~Ines~
I'd spent the whole plane ride working out exactly what was going to happen when I knocked on Connor's room door. Yet when he swung it open and I looked at him, his hair all messy, casually looking amazing in grey sweats and a fitted black v-necked shirt, it was like my brain stopped working completely. It was like the first time I officially met him when he ran into the training room shirtless and sweaty. I stood there staring at him for a second.
But then reality kicked in, and a wave of happiness ran through me. So I dumped my suitcase with Jack and jumped into his arms. He caught me perfectly. I felt so safe in his big, strong arms. He takes his head out of my hair and looks at me. I'm still in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist, and arms around his neck. I seriously can't believe he can hold me.
I smile, there's way too much to say, like how much I've missed him, and how happy I am to see him, and how bloody amazing he looks right now. So I just kissed him, and that was amazing too. I really didn't care what we did for the rest of the night, I just wanted to be with him.
We all sat around talking about absolutely everything, Matt even joined us for a while until he said he was tired and kicked us out.
"I'll miss you." I smiled up at him. Pathetic yes, but I would. A week had seriously felt like a lifetime, and now I was here I didn't want to be away from him.
"Come here." He pulled me close. "Jesus, have I told you how amazing you are?" He had, seven times already.
"Not recently," I said quietly. "I love you."
"I love you more Ines. You're amazing. I'll see you in the morning."
"I'm so upset we can't share a room." I sigh.
"Awe, baby." He kisses my forehead and my insides melt. "I am too. With that stuff... uh before. We're all good aren't we?" He looks slightly worried.
"We're excellent." I reach up and kiss him for a while, then quietly slip out of his arms and down the corridor to my room. Lily smiles at me, she looks so happy. She'd been sitting in Jack's arms all night, casually talking and smiling up at him.
"Its good to have you here Nez." She smiles at me, already snuggled up in bed.
"Its good to be here," I say, turning off the light and snuggling into my bed.
~Connor~
"Dude. Wake up." Matt threw his shoe at me. I sat up, rubbing my side where it hit me. Urgh, so bright, the light was coming in from a window.
"Yes?" I stare at him a while, my eyes slowly coming into focus.
"I just got a text from Mr Chelsea, he said he wants us at the East Junction Warehouse, in an hour. He wants us to dress inconspicuously, and to come alone, he also called us idiots and Pete, which is weird, I dunno. Anyway, yeah we have to go."
"Wait, he wants us at a warehouse at.. what's the time?"
"Like... Ten I think. I dunno. It doesn't matter. I'm going to go throw a shoe at Jack, you can get the girls." He stands up and walks out. Right. Weird. I stand up and pull on a shirt, and walk into Nez's room.
She's snuggled up in bed, looking cute and beautiful. Lily's already left, probably with Jack. I softly climb into bed with her and she wakes up.
"Hey," She says softly, snuggling up with me. "what's up?"
"We have to go, mission stuff."
"Oh, okay." She rubs her eyes, and I kiss her forehead, god she's so beautiful. I've missed her so much, I've missed seeing her smile all the time, and having her hand fit perfectly in mine, and how her voice is differently to Lily's and Em's and mine, and how her hair goes blonder when she stands in the sun. I realise she's fallen asleep again.
"Hey," I say softly, giving her a light shake. "no falling asleep on me. We need to go, we have to be somewhere called East Junction Warehouse in an hour."
"What are we doing?" She asks, propping herself up on an elbow, bits of hair falling across her face.
"Mr Chelsea sent Matt a text saying he wants us at the warehouse in an hour, we have to dress inconspicuously and come alone, so I guess he just means not all rock up in a group then."
"Makes sense." She nods and then smiles. "Finally, get to kick some butt." I laugh at that.
"It's not as great as it sounds."
"I'm sure, are you okay about that guy? That would have been awful to see him..." She trails away, looking at me. I smile at her.
"It was pretty bad. The guy was scum though."
"Where is he now?" Matt stabbed him, we all started shouting, silently freak him out, I said 'lets put him in the cupboard. We'll come back for him later.' Is that guy we killed still in the fucking cupboard of his house?!
"Still... In the... Still in the cupboard. Holy shit!" I jump out of bed.
"What?" Nez asks, but I'm already running down the hall and charging into Jack's room.
"Lily! He's still in the fucking cupboard!" When I walk in, she's sitting on the bed in her pyjamas, Jack next to her, both of them reading a newspaper.
"Look at this." She orders, pushing the paper in my face. It's a small piece on how an apartment in a block of flats had been burned. None of the other flats had been affected or knew about the fire, it had been lit then put out. The rent collector found the apartment when he came to collect the rent.
"What the fuck?!" I look up at them both.
"Did you do this?" She asks glaring at me.
"No!"
"Did Matt?"
"No! How the fuck did this happen?!"
"I have no idea! But now we have someone else, who might be on our side going around burning apartments, and we have to go to this warehouse, this is all really weird Connor."
"I know, I thought it was weird when Matt told me about it. For one, why would Mr Chelsea text? And why would he call Matt, Pete?"
"I don't know! This is so strange!" Suddenly Nez runs in, with Matt walking behind her.
"I thought we should all be here, I have no fucking clue what you're on about..."
"Okay, sit down," Lily says, she's stressing to the max, walking backwards and forwards, Nez throws me a confused look and sits down on the bed. "When Matt killed that guy Connor suggested we put him in a cupboard and come back and deal with him later like burn the house or something, I don't know. Anyway, we never actually went back and now look at this," I throw Nez the paper and her eyes skim over the words looking confused. When she's finished she looks up at us all, her eyes darting from Lily to me, to Jack and then back again.
"What does this mean?"
"It means someone else burned up our killing," Lily says, and she starts pacing again.
"Lily sweetie, calm down," Jack says, taking her hand and trying to stop her.
"So, we don't know who this person is? He could be a bad guy or a good guy?"
"Whoever they are, they're saving our arses," Matt says from the corner. "I don't know if Mr Chelsea really meant to send me that text but he did. So we'd be stupid to ignore it."
"Okay. What did the text actually say." Nez says, obviously trying to make sense of a very confusing situation. My head was spinning, I was so confused. Why would someone go around cleaning up after us? Was it Mr Chelsea?
"Was it Mr Chelsea?" Everyone turns and stares at me for a second, what I said not computing yet. "Mr Chelsea, who burned that apartment?"
"He was away on business..." Nez adds, looking at me with big Bambi eyes, all confused.
"Maybe he just said that, and really he was running around after us fixing up our mistakes."
"But if he was here, why wouldn't he pick up Lily's calls?" Jack asks, "and why did he just randomly show up at the hospital? No, I don't think it was him." Jack was right.
"Yeah, you're right," I said. What the fuck was going on?
"Hey!" Matt shouts at us. The whole time he'd been leaning against a closet watching us freak out, his brain going over everything in its own Matt way of doing things. We all looked at him waiting for him to continue. "I know we all love playing Nancy Drew, but this is stupid. We're running with ideas that we have no clue if they are true or not."
"Matt's right," Nez says, standing up. "We have something, finally. The warehouse thing, whether it was for us or not we have to go with it. We have to go to the warehouse and see what the fuck is going on. Okay? Everyone needs to pull themselves together and stay fucking calm." She says, her voice strong and clear and calm. I can see why she was the captain of her lacrosse team. "Okay?"
"Thanks." Matt says, "put something black on."
