"Jen! Jenny-bear, are you okay?"
Jennifer coughed tried to swallow. She'd had worse hangovers, but not many. She risked opening an eye briefly--no piercing headache, maybe she could still play sick and avoid being grounded?
"She's dehydrated but otherwise healthy, Mr Smith."
"But the Curse, it's--does she still have--?"
Curse? Jen remembered the call then, the bathroom, the locker room, her principal, the police, they'd drugged her!
"Please calm down, don't panic her. She's emotionally volatile, and might lash out if provoked."
Jen decided she'd heard enough. "Daddy? Have you come to take me home?" Jen opened her eyes and tried to sit up. She was in a hospital room strapped to a bed. "Daddy?" Jen's voice wavered and she tried to pull free from her restraints.
"Oh Jenny-bear, don't! You'll hurt yourself." Her dad hurried over petted her hair the way he'd done since she was a little girl.
"I don't want to be here, I want to go home."
"I, I wish you could honey, but you have to stay here until--" he swallowed and started to cry. "Until it's safe, okay?"
"Mr Smith, I'm sorry, she's too agitated." Jen glanced over and saw a male nurse adjusting an IV bag. "We'll notify you when she's ready for visitors.
"No! No! Daddy! Take me with you! You have to take me wi' you..." Jennifer felt her awareness fading, her last thought being that daddies aren't supposed to cry.
***
"She was so beautiful, you should have seen her. An angel, my shining angel. Did he have to make her so, so plain?" Daniel Smith finished wiping his face with a handkerchief and tucked it back into his suit jacket pocket. He glanced at the black police officer who'd brought him to see his daughter.
"Your Daughter's curse is behavioral. Her appearance is the result of interacting with another party's curse before we took her into custody." Detective Glen Williams kept his voice neutral. This was the part he hated the most when minors got Cursed; dealing with the parents.
"Another--how widespread is it?" Daniel prided himself on his ability to perform under pressure. He was already planning how best to get himself and his wife out of town and away some place safe. They could send for Jennifer if, no, when she got better. He'd been a fool to stay in town as long as he had, but his position with the firm was taking him higher than he'd ever expected with a podunk college law degree.
Detective Williams watched the transformation from grief-stricken parent to fearful, if calculating, animal without comment. In Glen's observation most townies fell into a couple mentalities about the curse. Mr Smith's fear of his daughter, and the curse in general put him in the Ostrich group. Good. Ostriches were easy to manipulate, lawyers or not.
"I can't officially comment, you understand, but I hear airfare is low at the moment." He paused and looked the frightened man in front of him in the eye. "I can say we are still pursuing all parties recently affected by the curse.
"Thank you Detective. Is there anything more you need from me?" Dan's handshake was firm, his body language confident, but he was already miles away making a mental checklist of things he had to take care of before he got the hell out of this godforsaken town.
"One additional form, granting the Institute custody of your daughter, in case they're unable to reach you." Glen fought to keep the contempt off his face as he watched a father give up all rights to his daughter. She deserves better than you, he thought, watching the man in a suit worth more than Glen's car sign the form abdicating parental responsibility with a flourish.
"I'm not comfortable leaving decisions about Jennifer to a committee, I wrote your name in instead." Dan noted the surprise in the detective's face. "I trust you to take good care of my angel for me."
"I'll do that." Perhaps, Glen thought, Dan Smith wasn't a complete waste. Even if he was a lawyer.