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[color=Olive][h1]James Edward Miller III[/h1][/color]
Twenty Nine /\ Hopeless /\ Nurse /\ Broken
[sub]"Feel the wind blow, and the skies fade to black.
Feel my eyes close, there's no turning back. 
And the waves break the shore, wash the footsteps from the sand.
I'm frozen in the spot where I once held your hand"[/sub]
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James looked around the room as he entered, keeping a distance from the others.  The questions of why they were there, what this was all about, why he had bothered coming in the first place, had been rolling in the back of his mind.  He hadn’t even thought to question before arriving.  The need to know was what brought him.  Why did they bother sending him a card?  How did they know? Why did they care? What exactly was going on here?

In truth, James didn’t care about any of the others.  He looked each of them over in turn, slowly, one at a time, drawing conclusions and discarding them all within the confines of a few seconds, after only a few moments glances.  Half starved youths, broken glances and dirty clothes.  They were dredges, like him, broken individuals summoned here for something.  It wasn’t going to be pleasant.  They were the forgotten minority.  The rest of the world rushed around in their cars, drifting on their clouds up on high, without problems or significant stressors in their lives, while they fought to simply survive between sunrises.  Nobody cared what happened to them, not even themselves.  He couldn’t bring himself to invest, not when he had his own problems to deal with, not when his own pains were so fresh, so vivid in his mind that they blocked all else.  

Then were was the paranoia.  Why were they there?  What could they possibly want with them?  A group of misfits, societal rejects that nobody would miss?  The kind of people often experimented upon.  Why gather such a group together?  Something in the back of his mind told James that he didn’t want to know what this was all about.  Something told James that he didn’t need to know.  Self preservation stiffened his back, as he entered the room, refusing to go more than a step to the side of the door, ignoring all offer of drink, refusing all manner of food.  

He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, fought the voices that crawled up into the back of his mind, whispering things to him, telling him to step back out of the door, get back in his car.  Why had he come?  What was it he was looking for here?  He had a job.  He didn’t need anything beyond what he had.  But they sent a card.  They knew about his kid.  Why did they know about his kid?  In the United States, thousands of kids day a year, some in more horrific ways, but surely there was plenty of accidents that would render his situation not so uncommon that he need be summoned, singled out.  They wanted something from him.  He was sure of it.  They wanted something bad enough to roll out this red carpet.  

He felt Cedar’s eyes on his, but James didn’t catch her gaze.  He looked back at her, refusing to meet eye to eye.  Perhaps she searched his face, and he stared to a spot over her shoulder, allowing enough of her into his vision to notice her, without looking directly at her.  She was a surprise, something that spoke to another part of him, stirring another section of his psyche that immediately threw her form free of its confining clothing, laid her amongst a section of soft silks, and contorted her face into what his mind imagined would be a pleasured twist.  

His eyes broke, sliding away from the woman, the images in his mind melting away with them, consumed by their own heat, as he slid his gaze to the younger man, vocally searching for answers.  He would draw attention to himself, perhaps put himself in the forefront of whatever is going to happen.  James wasn’t foolish enough to go demanding things of anyone capable of drawing such a gathering together, of providing such a spread, or knowing what it is they know.  Especially demanding information.  Information was a precious commodity these days.  Might as well demand your weight in coins, or some other such nonsense.  The vocalizations made him uneasy.  The wait made him uneasy.  Again, as though to restore the burning images to perfection in his mind, he drew his gaze back across Cedar, his blunt eyes meeting with hers for a fraction of a second, before he turned, stepped back out the door they had entered in.  
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