The Villain Academy- Chapter Ten: Things Forgotten
Hi, everyone!
Dear Geesus, I'm taking like forever to post all of this. Gahh. But see, I have a new chapter of "The Villain Academy" today! Go me!
Before reading Chapter Ten, why don't you try Chapter Nine? It's lovely, I promise. Today's chapter has libraries, unfair family histories, holy woah friendship?, bad news, plans of action, guilt tripping, a coming storm, good-byes being said, and osnap plot. Enjoy!
10. Things Forgotten
The beginning of the two weeks of waiting for the heroes began the next morning. Tori ate her delicious meals and spent all the rest of her time in happy isolation in the library, spending hours and hours in that room.
She found Rune truly never left the library, and if he did, she never saw him do so. As the days passed, she found he spoke to her more often.
Tori would always ask him questions, wanting to know more about him. And bit by bit, he began to tell her. They were separated by many feet over the hardwood floor, over faded, threadbare old rugs, but Tori felt herself getting closer to Rune every time he answered one of her questions.
She’d ask him about his family. She found he had a younger brother who was a full vampire, who was, as Rune put it, “a dunce and an oaf” but valued more than Rune was. Tori learned that Rune had overachieved in regular school, had helped with chores, had even cooked dinner and cleaned the house, and yet received no praise or recognition for these things.
“Just because you weren’t a full vampire?” Tori asked, her eyes wide and her tone disbelieving.
He glanced over and met her eyes. “Well, obviously.” he said. “Milovan did nothing around the house; and yet he was given all the preferential treatment. At first I thought it was because he was the baby of the family. But no; I found the truth. I was contaminated; he was pure. Milovan always said I was lucky to even be allowed to stay in the house.”
Rune glanced down, his lips pursed. “As soon as I was old enough, I came here. I got out of that awful place. They’re still alive, as far as I know, so they must have learnt to feed themselves and clean and take care of things without me.” he said, his tone spiteful.
“They never even said thank you?” Tori asked sadly.
“I only learned to cook to feed myself so I wouldn’t starve. What do you think?” Rune said, shooting a question right back at her.
“It’s rude to answer a question with a question,” she muttered to herself, settling back into her chair.
“I never said I wasn’t rude. I assumed you’d expect a certain degree of bitterness from me,” Rune said sensibly.
“You don’t act all too bitter,” Tori said honestly.
“I don’t try to be, but sometimes it happens.” he replied. “Thank you for saying so, though.”
Days passed in this way. Tori learnt much about Rune and they became friends merely through association.
After a week or so, Rune finally asked why Tori was in the library so often.
“So, why do you keep coming back here? I’m guessing it’s not because I’m good company,” Rune asked.
“You’re fine company,” Tori replied. “I just don’t know what else to do, or how else to spend the time. If we had classes, maybe I wouldn’t be so bored.
“We have classes. It’s just you don’t know where to go,” Rune pointed out.
“Must you always be right about everything?” Tori asked, only half-joking.
“It’s a gift…and a curse.” Rune admitted. “Being right all the time is quite satisfying and gives one a huge boost in self confidence. But sometimes, being right doesn’t always mean being happy. For instance, I was right that my parents and brother didn’t love me because of a birth condition I couldn’t have prevented, that wasn’t my fault, and that was a ridiculous prejudice anyway.”
He kicked a rug at his feet, curling up one corner, and he rolled it down again absently.
“Obsessive compulsive much?” Tori asked, watching him.
“Perfectionist, actually. It’s not all that surprising I developed such a psychological condition, given my history,” Rune said.
Tori nodded. “True. But if I were ignored and my parents didn’t care, I’d probably slack off just because they wouldn’t reward me, and I’d be ignored no matter what I did.”
“Well, Lyn, that is just one area of our psyches in where we differ,” he said, turning back to his notebook.
“Are you ever going to show me that thing, or am I going to have to keep nagging you about it?” Tori asked.
He gave her a look. “No. No means no, Lyn. I’m assuming you understand. Otherwise I’d be happy to be your grammar tutor.”
She laughed. The way he said it was just hilarious.
He gave another semblance of a smile and returned to his notebook.
And the days passed relatively uneventfully. The day the two weeks were up, Tori returned to the closet at the end of the hall to call Uncle Charlie.
The glass from the light bulb had become a fine, glittery powder spread across the floor of the empty closet. It stuck to Tori’s purple sneakers, coating the soles with glitter. Tori was reminded of an art class at her old school when the class had used glitter and disaster, or perhaps hilarity, ensued. It depended on one’s point of view. The class loved it. The teachers? Not so much. The janitor? Not at all. He felt so strongly on the matter than he quit upon seeing the glittered art room.
Tori drew herself out of memory and pulled out her phone.
He answered immediately. “Good morning, Torianne.”
“Are you coming today?” Tori said, not bothering with a hello.
Charlie sighed. “No.”
“What?!” Tori exclaimed, not caring if anyone heard her. There was a silence, broken by a crackle of static.
Finally Charlie said, “Look, I know I promised I’d come to the Villain Academy on this day two weeks ago. But the rest of the team…well, you’re only a child, Torianne.”
“I am fifteen years old! I am not a child! I’ve been living here for two weeks, let’s see them do that and then they can call me a child!” Tori said furiously.
“Nevertheless, they don’t trust your word and don’t believe you know what you saw or what you heard,” Charlie continued.
“I do so! I know what I heard! Truculent said this basement lab was where all the Academy’s secret weapons were!” Tori said, remembering that day very vividly.
“Look, Torianne, I believe you. But despite my word, which isn’t valued much, they have no reason to believe you. You haven’t established yourself as trustworthy,” Charlie explained, pulling on his jacket and balancing the phone between his cheek and his shoulder.
“So what am I going to do? I can’t stay here!” Tori cried, kicking the glitter on the floor in rage.
“You won’t. I promise. I’m going down there tonight, to verify what you saw. If I just see the lab, if I just reassure the team that it exists, they’ll come and we’ll get you out.” Charlie said, explaining the plan he’d fought so hard for with the team.
“I don’t like this plan. No offense, Uncle Charlie, but your power isn’t gonna keep you safe, and I can’t change other people. I haven’t figured out how yet. How do you know we’ll be safe?” Tori asked anxiously.
“I have a distress signal. The instant I see the basement, I’ll press it and we’ll have a whole team of superheroes here to help us and bring down the Villain Academy. Don’t you fret; I’ve taken care of everything. We have back-up. We’ll be perfectly fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Charlie promised.
Tori nodded, closing her eyes wearily. “Tonight? You’re sure?” she asked, desperate for all the reassurance she could get.
“Yes, I’m sure. You’ll be out of that terrible, awful place by this time tomorrow. Get one last look at the place before I arrive, make sure you didn’t miss anything.” Charlie requested, sticking the distress signal in the pocket of his weathered old brown jacket.
“Okay, Uncle Charlie. I will. I’ll see you tonight.” Tori said. She hung up the phone.
Back home, Charlie pulled his car keys out of the key bowl by the front door. He stared at it; it was a sloppy clay bowl, weathered with age. Torianne had made it when she was younger, and they’d kept it ever since. A few little fragments of it, which had broken off over the years, rested around the edges. He picked up the biggest shard he could find and stuck it in his pocket.
“For luck,” he told himself, patting his pocket. He swung open the door and prepared for the long ride to the Villain Academy.
At the self same Academy, Tori left the closet and headed down the hall, back to the broken old classroom she’d found on her first day. She decided some of the books were probably useful in some way, if dated.
The door swung open with a creak that was almost like a whine. The room was just as bleak and dirty as it had been two weeks ago. She headed over to the old bookcase, which was still broken. For a moment she wondered what had happened to it, and then remembered she had done that herself the last time she was here.
Still, the books were in fine condition. Tori knelt down in the dust and sifted through them.
Few of them were still in good condition, with cover pages, dust jackets, and even whole chunks of pages missing. But some of them, though old, were usable and viable sources of information.
She took the book on giant mutant electric squids. The NaNoWriMo thing still frightened her, and she doubted she would ever need the one about chemical romances. She wondered what a chemical romance was; it sounded destructive.
Tori left the room with the book in her messenger bag, wondering where to go next.
“I wish I could find out where the hell everyone goes all day,” she muttered to herself, scuffing the floor with the toe of her equally scuffed sneaker.
Her main objective today was to stay safe, out of trouble, and out of sight. Unfortunately, this goal equaled a dull day of aimless wandering and inevitable boredom.
Tori realized she’d never been outside the Academy since she had first arrived. So she headed back to the entrance foyer and stepped outside.
For a moment, she thought the mystery of where everyone went had been solved: outdoor classes. But no; the grounds were just as deserted as the interior of the school. The grass was half-dead, the trunks of the trees whorled and knotted, and it was totally empty. Tori imagined a tumbleweed blowing by across her path.
The creaky old gates stood, looking ready to collapse at any moment. It blew slightly back and forth with the wind.
Tori blinked in the sunlight, which she was unaccustomed to. She realized she’d never asked if Rune could go out in sunlight. She knew true vampires could not, or they would burn up unless they took shelter under an umbrella or something. But she wasn’t sure about dhampyrs and sunlight. It was a shame she’d never get to ask him. Who knew when she would next encounter a dhampyr, much less one she had, in an odd sort of way, befriended.
She settled herself under the shade of an old oak tree, shifting her bag from her shoulder to her lap. She watched clouds gather on the horizon. The light of the sun was weak and pale and not much. The constant storms were starting to get to Tori.
Pondering, Tori crushed a blade of grass between her fingers. One of the few green blades of grass left; Tori immediately felt stupid for destroying it.
Somehow, some way, she realized once she had left the Villain Academy, she would actually miss Rune a bit. While he was an antisocial dhampyr and aspiring villain, he could hold up a decent conversation, and Tori found he wasn’t that unstable, especially when compared to the others. In an odd way, they had become friends merely through prolonged association.
And merely through the fact that he wasn’t a psychopath.
Tori’s face fell into a frown. She didn’t know much about the plan to “take down” the Villain Academy, but she was betting they weren’t taking prisoners. And even if they did, she doubted Rune’s family would come to save him. He meant nothing to them.
Was she ordering the execution of a school full of kids?
Tori shook her head. Stop. You’re thinking about this way too much, she told herself. Maybe they’re kids. But they’re villain kids, evil kids, kids who want to cause destruction and mass world panic! You can’t call off the destruction of an evil school for just one sane kid. We’ve been trying to bring down the Villain Academy for years and years. Now we can! It’s too little too late.
But Tori still had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was fairly confident everyone in the Academy was going to get hurt tonight, if not killed, and for some reason it made her feel awful.
But it was too late! Much too late. She doubted she could call it all off now. Uncle Charlie wanted to bring down the Academy, possibly even more than Tori did. He wasn’t going to let her prevent this.
So the Academy would fall tonight. The least she could do was say good-bye to Rune. Maybe she could warn him. Maybe he could get away from the Academy in time. She didn’t have to tell him everything, but she could tell him enough. Then maybe this guilty feeling would go away.
She picked herself up, fixed her bag, and headed across the weakly sunlit, dying lawn back inside.
Tori wasn’t sure how much time she had until Uncle Charlie came. She assumed he’d call, but she didn’t want her phone to ring as she was in the middle of her impending conversation with Rune. So she quickened her pace to a fast walk. The day was fast waning as the sun, obscured by clouds, moved across the sky. The storm was coming, closer and closer, possibly bringing snow with it. No one knew for sure; no one ever did.
A storm was coming, and no one was prepared. Least of all Tori.
She hurried up the stairs to the library. She opened the door, and Rune glanced up. He was there, as usual.
Tori shut the door behind her and looked around nervously, hoping no one else was in there with them.
“Hello, Lyn. Where have you been all morning? I’ve grown accustomed to your company,” he said, looking at her.
“Rune, we need to talk. It’s really serious and top secret. Okay?” Tori said in a hushed voice, going over to him.
He closed his notebook and met her with a puzzled stare. “Okay, I suppose. Just what’s going on, Lyn?” he said.
“I’m leaving the Villain Academy.” Tori said after a deep breath.
Rune’s dark eyes grew wide, and a streak of red flashed in them for a split second. “What do you mean, leaving?” he asked. “Well, I assume you mean what you say, that you’re not going to live here anymore and you’re going to go somewhere else. But why?”
“Rune, do you promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone?” Tori asked.
“Okay, I promise,” Rune replied, quite easily.
“It’s not safe here.” Tori said, adopting an anxious expression.
“Not safe? Are you kidding? It’s the only safe place for people like us, for villains.” Rune said, sounding like he was trying to talk her off the ledge.
“No, please believe me! The Academy’s going to be attacked tonight.” Tori informed him with a sigh.
He looked at her, and she saw suspicion cross his face. “How do you know that?” he asked slowly, getting up from his seat and crossing his arms.
“Look, I don’t know if it’s true, it’s just a rumor as of right now. But I’m scared. I don’t want to take a chance, so I’m leaving.” Tori said, running her fingers through her hair. With each passing moment she more deeply regretted deciding on this plan.
“You’re…scared?” Rune said disbelievingly.
Tori mentally slapped herself in the face. Masquerading as a villain was incredibly difficult for a hero like her. “Yeah. So?” she muttered, scowling. “I’m allowed to be scared. I hate this place anyway. I’m leaving, and you should, too. I just wanted to warn you, okay?”
Rune shrugged. “Thanks then, I suppose. But I don’t think I’m going to go, and I don’t think you should either. We’ll be safer here than anywhere else.” he said.
“Well, I’m going. Nothing you can say can stop me.” Tori said defiantly, tossing the little that remained of her hair over her shoulder.
“So I guess this is good-bye,” she said, rather sadly, kicking her foot around aimlessly.
He nodded. “I guess it is.”
Silence fell as they both looked at anywhere but at each other.
“Um…thanks for being my friend, Rune,” Tori said, smiling.
“Thank you for being mine. I’m not a social person, generally, if you couldn’t guess,” Rune said.
“I…I hope your parents appreciate you. You deserve it,” Tori said sweetly.
“Well, I’m glad someone agrees with me,” Rune said.
Silence settled again upon the library. The storm was rolling in closer. Distant rolls of thunder, muffled and quiet, came closer and closer.
“You sure about leaving?” Rune asked quietly.
Tori nodded vigorously. “You sure you don’t wanna come?” she asked right back.
He nodded as well. “But I do want to say a proper good-bye.” he said.
Rune took a step closer and all of a sudden, he kissed her.
Tori was surprised, but, somehow, not all that reluctant to kiss him back. She let her eyes close and smiled. This was indeed a proper good-bye.
After a few moments, they broke apart.
Eyes still closed, Tori heard him say, “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” she asked dreamily.
“That you were a spy and a traitor.” he said simply.
+-+-+-+
*hides from angry shippers and readers going "OMGHOLYSHITWTFWASTHAT?!!"*
Quote of the Day: "Is it a young adult vampire romance novel?"
~June
Dear Geesus, I'm taking like forever to post all of this. Gahh. But see, I have a new chapter of "The Villain Academy" today! Go me!
Before reading Chapter Ten, why don't you try Chapter Nine? It's lovely, I promise. Today's chapter has libraries, unfair family histories, holy woah friendship?, bad news, plans of action, guilt tripping, a coming storm, good-byes being said, and osnap plot. Enjoy!
10. Things Forgotten
The beginning of the two weeks of waiting for the heroes began the next morning. Tori ate her delicious meals and spent all the rest of her time in happy isolation in the library, spending hours and hours in that room.
She found Rune truly never left the library, and if he did, she never saw him do so. As the days passed, she found he spoke to her more often.
Tori would always ask him questions, wanting to know more about him. And bit by bit, he began to tell her. They were separated by many feet over the hardwood floor, over faded, threadbare old rugs, but Tori felt herself getting closer to Rune every time he answered one of her questions.
She’d ask him about his family. She found he had a younger brother who was a full vampire, who was, as Rune put it, “a dunce and an oaf” but valued more than Rune was. Tori learned that Rune had overachieved in regular school, had helped with chores, had even cooked dinner and cleaned the house, and yet received no praise or recognition for these things.
“Just because you weren’t a full vampire?” Tori asked, her eyes wide and her tone disbelieving.
He glanced over and met her eyes. “Well, obviously.” he said. “Milovan did nothing around the house; and yet he was given all the preferential treatment. At first I thought it was because he was the baby of the family. But no; I found the truth. I was contaminated; he was pure. Milovan always said I was lucky to even be allowed to stay in the house.”
Rune glanced down, his lips pursed. “As soon as I was old enough, I came here. I got out of that awful place. They’re still alive, as far as I know, so they must have learnt to feed themselves and clean and take care of things without me.” he said, his tone spiteful.
“They never even said thank you?” Tori asked sadly.
“I only learned to cook to feed myself so I wouldn’t starve. What do you think?” Rune said, shooting a question right back at her.
“It’s rude to answer a question with a question,” she muttered to herself, settling back into her chair.
“I never said I wasn’t rude. I assumed you’d expect a certain degree of bitterness from me,” Rune said sensibly.
“You don’t act all too bitter,” Tori said honestly.
“I don’t try to be, but sometimes it happens.” he replied. “Thank you for saying so, though.”
Days passed in this way. Tori learnt much about Rune and they became friends merely through association.
After a week or so, Rune finally asked why Tori was in the library so often.
“So, why do you keep coming back here? I’m guessing it’s not because I’m good company,” Rune asked.
“You’re fine company,” Tori replied. “I just don’t know what else to do, or how else to spend the time. If we had classes, maybe I wouldn’t be so bored.
“We have classes. It’s just you don’t know where to go,” Rune pointed out.
“Must you always be right about everything?” Tori asked, only half-joking.
“It’s a gift…and a curse.” Rune admitted. “Being right all the time is quite satisfying and gives one a huge boost in self confidence. But sometimes, being right doesn’t always mean being happy. For instance, I was right that my parents and brother didn’t love me because of a birth condition I couldn’t have prevented, that wasn’t my fault, and that was a ridiculous prejudice anyway.”
He kicked a rug at his feet, curling up one corner, and he rolled it down again absently.
“Obsessive compulsive much?” Tori asked, watching him.
“Perfectionist, actually. It’s not all that surprising I developed such a psychological condition, given my history,” Rune said.
Tori nodded. “True. But if I were ignored and my parents didn’t care, I’d probably slack off just because they wouldn’t reward me, and I’d be ignored no matter what I did.”
“Well, Lyn, that is just one area of our psyches in where we differ,” he said, turning back to his notebook.
“Are you ever going to show me that thing, or am I going to have to keep nagging you about it?” Tori asked.
He gave her a look. “No. No means no, Lyn. I’m assuming you understand. Otherwise I’d be happy to be your grammar tutor.”
She laughed. The way he said it was just hilarious.
He gave another semblance of a smile and returned to his notebook.
And the days passed relatively uneventfully. The day the two weeks were up, Tori returned to the closet at the end of the hall to call Uncle Charlie.
The glass from the light bulb had become a fine, glittery powder spread across the floor of the empty closet. It stuck to Tori’s purple sneakers, coating the soles with glitter. Tori was reminded of an art class at her old school when the class had used glitter and disaster, or perhaps hilarity, ensued. It depended on one’s point of view. The class loved it. The teachers? Not so much. The janitor? Not at all. He felt so strongly on the matter than he quit upon seeing the glittered art room.
Tori drew herself out of memory and pulled out her phone.
He answered immediately. “Good morning, Torianne.”
“Are you coming today?” Tori said, not bothering with a hello.
Charlie sighed. “No.”
“What?!” Tori exclaimed, not caring if anyone heard her. There was a silence, broken by a crackle of static.
Finally Charlie said, “Look, I know I promised I’d come to the Villain Academy on this day two weeks ago. But the rest of the team…well, you’re only a child, Torianne.”
“I am fifteen years old! I am not a child! I’ve been living here for two weeks, let’s see them do that and then they can call me a child!” Tori said furiously.
“Nevertheless, they don’t trust your word and don’t believe you know what you saw or what you heard,” Charlie continued.
“I do so! I know what I heard! Truculent said this basement lab was where all the Academy’s secret weapons were!” Tori said, remembering that day very vividly.
“Look, Torianne, I believe you. But despite my word, which isn’t valued much, they have no reason to believe you. You haven’t established yourself as trustworthy,” Charlie explained, pulling on his jacket and balancing the phone between his cheek and his shoulder.
“So what am I going to do? I can’t stay here!” Tori cried, kicking the glitter on the floor in rage.
“You won’t. I promise. I’m going down there tonight, to verify what you saw. If I just see the lab, if I just reassure the team that it exists, they’ll come and we’ll get you out.” Charlie said, explaining the plan he’d fought so hard for with the team.
“I don’t like this plan. No offense, Uncle Charlie, but your power isn’t gonna keep you safe, and I can’t change other people. I haven’t figured out how yet. How do you know we’ll be safe?” Tori asked anxiously.
“I have a distress signal. The instant I see the basement, I’ll press it and we’ll have a whole team of superheroes here to help us and bring down the Villain Academy. Don’t you fret; I’ve taken care of everything. We have back-up. We’ll be perfectly fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Charlie promised.
Tori nodded, closing her eyes wearily. “Tonight? You’re sure?” she asked, desperate for all the reassurance she could get.
“Yes, I’m sure. You’ll be out of that terrible, awful place by this time tomorrow. Get one last look at the place before I arrive, make sure you didn’t miss anything.” Charlie requested, sticking the distress signal in the pocket of his weathered old brown jacket.
“Okay, Uncle Charlie. I will. I’ll see you tonight.” Tori said. She hung up the phone.
Back home, Charlie pulled his car keys out of the key bowl by the front door. He stared at it; it was a sloppy clay bowl, weathered with age. Torianne had made it when she was younger, and they’d kept it ever since. A few little fragments of it, which had broken off over the years, rested around the edges. He picked up the biggest shard he could find and stuck it in his pocket.
“For luck,” he told himself, patting his pocket. He swung open the door and prepared for the long ride to the Villain Academy.
At the self same Academy, Tori left the closet and headed down the hall, back to the broken old classroom she’d found on her first day. She decided some of the books were probably useful in some way, if dated.
The door swung open with a creak that was almost like a whine. The room was just as bleak and dirty as it had been two weeks ago. She headed over to the old bookcase, which was still broken. For a moment she wondered what had happened to it, and then remembered she had done that herself the last time she was here.
Still, the books were in fine condition. Tori knelt down in the dust and sifted through them.
Few of them were still in good condition, with cover pages, dust jackets, and even whole chunks of pages missing. But some of them, though old, were usable and viable sources of information.
She took the book on giant mutant electric squids. The NaNoWriMo thing still frightened her, and she doubted she would ever need the one about chemical romances. She wondered what a chemical romance was; it sounded destructive.
Tori left the room with the book in her messenger bag, wondering where to go next.
“I wish I could find out where the hell everyone goes all day,” she muttered to herself, scuffing the floor with the toe of her equally scuffed sneaker.
Her main objective today was to stay safe, out of trouble, and out of sight. Unfortunately, this goal equaled a dull day of aimless wandering and inevitable boredom.
Tori realized she’d never been outside the Academy since she had first arrived. So she headed back to the entrance foyer and stepped outside.
For a moment, she thought the mystery of where everyone went had been solved: outdoor classes. But no; the grounds were just as deserted as the interior of the school. The grass was half-dead, the trunks of the trees whorled and knotted, and it was totally empty. Tori imagined a tumbleweed blowing by across her path.
The creaky old gates stood, looking ready to collapse at any moment. It blew slightly back and forth with the wind.
Tori blinked in the sunlight, which she was unaccustomed to. She realized she’d never asked if Rune could go out in sunlight. She knew true vampires could not, or they would burn up unless they took shelter under an umbrella or something. But she wasn’t sure about dhampyrs and sunlight. It was a shame she’d never get to ask him. Who knew when she would next encounter a dhampyr, much less one she had, in an odd sort of way, befriended.
She settled herself under the shade of an old oak tree, shifting her bag from her shoulder to her lap. She watched clouds gather on the horizon. The light of the sun was weak and pale and not much. The constant storms were starting to get to Tori.
Pondering, Tori crushed a blade of grass between her fingers. One of the few green blades of grass left; Tori immediately felt stupid for destroying it.
Somehow, some way, she realized once she had left the Villain Academy, she would actually miss Rune a bit. While he was an antisocial dhampyr and aspiring villain, he could hold up a decent conversation, and Tori found he wasn’t that unstable, especially when compared to the others. In an odd way, they had become friends merely through prolonged association.
And merely through the fact that he wasn’t a psychopath.
Tori’s face fell into a frown. She didn’t know much about the plan to “take down” the Villain Academy, but she was betting they weren’t taking prisoners. And even if they did, she doubted Rune’s family would come to save him. He meant nothing to them.
Was she ordering the execution of a school full of kids?
Tori shook her head. Stop. You’re thinking about this way too much, she told herself. Maybe they’re kids. But they’re villain kids, evil kids, kids who want to cause destruction and mass world panic! You can’t call off the destruction of an evil school for just one sane kid. We’ve been trying to bring down the Villain Academy for years and years. Now we can! It’s too little too late.
But Tori still had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was fairly confident everyone in the Academy was going to get hurt tonight, if not killed, and for some reason it made her feel awful.
But it was too late! Much too late. She doubted she could call it all off now. Uncle Charlie wanted to bring down the Academy, possibly even more than Tori did. He wasn’t going to let her prevent this.
So the Academy would fall tonight. The least she could do was say good-bye to Rune. Maybe she could warn him. Maybe he could get away from the Academy in time. She didn’t have to tell him everything, but she could tell him enough. Then maybe this guilty feeling would go away.
She picked herself up, fixed her bag, and headed across the weakly sunlit, dying lawn back inside.
Tori wasn’t sure how much time she had until Uncle Charlie came. She assumed he’d call, but she didn’t want her phone to ring as she was in the middle of her impending conversation with Rune. So she quickened her pace to a fast walk. The day was fast waning as the sun, obscured by clouds, moved across the sky. The storm was coming, closer and closer, possibly bringing snow with it. No one knew for sure; no one ever did.
A storm was coming, and no one was prepared. Least of all Tori.
She hurried up the stairs to the library. She opened the door, and Rune glanced up. He was there, as usual.
Tori shut the door behind her and looked around nervously, hoping no one else was in there with them.
“Hello, Lyn. Where have you been all morning? I’ve grown accustomed to your company,” he said, looking at her.
“Rune, we need to talk. It’s really serious and top secret. Okay?” Tori said in a hushed voice, going over to him.
He closed his notebook and met her with a puzzled stare. “Okay, I suppose. Just what’s going on, Lyn?” he said.
“I’m leaving the Villain Academy.” Tori said after a deep breath.
Rune’s dark eyes grew wide, and a streak of red flashed in them for a split second. “What do you mean, leaving?” he asked. “Well, I assume you mean what you say, that you’re not going to live here anymore and you’re going to go somewhere else. But why?”
“Rune, do you promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone?” Tori asked.
“Okay, I promise,” Rune replied, quite easily.
“It’s not safe here.” Tori said, adopting an anxious expression.
“Not safe? Are you kidding? It’s the only safe place for people like us, for villains.” Rune said, sounding like he was trying to talk her off the ledge.
“No, please believe me! The Academy’s going to be attacked tonight.” Tori informed him with a sigh.
He looked at her, and she saw suspicion cross his face. “How do you know that?” he asked slowly, getting up from his seat and crossing his arms.
“Look, I don’t know if it’s true, it’s just a rumor as of right now. But I’m scared. I don’t want to take a chance, so I’m leaving.” Tori said, running her fingers through her hair. With each passing moment she more deeply regretted deciding on this plan.
“You’re…scared?” Rune said disbelievingly.
Tori mentally slapped herself in the face. Masquerading as a villain was incredibly difficult for a hero like her. “Yeah. So?” she muttered, scowling. “I’m allowed to be scared. I hate this place anyway. I’m leaving, and you should, too. I just wanted to warn you, okay?”
Rune shrugged. “Thanks then, I suppose. But I don’t think I’m going to go, and I don’t think you should either. We’ll be safer here than anywhere else.” he said.
“Well, I’m going. Nothing you can say can stop me.” Tori said defiantly, tossing the little that remained of her hair over her shoulder.
“So I guess this is good-bye,” she said, rather sadly, kicking her foot around aimlessly.
He nodded. “I guess it is.”
Silence fell as they both looked at anywhere but at each other.
“Um…thanks for being my friend, Rune,” Tori said, smiling.
“Thank you for being mine. I’m not a social person, generally, if you couldn’t guess,” Rune said.
“I…I hope your parents appreciate you. You deserve it,” Tori said sweetly.
“Well, I’m glad someone agrees with me,” Rune said.
Silence settled again upon the library. The storm was rolling in closer. Distant rolls of thunder, muffled and quiet, came closer and closer.
“You sure about leaving?” Rune asked quietly.
Tori nodded vigorously. “You sure you don’t wanna come?” she asked right back.
He nodded as well. “But I do want to say a proper good-bye.” he said.
Rune took a step closer and all of a sudden, he kissed her.
Tori was surprised, but, somehow, not all that reluctant to kiss him back. She let her eyes close and smiled. This was indeed a proper good-bye.
After a few moments, they broke apart.
Eyes still closed, Tori heard him say, “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” she asked dreamily.
“That you were a spy and a traitor.” he said simply.
+-+-+-+
*hides from angry shippers and readers going "OMGHOLYSHITWTFWASTHAT?!!"*
Quote of the Day: "Is it a young adult vampire romance novel?"
~June