Vote and comment:-)

Thanks for your patience.

You may continue...

52
Ivy's pov

   According to what Caramel told me, I was supposed to see the sector head at the RTR, which I had come to know as a test room. I'd only seen him, Malcolm Steel, once before, and that was the time Edith had found Roman and I when we visited the sector. She had taken us to him but he didn't say a word to us. Also, the first time I met Edith at the ice cream store in the Purest sector, she mentioned that he was her father. 

Although that didn't matter, all I wanted to know was why he wanted to see me. Caramel had assured me that the Inc had no intention of installing the chip in Roman and I, which only meant that Glory had a special reason for bringing us down here. 

Whatever that was, I really don’t care, I'm going to spend every second plotting ways to bring this place down. 

The buzzing sound I'd always hear in movies whenever a cop opens a door in the cell, echoed down the hallway. I walked along, hearing the voices getting louder with each stride, one familiar, the other one, not so much. 

I turn, halting to see who the voices belonged to. I raised a brow when I saw  Roman and a tall lady, her hand clasped around his arm like he was some kind of prisoner.

"I told you I've got this-" he was saying, looking up at the blonde lady's hard eyes.

He hadn't noticed me yet. 

She pushed him forward and he struggled to get his balance. "You don't have to be so rough." He said, dusting off invisible dirt from his clothing. 

The tall lady huffed and went back through the door they'd both come in from. 

"Weirdo-" He stopped when his eyes wandered down to my direction. "Oh my God." He said with wide eyes. 

My face remained stoic. 

I noticed he was wearing normal dark blue jeans and a white shirt, his curly mess of a hair was scattered all over his head, falling lazily over his dark eyes, covered by his professional looking black glasses, just slightly darker than his eyes.

His eyes scanned me from head to toe. "Ivy?" He called to make sure. 

"Why are you here?" I asked. 

He visibly gulped. "What the hell happened to you?" He asked. "What- what happened to your hair?" 

"Cut it." 

He looked taken aback. "Bu- why?"

"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at the Willing?" I asked, turning to fully face him as he came closer. 

"Uh... They got an order from the institute, saying I should transfer here." He said, his eyes still studying me like he was trying to understand something. 

"Probably one of their sick plans." I muttered. 

"Somethings changed." He voiced out. "You're acting weird." 

"Nothing's changed, Roman." I said, turning and walking towards the RTR. 

I heard his footsteps rush behind me. "It's so unlike you to be so unnecessarily blunt. You didn't even look pleased to see me." 

I scoffed. "Pleased to see you? You expect me to be pleased about your presence after lying to me." 

"What?" He asked in a clueless tone. 

I turned to face him, causing him to stop midstep. "Why didn't you tell me about Fiona?" 

His eyes were wide. "Fiona?" 

"Why didn't you tell me you knew her real identity? I thought we were in this together." 

"We are in this together Ivy, I wouldn't be here otherwise. Besides, she threatened to use LT wipe on me and my family, with abnormally high dosage which could possibly kill all of us, what did you expect me to do?" 

"Whatever, there's no point in arguing about it." I said, turning and walking again. 

His footsteps sped up as he kept up with me. "Are you seriously angry about the fact that I tried to protect my family?" 

"Drop it Roman." 

"No, I'm not gonna drop it ‘cause this makes absolutely no sense to me. You do realize I'm here because of you, right?" 

I stopped, turning to face him again. "You were given a choice Roman, leave your entire family and forget you ever had any relation to do with earth, or just forget about ever knowing me and this fucking place. But you made the wrong choice." 

"No I didn't. You didn't expect me to stand back and watch them take you away." He said indignantly. "...when I know how dangerous they are, when I know what you've been through." 

I took in a deep breath, pointedly looking away. 

"This isn't just your fight Ivy, this is our fight, and if you think for one second that I'd let you go through this alone, then you better think again." 

"What if something happens to you? That would be on me. I dragged you into this Roman, and if something were to happen to you, I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

His eyes softened. "Ivy-" 

"I can't put that on my conscience too, Roman." 

"You didn't drag me into this, okay?" He said. "Listen, if I wasn't interested about the possibility of other dimensions existing here on Earth, I wouldn't have followed you through this. We're both in this together, you're not alone." 

"But- What if-"

"Forget the but ifs'- we're in this together."

I knew he wasn't going to drop it, so I sighed and nodded. "Thank you... For being here." 

"Don't thank me." He said with a smile. "So what's with the new look?" He asked. 

I shrugged. "I had the urge to stab my reflection in the mirror this morning because it was horrible, so I decided that I didn't want to see that every time I look into a mirror. Hence, the new look."

He shook his head. 

"You don't like it?" I asked. 

"It's- it's cool but- just doesn't look like you." He said. 

"That’s great." I said.

"How's that great?" He was clearly confused.

I shrugged with a small smirk. "It was the kind of look I was aiming for."

_

I eased open a heavy door, Rebel Test Room printed in blocky spray paint stencil font. The door shut gently behind us, leaving us in a giant, brightly lit room. Projectors and computers scattered all of the walls and on various tables, what looked like medical testing stations taking up the majority of the space. A large wooden conference table looking slightly out of place in the bright white environment sat in the center of the room, and behind it, what looked like a full body scanning machine.   

There were so many delicate lab equipment scattered throughout the room, the harsh lights and sparkling surfaces making everything look untouchable. 

"I know this isn't the right time to say this Ivy, but... This is like a dream come true." Roman said in awe. 

"Yeah, if we had been brought here for a school trip, I would have been jumping all over the place. But I hate every second I spend here, so I'm not that excited." 

"But-" 

"How can you even listen to yourself?" A new voice resounded from a far corner of the lab. 

Roman and I exchanged a look before our eyes moved to the direction of the voice. 

It was Malcolm, frowning deeply at- at Ethan. 

My heart skipped a beat when I saw him, he looked different... There was this dark frown on his face, a kind of look I'd never seen on him before, his hair was messy and his eyes had dark circles under them. 

Guilt swept through me. I've never seen him look this miserable. 

"Oh, Ethan's here." Roman said. "He doesn't really look...good." He said. 

"Yeah." I said, my voice coming out in a whisper. 

"Did something happen?" Roman asked. 

I swallowed. "We're not- we're not together anymore." I said looking over at Roman just in time to see his eyes widened. 

"You guys broke up?"

"Yeah." I said, my eyes going back to their direction again. 

"Why? Is it because-" 

"Don't you ever think for one second, that I'll let you sink your feet inside that mess! You know nothing about it." Malcolm looked really angry. 

"I know enough to know that there are bad guys out there who call themselves the Inc Lord's, killing and raiding houses in each sector. If the Inc wants to recruit people into finding and killing each one of them, i'm not going to sit back and watch."

My eyes found Roman's after hearing that. 

"Can't you see this is what they want? They want you there! This is another test! First it was the outside, and now they want you to go on a suicide mission-"

"It's not gonna be me alone. They're recruiting the best subjects from each of the sectors, and honestly, I could use a little bit of distraction right now."

Malcolm sighed. "Why do you always love throwing yourself in danger? The Inc Lords are not people you want to mess with! Not when you're in this condition, Ethan."

I frowned. What condition?

"I'm fine Malcolm... I've never felt better, honestly. Just authorize it when they send you the order, I need this."

"You are not stable, Ethan."

Ethan looked down at the floor for a second, before his head lifted, and met Malcolm’s eyes again. "I know that... Although I don't know what's wrong with me, or why my chip keeps decreasing by the second-"

"You're at 10 percent now Ethan. 10. You're literally ten percent from- from changing. You don't want me to contact the facility, you don't want me to tell Glory, you don't want anyone to know. You want to be a rogue?"

My heart literally fell off my chest... Ten percent? That couldn't be good.

"Of course not Malcolm. The funniest part is, I feel perfectly fine."

"It's not the funniest part Ethan, it's the scariest."

"Whatever's up with Ethan, it's not good." Roman said from beside me. 

"I know, I've known for a while now, but- it seemed to have worsened. I can't help but feel responsible for it." 

"I honestly don't care Malcolm. At this point, I don't care about what happens to me, because I'm so tired of everything."

"That's why you want to throw yourself to the wolves. And you expect me to watch them tear you apart? What kind of guardian would that make me?" 

After that, Ethan went silent. 

"I think it's time to make our presence known." I said, looking up at Roman.

"Sure." Roman said, nodding and looking back at them.

When he didn't make a move, I kept on staring at him with my left brow raised. 

He did a double take at my direction when he noticed I was still staring at him. "What?" He asked, confused. 

"I'm waiting for your lead?" 

"Oh, yeah... Sure." He said, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Anybody here!" He yelled out. 

"Seriously? The anybody here line?" 

"What? I couldn't think of anything better."

I sighed as we made our way further into the lab. 

Immediately, Ethan raised his head to our direction. Our eyes locked, almost as if there was an eager magnet aiming to lock with another magnet. My heart skipped a beat before regaining its rhythm, thumping in my chest at an abnormally fast speed. I felt my throat seize up, and slowly, I got out of breath. 

His eyes didn't leave mine, as we made our way closer to where they were standing. 

All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay. I wanted to hug him so bad. I craved his warmth, the warmth that made me feel at home. I wanted him close to me, I wanted things to just go back to the way they were. 

But we don't always get what we want, do we?

His eyes left mine, after what looked like guilt, passed through them. 

"Ivy Fisher, and Roman Huxley, I presume." Malcolm called out turning to our direction.  

We stopped right in front of them. "Yeah," I said, my voice coming out breathless and strained as I fought to keep my breathing even, hesitantly tearing my eyes from Ethan's face. 

"This is an extraordinary lab you've got here, Mr. Steel. It feels like I'm in some kinda sick movie with a space lab and all." Roman said with a cheeky grin. 

"Really? You like it here?" Malcolm asked with disbelief. 

"Yes... I mean, not like- here- here as in the Inc here, but like your lab." 

"Oh, I get it." Malcolm waved it off. 

My eyes swept towards Ethan's direction, my heart jumped when I caught his eyes on me already. Immediately, he looked away. 

"I'll um-" he cleared his throat. "I'll just head back to school, and leave you guys to- to talk." He said, the frown not leaving his face. 

"Sure, but we're not done discussing this Ethan." Malcolm said, his eyes dead set on Ethan's. 

Curiosity built up at the pit of my stomach, and I suddenly wanted to know more about these Inc Lords. 

Ethan's eyes met mine for a short time before moving back to Malcolm's. "There's nothing else to talk about Malcolm." With that, and without a second glance to my direction, he walked past me and Roman, straight out of the lab. 

Malcolm sighed. "Yeah, sorry about that. let's get back to the basics, shall we." 

Basics? All I wanted was answers. What did Malcolm mean by Ethan going rogue? What really is wrong with Ethan? Was his life in danger? And most especially, who the hell are the Inc Lord's, and why do they sound so dangerous?

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Vote and Comment:-)

Thanks for your patience!

There's a lot going on in the world right now, please let's all stay safe. And if you want to talk about it, let's share our thoughts and experience here... How has 2020 treated you?

What do you think of this chapter?

Till the next one, Bye Beauties!

Nora