i dont own any rights to the Alex Rider stories, or this story, this story it TheUlmuri
Part IX: Endurance Point
Alex had spent an extra hour at the shooting range the next day trying unsuccessfully to relieve the build up of emotions that desperately wanted to break free. He had come so close to snapping Mark's neck in the dojo that night-it had taken all of the restraint he had left to stop himself at a tight chokehold and to let the boy go. When he had treated to the back room, his hands had been visibly shaking with the effort that it had taken him and that lack of control scared him. He had noticed that Ben was there watching him while he was at the shooting range, but he had made no move to acknowledge him and Ben had not approached. He had seen the lines of worry etched on the man's face, but he knew that he was in no condition to talk. His pent up emotions were beginning to eat him alive.
Alex sighed as he came back to the present. He checked his watch, noticing that it was now an appropriate time for him to leave for school. More time than he had thought had passed while he had gotten lost in his memories and he would now make it to school with minutes to spare. It was fine with him-the team had a game after school and he had planned on skipping his morning lift to conserve energy anyway. He slowly pushed away from the table and made his way to the door, grabbing his car keys from the hall table as he went.
Twenty minutes later, Alex pulled into his spot in the parking lot and swiftly made his way to the school. Thankfully, the whispers and staring had lessened in the months since his return and there were few to notice his arrival in the near empty lot. He swiftly made his way to homeroom and took his place beside Tom.
"Hey, Al," his best friend said warily, and Alex nodded back silently in greeting, not missing the slight disappointed slump in Tom's posture and the quiet sigh. He knew he was hurting his best and only friend by shutting him out, but he couldn't find it in him to fight the reflex to pull away from everyone in the aftermath of what had happened. He wasn't a fool though; he knew his actions were straining their friendship to its breaking point.
Alex's neck prickled with the feeling of being watched. At this point it was a feeling that he had gotten used to, but the majority of the class had stopped staring weeks ago and was focusing on the teacher's lecture, so he sighed and turned to face the person whose gaze was boring into his back. His eyes immediately locked with the piercing blue and genuinely concerned gaze of Katie Windsor. Her gaze was searching, as if she was trying to look beyond the façade that he had projected for so long. As she looked at him, Alex felt as if the hairline fractures that already weakened his walls were beginning to connect and grow, and he turned quickly to face the front of the room, breaking her intense gaze.
After a few steadying breaths, Alex looked down to find that his hands were shaking from his effort to keep himself together and his mind wandered from the lecture. Katie and her boyfriend Brent were two of the few people that Alex had reconnected with after his secrets had been exposed when the school had been attacked the previous spring. Sabina's betrayal had caused him to push all of his friends away, damaging his revived and still fragile friendships with them once again. He knew that they were still waiting in the wings for him to push through his issues, since he wouldn't talk to them, but he wondered if there would ever come a time where he would ever be able to let his friends back in.
Katie and Brent were both scarily intuitive and it hadn't surprised Alex when the two of them had started dating a year and a half previously-they were two of a kind; intelligent, insightful, and more mature than the average teenager. He knew that if anyone was going to see through the failing front that he was putting up it would be one of them. Tom might be the person who he was closest to, but he was nowhere near as good at reading people as the other two were.
