Strong For Too Long Trilogy ✔️

24. To Leave Or To Stay

CHAPTER 24: To Leave Or To Stay

It was close to midnight when I stepped out of the library doors, running my hand through my sunshine blonde curls and moving straight towards my locker, despite the concoction of the party thrumming against the halls from the basement game rooms. Though the hallway was still fairly occupied with a number of students either going to the large game room or headed back to their rooms. I snap open my locker door and side glance down the hall when I feel eyes on me.

I furrow my eyebrows when I sense more than one, before, "You're late." Candidate Eight says, stepping from the corner of the corridor where English literature was. I slide my textbook in the locker door and close it shut. Shrugging.

"Trying to sort a few things." I mutter.

She studies me, "Candidate One has been looking for you. He said he found your ship, Obsidian, but that you hadn't said much when classes started up again." She says, side glancing something behind me, I close my locker door, rougher than I had meant too. She jumps next to me and stills.

"Eleven?" She asks me, warily. I did research on Lillian Severin, even went so deep as to see just what happened after five months and two weeks once she got out, she was contacted. A crew of body builders I knew was from the Phoenix once I ran their prints opened up. Javier Severin and Meira Laurence showed up on the scanners. Along with Madison Rhys, who I had seen based on footage from just three weeks ago, is the person Eight has contacted the most. I grab my laptop.

"I'm just tense." I mutter.

"Have you looked through the diary?" She asks me, slowly.

I nod stoically, "Yes, but I need more time on it, every time I try to track a new lead, I'm blockaded by at least ten different kinds of firewalls. I don't have enough laptops to stop that many firewalls at once, but I'll get my head around it." I mumble, side glancing the music room when I hear a soft piano note play, and catch Alice in the room. I grab my water bottle and take a few sips of it, side glancing the music playing.

Before catching Eight continuously side glance behind me. I furrow my eyebrows, "What? Is someone on our tail?" I ask her, confused when I side glance down the hall and just see a few students placing their own textbooks away, or drinking and sitting against the comfortable couch chairs along the wall.

She shakes her head, "I doubt it. I'm going to bed anyway, I feel like a walking zombie right now." She mumbles, pinching the bridge of her nose and stepping back around the corner with a nonchalant wave my way. I study her for a few moments before going to move towards the stairs and stilling in shock.

There he was.

Just sitting there.

Long coat on. Navy blue button-up. Dress pants and leather shoes.

Skin pale.

Eyes of the most intense cognac brown I'd ever seen.

There he was.

Just sitting there.

I hold any urge to swallow, I couldn't look away when I had finally met the eyes I felt staring at me for a long time, and in the low light he was seated on the third stair, before he stands slowly and the longer I stare at him, the more shocked I was to see him directly in front of me, one metre between us in the middle of the empty corridor. He doesn't blink in his height of six foot four.

His jaw is clenched, yet his hands are loose at his sides, he stares me down, "Hello, Candidate Eleven." The deep huskiness in his voice had already instilled the blood in my veins as I stare up at him. His sunken cheekbones and darkened eyes looked ethereal. His aura was dark and skin of pale white. Cognac brown eyes didn't dare look away from my eyes. He looked ripped apart almost. Older than his picture on the file.