Chapter Text
Beau stabbed the pointed end of her trash picker into a particularly shiny snack wrapper. It had gotten caught in a small shrub on the side of the highway, fluttering fruitlessly in the wind until it had the misfortune of crossing her path. Now it hung like a stuck fish on the end of a spear. She turned and, like a neolithic hunter displaying a trophy, wove her catch in Caleb’s face.
“Would you look at that - I’m a natural.”
Caleb, her steadfast if surly companion during those long and worthless days, raised an eyebrow at her. “I would expect you to be very talented in the art of picking trash after doing it for nearly... how many hours has it been, exactly?”
Beau rolled her eyes, choosing not to deign him with an answer as she stuffed the trash picker into the garbage bag Caleb held out for her. She had to shake the picker rather violently in order to get the wrapper off the end of it. Once she did, she pulled the tool back out and surveyed the area of their day’s work.
She, Caleb, and four other unlucky souls were on garbage duty that day. They were on the edge of a skinny, two-lane highway that ran between some backwater towns that Beau had never had the misfortune of visiting. The land around them was wide open and flat, although a range of mountains teased the very edge of the horizon – a tantalizing escape from the monotony of the prairies. And the monotony of picking up trash.
The sun was beating down on them in full force. It made their already unenviable task even worse with the way it made the garbage smell fouler and turned their ugly, yellow, high-vis vests into wearable ovens. Sure, it was just a vest, but it was a vest that trapped the heat in and made Beau’s plain white shirt look like the winning entry in one of those wet t-shirt contests that she imagined only happened on spring break in Miami. She was thankful that she had thrown on a pair of ragged denim shorts before leaving the house. Her dark legs soaked up the warmth of the sun in a more pleasurable kind of way, like sunbathing on a sandy beach. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make her forget the smell of the trash, the sweat coating her skin, or the watchful eye of her supervisor standing a short distance away.
Their supervisor that day was a stout, friendly, middle-aged woman named Lorena, who had a wide face and a mountain of wavy hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head. She was Beau’s favourite of the three supervisors she’d worked with. Lorena actually talked to them, milling about between the six of them and chatting pleasantly with whoever seemed to be in a talkative mood that day. She carried a clipboard and wore the same kind of high-vis vest as the rest of them. She made eye contact with Beau, smiled pleasantly, and began wandering over towards her and Caleb.
“Beauregard.” Lorena called her name with genuine warmth. Beau was already leaning on her trash picker, preparing to dial up the charm.
“Lorena,” she replied sweetly. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said it but you know you can call me ‘Beau’.”
Lorena laughed and made a swatting motion with her hand. “But I’ll keep calling you ‘Beauregard’, and around and around we’ll go. How are you and Mr. Widogast faring today? Shaping up to be a hot one, isn’t it?”
Caleb grumbled from someplace behind Beau. “We are a bit beyond ‘shaping up’, don’t you think?”
He was wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt underneath his vest. His scruffy reddish-brown hair was tied in a ponytail at the base of his neck. He was probably sweltering in the heat.
Lorena’s eyes passed over Caleb and she shook her head in amusement. Beau chuckled.
“Caleb’s a bit too peaky for the sunshine. Me though, I’m loving it – minus the sweat.” She gestured at her long, bare legs.
Lorena, who had grown wise to Beau’s overt nature over the hours she’d spent supervising her, didn’t take the bait but she let out a good-natured laugh all the same.
“Well, it’s a good thing Mr. Widogast only needs to survive another hour or so before we head back to town. Oh, for-,” she caught sight of something happening over Beau’s shoulder and began to take off in a hurry. “-Mr. Vanderwhal, the roadkill goes directly into the bags please-”
Beau snorted but didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to see what Vanderwhal was doing with the roadkill. Caleb clearly felt the same way as he sidled up next to her and gestured in the opposite direction. “Want to try that way?”
“We just came from that way.” At Caleb's disdainful look, Beau shrugged back at him. “Ok, sure, whatever.”
They walked along the edge of the highway back the way they had cleaned up earlier, towards the two vehicles that had brought them there. They sat parked along the side of the road, one a large white van and the other a white pickup truck. Both vehicles sported the logo of their town’s community centre: a green pine tree over a yellow circle with a thick baby-blue outline.
Caleb half-heartedly poked his trash picker at the ground as they walked. There wasn’t any garbage left that way – it was more likely that Caleb had just wanted to get away from the others for a bit. As they got closer to the cars, Beau fished around in her pocket for the truck keys. Caleb put his hand on her wrist, stilling her.
“You aren’t supposed to open the truck without Lorena, Beauregard.”
“Caleb, come on, I drove the damn thing here. I think it’s safe to say I’ve earned a little trust.”
When she felt them in her palm, she clicked the unlock button. The truck made a small beep, its taillights flashing for a moment. Caleb turned back to look towards the rest of their group before spinning back to Beau.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
Beau rolled her eyes at him as she reached for the crew cabin door. “Would you calm down? I’m getting us some water. There’s a flat behind the seat.”
She pulled the door open to reveal the back row of the truck. On the floor behind the front passenger seat was a flat of 24 plastic water bottles. Beau reached in and grabbed one for Caleb and one for herself. As she pulled her head out of the truck, she could hear a voice calling her name. Caleb groaned.
“Beauregard!”
Beau turned and saw Lorena jogging towards them. She wasn’t panicked, which was good, but she did look a bit less friendly than she had a few minutes earlier.
“What are you doing?” she asked tersely once she reached the truck.
Beau shrugged and raised the water bottles, one in each hand. “We were thirsty.”
Lorena closed her eyes briefly and let out a controlled sigh. “You know you aren’t allowed to open the truck without my supervision.”
Beau put on her best look of remorse. “I know, I know, but it’s so fu- freaking hot out. I got you one too-” she held out her hand and offered Lorena one of the waters. Lorena frowned.
“It pains me to say this, Miss Lionett, but you’d do well to remember that no one is above the rules here. Regardless of how long they’ve been a part of the program.”
“Yes, Ms. Montero,” Beau nodded, trading good humour for a more apologetic approach.
Lorena sighed again, a heavy, defeated kind this time, before she took the water bottle still dangling from Beau’s outstretched hand. “Alright. Lock it up, let’s go.”
With that, she turned and began heading back towards the rest of the group, no doubt to make sure none of the others had tried any shenanigans while her back had been turned.
“You heard the woman,” Beau told Caleb as she pressed the lock button and listened to the truck make a dutiful 'honk'. “’Lock it up’.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes at her. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to share that water bottle with me.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Beau replied as she began walking back up the highway. Behind her, she heard the sound of Caleb letting out a heavy sigh followed by his feet crunching on gravel.
“You know, you shouldn’t push them like that, Beauregard,” he told her once he caught up. “You’re this close-” he held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger almost touching, “-to being done with this. Why don’t you just keep your head down and finish the last of your hours in peace?”
Beau chuckled and reached over to Caleb, giving him a light slap on the back. “Because that’s not my style, man.”
Caleb grunted in response. They had almost reached the group when Beau spoke up again. She looked up at the sun and let the warmth wash over her face.
“One hundred hours, Caleb. One hundred measly hours to go.”
The deal was thus: Beau was allowed to drive the pickup truck back to the community centre so long as she followed the van’s route exactly. It was a privilege she’d earned around the 600-hour mark, when it had become clear to all the supervisors that she had no intention of peeling out of town and taking off in a cloud of dust. Still, some rules needed to be laid down, and so Beau could only access the vehicle while driving to and from the worksites, and she had to dutifully follow Lorena’s route all the way back to town, not even daring to change lanes unless the other woman did so first.
For all her earlier bluster about not keeping her head down, Beau sure as hell wasn’t about to fuck things up this close to the finish line.
1,000 court-ordered hours of community service. She was given two years to complete it. Add onto that the fines, the probation, and the 90-day sentence she’d served at the very beginning of it all and, well, she thought she had quite the impressive rap sheet for a winemaker’s daughter who’d only just turned 20. Theft, public mischief, destruction of property, vandalism, trespassing, more theft, and some extortion to tie it all together. History would call her a hellraiser. Her father called her a disappointment.
Every crime had been committed before she’d turned 18. Every sentence levelled against her had been according to the rules for sentencing a youth. Still, she had a long list of crimes to her name, and while her father’s influence had mostly kept her out of juvie, the judge had had qualms in stacking on plenty of hours of community service. She was a relatively non-violent offender, and the aim was to shape her into a functional and contributing member of society as she reached adulthood. As if cleaning trash off the highway and fixing broken fences were suddenly going to give her an outstanding moral compass.
Beau snorted at the thought of it as she turned the truck into the community centre’s parking lot. So far, her 900-odd hours had given her an excellent knowledge of paints, primers, and varnish, and a great disdain for people who liked to throw half-finished milkshakes out the windows of their moving cars.
While Lorena pulled the van up to the front door and let out the rest of the group, Beau pulled the truck to the side entrance where she could unload all the garbage bags into the large dumpster near the alley. Once the bags were tossed in the bin, she climbed back into the truck and gave her shirt a sniff. She fought not to gag as the smell of her own sweat mixed with garbage wafted up into her nostrils.
“Nice,” she grunted, before throwing the truck into reverse and turning back towards the main lot.
She parked in a vacant spot next to a handful of other vehicles that sported the ugly green-yellow-blue community logo. Once parked, she hopped out of the truck and headed towards the front doors.
The community centre was a squat, two-storey building that looked to be several decades old. The outside of it was a bit shabby and rundown but Beau knew well enough that the interior had been renovated in recent years. Now it sported new tile floors, bigger meeting rooms, and change rooms with more than one grimy shower apiece.
Striding into the building, Beau made her way through the main entrance and down a hallway towards a series of meeting rooms. She was about to enter the first one on her left, where she knew Caleb and the rest of the group would be milling around waiting to be let loose for the day, when she heard a voice coming from a room further down the hall. She frowned.
No one used the community centre for meetings while the degenerates were about. Beau had learned that early on. Despite all the grand talk about rehabilitating and rejoining society, there had been more than a few community members who had made their opinions about the janitorial sentences very clear: convicts, regardless of their age, belonged behind bars, not painting the town’s old fences.
While the unhappy locals couldn’t shut down the program, they did avoid it like the plague. So, the community centre was usually empty on the days when Beau and her fellow felons came around. Hearing a voice down the hall was an irregularity that piqued her interest.
She began to creep forwards, making sure not to step too loudly with her beat-up old kicks. The voice was coming from a small room on the right, three doors down from the room she was supposed to be entering. The door stood slightly ajar. It had a narrow inset window which could possibly give Beau a view inside. She kept her distance and tried to get at an angle that would let her catch of glimpse of what was going on in the room without giving away her presence.
No dice. About as good as it got was a view of the edge of a table and a couple of filing cabinets along the back wall. The angle was just too sharp. With the window proving useless, she decided to lean back against the wall and focus on what she could hear instead: a man’s voice coming through stern and direct. He sounded vaguely familiar.
“...and I should warn you that we tolerate absolutely no violence or abuse on the premises, or while you are working under our supervision. Any behaviour of the sort will be reported to your probation officer and could result in additional sentencing. You understand?”
Beau felt her lips pull into a grin. A new recruit. Another unlucky sinner being reformed into a saint.
If the speech itself wasn’t enough to prove it, Beau quickly recognized the voice as belonging to Hector Harris, the local director of the Young Offender Rehabilitation Program, or ‘YORP’ as Caleb fondly called it.
“Now, your file indicates 240 hours of janitorial and community-related service to be completed as a result of the assault charge four months ago – tough break on that one, hey? You were almost in the clear on your probation...”
There was an awkward pause. Hector coughed to break the silence before he continued,
“So, er, you have one year to complete it. I’m sure this has all been explained to you already. We don’t schedule you what would be considered ‘full time’ because the program mandates that offenders must be working or attending school during their rehabilitation in order to assist with their societal reintegration. As a result, 240 hours could very well take the full year, depending on your schedule. Are you currently employed or enrolled in any educational programs?”
There was a long beat of silence followed by a heavy sigh from Hector.
“You know, Miss Nydoorin, this would be a lot easier if you could simply answer me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when I ask you something. This sitting and brooding won’t get you very far here and I can assure you that none of our supervisors are going to put up with it, nor am I.”
There was another pause. Then a woman’s voice, low and gruff.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
Beau couldn’t help the air that she sucked in through her teeth. This new one had spirit.
“Well,” Hector began levelly. “First steps would be warnings and write-ups, which I’m sure you don’t find very threatening at all.”
Beau could just imagine him standing up and leaning across the table, his meaty hands spread wide in a show of force.
“But next come meetings with your probation officer. Letters to both the juvenile and adult courts, depending. Petitions to increase your sentence. Calls that you’re violating your probation. Again.”
He let the threat linger. Beau felt anticipation dancing in her veins. When it became clear that the woman had nothing to say, Hector continued,
“I’ve read your file, Miss Nydoorin, so I know what you’re here for. I have no intention of holding your mistakes against you – that would defeat the entire purpose of my role here – but I want you to understand the gravity of what’s at stake for you. This is a chance to start over. To have a new beginning, a second chance at the life you haven’t been able to lead. Don’t you think that might be worth a little effort on your part?”
Beau thought she heard a noncommittal grunt come from the woman. Or maybe just the heavy exhalation of a long-held breath. Either way, Hector seemed to take it as the end of the conversation. Beau heard the sound of a chair scraping back, and then another, and she had to fight not to yelp as she realized she needed to move quickly in order to avoid getting caught eavesdropping.
Scampering down the hall, she made it to the doorway of the meeting room she was supposed to in when she heard the sound of footfalls entering the hallway behind her. She leaned against the wall and tried her best to look casual. She glanced to her left and watched as Hector and the woman drew near.
Holy shit.
If Amazonian warriors had seen fit to send one of their own to the human world and turn her into a felon, it was this woman they’d picked. She was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a mane of black-and-white hair that spilled down her chest. She had sharp features including a jawline that could kill and eyes that held all the charged energy of a growing storm. She looked like a fucking viking.
And she looked like a fucking criminal.
She was wearing a bulky, black leather jacket with silver studs on the shoulders and black wash jeans to match. A baggy, grey v-neck was visible under her jacket and her heavy boots made resounding thuds as she strode down the hall behind Hector.
As they drew near, Hector spotted Beau and inclined his head politely. He was a middle-aged man with clean-cut sandy brown hair and a barrel chest that might become a beer gut someday.
“Afternoon, Beauregard. Back from the highway?”
Beau pulled her gaze from the woman and turned her attention to the program director.
“Yep. Hot one out there. Kind of a shit day for the garbage job.”
“If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime,” Hector replied, wagging his finger at her as though she were a preschooler in a timeout instead of a repeat offender with gang affiliations.
Beau didn’t answer, settling instead for raising an eyebrow at him in disdain. Hector either didn’t notice or didn’t care and just kept on down the hallway.
“Can’t be stopping to chat today, I’m showing Miss Nydoorin around. ‘Til next time, Miss Lionett.”
Beau ignored him and let her gaze slip back to the woman. She was already passing Beau by. She didn’t even seem to notice her standing there. Her gaze was fixed on the back of Hector’s head as she followed mutely behind him. Eventually, Beau lost sight of them as they went through a set of double doors and into the building’s main foyer.
“Nydoorin,” she murmured, testing the name across her teeth.
“Twenty bucks she was in a biker gang.”
“Agh – fuck!” Beau swore as she registered Caleb hovering next to her, his head poking out of the doorway. “How long have you been there?”
Caleb shot her a look that said ‘long enough, idiot’. “Long enough to see the newbie. She looked... formidable.”
“Yeah-” Beau turned her gaze down the hallway again. “’Formidable’ is one word for it.”
“Hm,” Caleb followed Beau’s gaze before he shrugged and turned back towards her. “Well, anyway, come inside so we can wrap up and get out of here. I could kill for a shower.”
Finally, Beau pulled her attention from the hallway and turned toward her friend.
“Don’t say that too loud,” she joked, giving Caleb a playful punch in the arm. “Or else they’ll think you mean it. With a record like yours, they’ll be- hey!”
She winced as Caleb hit her back, not overly hard given that he was a shrimp of a man, but hard enough to sting in the moment.
“Don’t be rude,” he scolded her before he retreated back into the meeting room.
“Me?” Beau followed him, rubbing her arm as she went. “Never!”
Miss Nydoorin was already a distant memory.
Unlike earlier that day along the highway, Beau actually welcomed the sweat that was trickling down her spine in the small gymnasium that evening. It wasn’t the sweat of a tedious job done in the sweltering heat. This was the sweat of work that had real meaning to her, real rewards, and wasn’t designed simply as a means to an end.
This was her rehabilitation.
From behind her fists, she shot a grin at her opponent. It probably looked like she was baring her teeth, and the bulky mouthguard she wore likely didn’t help. Her opponent, a 21-year-old spitfuck named Logan, was sweating profusely as he fought to catch his breath between the onslaught of her fists.
Over his shoulder, Beau could see her mentor, Dairon, giving her an approving look. They were standing a few feet away from the edge of the practice mat, watching Beau dance circles around the gradually tiring man. It was uncharacteristic of Beau to feel so warmly towards a figure of authority but Dairon was a special case. Dairon was the reason she felt, for the first time since handcuffs had been wrapped around her wrists nearly three years ago, that she might actually be good for something.
And to think, it had all come from the YORP mandate that program attendees were required to either be employed or getting an education during their rehabilitation. Having by some miracle graduated high school, and being the daughter of a well-to-do winemaker, Beau had opted for the educational route.
The job market wasn’t exactly forgiving toward those with a criminal past, and since her sentence wasn’t yet completed, her youth record wasn’t yet sealed. Employment opportunities were thin, to say the least. And sure, the YORP program managers would assist with job searches and interviews and the like, but given that her father was willing to pay for the schooling, it simply made the most sense to choose the scholarly route.
Still, to say that Beau had ‘opted’ for it was a generous term. Her father had insisted she get a ‘proper education’ in the hopes that it might “obscure the distasteful parts of her past”, as he’d put it. He had chosen the institution she would attend and the discipline she would study, despite her protestations that it wouldn’t do shit to turn her into an upright young woman. But since it was, after all, a requirement of the program, and she did, in fact, want to complete her sentence, there wasn’t much she could do other than to comply, however defiantly.
To her surprise, her father did not send her to either military or business school. The former she had assumed was on the table after she had stolen from the family business and begun her life of crime. The latter, well, it had always been her father’s goal for someone to run the business when he was gone – he had thought it could be Beau, for a time, but clearly those sentiments had changed. Not that Beau cared anymore anyway. He would never do things her way, and now he could pass the torch onto her baby brother when he was of age.
No, rather than ship her off to some distant town or subject her to the harrowing trials of economic theory, Beau’s father had instead decided that she should study psychology. The goal was that she would, as he put it, “learn the inner workings of the human mind, and tell me why my only daughter turned out to be such a disappointment.”
The memory was a sour one, and sinking into it left her reflexes a touch too slow on defence. Her opponent swung high, caught her guard, and dropped his other fist to her ribs. She tensed against the blow as it collided with her muscles. She let out a huff. Sure, they were wearing gloves, but a punch was still a punch.
“Discipline!” Dairon called out, their voice clipped and precise.
“You hear that, Jailbird?” Logan taunted. “Discipline – or else they’ll lock you back up.”
The taunt lost some of its edge around his laboured breathing but it still had Beau gritting her teeth. She had only been in jail for 90 days, a minimum sentence granted by virtue of her father’s connections, but once the cat had gotten out of the bag about her past, the nickname had stuck amongst the members of the college’s martial arts club.
The martial arts club. What a godsend. She could still remember her first time setting foot on the campus. She had never thought she’d find her calling in a sweaty, basement gymnasium at community college.
When she’d begun the psychology program nearly two years ago, she’d enrolled in evening classes. The college was in the city and the city was a half an hour drive from town. Evening made the most sense given the ungodly number of community service hours she had to work off back home. That first evening, she had walked into a classroom with seven other people in it. It was meant to seat 50.
A wispy man with long blonde hair had stood at the front of the classroom, an air of pompousness about him. He had introduced himself as Professor Zeenoth and had proceeded to give a monotonous and downright boring lecture on psychology for the next 95 minutes.
When the end of the class had finally rolled around, Beau hadn’t been surprised to find that she wasn’t the only person sitting in front of an empty desk and sporting a vacant expression. She shouldered her bag, despite having used none of the materials inside of it, and had sauntered back to her car. Her expectations for the classes had been low and so far she’d been proven right. She had spent the drive home pondering the psychology of low expectations, just for fun.
It wasn’t until the third week of classes that things had abruptly changed. She had arrived for her class with Zeenoth only to find the usual instructor wasn’t there. Instead, a ‘Professor Dairon’ was going to be giving the lecture that evening. It was Dairon’s bald head and sharp features that Beau had noticed first, until they had leaned over the table at the front of the room and showed off impeccably sculpted forearms below the cuffs of their rolled-up sleeves. Tack onto that an absolutely enthralling lecture about behavioural psychology and, well, Beau was surprised to find herself supremely intrigued by both the discipline and the teacher.
She winced as Logan’s sudden kick caught her on the side of her leg. She’d been caught daydreaming again. She grunted in frustration and strafed back out of his reach.
She was unfocused. She was letting Logan claw back into their match when she should’ve had him down for the count within the first few seconds of sparring. She watched as he threw a couple of punches in her direction without expecting any to land, simply keeping her at a distance.
Frustrated at her wandering mind and suddenly wanting the match over with, Beau lunged forward and feigned low with her right. Logan flinched in anticipation and dropped the guard around his head. Beau shifted her weight and threw all her effort into a brutal left hook to his chin. It caught him clean in the side of the jaw, and the air fled from his lungs like a popped balloon.
Staggering, Logan’s form opened up even more, and Beau let loose a flurry of blows that had the man backing up until he threatened to fall out of their makeshift ring. Beau kept wailing on him, his defence completely shattered until she heard him call,
“Tap – fuck, I said ‘tap’!”
With that, she let up. She hopped back, bouncing on the balls of her feet and feeling immensely pleased with herself. Grumbling, Logan picked himself up off the floor and spat his mouthguard into his hand. He rolled his head and shook his shoulders before giving her a sportsmanlike tap with his glove.
“Never can understand how you move so damn fast,” he grunted as he pushed his sweaty hair back from his forehead.
“Learned it in prison,” Beau replied with a grin, still bouncing on her feet.
Logan arched an eyebrow at her, clearly uncertain whether she was joking or not, before he ducked off the mat and made for the locker room. He was no doubt going to nurse his injured pride in peace. From behind him, Dairon stepped into the sparring space on the mat. They stood opposite Beau, arms clasped behind their back. They were wearing a form-fitting black hoodie and black track pants to match.
“That could have been better.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Beau countered lightly as she spat her mouthguard into one of her gloves.
Dairon’s expression never changed but Beau could’ve sworn she saw amusement flash in their eyes.
“Why so unfocused today, Beauregard?”
Beau shrugged and stopped bouncing. “Thinking about the past, I guess.”
“Hm.” Neither a noise of approval or disapproval, it was an acknowledgement of Beau’s comment and a gentle request for more information. Dairon wouldn’t interrogate her unless they had to.
“Thinking about how we met, actually. How I got started here.”
“Ah.” Dairon inclined their head as if remembering it too. “You had just started your program. I remember quite clearly that you did not want to be here. Then you discovered that I helped manage the martial arts club. That certainly made you change your tune, I think?
Beau rolled her eyes. It was true that she’d only really taken to the whole ‘college’ thing once she’d followed Dairon’s suggestion and signed up for the club.
“Yeah, well, who can blame me, this shit rules.” She gestured at the gym around them. “Just had to get past Zeenoth first.”
Dairon shook her head at the mention of the former academic.
“To think he had the audacity to call himself ‘Professor’. He was an instructor at best.”
“Yeah. Little bitch,” Beau added for good measure, mostly for her own amusement.
She had learned several classes after meeting Dairon that Zeenoth had been a Ph.D. candidate from a university in a different city. He had come to their college to gain hands-on experience teaching before he completed his dissertation. Dairon had been furious to learn he’d been parading as a professor. When they’d found out, he had immediately been sent back to his home institution.
Dairon quirked an eyebrow at Beau’s comment. “And how are your studies going? They are equally as important as the physical education you are receiving, you know.”
“Oh, uh,” Beau ran a gloved hand along the back of her neck. “The studies are coming along fantastic, yeah. Really good.”
There was a pause before Dairon said, “The paper is due this coming Monday, Beauregard.”
Beau sent her gaze skyward as she fought not to let out a heavy sigh. “I know, I know. I’ll get it done.”
Dairon’s expression nearly always remained neutral – it was something Beau appreciated. Her mentor may never look at her proudly, but they never looked at her in disappointment either. Still, Beau couldn’t help the feeling that she was letting Dairon down with her lacklustre grades in the class. It was her second year, the final year of her program, and the grades she received in these classes could shape her plans moving forward.
Dairon regarded her for a few moments before asking, “What about the paper is giving you trouble?”
Beau thought it over for a second before replying, “I’m just... not interested in ethnographic research carried out by some dude in the Amazon. Isn't that more anthropology than psychology? Plus some of those studies are all kinds of fucked up.”
She winced slightly at the bluntness of the statement but Dairon didn’t seem to mind.
“Okay,” Dairon nodded. “The topic is immersive ethnography and its efficacy as a research method, especially as it pertains to bias, which is certainly a topic of psychological interest. Why not discuss something other than the ethnographic research of geographically secluded cultures?”
“Huh?”
Dairon almost cracked a smile. “Don’t talk about some ‘dude’ and his research in the Amazon. Talk about ethnographic research of a different kind.”
Beau frowned. “What different kind is there? Everybody knows everybody – you know what I mean, culture-wise. Unless they’re one of these secluded or ‘uncontacted’ cultures, everybody is pretty par for the course, aren't they?”
Dairon shrugged. “We often think of ethnography as the study of cultures that lay outside the norm, but really it is just the study of an individual culture. A culture can be boiled down to the customs, ideas, and social behaviours of a group. Nowhere do we say that group must be isolated physically from the world.”
“Okay?”
“So, Beauregard, you have personal experience with such a group. Gangs form a culture of their own and are by their very nature subversive to some of society’s most upheld values.”
Beau opened her mouth but Dairon raised a hand to cut her off.
“I would never ask you to write on a topic you are not comfortable with. I would not ask you to write your personal experiences at all, and if the subject were still to cause you discomfort, I wouldn’t ask you to write it even from an objective perspective. But I wanted to make it clear that there are other ways to write this paper, Beauregard. Ways that you may find easier and more engaging than simply discussing the antics of some man in the Amazon. Subcultures can fall under the scope of ethnographic research and if that would make this topic more palatable to you, I would encourage you to take that approach.”
Beau let the information sink in before she cracked a wide smile. “That actually helps a lot, yeah. Yeah... shit.”
Dairon’s lips quirked just shy of pulling into a smile. They nodded once. “I’m glad you are feeling better about the assignment.”
Silence followed for a few moments before Beau spoke up again. “You’re a good teacher.”
Sincerity rang heavily in her voice. Gratefulness too.
Dairon tilted their head sideways. “Despite what I expect you’ve been hearing for a lot of your life, you are a good student, Beauregard. You have a wealth of potential and I would not see it wasted.”
The praise washed over Beau like warm water on a cold day, reaching into every pore and imbuing her with pride. A little overwhelmed and keen not to show how much it had affected her, she rolled her shoulders, popped her mouthguard back in, and brought up her gloves.
“You up for a round?”
Dairon gave her a level stare. “I’m not wearing gloves.”
“That’s fine.”
“I won’t pull my punches.”
“Even better.”
Dairon did, finally, crack a smile at that.
It was only a few short minutes before Beau’s mentor had her pinned against the mat. Beau huffed as she fought to break the iron grip that held her.
“Yield.” Dairon’s voice was calm in her ear.
The weight of their body, slight as they were, could’ve kept Beau pinned as though they were an ox. Beau continued her struggle, futile as it was. She tried rolling to the side, throwing her head back, and even flailing around with her legs, but all to no avail.
“I have you pinned. Yield.”
Grunting in frustration, Beau wiggled for a few more moments before she finally went limp. Dairon released her. Once Beau rolled over onto her back, Dairon offered her a hand.
“You are sluggish today.”
“I had a long day,” Beau replied around heaving breaths. She threw her gloves to the floor and spat her mouthguard back out. “It was hot out.”
“Garbage?” Dairon asked.
“How did you know?”
The side of Dairon’s mouth twitched upwards. “I have an excellent sense of smell. How is the program going?”
Beau almost gave her typical response – ‘it’s going’ – until she remembered the events of the very end of the day. “They’ve got someone new.”
“Ah, well. Injustice exists and corruption persists. What are they in for?”
“’She’ – and I don’t know.” Beau gave Dairon her best attempt at a semi-serious, reproachful look. “You know, at YORP it’s considered impolite to ask about someone’s conviction,” she told them.
“Yes,” Dairon inclined their head. “But I doubt that’s ever stopped you before.”
“Not really, no.”
“So are you going to ask her what she did?”
“Yeah,” Beau replied as the image of the woman Hector had called ‘Miss Nydoorin’ formed in her mind; black-and-white hair and an aesthetic to die for. “Yeah, I think just might.”
It was another several days before Beau crossed paths with Miss Nydoorin again.
It was early afternoon. She and Caleb were about to begin a round of community service. They were accompanied by two other ‘YORPies’, as Caleb called them. He really had the most inventive names for things.
Despite spending so much time together, Beau wouldn’t go so far as to call herself friends with any of the others. Caleb was the exception, and that was only because he had been such a glaring asshole when they’d first met that their friendship had in some ways been inevitable.
On that particular afternoon, Beau, Caleb, and the two other young lawbreakers were milling about in the community centre parking lot. They were waiting for their supervisor, Milton, to tell them to load up into the van so they could drive out to the worksite for the day. They were supposed to be painting somebody’s fence. The roller brushes, paint cans, and other miscellaneous supplies were already packed into the back of the van. All that was left was to wait for Milton’s cue.
Milton was a reedy man in his late thirties with an unfortunate case of male pattern baldness. Of the three supervisors they dealt with on a regular basis, he was the middle of the ladder for Beau. She neither liked him nor hated him. He was polite, distant, and just there for the hours, same as them.
He stood in the middle of the parking lot. The sun shone down around him where it could amongst a spotted sky of clouds. He was tapping his foot as he waited, clipboard in hand. For what, Beau wasn’t sure. She decided to go up and ask.
“Hey, Milt,” she called, using the nickname only to pester him. “What are we waiting for? ‘Times a wasting’, as they say.”
He gave her a disdainful look but otherwise didn’t comment on the nickname. “We’re waiting for one more.”
“Oh, someone’s late?” What’s that gonna be, demerits? A write-up?” Beau joked sarcastically.
Milton sighed heavily. “Just go wait by the van, Beauregard.”
Shrugging indifferently, she obeyed, if only because Milton wasn’t exactly a prime candidate for thrilling conversation. She sidled up next to Caleb, who was leaning against the side of the van and playing with a set of matches.
“Didn’t think you were allowed to have those.”
“What am I going to do, set the building on fire?” Caleb dead-panned. “They are matches, Beauregard-” he held up the small pack for her to see, “-but they could go a long way with some gasoline.”
Beau snorted. “You know, saying shit like that is exactly why they keep sending you back here.”
Rather than offer a reply, Caleb simply shrugged noncommittally and struck another match.
Before the conversation could continue any further, a clunky old station wagon came chugging up the road. Its muffler was making sounds like two tin cans going at it on a pantry shelf and every head in the parking lot turned to watch its approach. It drove slowly into the lot, its aging green paint fading to rust around the wheels, before coming to a stop just short of Milton. The passenger side door opened and a tall, brawny figure clambered out.
The viking.
Miss Nydoorin stood as if she hadn’t just stepped out of the most beat-up car of the decade. She was a force to be reckoned with, sporting a different black leather jacket than the other day and a pair of ripped light-wash jeans. The white shirt she wore was torn in several places along the hem, the tatters of it dangling from beneath her jacket like 1970s fringe. Her hair was down and wild, waves and braids intermingling to form a mane that would make even Medusa jealous.
Beau watched as she shut the car door and began walking towards Milton, only to stop short when the car let out a quick, insistent honk. Beau turned her attention to the windshield and tried to see in to the driver. She couldn’t make out much beyond a man with... pink hair?
Miss Nydoorin froze. A moment passed where she looked to be carefully schooling her expression before she turned back toward the car. The driver rolled down his window. Beau watched in fascination as the woman trudged to the car, leaned down to the window, and traded quiet words with the man before she stood up and turned back towards Milton. The entire exchange seemed overwhelmingly familial, like something a teasing father might do to embarrass his children on the first day of school.
A “you didn’t say ‘I love you’” type of schtick.
With the bizarre exchange over, the driver rolled up their window and reversed the station wagon out of the parking lot. The sound of its retreating, clanking muffler eventually faded into the distance. Miss Nydoorin approached Milton, who appeared taken aback by the entire thing, although whether it was the noisy car, the imposing woman, or the strange interaction they’d all witnessed, Beau couldn’t be sure. She tried to edge closer to the two of them without drawing their attention.
“Um,” Milton stammered as he took in the woman’s appearance from head to toe. She was only taller than him by a matter of inches, but she was nearly twice as broad in the shoulders. “Yasha... Nydoorin?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, well, er-” Milton scribbled something on his clipboard, “-please try to arrive on time for all your future shifts.”
Yasha gave him a blank stare that lingered on just long enough to be considered uncomfortable before she offered a clipped, “Noted.”
“Right, well, uh-” Milton turned and gestured towards the van, “-let’s head out then.”
Yasha shifted her gaze to the group waiting by the car. Beau watched as she took in the four of them standing there, her eyes running over them for the first time. Even as her gaze washed over Beau, it did so without an ounce of recognition. Or interest. She regarded them all with such an overwhelming sense of apathy that Beau’s first instinct was to demand her attention somehow.
So, as Yasha walked over to them, her black boots crunching the gravel on the pavement, Beau called out an experimental, “’Sup newbie?”
From somewhere behind her she thought she heard Caleb’s hand smack against his head.
It worked, however, as Yasha’s attention fell onto Beau as she approached. Without breaking her stride, she gave Beau a once-over and replied with an emotionless, “Sup.”
Not a question, and certainly not an invitation for further conversation. Yasha shouldered past her and made her way to the side door of the van. Beau turned and watched as she pulled the handle, slid the door open, and climbed in without another word. Caleb, who had moved out of Yasha’s way and now stood near the front door, turned his gaze from Yasha’s retreating form over to Beau.
“She is a beast of a woman,” he said, his voice tinged with something like awe.
Beau cocked an eyebrow. “I think she can still hear you.”
“Sure can-” came Yasha’s voice from the inside of the van. Beau and Caleb looked at each other, and Beau felt her lips pulling into a grin.
‘This is gonna be fun,’ she mouthed to Caleb before she followed Yasha’s lead and clambered into the van.
The faded white picket fence they were going to be painting belonged to Mrs. Davies, a brusque old widow who lived on the edge of town. She lived alone in a small home that she’d once shared with her partner, the other Mrs. Davies, who had passed away some years ago.
Mrs. Davies’ house was a tiny one: a little bungalow that looked to be half as old as she was. It was secluded from its neighbours and was the last house between the town and the endlessly-stretching plains. It sat nestled in a modest plot of land, with a stand of oak and maple trees bordering it at the back. The front of the lot was, unfortunately, unprotected from the heat of the sun, but there was consolation in knowing that when they did reach the back, they would find shade under the tall trees there.
Once the van had pulled up and parked, the young offenders began unloading the supplies from the back. More accurately, Beau began unloading the van with the help of one of the others; a 17-year-old girl named Anna that Beau seemed to remember had been arrested on several counts of vandalism and destruction of property. Caleb stood behind them and helped by taking items from their hands and laying them in an organized pile on the sidewalk. Dale, a 19-year-old pickpocket and corner store thief, began surveying Mrs. Davies’ fence.
Yasha, for her part, stood silently a short distance away, arms folded across her chest as she let her attention drift between the van and the surrounding area. She looked as apathetic as before, but a touch more relaxed. Resigned, maybe, to spending her day doing manual labour.
While they prepared to get to work, Milton wandered to the front gate. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Davies was teetering down the front path towards him.
“Good morning, Mrs. Davies,” he called pleasantly.
“Good morning, Milton dear.”
Mrs. Davies was a short and stooped elderly woman, her shoulders permanently rolled forwards after years of holding herself upright. Her hair, which had once been black and dreadlocked, was cut short and had long since turned a greyish white. She wore dark, loose-fitting trousers and a forest-green cardigan. She walked on wobbly legs, aided by a small wooden cane.
In spite of her frail-looking form, her wits were as sharp as ever. They could still crack at an unsuspecting stranger with all the snap of a lion tamer's whip. She was never rude, but she was to the point and downright blunt at times. At least, she was towards the men of the town. With women, she seemed to be softer.
As she reached the small gate, Milton opened it for her and she teetered out into the street.
“You lot may as well put all those rollers back," she said, gesturing at the pile of equipment with her cane. "There’ll be lots of work to get done on this old fence before you can even think about slapping a coat of paint on it.”
Dale, who had crouched down to inspect the fence, stood up, brushed off his knees, and walked back over to join them.
“She’s right,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Shit, Milton, you didn’t think to check this shit out before dragging us out here, or what?”
Milton gave Dale a sharp glance. “Watch it. Now-,” He turned to Mrs. Davies. “What’s this about more work?”
It was Yasha who spoke first, before either Mrs. Davies or Dale could reply. Her arms still crossed in front of her chest, her expression still overwhelmingly indifferent.
“The fence is too old and chipped. It’ll need to be scraped, washed, and sanded. Then primed. Then painted.”
All eyes turned to her briefly. It was the most she’d said all day. Milton quickly turned back to Mrs. Davies, seeking confirmation, while Dale shrugged and turned back towards the fence. Beau, for her part, kept her attention on Yasha.
“Done this type of thing before then, have you?”
Yasha’s eyes stayed fixed on the fence in front of them. “Yes.”
“It’s pretty boring stuff. What crime landed you this punishment the first time around?”
It was bold of her to ask about Yasha’s criminal history and she knew it. They’d hardly exchanged pleasantries and Yasha certainly hadn’t been chatty in the car ride over. Still, Beau found the words tumbling out of her mouth. If she was a sawed-off shotgun, it seemed as though Yasha was a long-range rifle, silenced and unloaded.
A moment passed before Yasha replied, “There wasn’t one.”
With that, she took two strides forwards and crouched down next to the tools they’d unloaded. She sifted through them briefly.
“There’s four scrapers in here. No sandpaper.” She said it to whomever might be listening before she grabbed one of the scrapers and pushed up from her crouch. She flipped it end over end in her hand, catching it by its narrow handle, and began walking toward the fence line. “Daylight’s wasting.”
Beau looked over to Caleb, who shrugged. Meanwhile, Milton seemed to be coming to some sort of arrangement with Mrs. Davies.
“...alright, alright, well, we’ll get started on peeling the paint today and I’ll just let Mr. Harris know that this project is going to require more hours than we originally allotted it...“
“Come on-,” Beau said to Caleb as she strode forward and reached for two of the scrapers. “Let’s go.”
She turned and threw one to him. After a bit of panicked handwaving, he managed to catch the thing without it falling to the pavement.
“Please don’t throw things at me. You know I am not athletically inclined.”
Instead of replying, Beau was already set on walking away and heading towards the spot where Yasha had decided to begin her work. Assuming Caleb would follow – which he did – Beau crouched down in the grass several pickets away from the other woman. Up close, she could easily see what Yasha had meant about the peeling paint needing to be removed. Any new coat they tried to put on would turn out bumpy and ridged from the worn-out coat beneath.
Caleb joined Beau a couple of seconds later and eventually, Dale wandered over as well, although he sat himself down in an area apart from the three of them. Beau didn’t take it personally. A reintegration program like theirs could result in lasting friendships, sure, but for some it was simply another form of punishment.
With no tool left for Anna, Milton was in the awkward position of trying to decide if he could leave them alone for a short while and go pick up more tools from the hardware store. It was Mrs. Davies who made the decision for him soon enough.
“Well, you can’t have that poor girl standing around and doing nothing. Take her with you to get more tools and I’ll watch over these four here.”
“Mrs. Davies,” Milton began uncertainly, “I really shouldn’t leave you alone with these... people. Some of the things they’ve been convicted of, it’s-”
Mrs. Davies, who clearly wanted to prioritize the refurbishment of her fence over all other matters, waved him off. “No need to shock me with the details, Milton. Just be a dear and go to the store, will you?”
It was, Beau thought, a talent of elderly women to be able to camouflage a demand behind the disguise of a request. Just like that, Milton was asking Anna to climb back into the van and the two of them were off to the town’s main hardware store in search of scrapers, sandpaper, primer, and a couple of hammers for good measure.
As the van pulled away down the road, Mrs. Davies hobbled over to where the three of them were working. She spared Dale a passing glance but seemed to find them more worthy of her immediate attention.
“Good, you’re already started,” she said as she came to a stop nearby. “I’ll have you know that I keep a loaded Winchester rifle in the house, a vestige of my former hunting days, and if one of you so much as looks at that countryside funny, I’ll be pointing it out my living room window, my failing eyesight be damned.”
Caleb, taken completely aback by the woman’s frankness, let out a loud gulp and nodded quickly several times, mumbling a polite “of course” before turning his head back to his work. Beau simply gave Mrs. Davies one of her winning smiles and inclined her head in understanding.
“I believe you’re a sharpshooter, Mrs. Davies. No need to prove it to us.” she replied good-naturedly.
Next to her, Yasha lowered her scraper and looked up at the old woman. The corner of her mouth threatened to pull into a soft smile.“Yes ma’am. We wouldn’t dream of it.”
Mrs. Davies let out a grunt of approval before she waddled off in Dale’s direction, no doubt planning to give him the same warning.
When she was a good distance away, Beau turned towards Yasha. “’Ma’am’? Wouldn’t have figured you as the ‘respecting authority’ type there, Yasha.”
Yasha had already returned her attention to the fence. She did, however, lift one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “She has my respect freely. Authority has nothing to do with it.”
“You’re a ‘respecting the elders’ type, then?” Beau continued light-heartedly.
That time, she got no reply at all.
They worked in silence then, the scraping of their tools against the wood the only constant of the day. Every so often a car or two would pass by on their way in and out of town, or a couple of birds would strike up a conversation in the surrounding trees. It took nearly an hour for Milton to return with Anna and the tools. When they were back, their supervisor locked the van and made for Mrs. Davies’ front door, clearly having no intention of waiting outside while they worked. Anna took her scraper and knelt down over by Dale.
“You think she likes him?” Beau asked absently, more to kill the silence than anything.
Caleb looked up and towards the two other young workers. They were crouched close enough to be considered working ‘together’ but far enough apart that it didn’t seem overly familiar.
“What, that?” He pointed his scraper in their direction.
“Yeah.”
“Psh.”
Beau couldn’t help a small chuckle. “’Psh’ what?”
Caleb shrugged. “She can do better.”
That had Beau laughing for real. “A vandal can do better than a thief?”
Caleb shot her a withering look. “I mean that she is still a kid. She is only 17, yes? And if she keeps her record clean and completes the program, all of those past mistakes will be forgiven.”
“The same goes for Dale, though,” Beau countered easily.
In truth, she wasn’t remotely interested in whether Anna liked Dale or if the two kids would become reformed adults. It was simply one of the greatest joys in her small town life to rile Caleb up from time to time. The debates came so easily between them, sometimes she did think it was a miracle they’d grown to care for each other so much.
“No,” Caleb insisted, shaking his head now. “No, Dale is a lifer, I can tell. Maybe he is trying to change, but I can tell he has an itch.”
“An itch?”
“To steal,” Caleb continued. “It is like... it is a rush of adrenaline for him. He misses it.”
Beau shifted her gaze from the two kids back to Caleb. “Are we... still talking about Dale?”
Caleb shrugged again. Suddenly, he no longer seemed interested in discussing the likelihood of the blossoming romance. Beau, intent on not letting the day lapse into silence again, decided to ask him about something else. Something that could be considered tangentially related.
“Have you spoken to Astrid lately?”
Caleb, who had gone back to scraping a section of the fence, slowed his hand to a stop. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I’m just making conversation!”
Caleb sighed and began scraping again. “No, I have not talked to her recently. Why, have you been in touch with Tori?”
He said it without a hint of malice, and yet Beau knew him well enough to know that he’d meant it to be barbed. It certainly felt like it; the way Tori’s name punctured her lungs and sunk in its hooks. There was no easy way to remove it once it had latched itself on.
“Low blow,” she told him, her voice teetering on the edge of anger.
“As was your comment about Astrid,” he retorted.
“I was genuinely curious-,” Beau began, fighting to keep her temper in check. “-You just did that to be a dick.”
“Oh, as if you didn’t know what you were doing when you asked about-”
“You two bicker like a married couple.”
The sudden interjection of Yasha’s voice startled both Caleb and Beau into a momentary silence. Beau turned to face her. She had continued moving down the fence while they’d been arguing, and now there were about eleven or twelve pickets between them.
“Ew, no thank you,” Beau said after a moment.
“Absolutely not,” Caleb added.
Yasha’s lips pulled into a smirk even as her eyes remained focused on the fence.
“He’s not my type,” Beau added quickly. It seemed a crucial point to make, for some reason.
At Beau's comment, Yasha’s smirk grew a little wider. “I gathered.”
“Oh yeah?” Beau fought not to creep closer to her. This was the most that Yasha had engaged with them all day. It was intoxicating, in a way, to get such an imposing woman to come out of her shell. “What makes you say that?”
Yasha continued peeling paint as she said, “Well, for starters, ‘Tori’ is most commonly a woman’s name.”
Beau frowned. From behind her she heard Caleb muffle a laugh.
“Maybe, but I didn’t say that I-” She cut herself off. As much as she wanted her conversation with Yasha to continue further, some things just didn’t need to be said on the very first day.
The abrupt way she’d stopped speaking clearly did her no favours, though. Yasha tilted her head sideways as if to say ‘there it is’ before she added, “You didn’t need to."
Beau’s frown deepened. She couldn't keep the irritation out of her voice when she retorted, “Well, what about you? Since this is turning into such a sharing circle, you wanna come over here and tell us about your sorry past?”
The smirk slipped from Yasha’s lips and her eyebrows knit together. “No...,” she replied slowly. “I don’t think so.”
Beau had no immediate response to that. Her anger and annoyance, which she realized was primarily directed at Caleb, quickly faded. She felt guilty, soon after, for snapping at the other woman so rudely. She sighed.
Just as she was about to open her mouth to apologize, Yasha pushed up from her crouch. She rolled her neck and shoulders, turned her face toward the sun, and absentmindedly shrugged out of her leather jacket.
As it fell to the ground, Beau took in the new details of Yasha’s figure with a near-ravenous interest, their altercation forgotten. The tattered white shirt she wore was sleeveless and nearly see-through, her bare, broad shoulders rounding into muscular arms. Her deltoids, biceps, triceps, and whatever else made up muscular arm anatomy, looked like they had been carved from stone. Yet, on the whole, she seemed almost gentler in the sunlight. The paleness of her skin made it easy to spot the large green tattoo that began somewhere above her neck and ran down the length of her left arm to her wrist. It looked vaguely floral from where Beau was sitting.
It was all a bit striking, to say the least. The words Beau had prepared all but shrivelled up and died in her throat. Yasha, without the leather jacket to darken her look and with sunlight smeared across her skin, was all glowing radiance and soft edges.
The moment passed when she turned her gaze back towards Beau. The hard set of her jaw returned, and the look in her eyes held all the edge of tempered steel.
“I’m gonna work over there for a bit,” she announced, shrugging vaguely in a direction that was decidedly away from the two of them.
She turned and began to walk away. Beau found her tongue at the very last second. “Wait!”
Yasha looked back over her shoulder, eyebrow cocked in a silent question. Beau couldn’t remember what she’d been going to say. But it felt like she should say something– anything–
“You got a license for those guns?”
She was grateful that, this time, she heard no distant snickering from Caleb. Instead, a bloated silence hung across the yard, waiting for the pinprick that would shatter the moment. Yasha looked taken aback at first, her eyebrows raised slightly at the brazenness of Beau’s comment. Then, her expression shifted into something on the very edges of amusement.
“If I did-,” she began, her voice low, nearly playful, “-do you think I would’ve wound up here?”
She let her gaze linger on Beau for a few heartbeats longer, almost daring her to fire some half-cracked joke in return. Beau had nothing to give, however. She was too caught off guard by the way Yasha had thrown her own teasing back at her.
With nothing more to say, Yasha turned and resumed walking toward another section of the fence. Beau watched her leave, her eyes drinking in the shape of her back, the way she could very clearly follow the ridges of her muscles before dragging her eyes lower to the narrowing lines of her waist–
“Why would I talk about Anna and Dale when watching you drool over this woman has become vastly more entertaining?”
Beau blinked a few times and shook her head before turning to Caleb. “You-,” she pointed a finger at him, “-shut up.”
Caleb looked over to where Yasha was now sitting, crouched by herself along a distant section of the fence.
“I hope we are scheduled with her quite often. If we are, your last 100 hours will become much, much more interesting.”
Beau followed Caleb’s gaze, ignoring his teasing all the while. His comment chafed at her after his earlier mention of Tori, but she had to admit that she did agree with him on one thing: she found herself hoping that Yasha would be paired with them for the foreseeable future. There was just something about her, like a gravitational force, and Beau found herself being pulled all too willingly into orbit.