As much as Tammy tried to comfort me, I was still in shock over the news I’d just been given. Even Nish started making comments. I wasn’t sure how long we had driven or were we were. I did know that we left the other escapees about an hour after we left the area.
Everyone stopped talking when Nish pulled into a building. I didn’t even look up when the doors opened and someone yelled, “Who is this guy?” Tammy told him my name and what had happened to me. I could just barely hear them talking in hushed tones outside the van. The guy said louder, “I’m not running an outreach program here, Tammy.”
Nish chimed in, “That’s what I told her.”
Tammy simply said, “Fine, if he goes, I go.”
The guy said, “Wait a minute. You can’t be serious here. You don’t even know that guy. We don’t even know what kind of skills he has.”
What Tammy said next, I couldn’t understand, but I knew she wasn’t happy by the tone of her voice. It reminded me of that old I Love Lucy show – when Rickie got mad at Lucy and started yelling at her in Spanish. I didn’t need to understand to know she meant business. There was a long silence before Tammy told me to come out and meet everyone. The guy she had argued with was Max. He was one of those green skinned guys. He nearly crushed my hand when he shook it. When I started to wince from the pain, a sick smile crossed his face. A nudge from Tammy ended my torture.
“Do you have any ethics?” Max asked with a snarl.
“No,” I answered quickly, not wanting to give him an excuse to throw me out.
Max ordered a sweep of the van for tracking devices. Two people moved up and waved wands over the vehicle. One of the wands started beeping; the whole place went quiet as the guy said it was transmitting. Max started to give me the “you’re dead” stare when Nish said that is where the agent was sitting. Max walked over to the transmitter and reached for it when Tammy told him it was shielded by her spell as long as it stayed in the van. Max smashed the transmitter and grumbled that we needed to move location again.
They couldn’t risk using magic to move their base. That much magic would be able to be tracked. They had to pack everything into trucks and move out. Max insisted that I’d be blindfolded until I could be trusted. Tammy didn’t have a problem with that.
There weren’t many people in this group, only about a dozen. In the van, I hadn’t realized how short Nish was. He wasn’t as short as Todd, but he couldn’t be any taller than 4’ 8”. With Max, Todd, Nish, and Tammy, there was Sammy and Candy, a married couple of enlightened humans. Then there was Erica, an elf who fancied herself a swashbuckler. Clinton was the odd person in the group. All the others seemed to be able to take care of themselves in a fight. Clinton, on the other hand, looked like he would cry if he chipped one of his perfectly manicured nails.
I knew I was an outsider, but Mathew wasn’t treated much better than me by the others. I found myself staring at Allyson way too much for Tammy’s comfort. Allyson, I found out, was part elf, part human. She had some elven features, like their shimmering olive skin, but with more muscle tone than elves I’d seen so far.