TIMING: Current PARTIES: Max @screadqueens & Inge @nightmaretist LOCATION: Inge's office SUMMARY: Max pays one of Siobhan's hottest colleagues a visit. CONTENT WARNINGS: Child death (past), torture (threatened)
It was hard for Max to decide which of the rogue banshees who’d left their mark in this wretched Maine town was the more disappointing of the two. Regan’s mistakes were humiliating, to be sure — cleaning up her mess would certainly take some time — but that was to be expected. Regan had been a failure since the beginning, since the first day she’d shown up to train with Max and Tina despite her age. Siobhan was a failure in her own right, of course, but she’d at least been raised properly. The fact that she had managed to fail so spectacularly was just… sad.
Especially when Max found the corpse in her contact list.
It wasn’t the fun kind of corpse, wasn’t the proper kind that you could sit and watch beautifully decay. No, this corpse was a disgusting thing. The kind that walked around, the kind that defied Fate. The mere concept of the undead was sickening, and yet Siobhan had been out and about befriending one. It was horrifying, really. Regan had something of an excuse in her sad human upbringing, but Siobhan? Siobhan should have known better.
It was no matter, though. Max was more than willing to correct the mistake.
It was luck, perhaps, that the corpse found employment at the local college. It made Max the perfect banshee for the job, what with her youthful looks and her sharp wit. Blending in with the human children was an easy thing to do, a simple one. She looked like she belonged, and so the idiotic humans assumed she did. She listened to them talk about stupid things, she waited for an opportunity. And when the corpse was spotted, Max wasted no time on goodbyes before getting up to follow it.
“Excuse me,” her Irish lilt lifted the words, carrying them to the corpse’s ears. There was something dully fascinating about the unnaturalness of it, she thought; she found interest in it the same way one might find interest in an unidentified puddle with a heavy stench. The mind was drawn to disgusting things, sometimes. Max wondered if that was how things had started between Siobhan and Inge. Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn’t important either way. The corpse was a mistake Max would correct. She was sure of that. “I missed your office hours, but I’d like to discuss a few things with you. Mind extending them?”
—
She had been healing. In the slow pace of any mortal human, Inge’s injuries had started aching less, her muscles regenerating somehow. She didn’t care about the biology of it, really. Didn’t much care about most of it, as long as there was process. And so she’d been returning to her classes, opting to sit on her desk in a position that seemed casual but just hurt less than standing and walking around.
It was good to be back. There was something about teaching that wasn’t entirely despicable to her, something about it that she did like. Maybe it was just that she wanted to be the smartest person in every room and being a professor of art did tend to ensure that. It helped that she was an undead one, as she’d certainly outlive all her students if things went her way. Perhaps it was a pitiful thing to gain confidence from, but wasn’t that the point of being a teacher? To know better?
She’d take all she could, these days.
And so she walked the hallways again, with less trouble than she had a few months back, but still with some trouble. Sometimes she was afraid there would be permanent damage to the muscles that kept her upright, those in her lower back. Inge refused that kind of reality, though, and so she bit through the pain.
When someone addressed her, she looked at the voice the words belonged to. She didn’t recognize the student, which made her crease her brows. In all fairness, she’d been absent-minded, if not physically absent, these past months. “Hi …” There was an empty space there where the other’s name would go if she’d known it, an open invitation for an introduction. “What is it you’d like to talk about? I have some time until my next lecture, but…” She smiled and there was a hint of sourness to it. There was an implication there, something along the lines of it better be worth my while. The other was lucky, as they were near her office. Inge looked at it down the hall. “Well, don’t be too long.”
—
She moved like she was in pain, and there was some idle fascination to that. A corpse that ached was a funny thing, Max thought. There were banshees back home, she knew, who felt some pity towards the undead. It was hardly their fault that they’d outlasted their fate, after all, and they were surely suffering because of it. But Max had no room in her heart for things like this. When she saw this body, this dead thing that Siobhan had adopted as some sort of hideous pet, all that stirred in her chest was disgust. It was humiliating, in a way; Siobhan had brought embarrassment on their entire community, hanging round with trash like this. Shouldn’t she have known better?
“Max,” she introduced herself, though not without considering it first. It didn’t matter much if the thing before her knew her name. It would be dead the way it was meant to be dead before long now, would be ‘laid to rest’ the moment it let Max into its office. A scream would be the best way to do it, she thought, though it would bring unwanted attention. Was there a window in the office? It would be simple enough to slip out after. In a town like this, surely something else would take the blame. No one would ever think to point a finger at Max, and she’d be long gone before anyone even considered doing so. Unlike Regan or Siobhan, Max had no intention of sullying herself by remaining in this town a moment longer than she had to.
“Don’t worry,” she assured the corpse. “What I have for you is very important. And something you need, I think!” It wasn’t a lie. Upholding Fate was the most important thing a banshee could be tasked with, and the corpse was in need of finding its end. Perhaps there would be peace for it, in the moment. Perhaps it would even be grateful. With a sharp smile, Max followed the corpse into its office, shutting the door behind them both.
—
Maybe this was one of the students who’d taken on the class in the time she’d been absent. Inge had offered some forged doctor’s notes to those that stood above her on the academic hierarchical ladder and spent most of her days away from lecture halls. She wasn’t very good at remembering her students on top of that, with some exceptions here and there. Some of them made art or wrote essays that stood out – negatively or positively – and those names she remembered. But Max was a stranger to her.
She moved towards her office, not bothering with the usual slew of small talk she was good at. Professor Endeman was a professor who liked to talk, after all — usually, that was. She had little to say now, though, was more focused on moving as fluently as possible. She shouldn’t have worn trousers that closed around her waist where her scar was still developing.
“Ah?,” she asked at the other’s very confident words. Whatever could it be? A project, a piece of art she’d seen at a museum, something she had read? Inge offered a smile, moved towards her desk and sat down in the chair, stretching one of her legs to put less pressure on her injury. She despised that painkillers didn’t work. She hoped the sun would go down soon, so she could return to her dear astral. “Well, don’t keep me waiting Max. Take a seat, tell me whatever it is you have for me.” Despite her fatigue (funny, considering she hadn’t slept in over forty years) she offered a look of enthusiastic intrigue. It better be worth her while.
—
Max studied the corpse, the fascination something she found herself unable to shake. She hadn’t seen many undead in her life. She hadn’t seen many people who weren’t banshees in her life, really, given the isolated nature of their community in Ireland. She’d heard tale of the abominations that defied Fate, of course, seen the disgust in the expressions of those sharing the stories, but she never imagined she’d see one up close. She didn’t think she’d have time to dissect this one the way she yearned to, but there were others in town. According to their findings, the place was crawling with them. Maybe she could find another when she was done here, now that she knew what it felt like to be in the presence of one. Maybe she could take it apart piece by piece.
“You’re friends with Professor Dolan, aren’t you? I’ve heard the two of you are close.” Max made no move to sit in the chair she’d been offered; instead, she continued to stare at the corpse, allowing her head to tilt ever-so-slightly to one side as if she was working out a particularly difficult puzzle. “What is it you think she sees in you? Does she actually enjoy being around you, or is there just something interesting about a corpse that walks and talks?”
She took a step closer, reaching out a hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick. It’s not your fault you’re an abomination, is it?”
—
If she had any functions in her body that could make her respond instinctively, the hairs in her neck would have stood upright now. The mention of Siobhan was concerning — it was hardly like they interacted a whole lot professionally but there was of course the case of the chopped off leg and her being left stuck to a wall. Inge tightened her jaw, screwing it even tighter when Max asked her about their relationship, called her a corpse.
Something was amiss. It wasn’t paranoia crawling over her skin this time — there was something wrong with the girl who remained stranding and inched too close. “I don’t think she sees an awful lot in me,” she said, fingers inching towards the drawer in her desk. She’d placed self defense measures there – of course she had. The weapons could cost her her job, but she’d rather risk that than her head. “It’s more that she envies me.” The drawer opened during that sentence. “Because I am capable of more than she has ever been.” Love, wasn’t that what it had been? She didn’t get the banshee.
Inge got up to her feet, staring at the younger creature, fingers wrapped around a switchblade. “You’ll not do a thing,” she said, “Besides get the hell out of my office and leave this campus.”
—
The corpse’s hand went to the desk drawer, and Max watched it inch its way there with a faint spark of amusement behind her eyes. There was something funny about it, in a disgusting sort of way. Here was this thing that had cheated Fate once already, existed in a world that had moved on without it long after it should have been gone, and all it could think of was ways to cheat further. Wasn’t it exhausting? Shouldn’t it be tired? Max didn’t understand why it was fighting so hard. If anything, it should be honored. Such lucky few were allowed to be delivered to Fate by a banshee’s scream.
But the corpse didn’t want the honor, it seemed. It pulled a blade from the drawer, and Max’s lips quirked upwards in a smile that turned into a bubbling giggle, unable now to hide the amusement dancing across her features. Was the blade even made of iron? She doubted it. “You should be careful with that,” she crowed, shaking her head. “You’ll hurt yourself. Not that it matters much. You’re dead already, right? A few more cuts won’t change that.”
As if the words had reminded her of it, Max allowed her hand to dance down into her pocket and retrieve a blade of her own. It was thin and sharp, gleaming silver. “You don’t have to do it yourself, though. I’ll help you with it. I’m not used to things like you, so maybe you can help me here. If I stab you in the throat, does it end you? No, right? The throat is only a vulnerable place because of breath and blood flow, and you’ve neither. What of your arteries? If I cut them, what does it do to you?” She paused, humming. “I’m sorry. I think I’ve changed my mind. We won’t be doing this quickly after all. I’d like to know more about you.”
—
Her mind was racing and she hated that it was light out, that she was once again in a situation where she was confined and bound to the earthly plane that was filled with horrid things. Inge stared at the other, wondering what she was, why she came here asking after Siobhan and accusing her of being dead. She didn’t seem a slayer — a slayer wouldn’t pull out a glinting knife and ask how best to kill her. But wouldn’t it be presumptuous to think the other something as rare as a banshee?
She stood there, putting most of her weight on one foot to keep her body from straining too much. If her job here was compromised too, what was left? What was to keep a slayer from bursting in next? Inge felt the tug again, that instinctive urge to run. “I don’t intend on using it against myself,” she said. “What would a few cuts do to you?” She flicked the blade open, small and pointy yet plenty effective when she needed it to be.
If the other wanted to talk, Inge could do that. She preferred to cut with weapons. She preferred to stall, to figure out a way to avoid being murdered and turned into dust in her office. “You are inexperienced,” she concluded, which was a relief. She had evaded wintered hunters before. A girl with a knife who didn’t know how to kill her could be bested too. “Why should I tell you the best way to kill me? Do you think me such a fool?” She offered a smile, saccharine and unemotional. She eyed the door, considered her chances of running around the other and returning to the hallway – but she knew the knife would find her body before she would be able to. Especially with her limited agility. And even if this Max didn’t know how to kill her, a knife was still a knife. It still hurt. “But fine, ask away. Feel free to sit.” She sat down herself, gesturing at the chair. “Office hour, right?”
—
Did this rotting corpse really presume itself so capable? How had Siobhan been around this thing for as long as she had without putting it in its place? How had she been around it without sending it back to Fate, the way it was meant to be? It was embarrassing. Humiliating, really. Max wondered if those back home had any idea just how far Siobhan had fallen. Surely this proved that they had been justified in their decision to cast her out of the aos si in those years before Max had been born at all. Surely Max herself was better for having lived in a community that Siobhan Dolan had not been a part of. This was disgusting. This was a shameful thing.
“You’ll never know what a few cuts would do to me,” Max replied, tilting her head to the side. “You’ll never get close enough to find out. Do you think I should be frightened of you? You, who have been dead so long you’ve started to stink? I’m an agent of Fate, and you’re a fugitive of It. I want nothing more than to send you where you belong. You should be grateful. You should be asking for this.” If it had any pride at all, Max thought, it would have been. Nothing should want to exist as this thing did, and yet here it was, fighting for a life that had left it years ago.
Inexperienced? The muscle in Max’s jaw twitched, nostrils flaring briefly in a quiet display of fury. It was something she’d heard before, of course. Even back home, even leading up to this particular excursion. We should be sending more experienced banshees, someone had said. Not children. Max’s mother had insisted that this was the best way to turn children into banshees, had put a foot down. Max would not prove her wrong. “I think you nothing at all,” she countered. “I think you a stain on the very fabric of this world. I think you a thing that ought not exist, a thing worse off for its state of being. I think you an embarrassment, a mistake. I don’t think you a fool, because in order to be a fool, one must be a person first. And you’re not that. You’re not anything at all. You’ll be less than that soon. Or more, perhaps. The only way for you to get better is for you to finish what you started doing when you were made into this — for you to finish dying. I was going to help you do it quickly. I really was. But I want to see what your blood looks like now. I want to find out if you ache, if you hurt. I won’t sit when I ask you my questions. I want to see them proven first. So…” She trailed off with a sharp smile and, with little warning, thrust her blade forward. “What does your blood look like? You don’t need to answer. I’m going to find out.”
—
Would Anita come to her aid? Or better yet: would Inge get over her pride to ask her to help her? She’d aided her, that day in the woods, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to reach out for her now that she was still unharmed and some young thing was threatening her. It was pathetic, wasn’t it? And so she didn’t reach for her phone, just eyed the intruder with narrowed eyes and thought of escape routes. She’d be damned if she went down in this stuffy office, in a school, of all places.
“I think I have a better idea than you have about me,” she said coolly. As the other went on, she sounded like a zealot. A banshee zealot. She thought of her conversations about death with Siobhan, always held easiest online where the other wouldn’t have to see her face as she bared herself. Fate sounded awfully similar to ‘God’s plan’ and because of that just as boring. She defied it, by roaming this earth, and she thought it a good thing. “Do you not get bored, being so limited by your worldview? I don’t think you should be frightened. I think you should reassess your life, perhaps, and sound less like a mouthpiece to whatever person told you these things. And you should get your nose checked.” She wore expensive perfume and was incapable of sweating. She smelled delightful.
While the insult to her scent didn’t insult her, the tirade this Max went on made Inge halt a little. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard these things before as she was no stranger to people who thought she ought to be dead in a more definitive way. Still, it wasn’t like music in her ears to hear these things. To be called a thing, a stain, something unfinished. As if she hadn’t transformed into something more powerful and beautiful after she’d awoken post-death! As if this wasn’t the best thing for her to be! She opened her mouth to retort as the other trailed off, but in stead of a cutting reply, she let out a furious yelp as the knife made contact with her lower arm, cutting through skin and making glittering energy pour out. “You —” She bristled, used her other arm to reach for her paperweight (a one of a kind one, mind you) and aimed it towards Max’ head. She was quick to press her now-free fingers against the laceration after she’d thrown the thing. There were too many scars that had originated in this town, now, and there’d be another added. “You’re boring, you’re narrow and you’re going to get out of my office now.”
—
Limited? It was so clear that the corpse had no idea what it was speaking of, what it was speaking to. To call a banshee, of all things, limited? It was as preposterous as it was insulting. How had Siobhan managed it all this time? How had she been in the presence of a thing that not only disrespected Fate with its very existence, but disrespected banshees with its words? More than ever, a fire burned in Max’s chest. She had half a mind to hop a plane, to fly back to Ireland and confront Siobhan herself, to take her by the shoulders and shake her and demand to know why, why, why. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand any of it. She couldn’t comprehend why Siobhan had come to care for this town, why Regan did. She wanted to. There was a part of her that wanted, desperately to understand the appeal. Was there something she was missing? Some unseen piece, some hidden part of this puzzle? Max intended to find out, sooner or later.
But first, she was going to dispatch the corpse.
Her blade found the corpse’s arm, slicing the skin and revealing the hidden secrets beneath it. Max marveled at the shine, tilting her head to the side as it shimmered on its journey to stain the floor of the office. “Oooh,” she gasped, looking as close to delighted as she’d ever allowed herself to be. “Do you have a jar? I’d like to take some of this with me when you’re dead. I think my sister would get a real kick out of it. Do your pieces turn to dust when I take them off? I know vampires’ do. Found that one out the hard way. It would have been a lovely finger to watch decay.” How would the corpse’s limbs decay? Would they do so slowly, or would they make up for lost time and crumble all at once? Max wanted to know.
She looked back up at the corpse just in time to see a paperweight flying at her head. She ducked quickly enough to avoid a concussive contact, but not soon enough to keep it from hitting the side of her forehead hard enough to send stars flying into her vision and rage burning through her. What did this corpse presume itself to be? What right did it think it had? Max glared, teeth grinding together as she took a step towards it. “Just for that,” she said lowly, “I’m going to cut off your fingers one at a time. I think we’ll start with the thumbs. Harder to throw things without those.”
—
Her blood – or whatever one was supposed to call it – was a thing of beauty, Inge agreed. She vaguely remembered the first time she had seen it after having nicked her finger while peeling an apple for Vera (she had hated apple peels and she had been indulgent, especially after they’d moved to Amsterdam) and staring at the glitter on the cutting board. Sometimes on sunny days she’d look at herself in the mirror, admiring the way the energy beneath her skin glimmered. But the reasons she found it beautiful were different from why this Max found it beautiful, that was for sure — hers was an obsessive intrigue and Inge was sure that she wouldn’t be able to swindle her for five thousand dollars like she had another.
No, she would be lucky to get away with her life, which was a rotten way to be lucky.
Inge wasn’t sure what would happen with her blood should she die. Perhaps those little jars of blood on Parker’s and Rhett’s shelves would turn to dust along with the rest of her and that thought was strangely comforting — even if she had no intention to die. The thud of the glass paperweight was satisfying, as was the look that washed over the maybe-banshee’s face. She was no good at fighting, lacked the finesse and technique, but she was very good at fighting like hell. Tight corners were hers to escape, “You are so confident for someone so ignorant,” she bit to the other, clutching her arm. “And you will remain just that.”
There were tighter corners she’d been in before. She had full control of her body now, was not restrained by rope or salt or stuck to a wall, which was apparently an option as well these days. She would not be reduced to dust by a child who didn’t even know what a mare was. Inge bristled, the threat of her fingers being cut off eerily familiar to the way Siobhan had undone all of Rhett’s toes. “Who do you think you are?” She didn’t move, kept her shedding blood from view. It was not the other’s to see. “Here to teach me a lesson? For some higher purpose that, like all purpose, is a farce?” At least her purpose was selfish and not dedicated to some God or entity. She was trying to gauge how fast the other was, how her chances would be. There was nothing heavy left on her desk to throw, and she would lose a knife fight — but she had more than her knife. She had her nature, which the other despised but she revered. “If you wanted to cut off my fingers, you should have restrained me,” she said, provoking, “Siobhan, the woman you mentioned, she knew to do that before cutting off a man’s toes. What is it you’re going to do? Hold me down with your tiny body, struggle and squirm? You should have planned this, Max. You should have at least brought some fucking rope.” Maybe this was an office hour, after all.
—
The dead had no right to arrogance. They had more rights than some might believe, of course — the rights of the dead were important to uphold — but arrogance was not among them. Things like that, Max wouldn’t even afford to the living unless they had a scream like hers. Banshees were the only ones with any claim to such things, were the only ones who could boast being above anyone else. An argument could be made for other fae being above humanity, but even that felt like a stretch Max wasn’t quite ready to make. In her mind’s eye, you were either banshee or inferior. And this body in front of her now, this pile of bones and skin that spoke despite its heart that did not beat, was certainly no banshee.
So why did it believe it had some right towards arrogance? Why did it think it had earned any ability to speak to Max this way? She was its better. How had Regan or Siobhan stomached this for so long? How had they managed in a world where no one knew how low on the totem pole they really were? If she didn’t hate them as much as she did, Max might have found room to be impressed. Instead, it was disgust that curled up in her chest, tendrils of it spreading down to her stomach and up to her throat. They should have corrected this way of thinking, she thought. They should have shown this thing just how disgusting it truly was, should have never allowed it to escape Fate for as long as it had. It was cruel, almost. Like letting a sick animal suffer instead of ending its misery.
Max would not be so cruel.
She would experiment with it, sure. She would peel back its skin, take out its eyes, see what happened when pieces of it were removed. But she would only do these things so that she might understand, so that she might know better for the next time. The way this thing existed was no way to continue, and Max wouldn’t force it to do so. She would use it for learning, yes, but she would be kind in a way SIobhan hadn’t. She wouldn’t suffer an abomination like this to continue its existence. No one should.
“This is a school,” Max said, “and I want to learn. You’re a professor, so you’ll teach me. I’ve never seen a thing like you before. It would be a disservice not to allow me to learn from you. It would be a disservice to others like you, too. The next time I run into one of you, I want to be able to take care of it quickly. Don’t you want that? Don’t you feel loyalty to your kind? You’re already dead. This way, it can mean something.”
It was a silly notion, the idea of restraining a corpse. It shouldn’t have been necessary. Max didn’t particularly want to tie up the body, didn’t want to rely on such things. Her mother wouldn’t have, if she were here. She doubted Clare was using rope on the one she’d gone after, either. The mention of Siobhan — and the implication that she knew better than Max did — filled her chest with a that disgusting hint of fiery anger again. “Siobhan is a disgrace,” she replied flatly, repeating something she’d heard a thousand times before. “If she weren’t, I wouldn’t have to do this. She should have taken care of you herself, you know. If she were any good, she would have.” Perhaps she was wasting time here. Maybe she should find another of this kind, one more cooperative. Maybe the best thing she could do for this one was to simply end it. Would her scream be too telling? Would it get her into trouble? She’d heard tell of a screaming moose roaming this town — perhaps the sound could be blamed on that.
Clicking her tongue as she debated, Max relented with a shrug. “Okay. If you don’t want to teach me, I suppose I can’t make you be good at your job. We’ll do this quickly, then.” Stepping forward, she grabbed the body’s cold wrist and put another hand on its shoulder. One scream, with this physical contact, and it would explode in a beautiful shower of blood and viscera. Max wondered if it would sparkle all the while.
With a cruel smile, the banshee let her eyes go black and opened her mouth to scream.
—
She had thought herself to be wrong at two points in her unlife. First, when she had initially been transformed. When she had died in her sleep and come back like something else, something capable of moving between planes of existence, something that lived through cruel consumption. She had hated what she was then. Something that died and had come back, that should not exist by the rules she had been taught in youth and church. Death was followed by heaven, should you be forgiven, and that was that. And yet she had continued to exist, without judgment or afterlife — and it was wrong, was it not? Godless.
But she had learned to find the rightness in it. She had claimed it, this unlife and made it a life – had loved it and reveled in it, had indulged and created. She had gained a freedom her mortal life had never offered. And then came the second time she felt her existence was wrong. When her daughter looked older than her and was withering away in a hospital bed it had seemed like a cosmic fuck-you. The not aging was no longer something to be glad for, but rather something perverse. The inability to get sick was a boon, but one that only she had received.
Inge had gotten over that. Not the death, nor the grief — those were pains you didn’t grow out of as a parent of a deceased child. But the self-hatred. It was in part because of that, that she found the views of people like Max so grating. Who were they, to tell her that her existence was a mistake? If she could appreciate it, despite the pains and discomforts, then why should she give their closed mindedness any consideration?
And so she didn’t, “This is a school. But you are no student of mine. You are rude and petulant.” The idea of Max going after others like her if she didn’t give her more insight didn’t really stir her. She would go after undead regardless of what she offered her in information or demonstration. (Though Ariadne would most likely volunteer to show her more of her blood and tell her more of her nature — she should warn her, once this was over and done with.) “My death and subsequent life mean plenty already — maybe that can be your lesson.”
It was interesting how the other spoke of Siobhan. Inge wasn’t sure how she felt about the banshee any more these days – there had been a few moments of raw honesty with the other, or at least more raw than she was with most others these days. She’d shared her grief over her daughter with her, had shone a light on her life before this new one. But she’d also hung on a wall, left behind as Siobhan had refused to kill two people that should have – by her calculations – died. What would this Max think of that? “Siobhan is much more fun than you,” she said, in a strange moment of defensiveness.
Before she could consider any more ways to jump to Siobhan’s defense, the other moved in with haste. Inge was in her grasp, bare skin meeting bare skin, and she was not sure what the other was capable of doing in a moment like this. Did it matter? She knew what she was capable of. She focused on the area where Max’ fingers closed around her skin and pushed forth a sense of fatigue, making the banshee grow drowsy. “Here’s your lesson,” she bit, before letting the young fae fall asleep properly.
She caught her before she fell on the ground, pushed her into one of the seats she’d refused to take. Inge watched, for a moment, how peacefully the banshee slumbered. It would be so easy now, to kill her. To take that knife and slit her throat or stab her heart — but she knew what the cycle of violence looked like, now. A bloodied factory floor, a sword in her gut. She sat at her desk, got a bit of stationery and wrote in cursive, Mare 101. After underlining those words, she skipped a few lines and added: Class dismissed. She placed the note on the other’s lap, took her knife from where it had clattered on the ground and spent a few diligent minutes locking her drawers and other things. Soon enough she got up, plucked her coat of its hanger and took her leave. It was her best survival tactic, after all. To run from the corner she’d been backed into and hope nothing would nip at her heels.
