I immediately got off the bed, switched off the lamp and scanned the room for any signs of life.

Good, I'm alone.

I opened the drawer from the nightstand, took out the money and name card, and stuffed it in my pocket. I put on a jacket as I had a strong feeling that I was going to make a run for it.

Boom.

I closed my eyes and cursed mentally. Viktor and Marlene. Please don't be dead.

It can't be a coincidence that right after someone tells me information about my parents' death, there are gunshots heard in the same place. Now I know that the plane crash wasn't a regular plane crash and someone powerful had orchestrated it. Someone powerful enough to still keep surveillance on Viktor even though the plane crash happened almost eighteen years ago.

I quickly tiptoed to lock the door and hid under the bed, hoping for some kind of rescue. Surely someone must have heard the gunshots, right?

On second thoughts, I would have to escape before the police arrived at the scene as being caught in the crosshairs of two different shootings in less than twenty-four hours did not put me in a great position to leave the police station without the company of the social workers or even to not be put in jail.

Then I heard someone rattling the doorknob.

Shit.

I was literally held in an impasse position as I frantically looked for any escape routes.

"The door is locked, should we knock it down?" I heard a man say.

He's not alone. That's bad.

I went into the toilet and saw that there was an air duct right above the sink so I stood on the toilet bowl and managed to reach the air duct. The intensity of the sound of banging the door increased as I quickly crawled into it. Thankfully I was small enough to fit into the air duct.

Once I was in the air duct, I heard a loud sound of a door being knocked down.

Don't move. Keep extremely still.

"Over here, someone escaped through the air duct," the same man said.

I heard a woman's voice say, "It must be him. Quickly look for any exits outside. He couldn't have gone far."

Wait a second, so they're here for Viktor. He was not joking when he said someone really wants the plane crash incident covered up.

"The police will be here any second," the man replied.

The women hit the mirror with something and I heard the shattering sound from pieces of the mirror falling onto the ground.

"Damn it."

And to my surprise, they started speaking in Spanish. So whoever orchestrated the plane crash must be from Spain. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding when the sound of their footsteps faded away.

Focus. Your priority now is to find Viktor.

My elbows hurt from being rubbed on the metal by the time I reached someplace which was at the end of the air duct. When I got out of the air duct, I realised that I was in a sewer.

Ugh, it smells so bad.

The rancid smell filled up my nose and I pinched it whilst continuing to walk until I saw an exit.

When I climbed out of the sewer, I looked around my surroundings and realised I was behind a lamp post, about a hundred metres away from the restaurant. From the dim lights of the lamp post near the diner, I could see three figures walking towards a car parked right next to the diner.

I saw a pillar a few metres away from me and quickly ran behind it. Less than a minute later, two police cars arrived and four police officers held their gun and walked into the restaurant. Wow, so these guys even have their way around the police radio.

A few minutes later, two ambulances arrived at the scene and I ran to hide behind another pillar about twenty metres behind, playing safe and not getting spotted by the police. Two more police cars arrive, and that's when I realised that someone in the restaurant must be dead as only a homicide needs so much police at the scene.

All of a sudden, I felt a hand cover my mouth and I tried to scream. The person dragged me further away from the dinner and strong arms circled my waist, not allowing me to escape. I used my elbow and took a swing at whoever was trying to attack me.

"Ow, that hurt!" Viktor exclaimed softly, not wanting to be heard.

"Oh shit, I'm so sorry, I thought you were them... Viktor, are you okay?" I whispered to him.

"Yep, all good here. Follow me." He took my arm and walked quickly until we reached a car parked at the corner.

Once we got into the car, all the questions I had stored spilt out from my mouth."Who were those people? Is Marlene okay? Were they trying to kill me? How do they even know about me?"

"Slow down there, I'll explain everything once we get to somewhere safe. And Marlene is fine, although not everyone is, as you saw back there."

Not everyone? Who's dead?

The rest of the ride was pretty silent as Viktor thoroughly kept checking the rear-view mirrors to make sure that no one was following us. After fifteen minutes, we pulled up in front of a house and very quietly walked up the stairs. We even knocked on the door with minimal noise. Marlene opened the doors a few seconds later and gestured for us to come in.

"Thank god you are alright, Alveanea. Come and sit down for a cup of tea. You must be pretty shaken up." Marlene touched my back gently and led me into her living room.

I looked around the living room as Marlene went to get some tea from the kitchen. The walls are painted a pale yellow colour and there are lots of paintings hanging on the wall, almost like a museum. I noticed there was a transparent cabinet full of wine at least fifty years old. Just by looking around, I could already deduce that she admired paintings and liked to collect wine.

"Tonight's attack wasn't on you. It was on me. I don't think anyone knows that you are alive, so all is good," Viktor said suddenly, disrupting my thoughts.

I sat down on the couch, "Yeah, I heard them talking. What did you do, Viktor?"

"I called the airport in Thailand from where the plane took off to get more information on the flight, to check if I have missed something. I mean I must have since I thought you were dead and here you are. So I made up some stupid excuse and told the person on the phone that I'm writing a short story about him for some... I don't know, a memorial for pilots who died on duty. She thought I was bullshitting, so she hung up the call immediately and a few hours later this group of people came into the restaurant to kill me."

Marlene walked out from the kitchen and placed teacups in front of us and poured the tea into it. The scent was a mixture of lavender and lemon, exactly the calming scent I needed after what just happened.

"Thank you, Marlene," I said politely. She nodded and walked back into the kitchen.

Viktor cleared his throat and continued, "Obviously, I was not expecting a group of hitmen to be sent to kill for making a simple phone call. I've underestimated the secrecy of how powerful the person behind this is. The person is willing to kill just for the truth to remain buried."

"Do you think that they were killed for other reasons other than competitions for their hotel? I don't think some jealous competitor is willing to go to such lengths just to eliminate their competitor. Why orchestrate a plane crash when a car crash is much more convenient?" I questioned while my brain is still spinning from the fact that I'm involved in two shootings in a matter of forty-eight hours.

"I think you're right. If it's just some jealous competitor, they wouldn't be so alarmed when I just called the airport. I think it's something much, much bigger than I've ever thought about," Viktor said unanimously.

Just then, Marlene walked out of the kitchen and I could already tell it was bad news from the way her green eyes became a shade duller.

"Anastasia and Ben are dead. The police want to talk to us in the morning."

Even though it's not my fault that they are dead, I do feel for Viktor. Zari wouldn't have been dead if it wasn't for me. I looked over to Viktor, whose body was tensed as he looked at the floor. I could tell he is trying not to break down and he just nodded.

"Are you going to tell them the real reason?" I asked after a few seconds of silence.

Viktor shook his head, "We have no idea how powerful those people are. They could have us killed and cover it up as though nothing had happened. Just like they did with my brother. They didn't even allow us to have a proper burial, said it could affect the investigation. That's when I knew they were covering up the whole incident and pretending that it never happened."

"Yes, so both of us have to work on our story before they call us in," Marlene added.

"What about me? Will they know that I was in the diner?" I asked.

"We can only assume they're professionals which means they've planted some sort of virus into the hard disc of the security camera in the diner, so there will be no data to back up. The only other person who would remember that you're in the diner is Anastasia and she's dead, so your existence is still a secret," Viktor replied to me.

"Alveanea, don't worry about it, you go and rest. Use the bedroom all the way down the hall," Marlene said with a small smile.

I nodded and made my way to the bedroom. Once I was ready for bed, it was already two in the morning and I had only managed to sleep after some crying of missing Zari and a few hours of tossing and turning.

What's going to happen to the diner now?

What shady things my parents had done that caused them to be killed?

How am I going to find out what happened when every move I make involves someone dying?

Should I just give up and call Breton?

I woke up around ten, feeling sleepy after only getting four hours of sleep. As I walked into the living room, Viktor and Marlene were sitting there. I was honestly surprised they came back from the questioning so early.

"How did it go?" I asked them.

"The questioning went all right. Come, sit down and eat," said Marlene, gesturing to the empty seat beside Viktor.

As I sat beside Viktor, I noticed that he looked tired from the eye bags and overall, he looked like he was having a major hangover. He was not alone on that one. There was a piece of toast with a glass of milk beside it set down right in front of me.

I took a bite of the toast. "So... what are we going to do now?"

Viktor turned his head sideways and looked at me. "Both of us are going to where it happened. To Thailand."