Sea birds squawked overhead with their low, repetitive calls. Waves crashed against the ferry and sprayed foam and water droplets onto the deck of the boat. The breeze tousled my hair and whipped the white tendrils across my face.

      I stood at the side of the ferry gazing out at the seemingly endless ocean. With the calming sounds of the sea and the isolation of an entire ocean, it was hard to believe that Hundsen was still out there following us. And now that the masked man had escaped our clutches yesterday, we had another foe to defeat; one that was even more mysterious than the leader of the Club.

      I closed my eyes, feeling the salty air on my face and the wind now whipping through my hair.

      When I heard someone approaching, I opened them again. Jake stood next to me, leaning on the railing and looking out at the view like I was.

      "Are they talking about anything important in there?" I asked him, gesturing inside where the rest of our team was seated.

      "No," he answered. "They're just socializing."

"Are you not one for casual, friendly conversation?"

He gave me a dark look, knowing I was making fun of him. "Am I not socializing now?"

"I don't know what you're doing right now," I answered honestly. "Why are you out here?"

"To ask you a question."

I instantly became nervous, though I wasn't sure why. Had he figured something out that I'd wanted to keep secret?

"Why did you defend me against Peterson yesterday on the train?"

I hadn't known he'd been listening to the conversation between Finn and I. However, I was glad that his question wasn't as suspicious and probing as I'd feared.

"Is this your strange way of thanking me?" I inquired him drily, crossing my arms.

"This is my way of asking you why you did it," he informed me, his unique eyes like chips of ice.

"Consider it payback for when you covered for me when we first rescued the others. Now we're even."

"Even?" He scoffed. "Save my ass as many times as I've saved yours and then we'll be even."

I narrowed my eyes at his darkly triumphant face. "You're delusional, Evans."

"And you're in debt, Tesla," he mocked me, pushing away from the railing to go back inside. I was left alone again.

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

I stepped out of the cab in London to face a building so tall it looked like it went on forever. It was very modern, with all its shiny glass and smooth steel that reflected in the sunlight. This was the place Hunt would meet up with us at.

      "Damn," Arlo cursed appreciatively at the massive skyscraper. "Maybe we should have dressed nicer." He eyed his shirt, which had splatters of dried blood all over the front. I straightened out my black outfit, knowing that we all looked a bit ragged after weeks of being on the run.

      "Well, here goes nothing," Riley muttered under her breath as she went through the front glass doors. The rest of us followed her in.

      We found ourselves in the front lobby. It was decorated with a minimalistic style and only had a few armchairs and a glass table to decorate it. A few men and women were lounging about, waiting for meetings or enjoying a break from work.

Riley walked up to the secretary who sat at a large desk in the back of the lobby. He looked surprised to see a person as young as seventeen-year-old Riley, but nevertheless he put aside his papers and asked her, "How may I help you?"

"We have a meeting with Mr. Damien Hunt," she informed him, sounding professional as can be.

The secretary shuffled through his papers in search of documentation for the meeting. "He is in a conference right now. However, he requested that I call his security and they will bring you to him after he is finished."

      Sure enough, a few minutes later, four men in pristine suits walked down the hall and into the lobby to collect the eight of us. We went with them back down the long hall and into an elevator. When the doors of the elevator opened with a click, I could see how high we were now from the view out the window. The city around us looked like it was miles down.

      "Ugh," Riley made a sound in disgust after she glanced out the window. "I hate heights." She moved away from the window as we walked on.

      The four security guards then led us through another wide, marble hall. As we passed through, I walked by several luxurious rooms that looked large enough for hundreds of people to meet in.

      The security guards stopped at a door at the end of the hallway. Men and women were exiting the conference room and pushed past us as they walked the opposite way.

      When the flow of people from the room ceased, one of the security guards gestured for us to enter. I walked into the room expecting Hunt to be alone at a spot at the table. But he had two men and a woman in the room with him, and judging by the looks on their faces, they had been expecting us.

      "Please," Hunt said, waving a hand at the seats across from him. "Sit."

      We warily took our seats and faced Hunt and his associates. He must have sensed our misgivings about having others in the room with us, because he announced, "This is Henry Yu, my assistant, Katherine Browne, the chief operating officer of the ONNT, and Oswald Dawson, a member of the board." Each person nodded or smiled at us when introduced. It was strange to encounter such a level of politeness and sophistication after what we'd just been through.

      "So," Hunt began, pressing the tips of his fingers together as he surveyed us. "Are all of you alright? You seemed to have all gotten here in one piece."

      "What do you care?" Riley asked callously, her voice sharp. "We have been gone for weeks and heard nothing from you the entire time. You were the one who forced us into this and then when things went wrong, you backed away. Did you even look for us?"

"As a matter of fact, Riley, we did. Though we found no trace of you eight, given that you had no cell phones and no means of communication with us. And since you had kept the information on Adiago Hundsen's whereabouts a secret, we did not know where you could be, had they taken you captive. My workers searched relentlessly for you but found nothing." Riley still looked malcontented with the ONNT director, but she kept her mouth shut.

"So if that's all cleared up," Hunt went on, leaning back in his chair, "Tell me exactly what happened these past few weeks. Do not lie or leave anything out; this information could be integral to catching Hundsen and punishing him for his crimes."

Then, one by one, we all told our pieces of the story, starting with our capture and ending with the fight in the valley yesterday with the man in the mask.

      However, I purposely left out the part where I'd been sent by Hundsen to Gigi's mother's home. I noticed that Jake said nothing of his relationship with Hundsen and I wondered how much Hunt knew about the previous Club leader. Jaxon didn't tell Hunt how we'd gotten the computer to contact him.

      Hunt listened intently to each person as they spoke. I knew that he was trying to take it all in and piece together in his mind how to deal with this situation that we were in. Hunt's assistant scribbled notes onto a clipboard next to him.

      After Arlo finished his account of the fight on the train yesterday, no one spoke for a moment. Hunt got up from his seat and walked over to the window-covered wall to look out at the cityscape. Though his back was to us I could see the tension in his body with the way he held himself.

      "We need soldiers on this immediately," Hunt said to no one in particular, still facing away from us. "It's worse than we thought."

      "How are you going to take down Hundsen and his entire gang?" Finn asked him, staring at his turned back.

      "With a team of well-trained soldiers. They will find Hundsen's lair, take him down by any means necessary and bring him back to be thrown in prison."

      "No," Jake said firmly.

     Hunt turned around to face the raven-haired boy. "Excuse me?"

      "There will be no need for your soldiers. I have a plan to take Hundsen and the Club down myself."

      "Jake, please. This is out of the question. You accomplished what you were tasked with doing: finding the person behind the murders. Now let my soldiers do their job."

      Jake stood up. "I know Hundsen better than you do. I know how he thinks. I know how he acts. If you send your soldiers into his headquarters, he will slaughter them like prey."

     Hunt walked over to the desk and slammed his hands down onto it with a bang. "Do not tell me how to do my job. My soldiers are professionals. They have been on countless missions and survived. This one will be no different."

      "This one will be different whether you like it or not," Jake hissed in a voice frostier than ice. "Hundsen has made a fortune on drug and weapon smuggling. His buyers have made him extremely rich and powerful. Now, he has resources like you wouldn't believe and is also waiting for an attack now that we have reached you. Do you think sending in a single team of your lackeys will work against a magnate of the criminal underworld?"

      "What would you have me do, Evans, send you instead? What makes you so sure that you will win against him if my soldiers can't?"

     "I have watched Hundsen for years. He's a criminal. You won't win a war with him solely using an army; he will always find some way to come back at you ten times stronger than before. No, you'll need cleverness, something to bargain with and moral grayness. Luckily for you, I have all three." He tilted his head to the side, almost as if talking to a small child. "Haven't you realized it yet? Only a monster can truly kill another monster."

      Hunt watched my teammate with slitted dark eyes for a moment before answering, "You have five days to bring Hundsen to me. If he isn't rotting away in a holding cell by then, I'm sending in my men."

      "Deal," Jake commented, sitting back down in his chair. Everyone in the room was watching him like they'd finally seen him for who he really was. I knew that they'd always been slightly scared of him, but he was beginning to show how terrifying he could be. I recognized the look on their faces. It was the same one they wore when they realized that I was a monster in disguise.