The Mystery

Kidnapped

After the person left, Cilan unlocked the door and rushed outside to see the person walking away to be Harley's girlfriend, just as they had expected. Since they had heard about the possible attack, they rushed back into the hall to see Gary keeping an eye on Harley while standing in a corner. Cilan dragged Ash towards Gary and asked them to keep monitoring Harley. After saying so, he vanished from their sight.

"Where did he go?" asked Gary.

"I'm as clueless as you are. Anyway, we just overheard Harley's Girlfriend. She's most likely the one behind the threats."

Meanwhile, Cilan was trying to look for the girlfriend in the huge crowd. She had escaped his sight when he had left Ash with Gary. As soon as he caught a glimpse of her, there was a commotion. He looked around to find that the hall had slowly started to fill with smoke which had set off an alarm.

He sighed as he thought, 'typical abduction' and continued to follow the girlfriend who seemed to be rushing in the opposite direction. It was difficult to keep her within his sight while going against the flow of an anxious crowd. He had almost lost sight of her twice. Thankfully she went away from the crowd and Cilan was able to escape the commotion. She entered a hallway on her left and froze. Cilan followed her and hid behind a pillar. He peeked a little to see her frozen. As he was wondering why she had stopped, he leaned a bit more to find thre- no, four people covered from head to toe in black. 'But why are they lying on the floor unconscious?' he thought. 'Are they the ones she hired? Is that why she has stopped?'

She was continuously mumbling something but Cilan couldn't make out. He waited and observed her instead of confronting her. Even if he did confront her, she would deny so it was worthless. Soon after, two other people appeared in front of the frozen girl out of nowhere. They too were dressed in black but their outfit was different from the ones on the ground. Upon seeing them, the girl came out of her trance as she stopped mumbling and cautiously took a step back.

"Don't move!" one of them said.

"Who are you!?"

"That's none of your concern. It's not like we are going to meet again, is it?" the other said while holding up a picture and looking at her.

"I'm not going with you!" the girlfriend exclaimed.

"What makes you so sure that we are here for you?"

"Uh..t-that's becau- um...the way you are looking at me!" she was sweating.

"Wow" said one in a bored manner while the other chuckled and said, "How naive"

She gulped and was breathing heavily. Though Cilan couldn't see her, he knew how her face would have looked. Her plans had gone wrong after all.

'Could they be working for the person who sent a letter and claimed to neither be a friend nor a foe?' he thought. 'Should I interfere? It could be a rash decision. They are closer to her than I am. By the time I reach there, they'll probably take her as hostage. It'll be useless. In fact, they'll get cautious and stop talking. I should wait.'

"Let me get straight to the point. You are coming with us and that is definitely not a request"

"But why?"

"Eh? Are you playing dumb right now? Why do you think we want to abduct you?"

"Um...probably because I'm extremely talented and pretty?"

Upon hearing this, not only the kidnappers but even Cilan froze. 'What does she think of herself? At a time like this, how could she even say that? ' he thought.

One of the kidnappers turned to the other and asked in a extremely sweet voice, "Can I kill her?"

"Even I wish to do that. How unfortunate that we have to take her alive",replied the other while crushing the picture that he had held in his hand.

"Well, since you aren't admitting, we are taking you because you decided to kill Harley and now your fate shall be decided. Don't bother resisting, it's just going to hurt you. Besides, we won't kill you."

'I knew it! It was her. But what should I do now? I can't let them take her away but how would I stop the two of them alone? Especially when they managed to take out the four who were now lying on the floor' as Cilan was trying to think of a way, the worst possible thing happened. His phone rang.

'Ughh...typical reveal' he thought as he cursed at Ash who had called him while trying to decline the call. It was useless anyway, the kidnappers had already been alerted and looked at Cilan. Their eyes met and for some reason Cilan could feel one of the smirking underneath his mask. He held something in his hand and tossed it at Cilan.

'Typical smoke bomb or bomb incoming' he thought as he ran a few steps away from the kidnappers in order to avoid their bomb. He turned around and came to a halt. The kidnappers and the girlfriend were nowhere to be seen. There were only two things that were left in the hallway. One was him and the other was the object they had thrown at him which was bouncing and finally came to a stop in front of Cilan. He bent forward and picked it up.

"A ball!?" he couldn't believe that he ran away from a ball. He kept staring at it with wide eyes and finally said, "They didn't harm me..."

The hallway was enveloped in silence as Cilan kept staring at the little black ball in his hand until this silence was broken by his phone ringing. It was Ash yet again. The Cilan who was known to have never lost his temper before, clutched his phone, smashed it on the ground and yelled in frustration.

~~~~

Thank you for reading.