I left Jin and his crew early. I could see how shaken up all of them were from their encounter with Headmaster Constance, and figured that was something I couldn't help with. I didn't know them well enough, but Jin did. He could go on all day about how he didn't care for them, but I knew he'd pull them back together.

                Besides, I should get my part of the job done as soon as possible. We needed to know when Leon Constance would be on campus so we could make our move.

                So I made it back to the dorm building and let myself into my room. Jordan spun around and frowned at me.

                "You never came back to class," he said.

                "I took a personal day." I sat down in my chair, stretching my leg out. "Hey, does Constance's kid Leon come on campus often?"

                "Too often," Jordan said in annoyance. "He's not part of the Academy. He has no reason to be here."

                "Yea, how dare he come to the Academy his family owns and runs," I said. "What a shitty guy. When's the next time he'll be on campus? Headmaster Constance made it sound like he wants kids in the Peer Program to keep an eye on him."

                "Because he meddles in the Peer Program. He meddles in all of Mr. Constance's programs," Jordan said, shaking his head. "He'll be here in three days to help teach one of the Maroon classes. We already plan on having someone in the classroom to keep an eye on him. I don't know when he'll try to stick his nose back in the Peer Program, but I'll let you know so you can watch him for us."

                "Wow, great, awesome. I love spying on family drama," I said.

                Jordan leaned back in his chair, a smug look coming to his face. "We'll be keeping an eye on Jin's group the next few days. They should be weak from Headmaster Constance. He's not as powerful as he used to be, but he can still get in kids' heads."

                "So, what, you're going to beat on mentally shaken kids?" I said. "Wow, why did I even ask. Of course you are."

                "This is a good time to put pressure on them to disband their group," Jordan said. "We'll take care of them by the end of the week. Mr. Constance is confident we can finally end their group."

                "Do you know what Headmaster Constance attacked them with?" I asked.

                Jordan shrugged. "I can guess. Mr. Constance told us about Jin and his friends so we could handle them better. He warned us to be careful of Karson because he has a history of violence, and to be careful of Amelia because she can get blackmail on us easily. But Jin's just a pathetic drunk, and Lev is just here as a damn babysitter."

                "Well, good luck with your plans of traumatizing problem kids," I said, turning away from him and opening my laptop. I put my headphones on, started up the CD Jin had made me, and tried to distract myself online.

                My phone buzzed and I looked down at the unfamiliar number. I picked it up and unlocked it, nearly groaning as I looked at the name of the group chat I had been added to.

                Jin and his friends typed their names into the group chat and I went through, adding their contacts to my phone. When I was done with that, I texted what I knew to them about Leon coming in three days to help out in a Maroon class. A text came in shortly after.

                From: Jin

                Get somewhere where you won't be overheard and call me.

                He'd put it in the group chat, so I doubted he was having me call him so he could confess his undying love to me. I left the room, heading to the laundry room on our floor and seating myself at the windowsill before calling Jin's number.

                "You're sure it's three days?" Jin said, answering. I could hear the others in the background and figured Jin had put me on speaker phone.

                "Positive. I just talked to Jordan. He also said they plan to go after you guys now that you're mentally shaken," I said.

                "Karson's been mentally shaken for a solid five years," Jin said, and I heard the sound of someone being punched. "Fuck off, Kar. Hit me again and I'll really break your glasses."

                "Break my glasses and you and Kai can limp on dates together," Karson said.

                "Dates?" Lev said in confusion. "Wait, Jin, does that mean you and Kai are-"

                "They won't take us down," Jin said, cutting Lev off. "The Blues can come after us, but it won't work. This could actually work to our advantage. They think they have the upper hand, and they'll be frustrated when they find out they don't. We need high tensions, and we have three days to make those tensions high enough for them to lash out."

                "Can you pull a plan together in three days?" I said.

                "Probably," Jin said. "It has to happen now, while Headmaster Constance and Mr. Constance have this tension between them. It won't help that Mr. Constance called Isaac's father without permission from Headmaster Constance."

                "Hey, hey, we can use that," Amelia said in excitement. "If you can get me into Mr. Constance's office, I can hack his laptop and see if he has any tangible communication with Mr. Ruvolo that the headmaster doesn't know about."

                "The headmaster won't want his son risking their relationship with the Ruvolo family," Lev said. "That could be a good way to keep the tension between them all high. Isaac could help us with that. He could play up being upset by all of this. If Mr. Constance is distressing the Ruvolo heir, the headmaster will be pissed."

                "So the little bastard will come in handy after all," Karson said in surprise.

                "All of you shut up. I need to think about this. We need to get it right, or else we might lose this chance," Jin said.

                "But you definitely don't care," I said.

                "If you were here, I'd whack you with your own cane," Jin said.

                "Have fun with that fantasy. I said all I had to say." I hung up and left the laundry room, heading back to my room. I gathered my stuff and left the room before Jordan could say anything to me.

                A few minutes later, I found myself in the basement of the library, alone in the room I liked. I sat down at a desk and pulled out my phone, plugging my headphones into it and letting Jin's CD play. I'd downloaded the songs to my phone, not wanting to carry my laptop around every time I wanted to listen to it.

                I flipped open a notebook and got to work writing our potential ideas for the riot. We only had three days to raise the tension high enough for a riot to break out.

                "The sky I painted to silence the pain, it is bleeding into gray. I don't know if I've been worse, I don't know if I can change, but right now, I don't think, I don't think that I'm okay." I let the music fill my ears as I wrote.

                I knew there was a good chance the Blues would figure out I was part of this if we pulled it off. I was okay with that, though. The abuse at this Academy was making me sick to watch. It was setting up the Maroons for failure, and I knew how painful it was to have your future ripped away by someone else.

                I lost track of time as I let the playlist run through and wrote down ideas. We needed something detailed enough to work but flexible enough to allow unexpected surprises.

                I startled as a headphone was taken out of my ear. I looked up as Jin out it in his ear, letting the song play.

                "Funny," he said. "I have a similar music taste."

                "What a coincidence," I said, pausing the music and dropping my headphones into my bag.

                He looked at my notebook and pulled up a chair next to me. "I see we had the same idea."

                "I'm doing your job for you," I said.

                "I had to pull those dumbasses back together," he said. "Headmaster Constance made Karson too unstable to be reliable. I couldn't have that. And I need Amelia at her full focus to pull off anything this big."

                "How hard is it to admit that you actually care about your friends?" I said.

                "I don't care about anyone," he said.

                "And this?" I gestured between us.

                He shrugged. "This is just one more thing I don't care about."

                I leaned forward and kissed him. "You lie about as well as you dye your hair."

                He pulled his hat more securely over his head. "Shut up. What plans do you have?"

                "Nothing solid yet," I said, turning my notebook so he could read it more easily. "Amelia and Isaac can run up the tension between the headmaster and his son. But I don't know how to get enough Blues and Maroons riled at each other for it to erupt into a riot. And I'm not sure how to get them all together for it to work."

                "Fire," Jin mumbled.

                "We're not lighting anyone on fire," I said.

                He shook his head. "No, the fire alarm. When the fire alarm goes off in the academic building, students are led out to the courtyard with the teachers. We have fire drills every once in a while, and during the last one, the teachers had to make sure the Blues and Maroons stayed separated because a fight almost broke out."

                "So that's how we get everyone in one place," I said. "If Leon is helping out in a Maroon classroom, he'll be in the courtyard with that class if the fire alarm goes off."

                "We need someone to pull it," Jin said. "It'd be too obvious if Karson did it, or even me for that matter."

                "I could," I said. "I have permission to go out and stretch my leg in the hallway. I can pull the fire alarm."

                "Get consistency on your side. The next few days, get up during class and go out to stretch your leg. Tell them you fell and it's been bothering you," Jin said. "I'll have a few Maroons I know go out of class at the same time so you won't be a suspect. We'll have a set time for it to go off."

                "But how do we initiate a fight that everyone will join in on? It has to escalate quickly enough that security and the teachers can't stop it," I said.

                "The Maroons need to start acting up now," Jin said. "They need to act like they own the place. It'll piss the Blues off, and the teachers will fill their heads that they have the right to take us down. The teachers will pretend not to notice a few Blues beating on Maroons, and by the time the real fights start, it'll be too late for them to put a stop to it. We start raising the tension now."

                "But we need something big to start the fight," I said.

                "I'll figure that out. Just get to the edge of the crowd when they're filing out of the academic building," he said.

                I raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, was that concern for me?"

                "Fine, then stay in the middle of the crowd of get trampled. It's not my body," Jin said with a shrug.

                "Are you guys going to break into Mr. Constance's office to get his laptop?" I said.

                Jin nodded. "We're planning to hit it tonight. You're not coming."

                "Don't be rude," I said, glaring at him.

                "We need to get in and out fast. There's a security guard stationed at the first floor desk, which is too close to the elevator. You would have to take the stairs, and you'd slow us down," Jin said. "Even if I carry you up and down the stairs, my footsteps might be loud enough to tip the guard off. We need to be light and quick."

                I turned my glare on my leg, feeling my frustration attacking me. Before the accident, I could've easily snuck around buildings without making a sound. I probably could've climbed my damn way up the building and in through the windows.

                Jin cupped my cheek and guided my gaze back up to his. "You can't help with this task. That doesn't make you useless."

                "But you definitely don't care," I said.

                "I definitely don't," he said, and pulled me in for a kiss.

                I pushed him away after a minute. "Jin, you're not going to suddenly pull that angsty loner shit on me, are you? Because I'll beat you to death with my cane if you tell me you can't have a relationship because of some stupid reason like me being used against you."

                "Relationship?" He put a straw in his mouth, pushing it to the corner as he thought. "I've never had a relationship."

                "Wait." I held up my hand. "Am I your first kiss?"

                "Yea," he said. "Congratulations, good for you."

                "Mr. Hardassrebel is actually innocent when it comes to relationships," I said, snickering.

                "I don't need to kiss someone to bring down an abusive Academy," Jin said. "This isn't a relationship. This is just casual kissing."

                "And the mix CD?" I said. "That's just a casual friendship thing?"

                "You really make me regret my sobriety." He leaned back in his chair. "I lost the kissing mood. Back to rebellious plotting."

                "You were in a kissing mood? Hard to tell considering you never have a damn facial expression," I said.

                "This is my annoyed expression," he said, though I didn't detect any change in his impassive look. "Can you focus already?"

                "Yea, yea, I got it. I'm pathetic and need to stay out of the fight," I said. "That'll only matter if you can actually start a fight."

                "I'm working on that part. I'll have it figured out by the time limit," he assured.

                "Hey..." It had been bothering me since he'd said it, and I'd only been thinking about it more since we started kissing. "You said your dad said you weren't his fucking son."

                "He did." Jin didn't look bothered by the topic, and he waited for me to ask the question he could sense.

                "How did he say it?" I said.

                Jin met my eyes, expressionless. "He said it desperately. It said it like a man who lost the thing he loved the most."

                "He wasn't disowning you," I said.

                "He was mourning me. It would've hurt to care about his feelings. I took another shot and pushed it away until it didn't bother me anymore," he said.

                "You should fix things with him," I said. "I pushed everyone away, but my parents refused to let me do it to them. I..." I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. "I'm glad. I wouldn't have gotten through my recovery without them. They helped me learn how to walk again. They didn't give up on me even when I gave up on myself."

                Jin chewed on his straw. "I don't need forgiveness from my dad. I don't need a relationship with him."

                "You and Karson understand each other," I said. "You're afraid to talk to your dad and he's afraid to talk to his brother."

                "I told you I'm in a mood to do some rebellious plotting," he said. "Shut up and quit wasting my time. Either you have an idea to start a fight, or you don't."

                I stood up, closing my notebook and stuffing it in my bag. "I don't. That's your problem to solve."

                "Don't forget to stretch your leg tomorrow," he said.

                "Ow, oh the pain, that fall I took just now really fucked it up," I said dryly.

                "Your acting could use some work," he said.

                "Coming from the guy who had shown a total of three facial expressions in the entire time I've known him," I said.

                "And you claimed I only had one," he said.

                I rolled my eyes and left the room. I trusted that Jin would pull a plan together in time, but I was still nervous for it to all play out. This would either bring down Adam Constance, or it would go horribly wrong.

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A.N.- Guys you're all killing me, it's stated in chapter 4 that Karson has glasses, why are you all acting so surprised about it, let the poor boy be blind in peace