Underneath The Hidden Stars

Chapter XVII

Mira smiled, and without waiting too long, agreed. Melissa smiled back at her, and stretched out her pinky finger.

"All you have to do now, is to make a pinky promise that you won't tell anyone. We like being secret."

Without even giving it a second thought, Mira held out her pinky finger.

"Promise."

"Great! Come on, I'll show you the others, and you'll get officially accepted." she said and headed towards the door of the bakery. She glanced back when she noticed Mira was still sitting. "Come on, Elaina, you coming or not?"

To no surprise, they went straight to the library. Melissa stopped in front of the different bookshelves and looked at Mira with a devilish smile on her face.

"See this bookshelves? It's our entrance." Mira looked at Melissa and pretended to be confused. "I know it's confusing at first, but look at this-" she pushed the bottom of the bookshelf with her leg, the same way Ava did when she first brought Mira there.

As the door opened, Melissa crawled through it, waving at Mira to do the same. She quickly followed, as she already knew what she'd be leaded to. They took a turn to the left, and then one to the right, and they were right where Mira knew they would be. Melissa turned back to her and smiled before pushing the totally inconspicuous wall.

After climbing out of the vent, Mira looked around. The room looked slightly different than it did the last time she saw it, but she couldn't wrap her head around what exactly was different. "Did they refurnish? Or, uh, maybe they repainted the walls?" she kept thinking to herself while Melissa walked to a cupboard, opened the doors and pressed a button. She then squatted down a little and started speaking.

"Chief, I've brought a new one for you. She seems like she'd be perfect for replacing Gerald."

There was a bit of staticky noise for a few moments, but soon after followed a response.

"Yeah okay, send her in. I'm in my office."

Melissa let go of the button and quietly whispered to herself.

"Of course she's at the office, she wouldn't be able to answer it if she wasn't." she said and rolled her eyes before turning back to Mira and smiling. "Let's go, the chief's waiting."

As they walked through the long and dark halls, Mira couldn't help but stare around in awe. At the end of the hallway, Mira saw dark doors, which seemed rather ominous, especially considering the situation. They walked through them, and were greeted by a dark haired woman, who sat in a large leather office chair.

"Chief, here she is." Melissa said after entering the room. She then nudged Mira to introduce herself.

"Hello, I'm M- Elaina. Elaina Waters."

The woman turned around in her chair and looked straight at Mira. She squinted a little and then smiled.

"Well, hello there Elaina. My name is Renee and I'm the director of our humble company. So, what is it exactly that you do that we could benefit from?"

"Uhm, well. I work at the safety office, and I've heard that you need someone to delete some files occasionally that revolve around innocent people. Like, people that might get framed for completely situational evidence that would have no weight otherwise."

Renee smiled at Melissa and looked back at Mira.

"That is indeed the kind of person that we're looking for, Elaina. Are you completely sure you'd be willing to give up most of your free time? Working here, although rewarding, can be extremely time consuming, and you will most likely have to come here everyday after work."