Abigail scratched her arm. She regarded Simon, then Ellen, then the cold and steady gazes of Brooks and that other lady - Syl, the dark and stern one she met a couple weeks ago. "Yeah...M'gonna need a hot minute to mull it over," she drawled. She was sure Simon would say something reassuring and sympathetic, probably along the lines of 'take all the time you need,' and maybe even stress that she doesn't really have all the time she needs if she's going to be of any use but...by the time he'd probably get around to saying that Abigail was already almost out of the headquarters. After all, what were they going to do; tell her to come back? He did say 'volunteer', after all.

No, Abigail just didn't want to be put on the spot. She thought she knew her answer from the get-go but also recognised that this was a significant decision she was taking on and should at least ruminate on it in the time it'd take her to do a lap of the mall. It just... didn't feel like one. Things like consequences, urgency, other people's feelings, her own feelings; they didn't have as big of an impact on her since she 'settled' into Goodnight. It felt like she was watching from a distance, or that she was far away. Maybe her good Christian soul was still in Arizona and the demon that's possessed her corporeal form is the one making the decisions, she just didn't know anymore. In fact, she tried not to think about it. She tried not to think about anything. Living in the here and now meant dealing with the big questions like 'Am I now condemned to an eternity of torment in Hell' and 'Has God abandoned me' and 'Why has everything I've been taught suddenly turned against me in every possible way'. It was far easier to just...check out of the whole situation and float through the days, which is why she wasn't sure what time it was or how long she had been in the mall.

There were, of course, times when Abigail did want to feel like she was still a person. Those were her jogging times. Abigail ran a lot since she showed up in Goodnight. She took cold showers because it felt like home and the shock to her system was an excellent means of lifting the haze in her head. Her trembling, aching legs and pangs of hunger were similarly nice little reminders that she wasn't just making everything up and had gone absolutely batshit. She didn't talk to anyone, but she enjoyed the company of her silent running partner. Some pretty lady who couldn't keep up. Abigail liked to slow down a bit for her. It was that kind of silent connection that meant more to her now than any kind word or knowing smile; after all, she wasn't a fan of pity.

Abigail looked up and realised she was outside the mall by one of her burning bins. For the hell of it, she jettisoned a thin line of purple flame into its warped and melting bottom. Her magic wasn't behaving like everyone else's; she quelled it, tried to squash it in. She rejected the lessons for as long as she could, and had to have them in rooms set aside for 'difficult cases' because her magic was so difficult to control and overpower. Either way, their teaching wasn't sinking in as much as she liked; to progress at all, she was told she'd have to accept that she was a mage. Since that was in line with those terrifying truths she was tactfully avoiding, Abigail decided she didn't want to progress. She kind of knew how to hold it in by now, and if she could catch herself doing something weird, it was easy enough to just...squish it in. Leave the refinement of her unholy power to the future Abigail who had her affairs in order. At the moment, she was content to just manage it. 

Her feet took her back in the direction of the headquarters and past a new squabble over breakfast, which she drifted in between with a glassy eyed glance in their direction and a quirk of her scraggly brow. She knew she couldn't stay with these people. She didn't want to stagnate here and get sucked into the petty politics of a displaced and unstable mass. That was probably why she was back in the headquarters after a such short while. "Yeah alright, I'm in," she intoned with the same disinterest that she displayed in the first place, leaving a smidge of doubt as to whether or not she thought over it at all.