The Drowning Girl

seven

"How can she be a ghost?"

I cocked my head at Gabriel's voice, his eyebrows furrowed from where he sat. "What's a ghost?"

"I thought you know about The Academy?" Axel asked me, his face scrunched like almost everyone's in the room. "You asked how many favors we were receiving for you."

"She what?" The man in the suit said to Axel, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. I cocked my head slightly at the confusion that rested predominantly on many of the other boys in the rooms faces.

"I heard you and Marc talking in the bathroom when I was hiding the first time." I answered Axel, my fingers tapping against my thumb. He stared at me, his eyes asking a million questions. I didn't know how to answer his questions though, hell I could barely figure out his questions.

"Smart girl." The older man was the one that had spoken, his hand reaching into his pocket before reaching for my own. I felt something slip from his palm to my own, my eyes remaining stoic as I placed it into my own pocket. "And look at that! Fantastic, I'm telling you. Any languages you speak deary? Any hobbies we might, uh, deem weird?"

I shot Sang a look, as much as I didn't know her that well she was my only confidant at this moment. "Just tell him the truth, trust me. It helps out in the long run."

I looked back to the older man, my lip rolling between my teeth as my fingers lightly touched my wrists underneath my sleeves. "Uh, well I can speak multiple languages? I can build and rebuild an engine, any engine, and I know how to work with computers. I know how to live outdoors, start a fire with nothing, I know some about medicine but mostly the way infection works and tends to spread throughout the human body. That's what I focused on, at least."

The room was silent, my eyebrows furrowing as I glanced around. Even Sang's eyes were wide, the green in them making them appear huge. His jaw was slightly slack, her eyes looking to the man with the glasses who looked like he had a baseball bat up his butt. "Holy crud."

"What languages?" Axels voice broke the room of its reverie, my nails slightly biting into my skin as his intense eyes stared at me.

"Uh, German, Spanish, Russian, French, American Sign Language, Binary, although I don't know if you count that as a language but I do. That stuff was super hard to learn and it took me forever. I speak rudimentary Dutch and Swahili, I'm learning Korean right now and then I hope to switch to Mandarin when I get to where I'm going. Maybe Bulgarian, I think their language is pretty close to Russian." I rambled slightly, my eyes staring at his the entire time.

"You speak Russian, and didn't tell me?" Raven had the audacity to look offended, his hand on his chest in a very un-Raven like fashion.

"And you've never seen Supernatural?" Axel asked me again, my eyes flickering from Raven back to him.

"I know it's a tv show, but thats mostly from listening to Corey speak." Corey beamed, his lips stretching across his face in such a cute manner.

"Wow." Thats all that Axel said, leaving the room very quiet in that moment as he looked at me.

"Now, Miss -"

"Just Rowena, Mr. Suit-Man." He grimaced slightly, sighing before shooting Sang a look.

"It's Mr. Blackbourne,"

"You can call him Owen Ro." I smiled at Marc, enjoying the ruffled look that overcame suit man.

"Please, Miss, what do you remember about that man? Volto, I mean." I looked at him, his hard eyes softening and shining just a little bit of vulnerability.

"He, he had dark eyes. Black eyes, actually. He was taller, lanky. Almost too skinny though, and he breathed heavily. It was still distorted through that stupid mask, but his hands were tan. Or at least the sliver I saw in between his gloves and sleeves." I wrinkled my nose as I glanced away from Owen, my eyes seeking out the comfort Axel strangely gave me.

It's okay.

I nodded before looking back to Owen, Sang's body moving closer to him. Her eyes looked scared, terrified, and I hated that the closest thing I had to a friend, acquaintance thing, was scared.

"He stunk of menthol, really badly, and something sweet like honey or something." His lip tilted up, nodding his thanks to me before looking back to the older doctor.

"I'd like to formally put in a request to adopt her, at the very least. She has produced so much help for us, and with Volto being close to us I'd like to make sure she is safe as well as Sang."

"The fuck you will Owen." My eyes snapped to where Brandon stood, his hand clenched at his side. "You're not touching her."

"I just want to make sure Volto doesn't get as close to her as Sang. Volto hasn't used physical harm on Sang, and I want to keep it that way." His silver eyes flashed at Brandon, my lips settling in a frown directed at him.

"How about you both shut up?" I spoke loudly, Owens eyes flickering to me in slight disbelief. "In case any of you forgot, I'm trying to leave this city, not get stuck here. Second of all, whoever this Volto dude is, he won't touch me again. The only reason he hit me in the first place, was because I was trying to distract him long enough and pissed him off. If I'm out of the city, dude won't touch me!"

"Except, Rowena, Volto already has his sights set on you." The man that smelt like strawberries stepped forward, gently handing me a white mask that looked like the one covering the guys face at the station.

I flipped it over, my name written in red on the back. It said You are next, my nose wrinkling as I dropped it onto the floor.

"Fucking great, fucking fantastic. Sure, let's get tangled up in the weird cult that has to "save everyone," and then find some weirdo hit man with a bad smoking habit coming after you. Great. Fantastic!" I muttered, running my hands through my hair as I glared up to the sky.

"You done?" North's booming voice was what drew my attention, my eyes snapping to his. "We're trying time protect you. You're lucky we're doing this, actually no, you're lucky Sang Baby gives a shit enough and that we care for her. If you left to some random town you'd end up on the streets, dead or worse."

I grit my jaw as Raven stood, his eye blazing as he reaching into his pants and pulled a small handgun out of his waistband. "Zakroy svoy bol'shoy tolstyy rot na vostok, poka ya tebya ne zastavil!"

My mouth opened, my eyes wide as I stared at him. The idiot had just threatened North, while calling him an idiot, and pulled a gun? Jesus fucking hell, was he wanting to get tackled?

"Raven!" I shouted at the same time as multiple other voices, Silas standing up as he stared at Raven with his own dark eyes.

Ravens eyes glanced over to me, anger barely contained within his dark eyes. I didn't understand yet why he was so upset, North hadn't really been wrong. "Raven, please. No guns."

He stared at me before grunting, lowering the gun from a white faced North. I heard a cry escape Sang as she ran to North, and I couldn't help the thoughts bubbling in my head.

Jealousy, cynicism, annoyance.

I hated myself right now.

"Look, I'll go back with the Toma team to their apartment, I'll heal. I'll get safe, but I want to help finding this guy. And then, I want my bus ticket, and my fake I.D's." The older doctor watched me, his face unmoving the entire encounter before nodding to me.

"You have my word, you'll get everything you've ever asked for."