"What did he look like?"

I stared back at the officer -the detective- sitting right in front of me, an observation table between us. I couldn't even count the number of times I had been thrown into this kind of situation; being questioned by an officer.

"I don't know." I replied, leaning back against the chair I was sitting on. At least that way, his scrutinizing gaze was a bit far away from me. "I didn't see him."

"You didn't see the guy who broke into your house." He stated, his eyes not leaving my face for a single second, and that was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

"No," I shook my head. "The lights went out."

He raised his brows and I found myself looking away from him, at the glass of water on the table between us.

"The lights went out only in your house." He said. "There weren't any power outages in your neighborhood."

I only shrugged at that, because really, I didn't know the answer to that.

"Ms Collins, you need to give more clear answers." He pressed. "We might not be able to find your friend if you don't give us the details."

Once again, I was forced to think about Alice. Alice who was missing now, just like Jack.

"I told you what I saw." I couldn't hide the impatience in my voice. I just wanted to leave, skip all these stupid questioning sessions. I wanted to go back to Luca and tell him about the stuff that I knew now, stuff that I had read in Dad's last travel entry.

"You're aware that this has been the second time someone broke into your house." He said. "Yet you almost seem unfazed."

It was almost as if he was accusing me, but I knew that he was just doing his job—trying to dig into this matter.

"Do you want me to go ahead and start crying?" Even though I felt like crying, I didn't want to. I didn't want to think that I was giving up. I wanted to see Alice again, and Jack too.

"The message typed on your phone," He ignored my question and continued with his questioning. "Was it typed by the same intruder?"

"Who else would do it?" I asked him in return, a frown forming on my face. I was tired and frustrated, and the slight throbbing at the back of my head wasn't helping any of this.

The officer inhaled deeply and looked away, as if he was really done with me and my clueless answers. "We'll need to search your house, if that's not a problem."

I wanted to tell him that the officers had been doing that the whole day already, searching my house as if that man in black raincoat had somehow left something behind that could blow up everything.

"It's not." I shook my head, even if it was. This was the least I could've done for Alice's mom, Mrs Benson, who had freaked out when she found out about this all. And I couldn't really blame her, especially since the whole thing with Fraser happened just a week ago.

"Your parents, Mr and Mrs Collins, where do they live?" The officer asked all of a sudden and I froze in my seat. I knew that a break-in in a highschooler's house, who lived all alone, would come out as strange.

Licking my suddenly dry lips, I looked at him, straight in the eye. If I had looked away, he probably would've caught the lie. "They're living back in Manhattan."

The officer nodded, opening his mouth to ask something else. And I was literally dreading his next question when the door to the small room opened and another officer stepped in.

The detective in front of me nodded and stood up. "That's it for now, Ms Collins. We'll contact you if we feel the need for any more questions."

I slowly breathed out a sigh of relief and tried to not show the enthusiasm on my face. Instead, I just stood up and exited the room, back into the hallways of the police station. It was somewhere near midnight right now, the place filled with the officers.

I walked over towards the waiting area where Mrs Benson was sitting, her head in her hands. On the other end of the hallway, Alice's dad was having a serious discussion with another officer.

"Grace." Alice's mom stood up and came towards me. I swallowed thickly, noticing the worried frown on her face. "Are you all right, dear? I didn't...I wasn't aware that they'd be questioning you."

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked away from her. Why wasn't she blaming me for this? Why wasn't she angry at me that her daughter was gone now?

"No, it's fine." I shook my head. "Did they find anything about Alice?"

It was still the same day, hours had passed by since Alice went missing. Mrs Benson's face fell into a sadder expression, telling me that the police wasn't having any luck with any of this.

At times, I wanted to tell them about Burner and his men. I knew where the Research Department was, I could easily lead them there. But what if they didn't believe me? Worse, what if telling the police would somehow place Alice's and Jack's life in more danger?

"I'm sorry that this is happening." I found myself speaking up, and maybe it was the guilt gnawing at my insides that made me say it. "I'm sorry that Alice-"

"We'll find her." She placed a comforting hand on my arm and a small shudder went through me. "This isn't your fault."

It was, I wish I could've told her how much this was my fault. I told Alice about this all, I was the one who pulled her into this mess when it wasn't even necessary. And now she was paying the price, just like the day she had taken that car hit for me, but much more worse this time.

"If...they find something, do let me know." I voiced out the words even though my throat constricted at that action.

Mrs Benson gave me a small, worried smile and nodded in response.

I really hoped that she was right. I really hoped that we find Alice.

•••••

"Stop blaming yourself, Rose." Luca spoke up, his voice a bit muffled into his pillow, as he lay face-first on his bed.

I, on the other hand, was sitting at the other end of his room; the corner where he used to paint.

"What else am I supposed to do?" I asked him, pulling up my knees and leaning back against the wall.

Luca didn't say anything and I almost thought that he had fallen asleep, which wouldn't be a surprise since it was way too early in the morning right now. I felt a little bad for waking him up at such a hour, but I couldn't have slept, and he was the only person who did understand.

"Not blame yourself." I heard his voice and I felt a bit happy, knowing that he hadn't slept.

Last night had only been filled with police interrogations. I was pretty sure that my house was still surrounded by police cars, almost as if it was a murder spot. Not just me, but Frost was also freaked out by that little incident yesterday and that was the exact reason why I had stayed over at Luca's house.

I exhaled a deep sigh and looked around his room, the same room that he hadn't been willing to let me in few days ago. But things had changed again, and I was glad.

"You can't change anything." Luca added, his voice lacing with sleep. "Even if you want to."

I placed my forehead on my knees, pondering over his words. I wish I could've changed things. Yesterday had been too hectic to find him alone and tell him about the things I read in Dad's last entry; about that necklace. The same necklace that I gave him years ago, the same necklace that he had probably thrown away by now.

Maybe that was actually the reason why I wasn't telling him about it. What if he didn't have it now? More importantly, why would he have it still? What would I do if he had thrown it away or given it to someone else?

That necklace was the only thing that could bring Jack back, and Alice too.

"Luca?" I spoke up after a while, the silence clouding around his room again.

He responded with a low hum, his face still pressed over the large, white pillow.

I looked over at his door, thankful that it was closed. Under any circumstance, I didn't want anyone to hear anything related to Burner. Even though it was only Marleen and Frost in this house besides us, I couldn't help but feel a bit paranoid.

"I know what Burner wants." I replied.

Luca groaned a little before turning his face away from the pillow, towards me. He blinked back the heavy sleep from his eyes, looking at me. "The red seed?"

It had took me some hesitation to show Luca the note I had found near Fraser's body that night. I was aware of how dangerous this was, considering what happened to Alice just after I showed her that note. But Luca had read it now, and he knew about the red seed.

The next words left my mouth in a bit of a rush. "Do you still have that necklace I gave you?"

He blinked at me, a confused frown forming on his forehead. "What?"

I placed the back of my head against the wall and almost clenched my teeth at the dull ache. Even though it wasn't throbbing like last night, it still hurt a bit.

"The...necklace I gave you years ago." It sounded stupid even to my own ears. The blank expression on his face, clouded with sleep, told me that he probably didn't remember. "The necklace with that bottle—"

"—shaped pendant, yeah." He turned his face back into his pillow, almost as if the morning light was just too much. "I have it, why?"

I looked at him in surprise. "You have it?"

He hummed again in response.

"Why?" I was still surprised.

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't throw it away? It was too stupid...and childish." I said, eyeing the back of his head and his tousled curls. "And I left without telling you. Why do you still have it?"

Even though something warmed inside me, knowing that he still had it, it just didn't settle well with me.

"You told me that I'd lose you if I ever lose that necklace." He mumbled.

"Well, I did leave you." I pointed out.

"Don't try reminding me of that when I'm just starting to let it go, Rose." He grumbled in response.

I frowned at that before standing up and walking towards him. I sat down at the edge of his bed and eyed the sheets curled up around him. "That necklace...is what Burner wants."

Luca looked at me without any effort this time, all wide awake. "The necklace?"

I nodded.

"Why would he want that necklace?" He finally sat up and regarded me with a small frown.

"Not the necklace." I murmured. "It's the red stone inside it that Burner wants."

Luca's eyes widened a little at that, surprise clouding over his features. "The red seed." He said and I nodded. "You found out about this in your dad's last entry?"

I nodded again, knowing that I hadn't told him anything about it.

"Are you sure?" He frowned again.

"Yeah." I said.

He ran a hand through his disheveled brown hair before standing up from the bed and walking over towards his closet. I watched him rummage inside and pull away after few seconds, holding something in his hand as he walked back towards me.

He sat down in front of me and held the old, familiar necklace in his hand, the small bottled pendant dangling from the delicate leather string. He passed it to me and I gingerly held it between my fingers, eyeing the bright red stone inside it.

The red seed.

"It did always look unusual." He murmured, referring to the small red stone.

"Not unusual," I murmured back. "But unreal." I almost saw the corner of his lips tugging upwards and somehow, that did unnatural things to my stomach.

"If this is really what Burner wants..." He trailed off and I didn't add anything to that either. We both knew how much dangerous it was keeping this necklace with ourselves.

I turned the pendant in my hand, examining its transparent structure until my eyes landed on a small –barely visible– logo engraved at the bottom of the pendant.

"Give me your phone." I held out my other hand towards him, still eyeing the strange, unfamiliar logo.

Once Luca had handed me his phone, I looked for an online Reverse Image Search Engine and took a picture of that small logo. After a bit of loading, different articles popped up on the web, related to that same logo.

"What are you doing?" Luca asked, looking over at the necklace, then at his phone.

I scrolled down the articles and found out that the logo belonged to a big antique-crafts shop, here in the outskirts of Hayward.

Luca's gaze was still fixed on the screen when he suddenly spoke up, "Wait, I've seen this guy before."

I followed his gaze on the screen and pressed on a small picture thumbnail. As it loaded up to its full size, I realized that the picture was of the owner of that shop, Nicholas Torres.

My eyes widened a little, remembering that name from Dad's last travel entry, the same friend who had helped him with hiding the red seed. However, that wasn't why my eyes widened.

Luca was right. We both had seen that old-looking man before.

It was that old man who had followed me at the Welsh's Bar, during one of my night shifts. The same man I had encountered back at that abandoned house, at the Bridgeview Street.

•••••

We ended up calling at the shop.

More specifically, Luca ended up calling there. He didn't say much, but whatever he said on the phone was enough for Nicholas –that old, creepy man– to agree to meet us. He refused to meet us at his shop though, preferring a local restaurant over it which wasn't that far away from his shop.

Luca told me that he was coming with me way before I even got to ask him. None of us decided as to what we would actually say to Nicholas once we met him. The last time I had seen him hadn't exactly gone well.

It was when both Luca and I were standing in front of that specific restaurant that I started to think over the situation.

"Do you really think we should be doing this?" I looked over at Luca as he stopped beside me.

He returned my gaze and gave out a shrug. "He seems like he could help."

I looked back at the restaurant's entrance and realized how crowded it actually looked from the outside. However, when we got inside, it felt even more packed up.

Luca stayed by my side and surprisingly, it didn't take us too long to spot Nicholas. I almost stopped in my tracks when I noticed the familiar greasy black hair of the old guy, sitting in one of the booths, waiting for someone—someone that was probably Luca and I.

I slowly walked towards that booth, Luca following behind me. Nicholas noticed us just as quick and a narrowed look fell over his eyes when he noticed me, certainly not happy to see me.

I wasn't happy to see him either. But saying that to his face probably would've blown up any chances of getting some information from him.

"So we meet again." Nicholas spoke up, eyeing both Luca and I. I guess he wasn't too happy to see Luca either since Luca had kind of threatened him that day, when he had stalked me at the Welsh's Bar.

Luca slid into the booth and I sat down beside him.

"Wasn't expecting to see you again." Luca replied when I didn't say anything.

Nicholas eyed him warily. "I was." He said, then looked at me. "I knew she'd come looking for me sooner or later."

"You could've just cleared the whole confusion back that day." Luca stated in slight disbelief.

Nicholas let out a short laugh at that, almost as if he was amused. "What's the fun in that?"

Judging from Luca's expression, he was probably about to say something bad in return.

"My dad came to you for help." I spoke up quickly, lowering my voice a little and anxiously eyeing the people around us. "That necklace."

Nicholas nodded in response. "The red seed." He said. "Do you still have that necklace?"

I hesitated a little before nodding.

For a second, I saw Nicholas's gaze moving behind me. "I knew your father, he was a friend of mine. I didn't exactly work in the Research Department, but I worked for them."

I anxiously pursed my lips, not knowing what was coming next.

"Your father needed immediate help with...that thing. The same thing he's after," He continued. "Burner."

"The red seed." Luca murmured and I wasn't the only one who heard the sudden edge in his voice.

Nicholas noticed it too, his eyes moving from me to Luca. "Anger's never one of the wisest options, Jackson." And the way he said it told me that he really meant it. "You know what things like anger lead you into."

I saw Luca frown at him, as if about to snap at him. But instead, he stuck with running a hand through his hair, almost irritatedly.

"Burner's a powerful man, I'm sure you know that." Nicholas said, looking back at me. "He will never, never stop looking for it."

"Why does he want it? What even is that red seed?" I found myself asking him.

Nicholas looked around once again and almost seemed a bit alert this time.

"It's a rare seed. A rare mutant seed, something that wasn't meant to be found." He said. "It's a result of a complicated mutation, something that's never happened before. But it happened, and Burner was aware of that."

Luca was still frowning by the time Nicholas finished speaking.

"Why does he want it?" I repeated the question.

Nicholas sighed heavily. "Isn't that obvious? Burner is evil, and something as rare as that could bring you fortunes." He said. "So many innocent lives are at stake for those same evil means."

Lives like Alice's and Jack's.

A waitress came our way and Nicholas waved her off, his gaze still fixated on us.

"None of us are left with much time." He made sure to emphasize on those words. "You both know what you have to do."

"We don't, actually." Luca spoke out the exact words that just came in my head.

Nicholas eyed him exasperatedly before standing up. He inserted a hand in his back pocket and took out a card, placing it in front of us on the table. I looked at it and realized that it almost looked like a map to somewhere.

"The back passageways in that department." Nicholas spoke up. "They aren't usually guarded or filled with the staff. And these passageways are closer to the underground storage systems, where the large hydrofluoric tank is."

I didn't understand why he was telling this to us, and he must've seen the confused expression on my face.

"If you need to destroy that seed, you need to throw it in that tank." Nicholas added. "The tanks are dangerous, that's why they're safely hidden. Burner knows that this is one way to destroy that seed."

I nodded slowly, letting that information sink in.

"Disguise yourselves and go to the Research Department. That is the only way. Go and save those innocent lives." He said, sliding the card towards me. Beneath it, there was another small card. I picked it up and realized that it was some kind of ID.

Dad's ID.