PUSHING PAST THE MASSIVE GATE, THEY WALKED towards the house. Shay breathed in the sweet fragrance of flowers as they headed towards the large and elegant house, which was a distance away. She spotted a hole in the wooden fence, and the wire fence. It was large enough for Leo to crawl through but wasn't noticeable because of the lush greenery.

A group of colourful butterflies swarming around flowers caught Shay's attention, and she watched them with fascination. Will, who noticed that she stopped by the flowers grabbed her arm gently. "Come on, Shay. We are already late," he said, checking his watch. He impatiently flicked his hair aside with his hand, making it attractively rumpled.

Shay raised an eyebrow or tried to, as she averted her eyes from his hair. "Race you to the door?" Will smiled, agreeing. He held up his hand, counting off his fingers and both started running at the same time. Cold wind against her skin felt good and refreshing, her muscles burned with satisfaction.

Shay let out a whoop of delight when she reached before Will and grinned at him when he breathed hard to let some air into his lungs. Will stepped forward after calming down, ringing the doorbell. When there was no response, he rang the doorbell again but no one came. Will looked at her with puzzlement, "Should we like, use the back door's key he gave us?"

Shay shrugged and pushed the heavy door to see if it was open, and it didn't budge at first. She used even more force and it opened slightly. She smiled at Will, "Bingo."

Strange, Shay thought as she peered inside the house and walked in. She held in a breath just as she did every time she entered George's house, not getting used to the grand house after coming to this house these many times. Jade had urged them to come quickly when she called them.

After waving goodbye to Ruby and Hannah, Will and Shay had talked about their childhood. They hugged each other after that, letting the warmth soak into each other and comfort them. Will had exhaled loudly then, taking her gently by the shoulders as he started, "Shay..."

But then Shay's phone started ringing. She never found out what Will wanted to say. Jade had urged them to come to George's house quickly, though she didn't state the reason. Will went to the kitchen as Shay searched the dining hall and the lab. They approached the grand staircase together, running upstairs and to the library.

The library was a paradise for her. It was huge and filled with books. So many books. Books, books, books, everywhere. It was her dream library. The lighting here was breathtaking too, a massive chandelier hanging above their heads. Her favourite spot was at the corner of the library, where a table was perched. During the daytime, warm sunshine illuminated that corner, making it cosy for them and their eyes. But now the massive chandelier was alight, golden light spilling everywhere.

The library was so huge, Shay could jog its length when it was raining outside and Shay wanted to jog. She remembered the first time they came inside the library, all of them squealed with happiness, Rose practically jumping with joy. All of them had gone through the books and collapsed exhausted, but Rose would excitedly scream, "Please, please, please can I borrow the book, George?" George would chuckle at her excitement and reply, "Sure, Rose. Take any book you like."

That day, the library had been filled with excited chattering and shouts unlike the pin-drop silence now. There was only a tap-tap sound, the sound of George walking. Leo, who had been leaping with excitement had stopped when he noticed his unusually quiet friends. Never since the time she met her friends, had she experienced this much silence with them.

George was pacing the length of the room with his phone pressed against his ear, quietly murmuring into the phone. All her friends were sitting down on the gleaming marble, who were watching George nervously. Kai and Theo looked at Will and Shay and shook their heads vigorously, putting a finger on their lips.

Will let out a snort which wasn't audible to others. Judging by the look on his face, Shay could tell what he was thinking. He was probably thinking that he would be the one asking the two boys to stay silent who would continue to howl like banshees.

George, who was usually loud and cheerful was speaking lowly into the phone. So lowly that Shay wasn't able to make out what he was saying, even though there was silence in the room. Shay looked at Will who looked as equally puzzled as her, shrugging and shaking his head at her. Shay looked at her friends again, who were watching George with wide eyes.

Okay, what was going on there?

Kai's eyes flicked back to them, and he gestured to stay quiet, shaking his head at them again. This time Shay snorted along with Will. Never did she think that Kai out of all people would ask them to stay quiet. Never.

Usually, Will and Rose would be the ones to make sure anyone wouldn't do anything stupid. Theo and Kai were the ones who would always do something stupid. Jade and Shay were somewhere floating in the middle, sometimes uncontrollably stupid with the boys and sometimes on their best behaviour. It all depends on the situation.

Theo looked and Kai and agreed with him, nodding vigorously as he shushed them even though they weren't really speaking.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

After muttering lowly into his phone, George tapped the phone's screen and put it into his pocket. Kai bounced up, "Tell us what happened! Tell quickly, curiosity is almost killing me. Was it a yes or a no?" Kai continued to bounce up and down as George placed a hand on Kai's shoulder, "I'm gonna tell you what happened after Shay and Will come back. It's been a while now, where are they? I'm getting worried."

Kai whined like a child and pointed at them, "They are here, now tell me what happened." George turned on his heels and looked and Shay and Will, smiling. "Wow, I didn't even notice you guys there. My eyesight is a lot worse than I originally thought, side effects of turning old I assume," he joked and chuckled but continued, "You both most be wondering what is going on here, I will tell you what's going on once you settle down. You guys hungry?"

Shay sat down next to Will, taking Leo into her lap. "Nah, we just ate ice creams."

"YOU WHAT?!?"

Shay flinched as she looked at Theo and Kai who screamed into their ears. Theo placed a hand on his heart and wiped an imaginary tear off his face, "Are you cheating on us?" Shay narrowed her eyes at Theo, "Yes Theo, with food." She said, watching as their friends crumbled onto the floor.

Kai had his head in his hands as he said, "You ate ice creams without us! How could you, Shay? How could you, Will? You hear that? That's the sound of my heart breaking. I thought we were friends, but we aren't! I have no one in the entire world now, no one!" Theo clutched his heart in pure agony, "I trusted you! For what? For you guys to cheat on us!"

Jade and Rose who would usually roll their eyes at their antics played along with them this time. She saw Will slipping out of the room from the corner of her eye. Jade said with mock accusing eyes, "Huh, never thought you would do this. In my opinion, it's like an unwritten rule in the book of friendship: Always buy ice creams for your best friends when you eat them." Rose nodded, "The cord which held my heart just snapped. Why? Because you didn't buy me ice creams. Oh, I think I'm gonna die," she said weakly, flailing her arms wildly.

George chuckled. Shay stepped forward, dramatically throwing her arm in front of her as she pointed an accusing finger at her friends. Theo's rubbing off me, she thought. "Oh, you think I didn't see the plates in the kitchen? Doesn't that mean that you guys ate without us, not leaving anything for us to eat? How could you? What would you guys do if I and Will died of hunger?"

Well, that surely shut their mouths.

Will smiled at all of them, holding out a cover like an offering. "But because we are good friends unlike you guys who ate without thinking about your hungry friends," he said, stopping when Kai snatched the cover before Will even complete what he was saying. Will sighed, "Guess we followed the unwritten rule from the so-called book of friendship."

"Chocolate!"

"Vanilla!"

"Strawberry!"

"Cookies and Cream!"

"Mint Chocolate Chip!"

Each of them excitedly shouted their favourite ice cream flavours like little kids as they devoured the ice creams hungrily. "I didn't notice you putting those ice creams into the fridge," Shay said, looking at Will who sat down beside her. He smiled, "I put them into the fridge when we went into the kitchen searching for these idiots. I thought we could eat them afterwards but didn't think they would eat them right away."

After all of them gobbled their ice creams in less than a minute, they looked up at Will and Shay, grinning sheepishly.

"So," Shay asked raising her voice, "what was all of that about?"

George answered her question, "I was thinking about what you guys told me about suicides not really being suicides and decided to go through the autopsy reports which you guys so generously took," He pauses and smirked, but laughed after looking at the expressions on their faces. "Anyway, many more people have died after you guys stole those reports, so we don't have their reports. Who knows? Maybe whoever behind this found another method to kill people and disguise them as suicides? So, we need the post-mortem reports of the people who died recently."

George paused when Will raised his hand, "Wait a minute, are you indirectly implying that we need to break into Aquariaa again, and do that again?" Will asked with an incredulous expression on his face. Shay shook her head repeatedly, "No way, I'm not doing that again. No freaking way." Shay looked at others for support, but they just watched them with satisfied smirks on their faces.

"Did I react like that? I was calmer, wasn't I?" Kai asked as a sly grin made his way to his lips. George said, "No, you freaked out very badly. Weren't you the one who punched the wall and which caused a book to fall on your head?" George said, raising his eyebrows as Kai shut his mouth.

"Okay, so what are we gonna do George? How will we catch hold of them? They won't simply walk to us and sit in our cupboards, will they? If only life were that easy" Shay said sighing. George turned around to face her, "I pulled some strings." Will and Shay said simultaneously, "You what?"

George smiled, "Will, Shay, I think you are forgetting the fact that I am a scientist," He paused when Theo scoffed and added, "And a damn good and famous one too."

George grinned mischievously at Theo and looked back at Will, "Anyway, what I am saying is that I contacted a few senior officials and asked if they could grant me access to go through Aquariaa's files, and after a little persuasion they finally gave in."

"Just like that?" Shay asked George who just shrugged. "And they didn't ask you any questions, like 'what are you gonna do with them?' or 'why do you need them' or anything like that?" Will asked, and George watched Will with an amused smile, "No, why would they do that?"

"The question is, why wouldn't they?"

"Will, may I remind you that George is a very famous, well-known scientist?" Jade said and George opened his mouth to oppose what Jade said but the pop sound of a notification from his phone interrupts him.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, and they watched as his smile gets bigger and bigger as he scrolls through it.

"What? What is it?" Rose asked excitedly. George smiled widely at them, "I didn't think it would be this quick," he commented.

"Wait, did you get them?!?" Jade asked, jumping up and down with excitement. George nodded, "When they said that it would be an excruciatingly long process for them to ask the highest official to allow access, I didn't think that it would be this quick. We did get them though, we now have access to all the files stored in Aquariaa."

"But," George interjected which abruptly ended their pathetic attempts to do a quick happy dance and look at him with puzzled expressions, "there are many, many, many files, and it would take us at least a day to download them and hence we can't go through them today."

They grumbled but were happy that they could at least look through them someday.

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