Chapter 190: Out From The Group
Clutching a hard-fought victory, Aki walked back toward her teammates with a dazed but triumphant smile stretching across her face. Every fiber of her body felt drained, like all the adrenaline that had carried her through the fight was suddenly slipping away, leaving her trembling and barely able to stand.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her legs threatened to give out beneath her at any moment. But she kept walking, step by determined step, toward the bright, beaming faces of her team.
"Aki, you did it!" one of the girls cheered, rushing over to her.
The others followed quickly, gathering around her in a warm circle of support. They offered their arms and shoulders without hesitation, letting her lean on them, holding her up so she didn’t have to carry her own weight anymore.
"Yeah, who knew you had that in you?" another girl from Seaton High added with a wide grin. "You took down that monster of a woman. If we’d known you could fight like that, maybe we wouldn’t have had to join the Bloodline group in the first place."
The girls’ excited chatter shifted suddenly as they turned their eyes toward Max, who had wandered off, away from the group. Their excitement soured slightly, just moments earlier, they had scolded him for not properly congratulating Aki. And now, of all times, he was stepping aside to take a phone call?
"It’s okay. Don’t blame him," Aki said softly, though her breath was still uneven. "It’s obvious there’s something bigger going on. Max... he’s not just a regular high school student like the rest of us."
"Stop making excuses for him!" another girl blurted out, exasperated. "Ugh, I hate it when people get blinded by love."
As for the call itself, Max was on the line with Wolf, an ally of the Bloodline group and someone Max considered incredibly important. The man had been instrumental in helping him behind the scenes, and the fact that he had reached out now, at this moment, wasn’t something Max could afford to ignore.