Closing In
"Ozpin, you and I both know why I brought those men." It had taken three minutes before such a pleasant conversation between himself and General Ironwood turned bitter: a new record, in Ozpin's book.
Sipping at his hot chocolate and letting the cogs tick by above in his office, Ozpin mulled over how he would handle this increasingly common situation: Ironwood might have been a friend of his, but he had the ever so annoying tendency to turn every talk into a clash of philosophies. Perhaps it was an inevitability for two so opposed to find themselves like this. So different were their outlooks that it even could be told from their clothes: his own emerald sweater and forest-green vest and suit looked positively casual compared to the stark-white of an Atlesian officer's sharp uniform, broken up only by the steel-blue of his vest and red tie.
Ozpin sighed and set his mug down. One thing was certain: he had no plans on hiding how tired he was of this routine.
"We are in a time of peace. Shows of power like these will only give off the wrong impression."
Ironwood's tone grew soft and imploring: it seemed he was changing up his strategy. "But if what Qrow said is true—" But not enough.
"If what Qrow said is true," Ozpin interrupted him. "The Vytal Festival is still arriving soon. It would be best not to scare people by bringing hundreds of soldiers halfway across the continent."
"I'm just being cautious."
"As am I." He caught a brief narrowing of the general's eyes, but continued unabated. "Which is why we will continue training the best Huntsmen and Huntresses we can."
"Are you sure?" Ironwood spoke with all the presence of an approaching storm. Ah, there was the usual, serious nature. "The news of criminals and Huntsmen vigilantes say otherwise." The ticking of clocks were the only thing breaking the tense silence between them.
Ozpin took a slow drink from his mug.
"How much has Glynda told you?"
"Enough for me to be worried for you. You're playing a dangerous game, Ozpin." Ironwood turned to leave. "So before you continue, ask yourself: are you prepared to face the consequences of losing?" He took his leave.
The headmaster let him have the last word, sighing as Ironwood vanished behind the elevator's sliding door. Even so, he turned to look out at the warships hovering above his campus. Ozpin raised his mug.
"I hope it never comes to that."
Almond slammed his mug down.
It was clear to the White Fang that this 'Queen of Hearts' was here to stay. Great. A second problem.
Captain and Acting Commander Almond tapped a heavy finger against his desk and pored over the data a second time. It'd grown messier since their leader's abrupt departure, with papers and photos alike in mismatched piles that only Almond himself could consider organized, but that was fine. It was temporary, Almond told himself. Temporary until Adam returned to them.
It was the fifteenth attack on members of the White Fang in the past two weeks, but the eighth in only three days. Casualties were rare, fatalities more so—happening only while the Ace was solo, he'd noticed—so information wasn't difficult to come by. Especially with this most recent burst of activity. He raised a lightly crumpled photo of this new interloper. The girl left rose petals in her wake. High speed. The man was dexterous and had enough control over his aura to create corporeal afterimages, but had shown no signs as to if that was part of his Semblance.
He'd just reached for his mug of coffee again when the door opened without a single knock. Scowling, Almond placed his helmet on, yet made no other effort to move. He knew only one person who would be that arrogant.
"Yet another assault?" The damnable Cinder Fall sauntered into his domain, placing a hand on a chair across from his desk but not daring to sit. As if that would be beneath her. "I had hoped you would be able to keep a better handle on your men, Captain Almond."
Almond sneered beneath his mask and stood, dwarfing her in size. "On the contrary, girl, it's your side that has been giving me problems." He ripped one of the papers free from its tower and slammed it down. "The only thing those two are after is information on our high officers."
Always smiling as if she had the world's answers laid in front of her, Cinder placed a hand on her hip. "I'm not sure how that's my problem."
He raised the paper up to her face. Debriefings from assaulted soldiers. "It does when the Ace 'debuted' by demanding to know why we were working with the Torches. We'd finished burning every traitor who would have had clearance to that information not even a week after our combined assault on the docks. You have a leak, girl."
Slowly, and with the same sickeningly sweet smile, she stepped around and finally took a seat, one leg crossed over the other. Platitudes. "And what makes you believe it isn't the very same interloper who stopped it?"
Almond's grip tightened enough to audibly wrinkle the paper further. He took a rattling breath and set it back down. "Information is sparse." Suspiciously so. They had one of their own in custody who had been at the warehouse to see the entire event, but he'd been locked up so tightly that even their inner contacts couldn't reach him. Instead, they'd returned saying that someone with influence on the Council was running interference. Rumors were that it was the headmaster of Beacon itself.
But he had heard from connections in the police that some of those slain were struck by single slashes. Evidence of a single-edged, straight sword. .308 rifle casings found on the scene evident of a short-barreled rifle. And then a dexterous fighter with expert levels of aura control begins to make his rounds through Vale? He'd once heard that Queen girl talking with Ace. He, too, was a traitor to the White Fang.
Evidence was piling up, but Almond refused. He refused to believe someone he'd called a comrade, someone he'd practically helped raise would have worked with a Schnee to ruin them.
"It's sparse enough to where it's a dead end to compare them."
Cinder checked her nails. "Hm. Well, I believe you might be thinking a little too large. You've been searching for recently registered or graduated Huntresses with speed and rose-related Semblances, haven't you?" She toyed with one of the few photos they'd captured of her.
Almond leaned forward over his desk to speak.
"She's clearly too young," Cinder interrupted his effort to respond. "A student, clearly."
He would've been more agitated with her waiting until he was going to respond if he wasn't so offended. Almond scoffed. "A student? You've got nerve to insult the Fang like that!"
Cinder held up a lazy hand in her defense, smile slipping. "Now, now, Captain. It's apparent that she arrived later than this 'Ace of Spades'." She brought it and her gaze down to a photo of him. "It would be best not to underestimate a Huntress-in-training if she were to be guided by someone... much more experienced in matters of the White Fang. Especially if he has taken in prodigies before. Taught others how to fight, maybe?"
He tensed, and glared down at her from beyond his mask. Yet, it didn't look like she even paid attention. Her eye was fixed to the desk. Yet Almond could swear she was smiling wider. This whelp knew more than she was letting on, he swore it. Always dancing around the issues. He was never good with dealing with their types: he'd personally rather have his chainsaw speak to this human for him. But that'd cause problems. Get men killed.
So he snorted, raised his head and crossed his arms. "So that's the purpose of that get-up you're in? Reconnaissance?"
The human girl did not have that red dress that drew so much attention from the less scrupulous of his soldiers. Instead, she was dressed in the black and white, sharp and utilitarian uniform of Haven Academy.
As if reminded of something, she rose from her seat. "Oh, much more than that, Almond. I'll be fetching that problem of yours soon, don't worry. In the meantime, please do try to keep the White Fang from falling apart. I know things must be terribly hard without your... dear leader." A glimmer of teeth showed themselves in her grin. Almond wanted to rip them out.
"On that note, I should take my leave. The rest of my 'team' has arrived. Take care." She left just as smoothly as she had arrived. The door clicked shut, and he was left in silence once more.
Splintering wood shattered it. Almond ripped his fist free of the new hole in his desk and yanked the mug of now-cold coffee up. He did not so much remove as tear his helmet off to down it. He hated that girl. He despised her more than any other human short of Jacques Schnee himself, and he could not wait until she lay dead at his feet, but until then...
There was a rally he needed to get prepared for. As much as he hated Cinder Fall, the weaponry she offered was potent. Enough for their revolution to truly begin. The revolution Adam should have been here for. He would be here for. He didn't care what she implied or what was whispered behind closed doors. Adam was not a traitor.
After all, what would even push him towards it? What would dare have him doubt the very thing he created?
"Ruby? Hello? Remnant to Atlas? Anyone there?" Yang flicked a tiny statuette of a Nevermore onto Ruby's head, snapping her out of her sleepy trance. "Not like you to fall asleep during a game of Remnant, bu~ut a free win's a free win..." she said with a grin, already beginning to slide a card from her hand.
"Nonono, I'm awake, I'm awake! I play... uh..." She grinned, energy restored in a flash. "Android Infiltrator! Looks like I get to copy a card in your hand, and since Atlas is a part of Mantle, her special effect makes you discard it, too! And I think I'll be grabbing... the Huntsman of the Four Blades you stole last turn! Beep beep bang!" Ruby laughed triumphantly as Yang reached into her hand... and slammed down a different card altogether.
"Pretty sneaky, sis. Too bad you activated my trap card: Hacked By Mistrali! Now your Android Infiltrator's working for me! Show me the goods!"
Ruby's head hung low as she gave her hand to Yang, pouting about Mistral being 'O-P'.
"Ooooh, is that an Atlesian Air Fleet I see?" Yang daintily snatched the card.
Ruby collapsed in tears, her plans ruined.
"Alright, Weiss, you're up!"
Adam faded in and out of the game as Yang called to Weiss: there was too much on his mind, right now. Nothing was adding up with the White Fang, and now, he might've lost Blake because of it.
It had barely been two days after the food fight. In the middle of class, he felt the telltale buzz of his Scroll in his pocket. Only one person he knew had his number and would be calling him at this hour: Blake. Hoping the vibration would go unnoticed amidst the scratching of pencils and quiet lecture, he'd decided to simply call her later: with the time difference between Vale and Menagerie, Adam could not blame Blake for not getting the hours exactly right. Even so, Adam could not fight off the pang of guilt for ignoring her when the Scroll went still.
Then, it rang again.
And again.
A patch of his thigh had started to grow numb. Worried looks from his team had unfortunately drawn Professor Peach's gaze and ire to him, but she was very understanding when he explained that he had a friend overseas who might not have understood he would be in class at this time. It might've taken levying his attentiveness in class—something Adam doubted he could do again—but he was allowed to at least briefly step out and inform her. He'd be back before a minute's time, he said.
The Scroll was in his hand and a teasing chastisement on his tongue the moment he hit the 'accept' button. The first thing Adam heard on the other side was Blake's sobbing, and the class had stopped existing in his mind. He hadn't even drawn in a single breath before he was already racing through the halls.
"Blake? Blake! What's the matter? What's happening!" Adam demanded to know as he looked for somewhere, anywhere he could get some privacy, and fast.
"A-Adam, I think..." Blake sniffled, and his throat tightened, "I think they found me, they're all dead, oh God..." Blake was panicking. Leaves rustled and branches cracked. She was running from something.
"Who is dead? Your parents?" He swept into a storage closet: it would have to do. If Blake's parents were killed, it was the worst case scenario. Sienna wanted absolute control. The message was more important than the consequences. An assault on Beacon would be inevitable. He knew he should've gone with her! He'd never get to Blake before their assassins did. He'd lose everything. He'd lose Blake. She'd—
"No, no, my friends, they... they killed all of them!" she cried out and ripped Adam from the tumbling stream of consciousness.
He forced his breath to slow. "Blake. I need you to calm down." They'd get nowhere fast if he didn't know the situation. They sat in silence for a few moments, only broken up by a soft sob or the rustle of leaves.
"I was out with a few friends of mine, a-and we were hunting Grimm on the outskirts. There was no warning, there were just so many Ursa, but they ignored me: they only attacked my friends. Then the gunfire came, a-and..." She began to sob again. "The Ursa, we could handle, but this Huntsman... he had to be an assassin, he'd killed half of us before I even saw him."
Adam slumped down against a shelf., heart pounding against his chest.
"What did he look like?" he questioned far more harshly than he had intended to. He winced at hearing Blake gasp softly at the viciousness in his tone.
"He... he..." Blake fell quiet. "I can't remember?" What was once sadness had begun to fade into confusion. Was she in a situation to see her assailant's face clearly? "H-he fought with Wind Dust, though." Something else was on Adam's mind; however, a question that a part of him pleaded not to ask at all.
"Blake, who sent you out to hunt Grimm?" The second question, why would someone send what was all but a princess to fight Grimm, was implied but unspoken. The silence from the other end only gave Adam's mind more time to think on the situation: she was clearly still out in the wilderness. She must have called him immediately after the event itself, most likely, but how was she doing so in the first place? Her parents had a small relay linked to the CCT—no small item to get—but in the forests? She had four years to enter the Huntsmen Academies, too. Surely—especially with Ghira—she did not join with Menagerie's own.
"I..." Blake suddenly let out a sharp gasp, and he leaned away from the heavy thump on the other end. Her Scroll had fallen.
Adam's blood ran cold, and any doubt vanished from his mind. An almost imperceptible crack from his own Scroll warned him of just how tightly he was holding it and reminded him of the pain slicing through his palm as he listened. Listened and silently prayed.
"Are you alright, Miss? I heard a huge commotion over here!" An unfamiliar, feminine voice quietly played over the device.
"I'm fine! Please, did you find anyone else? We need to leave: it's too dangerous to be here!" Blake's voice was muffled but still recognizable.
"Hm? Oh, don't worry about those: my partner's already cleared out the Grimm. We found a few others, though; it's how we found you. They had said one of their team ran off right when the Grimm attacked." She was casual. Too casual about this.
"W-what? I didn't..." Blake jumped to more important matters: "Are they okay?" Silence. Sobbing. What Blake and the stranger said afterwards, he couldn't make out. But Adam could hear a third voice—a male—calling to them, before the call abruptly ended with a crackle and hum of static.
Seventy-four hours, thirty-six minutes. That was how long had passed since that call, and every minute had been hanging over him ever since. People spoke, but he did not hear them. He responded, but he did not recognize his words. He worked on autopilot. He fought on autopilot. The only times he felt the spark of life return to him had been tearing through the White Fang for further answers and communications with Menagerie. Yet he and Ruby had found nothing of worth, even though they had scoured the city. They were pushing their luck: the White Fang laid low in district they usually hunted, security was raised up, and though it backfired, the most recent strike was a trap specifically for them.
He didn't care. In seventy-four hours and thirty-six minutes, Blake hadn't answered him. Her Scroll was out of service. Destroyed. The crack was someone stepping on it. Getting rid of evidence?
No increased communication to Sienna. No strange reports from Menagerie. No news. No signs of an attack on Beacon. Beacon was safe. He needed to leave. He needed eyes in Menagerie. He needed to be in Menagerie. If he could just get in contact with Ilia—
"Hey, uh, Adam? Are you alright there, man?" Yang's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
His gaze flicked up from the map of Remnant to find his team staring at him with various looks of concern. If he was not still thinking about how to reestablish his network of connections in order to save his dearest friend, Adam might have found it touching.
"Yes," Adam stated coldly enough for it to only leave his team furrowing their brows in greater worry. Like a loyal secretary, his mind informed him of what he was half-listening to during his thoughts: Weiss had blindly listened to Yang, getting the majority of her forces destroyed, Jaune was begging to play in a foolish attempt to likely get closer to Weiss, and that same heiress appeared to have told them he was a faunus. He'd get back to that.
"I am in a good position. It will be difficult for you to mess this up, Jaune." He placed his cards face-down. "I have matters I need to attend to. Sorry." With that dry apology that only managed to perturb his teammates even further, Adam abruptly stood up, grabbed his blade and left. No one noticed the very light tap to Ruby's chair as he passed.
"I'll... uh, I'll go see what's up with him. Pyrrha, you're the Queen of Atlas now!" Ruby zipped off before anyone else could get a word in edgewise, ignoring the suspicious glare from her sister burning at her back the entire time.
"... So, Snow Angel, how about an alliance?" Jaune grinned at her as he took Adam's former seat.
Weiss and Yang looked at one another. The heiress nodded and drew a card. "Sandstorm."
"Aw, come on..."
"We need to set up a meeting with an old partner of mine," Adam explained as he and Ruby made their way through the dorms.
Ruby, however, was a lot less focused on what Adam was saying and more on how he was looking: he was completely rigid, marching as much as he was walking, and his eyes were constantly scanning his surroundings. Adam looked like a soldier... which, well, he was, but he tended to hide that fact a lot better than this. Ruby noticed that students had kept their distance as they walked along, especially with how tight of a grip Adam had on his weapon.
"Yeah okay, Adam, I get it, but what's going on? You've been acting strange all week, and it's really gotten us worried," Ruby tried to turn the conversation back to figuring out what was really happening for the third time since they left the library.
"Ilia will do. She may not be fond of me, but she'll listen."
It wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't just act like she hadn't said anything at all, Ruby thought to herself.
The two entered their room. The door shut, and Adam slumped forward with his next step like the life had drained from him in an instant. He took slow, plodding steps towards the center of the room.
"I can't stay in Beacon any longer," Adam mumbled under his breath and placed a deceptively calm hand on the back of a chair.
The two stood there in silence, Ruby not stunned but simply... confused by him. She doubted he would just take off like that, especially if it was something they could help with. And so she stepped forward, and steadied her breath.
"Adam—" Wind brushed through her hair as the chair smashed into the wall beside her, cracking under the force. She flinched, but not from the near-miss or loud slam. It was from the pained, panicked grimace on Adam's face as he twisted to face her, hand raking through his hair and leaving his hat to drop away.
"Blake is hurt, Ruby! Hurt or dead, and I wasn't there! That's the problem!"
Ruby steeled herself. That much didn't surprise her: the others might've seen her as a child, but she was growing all too capable of reading them. Ruby knew he was keeping something terrible locked up. "Adam, tell me what happened."
She didn't mind Adam's glare when, by the end of his long, rambling explanation, she was smiling.
"There's still a big chance she's fine, then! You said two people found her and asked if she was alright, didn't you?" Ruby pressed: the silver lining in this situation was too bright not to see.
"I don't know if they were allies, or if they were just trying to get her guard down... especially with her Scroll being destroyed afterwards."
"That's why you wanted to contact your friend, right? Ilia?"
Adam nodded. "Yes. She's young, but as a chameleon faunus, she was one of the best in surveillance we had. There is a problem, however," He sighed and slowly brought himself to sit on one of the beds. "She's still with the White Fang, and although she was our friend, she's an officer. Just below in rank to myself."
"Well, if she was your..." Ruby looked him over. "Blake's friend," she corrected herself, "she must've been a nice person!"
He cracked a smile at the subtle barb. "You could say that, yes. If we play our cards right, we could get her to defect if Blake hasn't gotten her to do so already. We just need to get her out of Menagerie where she's being watched, first." He pulled up his mattress beside him and grabbed a notebook hidden beneath it. It was full of schedules, names, maps, everything you'd need to hunt the White Fang. His former comrades, his mind so dutifully beat into him once more. But he couldn't think about that, now.
"Get Ilia here and alone, and we could not only find out what she knows, but convince her to help you find Blake!" With a quick hop to her bed, Ruby grabbed a notebook of her own from under her pillow: it wasn't like anyone was going to risk touching that death trap to get to it.
"If called here on short notice, she might get here within two days, but she'll have a contingent of trained soldiers with her both from Menagerie and Vale: they'll need to be dealt with quickly." He flipped to an open page, grabbed a pen and started jotting down an outline. And so the planning began and continued on for over an hour: plausible meeting places, ideas for attack depending on what method of transportation she used, possible times she'd arrive, everything.
As a brief moment of quiet fell between the two and Adam looked over their combined notes, he had to admit that Ruby really did have some potential. For a fifteen year old, she had quite the head on her shoulders, although Yang and Weiss did appear to have some trouble taking her seriously. Not that he could blame them, of course: not everyone served in a military unit where such skills were expected to rise at this young an age.
"I've got it!" Ruby suddenly exclaimed with a innocent grin, then scrambled for her Scroll. It was strange, in fact, to see someone so innocent have this level of tactical intelligence. As the young girl zipped across the room searching for something only to sit back down with a plastic cup pressed against her mouth and Scroll to her ear, however, Adam admittedly had doubts of his own as to what exactly she could be planning with that.
"Hello, Ilia!"
Adam felt and looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Eyes wide in disbelief, he lunged to snatch her Scroll away. It was a futile action.
Ilia's voice came from the speaker. "Who is this? How did you get this number?" He froze with his fingers just brushing against Ruby's own, ready to snatch it away at a moment's notice.
"What are you doing!" Adam mouthed each syllable.
Ruby kept going.
"That is none of your concern," she replied, keeping her voice in the most threatening tone she could manage—approximately that of a small dog's—yet distorted by that stupid cup. "What might be is the safety of your friend Blake."
"... A-and just what do you know about her?" Ilia sounded smug, but she stumbled at the beginning. A front?
Adam was left to slowly retract his arm, staring at the fact that this utter absurdity was getting Ilia to talk.
Ruby's eyes glittered with the mischievous glee of someone playing a prank, not tricking information out of a terrorist. "More than you, my friend. I know she was in Menagerie..."
"Hm, is that right?" Relief. That wasn't good. "Interesting claim, considering how she hasn't stepped foot on this island."
Ruby's eyes widened. Adam's blood went cold. Blake wasn't in Menagerie? If she wasn't there, then where was she this entire time!
"I should probably tell you we can track these calls, by the way. So why don't you tell me who you are—"
Ruby gulped and focused. She dug through her mind for the most intimidating people she knew. Yang on a bad hair day. Professor Goodwitch. The guy sitting right across from her... that would work! She tried her hardest to match the ice Adam would carry in his tone.
"Then it appears you know less than we thought."
Ilia went silent. That was a good sign!
"If Miss Belladonna isn't there, where is she?"
"She... she..." Ilia gulped. "That's none of your business! You wouldn't know anything about that!" She was panicking. Adam wondered if it was from genuine fear of her friends, or fear of what would happen if she had failed to keep track of her, but more importantly, wondered just what the White Fang knew about Blake if she was not even in Menagerie in the first place. Without thinking, he snatched the Scroll.
"I beg to differ, Amitola." And without thinking, his tone had twisted from that of Adam Belladonna, member of RWAY, to Adam Taurus, terrorist leader: arctic-cold, commanding, and with a tinge of desperation too small to be uncontrolled, but too large to be ignored. "I require your assistance." He left no room for question.
"Adam?" Ilia breathed out. "Wait, where have you been? Who was that? Sienna's been silent on you after Blake—"
"You will search Menagerie for Blake and send a secure communication to me on the status of the Belladonnas as soon as possible," Adam growled. It was a power play, plain and simple: throw around his former weight and the fact that she didn't mention him being a traitor, and perhaps she'd fall back into the old mindset of when he did have that much power. "I expect it tomorrow. If you do not respond, there will be consequences. Do you understand?"
"O-of course, sir!"
"Prepare yourself to leave for Vale on my word. Gather information in the meantime. I will contact you with further orders when necessary, but you are not to speak my name. This is of the utmost importance, Amitola. Blake's life depends on that. Remember it." A low blow, he recognized, but it would ensure Ilia kept quiet.
After he hung up, silence filled the room. Ruby stared at him with a bright, expectant grin.
Adam looked down to the Scroll, then handed it over to Ruby, snarling. "If I wasn't a changed man, I would strangle you," Adam snapped. "What were you thinking?"
As if the weight of what failure would have been struck her only now, Ruby shrank back, her smile crashing down into a guilty frown and eyes turning downwards.
"W-well, I had... I thought maybe if we acted like we knew where Blake was, we could trick her into saying what she knew because she'd want to find her, or she'd mess up and say where Blake really was if she thought we were lying... I didn't think Blake wouldn't be where you said she was at all!" She tried to explain herself.
"And what if they were the ones who had captured her in the first place, Ruby?" Faced with Blake having been lying to him the entire time on top of what would would happen if Ilia simply turned and ratted them out at the earliest opportunity, Adam found his voice carrying an arctic chill. Cold fury lined every word, even if all of it wasn't directed at Ruby, herself.
"Then... Ilia's her friend, right? She'd want to protect Blake!" Ruby declared with such innocence that Adam found his rage paradoxically peaking and shattering at the same time. Ruby stared back at him with silver eyes full of determination and hurt both, and Adam sighed. He despised how difficult it was to ever stay angry at her.
"That plan was simple, absurd, overly optimistic... and successful." The edge of his mouth curled up into a smile as the frozen edge in his tone melted away. "Well done. Just warn me next time, alright?"
Her expression bounced up into a sunny smile. "Got it, partner! So, what's next?"
Adam frowned as he looked down at their notes. That was a great question. Ilia may be on their side, but now Blake could literally be anywhere on Remnant, and he was no closer to finding the reason behind Torchwick's reason for being with the White Fang. Without Tukson, his primary source of White Fang information was gone as well, reduced to what he could scrounge up from his old plans and what they could force out of a few goons and lower officers.
"... Adam?" Ruby leaned over to wave her hand in Adam's face, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"I'm running low on sources of information," he lied. There was still one person he had enough information to possibly attack: his former lieutenant. However, Adam just wasn't sure if he could bring himself to make a betrayal of that caliber. Not yet. Not him. "We'll spend tonight searching for new ways in. We might have to make another assault on a regional headquarters." He stood up and collected his notes before slipping them back in their hiding place beneath the mattress.
"We should get some rest, while we can..." Ruby quietly suggested, already knowing what Adam's answer would be as he made his way out.
"Feel free to. I'll be getting a head start," Adam replied over his shoulder as he opened the door.
Yang stood in his way, her arms crossed and eyes burning holes into his own.
"We need to chat."
