Quinn was starting to doubt his earlier decision. Perhaps it would have been wiser overall to openly nominate Cindy. At least that way he would have the backup of the leaders on Cindy's side and they would be sure to protect him.
However, Dwight's words kept ringing in his head that he shouldn't trust anyone!
Honestly, before he cast his vote for anyone he would prefer to find out the truth about who was behind the attacks. After learning what happened to Kazz, he wasn't so sure it was Bryce anymore.
At the end of the day, he had made his decision of not nominating anyone and he would have to live with it. Unfortunately, this meant that now it looked like both sides were after him and his vote. As they left the room, Cindy gave Quinn a quick glance before she turned her head almost immediately.
"Maybe we should wait for the others to leave first." Paul suggested since, once again, all the attention was on their group. Dwight had already left the room, looking as if he had something urgent to do. If Quinn was to wager a guess, the Royal Knight might be hiding the book in a safe place.
The tenth family waited a couple more minutes after the last leader had left, before they stepped out of the room, only to have someone attempt to grab Quinn. Thanks to his quick reflexes he knocked the hand away and took a few steps back.
"What are you doing?" Quinn asked, as he identified his attacker.
"I thought we had made a deal?" Cindy's sharp tone accused him.
'Leo' was furious. The second family leader had already attacked him once, and now she had attempted to take out Quinn as well! He was ready to leap off his feat, the only thing keeping him back was the knowledge that Quinn wouldn't want him to act in this way.
"Quinn, I need to tell you something about her!" 'Leo' blurted out.
However, Paul was the one that now grabbed his fellow Vampire knight and pulled him to the side.
"Let's go for now. Whatever you need to say to him don't say it here. There are too many ears including hers." He whispered.
Worried that there might be a big fight about to happen, Quinn peeked at those behind him.
"Head back to the castle for now, make sure everything is okay there and report to me once you reach it. Move now." Quinn ordered.
The two of them moved quickly, leaving Quinn with an impatient Cindy who was still waiting for an explanation from Quinn.
"Don't look at me like I'm the bad one here. I wasn't going to hurt them and just wanted to ask you what the hell you were thinking! You better have a very good reason for doing that. I've already fulfilled my end of the deal. Did Bryce make you a better offer than us? Or did he perhaps threaten you?"
"Aren't you doing the same thing to me now?!" Quinn accused her as he stood his ground. "Let me tell you, I don't like being threatened!"
Cindy, hearing these words could tell Quinn was serious. From this breath interaction she didn't feel like Quinn could be convinced through threats of action. No, the person before her was stupid and fearless. Only that type of person would have attempted to save Fex's life at his execution.
"Looks like he didn't get to you. Still, in case he does, you should know that our side is plenty strong as well. I kept my word, Quinn Talen, I hope so will you." And with that she walked out as if nothing had happened.
'Yeah, seems like Peter was dead-on about her being crazy… didn't even let me explain myself properly. Will it really be alright if I vote for her?' Quinn wondered.
'Of course you can, but then get ready to be asked for a duel from them to get your vote. I'm pretty sure both Bryce and Cindy believe they can take you on. Even if you win, you would just be faced with another duel after.' Vincent explained.
Waiting a short while, Quinn wanted to stay clear of Cindy and any other leaders who might have stayed behind for some 'talk'. He was ready to do his own investigation and find out if Leo and Silver had found out anything. Just as he was about to contact them though, once again another leader came out of the works, this time being Muka.
"Quinn, I was surprised you have chosen not to vote for us. Is it because of Fex?" Muka asked him directly. "Personally, I don't think you made a bad choice. With Bryce holding Fex then it is something he could use against you. Switching sides might even appear worse."
"But even now, Lee has still chosen to side with us, despite what is happening. You need to harden your will. This week will be tough for all of us and will be the last time anyone will be able to make any moves. As the tiebreaker, you should be extra careful." Muka cautioned. "Oh and in regards to your other demand, I have a list of the criminals that you are free to take. Would you like me to send them to your castle?"
Thinking about it, Quinn wasn't so sure if it was a good idea to send vampire criminals to where his family resided at the current time. According to Vincent it was hard for vampires to actually punish each other due to the family bonds and with Punishers no longer being a thing, the only thing they could do was lock them up. Unless their crimes were so grave.
For this reason, none of the leaders really minded handing them over to Quinn. At least that way it would be his family's problem to deal with them. No, what Quinn was afraid of was that some of them might add a couple of spies into the mix, who might attack the tenth castle from within.
They had few people in the first place, and he doubted the other families would help them keep control of the captives.
'Leo, Silver, you will just have to wait, I promise this will be better for us.' Quinn thought.
"Would it be possible if you could take me to them instead?" Quinn asked. If he could meet the criminals and cast his Shadow eater skill on them, it would increase his powers before meeting up with Leo and Silver.
"That is not a problem, please follow me to the tunnels." Muka stated, a bit surprised.
Back at the castle, everyone had already arrived, including 'Leo' and Paul. They made sure that everyone was there safely and once they were inside, Peter took off his disguise, a small grin indicating he was happy to look like his regular self again.
There was no one missing which was good, and it didn't look like anyone had been hurt by anything.
"Do you mind telling me what that was all about earlier on?" Paul asked Peter. "With Cindy?"
"Oh." Peter replied. "Sure, but I just need to check something first."
Walking off, before raising alarm, and accusing a leader, Peter realised he needed to make sure he wasn't jumping to conclusions. Now it was time to verify his conclusion, and for that he needed one other person.
Walking around, Peter eventually found Layla. The two of them had been in the second castle together a while ago.
"Do you mind if we talk somewhere quite together?" Peter asked, and the two moved to one of the empty storage rooms, with the door closed behind them.
"Don't worry I'm not going to do anything to you. I wouldn't touch Quinn's girl." Peter commented.
"Who said I was Quinn's girl!" Layla's face went bright red and her voice became high pitched.
"Look, I don't care if you have the hots for Quinn or Vorden. What I do care about is making sure they're okay. Do you remember when we were at the second family leader's place, and we stumbled across their meeting room? Do you mind describing to me each person you saw?" Peter asked.
Layla, went ahead and described every single person and once she was done, it was just like Peter had thought.
"What's wrong?" Layla asked.
"The thing is, all those that you mentioned just now voted for Cindy in the meeting room. However, I saw that Cindy would continuously have meetings with the same people over and over, and those people were involved. That makes sense, but what confuses me is that there was one person that always met up with Cindy… but she voted for Bryce today. I know, she's up to something." Peter stated.
*****
