^^^SIX IN HIS TUX 😍❤️😋

*FLASHBACK*

"Are you ok?" I asked her. She looked like she was barely breathing.

"I'm stronger than I look," she said, sending me a weak smile.

She winced as she tried to sit up, and I rushed to her side. "You shouldn't put any strain on your wrist."

"You're one to talk. You're going to give out Xander. You can't keep taking more than all of us combined and then taking care of us afterwards," she scolded.

"I can, and I will. For as long as I am stronger than you guys, I will take whatever they want to give you," I replied.

"They're torturing us all. If you're taking all the torture, you may never leave. You may stay here as their super soldier forever," she argued.

"I heard there were others; two other kids that are better than you and I," I informed her.

"There are others?" she asked in surprise, to which I nodded.

"Have you told Rio?" she asked.

"Silo hasn't left her side," I mumbled angrily.

"He's just protecting his sister. It has nothing to do with you," she sighed.

"It does and you know it. He blames me for what they did to her even though I tried everything to protect her," I pointed out.

She was silent for a while before she spoke again. "You know, even for a twelve year old your need to protect others is great."

"Don't make me sound like a good person when we both know very well that I'm far from it," I replied, thinking about all the lives I've already taken.

"She wouldn't have made it without you. None of us would still be alive without you," she said strongly.

I wish I believed her.

Before I could say anything, we heard the siren go off, meaning we were being called upon. I helped her get up and we headed out to the meeting station. Silo was holding Rio up, while Karr helped Kenya into the room. The six of us had been to hell and back.

As we entered the room, we caught a glimpse of one of the other kids rumored to be here. We didn't get to see his face, but he was limping. From the looks on the others' faces, I could tell we were all wondering the same thing- why he and the other kid were isolated from us.

"Who is that?" I was brave enough to ask.

"That's none of your concern boy," the burly man in the room spat.

Black seemed amused by his man's hostility. "Don't worry about who that is. What you need to worry about is getting through this next stage."

"They're all too injured to carry on," I protested.

"So what do you want me to do about that?" he asked, looking genuinely confused.

I didn't think twice about my answer. "Let them go."

"NO!" the five of them objected.

Black looked pretty chuffed. "They don't want to leave, so I'm not sure what I'm meant to do here."

"Let them go and I'll partake in the next stage for all of them," I said bravely.

Inside I was terrified.

Black cocked his head to the side. "What is it with you and this hero complex you have going on? You're only twelve."

"I'm old enough to know the difference between right and wrong and strong enough to fight for justice," I replied.

He laughed. "How cute! Did you want a medal?"

"Let my friends go!" I demanded.

"Nah! I think I'll keep them here and let them watch you dance with death."

***

"She's gone into shock. I don't think she'll be getting up anytime soon, and what I'm trying to understand is why you felt the need to bring her here. I am neither your friend nor am I your ally," he pointed out.

Didn't he say we're family to him?

"Trust me, we know that much, but we couldn't take her to a hospital," I countered anyway.

He raised an eyebrow. "And why not?"

"She doesn't have a medical record and it would lead to too many questions," Mordecai reminded.

"And you still thought of bringing her here?" he asked in confusion.

So, here we were in Franco's house because he happens to be the only person I know with a medical background who wouldn't question why we were with Zuraida to begin with. I was proven right since all he cared about was the fact that we came to him of all people.

"She's not an agent of Cypher or Genesis. We couldn't take her in to either place," I bothered explaining.

"Don't you have a prom to get to in the next three hours?" he suddenly asked, washing away Zuri's blood from his hands. He had just operated on her since she had a shard of glass lodged into her side.

"How do you even know that?" Aziel asked.

Even I was curious about that.

He shrugged. "I was talking to Noelle last night."

What the fuck?

"You were?" was the resounding response.

"Unlike you twits, I can actually stand her. She's not pretentious," he replied.

"She's also seventeen. What business do you have talking to her?" Mordecai asked in confusion.

"I don't have to explain myself to either of you. My relationship with Noelle is between her and I. There's nothing strange or suspicious about it so you can all stop thinking I'm some kind of creep," he said dryly.

I will let it go.

For now.

"When do you think Zuri will be up?" Nigel asked, changing the topic.

"Like I said, she's gone into shock. I did the best that I could given the short notice and lack of relevant machinery. We'll have to wait for her to wake up before we can make any kind of true assessment," Franco explained.

"But she'll be ok?" I asked.

"My, don't you sound worried," he said, a teasing glint in his eyes.

I shrugged. "She's a very close friend of mine, one that I cannot afford to lose."

"Interesting. Well, as I said, she needs to wake up for me to make a full evaluation. Does anyone mind telling me what happened?" he asked.

Aziel sighed. "Vladimir Iskra is dead."

"You're joking right?" Franco asked. It was very rare to see him surprised by anything.

"His hotel room was blown up just minutes after we were with him," Malachi informed.

"And Zuraida?" Franco asked.

"From where we found her, we think she had just left the hotel room when the explosion went off," I replied.

"Did you get to analyze the scene?" Franco asked.

"Getting Zuri here was top priority. Everything else we can do now that we know she's going to be ok," Mordecai said.

"We're not going to be allowed access, and we all know how well it goes when we fake our identities," Malachi reminded.

"I've got it covered. Kai, head on to the hotel and I'll meet you there. Nigel, you and Aziel need to go back to the warehouse we met up with Zuri in and try to find out something about the shootout scene earlier. Alac, I need you to go back to Jayme and the two of you need to hack into the cameras around the city and see if you can spot anyone suspicious following Mr Iskra everywhere you find him on tape," I instructed.

"And what are you going to do?" Malachi asked me.

"I'm going to get the Director of the FBI to get us access to this investigation," I said, as I got up.

"What about prom?" Franco asked, making Nigel, Aziel, Malachi and I freeze mid-step.

"Fuck! With what you're asking for, we're not going to be done in time for prom," Nigel pointed out.

I rubbed my face with my hands. "We have no choice. We have to be done before."

"Xander, none of what you're asking is going to take less than three hours to do," Mordecai said.

I groaned. "I know."

"Call her," Franco suggested.

"Who?" I asked in confusion.

"Noelle; call her," he said before leaving the room.

"She can't possibly be that understanding," Malachi said what I was thinking.

"There's only one way to find out," I said, taking out my phone and dialing her number.

"It's going to take me a while to forgive you for this Xander. What's going on?" was the first thing she said when she answered the phone.

Unbelievable.

"There's been a bombing," I informed.

"You mean the one at the hotel?" she asked.

"The very one," I confirmed.

"And what about it?" she asked.

"It was a murder. Zuri's dad was assassinated and she was badly injured from it. She had just barely walked out of the room," I replied.

"Is she going to be ok?" she questioned, the concern clear in her voice.

"She will be, but we need to find out what's going on while everything is still fresh. The assassination isn't the only thing we've faced today," I said.

She was quiet for a while. "Blossom?"

"If you were to estimate, how late would you be?" she asked.

"About an hour late if we have access to everything we need," I calculated.

"You have an hour D, and not a minute later," she warned.

"I promise. I love you," I said, despite the smile she couldn't see.

"I love you times infinity, but I'm also not afraid to harm you. Remember that," she said before the line went dead. I could only shake my head as I silently laughed to myself.

"You look so stupid right now," Malachi brought me back to reality.

I scoffed. "You're one to talk."

"What did Ellie say?" Mordecai asked.

"We have an hour more, so we'd better make sure that we're done by then," I informed.

We left in the SUV, with Mordecai driving us back to my house so that we could all go our separate ways. I didn't bother going into the house. Instead I headed straight for my car before heading out to Mr Solano's office. I was already aware of the fact that he was working from it today.

I reached the building and parked the car before heading inside. There were different sorts of people around, and it reminded me of what Headquarters looks like daily. I headed to the elevator and went up to Mr Solano's office. He hadn't moved from where the previous Director had set up.

He was talking to someone when I arrived and he turned to me as soon as he realized who I was. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"I do, but I need a favor," I replied. The guy he was talking to looked extremely confused.

"Sir, not to be disrespectful or anything, but I highly doubt this boy would know what's going on when our own team can't figure it out," he said. Mr Solano shot him a dismissive look, which he was wise enough to follow.

"Tell me what I need to know," Mr Solano requested once we were in his office.

"It was an assassination. The victim is Vladimir Iskra, whom I'd like to believe you know of. Unfortunately, if your guys recover any surveillance from the hotel, it's going to look like we killed him since we were the last people besides his daughter to see him," I said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Explain."

I told him about everything that had gone down from the moment I received the text from Zuri. As always, he sat and listened to me without saying a word. I may fear the man, but I'm definitely beginning to understand him better.

"So what exactly do you need from me?" he asked.

"Two things- we need access to the scene, and we need access to the surveillance tapes so that we can manipulate them. As soon as we've found the culprits, you can have the honour of having them arrested," I bargained.

"Alright, sounds fair enough. How many of you am I granting access to?" he asked as he stood up, putting on his FBI jacket.

"It's just Mordecai and I. He's going to survey the area better than anyone on your team right now. He's already at the hotel," I informed as I joined him in standing.

"You were that confident that I would grant you access?" he asked, eyebrow raised. If it weren't for the amusement dancing in his eyes, I would've been intimidated.

"No Sir. I was confident in that you'd stand on the side of justice," I said confidently.

He gave me a slight nod. "After you."

He left in his SUV, and I followed behind him in my car. It had only been about four hours since the bombing, and yet the FBI had still sealed the hotel off. People were still gathered around and the news crews were already filming the scene.

"Where is your person?" Mr Solano asked once we were outside the hotel.

"There he is," I pointed towards Mordecai.

"Let him through," Mr Solano told the cops there. They nodded and let Mordecai through.

"Someone's well connected," he commented, humor lacing his voice, to which I shrugged to.

"Xander tells me that you can do a better job than my men at scoping the area," Mr Solano told him.

Mr Solano, Bridgette and blossom are officially the only civilians who know my name, which says a lot since not even that many people at the organization know it. If I'm not mistaken, the only other people who know my name are my team, Cypher Management, Ayah, Jayme, Zuri, Rio, Silo, Kenya, Franco and Black and his people.

Mordecai nodded. "Your people are probably in there looking at the bigger picture, but now that we know it's an assassination, I'll know what to look for."

"Do you need anything? Any equipment?" Mr Solano asked as we headed into the hotel.

"No. I've got everything I need in this case," Mordecai replied, holding up his black case.

"Do you need the place cleared?" I asked.

"Actually yes. That's the one thing I need. As it is, I'm sure they've tampered with the vital parts of the scene, but I should still be able to put something together from the smaller details that they probably missed," he replied.

"EVERYONE OUT!" Mr Solano shouted once we reached the floor.

"Sir, we're not done analyzing the scene," one woman argued.

"I've brought in some specialists," Mr Solano informed.

"I thought we were the specialists," one of the guys commented.

"You thought wrong," Mr Solano didn't hesitate to respond.

"No offence Sir, but you can't expect us to believe that these kids can do our job better than us," another woman pointed out.

"Are you questioning my judgment Agent Crawford?" Mr Solano asked, his voice sounding much colder.

"N-No Sir," she stuttered.

Her team mates were wise enough to clear the floor, and she shamefacedly followed after them. As soon as they were out of sight, Mordecai got to work. I knew the part that he needed me to help with, so I got busy with that while Mr Solano took phone calls from a distance.

I hacked into the hospital and morgue records to find out where they had taken Mr Iskra and what the cause of death was. I found the information I needed from an autopsy report. Despite his charred body, they were able to figure out the cause of death as well, which I shared with Mordecai.

"Are you finding anything?" I asked Mordecai. We'd been there for two hours.

"There's something very confusing about this," he replied, looking at photos on his laptop.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Remember the photos Zuri showed us?" he asked, to which I nodded.

"There are traces of the same explosives being used here, except there's another set of explosives as well. The other set matches the one that was used at the cabin you and Ellie were at. Also, the fact that Mr Iskra's cause of death is a bullet to the heart makes me question everything that happened here," he explained.

"Is it possible that three people would've wanted him dead?" I asked.

He nodded. "From the differences, it's possible."

"What the hell would you have done to piss off that many people?" Mr Solano asked.

"Mr Iskra was a powerful man, but his death is definitely a suspicious one. I mean, I get that he had enemies, but why would they all decide to kill him on the same day, at the same time?" Mordecai asked.

It's the exact same thing I was thinking.

"We have nothing on him because he kept himself well hidden from us. This is on you guys to figure out," Mr Solano told us.

I scowled. "You're handing us the case?"

"It's going to take my people forever to figure out. Leave them to me but I expect you to get me results," he replied.

"We might not be able to do so now that Margaux has shut us out," Mordecai pointed out.

"Get around her if you must, but I want this solved. Vladimir was very well known so you can be sure that people will be looking for answers around his death. I'd like to have this case closed quickly," he said.

I nodded. "Got it! We'll see what we can do. If you could get Franco to help us, we wouldn't really need Margaux."

"Fine! I'll talk to De Villiers. Now, go home and change. Come high or low, you're taking my daughter to prom," he warned.

"Yes Sir!" I said nervously before leaving.

I left Mordecai there with him and headed back to my house. Cash, Wesley and Eli's cars were not there, and I guessed that their dates wouldn't have understood why they were late so they probably already left. When I walked into the house, Malachi was coming down the stairs, dressed in his tux.

"You have approximately twenty minutes to get ready and we might actually make it on time," he told me.

"Did you guys come right?" I asked.

"Go and get ready Xander," he said, heading towards the lounge.

I listened to him and headed up the stairs to my room. I took a quick shower before changing into my tux. I styled my hair as best as I could and sprayed on my cologne before heading back downstairs. Jayme was busy on his laptop with Aziel, Nigel and Malachi analyzing data behind him.

"What did you guys find?" I questioned.

"We found some bullets back at the warehouse. They all have this weird engraving on them, but we've never seen it before. I ran it through Cypher records and I got nothing. We need access into Genesis records to see if they have anything," Nigel informed me.

"Can't you hack into it?" I asked Jayme.

"The first thing my dad did when he left Cypher was sell his technology to Genesis to spite us. Only he can hack his own system, and I can't reach him right now," he told me.

I frowned. "What do you mean you can't reach him? We were with him just hours ago."

"Before you get mad, we don't know what to make of this either, but Franco is gone, and he took Zuri with him," Malachi said.

I don't think I can remember the last time I was as confused as I was when he told me that. Why on earth would Franco take Zuri? A part of me believed that he was possibly one of the people that wanted Mr Iskra dead, but a bigger part of me was choosing to trust him.

"Does the hacking involve numbers?" I asked Jayme.

"That's it? You're not mad? You're not going to shoot anyone? This is Zuri we're talking about, and she's gone," Aziel told me. He knows just how special Zuri is to me, despite how fucked up the past year was between us.

"I don't think Franco is up to anything bad, or at least I'm choosing to believe that. My gut feeling has never let me down before, and I'm not about to not listen to it now," I replied. They looked like they didn't believe me, but they let it go nonetheless.

"The hacking does involve numbers, number patterns to be exact. He didn't get to teach me this part of his system, so I can' hack it. However, it also has a timer which I set off an hour ago. We need to hack into it in the next hour or else the system will shut itself down and Genesis will be alerted that someone tried to hack them," Jayme told me.

Just great!

"Do you know someone who would be able to do it in time?" Nigel asked me.

I nodded. "I think I do, and she's going to kill me for even thinking about asking her."