My eyes flew open.

Sunrise. Grass. Lightening sky. Kain.

Everything rammed into me all at once.

We'd fallen asleep.

We'd actually fallen asleep.

It was morning.

In the distance I could see the sun slowly rising above the horizon, it's light flowing gradually over the world beneath a thick layer of morning fog. The sky directly above me was still a dark bruised color, but it was quickly fading.

Panic took hold of my heart and made it difficult to breathe. It was impossible that somebody hadn't noticed our disappearance by now. They had to have realized two students had gone missing and then also realized that there was an actual shoe in the door that we'd gone out of.

But if they'd found the shoe, shouldn't they have found us?

Unless they hadn't. Hope soared up in me as I leaned up, pressing my hand against the cool brick wall for support, and then was forced to fall back down as I realized Kain's head had ended up resting on my shoulder at some point during the night. His eyes fluttered, and then fell back closed. I felt my heartbeat stumble at the sight. I quickly removed his head from my shoulder and placed it instead on his own, being careful to avoid hurting him. I then stood up, scared to look, but knowing I'd have to.

My eyes found the door and my blood went cold.

The sneaker...

...was gone.

The door was completely sealed, nothing jamming it open so that we could get back inside. If we couldn't get back inside, then it didn't matter if they'd already found us or not, they would figure it out when we didn't show up for breakfast or anything else.

I tried anyway, yanking on the handle, but it didn't budge.

"Looking for this?" came a voice from directly behind me and I whirled around, confused by the unfamiliar voice.

Standing in the quickly dissipating darkness was a blonde haired boy with dark eyes, pale skin, and a gleaming gold set of keys in his right hand that he was now holding up. In the left was my sneaker, hanging from his pointer finger as he swung it back and forth lazily.

I stared at him in complete shock. If this wasn't the most surprising thing that had happened so far during the inspection, I didn't know what was.

I questioned whether I might be hallucinating. It was totally possible. Maybe I'd been drugged during dinner the night before and this entire thing, coming outside, putting the shoe in the doorway, was all just a huge, complex hallucination.

I realized just how much I'd been thinking the world wasn't real in the past week.

"Excuse me?" I asked, not knowing how to properly respond to his statement.

"It's obvious that door's locked, and it's also obvious that this is the key...I saw you tried shoving a shoe in there to keep it open. Stupid idea, it could've easily come out. Lucky I retrieved it," he said with a wink and a careless grin.

A spark of anger began to form deep in my bones. "Who are you?" I asked, barely containing it.

"Someone who'll give you back your shoe and maybe a key, for a price," the boy continued.

"How'd you even get that?"

"The shoe? Oh, I just picked it up. You know, with my hands."

"No, the key."

"Stole it."

I glared at him, getting annoyed. The way he was acting, like this entire experience was a joke was starting to really grate on my nerves.

"Give it to me."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't just give things to people without getting something back."

I felt like punching him in the face. But if I ever wanted to get the key and my shoe back, I realized I might actually have to play by his rules. Even if that was the one thing I didn't want to do at the time.

"What do you want?" I asked while crossing my arms.

I only now realized how close he was to my age. He looked like he couldn't be older than seventeen years old, and if he was younger, than why wasn't he in school? Shouldn't he have also been forced into an inspection program just like everyone else?

"What everyone does." When he saw that I didn't immediately understand what he was talking about he continued. "Money."

Well, my hope of making it inside died in less than a second.

I had nothing on me besides the clothes I'd been wearing for the past five days. An unfortunately, that meant I had absolutely no money on me. And if that was the only thing that he actually wanted then there was no way I was going to get the key.

"I don't-," I said honestly.

"I know that."

"Then why'd you even ask?!" I responded, some of my anger coming loose.

"Because it isn't your money I want." He was playing with me, toying with my mind and not giving me any full answers. I wondered if I could actually just take him down and steal both the key and sneaker from his hands.

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to steal one of the inspector's money instead."

Steal the inspector's money?

As if I wasn't in enough trouble already and possibly was about to be taken away the second I stepped inside.

"How?" I replied, eyes wide in shock that he actually believed his idea was possible.

"Actually, it isn't that hard. I'll give you the key and sneaker, then you have to go inside, find room D679 in the restricted hallway, then just waltz inside and steal it from the desk. The guy always leaves his money in the second drawer down, no locks, nothing to worry about. It'll be easy," he explained, and I was shocked he knew anything at all about it.

I dropped my arms to my sides, wondering if he was lying to me. If he was, I'd be taking a risk for no reason at all. But then again, why would he lie to me? His entire plan had been to force me to go in and get money for him. And what would be the point in telling me to go into a restricted room that didn't have anything he wanted in it? For amusement? I doubted he'd go through all the work of stealing the inspector's keys just to watch me do something idiotic.

"Why don't you just do it yourself?" I asked. He now looked slightly happier as he realized I was closing in on my only option. It couldn't be too hard. Just walk in and walk out right? Plus, I'd already done it before with Pepper when we went to see the laptop in the restricted hallway.

"I'm too lazy," he said, but he was obviously joking. For some reason, his eyes had saddened slightly after his reply, and then immediately went back to his previous look when he saw that I was staring.

"Fine. I'll do it." I held out my palm, face up, open to receive both the keys and the sneakers.

He paused for a second before handing them to me. "I'll be here tomorrow morning at one in the morning."

Then it hit me how much he was trusting me. He was already giving in on his side of the deal without having anything that would ensure that he would get what he wanted from it. I could just go run to the door and leave him alone in the morning air, never to return and complete my side of the bargain. Either he was an awful deal maker or he was just way too trustworthy.

"How do you know I'll come?" I asked, voicing my thoughts even though it was technically unnecessary since they were probably showing up on my Animus as I thought them.

"I don't." He again gave me that sad smile and I didn't know what to say. I turned my head back around to see if Kain was still there sleeping against the wall or if our discussion had woken him up. But no, he was asleep, head leaned in an uncomfortable position with it resting on his own shoulder rather than mine.

When I turned back around to face the blonde haired boy, he was gone.