Madden was staring at his cuticles, clearly bored, and Kel—
Rin sucked in a breath and looked away. The bastard had been watching him. Again.
“There’s an actual killer?” another cadet, Rose, asked.
Banks nodded. “The murderer was selected and told in secret at the beginning of the semester. They’ve been given a separate information packet with all of the locations and things they need to do and had a few extra weeks to go over it. Their assignment is to keep their identity hidden and not get caught. The case needs to be solved, of course, and we’ve ensured that it’s doable, if you’re smart. So there won’t be any repercussions for the murderer when it is. However, if one of you happens to physically catch him on one of the crime scenes…this cadet fails the assignment.”
“It’s one of us?” Brennon turned to look over his shoulder. “And they’ll be flunked? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“You’re overestimating yourself, cadet,” Banks stated wryly. “This student was chosen specifically for their ability to blend. Here are the rules, before any of you get any bright ideas. The murderer is not allowed to tell anyone who they are. Period. Doing so will result in immediate failure and a demerit. If your team is able to solve the case and report a name, you are forbidden from sharing this with any of your class, unless you worked together from the start. Doing so will result in the same punishment. We take this very seriously. It’s an important part of your training and you will respect the process or I will ensure you are swiftly, and sufficiently, punished, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they all agreed.
“You may begin. Remember this can last for the entire semester, but only those teams who place within the top eight will receive benefits.” Banks headed straight for his office, as though he couldn’t wait to get the hell away from them. He slammed the door behind him for good measure, and as soon as he did, the tension in the room burst like a flimsy bubble.
“Yikes,” Brennon turned to Rin. “I’d hate to be the murderer.”
“Banks is right,” Calder rolled his eyes, “You don’t stand a chance of catching him.”
“I might!”
“You won’t,” Rin joined in with a laugh, sticking his tongue out when that earned him a glare. He chuckled and was in the process of opening the file on his device when a familiar shadow settled over him and he tensed a second before a heavy arm dropped across his shoulders.
Kelevra smiled at his friend's shocked expressions, tucking Rin against his side, clearly ignoring the way he’d gone stiff upon contact. “Should we go over the case file with Madden and his cadet?”
“Uh,” Calder glanced between them and then stepped back, searching for his senior. The second he spotted him, he sent them a wave. “Later.”
Brennon lingered a moment longer but ended up doing the same, ditching Rin.
With a low growl, he shook Kelevra’s hold off him and turned, glare already set in place.
Madden and Tine were standing just behind him, the two watching the exchange the same way many of the other people in the room were. Meaning Rin had to keep up appearances or risk rumors spreading throughout the school.
Damn it.
His expression eased into one of false friendliness. “Sure, why not.”
The rules were they couldn’t share the results, not that they couldn’t help each other out.
Not that either senior ended up being much help.
The four of them took a corner of the gymnasium, seated high up on the bleachers while the rest of the cadets fanned out. There was no time limit, so technically they were all free to go whenever they pleased, but it seemed like most people had the same idea as Rin and wanted to at least go over the material and get a feel for their mentors.
The feeling with both his and Tine was they were going to be pretty useless.
Madden spent the entire time playing some shooting game on his emblem-slate, humming noncommittally whenever Tine asked him about a specific detail in the case file he and Rin were combing over.
At least that was better than what Kelevra was doing.
The Imperial Prince was leaning forward, an elbow propped on his thigh as he watched Rin. Not in the paying attention sort of way either. In the creepy, stalker kind of way.
Rin would have snapped at him for it if they’d been alone, but as it were, he was forced to act like it didn’t bother him. He went over the material with Tine, trying to focus so they could get this over with and he’d have a good enough reason to leave.
“You think he’s only going after female students?” Tine asked, scrolling through the holographic file so that a stream of text rolled by before he stopped at a certain paragraph. “They’re all from Guest. Aren’t you friends with some of them?”
Guest was the fine arts academy Arlet and some other people Rin had met over the summer attended.
He’s received a reply back from her saying she was free later tonight to get drinks, but with Kel watching him so closely, Rin hadn’t messaged her to confirm yet.
