha, yeah. Animals, faeries, and people.”
That hung in the air between us for a moment, and I knew he regretted making me think of Laney, but I didn’t know how to respond to that. He was right. I tried to help people too, even if it didn’t work out well all the time.
After a second, I said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“I’m sor—”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing, Higs. Stop walking on eggshells and just talk to me like normal, please.”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, I can try to do that.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me, and I started brushing the grass back and forth with the toe of my boot. “Sooooo… did you find anything on the teens?”
“Right, yeah. Uh, so both those names are actually coming up as missing kids, labeled runaways by their foster parents.”
I closed my eyes, not even surprised by that. But sorrow for the twins still pierced my heart. I knew something was going on, I just wished those two amazing kids didn’t have to deal with it.
I asked, “What happened to their birth parents?”
“They died when they were eight. Had no other family, so they were thrown into foster care.” He fell quiet, and I had a feeling I was going to like what he said next even less than what I’d already heard.
“What?”
“They were shuffled around to at least nine foster homes each—”
“What do you mean each?”
He sighed. “They weren’t kept together all the time.
They would spend a few months together at one foster home, then get shuffled around and separated, and…
yeah, they had a rough go of it. They both reported abuse more than once, and last year…
” He let out a loud sigh. “Last year, they were in separate homes again, and Aeson ended up in the hospital with broken ribs, a broken leg, and multiple other injuries. There isn’t much in the records about what happened, but Mortimer apparently tried to put a petition in to have Aeson removed from his foster home before Aeson got hurt.
He tried again while his brother was in the hospital, but since he’s a kid too, no one listened, and… and Aeson was sent back.”
“Jesus Christ. What the fuck? How did the social workers think that was okay when he’d obviously been beaten up? What the actual fuck, Higs?”
“I know. It’s horrible. The twins were both reported missing a week after Aeson got out of the hospital, so everyone assumed they’d run away together.”
“Well, can you blame them?”
“Not in the least.” He sighed again. “Oh, by the way, you gave me the wrong age. That’s why it took so long to find you the info. They’re fifteen, not sixteen.”
I fucking knew it. So Chaos was driving without a license. Shit.
“They’ve been missing for six months.”
“That long?”
“Yes.” He sucked in a deep breath. “If you know where these kids are…”
“I’m not letting them go back into abusive situations, Higs. Not a fucking chance. No way will they ever have to see those bastards again.”
“I know that, and I agree wholeheartedly. I just… after… after everything happened back then, I spoke to a family law attorney. I… I wanted to make sure what happened to you never happens again—”
“With Booth still in charge, it’s going to happen again.”
“That’s why I’ve stayed in contact with the attorney. She’s good at her job, and anytime I need help protecting a kid, I go to her before I even tell Booth.”
My eyes widened at that. “And he lets you get away with that?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. I went over his head to Frye for some insurance, and he knows I’m trying to keep kids safe.”
Holy shit. Higgins was actually making a difference over there, wasn’t he?
“Anyway, point being, Ainsley and I are actually friends now. We go out for coffee a couple of times a month when our schedules line up. So if you… if you need help, whether you’re taking those kids in, or you find someone else who will, I promise you, I can make it happen.
I’ll make sure they get placed in a good home.
I’ll protect those kids just as hard as you will. ”
He didn’t even know them, but I knew he spoke the truth. Not only could I hear it in his voice, I knew the man. Maybe we hadn’t spoken much in the past few years, but I knew what a good person he was.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do, but thank you. I’ll let you know if I need help.”
“Please do. Ainsley is a great person. I know she’ll help you. And if you want to look her up—and I know you want to—her full name is Ainsley Larsen.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Apparently, I was predictable. “How about you text me her name so I have the correct spelling.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks. And thank you for everything, Higs. I mean it.”
“Anytime. And you know I mean that too.”
We chatted for a few more minutes before I hung up and tapped my phone on my lips, staring into Lyric’s backyard as a million things ran through my mind.
The kids were runaways, which likely meant they were unhoused. I doubted they’d find a place to rent when they were underage.
Where were they staying? Were they squatting in a house somewhere? Or were they sleeping on the streets? Maybe they were living in their car. The car they weren’t legally old enough to drive. Fuck.
No wonder they were so skinny.
And… if they didn’t have a home and had been missing for six months, that had to mean they weren’t going to school anymore. Guess that explained why they were evading all our questions about it.
“Hey.” Winter came over and put his hand on my lower back. “What happened?”
“Higgins finally got the info on the kids.”
“Yeah?”
I cringed. “They’re listed as runaways. They’ve been missing from their foster homes for six months.”
He stared at me for a long moment before he simply drew me into his arms and held me against him. “We’ll figure out how to help them.”
I nodded against his chest even though I had no idea how we were going to be able to do that.