“Who does that bitch think she is?” she sneered as she paced around in front of Chris’s car, hips swaggering from side-to-side in a seductive manner.

“Tell me about it,” he agreed, “What makes a bunch of geeks like that think they can break into a heavily guarded fortress? Let ‘em get caught, I say. Serves them right,”

“Dude, you didn’t just say that! You better take that back!” said Joel, still limping like a wounded dog, “Theseus is, like, top of our year for Survival class!”

Chris tossed back his hair and tried not to laugh. “Like that’s going to do them any good in the real world.” And he was right – it wouldn’t. All those childish lessons did was give people like Theseus and Joel the impression they could do daring stunts as if they were heroes in a video game. At least Chris understood reality, but then, unlike those idiots, he’d been raised in the big city. He knew the difference between reality and fantasy!

“Gibson’s right,” said Elone before adding “As much as I hate to admit it.” She stopped her pacing, flicked her hair over her shoulder and glared at Chris. “What could you do, Shaw? Flash your ‘disarming’ smile to distract the guards?”

Chris tried – but failed – not to sneer (sneering at a girl was an unforgivable crime!). “Sarcasm’s not really productive at a time like this,” he said.

“Neither is sitting on your car trying to look like a playboy,” Elone shot back.

These were the moments Chris hated most: arguments with ‘self-assertive’ girls. If there was one thing that could put him off any girl, no matter how gorgeous, it was arrogance. He had to think of a witty rebuttal and disarm her, so she’d whimper in defeat and return to her lustrous former self!

“Will you guys stop bickering!” snapped Joel, interrupting Chris’s delicate thought process, “I can’t deal with this shit any more! I’m gonna help Kaori on my own!”

And without further fanfare, Joel limped off to his inevitable death.

“It’s your funeral,” mumbled Chris.

Elone looked at him as if he’d just insulted her entire family; a horrible, screwed-up expression that aged her twenty years and dispelled any ideals Chris had about dating her. She turned her back on his with a flash of fake-red hair and too-low jeans and ran after the pathetic figure staggering away.

“Gibson, wait! I’m coming with,”

Joel stopped and glared. “What the hell you want to follow me for?”

“Who said I was following?” she said (You did, thought Chris) “I’m gonna save Shelley, not your Raven wrench.”

As if fuelled by his own rage, his own boiling hatred for the dominant Hawk offending his submissive girlfriend, Joel lurched onwards with Elone jogging to catch up. It was a surreal sight, and one Chris never expected to witness again.

“They’re shooting themselves in the foot,” he said aloud, wishing Lance was there to agree with him, “Why are these freaks all the same? Doesn’t matter what they call themselves, ‘Ravens’ or ‘Hawks’ or ‘Vultures’ or whatever, they’re all as bad as each other, believing they can ‘change the world’. When will they ever learn they can’t?”

“Technically, Ravens don’t actually think that,”

Chris had forgotten all about that chameleonic nobody Dante, hiding in the shadows watching everything unfold. The way he tried to hide his face behind his hair and scarf was downright creepy.

“When was the last time you heard one of them talking about trying to change the world?” he continued, “Half the reason they don’t get on with the Hawks is because Ravens accept the world as it is, while the Hawks are convinced they can change it,”

Debating the ins and outs of subculture politics with Dante wasn’t how Chris wanted to spend the rest of his Friday afternoon (not that what he was doing was much better). Ignoring the psychopath’s wandering eyes, he lifted the door to his car and climbed inside, where the familiar smell of leather and the feel of the sleek dashboard underneath his fingers helped soothe his nerves. Godhand wouldn’t track him down, would they? Why should they? He just gave some people a lift somewhere, ignorant of their true motives! He was innocent!

A white blur forced him out of his self-reflection. Dante had tossed his coat over a gnawed arm of a branch and slipped away without saying a word. Idiots, all of them. He pushed his chair back and placed the headphone in his ear: at the very least he could listen in on what was going on, and he placed a mental bet on Joel being the first to get caught.

***

Chapter 17
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