The Lost One

Chapter 2

Aislinn didn't stir as she sat in the headmaster's study. Her face was blank, devoid of even a hint of emotion. She did not move. Did not react in the slightest as the man's nasally voice filled the space around her. She was not ignoring the man per say, more she just had absolutely no interest in anything he had to say, or had had to say ever. Aislinn had sat in this chair 692 other times. 692 times she had sat as this weak human man had talked, shouted, threatened, argued, and reprimanded her. Although she doubted the man himself knew the exact number. But she did. Just as she knew the titles of every book on the shelf behind his high-backed chair. She resisted the urge to sigh, her breath leaving on the barest whisper, eyes flicking just slightly to the side.

693.

This was number 693.

693 since she had first arrived. She had about the same level of interest in what this man or any of these people had to say or thought as when she had first arrived. She almost sighed again, re-reading the titles once more. She didn't even need to move her eyes to recite them all perfectly, authors and publishers all. Irritation spiked, but she shoved the traitorous emotion down. Her muscles wanted to shift on the hard chair, she ignored them.

Her only lingering interest in any of this ongoing drama was the ridiculous idea that somehow these people still thought they could convince her otherwise. It was amusing - in not in a vague and simplistic way. It helped pass the time at least.

She knew it had been speculated by many that she had not heard a single thing that she had been told in her five years at the academy. A correct assumption in the most abstract way possible. Their belief that it was because she could not understand or process anything happening outside of herself was of course utterly incorrect, in her mind she snorted to herself as the balding man continued to drone on. She tuned him out.

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It was not a lack of awareness or intellect that kept her from paying attention, rather a simple choice. Their words, ideas, stories, thoughts, concerns, them themselves just held no interest or purpose to her plans. They were merely obstacles that she had been forced to endure for a few years while she was locked away at the academy. Why would she then spare them her energy or attention?

The academy. Internally Aislinn sighed again, no outward sign was visible to the hairless doughy man who dribbled on heedless of her contempt and irritation. The academy was an orphanage for abandoned girls. Human girls at that. The fact that Aislinn had been forced to live there for the last five years, a werewolf at a human orphanage, was beyond ridiculous. And frustrating. However, changing that fact never actually mattered to her plans, so despite the absurdity of it all she simply let the human police place her away. Allowing herself to be hidden from her world, from all her kind for five years.

But, today was her last day.

At 18 she could finally legally leave the academy behind her. Today, she could take the first steps, steps she had been working on for the last five long years. Steps that led to one thing; vengeance.

And so, she sat as the headmaster babbled away about safety issues, and concerns, a last ditch attempt to get the girl to acknowledge that she needed to stay at the academy for her own well-being. A few months before they had attempted to get her classified as incompetent and committed, however they had no grounds. Especially when they had had specialist test her and she had shocked everyone by scoring off the charts on every scale. With no legal way to hold the girl any longer the headmaster was left with no choice except to let her leave.

He wasn't happy.

She didn't notice.

The hour dragged on as the man continued to talk to her like she was a mere toddler. He went on and on, explaining the risks and challenges that an orphan with no money, family, or education would face outside the protection of the academy. The girl merely sat. Unwavering. Unmoving. She did not even watch the man or look around the room. Her eyes were hooded, void. They did not stare or gaze. In fact except for the literal fact the she sat in one of the worn leather high back chairs, there was no indication that the girl was even in the room. And really, in every way that counted, she was not.

To some the nearly two-hour lecture would have been torturous, boring and infuriating. However, the girl had endured worse. Even the five long years she had spent at the academy was not excruciating. Tedious and erroneous; Yes. Excruciating? No.

Even though it was only this day that had kept her going every minute of her time at the home, the knowledge of her freedom that was now finally within her grasp, the time itself was not the horror that others would perhaps perceive. No, Aislinn had known true horror. She had known, and felt true suffering, and this place even with its punishments, bullies and sublimation could never even begin to compare.

At the thought of the time before a gruesome smile arose within the girl. Nothing changed on the outside but beneath her unperturbed and vacant façade the girl felt as her blood boiled. As fury and rage consumed her every fiber, burning along ever vein, cell, and inch of her body. She did not feel hatred. She did not consider vengeance. She was it. Reborn in rage and made of violence, the girl had waited. Counting down the days until she could unleash herself once and for all. The hell that they had made her, bought and paid for, and not brought once and for all against their flesh.

Finally, the older man stopped talking, letting out a long resigned sigh he shook his head at the girl sitting across from him. He waited for a minute, hoping for anything from her. Shaking his head once again when he received nothing not even eye contact. With reluctance he shoved the papers that had been sitting in front of him across the worn surface of his desk to the girl.

Aislinn did not glance at the papers, instead she merely picked up the pen that sat in front of her and signed her name at the bottom. Well not her name. Not even the name she had given herself when she was reborn. No. No paper in this academy held the name Aislinn. Instead she signed the name they had given her at the age of thirteen when she had been placed in their care. When she had first refused to speak they had threatened that they would rename her if she did not give them some indication of what she was called. It did not matter what they said in those first three months. What they never seemed to understand was that she did not care what these people called her. In fact, she cared nothing about these people. She did not know their names and she did not care for them to know hers. They had ended up calling her Sarah. Sarah Smith. And so, it was this name that she signed to the papers that would officially mean her time at the academy was done.

Thirty minutes later. Aislinn was dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans, a black long sleeved tee and black Keds, a black backpack slung over one shoulder as she made her way into the woods that stretched along the back of the academy's property. Leaving the awful building and everything it meant behind her. As soon as it was out of sight it slipped from her memory, it held nothing of her or for her, and she doubted she would ever be able to recall a single detail of her time there. It had been merely a time of pausing, a small rest that was now over. Her steps never faltered and her eyes never left the path before her.