Zodiac Academy

25. Recruit

  "Wait!" I slammed my hands against the cafeteria table. "You're telling me that the rebels have already set up some defenses?" I hissed.

  Jaxson pulled me back down to my chair. "Yes," he whispered, "since yesterday. And talk quieter than that, for Sign's sake."

  "Why didn't you tell me that yesterday? When I told you I was going to help you?"

  "I don't know." He moved his food around the tray.

  I huffed. "Whatever. So, what do they plan on doing, exactly?"

  One shoulder lifted and dropped in a half-attempt at a shrug. "They are surrounding the academy and I assume once they have an infallible defense they'll barge in here guns ablaze."

  I stared at the teenage boy beside me. "Sometimes you talk like a dude who plays too many video games."

  That got a chuckle from him. "And sometimes you talk like a dude."

  I shook my head and began to eat the rest of the food on my tray. How are they going to surround the academy? The property isn't exactly small. They would need a lot of people. I don't think they could gather that many people in a short enough amount of time for the Zodiacs not to notice something is going on.

  Then again, if they had their own Magic Manipulations, they could do things a lot quicker. I wasn't sure if your Magic faded after being kicked out of the System. I hadn't had much contact with those people. The first I had ever seen a person like them was when the Signs Dance had been interrupted by them. And the Zodiacs surely didn't mention anything about the Signs that had been kicked out.

  Even if they had the thought that they could destroy the System altogether, how did they plan on going on about that? You couldn't exactly just take every student and twelve present head Zodiacs hostage and do the rest from there. They would escape easily. Especially if more than half the school supported the System.

  "Do you really think it'll go down like that?" I asked.

  Jaxson snorted. "No. They don't have guns. They'll most likely use their Magic to their advantage and just outmatch them. You would be surprised how many people are against taking babies."

  "Not really. I wouldn't be happy if my baby was taken from me. Zodiac or not. I think that was always a little over the top. But I had always believed it could be tweaked."

  "You can't just tweak rules in the System, Aqua."

  I shoved the orange tray away from me. "If you believe so. Are you done?"

  He tossed his fork on his tray. It was still half-filled with food. He had left his beans, chicken, and muffin. "Yeah. Let's go."

  I grabbed his muffin and followed him out of the cafeteria. The Taurus behind the counter eyed me as I left. Honestly, he had been staring at me the entire time I had been in here. I felt like going over there with muffin in my mouth and spitting while I asked what was wrong.

  The door shut behind us, so I tried to forget about the guy behind the counter. It wasn't like I owed him an explanation. We had talked once. That didn't mean I owed him anything.

  "When does Char leave the club?"

  Jaxson looked at me from the corner of his eye. "It depends on whenever he wants to leave. He's only the watch guard for two hours before someone switches shift with him. After that, he usually hangs out by the bar for the rest of the night. Then he plays the violin in the morning for the people who had hangovers and stayed there overnight to get them to leave."