Consequences

[Namira]

"I received a call from your school today."

Charles Cade Sr was waiting for Charlie when she returned home. Despite her best efforts, there was still a purple line slashed across half of her face, only slightly faded, the paint marker proving stubbornly impossible to wash away.

Something Charlie had always found interesting about her father was how soft his voice was. He'd been a captain in the forces and commanded over a hundred men. After his enforced retirement, he'd gone on to be an instructor. For all that, Charlie couldn't remember him ever raising his voice.

Now and then, her mother liked to say that volume didn't necessarily equate to authority.

He was looking at her with the pale blue eyes they both shared.

"I was in a fight." There was no sense trying to be coy, even if she hadn't planned to inform him already. There was only one reason the school would have contacted her father today.

His cane twisted slightly against the hardwood floor, the only motion in his entire frame. In spite of his missing foot, he stood perfectly upright without even a hint of a tremor.

"That was stupid of you," he remarked. "I'm disappointed, Charlie."

He called her Charlie when he was displeased.

He very rarely had cause to call her Charlie.

"It was," she admitted. She'd known it was stupid the moment the fight ended. A large part of her had known it was stupid even as she'd turned the confrontation physical. "I'm sorry."

Again, his eyes locked with hers. Charlie held the gaze, straight backed, hands tucked behind her, feet together and legs straight.

"Your Principal informs me that you've been issued your punishment."

"That's correct, father." A month's worth of detention. Remedial duties with the disciplinary committee. Restriction of on-site privileges, meaning Charlie had cost both of her teams their preferential bookings for rooms and sports fields.

"You are extremely fortunate to have avoided a suspension."

"I know," she did and she was. The Principal had explicitly told Charlie that if her disciplinary record hadn't been absolutely flawless, she would have been looking at a week's suspension at the very least. National Summit had a zero tolerance policy for fighting.

Her father looked at her for several seconds, expression inscrutable. "I hear the other girl provoked you with insults."

Charlie clenched her jaw. In spite of it all, the crude remarks Mashall had made about her and her father rankled even now. Disgusting. "She did."

Another long pause. "If you're to be an officer, then you need to be able to deal with difficult situations, Charlie. If a soldier under your command challenges you, it's your responsibility to remain calm and collected. You cannot allow yourself to lose your head, no matter the circumstances."

"I understand." She truthfully did. It was yet another reason that what she'd done was so tremendously foolish. Charlie hated herself for it. A thousand-and-one warnings and consequences that picking a fight was a bad idea, and she'd ignored all of them. The heat of the moment had got to her, affected her judgement.

"Do you?" He twisted his cane again. "Have you considered, Charlie, that this could negatively impact your career?"

Charlie's heart skipped a beat. No. No she had not.

It must have been written all over her face, because her father didn't wait for her to respond. "The military reviews school records when considering applicants, Charlie. The first thing the academy will see is a major disciplinary infraction."

Involving a petty criminal.

"You've had a reprieve today, Junior. Do your best not to waste it."

Her father inclined his head slightly, and Charlie knew that she was dismissed. Most people wouldn't have seen that as much of a dressing-down. However, most people weren't Charles Cade Sr and Jr.

He'd said absolutely everything he'd needed to, and Charlie stepped out of the room with a pang of pain in her chest.