#rivervale_lodge

"It might be more trouble than they think it's worth to go after them."

"And enchanting is like with the kinain, letting them see us. Okay."

"So not super likely they'll be attacked. But here, if there was more, the chimera could hurt people..."

"Yeah." A little head tilt. "I guess Matt and Jennifer are okay? Matt seemed okay, from what I saw. But...you don't want them hurt, so...."

Sylvi frowns at that. "Oh, nuh-uh, none of that I'm-gonna-stay-away-so-nobody-else-gets-hurt crap."

"They're okay."

"But it's true, right? Chimera could hurt folks here if they came."

"Sure, it's true. But in case you haven't noticed, that's kind of the point of a Lodge -- protection when things go bad out there."

She affects a caveman tone. "More big blue arms to go boom, ugh."

"But I can't just stay here."

"Not permanently, no...." Sylvi chews her lip. "Because then Matt and Jennifer would report you missing or something."

"Yeah. I tried running away once."

"Well, it's not like you're hiding. We're going to beat whoever-it-is that's hunting you. We just need to figure out how."

"It didn't work, did it?" (re: running away)

"Wound up in a group home for six months after that one. Matt and Jenn are way better than that. Group home is like juvie, you can't go out at all, you get locked in your room all night, they lock up the food, they lock up your personals..."

"Crap. Yeah, that sounds like it sucks, big time. Did they send you back to the people you ran from after that?"

She shakes her head. "No. But I was pretty hard to place once I got tagged as fugitive."

A low whistle.

"I'm pretty lucky with the Browns."

Then an embarrassed grin. "I ran away once. When I was, like, seven. Just me, my backpack, and Flopsy, but he was still a toy then. Something stupid, probably about school. Anyway, I left at night, and walked about half-way across town...and I was getting kind of scared and sleepy and I almost stepped out in front of a car...and I got yanked back. Turns out Dad was Veiled and shadowed me the whole way." She rolls her eyes with embarrasment.

She laughs. "Okay, that's funny."

"I was such a doofus." Sylvi laughs too.

"Man, I forget where I was at seven... " She squints. "I think in Hackensack?"

A curious look. "How many places have you lived?"

"The Browns are my twenty-seventh placement."

"Counting group homes. Twentieth fosters."

Eyes wide. "Wowwwww."

((Pause?))

She shrugs. "I've been in since I was four, except a few months at ten."

((pause!))

"Where were you at ten?"

A... sad smile. A lot of things at once in her expression. "With my mother."

A blink. "Whoa. How? I thought...wait, what is the deal with your mother?"

A shrug. "She's in jail now. Won't get out for a while."

"Wait, so..." Sylvi sits cross-legged on the floor. "How did you get 'in the system' in the first place, back when you were four?"

"She really tried. Just, y'know, she has problems. I had things under control, right? But she... when she didn't wake up, I called 911, and I shouldn't have done that..."

Her eyes are wide. "Heroin?"

"The first time? Not sure of the whole story. She was by herself, and couldn't keep things up. CPS was called in. She didn't start doing heroin until after the first time I was taken away."

"She got clean for a while, took classes, so that's when they tried reunification. But I screwed up when she OD'ed."

"But...but if you hadn't called...she'd be dead."

"Yeah." Glum.

"So...you didn't screw up."

Seems obvious to Sylvi.

"I coulda called her guy. I dunno."

"What would he have done."

"I dunno? He had lots of drugs, all kinds."

"Yeah, but..." She stops. "Sorry...."

She chews on her nails again - the lot of them are stubby, bitten to rags. "She got on meth, and broke into a house. So she's in jail now."

Sylvi's quiet a moment, then asks, "Did you ever do any? Drugs, I mean?"

She nods.