Last Chance: Rebel - Chapter Two (Patreon)

Why yes, this book is already written, cool huh?  I do that sometimes.

Weeeeee go me!

~~

Chapter Two

Like Usual

The disorientation as I landed in my room wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been to land in Nya’s office. Granted, I landed on the bed which was ten times more comfortable than the stone floor of her place, but still. I counted it a win that I didn’t empty the rest of the bile in my stomach. There wasn’t any more food in there, that’s for sure.

I should have asked Shane when I could learn displacement myself. There was no way I could be as rough as him at it. Come to think of it, was it an eel thing? Because if so it made sense that SC didn’t just drop us into missions individually with a bit of a teleport. Okay, so I had a lot of questions for Shane next time.

The house seemed quiet. I knew it was late, almost midnight by my watch. I’d been gone a lot longer than I thought. Perhaps time passed differently where I’d been, on top of the weird eel time thingy I still didn’t comprehend. 

Damn, I’d have to ask more about that next time. It really felt like I’d come away with a thousand more questions than answers received.

Next time? I guess I’d already made up my mind. While I still felt like they were keeping secrets from me, I think some of that might have been because they wanted me to get used to my powers gradually. 

Fuck it. I didn’t have time for that. I needed to get used to things now, and be able to do everything now. I wanted to know more about this skill and ability I seemed to possess. That had been given by a damned electrocution. Electricity wasn’t pretty or tame, it was full of rage, it fed off rage. And if I even had a moment of indecision when utilizing my power, I was pretty sure I’d be burned out like all the eels before me.

I’d never been very good with taking directions. People telling me not to do something made me itch to do it even more.

Whining in my head wasn’t going to get me anywhere. And I sure as hell didn’t feel like seeing if Orion was home at the moment. Instead, I crept into the bathroom to clean my teeth before bed.

Orion’s door was open, with no sign of life in there. As I brushed my teeth I peeked into the living room. No one there, and no-one in the kitchen beyond either. Maybe he’d had to be debriefed. Maybe I shouldn’t have run, even though Adam knew and had okayed me to. At least, that’s what I thought the nod meant. That, or he was saying: I know right? That’s so fucked up!

Whatever it was, I quickly finished up and headed into my room so I could continue being oblivious. At least for one more night. 

Sleep though, seemed to have different plans for me. Firstly, that poor guy’s head featured prominently in my dreams. Exploding icicles kept tormenting me from behind my eyelids, so much that I feared Orion might walk in and do the same to me. Was that the real reason though? 

Frankly, if I was being honest with myself, I think I was more concerned that he had changed so much. If he could become what I saw last night, then so could I, right? Wasn’t it possible that part of me was scared I could kill in order to keep myself alive?

Self defense was one thing. Burning those strange shadow creatures had been in self defense, and even then I was quite certain they hadn’t been killed. Instead, I’d let them flee. Why couldn’t Orion and that driver dude have just knocked those people out? Which was the crux of my concern. I couldn’t figure out why the hell they’d had to kill those people. Had the system ordered the actions, or was that the way they’d chosen to execute the orders? Lives weren’t expendable. Hell, ours weren’t. We were brought back for a specific purpose which I was pretty sure didn’t include killing random petty drug dealers on the street. So, why?

Of course, I didn’t have any answers, and because I directed my thoughts to myself and no one answered me. Not even my little friend checked in on me, which didn’t surprise me considering SC probably had no idea what to say to actual, sentimental people. 

❖

Sleeping through my alarm hadn’t been on my list of things to do the next morning, but it happened. For the first time ever, though, I decided to just let it be. I sent a text off to Coach Marth to let him know I’d had a bad night and wouldn’t be at practice that morning. It was only when I finally got an answer five minutes later that I knew the man hadn’t had a heart attack when he got the message.

Train twice as hard tomorrow was all the answer I got. 

I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling like maybe it could rain down answers on me. But it remained stubbornly silent. Funny that. Also funny were my attempts at avoiding the thoughts I least wanted to have. 

Couldn’t do that forever, so I got up and changed, trying to think on how I’d approach Orion.

You’re being awfully silent, and you’re awake late. Are you not feeling optimal?

No, I’m not feeling optimal I snapped back at it. 

Okay. Just wanted to check.

It sounded offended, and maybe a bit sad. And while I wasn’t a huge fan of what I’d witnessed in the last two missions, the voice that spoke to me was never anything but polite. Well, most of the time. 

Finally dressed and utterly not ready to make my way to class, I finally left my room to clean my teeth and whatnot, only to find Orion exiting the bathroom.

The expression of shocked surprise on his face when he looked up to see me there was priceless. Seems he’d been trying to avoid me almost as much as I was still trying to avoid him if the bleeding dark red aura around him was anything to go by. Perhaps I could plead temporary blindness and just walk straight past him.

Warning: Aura Detection not optimized.

Fantastic. Here we went again with the notifications. Just what I needed.

“Hey, Dare, missed you last night.” His words were hesitant, forced almost, and he wouldn’t look me in the eyes. And I had no doubt at all that he wa s lying through his teeth.

Not that I particularly wanted to look into the eyes of a killer. I’d say I was being harsh, but he had in fact killed a person in cold blood. I was there, and my brain wouldn’t stop reliving that very concrete moment in time. 

“Sorry about that.” I pushed past him, trying not to be too rude, but unable to make myself stay too close to him. “Have to run. Slept through my alarm.”

I closed the bathroom door behind me before he could say anything, and gripped onto the porcelain sink stand to stop myself shaking. It didn’t work as well as I wanted. My anger boiled, the uncertainty in my gut intensified, and I could feel the electricity beg to sizzle my insides, battling to escape. I once again found myself close to throwing up. That was getting to be a bad habit. 

Breathe. In the everlasting wisdom of mom, just breathe.

It helped to calm me down at least. The storm inside me reduced down to sullen static shocks instead of lightning bolts, but I could sense it wouldn’t stay that way long if I didn’t do something about it. 

I was sure Orion was still standing outside the door, so I busied myself with brushing my teeth. Didn’t want to face the day with stank sleep breath now, did I? My stomach was doing that thing again. I tried to push it down, but it wouldn’t go away and I could feel the panic rising in me. The breathing needed to help more. Perhaps I should meditate.

Warning. Portent Ability unstable.

You think? I yelled to the self in my head. But there was blessed silence in return. So that portion of the system was constantly monitoring my body’s actions and reactions. Like a dormant guard of my inner powers. What was odd was how much I missed the personality of the other voice.

Failsafes were fine by me. Okay, I could work with that. I could probably build on that too. In a way, knowing that separating my thoughts to keep them for myself still allowed me access to the failsafes of the system was reassuring. At least in a way that wasn’t totally focused on the fact that I was the living embodiment of undead. Dr Frankenstein eat your heart out.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the bathroom door and bolted for my room, grabbed my backpack after checking for my tablet, and began the trek to school.

❖

It was always a weird sensation for me to walk through the front gates of the school instead of heading directly to the athletics field. If I had time, people watching might be something I’d enjoy, but I didn’t really have someone I could share those observations with right now.

What Orion had done seeped into my very core. It separated us. I didn’t think I could put my life above someone else’s in that situation. Maybe I was being idealistic, but I had no intention to develop my powers into a usable weapon before I could make myself disappear.

“Dare!” Cyan’s bright and cheerful voice broke through my thoughts and I had to admit to the genuine smile it put on my face. It was like all the stress and irritation flooded out of me and let me relax.

“Hey there!” I grinned at her as she flung her arms around me like she hadn’t seen me in months. She was such a hugger. Extricating myself took time. Sometimes I didn’t mind the contact as much, but today I definitely needed minimal.

“What you doing? Didn’t you have training this morning? Have you injured yourself?” Suddenly an aura of complete concern flickered across her face, like she thought I might have hurt myself. Standing back, she frowned, looking me up and down so much I almost felt like an antique being appraised for auction.

“Well, you don’t look injured…” she paused, eyeing me expectantly.

“I’m not injured, I just had a really bad night’s sleep and slept through my alarm.” I shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, even though we both knew the only time I’d ever missed practice since coming to college was when I managed to get pneumonia and was down and out from everything in freshman year for about two weeks. A memory flickered past me so fast, I couldn’t quite catch it. Me standing drenched from head to toe, cold and shivering. Probably hadn’t helped that flu.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She asked as she fell into step beside me pulling me back to the conversation. At least I wasn’t going to be late for the lecture we were going to.

“Of course.” I glanced at her, wondering why she was so concerned. Was she a part of the program as well? After all, her friend Sam was. What if I was surrounded by people who were all in the program, which was why they’d picked me to be electrocuted. “I’m just tired. It’s been a trying few weeks.”

A thought occurred to me.

Hey. I want you to scan every person I come into contact with, and tell me if they are in the SC program. Okay?

There was a pause, so long that I wasn’t expecting an actual response by the time it came. Just as I was about to push the door open for us to go into the lecture hall, it spoke.

Done. Please do not disclose the nature of your predicament to Cyan. She is not a part of the SC program.

Thanks. And I didn’t realize how much I’d been hoping it would tell me that. Not that the delay it took to give me information didn’t register. That in itself was odd. Another thing for marginally future me to worry about.

Future Dare was going to be so pissed.

We found our usual seats, and got ready to sit through yet another lecture that I already knew the content for. I liked reading. Doing so about subjects that genuinely interested me was an even better way of studying for me. I glanced around the entire hall wondering if it would trigger the system to react to other people who were in the program. Apparently it didn’t see anyone, until Orion wandered in.

My breath caught in my throat, but just before he made it over, Neale dropped into the seat next to me a wide grin plastered on his face. Sometimes I wondered if the basketball player had a sixth sense. He always seemed to be around just when he was needed, even when I didn’t realize until he was there.

“Hi there practice ditcher.” He grinned at me and I groaned.

“It’s like the first time I haven’t been bed bound and missed a practice. I was tired last night, okay? Slept like shit.” I grimaced, hoping they’d think it was because of the bad night and not the fact that Orion had made his way over to us. 

Neale grinned, pulling out his tablet. “Sure, sure. Any excuse, am I right?” His wink was as disarming as his smile and I couldn’t help but grin back. Of course he had no idea what Orion and I were fighting about, but it helped that his presence eased my tension.

Neale is not a member of the SC program. Please refrain from any forbidden information sharing. 

Another relief for me and yet again hesitation by my inner companion. It felt so much better to know I wasn’t surrounded by people who were sent to keep an eye on me. Orion and Levi dropped down next to Neale and I completely avoided looking at him. I wondered if our friends noticed anything off about us, but the lecture began before I could follow that train of thought any farther. 

My notes practically took themselves, but wedged in between Cyan and Neale, I didn’t even mind. As long as I kept my gaze directed in front of me, I could avoid that Orion’s eyes and everything he was trying to say with them.