Drone

I

I

It wasn't the first time Phoebe had driven down to Second Point. She had been going a lot since her sister Jean had started visiting. The people there had even started ignoring her presence instead of treating her with open hostility.

Second Point was the local hangout for the area outcasts. It was set next to Lady Bird Lake and had been quite a pretty spot at one point. However, the only way to get to it was to travel a rather long hike that twisted around the lake and, if you didn't know the way, you could easily find yourself either lost or right back where you started. There used to be signposts directing travelers along their way but they had long been torn down, switched up, or placed in misleading spots.

Because of the maze-like hike, the area had become increasingly unpopular until it had been found by the Nest. The Nest was a sort of gang, it's members, more often than not, consisting of people who had no where to go, no one to talk to, and nothing in their lives. Phoebe knew there were quite a few outcasts, drug addicts, orphans, and juvenile delinquents who made their second, or even first home, at Second Point.

Phoebe knew the Nest didn't really do much in the way of hard crime. But there was a good deal of pot smoking, graffiti, just in general being a nuisance to society types. Nothing really bad, but not actually good either.

And that was more because of the Nest's leader than the members' unwillingness to do something illegal.

Phoebe had never met him herself, her mom often told her that if she did Phoebe was to be respectful and get away as soon as possible. They called him Wasp and no one knew his real name. If any one did know it, no one was telling.

But Phoebe didn't need to see him to know anything about him. There was a bone deep loyalty for Wasp at Second Point. Seeing a wasp carved into wood, tagged on walls, on clothing, on jewelry, as a tattoo was so common down there it was odd not to see someone sporting some kind of wasp paraphernalia. As far as Phoebe could tell, he ruled his Nest with an iron fist. There were rules to being in Nest, rules no one told her as she wasn't in it, and breaking them could land you in hot water. Phoebe had never seen it happen, but she knew of people who had been excommunicated from the Nest. They rarely had friends after that as no one from Nest acknowledged their existence and no one outside of Nest wanted anything to do with them.

Phoebe parked her car, a rusted, busted hunk of junk from the 80's that she had got for 300 dollars off of her uncle, and climbed out to begin the long trek down to Second Point. She was still wearing the black skirt and blue blouse she had chosen for her date but had replaced her favorite heels with the old pair of jogging shoes she wore whenever she visited Second Point.

The sun was about to start setting, she would have to walk quickly to get to Second Point before dark and drag her sister out of there. She was going to end up hiking in the dark, that was inevitable, but she wasn't really worried.

She was furious.

Her honey blonde hair that she had ripped out of the ponytail she had meticulously set it in before her date was fuzzy and messy and bouncing just past her shoulders as she very nearly jogged down the first leg of the hiking path. Her tawny brown eyes flashed in fury as she marched, her hands clenched into fists. In the back of her mind she wondered if the hike would drain any of the anger out of her or if she would be just as mad when she saw Jean as she was now.

When she had gotten the tearful phone call from her mother she had been in the middle of a date with Ratel, a boy she had been waiting to finally ask her out for months now. He had been very understanding, they had promised to reschedule their date, and Phoebe had broken a few speed limits on the way here.