Target To Save

Chapter 1 Part 3

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Ida B. Wells Academy stood with white brick, glaring at everyone who passed. In the middle of the large lawn, sat a fountain with swans. This is to say, IBWA was a rich school, with tall polished statues and kids, and graceful decorations throughout. It stood in the middle of the Avgrim: two miles from the capital, four from the nice housing, and twenty from the most populated and largest area, the area that Ivalin lived in, where the runaways, the workers, the ordinary people that kept the city running lived. It was twenty miles from where the buildings crumbled, rats raced each other, and dirt held the air..

Ivalin froze for a minute wondering how she was going to save anybody, but she took a deep breath, and marched in. The halls were still. She paused at the front desk where a woman sat perched at desk, typing. The woman didn't look up.

"Hello." Ivalin gave a short wave, conscious of how isolated they were. The walls echoed with their breathing, there was no one watching, no one to keep them in check. Ivalin blinked, and refocused on the ordinary woman. She couldn't help but to check to see if the woman had the brands, and then cursed herself. If the woman was an assassin, she wouldn't show them, she would hide them away like they all did. Her shoulders relaxed, and she had to remind herself where she was, an innocent highschool.

The woman kept typing, her green eyes trained on the screen. Ivalin forced herself not to clench her jaw, and brushed away the thought that everything seemed more important than her.

"I'm new here." Reluctantly, she tried again. Part of her wondered if everyone was like this. She didn't remember people being quite so rude, "I'm Ivalin?".

The woman's eyes shifted up to the assassin. She glared for a second. "Last name?"

Ivalin bit her lip. "Vills, ma'am."

"Grade?"

"Tenth, ma'am."

"You're the transfer?" The woman raised a thin arching eyebrow. "A month late, huh?"

Honey dripped off of Ivalin's sweet smile. "Yes ma'am."

A bell rang, and teenagers filed in. They laughed, well manicured, well fed. Ivalin tore her gaze away. She gave the woman more useless information that was fabricated for the job like her age, who her guardian was, yet her eyes inched their way back to the students. A beautiful girl with just enough makeup walked past, her heels clicking in Ivalin's head. A posse followed. A kid with large glasses and an even larger sweater ducked past. Movement startled her, and Ivalin snapped her head to a laminated schedule that was fluttering in the manicured hands of the secretary. Her eyes narrowed on the paper.

The woman's head rose above the computer as she raised her voice at a boy in a letterman jacket. "Mr. Scottsburrow."

The boy shook off his friends, with a hearty laugh. "Ms. Jacklyn. What's up?"

He had a large dopish grin, and he winked at every girl that passed. All the boys seemed to flock around him, and he seemed to be the main attraction of the hallway. He let himself be pushed around by the crowd. His smile seemed bigger than his brain, but he had muscles that hid in the letterman jacket he wasn't supposed to have in the first place.

Ivalin's nose wrinkled; muscles aren't the winning factor in a fight. Most of the time, it's want, the desire to win. That, and of course, talent. She shook her head because the information was useless: she was in a highschool, not a gladiator ring, and she wasn't with the Bleeding Hearts anymore.

The boy's eyes passed over Ivalin, dismissive. Ivalin bit her tongue. Ms. Jacklyn didn't seem bothered by his behaviour. "You will make sure Miss. Vills gets to class on time. Am I clear?"