Part 2

The two men only grinned, happy that Jamie felt safe enough with them to show some spirit. Especially with normally such a timid personality. Jamie looked at the food windows longingly. The men laughed some more.

"Go on with you," Kieran told him, "Just ask for whatever you want. Walk along it until you think you have everything you might want to eat. But be careful. Your stomach is not used to rich foods. You want to introduce your stomach to it slowly, or you'll be sick."

Jamie wasted no time in getting in line among the numerous people awaiting their turn. Kieran and Garrett were slower to take their positions there, talking among themselves in low voices, occasionally glancing back to Jamie, as if reassuring themselves that he hadn't left the area. Jamie ignored them in favor of the sight of so much food right before his eyes. And he can eat nearly everything he wanted, within reason, as Kieran had said. Jamie decided to eat light foods instead of the more heavy ones.

He took some soup and bread, along with a plate of salad. There were also some fruits and more vegetables which he took. The people that were serving him gave him looks of amusement at the amount of food he took. Jamie ignored their looks studiously, for if he saw it, he was sure he was going to do something stupid to wipe their faces of that look.

"Have you all you want?" Garrett asked Jamie, giving the cooks and helpers a warning glance which they saw. They wisely decided to curb their looks. "You can come back for seconds you know. Or desert."

Jamie looked at his plate and decided that he had enough. He nodded.

"Good," Kieran said. "Let's find a space that we can eat at."

They found space somewhere along the middle of the hall. The place was just getting so packed that one could hardly find any at all. Was it to Jamie's imagination or had the people around him only moved because Kieran had told them to? He saw Kieran and Garrett give them warning looks and Jamie knew. His good mood gone, he sat him and his plate down to eat, hardly saying a word as he did so. Kieran and Garrett left him alone only because they thought that he was too busy eating to talk to them. They left him be.

When Jamie was done, he looked up at them and quietly asked, "Where do I put my plate away?"

"Aren't you wanting your desert then?" Garrett asked in surprise, watching Jamie closely, a confused frown on his face. Jamie shook his head, avoiding looking at them in the eyes.

"I'm feeling a little too full," Jamie lied to them, putting on a light face and not the one he was really feeling. "I think I'll find my way back to my room. Just tell me where they are and I'll go back myself. No need to take me there when you're still eating."

"Are you sure?" Kieran asked him, looking at him carefully.

"Yes," Jamie said, looking at his hands.

"Go out through the main doors and up the stairs for four flights. There are numbers on the doors. Look for the one that says 210," Kieran finally told him, unsure at the change of mood in Jamie but unwilling to bring it up to upset the man further.

Jamie nodded and left. He followed the directions as he was told. He found the room and locked himself behind it, sliding to the floor and curling into himself. Inside the confines of his room did Jamie finally let himself feel the despair. Not everyone really wanted him here. He hadn't been here for a week and already people didn't like him. How was he supposed to live here if they didn't want him here anyway? Jamie chocked back a sob. He didn't want to be in a place where he was not wanted. He had that enough in the foster homes already. It was why he had run away. But he didn't know the way back to the world below. He could ask someone but then they would tell Kieran about it.

Determined, he thought of some ideas of how he could leave the place. Maybe thinking of that different world would take him back there. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Jamie tried it. He thought of the cars in New York and the alleyways full of trash and homeless just like him. He heard and felt the noise of the city come back to him. Jamie opened his eyes. He was back. Jamie looked longingly up, where the place Kieran had taken him was supposed to be. He would never go back there if he could help it. Not if they didn't want him.

"Have you seen Jamie?" Kieran asked Garrett at dinner.

"Isn't he in his room?" Garrett told Kieran. "You were with me when he said he wanted to go back up there."

He's not up there," Kieran told him frantically. "And I don't think he's the type to go haring off to explore this whole place."

Garrett's face turned grave. "He's left," was all he said to Kieran.

"He can't have," Kieran said, frowning. "I hadn't told him how to get back there yet."

"He could have figured it out on his own, you know," Garrett told him dryly. "He might not seem like the explorer, but he is a smart one."

"But why would he leave?" Kieran asked him, bewildered. "He's only been here for two days."

"Markus' group that we were sitting with," Garrett said with a sigh, hands combing through his hair. "He saw their reluctance."

"Damn those men!" Kieran growled in frustration. "I already told them that of all that we've taken in, Jamie's one of the most likely to run at the first sign of unrest. Can't they not curb their thoughts for a little while? Now Jamie's gone."

"We'll find him yet, Kieran," Garrett told him in a gentle voice, trying to soothe his leader.

Kieran turned on him. "I have watched him this few months. I know how he would act. For some reason, the friends he makes aren't always to his best interest. He has no true friends. And he knows it! Why do you think we found him alone in that alleyway instead of hiding with the help of a friend? He knows what if feels like to not be truly welcomed in a place. They have succeeded in teaching him that. He knows not that in big society like this, you can't always please everyone. He takes this personally. Jamie'll disappear and we won't be able to find him. Looking for him in that place was hard enough, he kept on evading us for months!"

"Come then," Garrett said. "Let's get the men and go down there to look for him immediately."

"You go do that," Kieran told him in grim tone. "I have some unfinished business to do."

Garrett left him to it and went to organize the select men that would go down for the job of looking for Jamie Genellus.

Jamie went underground. After all, this was where he had first started when he ran away. It was the place where anyone who was homeless could come to, to seek shelter. He had rarely come here, but now, he was going to frequent here more. Jamie knew of the places where the generous denizens of the city would come to give them a daily serving of food. He would go there and get a little bite everyday. He would stay in this place for as long as he lived if he had to. Jamie only knew that he was not going to go back to that place ever again. He knew that they would look for him and this was the safest place to go to without being caught.

They went back to the world below, but they found no trace of Jamie. It was as if he had disappeared off the face of that world. Kieran tried asking the other leaders of the different sectors, but it was all in vain. What he had laid claim to he could never find. Marcus and his group were duly punished for their transgression, but they could never give back that little gift that Jamie had brought with him. For they didn't see until too late what Jamie did for Kieran.

Before, Jamie was found by one of the men to hold the gift; Kieran had been cold and was as bitter as ice. But Jamie, Kieran had seen something in Jamie that had called to him and he had responded. In the time between months, that he had watched Jamie, he had fallen for the young man from the streets. They saw that too late. They saw that the reason that their leader had changed was because of the man they had so thoughtlessly driven away. It was too late now, and Kieran had fallen back to his old ways.

Garrett saw the wall Kieran built to hide behind. To hide his grief and loss, because of some person's naiveté. He was saddened to see his leader so changed. It would have been better if Jamie had stayed. But he had not, and it was not the young man's fault. Who could fault him for running away from a place he was not welcomed to?

"Kieran?" Garrett called to his leader in a hallway, trying to get his attention.

"What do you want?" Kieran asked coldly, his eyes holding no emotion.

"Will you not come with us for the next raid?" Garrett asked him.

"No," Kieran sighed. "No, I will not. You will be in charge. If anything goes wrong, it will be Brenneth."

"My Lord," Garrett told him softly. "We will find him yet."

"Do not speak of him," Kieran said angrily, his eyes flashing in grief. "Don't make me think of him. Please."

He left Garrett in the hallway, walking quickly away to find solace in his work.

Jamie huddled in a corner deep underground. He had been gone from above for three months now. Surely they had given up hope of finding him now? Maybe he could venture out once and look to see if they were. A beggar passing by didn't glance at him at all. Jamie ignored anyone that passed him. It was the way of life here: to be alone and independent. He tried to stifle a sob at the feeling of loss he had from leaving that place up there. For a little while, he had felt that he belonged. A little of his shields broke. Jamie concentrated on keeping it up before he was barraged with a sea of thoughts. It had been hard, but he had managed to keep them away.

Once or twice, he had even felt the gifted call from far away. They called. With their mind and their mouths. But he didn't go. He was not welcomed there, he was only welcomed because Kieran had brought him there.

Jamie stood up and tried not to stumble at the dizziness he felt. The last time he had eaten was two days ago. Strange but he hadn't felt the want to replenish his body some time ago. He ate only to live. And even that, he didn't know why he was doing.

He slowly walked to a ladder and climbed up it into the daylight world. The light blinded him for a moment, but not all that much, because for all that the underground was dim, it still had lights. He stood in the alleyway for awhile, unsure of what to do. Finally, his weak body decided for him, he walked to a wall and slid down it to rest there. A rest became a nap. Jamie fell asleep.

Garrett and his men waited at the street, all dressed differently so as to not attract attention. They were waiting for the pickup man to come. He would be carrying drugs and when his deal with the man was done, they would follow him back to wherever he came from. The police of this world would then take care of them.

So many did not know who or what the Black Scorpion gang worked for. They didn't just take the thugs off the streets for strength and to fight. The picked those of their race, with the gift in their veins. They fought for the right.

He and his men waited.

Jamie didn't even know when he had slept or even begun to realize he had woken up. He only knew that he had been up for awhile. And the barriers in his mind were falling apart too easily, being chipped away by the people walking around in the streets. He pulled his knees to him and hunched up into a ball, whimpering at the pain he felt. He didn't have enough strength left to strengthen his walls. He will feel the pain today. It was getting worse. The last of his walls chipped away, leaving the thoughts to slice his mind open. Jamie screamed.

Garrett had already made the deal with the man when he heard the scream. His men and him looked towards the source of it. They heard and knew instantly that it was the pain filled scream of a gifted one.

"You and you," Garrett pointed to two of his men. "Follow the drug dealer. Finish the job. The others, come with me."

The screaming continued, getting higher in pitch. Some of the men winced. If the screaming continued, whoever who was screaming was liable to loose their voice. Garrett hurried.

What he came to made him stiffen in surprise.

It was Jamie. Jamie who had been gone for more than three months, and thought to have disappeared who knows where. Garrett immediately knelt by him and took his head into his hands, going inside the young man's mind and building temporary walls there, that he might not feel himself falling insane with the barrage of thoughts.

The scream immediately stopped. The young man's eyes opened in gratitude and relief. But when he saw who it was, he tried to run away from Garrett.

"Jamie," Garrett said, holding him down gently but firmly. "What are you doing here in tatters? We thought you'd left this place."

"L-let me go," Jamie slurred sluggishly. "Y-you don't w-w-want me anyway."

"However did you come by that?" Garrett asked him, eyebrows up in surprise.

"T-that man," Jamie tried to say, "W-we were sitting by. I-I h-heard his t-thoughts. H-he talked to me."

"What?" Garrett said incredulously.

"H-he hates m-me," Jamie told him. "I-I felt him."

"Jamie, not everyone in Kieran's castle feels like that man," Garrett tried to tell him.

Jamie stubbornly shook his head, trying to move away once again. "I don't want to go back. Not if there are more like him."

"Little Jamie," Garrett said gently, "You're in need of help."

"No," Jamie said, seeming to find some strength from somewhere. "I-I'd rather die here."

"I can't allow that," Garrett told him, carrying him up, struggling and all. "Come on, let's get back. We've some news to tell our Lord."

"Boss? Boss!" a man called to him at the edge of the practice court. Kieran stopped his dueling with Damien and looked to Jennyl.

"What is it?" Kieran asked, his face showing his annoyance.

"You won't believe it Boss!" Jennyl said in an excited voice, his eyes sparkling. "Garrett and his men have come back. He's carrying someone. It is said that it's wee Jamie, Boss."

Kieran couldn't help but hope it was him. He sheathed the sword he was fighting with, nodding to his dueling partner and walking to Jennyl.

"Show me where they are," Kieran told the man curtly.

Jennyl was only too eager to show him where Garrett had taken Jamie. To the healing rooms. Kieran's heart was beating wildly at what he thought had happened. By all that's holy, Kieran hoped that Jamie as alright.

He found Garrett sitting on a bed with Jamie in it. Jamie looked to be skin and bones. Kieran had to swallow the bile rising down his throat. Garrett looked up as he approached.

"How is he?" Kieran asked in a hoarse voice.

"Bad," Garrett said quietly. "He's not eaten in awhile. And his barriers are down. It was how we found him. His shields went down and he couldn't handle the thoughts. He's sleeping now. Mannie said that he's to have nothing but broth for the first few days. He'll live, but he's weak for now."

Kieran slowly sat beside Jamie on the bed, never taking his eyes off him. He stared for a long moment. Finally, he gave a huge sigh. He was relieved. His little cloud had been returned to him. It was more than he could hope for.

"How long has he been asleep?" he asked Garrett.

"He'll be sleeping till tomorrow morn, Mannie says," the man told him.

Kieran nodded and then looked at Garrett, showing gratitude. "Thank you," Kieran said quietly to him.

Garrett merely shrugged. "What are friends for? And Jamie's a friend for sure. I was doing what you would have done for me or for anyone on that matter," he told his leader, standing up and leaving him alone with Jamie.