Aren't you so proud of me CUZ I AM I MEAN LOOK WHO UPDATED TWICE IN A WEEK - ME YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry I'm really annoying I'm highly aware ;P For the record, this chapter here took me FOREVER to write cuz you know like writers block sucks:( It wasn't even writer's block, I just didn't plan the chapter, so I didn't know quite how I wanted to write this chapter but I think I did an okay job with it :) If you don't think so than you can comment/rant about why you didn't like the chapter, and I might rewrite it for you-but general plot stays the same ;)

Grant and the rest of his family were on the porch, but Lyla couldn't miss this opportunity.

She ran up to her room and salvaged her the phone that the JAO (Juhager's Assassination Organization) had given her. While she was there, she made sure to message Sarah.

Going to the Blackwells' house. Be back soon with info.

She then pocketed her regular phone along with six other hairpins in her pocket, patted her thigh to make sure her dagger was there, and was off running down the stairs, taking note of the time on the clock on the wall.

9:16 p.m.

Lyla's feet scurried over the porch as she saw the Blackwell's wave their final goodbyes to their parents, while Grant and Mark are already halfway across the road the separates their houses. Grant looks back, his eyes searching the darkness. When he finally spotted Lyla, he smirked and turned back around to face the house.

Mark was holding his hand as they crossed the road, and talking to Grant about how Divya was the same age as him, but she was still in third grade. "Mark, you started school earlier than every other kid out there, remember? You're younger than, like, all of your friends, aren't you?" Mark sighs and says, "Yeah, I guess."

Grants lips tip upwards and he shakes his head slightly, before turning his twinkling eyes towards Lyla. He takes his finger and puts it on the thick black gate in front of their house, and with a loud click, the gate opens, revealing a sidewalk that connects to their house.

Grant looks to Lyla, and then shifts his head to Mark, and in a loud voice calls out, "Last one to the door is a rotten egg!" Grant had already taken off, with Mark hot on his heels, and Lyla cracked a full-blown smile and joined in on the fun, racing with them all the way to the house.

The bottom of her dress swished around her thighs, her flats hard against the concrete of the sidewalk, fast-approaching the clicking of Grant and Mark's shoes. She caught up to Grant, passing Mark on the way, but not by much. Grant and Lyla reached the door at the same time, with Mark bringing up the rear soon after. He collapsed on the Blackwells' porch, while Lyla was leaning against the door, panting just as hard as Grant with a smile on her face.

Samuel and Elowyn were opening the gate and talking to each other. They opened the gate and were briskly making their way towards us, Elowyn already pulling the keys out of her coat pocket. Samuel continued to look specifically at Lyla, with a rather analytical gaze, but as he climbed up the porch, his focus shifted to his sons, mainly the one that was still on the porch floor.

"Mark, I paid good money for the vest and pants you're wearing right now, and I don't want to see them laying on the floor. Get up and make sure you place the tuxedo on our bed, neatly folded, so we can go and dry clean it tomorrow. I don't want to see this happen again, are we clear?"

Mark had already gotten up and was brushing the dust off the porch off of his body and said in a meek voice, "Yes Dad."

Samuel grunted, while Elowyn just shot a look of disappointment at Mark, and made a face full of beratement at Grant. He just sighed and rolled his eyes. Once Elowyn finished unlocking the four locks of the door, including a fingerprint handle as one of them, Grant creaked open the door and switched on the lights, and told Lyla to come.

Lyla had already memorized the structure of the house from the previous notes that had come with the case file, but even if she had memorized the total square feet of the house, the sheer vastness of its inside couldn't compare to any number Lyla had read.

There were two grand spiraling staircases about 100 m. away from the door. There was an entryway that she knew lead to the kitchen, dining room, and a guest bedroom and bathroom on their right, and a living room, car garage, and backyard on their left. The floor was a starburst pattern made with white and black marble that started in the middle and spread throughout the rest of the open space at the front of the house.

Grant was currently jumping every other step on the staircase at the right, and he stopped in the middle, beckoning Lyla to follow him. Lyla took quick, long strides and caught up to him at the top of the staircase. She took out her phone and checked the time.

9:22 p.m.

She pocketed her phone, and glanced at Grant, who was currently unbuttoning his suit vest rapidly, exposing the white button-up underneath. He held his vest in the crook of his right arm and walked through the long hallway that connected both staircases together. He turned right and passed three doors until he stopped at the fourth door and opened it up, leading to a massive room, with minimal decoration.

The room had white washed walls with a couple of car posters and a nightstand next to the queen-sized bed placed in a corner of his room, which also happened to have plain white sheet with strips of satin running vertical lines along the comforter that was piled up against the side of the bed and the wall.

The floor was strewn with candy wrappers and chip packets with papers crisscrossing the floor in every which way. His clothes were also arranged in a pile near a full hamper sitting right next to it with clothes threatening to spill of of that as well.

By this time, Grant had left his shirt hanging fully open, with the purple bowtie hanging limply around his neck. Lyla could clearly see the faint indents of muscle that littered the front of his body. He put his hand on his hip and lifted the shirt up in the process.

There was a long, pale white scar that run down the side of his body, from below the start of his pant up to the bottom of his chest. Lyla couldn't help but ask, "How did you get that scar?" He stopped his idyllic stare out the window and after a while replied, "None of your business."

Although Lyla had a hunch of what it was from, she didn't want to poke the lion more than she had to; it was already more than she expected to have already been invited into the house.

She watched Grant whip off his shirt and bowtie in a rather slick fashion. He looked at her and sat on the floor. He bent his knees and his back sat up against his bedpost and then brought his arms up to hug his knees. He almost looked vulnerable in a sense; vulnerable and tired.

He looked out the window and then said, "Do you wanna see the rest of the house? Because I'm tired, and I honestly don't even know why I invited you here in the first place. It was a mistake."

The gears of Lyla's head turned. He was like the moon. Push and pull. That was how he worked. He pulled her into his house, and now he was pushing her away. That was fine with her; it made her job all the more easier.

But she still needed to finish her job. She took one of the bobby pins and while he put his head in his arms and looked down, she placed the pin with its curved head facing outwards to the room under his nightstand.

He could continue being immature without her; either way they were going to have an increasing amount of interaction as time went on.

As Lyla looked at Grant who was looking out the window with his head resting on his flexing arms, looking out the expansive windows that cover the wall. She walked out quietly, but before she closed the door she said, "You can't hide forever Grant."

She closed the door behind her.

She padded down the hallway past the staircases-she had to find Samuel's room-there was no way she could let what could be her last opportunity to bug this place go. As she continued walking, she walked into a room.

Mark was on his bed muttering random phrases in another language that wasn't English, but it was the position he was doing it in which was astounding. He was on his bed, with his torso at a forty-five degree angle to the bed. Lyla stepped into the room and his eyelids immediately flew up from their closed position and he looked at her. He cocked one eyebrow up and calmly asked, "What are you doing here?"

Lyla walked into the room and said, "I think the better question is what are you doing?"

Then he looked at her with a confused gaze until he understood what she was referring to. "Oh, you mean my bedtime workouts? Dad says me and Grant have to be in good shape if we need to to continue with our defense raining, and our teacher told us that we had to workout our core, especially for this month's lesson."

"I see," she said as looked around the nicely kept room. She doubted a fourth grader would keep his room this clean, but she stood corrected by none other than Mark Blackwell.

While he momentarily closed his eyes, she feigned a slip on the hardwood floor and managed to slide her second pin in between the crack where the bed touched the bed frame.

Mark immediately stopped his workout and got on the floor in order to help her up. E asked her if she was okay, to which she replied with a sharp yes-she couldn't let him see the knife, which was currently projecting from under her dress.

She flipped over onto the side where her knife was and she quickly helped herself up. "Thanks," she muttered as she left him in her wake. She walked into the hallway, but then she realized that she could just ask Mark instead.

She went back to his room and asked him, "Do you know where your dad might be right now?" He was back on the bed, but this time he was clutching a book between the fingers of his right hand.

He looked at her and said, "Yeah, why? Is there something you need?"

"Not really, I just wanted to stop by and say hi."

"Oh dad's probably in his room right now, which is down the hall to your left, but if he's not he's probably in his study its downstairs past the stairwells to your right."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

She walked over to their parents room and knocked on the door. The door immediately opened, and she was looking at Elowyn's face midway through her makeup removal. Lyla's lips tilted upward, and she said, "Hi Elowyn, just wanted to see you and your husband, just to say thanks for coming to the dinner and for letting me come back here, it was nice."

"No problem honey, that was the nicest dinner we've had in a while honestly, so thank you for inviting us to such an incredible evening. HONEY, LYLA HERE WANTS TO THANK YOU FOR COMING!"

Lyla winced though that last part. Couples-blegh.

Elowyn cracked the door open wider, as her husband strided into the bedroom from their bathroom. Only a towel was slung across his hips, while his chest was left out to breath in the open air. He made a choking noise when he saw Lyla standing in the doorway, and he swiftly left as quick as he came.

"Sorry about that," Elowyn blushed as she looked back to Lyla, "We-I mean, he was taking a shower and you just took him by surprise."

Lyla mumbled a quick "no problem," but as she did, she took another one of her bobby pins, and bounced it off her foot and behind the dresser that was located right next to the door they were standing next to.

Perfect.

Now she just had to bug the study, kitchen, and main living room, and she would be done. But in order to get downstairs and finish her job, she'd have to wait for Samuel to finish in the bathroom. And that took time; Lyla officially knew firsthand.

"Honey, Samuel is taking time, but I'll convey your regards as soon as I can, but you can go ahead and go home right now Lyla."

"Okay, thanks Elowyn, I'll see you soon."

"Alright, bye Lyla."

Elowyn closed the door, and Lyla started back to the staircase, and she went back to the kitchen. She hid a pin in the back corner of their pantry, and then started to their living room.

Their living room was rather large, and had a rather fancy, almost traditional feeling; it almost made their plasma TV on the far wall seem more out of place than the rest of the decor. Lyla slipped the bobby pin next to the family photos on the ledge above the fireplace, directly below their TV.

Lyla checked the time. 9:29 p.m.

Lyla jogged to Samuel's study, where she found a room smothered in books. All kinds of books were hidden within the shelves, but she was running out of time. She quickly put a pin in between two books, one called The Great Gatsby, the other called Catcher in the Rye.

After making sure to leave everything just as she left it, except for the bobby pins, she went back to the front door, and she left, locking the door from the inside as she went.

Lyla took out her phone, and quickly sent a message to Sarah.

Planted all of them.

A "ping" of the phone later, and Lyla saw this: Good.

Picture: Samuel Blackwell

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