For a long time, nobody moved. They only stared at Ryder, perched nonchalantly on the window. He stared back. Lennox finally spoke up, stumbling backward a little.

"Y-you..." Lennox stuttered, raising a trembling finger. "Wh-why are you...there?"

"Hm?" Ryder turned his hard golden stare towards him, and Lennox felt himself shudder. "Alexis invited me."

Heads turned in Alexis's direction, who had never gotten to her chair. However, Alexis was still fixated on Ryder.

"Th-that..." she stammered. "That was just yesterday!"

There was silence for split second, and then Nita said, "B-Boris!"

Boris jerked into action and approached the window. However, when Ryder saw him coming, he grabbed onto the top of the window sill and pulled himself up. Boris poked his head out of the window cautiously and looked up. After he was out all the way till his torso, he finally saw Ryder standing on the top of the sill, staring down at him. Boris gasped, and Ryder hopped down onto his back, and into the work room.

Boris lost his balance and was going to topple out of the window to the others' yells. Ryder, on the other hand managed to grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him back on his feet. Boris stumbled a little, and everyone relaxed.

After ensuring that Boris was unharmed, Nita turned to glare at Ryder, who had his back to her. Upon sensing her, he glanced back. The moment their eyes met, Nita jolted as if she had been doused in ice-cold water, and quickly looked away. His stare was still very affecting.

During the time Ryder was distracted with Nita, Ken launched himself forward, pulling out a knife as he went, and before he could react, Ken had Ryder in a choke-hold, a knife pressed to his neck. Suzanna had also appeared before him, ready to take any action if required. Ryder surveyed them with narrowed eyes, and seemed to have decided to not do anything, body relaxing.

Ken threw Lennox a questioning look, and he nodded. Suzanna stepped aside to let Ken take Ryder out of the room, and followed close behind. Owen had to take a frozen Amara by the shoulders and gently pull her back so they can go through. She noticed Ryder give her a side glance as he passed, with the signature glint that haunted her dreams, and shuddered. A couple of minutes later, Boris and Day hurried after them, the door swinging shut behind him with a loud thud!

"Wh-who was that?" Azusa mumbled after a stretch, trembling with fear and knuckles white with the force she was using to clutch the edge of the table.

Nita ignored her question, and instead turned to Alexis. "Yo! What's he talking about?"

"I-I did try to get him to come back," Alexis said, and her mouth was trembling. You could just make out the slight curve of a smile as her eyes remained fixed on the door. "I didn't think he actually would..."

Nita stared at her, eyebrows knitted and lips slightly parted, but Lennox spoke up before she could even begin to say anything.

"No, no, it's all good," Lennox said, eyes fixated on the door as well. He tore his eyes away to meet Alexis's. He nodded at her with raised eyebrows. "It's good."

Nita was going to try to say something again, but then she noticed how fidgety the two had suddenly become.

"You think they got him to the holding cell yet?" Lennox asked, sounding a little breathless.

"Probably. Wanna go check?" Alexis glanced at him.

"Yeah, sure."

"Sure?"

They started taking as few uncertain steps towards the door, exchanging garbled "yeah"s and "sure"s.

Then Lennox flung the door open, and he and Alexis proceeded to sprint down the corridor like two kids not wanting to miss the opening of a brand new candy shop. Owen, after looking around for a while, nodded at Amara and led her after them. Nita could only stare. She turned to Pedro, who had a smile playing on his lips. Azusa looked between them, scared and confused.

Pedro slowly got up from his chair, and indicated to Azusa that she could follow him. Still grinning, he calmly walked out of the room, after giving Nita one last look, with Azusa clutching his flowing overcoat. Nita merely stood in the room for a while, and glared around it, as if it would give her answers to all her questions. Then she ran out of the room herself, closing the door behind her.

***

Day was trying his very best to stare down Ryder through the glass of the holding cell. However, it was proving quite difficult. He had his arms folded and feet rooted right in front of the glass, leaning in a little. Ryder was hunched on the floor, looking back at him. He looked like this was a lazy staring contest to him, while Day was trying to repress the urge to retreat to the far end of the room. He felt like those eyes were staring right into his heart and making it go cold, despite the glass.

The room was similar to, but not the same as, the holding cell they had used for Amara. Boris and gone to another room to check up some things. Ken and Suzanna were standing by, ready in case of any sudden movements. However, they had also relaxed seeing that Ryder didn't really have intention to do...well, anything.

Once the door opened and Lennox and Alexis came in, closely followed by Owen and Amara, and then Nita, Day finally let out a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding. He strode across the room to them, coming to halt next to Nita.

"That is a cold, dark place I never want to go back to ever again," Day said breathlessly, hand clenching over his chest.

The others glanced over at Ryder, who had taken his eyes off them and was picking at his nails, non-hostile. Lennox sensed how tense Amara was behind him, and held out a reassuring hand. He carefully approached the glass dividing them, followed by an equally eager Alexis.

Lennox pushed the button that would allow him to converse with Ryder. The latter looked up at the noise as the mic tuned in.

"Hello," Lennox said. That was the best he could come up with at the moment.

Ryder blinked at him, unimpressed. Lennox shrunk against himself a little at Ryder's stare. He cleared his throat.

"I see you have gotten acquainted with our Alexis," he continued. "I'm Lennox. I run things around here."

Ryder nodded slightly in reply.

"Now, why are you here?"

"I said–" Ryder began. Lennox noted how his voice broke a little every time he started speaking. He cut across him.

"We know that Alexis invited you, but invitations are optional." he said. "So why did you choose to accept?"

Ryder narrowed his eyes at him. "Based on the looks I'm seeing, you're thinking I've joined your side. Or at least I've come to support you. You're naïve."

"Why?" Lennox raised an eyebrow, leaning on the panel.

"You think you can change my mindset that has pursued for 13 years without changing, will change within a day with a few words from your errand girl?"

Lennox bit his lip. This was a tough nut to crack.

"Regardless, you came here. What are your intentions?" Lennox asked boldly.

"I am not here as a foe." Ryder replied.

"How can we be sure?"

At that, Ryder let out a hollow laugh, even though his expression didn't change. "I would have killed at least one of you by now." Lennox felt his gaze become more piercing as he continued on. "Human lives hold no value to me."

"Then why haven't you killed one of us yet?" Lennox asked, trying to hide his frustration.

"Because it might be better not to," came the answer. The speaker stood up, almost at eye-level with Lennox. "I have nothing against any of you."

Lennox raised one hand to his head, intending to ruffle his hair, but stopped. He didn't want to show any signs of uneasiness or frustration. Ryder noticed this movement, however.

"They already took my bag," he said, nodding in Ken and Suzanna's direction. "Pretty much patted me clean. Except this." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a reel of shiny, metallic wire, that seemed to have been latched onto his waist. He held it out for them to see and then dropped it to the floor. "It's very useful. Cuts every enemy I've ever wanted it to. Only con is that it delivers blows to your own body too."

Ryder held up his hands to show them, and Nita noticeably shuddered, seeing the cloth of  his fingerless gloves shredded in places, half-healed cuts where the cloth had completely given way. His palms and fingers looked utterly destroyed. This was even after ignoring the grime caked on his nails, and the ruined texture of his skin. Nobody seemed to want to take a closer look.

Except for Alexis, that is.

She stepped a little closer to the glass, now standing right next to Lennox, who looked at her strangely. She could see the traces of dried blood on his dark clothes. She bent over a little so that his hands were at eye level. Nobody said anything, and Ryder also seemed surprised her sudden interest. At this point he seemed uncomfortable and awkward, unsure whether to drop his hands or not.

Alexis's eyes travelled to the reel of wire on the ground, and was overcome with the strange desire to be able to reach through glass and grab it right off the floor. It must have shown in her actions, because next thing she knew, she felt coolness on the tip of her nose as it pressed against the surface of the glass.

She finally noticed the look on Ryder's face, and upon glancing sideways, caught how a corner of Lennox's mouth was tilted up questioningly. There was also a slight movement from where Suzanna and Ken were standing, but it went unnoticed by her. She cleared her throat, stepped back, and straightened up. She unnecessarily dusted herself, and coughed pointedly. Lennox was technically grinning with half his face as he surveyed her.

"Quite fidgety today, aren't you?"

Ken glanced at Suzanna, who was the source of the murmured words. She met his eyes and smiled softly.

"Not really," Ken replied nonchalantly, which to Suzanna was an obvious lie. He brushed his hands against his trousers and resolved to holding them behind his back. He wasn't going to give away any other signs of discomfort, but Suzanna noticed this as well, and stifled her giggle.

This turned Lennox's eyes to them, and the two immediately looked to the floor. Lennox finally cleared his throat, and made sure he was pressing the button before continuing.

"E-even if you relinquish that, how can we really know you haven't gotten any ulterior motive?" Lennox questioned, roughly getting back on track.

"If you are suggesting I can kill with my bare hands, you are not wrong," Ryder replied calmly, finally deciding to put his hands down. "But it is not my intention."

"Then what is your fucking intention?" Nita hollered from across the room. "If you're not here to help us, and we just have to sit with our lives on the line, you're better off swinging through the woods than being here!"

"Oi, Nita..." Suzanna mumbled, but Ryder had already caught Nita in his gaze, eyes narrowed coldly. Nita shuddered and tucked herself behind Day a little, still maintaining weak eye contact.

"I do not need to relinquish any information to you," Ryder said with an icy tone. "I do not owe you anything."

Now his eyes had finally found Amara, who flinched a little and attached herself to Owen's arm.

"A-Amara..." Owen whispered, trying to ease out of her terrified grip.

Upon opening her eyes, she found a newfound coldness in Ryder's eyes, and it made her feel she was being slaughtered on the spot. Her knees gave way, and she was only supported by Owen.

"You- what did you do?!" Nita bellowed, straightening a little.

"You people are the same as the others," Ryder spoke, standing up and ignoring Nita. "You are of the same group, same race, same blood–" His eyes passed over Lennox momentarily. "–but this place is different. She is not the same over here as she was there."

Everybody guessed he was talking about Amara. But this also reminded them how resourceful Ryder could be.

Ryder took a breath before continuing. "My purpose is to find her and ensure her safety. And the only place where I can continue to do that is here."