Waking up on Saturday should've been a relief, knowing that I could stay in bed and not worry about human interaction. But there was a slip of paper hidden in my bag that crushed all my Saturday hopes and dreams.

                So I laid in bed until 11 before finally forcing myself to get up and go shower. Once I was clean and dressed, I grabbed my bag.

                "Where are you going?" Jordan asked. "We were going into town today. Do you want to come?"

                "No," I said and left the room.

                I dug the paper out of my bag and checked the information written on it. I was exactly sure how I was supposed to get into the dorm building since your I.D. only let you into the dorm building you lived in, but I guess I would figure it out once I got there.

                It felt great to be in my regular clothes instead of my school uniform. Jeans and a T-shirt were a combination I would never take for granted again.

                I reached the dorm building after a little, hating how far it was from the academic building. My dorm was right near the academic building, but this dorm was on the other side of campus. No wonder Jin was so miserable all of the damn time.

                For once in my pathetic life, luck was on my side. A group of students were filing in through a side door, and I hurried to slip in with them. They paid me no mind, chatting with each other as they disappeared down the hallway.

                Getting to Jin's room was an obnoxious task. I had to find the elevator and take it up to the second floor, then wander down two hallways until I found the rooms that should lead to his.

                I checked the paper again before heading down the hallway. I found the right number and knocked on the door. There were nametags there, but before I could check who Jin's roommate was, the door swung open.

                "Crip!" Karson said with a grin.

                I shoved him out of my way and looked at the nametags. Son of a bitch. "Jin Amano" was written on one. "Karson Wylie" was written on the other.

                "Of course you live here," I grumbled, shoving by him and entering the room.

                Karson shut the door as I looked around the room. Jin was lying lazily on his bed. Isaac sat with his back against the wall. Lev was lounging in a chair. Amelia had claimed the chair at Jin's desk.

                Karson went over and pulled himself onto his bed. I had expected more people to be here, like some sort of evil meeting.

                "Is this really all you have in your group?" I said, looking around at them.

                "The smaller the better," Jin said.

                "Jin's a bit paranoid," Karson said.

                "And yet he lets you be part of this," Isaac said.

                "You're nine fucking years old!" Karson cried. "Do you even know the definition of loyalty?"

                "Loyalty?" Isaac barked a laugh. "Rich coming from you."

                "Shut up." Jin chucked his pillow at Isaac's face. "You're both obnoxious."

                Isaac caught the pillow and smiled brightly. "If you really thought that, you wouldn't keep inviting me."

                "Yea, feel free to quit inviting him," Karson said, ducking when Jin chucked a pillow at him.

                "Why am I here?" I demanded. "And give me my textbook."

                "Amelia," Jin said.

                "Oh, right, the textbook!" Amelia picked it up off his desk and held it out to me. "Hey, how did you get up? Did you take the elevator, or can you handle stairs? How bad is your le-"

                Lev shifted over and slapped a hand over her mouth. "Boundaries," he said patiently. "We talked about boundaries, Amelia."

                "I never should've gotten out of bed today," Jin mumbled.

                "And it'll get better once the Saturday calls start," Karson said, snickering as he dodged another pillow. "You only have three pillows over there, Jin. You're out of ammo."

                "Isaac." Jin put his hand out and Isaac passed the pillow back up to him. "You get one more warning before I come over there and strangle you, Karson."

                "Saturday calls?" I said.

                Lev frowned. "Do Blues get Saturday calls?"

                "Probably. They still have family," Jin said.

                "Yea, you could try explaining it and I'll let you know," I said impatiently.

                Karson leaned back. "Every Saturday, the Maroons get calls from their families. It makes your parents feel like they're good people despite abandoning you to this place. They ask you how your week was, how you're doing, whatever. Then the call ends and they don't think about you again until the next Saturday."

                "Not all of our parents are terrible people," Lev said with a sigh. "I told my parents Saturday was a good day to call me because I wouldn't be busy with classes. And they told Amelia's dad."

                "Wait, so you knew each other outside of the Academy?" I said. I'd gotten the impression most kids came here alone, none of their outside friends here.

                But Lev nodded. "Yea, Amelia and I grew up together. We're neighbors and our parents are good friends."

                I took out my phone, wondering if my parents would call me. "Mine have been bothering me with texts almost every day."

                "Trust me, I know that feeling," Lev said miserably.

                "You all jinxed it," Jin said, picking his head up as we heard a vibrating sound. "Who's the first victim?"

                "You are," Amelia said, picking his phone up off his desk and tossing it onto his bed.

                Jin rolled onto his back and slid his finger across the screen, holding it to his ear. "I'm sober and I'm busy," he said and hung up.

                Karson laughed. "He's beauty, he's grace, his mom is going to punch him in the face."

                "My mom can get in line. She can have a turn when all the Blues here are done knocking my teeth out," Jin said, tossing his phone back to Amelia. "Put that on do not disturb."

                "A please would be appreciated," Amelia said. "Maybe your mother could teach you some manners if you'd actually talk to her. Next time, I'm just going to answer your phone and tell her how rude you are to me."

                "Go for it. She has firsthand experience of my rudeness," Jin said. He glanced at me. "What are you, a coatrack? Quit standing there and take a seat."

                I sat at Karson's desk, leaning my cane against it. Jin rolled back onto his stomach, pushing the brim of his hat up so it didn't hide his eyes.

                "Now that we have Kai, we have to think twice as hard," Jin said.

                "Careful, I'm not sure Isaac can handle that," Karson said.

                Isaac gave that sweet smile of his. "I'm nine years old but I'm already smart enough to skip a grade and deceive every person on this campus. You guys wouldn't get away with half of your schemes without me."

                "Privilege isn't intelligence," Karson said.

                "Not that you would know. You have neither," Isaac said.

                "You little bastard," Karson said, chucking a pillow at him.

                "Stop throwing my pillows. I have to sleep on those," Jin said, throwing his pillow at Karson. "Both of you shut the hell up or I'll kick you out."

                "This is MY room!" Karson said.

                "Shut up or you're out," Jin said. "Now, like I was saying, we have to think twice as hard. We need a real scheme and a fake scheme. But the fake scheme has to be convincing enough to make the Blues think they're winning. We tell Kai what to feed to them, we let them catch up just enough to keep them satisfied but not suspicious, and we work behind the scenes."

                "How exactly do you plan on taking down Mr. Constance?" I asked.

                Jin held up three fingers. "Three goals here. One, make sure we put enough doubt in Headmaster Constance's head to keep him from retiring for just a few more years. Two, make sure our actions are public enough that we spark the Maroons into action. If we fail, someone else needs to take over when we're gone. Three, keep Mr. Constance from turning this place into a segregated prison for the Maroons. We're still working out the details of that last goal."

                "We should get the cute Constance involved," Amelia said. "He's the sanest of the three Constance kids. Besides, he's interested in the Academy. The daughter of the family isn't interested."

                "Sure, we can walk right up to Headmaster Constance's youngest son and say 'Hey, Leon, help us crush you brother's soul'," Karson said. "Perfect idea, Amelia."

                "Brothers betray each other," Isaac said, grinning and shifting closer to Jin as Karson shot him a dirty look.

                "Oh my god," Jin said. "I have never hated two people more in my entire life. If I have to say shut up one more time, I am actually going to knock you both the fuck out while I do it."

                Lev went over and placed a hand on Karson's arm. "Calm down."

                "He likes to start shit," Karson said. "I'll hit a nine year old. I don't care."

                "You not having any morals?" Isaac asked in shock. "Say it isn't so."

                Jin yanked his hat off and shoved it over Isaac's face. "Shut. Up."

                "This is a clearly functional group. So glad you people are my hope for survival here," I said.

                Jin waited a moment before putting his hat back on his head. "Taking Adam Constance down won't be easy. I'm still working out several different options. For now, the priority is to keep Headmaster Constance from retiring until either we figure something out, or someone else does. Even if we fail, Isaac will still be here for a few years to find another group of fed up Maroons."

                "You should tell Kai about our next idea," Lev said, backing away from Karson and going back to where Amelia was to make sure she didn't burst out with more annoying questions.

                "Right, we really need you for this next one," Jin said. "Monday is when we strike again. You'll tell Jordan that we're planning to meet in the library, in one of the second floor study rooms. They'll catch us, rough us up, and leave feeling satisfied."

                "A genius plan," I said, wondering if he had been lying on the phone earlier when he said he was sober.

                "That's the distraction bit. Midnight, we all meet up, but this time we hit Townsend's room," he said.

                My eyes widened a little. "What? Oh, hell no. That's too close for comfort. He's my first period teacher."

                "Exactly why we need you for that," Jin said. "Mr. Constance has several favored Blue pawns, and we need to know who they are. We know Jordan is one of them, and we know two others. But I'm assuming there are more. If we want to take Mr. Constance down, we need to know who his most trusted pawns are."

                "What does Mr. Townsend have to do with any of that?" I said. "You're just trying to get me killed. I should've known a guy who dyes his hair white has shitty decision making skills."

                "Mr. Townsend is friends with the Constance family," Jin said. "Townsend's oldest kid was a year younger than Constance's daughter, and they were casual friends. Townsend also had a kid the same age as Headmaster Constance's youngest son. They were friends their final year here, rivals every year before that. But thanks to those friendships, Townsend got pretty close with the Constance family. He's been a loyal teacher at this Academy for a long time. They trust him. I'd bet Mr. Constance was using him to find out which students to go after."

                "How do you know so much?" I said.

                "Maybe he's just so drunk he's making up stories in his head," Karson said, ducking away from a pillow thrown at him.

                "If you keep opening your mouth, I'm going to go get drunk enough to make up these kinds of stories," Jin said. He faced me again. "The janitor starts cleaning the building just before it closes. Your job is to go in, tell him you forgot a textbook in Mr. Townsend's class, and leave the door unlocked."

                "Won't they figure out I was behind it?" I said. "I'm not trying to get myself into any shit here. Figure out another way."

                "They won't know you're involved. We're going to make it look like we broke it," Jin said. "But Karson's lock picking skills aren't reliable enough to risk it."

                "Are you going to pass out this time?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

                "He'll eat three meals and drink water throughout the whole day," Lev said, glaring at Jin. "Speaking of, I gave you that water bottle for a reason. Get drinking, Jin."

                "Shut up, mom," Jin said.

                But he sat up and rolled the sleeves of his hoodie up, picking up the water bottle next to him. He had on black armbands on each arm. He drink some of the water, tossed it back down next to him, and pulled his hoodie off, tossing it off to the side and fixing his T-shirt.

                "Fine, I'll do it," I said. "But if I get caught, I'm throwing you under the bus. I'm telling Mr. Townsend you threatened me into helping you."

                "Fine by me," Jin said.

                The door swung open and a girl stuck her head in. "Is Lev in here? Oh, good! I need you and Amelia. Cassie's laptop isn't working again, and she's ready to fling it out the window."

                "You could try knocking," Karson said.

                "You could try shutting the fuck up," the girl offered.

                Karson grinned. "Oh, sassy."

                "We're coming," Lev said, helping Amelia up. "Don't start a fight with Karson. He's already in a mood."

                "I am not in a mood!" Karson said. "Jin is the moody roommate, not me."

                Lev and Amelia disappeared out of the room, shutting the door. I looked between Jin and Karson.

                "So is it true that you two are hooking up?" I asked. It would make sense, especially since they were roommates.

                Karson laughed so hard he almost fell right off the bed. He steadied himself, punching at his chest as he started choking.

                "Is he dying?" Isaac asked, sounding a little too hopeful.

                "Hooking up with Jin? Hooking up with anyone?" Karson started laughing all over again, clutching his stomach.

                "Karson's asexual," Jin said. "Even if he wasn't, I have a small scrap of dignity that I cling to."

                "I bet it's just because no one wants to hook up with him," Isaac said.

                "Kid, I don't do relationships and I don't do sex," Karson said, trying to catch his breath. "I'm going to grow old and buy a few dogs and be just fine. Not everyone needs to hop dick like your mom."

                Jin grabbed the back of Isaac's shirt, but Isaac simply smile. He clasped his hands behind his back and turned his smile on Jin.

                "I wouldn't hurt anyone," he said, but I saw his fingers cross behind his back.

                "I don't need a massacre in my room," Jin said, releasing Isaac's shirt. He turned his attention back to me. "Now you know the plan. Are you going to do it?"

                "Yea, I guess. But I'm only doing this to save my own ass. Don't go getting the wrong idea," I said.

                "Trust me, I'd never get the wrong idea that people can do things just to be compassionate," Jin said.

                "You are so angsty," Karson said.

                "If you guys hate this place so much, why don't you ditch it and head into town on weekends?" I said.

                "Maroons aren't allowed off campus without a Blue escort," Jin said. "We'd need permission and someone approved to babysit us to make sure we don't burn the town down."

                "You know, Kai has a point, though. I feel like getting off campus today," Karson said, a grin coming to his face. "Let's take the path and go get lunch."

                Jin shrugged. "Yea, sure. You in, Kai? Even if you got spotted, no one will care. You're allowed off campus without permission."

                I didn't really want to hang out with them. But I was sick of the dining hall food and it was a nice day out. I wanted to be outside for a bit.

                "Fine. But you're paying for my lunch since you're risking me to get you into Mr. Townsend's room," I said.

                "Doesn't bother me," he said. "Isaac, go grab Lev and Amelia."

                Isaac got up and left the room. Jin and Karson got off their beds and pulled on sneakers. Karson had his phone out, scrolling through it.

                "You're such a pain in the ass, Jin. Now we need to baby you and find some place where you can actually eat something," he said.

                "There are plenty of things that don't have lactose. Just pick a place and I'll find something to eat," Jin said.

                The door opened and Isaac came in, followed by Lev and Amelia. Jin led us right back out of the room, locking the door and heading for the stairs.

                I went to the elevator and met them at the front door. We left the dorm building together and started off the path towards the edge of campus.

                "Where are we going?" I asked.

                "There's a side way off campus that the Blues don't monitor. Most Maroons don't bother with it because it's a pain in the ass to get up and down, but it's useful," Jin said.

                We reached a steep hill and I stopped, glaring at Jin. "Wow, yea, let's bring the kid with one leg to a fucking hill."

                "It's the only way," he said. "I'll carry you down if you really want."

                "I'm not helpless," I snapped.

                "He'll get hurt if he tries to go down this way," Lev said, frowning. "Jin, this is a bad idea."

                "Swallow your pride for a few minutes and I'll carry you down the hill," Jin said. "I've carried Karson up it before when he twisted his ankle, and he's probably heavier than you."

                "Was that a fat joke?" Karson narrowed his eyes at Jin.

                "Take that as you will," Jin said.

                "Oh, oh, it can be fun!" Amelia said. She jumped onto Lev's back and he stumbled before steadying her and catching his balance. "See, Kai? I'll make Lev be my slave and you make Jin be yours."

                "Look, I'll offer one more time and then you can crawl your way down," Jin said. "Yes or no?"

                I reluctantly stepped forward, knowing I wouldn't be able to make it down the hill on my own. I wanted to get off this campus though. Now that we were so close to being off of it, I couldn't just turn around and go lock myself away in that cramped dorm room.

                Jin lowered himself and helped me onto his back. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he caught my legs, being careful of my bad one. He handed my cane to Isaac and started down the hill.

                "If you pass out and drop me, I'll snap your neck," I warned.

                "I'm not going to pass out," Jin said. "I feel fine."

                "You told me that one time and two minutes later we had to bring you to the health center because you passed out and hit your head," Karson said.

                "Isaac," Jin said, and Isaac whacked Karson with my cane.

                "Ow! I'll shove you down this hill, you little bastard," Karson growled, hopping away from Isaac.

                But no one was shoved down the hill. We made it to the bottom with no problems, and I was surprised that someone as sickly looking as Jin could support my weight without complaining. I wasn't very heavy; I'd lost a ton of weight after the accident. But I was still a 17 year old boy, and I was a decent size.

                Still, we reached the bottom of the hill and Jin lowered me off his back. Isaac handed me my cane back and we started walking towards town, though Amelia stayed on Lev's back.

                The walk into town was longer than I was expecting, but despite how sore my leg was, it felt good to get out in the fresh air. It was warm out, but the light breeze kept it from being too hot.

                We walked to a local restaurant and were seated inside, everyone picking up their menus. I looked around nervously, hoping the Blues wouldn't spot me with any of these kids. I didn't need them to start going after me again.

                But I didn't recognize anyone inside the restaurant. It was small and quiet, only a few other tables taken.

                "Can you find something, Jin?" Lev asked.

                "I always do," Jin said. "You know I've been lactose intolerant since before I got here, right? I've survived just fine without you playing mom to me."

                Lev frowned. "I was just making sure. Don't get that tone with me."

                "Sorry, should we stop at Target after so you can check the weekly sales?" Jin said.

                "Target is a good store," Lev said defensively.

                "I wish there was a comic book store around here. Lev and I used to go to the comic book store near our town and Lev would buy me a comic every Saturday," Amelia said with a sigh. "I miss guilting him into buying me comics."

                "One time I guilted Jin into not punching me in the face," Karson said. "See, we have a good friendship too!"

                "Lying is a sin," Jin said.

                "So is half the shit you do," Karson said.

                "Hey, remember that time Jin was so annoyed by Mrs. Swanson that he just jumped out of the window?" Amelia said fondly.

                "It was on the first floor. It wasn't much of a jump," Jin said. "I don't even remember what she was going on about. I was bored and she kept annoying me."

                "I heard Karson punched a teacher his first day here," Isaac said.

                "That's true," Karson said. "I didn't punch him that hard, though. He deserved it." He drummed his fingers on the table, grinning. "I got to meet Mr. Constance that day. I wanted to punch him too, but a security guard was next to me to make sure I couldn't."

                "I remember that!" Amelia said. She made a face and attempted to imitate Karson's voice. "I'm a peaceful guy, except when you piss me the fuck off, asshole. BAM!"

                I raised an eyebrow as I listened to them. Just what kind of things happened in the Maroon classes? The most exciting thing that had happened in my class was when a kid was texting during fifth period and the teacher threatened to confiscate his phone for the day.

                It was weird, though. Listening to how different their lives were, even though we went to the same Academy. And none of them made fun of me for needing Jin to carry me, not even Karson.

                They were interacting with each other in the way that close friends did, despite how dysfunctional they all seemed together. I dropped my gaze, remembering how close I'd been with my friends before the accident. After that, I'd driven everyone away from me. I'd shut myself off. Only my parents had endured it and been determined not to be pushed away.

                I lifted my gaze, watching Jin, Karson, Isaac, Amelia, and Lev interact easily with each other. They teased each other, brought up old stories, and laughed at inside jokes.

                Without any of us wearing vests today, you'd think we were just a group of friends out to lunch. I let my anger drain away and just listened to them, wondering if this was the kind of life I would've had if the accident never happened. I let myself pretend that, just for lunch, I was living a normal life. 

-----------------------------------

A.N.- I know I just updated yesterday, but there were a lot of comments and idk when there are a lot of comments it gets me really excited so I wanted to upload a little faster because I'm super excited for the upcoming chapters (in chapter 17, you'll get to see someone you might just recognize)