Polaris

Interrogation

-Luka-

Under my propped-up book, I was furiously typing away at my tablet. The teacher's voice had turned into background noise, with how hard I was focusing.

"So their stocks will probably crash...soon." I concluded my research soon after, before letting out a satisfied sigh. Looking up, I noticed nearly half the class falling asleep while the teacher turned a blind eye.

So this was high school. How serene.

It'd been a week or two after I gifted a promise ring to Blaine, and I'd gone on an assigned mission afterwards, so this was practically my first day back at school since then.

Well, a lot of things happened there. If Blaine was there, then he'd realise that whenever I told him I was insane, I truly wasn't lying.

__________

I stood panting, suit covered in blood. I tapped at my ear. "Echo — Advance. Lima — Clean up."

I turned away, only to be stopped by an older member of the family. "Lima. You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" I laughed a little. Everything I could see was yellow. My electric sight betrayed my inner state of mind to be frazzled and unstable, because my eyes were uncontrollably glowing and turned into slits.

"Well, maybe because you've been repressing yourself for the boy?" Echo— or Mabel, the leader of Team Echo, patted at my shoulder. She had turned off her earpiece, and so did I.

"Repressing? Not repressing. Just afraid." I laughed easily. It was easy to talk to her because I wasn't in the right frame of mind then.

"Afraid of?"

"Scaring him away, of course. Look at me right now and tell me someone like him wouldn't be scared." I was prone to major emotional fluctuations whenever I was in this situation, and started finding her rather annoying.

"Sorry, Lima. I get it now. But as a woman, I think you should be truthful. All ladies love a man who's open to convo." Mabel was good at deducing tones and in extension, deriving the emotional state of the other person, and hence knew how to steer the conversation well.

"I get it, I know." I sighed, trying to keep calm. "I haven't been restricting myself just because of him. I just haven't had the need to tell him I kill people now, too."

"When will that need arise, then? When he catches you bludgeoning a man to death with the back of a gun?" She gestured to the gun I was holding, its back covered in blood amongst other unsavoury components. I blinked.

"It'll be alright, but so what if it isn't? I have my ways of making him stay." I smiled. Mabel narrowed her eyes. "Lima, honey, please calm down. Just because you're our leader doesn't mean you get to imprison innocent people."

"Sure, whatever you say."

"Lima." Her tone held a warning. "Maybe it's the adrenaline talking, but I'll stop you if I have to."

I breathed in, closing my eyes.

Should I kill her?

No— the rational part of my brain finally surfaced after my attempts to repress it. Mabel was saying this for my good. She'd protect Blaine, then. If she could say such words.

Blaine...

Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, Blaine—

I suddenly burst into laughter. Mabel watched me silently, frowning. Her hand tightened around her weapon, and her foot shifted. She was really preparing to fight me.