Chapter 556 | Fluids Lost to Captain

Chapter 556: 556 | Fluids Lost to Captain

Blair let the melted handle drip off her fingers onto the concrete. The little puddle of brass hissed and went dull grey, and the whole shed filled up with the smell of a burned penny.

"You owe the academy a new door, Davenport," I said.

"Bill my father, since he loves paperwork." She looked at the crushed mats, then at the scratches on my stomach, and her nostrils flared. "Your clone grabbed her chest in front of the entire squad."

"My clone has his own agency, and I can’t be held responsible for his choices."

"You are his choices, Monroe."

She had a point, which I hated. Every bad idea that clone ever had came straight out of my own skull, so technically I’d just copped a feel of my Captain on a public training field and then dragged her other self into a shed. My lawyer would advise me to stop talking. My lawyer was also me, and he had terrible judgment.

Misato stepped around Blair into the doorway, and the morning light hit the bite mark on her collarbone. Her cheeks stayed pink, and the tablet stayed glued to her chest like armor. She looked at the empty air where her clone had dissolved, then at my hand, and her throat moved twice before she found her voice.

"Three more laps, field lead," she said. "Then you will shower, and then you will pretend this morning never happened."

"Which part of this morning, Captain?"

"Every part that involved a door."

Blair made a noise in her throat that sounded like a tea kettle losing a fight. The ninth ring at the back of my skull flared white and stayed lit for a full two seconds before it started flickering again. A gray notification slid into the corner of my vision and told me her devotion had ticked up to forty-one, still marked with three question marks. Apparently watching me get dragged for shed crimes was good for our relationship.

"If you ever send that thing near me," Blair said, "I will cook it like a steak."

"He’d enjoy that far too much, so please don’t."

She spun on her heel and stalked back toward the field. The grass under her boots browned in a neat trail, and two Ruby second-years doing stretches on the next field scooted out of her path without being asked.

Misato waited until Blair was twenty meters out. Then she reached out and tugged the hood of her own sweatshirt straight on my shoulders, fixing the collar where her clone had bitten it. Her fingers lingered on my neck for one heartbeat.

"The shed is off-limits forever," she murmured. "I mean that as a direct order."

"I’ll write it in the handbook, Captain."

"You don’t have a copy of the handbook."

"Then I’ll steal yours and write it in there myself."

Her mouth twitched, and she walked away fast before it could become a smile.

I ran the three laps. Belle filmed every one of them and narrated over the footage in a fake documentary voice, which I could hear from the far turn because she was projecting for the cheap seats. Naomi sat beside her and laughed into her knees. Jordan had fallen asleep again in the infield, and Javier was gently checking his pulse to make sure.

Hunter Theory started at eight, which gave me thirty-one minutes to shower and become a respectable student. I took the stairs in Building C two at a time and scrubbed under water hot enough to strip paint. Lavender soap ran off my shoulders and down the drain, and I watched it go a little sadly, since Misato’s shampoo smelled better than anything I owned.

The mirror showed me exactly what everyone on campus was about to see. Addison’s old bite sat high on my throat. Misato’s fresh one sat on my shoulder where a collar would hide it, which I suspected she’d planned. Belle’s shower hickey from Monterey was fading on my hip, and the tentacle sucker mark next to it had gone an ugly shade of plum.

I looked like a crime scene that had been through a car wash. The jaw in the reflection was sharp now, and the shoulders filled the frame, and the four pale leopard scars ran across my chest like someone had signed their name on me in chalk. Six weeks ago that guy was a soft lottery kid who got lost on the way to a bathroom. Now he had four girlfriends, a Captain, a dead monster in Monterey, and a door-melting rival who wanted to put him on a leash.

Hikaru’s door was shut, and her tea mug was drying on the rack. A protein bar sat on my desk next to the manga she’d lent me. I ate the bar in four bites and pocketed the wrapper because she’d notice if I left it.

Theory Towers looked the same as ever, and Room 204 had the usual split down the middle. Black uniforms filled the left side and blue filled the right. I came through the door at seven fifty-eight, and thirty heads turned at once.

A few Sapphire girls in the third row went straight for my collar. One of them whispered to her friend behind her hand, and the friend looked at my throat and then covered her mouth. A boy in the back row muttered the word "Burger Guy" loud enough for me to hear it, and a couple of his friends snickered. I gave them a two-finger salute and kept walking.

My crew had claimed the middle of the Obsidian side. Belle sat on the aisle with her laptop already open. Naomi sat beside her with a fresh notebook and three colored pens lined up in order. Jordan had his head on his desk. Javier sat behind them with two notebooks open at once.

There was exactly one empty seat left in that row. It sat between Naomi and the wall, right next to Blair Davenport.

Blair had her blazer buttoned to the throat and her scarf pinned over the burn scar. Her short red hair was so neat it could have been printed on. She didn’t look up when I approached. She just moved her bag off the chair with two fingers, which from her counted as a formal invitation.

"I didn’t save it for you," she said.

"Of course you didn’t, Davenport."

"It was the only seat left in the room."

"I believe you completely."

I sat down, and the temperature on my left side jumped ten degrees. Her knee was about two inches from mine under the fold-down desk. Neither of us closed the gap, and neither of us moved away, so the two inches just sat there getting hotter.

Naomi leaned over and pressed a thermos of green tea into my hand. Her fingers stayed on mine a moment longer than they needed to, and her pink eyes did a quick lap of my throat. She had her hair in the braid I’d tied for her two days ago, a little frayed now at the ends, and she’d refused to let anyone redo it.

"Drink that before Dr. Cross starts," she whispered. "You lost a full liter of sweat this morning."

"Did you measure it, Naomi?"

"Belle did, and she put it in a column."

Belle didn’t look up from her screen. "The column is titled Fluids Lost to Captain. You can thank me later."