Chapter 4: Alex Runs Away

By: PastryFudger

Alex padded into the kitchen on a Saturday morning with a fully outfitted backpack and dressed for what seemed to be a climb for Mt. Everest. "Jack?"

It was a bit alarming that she looked up from her laptop, barely raised a brow, and then turned back. "Yes, dear?"

"I'm going for a hike."

"Mhm."

"A loooooong hike."

"No."

"... no?" Alex frowned. He'd thought she would approve of him getting out and about.

Jack just sipped her coffee and continued typing something out on her laptop. "I'm so clearly against it, what am I going to do? I can't believe he just left without permission."

Oh. Plausible deniability. Alex nodded, pecked her lightly on the cheek, and then climbed out the kitchen window, knowing he couldn't trust the front door. It would be too easy to take his bike, and it likely had a tracker on it, so he instead took a convoluted parkour route that involved laying on top of a train like some sort of stupid spy movie and entering a brothel through the roof. By the time he arrived at his destination, he was feeling the effects of all of those Monsters fading and was glad to see his nest was undisturbed.

He quickly curled up in a ball and physically hibernated for over a week.

Yassen entered the teachers' lounge with a sigh, closing the door lightly out of habit but still alerting the rest of the crew to his presence regardless. "Alex isn't in class still," he announced.

"I noticed," Ross replied, not looking up from where he was shredding some papers. Whether they were legal documents or not was a little hard to tell when they were in minuscule pieces of the desecrated tree.

"Have you checked his house?"

Yassen glared at Nile for the question.

"I'm just asking, that's all."

But, of course, the lack of entertainment meant arguments spawned at an increased rate. "What do you mean he's not at home?" Ross asked.

"It means he's not at home, dumbass," Jet replied, throwing a pen at him.

"Then, where is he?!"

"Do I look like I know?!"

"You sound like you deserve a knife in your spine!"

"What kind of segue into a threat is that?!"

"The only kind of segue you deserve-!"

"No knives in the fucking teachers' lounge, how many times do we have to say it! We even made a sign!"

Jack was most unhelpful, stating that she could hardly stop him from being a rebellious teenager.

"I would go out and throw cheese and eggs at assholes' houses in the night, I think Alex running away to go camping or something is fine. He was very bundled up."

"Cheese and eggs…?"

"Well just eggs smelled kind of weird but cheese omelets are amazing."

"... Is that how it works?"

"No, but it's the thought that counts."

So then, of course, they started looking at nearby camping sites. And when that revealed nothing, local parks. And, when that continued to reveal nothing, local homeless communities, and then a few zoos, and then checking across the English Channel (just in case) and that still turned up nothing.

They returned to Jack, and she just shrugged. "If there's one thing I know, Alex wants to be unpredictable."

There was no arguing that. They did, however, continue to debate on the cheese thing for a good few minutes before Jack kicked them out.

When Alex turned up at school the next Wednesday, he was instantly pulled into D'Arc's office.

"Alex, where were you?"

"Sleeping," he answered, quite honestly.

"That's not where you were."

"I was in the school's old bomb shelter. Woke up with a lot of spiders on me."

In the ceiling, someone whispered, "Damn, how did we not think to look there?" and Alex pointedly ignored them.

"Alex, truancy is not tolerated. Thankfully your employers have provided a more... proactive way to address this behavior. Mr. Smithers, if you could come in, please."

Derek Smithers entered, with what looked to be a slim wristband. "I'm sorry to do this, Alex but I was very disappointed to hear you were skipping school."

It took Alex a few seconds to process what he was seeing and hearing, and by then Yassen had snuck the ankle bracelet around his left ankle and secured it.

"Wha- But you- I was here the whole time!"

"You didn't show up to class, though."

"Smithers!"

"Alex, you must know how important an education is."

Alex just gave him an incredulous look. "You know they're terrorists, right?"

"Education is still important."

"Terr-or-ists," he reiterated, and Smithers shook his head.

"Terrorists who are giving you an education so you don't become one."

"They're doing the exact opposite of that!"

"Don't be dramatic, Alex we're not making you do anything you don't already want to do."

"Yes! Yes, you are! Like coming to this hellhole school and getting my shit kicked in for 16 hours a day!"

"It's not our fault you got behind in school."

"It is though! Besides, learning how to break someone's leg in 9 places is not covered on the GCSEs!"

D'Arc cut into the argument smoothly. "We never said you were behind in your traditional subjects. Just your extracurriculars and now we have to catch you up even more."

"Killing people is not an extracurricular activity!"

"No, but learning how to is," Gordon commented from the ceiling.

"Shut up, Ross."

"Don't talk to your father that way, Old Bean, it's very disrespectful," Smithers said reproachfully.

D'Arc just nodded along, and Ross snorted loudly through the ceiling tiles. Alex went through what seemed to be all five stages of grief in a matter of seconds before sighing heavily. "I'm going to kill all of you. Every single one of you."

"That's the spirit, Alex!"

Of course, that ankle bracelet lasted an approximate four days (some time was lost between when Alex got it off and when he was found at a local pub), and naturally, Gordon was blamed for that.

"You taught him how to hack computers!"

"But not ankle bracelets." He paused. "I think."

"You think?! Did you seriously drink so much you don't remember what you've taught him?"

"Yermalov is the one who ran him into the ground so hard he had to hibernate like a bear! Why am I being yelled at for this?"

Smithers, of course, swiftly adjusted the ankle bracelet, and Alex was saddled with detention. As in, extra detention.

"Alex, mate, you alright?"

Tom watched Alex pour two Monsters into a thermos of coffee, take a sip, and then wince.

"No, Tom. I'm not alright. And I fear it may get worse."