Damian was beginning to think that he didn't know Anya as well as he thought he did.

Of course he was grateful to her for taking the Tonitrus Bolt, but it seemed like he couldn't do anything right with her. She should never have been punished - none of it was even her fault, and yet she still took the heat for him.

Damian frowned, lost in his gloom on the way to breakfast. He had already told Ewen and Emile to head over first, since he had 'something last minute to do'. What he wanted to do was to find Professor Ronin and challenge him to a duel and win and fight for Anya's honour - but as a second-best option, he just wanted to do something to make it up to her.

Damian's mind wandered as he loped with his hands in his pockets. He could get her a cake? He smiled, remembering what had happened when he tried to give her a cake when they were children. She had lent him her handkerchief for the inspection, and he had done exactly the same thing - he stood back and let her take the hit for him. He clenched his teeth - why was he such an idiot?

Okay, so maybe not a cake. It reminded him too much of when they were children. But what could he do for her instead? Damian wracked his brain trying to think of something, but came up blank.

Instead, his mind returned to Anya.

He liked her because… well, he had just always liked her at this point. He couldn't remember a day when he didn't like her. He loved her emerald green eyes and her soft pink hair which shone like a halo in the sunlight.

He thought she was endearing, and he liked how honest she was. So many of the other children at Eden were like their parents. Wary, stuffy, far too conscious of their social standing, and far too buried in their own nonsense.

But what did he really know about her?

He had thought that she was seventeen, nearly eighteen years old, and that turned out not to be true. He thought that she was part of a family called the Forgers, but now Damian was realising that was probably not even the name that she was born with. So what even was her real name?

And if the Forgers weren't her real parents, then what was Anya's life like before she started at Eden? What happened to her in that time?

Then, something came back to Damian from their earlier conversation: that Loid picked her, because he thought she was… older? But he couldn't make sense of the thought, so he put it aside for the time being.

Damian's eyebrows knotted when he recalled Anya's other throwaway comment: that she took the Bolt because it was better that her father found out, rather than Damian's.

He had never, not once in his life, not ever spoken to Anya about his father. She couldn't possibly know what their relationship was really like, or how desperately Damian tried to compete for his father's attention. She had no idea that Donovan Desmond would be furious with Damian if he ever got a Bolt, or worse, would never look at him again. So why was she always so willing to put herself on the line for Damian to come off better for it in front of his father?

It was frustrating that he thought so much in circles, so Damian came to a halt. Without even realising it, he had crossed the barrier to the school and was standing by the bus stop.

Waiting for her.

Damian bit his lip. He didn't even plan to come here in the morning, but his feet just took him there. He looked at his watch - gold, with a black clock face and with a gold hand - a present from his father (supposedly, although Damian secretly guessed that it may have actually been ordered and signed for by Jeeves).

Eight o'clock. So her bus would actually be due any minute now. Damian sighed and covered his watch again with his sleeve, and then tried to shake off the cold. He could see the clouds of his own breath billowing around him. It really was coming into winter.

Damian scuffed his foot on the pavement a few times, trying to kick a stone, before turning back to the school, intending to head into the breakfast hall. He distantly heard the rumble of the school bus approaching.

He heard footsteps running on the pavement, several of them, and too late, Damian turned to see what it was.

They had the bag over his head before he could even scream.

Anya fidgeted nervously with her skirt as the bus pulled up to the stop, and she alighted with a flourish and a quick 'thank you' wave to the driver.

Only, just as she stepped off the bus, something crunched underneath her foot.

Anya carefully peeled back her shoe to see a gold watch glinting in the morning sunlight. The face of it was cracked, but unmistakably black.

Something whirred in the back of Anya's mind the more she stared. It looked familiar somehow.

The bus rattled away behind her, and Anya distantly heard it turning the corner. Her gaze still fixated on the watch, as if it was pulling her attention towards it.

Isn't this Damian's watch?

She remembered him showing it off for his birthday last year, saying that his father had gotten it for him as a coming-of-age present. And then she had read his mind, and seen the cracks in Damian's facade.

He was so proud of it, he would be devastated if it was broken. What was it doing on the pavement?

Anya gingerly scooped it up in her hands, and tucked it into the pocket of her dress. Something niggled at her insides, a clawing tension that squeezed her stomach and kept her rooted to the spot. She could not shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Something had happened to Damian, she was sure of it. And if something did happen, that meant that she had to act fast.

It had been five seconds since the bus pulled away. Ahead of it, she saw a van with blacked out windows stopped at the traffic light. Anya closed her eyes, and stretched out her mind.

It was faint, but she heard something. She could recognise the feel of Damian's thoughts anywhere.

And his thoughts were screaming.

Her eyes snapped open, and with fierce determination she started running after the van, but was only halfway down the street when the traffic signal turned green and the van pulled away - and Damian disappeared along with it.

She stopped in her tracks. No. This couldn't be happening, she had to find a way to get to the van, and quickly.

Anya turned on her heels and ran back towards the school, but veered towards the bike shed. There! Suddenly Anya was thankful for the common knowledge that Ewen always kept his bike unlocked.

Without much time to lose, Anya took the bike and pedalled as fast as she could out of the school grounds, heading in the direction of the van that she saw the first time - but how was she ever going to catch up to it?

She whirred past the traffic light and, taking a guess, headed left, towards the West Tower of Berlint - but she couldn't see any vans, nevermind any with blacked out windows.

She kept pedalling, but her mind whirred just as fast: where could they have possibly gone?

If she was going to find him, she had to concentrate on his thoughts, to keep them there so that she could keep her sense of direction at least. Anya steeled herself - she could not afford to lose track of him. It was unthinkable.

She opened her mind.

What are you idiots doing? Get off me! Unhand me this instant!

That's Damian, Anya realised as she heard his unmistakable rich boy attitude, and turned in the direction that she heard it - and then she pedalled like her life depended on it.

Well, Damian's life.

Ewen was enjoying his breakfast, happily waiting for Damian-sama to come from the dorms, when he saw a pink head of hair bobbing in front of the window to the dining hall. He stopped chewing when he realised that she was heading for the bike shed.

And then, when he saw her steal his bike and take off from the school grounds, his jaw dropped, and a piece of his breakfast croissant fell out of his mouth with a splat onto the plate below.

Did that shrimp just steal his bike?

When Loid made promises to himself, he always followed through. And the previous night, he had promised himself that he would keep a closer eye on Anya.

Loid carefully tailed the schoolbus, and stopped some distance away when he saw the bus pulling up to Eden College. He nodded in satisfaction when he saw Anya emerge from the bus with a smile on her face, but he frowned when he saw her stop in her tracks and lift up her foot, as if to check it.

Loid spotted a glint beneath her shoe. Anya bent down to pick it up, and he watched her as she checked it over, and then tucked it into her dress pocket. She whipped her head round, as if she had been startled by a sound, and took off running into the school.

Loid checked his own watch. One minute past eight. She was on time at least.

His eyes narrowed when he spotted her a few seconds later, riding a bike at the speed of light after the school bus.

He started. What the hell was she doing?

Carefully, Loid put the car into gear, and sped off after her.

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Things are being put in motion! How very exciting :D I also thought it would be fun to spend a bit of time in Loid's head to see what he's gonna get up to...