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Right after Victor and I's little fighting situation, Emmaline, Victor and I ended up in the food court area. The three of us took a small four-person table and began to eat lunch.

Oddly, I felt like I was being watched. When I discreetly glanced around the area, I couldn't find who or what was making me feel twitchy. Perhaps it was just me being paranoid from all the events that had happened these few days, but it was safer to be alert so I kept my guard up. I quickly finished my sandwich and sipped on my cup of juice quietly as I stared at my second sandwich, deciding if I should eat it.

"So," Victor began after he swallowed a huge mouthful of food, "tell me a little bit about yourself."

This question caught Emmaline's attention as she stared at me with eyes filled with curiosity.

"Do you know what cyber security or information security is?" I asked.

Both of them shrugged. "Sure," Victor replied back.

"I studied something like that for six years."

Emmaline's face brightened. "Oh! That's interesting. So? Were you working in the private sector before someone, you know, brought you to our team?"

Victor studied me for a second. "The answer is no, isn't it." He spoke as Emmaline frowned slightly in confusion.

"You are correct," I answered stiffly.

Emmaline's eyes widened and her mouth opened into a small 'o' shape. "How'd you know, Vic?"

Victor stared at me for a moment before he concentrated his focus back on eating. "The look in her eyes."

I bit the inside of my cheek as his comment struck me. He may seem to be the easygoing type, but his intuition was quick and very accurate.

"Navy?" Victor guessed and from his question, I could already tell he knew I signed up for the military.

"No." My grip tightened just a fraction on my cup. "Army. You?"

There was a slight pause in Victor's movements before he continued as if everything was normal. "Air force."

Silence filled our table. Emmaline must have started to feel awkward and uncomfortable because she began to fidget slightly.

"Did you know Alexander put together this team? Like, he was the one that recruited us. The captain of this ship." Emmaline smiled. "Alexander knew Victor for a long time but him and I, we kind of met by accident. To this day I don't understand why he included me into the team, but I'm grateful. You see, Vita, I'm not like you or Victor. I'm not good at combat and basically never held a weapon."

"Don't belittle yourself." Victor scoffed then looked over at me. "She basically has a photographic memory. She's our eyes during missions. Besides her memory,  she's research smart and great at doing calculations."

A tinge of pink dusted Emmaline's cheeks.

"Victor," I put my elbow on the table and leaned my chin on my raised fist, "how long did you know Alexander?"

Suddenly, I saw from the corner of my eye that the empty chair on my right began to move backwards.

"Eight years." I heard Alexander answer as he sat down next to me casually.

"Met him during the middle of high school. We started training together at this organization." Victor added.

My frustration grew. It felt so unfair that while I knew nothing about anything our parents did until a week ago, he had known for eight years and was being trained to enter it.

"What about you?" Victor's cheeks were puffed out like a squirrel getting ready for hibernation, filled with food. "Did Blades bring you here?"

My eyebrows furrowed together as I tried to think of a reply. From the corner of my eye, I saw Alexander reach over at the extra uneaten sandwich in front of me and I slapped his hand but I failed to keep my food safe. I glared at the sneaky bastard as he opened the plastic wrapping and took a generous bite.

Victor raised an eyebrow at Alexander.

I was about to fight him and take my food back, but I realized how odd it would look like to Emmaline and Victor so I controlled my twitching fingers.

"What was your question?" I asked Victor with a smile that might have looked like I was baring my teeth at him threateningly.

"How long have you known each other?" Victor chewed slowly and carefully as he looked at Alexander and I.

I rubbed my eyes. "Twenty-six."

"Months?" Emmaline looked at me innocently.

"I wish," I grumbled unhappily.

Victor's eyes widened. "Oh s-"

Emmaline slapped her hand over his mouth, effectively cutting off his curse. "Oh gosh really? Here I thought Victor knew him the longest."

Victor gave Alexander a dirty look. "If I knew you were the one that brought her here, I wouldn't have gone through all that trouble trying to..." He trailed off as he waved his hands around, trying to get us to understand what he was saying.

"What did you mean when you said what happened last time will not happen again." When I asked that question, both Emmaline and Victor froze. They both avoided eye contact with me as they quickly finished their lunch. Alexander wasn't much help either. He had stolen my drink in the midst of tension and finished it off.

*

We had all returned to our unit room and everyone went back to work. Silence coated the room and all you could hear was the tapping of the keys and the occasional click of a mouse.

I looked over at the five phones on the table in front of me and picked out the one that was used to display my father's picture to me by those criminals. When I connected the phone to my laptop and got through the security, I immediately went to find the photo.

Even after already seeing it once, I still couldn't stomach seeing that gruesome picture again.

I searched for tags or anything that could give me a clue as to a gps location of where this picture was taken but there was nothing to work with. The picture wasn't taken from this phone and person who had sent this photo over to this phone was extremely good at hiding his tracks. There was nothing. The picture was a dead end.

I stared at all the phones then quickly came up with an idea. Triangulate the location of where all the phones had been. Going through all the phones, I found all the locations where each phone had been and put a dot on the virtual map I had downloaded on my laptop.

Looking at locations I received from all the phones, I sighed mentally. The area to search was huge. It would take forever to actually search everything in the area.

"I kind of have something." I spoke up, shattering the silence in the room.

I transferred the map with all the location points from my laptop to the big screen in the room. Everyone glanced over at the map, confusion written all over their faces.

"Every red dot is where each phone had been. Unfortunately, the area is enormous. It would take a long time to look for what matches the scene of the picture."

"I'll help," Emmaline piped up and tossed me a gentle reassuring smile. "Vita and I will narrow it down."

Alexander nodded and stood up, not saying a word as he glanced over at Victor. Victor seemed to have understood what Alexander was trying to signal him because he stood up as well.

"We'll be back in a bit," Alexander curtly informed Emmaline and I.

Without another glance, Alexander and Victor both quickly exited the room.

*

I wasn't sure how much time had passed but Emmaline and I were nowhere near narrowing our list of locations down to half.

The absence of Alexander and Victor also spiked at my curiosity since they didn't mention where they were going. They simply walked out and haven't returned for hours. It was starting to get late and Emmaline had to leave. As soon as she left, Victor and Alexander came back into the room looking a little more ruffled than when they had left.

Victor soon left after that and it was only Alexander and I in the room.

"Where have you been?" I asked as he started to gather his things.

Alexander completely ignored me. "We need to leave."

I closed down my laptop and eyed him suspiciously. "Why?"

He opened the door when he saw that I was ready to go. "I need to get something."

*

Alexander stopped right outside a jewelry store and looked over at him, confused.

"Rings." He explained.

I cringed. "Oh."

He tilted his head towards the store and I shook my head.

"You go. Pick something very, very simple. And, just wedding bands. Please no engagement rings." I planted myself solidly on the seat, crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes.

Alexander let out a soft sigh and walked out of the car.

I waited, waited and waited. Feeling irritated and annoyed, I was about to step out of the car and look for him but then I saw him walk out of the shop.

"What took so long?" I grumbled as he sat down on his seat.

He didn't answer, instead, he took out what he had bought. The two platinum rings looked exactly the same except one was a little thicker in general than the other. He seemed to have listened to what I told him because they were quite simple, but nevertheless, beautiful.

Alexander took the smaller ring in one hand and with the other, he put it palm up in front of me. He stared at me intently with his piercing greys.

Wearily, I placed my left hand lightly in his and I could hear my heart pounding gently against my ears. As soon as my hand rested on his, his hand enclosed around mine softly and slid the cool metal onto my ring finger slowly. I stared at his careful movements and couldn't help but notice that the warmth of his big hands seeped into my cold one.

It was absolutely silent in the car and I didn't dare make a sound to break it. Alexander soon let go but his gaze didn't waver from mine. I immediately started to feel uncomfortable from his stare so I looked out my passenger seat window.

"Aren't you going to reciprocate?" Alexander's voice was smooth like velvet.

I didn't move and he waited for a moment before he let out deep chuckle from amusement.

"Shy?" He taunted me.

I snapped my head to glare down at him icily. "Of course not."

Reaching into the box, I pulled out his ring. Grabbing at his left wrist, I yanked it roughly towards me. As I tried to put the ring onto his finger, he moved his fingers around.

I clenched my teeth and narrowed my eyes at him. Alexander had a small smile on his face, just barely visible. I stared at him for a moment, dazed by his rare smile but I quickly snapped out of it.

"Stop being so damn uncooperative." I grasped his ring finger tightly so he couldn't move it anymore. To my utter displeasure, his smile grew a miniscule fraction.

I quickly slipped the ring onto his finger before he moved once again and when I slid his ring all the way on, I dropped his hand immediately.

"Happy?"

"Ecstatic," he said as we backed out of the parking lot.

*

We were driving for a few minutes when I realized we weren't heading towards Alexander's house.

"Your house is that way." I pointed to the left as we continued on the right.

"Hm." He didn't give me more than that.

Another few minutes later, the streets started to look familiar, too familiar.

"No... don't tell me..." I mumbled to myself as we turned onto a street that I had visited constantly when I was younger. Then, it all made sense. The reason why he suddenly bought wedding bands.

Looking at Alexander in complete bewilderment, I saw that he ran his fingers through his hair. He was stressed. "We have dinner with my parents."

My mouth immediately dropped open in horror. Strings of curses floated in my head, threatening to slip out. "I'm not ready for this. No. We can't. You don't understand."

We turned onto the driveway of his parents' home.

I buried my face into my hands. "We're doomed. Absolutely doomed."

"It won't be too bad." He sounded like he was trying to be reassuring, but I couldn't tell from the lack of sincerity in his voice.

I turned over to look at him with my eyes wide and my mouth turning into a frown, the feeling of panic overpowering my other senses. "Won't be too bad?" I repeated what he said. "It's going to be horrible, Red. No."

"Contract." He reminded me as he got out, movements so graceful and calm that it pissed me off.

I seriously can't be the only one worried, right?

"If she finds out..." I trailed off as he opened the passenger seat door, waiting for me to exit.

"Make sure she doesn't."

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Phew, another chapter up. Thank you for taking your time to read it and I hope you enjoyed it :)

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Until next time,

InvincibleBunny