It would have been easy to agree to his first offer of splitting up, if it hadn’t looked like he was still so… not worried exactly… thoughtful? over something. Sunshine would have loved to find out if the kid had a father or an aunt nearby. The boy shouldn’t be running around with strangers if there was someone safe he could be with. Maybe he had an elderly grandmother who would believe that she’d arranged a visit with her grandson and not feel the need to call the mother and check in. Probably not, but it might be worth a shot and would do a hell of a lot of good if the local law enforcement started asking questions about what she was doing hanging out with an unrelated minor. Despite her recent utter failure at it, Sunshine liked staying on the right side of the law.
Alarm sang through her body when Ganner started to say that the boy couldn’t hear them. She didn’t know how this possession-thing worked. If the boy had been near someone who was possessed, was he more likely to become so himself? Was his lack of hearing due to that? Her mind raced with possibilities before Ganner was able to get out the few words to tell her that the boy was still “fine.” Right now, she found the word sadly lacking. It could mean just about anything. Not for the first time in her life, she noted how imprecise a language English was. ‘Distracted.’ Right. Sunshine didn’t like it, but at least it made sense to her. She imagined the giggler’s victim could have been described as ‘distracted.’ She mentally rebuked herself and stopped that line of thought before she gave herself the heeby jeebies. Con would have distracted the boy too. And wasn’t this what she wanted? To be able to plan without damaging the boy in some way.
“Al-Alright,” she said haltingly as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and looked around them. She didn’t like this, but she wasn’t going to argue. Much. “I can keep him safe – or maybe find out if he’s got a family member he can go to and I can stay with both of them until everything’s settled - but how long is this going to take?” She looked down at the child. “I’d rather not leave him like this if it isn’t absolutely necessary. I don’t care what anyone says, having someone mess around with your head feels weird.” Sunshine might have elaborated a little more on that, though probably not, but she didn’t have the chance. She had still been scanning the area around them. It seemed a reasonable thing to do since the kid was more or less incapacitated – she fell into a ‘watch his back’ mentality. If she hadn’t, she probably would never have noticed. It was her habit of not looking at faces that kept her from seeing it before now.
“Say, Ganner?” There was a definite note of concern in her voice. “How do you tell if people are possessed again?” She was looking unwaveringly to an intersection down the street. There were too many, but none of them seemed to notice the two adults and the kid standing away from them. She was probably wrong. She had to be wrong.