Bren was walking in front of Thomas, so he didn't see the speaker. He didn't need to. He recognised the voice. He just hoped the boy was alone.

"You wanna move, kid?"

At least Thomas was no longer the only 'kid', though he didn't know how Stan, Billy Almington's friend, would react. While it might have been a term of pending endearment for Thomas, it was dripping malice when aimed at the bully.

"Don't think I do, bitch."

"Oh, little boy knows big words. Good little boy."

Bren had stopped, forcing Thomas to stop too. He still couldn't see Stan and couldn't, at first, understand why. The he realised. Bren had, somehow, grown. She was bigger than him to begin with, anyway, with her being a little older, but now she was closer to adult sized. From what he knew of Chameleons, they could only really change their appearance to match their surroundings. They couldn't usually change their form. He'd seen that she could do this to a certain extent by flattening herself to the point she was essentially flat against a wall and practically invisible, but she would still have had the same body mass.

The Bren standing in front of him, however, was more than she had been.

Was that possible, even with the amount of practise she'd confessed to doing?

It wasn't an appropriate time to ask her. Stan lived in Billy's shadow much of the time. He did the other's bidding as, being with him meant the notoriety rubbed off on him. He was feared by association. Whether it was because he was as intimidating didn't matter. If Stan was there, Billy was usually not far behind, so fear was the best policy.

In this case, Mr. Bancroft had Billy, so Stan was here alone. It did nothing to instil any confidence in Thomas, but at least he'd only be set upon by one of the terrible two, not both of them.

"No point in making yourself bigger to try and scare me," Stan said in his best 'I ain't afraid of you but you'd better be of me' voice. "It won't work."

"Who said I was doing it to make you scared?"

"I don't give a fuck. Just shift it, so I can get to that shit hiding behind you."

"I'm not hiding," Thomas said, stepping to the side.

He would have happily remained behind Bren if he'd have been able to. She didn't know Stan, so had no idea that she should be wary around him. Thomas was sure she could handle herself against him, if it came to it.

Stan sneered at Thomas when he saw him.

"There you are, you little fucker. I knew you'd do a runner. I didn't know you hid behind bitches like this, though."

"I'm not..." Bren started, but Thomas spoke over her.

"She's not a bitch, she's my friend. And I said I wasn't hiding."

Being with the girl did give him confidence, albeit a shaky one. Stan was a TeeKay, but not a very good one. He'd been able to roll a pencil off his desk once, and had caused 'Bangers' freshly made mug of coffee to tip over just as the teacher was sitting down, so was drenched with the hot liquid, but anything more was beyond him. He let Billy flaunt his powers and kept his mediocre ones reserved for stupid tricks to entertain himself with.

Bren glanced at Thomas when he called her his friend. Her face was unreadable and she turned away before he had a chance to look more closely. She'd stopped growing, too. She was now easily as tall as his father.

"You make me wanna puke," Stan said, feigning vomiting sounds with his hand over his mouth. "You're disgusting."

"Well," said Bren. "You know what 'disgusting' is."

"Fuck you."

"Never in your life," retorted Bren.

Thomas wasn't sure what she meant by that, but Stan seemed to. His face, already flushing red, deepened in colour. The former guessed it had something to do with the 'grown up' things his father mentioned sometimes that embarrassed the boy and made him want to change the subject quickly.

Stan stepped forward, his mood rapidly moving through fury to flustered and back to fury. Thomas had yet to see him as his own entity. The boy was Billy's shadow, only now he'd come to drag his darkness into the light. It was surprising how assertive he was being.

"I don't want you anyway. I want that shit."

He pointed at Thomas who shrank into himself. That finger was armed with all the ammunition launched at him throughout the previous two years. Any bravado Bren had passed to him evaporated. Luckily Bren was not going to take the onslaught so easily. She hadn't had the displeasure of his company before, so she didn't know the sort of person he was. It didn't take much in the way of figuring out.

"You look like your mother took a shit when she had you, and flushed away the baby."

Stan didn't, generally, fight. He would if he was pushed, but he was happy to let his partner in crime do the bulk of the violence. He didn't like to step up in case it showed his inadequacies. Bren's comment had incensed him enough to forget that for a moment. He raised his hands, his fingers splayed in her direction.

"Oooh, I'm so scared," she said, the words layered with a thick coating of sarcasm.

"You wanna be. I'll do you and then get my hands on that shit."

He didn't look at Thomas, but his intention was clear. What wasn't clear was why and how he'd found them.

"What have I done?" Thomas asked. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"You got my mate done over by that prick Bangers!"

What?

"I... What?"

"Don't pretend you don't know. Bangers went into that bog after Billy. He did his teleport shit, then you came out. I don't know how the fuck you got in there, but you gotta be why Billy got got."

"What's he on about kiddo?" Bren asked, not taking her eyes off Stan. "Are you the reason this Billy kid got banged?"

"No," said Thomas, not missing but deciding not to correct Bren's use of the word 'bang'. He thought, in other circumstances, it would be appropriately hilarious. This wasn't the time. "I was already in there. When I head Billy come in, I kept my mouth shut and hid. I only came out when Bangers and him went."

"You hid. I'm not surprised, ya fucking Nomad."

Bren glanced at Thomas in shock at that, but turned her attention quickly back to Stan. She didn't know his powers, so was wary of his raised hands. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of anything that might shoot forth from his fingers.

"It was nothing to do with me. Billy is always in trouble. Bangers was probably just expecting him to be doing something he shouldn't."

"Yeah, so what was you doing in there then? You shoulda been in class."

"Yeah, but so should you."

"We do what we want in there. Ain't no one gonng stop us."

"I think it's time you left," said Bren.

Her voice was calm and quiet, two things that made it seem to be neither. Stan didn't notice. Instead he lifted his hands higher, pointing the fingers menacingly.

"I don't give a fuck what you think," he said. "I'll just fuck the both of you up."

"What is he," Bren asked, turning her head slightly to aim her question at her friend.

"He's a TeeKay," answered Thomas. He wondered if Bren realised she just asked him about the very thing she disliked. A label. "But not a very good one."

"Fuck you, shit," spat Stan. "I'm better than you think."

Thomas was fully aware of the extent of Stan's abilities. He'd seen the abortive attempts to use them that had been tried so many times. Thomas knew what his father would say. Iain would tell him that Stan was following Billy around like a pet dog. He was all bark and no bite. Thomas had been barked at almost constantly. He was used to it and, knowing that was the only weapon Stan had, Bren's confidence was once more allowed to seep into him.

"You're not, though, are you? Even the dust isn't scared of you cos it knows you've got no hope of disturbing it."

"Yeah, well. At least I've got powers. I ain't no Nomark."

"It's Nomad, idiot," Bren corrected. "And why do you keep saying that?" She looked at Thomas worriedly. "He's talking bollocks, right?"

Thomas didn't answer. He nodded his head to indicate that yes, Stan was talking rubbish, but that wasn't the case. For one of a very few times in his life, the boy was telling the truth.

Thomas just didn't want to admit it.