The whirring of the fan mixed with the clock ticking filled the room. Janelle argued with herself to get up, even though she could use another hour of sleep. She slowly slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom to shower. She knew that only the first get hot water. 

She stepped, wearing her military uniform, a polyester jacket over a plain white shirt and a bulletproof vest for added security and suffocation. 

"The bullets are the least of our problems," Janelle muttered while straightening her vest. 

She went over to the mirror and tied her hair into a ponytail. She glanced over at Gabriella, who was still sleeping and marched up to her and without hesitation, yanked her blanket off. 

"What the hell" Gabriella moaned.

"Get up," Janelle said sternly.

Gabriella checked her phone to see it was only 3:45.

"15 more minutes" She mumbled. 

"We don't have time for this, get up," Janelle said and forced her into the shower. She was aware that Gabriella always had an issue with waking up early, but today, they had to. They needed some plan before leaving.

When Gabriella was out of the shower, Janelle motioned for her to follow her outside. 

"What was the rush?" Gabriella asked, annoyed.

"Don't sulk, we needed a plan before it was time to leave," Janelle said. 

"Knowing Arthur, he's probably going to have us split up," Gabriella started and Janelle could understand where she was going with this.

"We just need to make sure one of us goes with him,"

"That's not what I expected you to say" Janelle scoffed. "What will we do after hanging out with Arthur?"

"We can have him slip up about his laptop password and snoop," Gabriella said. 

"You know Arthur, he'll never agree to that. Better yet, we try to get us to put together and we sneak back into the safe house" Janelle suggested.

Gabriella thought for a few seconds. Sneaking back in was risky, especially since they could get caught. But then again, this whole plan was risky and Janelle's idea had more of a success rate than hers. She nodded affirmatively to Janelle who smiled and walked away. 

Gabriella decided to stop by the kitchen to get a light snack before she left. She entered the kitchen but left immediately after seeing Caden inside. 

"Gabby wait!" He called after her. She turned back to him with her eyebrows raised.

"What?"

"I know what I did was wrong and I'm sorry, but you have to understand what I'm saying! Arthur's up to something" 

"Caden, I believe you," She said bringing a smile to his face. "I'm just hurt that you thought I was involved" and walked away.

A lump formed in Caden's throat as she walked away from him, forgetting why she'd walked into the kitchen, to begin with. But was it so out of the line of him to think that way when she worked directly under the man he suspected? Either way, fighting wouldn't solve this, the only thing he could do was give her space.

Gabriella stormed out of the kitchen and decided to go directly to meet with Arthur. She'd rather not eat than have to take it from Caden. 

She entered the meeting room and for once, she wasn't the last to come. She was one of the firsts, following Janelle of course. 

Arthur looked up from his file and nodded at her to acknowledge her presence and looked surprised to see her early. After everyone had arrived, Arthur began talking.

"You all know why we're here. To cover more ground, we'll be splitting up into teams of three" Arthur announced.

"Wouldn't it be easier to split into teams of two? You know, in case the undead attack us" Liam asked.

"We're all experienced with the undead. Just don't make noise and you'll be fine" Arthur said. 

"In that case, I think Janelle and I should be together. She can balance out my- er- loudness" Gabriella said awkwardly. Arthur mustn't have been in the mood to argue since he just nodded and split the others up. 

Janelle and Gabriella shared a smirk before turning to leave. 

"Wait," Arthur said making them turn back to him.

"We won't be going in the van today, go through the main entrance," He said pointing left. 

"Well, I guess this is for the better" Gabriella said after they were a fair distance away from Arthur. 

"Yeah, we can just walk back in after they're gone and throw some water on each other to pretend we were sweating," Janelle said making Gabriella chuckle.

But on their way, they were stopped by a tall man with a military badge.

"Fill this," He said handing a register along with a ball pen. Janelle peered over Gabriella's shoulder to see that it was a register with the date and time of when everyone entered and left the safe house.

A feeling of dread washed over Gabriella's body. If Arthur checked this, he would know that they left and come back to snoop. They could hide in a corner and not leave at all, but again, he'd know.

Noticing Gabriella's horrified expression, Janelle took the register from her and began filling it so as to not waste time. Gabriella watched in confusion as Janelle put her signature in the last column and ushered her outside.

"Wasn't she the one all about making plans?" Gabriella thought in irritation.

"What do we do now?!" She exclaimed after they exited the safe house.

"Have you never heard of the saying 'when one door closes, another opens'?" Janelle asked with a smile.

"Alright, you have a plan. What is it?" She asked.

"That register has the entries of everyone who entered and left the safe house. Which means, if we steal it we can find out how many times Arthur has snuck out" Janelle said.

"That's pretty smart. And afterwards, we can see if there's a pattern in him leaving the safehouse and snoop accordingly" Gabriella said.

"Exactly. Unfortunately, for now, we just have to do our job" Janelle said. 

Gabriella sighed and looked around and saw nothing. The safe house was built in an empty chunk of land and a lot of its surrounding area was also empty, meaning they'd have to walk for a while before they found any building.

On a positive note, because of the increased military protection in the safe house areas, the undead wasn't many here and stuck to the major city places. That didn't mean they shouldn't be careful, however. Gabriella kept her hands on the grip of the gun, ready to pull it out and shoot. 

"You can relax," Janelle said after seeing Gabriella ready to shoot. "The undead don't have enough brains to sneak up on us"

"You can never be too careful" Gabriella countered.

"I'm starting to hate Arthur more by the second" Janelle grumbled after they walked a few more steps.

"Mhm" Gabriella said.

"I mean, to me, it's pretty clear there's no other market nearby. There's no reason to make us walk around like idiots" Janelle groaned. 

"Unless..." Gabriella said, making Janelle turn back to face her.

"Unless this was a distraction" She finished making Janelle's face turn pale.

"Arthur isn't stupid, he must've known this plan would never work. The only reason he sent us, is to sidetrack us and work in private" Gabriella said. 

Her eyes met Janelle's and she noticed the look of aghast on her face. 

"I just thought of something" Janelle started "If Arthur is responsible for distracting us this time, could he be..."

"Responsible for all the others?" Gabriella finished. She recalled the time Arthur had them 'replace' him while he went on an 'important task'. She also remembered that that was the day Caden said to have overheard Arthur. Suddenly, it all clicked and the same look of aghast washed over her face.

"Arthur knows we're on to him"