"Alveanea?"

"Yes, Viktor?"

Viktor and I were having the most awkward breakfast in the hotel dining hall. After last night's so-called 'talk', there were still so many unspoken thoughts and heavy tension in the air.

"I've been thinking about that conversation we had last night and..."

"And?"

He sighed. "You have a point."

"Oh."

"But I can't just leave you alone with this, plus I want to have closure on my brother's death."

"And you will. When I discover the whole truth," I took a sip of the tea, "Myself."

"Wonder how you're going to manage that," he scoffed.

"That's for me to worry about," I fired back.

Seriously? Can't he see I'm doing this for his own good?

"Well, I'm still around at least for now. I can't exactly leave you alone in Thailand, can I?" And he popped a cherry in his mouth.

Right. Of course.

"So we're not going back soon?"

"I wanted to come here for two things. One is to have a chat with Anton and another is going to the airport which your parents were at when they took the plane. We need to get into the system and look at their record to get information about the flight. Try and figure out how the plane malfunctioned."

He put the last piece of the bread into his mouth. "Let's go to the airport now."

We finally reached the airport, which took about two hours to get there by car and I was bored to death there. Not a long car ride person. The area around the airport looked quite deserted; only six planes parked at the landing zone, which makes sense as my parents probably were trying to keep their trips lowkey.

"Do I need to go over the plan again?" Viktor asked as we walked into the airport.

"Nope."

"Alright then, let's do this."

Viktor walked away from me as I walked straight ahead. I took out my phone, pretended to not look carefully where I'm walking while holding a cup of coffee and 'accidentally' ran into this guy which Viktor told me to run into. Said he was one of the main people in charge and his access pass could get what we need.

"Oh my god, sir! I'm so sorry!"

"God damn it," I heard him curse quietly.

"Can I get you a tissue or something? I'm so so sorry!"

He rolled his eyes, "It's fine. I'll manage."

Definitely not a friendly man.

"Excuse me, sir, you alright there?" Viktor popped in right on time.

"Yes," he replied nonchalantly.

"Sorry to bother you, but could you tell me the way to the boarding platform 56B?"

"To your left. Then turn right," he replied grumpily.

"Thank you, sir." And Viktor walked away.

"Again I'm so sorry sir," I said, following the script.

"It's fine."

I heard him say something in Thai which if I guessed was a curse word directed at me as he walked away.

As soon as there was a distance between us, I flashed Viktor the access card and he nodded in approval.

Twenty minutes later, we stood in front of a small building; three stories tall and located all the way at the end. From what Viktor had told me, they keep all the logs of the flights since the airport was built. The area was desolated, the only person we spotted was a cleaner. We made our way up to the second story and found ourselves in a hallway which has at least twenty doors in length. The lights around us flickered. Totally not creepy.

Viktor stopped in front of a room and turned to look at me, "This is it. Room 26."

The truth about why that plane crashed was behind those doors.

I gave him a small nod and he opened the door with the access card. It was a dusty old room with piles and piles of files with a computer in the corner. I saw a spiderweb on the wall and tried my best to not make a sound. I could never understand what some people's admiration towards insects is.

Viktor sat in front of the computer and pressed the 'on' button. Of course, it's password protected.

I twist my auburn hair around my finger. "Now what? I don't think we have long before that unfriendly guy realises his card is missing and figures out that we took it."

Viktor said nothing and typed in 'airport123' which brought him to the homepage.

"Always plan ahead," he said, not looking at me.

I guess I did need him after all if I wanted to make it out alive.

There was a folder labelled 'previous flight information' and Viktor clicked on it. He selected 'private plane' followed by the year, month and day my parents were on that plane. He clicked on the file and it showed literally everything there was to know about the flight. What time the fuel was recharged, how many luggages were on board, what food was served etc.

Viktor then took out his phone and snapped pictures of everything, closed the file tab and powered off the computer, "We've got to go now. We have exceeded thirty-six seconds more than my calculation."

I opened the door a little before hearing voices and signalled Viktor we had incoming people.

"Why would someone need something from here?" A voice asked.

"Hell, how would I know? Just find them and get my card back now."

I recognised that voice immediately.

The unfriendly guy, he's here. He knows.

"So did you calculate your way out of this?" I whispered.

He better had a plan or else we might as well shoot ourselves right now.

I saw Viktor rolling his eyes at me but decided to ignore that for now. "Calculate would not be the word I'd use but yes, the meaning is there."

He was just showing off that I wouldn't have been able to do it without his help. And he did have a point but losing Zari had ripped my heart into two. I didn't think my heart could handle being ripped again.

"Just spit it out."

"We can't exit by the main entrance anymore without risking it so we need to get into room 34. From there, we can escape through the fire escape route."

I nodded and peaked my head out again. The unfriendly guy was on the phone, speaking Thai as we waited in anticipation for him to be distracted. He grunted in frustration and turned his back to us which gave us the perfect opportunity to run to room 34.

Once we were in room 34, Viktor walked to the right corner of the room where there was a very dusty brown old leather couch, and he pushed it away from the wall, revealing a pathway of a vent which I assumed was the fire escape route. How the hell did he know it was there?

But I did not ask him that, due to not wanting to get caught and to feed on his ego that I actually need him to pull the whole thing off. Instead, I just crawled through the vent behind him and less than a minute later, I could see sunlight which means we had made it out of the building.

"We won't be needing that anymore," Viktor said as he dropped the access card on the ground and he started running, with me trying to catch up with him.

Never liked running, especially in the hot sun.

We did not stop running until we reached the populated area and I was panting crazily like a mad dog. I looked at Viktor, who looked like he was breathing normally.

"So what's the plan now?" I managed to form a sentence even though I was still catching my breath.

"I say we head back to the hotel and look through the pictures that we took."

I pouted, "But I'm hungry."

"There's a buffet in the hotel."

"But it's already one in the afternoon, pretty sure lunch service would be closed by the time we head back."

Plus the buffet kind of sucks anyway.

"Would you like to suggest anything to eat?" Viktor asked after a few seconds of thinking.

"Burger is good," I replied as we made our way to the taxi stand.

During the taxi ride, Viktor started having a conversation with the taxi driver about some good burger places around the place we stayed at. The taxi driver asked if we were enjoying our stay so far, the usual things to ask a tourist. But both of us weren't exactly considered as tourists, considering the reasons why we had come here.

Thirty minutes later, we came to this place called 'Burger Beast'. It was located in a quiet area, just what we needed. There were a couple of shophouses around the corner and a petrol station. I ordered a chicken burger and Viktor got a beef one.

Viktor took out his phone, "Okay, let's review what we have found."

"Could you send the pictures to me as well?"

"Sure."

A few seconds later, there was a tab that popped out on the top of my screen. I pressed it and started to analyse the pictures.

When I saw my real name on the passengers' list, it sent chills down my spine and made this ten times more real. And when I saw Viktor's brother's name, I knew exactly how he must have been feeling right then.

"This is weird..." I looked up to see Viktor frowning.

"What's weird?"

"It states that there are seven people on the plane... but eight oxygen masks."

I shrugged, "So? Maybe they just bought an extra?"

"Probably, unless there's was another..."

"Another what?"

Viktor put his phone on the table, "Holy shit..."

He sat up straight and faced me, looking at me dead in the eyes.

"This whole time I thought there must be some kind of malfunction with the plane like someone had disrupted the system. But what if... there was someone else on the plane and that's how it's hijacked?" He explained further.

That did not link up to me. "But why not just hijack it before the plane took off? Or even hack it? Why do it manually? And Anton said the person who arranged the whole thing has many resources so he can easily do it."

Then the lady came back and served us our burgers. She winked at Viktor and I would have rolled my eyes at her if we weren't having a serious conversation.

"Unless the person has waited a long time to do this and wanted to make sure nothing goes wrong. And if what I'm thinking right now is correct then..." Viktor's face suddenly drained of colour.

"Then to make it look like the plane malfunctioned, the pilot has to be involved to know exactly how to achieve that," I finished the sentence for him.

I looked at Viktor; tears flowed out from his eyes and he buried himself in his arms. So Viktor's brother was a part of the plan to crash the plane... does that mean he was alive?