"Where are we going?" Renee asked, struggling to keep up with Caden's pace.

"As far as we can," Caden replied. "Away from the undead"

"Then you'll have to go without me," She said, stopping in place.

"What do you mean?" He asked, turning back to face her.

"I can't keep running" She croaked. 

"We have to," He said. Looking at Renee's tired face, he added "If we want to survive" 

"They're not after us anymore," She said, looking behind. "We can stop" 

Caden looked back at the path ahead, thinking of their next plan. They hadn't eaten in a while and no other food was available in the woods. 

"Just a little longer," He persuaded. "Just until we're out of the woods and we can stop" 

"Or, we can go back to the safe house" She suggested. 

"We know there's a horde of the undead back there, it'll be a fool's move to go," He said. "If we go to the city, we can at least get proper food and maybe a safe place to stay" 

"We don't know how far the city is," Renee countered. "We might need to stay another night in the woods. If we go in pursuit of the safe house, at least we can guarantee some safety"

"The trees are reducing subsequently, meaning the city is near" He argued. "We can make it by afternoon" 

"Alright," She finally caved in. "Lead the way"

He smiled softly and began walking, following the narrow path of the woods. They stayed as away from the trees and bushes as they could. The last thing they needed was a surprise attack from the undead. They didn't have any water with them and hence resorted to drinking from the small streams of water they occasionally crossed by. 

They walked in silence, neither of them knew what to say. Until Caden decided to break the silence. 

"It's because of him, isn't it?" He asked.

"What?" She asked, confused.

"The reason you insisted on returning to the safe house" He elaborated. 

"Who are we talking about?" She sighed. 

"Arthur," He said, plainly. 

"Now is not the time to talk about this," She said.

"If not now, then when, Renee?" He snapped. "You lied to me once and lied again when I confronted you. And now, we're alone together. How can I know you won't hurt me?" 

"If I wanted to hurt you," She said "I would've done it a long time ago" 

Caden didn't know how to respond to that. It was true, Renee had many opportunities to hurt him. If she really wanted to, she could've. But still, it felt like she used that to shut the conversation down. He decided to let it slide for now. He didn't want an argument to get the attention of the undead. He would just ask her once they got to safety. 

They continued their silent walk, sometimes hiding behind bushes at the sight of the undead. Renee looked at her watch every five minutes and wondered how long it would take them to reach the city. She looked at Caden and wondered how he wasn't as weary as she was. After all, he was the one who hadn't slept at all the previous night. Normally, she would ask him about it, but she wasn't so sure after the last conversation they'd had.

"All right," Caden said, snapping her out of her thoughts. "We've reached the city" 

»»————-　☠　————-««

Something about the safe house felt different. Maybe it was the sudden reduction of members inside. Or the uneasy silence that took over after the attack. Gabriella couldn't figure it out. 

People sat in corners, crying - mourning the loss of their loved ones. Gabriella couldn't afford that, however. She received constant calls to duty from Arthur and in these times, couldn't send others to fill in for her. 

She drowsily walked to Arthur's cabin, wondering what task he had for her this time.

"Keep your head up," Janelle called from behind. "You look depressed, like someone who lost a sibling" 

"This isn't funny, Janelle" Gabriella grumbled. 

"I know," She replied, in a more serious tone. "But still, as a military officer, your posture must embody confidence" 

"I don't think I care about 'embodying confidence' right now," She said and tried to walk away from Janelle. 

"You're not even sure if he's dead," She said. "Don't give up" 

"That's the problem," She said. "The uncertainty is driving me crazy" 

"You'll find a way to deal with it," She said nonchalantly.

They entered Arthur's room, where they were asked to make the death certificates for all the ones who died. It wasn't usually their job, but the concerned departments faced a shortage of members and an increase in deaths and hence they had to do it.

Gabriella sluggishly typed in the names and other information of all the victims and the cause of death under all certificates was the same - 'X Virus' 

Janelle was overlooking each of the certificates Gabriella was working on, to make sure she didn't mess anything up due to her weariness.

They left the meeting room after half an hour and all Gabriella could think of was heading to bed. She wasn't always this lazy, but she'd lost all her energy to work. 

"Wait up, Gabriella!" She heard Janelle call out behind her and reluctantly stopped walking.

"Make it quick, please," She said. 

"Well, I checked my mail after we were done with the certificates," She started "And there's no response to the recording" 

"Oh, that" She mumbled to herself. In all the chaos that took place after, she'd completely forgotten their plan to take down Arthur.

"I was thinking we should wait for like a week or something before sending a follow-up mail," She said, but Gabriella was only half-listening. "What do you say?"

"Oh, yeah. Sounds great" Gabriella replied hurriedly. She just wanted to end this conversation and go to her bed. 

"I know you didn't hear anything I said, but anyway, we have more important things to discuss," Janelle said. "I'm thinking we should collect more evidence against him" 

"Why would we do that?" She asked "We already have everything we need" 

"What if it's not enough? We could use more evidence" Janelle said. "And besides, I'm curious about what he's hiding" 

"Well, Renee's gone now, so we lost the only lead we had," Gabriella said grimly. 

"Yes, but that might not even be a bad thing," Janelle said, catching Gabriella's attention. "Arthur will be busy for a while, dealing with everything that happened. While he's doing all of that, we can catch information on him" 

"How would we do that?" She asked.

"Every official military discussion is recorded. Those recordings must be here somewhere" Janelle said.

"But we think that Arthur is doing something 'illegal' and he wouldn't risk recording those," Gabriella said.

"Maybe not hour-long recordings of his discussions," She agreed "But certainly something"

"I guess it makes sense," Gabriella said. "There's no way he doesn't have photos or copies of documents or something like that" 

"Even access to his chats might help" Janelle shrugged.

Hearing that, a thought formed in Gabriella's mind which put a huge smile on her face. 

"What?" Janelle asked.

"We don't necessarily need Arthur's phone," She said in excitement. 

"What are you talking about?" She asked, confused.

"If we get Renee's phone, we can open her chats and calls to see if Arthur was ever in them" Gabriella suggested.

"That's pretty smart," Janelle said, impressed. "We can also go through the rest of her stuff" 

Gabriella nodded and they both walked towards the hallway with all the bedrooms. Luckily, Gabriella knew which one was Caden's and the two entered. No one else was there, since they all had chores to do, making it more convenient for them. 

Janelle opened the cupboard which was a mix of many people's belongings. The safe house did not have separate shelves for each member and hence Renee's stuff would've been mixed with all the other junk. 

They started going through everything, trying to make out which one was Renee's. 

"Oh, look at this" Janelle said.

"What's that?" Gabriella asked.

"It's a diary" She replied. "Renee's diary" 

"Great, keep that with you. We can read it later" Gabriella said as she resumed segregating the items. She came across a picture of Caden and herself and felt the grief taking over her once more. But she resisted. She remembered Janelle's words, 'You're not even sure he's dead' and with a heavy heart, placed the picture aside and continued.

"You know, now that I'm thinking about it," Gabriella started "Renee might not even have a phone" 

"Don't be silly, Gabriella" Janelle scoffed, not taking her eyes away from the cupboard.

"Caden mentioned how she's obsessed with nature and isn't on social media" She explained. "The woods we rescued them from, that was her home" 

Janelle took her eyes off the cupboard to face Gabriella, just to make sure she wasn't joking. 

"Still, not having social media and not having a phone are two very different things," She stated

"I suppose" She murmured and looked through the cupboard. She tossed aside phones, watches and hairbrushes of the residents while her patience slowly thinned. 

"I guess you were wrong, Marshall" Janelle said shoving a phone in her face. Gabriella turned it aside to see that it was indeed Renee's phone since the back cover had her name on it.

"There's no charge," She said after pressing the 'switch on' button.

"Yeah, there are no charging ports in the common lounges," Janelle replied. "But we can fix that easily"

"We can finally find out what Arthur is hiding"