Once again the night was filled with darkness as the Moon and its companions hid behind the dark clouds, refusing to come out and shower the world with their beautiful silvery light.

Evil had always been connected to the darkness as if they were sworn brothers and destined to accompany each other till eternity.

In the shade of the darkness, the evil spread its wings as it readied itself for a long flight.

"Master, the elite team of the SA is still searching the city. They have also closed all the exits of the city."

A man entered the dimly lit room and informed his boss about the outside situation.

The said master clenched his hands into tight fists before punching into the wooden table that was resting in front of him, easily breaking it into many parts as a result.

"Who knew that this girl would end up in the protection of not only the Alessandro family but also the Sullivan family? It's like the more we are trying to catch her, the more protection she is receiving!"

The man was clearly furious with the current situation.

The order that he received before coming to City A, was still clearly fresh in his mind. He knew that other than catching the girl and handing her over to his boss, he had no other choice left.

If he failed in his mission, he and his entire team would be swiped out within a blink.

"Call back all our men. We will need to stay lowkey these few days. We will recuperate in the time being and plan our next move. It's going to be even harder to catch her after these incidents."

The boss ordered his man who immediately left to carry out the order.

Another person emerged from the shadows as he moved to sit on the empty chair beside the boss.

"Do you think that the three grand families of City A are working together?" The man asked as he moved his hand over the broken pieces of the table, one by one gluing them together with his power.

"It's not impossible. Even though the three families are not actual enemies but it still looks impossible for them to suddenly start working as one." The boss replied with a shake of his head.

"You have a point. But then what can be the explanation of Sullivan's involvement in the last three incidents?" The man questioned as he finished fixing the table which was looking as new as it possibly could.

"I can only think of one explanation." The boss whispered as his fingers grazed the smooth surface of the table.

The man did not voice out his question as he waited for the boss to continue.

"The three families are probably aware of the secret of the girl and just like us, they want to keep her under their power."

***

"Morning!"

The chirpy sound that definitely did not belong to any human being pulled Emily out of her thoughts.

She was reading her notes and analyzing the assignment that she was supposed to submit when Rylan poked her arm with his pen and wished her a good morning.

"Morning."

She replied before she once again returned her focus on her assignment.

There were still around fifteen minutes left before the class would officially start, meaning that she and Rylan were the only ones present in the classroom.

"Hey! Can you please not ignore me like that? To be honest, it hurts my ego." Rylan complained as he frowned at the girl.

"What do you want?" Emily asked as she did not even raise her face to look at the man.

Rylan stood up from his seat and settled down on the one in front of her, facing towards her so that she could easily look at him.

"You remember about our deal, right?" He asked as he watched her flipping through the pages of her notebook.

Emily just nodded her head in reply. She was about to continue ignoring him when she suddenly changed her mind and asked, "Have you completed your assignment?"

"Assignment?"

The questioning tone and his raised eyebrows made Emily sigh as she just buried her face back into her notes.

"Hey! What assignment?" Rylan pulled her notebook out of her hands to make her focus on him.

Emily glared at him before she snatched her notebook back as she asked, "Do you even pay any attention to the class and the teacher? How come you have no clue that we are supposed to submit our assignments by tomorrow?"

"Really? When did that old freak give us an assignment? Shane did not tell me anything about it!" Rylan muttered as he scratched his chin in a daze.

Emily just shook her head before she again started revising her notes.

On the other hand, Rylan quickly sent a message to Shane.

It did not take long before his best buddy appeared at the door of the classroom.

Along with him were a few more students, who were commonly known as nerds since they paid extra attention to their studies, homework, and marks in comparison to the others.

"Hey, dude! What's the matter?" Shane asked as he pulled a chair close to their seats and settled down beside them.

Emily looked up from her book and found a familiar-looking person sitting beside her.

"You....? I have seen you with him at the mall." She said as she tried to read his body language.

To be honest, even though he was a friend of Rylan, he looked as normal and harmless as one could.

However, the fact that he was Rylan's friend made it impossible for him to be any sort of normal.

"Hey, I'm Shane. Rylan's best friend." The boy introduced himself with a little wave of his hand.

"Emily."

She introduced herself in return as she replied to his hello with a little wave of her own.

"Since the two of you are well acquainted with each other now, can we pay attention to the main point?" Rylan commented as he glared at the two of them.

"Oh, right? Why did you call me here so early? There are still nearly eight minutes left before that old freak will appear here to ruin our mornings." Shane scoffed as he checked the time.

"Did she give us some sort of assignment in the last few days?" Rylan asked as he watched Emily once again ignoring them.

"Yeah, she did. We are supposed to submit the assignments by tomorrow." Shane replied with a casual tone.

"What? Why did you not tell me anything about it?" Rylan almost shouted in panic as he stared at his friend in pure shock.

Shane looked at his best friend with a confused expression as he replied, "Dude, I barely attend this class. I got to know about the assignment thing thanks to Megg. Moreover, what's the point in telling you about it, not like you would have cared. You don't need to worry, I already told Megg to do our assignments."

A sigh of relief left Rylan's lips as he relaxed into his seat.

"That's good. I seriously don't want that old freak to complain about me to my brother. But as long as Megg will complete the assignment on time, everything is good." He said while patting his friend on his shoulder.

"You never need to worry about that old freak. I have got your back." Shane added as he gave a huge smile to his friend.

"She has a name, you know!"

Emily just could not hold it in anymore as she commented before once again dragging her attention to her notes.

She was barely paying any attention to what she was reading as almost all of her attention was grabbed by the nonsense of the two boys sitting around her.

"She has?"

The question made Emily turn her attention towards the boy who was looking at her with genuine surprise.

She felt her mouth opening but no word came out. Was he joking?

In the end, she just shook her head and returned her attention back to her notes, even though she was no longer interested in reading them anymore.

"Are you disappointed in me?" Rylan asked curiously.

Emily closed her notebook before she looked at the silver-haired boy sitting in front of her.

"Nope. I'm actually surprised that I even considered helping you in your studies. Because from what I'm seeing right now, you are totally hopeless."

"Ouch! Such harsh words." Shane said as he pitied his friend who was glaring at Emily.

"You are taking over your brothers' bad personality. It's not good for you." Rylan muttered in a tone that almost sounded like he was pitying the young girl.

Before Emily could realize what was happening, the notebook in her hand had already smacked Rylan across his face.

The sound echoing through the entire classroom which suddenly became dead silent.

Just when everyone was prepared to see Rylan's angry state, they were left surprised to see him just glaring at the new girl childishly.

He was silent for a few minutes before he finally muttered, "I'm gonna complain about you to my brother. Just wait!"