ALEC

He became more awake and aware of himself as his consciousness gradually returned. The first thing he was made aware of was his seated position; he was in a dark room, not the same one as before, this one was smaller, with more compact walls.

He tried to move—but that turned out to be a bad idea as soon as he felt the sharp sting of the metal wired restraints around his wrists bite into his skin, tied behind his back, around an iron mast sticking up from the ground, and making it nearly impossible to move his arms.

He didn't know how long he had been out—but his shoulders ached from the position they had been forced to bend back in. Aching, but not yet to the point where it was painful. That had to mean he hadn't been tied like that for too long...

Who the hell had knocked him out?

Where was Maize?

Alec tried shifting ever so slightly to survey his surroundings, but even the slightest shuffle of his wrists caused the metal wires to tighten and dig into flesh to the point where if he moved any further, he was sure they would slice through a layer of skin and draw blood.

Fuck, he mentally cursed. What the hell was happening?

His mind flashed back to the scar-eyed man—who was he? How the hell did he know Maize? What happened to Maria?

Where was Kishan?

The door to his left a few meters away from him unlocked with an audible click. Alec tensed, unable to see who was entering until they pushed the large door open and came into view.

That's when he thought he felt his heart stop in his chest.

There, in perfect condition; unharmed and unhindered, Kishan stood there in the doorway, staring at him.

He's alright! Alec couldn't see any injuries on his friend. And he was here—that meant their theory had been right, Kishan was here and they had found him alive. He almost breathed a sigh of relief.

Until he stopped himself.

Kishan wasn't being followed in by any guards, he didn't have cuffs or ties on his arms—in fact, he held them behind his back on pure will.

That's when Alec realized it wasn't a blank look Kishan was giving him—but a tantalizing one. There was odd mischief shifting in his eyes when there shouldn't have been.

"Kishan...what—" he began slowly, his voice more strained than he had expected and uncomfortably dry in the dusty room, before he was cut off.

"Have a nice sleep?"

The calm tone of Kishan's voice as he closed the solid door behind him caused Alec to freeze before Kishan then smiled right at him, almost sheepishly—if not for the look in his eyes as he spoke.

"Sorry...that was my bad I'm afraid."

"What?" Alec paused and furrowed his eyes at Kishan's completely relaxed posture. He wasn't making a move to help him, didn't even look at all concerned. A pit of dread began to seep into Alec's stomach. "The hell are you talking about?" he questioned incredulously.

Kishan walked over until he stood directly in front of him—at what would have been within arm's reach had Alec actually had access to move his arms. "I see...you're a little slow to catch on," he murmured with a smile that was unlike the regular Kishan Alec knew. He spoke like he was talking down to a child, condescendingly, explaining something as if there was no hope that they'd understand but wanted to know anyway. "I guess you did just get slammed in the head...I'll give you a moment to figure it out."

All Alec could do was stare at him in shock, not quite breathing as he tried his best to keep his features calm.

"It was you..." he breathed after several seconds of reeling. "You..."

You attacked Hill...you brought her here.

Kishan smiled. "There you go, I knew you'd figure it out." His smile then turned sideways. "Though—a little too late I'm afraid."

The final truth of Kishan's words seemed to hit like a crushing weight, like the slam of a door, sudden and harsh."You mean...it was all you...you've been lying...from the very beginning!" He exclaimed with a mix of both shock and anger. How was that even possible?

"Correct."

One word, a single confirmation, and suddenly it was like a cold feeling coiling around his chest like a sharp bite, fangs that sunk in, and sunk in deep. For a moment Alec felt nothing but blind shock. Before it turned into cold-hearted fury.

Kishan had been the one who abducted Hill in the tunnels, he had given her that head injury. Kishan had...been playing them this entire time? He was working for Zmeya?

How? Why?

Why would he...

He was running from the gang wasn't he? That was the whole reason they were assigned to protect him.

They.

"Where the hell is Maize?" Alec demanded quickly, his voice seeping with anger.

Kishan, unaffected by the absolute look of murderous fury written in Alec's eyes, shrugged nonchalantly. "Elsewhere," he brushed off without much thought before he gave Alec a pointed downward look. "But I'd be more concerned about yourself at the moment..."

Alec's wrists were bleeding now, his skin having broken under the strain the wires brought as he jerked against them with enough anger to want to strangle Kishan right then and there. Maybe it was a good thing he no longer had his gun on him—otherwise, he wasn't sure what he would have done with it.

He couldn't believe this.

"You bastard...you attacked your own partner!" Alec roared, thinking back to Maria and the state they had found her in. Had he done that himself?

Kishan remained nonchalant as he began casually pacing in a circle before him. "I had no choice—I really did think she had died back when I staged that 'escape' from the warehouse..." he said almost bitterly. "Damn, that really did throw a wrenching into my plans—you don't know how stressful it was having to keep up such an act around her in addition to the both of you. Her turning up was an unexpected pain."

"She trusted you!" Alec shouted. We all did!

Kishan seemed to consider that for a moment, and then he chuckled to himself. "She did, didn't she? To bad the woman happened to hear me say something I really shouldn't have out loud which accidentally tipped her off to the whole secretly working behind your backs thing," Kishan chuckled wistfully, as if he was merely talking about a prankish jest. "Naturally, I couldn't just let her go after that..."

Alec knew he was shaking with fury, he could feel the strain in his shoulders and the sting in his wrists, and it took all he had not to roar profanities at Kishan for every word he spoke.

"I don't...I don't understand...why the hell would you go through all of this?!" He questioned incredulously, still reeling with the initial shock and that fact that a friend he thought he had trusted for years had suddenly turned on them all, betrayed them all, and was now speaking as if he was a completely different person. This wasn't him.

Not the Kishan he remembered.

'That's just it...back in the academy, I was the reckless kid who made a lot of idiot decisions—that I'd didn't admit to at the time. Kishan was the one looking out for me and who made sure I didn't get too far out of hand...'

'I'm serious, Maize, he's...changed...somehow. I didn't really notice it before, but this kind of behaviour is really unlike him.'

The words he had said to Maize and the concern he had expressed about Kishan came back to him then. He had noticed something had seemed off about him, he said so himself.

But he never would have expected this.

The gaze that Kishan regarded him with was nothing like the good-natured joker that he had been throughout their entire mission—but then again, had all that had been a lie? Just an act?

"Good question...I, honestly, really couldn't tell you," Kishan replied with a relaxed shrug. "I was hired, that's all I can say on my part, and I followed the rules I was given."

"Rules you were given?" Alec repeated incredulously. "You created this entire fake mission—for what?!"

"Fake?" Kishan tilted his head to the side and furrowed his gaze at him. "Oh no, not quite. Half of Zmeya really does want me dead—it wouldn't have been as convincing if they didn't. And in order to get my story in play, certain a aspects had to be upmost believable..."

Kishan then blew out a terse sigh, huffing and crossing his arms like a pouty child in the face of an argument. "None of those morons even realize who they were working for. I'm still mad that one of them managed to shoot me in Mexico—now that had been a literal pain."

"So you were behind all of it?" Alec questioned spitefully, ignoring Kishan's complaints. "The reason we kept getting found? Was the attack of Ryder's just a ploy?" he demanded, and was surprised when Kishan winced.

"That was...not planned—apparently. It's honestly quite complicated and I really don't feel like getting into it, but, yes, I was responsible for the other stuff. I kept my boss well informed of our status when you and Maize weren't around. I kept acting like the moronic guy because no one ever suspects the idiot, right?" he shrugged. "Oh, and while I'm confessing all my sins, I did go searching through that Ryder guy's room too—did you know his entire wardrobe is entirely black? Unfortunately, that was about all I could find out about him. That and some old picture he had."

The way he was playing off every little confession like it was nothing—as if it had merely been a part of some frivolous innocent game had Alec burning with anger.

"I can't believe you..." Alec breathed incredulously, finding himself unable to understand."What the hell was your goal here?"

What was the purpose of all this? He had just realize that the mission he thought he had been on to protect a friend had turned out to be nothing more than some sick twisted game of lies and double crosses—and he wanted to know why.

"It wasn't my goal, so I honestly, again, couldn't tell you," Kishan responded calmly. At this point, he stopped pacing and regarded Alec directly. "But this was never about any of us...Not you, not me, not Hill—no we're all just players in the game...."

His eyes looked up and glinted with fact. "This all ties back to Daiyu—or as we know her; Maize Ember."

What?

His mind flashed back to the scar-eyes man and the look on Maize's face when she saw him.

"Where is she?!" Alec demanded again as his mind processed everything he was being told. He didn't know what Kishan was talking about—or why he called her that name—all he knew was he needed to find Maize, find Hill, and get them both hell out of here.

Kishan didn't heed his demands. "What good will it do you to know?" he asked with a skeptic eyebrow. "You're clearly not going anywhere."

Alec mentally cursed. "Damn you! You fucking lying piece of sh—"

"Yikes—" Kishan grimaced, "—I would complain that you can't possibly kiss your mother with that mouth...but then I remembered."

If possible Alec's fury rose tenfolds. "Fucking asshole! How could you?!" He exclaimed with disbelief. "We've known each other for a long time—you were a good guy!"

"Sorry. But it came down to it; it was you or me. And I chose me."

"You son of a bitch," Alec growled.

Kishan put on a mock display of offence and pressed a hand to his chest."Now that hurts."

"When I get out of here I'm going to hurt you a lot more," Alec seethed, struggling against his ties.

Instead of retorting like he had expected, Kishan's face went oddly slack and his posture calmed.

"It's funny...but you actually saved my life in a way..." Kishan began and Alec faltered.

"What are you talking about?"

"That mission the bureau sent me on. Did you know it was bound to fail and get me killed sooner or later?" He asked with a breathy laugh. "Funny because I didn't either. Not until I was already in too deep up to my neck. I knew I was going to die eventually—the bureau kept pushing for me to keep digging, get in deeper. They kept demanding things, and once I finished them, they'd demanded for even more. They didn't care about my life, it was all about how catching the head of the gang would look for them.

"But...as it turns out...somehow it was my old connection to you that changed it all. The reason the boss chose to hire me—turns out he had known who I was from the beginning, and instead of killing me he offered me a job. You see, he needed someone who could fabricate a story, go to New York, and seek out his target inconspicuously. He knew that's where Maize was, I knew that's where you were too...and we did some research, turns out you two show up on more crime scenes together than you do apart, so I knew if I brought you, she would get involved sooner or later. How lucky for me when she ended up showing up with you, huh?

"You're the reason I was hired—just like how it was because of you that got to the FBI in the first place..." Kishan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You know what, I'm kinda getting sick of owing things to you—even if I am happy about my current employment. Did I mention I get paid so much better working here?" He laughed. "You see that's what they don't tell you when you sign up to become a cop; it's richer to work for the bad guys."

Alec stared at him. He couldn't believe what he was hearing—everything he was just told.

"Fucking hell...what happened to you?" he asked Kishan with disbelief.

"What?" Kishan tilted his head to the side and smirked. "Am I not the same as I've always been? I am sorry things had to turn out this way. If I had known taking this job would have led to you getting roped in like this—well, yes, I still would have gone through with it—but I'd probably feel even worse about it than I do now."

"You're a fucking bastard you know that?" Alec seethed quietly, trembling with silent rage.

"Now, now. I'd save the insults for later—I'm not the real bad guy here if you think about it," he said.

"Then who is?"

Kishan's smile was wide, flashing white teeth and glinting dark eyes. "I'm sure he's busy right now. Apparently, he and miss bounty hunter have a lot to catch up on."

Help me—my execution of this whole thing is so awful but I'm literally working with a writer's block and idk what else to do...Please tell me where it's the most terrible so I know where to fix it when I have a brain.