"To follow them," Jay says slowly. "Y'know. Make sure they follow through. They seemed genuine, but..."

Tantalus shakes his head. "No. Not happening. You remember the part where you have school tomorrow? We are doing no more traipsing through the wood tonight. Back to the car. Now."

Which is what they do, despite the grumbling.

The woods appreciate this lack of traipsing.

Would they like to listen to their police scanner, acquired through totally legal means?

Jay doesn't give Tantalus a chance to object, flipping it on with a hard look at him.

Tantalus sighs, but concedes this round, and reminds her that they're not doing any more running around tonight.

Apparently, a girl who recently vanished from the hospital was found naked in the woods. She's perfectly alright, despite the day she spent missing. 

Tantalus is relieved. The girl is fine, the police have it in hand, there is no reason for them to go back out.

Jay is almost put out by the lack of reason to head back out. But tomorrow is going to be exhausting. So, she'll never let him know it, but Tantalus is right about that.

They make it back to the house they've acquired for their stay, and Jay heads straight for bed.

The next day, Jay has legally-mandated education. 

"Please don't kill anyone," Tantalus says as he drops Jay off - they'd done all the registration stuff yesterday afternoon. "Or maim. Or declare war on."

"I promise the only warfare I will wage will be psychological," Jay says, sliding out of the car.

She looks around. "Wish me luck."

She isn't looking forward to being the new girl.

"You got this, girl."

Jay nods, steels her shoulders and heads for the steps into the school.

Very little of the attention is on her. Most of the gossip seems to revolve around the youngest Argent. Apparently her aunt was some kind of psycho. She lived in her house for a month before they finally figured out she was behind the Hale fire. 

The Hale fire, really? The mysterious arson, finally solved.

She's not the only topic of conversation. Her friend, standing close by her side, is the subject of mocking. Together, they're getting judgmental glances aplenty. She ignores them, strutting through the halls. 

Jay is very thankful that she's not the centre of attention. She's not necessarily happy that other people are being mocked - because she's been mocked before, for other reasons, but it isn't nice - but she definitely prefers managing to skate below the radar.

She heads for her locker, keeping her head down and trying to avoid notice.

Although there's bound to be someone who spots her.

Someone does notice her.

"Hey, can we talk?"

Jay looks at him, and then around, not obviously, just a quick flick of her eyes.

"Sure," she says, and if she's feeling nervous, it certainly isn't showing.

"Anywhere you want, any time. We can do it now, or we can do it later, with your friend, somewhere more private." 

"Now would make more sense," Jay says, settling back on one heel. "Unless you particularly think my friend needs to be here. I prefer not to delay things."

"I'm mostly worried about eavesdropping. Kind of a dangerous topic." 

"Wise," Jay agrees, her estimation of him going up a notch. "There somewhere we can do this in private, then? Or is that your way of saying do it later? Because if so, right after we finish. I'm sure we'll be able to find somewhere secluded."

She doesn't mean to make that sound like a threat, but the last sentence might come out a little more harshly that she intended.

"Anywhere private is fine, but it's not a right-now kind of thing. Lunch?" 

"Lunch sounds fine," Jay says with a nod. "Now, if that was everything, wouldn't do to be late on my first day..."

She moves to walk away, determined to get to her locker and hunt down wherever she's supposed to be first.

Here's her locker! 

And here's this kid.

"Hey. You must be the new student."