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With a glance at Matt, I got up and followed her out of the room. Part of me just wanted to leave her alone and let her just get over it, but I wasn’t exactly sure she would just get over it. Not as mad as she was. I valued her friendship too much just to leave things as they were.
She was moving quickly and I was barely able to keep up without running. She left the cafeteria and turned right toward the recreation room. I finally caught up to her there. The room was empty since most of the students were either gone for the weekend or still at breakfast. She was leaning against the pool table in the middle of the room. Her hands were resting on the edge of the table and her back was to me.
“I’m sorry,” I began, hoping she would turn at the sound of my voice. When she didn’t, I continued awkwardly, “Everything happened so fast. I didn’t want attention or people worrying about me, so I told as few people as possible. It really never occurred to me to tell you.” I paused, waiting for her to respond. She didn’t. “Gene and Matt were already involved. I really am sorry.”
“Involved!” Trinity whirled to face me. Her eyes were red rimmed and tears streaked her face. “You seem to forget that I got involved when that nutcase terrorist kidnapped me last month.”
“Trinity...”
“I know you didn’t mean for that to happen, but it did.” She held up a hand to cut me off. “I’m involved now. You can’t undo that, neither can I.”
I’d seen Trinity mad before. I’d even seen her very angry before. But I had never seen her this mad at me. I really wasn’t sure how to respond.
She didn’t give me a chance to figure it out before she continued. Her voice was softer now and she turned her back to me again. “I’ve been scared out of my mind ever since you showed me that note that the Snake might make good his threats. When you told me there had been attacks...” She paused; then continued, her voice barely above a whisper, “And that you had gotten hurt. I don’t want anything to happen to you... or Matt.”
“What about Winston?” I teased, trying to lighten the mood a little. “And you. You forget that the Snake thinks you guys are spies, too.”
She finally turned to face me, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “As annoying as Winston is, I guess I really don’t want anything bad to happen to him either. I really don’t think the Snake truly believes Winston and I are spies. I think he’s brighter than that.” She sighed heavily. “I just want to be involved in making sure my friends are safe. Is that too much to ask?”
“No.” I tried to put myself in her place. I didn’t like feeling helpless to save my parents; I could guess how she felt. “I wouldn’t like it if someone were hiding something like that from me. I really should have known better than to leave you out.”
She lifted herself up to sit on the edge of the pool table. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I moved to the pool table to join her, but pain shot through my ribs as I tried to lift myself up beside her. I tried not to wince and decided just to lean against the table instead. “There’s not really anything for any of us to do. Matt, Gene, and I are confined to campus until SATURN can get protection in place. I guess now we just wait.”
“I’m sorry that I lost my temper.” She looked down at her feet dangling off the edge of the table. “I guess I just got scared when I found out you were hurt. How bad is it?”
“I’ll live.” I shrugged.
Trinity glared at me.
I sighed. “A broken rib and plenty of scrapes and bruises. It hurts to do pretty much everything.”
“How did it happen?” she asked softly.
I glanced at my watch. We had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes. Matt and Gene had to be wondering what happened by now. “I’ll tell you everything while we finish breakfast. Let’s go back.”
I started the story as we walked to the cafeteria. Once we got to the table, Matt and Gene helped add details that I had left out. I was relieved that Trinity seemed to have calmed down. I was also relived that the story didn’t seem to upset her more.
“Hey, Scott.” Matt turned to me as we cleared away our meal. He drew back his arm to clap me on the back, then seemed to remember my injuries and laid his hand on my shoulder instead. “You want to go back to our room and play a board game? We all could use the relaxation.”
“Sure, I’ll come. But I don’t think I’m in the mood to try Risk again. Not after last night.” Between Matt and I, we had about a dozen different games in our room. I would prefer to play anything other than what we were playing when the attacker showed up.
“I don’t think we found all the pieces after you stopped throwing things out the window anyway.” Matt made a wry face. “Axis and Allies?”
“We’re only going to be stuck here over the weekend, not the rest of the semester.” I laughed. “I was thinking Clue.”
“I love Clue.” Gene grinned. “Mind if I join?”
“I was kind of counting on it. Clue is kind of hard to play with just two.” I turned to Trinity. “What about you? You’re welcome to join us.”
“No thanks.” Trinity shook her head. “I’m so not into Clue. Besides, Grandma’s taking me shopping today and I promised I’d be home by 1000.”
After saying goodbye to Trinity, Matt, Gene, and I headed to our room. Matt set the game up on the floor, while I picked up the remains of the mess I had made of the room the night before. Matt was right, I was pretty sure I had lost several of the little army pieces when I yanked up the box and knocked things around hunting for things to throw. I sighed. Risk was one of Matt’s favorites. I made a mental note to replace it for him.
“Come on, guys.” Matt sat in front of the game on the middle of the floor. “Pick your characters, we’re ready to go.”
Gene had just made a suggestion neither Matt nor I could prove wrong when a sneakered foot stepped on the game board in front of me.
“Get out of the way, Winston,” Matt snapped. “You’re going to wreck the game.”
“I’m not here to talk to you, Marshall.” Winston kicked over the nearest game piece. “I want McCully.”
“What do you want, Winston?” I asked, not even trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. I could see the game board bending beneath his foot. “And get off the game, while you’re at it.”
“I know what you’ve been up to.” Winston glared at me. He stepped off the board and drew himself up to tower over me. I was tempted to stand up from the floor and put things back into perspective. I changed my mind. Moving hurt too much to be worth it. Besides, at least he was off the board.
“And what is that?” I asked tiredly. I’d already had this conversation once today.
“You’ve been spying again!” He pointed his finger in my face.
“Actually I haven’t.” I looked sideways at Matt who rolled his eyes in irritation. “I’ve been confined to campus.”
“Because you got hurt while spying and I want in.” He moved his finger away from my face and jabbed it into my breastbone. The pressure caused pain to shoot through my injured side.
“Winston.” I grabbed his hand and pushed it away from me. “There is no ‘in’. I got hurt when I took Gene to get his inhaler. Matt, Gene, and I have been grounded to campus for our protection. No spying. No investigation.”
“And no escape from you,” Matt muttered.
Winston glared at Matt before turning back to me. “I’m part of this little game whether you like it or not. Gene wasn’t kidnapped by a homicidal manic last month. I was.”
I was tired of this conversation and tired of arguing. I stood to my feet, taking advantage of my height to remind Winston of his place. “There’s nothing to do. Not for us, not for you. Deal with it.” I turned my back on Winston and opened the door again. “Good bye, Winston.”
“I’m not finished yet,” Winston fumed.
“Oh, yes you are.” Matt stood and ushered Winston through the door I was holding and out into the hall.
I closed the door quickly behind him, not even waiting to listen as Winston called after us.
“I’ll find a way to be involved. Just wait. You can’t ignore me forever, McCully.”
“I sure can try,” I muttered, loudly enough for Matt and Gene to hear, but not loudly enough for Winston to hear behind the closed door.
“You try.” Matt dropped back down beside the game with a grunt.. “Every time I see him, I get the overwhelming urge to knock his block off.”
“Maybe it’s better he interrupted the game.” I examined my clue sheet with a frown. “I think Gene was smoking us.”
“I don’t even have one clue figured out.” Matt tossed his cards to the floor and leaned against the bed. “I think we should just let him make his accusation and play a different game. Maybe one he’s not so good at.”
“You are pretty good,” I admitted to Gene who was sitting on the floor staring at the Clue board silently. “Do you have that game at home or something?”
“Yeah.” He absently traced the crease Winston’s foot had left in the board. “Dad and I would play it on Saturdays before...” He broke off and looked up at us abruptly. “I can’t wait for him to get out.”
“So what happened?” Matt began to gather the game pieces. Gene didn’t look in the least bit interested in finishing now. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Gene hesitated.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” I reassured him as I lowered myself onto my bed. “We’ll understand.”
“No, I’ll tell you.” He looked up at me. “It might be nice to able to tell someone for once.”
Matt closed the Clue box and turned to listen.
“Dad’s a doctor, a really good doctor. He had a theory that might lead to a cure for cancer, but he needed funding. Scientific research is expensive. He applied for all sorts of grants, but they were all rejected.” Gene looked down at his hands. “Dad got pretty discouraged.”
“What about the hospital he worked for?” I asked curiously. “Couldn’t they help?”
“They told him all their research funding was budgeted to other programs at the time.” Gene shook his head. “That’s when Dr. Kestler came to him.”
“And gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Matt said wryly.
“Only there was a catch.” Gene nodded. “Dad wouldn’t go into any detail, just that Dr. Kestler wanted Dad to give him government secrets.”
I nodded. That seemed to be the Snake’s thing.
“Dad refused. He’s not a traitor,” Gene continued softly. “So he found another way to get the money. That was over a year ago. Mom filed for divorce the week after he was arrested. I haven’t seen him since.”
The room grew awkwardly silent for a moment, then Gene brightened. “Maybe now that he’s getting out, things can get back to normal again.”
Matt started to comment, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Without waiting for a response, Winston poked his head back inside.
“We should have locked it,” Matt grumbled to me, then snapped at Winston, “Who said you could come in?”
“Lay off, Marshall,” Winston said, feigning hurt. “I’m just looking for Gene.”
“Why?” I sat up straighter and narrowed my eyes.
“I wanted to apologize to him for my behavior.” Winston looked at Gene. “I’ve been a bit of a jerk...”
“Only a bit?” Matt interrupted sarcastically.
“Cut me some slack here. I’m trying to apologize.” Winston gave Matt a withering look, and turned back to Gene. “I’d like to make it up to you by taking you to lunch.”
“He can’t leave campus.” I wanted to remind Gene as much as warn Winston. The Snake’s threats were nothing to play around with.
“I didn’t ask you,” Winston snapped. “Stop playing mother and let Gene make up his own mind. You can’t make him stay. I have passes for us both. We’ll be in a public place.” He placed a pass in Gene’s hand and said more kindly, “Just let me know what you decide. I’ll be in my room.”
Once Winston left, Matt blurted out, “You can’t seriously be considering his offer?”
“Why not?” Gene asked, a surprised look on his face. “It might be a good way to make friends with Winston.”
“It might also be a good way to get killed.” I pointed to the bruise framing my eye. “Remember what happened the last time you left campus?”