Freedom Star

Chapter 20

Ellia rose slowly, eyes locked on his face, then crossed the room to him step by step. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, wanted to pull her to him, wanted very much to kiss her, but he couldn't move. He knew how he felt about her, but he had no idea how she felt about him.

At last she stood in front of him. "Jon," she said. "It really is you."

He tried on a crooked grin; it fit pretty well. "It's me."

"Kira?"

The grin slipped. "Captured."

A murmur ran through the children, who had formed a surprisingly silent crowd behind Ellia. "Does she know where we are?" Ellia asked intently.

"No..." The inference Ellia was making sank in, and the anger that suddenly flooded him shocked him. "Now wait a minute—"

"She couldn't hold out," Ellia said. "Not against the drugs. You're sure she doesn't know we're here?"

Jon took a deep breath, trying to calm his rage. "Yes. But she may know this place was a possible location. I don't know how closely she looked at the map that Hal—"

Ellia's face lit up, and Jon thought a little bitterly that he wished she'd looked that happy at his own arrival. "You've been in contact with Hal?"

"From Carlson's office," Jon said, and that earned him another new expression, one of shock—and, he thought, becoming angry again, suspicion. "Your dear father is just fine. As far as I know. I didn't stay around to meet him."

"What were you doing in—"

"It's a long story," Jon said. "Have you got anything to eat and drink?"

Ellia flushed. "I'm sorry, I..." She ran her hand through her hair, then smiled at him for the first time. "Jon, I'm so sorry. Welcome back!" And then, at last, she reached out for him and hugged him, though in a rather sisterly fashion, he thought sourly, and as though that were a signal (and maybe it was), the other children suddenly erupted in noise and shouts of greeting and surged around him in a tidal wave of arms and hugs and laughter.

They practically carried him to the fire, and somebody shoved a half-raw slab of some unidentifiable meat into his hands, and somebody else gave him a plastic cup of water and a small loaf of bread, and for the next few minutes the hunger he'd been trying to ignore became the most important thing on his mind. He devoured the food with single-minded devotion, watched avidly by two dozen pairs of young eyes, and then, no longer feeling in imminent danger of starving, leaned back against one of the concrete pillars spaced at regular intervals around the basement and smiled at Ellia, his earlier anger faded away. "You've done a good job, getting them all here," he said.

She didn't smile back. "We lost two. On the raft—"

"I know. Mikal told me." Jon gestured at the others. "But you've kept all of these safe, and fed, and you got them to the city, just like we planned."

"So you pretty well know what happened to us," Ellia said. "But what about you? What happened to Dar? And Kira—how did she get captured? And what were you doing in my father's office?" She glanced around the circle of eager fire-lit faces. "I think everyone's in the mood to hear a story."

Jon nodded. "All right," he said. "A story. And then—" He looked into Ellia's eyes. "And then, we've got some plans to make."

Ellia wouldn't hold his gaze, instead looking sideways into the fire. Vaguely troubled, Jon smiled at Mikal and Tymba and all the others, and said, "Well, as you know, Kira and I set out after Dar. What we didn't realize was that he wasn't alone. We..."