They ended up staying for 5 hours. Can you believe it? 5 whole hours, 300 minutes, was devoted to the mind-numbing boredom. Brandon had taken ages to finish, as she suspected he would. Technically, he didn’t even finish! Reina had to do the last few dozens because his hand was aching and he required assistance.

She was never going to live this down, was she?

Before she’d been forced to work, she’d been taking naps on and off. This time, no Brandon popped out of nowhere to ruin everything, for Reina was sure the monster in her dream had been Brandon. Who else could be so disgusting?

Even though every time she woke up, she felt tired still, she forced herself to do some activities as well. With the help of Athena, she drudged up some old board games and went to ham on it, trying her best.

Puzzles were about one of the only things she liked that carried over from her childhood. She’d always been a smart kid and could do the 1000-piece puzzle since the age of 5. Her favorite had shown London and she used to hang it over her bed so she could go to sleep every night wondering what the other places in the world were like. She had made a vow to explore the world and take the framed puzzle with her.

Now, she couldn’t care less about exploring and the puzzle wasn’t going anywhere ever again. Depressing memories aside, Reina believed she enjoyed puzzles for various reasoned

It was a challenge. Reina was a very competitive person, whether or not you realized it by now. Whenever she was challenged, her pride made it so she accepted. This also meant once she found something that was hard for her, she would never give up until she succeeded.

Second was the world. Puzzles were the representation of imagination. Like paintings or drawings, other people used their creativity to form the artwork.

For puzzles, Reina felt she had her own hand in it. Another character trait of hers was that she didn’t want help. This meant she would enjoy a gorgeous painting of herself less than an ugly puzzle, simply because of the fact since she built it, she’d left her mark on it.

Seeing the pieces come together and watching the landscape materialize right in front of her was always a sight to marvel. The fact she was doing it didn’t hurt either.

At the moment, Reina was working on a 1000-piece puzzle of Paris. There were a lot of lights in the puzzle, meaning the pieces looked very similar to each other; without a doubt, this was one of the more difficult puzzles she’d made. However, she was Reina, Puzzle Extraordinaire! All puzzles cowered at the sight of her.

Using the process of omission, Reina finished the puzzle before the hour was up. She supposed it could count as teaching that she used her enhanced systems to work out the mathematical approach but who would know?

“Athena, can I have duct tape?” Reina asked.

“You’re not going to duct tape Brandon, are you?” Athena checked. Well, that made her want to now.

“No, Athena.” Reina dutifully said.

“Here you go.” Athena tossed over some duct tape and Reina got to work, carefully covering the entire puzzle with the stuff. She needed to ensure it wouldn’t break when she tried to move it. This was always the hardest part, but years of experience hadn’t gone to waste.

Once she was done reinforcing the puzzle, Reina was in a much better mood than she’d ever been in before. Beaming, she twisted her body to face Brandon.

“Are you almost done? I think we should-“ She was halted cold in her tracks as her eyes took in a large stack of envelopes.

Now, Reina wanted to think the best of Brandon and believe the smaller stack was all he had left but no. He’d clearly labeled which stack was done and which stack needed to be done.

And the vast majority of the taxes were in the need to be completed section.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Reina grumbled. Brandon glanced up, face flushed.

“Don’t judge me! This is harder than you expect!” he exclaimed. Reina shook her head sadly.

“You look so pitiful. I’m done, so can you hurry up?” Reina asked. Brandon growled and grabbed his wrist.

“Ah! My hand fell asleep!” he grimaced. Reina winced.

“From 5 taxes? Don’t you need to fill out some checkboxes and stuff like that?” Reina never took an interest in politics and was clearly showing her lack of expertise in the area now.

Brandon sweat dropped. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

“Why does Athena have so many taxes? She’s a stingy person, that’s in her nature.” Reina pointedly deflected the glare aimed at her back. So now Athena wanted to look at her. Perfect.

“Actually, it’s not just hers. It’s all of the teacher’s stuff!” Brandon told her. This got Reina’s attention and she bored Brandon out of the way.

“No way. . .” He was right! She cackled with unbridled glee. This was perfect! Think of all the blackmail she had now at her disposal! What was Athena thinking, she was usually smarter than this. Reina continued laughing while flipping through the taxes before landing on Arcturus.

“What the-why does he need rabbit food?” she asked. Arcturus didn’t have a rabbit. None of the staff did. The only person who had a rabbit was-

Rabbit smacked her head at the same time the revaluation hit her. Arcturus had been the one to take care of Rabbit? But why, he’d always shown a clear dislike of him. Reina had once caught him near an open window with Rabbit in his arms, ready to throw. Suffice to say, Reina had never trusted him around Rabbit after that.

And this paper was telling her Arcturus had taken care of Rabbit. Not Xia, bud Arcturus. A tiny bud of hope formed. Maybe-

No! A ginormous weed cutter came and slashed the bud into nothingness. Reina would not let the bud blossom into a flower only for the flower to combust in the flames of betrayal.

She needed to get out of here, get her mind off of Arcturus. She needed to go to the library for some R and R, and the only thing that stood in the way was the taxes.

Delving at remarkable speed, Reina finished the rest of the taxes, taking great care not to look directly at any of them. She didn’t want to see more things that would rattle her world.

“Done!” Reina announced, much to the horror and shock of the gobsmacked Brandon. Reina handed it over to Athena who took an agonizingly long time to check through them.

“I guess they’re okay.” She stared deep into Reina’s multi-colored orbs. “Though I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of things today. Remember to keep it a secret, right?”

“Of course, Athena!” Brandon said. Reina didn’t say a word, instead of glaring at Athena.

“Good. Now, run along! Do whatever it is you wish to do!” Athena waved them off and turned back to her book. Growling, Reina slammed open the door and stormed out.

“Hey, Reina? How about-“ Brandon began.

“Save it. I’m going somewhere,” was the only explanation she gave before turning on her heels and walking away.

She did that on purpose. Athena had shown her that Arcturus fed Rabbit on purpose. Was she, out of all people trying to get them to reunite? Become chummy again?

Reina snorted. She didn’t know where Athena got the idea she could fiddle around like that with other people’s minds. Why was she acting like she was forgiven? Did she honestly think she was?

Oh, no. Reina may not have been as hostile as she could have been today but Athena was still very much so on her naughty list.

Reina was halfway to the liberty before remembering she had left her puzzle behind. For a split second, Reina was tempted to turn around and head back.

Barge through the door super awesomely and take back the puzzle, all before Athena could even fact. In the end, she decided against that and didn’t make deter.

From all the crazy events that happened today, there was only one place where Reina felt safe anymore.

The library.

Entering the sacred room, Reina made a beeline to the back. This time, she wasn’t doing any business or checking the Vaults, as she liked to see it.

No, she’d created a little section in one of the corners where she had stacked a lot of books around in a protective wall. There was even a small blanket she had placed over the entire thing.

Reina hadn't changed much in terms of physicality so she could still squeeze in through the narrow doorway she’d made by leaning to books together. After settling down, Reina took a deep breath.

The smell of beloved books settled into her bones. It relaxed her, comforted her. She was safe here, cut off from the rest of the chia tic world.

Her books were her sanctuary and her getaways, and she wouldn’t give this up for anything.

After she was done, Reina took out her phone and tapped an app. The app expanded and Reina tapped on the most recent story she’d been reading yesterday.

Fan-fiction. Oh, how much she loved them. Sure, there were loads of inappropriate and horrible ones but that’s the same for Youtube videos and real books. She always erred on the side of caution anyway and tweaked the settings a little bit.

Anyway, fan fiction was a way for somebody to take something they loved and add their twist to it. Reina had made some of her own fan-fiction back in her day.

She giggled as the story progressed, becoming lost and immersed in the story. Her problems were nothing more than a distant echo now. . .even lowlier than an echo.

Then her problems came rushing back in the form of heavy footsteps and ragged breathing. Disturbed from her reading, a disgruntled Reina searched for the culprits who dared be so loud in a place of quiet. Looks like Madam Price had caught them first, she would install the fear of the librarian inside these interlopers.

Except, that’s not what happened.

Madam Price appeared worried, wringing her hands so much it was starting to look painful. Then she pointed at her!

Before she could take in this shocking betrayal, the footsteps came closer and Reina realized the intruders were her friends. Change of plans. She couldn’t berate them as she’d hoped; her friends were most likely shocked and scared of her now and Reina needed to treat this situation with the utmost care and delicacy.

This is why it was such a surprise to find tears streaming down their faces. (Except for Angel, who was lagging a bit behind.)

Her first thought was somebody had been attacked. There wasn’t any sign of injuries she could find and they seemed perfectly fine, on the outside that is.

Who knew what jumbled mess they were on the inside?

“Yes?” Reina asked. Felicie was the fastest and leaped onto her. She staggered backward, barely catching her before noticing the others were about to do the same.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Her sanctuary!

BAM! In one fell swoop, all the books had been knocked away as Reina found herself on the bottom of a dog pile. Most of her friends were too busy crying to talk and the few who did were overlapping themselves, making it difficult to hear them.

Eventually, Reina only focused on Dawn. “Thought-you were-dead-idiot!” Her sentence was wracked by tears in between.

Dead? What the heck, wasn’t that too much of a worry? Just what had happened in the short time they were away?

Reina asked this out loud but all her friends were too busy bawling their eyes out to respond to her. In the end, it was Angel, much to Reina’s chagrin, who answered her burning question.

“The staff found a desecrated body on campus. There’s been a murder.”