Kings On The Horizon (Vol. 4-6) ✓

190 | Moving Too Fast

     "You're right. We shouldn't be problematizing about how Jontell and Max met or what their relationship really is. We should be worried about what that guy is doing in J.S High," Hans says, making the others nod their heads to it.

     "If I may..." Ervin then says, and Master Joker looks at him and nods his head before Ervin can continue. "During Max and Jontell's confrontation earlier, Jontell mentioned something about not having enough time," Ervin explains, making the brotherhoods furrow their brows in confusion.

    "Not enough time? For what?" Krist asks, scratching his chin.

     "If little Maxy and that asshole Jontell were really close in the past, maybe Max has an idea of what that meant. He should just push him further and corner him so Jontell could finally spill it all out," Cj suggests, but Ari and his friends immediately disagree with it.

     "That's not a good idea. They might have a past, but they're no longer civil with each other. And Max, he almost..." Ari pauses and tries not to reveal what had happened in their classroom earlier when Max literally beat Jontell to death. But at the same time, Ari knew that there was no point in lying, especially to them.

    "I don't want to add to your worries, but...Max...I think he's getting worse," Ari then reveals, making even the other members of BND and Jokers stop whatever they were doing to listen to him.

    Ari looked back at his friends, and they nodded their heads to encourage him to speak up. After all, no one else can help Max other than his protectors.

    "I'm only saying this because Max is our friend and we're really worried about him. We haven't noticed his current behavior because he was recently preoccupied with the tasks the princes gave him for the banquet, but haven't you guys realized that Max has become—"

     "Quiet? Distant? Or empty? Which one?" Cj finishes, and even though he looks like he's being sarcastic, the others can't even deny it because they're realizing it now too.

     Everyone in the greenhouse becomes silent. Anthony takes his cigarette out for the second time, but this time, no one stops him,

     "Sometimes we forget that Max is only seventeen, and we might have unconsciously given him such a heavy load to carry alone," River finally says, words that many of them had already thought of before but were too afraid to say out loud.

     Red, who was playing cards with the others, takes a deep breath and joins Hans and the others. "I'm going to say this because this is just what I noticed, but...don't you guys think we're treating Max like he's our old president, Grey?"

     As soon as Red asked them that question, the brotherhoods became silent again. Cj even snatched Anthony's cigarette so he could smoke one for himself too.

     "Look, Max has acquired achievement after achievement after achievement. It looks good, and it's very impressive, but have any of us ever stopped to think that he's going way too fast? For Pete's sake, we got into a bombing incident just five months ago," Red reminds them. "We've acted like Max is president Grey, and he is responsible for continuing whatever Grey left behind before he died. But Max is just a student. And it's been so long since he's been just that."

     Max won Mr. Brains & Brawn, conquered four brotherhoods, became a gaffer and penetrated the top 10, as well as represented J.S High in the House of Queens. Other than that he was able to attend the very prestigious banquet that PHD barely holds. All that was achieved within a span of six months. Those achievements are no doubt impressive, but behind every success came a dozen obstacles.

     There's the bombing incident that Red mentioned that almost killed him. He had to face Siren's (Payton Wolfe) troublesome confessions, handle the issue he had with his father and their company, and also go over the fact that his family has been drugging him so he wouldn't remember anything that happened to his past. And with the other events that led them to where they are now, he's also starting to get connected with the dangerous brotherhood, Paradox.