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Then, just like that, she was gone. She would be sent to Holotulle, capital of the Coalition, and her punishment would be determined there. She might have been able to remain on Levtiram had her crimes only been against him. But the moment she brought Sandy here under false pretenses, she’d begun walking a path of high crimes, and now she might never return.
He could only stand there for a moment, staring at the spot in the floor she had vanished through, and feel strange. He wouldn’t call it bad. He certainly wouldn’t miss her, but there was still something bitter about seeing his mother carried away like that.
“Rane?”
That melancholy immediately faded at the sound of his mate’s voice. He turned to see her and his team and Drevor – all of them standing there, giving him different looks. But he didn’t really care about the others.
“Sandy!” He rushed for her at the same moment she ran to him, arms open.
She threw herself at him, laughing. He caught her happily, holding her tight as her legs locked around his waist, kissing all over his face. He clutched her close as he looked over her shoulder. His teammates were there, relief on their faces. Drevor appeared unimpressed, but he seemed unimpressed with most things, so that seemed right too.
“Hey, Rane,” Sal started, approaching him cautiously.
“Hey,” he returned, still holding onto Sandy. She showed no signs of letting go, and he was quite happy to never let go of her again
Sal hesitated, crest pressed tight to his scalp. “I’m… I’m glad that it worked.”
“What worked?”
“The plan.” Sal gave him a grimacing, half smile. “Lisra thought of it. When Sandy stopped sending her messages, she knew something had gone wrong, but we weren’t really sure what to do. If we even should do anything. We knew she said she was worried, but we also knew that nothing was really going to happen to her. We were so sure of it. That’s why we were asking you those questions at practice. We needed to make sure things weren’t right before we did something drastic.”
“Drastic…” Rane blinked. “Wait, are you all the reason that everything suddenly blew up in the media?”
Sal smirked as the others crossed their arms over their chests. That gleam in their eyes was familiar to him. It was the one he saw after the successful completion of a play. They had planned, implemented, and performed everything perfectly, and they were unabashedly proud.
“It was you,” Rane whispered. “You prompted that story. All those questions…”
“Wasn’t easy,” Arus chuckled, his hot pink crest up high. “No one wanted to write a good article about you. Took us forever to find someone willing to do it.”
“No, that was the easy part,” Louve countered, crossing his arms. “The actual hard part was getting everyone online to start asking questions. We had to do most of it ourselves. Making new accounts and paying a few people to make their own posts.”
“I didn’t like that part,” Torou frowned. “We had to talk badly about you a couple times. But it did work!”
“People began talking on their own,” Sal smirked. “And, as it turns out, there was actually plenty of support for you besides us. Everyone just kept saying that there’s no way your mate changed you so drastically and, just like that, everything was over.”
“Especially with all the footage going around,” Zell laughed. “The arcade and the gravity jump and all the fashion channels that talked about what you two would wear. It was all too much to say ended just like that. Especially without you spiraling again, Rane.”
“If we got off topic, we just used our many accounts to steer the conversation back,” Sal took over. “We had to bribe a couple news stations to press your mother in the beginning, but when she got defensive, they smelled the story on their own, and we couldn’t keep them back.”
“You… did all that?” Rane asked.
“It was a team effort,” Sal chuckled. “And Sandy had already laid the groundwork. It was clear by the way she talked in the videos that she already knew about your guardianship, so no one was buying that she just found out why. Made it easy to take over, actually. We weren’t sure if it would work, or if it was the right thing to do, but…” Sal reached over and clapped his shoulder – the one Sandy wasn’t currently resting her face on. “I only wish you could have come to us sooner. I wish we could have heard you before things got that bad.”
“I… I should have tried harder to tell you,” Rane admitted. “Back when things weren’t so bad. Back before all the animosity and distrust and uncertainty. Before I was too ashamed to speak. Before you believed all the things my mother said about me.”
Sal shook his head. “No. I know you, Rane. I knew you. I should have known something was wrong. Well, something besides what Elffa made us believe. I thought that’s what was wrong. I… She was just so convincing. When she told us that you were acting out, that she was scared for you, I believed her because I felt the same way. But I should have looked closer. I should have-”
“Alright,” Arus interjected, laughing. “Let’s just agree that we were all fools.”
“We also have a championship game in, like, two days,” Louve added dully.
“The game!” Rane cried out in dismay. “We haven’t practiced at all!”
“We can make up for that,” Sal assured him. “And if we don’t win the championship this year, I don’t think it really matters. We already won.”
Rane blinked, surprised. But then he looked down at his mate, still clinging to him so desperately. He was free. She was free. No victory had ever been as sweet.
“Yeah,” he agreed, stroking her back. “I think we did.”
