High Energy Collision [Completed]

Chapter 46 - You Get What You Give

No, Mean, what are you doing?

Viola needed to control herself not to reach over the table and strangle her best friend. She had thought they had planned all of this, and they had decided that they would observe the Black Hand leader for a while, before confronting her.

Why would he give up their advantage so easily?

She could guess that he must have been spooked by her stab in the dark, calling Plan and Win his boyfriends – but... couldn't Mean see that this had just been a wild guess? Like Laure had been doing all along?

It was bad enough that Mean had been looking at Plan with heart-eyes for most of the meal.

"Who says I have a problem with you?"

Ah, Viola could punch that smug face.

"Oh, please," Mean answered, and Viola saw him dramatically roll his eyes. She doubted that she would be able to contain the damage, if Mean was in this type of mood. "As if we didn't know you've been trying to undermine me for months."

The problem wasn't that they didn't have enough proof that Laure was the Black Hand leader, or that they were powerless against her.

They weren't.

The problem was that they needed a compelling way to get her to talk and then shut up. It didn't help if she just stayed smug like that.

"Is that so?"

Before Viola could say something, she caught Mean's eyes, and noticed him slowly shaking his head at her.

It... of course.

He was the one being attacked, he was the leader, he had a right to... but... ah, she had agreed not to meddle in his things anymore. It was just hard... idly sitting by.

"Did you really think you could come here with the five of us, and we wouldn't figure out who you are?" Mean asked.

The self-satisfied smirk on the girl's face gave Viola chills.

There was something... something they were all missing. It looked like Laure had anticipated that they would know about her being the Black Hand leader – and she looked so unaffected that it planted doubts even into Viola's mind.

"Oh, interesting," Laure answered smugly. "Who am I?"

What made Viola doubt even more, though, was how Mean seemed to completely miss the cues – and looked triumphant.

Didn't he see?

No... no, he couldn't!

If she interfered now, she would only undermine Mean, and that wouldn't help. It was like watching a train wreck happen right in front of your eyes.

"You wrote these blog posts about us, you sent those idiots after us... you're the Black Hand leader," Mean said.

Viola observed Laure's reaction closely. There was a small twitch at the edge of her mouth.

"If you think so?"

"I don't just think so," Mean replied. "I know."

He pointed at the still unlocked phone Laure had carelessly put in front of her – and the failed connection to her blog that was still open.

"You tried to log into your anonymous blog just now," Mean said. "You should be more careful if you try to mess with an Engineering student."

Laure snorted.

Viola grew more and more concerned about her indifferent attitude. Either, she had a poker face to rival her own, or Laure had an ace up her sleeve that they hadn't found, yet.