Page 93 of Strays
I figured. Most aegis retire as cops or soldiers. The other paths, like cage fighting and private security, aren’t exactly aspirational. Private security, when it involves aegis packs, usually means working for people knee-deep in criminal shit. I don’t want to think about it, but if we get convicted at the trial, cage fighting might be our only option. Doubt her family will be thrilled to meet us then.
So I dodge the subject. “Your uncles too?”
“Yes,” she frowns, catching my hesitation. “They work in Mountain Home. But when my grandparents told them I was there, they made the trip to meet me.”
I truly wish we could meet them, but hoping for anything feels dangerousnow. We try to keep the conversation light, but even Shane and Jay feel strained. I know we’re all thinking the same thing.
Jo picks up on it. “We’ll fight this,” she says firmly. “I talked to Alice after Jenna told me about the charges. I told her everything, and Jayme wants to help. He’s a great lawyer.”
That catches me off guard. Alice had been suspicious of us from the start. And just as she started warming up, this whole thing happened. I figured she’d hate us now.
“Doesn’t Alice think we’re dangerous and violent?” Jay asks.
“No,” Jo says, serious. “She said she would’ve punched Luc herself, if it were up to her. She doesn’t think it should be a crime for anyone to punch a douchebag who said what he said about me.”
That’s really surprising, in a good way.
“So what do you think?” Jo asks. “About Jayme.”
“He really wants to represent us? The department already assigned us someone,” I reply.
“He figured they would. But he says you can have both.”
Jay looks at me, then at Shane. “Wouldn’t hurt to have another lawyer.”
Yeah. It might be smart.
“Good,” Jo says, and I can see part of the tension ease in her shoulders. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”
After we finish eating, we head back to the housing unit. It’s just past seven-thirty, so there’s a game on. Shane grabs the remote and sinks into the couch, Jay and I sprawling out on either side of him.
“Are you guys watching basketball?” Jo asks, standing behind the couch.
I realize she doesn’t know about the portable hoop we installed in our yard, or the Saturday night games at the YMCA court.
“Yeah,” I answer. “We came to like it.”
She goes quiet for a moment, then says softly, “It’s a beautiful sport.”
She slips between Shane and me, settling in, and watches the entire game with us.
The next day, we wake up to my phone alarm blaring. After getting ready, we have breakfast together in the cafeteria, then head back to the housing unit to drop Jo off before making our way to the medical building.
Besides the usual blood they draw for all the tests, they run us through every kind of thing again: treadmill sprints with a mess of wires stuck to our skin, audiometry booths, vision tests where we have to describe flashing figures that blink across the screen in less than a second.
And this time, they throw in a full cognitive assessment too. We go through memory drills, reflex games, attention tests and logic puzzles. Most of it is familiar since we grew up doing this kind of stuff back in the Strays Program.
After we finish all the tests, they lead us to the waiting room. Last time, adoctor called us into his office less than an hour after we were done, but this time, they make us wait longer.
It’s past two in the afternoon when we’re finally called, but strangely, not by a human doctor. It’s an aegis officer. He tells us to report to the administrative building.
I glance at my brothers as we stand to follow the officer, and both of them look concerned, confused. We don’t know what this is about. When we enter the administrative building, the officer takes us straight to a room we’ve been in before: Deputy Commander Julius Eneas’ office.
Eneas doesn’t stand. He just looks up and nods. “Sit.”
We do.
He glances down at the tablet on his desk, taps once, then looks up. He studies us for a long moment before speaking. “About three months ago, one of my brothers brought me a risk assessment report with his name on it. A human captain from a small PD in Greenster, Pennsylvania, had submitted it directly to the MAB.”
