I could be calm about this.

There was no reason why I couldn't be a calm, rational human being.

Except that Alan was looking at me like the cat who had dragged the unmentionable onto my doorstep and was awaiting its praise.

When, really, all I wanted to do was wipe that smug look off his face...

Stop. In these sorts of situations, you just have to take a deep breath, firmly remind yourself that it is wrong to chase animals, children, and the simple-minded with a shovel just because they unintentionally ruin your day... And start cleaning up the mess they have made.

"Okay. I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark here, and say that the cards you destroyed, were not the real ones." I announced bluntly, rubbing my temple to try and ease my straining frown muscles.

Infuriatingly enough, Alan chose to answer with nothing more than a widening grin.

Self-satisfied twit.

"So, what, you just happened to have a whole set of counterfeit cards, all of which were indistinguishable from the originals... "

"Hardly." Apollo scoffed. When I sent a glare at him, the short boy rolled his eyes. "Custom made. Expensive too. I should know, I had to foot the bill."

"... And the point?" I tapped an impatient foot on Nigel's shoulder. "Of going to the elaborate process of faking the cards deaths...?"

"Oh, It's what Mother wanted. "Alan explained cheerfully. "That's why she had Vain destroy the cards because she wanted to have the only keys to the Hill."

"Crazy old hag got suspicious and tried to lock us out." Alex elaborated, looking down at the cards in his hand.

"So you were trying to make her believe that the cards were destroyed... "Artemis said. "..While securing the real cards for yourself?"

"Bingo." Alan cheered, pointing gun fingers at him. "Actually, I didn't think she was going to fall for it, but watching Maddison rip her own card really sealed the deal."

"Right." I rolled my eyes.

Glad to know that my moment of honest heartbreak was so damn convincing.

"Do I want to know how you managed to get my card?" I sighed. "It makes the most sense for you to have exchanged it when you framed me for vandalism..."

And knocked me out cold.

"That would have been too risky." Vain finally chose to speak up, for the singular purpose, of interrupting me. "We couldn't afford for them to mess up, resulting in the real Jack being shrunk with you."

Yea, I can see how that would have been a problem.

" So..?" My fist tightened, instinctively not liking where this was going.

Vain grimaced slightly, obviously aware that I wasn't going to like the answer.

But not answering was just as dangerous, if not even more so.

Finally, he sighed.

"I asked Devin."

It was like a bomb went off in my brain.

Cringing so hard I nearly fell off my perch, it took a moment for me to actually say something in reply.

"You. Did. What!? "

I could forgive many things.

Messing with my baby brother was not one of them.

Watching my escalating fury, Vain's eyes remaining frostily calm.

Until suddenly, they weren't.

"I didn't tell him anything Maddison. All I did was ask him to swap the cards for me. He agreed." He snapped tersely, causing my hackles to rise.

"Just like that? Devin, the queen of respect and diligence, just screwed with my stuff because you asked him to."

Vain's eyes narrowed.

"I don't appreciate you implying that I did something to him when you know I consider him family just as much as you do Maddison."

Why you little...

Teeth gritted in frustration, I forced out a reply.

"No offence Vain, but caring about someone hasn't really been enough to stop you in recent history."

Vain's eye twitched in that alarming way of his, and I started to wished that someone in the group was actually brave enough to stop us.

When Vain spoke again, his words were sharp enough to cut.

"The reason why Devin took my side in this is that he simply trusts my judgement over yours. After a long history of watching me pull you out of danger, he knows I would do anything to keep you safe."

My mouth fell open, something going seriously wrong in the talking mechanism.

"But... I've never even talked to him about the cards before! How would he know- "

"I'm not the first person who thought to use Devin to get your card, Maddison." Vain crossed his arms. "Nor am I the last."

Just like that, my anger at Vain was shoved aside and replace with growing horror.

Staring at Vain in shock, I wanted to ask.

But I didn't need to.

I had seen the bruises.

"I'll kill them." I hissed, hands clenching down on smouldering rage.

Vain sighed, burying his anger under a tired expression.

"Which is exactly why Devin hid this from you in the first place."

"Yea, well," I muttered, suppressing the anger and saving it for when I could do something about it. "As soon as I'm done killing them, he's next. "

Damn it, Devin, you should have told me.

"Alright, enough fighting." Alex finally intervened, stepped past his brother and towards the base of the tree. "The only person who will be killing anyone will be my mother if we don't stop her before she regains access to her system. So I suggest you focus on that for now. "

Right. We're all dead anyway. How could I forget?

"The cards themselves were easy to replicate," Alan explained cheerfully, quickly moving the topic of conversation away from us as Alex selected a card, pressing it flat against the bark of the tree.

"It was the encrypted nano code inside each one that was impossible to mimic. "

After a moment, a mechanical whirl started up, and the ground in front of the tree began to split.

The grass folded in on itself, opening to reveal the trap door entrance to the Hill. All that could be made out was the metallic staircase leading down into the dark.

"Put the card on the tree, and the door will open," I muttered in an eerie voice. "Couldn't have had a lamer entrance if we tried."

Seriously, even Apollo's pool niche was more subtle.

"... At least it's automatic." Nigel reasoned optimistically, causing me to roll my eyes.

"Yea, that puts us on par with most supermarkets."

"You thought it was cool the first time I showed you." Alex sent me back a raised eyebrow.

I grimaced, looking down at the dark hole.

"Maybe it held more appeal when I didn't know that there was a crazy monster lady living down there," I muttered sourly.

From somewhere close by a crow cawed, startling me and my already fried nerves enough to jump.

See, even the wildlife thinks this deserves a spooky atmosphere.

"Think of it as an adventure!" Alan encouraged, happily leading the way down the stairs.

I sighed as the rest of the group begun to follow.

Of course, I wasn't having second thoughts about this... I just would have preferred it if I still had my toothpick or something to defend me...

Gripping Nigel's shirt as the tall boy ducked into the entrance, I forced myself to relax.

Alex followed last, closing the hole behind him with a brush of the same card he had used on the tree against the wall.

...Why did I never question how that even worked?

As soon as the doors closed, the lights travelling down the metallic stairway lit up, bathing us in white light as we made our way down.

"Nice to see the place hasn't changed since my last visit," Artemis commented, a little grimly for the usually polite boy.

"Knowing the people that had free access to this place, I was expecting messages written in blood on the walls and the rest of that horror crap," Apollo muttered. "Then again, Maddison probably doesn't have the literacy skills to accomplish such a thing."

Hey...

Alan jumped the last few steps, strolling into the room below with his arms spread wide.

"Home sweet home." He announced cheerfully, causing Alex to groan as the rest of us finally entered the niche.

The hexagon-shaped room was simple, the only furniture consisting of a desk and chair in the centre.

The walls were made entirely of hexagon-shaped lockers. Each little door had letters on them, indicating which cards could open them.

Most of them were marked K for King, the second most belonging equally to the Q and A.

The J and the backwards J for Joker had the least, only a handful of lockers throughout the entire room.

After discovering used torture tools in the first locker I tried to open, I decided I just didn't want to know.

"This is what everyone is fighting over?" Apollo sent a sceptical glance over the room, looking completely unimpressed.

He had a point. Considering what I had found in my locker, I doubt that there was anything of much value down here...

"Now now, a locked door is appealing in itself." Alan chided, reaching out and taking the King card from his brother's hand.

Swiping his card over one of the lockers, it swung open.

With nothing left holding it in, the huge pile of key cards of every kind flooded onto the floor.

Alan bent over, picking up a single card, and handed it over to Apollo.

"Congratulations! You're now a millionaire! "

Dear Dr Floid,

Please kill me.

Yours sincerely

The biggest idiot in the world.

"Money for the King... So what did you get in your locker Queeny?" Apollo sent Alex a bored look, not seeming that impressed with the valuable card in his hand. "Bread and honey?"

Oh, haha. Go jump off a cliff you rich douchebag.

"You don't want to know. " Alex answered bluntly, snatching the King back from his brother before walking towards the furthest wall.

Some lockers need multiple cards to open.

Alex came to stand in front of one that required all five.

"You told me not to ask about that one," Nigel spoke up quietly, and I nodded in agreement.

"You're about to find out why."

Fanning the cards out, Alex pressed them simultaneously against the locker.

The surface of the locker, and many of the ones surrounding lit up, becoming white with light.

Before sliding in on one another with a mechanical whirl, opening up to reveal a hole in the wall.

"Door." Robyn acknowledge.

Yes.

Door indeed.

The room beyond was ridiculously huge and looked like...

"Oh, my God." I gasped. "It was Vicky all along... "

"Shut up idiot. " Alex sent me a frustrated look. "That's the system."

Well, the system was huge.

The door from our room led to a railing, that had to be forty feet above the ground. The only way to get down was the stairs that circled the circumference of the large room.

A tower stood in the centre of the room, glowing dully blue.

Biggest computer ever.

Even half-dead, the sound it made was loud enough to hurt my ears, the constant thrum of machinery.

Alex pulled out his phone the moment it began to sing, sending me a guarded look as he answered, switching to loudspeaker.

"Peri."

"You need to get Maddison to the controls." Peri's voice came from the phone, sounding more serious than ever before. "Once I can see what's going on your end, we should be able to fully hack our way into her system."

"That's the plan," Alex replied tersely.

So they needed me to be Peri's eyes on the inside.

"Hurry then. We can't stop her from regaining control of the satellite forever."

"Understood," Alex muttered, hanging up the phone.

Finally, a ray of hope...

I registered the odd sound a second an instant before Apollo swore violently behind me.

It sounded almost like...

I turned to see what was going on, seeing Alex leap towards me the same moment Artemis did.

Wings.

I was hit with enough force to wind my scream, sharp claws and black feathers surrounding me.

The next moment I was airborne.

Being rapidly carried away in the crushing grip of a crow.

Along came a blackbird.