Immaculate

Thrown under the bus

Sean's POV

I was not going to let him ruin this. I stalked to the end of the corridor and opened my phone app and punched at the screen.

"Sean? Is everything alright with Sang?"

I took a deep breath, realising I had alarmed him.

"She's fine, Phil, she's more responsive and is staying awake for longer periods of time."

"Excellent, well, it's all in hand to have her transferred here, just let us know when you want to start the ball rolling."

"Wonderful, I appreciate it, Phil, I really do," I drew another deep breath. "I just spoke to Owen, he has a meeting with an Academy committee, are you on it?"

"Not this time," he said and I heard a clatter in the back ground. "As far as I know he's requested an individual meeting. You know I won't know who is on it, what's the problem?"

"He's self destructing," I said bluntly. "Blames himself."

"I went through the whole thing with Axel, Sean, and when it comes down to it, he used a non-member. She might be adopted, but she's still not trained for this sort of thing."

Anger rippled through me.

"So you blame him too?" I demanded sharply.

"No, I'm just saying I can see why he blames himself. I think you were in too deep in that school and that the Academy should have been much more help than it was. There was so much more going on in that school than anyone was aware of. First hint of those bomb threats and we should have been all over it, instead of letting your team carry on. You have one of the strongest teams, you know this, but those boys are still teenagers."

"It was why we were perfect for the job," I reminded him. "You couldn't send the girls in, Axel's team is too old, so is Harry's and none of the others wanted to touch it."

"I know and that will go along way, Sean, believe me. The Academy are just pleased that the whole thing has been resolved. With Hendricks and McCoy out, the bad teachers can be weeded out. With a new principal, a new teaching staff and the governor will have his new school built before he knows it. It's a win situation, Sean, Sang is ok, it was a close call, but she is alright and they will probably gloss over it. He won't be in too much trouble, if that's what worries you. They realised they should have been much more proactive with you in there."

"It's not them that worries me, it's him," I said and felt a twinge of guilt for talking outside of our family. But we needed him, Sang needed him and I would do whatever it took to kick some sense into his thick skull.

"Because he's blaming himself, and this is Owen we're talking about here," he said and sighed heavily. "What do you think he's going to do?"

"Leave the Academy," I said bluntly and heard his intake of breath. "He's scared they're going to break up the team, so he's going to blunder in there and sacrifice himself so that we can stay together, the damn idiot!"

"They won't break up your team," he said with a snort. "They aren't that stupid, Sean. Oh, they may bluster a bit for show, but they won't want to lose your team, believe me. If you lot put up a united front, tell them straight that you answer as a team, that you did the best you could in the circumstances you were given. That Sang was fully aware of what she was doing and what might happen. They'll bluster, but they will back down, they won't risk losing the whole team over it."

"Which is what we would love to do, but our illustrious leader, at the moment has his head up his ass and is refusing to let us deal with it as a team.... can you put a halt on the meeting, just until we can get Sang settled at the Municiple? Give us some time to work on his thick skull?"