Falsely Accused, I Started Plundering Monster Traits

The laundry room door shut behind them.

Mrs. Whitaker let go of Lin Yan’s wrist and folded her arms.

"That girl’s with the government, isn’t she?"

Lin Yan blinked. "How’d you know?"

"Please. You think I’ve never dealt with government people before?"

Fair enough. Running a children’s home for decades probably came with more than enough practice.

"Relax. I’m not in trouble," Lin Yan said. "Claire’s a friend. She had some business out this way, and I needed a ride."

Mrs. Whitaker watched him for a moment, then nodded.

"You were always a pain in the ass, but you were never a bad kid."

"That’s almost nice."

"Don’t push it."

Someone called her from the hallway.

"Mrs. Whitaker? We need you out here!"

"Coming!"

She opened the door. "Stay out of trouble."

"I’ll try."

"I know you won’t."

Then she was gone.

Lin Yan stepped back into the hallway with a grin.

With Mrs. Whitaker busy and Claire still outside dealing with a call, Lin Yan wandered through the building on his own.

A few things had changed, but most hadn’t. The old recreation room had newer furniture, someone had finally replaced the cracked tiles near the back entrance, and the wall where children used to mark their heights had been painted over. Lin Yan could still remember exactly where his name used to be.

Without really meaning to, he eventually found himself outside Mrs. Whitaker’s office. The door stood open, so he wandered in.

The room had changed even less than the rest of the building: same cheap desk, same battered filing cabinet, same bookshelf sagging slightly beneath years of accumulated paperwork. Only the computer looked new.

A stack of documents sat near the edge of the desk, and Lin Yan probably wouldn’t have touched them if a large number on the top sheet hadn’t caught his eye.

ROOF REPAIR ESTIMATE

He picked it up and immediately disliked the figure at the bottom. The next page was worse.

BOILER REPLACEMENT — ESTIMATED COST

"Jesus."

He flipped through the rest: maintenance bills, grocery invoices, school supplies, repairs for the new wing. A county grant had covered most of the construction, but apparently not everything that had gone inside it, and several expenses had been circled in Mrs. Whitaker’s handwriting with notes about which ones could be pushed back another month.

Nothing around him looked desperate. Mrs. Whitaker had simply spent decades getting very good at making "not enough" look like "barely enough."

Near the bottom of the stack, Lin Yan found a donation form with the home’s banking information printed beneath it.

He stared at it for a few seconds, then took out his phone.

His banking app rejected the first attempt because of the transfer limit, so he switched to a wire transfer and entered the routing number, account number, recipient, and finally the amount.

$100,000.00

The bank asked him twice whether he was sure. Lin Yan confirmed twice, and a few seconds later the screen changed.

Transfer submitted.

That should cover the roof and the boiler, with enough left over for a few other things besides.

Lin Yan locked his phone and put the donation form back where he’d found it.

The office door opened behind him.

"...Lin?"

He turned.

A girl stood there with one hand still on the door and the other wrapped around the handle of a mop.

For a second, he couldn’t place her.

She was about his age, with thick brown bangs hanging almost to her eyes and an oversized sweatshirt that seemed chosen specifically to make her disappear inside it. Her shoulders drew in slightly when he looked at her.

Then something clicked.

"Emily?"

Her eyes widened.

"You remember me?"

"Barely."

She gave him a small, offended look.

Lin Yan grinned.

"I’m kidding."

Emily looked him up and down.

"You’ve changed a lot."

"Yeah. I’ve been hearing that all day."

"No, seriously. You’re..." She glanced at his shoulders again. "Huge."

"Also been hearing that all day."

That got a quiet laugh out of her.

They had never been particularly close. Emily had always been one of the quieter kids, easy to overlook in a building full of people competing to be heard.

"How’ve you been?" she asked.

"Pretty good. You?"

She shrugged.

"Same as always."

Her eyes drifted toward the hallway.

"Eli would’ve lost his mind if he’d been here. He still talks about you."

Lin Yan paused.

Right.

Eli.

The kid had spent most of Lin Yan’s last couple of years here following him around like an undersized bodyguard.

"Where is he? School?"

"Hospital."

Lin Yan looked at her.

"What happened?"

"Flu. He got pretty dehydrated, so they’re keeping him overnight for observation. He’s fine."

"Which hospital?"

"Fairmont Regional."

Fairmont Regional was a little over half an hour away.

Claire drove.

She was still handling calls related to the bear Lin Yan had killed that morning, so when they reached the medical center, she stayed near the entrance to finish with headquarters while Lin Yan went inside.

The pediatric ward occupied one of the newer buildings.

Lin Yan found Eli near the end of the hall.

The kid was sitting cross-legged on the bed with an IV taped to one hand, staring furiously at his phone.

"Come on..."

The screen froze.

Eli scowled.

"This fucking Wi-Fi is so—"

The door opened.

He looked up.

For a second, he just stared.

"...Lin?"

Then his eyes moved downward.

And downward.

"Holy shit."

Lin Yan closed the door behind him.

Eli sat up straighter.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

Lin Yan didn’t answer. His eyes went from Eli to the IV hanging beside the bed, and the amusement slowly disappeared from his face.

Eli noticed immediately.

"...What?"

Lin Yan walked over and crouched beside the bed.

"Who do you like better, Spider-Man or Batman?"

Eli blinked. "What?"

"Spider-Man or Batman."

"Why?"

Lin Yan said nothing.

Eli glanced at the IV taped to his hand, then slowly looked back at him.

"Wait."

Still nothing.

"Lin."

"What?"

"I have the flu."

"I know."

"Then why are you asking me that?"

This time, Lin Yan didn’t answer at all. He broke eye contact and quietly turned his face toward the window, as though there were something he couldn’t bring himself to say.

Eli went still.

"...What the fuck do you know that I don’t?"

The door opened just then, and a nurse came in carrying a fresh IV bag.

Eli immediately pointed at Lin Yan.

"Am I dying?"

The nurse stopped. "What? No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Then why did this asshole come back after three years and ask whether I want Spider-Man or Batman?"

The nurse slowly turned toward Lin Yan.

He lasted another second before breaking into a grin.

Eli’s mouth fell open.

"You motherfucker."

Lin Yan started laughing.

"I thought I had some kind of fucking cancer!"

"You have the flu."

"I know I have the flu!"

The nurse was visibly trying not to laugh as she replaced the nearly empty IV bag and checked the line.

"You’re fine," she told Eli.

"Thank you!"

She shook her head at Lin Yan and left.

Eli glared at him.

"You’re a dick."

"So Spider-Man?"

"Get out."

Lin Yan pulled the visitor chair closer instead.

They talked for another twenty minutes. Eli caught him up on the home, the kids who had left, and several teachers he apparently considered mortal enemies. By the time Lin Yan finally stood to leave, Eli was back on his phone and swearing at the hospital Wi-Fi.

"Get some sleep."

"Yeah, yeah."

Lin Yan left him to it.

He had barely made it halfway down the corridor when translucent text appeared in front of him.

[Convergence precursor detected.]

Lin Yan stopped. Around him, the hospital carried on as usual: nurses moving between rooms, carts rolling down the corridor, patients walking slowly beside their IV stands.

Then the next lines appeared.

[Estimated onset: 7 hours, 31 minutes.]

[Current location lies within the projected Convergence zone.]

[Remain within the projected Convergence zone until onset.]

Of all the fucking places.

By the time he reached the lobby, Claire had just come back through the entrance with her phone still in hand. She saw his expression and stopped.

"What’s wrong?"

"There’s going to be another Convergence here in about seven and a half hours."

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