Free Rebel by Cheryl Brooks

emphasized just how indiscriminate he’d been.
    Not surprisingly, his offer to let the girls stay with him hadn’t been met with much enthusiasm. No doubt they figured him for some kind of pervert. He wasn’t, of course, but he could relate to a couple of homeless orphans—at least, he assumed Jatki was an orphan. As afraid of him as she was, he thought there might be more to her story—perhaps including someone who really was a pervert.
    Jatki returned from the restroom a few minutes later, her color a little more normal as she slapped the tracking beacon down on the table beside his plate. “Don’t worry. I washed it.” She resumed her seat next to Kim. “Could I have some real food now?”
    “Sure,” Onca replied. “Anything you want.”
    “I’ll have the vegetables,” she said, rubbing her belly. “Not sure I could take any more fruit for a while.”
    Onca waved at Ganyn as she passed by and gave her Jatki’s order.
    “Sure thing, sweetie,” the waitress replied. “Anything for you .”
    Well…at least Ganyn thought he was sweet. Perhaps she even thought enough of him to take the beacon and be the bait for their trap. He could just imagine the piggy faces of the Rackenspries when they tried to capture a Darconian. Then he realized he didn’t have to give it to anyone. He could leave it right where it was. The little punks would come looking for it eventually. In fact, he was surprised they hadn’t barged in on them before now.
    Unless their boss was smarter than they were—although if the boss had any sense at all, he wouldn’t have hired a bunch of Racks to do his dirty work.
    Nor would Rutger Grekkor have hired Nedwuts to wipe out the remaining Zetithians. Nedwuts were good hunters, if somewhat lacking in intelligence. Still, when there was dirty work to be done, an instigator couldn’t always be choosy when it came to hiring henchmen.
    Henchmen… “Say, you girls don’t know any other street kids, do you? I mean, the sort you’d trust?”
    “Sure,” Kim replied. “There are a lot of us—more than you might think.”
    “What if we got all the kids together and organized them—you know, provide them with food and shelter so they wouldn’t have to steal? We could use them to search the city and try to find your friends. Think they’d go for it?”
    Kim hesitated. “Some of them might. I’m sure they would all want the food and a place to stay, but there are some who actually enjoy stealing.”
    “Those aren’t the kind we’d want,” Onca said. “I’m talking about the sort that wouldn’t steal unless they were forced to—who would jump at the chance for a more normal life.”
    “Like me and Jatki, you mean,” Kim said. “Yeah, there are a few like us. Unfortunately, three of them are already missing.”
    “There aren’t any others you’d trust?”
    She chewed her lip as though pondering his question. “Yes, but finding them will be the hard part. We tend to hide from the other gangs—some of them are real creeps. There are a few that aren’t too bad, but none of us stay in the same place for long.”
    “Yeah,” Jatki said. “It’s not like we have an official headquarters or a clubhouse.”
    Onca nodded. “But you’re bound to have some hideouts you’ve used more than once. You know…the really good nooks where no one has ever found you?”
    Fangs sinking into her lower lip, Kim looked at Jatki with such an unreadable expression, he half expected the Kitnock girl to start cracking her knuckles.
    Once again, Onca felt his irritation rising. “You don’t need to tell me where it is. You can show Roncas if you don’t trust me.”
    “It isn’t that we don’t trust you,” Kim said. “We’re not used to trusting anybody .” She glanced at Roncas. “Sorry, but that’s how it is.”
    “Which makes it real hard for us to help you,” Onca said. “Every now and then, you have to take a leap of faith.”
    Astonishingly enough, Jatki was the one who spoke.