On a String

Chapter 20

Cole would. Cole always had.

...Cole.

The name that sounded like screams in the night.

("liar...")

-?

Cole had lied.

And then reality washed over him again, and he remembered that Cole was gone.

(Because Cole had cared. For him.)

They had made the same mistake.

NO!

Checking that he still had his pistols and Clarissa's papers, Kai fled from the bunkroom. More than enough lives had been ripped apart by this group, and he was determined that no one else would get involved.

Once he'd escaped the Bounty, he would head for the City and find somewhere to hole up and go over Clarissa's papers. From there, he'd formulate a plan to get Cole out and destroy the group.

But he got no further than three steps down the corridor before Sensei Wu, Jay and Zane appeared around the corner ahead of him, blocking his escape route.

There was silence.

Which Jay, characteristically, was the first to break. "You screamed. What's going on?"

To Kai, the pointed sentence sounded like blame.

You screamed.

'You must be insane'.

It looked like they were getting a little too close to the truth.

Kai's eyes narrowed to thin slits, his gaze sliding over the three men in front of him. "Nothing." The word rolled from his lips with visibly-restrained anger, and he gained a small sense of satisfaction from the flinch Jay gave at his tone.

Resorting to a cold, controlled façade was so easy. He knew what he was doing. And he would make sure they knew that.

Unfortunately, Zane was harder to convince than Jay was. "In that case, you should get back to the bunkroom and rest."

The words were spoken so casually that they were almost kind, but Kai could feel the challenge behind them. His glare switched to the nindroid. "No."

If he'd been expecting his defiance to extract a response from Zane, Kai would have been disappointed. Zane simply stared back, and Kai refused to admit that he was more than a little unnerved by the nindroid's thoughtful gaze.

Every little movement had become a power-play, and he wasn't going to give any ground in this struggle.

The silence continued for another half minute, and when it became evident that neither ninja was willing to give up, Sensei Wu stepped in. "Hand over your weapons, Kai." Grudgingly breaking eye contact with Zane, Kai turned his glare on his teacher, still making no move to obey Wu. "Now."

Kai could hear the order in Wu's tone, and suddenly, he was tired of being 'cold' and 'in control'.

They were going to listen to him.

And they would give in.

As far as he was concerned, the time for negotiation was over.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Kai spat viciously, taking a step forward, trying to regain some sense of control. He would verbally hammer this into them if he had to. How dare they order him about? How could they... how could they challenge him? He was doing this for them! "Move."

Wu's 'kindly' expression was already back in place. "I'm not going to do that, Kai." He answered, his tone pitying; completely opposing Kai's angry outburst.