An apology for a fool

Sin went to question his mom and ask around school, and left me with his laptop, and multiple drives' worth of documents. The problem was that I had no idea what to look for. I wasn't specialized in recon. I was a fighter. Fire and fists…and guns. Mostly guns, but fists made it sound way cooler.

I was skimming through the students' personal files, but the words started to form into indistinguishable black and white lines.

It was time to call in the brains. Literally.

I called Mary-Anne, tearing off the black tape covering the camera. She answered near instantly.

"Why aren't you in class?" She scolded me, before the video feed even loaded." Where are you?" She asked after it did.

"Hi sis. Don't worry about all that. I'm gonna give you remote control, then leave you to it." I answered.

"That's not an answer, Avalynn. If you somehow compromised your mission on the second day because you were too lazy to go to class, I swear I'll…" She didn't continue. She never did, even back when we were kids. I always wondered if she had something to threaten me with.

"Just look through this for me okay? You're much better at these things." I smiled at the camera." Pretty please."

I was making my best puppy eyes, but it didn't matter. She finally got the screen, and started to click around furiously.

"What am I looking at Ava?"

"The complete Blackblood Academy archives, updated today at twelve hundred. Now, get to work, you have around three hours."

I set the time limit to make her focus on working, instead of questioning me. I'm still going to get questioned later, but hopefully I can put together a decent cover story by then.

Anne stopped for a moment, looking at the camera. "You know that you'll have to report your situation to the fullest extent?"

I smiled, then ended the call.

Gathering my stuff, I rushed back to the dorms. Sin gave me Lizzie's room number. I was hoping I could catch her before J returns for the day.

I knocked on the door. "Hey Liz, it's Ava. Can I come in?"

I heard her hasty footsteps as she hurried to open the door.

"Ava!" She exclaimed, pulling me in with a hug." I was so worried. What happened yesterday?" Liz ushered me to a table, and brought a bowl full of cookies from the kitchen, and two cups of tea, before settling on a chair herself.

"I had a small misunderstanding with our dear Elessa." I shrugged, but she didn't seem satisfied with the answer.

"I'm so sorry for taking you there, I should've known she wouldn't like to train a stranger. I should've asked first and not just dragged you into it. I'm so sorry." Tears trickled down her cheeks.

God damn it, how many people will I have to comfort today?

"It's fine, Liz, it's not your fault." I sighed. I wasn't sure what to do with myself, so I put a hand on her shoulder. How do you make people stop crying?

She sniffled. "Yes it is." I felt like I was talking to a child.

"I'm not gonna argue with you, but if you cry every time I get into an argument, go and grab yourself some extra boxes of tissue paper. They'll give a discount if you buy in bulk."

Liz faintly smiled. I seriously couldn't understand why she was so upset in the first place, but I guess this was an improvement.

"Why didn't you come to school?"

"Sometimes I get really exhausted after training. I can't even get out of bed." She swept the long sleeve of her oversized hoodie across her face, drying up the tears.

I frowned. "Are you eating well?"

"I… yes." She was surprised by my question.

"You shouldn't be that tired. That's not normal."

"How do you know?"

"My master told me, back home. Your body should regulate itself. Only do as much as it can handle. Magic's not a muscle to get strained, it's a skill with limited resources."

The sadness hasn't disappeared completely from her eyes, but at least I sidetracked her thoughts. We sat quietly for a minute.

"You know; you are the first witch I've ever met." She said, avoiding eye contact.

It wasn't surprising. Most humans only showed a slight tendency for magic, emerging in the form of a bad migraine. "Are there more of us in Greenland?"

This was a hard question to answer, for multiple reasons. In truth, I was a warlock, a non-human witch. Also, I've never been to Greenland. It could've been crawling with witches for all I know.

"No, not really. I lived with my aunt during summer breaks, in a small city on the other side of the country. Her friend taught me all I know."

This was as close to reality as I could get. I had to keep my lies to a bare minimum, or I'd just get everything mixed up in the end.

"You're lucky. I had to be pulled out of elementary school, because I kept vanishing in the middle of class, and scaring the other kids. I was homeschooled until the academy took me in."

Liz slowly stirred her dark, steamy cup of tea; metal clinked against porcelain.

She was oversharing, and I tried to find the reason. We were acquaintances at best. Was this some strange way of apologizing? Was it because of her personality? I hoped not.

"Our classmates weren't that frightened by my fire show. I doubt they have a hard time with vanishing."

She shook her head. "No, they're really nice. You should get to know them better."

"Also, you have a badass vampire warlock to protect you." I smiled falsely, ignoring her suggestion.

She put the cup down, taking a cookie in its stead.

"J is… the best thing that ever happened to me. He's sweet and funny and loyal…"

I nodded along her retelling of how they've met, shutting out most words. It was useless information. I couldn't keep myself from thinking back to the spidery sensation of his aura. Has she been brainwashed by his 'staunch protector'? I couldn't rule it out as a possibility.

By the time she finished her tale, no doubt involving at least one dark and stormy night, one misplaced love letter and one hilariously shortsighted dragon, I felt as empty as the cookie bowl.