Unwind (Unwind Dystology 1)

"I . . . was wondering why you're sitting by yourself."

"Ah, so you're also my shrink."

"We're supposed to be a couple. If we're going to keep up the image, you can't be entirely antisocial."

Connor looks out over the groups of kids, busy in various morning activities. Risa follows his gaze. There's a group of kids who hate the world, and spend all day spewing venom. There's a mouth-breathing kid who does nothing but read the same comic book over and over again. Mai is paired off with a glum spike-haired boy named Vincent, who's all leather and body piercings. He must be her soul mate, because they make out all day long, drawing a cluster of other kids who sit there and watch.

"I don't want to be social," Connor says. "I don't like the kids here."

"Why?" asks Risa, "They're too much like you?"

"They're losers."

"Yeah, that's what I mean."

He gives her a halfhearted dirty look, then looks down at his drawing, but she can tell he's not thinking about the girl— his head is somewhere else. "If I'm off by myself, then I don't get into fights." He puts down the nail, giving up on his etching. "I don't know what gets into me. Maybe it's all the voices. Maybe it's all the bodies moving all around me. It makes me feel like I've got ants crawling inside my brain and I want to scream. I can stand it just so long, then I blow. It happened even at home, everyone was talking at once at the dinner table. One time, we had family over and the talk got me so crazy, I hurled a plate at the china hutch. Glass blew everywhere. Ruined the meal. My parents asked me what got into me, and I couldn't tell them."

That Connor is willing to share this with her makes her feel good. It makes her feel closer to him. Maybe now that he has opened up, he'll stay open long enough to hear what she has to tell him.

"There's something I want to talk about."

"Yeah?"

Risa sits beside him, keeping her voice low.

"I want you to watch the other kids. Where they go. Who they talk to."

"All of them?"

"Yeah, but one at a time. After a while you'll start to notice things."

"Like what?"

"Like the kids who eat first are the ones who spend the most time with Roland—but he never goes to the front of the line himself. Like the way his closest friends infiltrate the other cliques and get them arguing so they break apart. Like the way Roland is especially nice to the kids that everyone else feels sorry for—but only until nobody feels sorry for them anymore. Then he uses them."

"Sounds like you're doing a class project on him."

"I'm being serious. I've seen this before. He's power hungry, he's ruthless, and he's very, very smart."

Connor laughs at that. "Roland? He couldn't think himself out of a paper bag."

"No, but he could think everyone else into one, and then crush it." Clearly that gives Connor pause for thought. Good, thinks Risa. He needs to think. He needs to strategize.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're his biggest threat."

"Me?"

"You're a fighter—everyone knows that. And they also know that you don't take crap from anyone. Have you heard kids mumbling about how someone oughta do something about Roland?"

"Yeah."

"They only say that when you're close enough to hear. They're expecting you to do something about him—and Roland knows it."

He tries to wave her off, but she gets in his face.

"Listen to me, because I know what I'm talking about. Back at StaHo there were always dangerous kids who bullied their way into power. They were able to do it because they knew exactly who to take down, and when. And the kid they took down the hardest was the one with the greatest potential for taking them down."