TWO MONTHS AGO

            "Come on, Misstücken, my grandma can run faster than that!" Daniel shouted at the running teenagers. "And she's six feet under!" Magnolia arrived at the destination first, breathing heavily due to the extreme exercise. "Good job, Clarke. Come on, people! This is only the warm up!"

            Magnolia knew how exhausting Berger's warm ups could be, but this was a whole other thing. It was as if he wanted everyone to be so tired, they wouldn't be able to do anything the rest of the day. When finally the last girl arrived, he shook his head. "Pathetic," He complained. "Worthless. How do you expect to become an assassin if you can't even run?"

            The young girl looked up to Magnolia. She was only about twelve years old, and Magnolia knew she was new. She'd only been at the Academy for two weeks. A fresh orphan, abandoned here by her grandparents who were supposedly given custody after her parents' death.

            Magnolia reached out to her and brought her by her side, getting her a little out of Daniel's view and giving the man a cautious glance. Daniel paired all the girls in duos. Magnolia went with the new girl, and learned her name was Yuki.

            Yuki had some Asian background, but Magnolia couldn't make out which country exactly. They had to spar. Magnolia went with Yuki on purpose, she knew how the other girls were so desperately looking for Daniel's validation to be the best. They'd do anything to impress him, even if that meant nearly killing a little girl.

            "I'll be defence," Magnolia told the little girl, getting ready in her stance. "Show me what you know," She smiled. Yuki attacked, but it was so obvious, Magnolia blocked. "Try to stand sideways. My target is smaller if you are, and it's less predictable where you're going to hit."

            Yuki nodded, standing sideways. She attacked again, Magnolia could've easily blocked it, but decided not to. It gave Yuki the confidence to continue with her head held high. Magnolia hadn't dealt a single punch, not even after fifteen minutes.

            At one point the owner of the Academy came into the training room. Richard Clarke was on the phone with someone. Eventually he hung up to watch the training for a while. Magnolia waved at her father. He waved back with a big smile.

            She noticed how suddenly all the girls were punching harder. It was hard to admit, but a lot of them had a thing for Richard. Magnolia was disgusted about that. Why would anyone want someone who could be their father?

            At least her thing with Berger wasn't voluntarily. She wouldn't be able to bare being in a consensual relationship with that guy.

            Not that that was any better.

            "How's it going?" Richard asked his daughter, who grabbed her water bottle. He turned to Yuki. "You must be Yuki. I'm glad we finally get to meet," They shook hands. "Have you settled yet?"

            "I'm okay." Yuki replied. Her voice was still high. It pained Magnolia to hear. It was a reminder of the fact that she was so young and already here.

            Richard noticed all the sweating teenagers as he looked around the room. He mentioned. "Dan is really making you work, huh?"

              "You have no idea," Magnolia replied with a small laugh. "He's even worse than usual. Compared us to his dead grandma."

            Richard tried to keep a straight face by looking at the ground, but the comparison made him laugh. He put his hands in the pockets of his long, black coat. "I, um, should get back to my papers. That pile will not clear itself." He basically whined.

            Oh, how that man would've laughed if he knew that was gonna be the last pile he'd ever have to check.

            "Oh, come on!" Maggie exclaimed. "That woman should be about 80 years old right now. The old bat's not going to do anything. If there even is anyone."

            "You do not know that," JJ looked around wearily, he jogged a little to get closer to Maggie. He whispered. "She could have superpowers."

            Maggie turned her head with a look on her face. "Yeah, right. And I'm Taylor Swift."

            JJ suddenly stopped in his tracks. "You're better than her," His voice was soft. "You're better than anyone."

            It felt as if Maggie's heart stopped beating for a whole minute, just standing there, listening to him speak those words. She'd never met anyone like him. So full of excitement, and personality, yet so open about all of it. She cleared her throat. "Don't you ever disrespect Blondie like that. She'll go full Reputation style on you."

            "Oh, I did something bad," JJ mockingly put his hands up, smiling. "Shiver me timbers. My timbers are shivered."

            Maggie shrugged. "All she thinks about is karma. Your own fault if your name ends up in red underlined."

            That moment, a bird flew down through the bushes, flapping its wings. JJ ran away from it, Pope, John B and Kiara were already there. Maggie laughed at JJ's reaction, saying something about how the bird was a reincarnation of old Mr. Crain.

            A little further, Maggie could see John B entering the house through an old wooden gate that led to a sort of basement. The others all followed him down ( some with, and some without struggles ) to a place full of old furniture. Webs hung everywhere, indicating no one had been down there for a while. Maggie hated the spider webs — or more the spiders themselves. But she couldn't show it, not after  mocking JJ about his fears not even five minutes earlier.

            "Down came Mrs. Crain and cut off all our heads," JJ sang. "Up came the sun and dried up all the blood."

            Maggie's head turned around sharply. "Oh, now you wanna be the big guy, Mr. superpowers?"

            "Can you stop?" Pope panicked.

            John B shone his light towards the end of the basement, multiple cradles laying there. Maggie walked closer to the cradles. "See any water?" Kiara asked no one in particular.

            "Nah, just some crack ass spiders." Adriana poked through one of the webs with her flashlight.

            Maggie slapped a mosquito dead on her arm. She reminded herself there had to be water here if there were mosquitoes. She remembered that from the academy, where there were always mosquitoes.

            When everyone conversed over the fact that there was no water at all, Maggie shut them off, focusing on her own thing. Not even when Kiara brought up Sarah again and slapped John B. They kept slapping each other.

            Maggie was throwing everything around, trying to find something that could possibly be a hidden well or anything like that. "What are you even doing?" JJ asked, tuning out the other two arguing. "Who knows? Maybe she laid the head in the cradle."

            "Hey, guys," Pope said. Maggie looked up from the ground, seeing Pope try to clear a place in the floor. "Hey. Help me move this." John B shushed him, so Pope repeated his sentence, this time whispering.

            Everyone helped him clear out the floor, taking the tiles out. "She's probably right upstairs." Kiara said. She helped Pope pull a tile out. When they had multiple tiles pulled out, Pope was able to shine his flashlight down.

            They saw the water they were looking for in the form of a well. Maggie looked at JJ. "That's what I was doing. Or... trying to."

            JJ rolled his eyes playfully. Pope joked. "Well, well, well."

            "That was a good dad joke." John B muttered. He bent down.

            "They built this part of the house right over it."

            "This is where she hid the bodies." JJ couldn't not say it.

            Adriana gasped at that. "Oh, my God, really?" She exclaimed.

            "Of course not!" Kiara replied. "Stop."

            JJ turned to Adriana. "I'm dead serious."

            "JJ! You're scaring her!" Kiara yelled. She pulled Adriana closer to her, away from JJ. "Maggie, contain your boyfriend, please."

            "He's not my boyfriend." "I'm not her boyfriend." Both of them said in unison. They looked at each other.

            JJ got back to the topic. He rattled. "It was never an outhouse."

            "She probably doesn't even know it's here." Kiara mentioned.

            Pope looked to the side. "So... we found water."

            "We're gonna need a really big rope."

            Yes, a really big rope and some fucking bullet free vests.

i feel like this is going SO slow.
also 😋 the next flashback is going to explain the entire reason maggie left (though today had a lot of info)