A New Kind of Criminal (Troyler AU)

Chapter 5: You're In

Troye still wasn’t completely sure about these people. From what he’d seen so far, they were clearly dangerous. But, for some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Tyler was right, that he did want to stay.

“Alright.” Tyler said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s try to keep this down to one question each. We have things to do.” He nodded towards Zoe, gesturing for her to go first.

“Do you actually have any usefulness? Or do you just pass out when you get nervous?” She retorted bluntly.

For some reason, Troye didn’t think she liked him very much.

Tyler shot her a warning glare and she recoiled back into her seat immediately, still leaving the air open for his answer.

“Umm… I’m pretty good with knives. I can fence too.” Troye shrugged, not knowing what else he could offer.

She seemed slightly surprised, nodding her head and averting her glare away from Troye.

“Luca?” Tyler prompted, opening the floor to him for the next question.

“Why are you good with knives?” Luca asked enthusiastically, his eyes lighting up with the possibility of new information.

“Umm, my uncle was obsessed with old weapons when I was a little kid. He collected them. I used to stay summers with him, and I guess I played around a bit.” Troye shrugged his shoulders, not very comfortable discussing his own strengths.

Tyler sensed his slight discomfort and nodded towards Isabella for her question.

“Pass.” Isabella stated clearly.

Tyler paused, crinkling his eyebrows slightly before moving on to Alfie.

“I don’t have a question.” Alfie smiled. “But if we let him stay we’re gonna have to invest in an alarm clock.” He giggled at his own joke, ignoring the confused stares of his friends.

“Noted. Jesse?” Tyler moved on, ignoring Alfie’s laugh attack.

Jesse paused for a moment to think before opening his mouth. “You think you might be willing to put those knives to use for us?” His lips turned up in a smirk.

Troye’s eyes flitted around the room nervously, wondering if Jesse meant murdering people, until they finally landed on Tyler.

Tyler rolled his eyes. “You really have to work on your people skills Jesse.”

“Okay.” Tyler continued. “Let’s vote.”

“Wait.” Troye interrupted him. “Don’t you have a question?”

Troye watched the edge of Tyler’s lips curve up slightly into a small smirk.

“There’s no question to which the answer would change my vote. Besides, I prefer less blunt methods of getting to know a person.”

Troye felt a weird drop in his stomach at Tyler’s words. He couldn’t rip his eyes away from the man’s face as the vote was called. He didn’t even bother to look and see who voted. He didn’t hear anything until Tyler turned back to meet his eyes.

“Congratulations Troye. It’s unanimous. You’re in the Resistance.”

--

An hour later and Troye was still pretty much in the dark. He tried asking questions, but didn’t receive any good answers. All of them were cryptic and vague, sending shots of paranoia into his veins, making his heart race and palms sweat.

Jesse and Alfie had been whispering a conversation to each other for a while now, faces serious and grim. Tyler had gone back to his stoic attitude, hovering over paperwork with Zoe looking over his shoulder on the other side of the room. Luca and Isabella, the tech geniuses, had wandered off somewhere for reasons unknown to him. He was left alone with his thoughts, feeling out of place and oddly detached for being trapped in a room with six other people.