The fifth round came to an end, and the doors leading back into each team's zone slid open to let everyone back in.
Students poured through the entrance, in scattered groups. The conversations were livelier than in previous rounds. The chase was the main topic of those discussions.
Alexander barely heard any of it. His breathing was still heavier than he wanted it to be as he stepped through the entrance. He kept his mouth closed but inhaled and exhaled heavily through his nose.
The moment he entered, conversations nearby noticeably quietened. Most of, if not all, of the eyes in the room drifted to him.
Nobody approached him. No one knew him well enough to casually start a conversation. And after everything that happened to him in the last round, he wasn't giving off the approachable type of aura.
Alexander walked past everyone and made his way to the table. He dug into his pocket, took out the vaccine and placed it on the table with an open palm. After dropping off what he got, he continued walking until he reached a wall.
He turned around and leaned back into the wall. He could've sat down, but he didn't want to. He didn't want to look that tired,
Yes, he is that prideful.
"That shouldn't have been that close," he thought, tilting his head down and vacantly staring at the floor. "That wasn't thirty seconds. That felt too long... I did so much. There's no way."
His body was still feeling the effects of it all.
The running, climbing, jumping, wrestling, everything.
He was well-trained, so a 30-second jam-packed run shouldn't have felt like this, but it felt like he'd run a 5k in record time.
"That guy..." his thoughts drifted back to Ryan. "He's lucky he got a hold of me. I was off guard for one second and he got me," he thought, digging his nails into his palm, replaying that moment in his head. "He really thought he could've touched my wristband. He was never going to touch it."
Alexander being held like that annoyed him so much. He hated how helpless he felt. If there wasn't a wristband around his wrist that would eliminate him from a single touch, he was confident he would've thrown Ryan off him easily. Despite that, he was annoyed that he couldn't throw him off with the wristband.
His expression remained perfectly neutral, but inside his head, another word kept repeating louder than everything else.
Flaws. Flaws. Flaws.
"Alexander... are you alright?"
A voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
He slowly lifted his head. Standing a couple of steps away was a blonde-haired boy he didn't know.
"I'm fine," he calmly replied, looking into his eyes.
"I got some water here if you want it," Owen said with an accommodating smile, holding the water out. "I drank a bit, but you can have the rest."
Alexander's eyes briefly flickered to the bottle.
A sip of water would be perfect for him right now.
"I don't need it."
His pride answered for him.
Alexander wanted the water, but he didn't want to take anything from anyone. If he was offered the water right after the chase, he would've taken it in a heartbeat. Right now, he wasn't that desperate. However, as soon as the next round started, he was making his way to get a water bottle.
Owen glanced at his face. "You sure?" he asked, still holding out the bottle, bringing it slightly closer to him. "I saw how much you had to run. That was intense."
"I'm sure. I've already got my breath back," Alexander said, pushing himself off the wall and standing up straight.
Owen studied him for another second before lowering the bottle, "If you're sure."
"I am," Alexander needlessly answered, giving Owen eye contact.
Owen was the only person standing near Alexander while everyone else was watching the interaction nearby.
Across the room, leaning against the wall opposite Alexander, Ace had his hands in his pockets, watching the whole thing. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. He had to do his best not to watch with a toothy grin. It was like a kid being giddy about not getting caught doing something naughty.
No one knew it was him.
BEEP!
"The student who put the hit on Alexander was Ace on the yellow team."
Well… they didn't know it was him.
Heads slowly spun to Ace. One after the other.
When most of the heads were pointed in his direction, the toothy grin came out of hiding on Ace's face.
"Tsk. Motherfuckers," Ace slowly cursed everyone behind the announcement under his breath.
The silence shattered, and the room exploded into voices. A collection of noise targeted at Ace.
"What the fuck was that?!"
"You nearly got him eliminated!"
"The hell's wrong with you?!"
People surged towards him, giving him a piece of their minds.
Alexander stayed in place and locked onto Ace from across the room. He knew who Ace was because he'd made himself known in 1-A, but other than that he knew nothing about him.
"Why?"
Was the only thought in Alexander's mind. That genuinely bamboozled him because Ace had no reason whatsoever to do that. Putting aside the challenge, Ace and Alexander had hardly interacted. The only explanation that made sense to him was that Ace was jealous, but even that didn't satisfy him.
"Why would you do that!?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you!?"
"What's your problem!?"
Ace barely reacted to all the people shouting in front of him.
"Ladies. Ladies," he said, raising his arms, trying to calm them down, despite most of them shouting at him being guys.
That obviously didn't go down well.
Someone pushed through the crowd and stood right in front of Ace.
"What is wrong with you?" Mark frowned as he stepped in front and pushed his face up close to him. "You could've picked anyone in this challenge, yet you picked our teammate. Why the fuck would you do that?"
Ace tilted his head back away from Mark's. "Why not? It's funny," he shrugged with a smirk.
The casual answer only ticked everyone off even more.
"What's funny about that?" Mark asked, throwing his arms up. "You sabotaged us."
"He survived," Ace replied, gesturing to Alexander. "We can all laugh about it."
"Whose team are you on?" Anya snapped at him.
Ace looked at her and smiled wider.
"My own."
That response only put gasoline on the fire. Everyone started shouting over one another, wanting Ace to know how they felt.
"Is this our downfall?" Nicole said, watching the chaos from a safe distance.
"I hope not," Maria replied. "Alexander didn't get eliminated, so we're still good."
"He might try something else," Nicole said, nodding to Ace. "I kinda figured he wasn't okay in the head every time he spoke to us, but this is a whole other level."
Maria laughed softly. "1-A has some interesting people," she said, flicking glances between Alexander and Ace. "Think we're going to be relying on you a lot more now."
"Please don't say," Nicole calmly said. "I don't know how I got dragged into being the carrier in the first place."
"Because a lot of people like you," Maria replied. "I'm surprised at how popular you are."
"I'm surprised too. I have no idea how this happened," Nicole honestly said, playing around with her wristband.
"Everyone talks to you. You're more popular than me," Maria joked.
Nicole smiled, "I feel like our populars are different."
Alexander finally composed himself internally. The adrenaline from the chase had almost completely disappeared. His heart had settled, and his blood had stopped frantically rushing around his body.
He, like most people, had their eyes on Ace. Alexander wasn't the confrontational type, so he wasn't going to go up to Ace and question why he did what he did. He did want to know why he put a hit on him, but he wasn't that curious to let his pride take a hit.
Suddenly the automatic doors slid open. A teacher slowly walked inside without saying a word. They approached the table and stopped in front of it.
BEEP!
"As we approach the final stages of the challenge. We want to make this more competitive and interesting. You can now choose another person on your team to be a carrier."
The teacher placed the wristband on the table. A wristband that looked exactly like everybody else's. No words were said, and they left through the same automatic doors they came in.
Everyone glanced at each other at how random that was.
"Your job got a lot easier," Maria said, lightly bumping Nicole's shoulder with her own.
"Does that mean I don't have to try to infect people anymore?" Nicole asked, her voice carrying a bit of hope.
Maria smiled wider, "No, you still have to try."
"I volunteer as tribute!"
The girls turned to the declaration. It didn't come as much of a surprise seeing Ace with his hand up. His face was still plastered with the mischievous grin he used to reply to everyone's rage.
"You're not being the carrier," Owen said, finally walking up to him with the wristband he collected from the table in hand.
"Who made you the boss?" Ace asked, tilting his head, his eyebrows knitting.
"I'm not the boss," Owen replied, lifting his shoulders. "But everyone can agree with me that you're not being the carrier."
Cheers of yeah and agreement followed to support what Owen said. A handful of students laughed, while others nodded. The response was unanimous.
Ace's grin remained, although there was a faint look of disappointment behind it.
"Y'all are boring as fuck," Ace said judgmentally.
"Boring that we want to win?" Mark asked, furrowing his brows.
"This is boring as fuck man," Ace replied, throwing his hands up and turning away.
A few people mockingly laughed at Ace, wanting to get under his skin more.
"Don't bother with him," Anya said, turning away from him.
Owen saw that Ace wasn't going to work together, so he turned to everyone else on the team and left him alone.
"Does anyone want to be the carrier?" he asked everyone openly.
The question stayed in the air for a while. No one spoke up. Whispers of other names were what came out of everyone's lips.
Owen waited, knowing no one was going to volunteer, seeing that everyone was avoiding him.
"Alexander," Owen called out. "Do you want to be the carrier? I know it would be obvious to pick you, but it could work as a double bluff."
Alexander stared at Owen for a moment while everyone waited for an answer.
"No, it wouldn't work," he efficiently replied.
That response came out harsher than it sounded. There was nothing aggressive about his tone, but the answer came out so straightforward that it sounded like he'd dismissed the idea entirely.
Owen felt a little awkward being shut down like that in front of everyone, so he kept quiet and did a small nod to himself.
"Natasha, you should be the carrier," Anya suggested, bringing the noise back up.
"Heck no," Natasha immediately replied. "I'd rather make people paranoid than actually being the carrier."
"That could work as a double bluff," Mark said.
"No, it wouldn't," Natasha said, mirroring Alexander. "Someone will have the balls to shoot me knowing there are two carriers. Do you want me to get shot?"
Mark pressed his lips together and hid his smirk with a turn of his head.
"Prick," Natasha said with a smile, taking off her hat and swiping it at Mark.
A few people were smiling and laughing at the moment, but Owen wasn't. Picking a carrier was stressing him more than he would've liked. The first carrier choice was so much easier. Most people suggested Nicole, and she had coolly accepted. The weight of responsibility didn't seem to bother her. She did ask if anyone else wanted to be the carrier, but no one volunteered.
This time there wasn't anyone being suggested.
The yellow team didn't have a leader. Alexander was the natural figurehead of the team, but he wasn't the leader. He barely spoke to anyone. Despite not speaking, everyone did feel a slight pressure from him to perform. Other than that, no one else was the leader type. Every 1-A student on the team was more of the individualistic type and not a leader/group type.
Therefore, Owen took the leadership role... kinda.
He didn't order or give anyone instructions. He mostly just supervised and spoke to everyone. But that was enough for him to feel like he was in control of the team.
Owen's eyes kept looking around the room at potential carrier candidates.
The thought of Maria being the carrier crossed his mind, but it was risky. She was high profile. There was no point in trying to risk it by being too smart.
There were a few people who looked like they'd be a good fit for the carrier, but Owen didn't really trust any of them. Even the people in his class.
Then someone stepped into Owen's line of sight. A figure appeared directly in front of him with their hand out.
"I'll be the carrier."