When her eyes met with Cia’s for a brief second, Layla was quite pleased to see someone was waiting for her. When Erin had disappeared and left them. It felt like she had no one to lean on, no one to confide in. Erin had been the strong figure that Layla wished she could be, and yet it was something she would never be able to achieve.
However, when she disappeared Layla was a little lost, she had Quinn, but after finding out she was with Pure there bond was a little broken. There was also the fact that Vorden would constantly get in between the two and kept trying to fraction that relationship.
In the middle of all these events that surrounded her, there was a little ray of hope and that was Cia. After the last portal expedition, she had seen a scared little side to Cia during that time. She seemed afraid of Quinn and the others and was confiding in her due to that. Layla, when seeing this, was seeing a version of herself when she looked at Erin. In a way, it made her believe she needed to become a stronger figure to know that someone was relying on her instead of the other way round.
This time, she would be a pillar of support for Cia.
That was until the words spoken out of her mouth were like a thousand knives had been stabbed right in her back.
There was a straight look on the young woman’s face, her tone was serious, “I’ve been waiting for you agent 100,” Cia greeted.
There was now not a doubt in her mind, there were only two groups of people that knew her identity, Pure and Quinn’s group. However, what Quinn’s group didn’t know was her agent number, and her ranking had recently just dropped as well. The fact that Cia knew this confirmed that she was part of Pure herself.
“I know you might be shocked, but it was all because of agent five,” Cia explained.
Agent five, this meant Cia being close to her was all of her mother’s doing. Suddenly a realisation was coming into her head. From the very beginning, since she had entered the academy, Cia had been her roommate. They had specifically told Layla that she was the only agent that was sent to military base two.
‘Was everything a lie?’ Now she didn’t know what to believe. Was hee new friendship Cia fake? Was her acting scared was nothing but an act? What was worse was how much did she already know and how much were they reporting back to Pure.
Her own mother hadn’t trusted her to even complete a mission like this, that they had to send backup to look after her. When there was a bond of trust, it went two ways, but her whole life it had always been one-sided. She trusted her mother with the Pure’s true intentions even though she had so many questions.
She trusted her mother when going through her hellish training that she felt like was torture.
She trusted her mother when she had told her life would be better in the future.
Yet, she didn’t trust Layla. After everything that had happened so far, something had snapped inside of Layla.
Layla walked right past Cia, ignoring her.
“Wait, what are you doing agent 100?” Cia asked, a little shocked by Layla’s actions.
“Don’t call me that I’m not a number!” She shouted back. “I have a name and I have a pretty good one.”
At that moment, the automatic doors to the hotel Lobby opened and in walked in, Quinn and the other boys. They immediately could see her bloodshot red eyes, but had mistaken them for sadness instead of anger.
“Are you okay Layla what’s wrong?” Quinn said as he rushed over, placing his hand on her forehead, checking if she was all okay.
“Idiot. Why didn’t you come sooner.” She said. “And your hands cold.” At this moment, the full waterworks had come out, as tears of waterfall started to fall and her head was now laying deep into Quinn’s chest.
“Hug her dude,” Fex whispered in his ear. While the other two boys pretend to look away and whistle.
Not knowing what to do in this type of situation, he listened to Fex’s advice and gave a strong and firm hug to Layla as he tried to calm her down.
“Quinn!” She cried. “I don’t want to be useless anymore…. I don’t.”
“Layla, when have I ever said you were useless?” Quinn replied, at this point, Vorden had decided to step away, knowing full well he had said that a few times.
“You have done nothing but helped me from day one.” He replied back.
Seeing the scene, Cia didn’t know what to do. She had still not even finished explaining the details of the upcoming plan. Agent five had assigned her the task to look over agent 100. No matter what was to happen, this was her only mission. But right now, she couldn’t interrupt this scene.
“Layla..” She tried calling out.
“Go away! Go Away!” She screamed.
At this point, the others noticed that Cia was standing behind her. And seeing this strange reaction, Vorden started to wonder. He found it strange that Layla had broken down like this over the event. Sure she would be upset but was it really such a big deal?
“Hey, she clearly doesn’t like you being here. So just scram.” Vorden said.
“I can do what the hell I want.” Cia snapped back. “You’re not my boss, and you’re not a teacher.” She said as she continued to walk forward.
“Just remember, I know about your secret, and yours.” She said as she pointed at both Fex and Quinn.
Sam, who was currently a bystander at this point, didn’t have a clue what was happening and was finding it hard to follow along.
‘It’s like I’ve been transported in the middle of a soap opera while still in the middle of the season.” He thought.
Cia continued to walk forward, not caring about anything, however after a few steps, she suddenly could no longer move. Something seemed to be restricting her movements completely. Then a breath was felt behind her neck.
“I would like to see you just try to tell anyone about that,” Vorden said, in a sinister voice, it was the first time she had heard him speak like that. When trying to look down, she could see his hand pressed against her throat, with nothing but a chopstick pointed at it. Perhaps others would have laughed, but the deadly aura coming off from his words, she knew it was no laughing matter.
Then, when looking ahead, she could see another person, who had his hand held out steady, with all his fingers pointed.
“Now why would you chose to threaten us?” Fex said. When hearing the words she spoke. He felt like this was the worst time for anything to be revealed. If the humans had found out what he had transported into. Not even his sister, Silver would be able to save him.
That’s why the instant she had moved forward and made the threat he had, activated his strings to hold her in place, at the same time he immediately saw Vorden and the move, and carefully made sure to allow the strings to not restrict any of his movements. However, Fex soon realised he didn’t need to do much, as it seemed like Vorden was able to see and move away from the strings via his own accord.
“He’s a skilful one.”
At this point, Layla had nearly stopped crying, Quinn still had her held in her hands, She pushed away slightly from his chest and looked up into his eyes.
“Quinn, please I don’t want to go back to them,” Layla said. “I want you to turn me. I want to stay with you. I want to be stronger.”
To Sam, it looked like Layla had just made some type of confession. Although it sounded weird based on everything that happened, it was the only thing he could think off. But Quinn very well knew what she meant. She wanted him to turn her like he did with Peter.
He was very hesitant, especially after what had taken place with Peter so far. But what happened with him didn’t mean the same would happen with everyone. After all his own life had changed quite a bit, and Layla was in a troubling situation. He had already figured when she had said, She didn’t want to go back to them. That being with them was preferable than to Pure.
Changing her, meant she would be leaving Pure and going to his side. Leaving a big organisation like that wasn’t simple. One would need the power to fight back, and Layla didn’t have that.
“Very well,” Quinn replied.
****
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