Imperfect Life: Arc 7

Chapter 14

A few days passed by with little importance, it was just the usual school routine for the most part, but now Crys woke up in the middle of the night once again, and unfortunately she had no choice but to stare down Seinhou.

Seinhou was sitting prominently in the chair just across the room, tall and imposing; he glared at Crys with what could only be described as disdain and malice. He clutched his weapon in one hand and kept it aimed directly at Crys' torso with a firm grip.

As soon as Crys saw Seinhou, her fight of flight kicked in and she became wide awake. She swiftly sat upright and glared at Seinhou in return. She noticed Seinhou looked much more serious than usual this time. His face was less relaxed and confident, instead it was much more intent and focused. She could tell this was not going to be a good conversation.

"What." Crys muttered with held back fury. She was done dealing with Seinhou's shenanigans.

"You know much more than you let on." Seinhou hissed. "You play sweet and innocent, but deep down you hide much from me."

"Like what?" Crys snapped back.

Seinhou scowled.

"You don't know." Crys grinned a little. She gave a small content chuckle. "You can't figure any of it out, can you? You need me to tell you."

"Unfortunately, your guardian angel has made sure to cover your dirty tracks as much as he could, so yes, I have to belittle myself and deal with you." Seinhou said.

Crys felt rather content, like she finally had the upper hand.

"Then again," Seinhou continued once Crys had her moment to feel proud, "you, of course, are the source of it all, so who better to go to?"

Crys' small smile she didn't realize she had faded away.

"Now then, tell me." Seinhou demanded calmly.

"Oh yeah? About what?" Crys muttered, not giving up so easily.

"Karen, the former CEO of Techno Corp., Case Omega, your devoted cult, the robot, all of it." Seinhou sneered.

Crys scoffed. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because if you do not, then your boyfriend will." Seinhou calmly explained.

"He doesn't know about any of it!" Crys thought on the fly.

"He knows you are a werewolf, I am certain of that, and therefore it reasons that he would know about your misadventures."

"I leave him out of it all as much as I can."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I don't willingly put my friends into danger. I deal with things myself."

"Keeping secrets must be rough on your relationships with them. Especially when the son of the woman you killed doesn't even know you are responsible."

Crys narrowed her eyes. Mentally, she sighed a breath of relief. She knew she couldn't let herself look relieved, but she now knew that Seinhou definitely didn't know about Tomas knowing, and it was probably safe to assume Emma as well. They were safe. That was what mattered right now. "I don't care." She lied.

"Of course you don't." Seinhou replied, not buying it, but not caring regardless.

"None of them know anything." Crys reaffirmed strongly.

"Perhaps I should ask your boyfriend myself and be the judge of that." Seinhou threatened.

Crys snarled. "Leave him out of this. You're here for me, not him."

Seinhou smiled a little. "Of course." He said. "Now, tell me, why did you kill Karen?"

"I didn't kill her." Crys said firmly.

"Denial."

"I. Did not. Kill her."

"Perhaps I did not make myself clear."

"No matter what you say, what you threaten, that won't change the fact I didn't do it whether you like it or not!" Crys butted in.

Seinhou observed Crys for a moment silently. "Then how did you kill Case Omega?" He shifted the topic.

"I don't know any Case Omega." Crys said, annoyed.

"The werewolf you killed on top of the tower." Seinhou said with annoyance of his own.

Crys just glared at Seinhou, hoping it would bait him into explaining more.

"We call him Case Omega since he has no proper name." Seinhou explained.

Crys would've smiled cheekily if it wouldn't be giving her away.

"We had been tracking him for years. He had always been just one step ahead, always outsmarting us by the slightest bit and managing to escape, but then he winds up here, in this city, and the very night he finally puts himself out in the open a teenager manages to kill him. A teenager." Every word Seinhou said was filled with seething disdain. "So explain to me how you managed to kill that monster."

"Luck." Crys said firmly.

"Luck? Luck!?" Seinhou sounded furious, finally losing his temper before quickly recomposing himself. "So, is that all it took was a little luck? You just happened to stumble across the most dangerous lycanthrope in recent history and got lucky?"

"I'm not telling you a thing." Crys sneered.

Seinhou took a moment. He did nothing. He didn't even twitch. He simply processed his thoughts.

As Seinhow processed his thoughts, Crys thought back to the night she dealt with that werewolf. She recalled every minor detail. The cloud of antidote on the rooftop spilling over the edges, the werewolf towering over her with its sharpened fangs and claws ready to slaughter her, the glass prodding into her feet as she desperately hoped her barely thought out plan would save her, the split second decision to shove, and finally, her holding her ears shut as she breathed as loud as she could to try and drown out the agony from just below the roof's ledge. In her mind she could still see it crisp as ever, the image of the werewolf's lifeless body hanging limp from the lightning rod it was impaled on. That night haunted her. She despised Seinhou bringing it up. She hated the implication that she was better than some secret organization for surviving. She knew she would have died if it weren't for the glass distracting the werewolf just long enough for her to do something.

"How exactly did this luck work?" Seinhou asked, sounding like he was holding in his anger.

"Look, I don't care what you say! I don't care that I'm just a teenager, okay! I didn't try and fight that werewolf face to face! I didn't stand a chance! I was being tossed around like I was nothing! I barely escaped with my life, and yeah, I was lucky! I don't have to explain myself to you! I was lucky to get out of there alive, and maybe if you were actually smart you could have figured out how it happened, but instead you need me to spell it out for you because you just can't do it on your own!" Crys snapped, feeling nothing but pure emotion. Tears were welling up in her eyes as the trauma flooded back to her.

Seinhow did not move. He did not speak. He did nothing.

Crys felt the same wave of sudden exhaustion that she had every time prior and she fell back to a deep sleep in an instant.

Waking up in the morning, Crys didn't get up. She just continued to lay in bed and began to cry.