Future

Chapter 7: Friendship Lockdown

After our shared, intimate cuddle moment, Kail promptly ignored me for the entirety of the next day. A prison bust as usual, but Kail acted cold and distant, avoiding my eye contact and basically any question I asked directly to him. Okay, Kail. I get it. You want to be the straight, masculine team leader that everyone expects you to be. But I know for a fact that literally no one here is both straight and the gender they were designated at birth. Except Holli.

Side track: Apparently since I remember nothing of my previous life, people sometimes forget I'm in the room, or assume I can't remember anything else they tell me? For example, the moment when Pipe muttered "Shit, she's cute," after Holli left the room, or when Gael and Ebony decided to have a twin heart to heart about how each other's medical transitions were going (spoiler alert: progressing identically) and then fixing me with a death glare and warning me that no one must ever know. It was actually pretty creepy. The simultaneous head snap in my direction leading to the ominous warning spoken in unison, I mean, not the whole thing where they're transgender. I'm chill with that. Anyways, I pretty much know everything about everybody that they've never told anyone else. I could single-handedly dismantle this team, but I won't, because I'm nice.

The prison bust was the worst one that we have ever had the misfortune to complete. It's not that there was something unexpected there, it was more of our team ripping at the seams. Raine was disconnected from everything, so Gael and Ebony's efforts were going towards helping them, and then there was the whole thing with Kail ignoring me. Pipe and Holli were the only ones who were still kind of hanging on, which was getting harder for the two with Pipe's increasing discomfort towards her own sexuality and Holli's complete obliviousness that anything had changed between the two.

So basically we barely scraped through alive, and the prisoners we freed did most of the work since we were too uncoordinated to be any good. When we got to the safehouse, everyone knew that we had fucked up but didn't want to say anything, so we organized ourselves in the living room and waited for someone else to take control of the situation. Normally, Kail would have stepped in, but he was too busy brooding and trying to recuperate from his lapse in masculinity. Me? Bitter? No way!

Thankfully, Holli stepped in before I said anything too passive aggressive. "What the hell was that?!" So eloquent were her words that they roused a faint murmur of grumbling from the others.

"We fell apart, that's what," I piped up. "Teamwork went down the drain."

"Yeah! Sparkly's right! We need to take a break, lay low, no missions until we're back to normal! A friendship camp!" Holli squealed.

"That might not happen until we all start telling the truth around here... No matter how embarrassing it might be," I add, pretending to ignore the look of panic that comes across everyone's faces. Holy shit, I really am the secret keeper around here.

"Damn right Sparkly! So! Until we get back to a functional state, lock the doors! No one goes out until we're all better!" Holli was almost insanely excited about this. What, did she think we'd be making friendship bracelets or some shit? No, a team detox was going to be ugly. There's a reason a secret keeper is needed.

As Holli crossed to lock the door, a loud knock thudded from the other side. Holli stood on her tiptoes and looked through the peephole. Whatever she saw wasn't good, she turned to face us slightly pale. The knock thudded again. The door shook from the intensity. Were they kicking the door or some shit?

"Who is it?" Kail whispered.

"Carl! And that delinquint fuckhead's got a gun!" The soft clicking noises accompanied with six people simultaneously readying their guns echoed through the room. We all got to tactical positions (I was behind a couch). Finally, Carl got smart enough to try the handle, the unlocked door swinging open to reveal his small frame dwarfed by a massive gun.