Block Party [MoHN]

Sam Evans

[nightmares]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Angelica Cordozo

[Angelica has the Soft-Hearted flaw, just incase it somehow comes into play ]

Twilight

The EAST END AREA REDEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION is holding a daylong block party somewhere off East Colfax. Block party: try two or three blocks worth of party. There are inflatables for the kids, a barbeque eating contest, and a step dancing competition between a few local dance studios and fraternity and sororities and alumni associations.

Some of the booths are set up by local businesses, advertising their services, offering a few freebies, and the like. Most of the booths, though, are manned by local social service agencies, churches, shelters, kitchens, day centers, churches, churches, and churches. Among the most prominent - and the most fun - is an encampment at the far end of the block that takes up nearly half of it. There's a small tent for revival style preaching, and a half-dozen offerings in the tents.

The House of God has a half-dozen organizations under its umbrella. A soup kitchen and thrift store both called In His Name share a large booth. The former is serving free food, slices of cake and non-alcoholic punch and sandwiches, and the latter has racks of thrifted clothing available for $1, $2, or $3 a piece. Balloons stream from the big tent, which is bright in the fading late afternoon, early evening sun.

Another tent in the same complex is more subdued: staffed by a 30-something woman in a neck tattoo and a mismatched business suit and a big, bluff white guy in a too-small suit. rEEntry the sign over the tent says. What they offer (aside from an urn of coffee) isn't clear.

A large, bright white tent showcases a three-dimensional model of something called The Healing Place - which is COMING SOON. There's more cake here, and chips and dip and grapes and cheese and a few more people in suits. Brief perusal of their easels with advertising material suggests that The Healing Place is a drug treatment center in the works, and there's a thermometer showing just how far they've come while seeking funding. Just a few thousand dollars left to go.

Yet another arm: The Citadel has a booth plastered with pictures of African-American and hispanic kids enjoying the usual sort of summer activities at a sleepaway camp. Fishing and hiking and swimming and tubing and playing tug-o-war in the great outdoors.

Mostly, though, the people who throng through the House of God enclave are there for the games and prizes. The Bouncy-House and the Test of Strength, the even the handful of small carnival rides the church sponsored in. A mini-ferris wheel for kids, and a full-sized Spider ride for kids and adults. There are hotdogs on the grill and a general atmosphere of cheer, though a few of the pamphlets from the church proper have titles like THE WAGES OF SIN and SIGNS and LAST DAYS?

Church members are dressed well, if often shabbily. And circulating through the crowd are a handful of young converts dressed in full suit and bow ties, formal enough that locals sometimes mix them up with the Nation of Islam.

Alexis Theron Lambros

[[Cha 2, Empathy 2]]

Sam Evans

[charisma 4: charming, empathy 4: emotional states]

Angelica Cordozo

Block Parties were in Angel's blood, both figuratively and very nearly literally. She'd been to more of these things then she can count, and her parents before her had set up and been apart of their own fair share of such events. Sometimes they used to joke that Angel had been conceived at a block party and born at a protest...neither of which were true...but ahh the stories.

The redevelopment of any area of town was a good thing, new buisness mean't more money, mean't more social programs, and mean't better living conditions for the vast majority of those living in the area. But it wasn't these folks that Angel was on the look out as she walked through the crowd with a bag of cotton candy in one hand, idly snacking away on the bright blue sugary delight. It was all those who would be left behind, those who couldn't afford to move onward and upward, those who were always in need.

These were Angel's people, these were the people she hoped she might help someday, down the road, if fate willed and they wished it.

For now however, their was a party to enjoy. Her steps were light, almost dance like as she moved through the crowd with that bag of cotton candy, the big golden hoops in her ears bouncing as she went. Her hair was pulled back smoothly from her face and she wore a pair of skinny hip hugging jeans and T-shirt with The Villa's logo embroidered on the back, one had to represent after all.

She was moving nowhere in particular...but slowly but surely she was getting closer to the House of God....seemed that god really knew how to throw a party.

Angelica Cordozo

[Angels charisma is a 4, while her empathy is a 3]

Sam Evans

Since Sam's arrival in Denver, she's been busy busy busy. Work has eaten up a lot of her time. Her side projects, too, take up a good bit of her free time. And then there's the exercise, the night or two a week she goes to the gym, the nightly elliptical jaunts in her condo, the once a week boxing lessons. Sometimes she forgets how to breathe.

That's where her coworkers have come in for the rescue the most. They're the ones who told her about the 1Up and the Wynkoop's Thursday night Reddit meets, which to be honest has only been fun sometimes. For once it wasn't Rob who told her were to go for fun, but David her boss, married with a kid, who is actually into things like redevelopment block parties and company picnics and the like. And for once Sam didn't have anything else going on tonight. So she made sure Winslow had water and the balcony door was securely closed and the blinds shut against the sometimes unnecessarily watchful gaze of Cold Crescent's tower, got herself cleaned up after work, and headed out.

"Cleaned up" for Sam is relative, of course. The bantam city kin wears a faded red shirt that reads the Runaways CHERIE CURRIE (a reproduction of course) over tight jeans with large tears at the knees and smaller slashes all up the tops of her thighs, and boots that go to about her mid-calf and are black with too many buckles. Her long hair has been braided loosely around her face, showing off the many piercings that take up a significant chunk of real estate along her ears. Her eyes are smoky shadowed and thick lined, but it's Denver and despite the heat there's no humidity to make it all run and melt off her face.

Clearly, she does not belong among the church tents.

So she keeps to the other areas for the most part, checking out a booth for a shelter before wandering down a little further toward social services. She has procured a hot dog from somewhere, contained in a shallow paper bowl and covered in sauerkraut and chili. She chews a bite thoughtfully as she peruses someone's table full of pamphlets.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis can often be seen at situations similar to this. The work he does at women's shelters (teaching self-defense classes mostly, but also volunteering in other capacities from outreach programs to grunt work) almost ensures that he's aware of most of these events and he tries to make them whenever he can. It helps that his job at the martial arts center is one where he can be a bit flexible in his schedule if he needs to be. The amount of goodwill he engenders benefits the center financially when people come to sign up for classes, so he gets some leeway.

That brings us to now, of course. Alex isn't working this one; he doesn't have any association with this religious group obviously, and not having looked into themthem yet he didn't volunteer. You don't do charity without knowing who's higher up the chain of command...or at least, Alex doesn't. So he's here for moral support only, making his way through the event with a relaxed walk. He's friendly, nodding and waving to anyone he might recognize from his own ventures and pausing to look at the church's propaganda. His brow furrows at them, but no more than those brows might for any other religious talk. End of the world, wages of sin...he's heard it all before.

He has his own family religion, and he knows how close the churches are to the truth of the matter. And how far off.

He's dressed comfortable for warm weather in a light T-Shirt advertising his dojo (at the insistance of the owner), jeans and comfortable running shows. He's got sunglasses on to shield his clear blue eyes from the sun. He pauses as he sees someone out of the corner of his eye, someone he caguely recognizes and not from his self-defense classes. He's seen Angelica somewhere before, in a Nation-related capacity. He smiles and splits from the teenager he was chatting with and turns to head in her direction, waving.

Sam Evans

Sam looks up and smiles and charm and goodness and light to the people manning that particular booth. It's as she turns away and looks around, scouting out the next booth she intends to grace with her presence that she sees Alexis' head moving through the crowd. Not Angelica, though, not yet. The two women are each too short to be seen unless the crowd parts for them just right, and it just doesn't do that yet.

But Sam sees Alexis, who she recalls seeing somewhere sept related. Lost in the crowd of the Solstice gathering, probably. She changes direction and ambles over thataway, taking another bite of her food as she goes. He looks like he's headed somewhere on purpose, but that doesn't even give Sam pause. They're kin or something, related through the distant threads of their shifting families. She has to say hello.

Angelica Cordozo

Alex made his way through the crowd towards Angel, and for a moment he might think he'd lost her in the crowd, that bobbing pony tail fo brown hair disappearing within the wall of humanity that rose up ever so suddenly. But in the next she is there, her own hand up and waving back, her pale blue eyes sparkling in the street light as she smiled and pressed her way towards him.

When she reached him a light welcoming laugh left her lips as she spoke, pleased to see the man. "Alex, so good to see you, how are you chico?" She asks with delight before pointing at him with a far to amused look on her face. "You know the ladies want you back Mr.. They've practically been begging me to sign you up for another course." She says tilting her head as she nodded.

"Seems you do good work." Her smile was enthusiastic broad, the sort of smile that drew you in and made you smile right back. It was over Alexis shoulder, or more likely around his shoulder given to the man's height in comparison to Angelica's that she spots Sam heading in their direction. She offers the woman that same energetic smile and a wave of her cotton candy bag, waving the fellow kinswoman into the group.

Alexis Theron Lambros

Alexis has pretty good situational awareness; despite what a Fenrir and a Bone Gnawer could attest to from a couple weeks earlier, he's normally pretty good at seeing the whole situation around himself and assessing things. So he notes that there's someone coming toward him from another direction as he strides in Angel's direction, and his head turns toward that individual on an intercept course.

When he sees that its Sam, he smiles and nods. He recognizes her as well, from the Solstice gathering if he recalls. It was something like that. He tilts his head, as if to say "this way," in the direction he was travelling. Three kinfolk show up at once place of their own accord without it being planned...that's not the kind of fate that you ignore.

Angel greets him, and he returns the greeting with a frindly smile. "Hey you. Funny to see you here." It's said with a good-natured humor...of course she would be. He takes the compliment in stride. "I've been trying to get back out there, I've just been busy. You know how it is. Glad to hear I've made a good imporession.

Angel waves to Sam...so good, they all know of each other at least. He looks over his shoulder at Sam as she comes up. "So, what do you think of these guys? I don't know a lot about them..." He gestures vaguely toward the tents and other places where the church people are. The question is said mostly to Angel, but only because you don't introduce yourself with a question. Or he doesn't.

Sam Evans

Sam has seen these two around, but she hasn't actually spoken to either of them until now. Alex sees her, recognizes her, gives her that Come along, Pond look, so she finishes off her dog. Its paper container finds a home in the closest trash bin, and as she wipes her hands off on her thighs she kicks up the pace.

"Hey," she greets, but before she can introduce herself Alex is asking a question.

"I hadn't even heard of them before today, but honestly, I'm not much of a churchgoer. I'm Sam, by the way." Leaning a little to her right, her foot slides out after and she maneuvers herself to a more optimal position for conversation with a view of the larger tents.

Twilight

There are always disturbances in crowds like this. Especially in crowds like this. The booths here aren't just offering homemade versions of carnival games or face painting. They're offering cholesterol and STD screenings and family planning and pushing, always pushing, against the avalanche of despair that is life for the poorest of the poor.

Right now, over at the Harmony House booth, a schizophrenic homeless man whose body odor wafts through the crowd like a bleak and wretched flag is speaking louder and louder and louder to himself. Stands just outside the booth, holding a giant paper shopping bag stuffed with even more lumpen arrays of plastic shopping bags and apparently nothing else becoming more and more agitated, while one of the young AmeriCorps volunteers tries to talk him down.

Up ahead, half-way down the block, near the House of God encampment: more raised voices. Alexis is tall enough that if he looks upward he can see the convergance of a pair of suited church members usher-walking a tall young African American girl with puff-ball pigtails bodily / physically out of the half-block or so claimed by the House of God and its affiliates.

--

Closer to home, and harder to spot because he is smaller than even the tiny kinwomen here tonight: a five year old wandering alone through the crowd. He's African-American, with close cropped brown hair and big brown eyes, wearing a t-shirt with Elmo on it and jeans and his eyes are shining but he's not not not crying. Not crying at all. Just holding his chest up and out and looking around the crowd with the bewildered intensity of a lost child. All those legs and arms, all those limbs. All those -

- Sam. No one's really seeing him because he's lost but there's this point where a decision is being made and he walks right up to Sam and tugs on the tail of her t-shirt.

This tug-tug-tug behind her.

Tug-tug-tug.

Tug-tug-tug.

Angelica Cordozo

Angel plucked a small portion of the bright blue cotton candy and stuck it in her mouth and sucking it off her finger. She watched as Sam stepped up and nodded her welcome. "Hey, you were at the Solstice thing right? I'm Angelica." She offered freely, it was the sort of environment you did that, and even if it wasnt..well it was Angel.

Her gaze slips back towards Alexis as he asks about the various programs and tents, about the house in particular and she looked about pointedly before shrugging and leaning in gently to talk in a slightly less outdoor voice. "They do good work, I can't argue that." She gestures discreetly towards the House of God and moved her hand as she spoke.

"They were just a little soup kitchen and shelter less then three years ago, and then boom!" She makes an exploding motion with her hands, her cheeks puffing up slightly as she did. "They started growing, funny thing though...far as i know? They've never gotten any kinda government funding." Her hand moved on to rEEentry and Citadel.

"Both are about rehabilitation, the one working with ex-cons and the other troubled teens and students..." She seemed to trail off in that moment, as the child starts to tug on Sam's T-shirt and she looks to the young kinswoman, and then back to the child.

Sam Evans

"That's-" Sam starts to say weird. She of all people knows a thing or two about companies booming, and the sorts of places that do good on the outside while harboring darker things in their hearts. It's where she came from, well, where she comes from most recently.

She starts to speak but stops at that first tug-tug-tug on her shirt. Sam twists around to look down first. Then she lifts her chin and does a quick scan of the area, looking for a concerned parent or freaking out babysitter or guardian or whomever.

Tug-tug-tug.

She turns around the rest of the way and immediately drops down to one knee, shifting her messenger bag back from her left hip. It's instinctive, that lower of herself to the child's level. Even someone of Sam's diminutive height is sort of giant-esque to a five-year-old.

"Hey, buddy, what's up?" she asks, checking him over with a glance for signs of stress or distress.

[empathy (emotional states)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 4

Twilight

He's very clearly upset. Tears in his eyes and he's trying not to let them fall. He's scared and lost and he's looking for someone and he can't find them because the space is so full of adults and Sam was the nicest looking one within eyeshot but he doesn't trust her and he doesn't want to talk he's not supposed to talk to strangers but everyone's a stranger right now.

Twilight

Sam turns around and looks down and Angelica too and suddenly the boy who was invisible is being seen by TWO people and maybe THREE people and whatever it cost him to approach a stranger is costing him more when more and more strangers are looking at him and he reaches up to shove the back of his hand beneath his nose and there's a little bit of snot that comes away on the back of his hand, all stringy and he gives them both another sulky, swinging look, steeling himself to say something, something -

"Can't find Shanae."

- is what he says, when he finally speaks, and his puffs his chest up before saying it like he's got great big lungs in there and but it comes out quiet and scared with just a bit of bravado.

--

Half a block away, the tall girl being ejected - physically ejected - jerks her arms and pulls herself away from the folks in suits. Shouts something at them, inaudible over the distance and crowd. The larger of the two - a big, bulky white guy with prison tattoos whose biceps are too big for the suit lurches forward like he's going to smear her face on the sidewalk, but a woman puts her hand on his arm and holds him back. If Alex is looking that direction, he can see it all play out like a silent movie.

The girl stiffens, looking back at the two of them, then shakes her head all angry before her anger is chilled, is distilled into something else. Still and panicked.

She turns around and wants to head back into the Church tents but the man and woman are still standing there eying her so she turns around and plunges forward through the crowd. Clearly, frantically looking for something or someone now.

Alexis Theron Lambros

"I'm Alexis." He smiles to Sam and extends a hand in greeting. "Nice to finally meet you. Officially, that is." His handshake is firm without having any sense of machismo to it; there's no Type-A obsession of showing dominance. The reasons are probably obvious.

Angel explains that the House of God people have blown up over the last few years, and Alexis looks surprised and impressed. They both know how rare it is for someone to do that, especially without subsidies. "Really? Wow..." He looks around the event again, viewing it with new eyes. That alone isn't enough to raise red flags...it's odd, but conceivably possible. "Interesting..."

And then there's a frown on his face. It isn't for the disturbances...Alexis expects those at any large gathering, especially one such as this. Rather, he zeroes in on the African-American woman being escorted away. He frowns, deeply. Had there been resistance, his fellow kin would have gotten barely more than a "Be right back" before he was racing over to intervene. As it stands...he's not happy. It's genetically bred into him not to be.

He looks down at the kid, at Sam and Angel. "Something's going on. I'll be right back."

Hey, it was more words than "Be right back," at least. He starts walking quickly toward the situation. The guy who looked like he was about to take a swing is getting what appears to be a death glare. But he's holding back, because no punches were swung yet. There's no mistake on where he's headed though.

"Hey! Everything okay here?" The words are shouted, and they're directed toward the woman. Not the suits.

Angelica Cordozo

Alex tells them he'll be right back, and Angel looks up at him briefly to nod her acknowledgement of his intent. She looks in the direction he heads, but of course she can't see whats going on. Instead she turns her attention back to Sam and the child.

She offers the child a reassuring smile and kneels down next to Sam, looking at her briefly, both surprised and incredibly happy to see that her fellow kinswoman knew exactly what to do in this situation. She lets Sam sooth the child and when an opening is given she flashes the child another reassuring smile as she held out her cotton candy.

"Your gonna be ok little man, here...have some cotton candy, and tell us where you last saw Shanae."

Alexis Theron Lambros

[[Strength+Intimidation]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Sam Evans

He's scared. Sam's mouth quirks but she doesn't even think about reaching out and gathering him up in her arms. It's not something she would do to a fully grown adult, and it's definitely not something she would do to a small child. Never mind that in this day and age touching children with whom one has no connection (and sometimes even then) is a huge no no, don't do that, never ever ever.

Child Psych was a thing Sam studied back in the day, but though her degree wound up being more general. Her specialty with children comes from having only about a dozen younger siblings (three, actually, but they were a handful so it always felt like more) and defaulting to Eldest when the Eldest ran away. She tilts her head and quirks her mouth. Despite the clothes and the make-up and accessories like a spike, black and curving through her right lobe, she is genuinely pleasant in demeanor. Kind and gentle and surprisingly tough. Though she doesn't gather the boy up in her arms, she is scarcely any different than she was the night she gathered a tall, spinly Spiral cub close. That night she soothed and calmed and stroked the girl's hair while silently bidding her farewells to her family all the way across the country, certain that Death himself had stopped that van, if not The Death then at least Her Death.

The point is, Sam is a good person, and her goodness is genuine, and right now it's radiating from the punk-woman in almost palpable soothing waves.

Tilting her head up she looks at Alex and nods silently. She looks at Angel and there's a ripple of displeasure. Offering candy? To a small lost child? Mentally, she shrugs it off.

"We can help you find her, if you like?" she asks, holding out her hand toward him, not caring about the little bit of snot if he takes her hand.

Twilight

The two people in suits: a young(ish) woman with dark hair and blue eyes and the big white guy are both watching Alexis as he runs half-way down the block and shoots that death-glare at the big white guy. There's a ratcheting up of tension in the big dude, a stark, forward curl of his shoulders, enough that the woman inserts herself physically in front of him and talks him down. The big guy says something angrily to the woman, inaudible otherwise, and then turns around and jerks himself away from her, relieved to have an excuse to turn away, and shamed that he feels anything like relief.

The woman though; she looks back at Alexis as the two of them are walking back to the rEEntry tent. Gives him this sweeping survey, up and down and down and up.

Like she's memorizing the shape of his silhouette against the crowd.

The girl turns in a sweep as Alexis asks her if there's something wrong and she gives him this quick, hard look that sweeps back to the pair of suits retreating through the crowd. It's just a gut reaction to trust him; but it seems that deathglare was enough. She grimaces, " - lost my brother when I was - "

Cutting a look back at the church tents. She's younger than she looks. Fourteen or fifteen. Just her height makes her seem older, that and her angry self-possession. Which feels justified, radiant, rightous.

"You seen a little boy? Five year old?"

--

Meanwhile, the boy glances from Sam to Angelica and back again. Reaches out to the one for the cotton candy and pulls away a big, shearing handful that starts to melt as soon as it hits the warmth of his hand, and reaches out the other to Sam, then frowns and reconsiders, then does it anyway.

"Not supposed to talk to strangers."

The kid says.Not supposed to take candy from strangers either but that one's pretty hard to resist.

He starts stuffing the long hunk of melting sugar into his mouth, still sniffling, a bubble of snot expanding and breaking on his upper lip as he considers them.

"By the Ferris wheel." - is what he tells Angelica. "We was in line but then she went."

Alexis Theron Lambros

Despite current appearances, Alexis is not a man who provokes situations as a rule. He's certainly not a guy to keep them heated past when they need to be, and so there's no parting words like "Yeah, you BETTER run!" or mocking looks sent toward the guy in the suit. Alexis doesn't hold the man the enough regard to give him a moment's more attention than he requires, although he absolutely files that face away in his mind. Under a category that is labelled in a way he would never speak. He doesn't like profanity most of the time.

Besides, he has more important things to worry about...namely, the woman in front of him. As we were told earlier, Alex has some fairly good situational awareness and he caught the conversation between the boy Sam found and the kinfolk herself. Angry and dangerous Alexis bleeds away to leave friendly, concerned Alexis behind for the woman and he nods a little bit.

"Are you Shanae?" He definitely caught that part. "I'm Alex. I think he found my friends and I."

He steps back so as to give her some room. "C'mon. If it's not him, then we can regroup and go looking for him. Four heads are better than two, you know?"

If she seems willing, he'll turn and start leading her back to the others, gently clearing a path so she can get there.

Sam Evans

Her brows lift at the momentary indecision, but the looks melts into a warm and glowing smile when he takes her hand.

"Good, you shouldn't talk to strangers. Name's Sam. I live down the street." Down the street meaning much, much closer to downtown, but still. "This is Angelica. If you tell us your name we won't be strangers anymore." The hand she offered was her right, which leaves her left still free to reach into her bag for the little travel packet of tissues she keeps in there among many other things. She rips one out and holds it out to the boy. If he takes it, fine, if he doesn't it goes into her pocket. Either way, she lifts up onto the balls of her feet and cranes her head around, looking for the ferris wheel.

That's when she notices Alexis parting the crowd like Moses. She lifts her free arm and waves.

Angelica Cordozo

The young man takes the cotton candy and starts to stuff it into his mouth. This action makes Angel's smile broaden, a moment of trust between strangers, a chance to help....it was what she lived for. Sam's displeasure is noted, but it is left alone, there were obviously bigger things to worry about, like the well being of the child who stood there, one hand covered in sugar and the other in Sams.

She rose then, also looking about for the Ferris Wheel, both her and Sam craning around like meerkats in search of danger. When they pick it out Angel knelt back down and spoke to the boy.

"What's your sister wearing little man." She asked as she rested her hands on her knees. "She wearin anything special, anything you could easily pick out at a distance?"

Of course...little does Angel know....the childs sister is closer then they imagined.

Twilight

The girl goes still when Alexis says her name, nods warily and then breathes out sharply when he introduces himself and tells her I think he found my friends and I and she's already willing, moving. Frantic and edgy and alert.

"Damn, thank god - " her relief palpable, livid in the evening air. Alexis might be intent on gently clearing a path back through the crowd but Shanae - the girl is long, tall, lean, athletic - wants to fucking run. There's still adrenaline bright in her veins and tears come with the relief and she's right on Alexis' heels and sometimes pushing him forward, " - where are they,"

--

Sam offers the kid a tissue. Five year olds only blow their noses IN your tissue. They don't take them when their hands are full of cotton candy and also stranger-hand. Still, the boy lifts his nose toward her hand when she pulls out that tissue, ready to give her a good blow if she's brave enough to wipe the snot-bubble from his nose.

"Ain't supposed to tell my name." The boy returns, "We don't live real close. We took the bus. Shanae said we could see our moms but they - "

Right about then, Alexis and Shanae charge through and Shanae rushes through and grabs the little boy up in her arms. Just wraps him up and picks him up, nevermind snot and cotton candy which is now melting not only on the boy's hands but right into her puff-ball pigtails. "Antoine, thank god."

Shaking with relief, is she. Absolutely shaking with it. Relief and the afterburn of anger and - all of it. All of it.

"Thank you - " over the boy's shoulder to the rest of them. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

Alexis Theron Lambros

As soon as Shanae indicates that it's her, he understands. He goes as quick as he's able without being rude to the people they're displacing; the last thing they need is to start a fight in the crowd. He knows it's not fast enough for the woman he's escorting to her brother, but he's trying at least.

And then they break through and he fluidly slips to the side so that the siblings can be reunited. He smiles as they do, crossing his arms over his chest. He gives a quick look around; he's not putting it past the security people (he assumes that's what Prison Guy and Associate were) to be looking for an opportunity to eject them even further.

"Don't mention it," he says when Shanae gives the three of them thanks. He looks over to Sam and Angel a moment, giving them both warm smiles, then back around. He's basically standing guard over the reunion at the moment. He has a couple of questions, but they can wait. It's only after the initial burst of relief is warn off a bit for Shanae that he speaks up. "So what was with those two that were hauling you off, anyway?"

Angelica Cordozo

If bridging gaps between strangers and helping those in need was her bread and butter, then a moment like this was Angel's champagne and caviar. When the little boy is swept up in the woman's arms she simply stands with one hand on her hip and a broad smile upon her face. There is something else in that smile however, something like longing, or a memory of something in the past.

"Your welcome Shanae, to do anything less would be a crime." She said looking around at Sam, sharing a pleased look before her gaze found Alexis as he came up after Shanae's explosive entrance. "What can't you do?" Her tone amused, but also impressed before the smile faltered some and she looked back towards Shanae and Antoine, considering the words the young child spoke moments before being swept up.

"Shanae, If you like I can get you a ride home, I bet sticking around after this isn't really in the cards right?" She asks, her voice tentative, as if she were trying to feel something out.

Twilight

"Shit." Still with her arms around the kid, shaking her head and giving a sharp look back through the crowd toward the church encampment. Then she looks back at Alexis. "They won't let me see my moms. She's done been in there for I don't even know how long. Supposed to be a month and she come out with a job and clean and I don't even know how long it's been and when you go down there to they office they don't even let you in.

"Got to buzz you up and they just say you don't got an appointment you got to go."

Then a sharp breath in, glancing back at Angelica. Right hand cradling the back of her brother's head as she looks down at the Bone Gnawer and shakes her head. Maybe a hint of suspicion in her face and manner. "We got bus passes. We'll be alright."

Sam Evans

Sam holds the tissue in place while Antoine blows his nose into it, then wipes away the snot with nary a curl of her lip or a scrunch of her nose. Never mind that she's just exposed herself to about ten billion different illnesses, she's kinfolk. If a corrupted company or weird laser shooting diamonds or Spirals can't take her down, a summer cold doesn't stand a chance.

Then there's Shanae and Sam is left holding a snot-filled tissue for a moment. "Hang on a sec," she says, to Angelica. She's not about to interrupt that reunion, not by a long shot, but she does want to toss the snotrag. It's when she's looking at Angelica that she sees that smile, and sees perhaps a little more than either she wanted to see or the Gnawer wanted to show. Turning her head away quickly, the rest of her soon follows, and she trots off to the nearest trash can before trotting back.

She returns in time to hear about appointments and buzzings. Frowning a bit, she asks, "What happens when you try getting an appointment?" she asks, assuming that it has of course been tried already, and failed.

Angelica Cordozo

Angel see's that look of mistrust and she puts her hands up casually. "It's cool, cab ride, bus pass, its all the same to me." She wasn't taken aback by the woman's comment, such mistrust was common on the streets, and a gift horse was often thoroughly examined...with dental drills.

"Your talking about the rEEntry program right?" She inquires, looking at Shanae before letting her gaze drift past her to the tent in the distance. "If you like, I can put you in touch with a lawyer Shanae." She offers as her gaze slides back to the woman and her brother. "I can help cover the fee's and maybe she canw ork through the red tape to get you guys in. I knew the program was pretty serious...sounds like its to much though."

Twilight

"They say, she ain't cleared for re-entry yet." Shanae returns to Sam with a grimace over her brother's head. "So we don't have no reason to come down. Then they say, if you wanna come down we kin send you to camp for the summer. Find someone to foster that brother, or do you want us to call CPS and tell 'em you been left there all alone."

An alert look back to Angelica when she offers an appointment with a lawyer, help covering the fees and red tape. The girl's still 14 or 15 but nearly as tall as Alexis, a looming shadow over the two diminutive kin. "I don't know. If CPS comes Antoine and me are gonna go to foster care. We go back we won't never get to see my moms again. They ain't gonna keep us together, neither."

Alexis Theron Lambros

He frowns deeply when Shanae explains what the problem is, his eyes immediately straying--almost involuntarily--to where he the suits went back to. Normally, he wouldn't be as immediately suspicious. It's shady, yes...but there are possible explanations. But his mind combines that with what Angel said, fitting the pieces together like a particularly slippery puzzle.

Blew up into something huge out of nowhere. No government subsidy. Claims to help people in a difficult--even desperate--situation and then those people are cut off from their family. Alexis doesn't have a huge amount of experience with them, but still...he knows a damned cult when he hears it. One with backing from someone powerful.

Powerful and shadowy cult leaders. Yeah, that doesn't make his day.

"A lawyer might be a good idea, yeah." It's said supportively, though he isn't sure that he necessarily believes it. "Don't go to that camp. If you want--and I understand if you're not comfortable with it, 'cause you don't know me--I can look into finding a place for you guys to stay until your mother gets out. Somewhere that CPS won't know to look for you and so these people can't try and sweep you away."

Sam Evans

This is the part where Sam has less knowledge than the other two. Angelica has her community center, Alexis helps at women's shelters. The Glass Walker couldn't even begin to tell those kids where to find places like that in this city without pulling out her phone, and she wouldn't want to just rattle off names. She'd only give the names of places she knew to be reputable. She and Alexis have something in common with that mindset, at least.

What she does, though, is she files away the information. A company that takes mothers away from their children, then tells those children they have no reason to see her? Red flags everywhere, danger danger Will Robinson. She makes a note of that program, that camp, and starts planning out how exactly she'll go about researching them.

If only she had a Laura Mitchell to buy her a burner laptop and drive her out to some other city to jack into some other place's wi-fi. And then she realizes that she's no longer at the bottom rung of a company. She's no longer the assistant at a bakery. She's perfectly capable of doing those things herself.

"I'll help out however I can," she promises without saying exactly what shape that help might take.

Angelica Cordozo

"Then hows this sound. I'll look into them, and I'll see what I can find." Its the best offer she can make. "I'll let you know, and if I can get something arranged for you guys to see your mom's, then I'll let you know?" She pulls out a card for the Villa, with her number already there in the typography.

"Just gimme a call...or don't, whatever your comfortable with right?" She offers that last bit, holding the card out to Shanae for her to take...or not. She would still move forward, she would still investigate.

Something was rotten in that little program....and she intended to find out.

Sam Evans

[percept+alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

Angelica Cordozo

[Kin Senses tingling? Per+Alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Twilight

(Hmmm.)

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Alexis Theron Lambros

Per+Alert

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Twilight

Shanae takes Angelica's card, but it is Alexis' offer that really seems to snag her interest. There's a rich vein of living suspicion on her face, but something about demeanor, the way she holds out her hand for a card he may or may not have, says that she's considering, seriously considering his office of a shelter where CPS cannot find them.

He tells her not to go to that camp though and she gives him this sudden grin: all fat chance and do I look fucking stupid to you and bright teenaged bravado. Like hell she was going to that camp, but good advice anyway. On that point, they agree.

If Alexis has a card to offer Shanae tucks it with Angelica's and shifts her brother's weight from one arm to the other one and tucks the cards together and slips them into the back pocket of her jeans. Then shifts the boy's weight again and gives them all a genuine smile.

"Thanks for finding Antoine."

--

She steps past them, pushing through the crowd to find the bus stop.

Meanwhile, each of them, every last one of them, notices, perhaps two dozen feet away: a woman in an ill-fitting business suit, her arms crossed, tattoos visible on her fingers. Watching them.

Just watching them. Her attention cuts to Shanae as the girl slips away through the crowd, and then she too, turns around. Disappears into the block party.