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[b] “...why the fuck do you seem all buddy-buddy with the very people that attacked us?"[/b]

Lyss felt her body tense as she heard the words. She looked at Madison, but all she could do was press her lips together as she watched her sister leave the room. There was a tight feeling in her stomach and it wasn’t the hangover. She could admit that she hadn’t outright told them why, but she was sure that the girls would give her shit if they knew. She and Maximillian, [i]Agent[/i] Cornell of the [i]DENs[/i], had grown close. Too close. What would they say? Would they suspect her of betraying them? She would never, even if it killed her. Yet she still had been in bed with one of them. She’d lose whatever ounce of trust she still had with them.

Lyss slowly returned to her seat and was glad to see that the new girl, the one with the beanie, had gone to talk to the other newbies. This wasn’t a good look for her, but at this point she was glad that they’d also see how unfit she was to lead. When it came to standing up for others and handling life or death situations, Lyss took up the mantle of leader because she naturally acted that way. On the other hand, she couldn’t handle other people's emotions in the aftermath. She’d always been an independent worker and now that she was in a group she realized why she liked the Black Market so much. She’d worked in a group then, of course, but at the end of the day they were only there for the money and not for the companionship. She’d only ever let one into her life and that burnt her too. Would this be the same? Would she end up running from Tampa, from the Coven, too?

She didn’t want to. She’d been on the run since she was eighteen and she was already tired of it. So what could she do to show the Coven, her sisters, that she wouldn’t betray their trust too?

[b] “I will keep my ear to the ground.”[/b] Lyss glanced up at Emily and nodded. At least when she looked at Claudette she only saw minor apprehension. With the others, even with Maya, it looked like they’d already begun to distrust her. Lyss nodded again in response to Claudette. The worst part of it all was that she hadn’t kept it a secret on purpose. If she had, it was only to protect them. The guilt she felt when she thought of Izzy, and the fact that the killer she’d kept secret for this long was the one to murder her, was the only reason she didn’t defend herself. Izzy might have stood a chance if she’d only known. Lyss didn’t know much about her, but it could have given Izzy a fighting chance.

She made no effort to agree or disagree with Claudette once she’d finished. It was a good idea to have all of the girls train with their abstractions. Next time a Blake-Schmidt-type sent an apparition their way, or another Babylon, or even if Annabelle did bust down their door, they would be ready to handle it. If they could actually work together, like she had asked of them so long ago, they could walk out of any fight with only scrapes and bruises. They didn’t have Izzy there to patch them up after now.

As her heart once more felt like it was being pricked with a needle, the voice of the newcomer got her attention. It was the girl from Blake’s party boat. The one that had been on the balcony, the stage, and then out of nowhere was there to kick the shit out of Blake in his private room. It made Lyss smirk as she thought of it. Blake’s tiny little manhood dangling before her. Horrifying at first and then almost-piss-your-pants hilarious once she’d taken in the sight of it. She remembered laughing her ass off in one of the nearby chairs while the girls beat him into a slimy pulp. Even before the new girl- Mariah, as she introduced herself- spoke, Lyss knew she liked her after that day. It was nice to see that she’d accepted their invitation to join.

At this point it seemed like everyone was on board with training. She wasn’t too keen to bother Blake Schmidt again for a whole warehouse to practice in, but today she thought it best to sit back and let Claudette and the girls decide. Every time she’d trained as a child, with her cousins, or with her partners from the Black Market, it was in an extra-normal safe community. Now that they were out in the middle of normie land, it would be much harder to do so without getting [i]another[/i] video of their abilities put online. This time if she was caught using her abilities in the middle of Tampa, her old “buddies” would definitely know where she was hiding. She couldn’t afford a leak of her abstraction, but she needed to up her game too.

She kept thinking back to her tussle with the Outsider. The apparition’s words had stuck in her mind like glue.
"̵̭͐I̷͉̍ ̵͇̀s̵̞̋ȁ̵̹w̶͚͂ ̵̛̰y̴̘̿o̷͚͋ú̶͓r̷̖̍ ̴̬́a̷̛̺ṋ̷̕c̵̜̈ë̸̘́s̸̫̚t̴̖̃ô̸̝r̶͙̈ ̶̭́s̷̗͐u̴̗͠m̸̼͝m̷̯͗ô̴̧n̵̟̔ ̷̟͊a̴̛̟ ̷̮̐m̴̟͂o̴̮̿ü̷̺ǹ̸͜t̵̳̽a̶̢͒ǐ̵͜n̴̡͝ ̴͈̃ǒ̶̦f̷̭́ ̸͓̃f̶̡͝l̶͍͋ĕ̷͖ș̸̆ȟ̶͔ ̵̮́ã̷̜n̴̙̑d̴̛̳ ̵̝̂b̶̬͒o̶̲̐n̵͎̂ē̴̢ ̴̢̅t̸̳́o̷̬̔ ̸̡͌b̷̪͊a̶̜͆t̸̼́t̴̰̅ḽ̵̽ẽ̴͕ ̶̞̒ḿ̶̻e̶̻͗.̶̧͑.̴͋ͅ.̸̡͠"̷͍̈
Her grandfather and her father alike shared the same power of the Burns ancestry. Her father once told her that she possessed the same power. She’d played with the notion of following in her father’s footsteps before his death, but after he followed her fallen grandfather into the grave too, she’d sworn it off. Was it time to make her father proud? To continue the Burns legacy of necromancy?

All she’d need to do is find a sigil and practice...