("All those years on a tightrope.
Did it waste your time?
I was born on the same road.
 Did we fall in light?"

"And I won't fight it.
 Lost sight of you and I know it.
Hard to see this through.

I won't let go.")

- Jeremy Zucker, "Glisten"

June - July, 2016

Rising 4th year, age 17

Since last December, Lucas had been noticing little changes in Riley. It was like she became more consciously withdrawn about something, but she was very good at hiding it. She worked with the team and appeared normal. She did everything right.

It was obvious she was getting closer with Maya, and it was helping Maya come out of her shell. It had amazed Lucas how much Riley had changed Maya - or at least, brought out a different Maya. She was still relatively guarded around Lucas and Josh, albeit less guarded than before, but around Riley, she was much more open. It made all the difference when working with the team.

His roommate needed to work on his people skills, but he had definitely improved since they had met in Lucas's first year. He didn't like having a roommate, but the more time they spent together on the team, he began to realize that Josh wasn't a bad guy. He was just a loner, not a social person. But at the same time, he obviously cared about his sister more than anything. Whether or not he tried to hide it, just the fact that he had been willing to punch the lights out of Lucas when he fractured Riley's arm meant that she was his emotional weakness.

Since December, he had made it his mission to do for Riley what she was trying to do for everyone else. Her insane course load made it hard for her to do anything but study, but Lucas was able to pull her away sometimes. That was how he had been able to notice the change in her.

And it scared him.

Truth, they had agreed, was the only way for them to trust each other, and it had been working well - she hadn't apparently been hiding any of her activities. But he realized somewhere over the past year that maybe she wasn't telling them the truth about her own thoughts and emotions. She was always so busy, too, that sometimes she seemed to just be automatically going through the motions of her work. It seemed dangerous to him. But, then again, Lucas had been the one who let his own emotions get the better of him and land him in prison, so what authority did he really have to say about emotional control?

"Eric wants us in the academic lounge tomorrow morning," Riley informed him, joining him as he made his way across the campus from where he had been in the main medical lab for his Basic training course, the one that Riley was also in.

"It's a Saturday," Lucas pointed out, frowning, "we have Saturday mornings off."

"Not tomorrow morning," Riley shrugged.

"Do you know what he wants?" Lucas questioned.

"We're meeting a new contact," Riley stated vaguely, as they spotted Josh and Maya a few steps away

Maya was coming from Floor work - a course that focused on weightless strength training, tumbling, and flexibility. Josh, on the other hand, had had Tech basics, which focused on introductory data collection and computer hacking - it was a course that all students took for the basic knowledge, but most of the time, that sort of activity was taken care of by the Science & Tech, who were much more trained for it.

It was one of the few periods during the week that the team didn't have all together, and although they came from different ends of campus, they all somehow met up on their walk back to the operations buildings. It was sort of an unconscious thing they had done, not really talking or planning it.

"Eric wants us to meet him in the academic lounge tomorrow morning," Riley notified the others, and Josh frowned, looking down at his wristband.

"I didn't get a message," he said.

"He's sending it out later, I just thought you guys might want to know now," Riley clarified. She nodded to Maya. "We have that personality profile to work on, are you free to do it now?"

Maya nodded, going off with Riley as they headed towards the girls' dorms, leaving the two boys to walk alone.

"I still don't know how she does that," Lucas commented, knowing Josh would get what he was talking about without having to clarify. They watched Riley and Maya walk away. "And it seems like she knows everything."

"No she doesn't," Josh contradicted, rolling his eyes. "She knows people. People in Administrations, people in Science & Tech, especially in weapons development - basically, if they're important but not very social, Riley knows them. People that don't have many friends are like a magnet for her."

"Why?" Lucas asked warily.

"They're probably like a pet project for her," Josh suggested. "She's a little social butterfly who likes bringing people out into the world and it makes her powerful, because they like her and they'll talk to her about things they work on." He snorted. "Like Minkus."

"What's a Minkus?" Lucas asked, frowning.

"Not a what, a who," Josh corrected. "Farkle Minkus, he works in Science & Tech. He's basically in love with Riley, so he talks to her about whatever it is he's working on and gives her info about all the new stuff."

Lucas didn't hear the last part of the sentence. "Is she in love with him too?"

Josh glanced over at Lucas and his face fell. "Oh no. Nope. Don't go there."

"Go where?" Lucas shot back.

"Relationships aren't a thing here, remember? Especially not in operations. We literally just finished this unit." Josh crossed his arms.

"It's dangerous, and you could get in trouble."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucas stated. "It was a question, I like to know who I'm dealing with."

"Don't get involved with my sister," Josh warned. "Riley will just get reprimanded because our mom is the dean, but you'll get sent back to prison, Friar."

"Why would I compromise the team and my spot at the academy?" Lucas reminded him.

They continued their walk in silence, as Lucas strained to pick the brunette and blonde pair out of the crowd heading into the girls' dorms.

He wasn't stupid enough to waste this chance - this chance to be something in the world. He would follow the rules and do what he was supposed to do, because he wasn't interested in going back to the life he had left almost three years ago. It wasn't like he had left much behind, anyways. And what he had here, he was much more afraid to lose.

But he wasn't going to leave this alone, either. Besides, he had all summer to figure out what Riley was keeping from them, and he was planning on using it.

He had usually been dependent upon the extra hour he got to sleep in on Saturdays, so he wasn't happy when Josh shoved him and reminded him that they had a meeting. He did force himself out of bed and into clothes, though, and made the walk to the academic building in the middle of campus. At 8am on a weekend, there was much less activity on the grounds between the different buildings, and Lucas couldn't help but feel odd at how empty it felt.

Lucas and Josh met the girls outside of the academic lounge, where Maya looked as awake as Josh was and Lucas realized that they might have both been in the gym that morning. Riley, on the other hand, looked as tired as he felt, although it was only noticeable in the creases around her eyes and the fact that she blinked for just a moment too long every time.

"Sorry for the early start, guys," Eric apologized as they met him and another guy near the entrance of the deserted lounge.

"Hiya everyone," a dark-skinned guy greeted them with a friendly smile and a wave. "I'm Isaiah, but y'all can call me Zay."

"Zay is your communications liaison," Eric clarified when the four teens looked to him in confusion. "Think of him like a case manager, or an assigner. He does the things that you don't do around the edges of a mission."

"Yeah, I'll be scheduling you on the assignments that I get from up top, organizing your mission load, getting you the information files you'll need," Zay began to list, "all the fun stuff that a communications program does. I'll also be managing your public relations if you get into some type of media mess, organizing and submitting your mission reports and paperwork, and taking over interrogation of anyone you bring in. I do the stuff here, so you can do the stuff there." He gestured to them, and Lucas smiled a little.

"I thought we did our own interrogations," Maya said.

"That would be a waste of time for an operations agent," Eric informed them. "You guys are in the field, taking care of missions that are time sensitive. Once you bring back a subject, Zay takes over the interrogation - he's trained much more thoroughly for it. He'll convey any information he gets out of the subject to Administrations and you guys, if it's relevant to your assignment."

"Great," Lucas agreed. If this meant he wouldn't be doing any tedious paperwork, he was all for it. Besides, the guy seemed cool.

"I gotta get to my class," Zay apologized, and Eric nodded. "Good meeting y'all! I'll talk to you real soon."

"So do we have any other special members of our team?" Josh asked Eric as Zay headed for the door.

"You'll have a Science & Technology contact," Eric confirmed. "They'll be assigned to your team specifically so that you can get the personalized tech and information you need faster than going through the system and getting dropped onto someone's case load. They're fast, but a designated contact will ensure you'll have what you need when you need it. This way, you'll also get protective gear that fits you without having to submit measurements every time."

"Sounds great," Maya admitted. "We've got everything now." She raised her eyebrows, speaking for the group, "Are we dismissed?"

"Ah, one other thing," Eric added. He pulled out a stack of papers and handed them out. "This fall we start mock missions."

Riley frowned. "Isn't that a fifth/sixth year program?"

"You're doing mostly fifth year courses," Eric stated bluntly, and Riley, Lucas, and Maya all looked up at him.

"What?" Maya was the first to check.

"You've all been in much more intense courses than mainstream, you had to have noticed that," Eric said, looking around at their surprised expressions. "Your program is way more accelerated, especially with summer courses, and I reorganized some parts to keep you paced as closely to Josh's year as possible. You'll be graduating at the end of 2018 - Josh will obviously be graduating this coming year, but he'll stay on campus as a TA while you guys finish."

Lucas shut his eyes, trying to work his mind around this. He had thought he had three more years - this coming year, fifth year, and sixth year. Now, he was graduating next year.

"You guys really didn't know?" Eric asked, dumbfounded. "I guess I need to make things more clear. I'm sorry."

"Thanks for letting us know," Riley said, her voice seeming distant to Lucas, and he glanced over at her with a frown.

"Now are we dismissed?" Maya pushed, and was satisfied with Eric's nod, although Riley had already begun the walk towards the door.

Lucas jogged to catch up, moving around in front of her like she had done to him. "Hey, you good?"

Riley's eyes opened wide, and she nodded, her expression serious and centered - nothing like the distant voice he had heard her speak in moments ago. "Why, are you?"

Lucas blinked. "Yeah."

He had thought he had gotten to know her during the last semester, when they had worked on the undercover romance and been partners for many of the assignments. Now he was questioning how much he did know, as he watched her step around him and walk away calmly, briskly, heading to wherever it was she needed to go, and whatever it was she needed to do.

A/N: Wait, did she really just post two whole chapters in one day? Yes, she did. You know what that means.

(I'm avoiding homework)

Or maybe I'm avoiding thinking about Mother's Day.

Either way, it worked out for all of you readers. This isn't such a great chapter, but it moves things along. I think I've finally got a plot outline for this story, so hopefully that makes it easier to write. I'm hoping to really jump start Joshaya during 4th/6th year, because I have several emotionally/sexually heated pieces already written out for them and I want to get them in before Josh graduates, so that I can get them to another place where I have Joshaya starting some really interesting stuff.

(By the way, this is not a fluffy book, and their relationship is definitely more frustration and angst but I think it gets super interesting and fun. If you're looking for Joshaya fluff, check out Anecdoche, which is starting to have a Joshaya fluff plot line too in addition to Rucas).

I just have to figure out how to move Joshaya along in one year without it seeming rushed.

I think I will put out a Riley chapter next, and then a Josh chapter where things really get fun. I've got some pieces written for them already and if I choose to fail my business courses then you might get to read them soon!

Please please please review! I haven't gotten much feedback recently and I need to know what you guys think!

Kisses,

C

Edit**: People keep commenting about the Joshaya plotline and I feel I should clarify - they are enemies to lovers, neither of them will date anyone else nor have feelings for anyone else, and please stop hating on my character development. I did warn that this was not a fluffy story, it's much more developed, but neither couple will date or be interested in any other character. If you have questions, please feel free to PM me instead of leaving negative reviews that make me anxious to post chapters.

If you aren't interested in a more developed romantic plotline, you do not have to read this book. Go to Anecdoche; it's pure fluff and no drama. I'm writing both types of story so that people can choose which kind of thing they want to read. Don't expect me to change one book's entire outline to suit your wishes about what my story should be. There are also hundreds of other pure fluff books on this website. No one is forcing you to keep reading this one.

Also, for future reference: any review that includes curse words (including whore and slut) will be deleted immediately. If you want me to consider your ideas, PM me for constructive feedback, instead of hate.