The Elite

Eighteen

Tass

"We need to chase after them," Gabriel insisted. "We need to succeed!"

"It's pointless," I replied, lounging against a large rock. "We'll just fail again."

Gabriel rolled his eyes in a way that made it clear he was done with my pessimism. Even so, I saw a flicker of doubt enter his eyes, like inwardly he was thinking right alongside my pessimism.

"What about Mirembe?" Leon asked. "We can't just leave her."

"But what if she says bad things about us?" Katrina asked nervously. "She's not supposed to be here."

I wholeheartedly agreed with Katrina. Belle was a mystery, but no doubt a bad one. Her showing up unannounced didn't bode well at all.

"We should still help her," Leon argued.

Julian shrugged. "She's just unconscious, Leon. I can sense that from just looking down the cliff at her body. She'll be fine."

"Could you always sense injuries or is that new?" Leon asked with frown.

"Always," Julian replied. "It's why I'm Class 5. Let's just leave her. She'll survive on her own."

I turned to Julian, wondering what in the world was wrong with him. He was the nice one. He was supposed to argue that we should help Belle, not strongly insist we leave her to her own devices.

"You do realize we already know how cozy you are with Black Queen, right?" I asked. "We all know your dirty little secret of being an ex-Offender."

"We're not Offenders," Julian hissed. "She was very clear. We were for the people, not for the Offenders and their long fight against the Elite."

I couldn't help but find that rather odd. It was common knowledge that Black Queen's goal in creating the Kingdom of Zagha was to create a place away from the never-ending conflict between the Offenders and the Elite, but to my eyes, it seemed rather suspect that she'd be so adamantly against being categorized as an Offender.

I wondered why.

"Let's just go track down Green Blast and Mimic," Gabriel demanded.

"What if we fail again?" Katrina asked, her voice heavily laced with an overdose of worry. "What if we die?"

"Dying is a dubious scenario," Julian said. "It's preposterous to think."

There he went, showing off his English-speaking capability, using words that seemed out of reach of my English-as-my-second-language mind, but I got the message — he thought we were going to be fine. Not that I'd expect anything different from the eternal optimist.

And the fact that Mimic didn't seem very keen on killing Julian at all.

"What's up with you and Mimic?" I asked. "Why doesn't she want you dead?"

"What do you mean?" Julian asked.

He actually looked confused at the thought, which gave me pause. It almost seemed like he'd been too wrapped up in the whole Black Queen thing to notice the way Mimic was treating him.

I quickly shook the thought away. Julian was trained by an Offender who'd mastered the art of lying. I had no reason to believe any feeling he expressed was genuine.

"Mimic didn't want to hurt you," I accused. "She didn't like Belle threatening you and her threats against you appeared to all be bluffs. Why?"

"She likes me?" Julian asked himself.

I swore, for someone who was so knowledgable, Julian really didn't seem to be getting the conversation. I was asking and accusing, and it was like he was in his own little world.