*Chapter 10*

"Okay I think it's time do get ready, now," he said after checking the time. I got up and walked towards my bag where I picked up my stuff. Obviously I couldn't just go out wearing my usual stuff so I had to bring some suited clothes for the night.

Zaron was already in a pair of regular black jeans and all black long sleeves while I still had to change. Thus, I pulled off my jeans and my shirts before heading for my clothes to change into when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, turning me around.

I gasped in surprise when he increased the pressure of his grip on my hips. "What the hell, what happened?" His hand slowly brushed my chest and the area around my abdomen as I looked down.

It was obviously still bruised because of yesterday, but it didn't actually bother me. "Oh uh don't worry it doesn't hurt," I waved away. But as soon as he was a tiny bit rougher than expected, I flinched and stopped his hand. Well it didn't hurt as long as no one touched it.

"Who did this to you?" He narrowed his eyes.

I grinned at him and placed my hands on his cheek. "Aw Zaron, are you worried," I giggled. Though his eyes didn't appreciate my joke in the slightest, causing me to sigh. "Really don't bother, my brother was just a little bit too harsh." Well to be honest, it could've been way worse if he had actually put effort into his punches.

"Your brother did this? He's abusing you?" His grip on my hips started to ache as his expression turned dark. I widened my eyes and hastily shook my head when I realized that my words totally came out wrong.

"No, no of course not," I again shook my head. "That's just what happens during practice," I tried to explain but completely failed. He finally let go of me and suspiciously crossed his arms.

"Practice? What kind of practice is that?" His eyebrows shot up with doubting eyes. I sighed and turned around to quickly put my things on. "What do you mean by practice," he repeated steadier than before.

"I already told you, you shouldn't cross the line." He clearly seemed unsatisfied with the answer and turned away.

"You know, I really respect the fact that you're not ready to tell me certain things about you, but it immediately stops when it involves you getting hurt," he argued. I didn't say anything to that, so he left the room afterwards, leaving me back.

And again, I sighed. Who would have known that it could get so complicated? I wouldn't be lying if I say that it was a hundred times easier dating someone who didn't care as much about me as he did. But on the other side it was also nice. The only person who clearly showed that they cared was Jin. So it was so untypical to see Zaron having that same side or maybe something else.

I smirked.

Somehow that just makes me want to sleep with him even more.

*

"There, you'll be needing this." Zaron handed me some pair of black gloves before he got out the car where the others were already waiting. I looked out before stuffing it in my pocket and got out the car.

"So I guess since everyone seems to be here already, we can start now," Zaron started. "The next shift change is in about ten to fifteen minutes, so everyone get to your positions. From then on, Pixie you know what to do?" He looked over at him who was currently setting things up on his computer and nodded. "Good I already got a blink of the building and we can actually manage when we split in three groups. The building has three floors, so it's the best if Collin and Loki take on the first, Jane and Memphis the second and I take the last. Does anyone have objections?"

"And what about me?" I frowned.

"Obviously, you're coming with me!" Zaron insisted.

Immediately afterwards, I got approached by Pixie who handed me some kind of ear set. "This," he pointed at it. "-is for communication. Just press on that button and then you'll be able to hear everyone speaking. And this is the microphone. Fix it on you shirt, so we can hear you properly."

I nodded before I felt Zaron tugging me and guiding me through some bushes. In that time I managed to put on the ear set and turn it on as Zaron suddenly stood still that I almost bumped into him.

I was about to ask him what the problem was when he all of the sudden dragged me down and shushed me up. "Look," he demanded. Through the whole twigs that was mostly covering the view, I could see the building and also two people guarding the entrance.

I narrowed my eyes to get a better look. One of them was quickly looking down on his hand wrist as he said something to his partner which I obviously couldn't make out from the distance. Then they started to leave. We waited a bit until they fully disappeared from our sight which was also the sign for us to quickly get up and enter the building.

"Come on and put your gloves on," he said as we entered the old looking building.

"Hurry, they are coming!" I heard Pixie through the earphones. So we hurried up after finding the stairs that led us up to the third floor. That was when we had to be quiet. The third floor had around six other rooms in different sizes that we found out after roughly looking around. The other floors should probably be around the same.

"How much time do we have?" This time it was Jane's voice coming from the speaker.

"Something around thirty till forty-five minutes if all goes well," Zaron answered. Thirty minutes? I thought they said an hour? This was basically nothing compared to the amount of rooms we had to check. Zaron's hand was again around mine guiding me too the biggest room. "Let's start here."

The room was not that filled with a lot. Just a few cupboards and closets. But it was quite a mess. A whole bunch of papers and books were spread on the floor and in the cupboards. It kinda looked like there had already been someone here apart from us that was looking for something.

Just looking at the books, I already sighed. It would be a whole lot of work to do. Zaron and I held our work apart, so we wouldn't get in our way or start searching the same place twice and waste our barely existent time. So while he was looking through the cupboards, I was busy inspecting the books and paper pieces on the floor.

Of course I couldn't know who wrote these things on the sheets but whoever it was, sure had a terrible hand writing. So while I skimmed through them, I tried to gather and memorize as much information as possible.

It didn't even made a lot of sense when they were all turn out of the context. Still, I at least found out that most of them were referring to each other.

When we head to the next room, it wasn't as close as the disaster that was on the previous one. So I guess that there hadn't been another burglar inside. And if, they would have definitely notice. That was why we had to leave everything back at its place before leaving for the next rooms.

I frowned when I saw something on the desk. It seemed to be something like an blueprint for a machine. Once I got a closer look at it, I could tell that it was not any kind of machine. It was actually an image of constructions meant for a bomb.

"Hurry," I heard Zaron whisper. I quickly snapped out of it, took the blueprint of the bomb and continued searching for the diary though we ended up with empty hands as we reached the penultimate room. "We still have five minutes," he said.

I huffed and nodded. "Then I'm going for the next room okay?" He didn't complained which I took as an okay before heading to the next room. The room didn't seem big anyway, so Zaron was good on his own.

When opening the last door, it seemed to be some kind of chamber, not much to look for. Though, it was really packed so I went in, just to see insignificant things like brooms or boxes filled with thrash that you would usually store in the basement and never open up again.

The only thing that seemed half interesting was a half open cupboard. It was filled with hanging coats where I explored each pocket as I find some kind of paper. I pulled it out and unfolded it to get a glimpse of the content. It seemed like a similar instruction plan like before, only that it was from a building. It doesn't seemed to be this building though.

I then remembered the lack of time I had and just hid it in my pocket after pushing the hanging coats to the side to look for something else. There were only a pile of clothes on the bottom which I also pushed away, revealing a box covered with a thin cloth. I pursed my lips when pulling it off and grinned.

"Bingo," I commented seeing a small safe locked with a four digit code. The only problem was the code. How am I going to figure it out? If it was a regular safe then this would be easy, but sadly it was not.

I just played around trying to figure out the digits. Probably tried about hundreds of combinations already when all of the sudden I heard a loud crash that caused me to jump in surprise. What was that?

"Oops my mistake!" Jane apologized. The next thing I heard was Pixie in panic.

"Hurry guys they are coming," he rushed. I cursed and tried a few more digits. I couldn't just let the opportunity slip like that. But time was rushing too fast. "The next shift is also on the way. Seems like they are a bit earlier than planned," he added.

I sighed. I was about to give up when it suddenly clicked and opened. "Am I good or what?" I giggled when I found a pink golden book with the name Mira on it. I quickly kept it in my hoodie pocket and closed the safe, changed the digits back and put the cloth and the clothes back over it when I suddenly heard steps coming up the stairs.

I huffed, I really need to hurry. I was about to close the cupboard door when I suddenly fell back. Huh? What happened?

I searched for the object that was keeping me from leaving when I saw that my hoodie got stuck in something on the cupboard. The steps were already approaching my direction. Damn, I didn't even close the door.

"Shit, where are you? You need to get out!" I heard Zaron's voice.

I turned on the mic and whispered. "I can't-," I tried to get myself out by tugging on my sleeve. "I'm stuck!" In that moment I really hated myself for not being so strong and for not listening to Ramon. I panicked when the steps got closer and pulled even harder, gritting my teeth when all of the sudden it finally let go.

Though the resistance of it caused a large impact that I crashed in the pile of brooms when suddenly a heavy box fell on my chest, causing me to whimper.

"The guards are already checking the area, we need to leave!" Pixie said.

"Shit," I whined and got up as quick as possible, opened the window and jumped out, harshly landing on the ground. I hurried to the next tree and hid behind it. Else, the person would have immediately noticed me with one simple look out the window.

I heavily panted and laid my hand on my chest at the pain and the difficulty of breathing. I shouldn't have accepted to a fight yesterday. How stupid of me. I briefly rested my head against the tree and tried to keep my breathing as low as possible.

I need to go. The others were probably already gone. Once I didn't hear any sounds coming from behind me and there wasn't anyone around, I rushed to the bushes and hid behind it where I was safe, for now at least. The guards were still super cautious and I couldn't say whether everyone already arrived or not.

When they finally disappeared from my sight, I quickly stood up and almost lost my balance at the dizziness if I hadn't caught myself in the right moment. My whole body ached from the crash earlier. I took a steady breath and focused on getting back to our meeting point.

When I finally arrived after pushing the last twig that was blocking my way, my eyes immediately caught on what grabbed the most attention in my eyes.

Zaron.

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