Belligerent (Vicara) (13 page)

Ryan didn't care whether Shifter's team had a real chance at Vicara or not, and from the way Stewart had stumbled over his words, it seemed like they did. If there was any way he could get his freedom faster, he would take it.

“How can I escape?”

“Ryan!” Clarisse's voice rang out loudly.

Stewart shook his head. “We'll finish this conversation later. I'll contact the rest of the team and one of us will get in touch with you as soon as we have a plan.” He placed his hand on the small of Eloise's back to steer her towards the main building. “Let's go before we're late for literature. Ryan, we'll see you around.”

They were a far distance off by the time Clarisse reached him, skipping along at her usual strange pace. She gave him a curious look. “You're not still mad, are you?”

Ryan took a deep breath. It was like dealing with a child sometimes. “What do you think?”

“Are you mad at me?” She blinked up at him.

“I'm not mad at just you.”

That didn't seem to make things any better.

Her smile never left her face, but it grew a little tighter. Her eyes watered to the point that it looked as if she would start crying at any moment. “We've agreed to have a meeting today after classes. We'll tell you what we can. We want you to trust us.”

Ryan suddenly felt guilty that he had snapped at the girl, especially when one tear finally did fall.

“We are very sorry that we've been keeping things from you,” she said.

“I accept your apology. Please stop crying.” He reached a hand up intending to brush away the stray tear, but Clarisse jerked back before he could touch her. She seemed as shocked by her own actions as he was. Her mouth opened then snapped shut before any words could escape, and they both stood there for a moment staring at each other.

They were spared any further awkwardness by Aria's approach. She looked them both over then turned to Ryan. “I assume you've been filled in.”

“I told him,” Clarisse replied quickly.

Aria continued to stare at him. “From now on, please keep your comm at least in listening mode. She shouldn't have to run around campus chasing you down to give you a message.”

“Sorry about that,” Ryan said, wondering why Aria seemed so tense. She was normally one of the most relaxed members of the team. He quickly tapped at his comm and forgot he’d turned it off when he had stormed out of the villa.

Aria took one of Clarisse's hands in hers. “Let's skip morning classes today. You can help me pack for my pit game.” Over her shoulder she called, “We'll see you after classes, Ryan.”

Ryan watched them go with a sense of de ja vu before he finally decided to go to his own classes. It didn't matter what they told him that afternoon. His plan remained unchanged – escape and get back to Alex. She’d help him get rid of the bracelet.

*

When the girls were a good distance from Ryan, Aria stopped and pulled Clarisse to face her. She brushed away the tears that had streamed down Clarisse's face and tried to fix the running eyeliner as best as she could.

“Are these real tears or fake ones?” Aria asked.

“They came from my eyes.”

Aria smirked. “Smartass.”

She nudged Clarisse's face up to where the shorter girl was looking at her. It was an old habit. One finger placed under Clarisse's chin to indicate that the informant was to look up. There was no real force behind the action and Clarisse never protested the unspoken request.

Aria’s smirk turned into a genuine smile. “You look decent enough now.”

“I look more than decent,” Clarisse said with a wink and started walking back to the villa. Aria easily kept pace with her. “Why were you angry?”

“Why would you think I was angry?” Aria asked, not pulling away when Clarisse placed one hand in hers.

Clarisse sighed as if it should be obvious. “I know when you're angry.”

“I saw you jerk away from him,” Aria said.

“So? Why would that matter? It was a part of the act.”

“I know when you're acting.”

“Not always,” Clarisse murmured.

Aria ignored that comment. “He scared you.”

“He didn't scare me. I was startled. That's all. It does happen sometimes, ya know. Even to the most talented of us. I knew he would believe whatever I said, so I wasn't putting that much effort into watching his body language for cues.”

Aria knew that wasn't completely true, but she couldn't figure out in what ways it was a lie. She was always surprised by how easily she could get Clarisse to drop her guard and wondered why no one else seemed to have any effect on the girl. Even Kenichi often complained that he had trouble telling when Clarisse was acting and when she was genuine. To Aria, it was usually far too easy. They made it back to the villa as the others were leaving. Everyone froze for a moment when they saw Clarisse's runny makeup.

“What happened?” Daylan asked with an edge to his tone.

“Fake tears,” Clarisse assured. “I just forgot to wear waterproof makeup.”

Aria noticed that Clarisse's grip on her hand tightened ever so slightly before she began swinging their hands back and forth as if the handholding was only a thing done for Clarisse's amusement and not because she had needed the touch. Clarisse had taught her once that if you wanted to detract from the importance of something, it was better to shove it out in the open where people tended to overlook it rather than hide it where people would think it was worth snooping out.

Logan and Daylan seemed to accept the explanation and grabbed their bags to leave. Kenichi approached Clarisse and kissed her on the cheek.

“I hate to see you cry even if it is fake,” he said as he stared at Aria for a moment. “Are you two planning on skipping classes?” he finally asked.

“Only the morning ones,” Aria said.

Aria felt Clarisse's hand drop from her grasp as the girl was tugged away by Eva. The combat specialist had retrieved a makeup remover cloth from her own backpack. She scrubbed at Clarisse's face and whispered something to her that Aria couldn't hear. Kenichi took the opportunity to lean towards Aria.

“You'll stay with her. Right?” he asked. “You won't get antsy and wander off to do your own thing?”

“We were just going to pack my things for the pit games.”

“Don't leave her alone. Something's got her shaken. She's been on edge ever since before breakfast. I don't think all those tears were fake.”

Aria nodded slowly. “I'll keep her with me.”

Kenichi swung his bag onto his shoulder. “If you can't seem to manage that, then contact me.”

Aria narrowed her eyes. “She and I will be fine alone for today.”

Daylan appeared behind Kenichi and threw an arm around his shoulders. Leaning in, Daylan said, “We can all see you whispering about something. You're not very good at this stealth thing right now,” he stage whispered. Kenichi glared at him which only caused Daylan to grin before tugging Kenichi closer to plant a kiss on Kenichi's temple. “Don't be in a bad mood so early in the day.” Then, to Aria, he said, “Have a fun day. Keep Clarisse out of trouble.”

The boys left, and Eva trailed behind them pausing at the doorway to wait for Mackenzie.

“Did Ryan agree to the meeting?” the strategist asked.

“He agreed,” Clarisse assured her.

“What of his body language? Did he seem...?”

“You can interrogate her later,” Aria said, annoyance in her voice. “If you don't leave now, you'll be late for class.”

“She's right, Mac,” Eva called from the doorway. “I doubt Ryan will join us for lunch. You can discuss things then.”

Mackenzie grabbed her bag. The girl truly did hate to miss any classes. It was the one thing they could all count on. Once Aria and Clarisse were left alone in the villa, they retreated to Aria's room. Clarisse wasted no time in leaping onto Aria's neatly made bed.

“Going to tell me what the news is?” Aria asked.

“What news?” Clarisse asked.

“Don't play clueless. What news has you so jittery?”

Clarisse rolled over to look at Aria. “There's been a change with James.”

Aria froze. “Good or bad?”

“I don't know,” Clarisse admitted. “Shifter didn't say.”

“What did the files say?” Aria had no doubt that Clarisse had used her sources to find more information.

“That's what concerns me. There's nothing. It's as if he doesn't exist,” Clarisse whispered.

So that was the reason for Clarisse's mood. She had probably been up the entire night researching, and some of the tears she had shed during her conversation with Ryan had been true tears of frustration and exhaustion. Aria started pulling clothing back out of the suitcase she had planned on taking with her to the pit games that weekend. She placed her shoes back in the closet and folded her clothing up.

“What are you doing?” Clarisse asked.

“I have a feeling there won't be any pit games for us this weekend.”

“I called Shifter, but I couldn't get through. We should hear from him today though.”

“If he's not shown up himself then maybe it's nothing too serious,” Aria said optimistically.

“Or maybe he doesn't want to be within Mackenzie's reach,” Clarisse said.

Aria collapsed onto the bed and thought that over.

Clarisse spoke up again. “There's more. Ryan was talking to Stewart and Eloise today when I approached him.”

“Doesn't he have classes with Eloise though? Maybe they're friends.”

“That's what I'm concerned about.”

Aria glanced over at her friend. “Will you tell Mackenzie?”

“Do I have a choice?” Clarisse asked while reaching up to tug off her cross-tie.

“What are you doing?”

Clarisse huffed. “I'm not going to afternoon classes either.”

“What will you do instead?”

“I don't know. I'll search the files again. Talk to some sources. Maybe I'll check in on the whole Ryan thing.” She shifted out of her blazer next. “There's a lot that needs to be done.”

“I could help.”

“You have your own work to do.”

“That can wait. Just tell me what I can do.”

*

Ryan didn't have lunch with his team that day. Instead he walked down to the campus market to buy something for lunch. It was the first time he had tried using the credits in the allowance that Shifter granted each of them, and when he checked out and saw the remainder of his balance, he stared for several moments at the quantity of digits in the number.

After lunch, he wandered around for a while, surprised when none of his teammates tried to contact him. He guessed that either they were giving him time to cool off or were grateful for his absence. For the nearly two weeks that he had been on campus he had spent most of his time either in the villa or in his classes. He hadn't realized how large the campus was. Villas were spaced out extremely far from each other, but all of them were closer to the campus than his team's residence was.

“Having fun exploring?”

Ryan flinched. “Who are you?” he asked the boy who had managed to sneak up on him.

“I'm Leon, the retrieval specialist on Mystique's team.”

“Who's Mystique?”

Leon shook his head. “You really haven't been told anything have you? Mystique's my Owner. You know Stewart and Eloise, right?”

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“Just doing my job. They sent me to retrieve you.”

“I thought normally informants picked up the people.”

Leon shrugged, his broad shoulders nearly touching his ears. Ryan didn't know how a guy his size did the same tasks as Kenichi. He couldn't imagine any way that Leon could squeeze through an air vent or free scale a wall without making a sound.

“Yeah, well. Our informant has his hands full at the moment with some other job, so are you going to come or not?”

“Where are we going?”

“To my team's villa.” Leon started in the opposite direction of Ryan's own villa. “You coming? It's not like it's a long walk or anything, and we need to go before your team realizes you're with us.”

“Should I turn my comm off?”

Leon spun around. “Comm?”

Ryan tapped his ear.

“Oh, that. Yeah, probably. Actually, you should let our techie make sure the tracker on it has been turned off.”

“They have trackers?”

“Not all of them are activated. Delilah could just double check.”

Ryan followed Leon down one of the many cobblestone paths until they were in an area where the trees grew wildly around them. The villa was smack in the center of the grove. Leon held his banded wrist up until they were granted entrance.

“Hurry up,” Leon called, ushering him inside. “Delilah!” he shouted once they were inside. A voluptuous girl wandered out to them.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Give her your comm,” Leon instructed. “Need you to make sure there's no tracker on this, Dee.”