Finding Johann was easy enough. Nico gave him a quick rundown of events, to which Johann quietly listened without giving much of an input. The three of us were soon joined by other people, including Roman, the man who reported the incident, and John.

When there were twelve people in total, Nico gave the group a more detailed version of the events, with Roman joining in to add details here and there. Some comments started popping among the leaders of the runner teams, but nothing helpful, from what I understood. Some were dismissive, bringing up questionable decisions made by Carlos, the missing team leader, and others were more alarmed, focusing on the presence of blood as a sign of danger.

It didn’t take long for the discussion to devolve in unproductive back and forth. A couple of team leaders had a strong position against the behavior of some of the others, the ones who liked to disappear, for whatever reason. These leaders took the opportunity to raise the issue with fervor, accusing them of being responsible for the current situation, where no one was sure if it was a problem or just an escapade.

Nico intervened before things got out of control. His anger filled voice was powerful enough to quieten even the more vocal of the leaders.

“We need solutions, stop with the fucking bickering, for fuck’s sake!” Nico demanded. “I propose we form a search party and give a more thorough look where they got lost.”

“What if whatever is out there that got them, get the search party as well?” A man in his late fifties with salt and pepper hair raised the issue. “We can’t risk more people disappearing if there is a danger to us.”

“If you don’t want to go, just don’t volunteer, we all know you don’t like the extra work.” A shirtless man in camo pants spoke. He had short dark hair and Spanish features with bronze skin. “I volunteer to go. I am sure my team wouldn’t raise an issue as well.”

“Thank you, Santos. That makes four with your entire team.” Nico nodded to the man. “A team of ten would be the best, in case something dangerous is out there. Anyone else?”

Nico glanced at me.

“I will go as well.”

My declaration was met with different reactions, but mostly people were surprised. Santos seemed amused, a discreet smile on his face.

“I will be joining as well.”

Now was my time to be surprised. John joining caught me completely by surprise. I had assumed he was here only to try and reestablish his political position and be seen involved in the group’s issues once again. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who was caught off guard by this, as the so far quiet Johann interjected soon after.

“John, do you think this is a good idea for you?” Johann’s voice had a condescending tone. “You have barely recovered from a near death injury.”

“I am well enough to walk on my own, Johann.” John’s voice boomed even when he spoke in a subdued tone. “But thank you for your concern.”

“I must insist that you stay, John.” Johann said. “Pushing yourself that hard won’t be good for any of us. Ciara has informed me of your condition, she said you can’t exert yourself yet.”

“We aren’t going out for battle, Johann.” John was calm and controlled as he spoke. “We are going to investigate a possible kidnapping or murder. I am a cop… I was a cop and I have experience with this sort of thing. Experience that no one else in the group can offer. I believe my presence in the scene will be important, if not essential, to solving what happened in there.”

Johann stammered a response. He paused, calmed down and spoke again.

“What if there is some danger there? You can’t run in your situation. The risks seriously outweigh the benefits.” Johann had a definitive tone in his voice.

“That’s true. I can’t run in my current state, but you are wrong about the rest,” John said as he glanced at me and immediately turned back to confront Johann. “It’s possible that there could be danger in there, you can never underestimate this place, but Leo is going with us. I doubt there is anywhere safer than close to this guy.” John finished as he gestured to me.

I squinted at him, wondering what was his goal with all this.

‘John had been careful around me ever since the first wave, which had only gotten worse as the days had passed. Why such a change of attitude?’

I didn’t have much time to consider it, as John continued speaking with an increasingly upset Johann.

“Your claim that the risks outweigh the benefits is also wrong, Johann.” John continued in his naturally authoritarian voice. “We are talking about the lives of four men. You can’t possibly think that my injured self is worth more than four of us? I heard that one of them even fought alongside Will against the boss.”

“I did NOT say your life is worth four, don’t twist my word.” Johann’s mask of control cracked as he sounded a little flustered. “Don’t make this hard for all of us, John. We all just want to look out for you, but you need to let us. I am sure Leo agrees with me, right?”

“About that…” I said as I raised a hand in protest to Johann’s claim. “I believe what John said has merits. He has experience to offer that will be valuable to our task. And regarding his safety, I think John is old enough to choose whatever he wants to do.”

I knew taking John’s side in this argument was going to hurt Johann in more ways than one. Everyone had realized that this wasn’t about safety or even the task itself, it was about Johann establishing control over John in public. I had been passive about the whole thing. I had told Johann that I didn’t want to get involved in their group dynamics.

The moment he leaned on me and my influence to help achieve his goal, Johann invited me to a discussion that I didn’t want to take part in the first place. Although I had no problem with Johann taking the leadership, I also wouldn’t become a tool to further his goals.

Honestly, we didn’t even have an agreement or anything of the sort, we only shared the common goal of seeing the group’s safety secured. Therefore, the look of betrayal Johann shot at me felt more like the look a master gave to a rebellious servant.

Johann recovered from his breach of poise in a timely manner. He complained about us doing whatever suits us and then he would be the one to deal with the aftermath, which sounded completely unreasonable given the situation. No one engaged with him anymore, and he left off, going towards the upper floor.

“Any other volunteers?” Nico’s unusually calm voice got the conversation back on the right track.

“I know you said ten people, but I think it would be easier for me to handle a threat if there were less people.” I said when no one raised a hand.

“If you are taking responsibility for the safety of Santos and his group, then I see no problem.” Nico said as he finished the meeting.

People left to different locations of the ground floor, most to meet their teammates who were a distance away waiting for the sudden conference to end. I moved to the entrance to wait for Santos and his group. I leaned against the outside wall, looking out the empty gray concrete buildings surrounding us. John joined me a moment later. We kept our distance in silence as we waited. It didn’t take more than a minute, according to the sky clock, before they joined us.

Walking besides Santos was a woman with a striking resemblance to him. She wore the standard resistant clothes with the jacket open. Underneath it, she wore a green sports bra from a famous brand. Her hair was tied in a ponytail, but a few strands of wavy hair loosely flanked her face.

Now that I paid more attention to Santos, I saw he had some good looking tattoos on his chest and arms. He had both ears pierced with discreet silver earrings. He was muscular, but didn’t have much volume. He walked with the confidence of someone aware of his surroundings, but Santos felt strangely approachable, instead of the dangerous demeanor some people might have assumed given the stereotype he fell in.

The other two were men. A short man with dark skin and a big afro style hair. He had a neutral expression, like someone who is just going with the flow. I couldn’t see much about his physique, since the resistant clothes were quite large on him.

The last of them was a guy that seemed to suffer from an affliction that gave him a permanent glare. His deep frown made long skin folds on his forehead as he looked at everything and everyone around him. He felt like the polar opposite of Santos with his thin frame and white skin.

Santos introduced his group to John and I before we set off to where they had previously found the blood. The woman was, as I suspected, his sister. Her name was Teresa, but she preferred to go by Tess. The short man was Terrence, or Terry for short, while the dude with the permanent glare was called Dave.

I asked Santos about the location, and although he had not been there, Roman had explained to him where it was. Santos was confident he knew the place, so we just set off. We made our way mostly in silence. Santos and Tess going ahead while exchanging quiet words. Dave and Terry were in the middle while John and I were last.

John was really good at handling pain, but at some point a few beads of sweat grew in his face and he started frowning ever so slightly. I was considering asking for us to stop and take a small rest when Santos called out that we had reached the place.

“Let me go in first. Places like this it’s better if left untouched.” John said as he moved through the group and inside the building. “Sometimes you can move or touch something that seems inconsequential, but might be a clue.”

No one objected. I think we had all watched too many police movies to understand what he meant. While I was happy to wait outside with Santos' team, I wasn’t comfortable leaving John inside, alone. If this was indeed Maccurach’s doing, I doubted he would still be here, but better be safe than sorry. I had my differences with John, but I had grown past the point of wishing to him what he did to me.

“I am going inside with him, just to be safe.” I told Santos. “Shout out if you need.”

Santos looked away from his conversation with Tess as he nodded my way, while she gave me a raised eyebrow look. John had been inside for a few moments when I decided it was best for me to join him rather than wait outside, so I made my way in quietly.

It didn’t take me long to find him on the upper floor checking several rooms that encircled a space that reminded me of a waiting area, or reception. A hallway was placed right in front of the stairs where I had come from, but John was still checking the rooms in the main floor. He came out from one of the rooms to my right and my presence caused his eyes to go wide for a brief moment.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a scare.” I said with one hand up. “I just thought it was best if I stayed with you, rather than leave you alone.”

“Right…” He said offhandedly as he moved to the next room.

I kept myself in the reception room while he combed through each and every door in it. When he found nothing, he turned to me.

“Nothing here, I am moving to the next area.” He informed me as he entered the short hallway opposite the stairs.

I followed quietly as he started checking from the back. The first few rooms at the back took him but a moment to get in and out, while one of them, closer to the entrance to the hallway where I stood, it took him significantly longer. The next two rooms also took him little time, but when he went to the second to last room that had been left unchecked, the one to his left, John took a very long time inside. Eventually, he called out for me to get inside.

There was one upturned furniture, a small blood stain and a splatter of blood droplets around the furniture and the bloody stain. John was crouched by the blood stain as he looked up to me.

“This was definitely done by someone. A hard to blow, probably to the head,” John pointed to the upturned furniture. “The victim fell on top of that cabinet, was rolled over and left bleeding here for a while.”

“He was later moved and taken away, still alive.” John pointed to different blood marks around the room that led away from the door. “There is no more blood marks outside of this room, which means that they probably stopped the bleeding, or it was a small cut and it stopped by itself.”

“Which, given the impact,” He motioned to the cabinet on the floor. “Doesn’t make much sense, but with our unnatural healing abilities, it might be possible that whomever was attacked already partially healed a more serious wound.”

“So, someone did this and what? Kidnapped four guys?” I asked as we made our way out of the room.

“That’s not entirely impossible, but there is no other evidence of struggle.” John mused. “They could have used the one they capture here as a hostage to convince the others to stand down. In which case, there would be no evidence to further struggle.”

John led me to the room that had previously taken longer, which didn’t have anything special outside the fact that it had been searched through and some of the furniture had been laying on the floor instead of standing.

“I think the suspects stayed in this room, waiting for the victims to come up. See the furniture?” John pointed to a large cabinet that had been laying on the floor against a wall. “All rooms were searched through, but nothing like this. I believe they moved some of this furniture to make themselves more comfortable while they waited.”

“That does make sense.” I thought out loud. “What now? Any clues to where they might have taken them?”

“In this place?” John looked at me like I had asked something incredibly stupid. “I have no idea even what to look out for to find clues to where they might have taken them.”

“That was a stupid question, my bad.” I admitted.

John didn’t seem to have been malicious in the way he took my answer, it had been genuinely stupid.

“Let’s just get back and tell them what we have discovered, I have a pretty good guess of who might be behind this and why.” I said as I lead the way out.

“The guy from yesterday?” John asked as he followed me. “Maxurac?”

“Maccurach.” I patiently corrected him. “And yes, I think it was him, yes.”

“To use as hostages against us?” John spoke tentatively, as if testing the prospect. “That doesn’t seem like a great idea.”

“No, that’s not a great idea.” I said as we reached the entrance of the building. “I think his purposes is a little more sinister than that.”

“What is? Whose goal?” Santos’ asked as he caught on our conversation.

“I will share with the group when we get back.” I said as I motioned Santos to lead the way back. “I don’t want to have to make my case twice.”