Our quest to locate Amara ran into a roadblock relatively quickly, as a few hallways into our search we ended up in one that was empty save for one troubling student. Scrungy paced back and forth.

"I bet...five steps, no six," Scrungy said to herself, her voice echoing all the way to us. She made a frame with her hands, at a drinking fountain in front of her. She took six steps forward and did a practice kick, jumping about a foot away from the fountain. "Yeah, six would be good..."

"Let's go somewhere else," Zeta said, her voice shaky as she hid behind Oka.

"No," I said.

"What? Why? What?" Zeta said. "We could take literally any other hallway? Why? What?"

"We could, but if she's thinking about harming school property, I can't let that stand," I said as I pushed up my glasses. My school may have had a great deal of issues, but I was a student there, and not just that, a student of integrity and pride, and I had to set an example for this place.

"It's just Scrungy," Oka said, patting Zeta's shoulders. "I'll protect you if she tries anything!"

I marched ahead as Scrungy did more phantom kicks in the vicinity of the fountain.

"Olivia." I said.

"Yeah?" I was mildly surprised that she didn't demand I call her by her nickname "Scrungy."

"What are you doing?" I asked. If she sensed my tone was one of immense displeasure she didn't show it.

"I bet I could kick this fountain off the wall." Scrungy said. Zeta made a small yelping sound, as if Scrungy had just literally kicked it and sent it careening toward her.

"You're not doing that," I said.

"Pfft, why not?" Scrungy said. She stood up straight, eyeing me up and down.

I wasn't afraid of her. As far as I was concerned, she was in the same tier of brutish, dopey bully at Rising Shards as Ema Kari and Snake Riley, so any attempt by her to intimidate me would fail.

"Because you'll regret it," I said. "There are teachers around. You'll get caught immediately, and for what? Five seconds of enjoyment from destroying something? You could just go to the mall in town and go to that store where you get a hammer and fifteen minutes to destroy things, that'd be a better use of your time, and you'd get significantly more destroying time, and it wouldn't be school property."

"That place is like twenty bucks," Scrungy said.

"Do you want twenty bucks?" Zeta said, patting her pockets. "I can, uh..."

Oka waved her off. "Zeta, come on."

"What?" Zeta said. "We could...wrap this up really quickly."

"Scrungy can get her own money," I said. "Wherever you go, it'd be a better option than this."

"Yeah, and this would be free!" Scrungy said. She took a step back.

"Wait!" I hissed.

Just as I said that, a crowd passed by beside us. Ms. Letoh led a group of students.

"This way to the buses, shopping spree attendees, this way!" Letoh said.

"Oh damn, you were right," Scrungy said, her eyes wide. She absolutely would have been caught red handed (or whatever the equivalent of red handed would be for kicking something) if we hadn't intervened.

I brushed my hair aside with my hand. "You're welcome. Now we'll be on our way, we're looking for someone."

"Uh, who?" Scrungy said. We had to put our backs against the wall as Letoh's group passed through.

"Amara," I said.

"Oh, yeah, I saw her, she went to the buses for that shopping thing, too," Scrungy said. Still looking a bit shocked that advice saying not to destroy things actually worked out for her, she walked away without saying bye.

"We did it!" Zeta said. "Well, you did it, Lillia."

Oka cracked her knuckles. "I was ready for a fight if it came down to it."

"That's...scary, but cool," Zeta said, a hint of wonderment in her voice. "And she told us where Amara went!"

"We could've figured that one out," I said.

"Well! Still!" Zeta said.

"The important thing is that the school property is safe," I said as we joined Letoh's group.

There were long lines for two coach buses waiting for us in the parking lot. I didn't see Amara anywhere, so I had to assume she was onboard one of them already.

"But which one...?" I said.

I looked for any students that might have an idea. Most of the lines near us were Wildfire Hearts students, but one could be a promising lead.

Michi was only a few people ahead of us, with Iris and Maia near them.

Amara said a bit ago that Michi would be at the shopping spree event, and that the love trio invited them to go with their group. A stroke of luck hit as the few girls in front of us decided to go to the other line.

"Michi," I said. "Is Amara on this bus?"

Michi nodded. "All the love trio are there, with a spot saved for me, apparently." They shrugged.

"Michi, don't," Maia said.

"Don't what?" Michi asked.

"Uh uh," Maia shut her eyes and shook her head.

"Don't what?!" Michi said.

"Don't take MaiMai too seriously, that's what," Iris said, wagging her finger. "She just hates the love trio."

"I don't hate them, I just find em super annoying," Maia said.

"Maia's softened up on them a lot, but she still gets all crabby about them!" Iris snort laughed.

"Yeah, well, they're open now so I'm just warning Michi," Maia said. "They are super annoying and you do not want to date them."

Iris gasped. "Since when are they open?!"

"You were there at camp, Amara told us," Maia said.

"I remember that!" Zeta said. "Yeah, you were there, Iris."

"Iris, I don't know how to say this in a way that isn't extremely rude, but are you like really stupid or something?" Michi asked.

"I...probably!" Iris said. "Why is this turning around on me? Maybe I'll join their polycule, what then?"

Maia growled, pulling Iris by her shoulder closer to her. Iris blushed and started giggling very loudly. I wasn't sure if the two had gotten around to admitting that they were dating yet, but it was a cute sight.

"Thank you, Michi, we just had to ask Amara something," I said. Michi thankfully didn't question what I had to ask Amara, but they'd probably hear it once we were all on the bus, unless I found a way to ask very stealthily about it.

I wasn't sure if Amara would have any answers. But even if she didn't, I was determined to find something out about Kalei's situation that night one way or another.