145

I am not a pussy, but I wasn't superhuman either, nor did I cleave to that tired but persistent belief that crying is a sign of weakness. I owed Isa big time, though. The fact that I was trying and mostly failing to stop sobbing with self-pity in the seclusion of my own home instead of festering in a jail cell was entirely her doing. Maybe a small nod to me for having the foresight to enslave her in the first place.

(Yes, enslave. No sense pussyfooting around the term now. Not when the whole city - the whole country, maybe, if this thing got traction - was going to be using it to describe me soon enough.Acclimate, Canon.)

Still, no matter Isa's insistence that they couldn't arrest me for something the girls had done, their exposure (pun intended) had done more than enough damage. I didn't know how much Principal Horen had overheard of their damning greeting, but she'd certainlyseen plenty. The girls had been dragged to the office by Horen in anticipation of contacting their parents.