School starts up again. Darren and Bella are both skipping straight into twelfth grade. (Bella looked into just starting college early, but while she does technically have the sort of resume that can lead to that kind of thing, she can't exactly write an essay about how she saved the life of another person and this caused her to have Moral Character, let alone about how she started a small business - so skipping one grade it is.)
They apply to colleges. They both get into University of Washington and get sufficient scholarships to accommodate both going there.
Summer ensues again.
One afternoon, Bella is over at Darren's, and has fallen asleep - in purring fullform - across his lap on the couch.
"Would you feel better about that if I went into extensive detail on why I'm not significantly upset?"
"I'm not upset that they're dead," clarifies Darren. "I'm just - I think we might be losing something if we sent my sister to eat their hearts for convenience."
"It might not be convenience. If they know things about the person they were working for, and Savannah can piece them together, we could find him before he finds another monster to eat me right out of your lap."
He's going to need to invent more spells to make sure this never happens again.
Once she's done looting and loaded up with weaponry, she informs them, "Okay, done. Unless you changed your mind on eating the hearts? It would be useful to have, in case I need to be sneaky."
"Not for sneakiness purposes, but if you think you could find out more about whose orders they were working on, that could be very important. If the guy whose heart you already ate was the only one who knew anything - don't bother."
"He probably is, the guards seemed kind of out of the loop, the torturers, too. But I can always check."
Savannah blinks. "Okay. Well if you're doing that thing you do where you're worried about my innocence or some shit, don't bother, I got this."
"Yup. I know me better than you do. I'm not freaking out about killing them, but I do want to be as prepared as possible if this shit ever happens again." Pause. "So, I want to eat all of their hearts."
"Two. I don't think I can use those. I can always try," she shrugs. "If all else fails, guess I have dinner early."
"Guess so! I'm not complaining. I'd still do it if it wasn't delicious, but I'd probably have a harder time at chewing it."