These Broken Tears || Kotlc

Chapter Five: Marella

Marella sighed as she flipped through the pages of her newly written essay. It wasn't very good. . . . no, it was horrible. But how was she supposed to know the exact alignments of the stars in the Milky Way? She wished Sophie was here- it would make this go by a lot faster.

But as far as she knew, Sophie was off doing something crazily risky and dangerous and skipping school. Marella hadn't heard from her for about a week.

But this was so frustrating. How could she- a Pyrokinetic- be doing nothing at one of the most critical parts of this war? How could she- someone who had proved herself worthy by helping out dozens of times in the battles be suddenly neglected in the war? It wasn't fair.

After all, all her ability was useful for was war.

Marella gave up on her essay and flopped on her bed. She knew she couldn't entirely blame Forkle for this. She would be pretty freaked too if she had known someone who manifested as a Pyrokinetic and was training with some psycho. Maybe they all thought she had gone insane and was super dangerous and evil.

Yeah, having fire powers wasn't very fun. 

There was a sharp knock on her door. "Come in," Marella said in a bored tone, not really sure who would be knocking now.

The door squeaked open and Marella turned to glance at who had come in. Her stomach gave a little flippity flop as she saw Keefe, Sophie, Fitz, and Biana all standing in her doorway looking solemn.

Uh oh.

Sophie glanced at her friends before turning back to Marella, an anguished look on her face and said, "Marella, we need to talk."

"Okay," Marella said slowly, gesturing to come and sit. They all did so- hesitating slightly.

"Sooo, what do you need to talk to me about?"

Sophie glanced at Fitz who nodded, swallowed and said, "Well, um, something serious happened the other day.

Fitz nodded again, encouragingly- Sophie, however, looking nervous.

Marella was completely confused. "Okay, what?"

"There was a fire down in Mysterium- a really bad one. It- it burned about five shops to the ground, including Slurps and Burps."

Marella felt the color leave her face. Slurps and Burps? Burned to the ground? That was horrible! But it didn't explain her friends' anxious faces, none of them looking directly at Marella.

"That's horrible!" Marella exclaimed, "Who did it? Where are they now? When are we going after them to make them pay?"

Sophie finally met Marella's gaze. Her brown eyes were wide a fearful.

"Well. . . I wasn't there. . . but people said they saw you set the fires."

Dead silence. Marella couldn't even hear her own heartbeat- assuming it hadn't stopped in shock.

"W-what?" She glanced at Keefe who turned away, Fitz who avoided her gaze, Biana who scrunched her eyebrows- focused on a little bit of fuzz on the carpet, and finally back at Sophie.

Marella gave a little laugh- sure they were joking around. "You guys don't honestly believe that I would do that?" She looked at them again. None of them cracked a smile.

"You do. . ." her voice faded away. Then Marella started getting angry. "How can you trust that they saw me? Maybe they saw someone else- nobody really knows who I am anyway? How could they know- and you believe them! Who, WHO, said they saw me set those fires and reported it to you?!"

None of them answered her.

"Well?" Marella shouted.

Biana finally looked up. "Your mom."

***