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But later, someone who read the article asked the question: Where was his mate?
She hadn’t been spotted going out in a while. No one saw her at games or practice, though it had been common for her to go to both before – and quiet loudly too. Her outfits alone earned her a lot of attention. And they also made her absence more obvious.
Especially when Rane’s wardrobe suddenly changed back to his mother’s preferred colors.
That led to the follow up question of why Rane hadn’t been going out either. Aside from games and practice, he was never seen. Not even at the post-game celebration parties. He had become nearly as reclusive as her.
Those observations set off a fire storm of questions and concerns. Where was Sandy? Why had no one seen her? Was Rane’s sudden transformation really a result of her good influence, or was it something more sinister?
And as that question became popular, the very same gossip tabloids that had once stalked his every, degenerate movement switched their attention. Suddenly, Sandy was having an affair. Rane was having an affair. Sandy was actually an actress that wasn’t even human. Sandy had come down with an illness that couldn’t be cured. Sandy had left him, and he was going through a severe depression and was walking into death’s embrace.
Each theory was as ridiculous as the last and none of them had any real evidence, but all of them worked together to make that question more burning and relevant as his fame helped spread them all across the entirety of Levtiram.
Where was Sandy?!
By the time morning dawned and he had been blissfully imagining a life that wasn’t his while lying in bed, everyone had come to the conclusion that something awful had happened to Sandy and that it was Elffa who was covering it up.
After all, Rane couldn’t do anything. He wasn’t a legal adult. She had full and total guardianship over him and his mate both. So, if something had happened, then, ultimately, it was her fault.
It was the first time that Rane’s guardianship had ever turned against her. Even when he was passed out in a puddle, too high to understand anything, being dragged by Orza and Kirs back to the hover, that hadn’t been Elffa’s fault. She was just a long-suffering mother, losing her son to his vices despite all her best attempts.
But Sandy wasn’t him. Sandy was a foreigner. Sandy had been seen on camera with him in an arcade like they were younglings. Sure, her style was eclectic, and his had become so as well as a result, but she was otherwise known to be kind and harmless.
There was nothing Elffa could do to prevent the backlash from landing on her. And that’s why Rane was here now, seated before all these reporters, his mother’s hissed warning still hot in his ears. He had to make this go away. She didn’t care about scandals before, so long as he was the only one wrapped up in it. But now it was affecting her. All the weapons she had used against him all his life were pointing her way, and she was just as helpless against them as he had been.
“Rane, where is Sandy?!”
Multiple different voices, all asking variations of the same question, called out to him the moment he sat down. They were doing an excellent impression of sounding concerned, even as he spotted the vicious excitement in their gazes.
This story was better than his usual, drunken hijinks. This was new. This was scandalous. This was views and ratings gold! They didn’t care about Sandy at all, and they probably even hoped it was something terrible so they could report on it and get more attention.
Rane honestly wasn’t sure what to say as he faced the initial onslaught. His immediate instinct, to beg for their help and bring his mate back to him, wouldn’t work. Kirs was here – for the first time in Rane’s life, surreptitiously hanging back and trying to make himself unseen, the way a bodyguard was supposed to.
But Orza was with Sandy. He would be right beside her, watching the press conference live. If Rane messed up, if things got worse, he was under orders to immediately strike her down.
Elffa was in too deep. Defrauding the guardianship was a crime classified as kidnapping. And if it got out that she had manipulated Rane’s entire life to keep control of him, all the things she had done to him – the abuses, the drugs, the lies – the kidnapping charge would be the least of her worries. Adding a murder charge to it wouldn’t be all that worse.
Rane could bring her down now, but the cost would be too high for both of them. They were standing with blades at each other’s necks, waiting to see who moved first.
“Sandy is fine,” Rane said, his voice strong and confident. “She’s at the manor. To my dismay, she recently found out about my past and it has brought her great shame. She does not want to be seen with me anymore, and I must respect her wishes.”
Chapter 33
Sandy
“Seriously, what are you getting paid?”
Sandy couldn’t hear the lies falling so confidently from Rane’s lips anymore. The way he was disparaging himself struck her heart like physical blows. He was using the past Elffa forced him to live as a reason that she had come to hate him and was making him suffer. He deserved this. Sandy was blameless; he was worthless.
Her teeth were going to break if she clenched them any harder, so she did the only thing she could to try to drown out the sounds of the press conference playing off Blue’s combot – she actually talked to the reptilian male.
And, predictably, she got no response.
Orza and Kirs could speak. She knew they could. In the beginning, they’d spoken to her to get her to follow them. However, most of the time, they said nothing and just forced her or Rane to do what they wanted by physically yanking them around.
Orza didn’t show any signs of hearing her, or even caring, as he continued watching the press release without a single change in his stiff, scaley expression.
“Is it money, or just the love of the game?” She continued. “I imagine there’s not many job offerings where you get to literally torture people for money. You and Green must have been really excited to find one that did.”
