The door burst opened and Bennett walked in only for his eyes to narrow down at me. His hand flew up to cover his face as he looked back at the other room -the fake one- probably to Jordan.

"Why is she here?" He demanded.

Jordan's head poked into the room. "How am I supposed to know? I told her to go back home."

"Well obviously she's here," Bennett snapped.

"He did," I told him, standing up from the couch. "When he left to go meet up with you guys instead of going to the base directly, I went. Besides, the base is closer than home."

"You shouldn't be here," Bennett told me.

"If it makes you feel any better, I kinda fell for the dart trap," I admitted, rubbing my neck at the memory of taking a short nap on the floor before going into the base.

Jordan snapped his fingers. "I knew I heard a chime from my phone." He took out his phone. "Yeah, the trap was deactivated. We were too busy to notice it I guess."

I eyed him. "Too busy with what? What was the urgent thing you guys-"

Jordan cursed and accidentally stumbled into the room, probably not able to carry Declan's weight from the look of it. And he was trying to help him because he was half-unconscious.

And bleeding.

And I don't mean a small little nosebleed which you can easily stop with a tampon. I mean, yeah his nose was bleeding too. Declan's hand was clutching his shoulder covered in blood. He was beaten up and bruised, and I know what it feels like just as much as it looks like because I've beaten up like that. He was so out of it that he needed Jordan to help him, and that's saying something. I looked at Bennett in disbelief and he stopped covering his face with his hand to show a big bruise under his eye. The both of them looked like they were run over, repeatedly, like the car kept on going back and forth on them. Looking away, Bennett helped Jordan out with carrying Declan to the couch.

"I uh- you're bleeding," was the only thing I could say.

Okay, can you blame me? What do you expect me to react to this? Just freak out and run back and forth, thinking what we should do? No, I'm better than that.

That's what I did next.

"What happened? What's going on? This is a gang thing, isn't it? While Jordan and I were at a stupid fair, you two were doing gang stuff with fighting, and now look at you. I can't believe you didn't want me to be here, but then again it's probably because you didn't want me doing this. But seriously we have to take you to the-"

"No hospitals," Bennett said, helping Declan sit on the couch. "They're going to ask too many questions."

"But do you know what they also do? They fix people!"

"They're still going to ask too many questions."

"Well that's too bad because I'm going to ask just as many," I said before looking at Declan. "But right now, we need to help him."

I slowly pried Declan's hand off his shoulder which he was using to handle the pain and to press it to try to stop the bleeding. He winced in pain and I saw his hand was caked in his dried blood. I looked at the wound and did a near double take. You can see it through his shirt. His shoulder was hurt on both sides, at the back it looked like some knife mark while at the front-

"Is that a bullet hole?" I demanded.

"It's just a flesh wound," Jordan assured me.

Declan groaned in agreement, or in pain, or both.

"Oh yeah, like that makes it any better," I said sarcastically.

"Two. Two of them," Declan tried to explain but it ended up being a mess. "Same face. One knife, one gun."

Bennett shooked his head. "He's in shock. He lost a lot of blood. The guy probably played dirty, using a gun and knife."

I looked at him. "How many of them were there?"

"I don't know, it was too dark. They just jumped us out of nowhere. We're lucky to get away. I don't think the bullet was a clean shot, I think it's still in his- What are you doing?"

While he was talking I took out my phone and started typing something in.

"I'm posting this on Twitter," I said as I took a picture of Declan's shoulder. "#FriendBeenShot, #LivingGangLife, #DidntChooseThugLifeThugLifeChoseMe."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course not! I don't even have a Twitter." I deleted the picture, it'll be weird keeping a picture of a friend's shoulder who just been shot and stabbed. "I'm looking up how to remove a bullet from someone."

"You can't possibly-"

"Found it." I looked at him. "This is the internet, you can find anything."

Bennett nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense."

I began to read the article. "Oh wait, this is a bad article."

"How come?" Jordan asked.

"There was only one step in that article," I told him. "To not be stupid and go to the hospital."

"Well you know that's out," Jordan said. "Next!"

I found another article, with option of "don't be stupid and go to the hospital" and steps if you are stupid and don't want to go to the hospital. "I need some a knife, towels, gauze bandage rolls, rubbing alcohol, tweezers and... absorbable sutures, which are like stitches." I didn't like what I had to do with the last thing.

"We have a couple of those," Bennett said. "It's not the first time we got hurt, but not this badly. Jordan is going to need to run to the store to get the last two."

Jordan nodded then left, came back to get money from Bennett since we wasted money for the fair food, and then really did leave. While he was gone, I have to clean up Declan's wound with the help of Bennett having to hold him down.

"Take off your shirt."

Declan, a bit conscious now, took is as a compliment. He gave me a wry half-hearted smile and said, "Naomi, all you have to do is say-"

"He can die from infection all I care," I told Bennett who reluctantly helped Declan out of it.

I inspected his shoulder first. It was a near clean shot. The bullet thankfully just barely grazed his shoulder and went right through from the front. But at the back of his shoulder was a knife mark, going slightly deeper than the gun had been. I was going to clean up both wounds, then work on the gun one first before the other. Of course we had to shut Declan up given the loud yell that made us jump back in surprise when I barely touched him with a towel. So we stuffed a towel in his mouth as we cleaned the blood away with rubbing alcohol.

I suffered just as much as Declan was. Watching him whither in pain of his shoulder, trying so hard to be strong. I was angry, just pissed off I had to deal with this and that someone did this to him. Jordan came back with the stuff just in time. Bennett was able to give up a knife from his kitchen, not the kitchen, his kitchen.

"You don't have to worry. The stitches won't hurt since you're already numb with the pain."

Hopefully. I'm trusting you internet.

He grumbled something, probably telling me to hurry it up.

"Are you sure you can do this Naomi?" Jordan asked. "I mean, you're already able to stomach all of this but-"

"My mom's a nurse, and we like watching medical TV shows. She likes to tell me if the stuff is accurate or not and "what if" things I have to do if someone were to... let's say been shot."

I remembered one time I asked her, "what if someone was bitten by a poisonous snake?" After she told me, I asked, "what if it was on the butt?"

"Totally," Jordan said. "Put Declan's life on someone who graduated medical TV show school."

"You want to do this?"

Jordan made a face. "Years of video games won't make me prepare for this. Usually I get this aid kit and boom, I'm good."

"Too bad we don't have that," I muttered.

I looked back at Declan's wound, took a deep breath and-

"Bennett can you do this for me?" I shooked my head. "I can't do it."

I thought for sure I could do it. But I just couldn't find myself to hurt my friend more than he already was. I've always been skittish in the cutting parts of medical TV shows. I didn't know how I would think I could take it in real life, but it ends up I can't. At that moment I felt so pathetic for not being able to help him as much as I want to. I just hated myself for that.

"Alright."

Bennett was able to stitch Declan up with a bit of my guidance from the article I was reading from. He then did the other side. Once he was done, I was going to now going to clean the rest before dressing it with the bandages. Though I then began to feel the other guys stared on my back, then making me worry if I mess up somehow.

I looked at them. "Can you guys..."

"Oh yeah sure."

"I'll be over there."

They both got up and walked away. I glanced at Declan who was looking away. I don't blame him, who wants to see someone looked so hurt? I set my hand on his shoulder with another towel, feeling it twitch. I was careful not to hurt him any further than he already was.

"All done," I said, making him sigh in relief. "Now the back."

"Naomi," he said slowly as I turned him around. "Before you say anything I-"

He didn't bother finishing because I already saw it.

Scars.

At first I thought they were just a couple of cuts from stupid daredevil stunts on the skateboard and whatnot guys usually get for being too reckless. But there was a lot of them, way too many of them. Then I thought of it being self inflicted, sometimes people would turn to self-harm if they have a cause for it like being bullied, which Declan had been. I don't know how severe it is for him to do this but-

"We've all had rough days, don't you think?" He asked me quietly.

Define rough, I wanted to say, but I didn't.

He had a whole range of scars, some small while others big. The one currently bleeding seemed the biggest of them. Though I know the biggest scar he had couldn't be seen, it scarred him from the inside, I have one as well. I traced one particular that was between his shoulder blades, making his body tense a bit.

"Skateboard accident," he lied through his teeth.

I didn't say anything, hopefully he knew I saw though his lie and that he wouldn't say another to me. I thought of Bennett who was stitching Declan up. I didn't see him look surprise or anything. Did he already know this about Declan?

Declan coughed. "I don't want to sound impatient, but I'm still bleeding so..."

"Oh, right," I said, and wordlessly started to clean other side of his shoulder.

Once I was done there, I started to wrap his shoulder with the bandage gauze. Sitting in front of me, I wrapped it around his shoulder around and around. You could still see the blood was seeping into the bandage, so I had to put a lot of layers of the bandages. It was a pretty boring process, so I was happy I had Declan there to talk to though he didn't really seem to be in a talking mood when avoiding eye contact with me. But I had just the thing to get him to start talking.

"Hey Declan?"

"Yeah Naomi?"

"Why do you have a tattoo on your chest?"

I don't know why he was startled when I asked him this question. I didn't notice it myself at first, since my only focus was, I don't know, the huge bleeding wound on his shoulder. And now that I think of it, he was conscious with it because kept on positioning himself at an angle so I wouldn't see it. But I happened to take a glance at that black ink on the right side of his chest.

"You're taking a long time answering," I noted.

"Well, you should already know what it's for," he replied.

"I know it's for the gang, I just wanted you to say it yourself," I said before looking back at the tattoo. "It's the fleur-de-lis, a symbol with three petals tied by a band. In The Three Musketeers, it's used to brand criminals like Lady de Winter."

He chuckled half-heartedly. "You're like a walking dictionary, you know that."

"Don't bother changing the subject," I said in a Bennett-like blank tone. "Since you have one, the guys probably have it too."

Jordan's head poked from the kitchen. "Declan, you idiot. You should have done a better job hiding it," he grumbled at him.

Bennett's head poked from the kitchen beside Jordan, holding an ice pack on his eye. "It's not his fault, and you know it," Bennett told Jordan.

Declan let out a sigh, knowing he ruined it. He mumbled that he was getting tired and if he could lay down a bit. I said sure and he practically collapsed on his good side. I let out a shaky sigh at just looking at his shoulder, happy that we did the best we could.

"Well we might as well..." Jordan trailed off and gave Bennett a look.

He probably got it because he glared at him. "It's stupid, I'm not doing it."

"C'mon," Jordan said with a small grin.

Jordan gave him a small nudge forward, walking back at the living room. The both of them stood in front of me Bennett wore an irritated look while Jordan looked like he was enjoying it too much.

Then they started taking off their shirts.

My hands flew up to my eyes. "No! My innocent eyes!" I cried.

"Relax, it's not like you'll go blind up by our awesomeness," Jordan assured me.

"Yeah, as if that's a-"

"You'll just disintegrate into dust," he finished.

"I'm serious," I growled with my eyes still closed shut. "Put your shirts back on. I don't even have any singles left anyway. I know you're giving me the look, I was kidding about the last part."

"Oh c'mon, it's only a little peek," Jordan tried to tempt me, but it's not happening. "We promise it won't be traumatizing."

"The faster you look at it, the quicker they'll put their shirts back on," Declan advised me. I peeked at him and saw his eyes were closed.

"Try being in my place then."

But reluctantly, I looked to see that I was right, they also had tattoos. Bennett had his back on me, probably thankful not to look at me in the eyes, showing the tattoo on his right shoulder blade. But he didn't just have the fleur-de-lis tattoo, but other tattoos that trailed down his side to the back and even on his left side.

"Hey, I didn't know you got more tattoos," Jordan commented.

He shrugged. "I got bored."

However, Jordan's tattoo was on his left shoulder, flexing his arm as he was showing it off.

"Why did you take off your shirt if your tattoo was on your shoulder?" Declan and I asked him.

"Why not?" Jordan replied back without missing a beat.

"You guys are really good at changing the subject," I told them.

Jordan snorted. "Subject? Where are we? At school?"

"Stop doing this."

Bennett put his shirt back on, holding a look of relief. "Stop what?"

"You can't just expect to walk in here all beaten up, and Declan already brain dead-" Jordan snorted while Declan gave me a look "-but also looked dead, having to be stitched up, and not talk to me about it. I know you guys don't want me to know this, to even see any of this. I know I should be scared of you guys like everyone else, but I just can't help but be scared for you. I don't like the thought of who knows how many times this happened and no one was there to help. The times you were hurt, and I didn't have a clue. And I feel so pathetic for never being able to help you guys because you don't trust me. I don't like seeing you guys hurt because I know how many times I've been hurt and you just pick me right back on my feet, and I want to do the same."

"You don't have to Naomi," Bennett assured.

Jordan smiled. "Yeah, we're big boys now. Stop worrying about us."

"No more of that. I don't have to, I want to. You're my friends and- Jordan stop flexing, put your shirt back on."

"Fine," Jordan muttered, before putting his shirt back on.

Bennett sighed. "It's time."

Jordan nodded in agreement. "She's been waiting her whole life-"

"I only met you guys a few months ago."

"-a few months ago for this moment," he finished before pulling out the Starbucks Contract, something I haven't seen... a few months ago.

"Were you carrying that the whole time? Where were you even hiding it?"

He ignored me as he flipped through a couple pages and read something. "I don't like it, but since she seen this much, I don't mind. Bennett?"

Bennett just shrugged.

"Declan?"

Declan just groaned in pain.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," Jordan said he continued flipping through contract. "Now let me see... Since we all agree you're okay with it, let's first have the talk."

I blinked. "The talk? Oh don't worry, I had that talk."

"No, I don't mean that talk," Jordan assured me.

"I don't even know what the point of the talk is," I continued. "We already know everything we need to know by the time we do get the talk. And it just makes thing awkward because you think you know more than them."

"Wait, what talk are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the talk."

"Which talk?"

"The talk. The birds and the bees."

"My innocent ears!" Jordan scolded. "Naomi, I raised you better than that."

"There are times when I just ignore Jordan," Bennett said.

"But that's all the time," Jordan whined.

Bennett blinked. "Did you say something?"

Declan sat up again, his head on my shoulder this time, but still looking tired. "She's right, you guys really do go off topic. Can we just get over it?"

"Alright, alright," Jordan said. "Naomi, I think you need to sit down."

I looked down at myself. "I'm already sitting down."

"Good job. We should sit down too."

Bennett and Jordan sat down themselves.

"Or wait, we should stand up."

The three of us stood up.

"But what about Declan? He can't stand up. We shouldn't make him feel left out."

"Oh right."

We all sat down again.

"No, don't worry," Declan told us. "It's only my shoulder, I can stand up."

So now all four of us are standing up, though if it were a race Declan was in last place.

"Hey Declan do you need-"

"I don't need it," Declan grumbled, already starting to walk.

We started to walk up the stairs to the second floor. I was nervous with Declan walking by himself, to stubborn to ask for help. I'm just worried that his stitches might break open if he makes any sudden movements at his shoulder like catching a random football in reflex.

It's possible.

I kept on pestering him to go to sleep in his room, hoping I'll at least annoy him enough to do so. He wouldn't, but he at least promised me he'll sit down at the room, whichever it may be. Anyway the hall has five rooms, three of them were the guys, one of them is mine, and the room at the end of the hall was the one we were walking to. With a proud grin, Jordan opened the door.

"I'd like to present, part two of the base," he announced. "The building here used to be a small factory I guess, with a conference room. With a little renovating and Jordan flair, viola, it's awesome."

It was a pretty big room, with wooden floors and glass panels to let the light in. There was a long table with three chairs only that was before a five screen monitor, a big flat screen at the middle and two slightly smaller ones at either side.

Jordan grinned. "I don't mean to brag-"

"He does, he really does," Declan said, plopping down on a seat and sighing with relief.

"-but I built this baby from scratch with the help of Bennett of course."

"Meaning he used me like a credit card," Bennett translated, making me snicker.

"And who wouldn't want to make their own computer? I mean besides bragging rights and the games I can download, with better version of a motherboard, quality parts I can choose myself-" He showed me the hardware that was under the table, some connected to wires that went through the floor while other parts, he explained, were wireless "-I can upgrade anytime I want. Which now that I think of it, it's due for another upgrading, Bent?"

"I feel as if our friendship is a lie," Bennett told him bluntly.

I threw up my arms into the air in exasperation. "I thought so too!"

"But enough about me, which is never enough- I don't know if that makes any sense –let's talk about us. I mean us as the Three Musketeers, though we were talking about one-third of us so..."

"Jordan!" All of us said in unison.

"Alright!" Jordan said as he stood in front of the table.

He took out a tablet from under the table and turned on the computer to show a wallpaper of a cute dog covered in paint.

"It's adorable, okay?" Jordan argued.

I held out my hands in defense. "No judge."

He opened a slideshow program making my eyes widen.

"You're showing me a presentation?"

"No," Jordan said. "I'm showing you a presentation, with a laser pointer." He held a laser pointer in his hand and for the next few minutes began to pretend it was a lightsaber.

After winning the duel with himself, he clicked into a slideshow and showed a couple of random pictures of animals and memes as he said, "The Three Musketeers was founded in our junior year with its only three members, Bennett, Declan and I. We didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose us. Done." The whole presentation was barely less than a minute.

I blinked. "That's it? That can't be it."

"It's just the short version," Bennett explained. "We can tell you the whole story another time."

"Then can you at least explain why you chose the name the Three Musketeers?" I asked them.

"Oh, that's easy," Jordan said. "It's because of the-"

"Chocolate bar," they said in unison.

My eye twitched. "The chocolate bar," I repeated slowly.

"We were hungry and went into some store," Bennett explained. "It turned out our favorite snack was that chocolate bar the 3 Musketeers, the thing was, there was only one more left. Obviously, I wanted the chocolate."

"I wanted the vanilla," Jordan said.

"And I wanted strawberry," Declan told me.

"We ended up just cutting it into thirds for each flavor," Declan said. "But after that, we just got the idea of that being our name."

"Now enough with that, let's go to the good stuff. I want to explain it like this," Jordan said as he showed a map of the city on the screen that's been divided into fourths. "There's a bunch, okay not really a bunch, but a lot of gangs in the city. Don't judge our city, even the best cities have gangs like New York or Los Angeles. Now there are three major gangs that control the minor gangs of one fourth of the city, yeah from your puzzling look Naomi I know the numbers don't add up until we control the last fourth. There you go, the 'oh I get it now' look, and now I see the 'are you kidding me' look. Hey, that's not a look, that's a finger."

Bennett got up. "This might take a while. I'm going to get myself a soda."

"Get me something," Declan grumbled, not bothering to lift his head off the table.

"You should be in bed," I told him.

"Nah, I don't want to miss you learning this. And I want soda, Bent."

"Get him water instead," I told Bennett as he left the room.

"Well anyway, here's the map," Jordan said, and as he explained, the different parts were highlighted into different colors being labeled by the gangs he listed off. The funny thing is that he talked as if he was in a game show. "Here at the west side it's taken over by none other than us. And we didn't get the west side after watching West Side Story."

It'd be something to watch the guys do a whole dance number.

"The East side's controlled by the Mayhem Wasps, the Ursa Grizzlies hold the North, and the South by the Inked Blades. It might not sound much to you, but say any of their names to other gangs and they'll piss themselves, our name especially. Fine, that's in my opinion, but it's still cool."

But they do sound much to me. Ever since I've watched that news of the gang war, I've been looking up everywhere to learn more about it. In doing so, I stumbled across the names with them being the three major gangs of the city. There was also an anonymous gang that rumored to be as big as the three other gangs, and with what the guys are telling me, it's obviously them.

"But here's the best part, out of the four gangs, only one of them controls the other three."

"Can I say it?" Declan asked.

"Yeah, you got shot. You can have the honors."

Declan looked at me and smiled that rare smile. "That's us."

"But you just told me that you guys were so called founded in your junior year," I said in disbelief. "How can you be such a big gang much less control those other three?"

"It's a long story," Declan said.

"We might as well make a book out of it, am I right?" Jordan said with a snort.

No one laughed.

"Let's just say we somehow, accidentally, out of revenge, kinda took over the boss gang's spot," Jordan said. "But its way better in our reign. I mean the other gangs still need to get used to us, but they prefer us than that tyrant- the boss gang I mean.

"Also, the city's way safer compared to years before, even the police noticed, there's been a decrease in smuggling drugs or weapons in or out of the city," Declan said, making me remember news stories on it.

"You're welcome!" Jordan exclaimed in exasperation.

"And they're okay with it?" I asked, referring to the other major gangs.

"Sure they missed the money, but the boss gang made them do it. Don't worry Naomi, they're pretty cool to us, but they're pretty hostile with each other, especially when a fight breaks out. You'll meet them sometime."

"I will?"

"No, she won't," Bennett said, walking back into the room to set a glass of water in front of Declan.

I was glad he listened to me until Bennett whispered too loudly, "It's actually Sprite," making me now notice the air bubbles in most soft drinks.

"Bennett!"

Declan eagerly began to drank it and then spewed it out.

"It's sparkling water!

Jordan burst out laughing. "Bennett, you're a genius! It's that wannabe soda water, the cruel drink that looks like soda, but isn't even close to water!

"Bennett you jerk!" Declan growled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Why do we even have this?"

"I was trying to experiment if there's any food I can make with sparkling water." He scratched his head. "I got nothing so far."

"Doing something so cruel to an injured person," Declan muttered, shaking his head.

"Oh, so you're playing the 'I got shot' card already, huh?" Jordan asked in disbelief.

I glared at him. "Jordan, he has a right to use that card... once."

Bennett looked at him. "And Jordan, she won't meet them."

"We're already this far, might as well take it all the way," Jordan pointed out.

Bennett glared at him.

"Fine, maybe a bit later. We set it up so we have meetings every other month: January, March, May, July, September, and November. We can also call for emergency meetings anytime though."

"Wait, you had a meeting this November, this month?"

"Don't worry, it already passed," he told me, waving it off. "You'll go to the January one."

"No, we'll hold it off to the March one instead," Bennett told him, making feel a bit better, but my stomach still felt sick thinking about it.

"Now the last meeting, we had a big topic of one thing."

"You mean besides the Wasps arguing for a street more of territory?" Bennett asked. When he saw my puzzling look, he explained, "Remember how we divided up the city? Well the Wasps sometimes forget the perimeter and clash with the other gangs, ending up another fight for more territory. In the last meeting, they gave us the perimeter of their territory, literally measuring it, and want the others to do the same to even it out better."

"But I don't mean that. I meant the other thing."

"Oh yeah," Declan said. "The Lost Boys."

I tensed at the sound of the name. I opened my mouth to say something, maybe play dumb of who they are but Bennett cut in.

"Don't bother playing dumb, we know that you know. The question is: How much?"

I was quiet for a moment before I confessed that I overheard them talking about it as well as noticed their obvious reaction of when we watched the movie.

"Hmm," was all Bennett said as he twisted the ring on his right hand. He noticed me watching as he did, then smiled and ruffled my hair. "It's alright, we're not mad if that's what you're thinking."

I touched my hair, patting it back to its original place. "Yeah."

"Are you done?" Jordan asked.

Bennett sighed. "Continue."

"The Lost Boys is the major gang in the neighboring city," Jordan said as he showed a new map of the city next to ours. "We don't know much about them, even the police find them a mystery-" showing police reports in various files. "All we got are rumors and word of mouth of others that the leader is this guy name Nicotine, they use code names. I wish we did that," Jordan mumbled to himself.

"It's not the mystery that they're the ones who did this to us," Declan grumbled, setting his head on the table.

I clenched my fist, angry that my friend was hurt because of a gang, that gang.

"When did you make all of this?" Bennett asked Jordan.

"A while back," Jordan said. "I was thinking of how Naomi will have to catch up to all of this because of the contract and everything, so I made this overnight." Jordan rubbed his eyes. "I couldn't sleep that night anyway."

"Just watch someone find all of this," Declan said.

"Don't jinx it!" I scolded him.

"Of course, everything's in self-destruct if someone outside tries to open the file," Jordan said in a duh tone. "But good luck to them for even doing that in the first place. The moment they open my system, they'll meet layer after layer of firewalls, and if they are really persistent they'll be trapped in a maze of traps that'll screw with their own system. While they're too busy trying to get out, my system trails back to it source and screws with their system. No one tries to hack me without paying." He said proudly before muttering, "Though I should still work on that virus, that test run showed some kinks that needs work."

So the virus Jordan used for the Nerdy Naomi's website was a test run to see how it works. The scary part is how he said kinks, that what the virus did wasn't already scary enough, who knows what it could do after Jordan worked out any of the problems.

Bennett cleared his throat. "Jordan?"

He looked up. "Huh? Oh right." He clicked back to the slide show that had various of pictures of fuzzy silhouettes, none of them showing their faces. "Yeah, I know, useless, but all we know is that there a lot of them, around six or seven, from the different heights and walking patterns."

"You notice those?" Bennett asked.

Jordan shrugged. "After learning the walking patterns of my bullies, I can hear them coming by their pace or when hiding and only see their feet, I know which one it is. Pretty useful right?"

For some reason, I didn't like the fact how Jordan was able to openly discuss his bullying experiences. I mean, it's nice that he trusts us, but after going through with the same thing, I feel this pang in my chest. He probably noticed the atmosphere once he said the word "bullies" and went back to the presentation.

"They've been a gang slightly longer than ours, so there's a couple theories on how they've gotten so major so quickly. The best one was that they were sponsored by another gang of a different city. But for the past couple of months, we've noticed that they started to steal. But I don't mean bank robbers, just a couple of pickpockets here and there. They probably lost the funding with that gang. Not only that, they've started to challenge us."

"When he means challenge us, he means that they're trying to get our territory," Bennett explained.

"Like countries fighting over land," I muttered, figuring out another analogy of it. "Is there anything else?"

"Nope, that's it," Jordan said, clicking into the end of the slide. "Like I said, we don't know much about them.

"The other gangs have been trying to find what they can about The Lost Boys through connections and spies," Bennett told me. "Our meetings so far are only about new findings. This is all we've gotten so far."

"But I do know this other thing," Jordan grumbled.

"You do? What is-"

"No," Bennett warned me. "Don't ask him."

But it was too late.

"They have a hacker too."

Declan and Bennett sighed. "Here we go again."

"For the last couple of months, someone's been releasing viruses to this area, like purposely sneezing on a group of people just to make them sick." Well, that's one way to explain it. "That's the whole reason for the virtual security upgrade. The person is trying to use the virus to find our location and then hack into my system. The freaking Pentagon can't hack it, and some cocky guy thinks he can."

"But he didn't, right?"

"No, not yet anyway," he admitted, hanging his head in shame. "I tried to trace the virus from its original position to the city next door. The trouble with trying to pinpoint his exact location is that he's trying to confuse me and spread out random points on the city, thinking it's him. It was like a stupid game of whack-a-mole. And guess what..."

"Don't do it Naomi," Declan warned me. "Don't ask him."

"I have to. He looks so depressed already," I said before asking Jordan, "What?"

"I still can't find it, he's too good."

Before I knew it, Jordan was sitting in the corner which had a scary and mysterious gloom that is somehow darker than the rest of the room. While he fussed over his lost dignity as a hacker and dignity, Bennett took over.

He clapped his hands together. "Well now that we're done with that, let's move on to the reason we're all here."

Declan raised an eyebrow. "Already?"

Even Jordan paused from sulking and looked back at us. "It's about time."

And to end my misery of what they were talking about, he said it.

"We're going to make you the fourth musketeer."

Oh yeah, I'm double chaptering (posting two chapters at once) you guys! Just a little quick note until you move on to the next chapter: If you guys don't like the gang stuff, don't worry, this is pretty much the most gangy (yes, it's a word) the book will get. This chapter was just a test run on how you guys will react to the gang stuff. Now enough about that, click on to the next chapter.

Bye!

RubixCube89201