"Is that so?" I ask the man that is polite enough to give me his name, at least I learned something about him.

I may not look it but I'm scared. This takes me to the time when Arihmatheo took me and was going to kill me, I wasn't afraid because a part of me knew that I would survive. Yeah, I was pretty confident that I wasn't going to die but for how long am I going to keep this up. Someone is after my life and given the past occurrence, I know he or she won't give up until I'm dead. I've been lucky and it's only a matter of time before they get to me.

"Yes," he answers, dipping his hands inside his pocket.

"Then you should know that you aren't the first person to try and here I am"–I spread my arms out in a 'look at me' gesture–"still breathing." I'm trying to make a point here and I hope he gets it. I mean he could have killed me but he didn't, instead he brought me here.

"You are correct but I'm the only one that has managed to catch you and have you locked up."

"Fair point. And you didn't catch me, I passed out." I remind him, and I'm guessing he knows about what happened because the knives didn't magical leave my body. He must have pulled it out. "I think the words you were looking for is, I was lucky to see you laying helplessly unconscious on the ground. It's almost like I was waiting for you, begging to be caught."

Helplessly unconscious on the ground? I was laying helplessly unconscious, but what about those men? I mean I only made them sleep, they should be awake and if they're lucky, alive. I've never intentionally used my ravens as a weapon before. I just use them to spy, fly and as a last resort, but these days I've been using them a lot and if I wasn't careful, I would eventually hurt someone like I did back at the game.

They call me the raven because that's what they think I am. My grandmother bonded with her dragon and they are a part of each other. I didn't bond with the ravens but somehow I can conjure dead ones. I can see through their eyes. It's like I can manipulate them but they don't gain anything from me. And everytime I lose control with them, I feel it in my body like how empty I felt after I hurt people at the game against Westhigh. I didn't know them, I don't think I know now but something is going on inside me and I don't know what it is. I never really thought about it until now.

"Karai did a number on you but it wasn't enough to kill you," he tells me, staring out the window. His eyes looks dead, they remind me of that lady.

"Karai? Is that her name?" I ask curiously. I should know the name of the lady that almost killed me. Something's changed about me. I can't explain it but I'm calmer than usual. Last semester, I would have done everything to kick her ass. I was always looking for an excuse to fight, but this semester it's different. I still want to fight people but once the fight comes I just don't fight back and it's starting to get to me. I'm angrier now but it's not doing me any good on the field.

I don't know how much time I used on the island but I know it's long because I learned something. I'm the type of person that loves to show off her skill but these days I'm not doing anything. And I just got back, it's like the action isn't there any more? And the more I try to fight it, the more weaker I get.

"Yes. Karai Khan, a Supernatural Huntress."

That's some news. I just found out that werewolves exist, so yeah, it's only fair that they are supernatural hunters.

"So she's human?" She moved fast and she is skilled with swords and knives. I won't be surprised to hear that she's human. I mean, only a vengeful human would go to that length to take down a supernatural.

He moves his gaze away from the window and stares at me. There's something weird about this guy, I just don't know what it is. "A good swordswoman and an assassin, the best actually." He tells me. Let's hope we face each other again, so we can settle the scores my way. She was lucky the last time.

"Well you haven't met Treta," I mutter before asking the question that has been plaguing my mind. It's obvious that someone wants me dead, so I need to know who. "Why are you all after me?"

"There's a bounty on your head," he replies casually, only there isn't anything casual about my death.

What. The. Fucking. Hell? A bounty on my head. What the actual fucking hell?

"What?" I breath out.

"Yeah," he shrugs. I know my expressions is priceless. "Seven hundred million dollars."

"What? I– five hundred million dollars, fuck! That's a lot of money. Why... Fuck!"

Wow. Wow like fuck! I'm speechless. More than half a billion.

"Now I'm curious as to why a Seventeen year old is worth that much. What's so special about you?"

Right. What's so special about me? I mean, I know I'm cool and all, but seven hundred is too fucking much. Does the person just wish to waste his or her money? What did I do to deserve it? I should kill myself and claim the reward. Only, I can't spend when I'm dead or I could fake my death and... I can't believe I'm even thinking about this.

"Nothing, I'm as surprised as you are." I lean against the wall and shake my head. Still overwhelmed with what I just heard.

"I'm not surprised, just curious." He says as he takes a step closer to me, his eyes are on my hand. "Those markings on your body," nudging his chin towards me. "What are they?"

"Ask me again in a minute and I might think about telling you." I roll my eyes at him.

He sighs and removes his hand from his pocket. He holds out his left hand and snap his fingers, fire erupt from his hand. My eyes widen as I watch the fire burn out, revealing a knife. I shiver at the sight of the knife, something about it scares the shit out of me. Before I can ask what that is, he gives me the answer. "This is an accused dagger of the ancient Astian gods. The Elsword is powerful but the dagger rivals it. Run your mouth in the other direction again and this goes through your heart."

He says that in a firm, cold tone and  yet he looks composed. Who is this guy? One minute he's cool and nosy, the next he's scary and cold. Reminds me of someone I know.

"Do it. I'm not scared." And I'm not afraid of him, maybe I'm scared of dying but I will not let him intimidate me when I haven't even showed him how bratty I can be. It's early and we haven't done anything.

"But you are," he says with a smirk. I tense, knowing he's right somehow. "The moment I said I'm here to kill you, your face changed. You can not fool me daughter of El."

Granddaughter and of course he knows who I am. He literally said Elsword.

"So you do know who I am." I say to confirm.

He closes his hand, making the knife disappear. I know it wasn't really here in the first place. He just wanted to show me.

"The markings are the only thing described about you, and I recognize them, so I need to know what makes you seven hundred million dollar worth."

"You're awfully curious about me," I slide down against the wall, sitting on the bed. "Do you have any idea who is trying to kill me?"

"No." He shakes his head. "But my best guess is that it's not really about you." He tells me and it's get me curious.

I hug my knees to my chest, avoid touching the chains. "What do you mean?"

"Like I said, what makes a seventeen year old worth seven hundred million? No one wants to spend that amount of money just to kill you unless it's for revenge. So think carefully before you answer me. What makes you so special?"

I close my eyes and sigh. "As always, I went from one problem to another. Fuck!"

"The person you were looking for..."

My eyes shoot open to glare at him. "Excuse me!" What is he talking about? How the fuck did he know that I'm looking for someone? Did he go inside my head or something?

"Your map," he say. "You were tracking someone."

"My ma–" I shift to the side, shifting my weight on one butt to dip my hand inside my back pocket but it appears empty. I look ahead to see him holding my map. My uncloaked map. "How did you get that?! It was cloaked!"

He shrugs without looking up from the map. "I uncloaked it when I searched you." He answers like it's no big deal but it is a big deal to me because he searched me.

"Well, yeah! I left school to look for a friend. Deal with it."

"A friend? Do tell, I'm curious." He folds the map and put it in his breast pocket, giving me his undivided attention.

"Aren't you suppose to be the bad guy?" I scoff. His nickname should be curious because he's curious about a lot of things and I can't say I blame him. I would be too.

"Oh, I am the bad guy," he confirms. "But since I'm going to kill you, you might as well tell me what's troubling you."

Jerk.

"Nothing." And then I sigh, staring into space. At the moment, I'm exhausted of everything. Life has it is bore me and I shouldn't be this bored because there's an assassin after me. I should be waiting, getting ready to fight but in someway, I'm just tired. "Everything."

Raymond sit at the other side of the bearer, starting at me with no emotions, at least he isn't looking at me with pity, which would be weird. "I'm all ears."

They say don't talk to strangers but since this stranger is going to kill me, I might as well tell him everything.

"I used to be a bully." I don't know why I started with that but it just seems appealing to say my thoughts out. "I used to be one of those girl that everyone feared and it's crazy because I was younger then," I say with a harsh laugh because I'm still young now. "Back in those days when I ruled Westhigh with my friends, we call used to ourselves the five headed Hydra but even they know which head truly mattered. Mine.

"I've known that I was different than everyone else, but I had no one to tell me what's really going on, so I became the worst of the worst version of myself and I enjoyed every fucking minute of it until my..." I trail off remembering the last thing my Mom said to me. 'I hope you'll be a changed person, when I see you at Thanksgiving' I'm changed but she didn't get to see it.

I snap out it and continue my story. "Until my adoptive Mom sent me to a boarding school for troubled kids, not knowing it is actually a school for supernatural–"

"The Vale." He says.

"You know about it?"

He shrugs. I continue my story after realizing that I'm not getting much from him.

"Anyway, I learned about everything in that school. I learned that I have powers. I learned that my biological parents are actually alive and someone wanted me at the school. His name is--was Roman, he was my mentor, kinda. We did yoga together, we took classes together. We were close but Roman never– he was complicated. I knew he was bad news. He had the bad boy vibes but I didn't actually imagined he'd turn out bad. So, he was the bad guy trying to repent but he died, he died saving me. He took a bullet for me."

I don't think about Roman. After he died, I knew he was gone but I refused to talk about him and what he meant to me. Maybe talking about it now will do me some good.

"Roman, he was a bad guy in a good way. I actually had a crush on him for like two seconds after we did magic to together and shit. I later realized it was the coven connected. Anyway I didn't have real feelings for him. I trusted him and he broke my trust, so I didn't forgive him and then he died right after apologizing. I was crushed by it because I connected with him but he died and I blacked out. I didn't even get to say good bye or see him, it was just too painful."

Yeah, anything but tears, am I right?

"Life sucks." He talks absentmindedly as if he understands what I'm going through except I'm not telling him exactly what am I going through. "Have tried talking to someone? Like a therapist?"

"The people in it sucks more." I release my legs, stretching it forward. "I don't trust our school's therapist."

"What would you do if I release you now?"

Well, for one, I'm going to wrap this chains around your neck and won't stop until your neck is out of your fucking body.

Nah, that doesn't sound like me. So I'm going to rephrase that to I'm going to rip your fucking spine out.

Nope, that doesn't sound like me either. Something is seriously wrong with me.

I sigh and say. "Go after the person that put the bounty on my head and find Roman."

He narrows his eyes at me. "I thought Roman is dead."

"He is but I can't find his body. And I need to find it."

"Why?"

So I can solve the Roman spirit problem. But now I have to put that mission on hold because someone wants me.

"Fair enough. How will you find who is after you when you don't even know who the person is?"

"People are always going to come after me. One of them is going to lead me to whoever is behind all this, and that's when I'll strike."

"In that case I'm going to help you." He says as he stands up from the ground, rubbing his nose.

"Really? Why?"

"It's personal."

"Okay, keep it to yourself but know that when this is over, I am going to kill you." It is a promise that I can see happening way before that time.

"That is if I don't get to you first."

"I don't trust you."

"The feeling is mutual, come on." He snaps his fingers and at the same time the chains around me are gone. Poof. Way to go, Ray boy.

"So," I step outside the line and glare at Ray. "What's the plan... Partner?"