The ride back to the DAU was silent, even though all five of us were antsy. Nay spent the whole trip wrapping my scratched arm, which I was very thankful for because as soon as she was finished, the pain was gone.

My teammates and I still said nothing as our mentors led us back into the meeting room we had first met them in. I knew that whatever they were going to show us was important, and my teammates did as well, so we weren't about to do anything stupid.

I could tell that Hank and Nay were trying to think of them best way to tell us whatever they were going to tell us. It worried me, because I was sure that if this was hard for them to just tell us, it was going to be hard for us to deal with.

"So, what are you going to show us, Nay?" Aiden was the one who finally had the guts to ask, the rest of us still staying silent. Our blonde mentor turned back toward us and let out a sigh.

"We're going to tell you all about Redrum," was all she said, and the name sent chills up my spine.

My teammates and I glanced at each other, but only Aiden seemed to have any inkling of a clue what exactly Redrum was. I didn't bother asking him, since I knew Hank and Nay were about to give us a better explanation.

"Redrum," Hank began, as if sensing our confusion, "is... well, it's kind of hard to explain."

He glanced at Nay now, who was giving him a look that I couldn't really read. It was obvious to all of us that they didn't want to talk about this, at least not yet. What the heck was up with Redrum?

"Redrum is an organization that is a lot like the DAU," Nay explained carefully now, as if she had to make sure she got the information right. "Except, they don't fight evil. They are evil."

"I know about it, kind of," Aiden muttered now, his hands in his pockets. "My dad briefly told me about it. It sounded like something he didn't want to talk about."

Hank and Nay gave each other a look. It seemed that Aiden's father had a reason to not want to talk about it.

"Redrum is where members of the DAU choose to go if they don't want to be good," Hank continued for her. "Or it's where people go if they don't get recruited at all."

My mind immediately went to Lena. Did she know about Redrum?

"Wait," I found myself uttering, causing everyone to now look in my direction. "That guy at the beach, Randall... When I asked if he was a part of the DAU, he said he used to be. I know that he was just for training, but did he want me to think that he was a part of Redrum?"

Nay nodded. "He didn't know that you hadn't been informed on what Redrum was."

"Redrum was actually started by a member of the DAU," Hank informed us all now, and that was the part that was the most shocking to me. He was going to tell us more until he saw the glare that Nay was shooting his way.

Obviously, whatever he was going to continue on with was something that Nay didn't want us to know just yet. Alright, I was okay with this. At least they were telling us this much. I was sure someday we'd get to know the rest.

Hank made his way to the largest computer in the room, but my teammates and I stayed right where we were with Nay. She seemed to have more to say to us.

"Once we tell you about all of this, there's no going back," Nay warned us now, and I felt my chest tighten. "I don't want to make it sound completely horrible, because it really isn't too bad, but Redrum means serious business. They're our main threat."

Nay now beckoned us closer to the large computer screen. She bent over the keyboard and typed, and the five of us waited while she did so.

"We're going to be showing you two members of Redrum." Hank gestured toward the computer as Nay continued to type away. "These two, at least for now, are going to be the only members that you're going to have to worry about."

Suddenly, a picture of a man popped up onto the screen. He was blonde and attractive, and also looked to be around Hank and Nay's age. In his picture, he was smirking devilishly and had a scar across his left eye and cheek. But other than that, he was actually attractive. This all made him look very dangerous to me.

"This... is Malicius," Nay began to explain, and his information now popped up next to his picture. He was thirty-two, and he had been a part of Redrum for twelve years. When he was a part of the DAU, his team name was HENLA. His real name was Eric Grand. His parents' names were Peter and Joanne. His blood type was AB positive. He was six foot five and two hundred and twenty pounds. No significant other, though past ones were listed. His power was terrakinesis, also known as earth manipulation. His partner was Lynx...

But I couldn't get over the name he was going by.

"Malicius? Really?" I snorted, unable to control it. "Someone's trying too hard."

Nay gave me a look. "Violet."

"I mean, come on, his name is one letter away from malicious, which I'm sure he did on purpose," I continued on now, feeling the need to talk about this.

Nay continued to give me that unamused look. "Violet..."

"Ma-li-ci-us," I articulated in amusement. "Ma-li-ci-us, ma-li-ci-us, ma-li-ci-us."

"Violet!" Nay snapped at me now.

I let out a nervous laugh as I rubbed the back of my neck. "Sorry, Nay."

"Well, she does have a point," Dex now agreed with me, and this surprised me. "Not only is this place's name murder backwards, but now one of the members has a name that almost sounds like malicious. Maybe they are trying too hard."

Nay let out a sigh and ran her hand through her hair. "At least you two are agreeing on something for once."

I glanced at Dex, but then quickly looked away when I saw that he was looking at me, too.

Hank did not look happy as he looked up at this man's picture. I didn't seem to be the only one to notice this, because now my teammates were giving him looks as he glared up at Malicius.

"You okay?" Aiden asked him, and I heard Nay let out a sigh.

"This... man," Hank began now, sounding like he did not think that Malicius was worthy of being called a man, "has claimed to be in love with Nay for years now."

That would explain why Nay had the reaction she did in the alley when the woman had mentioned the other man that was assigned to our team, whatever that meant. I was going to have to ask about that...

I felt the corners of my mouth twitch up, but then forced them back down because I knew this wasn't something I should have been smiling about. But I couldn't help but find it cute that Hank was jealous.

I now looked up at the list of his past significant others to see Nay Burns was on the list. She didn't seem very happy about this.

She noticed my gaze and made a face. "The only reason my name is on there is because of his feelings toward me. Nothing went on between the two of us, though he tried very hard to start something."

"Is he really in love with you, though?" Kristie asked our blonde mentor now, and I wasn't going to say that I actually really wanted to know the answer, too.

Nay shrugged. "I have no idea. It's not exactly something I like to think about."

I couldn't help but think that Nay was very lucky. Not only was she beautiful and elegant, but she also had two men in love with her. Of course, it wasn't that great that one of them was evil, but Hank was a really great guy and I knew that he loved her more than anything.

I tried to shake these thoughts from my head. Now was not the moment to think about love. What we were discussing was serious.

A new picture now appeared on the screen, and my breath caught in my throat for a moment when I was met with the woman that we had just seen in the alley. Though we hadn't clearly seen her, I just knew.

"This is Lynx," Nay introduced now.

"Lynx?" I voiced now. My teammates looked at me. "Much better."

She was nineteen years old. She had been a part of Redrum for three years. She hadn't been recruited to the DAU. Her real name was Samara Tremaine. Her parents' names were Mitchell and Ashley. She was five foot five and one hundred and fifteen pounds. Her blood type was O negative. No significant other, but past ones were listed. Her power was feline physiology, so she was pretty much a cat. Her partner was Malicius.

This made me wonder if our information was in the computer as well. If we had the enemy's information, why wouldn't they have ours? I felt completely bare knowing that people could see all this information about me.

"She's really pretty," Kristie commented with that high-pitched voice of hers, and even though I wasn't about to say this out loud, I agreed with her. Lynx really was beautiful. "It's a shame she's a bad guy."

She sounded so innocent, so pure. And I was sure that those were two things you couldn't be when you were a member of the DAU.

"Why do they go by other names?" Anthony asked our mentors now. "Does everyone in Redrum go by different names?"

"Well, if you were her, would you want to be known as Samara Tremaine?" Dex asked in that arrogant and teasing way of his, his arms crossed over his chest. "It doesn't exactly sound threatening, don't you think?"

"Not everyone in Redrum goes by different names," Nay shrugged simply, and we continued to stand and listen. "Some go by their real names if they choose to. It's the same here, actually. My real name isn't Nay."

The five of us stayed silent, because we knew she wasn't telling us this so we'd ask her what her real name was. If she wanted to tell us, then she'd tell us. There was no point in asking.

"But wait," I found myself saying now. "Lynx said that they were assigned to this team. What is that supposed to mean?"

Hank and Nay looked at each other, looking as if this was something they didn't want to tell us about. But obviously, it was something that they had to talk about.

"Pretty much... What she meant was that... Well..." Hank seemed to be having a hard time trying to word it, so Nay took over for him.

"Really, it's more like you're assigned to them," Nay began to explain, and Hank looked thankful that she was taking over for him. "When they cause havoc, you five are the ones that have to go and stop them. They are the members of Redrum that you get to deal with. Whoever their mentors are over at Redrum, or whoever is in charge of them, told them all about you much like we're doing now with them."

I felt my stomach drop. "So... they saw all the information that we saw about them?"

Nay nodded. "Well, as much as they have. I'm not sure if they have as much as we do. They might even have more."

This definitely made me sick to my stomach. But that was how Lynx had known my name when we had met in the alleyway. It all made sense now.

I looked back up at the screen to see just what information they could have known about us. My parents' names, my powers, the fact that I had no significant other... I don't know why that one bothered me the most.

"You don't have to worry about them just yet," Hank now assured us, but this definitely didn't make me feel any better. It only made me feel worse. "You don't have to deal with that until you're done with your training."

"When is that, by the way?" Aiden asked, looking eager.

"I still think it's a little too soon to send you five off on real missions just yet," Nay informed us now, and I couldn't help but notice she let her gaze stay on me just a little bit longer than she had for the rest of my teammates. "But soon, it'll be your time."

Aiden still didn't look happy about the fact that we weren't allowed to go out and fight yet, but I was glad. I might have had a little more control over my powers, but I was nowhere near ready to go out and actually fight, and I was sure that my teammates weren't ready either.

"If you're not going to send us on missions, what are we supposed to do now?" Aiden now asked, his arms crossed over his chest as he almost pouted like a child. I really hoped our mentors would tell us that the rest of the day was a free day so I'd go to bed. It had been dark out for a while, so I had no idea what time it was.

"What I think we should do first is clean the training room," Hank suggested now, and my teammates and I looked at each other with disgusted faces. They were still going to make us clean? "Except for Violet, of course, since she found Regina first and she's injured."

Okay, now I liked the sound of this.

"You guys will finish cleaning it tonight, and then you can go to bed," Nay informed them all now. "We'll start training in there in the morning after you guys have rested and Violet's arm gets a little better."

Hank nodded in agreement. "It'll be the first time you guys will be training in there together, so I expect you all to be on your best behavior."

My teammates, except for Kristie, because I didn't even think it was possible for her, glared at me as Hank ushered them out of our meeting room and down the hall toward the training room. I bit my tongue to stop myself from laughing at them. The last thing I wanted was for them even angrier at me.

"Let me re-bandage your wound now that we have better supplies here." Nay took a hold of my uninjured arm and led me back toward the computer screen, where I assumed the supplies we needed were. I looked back up at Lynx's picture, my eyes boring into hers. "You're really lucky there was no poison in your wound."

I tore my eyes away from Lynx's picture and blinked at my mentor. "What?"

She let out a sigh as she began to unwrap my arm. "Lynx can insert poison through her scratches whenever she likes. But now, she chose to not use any when she scratched you."

I didn't say anything as she began to wrap my arm once again, this time with thicker gauze. Why wouldn't Lynx use her poison? Did she not want to kill me... yet? Maybe that was it. Maybe she wanted more opportunities to fight against me... But it wasn't like that made me feel any better.

I wondered how hard it would be to fight against them. I had thought that it was hard against Lynx, and she had barely even done anything to me. Then again, I hadn't even tried to fight against her because I was shocked over the fact that she knew who I was.

"So, uh, did Regina get taken back safely?" I asked Nay as she pulled thicker gauze out from a cabinet. I wasn't really concerned about the cat, since we had found her and all, but I didn't know what else we were supposed to say.

She nodded. "Yes, she did. The owner was very thankful toward us."

That was good. Even though Regina seemed very content around Lynx, I knew she shouldn't have been. I could already tell that Lynx was a very dangerous person, and the only reason Regina felt safe around her was because they were both felines.

I kept looking back up at the screen, my eyes immediately sticking to where it said significant others. I couldn't help but wonder if there would be names on that list for any of my teammates. Had Aiden had girlfriends, or what about Anthony? I was sure Kristie had had boyfriend before. And then there was Dex...

I couldn't help but feel embarrassed over the thought that my enemies had seen that I had had zero boyfriends in my sixteen years of living.

"You keep looking up at the significant others part of the information," Nay noticed out loud, and it made me immediately look away from the screen and at my arm she was mending.

"No," I denied, a little too quickly.

Nay gave me a look that told me she didn't believe me as she said, "I really think it's a useless category and it really shouldn't be up there. They only put it up there because someone thought it would be a good idea to put all personal ties in everyone's information, which is why members of the family are up there as well."

I said nothing to this. Even if it was just to see everyone's personal ties, I didn't like it. It seemed like an invasion of privacy.

"It's best not to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend when you're in the DAU," she advised now, and I wasn't so sure that I agreed with her or not. "In the past, it's caused... a lot of problems."

I blinked at her. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to ask this, but I did so anyway, "How so?"

"You spend a lot of time with your teammates, especially when you go on missions," she began to explain, tightening the gauze around my arm now. "Naturally, you could grow feelings for someone, and then they might even have feelings for you as well. But then, someone else on your team could have feelings for you or the other person too and then there's friction between everyone on the team."

"Well, I don't think I really have to worry about that happening to me," I couldn't help but grumble. "I mean, since Kristie's on my team and everything."

Nay let out a laugh, patting my arm. "You really don't give yourself enough credit."

I didn't know what I was supposed to say to this, so I didn't say anything at all. I just kept my mouth shut as she made sure the gauze wasn't too tight around my arm.

"Did something like that happen with Malicius when you and Hank got together?" I had to ask her now, even though I wasn't sure if all three of them had been on the same team or not.

Her smile disappeared now, and she shook her head. "Hank and I aren't a couple."

I just stared at her for a moment. Was she being serious? It was obvious how the two of them felt toward each other, yet they weren't a couple. I just didn't get it. If I loved someone and I knew that they loved me back, I wouldn't have even hesitated being in a relationship with them.

"Also, having relationships with humans is a bad idea," she explained to me now, changing the subject from her and Hank. "Especially romantic ones. Being friends with them is alright, but you don't want to get too close. It's best that humans don't know that people like us exist."

My mind immediately flashed back to the boy I had bumped into earlier that night. I quickly shook this thought from my mind.

"You should go to bed now, Violet," Nay suggested, a warm smile on her face as she put the gauze back into the cabinet. "You're going to have to wake up pretty early tomorrow morning for training."

As unpleasant as that sounded, I forced a smile back at her and did as I was told, leaving the meeting room and making my way down the hall toward my room. I forced myself to not think about all the information I had just learned.

Now all I could hope was that I managed to fall asleep before Kristie came back, or else she'd start chatting and I'd never get to sleep.

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Malicius's name is pronounced muh-liss-ee-us. Not malicious, hah. xD

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