Runes. And I didn’t need the little guide that came with them. I kept them hidden, instinct telling me I’d be mocked at best if they were seen. But I recognized all of them. I didn’t try to throw them.

Maybe I was afraid of what would happen. I was starting to not want to know who I was after all, to want a return to ignorance. Maybe I had a reason for losing my memory after all.

Fighting. Runes. No connection between the two, except the rightness of the stones in my hand. I hid them again, heading to school without any thought for math or history or any of that. Of course, I wouldn’t graduate. I had no illusions on that front, but I had to stay in until I was seventeen, the foster care system made that rule. Supposed to help us stay out of trouble.

They wanted us to graduate. I couldn’t. I walked into the classroom with my mind not even properly working in English, full of runes and fear. Geography. At least on this I thought others were more ignorant than me. World geography I seemed to have some grasp of.

Maybe, it finally occurred to me. Maybe I wasn’t even American. But I spoke English. With no accent.

Learned English. Out of books and classrooms. I’d had the thought before. As fair as I was, maybe I was Norwegian or Swedish or something, but none of that felt right. Icelandic? Maybe.

But today I all but slept through class, glassy eyed, causing the teacher to ask me what was wrong.

“Insomnia,” I murmured, not quite the truth, but I knew I looked like I hadn’t slept. That got a flurry of teasing once the bell rang.

“Yeah, right, that’s what kept you up.”

I blushed. “No, what kept me up was the loud party in the next house. Which I wasn’t invited to.” A lie they would never catch me in. Kanesha would support me, given she slept like a log, and the other girls were on the other side of the house and could legitimately say they’d not heard. Acoustics were funny.

“Never are.”

“Eh. It’s college kids. Why would they invite me?” I turned my back on the speakers, pointedly, stalking away. It was about all I could do with people who teased me, and they seemed to think I was an easy target.

I could beat them up, but that wouldn’t be…right. Or, more, it would be descending to their pathetic level. I was above that, so I walked away. It didn’t seem to help.

It didn’t stop them.