Ghosts of the Past [OPEN TO GUARDIANS/STAFF/RESIDENTS]

She'd thought she'd seen the last of this place.

It'd changed. Or that's what they said, anyways. It'd recovered. It'd grown. It'd branched out. A safe haven, for gifteds everywhere. Now it wasn't just a school; it was the beginnings of a society, away from the prying eyes of "normal" people, where people afflicted with these powers could learn and flourish. That was the horseshit they were spooning her, at least. To her it would always be a slaughterhouse. She hadn't forgotten what she'd seen below the school, and she hadn't forgotten Beata's ghosts like everyone else had.

Lynn had changed too. She'd grown up, stopped playing around with the hearts of boys, got a job, found a husband, had a kid. Moved out to some small town out in Nebraska and did her best to live quietly. Life was comfortable. For awhile she thought she would be allowed to forget, that she could put those ghosts behind her, but what d'you know, she was wrong. A letter in the mail. That was the first red flag. You only sent letters out when something was serious, or when you were seriously out-fashioned. Nate was both. Nasty stuff. People in black, monsters popping up around the world, Spion's betrayal... Times were rough, and that smug little cock she'd shared a room with for over a year wanted her to help guard the slaughterhouse.

At first she'd wanted to refuse. A Guardian? She'd known some Guardians. They let children die. They let her schoolmates die. They let her friends die. They knew what was happening and they just turned the other way. They helped. It was sick, but karma was a bitch to them, and most of the kids who got the position ended up dead in the same experiments they let run unchecked. An ironic and fitting end for a collaborator, but some of them got off scot-free. She supposed Nate's buddies just got a free pass for saying "sorry."

But she didn't refuse. If Nate needed her help to keep his students safe, then she couldn't turn him down, even if it meant coming back here. It was more than Irene and Desken Moore had ever done for them, and they deserved better. And the moment she found any Beata student being put in danger, the Headmaster would have more to fear than just being locked in a bathroom.

"Eh, this is it?" Addison walked through the iron gates and glanced around with her hands stuffed in her pockets, looking thoroughly unimpressed. She let out a disappointed sigh and slumped onto a shaded bench. "What a hype-killer. This place blows already."