The helicopter came to a halt and the trio came out of it. A few men went inside the helicopter and brought out the painting, taking it inside. The building was one storeyed and spread over a vast plane. The sunlight reflected from the glass doors and windows that covered it, making it look like a shiny, glass cake. High electric fences surrounded the large space and from where they stood, they could see the vast land blanketed by lush, fresh, green grass. The wind blew their hair and brought warmth along with it.

Bianca wiped her tear stained face for the nth time and tried to calm herself down while Ariana consoled her that life still had to go on whether Shivers was there with her or not. Bianca felt lost and utterly confused about everything that happened in the last couple of hours. She had gone from being annoyed and angry at Ariana to being obliged to her for saving her life from those maniacs who had probably been burnt by now.

She had gone from feeding and feeling proud about Shivers to weeping at his unfortunate parting from her life. She had also gone from lounging in her couch a couple of hours ago to being practically homeless.

It was a lot to take in but she knew she needed answers and that she was determined on having to torture the person behind all the mess that was created, whom she still had to discover by the way.

Ariana led her inside and she was hit with a wave of hype and exhilaration as she stepped through the doors.

The contrasting white, tiled floor and sleek black furniture blinded her vision. People in suites and casuals fluttered from one place to another, looking as focused as ever, as sharp as razors. The scene looked chaotic with few people handing over files and documents, few in training suites and ready for adventure, few having food and working on screens, however, as a whole, it gave a sense of professionalism and fastidiousness.

There was anything and everything amusing about the place. Ariana looked at Bianca with anticipation while Bianca couldn't say anything but stay awestruck, her eyes visibly wide and her mouth slightly open in awe.

"Welcome to the ABCD headquarters!", Ariana exclaimed by clapping her hands together.

At this Bianca's head shot in her direction and didn't bother hiding her laughter, "The what headquarters?", she said in between her fits. She was soon joined by Smita and a couple of other amused on lookers.

Ariana looked as if she would literally throttle anyone who would say that again. Seemed like she got that reaction out of a lot of people. She glared at Bianca and that shut her up, also it dispersed all the people who had gathered around them, looking for anything that was close to jocularity. An angry Ariana was someone she could not deal with ever in her life.

Ariana took in a deep breath and patiently repeated, "It is the A-B-C-D headquarters."

"Ahh, as in the Any-Body-Can-Dance headquarters.", Bianca stated, even though she knew it wouldn't be that.

But, could she pass the opportunity to annoy someone? The answer was a definite no.

"No.", is all Ariana said.

"Oh, so as in the ALPHABETS headquarters?", snickered Bianca beside the annoyed Ariana.

"No Bianca Hoppers, ABCD headquarters as in the "All-embracing Bureau of Cloak and Dagger" headquarters.", she said putting air quotations and clearly had her 'smug expression' take over her face as she watched Bianca's face drain pale and hit the button of realisation in her head. That stayed for 48 seconds before she blurted out, "Can I just please have your poison pen?"

"What?! Aren't you shocked or anything. Ok you were almost when I told you but that was for only a few seconds, I think about 48. The first thing you ask me is if you can have my poison pen? I mean don't you want to know why you are here or don't you want to get all excited with Shive-", Ariana stopped blabbering in a trice when she hit herself mentally on mentioning Shivers.

"Um...I didn't...I just", she continued reasoning when she saw a tear slip down Bianca's face but Bianca stopped her, "Shivers would have loved this place. As long as that guy had a huge place to run around and hide with lots of people to pet him as a bonus, he would give anything to be here.", she left a short something between a laugh and a cry and continued, "I just never knew he would give up his life and still not be here."

At this, Ariana took Bianca's hand in her hand, wiped her tears away and tried smiling but failed miserably, nevertheless, said, "Well, he wouldn't be very happy if we just stood here the entire day instead of having a tour of this place."

"Yes you are right. He would love it if I got a tour of the alphabets academy or whatever."

"Don't push it any further Bianca.", saying this she dragged Bianca further into the building to have a glimpse at what life looked like at the ABCD.

They walked past various corridors and hallways where people were either working on high tech computers and large screens or were seated discussing a variety of cases. One of the rooms was converted into a lab where new gadgets were being tested and invented. Next they headed to the cafeteria which was filled with the aroma of baked food and shakes.

They visited the humungous library, the supply room or the gadget room (which was filled with equipment like survival kits, flashlight gloves, cutting tools, Bluetooth communication badges, pen cameras, poison pens, night vision glasses, razor boots, GPS trackers, fingerprint scanners, explosive bullets, shooting cigarettes and what not.), the gigantic board meeting rooms, the training centre and gym and finally headed towards the back of the building which was, not surprisingly...huge. There were all sorts of vehicles; cars of the latest models, sport's cars, bikes, private jet planes, helicopters, convertibles...literally everything.

Bianca went further inside, admiring all the precious, wild 'creatures' when her eyes landed on Gati, aka, her Bugatti. How was she so sure about it? Well, we all have a number plate for a specific purpose after all.

"Ariana, what is Gati doing here? How did she get here?", Bianca questioned as she moved her hand against the smooth surface of her car.

"Oh...um, about that. I asked someone to get your car here since, you will be needing it."

"You asked someone to DRIVE my car and get it here?", Bianca asked extremely worried about Gati's non existing bad "condition".

"No B, I asked them to fly your car here.", Ariana said sarcastically, "Of course, someone would drive it here!"

"But, it wasn't a safe decision, I would have lost Gati like I've lost Shivers. Why didn't you tell me? We could have gotten it by tomorrow. I would've driven it here.", she whined like a toddler.

"And take away the opportunity of me driving your Bugatti? No way.", a third voice interrupted Bianca's whining.

"Ruff, ruff", a fourth voice joined the third voice.