Puppet {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 34

Ian had been in bed for several weeks now. He slept often, ate little, and wasn't talking as much as he used to according to Arthur. He was understandably worried about his brother, in fact it seemed the entire rebellion was concerned for his health and mental state, and adding on all of the strain surrounding the Con Rồng and the newly discovered Fer-de-Lance, it just made the entire situation about a hundred times worse. The Phoniks Vidroh was not currently a calm and happy place to be.

I was making friends at the least. I'd been spending a little more time with Dakota and Cass, occasionally Jayden when he wasn't working. He liked to just show up at the gym sometimes to watch the soldiers working, helping when he could and generally being a decent guy. Roman would complain about him a lot, saying he'd be a better military leader than Jayden was, but I adamantly disagreed with that. I doubt anyone could be better in the position than Jayden.

Lately I only saw Cass at dinner or when he came to spar with Dakota and I. He'd been doing a lot of searching around at the Black Market, scavenging for more information on the Asper, and when he wasn't doing that he was helping Arthur take care of Ian or sticking by Kailas to try and piece together the whole situation with our new rival.

Malachi was a bit more predictable, he was either with Kailas and Cass helping with the gathering of information, or hanging around Arthur. Ever since we brought back our prisoner he'd been wary of letting Arthur wander alone, and I wasn't all that surprised.

Gale was still the ever mysterious one, but at least I could understand why people were so wary around him. He was odd and quiet and just a generally strange guy; he stared into space a lot and sometimes walked into door frames like an idiot. Gale tended to stay close to Jayden's side at all times, but I got the distinct feeling it was more like Jayden was watching Gale since he could be rather spacy. He'd probably walk all the way to China if Jayden weren't there to grab the back of his shirt when he was wandering off randomly.

Lately the only times I saw Kailas were at dinner and in our bedroom. I didn't mind. Much. I would have preferred to stay beside him more often, especially with that rat from Fer-de-Lance still in the cells, far too close to Kailas than I would have liked, but he insisted I needed to do my own thing. That meant training with the men, reading up on the past ten years in the real world, walking around the settlement and getting to know the rebellion, and my personal favorite, get along with people.

Goody.

Currently me getting along with people consisted of throwing said person over my shoulder and onto their stomach before pressing my knee into their spine during a spar. Said person happened to be Dakota, who had asked me to show him a few things that might be useful to him in future fights. I got the feeling he felt pretty useless after getting bested three times out on the field, so I decided to help him out. Going easy on him was not in the contract though.

"You want me to what?" I was asking, talking to Arthur as I kept Dakota pinned effortlessly against the matt.

Arthur was standing a few feet away with Malachi at his back, and Jayden was sitting on a bench in front of us with Gale, both of whom had decided they wanted to watch Dakota and I train.

"Talk to Ian. Please?"

"What for?" I continued to question the doctor, "I'm not good at talking to people."

"Would you get offa me already?!" Dakota shrilled, but I ignored him.

"I know that, it's just he won't talk to me about what happened when he was imprisoned with the Con Rồng," Arthur tried to justify his request, "I figured that since you were there too then you could... I don't know, help him?"