Chapter 14

A darkly amused look spread across his face as he watched them line up in front of the Balance Council. After this brief meeting, they'd all be sectioned off to their own personally mentors and taught how people like him were bad and people like them had the sun practically shining out of their asses. This was his favourite and most hated day of the year, because this was the day he had the slightest chance of luring one of his wife's precious adopted children into his camp. Or at least, that's what this day normally meant. This year, however, things were going to play out a little differently.

In amongst the new recruits he spotted the one he wanted. He was the tallest one there, with a framing curtain of half deflated curly blond hair around his face and eyes set with a watchful kind of knowingness. His leather jacket and relatively dark apparel would see him assigned to a mentor within the Shadows. The Shadows were his favourite, because they longed to rebel against the ridiculously austere Council they worked for. And they'd do anything to rebel, even if it meant siding with him. The amused look on his face spread out into a cruel smirk; they wouldn't know it, but they sided with him more often than they thought.

The new recruits were dispersing now. Eager to find out who his new little disciple was going to be mentored with, he began trailing him. Eventually they both arrived in a training room just south of the Shadows home base. The girl who greeted the recruit was tall, with long, neatly curled, chocolate coloured hair. Like the boy, she was also dressed in a leather jacket, but whereas his was worn at a trench coat length, hers was cut in a biker style. She also wore a short white t-shirt, which revealed a purple rose tattoo on her midriff, just above the low waist cut of her tight black jeans.

He couldn't help but chuckle to himself when he saw it, he'd been the one who had given it to her. Not that she knew that of course, but even so… Rolling his whole body backwards, he glamoured his appearance into the one she would recognise him as. He hadn't been lying to Mokuba when he said all the pieces he needed were in place. It was true, they were. It was just that his third playing piece wasn't the one he'd expected, but that was far from a bad thing.

'H H,' he pulled his disguised self out of the shadows, startling the new recruit, 'I thought I'd help you out with mentor duty this term.'

'Sure,' she nodded, then indicated towards the lad she was with, 'this is…'

It was pretty late in the day by the time Dayena arrived before him. The strange look in her eyes told him instantly she was displeased with him; fortunately for him he knew exactly why.

'Isn't it about the time when the new recruits are assigned to their mentors?' SK casually licked his lips. 'Shouldn't you be keeping an eye on your husband to make sure he's not messing with any of them?'

'Oh yes I should,' her voice was tight, 'and I would be if it wasn't for the fact you decided to start playing dangerous games with me.'

'Did I now?'

'Oh don't even try to act like him.'

'Like who?'

'Like Jay,' she half snapped at him. 'I don't care if he is a part of you; you're not him, nor will you ever be.'

'Of course not, I imagine if you were having this conversation with him you'd be a lot more relaxed about it.'

'You know why I'm here then?'

'Jay left me a lot of interesting reading Dayena,' he ran his tongue over his lips again, 'you shouldn't have told him so much whilst he was around.'

'Jay was my friend.'

'Like Tracker was you mean?'

'All six of the Trackers were Vii Sen and I get on with all my charges; you should know that.'

'I do, but from what I've ready you got on with one of them a whole lot better than the others.'

'I suppose Jay bothered to include why it happened?'

'Of course; he wouldn't leave out something as important as that.'

'You're trying your hardest to be like him, aren't you?' Dayena sighed, before half sitting herself down on the edge of his desk, picked up the file which had belonged to Jay and thumbed her way through it. 'She doesn't know that you know, does she?'

'If she does, she's not saying.'

'You know you can't talk to her about it, right?'

'I didn't bring her here to cause trouble Dayena.'

'Then why did you bring her here?'

Leaning back in his chair, he couldn't help but smirk as his eyes closely examined Dayena. He knew not telling her his reasoning was driving her crazy, he could sense that from the moment the silence had fallen between them. It was a strange thing for him to find himself enjoying, but he knew this was the kind of situation he would have to get used to soon enough.

'Well?' Dayena eventually pressed. 'Are you going to tell me why you chose her, out of everyone?'

'She was the top of her class.'

'So?'

'So obviously her intelligence impressed me.'

'There's more to it than that SK and you know it.'

Laughing slightly, he allowed his tongue to skate across his lips, before leaning towards her again.

'I can't say her genealogy doesn't interest me. I mean, that was my field of expertise whilst I was alive, wasn't it?'

'You're not being clever SK.'

'I'm not trying to be clever; I'm trying to be Jay.'

'Why?'

'What can I say, I'm about to embark on something no one in the history of the universe has been crazy enough to try before and there's only one person I want to do it in the name of.'

'Jay?' Dayena frowned at him curiously.

'Yeah,' he nodded, unable to hide his pride at the thought of it.

'But you have a chance to…'

'I have a chance to what?' SK interrupted her. 'Only I know what this really means, all the rest of you can do is guess wildly. So if I want to do this is Jay's name, then I should be allowed to. It's not like I'm ever going to get the rest of him back again anyway.'

'That's true,' she frowned, 'but I still don't understand your fascination with him.'

'You think it's a fascination?'

'You're not in love with him, are you?'

'No,' he shook his head, 'I'm not in love with him, but I am in love with the idea of him.'

'The idea of him?'

'His energy. His life. Everything he was, even the trouble that he was,' a sad smile suddenly filled his face. 'He was my best friend. I don't know how, but he was and, as insane as it sounds, he still is. That's why I have to do this for him.'

'You barely knew him and he was your best friend,' for a moment she looked almost confused, then a strange kind of light crossed her face. 'I guess he was like that.'

'You couldn't meet him and not be enthralled by him,' SK clasped his hands together, 'Jay was the kind of person who…'

'I understand,' she cut him off. 'But if you hurt her, even in his name, I'll never forgive you for it. Understand?'

'Of course Dayena, I understand perfectly.'