The Things We Do (Under Editing)

Infamous

I was used to staring into the eyes of people who meant to tear me down. I didn't have a very good history of surrounding myself with people who didn't want to hurt me, and usually I could stand my ground against the darkness in their gaze. Storm's eyes threw me off, though. Despite the icy fury he'd stared me down with, there'd been no hatred. I'd received worse looks from people I'd called friends or more.

As much as I didn't want to spend my free time dealing with the problems from my extra credit work, I never like not having answers. My ceiling didn't have those answers, no matter how much I stared at it. My alarm clock didn't offer them either when it went off. Continuing to ponder was pointless, so I pushed my questions to the back of my mind and dragged myself out of bed.

My first two classes offered me an opportunity to forget everything else and pretend I was a normal college student for a while. Normally they weren't my favorite classes, but I was becoming grateful for their existence.

Afterward, Kacie was waiting for me in the library as usual. We both had a break in classes between 10 and 11, which wasn't enough time to go anywhere else, so this was as good a place as any to hang out. Most days I walked in to find her curled up in an armchair with her skirt tucked around her legs so she could pull her knees close to her chest. This time, though, she was slumped over a table so that her chin rested on it. Both arms were stretched out in front of her, holding her phone. Her light purple hair half obscured her face.

I leaned on the table next to her and tilted my head to look at her face. She didn't look up. Next I tried waving my hand in front of her face. She shooed me away. Giving up, I sat next to her, stealing an earbud and turning my attention to her phone.

One of her favorite youtubers was covering the recent rise in crime in the city, including the deaths caused by Storm and Phantom Banshee's kidnapping of Anna Gray. According to him, Lenoir had been a hotspot for masked criminals for the last 27 years, but if the activity continued to rise at the rate it had been for the last couple of months, it would shoot higher than ever before and keep on going. He speculated on why there had been no real ransom demands for the girl, not considering the real reason of me just not having time to come up with any, and commented on the coverage the story was getting. It was becoming a topic of interest across the entire country.

The video finished and Kacie just kept staring at her screen.

"It's just so awful. I can't imagine what could make someone take a child like that, much less point a gun at her."

I thought of Wraith and asked a similar question to myself: What made a person turn against humanity to the point of finding enjoyment in their suffering? "If I could answer that, I'd have answers to a lot of questions."

Kacie finally looked up at me, but I was no longer willing to meet her eyes. "The bad people we face just make the good people that much more special and important." She was talking about much less recent issues now, but I was ready to let those memories die.

I managed the rest of my day without having to face anymore of my demons. Elliot didn't show up to our classes, so I didn't have to fight him for the seat in the back corner. The only time I had to interact with people was when one of my professors split us into groups to work on an assignment for ten minutes. One class, lunch, another class, and then I had nothing left to do but face Phantom Banshee's problems.

First and foremost I had to take food to Anna. When I'd gone down to take her breakfast, she'd either still been asleep or was pretending to be. I'd lit a new candle to replace the one that had burned out over the night and given her fresh water. Every time I went down, I hated how much caring for this little girl played out like caring for a pet. I needed to demand a ransom soon.

Mask in place, I slipped into the tunnel with a sandwich I had snagged from the dining hall at lunch. It wasn't the highest quality food, but if the students could survive off it all school year then she could manage for a few days. Still, most days I would compare it to cardboard, so it was probably a whole lot worse than when she was used to.

By the time the beam of my flashlight caught the metal post, I had figured out something was wrong. A quick scan of the area told me I was right. I wouldn't need to demand a ransom or worry about feeding Anna, because she was gone.