Emotion Equals Weakness

Chapter 18: Tick, tack

It's been 3 weeks since you had gone missing.

At Nevermore, Larissa had been trying to keep the news on the down low to make sure that panic wasn't gonna strike for both students and staff. But things were chaotic to say the least.

She was up to her chin in paperwork, drowning almost. Why? Because she could hardly focus. While doing her principal duties, she was still a mother. And her motherly instinct was taking over. It had been three weeks without any sign of you. She had no idea where you were and it was gnawing on her from the inside.

The night she went to search for you, she felt panic. She couldn't find you. All she could find was the wreckage left behind inside Crackstone's Crypt but you were nowhere to be found and it worried her. So she decided to, finally, alert sheriff Donovan Galpin.

And sheriff Galpin wasn't amused when he found out what had been going on at Nevermore Academy. He was angry with Larissa for keeping this from him.

"I can't believe you're telling me this now!" Donovan says, both anger and disappointment in his voice."Especially after what happened last year. You nearly died." He then adds, shaking his head before letting out a deep sigh.

"And who's fault was that?" Larissa fires back at him, crossing his arm as she watched him closely.

It was silent in Galpin's office. The tension could be cut with a knife.

Donovan looks at Larissa, a slight bit of hurt behind his eyes could be seen."That is not fair." He says as he shakes his head, moving a bit closer to where Larissa was standing.

She was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed watching Donovan with piercing eyes.

The blinds were closed and so was the door. This conversation had to stay private until they had decided what to do.

Larissa holds up one finger in front of her face as if to make clear that he had to shut up and not get into a discussion with her."I have every right to blame you for what happened. Your son was the main reason. Along with Laurel." She simply says, watching Donovan closely.

Donovan stops walking closer to her, keeping a comfortable distance between them. He then couldn't help but scoff when he heard what Larissa had just said."Oh yeah? If you kept an eye on your Raven pigtailed student better, maybe you would've known sooner what was going on." He then spits out which then led to Larissa losing her cool.

"You KNEW your son was a Hyde! You knew it! From the very beginning! And you did nothing about it, Donovan. Nothing!" She basically yells at him.

Donovan watches Larissa and lets out another deep sigh. He knew she was right. He knew that her anger was valid, but it still hurt."Don't you think that I know that? I beat myself up over this every single day. I do." He says, his voice cracking a bit because of the hurt that came along with this conversation.

Larissa takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. She knew that blaming one another was not gonna solve this, and it certainly wouldn't bring her daughter back to her.

"Look, perhaps we're both guilty in this." She then says, a bit more quietly as she watches Donovan. She then takes a few steps towards him."But I think it's best for us now to bury the hatchet and work together to get the person responsible for these attacks the present day." She then adds before nodding her head.

Donovan keeps his eyes on Larissa as she moves closer. He was a bit surprised because ever since what happened last year, she didn't trust him anymore. Which was understandable. As he listens to her words, he smiles a bit before nodding his head."And finding your daughter. That's a first priority right now." He says, a softer and calmer tone in his voice now.