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Aran

Mong is red-faced when he arrives. He locks the door behind him and drops to the floor with his back against it, catching his breath.

“Sorry, this wasn’t supposed to happen.” He presses his hands together. He seems to have forgiven our lie easily, but given the circumstances, I don’t blame him. We are in a bit of a situation.

Hex squats down next to him, rubbing his back. “You did good. Don’t worry. And besides, you’re here now, which means we have an extra pair of hands that’s helping us search.”

“What are we searching for, exactly?” Mong asks, pushing off the floor.

“The entrance to the secret labs on the ship. They are doing drug tests there…” Hex hooks a finger at the hallway with the bedrooms. “We already checked the lounge.”

The two of them disappear together in one of the rooms. Hex’s voice rings across the cabin, explaining what we’ve been doing and what we’ve discovered so far. I don’t meddle or try to veto him—he’s already set on being friends with Mong, and I don’t intend to get in the way of that. Besides, introducing someone new into the menace trio might help reel in some of the crazy. Not that Kwanchai, Kieran or I mind it all too much—while they can be a handful, our troublemakers make our days a hundred times more exciting.

I move on from the room I’ve just finished checking to what looks to be an entertainment corner. It’s technically part of the hallway, though the space is wider and tucked into the space near the stairs that lead to the second floor. Two modular leather couches crest a TV with a gaming console linked to it, while a minibar occupies the free wall. It comes with a bar counter, and a tall fridge and shelves with alcohol and snacks behind it.

I find the whole setup a little peculiar, considering a fully equipped kitchen is right over there, in the second room. I also don’t remember seeing anything about such a layout in any of the blueprints we were handed, but maybe that’s normal? If Claire Streiss is at the center of this, then she’s not just a VIP, she is one of those running this show. If she wanted a minibar in the hallway, then she’d get it fitted all right.

Still, I can’t chase away this odd feeling. It’s not the minibar so much that’s causing it, but that gigantic fridge. What are they even keeping there? I understand needing space for some fruit, soda and ice, but this goes beyond that.

Needing to solve that mystery before I get to the one that actually matters, I circle the counter and open the massive appliance. It’s one of those American style fridge-freezers that comes with two vertical doors… and it’s completely empty. It’s also turned off.

That’s strange. Why have a fridge, and one as big as this, if you won’t even use it?

Maybe they were in the middle of restocking it, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. But as I look closely, I notice that not only is it tall, but it’s also way deeper than it looked from outside. In fact, it’s so deep, most of it must be built into an area of the wall that has been removed.

“Whoa, that’s huge!” Hex gasps, hugging me from behind. “I bet if you removed the shelves, it can easily fit two people.”

Hex is spot on. But his observation raises another question—if, hypothetically, this fridge is meant to store bodies, why is it off? What about a lock, so no one can open it? And where are those bodies?

Before I can voice any of that, Hex has removed a bunch of the shelves and crawled inside the fridge. There is plenty of space even with him inside, but that’s not what grabs my attention. It’s the hollow sound that the back surface makes when he accidentally knocks his elbow against it.

“Yoo! There’s something behind it!” he chirps excitedly, swiveling around until he’s sat cross-legged facing it.

Mong and I remove the rest of the shelves from the top portion of the fridge, while he examines the area. A click sounds when his fingers run over a slightly protruding square which is hidden behind the thermostat, and shortly after a seam bisects the back panel, splitting it into two. Both parts then slide away to designated compartments to the side of the fridge and a dimly lit tunnel appears in the gap.

“I bet ten thousand yen that this leads to the secret labs,” Hex says, diving into the tunnel.

I send Mong after him, going last so I can close the fridge. I hear clicking and clanking when I press on the square button once I’ve gone through the gap, and the two panels slide back into place. The shelves are all stacked against the side of the fridge, which would be strange to anyone who opened it, but unless they know it doubles as the entrance to the off-limits part of the ship, they’ll just scratch their heads and move on.

“Aran, are you coming?” Hex’s voice echoes in the narrow space, ringing off the empty walls and low ceiling.

I jog through the tunnel to catch up. The space is illuminated by equally spaced blue lights that probably change to red in the case of an emergency. Fortunately, they hold out as we reach the end of the tunnel, where a biometric scanner and a reinforced door await. Security hasn’t found the bodies yet—we still have time.

Hex and Mong step to the side so I can access the door controls. Taking out Claire’s eye, I hold it to the scanner and hope it works.

[Eye scan completed. Please proceed to voice recognition.]

I blanch, gawking at the device. Fuck. Did I remember to record her talking before I killed her? I’m not sure. I don’t think I did. I was so agitated and furious when I heard how hard Hex was trying to keep it together… His voice was so weak and shaky, so scared, and yet he didn’t let himself break down. He carried his weight, standing next to me like an equal in this mission.

God, he’s grown so much. He’s amazing. Yet I let my emotions get the better of me, so focused on making her pay for what she tried to do to him…

Fuck! What do we do now? We are stuck because of me.

“Ahem.” Hex clears his throat. “Let me squeeze through, or are we going to just stand here?”

I whip my head back and stare at him. He smiles sweetly, playfully, wickedly , his lovely brown eyes sparkling with pride as he pulls out Claire’s tablet.

“You looked very murderous when you came to save me. And then you kind of lost it in the middle of interrogating her, so I…” He licks his lips and winks at me. “I thought you might get carried away and forget to record her voice in case we needed it, so I did it instead.”

He plays the file, making me relive my failure to conduct myself professionally once more. But that’s fine, it’s not the end of the world that it should have been, because Hex had my back. Because he makes up for my shortfalls. He’s not a damsel in distress, he’s never been one, even if I tried to fool myself that he was so I could justify clinging to an old promise. So I could fight what I truly wanted because I was afraid I didn’t deserve it.

Yes, he needs protecting sometimes, yes, he can be a bit oblivious and too trusting of people, but that’s just who he is. That’s where I come in to complete him, just like he completes me.

I hug him so tightly he almost drops the tablet. I can’t help it, my entire being demands I hold him even if just for a few moments. It’s needed so I can be me again, so I can move past a mistake I should’ve never made, so I can fill myself with his scent and his warmth.

Hex sighs in contentment, sagging in my arms as I support his weight. Joy floods me, uncontrollable and overwhelming, but with effort, I manage to stash it for later so I can show him just how irreplaceable he’s to my world.

[Identification completed. Welcome, Claire Streiss.]

The robotic voice interrupts the blissful moment. We separate abruptly, a tinge of charming red painting Hex’s cheeks. He’s always been so confident, so levelheaded and stubborn when it comes to his interest in me, and seeing him flustered because I did something he didn’t expect is a delight.

“You’re playing dirty, Aran,” he accuses me when he notices me staring. “It’s unfair.”

His lovely pout makes me yearn to kiss him, but as the door opens, I once again force myself to leave that for later. We are so close now to the truth, mere steps away from solving this conspiracy.

“I’ll compensate you. Later.” I go in first this time, finding myself at the top of a white staircase.

I can hear machinery from below, hissing and clanking. It smells sterile, like a hospital. I know straight away that we are in the right place, but as we climb down and go through the glass sliding doors to find what we’ve been looking for, I don’t know what to make of our discovery.

Because this is no ordinary drug lab. With all the unconscious people lying in cots hooked to IV drips, it looks like the testing grounds for human experiments.