As soon as the timer had gone off, a few little spiders started falling down to the ground from underneath Logan's sleeve. The two boys continued their fake conversation with hand gestures and such.
"So, what's your favourite sandwich?" Fex asked, trying to make the conversation look a tad bit more realistic by asking a real question.
However, Logan looked as if he was really struggling to decide his answer. He placed his hand on his chin and looked up into a corner.
"Hmm, I would probably have to say cheese and onion. But since my body doesn't deal with cheese that well... I guess if we were talking about favourites, then it would depend on my cravings at the time. Regarding how the question is phrased, the best sandwich differs. Do you mean the best tasting? Best one for your health? Or perhaps the best ingredients?"
"Eh, I guess you can tell me all three then?" Fex's tone had a nervous vibe to it, as he wasn't expecting a real answer back.
The spiders had now fanned out, and once they had completed their tasks, they reported back to the server, namely, Logan.
In the middle of their intense conversation, Logan suddenly stopped and stood up. "Let's go."
The underground arena was accessible from any hotel room. It was designed this way so when contestants were eliminated, they could easily rejoin with their military base. This meant that each of the elevators were in some way linked. One would usually require a pass to go to the lower floors, but that wasn't a problem to worry about. Not for Logan anyway.
They continued walking through the lobby and headed towards the elevator area. Fex glanced at the camera in the corner and could see a spider falling from it before rejoining back up with Logan. Once the doors opened, they both stepped in. The cameras within and outside the elevators weren't able to capture their figures.
The cameras were set to loop footage for two minutes, once the time was up, it would then begin showing the live feed. It was currently night time and there were no other contestants that would be making their way from the underground up to the lobby. Once they were past these cameras, there would be no more problems since there were no other cameras in the underground section.
Logan could assume this was due to the same reason why there weren't any cameras at the school. Many students would be practising their abilities. Their families simply wouldn't allow them to spy and gather information by looking at what the students were doing.
While in the elevator the two of them placed both their masks over their face.
"So far, everything's going well," Fex confidently commented. "Now, Vorden, Layla, it's all up to you.
Without the blood, everything they were doing was pointless.
****
Vorden told Layla to meet him just outside of the number one military hotel building. He even informed her that he found a place and everything was ready. All she needed to do now was bring Quinn over to the destination.
Since he already told her of his plan beforehand, there was no need for her to use her tools. There would be no cameras inside when Quinn entered the room with Vorden, her job there was to be the lookout. Although only members from the big four could use the room, that didn't mean they themselves wouldn't. However, there was still the slight chance that Mona Bree or Jack would try to use it.
Burnie had informed Vorden that this was extremely unlikely, in all the years the place had been built, it was never once used by them. In fact, he reckoned that he was the only one to have ever used the place.
She stood outside Quinn's door and took a deep breath before raising her hand to knock. It felt like the work she was doing now was more like the double-agent-type-stuff back when she was in Pure. These were the things that she had been trained to do, it seemed a little funny that she was still using it despite already leaving them.
"Okay, let's do this!" Just as Layla was about to tap the door with her knuckles, it suddenly opened.
"Layla, what are you doing here this late?" Quinn asked her.
"But... How…?" She started asking questions in her mind. 'How did he know someone was by the door?'
"Oh... You don't need to worry, I could smell you were coming" Quinn responded.
"Smell?" These words stung her a bit. She was tempted to lift her arms up to see if she really did smell that bad.
Upon seeing that she felt somehow insulted, Quinn realized that what he said just now could have been easily misinterpreted.
"No! I didn't mean that you smell... I meant like, you smell great," he said while blushing. "You know, because of my sensitive nose and all."
The both of them left the room and headed outside towards the military base once Layla said that she wanted to walk for a bit and that she had something important to say. Quinn thought that he already knew what the subject would be. It had to be about Fex's confession.
As the two of them were walking, they felt a little awkward because of their previous conversation at the door. Quinn didn't know what to say to make it up to her. While pondering over this matter, Quinn had fallen back a little and was walking just behind Layla.
He noticed that he was staring at her from behind a lot more than usual. Due to this, he started to think back about what Fex said, about how he wanted to inform him beforehand since he assumed that there was something going on between the two of them. And now, Layla asked to have a private conversation with him as well.
'No... It can't be…Does Layla like me? When she asked him to turn her, did she mean something else by it?' His mind couldn't help but have these kinds of thoughts. 'If Layla likes me... and Fex likes her, then that means... Oh no! I'm in a love triangle! If she's here to confess to me, then what do I say? I can't say yes to her… I can't do this to Fex.'
While his mind wandered about in this confused and crazy contemplation, the both of them eventually arrived outside a small building behind the hotel. Although it was very plain-looking, it was also large at the same time. This reminded Quinn of the storage room where he first found the Shadow Ability.
He wondered why Layla chose this place to converse with him, he could only guess it was due to it being away from everyone else. Layla then turned around and faced him. It looked as if she wanted to say something, but was also struggling on how to say it.
"I know what you want to talk about." Quinn decided to initiate the discussion. He didn't want the situation to be more awkward than it already was. "This is about Fex, isn't it?"
'How does he know?' She was surprised once again.
Feeling a bit contemplated, she started to speak, "Look Quinn–"
"You don't need to say anymore.." However, Quinn suddenly interrupted her.
"Quinn, Vorden is waiting for you inside," She blurted out before things really got out of hand.
'Wait…Vorden? How is he involved in all of this?' Quinn was now truly confused about what was going on
"Look, I just felt bad about lying, saying that I needed to speak to you. The truth is, Vorden said that he wanted to talk to you. He's inside waiting." Layla then walked over to the metallic-looking doors and inputted the code that Vorden told her. It really was nearly the same storage room back on the red portal planet.
At first, Quinn moved to the entrance, but he stopped just outside of it. Could he really trust Layla?
Because he didn't know what was going on, Quinn was starting to think that this was possibly a trap set up by Pure. Perhaps Layla was planning to double-cross him and was still working with them.
"Is Vorden really inside here?" Quinn turned around and asked while looking at her.
At that moment, a hand suddenly pulled him from behind.
"Just get in here, you idiot!" Vorden's voice suddenly piped up, he shuffled both him and Quinn inside as the doors shut closed.
When the motion-sensor lights automatically turned on, they could both see that they were in a large plain white room. There were no windows around, there was nothing except the door they just entered from.
When Quinn turned around and saw Vorden, his worries settled down since it seemed like Layla was telling the truth.
The look on Vorden's face was not one which greeted a friend, but instead, it was of concern. In just an instant, his expression changed, Vorden now had the friendliest smile that Quinn had ever seen.
"Eh? Vorden, are you okay?" Quinn couldn't help but ask.
"Vorden?" He responded while tilting his head to the side and placing his finger on his lips. "No, I'm not Vorden, did you forget my name?" He responded with a question.
This strange reaction made Vorden look almost like a handsome blonde-haired puppy.
'What's going on?' Quinn thought. He was quite baffled; it seemed like all of his friends were acting strange recently. 'Aren't I meant to be the weird one in our group?'
"Don't you remember? We met before, I'm Sil."
*****
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