Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

“What?”

Alex’s jaw hung open in frank astonishment.

“Michael isn’t going to fight for you, or even with you, Alex,” Alice said bluntly. “Michael is going to teach you what he can, and he’ll do the best possible job of it. But once you are in the field, Michael will be back here at the Academy with the next generation of promising youngsters. Nobody can make that kind of decision for you,” Alice warned him, “no matter how good their intentions. Or your own. You have to take ownership of your life, eventually.”

Rebecca nodded, looking sadly back at her cigarettes, sitting back on the window sill, where she’d left them.

“Alice is right, Alex,” Rebecca said. “This is something you have to decide for yourself.”

Michael looked helplessly from one woman to the other, eyes blazing, but neither one would meet his eyes. Alex shook his head and looked glum.

“Well, then I don’t know enough about it to make the decision,” he snapped. “It’s not even a fair question. But, I do know that if you smoke another cigarette in here, Rebecca, that I am leaving,” he added crossly.

Rebecca froze, her expression wounded.

“Why is it that no one respects my office?” Rebecca slumped into her chair in resignation. “First people start coming here to have arguments, now students are telling me I’m not allowed to smoke. What’s next? Enforced nap time?”

Michael stood up.

“Well, I think this is settled for now…” he began, turning towards the door.

“What’s settled, exactly?”

Alice’s tone was jovial, but Alex was starting to notice something about the tall woman’s smile. It was off, somehow. Whatever a smile was supposed to be — warm, bright, inviting, comforting, whatever — Alice’s expression was the polar opposite of that. The last thing you wanted to see.

The last thing, Alex reminded himself, that any number of people had seen, if even half the stories were true.

Michael paused on his way to the door, but didn’t look back at Alice.

“Alex said he doesn’t understand what we’re talking about,” Michael said calmly. “Until he does, this discussion is pointless.”

Alice sat down next to Alex on the couch, and gave him a friendly pat on the knee.

“Here, I’ll make it simple,” Alice suggested. “Alex, you remember the Weir who attacked you and Mitzi in the park?”

Rebecca’s jaw almost hit the floor, though again, no one seemed to notice. After a moment, she decided the expression was wasted without an audience, and quietly closed her mouth.

“Did you call Mitsuru…?”

Again, no one paid her any attention. Rebecca had to fight the impulse to go and check to see if her name was still on the office door.

“Did you like that?” Alice asked Alex, inspecting his face like she actually expected him to look happy. “Did you like lying there while Mitsuru did all the work?”

Alex stared at her, eyes wide.

“Um…” he muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t really…”

“Damn it, Alice.”

Michael glared at Alice, but she paid him no mind.

“Or did you like being saved, Alex?”

Alice pushed one finger against his chest playfully.

“It makes things a whole lot easier, when you are the victim. Everything is black and white, and nobody ever expects anything else from you.”

Alex pushed her hand away, clearly annoyed.

“Of course not,” Alex said, his voice trembling. “I didn’t want any of that stuff to happen. But it isn’t like I had any options.”

Alice stood up and smiled at Michael triumphantly.

“And if he gets his way,” Alice said ominously, pointing at Michael, “that’s exactly how things will stay. You’ll never have any options. You’ll never be able to protect anyone, Alex, not even yourself. Instead, you’ll get to watch your friends die protecting you.”

Michael’s fist slammed into the door frame, causing everyone but Alice to jump.

“No need to get pissy,” Alice said lightly, rummaging briefly through her coat pocket before coming up with a folded piece of paper. “I already talked to Alistair and got permission. You keep training him however you like, Michael,” she said, eyes sparkling. “I’m going to have Mitzi put him through the Program. Out of your jurisdiction.”

“Not a chance,” Michael said firmly. “I’ll go over your head, straight to the Director if I have to.”

“Then go talk to Gaul,” Alice said, shrugging. “He’ll back me on this. We all know that this is too personal for you to make an impartial decision.”

“Uh, what Program?” Alex asked softly, afraid to actually interrupt. “Is that bad? Am I in trouble?”

“Alice, you’re insane,” Michael growled. “Rebecca, say something.”

Rebecca smiled ruefully.

“Actually, I’ve been talking pretty much the entire time…”

Rebecca trailed off when she realized that no one was listening to her. Alice dropped the paper on the floor in front of Michael, shrugged, and started for the door.

“It’s quite simple, Alex,” Alice said over her shoulder. “You can do things Michael’s way. You don’t have to make a choice. But, if you want out of the Program — and you will — then I suggest you find a way to impress me with your personal development. Because it doesn’t end until I say. And I won’t say, until you’ve learned to take care of yourself, at the very least.”

Alice turned back towards the door, and motioned for Michael, still frozen, one fist pressed up against the door jam, to stand aside.

“Move it, Mikey,” Alice said, jerking her thumb to the side. “I’ve got things to take care of.”

“Thanks for stopping by, you guys,” Rebecca hinted.

Michael’s arm didn’t move, but his hand reddened where it pressed against the old wood of the door frame.

“Have to go practice being a cunt?”

Michael spoke through gritted teeth, his arm falling reluctantly to his side.

“You think I still need practice?” Alice asked, smiling as she squeezed past him and out into the hall.

Emily had her hair up in curlers, and was about halfway done with her eyebrows, when Margot came into the otherwise empty dorm bathroom, wrapped in a bathrobe and looking like she had just woken, and wasn’t too pleased about it, a yellow plastic basket with her toiletries hanging from one hand. She walked over to the long faux-marble counter and set her stuff down on the sink and mirror combo next to Emily’s, giving her a nod. Emily smiled at her and then went back to tweezing her eyebrow. She waited until Margot had started taking the top off a bottle of facial cleanser before she snuck a look at her halo.

There were all sorts of ways, as Emily understood it, for empaths to realize their talent. Some of them saw emotions as colored auras surrounding people, others heard music associated with a specific emotional state, while some particularly unlucky empaths even experienced a mirror-image of the emotions that they sensed around them. Emily, being only moderately unlucky, saw what she called halos — a roughly circular hollow ring of colored smoke that floated above people’s heads. She couldn’t see them all the time; she’d had to learn how to look them, and the halos were even more difficult to see here at the Academy, where almost everyone had been taught to resist such things. But, if Emily tried hard, most the time, she could see it, at least a little bit.

Margot’s halo was thin and reedy, almost broken in places, but that was normal for her. Her halo was a uniform grey-blue, which in Emily’s own personal interpretation, indicated either apathy or a tremendous ability to control her emotions. For Margot, this too was normal.