It's a beautiful Saturday evening and a plethora of expensive classy-looking vehicles are en route to the prestigious Dome event hall in Woluwé Saint-Pierre. Tonight is the annual Fondation de Dons de Sang gala, an annual fund raising event that takes place in Belgium for the purpose of supporting and developing blood donations and transplants in all medical facilities across the country. As expected, all sorts of rich and influential personalities—such as politicians, business men and women, even celebrities—will be in attendance. Considering all that, it's evident that it's going to be a memorable occasion, but what most people don't know is that it's also going to be the scene of a murder (a gruesome one at that).

A black limousine pulls up to the red carpet runway at the venue and Nathaniel graciously steps out, practically dressed to kill in his black tuxedo that makes him look like he should be in a Kingsmen movie. After him comes his two invitees (his little sister, Laura, and her friend, Mathéo) with their elbows platonically locked around each other. Mathéo is wearing a two-piece custom made saffron Louis Vuitton suit, while Laura is slaying in a long Ruby colored gown and her curly brown hair flowing neatly down her back. The paparazzi go into hyperdrive as they try to capture the elegance of every attendee this year while they proceed into the building.

"I can't believe you actually brought me along to such a huge event. It seems almost unreal," Mathéo whispers in the brunette's ear full of enthusiasm as they walk the red carpet together, causing her to brighten up too.

The three of them go through the entrance door at the same time, and both teenagers are in total awe as they behold just how breathtakingly beautiful and colossal the event hall's interior truly is. There aren't even sufficient words in the dictionary to describe the venue's grandeur. It appears that many people arrived before them and Mathéo even recognizes some from social media and TV, such as Mentissa (the famous singer), Jérémie Renier (thé award-winning actor). Even Cathy Berx (the governor of Antwerp) is present. He doesn't think he's ever seen so many famous individuals in the same room in the flesh.

"I need to go handle some work matters, so you two can wander around till the event starts," Nathaniel tells his two companions, but before leaving them he turns to give the Latino a warning. "Don't even think of doing anything remotely sexual to my sister, you hear me?"

"Of course, I hear you loud and clear, sir," Mathéo respectfully assures his friend's big brother before he goes off to meet one of his colleagues. "I think I'm going to pay a little visit to the food court over there," he says to Laura while ogling at the mini-restaurant sited at the far end of the hall and the mouthwatering delicacies they're serving, but she pulls him back by his hand before he's able to walk away.

"Wait a little."

"Why? What happened?"

"Sara's here," Laura points to where their classmate appears to be standing alone. Since the black girl's boyfriend couldn't come with her for a reason he refused to disclose to her, and her parents are obviously too occupied with work to bother staying with her, the only company Sara has is herself. "See how lonely she looks. We should go cheer her up, don't you think?"

"What's going on with you? This past week, you've been trying to convince me to reconcile with her and Aaron, and to be honest, I don't get the obsession. Both of you don't even actually know each other, I don't think I've ever seen you two talk. I'm really not in the mood for that right now, so just consider this another failed attempt and you can try again tomorrow," Mathéo protests against Laura's idea, but she still drags him over there regardless of his wishes.

"Hey Sara," Laura waves at the girl gleefully as they approach her. "I didn't know you were already here. How are you?"

"Hi Laura. I'm good. My parents and I arrived here barely an hour ago," Sara politely responds with a smile and Mathéo immediately gets the impression that the two girls may have planned this encounter before hand. "How are you doing, Mathéo? It feels like it's been forever since I last spoke to you," she tries to start a conversation with her old friend but to no avail. He just ignores her question and doesn't reply, making it abundantly clear he still hasn't forgiven her and Aaron.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to all the persons attending the gala, a helicopter that has been cloaked with invisibility by a zegen ability secretly approaches the location. Hidden within are four persons all dressed in black hoodies and nose masks to obscure their faces as much as possible. In the pilot seat, we find our infamous stalker flying the vehicle, and at the back are Aaron and two other new characters (one male and the other female).

"Remember the plan you guys. The Minister-President will most likely be alone in one of the offices on the second floor getting ready for his honorary speech. So, Christophe and Mathilde will secure the perimeter by taking out all nearby guards and security officers. Aaron, while they do this you'll go in for our primary target and make sure you bring back his head as a trophy," the stalker addresses his allies behind and they all nod their heads in agreement. "One more thing. If anyone spots you by any chance, make sure their corpse is nowhere to be found. We can't afford to leave any clues for UDAP or even the authorities to trace back to us."

The stage is set and the actors are in play. Let's see how well our dear characters will fare in what's going to happen next.

* * * *

After many minutes of an excruciatingly awkward silence between the three teens, Mathéo finally gets fed up and comes up with a rather clumsy excuse to separate himself from the girls.

"I think I'm going to head on over to the men's room before the ceremony starts," he informs them as he gradually distances himself.

"Do you need help with directions?" Sara tries to act friendly by offering Mathéo some assistance. "The Dome is a really big building and it's very easy to get lost at times, especially if you aren't used to the layout. I could take you there myself so that you don't lose your way."

"To the bathroom? No thanks," Mathéo immediately declines her seemingly kind gesture. "I can find my way there on my own. Besides, I wouldn't want your boyfriend impaling me a second time 'cause I asked you for help, the first time was enough for me."

His last comment cuts her deep and she doesn't bother insisting on guiding him anymore. What Aaron did to Mathéo was deplorable, and the fact that she defended the former's actions instead of consoling the latter is a mistake she continues to regret making. It's starting to dawn on Sara just how impossible getting the Hispanic teen to forgive them actually is.

With no more words from Laura and Sara, Mathéo walks away in search for the restroom. Despite the rude attitude he employed while talking to Sara, he actually does need to go, and getting there proves to be no easy task. Apart from the main hall where the occasion is taking place, the rest of the building is still extremely massive. There are way too many doors, rooms, hallways and turns to not get confused about where you are actually headed. After almost half an hour of going back and forth and asking for directions, Mathéo gets to the toilet at last.

"I took way too long. The ceremony would've already begun by now," Mathéo soliloquizes as he takes a look at the time on the Versace chain wristwatch he's wearing on his way out of the bathroom. He looks left and right, trying to remember which of the paths leads back to the main hall and realizes he can't differentiate between the two. "Oh fuck! Not this again."

He quickly pulls out his phone from his pocket to call Laura for help, but before he dials her number, something odd happens which catches his attention. One of the windows on the left hallway suddenly opens up and a suspicious looking person in a black hoodie and short black skirt jumps inside. Mathéo assumes it's a female because of the choice of clothing, and her height makes her look like she may be in her 20s, but with half of her face covered with a nose mask, it's all just speculation. It's difficult to tell if she's a terrorist since she doesn't appear to be in possession of any weapons, but in a world like theirs, a zegen's bare hands can be considered a sufficient weapon on its own. Before Mathéo is even able to take a step back into the men's room to hide, the young lady turns and throws him a death glare, clearly not the type you'd give a potential one-time fling.

"Sir, I've been spotted by one of the attendees. Tell the others to proceed with the mission while I neutralize the witness. It won't take long," Mathilde speaks to the communication device in her ear as she raises her right hand towards Mathéo and a gun magically materializes itself in her palm. She pulls the trigger the first time, but the bullet fortunately misses her target.

'So that's why she didn't bother carrying any weapons,' Mathéo realizes as he swiftly takes off into the opposite direction, not willing to stand and see just how good her aim truly is. Mathilde keeps on shooting at the boy while he flees and one of the projectiles manages to find its way into his left thigh, but that doesn't halt his escape. He continues running despite the borderline unbearable pain he's feeling from the gunshot wound and curves when he reaches a turn, successfully leaving her line of sight.

"What an annoying little pain in the ass!" the shooter complains before running after her prey.

* * * *

Somewhere in the right wing of the Dome event hall's first floor, one of the vent covers on the ceiling falls down and Aaron and Christophe jump out of the hole, perfectly landing on the ground. Unluckily for the two trespassers, they're instantly spotted by two security guards that are keeping guard at the end of the hallway.

"Don't move! Stop right there you two!" The two buffed men shout in unison as they pull out their guns and make their way towards the two intruders, but they don't know they're the ones that should be afraid right now, not the criminals.

Before the personnels can get another step closer to the two bad guys, thick black tentacles suddenly burst out from their shadows beneath them and restrain them where they stand. With the men now completely immobilized, Christophe slowly walks towards them with a villainous smirk beneath his mask and grabs both of them by their necks. Using his ability—super strength—he snaps the two of them with barely any effort, killing them in only a matter of seconds. Recalling the stalker's precise instructions, Aaron and Christophe hurriedly stuff the dead bodies into the vent they came from and close it back up.

"It looks like security is most concentrated on this floor. Rudi Vervoort is probably close by," Aaron thinks aloud as he uses a handkerchief to clean the blood on his hands. "Christophe, you should go and stand guard by the staircase. Make sure no unwanted visitor comes up here. In the meantime, I'll handle the Minister-President myself. I've got a bone to pick with him."

The zegen accomplice concurs with Aaron's reasoning without dispute and heads on over to the post he's been assigned. Now alone, the shadow manipulator proceeds deeper into the building's first storey, combing everywhere for his target. Before embarking on this assignment, the stalker showed them sketches of the Dome's layout. So, Aaron has a vague idea of where all the offices are located. At the course of his search, he is confronted by a lot more officers and bodyguards, but he easily disposes of them, and like the first two, he hides all the cadavers in the vents. Honestly speaking, challenging Aaron in a fight is sure to be futile because all living things have shadows, which are the only things he needs to end a life within a blink of an eye.

"He has to be in there," Aaron tells himself as he gets closer to the door of the only room he hasn't already ransacked.

There are two armed men stationed in front of the entrance, but Aaron sends shadow needles into the back of their skulls before they can alarm whoever is inside, swiftly and silently murdering them. The teenage boy doesn't bother cleaning up this particular mess and just walks into the room where he finds the man he's been searching for sitting at a desk opposite the door and reviewing his speech. The politician's attention is pulled from the paper in his hands to his uninvited guest when he hears the sound of the metal door slamming shut.

"Who are you? Don't you know this office is restricted to executive attendees only?" Mr Rudi asks Aaron furiously. He's trying to perfect the oration he's supposed to give in a few moments and he's not in the mood for some bratty kid to disturb his concentration. "Just leave through the way you came in, unless you want to be escorted out by security."

"There's no security to call. They're all dead."

The Minister-President of Brussels' heart skips a beat when he hears Aaron's last three words in a voice devoid of all empathy. Is the boy confessing to slaughtering all those persons? Is it even possible that a child would be heartless and cruel enough to commit such acts?

"What kind of monster are you!?" Rudi Vervoort lets out, too petrified by his sudden fear of this young boy to even move an inch. All he can think about in this moment is whether or not he's going to come out of this little exchange alive, and his luck isn't really looking good. "So, are you here to kill me or do you want something else?"

"Do you recognize me?" Aaron asks him in return as he pulls down his hood and removes the nose mask to reveal his face, but the response he receives isn't the one he wants.

"No. Am I supposed to?"

Infuriated, the teen rushes forward and grabs the old man's throat. Does the political official think he came here as a joke?

"You seriously can't recognize the face of the boy whose mother you and your organization assassinated!" Aaron shouts angrily but Rudi's answer doesn't change.

"I don't know who you think you are nor who you think I am, but I certainly didn't kill anyone's mother. You should get your facts straight before you go around accusing people of something as gruesome as murder."

"Does the acronym 'UDAP' ring any bells? Or the name Loredana?"

The politician's face is immediately shook when he hears the boy threatening him utter those two names, but why?

"That information should be confidential. Who told you about them? The Zomer? Is it Ti-"

"So you do know what I'm talking about," Aaron says ferociously as he tightens his grip on Rudi Vervoort's neck. "I'm going to treat you just how you and your people treated her."

The man attempts to explain himself but the kid isn't willing to listen. His anger is fully saturated and he's ready to release it. Something resembling thick black ooze begins to flow out of Aaron's palm like ink and covers Rudi's entire neck, causing some sort of suffocating effect on his prey. The politician struggles to break free from his assailant's hold but alas it proves to be too strong. Slowly, the dark liquid burns through his neck, forcing him to scream in agony and horror. In less than five minutes, his head is severed from the rest of the body and blood spills out everywhere like a shooting water fountain.

"Who do you think I am now?" Aaron mocks the dead politician's head as he swings it from left to right like a doll. "Aren't you going to call security on me anymore?"

To Aaron's surprise, the door suddenly opens and an unexpected witness steps in. Isn't Christophe supposed to be securing the perimeter? How did anyone get through?

The teenage killer turns around and he instantly freezes when he beholds the person standing in front of him. It's someone whose life he can't bring himself to end. It's-

* * * *

"I'm starting to believe Mathéo's never going to forgive Aaron and me for what we did to him," Sara laments to Laura as they take a seat at one of the round tables that have been marked out for guests. "I'm sorry I forced you to help me. Mathéo is probably angry with you now for even talking to me."

"You don't have to apologize to me. You didn't do anything wrong; you just asked and I agreed on my own," Laura tries to calm her down. "Mathéo just needs time. He's gone through a lot. He'll come around eventually, I promise you."

The two girls' conversation is quickly cut short when Nathaniel takes the front stage to address everyone in attendance. They all immediately divert their attention to what he has to say.

"Good evening everyone. For those of you who may not know me, my name is Nathaniel Groza, and on behalf of the entire gala planning committee, I'd like to formally welcome all of you to the 2023 annual Fondation de Dons de Sang gala. We thank you all for taking time out of your very busy schedules to help support this dear cause and we are forever grateful." The whole crowd applauds Laura's elder brother as he gives the opening remarks. "Before we officially kick-off tonight's ceremony, let's-"

A sudden warning alarm goes off from the hall's speakers which prevents Nathaniel from finishing his statement.

"Security breach! Security breach! All guests are required to calmly evacuate the building immediately!" The alarm sounds.

Everybody in the hall is dumbfounded once they hear the announcement. The whole location is fortified with security personnel, how could anyone have been able to penetrate it? Are they being ambushed by terrorists? Despite all the unanswered questions, all the attendees begin rushing out of the premises in a somewhat 'orderly' manner.

"Mathéo still hasn't come back. Could the intruders have gotten to him? Oh my god! What if they've killed him?" Laura worriedly spirals as Sara's about to get up and leave. "I'm the one that brought him here. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something horrible happened to him."

"Don't think like that. Mathéo's going to be fine. He's an expert at martial arts and self defense, he wouldn't let some rando kill him so easily," Sara comforts her friend. "If you want to, we can split up and look for him before escaping."

The brunette agrees with the idea and they separate. Laura goes left, towards the hallway, while Sara takes the right, in the direction that leads to the stairs.

"Mathéo! Mathéo!" Sara calls out as she frantically searches for her classmate.

As she gets closer to the stairway that leads to the first floor, she notices something weird. She hears the sound of two people discussing from upstairs and she recognizes one of the voices.

'Aaron?' Sara wonders. She tries to listen more closely to make out the exact words they're saying, but their volume is too low. Nothing makes sense to the dark skinned teen right now. Apart from the mysterious security break-in, she can't think of any reasonable reason why her boyfriend would be talking to a stranger at an occasion he said he was too busy to attend. How did he even get in without an invitation? There's clearly something awry here and she's going to find out what.

When the voices go silent, Sara covertly ascends the steps to reach the first floor. She ensures her footsteps make no audible noise as she climbs and once she arrives at the top, she beholds a guy standing at the last step. The gloves on his hands are covered in blood, and by his stature, Sara can tell he's not Aaron. The hood and mask he's wearing makes it impossible to discern any of his facial features, but his demeanor makes it obvious he's not there to fool around.

"Who do I have here? Are you supposed to be a Disney princess?" Christophe taunts Sara about her dress and makeup. "It's a shame that I can't let you leave here alive now. I'm sure I would've had a good time with a body like yours, if you get what I mean."

The unknown male cracks his knuckles as he gets ready to snap another neck, but before he takes a step forward, Sara stretches out her right arm and a chilly breeze bursts out that pushes Christophe to the wall and freezes his limbs in solid ice.

"Don't be so cocky next time," Sara gives him a disgusted look as she walks past his restrained body, but she hasn't won just yet. Within a matter of seconds, Christophe breaks himself free from the ice, shocking the girl. She already assumed that the hooded man's a zegen, but she didn't consider the possibility of his ability being super strength.

"Where are you going little princess? Let's have some fun, what do you say?" Christophe asks her jokingly before dashing towards her, but Sara is a quick thinker. She stomps her left foot and the ground beneath her immediately freezes upwardly and outwardly, forming a protective wall of ice between her and her enemy. "I hope you know this isn't going to hold me!" The boy shouts in a vexed tone after accidentally colliding with the demarcation.

Christophe begins punching cracks into the ice barrier, but before he even comes close to shattering it, Sara ditches her heels and flees as fast as possible. She didn't create the wall as a permanent counter attack against her assailant, she did it to distract him long enough for her to slip away. After all, her dress and make-up aren't exactly combat raiment.

Sara soon loses him and continues her hunt for Aaron, but every room she enters seems off. There doesn't appear to be a single soul in the entire floor, which shouldn't be the case since teams of security guards were stationed at every point in the venue before the guests arrived. Could they have just left the place unmanned or did something bad happen to them?

As Sara gradually approaches the last door of the storey, she starts hearing two voices arguing. She's fairly sure that one of them belongs to Aaron, but she's not certain about the other. It sounds a bit like the politician—Rudi Vervoort—who's supposed to be the gala's guest of honor, but why would he be in a dispute with Aaron? The two suddenly go silent and Sara rushes in to see what just transpired, ignoring the two seemingly dead bodies in front of the door. She barges in and instantly witnesses the most gory scene she has ever seen in her life. The Minister-President of Brussels' headless body sits behind a desk while Aaron swings the man's head around like a toy.

"What the fuck?!" Those are the only words the young girl can mutter in this moment. She doesn't know what to think right now. She can't possibly believe her boyfriend beheaded a person, a significant political figure at that. That'd be insane, demented even.

For a moment, the eyes of the two teen lovers meet and Sara can sense some form of guilt from Aaron's expression, not because he killed somebody, but because she was the one that caught him. She approaches him so that they can talk it out, but he sinks into his shadow and disappears before she gets close, leaving her standing there alone in confusion.

"Little princess!" Christophe shouts angrily from afar. Sara exits the office and sees the hooded psycho marching towards her from the end of the hallway, his blood lust now at its peak. "I told you that wall of yours wasn't going to detain me. I hope you're ready for round two."

'What am I going to do?' Sara wonders in panic. She isn't fit to fight anyone in the state she's currently in. To make things worse, she has nowhere to run. There's a wall behind her and he will still corner her if she goes back into the room. It's game over.

Sara takes in a deep breath and closes her eyes as she prepares herself for her imminent demise, but then something unexpected occurs. There's the sound of a gunshot and Christophe collapses to the ground bleeding. He's just been shot in the head and his life is now over. The teen opens her eyes to see a team of police officers proceeding towards her.

Before taking her back to where the rest of the attendees are being held safely, they question her to know if she saw the dead criminal with any accomplices and if he was the politician's killer and she lies. She tells them Rudi Vervoort was already dead by the time she got there and Christophe was the only person she saw, and the officers believe.

* * * *

Mathéo quietly hides behind a corner as Mathilde searches the hallway for him, ready to shoot. The moment she gets to where he is and is about to turn, he takes her by surprise. He pushes her to the wall and hits the gun out of her hand, but then she knees him in the crotch, causing him to let go of her and move a few steps back in pain. Mathilde quickly materializes a knife in her hand and goes in for a stab, but Mathéo dodges the advance and lands a strong punch on her cheek.

"Let's calm down for a moment, okay? Can't we just reconsider not killing me?" Mathéo jokingly tries to reason with his attacker, but she's even more enraged. She uses her ability to transform the pocket knife to an even bigger one and charges straight toward him like a maniac, but her plan doesn't go as she hopes. He catches the arm wielding the knife, knees her in the torso and pushes her to the ground. "So does that mean violence can't be taken off the table then?"

"You're going to regret crossing paths with me." Some sort of canister forms in her hand and for a moment, Mathéo thinks it resembles a tear gas bomb, and then he remembers she's wearing a nose mask. He immediately takes to his heels as the psycho releases the bomb and the gas swiftly spreads everywhere.

Mathéo coughs hoarsely as the gaseous compound begins to enter his nostrils. He squints his eyes, looking for where to go in order to escape from this chemical torture he's currently experiencing, and to his surprise, he finds a fire exit. He rushes through the door which leads him to another passage and takes in a huge breath of fresh air.

He proceeds down the hallway towards the door that'll take him outside the building, but he's forgotten something important. Mathilde is still very much conscious and probably saw where he went. Before he realizes it, the crazy girl jumps on him from behind and he falls to the floor. She stabs Mathéo twice in the lower back with her enlarged knife, but before she can land the third, he pushes her off. He forces himself to get up and run, but it proves difficult for him to do considering all his bleeding wounds.

"Stop right there or I'll shoot you in the head," Mathilde commands Mathéo as she reshapes her blade to a gun, and he obeys. "Now turn around. I want to see your face as the light fades from your eyes."

'What do I do? What do I do?' Mathéo contemplates as he slowly follows his aggressor's instructions.

He's unarmed, so there's no way for him to protect himself. Plus, he's not a zegen like her. The Latino boy catches a glimpse of a fire extinguisher attached to the wall beside him, but he knows Mathilde would shoot him in a heartbeat before he can take hold of it.

As the teen loses all hope and braces for the life-ending bullet, a dazzling angel arrives from nowhere.

"Help!" Laura yells from behind Mathilde and the cry immediately catches her attention. The criminal turns around to shoot the brunette and that short moment is the only distraction Mathéo needs. He grabs the fire extinguisher from the wall and bashes it against her head, knocking her unconscious.

With the adrenaline rush now depleted, the boy falls to the floor as the effect of his excessive bleeding finally kicks in and Laura wastes no time before rushing to his aid.

"Don't worry, everything's going to be alright. Just hang in there, " she assures him as she begins healing his wounds, tears slowly flowing out her eyes. She blames herself for his current ordeal. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here."

"You shouldn't feel sorry for anything. It isn't your fault. Neither of us expected any of this would happen," Mathéo consoles his crying friend. "How did you know I was in trouble any way?"

Laura concludes the healing and helps him stand up before answering.

"There was an alarm about a break-in and everybody had to evacuate, but when Sara and I didn't see you, we decided to split up and search. Finding you wasn't that hard once I perceived the tear gas. I just followed the smell and it led me here."

"Lucky me, I guess," Mathéo jokes despite how weak he's feeling. "My parents are going to kill me when they see me come home in blood soaked clothes again. They're still paranoid about the incident in the woods, they'll lose it if they see me like this."

"You don't have to. If you don't want to tell them about tonight, I could ask Nathaniel to borrow you another suit. You could even freshen up at our place so you'd look just like you did when you left."

"Thank you."

The two teenagers follow the exit door and find themselves outside the Dome where they rejoin Sara and all the other guests. The whole perimeter is now surrounded by all forms of police vehicles as the officers rush in to apprehend the criminals responsible for the security breach. Sara meets up with Laura and Mathéo and she informs them about the Minister-President of Brussels being murdered (excluding the part that Aaron is the culprit), but the reunion is cut short when some investigators come to interview them individually. When the interrogations are over, Mathéo decides to take up Laura's offer and follows her and her brother back to their house.

* * * *

Laura barges into the guest room where Mathéo is freshening up in order to drop the new suit she promised and finds him standing beside the bed half naked—and by that I mean the only form of clothing on his body is a short towel which he tied round his waist to cover his ass and genitalia—which is to be expected since he just finished taking a bath.

"I'm so sorry, I should've knocked first. I thought you were still in the bath," the brunette immediately apologizes, feeling embarrassed.

Laura's finding it hard to take her eyes off Mathéo's well defined muscles, but particularly the scars on them. They remind her of the story he told her about his abusive biological parents. She can't even fathom how grueling the torture he went through must've been.

"It's not a problem. It's not like I'm completely nude," Mathéo assures her with his usual charismatic smile. "Is that the new suit?"

"Yes," Laura answers as she comes closer to him and gently drops the neatly folded suit on the bed. "Unfortunately, Nathaniel doesn't have any other saffron colored suits that are your size, but I hope red will suffice."

"Any color will do really. I doubt anyone in my family actually paid attention to the color of the first suit, so they probably won't notice I changed it."

For an instant, Laura raises her eyes to meet Mathéo's and an awkward silence ensues as she realizes just how close she's standing to him. Her mind starts racing as it's flooded with intense emotions and dirty thoughts. The fact that she's alone in a bedroom with her irresistibly attractive crush who's wearing practically nothing only adds fuel to the flame that is her imagination right now, but she's not the only one getting ideas. Not wanting to make any rash choices she may regret, Laura decides to leave the room.

"I think I'm going to g-" Before the young girl finishes her sentence, Mathéo does something completely unprecedented. He tenderly cups both sides of her face with his palms and pulls their lips together for a kiss. Fireworks go off in Laura's brain as she feels the warmth of his mouth against hers. It's far better than she imagined it would be, but the lip locking doesn't just end there. It gets even more intense as Mathéo pulls their bodies even closer together and his tongue slides into her mouth, interlocking with hers and giving both of them immense pleasure.

The Hispanic teen pulls away for a moment and relocates his lips to his brunette classmate's neck. He leaves a mark of his affection for her as he softly sucks on her skin, putting her in an even greater state of euphoria and causing her to let out a little moan. Despite all the delight the two are experiencing in this moment, Laura still feels worried and overwhelmed by the thought of what's going to happen next if they continue at this pace. A part of her wants to go all the way with him, but the other can't help but overthink how doing so may ruin their friendship. The second Mathéo wraps his arm around her back and starts to unzip her dress, she panics and pushes him away before their passionate embrace develops into something more salacious.

"I'm so sorry. I just thought that-" Mathéo apologizes, instantly feeling ashamed of what he just did. "Forget it. It doesn't matter what I thought. I clearly misunderstood everything and I wasn't thinking straight. I didn't mean to disrespect you or make you feel uncomfortable."

"No, it wasn't l-" Laura tries to clarify why she reacted like that, but Nathaniel's sudden entrance into the room prevents her from finishing her statement. You can imagine what's going through the mind of the girl's elder brother when he finds his sister alone in a room with her almost nude 'friend' standing so close to each other beside a king-sized bed. Clearly it's nothing remotely good, talk less of her halfway downed zip and the glaringly noticeable hickey on her neck.

"Are you seriously trying to sleep with my sister, you son of a bitch?" Nathaniel asks Mathéo furiously. He might not have witnessed the kiss, but that doesn't change the fact he doesn't trust pretty boys staying so close to his little sister, especially not when they look like they're about to go shoot a sex tape.

"Not at all. We were just-" the teen boy pauses his explanation as he realizes just how compromising and mischievous he appears to be in this scenario. He doesn't know what he can possibly say that won't further worsen Nathaniel's mental image of him.

"It was nothing. Nothing was happening between us," Laura steps in to pacify her dear brother's very accurate suspicions.

"I'm not blind, Laura. How do you explain the mark on your neck? Or the fact that the back of your gown has been zipped almost all the way down?" Nathaniel isn't gullible enough to believe a lie as terrible as Laura's, no matter how innocent she tries to sound.

"The dress is like that 'cause I was having a hard time getting out of it, so I came to ask Mathéo to help me unzip it. I promise he didn't try anything funny. As for the mark on my neck, it's just something friends do nowadays. It's nothing sexual," Laura lies again with an assuring tone, but her sibling isn't convinced. "It's getting late. Let's leave Mathéo to get dressed so he can return home before his parents get worried."

"I agree with that, but it doesn't mean I'm going to overlook his actions. We'll continue this matter on another day," Nathaniel tells his sister before exiting the room with her.

As Mathéo stands in the guest room all by himself, all he can think about is how he just massively fucked up his relationship with the only person he still considers a friend. Since his supposed best friend, Aaron, almost killed him and Sara supported it, Laura has been the only one he still trusts, but he doubts she would still feel the same after what he did tonight. I guess that's the inevitable outcome when you shoot your shot with someone who's not interested.

* * * *

The stalker and Aaron return to the conference room in the underground Zomer lair after their somewhat successful mission earlier tonight. Unfortunately for the cult, Christophe and Mathilde—two of their most devoted members— have been killed and arrested respectively by the police. As Aaron walks into the room, he tosses the deceased politician's head to the meeting table.

"I brought his head as you requested and left no living witnesses," Aaron lies to the man. He has no intention of getting his girlfriend more involved in his personal problems than she already is.

"Do you feel any better now?" The stalker asks the boy with a malicious smile and he shakes his head from left to right to signify his response. The grown man picks up the head and examines its features for a moment before adding, "I might have another project for you if you're interested. You might even find it more exciting than the one of tonight."

"I'm not looking for any more hit jobs. I'm not some psycho serial killer."

"It doesn't involve murder, I give you my word," the criminal mastermind reassures Aaron. "This one's about an old experiment of ours that those wretched normals have long since buried, but it won't remain that way for much longer. It's a little something we called 'Feto'."

"I'm listening." The teen boy's curiosity is now peaked.