The detectives fled as far as they could. They couldn't even bear to watch the monstrous attack on Madison, nor did they want to watch her get dragged away. Matthew felt so sorry that he did nothing to help, but by the time Madison had turned to look at the creature, she was already a gone case.

The detectives panted heavily and gasped for air. Megan collapsed to the ground, feeling weak and unsteady.

"Megan!" Daniel shrieked as he lifted her to a sitting position. She was still conscious but rather dizzy and faint.

"W-w-water... I need some... water..." she begged as she choked on her thick saliva.

"I'll go get some from your cabin. Matt, stay here with her," Daniel volunteered before rushing off to Megan's cabin.

"Megan... are you okay? Matthew said, patting her shoulder lightly, worried about her dehydrated state.

"I'm... I'm fine. I... I just have low blood... pressure right now... or something," she explained.

"What happened just now must have really traumatised you," Matthew sighed, closing his eyes and continuing to tap her shoulder.

"I think it must have... traumatised you... and Daniel too..." she continued to pant. "But... what I'm terrified of... is that... one..." she trailed off. "That one you is a traitor."

And Daniel had just come back when she made her shocking statement. He instantly dropped the bottles of water onto the ground in appalment. One of them ditched its loose cap, letting the water in it flow freely, watering the drying grass patches.

"D-did she just say..." Daniel stuttered, not finishing his sentence as he stepped back from Matthew and Emma in fear.

"Daniel, calm down. Let's sort this out slowly and calmly—" Matthew tried to convince him, although he continued to panic and cut in abruptly.

"No! Why... why would I want to sort things out when either of you is behind this?" Daniel stressed anxiously.

"Daniel, stop panicking! This isn't right. We are all innocent. Okay? Calm down!" Matthew screamed back, beginning to fret as well. He even started to believe that there was a mole among them and seemed to be calming himself instead of Daniel.

It only made sense that there was a traitor among the trio. Since the manor was locked from the inside, one of the six must have done it. However, the culprit would, at all costs, do everything to stay alive. It couldn't have been Emma, Mason, and Madison, as that would mean that they had made a failed attempt to eradicate all of the detectives successfully if they themselves couldn't stay alive.

All that was left were the three detectives.

"Daniel? Do you... do you really not trust me?" Matthew quivered painfully, the fear and despair of losing his friend's trust seeping into his veins, creeping towards his brain.

"I... maybe I used to. But not anymore," he shuddered, wiping a tear before sprinting away with the two remaining bottles of water, leaving the two to thirst.

Matthew stood in shock, not moving an inch. He watched as Daniel fled from their sight before disappearing into the dark fog. His teeth chattered as his jaw shook uncontrollably.

"Matthew..." Megan groaned. She had fallen back into a lying position on the grass, almost motionless. "Water..." she pleaded as her lips turned pale. She attempted to reach for the toppled bottle of water, although it was far from her grasp.

"Daniel... Daniel seemed genuinely innocent," Matthew stated as he turned to look at Megan, ignoring her cries. "Then..." he paused. "Then it could only be you...."

Megan didn't have any sudden reactions, although she wished she could protest violently. If only she wasn't dehydrated and drained of her energy. "Matthew... I swear..." she attempted to persuade him, still feeling lightheaded. "It's... it's not me...."

"It's not you? Then who else could it be?" he argued back. "It obviously isn't Daniel, and I know myself that it isn't me!"

"What if... what if Daniel..." she paused again. "Daniel is the traitor... and he..." she groaned. "He went to... get something to... kill us together?"

"What are you implying? I bet this is all an act! I can't believe I trusted you and befriended you, Megan. Five years... of lies!" he retaliated angrily before grabbing the last water bottle on the grass. It still retained some of the water, which didn't flow out. Matthew took the bottle and left Megan alone as a result.

"Matthew..." she gasped, holding up her hand towards the image of him dashing away just as Daniel did. "Don't... leave. I'm... innocent..." she begged before passing out.

As Matthew pursued Daniel, who had run away towards the eastern area of the manor complex, he hoped to be able to explain everything. He knew that he would pass by Emma's body on the ground, which they had wrapped with a cloth earlier in the day. Soon, he really did pass by the body. He tried to resist the urge to look at it, but he still turned to glance at it.

He thought the cloth looked a little flatter, but then again, the body could have shrunk over time. He got a closer look, curious, and noticed that the cloth wasn't just flatter. It was flattened.

He stepped closer, his hands shaking as he feared what he anticipated to see. Hesitating at first, he refused to do anything with the piece of fabric on the ground. Nonetheless, he eventually made up his mind to check Emma's body for himself. He reached down for the cloth, and on the count of three, he lifted it.

Only to see Emma's body gone.

He gasped in shock, wondering who would have wanted to do this to her resting place. He scrutinised the area. There were scratch marks on the ground. The creature must have taken away her body, he thought, until he made another realisation.

"What?" he shrieked aloud when he saw the creature's body on the ground nearby. In addition, the sledgehammer it carried around occasionally was missing. "What's going on?" he asked himself, quivering in both fear and confusion.

The place was messing with him, or as he thought. Matthew then walked into Emma's cabin to check on something. The door creaked open as he pushed it. Her cabin was colder than the rest since the heater wasn't working. He wondered how she could rest in such a cold temperature—while she was still alive, that is.

Nothing was unusual. Until he noticed a black cloth sticking out of the closet. He opened the closet door, revealing a dirtied black jacket, black pants, and black boots. Behind the closet was another door, which opened to a tunnel. Matthew stood utterly stunned when he realised that the tunnel was the same one the mole dressed in black used to escape in. He instantly knew what was going on.

Emma was far from dead; she was the mole.

He whipped out his walkie-talkie, quivering nervously as he desperately attempted to contact his friends. "Dan! Meg!" he spoke into it. "Emma's not dead! She's the mole!"

There was no response to his horror. Matthew desperately added, "Please respond! I'm at Emma's cab—" before getting cut off by a door creaking noise and multiple footsteps.

Then the figure behind him stopped as a syringe was held beside his arm. "I'm sorry, Matthew..." a feminine voice whispered from behind before the person stabbed the needle into him and sent him into a temporary coma...

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Matthew came around. His eyes blurred open as he struggled to scrutinise his surroundings. This time, he was in his cabin, tied to a chair. In front of him was his bed, and on it sat Emma. She pursed her lips, her face showing stress. "You're awake..." Emma whispered.

"Emma... why are you doing this?" Matthew spoke softly, which caused his voice to be nearly drained out by the wind.

"I don't want to do this, Matthew. But they said if I don't, they'll kill my father. He will be killed in the hospital itself. They realised they had always failed when trying to get someone outside our clique to kill us, so they forced me to kill you all instead. It would be more successful that way," Emma wiped a tear. "I don't have the audacity to kill you all, but I don't have a choice either. I'm so, so sorry that I betrayed you all..." she wailed.

"Emma, just stop and think for a moment. Will you be able to live with the fact that you murdered us? I'm willing to die if it's for you to save your father, but what about you? The guilt that'll you have?" Matthew said.

"No, I won't be able to take the pain. That's how they want it to end. They know that after I kill you both, I won't be able to live life the way I used to. And I'll probably kill myself because of the guilt. And if I don't, they'll kill me themselves. That's their goal. For all of us to be dead. So that nothing about them gets leaked."

"Emma," Matthew stopped her. Just as she was about to stab herself with some sort of syringe, she paused to hear Matthew out.

"Did... did you know how much Megan cried when she thought you had died?" he shook as he began to feel guilty for leaving Megan behind, to thirst and die. "Did you know... how... she went insane when she thought you weren't going to wake up?" he broke into a shaky and unstable voice.

Emma began to shake, too, feeling the guilt even before she had committed the actual crime.

"Did you know... how much she cared about you? She was so, so miserable when she thought that you were gone. But... here you are now, repaying us by... taking our lives away?"

Emma couldn't hold back the tears either. She began to break down into a sob.

"Emma, you... you don't have to do this. You don't have to choose the same path that Jake took. It was utterly wrong of him to try and earn things by crook. But you can't do that. It won't help you," he convinced her.

And at that instant, she dropped the syringe onto the ground. She recalled how things didn't end well for Jake, who had chosen the wrong way. And so, she fell to the ground, on her knees, her hand placed on the floor, and her head falling downwards, causing her to go into a bowing position.

"Get up, Emma. Don't feel guilty," Matthew said as he extended his hand to her. "You... you were forced against your will."

Emma held onto Matthew's hand and pulled herself up. She instantly gave him a hug. "I-I'm... I'm so sorry for breaking your trust.... I'm so sorry that I even planned to help with murdering you guys. I thought... I thought I should have placed my family before my friends. But, no... that's not how it should go..." she sobbed. After moments of silent weeping, she got up to do something. "I'll... I'll untie you now," she spoke as she got up and removed the rope that stuck Matthew to the chair before slapping it down to the ground.

"We need to find Megan and Daniel right now," Matthew said, opening the cabin door.

"Right... where are they, though?" Emma asked.

"Well..." Matthew hesitated, guilty about what he did to Megan.

"Y-you did something, didn't you," Emma questioned, noticing the hesitation in Matthew.

"Yeah, about that..." Matthew began. "I... I left Megan alone at a grass patch, thinking she was the traitor. She is... probably thirsting to death right now...."

Emma gasped in shock and even more guilt. "I... caused you guys to suspect her?"

Matthew opened his mouth and shook his head. "N-n-no, it wasn't your fault. I... I should have had better discernment. We have to find them right now." Instantly, he pulled out his walkie-talkie and spoke into it. "Guys, where are you? Please come back," he said. As expected, there was no response.

"I'll do it," Emma volunteered as she took the walkie-talkie from Matthew. "Hello? Daniel, Megan?" she spoke. There was no reply from Megan, but from Daniel's end of the line came a response.

"Emma?"

The door of the cabin opened to reveal Daniel rushing in to give Emma a hug. "Emma! We thought... we thought you were dead! How... how are you here right now?" he cried.

Matthew turned to her and signalled with his eyes to tell her to explain and admit everything to Daniel since it was the only thing she could do. Emma pursed her lips, feeling the guilt.

"Well... you know about the traitor thing?" Emma asked Daniel.

"Yeah. Um, what about it?" he said as he released his grip on Emma to get a proper conversation.

Emma began to sob once again. "I-it was me all along..." she broke into tears.

Daniel's jaw dropped. He slowly stepped backwards, reaching for the doorknob from behind.

"M-Matthew? W-why are you standing with her?" he panicked. "Get away from her!" he screamed as he pushed the door open. His overreactions led to more rash decisions, although this time, Matthew was determined to prevent them from making Daniel go too far and causing unnecessarily bad outcomes.

"Daniel, wait!" Matthew said, grabbing his hand to stop him from fleeing once again. "Give her a chance to explain, alright?" he pleaded.

Daniel stopped at stood at the door. He didn't respond, but he was probably too shocked anyway.

"I..." Emma started. "A few weeks ago," she corrected her sentence. "While Megan was in a coma, I was abducted by this cloaked stranger. He... brought me here. He... he said that if I didn't follow what he instructed me to do, he would kill my father, who is in the hospital right now. It... it was so wrong of me to agree with him just to save my father at the dispense of you guys. But at that moment, I was so fearful. I prioritised my family over you guys. In the end, what was it all for, though?"

She sniffled before continuing. "I... even wanted to stab myself with the syringe that contained that substance that turned the captain insane in the museum. I couldn't bring myself to kill you guys on my own... so I wanted to turn into that creature to finish the job," she explained, glancing at the syringe on the ground momentarily.

Daniel finally stopped shaking. He walked towards Emma and embraced her instead.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Daniel. I... broke your trust. I tried to kill you guys, but that was so wrong. I... I'll never do such a thing again. And... about my father? I'll... I'll find a way to protect him from them. Another way," she wailed.

Daniel patted her shoulder, comforting her, although he remained silent as the shock hadn't left him yet. The awkward silence lingered for a while before Matthew finally decided to break it. "Megan still hasn't responded. We... we need to find her," he rushed them. "I know where I... left her. Let's hurry," he said as he grabbed his two friends and left the cabin in search of Megan.

Soon, they arrived at the spot where Matthew had last seen her. He recognised it as he saw the water on the grass that had spilt out of the bottle he was now holding.

"She... she was here..." Matthew stammered, beginning to panic at the thought that Megan had been taken away or had run away.

"I remember this spot too. I dropped one of the water bottles right here. And this is where the patch of wet grass is," Daniel reckoned, finally speaking. "She couldn't have gone too far on her own. She... she was so weak and dehydrated...."

"Megan!" Emma called around as she spun around and continuously called out for her.

"Where are you, Meg?" Daniel howled, desperately hoping for her to return to the group.

"Megan! Come back!" Matthew cried out, guilty of what he had done to innocent Megan.

The calling was hopeless, however, so the group went around and began searching everywhere in the manor. The cabins. The cottages. The huts. The watchtower. But to no avail.

"W-where could she have gone? We've searched everything!" Daniel cried.

"I think there's a possibility that someone may have taken her," Matthew suspected.

"B-but how? The gate is still locked," Emma said. She then realised that she should probably reveal the last key. She brought the metallic object out of her jacket.

"I didn't hide this key. This is for the last padlock on the fence gate. Once you use this, we'll be out of here," she said, handing the key over to Matthew.

"If we can't find her, we'll have to leave Witness Protection and contact the department. They'll help us find her," Daniel suggested.

However, Emma's eyes grew into the size of saucers, and she shook her head violently as if there were an earthquake. "No, no, no! You cannot inform the NYPD," she warned.

"Why?" Matthew questioned.

"Well..." Emma began to explain. "The fact that the anonymous person that blackmailed me knew we would be placed in Witness Protection right at this manor means he managed to get insider information from within the NYPD. There are more moles within the department, and... and I'm guilty of being one of them...."

"Emma, we have forgiven, and it's time to forget," Matthew calmed her down. "The reason that you've repented is that we've given you a new point of view. But those other traitors in the NYPD haven't gotten a chance to see that. They may even be Yael employees, not like you. You were abducted and threatened. You didn't have a choice."

Emma nodded, cooling down and learnt to forgive herself just as her friends had.

"Anyway," Daniel said as he changed the pace of the conversation. "If we can't get the NYPD to help us, we'll have to find Megan ourselves."

Matthew and Emma nodded in agreement as the trio proceeded to the fence gate. Matthew brought up the last key and unlocked the padlock on the gate.

Finally, he thought. We are out of here. He pushed the gate open the moment it was free from any blockage. "It's time to leave," he announced as he set foot outside the manor.

The trio left the area and returned to the car that they had come in a few days ago. They then drove away, heading for a better place and planning their search for Megan and their plan to take down Yael.

Planning to turn the tables on the evil organisation would be useful. However, their proposal on finding Megan on their own would be in vain.

Since they had forgotten to search the tents.