Holding her breath as steadily as she could, Vespera pushed herself against the back of the bookcase. While sucking in her stomach as much as possible so that she doesn't feel so claustrophobic being pressed in between the wall and the bookcase, she wonders why she thought this would be the best hiding place in the chief of police's office. She had no time to investigate any other places to run and hide to though as she could already hear the chief fiddling with the doorknob to unlock his office door. Her chest becoming tight from holding her position, Vespera closed her eyes and listened. Focusing on the noise of the jiggling doorknob which the chief was clearly struggling with, Vespera took one last breath in before releasing the air out of her lungs. Along with the air from her lungs, Vespera felt physically lighter. Her once black vision caused by her shutting her eyes so tightly is now overlooking the chief's office from on top of the bookcase.

"Yes, it worked!" Vespera said excitedly underneath her breath with a slight smile. "It finally worked! Thank you, Fredrick."

The door finally opens.

"Jeez, why did it take so long for me to open the door? I'd better get that fixed immediately if it's going to be that much of an issue." The chief said under his breath.

He looked frustrated, but relieved that he was finally able to enter his office. The chief looked like he had eaten something spicy because his face was red. Then again, his face is always red. His chubby exterior in his uniform looked like it was the cause. He left his door open, and then proceeded to walk over to his desk. He sat in his big, leather chair that let out a noise that sounded like someone blowing on something hot. He then proceeded to turn on his desktop.

"I should see if I can peer over his shoulder and get a look at his log-in information." Vespera thought to herself.

Concentrating hard on that thought, Vespera began to see her vision slowly move towards the chief. Slowly gliding over him, and resting right behind his shoulder. It was a good enough view that she could see what he was typing and what was being typed onto the screen. From the reflection of the dark desktop screen, she couldn't see herself. She could only see the chief in the reflection.

"I take the form of an invisible orb. Nice." Vespera thinks. She slightly smiles.

Once the desktop booted up, an image of the chief and his wife kissing on their wedding day appeared on the screen.

"Ew, gross." Vespera thought to herself in disgust. "Who would want to marry that guy?"

As the chief begins to type his information in, the shuffling of feet were heard coming from the hallway. After a couple of seconds, a scrawny officer in a suit that seemed a bit too large on him appeared in the doorway.

"Sir," he began. His voice sounding young, but not confident in what he was about to say. "There was a woman who came through the station and asked to use the restroom, but she is nowhere to be found now."

"Ah shoot." Vespera thought to herself.

The chief seemed a bit irritated. "You let a random woman use the restroom...in a police station?"

The young officer gulped nervously. You could hear it from across the room. "Yes sir. We didn't think it would be such a big deal. She was only wanting to use the restroom."

The chief sat back in his chair rubbing his grey mustache while pushing the invisible orb of Vespera back.

"I guess he can't feel the orb either." Vespera thought.

The chief took a deep breath and relaxed. "Well, what did she look like?" He asked while rubbing his bald head. The chief wasn't completely bald, just on the top of his head. He had grey hair around the sides and back of his head.

The young officer rubbed his neck while speaking fast. "She looked to be young. She had long, black hair with blue eyes, and she was this weird pale color where it almost looked like she had–"

"Purple tones?" The chief finished.

"Ah beans." Vespera thought.

"Y-yes!" The young officer stuttered. "Do you know her?"

The chief rubbed his eyes out of frustration. "I do." He said calmly. "Don't worry about it. Get back to what you were doing."

"Y-yes sir." The young officer stammered as he turned on his heels and made his way out of the doorway.

The chief got up and shut his office door and locked it. He turned around to look at his empty office before saying "I know you're in here, Vespera."

Vespera snapped back from her trance almost immediately, feeling the tightness in her chest and the pressure on her stomach from being tightly confined.

"Dang it!" She thought.

Looking around her, there was no way she could escape without him noticing her. No air vents, not another door in sight, nothing.

"I'm trapped." She thought.

She began to panic. Anxiety started to overwhelm her. Vespera took a deep breath to calm her breathing. If she doesn't focus on her breathing, the chief will for sure hear her breaths. Vespera looks through the cracks of the bookcase. The chief isn't moving from his stationed position in front of the locked office door.

"There's no other way out of this." Vespera thought.

She took another deep breath, and scooted herself out from behind the bookcase. Her stomach finally relaxing into a natural slight pudge. Her chest finally being able to get some more air into it and easing its tension. She stepped in front of the bookcase with an expressionless look upon her face. The chief's head shoots towards her direction and they both lock eyes.

"That officer of yours forgot to mention the golden speckles mixed in with the blue in my eyes." Vespera said in a sarcastic tone. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I feel a bit hurt."

"Enough of this, Vespera." The chief said in a firm manner. "You're not going to find any more information in my office. This is the third time that I have caught you lurking around here. Am I going to have to take more steps than having my officers escort you out? And then to take advantage of the new guy–"

"I did not take advantage of anyone." Vespera interrupted. "He got distracted by me."

"Vespera–" the chief spoke, his voice sounding disappointed.

"I will find out what really happened to my parents, chief." Vespera interrupted firmly. She began to walk towards the chief until they were close enough to smell each other's breath. "You all are hiding something from me, and it isn't fair." She began to raise her voice a bit. "They were MY parents, after all. Why am I the only person who doesn't know what truly happened to them?"

"Vespera," The chief said calmly. "You do know what happened to them. You know just as much as we do."

"Oh yeah, like I'm going to believe that my parents overdosed on Nightcrawlers." Vespera said sarcastically. She was clearly irritated and not in the mood to hear anything other than what she wanted to hear. "My parents would NEVER have used Nightcrawlers. More so, my parents would have NEVER left me alone. Not like this, and not in this type of way. I'd know my parents better than ANY of you, yet here you are standing here telling me how my parents were?"

A moment of silence filled the room until the chief broke it. "Get out of my office." He said while staring intensely into Vespera's eyes. "Now, or I will have you thrown into one of these cells."

Vespera gave the chief a very dirty look, and then walked slowly by him before he grabbed her arm and whispered into her ear:

"And if you ever set foot in this police station ever again, I will not hesitate to have you arrested and sent off to Brenegade."

The chief let go of her arm. Vespera turned her head to look the chief in his eyes. She spit on his shoes. "Disrespectful to the living, and to the deceased." She turned and continued walking out of the police station.

•••

Walking down the stairs leading from the entrance of the police station, a tall, dark skinned man with dreadlocks that came down to his waist was watching Vespera. Her eyes locked with his brown eyes.

"So?" He said to Vespera in a thick Jamaican accent as she met up with him at the bottom of the stairs. He is very tall compared to Vespera, and he had a big smile on his face.

"Nothing today, Fredrick." She said with a sigh at the end. "I finally was able to achieve what you taught me, but the chief threatened to send me to the Brenegade if I ever stepped foot in this place again this time."

"Oh whoa." Fredrick said, losing his smile. "Please don't risk your life going back in that station, girl. The Brenegade isn't something to toy with. That is a place you go to when you are ready to move on and die. No, no, no..." He starts mumbling some words under his breath as he grabs Vespera by the shoulders and leads her away from the police station.

With Fredrick's somewhat rough hands still on Vespera's shoulders, he leads her through the town. Side by side with one another, Vespera and Fredrick look around and admire their small town. So many cottages and buildings made of wood and hay and sometimes stone. The buildings made of stone were usually important buildings. Their small town shops that sell baked goods, home necessities, and anything else you may need, their town businesses such as the police station scattered all around. The train rumbling as it goes by off in the distance. That train only took you to one place and one place only: Whitlock Academy.

Whitlock Academy is where the most intelligent young adults go to continue their education, or if you're anything like Vespera, you are magically gifted and are required to go to Whitlock Academy to learn how to control your magic. No exceptions. You can find out what type of wizard you are by going to Whitlock Academy, and based off of that they customize what you need to learn in order to better your powers and abilities.

As the train goes by, Vespera flips it off. Fredrick immediately takes one of his hands off of her shoulder and forces her arm down. "Don't go showin' disrespect, girl. There is no use in spreading that negative energy." He says. He lets go of her arm and places his hand back on her shoulder. She sighs.

After a bit of walking, they arrive at Vespera's home. A beautiful two-story wooden abode that holds the memories of Vespera's parents inside, but not her parents themselves. Fredrick walks her up to her door where she unlocks it and steps inside. Fredrick follows behind her.

Once they were inside, Fredrick let his grip on Vespera's shoulders go. The home had a very comforting aura to it. Once you walked in, you immediately felt safe and relaxed. The two walked up the stairs and into Vespera's room. Her room had a desk and a chair on one side, a window that you saw once you walked into the room as it was across from the door, a bed on the opposite side of the room where the desk was located, and stacks of books almost waist high on Vespera everywhere. Fredrick sat on her bed as she turned the chair at the desk around to face Fredrick.

As she begins to sit, Fredrick said "you never did tell me why you have such hatred towards Whitlock."

Vespera's head was slumped. Her arms on her legs as she held her own hands. Her legs spread apart a bit. She sighed. "It's a long story, Fred." she said sounding a bit tired.

"But it's bothering you." Fredrick said. "I can tell you have so much hatred just sitting inside of you. It is going to boil out of you at some point. You have the choice to let it boil out now, or let it simmer until it boils over when you least expect it to."

The room was silent for a bit. All they could hear was the rumbling of the train on its way to Whitlock Academy. Vespera looked towards the window and stared at the clouds in the sky for a bit. It was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon from the looks of it. She hadn't looked at her phone all day.

"You know, I hate when you get all wisdom-like." Vespera stated. She let out a small, shy laugh.

The room went quiet again until Vespera broke it. "I was a student there for a small bit of time." She started. Fredrick looked back at her as he also got distracted by staring at the clouds in the sky. "It actually wasn't that bad - the experience I had." Vespera sat up in her chair and crossed her legs, still keeping her hands together.

"I was only there for a semester." Vespera continued. "Maybe about three months in total. You'd know, Fredrick. You graduated from Whitlock."

Fredrick nodded. Fredrick was one of those who was also required to attend due to having magical abilities.

"Things were going great, but I was so deep into my studies that I didn't realize was what going on in the world around me..." Vespera continued. "...I was so into my studies that I didn't even realize that my parents had died until three weeks after the incident..."

"Oh, V..." Fredrick said sadly.

Vespera's eyes were now looking at the floor, but her head remained high.

"You know, I blamed myself for not being there when they died." Vespera said with sadness in her voice. "I blamed myself for putting my studies first. After a couple of days, I stopped blaming myself. I started to realize that it wasn't my fault."

Vespera looked into Fredrick's eyes. He could see the anger hidden behind them.

"I wasn't deep into my studies that I neglected the fact that my parents had died." She stated. "The school chose to never tell me until I started talking about how excited I was to see them after the semester was over."

Her hands clenched into fists. "In fact, I would have been there with them when they had died if this stupid mandate for those with magical abilities having to go to Whitlock wasn't in action."

Her fists were clenched so tight that her nails had begun to dig into her palms. "I became so enraged by this thought that I stormed into the headmaster's office and yelled and screamed till my throat burned."

Vespera's hands relaxed as she looked back to the ground. "I threatened to blow the whole school up..." She let out a short scoff, smiling and shaking her head while she stayed staring at the floor.

"The headmaster called up security and told me that I had to gather my things from my dorm and leave that very instant and whatever I left would be shipped to me." She continued. "Then he had told me that I was officially banned from ever returning to Whitlock, and if I were to ever set foot on the premises..."

"Let me guess: Brenegade?" Fredrick asked.

Vespera scoffed and smiled, looking back up at Fredrick. "Yep, the Brenegade."

Vespera looked down at her hands where she saw four crescent shaped marks across the middle of both of her palms. They were pulsing.

Fredrick falls onto his back, laying on Vespera's bed looking up at the ceiling. "The Brenegade seems to be following you, is it not?"

Vespera let out a short laugh. "Maybe it's where I'm destined to end up."

Fredrick turned his head to face Vespera. "Don't even joke about that." Fredrick turns to look back up at the ceiling.

"The Brenegade is a horrible place for people to end up at. I've heard many horror stories about those who barely made it out alive from the Brenegade. It's a prison for the souls who have not crossed over yet mixed with the people who are up next to becoming just souls themselves. You do not want to go there or end up there ever." Fredrick said firmly. "Ran by the Grim Reaper himself, I heard." Fredrick shakes his head. "No thanks."

Vespera nods slightly.

"Well," Fredrick began as he sat up from his previous position on Vespera's bed. "I must get going now. It is almost time for supper." He slowly gets off of Vespera's bed, and as he does so it makes slight creaking noises. "I will see you tomorrow for our tutoring session." He says.

"See ya, Fred." Vespera says with a smile and a wave.

Fredrick nods his head in return as he opens the bedroom door and closes it behind him. Vespera could hear Fredrick make his way down the stairs and out of the home where he locked the door behind him.

Vespera thought things would be easier if she had gave Fredrick a key, and she was right. Fredrick would enter the home, wake her up, and would make her breakfast before starting the day with their tutoring session. She needed Fredrick in her life, as he was the only father figure she now had.

Vespera gets up from her chair and turns it back to face the desk. She then changes into her nightgown and slowly heads to her bed. She lifts the covers and slips underneath them. She laid there, tucking herself in carefully. Staring at the ceiling, Vespera closed her eyes and dozed off to sleep.