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“No,” Jane says. “He did not have to participate in that absolute charade.”
Storm can hear the restrained annoyance in Jane’s voice. She feels bad. Even when she’s acting out as hard as she can, she never really intends to make Jane mad.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought it would be funny. I didn’t think it would end up like it did.”
“No, the notion of consequences is still a fresh one to you. I hope you learned something today, young lady. I do not know how many hard lessons you have left in your bottom in the short term.”
Storm can only agree with that sentiment. She has no idea either. She goes back to being quiet, and being tended to in a way that feels quite nice, really.
“I think that’s as much relief as you are going to get,” Jane muses when Storm is almost half asleep. “You can get up.” She taps her lightly on some unmarked skin to rouse her.
Storm crawls up and back, squirming into a position that’s halfway comfortable.
“Is it all over? I mean, is that… did that cover everything?” She gives Jane a hopeful look.
“Unfortunately not,” Jane says. “You have much to atone for still, young lady.”
Storm’s face falls, though she cannot truly pretend to be surprised. “You mean yesterday,” she says. “All that Basel stuff.”
“All that Basel stuff,” Jane agrees. “And then there’s me.”
“You?” Storm’s eyes widen in surprise. “What about you?”
“Knowing my place,” Jane says smoothly.
“Oh my god,” Storm groans, covering her face with her hands as the significance of those words sinks in. She’d entirely forgotten the whole incident with Penners. “Why do I make my life so hard?”
“That is a question for the ages, young lady. Now you can go stand yourself in the corner and reflect on what you’ve gotten yourself into, both what you’ve already received, and what is yet to come.”
Storm moves to do as she is told, taking up residence in the very same corner poor Penners once occupied. Fate, it seems, fucking loves irony.
9GROUNDED
Stuck being good for fear of the pain she will earn if she is not good, Storm is sitting on the back steps of the East Wing of the Birchbane. She’s not allowed outside, technically, but is the doorway outside? A little yes, but maybe a little no, too.
She has stolen one of the many nice cushions from inside the school, because even days after her birching there is absolutely no way she can bear sitting on the wood of the door frame with no padding. But this way her legs can stick out in the sun, and with her eyes half-closed she drinks in what’s left of the afternoon light until someone nudges her.
When she opens her eyes, she sees that it is Laura, the taciturn guard who caught her three days ago, and held her in place for the worst fucking beating of her life. She feels her face flame with embarrassment, being confronted by the woman who so easily brought her rampage to an end.Storm made Hannes look like an idiot, but Laura made her feel so damn small she feels herself shrinking under that gaze. Storm pulls her knees up to her chest and reflexively wraps her arms around them, curling up into a ball.
“Are you here to tell me I’m grounded from the outside?”
“No,” Laura says. “I am here to check on you.”
Storm has never heard Laura speak before. She is surprised to hear a deeper, raspier, but pleasingly resonant tone with a Swiss-German accent. It fits the woman perfectly, both her stature and her overall demeanor.
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
Laura nods.
“You are trouble,” she observes, bluntly.
Storm’s lips quirk a little, even as she dies a little inside. People have not stopped making comments to her about the whole birching debacle since it happened. The comments are almost worse than the punishment was. “Yeah. Seems that way, huh?”
“We have been instructed to watch you closely. Hannes is not present, so I will be watching you. It is a large use of resources for one student.”
“Feel free to not do that, then,” Storm says.
Laura looks down at her with an intense blue gaze, considering something. Storm has a flashback to the last time she was in this woman’s presence, remembering how strong she is, and how easily she handled her, like she weighed nothing. She feels guilty all over again, even though she’s done absolutely nothing new wrong.
