Of all things people tended to write instruction manuals on, the one that I needed the most hadn't been written yet. How To Live Out A Conspiracy. Or, Things To Avoid When Your Dead Mother's Enemies Come After You.

Sounds like a common enough issue, doesn't it? I mean, c'mon. What the hell was I supposed to do when the bad guys wanted me to get to a dead person? Take them to my mother's grave site? Because I was nowhere near involved when they planned her funeral. I wasn't even sure if any family came out to bury her; I had told the authorities that I wanted nothing to do with her, and that was it. For all I knew, there was no other family, and whoever ran the joint for dead people had decided to cremate and toss her ashes somewhere.

But they kept records for that sort of thing, right?

I smashed my face against a pillow to stifle a heartfelt groan. Almost a full twenty-four hours since coming down to a bunker with Jaxon, and the furthest I got to solving this case of giants was making due with the conclusion that whoever these people were, they had access to some serious drugs - but not newspapers, apparently. I raised my chin to glare at the bedpost. Maybe I should warn Jaxon about what I saw when Frenice took me to his . . . friend's. Should anything happen to Jaxon or his buddies, they should know to expect some seriously wonky hallucinations.

But was it really a hallucination?

I grabbed the stupid pillow and chucked it at the wall with a frustrated yell. Staying here wasn't getting me any closer to answers. I wasn't quite comfortable enough to show my face in public just yet, though, but I didn't need to step outside to get out of this room. An entire corridor full of closed doors awaited me, doors that could lead to people stuck here, just like me - people who might know more about this situation and were just as equally terrified.

Jaxon hadn't mentioned anyone else, and from how he made it sound, there were only two people down here that had the ability to help him - me, and that boy with the missing ear. But Jaxon had lied to me about his father knowing, so I wouldn't put it past him to try to hide anyone else that might be lurking behind a door. I wouldn't want him telling every new person that came down here about me.

Then again, I hadn't heard anything outside since the kitchen incident, and if Jaxon was trying to keep everyone secret, he wouldn't do it by assigning everyone rooms in the same hallway, where anyone could just walk out and bump into them.

Which meant that all those doors I saw could very well lead to rooms as empty and vacant as mine had been before coming in last night.

Needless to say, I was clenching my fists at my sides and muttering a stringful of incomprehensible things by the time I found myself in that open lobby area Jaxon's redheaded buddy had been guarding when I first arrived last night. I don't know why I had decided to come here, only that I was anxious to do something other than pace across a damn room for hours on end. Such as pacing down a long, sci-fi looking hallway instead.

I needed to keep that one in mind for the hundred-and-one questions list I had decided to create for Jaxon. He didn't seem keen on answering very many just yet, but I was going to get an answer out of him if I had to punch him in the teeth to get it. Just how in the world does a bunch of kids come up with a way for a design such as this?

I was just about to turn around to face the long hallway when I stopped, turning my head over my shoulder to eye that desk in the middle of the floor. No one was sitting there, leaving the strange room behind the desk momentarily unguarded. Judging from that redhead's reaction when I had tried peering in last night, this was the room only special people could go into. Well, I was about to show them that you were supposed to at least put a door to rooms that you didn't want other people entering.

Cautiously, I briefed another look-around, making sure that I was completely and utterly alone. Someone could easily barge into the door that led to the spiral stairs to the left of me, but, well, there was no helping that. If I got caught, I got caught. I wanted to know who the guys that were supposed to be aiding me were. I shoved my hands in my pockets to appear as casual as possible, and instead of creeping in alongside the wall, I simply strode up to the open doorway - although I made sure not to have my body center in the middle of it. Good thing, too. As I got closer, I could hear a couple of voices, and another sound that I recognized as a set of weights being bench-pressed. I paused at the side of the doorframe. This was a weightroom?

"B-b-b-b-bench," someone gasped, and I could just imagine someone lifting a bar in its place before it could crush their partner. Sure enough, after the clanging sound of a bar being set on its rack, the same person groaned. "How many rounds?" I didn't recognize this voice.

"Ten," came a blunt, unsympathetic voice. The lovely redhead. "Don't think I've forgotten, though. You promised we'd talk about this."

There was a pause. Maybe Guy Number One was wiping sweat from his face. Maybe he was taking a swig of water. I wouldn't know until I stepped in the room. So I did.

And what I saw left me completely and utterly confused. On one side - the side I had originally caught a glimpse of last night - were four sets of benches with their proper weights and stands looming above them. Another four treadmills lined the same wall, with a pull-up stand a few feet in front of the one closest to the northern wall. Cubbies were built in the corner to my far left, where things like rollers the length of my forearm and tennis balls were kept. On the other side of the room, however . . .

A couple of years ago, I got goaded into entering a dojo a few miles away from the school. The place had been there for decades, and the building certainly looked as such for the wear and tear. It was just a lone little building surrounded by a field of overgrown dry grass. I had fully believed that the place was abandoned - and to prove it to a group of dumb kids, my brilliant self decided to 'break in' well after the sun had set.

Contrary to the outside, the inside had been swept and scrubbed and polished to the point where I felt that a single bit of dirt would stick out like a sore thumb. To this day I don't know what kind of dojo it was supposed to be, or if the martial arts it was meant to teach even originated from Merksia, but it was something along those lines. A large black mat had taken up the middle of the floor. Long, thin sticks had lined the northern wall, while a crazy set of all these different blades were set up on the wall to my right. And if you looked up, you would see a series of beams - and I had only looked up to begin with because I had heard a strange wiiirrring sound, which indicated that a machine was running. There were beams moving horizontally and vertically up there, almost in a way that had reminded me of an obstacle course.

Despite all this, I only really remember the layout because a man dressed head-to-toe in black had jumped down from one of those insane freaking beams, grabbed me by the arm and sent me flying onto my back. Then, when I had been gasping for breath, he'd pulled out what I later realized was a fucking katana - I kid you not - held it to my throat, and told me that the next time I came back, he'd have a new head to put in his trophy room.

Not something you easily forget. Looking at the left side of the room, here, I found myself gawking at a miniature version of that very insane little dojo. The only difference was that there was also a rack of black suits on the back wall. I was so caught up with what I was seeing that I had completely skipped over the two boys using a bench in the workout area of the room.

"You guys training people to be ninjas or something?" came one of my famously intelligent remarks. Damn, I really needed to learn to put a knot on my tongue.

Both boys froze, looking up at me. My favorite redhead was leaning up against one of the bench posts, his cold gaze as friendly as ever, while a blond dude sitting on a bench took a swig from a waterbottle he held in his right hand, never taking his eyes from me. I recognized him as Doofus Number Two from Jaxon's squad at school.

"This her?" Blonde asked after wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Unfortunately," Redhead remarked dryly.

I leaned back against the doorframe, forcing a smile to my lips.

"You the secretary of this joint?" I asked, nodding my head to the giant desk behind me. "Should let you know now that I prefer tea over coffee. But seriously," I added when Redhead's lip curled into a sneer. "What's up with all this?"

"Doesn't seem as bad as Jaxon claimed," Blonde said to Redhead, completely ignoring my statement. Redhead snorted.

"Our favorite guy said she was with al Hulder. Who knows what kind of drugs they pumped her with."

"Really? After she pulled the alarm at school?"

"Wouldn't tell Jaxon at first who she was with, and didn't return to the apartment until late at night."

"Maybe she might be willing to talk if you'd ask nicely," I snipped casually. Redhead glowered at me while Blonde smiled.

"I'm telling you, she's not on our side," Redhead insisted.

"And I'm telling you that she still looks like shit."

"But you just said-"

Blonde nodded to me before Redhead could say anything else. "You've lost weight since I last saw you - not that you had much to lose to begin with."

I placed a hand on my chest, giving him a sarcastic look.

"You talking to me, now?"

"So you're on Jaxon's side with this?" Redhead exclaimed, refusing to acknowledge me as he glowered at his friend. Blonde rolled his eyes.

"I'm on no one's side-" he began, but even I could see that Redhead just about had it. He faced me with all the hate a guy could muster.

"For heaven's sake, she's a traitor!"