Played For A Fool

Goodbye

Cinder was so behind in her schoolwork. She had missed three days while she had been trying to find a place and knew that she would need some help from Iko to catch up. As the school bell rang, Cinder went to go and find Iko by her locker. As she was walking down the hall she saw Kai and gasped. He was not his normal pristine smiling self, but gloomy and a complete mess.

His hair was even messier than usual, but not in a good way. Like he hadn't brushed or washed it in days. His normally bright copper eyes were red like he hadn't been sleeping and had deep purple shadows beneath them. He was shuffling down the hall when some random girl came and said, "I'm so sorry about your loss."

What did that mean? His mother had died years ago and Cinder knew that Kai only lived with his father. That's when Cinder saw Iko and hurried to her.

"Iko!" Iko turned and looked at Cinder, "What's wrong with Kaito Prince?" Iko looked at her, confused. It was like Cinder had asked a stupid question and Cinder hunched her shoulders defensively.

Iko sighed. "You haven't seen the news, I guess. I mean, you've been moving the past few days." She looked at Cinder straight in the eyes and her face was grave as she said, "Rikan Prince has letumosis."

That shocked Cinder. Rikan Prince has letumosis? No, that couldn't be right. He was one of the lead scientists on the cure for letumosis, he wouldn't get sick. He seemed so invincible, so powerful. "That's horrible!" Cinder whispered.

"I can't believe that you didn't hear about it sooner! It's literally been all over the news!" Iko exclaimed, "Poor Kaito, first his mom and now his dad. No wonder he's such a mess."

Cinder turned her head to look at Kaito again and could see the throng of people around him, obviously trying to comfort him, but failing miserably. Cinder could tell that he just wanted to be alone. Cinder knew that's how she felt when Peony had become sick and she felt another pang of sadness for her dying sister.

Iko looked at her sympathetically and Cinder tried to compose herself as she asked the question that she had come for. "Iko," Cinder began, "I was wondering if I could borrow some of your notes from science and math and those kinds of classes, because I've missed the past few days." Cinder and Iko didn't have very many classes together, but all of the classes learned the exact same thing and she and Iko had mostly the same teachers, so she figured she would be safe asking Iko.

Iko nodded and opened her backpack. She pulled out a bunch of different folders and pulled different papers out of each one. Stars, Iko was so organized. Cinder's backpack was a mess of everything and her garage was already just as bad.

She thanked Iko, then walked outside to her old, musty car. As she was driving home, her phone buzzed but she ignored it. It was probably just some angry client wondering why her shop was vacant without a single sign explaining where she had gone.

Her garage was actually coming together better than Cinder could have hoped. Of course she would try and get her own place as soon as possible, but the garage was nice. She had most of it devoted to her workshop and had plenty of new projects to work on since coming to work for Thorne.

Cinder sighed and decided to look through her email, prepared for a bunch of angry clients. Her face paled as she saw a message from the hospital. That could only mean one thing, the one thing Cinder dreaded above all others, but knew would come. She opened the letter and inside is read:

Lihn Family,

We are sorry to announce that at 15:16, Peony Lihn entered the third stage of letumosis. We will update you when miss Lihn's condition changes.