Absolute

6

• O W E N •

I checked my watch hurriedly, scowling as I took a mental minute to read the time as I still couldn't just glance and know. I'd chosen the watch because I thought the little mental break to figure out the time would do me good. Sean always says I'm working too hard.

But after two years of owning the same watch I'd expected better of myself. To have at least learned the basic skill of telling time at a glance.

But I hadn't, and I was annoying myself.

I was frustrating myself out of concentration, and so even though I needed the time I let my hand fall and focused on my breathing instead. It would do my no good to let Hendricks or McCoy know that I was anything but calm and collected.

Why they insisted on a meeting during a Saturday morning was beyond me. They surely didn't seem interested in working during the school hours so I wasn't sure what their motive in a Saturday meeting would be.

I resisted the urge to pull out my cellphone. Partly because I didn't want the time to laugh at me in digital form, and partly because when they arrived I wanted to appear to have been waiting on them, and then alone.

To be on my phone would suggest I didn't mind waiting. To remain distractionless and alert when they deemed fit to arrive would send a message.

I watched the door to the meeting room for the next few minutes, before sighing loudly and leaning back in my chair.

"This is ridiculous, I have better things to be doing."

Before I'd made it out of the doorway, Victor was there, headset still on. He looked mildly disgruntled.

"It's over half an hour since they should have shown up," Victor said as we walked down the empty halls of Ashley Waters together.

To put it kindly, the place was a shit show.

If the two people in charge weren't a good enough example of that, then I wasn't sure what the school board was looking for. There must be something deeper going on than poor leadership to have called us in.

The problem is nobody knows anything more than the school is loosing money and they're considering shutting it down. The children will then be sorted between the neighboring high schools according to distance. The thought was infuriating, especially knowing that those schools were just barely scraping by as is.

"It was a ploy, they wasted part of my morning," I said smoothly. The second part was true at least.

Victor nodded along and started talking about the logistics but I waved my hand, loosening my tie a bit.

"Disregard, what's the status update on the bird they found lurking Mr. Griffin's residence?"

Victor hesitated, and it was moments like these that I wondered if the parameters I'd set in regards to my relationship with the others were hurting us in the long run.

It was necessary, I reminded myself lightly.

But if I hadn't... well, would I be just as informed as Victor? I watched the way they interacted with each other a lot, and they shared information with each other so fluidly. Of course they shared with me too, but it had been turned into more of a report rather than sharing.