The good thing about being locked up, was that I didn't have to go to classes and pretend to be doing assignments. I didn't have to witness more of my peers being given yellow slips for laughable offenses that would inevitably lead to them being drugged.

I didn't have the chance to disobey Kellen either. That was a good thing for my standing with both him and the others, but bad because I had no idea what was going on outside this room. Katia had offered me no form of update on that.

As a bonus of my imprisonment, I planned recon missions in my mind. How I would find out what was really going on, and who I would include on the imaginary maneuvers. In the event that nothing had been discovered while I'd been stuck in the Hellhounds' prison, I'd have a semi planned course of action.

I had a strong feeling that I would be conducting one of my imagined missions, if the fact that I was still locked up was any indication. But motivation was clearly not high right now. I rolled over and picked up one of the books left for me on the nightstand. Perhaps I could read to pass the time and remove my annoyances from my mind.

I wondered if this was considered day two or day one, since I'd been taken just before dinner the night before. It was well after dinnertime; Katia hadn't returned and my stomach very much regretted confronting her. I guess it wasn't such a good idea to anger the person who was feeding you.

A scraping noise startled me from my thoughts and I glanced around the room, my eyes settling on the closet door. Oh God, I thought, ducking behind the bed, please tell me it's not some kind of animal. I peered over the top of the bed, pulling the sheets down around me, just in case. Because pretending to be a pile of sheets is a genius defense. 

The door swung into the room and a bright light accosted my eyes. I yelped, pulling the quilt over my head.

"Cole?"

I looked out cautiously, relieved the flashlight beam was now pointed at the ceiling and not into my eyes.

"Are you okay, Hero?" Standing in the middle of the room, peering at me inside my bundle of blankets, was Kellen.

Slowly, I unraveled myself, thankful that he wouldn't be able to see me blush in the dark. "Took you long enough."

"Sorry about that. When Jess told us you were missing, we didn't believe her. We thought you took off to do what I told you not to do. Why would they take you?"

"What?" I asked, bitter sarcasm dripping from my tone, "I'm not important enough to be the flag?"

"No," he stated plainly, launching me up into the attic hatch in the closet. "They knew Jess was the flag. They've been following her for three days." As he pulled himself up behind me, I heard him mutter, "I just don't get why they'd take you."

"I know right! Who the hell would care if I was missing?"

There was an audible cease in his movements. "That's not what I meant, Nicole! I just don't understand what they hoped to get by... Okay, nothing I'm saying sounds good."

I grimaced at his back as he stopped talking and went back to crawling along the attic floor. I followed behind him carefully, having never been up there before. He stopped at another hatch, opened it quietly and jumped down, making only the softest whoosh of a sound. There was a light on in the room he'd dropped into, and it seeped into the closet, so I could just make out his arms outstretched to catch me.

"I'm fine," I muttered, batting his hand away, but he pretended not to hear me and helped me anyway. I expected, when I stepped out into the room, to see other Thunderbirds, or at the very least, Jess.

I spun around and took in the empty bedroom, a guys room for sure, with minimal decor and what appeared to be Thunderbird central at the desk. Kellen's room, maybe? No. I'd seen that before if only through quick peeks and this wasn't it. There was a laptop playing music just loud enough to hear, but not loud enough to bother a roommate. But there was no one here, not a soul, besides myself and Kellen, who was pulling the attic hatch shut in the closet.

"So, you never answered me earlier, Hero. Are you okay?" He was so quiet it bordered on whispering, and gauging by the time, it was either because someone was sleeping in the next room, or out of fear for curfew enforcement.

"Fine... Starving," I admitted offhandedly, whispering as well.

"They didn't feed you?!" He sounded angry and grumbled a bunch of nonsensical gibberish. "Here." He held a pizza box out to me, and I took it with delight and dug in like I'd been deprived for days.

"Thanks. They did feed me, I had sushi with Katia at lunch today. No dinner though, I think I pissed her off."

He seemed pensive, looking at me with much the same expression that Katia had, like trying to figure out a conundrum. "I don't get it, though. What would she want you for?"

I ignored the little jab I felt and continued eating, and only when I was done did I look over at him. "Stop staring!" I hissed sharply.

"Sorry."

"Your sister seemed to think one of you would come for me whether or not I was the flag. In all honesty, I think she was trying to prove a point by taking me. Though I didn't really get it either."

"Of course we'd come for you, but the whole point of the game right now is to stick to the rules..."

"Let's try this again," I shifted uncomfortably and peered out the curtains into the dark night. "She seemed to think one of you, meaning Leon, Jackson or yourself, specifically, would come for me. She said she thought the flag would either be Jess or me." I was hoping to avoid the discomfort of having to actually explain. "I think she was hoping Jess would be there, but she got me instead."

"But if she knew that Jess was the flag, why not just take Jess and release you?" I shrugged, but forgot that since the lights were on, however dim, he could see me blush, and he picked up on my hesitance to answer right away. "What?"

"I'm pretty sure she just wanted to bother you."

"By taking you?"

Whatever he'd done to change my opinion of him in the past few weeks was unraveling and quite quickly. He could be such an insensitive ass. He did have a point though, I had wondered the same thing when she'd taken me, and even laughed at her reasoning. It was so far-fetched, that even though he was trying to understand her motive, he couldn't arrive at the same conclusion as her. 

"Your sister seems to think that there's something going on between us. She took me because she wanted you to come after me, and she wanted to get information out of me."

Kellen didn't look amused, startled, or put off by this revelation. "If she wanted me to come after you, then where was she when I busted you out?"

"I pissed her off."

"I wonder why she wanted me there."

The music remained the only noise in the room for some time, as both of us sat, obviously avoiding speaking to each other.

"So, did she say why she thought...?"

As I explained her reasoning, he laughed, agreeing with her that Jackson didn't seem my type. "But why—" 

"Please shut up, before I have to slap you." I interjected, feeling another stab of that stupidly hurtful rejection. It didn't matter that I had no feelings for him, no actual crush, but the implication that I was not good enough, still bothered me.

"Okay." He snapped his jaw shut quickly, and examined the wall as if it were supremely interesting.

"By the way, where are we, and how come no one else-?"

"Uh, I went solo. I would have had Jess here, but she's mad at me. Also..." He winced, and tossed me his phone. 

I lurched off the bed in alarm and he put his hands out to stop me from tackling him. "And you wasted time getting me?"

"We'll get her back first thing in the morning if she's not in your dorm. Geez! First you're mad that I took so long and now you're mad at me for getting you?"

"Sorry," I muttered as I stepped back. "Thank you. I guess I didn't say that, did I?"

"No problem."

He froze when a thump and a voice sounded from the next room, and I couldn't help doing the same, standing statue still as he ventured out of the bedroom silently to check it out. Was it wardens? On returning, he flicked the lights off, dismissing the noise with, "It's cool."

The glow from the laptop helped him pick his way across the room. "We're in Leon's dorm, he doesn't have a roommate." He gestured to the bed, "Go to bed. We'll check on Jess in the morning."

The realization that he expected me to stay there overnight with him hit me. "Wait, what?" If he thought I was sharing the bed with him, he was nuts. 

"Goodnight, Hero," he smirked at me and then clicked off the laptop.