Rogue Invasion by Marjorie King

Author:Marjorie King [Marjorie King]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Starscape Media, LLC
Published: 2021-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

20

The Day After

Brant floated to Claudia’s office the next day. Yes, he was being observed. Yes, IAS was going to be attacked. But suddenly all those problems were solvable.

He would train his kids right. Then they’d shelter from the attackers. Brant would defeat the bad guys. Claudia would record how amazing he was. And the council would take the evidence into consideration and acquit him.

Simple.

Brant knocked on her door.

Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap, tap

Claudia answered, and Brant took a step back. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her straight hair had turned stringy. And… was that her suit from yesterday? She looked like warmed over crap.

“Thanks,” she snarled.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Should someone else observe me today?” he asked.

Please let someone else observe me today.

“Everyone else is off at the war. Lucky you.”

Claudia took off to the lift, and Brant jumped to keep up. He stared straight at the lift door as they rode down and didn’t make a peep. When students got into the lift, Brant pressed up against a corner and didn’t move a muscle.

When they arrived in the gym, Claudia picked a perch on the bleachers and opened her scroll. Documents floated around her, and she shuffled, poked, and signed. She might be recording Brant, but there was no observation going on.

And that was OK by him.

Brant strutted to the instructors’ lounge, and the floor became springy under his feet again. Claudia’s bad day was understandable and nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Student-beater.”

It was barely whispered. If Brant didn’t have adapted ears, he wouldn’t have heard it. But he did hear it.

The words slammed into his stomach and stopped him short. He snapped his head to a cluster of teens glaring back at him. Stephen was with them. The teen rubbed his arm where Brant had grabbed him.

Yeah, well, you deserved it.

That punk had taken advantage of someone else, and Brant wasn’t standing for it. But Stephen wasn’t the only one glaring at him. Both girls and boys made up the mix of teens hedged around him. All of them had that mingled look of fear and loathing. Brant’s heartbeat started pounding in his ears.

“Brant?” Celeste called to him.

He looked over his shoulder but kept his feet set. Celeste had been talking to another instructor all the way across the gym by the entrance. But he heard her firm, quiet voice, nonetheless. Brant kept his face towards her and away from the teens.

“What’s going on?” she said as she jogged over.

“Why are they all looking at me like that?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Celeste touched his elbow. “Let’s go to the lounge.”

But Brant didn’t move. “They called me a student-beater.”

Celeste winced. “We’ll talk about it in the lounge. Come on.”

Now she held onto his elbow and pulled. Brant yanked his elbow away, and the students started whispering in low hisses.

“Told you.”

“Jerk.”

And worse words than that. The teens enjoyed throwing around cuss words to make themselves feel like adults, but there were little ones in this gym.

“Watch your language!” Brant barked.

It was stupid. A stupid little thing.

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