Mission reports had always been a pain. But after failing to catch the agrokinetic, Ash found himself dreading this one more than the rest. Claudia watched him explain what had happened in silence from behind her desk, her face devoid of any expression.
"You really couldn't get the target away from them?" she asked when Ash finished.
"They had double our numbers," Ash told her. "And kids without experience can be even more dangerous than trained ones. The last thing we needed was to have fire and lightning thrown at us by amateurs who don't know how to control themselves." He couldn't stop his voice from rising in frustration.
Claudia clasped her hands together and sighed. "Recruitment may not be the primary reason we came to Tyche Point, but as we move into the next phase of our plans, we're going to need all the altered we can find."
"Well, it's kind of hard to track them down, let alone grab them when there's other people around," Ash said. "Wren can only sense altered in her immediate vicinity."
"That does pose a challenge," Claudia muttered. Her gaze drifted to the Scorpion tapestry on the wall. "I'm trying to get my hands on a list of altered. I assume that would make things easier for you."
Ash frowned. "Yes, but where are you going to get—?"
"Ash."
He sighed. "Right." He didn't need all the details. His only job was to complete the mission. "Anything else?"
"No. You can go." Claudia waved her hand to dismiss him.
On the way back to his room, Ash passed Wren. She waited around the corner from the living quarters with folded arms, leaning back against the wall, a smirk on her face.
"You in trouble?" she asked.
"Why would I be in trouble?" Ash walked by her, hoping she wouldn't follow.
He wasn't that lucky. She stepped away from the wall and fell into pace beside him. "Pretty sure the team leader's supposed to make sure the mission, you know, succeeds."
"And the people on the team are supposed to be able to fight off the enemy."
"Hey, we did our best!" Wren exclaimed.
"Yeah, so did I." Ash took the corner into the hallway with their rooms.
"Sure." Wren rolled her eyes. "Hey, why'd you tell Eric to leave instead of trying to catch him, too?"
"What are you talking about?" Ash reached his door and grabbed the handle. "There were six of them, we couldn't have brought them all in."
Wren stopped next to him. "Before the rest showed up."
Ash turned the handle and opened the door. "Wren, do you remember anything before Scorpion."
Wren scoffed. "No, I don't remember anything from before I was four years old."
"Well, these kids do," Ash said. "If we want to bring them into Scorpion, we have to be smart about it. They're not going to walk away from their lives that easily."
"That Jake guy did," Wren said.
"Sure. Whatever." Ash stepped into his room and turned to face her. "Just maybe try to be a little less irritating, okay?"
Wren folded her arms. "I'm not irritating."
"Okay." Ash closed the door in her face.
God, he was tired of dealing with the other kids. They weren't all annoying, but he had to drag Wren along every time Claudia wanted them to find more altered. And the most experienced fighters, kids like Seth, were top picks for important missions.
And then there were the later recruits. The five they'd brought in over the years tended to be more levelheaded than the likes of Wren or Seth, and more focused in training, but they didn't talk much outside of that.
Maybe that was a good thing. But a growing concern nagged at Ash. He and the others may have had years of experience on Eric and his friends, but this new group worked together well in a way Scorpion still struggled with.
And Ash had a feeling no amount of training was going to fix that.