Sanctuary

Chapter Seven - Senna

"Detention?" Nami repeated, her voice echoing off the glossy walls of the living room. Senna flinched. "Senna, you've only been in school for a week! How do you already have detention!?"

"I couldn't help it! I didn't even do anything wrong! Everyone at school is just mean!" Senna shouted back.

"You had to have done something, Senna! These points didn't put themselves on your card!" Nami shouted back, waving around the pink detention slip.

"Alright, fine! You want to know how I got the points? The first one I got by asking a question! The second one I got because a hall monitor made me late to class! And I got the one today because I was trying to tell the teacher that the dome diagrams he was showing the class were wrong! Totally outdated!"

"First of all, you don't get points for asking questions!"

"You apparently do if you ask them when you have them!"

"Secondly, a hall monitor did not make you late to class!"

"He told me not to run! I had to run, Gym class is on another floor!"

"Thirdly, if you had listened to the lecture, I'm sure the teacher would have. . ."

"It was wrong! Since the domes were re-designed by Kagerou Sato. . ."

"Senna, stop it!"

"I don't even know what detention is!" Senna finally shouted with a stomp of her foot. "I hate this stupid school and every angry stupid person in it! You said it would be better!"

"It would be better if you paid attention to the rules!"

"I would if someone would tell them to me before I got in trouble!"

Senna couldn't remember ever having been so angry in her life. She had never yelled at her mother like that—and she was sorry for it—but she couldn't seem to stop. All she wanted was for her to listen!

Senna stormed out, running on the angry energy that had taken up residence in her and made her stomach hurt and her eyes burn. She hit the button on the elevator, aware of her mother yelling after her, but not processing a word that was being said. She stomped down the retracting hall to her room, though there was no longer anyone around to see her do it. The aperture door hissed to a close behind her and she threw herself onto the bed and buried her face into her pillow. She screamed into the fluff, kicking her legs up and down in a fit of boiled over frustration, until the steam from it died out and left her on the edge of tears. A hiccup of a sob rose out of her.

She hadn't meant to get in trouble, but everyone was acting like she was a terrible person and she hated it. Her mother should have understood. She should've known that the whole thing had been an accident – a mistake, but she thought she was a hooligan, too.

That hurt the most.

The com on Senna's wall chimed with a blink of its little blue light. Senna grumbled as she pulled her face up from the pillow, her cheeks stained with tears, her eyes rimmed red, and stray strands of runaway hair dangling in her face. She pouted at the panel defiantly, as if the expression alone would be able to send a message back over the speaker. Go away. I don't want to talk about it.

The bell chimed again and Senna groaned, pulling herself up off the bed. She pressed the response button with a bare finger, her gloves long since ripped off and discarded on the floor by her bed, along with her face mask.

"What?" The word came out sharper than intended.

"Hello Senna. Can I talk to you for a moment?"