The Outsiders

“Damn him!” I yelled, almost breaking the table in half with my pounding, “I can’t believe it!”

“We all get that…” Jay rubbed her ear.

“You’re screaming again.” Jess said.

I ground my teeth together.

“I’m the most pissed off at that bastard!” I blurted, then mentally slapped myself. Something was wrong with me. I’d usually be able to easily keep something like that to myself. And yet here I am, yelling about the one thing that was probably the worst to yell about.

I just couldn’t believe I never noticed Zane’s aura. How could I not notice a Silver Blood?! Someone like that in the Outsiders…I was just trying to wrap my brain around why exactly he hadn’t massacred all of us once he got the chance.

“Who the hell was that Noble?” I muttered to myself.

“Looked a lot like Zane, hunh?” Jay was dazing off again, chewing on an ice cube.

“Yeah. But different. I mean, he’s got the same face and stuff. But he’s older.”

“Oh, yeah? And what would Zane’s face be doing on one of Their bodies?” Jess raised an eyebrow. Skepticist.

“Hell if I know.” I said.

“On that topic…” Tavia said, gesturing to the open window where an owl sat, “Found something.”

Among the many animals that Tavia simply controlled were ones that actually liked her, and we something like her pets. But these pets were free to do whatever they wanted, and weren’t bound.

The owl flew over and dropped something into her open palm, then perched on Tavia’s arm.

“I ran a few tests on this in the school’s lab.” She held up a dark blue vial, which had a chipped rim and a missing cork, “There’s wine on the inside. Or, at least, half of it’s wine. One guess what the other half is.”

I swallowed in the back of my throat.

“Yeah, yeah. Spare us the horror.” Jay managed a bit of sarcasm before she comped the ice clean in half, chewing it into smaller pieces.

“What was this doing at Zane’s place?” Tavia asked.

“Because he’s getting more…suspicious.” Jesse said. I could tell he didn’t like the sound of that word, it wasn’t strong enough for him.

“Yeah.” I almost snorted, “You’re getting suspicious of someone who isn’t even here any more.”

I felt everyon’e eyes on me. They knew I was acting irregular.

Jess murmured something in Tavia’s ear, then walked over to me. Since he stood a good three or four inches over me, I had to tilt my head upwards a bit. Guys and their growth spurts.

Jesse pressed a finger to the inside of my wrist, feeling my pulse.

“So my ears aren’t screwing with me.” He said, then dropped onto the couch next to Tavia, “You’ve got an awfully erratic pulse there, Gabby.”

That only quickened it.

“So, exactly what is it about Zane that’s making you like that, hunh?” Tavia asked.

“We know that you know, yep yep.” Jay said, still chewing on the ice.

“Okay then…” I said resignedly, the lie quickly forming in the back of my head. I caught Jesse’s look. The ‘don’t lie to us’ look. Dang that look.

“Well…see, when I was done with my sector around the end of the Dawn, I was checking up on Zane’s sector and I noticed that it still wasn’t taken care of, so I went through…I just never found him.” I shook my head, trying to be convincing.

“You’re lying.” Jay commented casually.

“What?”

“You’re lying.” She repeated, “plain and simple.”

“And exactly what proof do you have?” I retorted.

“Well, you used ‘sector’ twice, and your sentences were almost run-ons.” Unfortuneately, Jay was a body language professionist, “ You were cutting yourself off from saying stuff at times, and you didn’t give any of us eye contact once you gave your alibi. Oh, yeah, the one other thing that doesn’t really match is that—“

“I’m right here?” I heard the familiar voice say.

“Quit slipping through my wards like that!” I snapped, whirling on Zane.

“Well, I will when I feel like it.” He said back.

Even though we were both pretty much acting, the teasing was seriously beginnig to get to me.

Jay did something I didn’t really predict. The moment she saw Zane, she jumped up and slapped him across the face, then dumped three ice dubes down his shirt.

“Where were you for the last day?” she snapped.

“What? I didn’t know you missed me so much.” Zane said, ignoring the slap.

“Well, it was kinda obvious you weren’t here!” Tavia threw the empty vial at Zane’s head, where it shattered into sapphire fragments.

“What’s with you guys? I leave for one day and you get this excited—” he shook his head, the blue glass fragments falling to the floor.

Tavia and Jay were fixing Zane with a death glare.

“They’re having girl spazes.” Jess said.

“Oh, so you’re the only one who’s acting normal?”

“Not really.” Jesse’s tone had suddenly turned from casual to poisonous, “Frankly, I’m pissed at you, too.”

I could tell Zane was seriously confused now.

“You left and Gabriela wouldn’t do anything. All she did was sleep and talk a bit.” Tavia said.

“Exactly what are you to Gabby, anyway?” Jess said, “As far as I know, she doesn’t particuraly ‘like’ anyone.”

Oh, damn. They didn’t actually think I liked him, did they? Come on! Even though they didn’t know that Zane was one of Them, that was still going a mile or two too far.

“She doesn’t like me.” I could tell Zane was trying to keep himself from laughing.

“Oh, ya?” Tavia came over and pulled at the thin silver chain that hung around my neck, bringing the teardrop pendant into view from where it had been behind my shirt, “She hasn’t taken this off since she randomly appeared with it.”

“Oh, cool. Where’d you get that?” Zane sounded genuinely interested; I think he fooled Jay, too.

“A…friend.” I said tightly, my lips barely moving.

“Interesting.”

“Bastard.” Jess muttered under his breath.

“Hm? What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, we better get moving. I got wind of a surprise attack around midnight.” Zane said.

My internal clock told me we had five minutes.

“And exactly how do you know?” I asked tersely.

“I have my connections.” Zane said, leaving an elipse.

“What kind of connections?” Jess probed. Still suspicious. The Outsiders were taught to be suspicious till someone was proved to be completely and truly innocent. Zane was still a far cry from being ‘completely and truly innocent’.

“You guys—same sectors as usual.” I sighed.

“Gabriela!” Tavia protested, “How do you know he’s telling the truth?”

“Yeah. I, for one, stil don’t trust you. Sorry, but I just don’t.” jess said pointedly to Zane.

“Seriously! We honestly don’t know anything about him, save for a couple trivial things! You yourself have your own doubts, Gabriela!” Jay added.

Doubt? When did I ever--?

“And how’d you know that?” I snapped, “We don’t have a choice! Unless I decide no, we’re going to cover tonight.”

“I heard from Them.” Zane said.

He immediately had all of our attention.

“Them? How?” Jess asked.

“I was just observing their movements. Heard someone talking about it…in Their language.”

“How’d you know Their language?” Tavia ased suspiciously.

“Are we going to just keep sitting around or not?” Zane persisted, “We’ve got about two minutes.”

Jess, Jay, and Taia were giving me despairing looks, telling me to give them solid proof.

I let out a breath, and touched a finger to the center of his forehead. Once I was inside his enormous vault of a brain, I sifted around in his more rectent memories, and found one of him sitting in a weird Victorian-style room. Actually…it looked like an old stone tower. There were three other people, with a print out on a legal-size paper. Just skimming over it, I could read ‘Outsiders’ and ‘reverse’ and ‘false’ and ‘Dawn’, before a mist rushed forward and my probe was rejected.

“Yep.” I said, back in my own body, “We should go now.”

How can I put this…?

How about this:

When surrounded and fighting for your life, if someone doesn’t have your six, then it gets really hard to fight back.

I managed to get another one in the back of the head, and then someone grabbed me from behind, so I swung my leg backwards feeling my feel collide with someone’s stomach.

Another person lunged at me, so I flipped them over my back, and lashed out at legs from the ground. I saw the glint of a blade headed straight towards my face, and I grabbed it, throwing It away from me. I jumped up and knocked out the one holding it. I wrenched the knife out of their hand, and spun around, shoving it up through the bottom of the jaw (and brain) of another.

When you’re whaling on someone (or vice versa), time tends to either go by at mach speed, or slow down to the point of stopping. It’s what happens when you grow up, lucky to be alive every day; you begin to actually see. Not normal ‘see’, like people do every day. I mean, really ‘see’, be able to ‘see’ every little detail in everything, being hyper-aware of your surroundings all of the time, knowing everything that’s going on around you.

This time, it was the slow-down version.

All of Them were coming at me in mega slow-mo, so it was easy to see where and what they were aiming for. Made it a lot easier to disable (without killing) them. In addition, Shiro kept prodding me in the right direction, yelling in my ear like a fan in the stands. Like I said, most hyperactive, bubbly goth you could ever hope to meet (imagine the male version of Abigai Scuito minus Caf-Pows). Which also meant he could probably see things more accurately than me.

Left side—the guy’s got a gun. He added as I quickly sent the gun flying, how is that fair?

They don’t’ play fair. You know that. I snapped, don’t play fair, do anything and everything to win.

Except kill.

Except kill. I repeated mechanically.

Unless absolutely nessecary.

Right.

I blinked, and I was blinded by a bright white sandstorm. Except it wasn’t sand that was swirling around me, it was dust. Ashes.

“Sorry. They were all about to poison you in about point-five seconds, anyway.” Zane said, blood dripping off of the very tips of his fingers. Clean and swift killer. That was Their nature…or at least, his. When They were seriously hunting, They tended to shred their targets to shreds.

“It was part of plan A…’poison Martindale, and take her hostage’.” He managed a wry smile, “They really don’t know the Outsiders, do they?”

“Oh, and you do?” I said, wringing my shirt out.

“Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is their leader.” He smirked.

I felt the back of my head burn the way it does when I blush, so I squeezed my eyes shut and turned around.

"aw, come on, Gabriela. How long are you gonna look the other way?"

I slapped him lightly across the face.

“Idiot.” I said with a straight face.