t h i r t y - f o u r

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Lissom fingers pattered against the wooden table in rhythms of three, bored and restless

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Lissom fingers pattered against the wooden table in rhythms of three, bored and restless. With one hand plopped under her chin, and the other drumming away at the surface of the desk, Tahlia's gaze remained impatiently fixated on the empty little podium in the front of the class.

With over fifteen minutes past the scheduled class time, the professor wasn't here yet. That was unusual. Professor Turner put a lot of emphasis on being on time, tardiness was not something she tolerated, neither was she herself ever late for class.

But then again, there was also the fact that everything Tahlia had come to have known about her could have very well been a lie.

The past week and a half, 10 days since the little incident with Turner took place, Tahlia spent discreetly looking into her life as much as she possibly could.

Professor Lauren Evangeline Turner started her job at the University 11 years ago. In her years of being part of the faculty, she had managed to establish her position as an upstanding and indispensable asset to the board and the entire Criminology department;

Indispensable enough to persuade the administration to start making private donations to The Westerly Sanatorium For the Clinically Insane 3 years ago.

Indispensable enough to initiate a physical placement project for the department of Criminal Psychology that had never been done before, 2 years ago.

The first year, sophomore students got assigned to observe perpetrators in the County Prison.
The second year however, the new batch of sophomores were incidentally placed not only in the prison, but also the Sanatorium.

"I'm out."

An exasperated voice captured her attention. She turned to Jace to see him getting up. It wasn't just him, a bunch of students were starting to empty the hall, probably tired of waiting.

"The least she could do was send a message if she was gonna cancel class. Man, I could've slept in till 10."
He grumbled, running a hand through his light honey hair.

Tahlia furrowed her brows, "But she always sends a mail in advance. Why didn't she do it today? Isn't that...weird?"

"I don't know dude, she might be hungover. If I was a frigid bitch with a stick up my ass, I'd drink myself to sleep too." He scoffed, probably still bitter about the fact that Turner gave him a bad grade for the last project.

But Tahlia's mind wasn't at rest.
As students began leaving in hoards, Tahlia could only sit deep in sundry thoughts. It never registered that she was biting down on her nails as she let her imagination run wild.

What if she skipped town?

Or what if the FBI had caught on?

The Westfield Police had been astronomically incompetent all this while, but the Feds were not a joke.

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