[UNEDITED]

Next day at school, Amaya went on and on about Adam. It was clear that she had started to grow feelings for him, and she was unknowingly irritating me.

I wanted to punch her in the face.

Sometimes it felt like she was doing it intentionally, not because she wanted to show me her trivia knowledge about Aneida's most eligible bachelor, but because she wanted to gauge my response and decide whether I truly had any intention of marrying him. I couldn't imaging her thinking of that even after knowing that I was seeing someone else.

All I could do was smile to everything she said and drink the poison.

Dad came to pick me up after school. We reached home safely, only to find a huge gathering in front of our house.

"What's going on?" I asked him.

He looked at the angry mob, and then instructed me to lock the car and stay inside.

I saw him go and meet the mob, and then he was engulfed into the mass of people. I panicked.

Suddenly there was a knock on the window of my glass, making me jump. I looked up, and there was Dylan. His head was covered with the hoodie that he was wearing, but the knowing smile was still etched on his face.

I lowered the window, "I'm not supposed to open the doors."

"I am not asking you to, either," he almost rolled his eyes.

"So, what brings you here?" I asked him, hoping to hear the words 'I missed you so came to see you', but he didn't.

I sneaked back at the mob, dad was probably still there. The people were quiet and listening to something intently.

"I was poking around in Rank Three colonies for latest gossips, and found this mob coming to your house, so I decided to come and take a look," he winked, and my heart stopped for a moment.

"I wonder what's going on here," I looked back and forth between the mob and Dylan.

"There seems to have been some incidents," Dylan ducked his head further as dad emerged from the group and motioned me to stay put.

"What incident?" I turned in my seat so that he would not see Dylan standing there.

"These people are from Rank Three, the ones that love peace and are against the war I guess," Dylan went on, "On my way here, some of them had been saying that a few of their relatives have disappeared over the past few weeks."

"That's weird," I mused, "But then it's not that weird. There are so many things going on, and then there's this other group who wants to strip down both us and the people of Rank Three who are joining us, so I wouldn't be surprised if the missing people were killed by those psychos or something."

"Well, here's a twist. These people here say that their relatives joined army to fight against the alleged rebels, and were promised that this information would be kept secret," Dylan squatted on the ground, but his voice was still coming, "And then after the disappearance started, these people slowly started to become tensed, and then they finally found out that this was happening to quite a bunch of them."

I sat there in silence, unable to provide a proper reasoning.

"So, they're here to protest?" I asked.

"They are here to look for the lost ones," Dylan corrected, "They believe that Benjamin has something to do with it."

"Why would they think that?" I asked.

"Because," Dylan paused, as if looking for a way to put it, "according to these people, Benjamin was the last person all of those people had seen before they went missing."

I felt as if someone had hammered a nail inside my brain. It hurt so much!

"What else did they say?" I asked Dylan.

There was no answer.

"Dylan?" I peeked from the window, but he was nowhere to be found.

Dad opened the door of the car. I jumped.

"Sorry, honey, did I scare you?" he asked, "And why do you have that window opened? I told you to stay locked inside!"

"I was kinda suffocating so I let the window open," I closed it hurriedly.

Dad started the engine as a couple of regulators started to remove the people from the path.

"So, what were they saying?" I asked dad, just to appear normal.

"I's not sure I understood them," dad replied, genuinely perplexed, "they were babbling about lost people and whatnot, says that Benjamin is responsible for something. I think they mean the rebel attacks. I have heard about a few in the past week."

Dad quickly looked at me and then on the path again, feeling guilty. It seemed as though the people in my family had gone through a secret consensus of not talking about the past few days in front of me. They thought it traumatized me.

Once the car was inside the garage, dad had to rebuke me to leave the car and enter the house because I was so much drowned into my own thoughts that I was barely listening to anything dad was saying.

"Go to your room, and freshen up," dad offered me the kindest of smiles, "I'll contact Benjamin and tell him about the situation."

Mom was not home, and I assumed that she was visiting a friend, probably to discuss something. I found a note in the kitchen, asking me to eat the food on the stove and take a nap. I rolled my eyes and ignored. Then I went upstairs to my room, and gasped upon entering.

Dylan was lying on my bed, holding one of my school copies in his hands.

"You know, you appeared as a better student to me," Dylan raised his hand and waved the copy in his hands, "Your copy says otherwise."

I blushed, "I am never good at Chemistry, or Biology," I walked up and placed my bag on the table, "How are you inside the house?"

The guards are really busy with the people outside, so I decided to take a tour here," Dylan sat up, and aimed at the table. I saw him throw the copy, and it landed perfectly on the other stack of books, position same and all.

I raised an eyebrow, and leaned against the table.

"Well, I guess accuracy is another thing gotten in legacy," he shrugged.

"Are you going to stay?" I asked him, and then I reached my drawer and brought out a pair of nice trousers and a t-shirt, "I'm gonna go and get a shower."

"Sure," he walked to my table, and then continued to flip the pages of my other copies.

Once inside the shower, I started to feel weird. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I thought about Dylan sitting only a few feet apart from me. We were only separated by a wall and a wooden door, and it felt as if I could feel him from here. The water was running on my skin, but all my senses were directed toward the soul sitting on my bed, probably laughing at my Chemistry grade.

My face flushed, and I quickly rubbed some soap on my body. Then the shower was over after a quick shampoo, and I came out of the bathroom smelling like a strawberry-cherry cake.

Dylan quickly stole a glance at my direction, making me blush hard.

"So, what are you doing here?" I asked again.

"I was just looking at the mob protesting, and decided to sneak in. The rebels just made me to think again," he supplied.

"Think what?" I asked as I placed the towel on my bed and went to pick up the comb.

"I wanted to check your uncle's study, if you don't have a problem with that," Dylan told me as he walked up and stood behind me.

I looked him in the mirror to find him looking at my wet hair. I looked away, and tried to bury the weird feelings in my gut. He was so close. I could literally turn and be in his arms.

What was I thinking?

"I am not sure when everyone's gonna return," I waved my comb at the door, "But I can give you roughly an hour."

"Will do," Dylan agreed, "Let's go!"

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