Falcon & Jaguar (2)

This precedes the last the entry. They're not directly sequential, but this one does come before the other one.

<------------------------------->

"Come on!"

Falcon growled, putting a little more force behind her kicks.

"You're not gonna hurt me! Let go, Falcon! Come on!"

She stopped suddenly, the anger in her chest that had been at a slow burn flaring. "What do you want from me?" she snapped.

He'd been pushing harder and harder, riding her ass at workouts, cracking the figurative whip...and now, Falcon was sick of it.

"You're holding back! I want to see you let go; use your full potential."

"Why?" she demanded. "I'm already better than everyone else and nearly better than you!"

"Because you're better than this!" he told her, dropping the shield to the floor. "I can tell. Why won't you just try?"

"Try?" Falcon snarled, yanking off her gloves and pitching them across the room, where they hit the far wall with resounding 'smack's and fell to her bag. "I don't have to try! I have to 'try' to keep myself in check!"

"But - "

"Do you know what happened the last time I 'let go'?"

Jaguar seemed suprised.

"I killed a man." Falcon's voice was low, thick with resentment.

Jaguar's eyebrows sat back on his forehead as he regarded her with dark eyes.

"Is that what you wanted to hear?" she hissed. "I killed a man."

He didn't seem to know what to say. Falcon stomped over to her bag, shoved her gloves and water bottle into it, and swept out, leaving Jaguar standing in the middle of the mats.

Falcon & Jaguar

I've got another scene that precedes this one that I haven't written yet. Well, it's written, it just in my journal, meaning it might get typed up between now and Christmas. Hopefully sooner than later. I was lounging around when this little bugger hit me and I figured I'd better get it down somewhere before I forgot it.

<----------------------------> 

It had been a long time since she'd been able to let herself remember that night. Usually it came to her in her dreams, flashes of glassy eyes, the sound of a body hitting the pavement, but today she recalled it willingly, letting the explanation flow out of her like a dam opening its floodgates.

It had nearly been dark, that much she remembered clearly, because the air was warm and kind of muggy - the type of oppressing heat that precedes a summer rainstorm - and the weather had been toying with the idea of raining all day. Falcon had just gotten out of her evening dance class, a requirement of the family that she was fostered with this time, and was heading home. Large buildings loomed overhead, towering into the shadowy, slate colored sky, and she had started to jog, knowing that if she got home late, it would mean no dessert. Oh sure, the other kids would get some, even after the oldest girl Brittany had broken curfew - again - and the younger one Alex had failed yet another Biology test, but those were their biological kids. Exceptions were made for them. They weren't screw-ups. A painful flash of something like jealousy flared in her chest as she passed the alley marking the halfway point home. 


To this day, she wasn't sure how she had ended up in the alley, maybe she'd been grabbed, or maybe she'd decided to use it as a shortcut, despite being told not to. Either way, she found herself with large, sweaty hands on her upper arms, dragging her into the shadows. She screamed. High-pitched, squealing, the type that commonly come from the mouths of terrified damsels in distress. 


She had no idea what he wanted with her. Well, at the time she didn't. Now she knew better. Now she knew exactly what he had been after when he'd grabbed her off the street. The man, large, maybe six-foot, two-hundred-thirty pounds, drove her backwards until her body thudded against the red brick of the building behind her. She should have been terrified. In that instant, she should have been screaming and scratching and clawing and fighting for everything she was worth, but she wasn't. 


It was shock, the police would tell her later, but Falcon knew better. It wasn't shock. It was instinct. 


"What do you want?" she'd demanded. Her voice had wavered, and was higher pitched than normal, but it was still fairly stable.


The man grunted and let go of one of her arms to bring his thick forearm across her chest, up near her collarbone, to pin her against the wall. The other hand dropped her arm and went for her  pants. 


Falcon should have figured out what he wanted then, but something had blocked that part of her brain from functioning. It was probably the adrenaline that was coursing through her system, keeping her steady and clear headed, knowing that if she figured out why the man had her pinned against the wall and his hand messing with the belt on her jeans, her ability to stay focused under the stress would disappear. 


"What do you want?" she'd demanded again, this time saying it louder, more definitively. "What do you -"


His hand dropped her belt buckle, which he'd managed to get undone, and clamped firmly over her mouth. 


"Shut up!" he'd hissed, his breath hot and nasty against her ear. "Shut up or I'll kill you after I'm done."


Kill. It was the word that she was sure had done it. Her teeth came down hard on his hand, making him howl in pain. He yanked his hand away to see if it was bleeding and Falcon had taken that time to scream. It wasn't like the terrified cries one heard in the movies. It wasn't even really a scream. It was more of a war cry. 


She had screamed, letting the adrenaline flow from her bloodstream through her vocal cords, and shoved off the wall, driving the man backwards. His eyes were wide, surprised, at the small girl's sudden strength and determination. She managed to slam him bodily against the opposite wall of the alley and bounce back, stumbling until she stood in the middle, facing him. 


She didn't remember his face. It might have been surprised. It might have been angry. He could have had clown paint on and she would have never noticed, because her gaze had fallen to his chest. Training had taken over her body. Six years of training, of learning, of memorizing everything with her mind and her muscles, so when she saw his body lurch forward, she didn't think twice. Her leg shot up, her hip twisted over, and she drove her foot outward, away from her body, somehow knowing that if she didn't throw her body weight into the mix, what little of it she had, the man's size would invalidate the kick.


Her foot collided hard with the man's gut and he doubled over. The second kick she delivered was swift and accurate; a roundhouse slammed hard into the man's head and he toppled sideways, hitting the ground with his shoulder first, rolling onto his back, and finally coming to rest after the back of his skull smacked the pavement.


She stood shaking, the adrenaline filling her body almost too much to handle, as she watched the blood pool. Dark and crimson, it spread in an eerie sort of halo around his head. His eyes stared at the sky, glazed over, unseeing. Something deep inside Falcon knew that he was dead. Maybe someone else would have double checked, making sure that he was past the point of saving, but she didn't. She knew he wasn't going to be sitting up ever again.


A brief roll of thunder was the only warning Falcon got before rain started to fall from the sky. She continued to stare at the body in front of her, watching as the water disturbed the previously peaceful lake of red and started to make it run. The rain came faster, stinging her face, and the blood quickened its pace, starting to race down the quickest path to the gutter. 


Somewhere along the line, the police had shown up. She wasn't sure who called them or if they had just happened upon the scene. The hours that followed were a haze of blue uniforms, and surprised expressions as she recounted her story, explained in detail what had happened and why she was sitting in the police station with the smallest stains of red on the white soles of her tennis shoes. 


She'd fractured his skull with the second kick. The cause of death was officially ruled as a bleed in the brain caused by the fracture on the left side of his skull, exacerbated by his head hitting the ground and splitting open. Officially, it was ruled a tragic accident. Despite Falcon's testimony about kicking him in the head, the doctors and officers didn't think twice about her being the cause for the break in the first place. Not after hearing that the man had gotten himself into a fist fight behind a local bar. After all, Falcon was small, still under five feet tall, and weighing nearly a hundred pounds; there wasn't any way she could have caused such damage. 


But she knew better. She knew that despite what physics and common sense said, she was the reason the man's corpse was laying in a refrigerator in the local morgue. She knew that at twelve years old, with only a blue belt in karate, she had managed to kill a man. Part of that knowledge scared her. It made her terrified of what she could do and it made her seriously start to reconsider her martial arts training. But the other part, the part that she refused to acknowledge, was excited. It told her that there was something different about her. That there was a chance she was good at something, really good, and might someday be important. That was the part that Falcon stamped down and smothered. She was twelve years old. She had killed a man. As far as anyone else would have been concerned, that should have been the end of her life. 


But it wasn't.Falcon continued her training, pursued it more determinedly than ever, but never let her emotions get the best of her. She never worked harder than absolutely necessary, still secretly frightened by what might happen if she were to lose control again. 

Now she was here, sitting with Jaguar in the courtyard of the training facility, recounting the story for him as the sun rose over another beautiful and tragic day. He didn't interrupt her once, instead, letting her talk herself out, finally coming to an awkward stop.

His dark eyes found hers as she looked up at him.

"Okay," he murmured.

That was all he said. One word, with little meaning, and yet it conveyed everything that Falcon needed to know. He understood.

I don't usually write in third person

...so this is kind of new to me. I've been reading a lot of stuff others have written on the internet, and some of it is really good. They're almost always written in third person, though. So I've been contemplating reworking the biggest piece I've written - which I guess is technically my first novel since it's finished, it just needs some serious editing work done - and I've been thinking about writing it in third person and using third person to flesh out some of the other characters.

So yeah. If you've read anything else I've written, you might recognize the characters. If not, it's no big deal.

PG-13 - language

<------------------->

Jaguar swung his hand out, catching someone in the wrist as they nudged his shoulder.

“Damn it, Jaguar.”

He knew that voice. He hated that voice.

“Get up. It’s time to get moving.”

Of course it was. He knew that. In fact, he was fairly certain that he’d been lying awake since before the annoying voice had even dreamed of waking up.

Jaguar pulled himself into a sitting position, rubbed roughly at his eyes, and then gazed around. Viper was still lying on his back, his eyes open and staring at the trees above them. Cougar and Fox, the one who had woken him, were busy repacking their backpacks. Grizzly had his backpack already on his broad shoulders and was packing Doe’s backpack for her. Doe, the only female in the group, was missing.

“Where’d the girl go?” Jag grunted, finally pulling himself out of his sleeping bag and standing up.

“Had to pee.”

Doe’s blond hair was pulled back into her usual ponytail and she was adjusting her camouflage pants as she stepped back into the clearing. She kneeled down by Grizzly and finished packing her bag.

“You gonna pack or what?” Cougar grunted, jerking his head towards Jaguar’s half empty backpack.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, “get off my ass.”

Morning was not his favorite time of day. Especially after he had only gotten a few hours of sleep on a piece of rock solid ground. Jag rolled his sleeping bag. It was only Monday. That meant that there were still three more days of hell before they would be picked up at the rendezvous point. That was assuming they made it there of course. This was one of the hardest courses the academy offered and they were provided with little more than a fragment of map, a compass, and their intuition to get them from their drop-off point, which was unlabeled on the map, to their pick-up point, roughly fifty miles away, which was marked by a small red ‘x’.

He reattached his sleeping bag to his backpack, shoved his utensils, notebook, and first aid kit back into the bag, and then swung it onto his shoulders. Grizzly was tossing large scoops of dirt onto the fire they had built the night before to keep the animals away. Doe leaned against a tree, picking dirt from under her fingernails, Cougar and Fox were clustered around the map and compass, which left Jaguar feeling strangely useless. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to.

“Let me help,” he said finally, moving to look at the map and compass in Fox’s hand.

It took him only a few minutes to orient himself and then point to his right. “We’re headed that way.”

Cougar frowned and looked down at the map again.

“Are you sure?” he asked, meeting Jaguar’s gaze.

Jag nodded curtly. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”

Jaguar knew Cougar was still unsure, but he didn’t want to pursue it. It was almost seven-thirty, and if they were going to reach the point in time, he couldn’t afford to spend any of it arguing with Cougar. Besides, Cougar was an ass and an imbecile. Arguing with him would get Jaguar nowhere.

Grizzly led the way, followed by Viper, who was still vaguely rubbing sleep from his eyes, Doe, and the others.

<------------------------------>

Viper was toweling off his hair as Jaguar emerged from the showers, towel wrapped around his hips, and feeling clean for the first time in a week. He set his toiletries in his locker as Viper tossed his towel over the door of his own.

“Have you seen the fresh meat?”

Viper was talking about the new cadets that had arrived a couple days ago.

“Not yet. I’ve been enjoying the downtime.”

Viper had a smirk on his face as he gazed at Jaguar. Jag felt Viper’s eyes tracing the tattoo on his chest.

“Stop it.”

Viper shrugged and turned back to his locker to dig for his brush. The smirk was still there. Jaguar hated that smirk. It meant that Viper knew something he didn’t. Curiosity gnawed at him as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and used the towel that had been around his waist to dry his hair. As he toweled the water from it, Jaguar realized something else. He hated his hair. It was too short.

“Ask. I know you want to.”

Viper received an irritated grunt. He took it to mean Jaguar had relented.

“They’ve brought a couple girls in.”

Jaguar shrugged. “So? They come and go.”

If this was the best information Viper had, Jaguar really needed to work on his self control. It wasn’t worth the bloated head his relenting gave Viper.

“Yeah, but one of them is good.”

Jaguar leveled a serious gaze at the snake. “Doe’s good.”

A gleam in Viper’s eye caught Jaguar off guard. “No, I mean she’s really good.”

The way he emphasized ‘really’ made Jag’s eyes narrow.

“Really good,” he said again. “Give her a little more time and she’ll be kicking your ass.”

Jaguar shrugged, trying a little too hard to look unconcerned. Had he been talking to anyone else, they wouldn’t have noticed. But this was Viper. Damn snake could read Jaguar better than Jag could read himself most days.

“She’s hot too.”

That remark made Jaguar stop in the middle of pulling on a t-shirt and shoot Viper a raised eyebrow. He just smiled wickedly.

“You don’t even know her, haven’t even seen her, and I think she’s already inside your head.”

Jaguar shut his locker door harder than necessary, making Viper jump. He took a small bit of pleasure in it before Viper opened his mouth again.

“I can tell you about her, if you want.”

“Don’t,” Jag answered finally, snatching his book off the bench and heading for the door. “We’ll see what she’s really made of on Monday. I think Wolf’s working us out all together.”

Viper trailed after him. “Whatever you say Fearless Leader.”

<----------------------------->

“Heard you had a run-in with one of the new kids,” Jaguar mentioned casually, shrugging on a t-shirt.

Viper snorted.

“Kick his ass?”

“Didn’t need to. He embarrassed himself.”

Jaguar tugged on his jeans, pulled the towel from around his waist and rubbed at his hair, which was still too short and still dripping. Viper was leaning against his own locker, holding a paper towel to his nose.

“That’s why your nose is bleeding.”

Viper’s eyes narrowed at Jaguar’s jab. Jag smirked. He knew the look Viper was giving him. It was his look for those that Viper found to be suffering from a severe case of stupidity.

“What was it over?”

Viper pulled the towel from his nose and checked it briefly.

“Do you have to ask?”

“Figures.” Jaguar’s disgust was evident in the single word.

Viper’s response was instantaneous. “Don’t.”

Jaguar took a seat on the bench, looking up at Viper who had let his hand fall from his face, paper towel clenched in his fingers. The snake on his arm shifted.

“I don’t want your pity.”

“I wasn’t –“

Viper’s look appeared again. Damn him. Damn his ability to read people.

“You were. I’m gay, not crippled. I don’t want your – or anyone else’s – pity.”

Jaguar nodded curtly.

“There’s always going to be ignorant masses. I can handle myself. Stop being such a mother – it doesn’t suit you.” Viper paused, touching his filtrum. His fingers came away bloody, so he replaced the paper towel before continuing. “I was raised without a mother; what I want is a friend.”

Jaguar started, caught off-guard. No matter how much Jaguar stayed on his toes around Viper, the snake never ceased to surprise him.

“Friend?” he asked stupidly.

Viper’s shoulders rose and fell in an easy shrug. “As close as we’re going to get in this hell-hole,” he answered, crumpling the bloody paper towel and lobbing it easily into a wastebasket a couple yards off.

“Yeah,” Jag muttered, standing up. “I guess you’re right.”

The word touched him, though he was loath to admit it. He’d been working alongside Viper from the day he arrived, but it had taken weeks before they had spoken. And realistically, if it hadn’t been for Jaguar stepping into a fray to pull Viper’s ass out before he was beaten to a pulp, they might never have spoken. Viper had snapped at Jaguar for interfering, Jaguar had demanded to know why three guys had jumped him, and Viper had stormed off without answering. The next day, Viper had sat down next to Jag at breakfast and never left.

“Something’s still bothering you.”

Viper’s assertion was right, as always, but Jaguar didn’t answer. They had ended up in the library.

“Saw your girly today, after Mule jumped me.”

The lurch in Jaguar’s chest was unwelcome and unfamiliar. “She’s not my ‘girly’,” he snapped.

“She’s cool,” he continued, ignoring Jag’s comment.

Jag grunted. He really wished Viper would drop it.

“I’m serious,” Viper told him, sinking into a chair next to the fireplace.

Jaguar noticed the shift in Viper’s tone so he lowered himself into the chair next to Viper, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees.

“We talked in the locker room briefly.”

Despite knowing that he should shut this conversation down, Jaguar pushed forward. “And?”

“She told me how to hold my head to stop the bleeding. I knew she wanted to ask me something, so I figured if anyone should have the truth, it was her. I told her to ask me. So she did.”

“And I suppose she didn’t care that you’re gay?”

Viper’s lips tipped up in a smile. “Hell no; she didn’t ask about that. She wanted to know what I was doing on their floor. Totally came out of left field.” He paused briefly, smiling a bit wider. “Basically told me that my sexuality wasn’t any of her business.”

Jaguar sat back. She was strange. Really strange. His chest lurched again. Jag frowned.

“She’s not like any other girl that’s come through here, Jag. I can understand why –“

Jaguar was preparing to leap down Viper’s throat when Doe breezed in.

 “Talking about me again?” she wondered, perching herself on the armrest of Viper’s chair.

“Of course,” Viper lied easily, almost too easily, as he wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her into his lap. “When aren’t you the center of the fucking universe?”

She snorted. “Only when Falcon’s around.”

Jaguar’s frown deepened. Her icy blue orbs caught his gaze.

“Don’t like her much do you?”

Jag stood up. He wasn’t going to indulge her. Not now. Not this time. Not when it was something that not even he understood. Yet, he added mentally. Not something he understood yet.

Viper and Doe continued to chatter as he left the library and headed for his dorm, mulling over Viper’s opinion and his…feelings – Jag winced inwardly at the word, but couldn’t find a better one to replace it – for Falcon, the girl wonder.

Extra

This fits between two of the sections in the other post, but can also stand alone. Whichever.

PG-13 - language

<-------------->

The hallway was fairly crowded as Jack and Falcon head for the locker rooms for a shower. Neither were breathing heavy, although the rest of the crowd was winded, sluggish, and some were clutching at their sides. Jack had been chattering since they had left the field, and took a moment to catch her breath. Falcon seized her chance to ask a question.

“So what do you think about –“

Her question was cut short as someone larger and taller pushed by, bumping both Jack and Falcon out of the way.

“Jerk!” Jack muttered.

“Yeah,” Falcon answered, “what a –“

“Hey Fag!”

The sudden call had come from somewhere near the back of the hallway. Jack and Falcon, along with the rest of the crowd seemed to freeze.

“Hey!”

With the second call, there was a collective shift backwards, towards the walls. Jack grabbed Falcon’s forearm and dragged her backwards, fighting against Falcon’s instincts to stay and fight. Heads scanned the hallway, searching for the culprit. He emerged from between Bat and Bengal.

“Mule?” Jack murmured in disbelief.

“Are your panties on too tight? Are they affecting your hearing?”

All eyes traveled to the last person standing in the middle of the hallway. It was the same guy who had pushed past Jack and Falcon moments before. He wasn’t facing Mule, but he had stopped walking, his hands and arms hanging loose at his sides. His left hand balled briefly into a fist, making the snake tattooed on his arm look like it was moving.

“Viper?” Falcon breathed.

Jack shot her an inquisitive look.

Finally, as if he had been considering his options, Viper turned around to face Mule. A chill swept down the hallway. The hairs on the back of Falcon’s neck stood on end and she suppressed a shiver that crept down her spine. Viper’s almond eyes were narrowed and hard as stone.

“Is there a problem?” His voice was soft and measured, though Falcon could sense the weight behind it.

“Yeah,” Mule snapped. “There is. It’s you.”

The crowd edged a little further back, leaving an empty corridor surrounding the two boys and a no-man’s land between them.

“Me?” Viper’s response held a note of sarcasm in it. “Seems like you’re the one with the problem.”

Mule’s face was twisted. The normally calm exterior was gone, leaving behind a collection of emotions; anger, disgust…and was that fear? Falcon wondered.

“I can’t believe they’d let a pansy ass faggot into a program for real men.”

Viper had winced minutely at the slur, which Falcon caught, but nobody else probably had.

“Funny,” Viper said. “I haven’t seen a real man in your class yet. Closest I’ve found is a girl who recently handed you your ass on a platter.” The words were soft, but as cold as ice. Viper’s eyes slid to where Falcon stood. He gazed at her a moment, blinked, and then returned his attention to Mule.

Mule’s face had begun to turn a deep shade of brick red and his hands were clenched into fists at his side. This obviously wasn’t the response he had been hoping for. “Yeah? Well that was –“

As if anticipating what he was going to say, Viper interrupted him easily. “Real men don’t make excuses. They take their beatings and accept defeat with grace. Only ignorant homophobes –“

Mule lost it. He cried out and launched himself at Viper, fists swinging. Falcon’s natural response kicked in. She started forward, intent on breaking up the fight, but Jack still had her arm.

“Let go,” she hissed.

Jack shook her head once. “Let them fight it out. Stay out of it.”

“But –“

“Shh!”

Jack’s grip tightened, and Falcon knew that she wasn’t going to win. Her leg bounced uneasily as she watched the two fight. After a few grunts, a couple yelps, and an angry snarl, it was over. Viper had Mule’s face pressed to the tile and Mule’s arm twisted into an unnatural position, giving him leverage over his attacker.

“Are we done?” Viper quipped, exasperation coloring the question.

Mule kicked a couple times uselessly and finally let out a resigned grunt.

Viper dropped Mule’s arm and stepped away. Blood was starting to run from Viper’s nose, but he hadn’t seemed to notice it. Mule let out a string of profanities, interspersed with homophobic slurs, before turning away and stomping down the hall to his dorm room. A couple moments later, a door slammed. A corner of Viper’s mouth turned upward. He touched his fingers to his lips, where the blood was running into his mouth and then turned, heading for the locker room. As the door swung closed behind him, the tension broke. Everybody straightened up off the walls and returned to their activities.

Jack’s hand fell from Falcon’s arm and Falcon let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“That was strange,” Jack murmured as they entered the locker room.

“No kidding,” Falcon answered, spinning the combination to her locker.

She changed quickly, grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste and then headed for the sinks. Viper was standing at one of the sinks, holding a paper towel to his nose in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

Falcon set her toiletries down. “Did he break your nose?” she paused. “I didn’t think he hit you.”

Viper pulled the paper towel away from his face, eyed it, and then replaced it. His dark eyes flickered up to meet hers in the mirror.

“It’s not broken. And it was an accident. Swung his arm and caught me with his elbow.”

Viper tipped his head back as Falcon wet her toothbrush.

“You’re supposed to tip your head forward.”

She didn’t look up as she squeezed her toothpaste onto the brush, but she could feel his stare.

“Personal experience,” she mumbled, attempting to fill the slightly awkward silence.

When Falcon finally put her toothbrush in her mouth, she found Viper with one hand braced on the sink, while his head was tilted forward like she’d told him. She watched as he continued to mop up the blood oozing from his nose as she brushed her teeth. After a couple minutes, she spit, rinsed, and asked:

“Are you okay? I’ve never seen a nose bleed that much.”

Viper checked the paper towel again, rolled his eyes, tossed it in the garbage can, and grabbed another.

“My nose bleeds more than an operating room. I’m fine.”

She nodded slowly, still watching. He seemed to ignore her for the time being. After another couple minutes, the bleeding stopped. Viper straightened up. He flashed her a dark look.

“Go ahead.”

“What?”

“Ask. I know you’re itching to. And someone should have the facts, right?”

Falcon pressed her lips together and nodded. “Okay,” she started. “What are you doing down here?”

Viper’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Apparently he hadn’t been expecting that.

“What?” he asked.

She shrugged. “The Elite never converse with the lower life forms. You have your own floor, and I assume your own bathrooms, so what are you doing here? On our floor?”

Viper studied her for a moment as if trying to decide whether she was serious, and then he laughed.

“Really? After what you just witnessed, you want to know what I’m doing down here?”

“Look,” she told him, crossing her arms and leaning back against the sink. “I’m just trying to get a feel for how things work around here. Somehow, I think your sexual orientation has less to do with what I’m looking for than your answer to my question.”

A smirk worked its way across his face. “Fine,” he conceded. “Truth is, I can’t tell you.”

“Figures.” She pushed off the sink and grabbed her things.

“Falcon,” Viper said as she reached the doorway.

“Yes?”

“You’re okay.”

Falcon wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “Thank,” she answered lamely.

“No problem.”

Viper turned back to the mirror and Falcon continued toward her locker. As she spun her combination a few seconds later, she realized that maybe not everyone in the program was a complete jackass.