Belligerent (Vicara) (20 page)

*

They ate dinner that night in the main room, dressed in their pajamas. Logan, Clarisse and Kenichi were doted on by the others, who refused to allow any of them off the couches for anything - despite the fact that Clarisse and Logan weren't that injured. In spite of the drama from the day's events, they all joked and laughed while eating.

It wasn't until dessert that anyone mentioned Ryan's betrayal.

“So, Ryan, I assume since you have the band on again that you've decided to remain here?” Daylan asked.

Ryan realized that he was facing a precarious Daylan for the first time. The medical specialist was actually terrifying when he was angry because he was the kind of person who hid behind a calm facade until finally exploding with devastating effects. Ryan could see the emotions simmering in the medic's eyes and chose his words as carefully as he could manage.

Placing his plate down on the coffee table, Ryan looked around at his teammates. “Today I learned that I really shouldn't trust anyone, but I also learned that you guys really did mean it when you said you protect your teammates. I know that right now probably none of you trust me, but if you are all willing to give me another chance, I hope to be able to prove to you that I can be a loyal teammate.”

“We've already given you another chance,” Mackenzie said. “Otherwise, we wouldn't have saved you back there.”

“Yes, we would have,” Clarisse said. “We wouldn't let anyone be taken to an Omega training camp if we could prevent it. Not even our enemies.”

Mackenzie scrunched her face but nodded reluctantly. “You still have a choice, though. We don't want you here if you don't want to be here and we don't mean just for now. We mean for the long run. If you quit now we might have time to find someone to replace you, so if you agree to stay this time, then you're agreeing to stay until we see if we qualify for Vicara.”

“You mean I'm agreeing to stay until we win Vicara,” Ryan said, correcting her with some bravado.

Logan's face lit up. “That's a yes then?”

Ryan nodded. “That's a yes.”

“What about your girl?” Clarisse questioned softly. The others turned to look at her. “You can give up Alex for that long?”

“You know about Alex?” Ryan asked, not really surprised.

Clarisse nodded. “I've always known about her. That's my job. It's the same way I knew you accidentally let the other team know about our comms.”

“They didn't know about them before?”

“We're the only team with comms. Logan designed them himself.” Clarisse sighed. “Cat’s probably out of the bag now. Get ready for some cheap knock-offs, Logan.”

Ryan really thought about it as they discussed what would happen at the academy as fallout. He didn’t care as he remembered Alex and wondered - could he give her up for the next few years? Could he put the team before her?

He glanced over at them. He looked at Kenichi, who was still favoring one arm. The boy had been shot for him. Clarisse had inhaled sleeping gas for him. The others had placed themselves between him and members of a disciplinary squad. They were ready to protect him at the risk of their own lives. The least he could do was be the kind of teammate that they deserved.

“Can you tell me if Alex is okay?” he asked Clarisse.

Clarisse sighed. “Paul's taken her underground. I don't have the reach to go looking into his group's business.”

“You know Paul?”

“Of course I know Paul. He's one of the most notorious car thieves out there,” Clarisse said with a duh expression.

“Paul's famous?”

“You didn't know that?” Kenichi asked with an over-the-top laugh. Daylan must have really over-medicated the boy.

“No, I didn't,” Ryan said. “As far as you know though, Alex is okay?”

“Yes,” Clarisse said. “As long as she's with Paul, she should be fine.”

“That's all that matters then. My best chance of getting back to her is by working with you guys to win Vicara.”

He looked around at his seven teammates. They were all looking back at him, and for once, they were all smiling. Even if Kenichi’s smile was drug-enhanced, Ryan felt a part of them. A part of the family.

“We should get to work then,” Mackenzie said. “Now that we officially have a full team, we have plans to make.”

“And revenge to get,” Kenichi added. “Mystique's team is going to pay for messing with us.”

“First, you two need to heal up,” Daylan said. “So, if you're done with dinner, then you should get to bed.”

“Fine, but we won't be sleeping.” Kenichi muttered pulling himself up out of the chair gingerly, then motioning for Clarisse to follow him. On their way out, Kenichi gave Ryan an approving nod, and Clarisse paused long enough to give him a quick hug.

“You realize-” Daylan started.

“I'm on it,” Aria said and followed the two to Kenichi's bedroom, but not before patting Ryan on the shoulder.

“I'll be there as soon as I fix Clarisse some more tea for her throat,” Daylan called after Aria. “You're sure you're not injured?” he asked Ryan.

“I'm sure.”

“I'll go get that tea then.”

Ryan tiredly watched them leave. The events of the day were catching up with him. He had been betrayed by the one person he had thought he could trust at the academy. Ryan wondered how he could have been so easily fooled by Eloise and her team. He had thought only informants had the ability to lie so easily to someone. His own team though, while they had kept things from him, hadn’t seemed to have actually lied about anything. There was also the fact that they had all risked their lives for him and he felt that any minor deceptions could be overlooked because of that. Yeah, anyone who helped him out when he was running for his life could probably be trusted.

He was jerked from his drowsy state when Eva stood and gathered the dishes. “I'll take care of cleaning up everything tonight. Ryan, I was thinking maybe we should spar in the morning. How does five thirty sound to you?”

“It sounds early,” he said. He wasn’t sure he even had the energy to drag himself to his bed, never mind trying to get out of it in the morning.

Eva merely smiled. “Perfect.”

Her grin was infectious, and Ryan found himself smiling back. “Yeah, perfect.”

“I'll help with those dishes!” Logan leapt from his seat. He grinned widely at Ryan. “This is great!” he remarked. Ryan chuckled.

Mackenzie stood and made her way to the doorway. “I'm going to go start making arrangements to get a little revenge on Mystique's team,” she said. “Kenichi will run off on his own if I don't give him some kind of plans soon.” At the doorway, she stopped as if she was debating something and called over her shoulder. “Hey, Ryan!”

“Yeah?”

“Welcome home.”

*

The day after the attack on the villa, Ryan's band beeped and displayed a holographic message.
Report to Dr. Dupin's office immediately.

“That seems ominous,” Logan commented while helping himself to more bacon.

Ryan stared as the words circled around for a several long moments before disappearing.

Mackenzie frowned. “He knows about your pathetic attempt at escaping then.”

It seemed that even though the attack had established a tentative friendship between Ryan and the others, their leader was still intent on insulting him. In a way, Ryan was grateful for the barb. He deserved whatever punishment they thought appropriate. In a way, it eased his guilt over Kenichi and the others who were wounded.

“Mac,” Eva said in the tone she used whenever she wanted someone to play nice.

“What? It was a pathetic attempt. At least the last person who tried to escape made it to town.”

Ryan was too frightened by the summoning to the headmaster's office to actually be offended by Mackenzie's comment.

“What do I do? What's going to happen?”

“Don't worry so much,” Clarisse said. “Set your comm to allow us to listen in, and at the first sign of trouble, we'll burst in and save you.”

He didn't ask what they could possibly do. If the headmaster wanted him demoted then it was only a matter of time before Ryan found himself working in a labor camp or living in a cell. What was the punishment for trying to escape? They couldn't possibly save him from such a fate. They were merely Belligerents themselves. They could be stopped by a simple injection of a sedative.

“Relax, Ryan. Breathe,” Clarisse instructed him, and Ryan realized he had been holding his breath. “Everything will be fine.”

“Besides, if it was really serious, they would have just sent the disciplinary squad to collect you,” Kenichi added. There was less of a bite to his tone than when he usually addressed him, and Ryan didn’t know whether to attribute that to Kenichi's finally deciding to like him or to the painkillers currently running through the retrieval specialist's bloodstream.

“What makes you think they're not on their way?” Ryan asked. “The message could have been a distraction.”

“Because,” Kenichi said, locking his gaze with him, “we'd be unconscious on the floor if that were the case. They know if they try to take a Belligerent away, their teammates will fight to keep them. They'll knock the teammates out before collecting someone.”

“You should get going,” Daylan said. “The message did say 'immediately,' after all.”

Ryan slowly slid his chair away from the table and stood. Though he didn’t attend city school long enough to know what it was like to get summoned to the principal’s office, he assumed this was much worse.

Clarisse gave him a reassuring smile. “We'll be right behind you, listening in on every word.”

Ryan left the villa alone, knowing the others would be walking the same path in mere minutes. The path to the campus center never seemed shorter and all too soon Ryan was standing outside of Dr. Dupin's office. He raised a hand to the knock, but before he could, the door was flung open.

“Get in here!” Dr. Dupin said with a manic look to his wide eyes. Ryan hurried to do as instructed and took a seat when Dr. Dupin gestured at a chair.

The headmaster secured the door behind them and turned to face the student.

“Turn that comm off. And, yes, I know about the comms,” he said while pacing the room. Like the first time Ryan had met the man, Dr. Dupin's hair stuck out in wild directions. His stained tie was undone and his shirt wasn’t pressed.

Tell him you would prefer not to.
Clarisse instructed easily.

“Clarisse said to say no,” Ryan said.

“She would,” Dr. Dupin muttered tiredly. “Fine then. She would find another way to listen anyway. You're not being demoted, so wipe that frightened rabbit look off your face. I don't appreciate feeling like a villain.”

“You're not having me switched to being an Omega or sent to a labor camp?”

“No, only your Owner has that kind of power. We can only expel you from an academy, but that's usually a guarantee of a demotion.”

“Am I being expelled then?”

Dr. Dupin shook his head. “No, no, you didn't break any rules.”

“Leaving campus without permission isn't breaking a rule?”

“No, that's just our cue to retrieve you, so your Owner won't blame us for losing his property.”

“Good to know,” Ryan muttered under his breath. “Was there a reason you wanted to see me?”

“You can't leave like that!” Dr. Dupin practically shouted. “You could have been killed! The disciplinary squad isn't careful. They don't care how they get you back as long as they get you back on campus.”

“And my well-being is of great concern to you?”

“Yes!” Dr. Dupin shouted and seemed to surprise even himself.

“What makes me so important?” Ryan asked after recovering from his shock. “Surely, you don't care about the well-being of all your students like this?”

Dr. Dupin heaved a sigh of exasperation and cringed. He pressed both middle fingers to his temples as if trying to stave off a headache. The movement seemed familiar to Ryan, but he couldn't place why. “Just don't do something that dangerous again.”

“I'm a Belligerent. My whole life is kind of dangerous.”

“Fine,” Dr. Dupin growled. “Don't do something that stupid again.”

“Got it,” Ryan said. Then, in a less cocky tone, he asked, “Does Shifter know about my attempt?”

Dr. Dupin smirked. “How do you think your teammates got off campus? You may not know this, but as soon as your hover-bike exited the gates, Mystique's team had your band send out an alert that it was no longer connected to your wrist. Your teammates' permission slips appeared on my tablet moments later. Shifter was in on their rescue plan the whole time.”

“That man is a sociopath.”

“You won't find me disagreeing.”

“Is that all?” Ryan asked.

Dr. Dupin looked him over. “That's all for now. Go on and get to class before you're late.”

Ryan nodded and practically ran from the office. He waited until he was away from the hall to speak. “You guys get all that?”