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The punk boil had slipped out of the trance area as soon as he'd come to. He was stunned--no, more than stunned, he was shocked and pale and positive that the horsemen had lied to him yet again. What did they have to achieve from this? What sort of goal could a mostly dead race have in tormenting scarelings with stories about people that never existed--

Then he stopped. He was right. They DIDN'T have anything to achieve from that. But he couldn't believe it--he wouldn't believe it. If what had happened was real, then--

Roch cursed, his mind focusing for the first time since he'd come out of the trance. Mentally he sorted through all the people he'd seen through Tex's eyes. May, Arcana, Tarot, Selene--Moira. The punk boil ground to a halt as he remembered that moment. He would have recognized Moira anywhere. She was his favorite teacher, the janitor of the school, the creator (he figured, at least) of those massive robots that made for good fighting practice--

She'd been there. She would be able to tell him.

With that, the punk boil broke into a run, heading for Moira's shack and pounding his fist on her door. "MOIRA!" he yelled. "Moira I gotta ask you something!"

He blinked. "Nah, I got hungry on the way back to my room--wait, no, Moira, the horsemen just put us in another one of those trance things. They had one for the death trial, and now they're shoving another one down our throats callin' it a field trip--" He stopped. "Moira, who was Tex?" he asked quietly. "You were in the trance, you were there, so either they made a perfect younger version of you for the dream or it happened--"

He seemed confused and angry all at the same time. "Did that thing--that thing where there was a lake under the school and everything--did it really happen? Was there a guy named Dallas Texas Scythe?"

He was pale, his hands were fisted at his sides, trying to keep from shaking. He needed to know this--he needed to know from someone he trusted--or at least someone that was a really lousy liar.

Tex had existed. "I couldn't trust them," Roch said as he headed inside. He didn't want to sit down, he didn't feel calm enough to sit down at the moment. "They lied to me in the trials--I swore I'd been captured by hunters and turned into a--" His jaw tightened for a moment before he forced it to relax.

"The only explanation I have..." he said slowly, "is that he was my uncle. Nobody--they didn't ever mention him. I'm sixteen jackin' years old, and in all that time neither my dad or my gramps has ever even said the word 'Tex' when I was around. I would think an uncle being captured by hunters was a BIG JACKIN DEAL!"

He stopped, forcing himself to breath, to keep the rage and pain he was going through clamped down. "Why did the school let somethin' like that happen?" he asked. "Where was Quibble? They went to him--they told him everything, but then he never showed up. WHO was Quibble?"

"From the last class to right as Tex was captured in a net, although he was foggy on that part," Roch said. "But I've dealt with enough to know what happened next," he added, calming because she was calm.

"So they went to this jacker Quibble, they expect him to give them a hand--he was like, running the school or something, right? And all he does is up and disappear?" He went still. "He sold them out. DETH sold them out. Either by just not DOIN anything--even just alerting the boogies, which doesn't do jack, or by helpin' those jackin' hunters out in the first place!"

His silver eyes went hard. Then he dropped down in one of the chairs, covering his face with his hands. "I don't know why I figured Quibble would help--maybe because it was Tex's thoughts. Me, I never expect much from professors. Hell, what you do is more than I ever thought adults would bother to do," he told her after a long moment, pulling his hands from his face. "But how the hell do I tell those idiots that were all so happy at the DETH class what happened? Maybe they figured it out for themselves..."

And no matter what he was figuring out here, the pain of losing Tex without even knowing him was gnawing at his insides, mixed with rage.

"Yeah, hunters," Roch said quietly. "White coats, glowin weapons, trappin students. We ran into them in the haunted house, they trapped students in this tent behind the house and there was this... thing... I didn't know what it was then, but I do now. They were tryin' to turn the students into weapons--the same weapons they use to attack us. The leaders--one of them, jack I hope he was one of the leaders, he killed off a handful of us first years with a single hit. Another had a whip, beat the living FEAR out of us with it."

He stared forward blindly. "They destroyed the horsemen islands. And I should be pissed off at them--and I am--but candlewaxers that are always candlewaxers ain't as big a betrayal as the jackers that call themselves my family, but keep stuff like this from me."

"Jack that," Roch said. "Jack them, too," he declared. "We're tryin' to stand in the way of bein' destroyed like the horsemen were, and they're tryin' to shut us up so people can keep living their happy little lives. Actually, jack that, too. We just get stuck in the way," he growled, getting to his feet. "And maybe it's part your group's fault they know how to cover it up so well, but there ain't no way to hold it against you when most of you are dead."

Then he started for the door. "And don't try makin' excuses for my family," he said. "They might have no clue what really happened, but that doesn't excuse them from never tellin' me about Tex to begin with." He stopped at the door, holding it open and looking at her. "And don't feel guilty," he said in a quieter voice. "Tex would have been happy that you survived. I am."

Then he was gone, closing the door softly behind him.