[i]Cassidy Lynn Daniels[/i]

The poor fools.

"Pity," Cassidy said, the trace of a smirk etching through her poker face. "Absolute pity." Three royal flushes in a row. Cassidy swept the pot of chips (they weren't playing for money, merely bragging rights-not like the Academy had a real thriving economy, anyways) to her side and admired the burgeoning mountain of spoils she'd earned.

"She's cheating," a spectator muttered. The girl raised a hand to her head and stared at Cass for a moment-Cassidy felt a prickling feeling around her neck, as if she were being watched. How irritating. Cassidy immediately felt a strong disdain for this girl-of course, she [i]was[/i] cheating, but what a killjoy. Cassidy had a suspicion she'd go on to ruin the trick. 

"Really?" Cassidy said, glancing at the girl. "Tele-"

The girl gave her an arrogant smirk. "Yes, I am one, Cassidy Lynn Daniels."

Cassidy let her smile stretch out, a bloodlusted shark grin that made her scar darken in the lounge's low light. "Show me what you can do. I want you to really look back in there. About a week." 

The others glanced back and forth with a mixture of irritation at Cassidy's cheating (the cards, somehow, seemed to change when no one was watching...) and this telepath's interruption. The telepath stared for six, seven seconds...

And then went very pale.

"Toodles," Cassidy said cheerily, leaning back into her chair. The telepath fumbled out a half-assed excuse and made her way out of the lounge. Cassidy did not like people fucking around in her head. She enjoyed a healthy degree of secrecy.

"Well," Cassidy said, tossing five Jokers onto the table, "It appears my run's up." Cassidy began to stand up, ignoring the glares of the would-be-bankrupt-in-Vegas teens around her as she picked up her jacket off the back of the chair and slung it over her shoulder. A few of the highest-value chips were missing from the stack, but they wouldn't notice for a few days at least. Cassidy began to meander away, attempting to pinpoint why she felt so...melancholy? There was an unshakable feeling Cassidy couldn't burn away, as if her shadow had turned against her or her heart kept missing every other beat or something. A nagging little terror that was turning her pillow into rock every night ([i]there had been a great many staring contests with the ceiling, and Cassidy had won most of them[/i]). Her sword didn't hit its mark. The quarter fumbled from her knuckles. 

Wasn't being exposed for cheating. Cassidy was surprised she'd lasted three rounds against people who can manipulate luck, see the future, scour thoughts...no, wasn't that. She'd gotten a watered-down adrenaline high from the scam, which was nice. Not nice enough. A fix when she needed a hit. 

[i]There are monsters tiptoeing through the halls and legs ripped off of classmates and people mysteriously leaving and you're swindling the survivors for worthless chips.[/i]

Cassidy stopped cold in the middle of the room, staring aimlessly at the blaring speakers across the floor. A chip fell from nowhere out of her palm, landing on the ground next to her foot. Mechanically, she tapped it away and send it skidding under a couch. A week. Been here a week and...ugh. No. Not now. Later. Later.

Cassidy forced a grin onto her face, the usual trickster's smile, and began walking towards the door. She'd wander. Walking off alone didn't seem entirely intelligent, what with the child-killing monstrosities roaming the school, but Cassidy had never been one to go along with logical reasoning or common sense. It was far too boring and...well, there were other factors at work, but typically those sorts of elements don't show themselves in the bass-thumping fellowship of a lounge. They wait until the lights are out and there's nobody but you.

[i]You liked fighting it. You'd let another kid die if it meant you got to fight it again.[/i]

No. Fuck off.

Cassidy nearly ran into Lupe, but smoothly took a half step back and avoided any potential collisions. "Diego and Lupe," Cassidy said. Christ, was she relieved to see someone else who'd watched a man get eviscerated then stand back up and suckerpunch it? A part of her turned over-damnit if no one else there ever crossed her paths again it'd be all the easier to pretend it never happened, to convince herself it was just an illusion she couldn't figure out, some cosmic sleight of hand she was too slow to catch onto. "Interrogation buddies," she said quietly, lost amongst the music and half a dozen separate conversations. "Guitar?" Cassidy asked, rapping the case with her knuckles (when Diego opened it up, another cigarette would be lying inside). "Which one of you plays? Never had much skill with it, I was more a dancer than a musician. Not half bad with a piano, though." 

Bah. Small talk. You're getting boring, Cass.

"By the way, don't try and have any fun when it comes to playing cards. The telepaths are killjoys."