On the outside, I kept my face as a calm mask as I forced myself to smile and wave off my gasp as trivial matters, but on the inside I was a mess.

They had known. They had known the whole time. How? How did they find out? Was it a leak? Someone from the inside?

No. Somewhere deep inside, I knew that this was not the case. If I had only been more careful, more alert, more aware of the danger that my father was putting himself in I would have realised when the server I was on stopped being the real server and became the dummy one... but now it was too late.

There was no use crying over spilt milk.

Now I had more pressing matters in my hands. If my friends were going to help me, they needed to be excused from school. I didn't need any suspicious questions directed in my way, and I had no idea how long we were going to be away.

I wasn't worried about the twins - I knew that their parents were on holidays for their 'anniversary' at the moment, but I wasn't sure how Brandon's parents were going to react if their son suddenly disappeared for a few weeks.

"-Levi? Leviath - "

I jerked back to reality to glare at Addison but felt a rush of guilt. She was going out of her way to help me, although in our world it wasn't that rare for someone to be kidnapped with the superheros versus villains thing going on, but it mostly involved the higher ups. I was actually kind of surprised when she offered to help me so quickly when - now that I thought about it - my story was actually kind of hard to believe.

"Sorry, but don't call me by that name," I muttered and felt a stab in my chest. I used to hate on my name a lot, but now it seemed like by denying my name, I was denying my father. Turning my head away, I mumbled that I was going to the basement.

Halfway down the stairs, I turned back up at my friends who were still awkwardly sitting on the couches as a thought occurred to me.

"Hey, I know the twins' parents are on holidays and won't know if they don't come home for a bit, but Brandon, what about yours? Won't they realise that you aren't coming back?" My question was out of curiosity, but I was surprised to see Brandon's face close off. It seemed that after all these years of knowing him, I didn't quite know the real him.

"Ah... no, it's fine. My parents aren't home that often, anyway. It's not as if they'd realise." His gaze was boring a hole in the carpet as he uttered the last part bitterly. I felt as if I had just stepped on a grenade.

Yes, that's right, how could I have forgotten? His mother was a lawyer and his father was a surgeon. They would work late hours, and he would be alone at night.

Shaking my head at my tactlessness, I continued down the stairs before nodding at Brendon.

Reaching the bottom, I called back up.

"Is it ok if I use your parents' emails to excuse you guys from school?"

Laughing, Addison pushed off where she was sitting on the couch and followed me down the stairs.

"Of course you'd do that, Lil' Miss Spy. And yeah, it's fine. Just don't leave any evidence."

Scowling at the nickname, I looked back up at Brandon and Aiden who were still sitting on the couch laughing about something or another. It seemed that Brandon had returned to his usual self then.

Some part of me was relieved; I wasn't used to seeing the usually hyper Brandon so down, but some part of me envied how he was able to bounce back so easily. The mask I was just barely managing to keep on was seconds away from cracking.

Shoving my melancholic thoughts aside, I strode over to my table and flopped into my desk chair, relishing the feeling as it spun around. Starting up three of the eight monitors on the table, I hadn't realised as Addison came up behind me.

"Whoa, Levi, you've got a serious lair in here. It's Levi's Lair!" chuckling to herself, she leant her head over my shoulder, watching as I prepared to hack into her parents email account.

Turning back to her, I asked again to confirm. Hacking into her own parents account while she was watching made me feel like I was doing something wrong somehow.

"It's ok if I use their account, right? If not then I might be able to send it in some other way..." I trailed off trying to recall if our school had a messaging application on their server or just an email address.

"Nah, it should be fine. I don't think they use it much anyway... and besides, I don't need the school calling to ask them where I am when I'm with you."

"K, I was just checking, cuz you know..." I was kind of relieved that she said I could use the email because my mind was coming up with a blank.

Turning my attention back to the screen, I focused on creating the email and sending it without being tracked, feeling the world around me slip away.

~*~

Leaning back in my seat, I stretched, relaxing my limbs that had been in the same position for a while. Glancing at the numbers on the monitor, I realised that it had been around an hour since I had first stepped into the basement. It felt like it had only been ten minutes.

Pushing out of my seat I stretched my cramped legs and headed back up to the living room. I wondered what they had been doing for an hour. Hoping I hadn't made them feel unwelcome, I quickly hiked up the last steps in two's only to find my living room filled with clothes and food and more clothes.

My eyes widened as I stared at the piles and piles of items in surprise.

"Whoa, what's all this?"

The three in the room looked up at me in surprise. It wasn't that I was angry, it was just that I was surprised at how much mess they could make in just one hour.

"Where did you get all this stuff from?" I asked, taking in items that definitely did not belong to me, such as a pair of - what I hoped was clean - boy's underwear.

"Oh, while we were waiting for you to do your magic," Addison grinned when I scowled at the teasing description of my 'hacking'. "We went home to get some stuff that we might need."

I widened my eyes in understanding, feeling slightly touched that they had thought to think this far ahead. Nodding, I crouched down to help search with the others, feeling the atmosphere in the room drop slightly.

"Oh, and I also brought a car. Well, two actually because Addison insisted that she had to ride in the Ferrari at least once." Brandon sighed as if he couldn't believe that he drove two cars over just for that.

Laughing at the image, I leaned to the side to look out the window where the gleaming Ferrari sat in my driveway.

"Um," I started as I prepared to let Addison down, "but I don't think we'd be too inconspicuous if we drove up in a brand-spanking-new Ferrari..."

I laughed as Addison groaned, staring longingy at the car outside the window. Even Aiden looked like he wanted to protest, and he was usually the more restrained of the two.

He pushed his glasses further up his nose as he averted his eyes and distracted himself by fumbling through the pile of clothes. Smirking slightly to myself, continued rifling through the items when I picked up a pair of baby shoes.

"Why is this here?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Addison snorted as Brandon looked at the item as if it offended him.

"That's what I would like to know." He scoffed as he leaned forward and picked the pair of shoes up with his thumb and forefinger. Walking towards the bin that I had near the kitchen, he promptly dropped them in before squatting back down.

"What," he said defensively as Addison and I continued to look at him weirdly. "It's not mine."

Leave it to Brandon to brighten the atmosphere, I thought, as Addison and I dissolved into fits of giggles. Out of the corner of my eye, I even saw Aiden quirk a smile.

Grabbing a few snacks, and a few pots of instant noodles, I placed them into a large clean bag to put into the car later. Glancing around the kitchen, I added some plastic plates, forks and cups as an afterthought. Looking at the other various bags of food that were in a line on the kitchen floor, I gathered that we probably had enough food.

Glancing out the window, I realised that it would be getting dark soon, and I wanted to get to STARKON as soon as possible. We had enough food now, so what to pack for clothes?

Heading to my room on the first floor, I opened my closet considering for a second. Pulling out jeans and t-shirts, and underwear, I deemed myself as ready. Stuffing them and a few toiletries in a duffel bag, I headed back to the living room where I saw Addison, Aiden and Brandon had done the same.

"I was thinking we should leave while it's dark..." I trailed off when they stopped what they were doing to stare at me. "Well, after dinner, of course."

Grinning at their expressions, I headed into the kitchen and started getting out some vegetables and rice. Just as I was about to start chopping the vegetables, I was stopped by Aiden.

"I'll do it. We don't want you setting fire to the house."

Sighing, I stepped back and dried my hands.

It seemed that they still didn't trust me with cooking after I'd accidently set my food on fire in Home Economics in my first year.

Ah well, Aiden was a good cook anyway, despite his serious personality.

~*~

The man smirked, his expression shadowed by the dim lighting of the room.

"How are the preparations going?"

"They should be ready soon, sir. We should be able to start within two days."

"Great. I take it that I can trust you with this? You won't let me down again, will you?"

"N-No sir, I won't. You can leave this to me."

The young man hurriedly left the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

Standing up, the older man strode over to the window, his malevolent expression illuminated by the street lights.

"You won't get away again, Victor. I can promise you that."

Laughing, he turned back to his desk, smirk widening as he spotted the camera feed in the right hand corner of the screen.

It was all good. All was going according to plan.

a.n.

So what do you think? I was struggling with some preeety bad writers block for this chapter, so I hope it turned out ok :) And as usual, if you spot any mistakes, feel free to tell me! Feedback is always welcome ^^

SpiderPrincess