On a sunny Sunday afternoon, an orange taxi drives up to the Badi residence and Laura steps out of the passenger seat. She has come here to try and smooth things over with Mathéo after last night's mishap. After the Latino's awkward make-out attempt with her, he pretty much just rushed out of the house and has been avoiding her calls all day. So, she decided to meet him in person.

Locating the house wasn't that hard for Laura considering she's already been there twice before- the first time being when she came for the Badi extended family dinner almost a month ago, and the second was yesterday evening, when Nathaniel and her came to pick him up before heading to the ordeal of a gala.

Laura slowly approaches the front door and takes a few deep breaths to calm her nerves before ringing the bell. However, the person who comes to answer is not the one she's expecting. It's a tall white girl with seemingly perfect skin who looks about a year older than her. She has long straightened red hair and her beauty is so captivating you'd think it's a zegen ability even though she's a normal. Laura instantly recognizes her from the first instance Mathéo invited her here. It's Lyam's girlfriend, Kate.

"Hey Laura," Kate accosts the brunette with a bright smile. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, thank you," Laura responds almost timidly. Kate and her didn't really talk during the dinner, so she isn't yet used to the red-head's brimming and almost intimidating charisma. "Is Mathéo at home?"

"No, unfortunately. He went out a few hours ago, but I'm not sure where." Kate opens the door even wider so Laura can enter before continuing, "come inside and sit down. I'll go ask Lyam if he knows where he went."

Laura concurs and goes into the living room to wait. From the look of things, Lyam and Kate are the only ones at home, so it seems to Laura that the two were on some sort of date before she arrived. A few minutes later, Lyam comes out of his bedroom shirtless and wearing only a pair of boxers-which gives the brunette a clearer idea of what exactly the couple was doing-and meets his boo.

"Hey babe. Who was at the door?" Mathéo's foster brother asks her ostensibly pissed off by the unwelcome interruption.

"It's Laura," Kate whispers to him in response. "She said she's looking for your brother. She's waiting in the living room."

Not bothering to change into something more decent, the blonde teen goes into the parlour to attend to his unexpected guest.

"I'm sorry for bothering you two bu-" Laura apologizes as she sees Lyam walk into the room, but he cuts her off before she finishes.

"What happened between you two?" There's a tint of annoyance and anger in his tone as he asks her the question.

"Did he tell you something happened?"

"No, but I know my brother better than almost anyone. He usually has this obnoxious smile whenever he hangs out with you, but since he got back last night, he's been acting like his old self."

"What does that mean?"

"It doesn't matter, but what does is that you two make up. He's already beefing with Aaron and Sara. If you join the list, all his problems would become mine too, and I can only dedicate so much of my personal time to take care of him."

"That's why I came. He hasn't been picking up my calls and I don't know where he is."

"He went for his weekly appointment with his therapist. He usually stops at the Vinomania restaurant for a bite to eat whenever he finishes any of his meetings, so you can wait for him there if you're actually serious about working things out with him. He'll be done in about an hour."

Laura thanks Lyam for his help and is about to head back out, but he stops her before she leaves to add something else.

"One last thing. Please don't tell Mathéo about what Kate and I were doing here. He's not exactly the best at keeping secrets from our parents and my dad would kill me if he heard about this."

"Of course. I won't tell a soul," Laura assures him. Things are already weird between Mathéo and her, she doesn't want to make them even worse by getting his brother who's been nothing but nice to her into trouble.

"Thank you, and good luck with him."

* * * *

After spending almost two hours stuck in heavy traffic, Laura finally arrives in Vinomania and she rushes in to make sure she doesn't miss Mathéo. As she steps in, she scans through the restaurant with her eyes and quickly spots her friend eating a plate of food alone at a table for two. The brunette takes a deep breath to relax before approaching him.

"Hi Mathéo," Laura waves at him before occupying the seat across him and just his facial expression shows how shocked he is by her unexpected appearance.

"Hey Laura," Mathéo responds with his guilt almost perceivable in his tone. It's even clearer now that he's been intentionally avoiding her. "How did you know I was here?"

"Just a coincidence. I was close by and I felt like getting a bite to eat before I noticed you," the girl blatantly lies before asking her question. "Why have you been dodging me?"

"I don't get what you mean by that."

"You practically ran out of the house last night without telling me and Nathaniel you were leaving. You didn't even send a text to tell us you got home safely. I was worried something had happened to you. On top of that, you haven't responded to any of my calls and messages, and they were way too many for you to say you didn't see them."

"Maybe I-" Mathéo considers lying but he stops when he notices the genuine concern in Laura's expression. He can tell she's been really distressed because of him, so he decides to just be honest. "I'm sorry for being such an asshole. A lot happened last night, and after," he pauses for a second because he's too embarrassed to say the word 'kiss' before continuing, "the 'messy' moment between the two of us, I just felt really ashamed. I didn't know how to approach you 'cause I thought you were going to be pissed at me, but if you still want to stay friends, I'm okay with that. I just don't want you to think of me as some misogynistic idiot."

"You're getting it all wrong. I'm n-" Laura suddenly stops speaking and starts choking. She holds her neck as she tries taking huge breaths, but it doesn't help.

"Laura, look at me. What's happening?" Mathéo's anxiety grows heavier and heavier as he watches his friend slowly suffocate. It looks almost like there's a lump of air stuck in her throat, which can only mean one thing. A zegen is targeting them.

'Where is that son of a bitch and why is he only aiming at Laura? Unless something or someone is blocking him from seeing me, but that'd mean he has to be looking at her right now.' Mathéo contemplates in his head and comes up with a course of action.

The teen boy immediately gets up from his chair and swiftly identifies the attacker. Standing at the counter and staring directly at their table is an unfamiliar guy. It's M, but Mathéo doesn't know him. All he does know is that he's a threat. M soon realizes Mathéo has noticed his presence, but he's already too late. Before the zegen can switch the focus of his ability, the Latino grabs the table knife he was using to eat and throws it straight at him. M reacts quickly by using the wind to change the trajectory of the projectile, causing the cutlery to stab the arm of a woman who just entered the eatery.

"Ahhh!!!" The lady screams in pain as blood gushes out of the wound.

Her cries catch the attention of all the customers and the establishment immediately becomes rowdy as everyone gets up to see what just happened. With a crowd of people moving back and forth, M rapidly loses his view of both Mathéo and Laura, allowing the latter to regain her ability to breathe.

"We need to get out of here right now, preferably before that creep spots us again," Mathéo whispers into Laura's ear as he helps her up and they both sneak out through the back door in the midst of all the disorder.

M forces his way through the crowd and quickly realizes that both his targets have escaped. As he turns around to leave through the door, he is obstructed by three security officers who insist on carrying him to the station for assaulting the wounded woman, but he doesn't plan to comply. M immediately activates his second ability-permeation-and phases through the men as well as the wall behind them, successfully exiting the building.

The zegen pulls up the hood of the jacket he's wearing and blends perfectly into the throng of random persons walking on the street, preventing himself from being spotted by the personnels that are now frantically searching for him. When he sufficiently distances himself from his pursuers, M turns left into an empty alley and pulls out his phone to call a certain number. After a few rings, the recipient of the call picks up.

"Louane, there might be a bit of a problem," M tries to sugarcoat his mistake to the mysterious person on the other end of the line, but she interrupts him before he can finish.

"Lemme guess, you lost the targets, didn't you?" a feminine voice says through the phone with her disappointment very evident in her tone.

"Yeah," he confesses. "But I can still track them. I just need some time."

"Don't worry, I'll handle those two. Just focus on locating Aaron and Sara, and don't fail this time," the girl instructs him angrily before dropping the call, leaving him no opportunity to refute her command.

* * * *

"Are you alright?" Mathéo asks Laura worriedly as they both sit down on the Leman bus stop bench to rest after spending the last ten minutes fleeing from Vinomania. The brunette is still panting heavily from doing such rigorous running shortly after almost suffocating. "Just breathe slowly."

"I'm better now," Laura assures him as her breathing steadies. "Who was that back there and what does he want with us?"

"Not sure, but I have a feeling he might be connected to that psycho girl that tried killing me last night. Maybe it's some form of revenge plot for getting her arrested."

"How did you figure it out?" An unknown female whispers into their ears from behind as she places her hands on both their shoulders. Before they can turn their heads to see the person talking, they find themselves teleported to another location, and with the chair no longer there, they fall to the floor.

"Where are we now?" Laura asks in confusion as she and Mathéo get up from the ground and examine their surroundings. They appear to have been transported to an abandoned warehouse. The entire place is dusty, empty and all the metal pillars supporting the ceiling, whose construction is yet to be completed, are rusted. "Is this their way of kidnapping us?"

"How do you know it's a captive situation? It could be a murder scenario as well. The setting is perfect after all," the unnamed voice from before speaks as her body materializes itself in front of the two teenagers. She's a pretty blonde lady that's most likely in her early to mid twenties. She's on all black and wearing gloves, so she pretty much came in the full criminal apparel. "Fortunately for you two, my boss explicitly told me to not kill anyone, but he did instruct me to leave a scratch or two for Mathilde's sake."

"Who the fuck is Mathilde?" Mathéo has no idea whose name that is.

Louane doesn't bother responding to the boy's question and just dashes straight toward him to punch, but he easily sees through it and catches her arm. To the boy's surprise, the hair on her arm instantly transform into porcupine needles, pricking him and forcing him to let go. With Mathéo's guard down for just a moment, the blonde knees him in the torso, which causes him to move a few steps back in pain.

'Was that a second ability? Is that even possible? I thought zegens could only have one of those,' Mathéo wonders in bafflement as he reels back from the surprise attack. He has never heard of a single zegen possessing multiple powers, not even in ancient history classes. One thing is clear though, this young woman is an abnormality to the supernatural and the reason for her being so has to be something shady.

Without wasting a single second, Louane goes in for a frontal kick, but Mathéo quickly evades it by shifting sideways. Noticing that his opponent's face is wide open, he punches her with full force on her cheek, forcing her to move some steps backwards as she tries to regain her balance.

"You son of a bitch!" Louane cusses with her fury heightened from receiving such a strong hit. The porcupine needles on her arm retract and go back to being regular hair, while her finger nails suddenly grow longer and sharper (somewhat like claws). "You're going to regret laying your filthy hand on me," the blonde threatens Mathéo as she dives straight at him like a blood thirsty cat.

While Mathéo and Louane duke it out, Laura decides to make herself useful by finding a way out of the building. All the windows are too far up to climb to, so that's not an option. After scanning through, the only plausible escape route is through the door, but there's a problem with that. It's been locked with a metal padlock. There's no useful tool anywhere she can use to break the lock, so the brunette picks up the biggest rock she can find and starts bashing it against the door.

As Louane grabs Mathéo's neck with one hand, she turns her gaze to see what Laura is doing.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," the blonde says as she transforms her free hand into a squid tentacle. She then launches her newly modified appendage and wraps it around the brunette's neck, choking her and causing her to let go of the rock, but Mathéo isn't going to just stand here and let this slide.

"Don't you dare touch her!" Mathéo declares angrily as he knees her in between the legs and pushes her away, forcing her to lose her grips on the two of them, but the teen boy doesn't stop there. He instead goes full on Karate Kid. He rushes toward her and punches her twice-once in the face and next in the gut. He then grabs her shoulders, pulls her down and knees her abdomen so hard she vomits blood from her mouth before kicking her to the ground.

"How dare you! A wretched normal like you should know their place," Louane rants as she transforms her hands to those of a gorilla. Mathéo tries landing another kick before she gets back up, but she easily catches his leg by the ankle, and using her new found animal strength, crushes the bones there.

"Aahhh!!" The Hispanic teen shouts in pain before Louane flings him across the room with ease, into a wall and knocking him unconscious.

"Mathéo!!" Laura screams in horror as she rushes to her friend's aid.

Luckily, he's still breathing and doesn't appear to have broken any more bones from his impact with the brick surface. As the brunette starts to heal his injuries, Louane grabs her by the hair and drags her up, the agony causing her to scream. Laura struggles but she's unable to free herself from the enemy's hold.

"Give it a rest already" is the last thing the healer hears before she gets punched in the face and passes out.

* * * *

It's evening of the same day when Sara arrives at the front door of Aaron's apartment and rings the bell. She's been trying to muster up the courage to confront her boyfriend ever since she walked in on that horrific scene last night at the gala. She has so many questions to ask him, and she's too paranoid about secretly being monitored by the government to do it over the phone.

"Hello Sara," Aaron's foster dad salutes her when he opens the door to see her standing there. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Good day Rob," Sara politely returns before asking, "is Aaron at home by any chance?"

"Yes, he is. Don't tell him I said so, but he's been acting gloomier than usual since he got home late last night, but maybe he'll feel better now you're here. Just wait here, I'll go call him."

Rob closes the door for a moment, and after a few seconds of yelling "Aaron! Your girlfriend's here for you!", the teen boy finally comes to the door. Aaron's facial expression when he sees Sara makes it quite clear to her that-despite what Rob believes-meeting up with her isn't something his son is looking forward to.

"Can we talk in private?" Sara disrupts the silence between them with this question.

"Yeah. We can go to the neighborhood park. It's usually empty by this time on Sundays, so it'll be just us," Aaron suggests in response and she agrees.

A few minutes later, Aaron and Sara arrive in the park, and like the former said, there isn't a single soul there. The two teenagers decide to seat on a bench under a tree before they start talking.

"I imagine you want to talk about what you saw last night," Aaron starts off the conversation and Sara nods as a sign of affirmation. At this point, she's willing to believe whatever bogus excuse he gives as long as it means her boyfriend isn't a psychotic murderer.

Aaron then goes on to reveal to Sara everything the stalker said about the origins of UDAP and the Zomer cult, the real reason why normals formed the organization in the first place and how their hatred and jealousy towards the cult members eventually led them to kidnap him as a baby and execute his mother. He also tells her that Rudi Vervoort was one of the UDAP executives that sanctioned the operation and how the stalker took advantage of his anger at the time to get him to kill the politician.

"I don't know what got into me. I was just furious and I wanted a way to kind of vent out all that rage I had pent up and the voices in my head just kept on pushing me to do it. I feel like a monster now. What the fuck was I thinking killing people I didn't even know?" Aaron starts spiraling as he reminds himself of all the inhumane acts he committed last night.

"Calm down. Calm down. This secret is safe with me; I'm not going to call the cops," Sara tries to get him to relax. "Did you at least cut ties with the stalker and the rest of the cult?"

"Yes, absolutely. He asked me to help them recover some old artifact that UDAP seized from the Zomer centuries ago, but I could tell he was intentionally hiding a lot of details about the object from me, so I refused. I told him I wasn't interested in doing any more of their dirty business and left," the boy confesses to her.

"Okay, that's good. All we have to do now is to make sure those creeps can't track you anymore."

"That's an interesting idea. How do you plan on actualizing it exactly?" Their dialogue is suddenly disturbed when a voice that sounds vaguely familiar to Sara starts talking to them from behind. They both stand up and turn around to face the mystery person and the girl's guess proves to be correct.

"Who are you?" Aaron asks the guy, very much annoyed by his unwelcomed intrusion.

"I know who he is," Sara divulges with a hardened expression on her face. "He's that friend of the stalker that flung me into a mirror when we were in that haunted mansion. The one that calls himself 'M' for some reason."

"That's so thoughtful of you to remember me. I ha-" Before M finishes his vexatious remark, Sara stomps one foot on the ground and the surface beneath him starts freezing upwards, confining and restraining his feet up to shoulders in ice. "That's a shame. I was expecting you to have already learned what I'm capable of from our last encounter, but it turns out I was wrong."

After uttering that last sentence, M's body releases a sudden burst of strong air that completely shatters the ice around him. He throws Sara a mischievous gaze before dashing straight at her, but before he's able to reach her, Aaron steps in. Black tentacles emerge from the assailant's shadow and wrap around his ankles, rooting his feet to the ground and forcibly bringing his movement to a halt.

"If you even dare to even look at Sara one more time, I promise you wouldn't have a head left on your body," Aaron threatens M with cold dead seriousness as he approaches him and grabs his throat strongly. "Do you understand what I'm saying or do I have to leave a little mark on you to show that I'm not joking right now?"

"I wouldn't do that if I was you, Aaron," Louane says as she instantly appears behind the three of them.

Aaron lets go of M's neck and he and Sara turn to see the girl that just spoke to him. To both their surprises, they see Mathéo and Laura beside her feet, looking brutally beaten up. The two are still conscious, but their arms and legs have been tied tightly together to prevent them from moving, and their mouths are covered to mute their screams.

"If you guys think bringing those two here would be enough leverage for me to give up Sara, you'd be sorely mistaken," Aaron declares but Louane's smug smile doesn't change.

"You're the one with the wrong idea here. I'm fully aware you don't really care about your so-called 'best friend' close enough to risk anything for his safety, but your babe over there is a different case. I can tell she has too much of a guilty conscience to allow you throw away your friends' lives for her sake," the blonde explains before bursting into a sinister laugh. "In any case, it must be your lucky day 'cause we didn't come here for you to pick which one of them we should kill."

"Then why are you here? What do you want?" Sara asks her, getting increasingly frustrated by all her unnecessary ambiguity.

"Your question should be 'who do we want?' because we're here for your boy toy. We tried to convince him nicely to help us, but he insisted on being stubborn. So, we decided to play dirty and organize this little ambush." Louane shifts her gaze to Aaron before continuing, "It's a simple bargain, you know. You come with us and we free all your friends. Even if you manage to slaughter M and me, the cult would just send actual assassins after them. Giving in now without a struggle is honestly your best option at the moment."

Aaron is mute for a moment as he ponders on the girl's statement. She's probably right about the Zomer sending more people after them if he fights back. He doesn't know precisely how many trained combattants are part of the cult, thus it'll just create a ruthless cycle of back-to-back assailants and hit men. Plus, he'd prefer if they didn't add Rob to their target list; he's the only family he has. Finally admitting to himself that he's been pushed to a corner, Aaron caves in to their demands.

"Okay, I'll go with you," Aaron says as he dispels the shadow tentacles binding M's legs. "I clearly don't have any other choice in the matter."

"No, don't do this. We can figure this out together," Sara attempts to change his mind, tears threatening to fall from her eyes, but it's futile.

"I'm happy you decided to be reasonable. I wasn't looking forward to a brawl I obviously wasn't going to win," Louane tells Aaron as she comes closer to him and M and places her hands on both of their shoulders. "Let's go."

In the blink of an eye, the three zegens vanish into thin air. Sara's on the brink of crying when the muffled yells of Mathéo and Laura who are still tied up bring her back to reality and she rushes to help them.

"Are you two okay?" Sara asks them with concern after she uses a knife she creates out of ice to cut them free from their restraints. "Do I need to call an ambulance or something?"

"Thank you, we're alright now," Laura replies as she heals the injuries she sustained from being punched multiple times by Louane's gorilla fists, before proceeding to treat Mathéo's wounds too. "What about you? How are you doing? All this must be really hard on you."

"I'm still trying to digest everything that just happened. I don't even know what to think or how to feel right now."

"You're not the only one that's disgruntled by all this," Mathéo abruptly pokes himself into the discussion, cutting off Sara. "I warned Aaron that getting involved with the stalker was a terrible idea, but nobody wanted to listen to me. After all, I'm just a powerless normal, what do I know? Now, we've all been roped into this whether we like it or not."

* * * *

After some time, Laura decides to walk Mathéo home so that he can get some rest to fully recover from everything they've been through today, and the latter notices something ominous when they get there. His parents' cars are parked in the driveway, but the front door is wide open. They wouldn't do such a thing. They never leave the door unlocked because of how scared they are of getting robbed. Suddenly worried, Mathéo leaves Laura in the front porch and runs inside.

"Mom! Dad! Lyam!" Mathéo calls out as he searches for his dear family but no one responds.

"What is it?" Laura's a bit confused by the boy's sudden hurry and she goes in after him. "What happened here?" she asks herself as she finds the house in total disarray. There are even a few drops of blood on the floor carpet. It looks like there was a break-in.

Laura is immediately pulled from her thoughts when she hears the sound of someone repeatedly hitting a surface in another room. She rushes to the origin of the noise, the living room, where she sees Mathéo furiously punching the wall so hard it has begun to crack, and she resolves that she needs to step in.

"You can talk to me, you know that right?" Laura says to him softly as she places one hand on his shoulder from behind to get him to stop hitting before he hurts his knuckles. "You don't have to deal with everything alone."

"They took them, all of them. Mom, Dad, Lyam, all gone and I'm the one to blame. I just seem to be damned to be forever lonely and every person I get close to ends up as unfortunate as me."

Mathéo is instantly surprised and speechless when Laura hugs him from the back all of a sudden. Her embrace gives him a certain feeling of warmth and safety at the same time, two emotions he doesn't believe he experiences every day. It's kind of nice for him to know that there's still someone in his life that has that effect on him.

"You aren't cursed and you're definitely not to blame for all the bad things that happen to you and around you. None of them is your fault and you should never think it is," the brunette comforts him before slowly pulling away. "You should come over to my place and spend a few days, at least until we deal with this whole mess and get your family back."

"No, I can't possibly do that. Nathaniel would kill you and me both. He already thinks of me as nothing more than a womanizer who's desperate to get in bed with you; there's no way he's letting me sleep there."

"Don't worry, I'll talk to him. There's no way I'm leaving you here all by yourself the way you are right now. Absolutely not."

Laura's concern for her friend's well being is fully justified because in the short time she's known him, he's made it very obvious that he makes terrible decisions when his emotions are intensified. There's no telling what sort of stupid thing he'd do if he's left alone while he's this enraged. He might even burn the entire building to the ground.

Eventually, after much pleading on Laura's part, Mathéo caves in and follows her back to her place, and Nathaniel is in the worst mood possible when he opens the front door to see the Latino standing beside his sister with a bag containing clothes and other essentials hung over his shoulder. The man looks like he's about to explode.

"After almost harassing my sister last night, you seriously ca-" Nathaniel immediately stops his rant when he notices the sombre look on the teen boy's face. He can tell something serious has just happened to him, and he has too much personal experience in dealing with shitty stuff at a young age to turn a blind eye to him. "Do you want to talk about it?" Laura's big brother tries to sound as sincere as possible.

"He's going through some personal family problems," Laura answers for Mathéo. She chooses not to tell her brother about the kidnapping and UDAP since, considering his line of work, he'd be legally obligated to inform the police and they don't know if the Zomer has spies in law enforcement. The risk of worsening the current situation is way too high to take. Plus, she'd prefer not to rope him into this mess. "He just needs to stay with us for some days, until things at home go back to normal."

Nathaniel is still feeling very skeptical about allowing Mathéo sleep in the same house as his sister that's clearly somewhat interested in him (at least sexually she is), and he still has a lot of questions to ask him, but decides not to so as not to come across as insensitive. Against his better judgement, he agrees to his sister's request, but with a few conditions.

"He'll stay in the guest room upstairs, but I don't want to see you two sneaking into each other's rooms or having any funny business behind my back. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand completely and I am very grateful, Nathaniel," Mathéo thanks him before walking into their home.

* * * *

In the middle of the night, Laura is forced awake suddenly by the sound of someone knocking at her bedroom door. The brunette is a bit taken aback when she opens it to see Mathéo standing there in his pajamas and a melancholic expression on his face.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb your sleep and I'm not trying to get you in trouble with your brother, I just c-"

"Couldn't sleep," the girl completes his sentence for him as she scratches away the sleep from her eyes.

"I'll just go back to the guest room. I don't want to be a nuisance," Mathéo says as he turns to leave, but Laura stops him.

"You don't have to. You can just spend the night here if you're finding it so hard to sleep. The room is more than big enough for the two of us."

Mathéo deliberates for a moment the different ways Laura's seemingly innocent proposal can go wrong, but he goes in anyway. His mind is in too much of a mess right now for him to handle spending the night on his own. When he beholds the beauty and size of the room, he's totally amazed. 'Big' is an understatement, this place is massive. It's the size of a standard hotel suite, maybe even larger, with gorgeous floral murals on all the walls. There's a smart TV hung on the wall, a little workspace in one corner with a desk and a laptop, and on another side, a furry turquoise couch. As he moves towards the sofa to lie down, the girl interrupts him with another wild idea.

"It's alright if you want to sleep on the bed with me. That couch isn't actually as comfortable as it looks," Laura says to him with such a pure tone, almost like her drowsiness is preventing her from realizing the implication of what she's suggesting.

"I don't think you're aware of how things could play out if I said yes to that. I don't want it to seem like I'm taking advantage of your kindness to have sex with you or anything like that."

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. The bed is large enough for both of us anyway. It could be like when we were in the hospital. 'Just two friends hanging out,' isn't that what you said back then?" the brunette girl insists.

The bed is king-sized like all the other ones in this house, so she's right about it being able to contain the both of them. Going against the tiny voice in his head that's telling him to refuse the offer, Mathéo lies down on the opposite end of the furniture from her, keeping a safe distance between the two of them.

"Do you mind if we cuddled? Not like in a weird sexual way, just like we used to do on our hospital beds," Mathéo asks Laura sheepishly.

"Yeah, I'd like that," she whispers in response and he obliges, moving closer to her and gently spooning her from behind while wrapping his arms around her. He yearned for this feeling. The feeling of comfort and relaxation he always gets when he's close to her, body against body.

"Thank you for this. I didn't mean to be such an inconvenience," the Latino starts whispering to her to ensure that the volume of their voices doesn't wake up Nathaniel. There's no excuse in the world that would save him if the girl's brother walked in on this scene.

"You don't have to thank me so much, you're not an inconvenience at all," Laura joins him to reduce her loudness as she responds. "I actually wanted to talk to you about something."

"About what?"

"What happened between us last night," she answers as she pulls away from the snuggle and turns around to face him.

Mathéo instantly feels embarrassed once he hears the subject. He's still ashamed that he kissed her when she wasn't even interested in him. He was just kind of hoping she had forgotten all about it.

"You don't have to explain why you rejected me. It's fine if you don't have a crush on me, it's your life. I didn't become friends with you because I wanted romance or sex, I did 'cause you're a good person," he tries to convince Laura to let go of the topic, but she doesn't really get the message.

"I do like you, like a lot. You're in my thoughts 24/7 and I always look forward to seeing you everyday, whether it's just to study or have fun, and why wouldn't I? When I'm with you, I feel seen and understood and like I actually matter, and nobody has that effect on me the way you do," Laura admits timidly before continuing. "I pushed you away yesterday 'cause I got scared. You came in really strong and I knew what you wanted us to do, at least what we would've ended up doing at the rate we were going, and I wasn't yet ready to go that far, so I freaked. Sex is just such an intimate thing to do with someone in my opinion and I wasn't sure I was prepared to dive into it so quickly when we weren't even dating. You probably think I'm childish and immature now, don't you?"

"Not at all," Mathéo responds as he shortens the gap between them until their faces are barely an inch apart. He stretches out one hand and gently passes his fingers through her smooth brown hair as he continues, "I don't think there's anything wrong with you for feeling that way. I do agree that sex is really special and personal, so it's totally fine if you're not sure you want to share that moment with me yet. 16 is pretty early to talk about doing the devil's tango anyway and I'm sorry I put you on the spot like that. I guess I just let my hormones get the better of me, but I'm happy that my feelings are reciprocated. I'm okay with us dating without fucking. We can just take it slow for as long as you need, but you're okay with kissing, aren't you?"

"Yeah, kissing's fine with me," the girl replies as she begins to blush. "But promise me that we'll always remain friends, even when we break up like all high school couples do eventually."

"I was thinking the exact same thing." The boy's smile brightens up when he hears Laura's request, but it doesn't take long before the sadness returns. "Do you think my family is alright? Those psycho cultists could've killed them by now."

Laura lightly places her palm on the side of Mathéo's face and softly caresses his cheek, relaxing his mind as she says, "I choose to believe they're still alive and you should too. You've spent your entire life dealing with shit no one our age should ever have to experience, and God sent you that family as a reward for your strength and perseverance. If not for anything else, I'm sure the Badis will stick around for you."

Laura's words touch Mathéo deeply and actually help ease his mind a little bit. The lovely girl truly had a hold on the boys emotions.

"Creo que te amo," the Hispanic teen suddenly blurts out much to Laura's surprise.

"That was Spanish, right? I always forget you speak the language cause of how natural your French sounds."

"Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, it was Spanish. I grew up speaking it when I was in Argentina, and I was kinda forced to learn French when I got stuck in the orphanage here in Belgium. So, I speak both languages fluently, though I tend to utter my mother tongue without thinking from time to time."

"That must be nice. I don't understand Spanish, so could you translate what you just said."

"It means, 'I think I love you'," Mathéo confesses and it immediately causes Laura's cheeks to redden in embarrassment. She already had a feeling that it was something love related, but hearing the full meaning out loud still has that effect on her.

"Stop putting me on the spot like that."

"Don't be so shy. You speak a second language too. Translate what I said to Romanian."

"It would probably be something like, 'cred ca te iubesc'."

"I think I prefer it in Spanish, it sounded creepy in Romanian," Mathéo jokes and they both laugh.

The new teen couple continue their platonic exchange for almost an hour before ultimately falling asleep facing each other. Their lives may be in shambles, but right now they sleep without worries because each other's company is enough to make their anxiety disappear. Life is alright with the other by their side.