Chapter Text
Recess was no longer an option, but lunch time was an opportunity to sit by the swings and playground that was right next to the school Skye had enrolled her friends at. It was also one of the few times besides at night during group dinner, that she could talk to Katie and Matt. But for today's lunch she was hunched over one of the computers in the school's library, chewing her lower lip as she stared at the lines of code. She knew that Matt and maybe Katie would be wondering where she was.
Money was getting tight; a few open windows behind the lines of code she was seeing, telling her that much. She had been at the school Mr. and Mrs. Burke had put her in for the last two years. She had only learned that the numbers involved in transferring money and things just the past year, after she was able to get Matt and Katie in with her. She had found it on the Mother Superior's records under her own name. But still she understood that the decrease in numbers meant that pretty soon if there was a negative sign next to the shrinking numbers or zeroes, it would be bad for her.
And she knew that the numbers were only dwindling because of her friends. Because she wanted them to go to the same school as her; to get them away from the bullies that would hurt them at the more public school where the orphanage kids usually went. She bit her lip as she glanced down at the piece of paper she had taken from the Mother Superior's filing cabinet. To any other person, it had a bunch of numbers that was similar to the bank one she found in her own file; but it was from the file it came from that made her chew her lower lip in worry.
This was Matt's money.
An uncomfortable feeling squirmed in her stomach as she stared at the numbers that was Matt's. It was a lot of zeroes, even though she had long known that Matt was probably rich. He had first arrived at St. Agnes with his own private room, and even after he returned, he still shared a double room with one other person. Those were clear signs of someone at the orphanage who had come in with a lot of money. Still, she had not exactly realized how much money until it was staring at her from the electronic screen right at the moment.
Her fingers twitched in temptation, a few key strokes, a couple of open windows and into the backdoors of the bank and she knew she could easily transfer a couple of those zeros into her own account. They wouldn't be missed, just a couple of zeroes in the vast sums of zeroes. She doubted that no one except for the Mother Superior and herself knew how much money there was in his account. Skye bit her lower lip and resisted the twitch of fingers. This was still Matt's money. And those zeroes were needed elsewhere.
She set her fingers down on the keyboard and began to type away, sending command lines and new routing numbers, watching as the zeroes stayed steady for a moment, before the suddenly showed a new number. It would be noticed if anyone else now peeked into the account, but at least it would stop the shrinking of her own zeroes. She closed out of the windows, logged off of the VPN she had used to mask her own trail and pushed her chair back, breathing out quietly as she stared at the blank screen. It was done and maybe, there wouldn't be as much of a drain now.
Standing up, she took one more look at the blank screen before heading out of the library, the apprehension in her warring with the fact of what she had just done. It was for the best...she reasoned silently. A quick glance at the clock told her that she had about fifteen minutes left for lunch. Maybe she would be able to find Matt and Katie and eat something quick before her next class. On her way out of the library, she glanced up at the security camera that monitored the entrance and pretended to tug at a book she had “borrowed” - in reality a book she actually had borrowed, but rather two weeks ago and a bit overdue. This had been the only security camera she was aware of and she figured it didn't hurt to look like she had been browsing books during her lunch period.
Skye, however, failed to realize that there was another active security camera in the library itself, on the second floor, far corner, behind what looked like a reflective mirror designed to prevent people from running into each other in the corners. It was pointed directly at the computer stations in the library itself.
* * *
Katie and Matt were not at the playground eating lunch as she had hoped and Skye sighed a bit dejectedly. She had a few minutes left before she knew the bell was going to ring. Maybe she had missed them and they had eaten faster than her – that was the most likely thing to happen. Or one of them got detention – though she suspected probably more Katie because she tended to get into fights and generally swear at others whenever they offended her. She found it funny each time, especially since it annoyed and made the Sisters gasp like they had never heard a swear come out of her mouth before.
But sometimes she worried for Katie. Her friend had been distant lately and sometimes wouldn't talk to her. She figured maybe Katie was going through puberty, something she had learned all about a couple of years ago during the mandatory health classes. Something about hormones and mood swings, but Skye didn't quite understand what the teacher meant at that time. She did feel the whole 'you're-body-will-change' thing just a little over a year ago, but it only made her cranky a few days during the month. Katie seemed more than cranky and Skye wondered if she had done something to make her friend mad at her. She seemed fine on some days, talking excitedly about homework, or even the people she found cute and hot.
Skye sort of understood what her friend was saying, but she still felt weird seeing her classmates her age as either 'hot' or 'not' as Katie usually put it in so many words. She was certainly fascinated by and occasional unusual hair color, feature or even kind eyes, but she wouldn't start classifying them as 'hot' or 'not.' It was just plain weird to her at the moment. At least Matt seemed to understand what Katie was saying, and it seemed to make her happy that one of her friends understood her, so Skye left it at that. It was also why she occasionally pulled Matt aside to ask him to see if Katie was mad at her, since she couldn't get a straight answer or even an answer at that out of her friend whenever they were together at school or even back at the Orphanage.
She had hoped that telling Katie what she had done by transferring Matt out of her accounts and into his own would make her happier that they would be able to stay at the school a little longer. Katie always seemed to grumble a lot whenever money was involved. Maybe it would make her grumble a bit less. Grumbling Katie was fun and all whenever the Sisters and Mother Superior was involved, but grumbling Katie at her was not really fun. For one thing, whenever Katie's bad words were turned onto her and while her friend always said she was just joking, sometimes it didn't feel like a joke to Skye. Sometimes it hurt.
She sighed as she walked into the school, throwing away her paper bag that had carried her lunch. She would find Katie after school when they were all back at the Orphanage and tell her what she had done. It wasn't the most ideal place since there was a chance a Sister overheard them, but it was something she really wanted to tell her friend. A muffled noise made her snap out of her thoughts as she stopped and frowned, wondering what the noise was. No one was usually in the M-Wing at this time of the day, the section of the school that usually housed the choir, marching bands, orchestra, fine arts, and theater section of the school. Most of the M-Wing's classes were either early in the morning before all main classes, or later in the afternoon, a little before school was officially out. The only people that traveled through M-Wing at this time were either the Aquaculture students or the Agriculture ones, and that was usually to their bus that would transport them to Chelsea Piers or a little bit outside of New York City to a nearby farm in Duchess County.
The muffled sound came again and curiosity got the better of Skye as she glanced down the hall towards what she thought was the source. It was not uncommon for newer students to be locked in various classrooms or even lockers by older students in the school. She almost had it happen to her once when she had her first days after Mr. and Mrs. Burke enrolled her in the school. She had managed to wiggle her way out of it by sheer luck than being stuffed into a locker. It almost happened again a second time, but Matt had stopped the bullies and Katie had helped her out of the tuba case she was almost locked into.
It was probably some poor new student who had the misfortune of getting shoved into a tuba case or one of the marching band's lockers for their instruments or something, she supposed as she followed the source of the muffled sound. Though, this late in the school year, it was odd for the school bullies to be shoving newer students into lockers and whatnot. She mentally shrugged as the sound echoed again. This time though, she thought it sounded more like a moan than anything else.
She paused as the sound echoed again, followed by what she heard sounded a little like sucking sounds. Heat flushed to her face as she blinked in slight mortification as she realized what kinds of sounds she was hearing. One of Katie's friends had sneaked in some bootlegged rated-R movies a couple of months ago and they had watched some of them under the covers of night, giggling to themselves at the ridiculous garbled English translations some of them while giggling some more at the scenes which characters were shown with nudity. Skye had thought it was like her health classes, except in a far more graphic material than seeing a clinical analysis of body parts for both boys and girls.
There were at least two someones who were making out in what was the classroom that she had paused next to and she considered backing away just to leave them to their privacy. Still, she glanced at the classroom clock she saw from her vantage point outside the closed door. She really didn't want whomever in there to get into trouble as she knew that the band classroom they picked would have the band director walking in pretty soon. There was another muffled grunting moan and Skye sighed, adverting her eyes as she took the last few steps and reached out to the door handle. She wouldn't peek since she actually really didn't want to know how far of a state of undress either participant was in, and it made her a bit shy to see others like that.
Pushing open the door a crack, she started, “You guys should-” Contrary to what she thought, the sounds immediately stopped and Skye could not help but look up-
And froze.
She had never thought of Matt in any sense of the fact that he was like a brother to her, someone she took care of and made sure wasn't hurt much by the bullies who pushed him around at the Orphanage. Matt was always there for her, a shoulder to talk to, someone she could confide in. Someone she shared giggles, laughs, and jokes with, and occasionally her lunch or his lunch. He was someone whom she gave Blankie to, because he would not stop screaming or crying and while it was annoying, it also made her want to see that he would stop it. First it had been because of the noise factor, second because she hated to see anyone cry. At least that was what she reasoned. He was her friend.
But for some odd reason, she could feel something in her breaking, something she didn't know that could break as she stared at Katie and Matt. The latter of the two was pinned against the wall, glasses askew, hair mused up by what looked like a very thorough kissing by Katie if her hands in his hair was any indication. A half-smile, the same half-smile she remembered him always giving her each time they sat next to each other, was on his face and she blinked once, twice.
Skye never backed down from anything; but just this once, she did the only thing she could find herself doing. She fled.