Happy Valentine's Day to each one of you out there. 

*****

Skyler was dead tired by the time he reached the square. The day had been nothing but a train wreck. He had forgotten to refill his substitute tablets and he had eaten nothing since the morning. Moreover, he was called in to attend a case briefing meeting with the senior officers and he was handed over a missing person case which wasn't even supposed to be dealt with by him in the first place. To add up he had to deal with some grueling paperwork that he had just gotten done with a few minutes ago. All he wanted to do right then was to throw himself on his bed and sleep but unfortunately, that luxury wasn't meant for him. He got a call from Nandini asking him to come to the square and he wasn't given the slightest hint as to why he was called.

Sighing he pushed the door of the VIP room open.

"Why did you call me im-" His voice died down his throat as soon as he stepped inside the room, for he smelled a familiar enthralling scent. He didn't need to turn to look at the person for him to know who the scent was coming from but he still turned around. "Niall!" his tone dropped as their eyes met and at that moment all he could think of was how good the person seated in front of him looked.

"Hi." Niall mumbled an awkward 'hi'.

"Hi." Skyler replied just as awkwardly.

"How.. how have you been?"

"Better than before." Despite his inner turmoil, he still managed to say it in a sarcastic tone. Tearing his gaze away from Niall, he took a seat beside Nandini for that seemed to be much of a better option than being seated next to his ex. Moreover, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't do anything stupid.

"Awkward." Nandini frowned, eyeing both the involved parties simultaneously. "Lighten up both of you."

"Get to the point. Why did you call me here?"

"Patience impatient one, patience." She said in a mocking tone. "You are not the only one that has been called. So, let the others arrive too."

"Others?" Skyler paused. "As in?"

"The other envoys." Niall's alluring voice reached his ears. He cut a glance at Niall before looking back at Nandini and asking, "Is it because of those hybrids?"

"Partially." She nodded. "But there's mor-"

"Blake Galleger was reported dead this morning." Niall interrupted.

"Dead?!" Skyler frowned as his gaze shifted towards Niall. The word 'dead' didn't settle well with him. "What do you mean by dead? We are almost immortal."

Niall's eyes held Skyler's for quite a while before he replied, "Almost... not completely. Blake's body is in a petrified state."

"Petrified?! What do you mean?"

 "His whole body has turned into stone and there's this-" Lightly patting his hands on his chest, he emphasized, "this huge hole in his chest area."

"There's never been a case like that." 

"I said the same thing." Nandini shrugged. "But Skyler, you do have an idea about what to do right?"

"Depends. I have to see the body first." Skyler ran a hand through his hair, musing over what Niall had said. Nothing made sense because he neither had seen a case like that nor had read slash heard about anything like that. "What- What about his eyes? Did you take any pictures for reference?"

"His eyes were totally black. You know exactly like those who had fallen into eternal slumber." Niall answered as he took out a crystal ball from his pocket. He gently pressed it and rolled the ball towards Skyler. Skyler caught the rolling ball and looked into it. An image of Blake's petrified body had immersed in the ball.

"Damn, this is so unclear." Nandini commented as she looked at the unclear image. "I had almost forgotten how backward our side is in terms of technology." 

"When have you even remembered anything?" Skyler said in a mocking tone only to be awarded by a glare from Nandini which he swiftly ignored.

"Have you run any sort of test on the body?" he questioned as he zoomed in the picture.

"We tried but we couldn't figure out anything. It's just stone with a huge hole in the chest area. Honestly it's all so confusing. Blake reported to us a week back about the weird species that he had spotted in his designated area. Right after that suddenly all the connections jammed. We couldn't contact any of you. None of our messages went through and the council had no other choice but to sent a team for back up here."

"So right now you are telling me without any awareness of the things going around here, your team was dispatched here. And you don't really have a plan?"

"Partially yes." he didn't deny.

"My god how reckless! If not anything you should at least have bought a forensic expert with you."

"We didn't know we would be needing one plus we have Arya. He can do the basics." Niall reasoned.

"Whatever." he rolled the ball back to Niall. "Is this the reason why you called me here? You want me to examine Blake's body?"

"Yeah." Niall nodded and though Skyler wouldn't admit but he was a little disappointed. "How many of you are dispatched here?"

"Four of us from my team. Aria and Jake stayed back to help in fixing the connection problem."

"Just four to cover this whole side. Reckless of you to think four of you can handle 33 of the envoys assigned here when all the connection signals from our side is jammed and there are this weird species surfacing and bite cases increasing day by day. And now one of our own kind is dead too. What a mess mahn!"

"The connection here is still intact." Nandini shook her phone a bit. "I already contacted the ones from our clan and this meeting today is actually going to be our mini clan meeting." 

"You have their contact numbers."

"I do and just for situations like this." Nandini said almost proudly and that made Skyler roll his eyes. "Fine but what about the envoys from the other clans?"

"Alia already managed to get in touch with few of the members of Blue Ray clan. So in a way Blue Ray clan is kind of sorted too. The only clan left is the Red and Liam is working on it." Niall informed.

"Hmm, see if that works."

"Niall what about the elders?" Nandini questioned. "Don't you have to report back to them?"

"I have to but it's not the time. The connection signals are jammed and I can't send any of my team members back. I still need them here."

"You haven't changed a bit." Skyler scoffed. "Still so unnecessarily loyal towards those old hags."

"They are our elders." Niall defended.

"for namesake." Skyler added.

"Are you going to help us or not?" Niall didn't want this conversation to drag up any further, for he very well this wasn't going to end up well.

"Do I have a choice?"

"No." Niall denied.

"Then what's the use of asking?" he snickered before adding in a mocking tone, "Oh right, how can I forget you are a polite guy."

Niall didn't say anything in his defense. He knew very well what Skyler was trying to imply on.

"Stop twisting your words Skyler." Nandini spoke out this time. "I don't know what went wrong between you two to get you both to this point. But this ain't the time for this. We need to work together."

"Mind your own business." 

She shook her head lightly in disbelief. "Rude like always but-" her mouth twitched slightly before she shifted her gaze towards her brother and added, "still his favorite."

"That sweet scented guy from your-" Skyler started only to be instantly cut off by Nandini. "Skyler about those hybrids. Didn't you need to shift them?"

Skyler had that resting bitch face which screamed 'Don't mess with me' when he nodded his head. "Yeah those hybrids I need them moved and I need an access slip." Nandini was so sure Skyler was about to talk about Manik that too right in front of her brother and no way did she want Niall to know about it. For she very well knew her brother wouldn't let her stay in the human world if he knew she was directly involved with Manik.