Shattered

Chapter 22

Skylor's vision was still hazy around the edges.

It had been...she doesn't even know how long, but it couldn't have been very much time since Thomas took his notebooks full of ideas and sketches down to his lab to build the suits. After that they had all started to wind down, maybe sober up some so the hangover tomorrow wouldn't be as abysmal, anything to use as a distraction to keep from sleeping.

It seems to be a universal theme with this group that sleeping was the last thing anyone wanted to do.

Monsters like to claw at the psyche when someone's most vulnerable after all.

She was sketching in one of the notebooks that Thomas left at least partially blank, possibly a new tattoo for if-when...when they got out of this. They couldn't be thinking like that or they might as well be manifesting their deaths. The second to last line of the sketch drifted slightly off track as Amelia got up from scrolling on her phone on the couch to walk towards the kitchen.

Skylor paused for a second, glanced at the drawing, the kitchen, Ronin still sprawled across the couch, Lloyd curled up in a corner blinking at a book in his lap, then back towards the kitchen.

Meh, might as well.

Quietly, not wanting to disturb Ronin dozing on the couch and not wanting to break Lloyd out of whatever train his thoughts were going, she set the notebook down and made her way to the kitchen, making sure her footsteps were just loud enough for Amelia to know she was heading her way.

As far as she knew, Amelia wasn't an enemy so she shouldn't treat her like one.

Skylor rounded the corner to Amelia typing on her phone with one hand, a glass of water in the other as she leaned against the counter still mostly in the dark. She grinned, leaned against the wall, and crossed her arms and ankles, "How are you able to do business almost all hours of the day? Do you ever rest?"

Her lips quirked up, signaling she heard Skylor but she didn't reply for a few moments as she finished what she was typing on her phone, before sighing and setting the device on the counter, "I, unfortunately, do not. An undisturbed four hours is a thing of dreams for me."

"I would think so, since finance has got to be important for an organization this size."

"Oh the finances are the blood, without us the 'body' would slowly shut down," she took a sip of water and kept going, "that's why tomorrow there's going to be a surprise malfunction in the system. Nothing too serious at first, but enough for me to talk to them about. By the auction, the funds would've been slowly sapped from the company by the 'malfunction'. Leaving them financially stranded."

Skylor nodded, her grin becoming genuine instead of polite, "If they suspect someone of attacking them at the auction, they aren't going to have enough money to pay for it all. So when we attack they aren't going to be as prepared as they would've been before. That's brilliant. Though isn't there a chance they could figure it out and counterattack you before the auction?"

A shrug, "That's definitely a possibility. Thomas helped me create a virus to send them through loops for a few days, since he's better at coding then I am, so it should hold them off for a while. Though, there's always the possibility that they get lucky or they somehow find a way to get through. It's a risk that Thomas and I are willing to take, we were planning on bringing it up to the rest of you tomorrow to ask if everyone else was willing to as well."

Skylor tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly, "Why are you two willing to risk so much to take down an organization you're a part of?"

Amelia opened her mouth but Skylor cut her off.