"Act normal. Like you just woke up"

"You almost severed my arm!"

"Ssh! I grazed your arm lightly. Jeez! Stop being such a crybaby"

"Oh yeah sure. Cutting my arm is what my part time job used to be"

"You whine so much gah!"

"Whatever. You almost killed me"

Seth began to say something but decided against it. Karen ran up to them as soon as she saw Teresa. He expected her to hug her, but instead, she went up to Seth and punched him powerfully in the gut.

Seth saw stars in daylight. His insides squirmed painfully as he reeled over.

"What the heck?" he groaned.

Ben ran up to them to hold a fuming Karen back from decimating Seth. Seth wasn't even sure what he had done to deserve that hardcore punch.

"You shit! How dare you keep Teresa shut away from the world like this?" she growled.

Damn. I forgot how sensitive she really is.

Karen's deep blue eyes softened with moisture. Her chest heaved up and down as she breathed shallowly. Seth immediately felt guilty for his actions. She had always been too attached to the people around her. She had cried once because one of the plushies she used to sleep with had been destroyed in a gang fight.

Karen had lost a lot of people in her life. When she was only eleven, she witnessed her mother being killed by two monstrous policemen. There had been a riot in that area, and Karen and her mother were trying to find shelter. They went to the police for protection, and ironically, they beat her mother up. Karen could only weep. The police had turned towards her after they killed her mother with ugly lustful eyes. That's when a stranger boy took her hand and fled from the area.

It had been Ben. He had lost his parents in the riots in the self-same way. Only they had been shot for being Asian. He had been fourteen then and had some of his wits about. Since then, they had been together and had a particular hatred towards the men in the blue uniform. They had been discovered five years later. It had been on a day when Seth's father had stepped out of the police headquarters after some meeting. Ben had cornered him in an alley and attacked him. Karen was the one who interrogated him with a knife glinting in her hands. Of course, they had believed him to be some important officer of the law. Seth's father decided to strike a deal with them and invited them over to their gang.

It had been seven years that Seth knew them. Karen was now twenty-two and Ben, at a steady twenty-six. Seth and Karen were the same age, but she still looked like some nineteen-year-old girl.

It wasn't unordinary for her to link her soul with Teresa this quick. That's how she was. A sensitive woman with a dark madness residing inside within her.

"And what were you thinking when you dressed her in the old-fashioned night gown? She looks like Annabelle!" Karen ranted.

"Hey I dressed myself," Teresa suddenly stepped in. "There wasn't anything else"

Seth looked at her dubiously. He didn't understand why she was defending him until he realized that she was saving herself from embarrassment. Although, he didn't know if it was the fact that she had thrown up in sleep or that he had changed her out of her clothes.

There was no guilt within him for the actions.

Wasn't my fault.

(But you enjoyed-)

No. I did NOT enjoy pukey clothes.

Ben slid next to him discreetly and helped up a fallen and flustered Seth.

"Thanks"

Ben looked at him with shrewd eyes.

"You changed her clothes, right?" he whispered so that no one would hear him.

"Nope I literally didn't," Seth answered quickly.

"I saw you carry out the clothes with vomit and wash them dude."

"Yes I did."

"Great going man."

Ben winked and walked away, grinning to himself for no apparent reason. Seth sighed. It was impossible to hide anything from him. He was slow, yes, but he was observant and equally competent. One of the reasons he was a key member of the mafia in the first place.

He saw Karen apply some white powder and lipstick on Teresa's face. He didn't think she needed them, though. There were small scabs on her chin and cheeks. He had seen a small scar right above her left eyebrow, but it wasn't ugly. The one that had caught his eyes was her arm. There was a long mark running a long length in the middle of her forearm. It looked pretty old. He had wondered what had happened to her. He yearned to ask her the backstory about that scar, but he decided to wait for the right moment.

Karen continued to add some mascara to her eyes. It was a surprise she was letting Karen touch her. He expected her to be cold.

A person might see her as a fugitive and a ruffian, might even think of her as un-visual but to him though, she looked beautiful and soft. Just how she wasn't aware of the beauty and eyed everything and every one carefully was what he found pretty about her.

She's brave. But is she strong enough to be here with us? I'll have to find out.

He made his way towards Jordan, who was busy working on his laptop.

"Everything alright?" Seth asked.

"Nope. The windows are broken. I'm craving food but the fridge's empty. I'm hungry, worried and cold," Jordan sternly replied without ever glancing up.

Seth already got a bad premonition about that. The only time Jordan was sarcastic was when things were grim.

"You found out the gang that attacked us, right?"

"Yes. It's the Scorpio's again"

Seth's blood boiled on hearing the name. The notorious rival gang had always tried to attack them whenever possible. The last he had heard of them was in the news, reporting that the Scorpio's had been broken up by a special agent of the Crime Branch. There had been no name of the agent.

Well, some might have managed to survive and make it through.

"How did they know about our location?" Seth inquired.

Jordan looked at him for long before answering.

"Sophia"

Seth clenched his teeth and nodded grimly. It was expected. He turned his head towards the broken pieces of window glass which were sticking out the windowpane. Amid all thoughts, Teresa's sleeping figure appeared before him, and he flushed a bright pink. Jordan noticed that.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You look peaky."

"No- Nothing. Fe-fever," he stuttered and walked out into the garden.

Am I falling for her?

No. It was too soon to be falling for anyone at all. Not again.

*****

I know my update is late but I was busy with dealing with a guy on snapchat. He was so creepy! He's literally ten years elder to me and says stuff like 'Let me love you' which I thought was hilarious. Tonight he came up with this 'sexy thighs'. That was the limit for me. 

SOOOOO I sent him my role model, Suga (from BTS)'s snap like a snapchat and I pretended to be him. I turned my celebrity inspiration into my boyfriend XD. Of course I blocked him later but not before I did that. 

WHEW! I FEEL BETTER! THANKS LOL NOW GO SLEEP AND VOTE!!!!!