“So… what are they going to do exactly?” I asked my mother.

“They will get an initial scope of the place and report back,” she replied.

Of course, I understood why those two were going. As fae, they were the least likely to be detected and set off alarms. The IBSI could detect witches in their vicinity. Fae were a species that they had much less experience with, because, thankfully, fae had not paid Earth much attention. It seemed that the main attraction the human realm had for them was for collecting ghosts to deliver to the ghouls. But that pact had been broken long ago. There had certainly been no sightings and no major natural disasters that we had reason to believe they were the cause of.

More of our group—including Brock, Arwen, Grace and Heath—came to sit with us in the control room and together we gazed out of the window, our eyes fixed on the headquarters’ entrance. This became pretty tedious after a while. Grace rummaged in one of the compartments and found a card game, which we busied ourselves with, but we got tired of that too as the hours passed.

After three hours, we were starting to feel anxious.

“Do you think something could have happened?” Sofia asked.

“I doubt that,” Derek said—the calmest of all of us. “Remember, this place is huge. It will take them a long time to look around thoroughly.”

And so we continued to wait and watch and fidget. Arwen and Brock slipped away toward the back of the vehicle after another half hour. Since Corrine was here, and it seemed Arwen still hadn’t told her about Brock, they were keeping things more low key. The rest of us lapsed back into conversation. Then, as I stood up to stretch my legs and gazed around the jungle again, something caught my eye through the trees.

“What’s that?” I whispered, pressing my face against the window to get a closer look.

“What?” my mother asked. Everyone shot up from their chairs and looked to where I was indicating, to the left of our vehicle. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d seen myself, but it had been movement. Something moving. “It could’ve just been an animal,” I began, before a group of five men in IBSI uniforms emerged through the trees. They were carrying a large metal case. We watched with bated breath as they passed us and walked toward the headquarters’ entrance.

“I wonder what they’re carrying in that case,” Rose murmured.

“And where exactly they’re dragging it from,” Grace added.

I frowned. Grace had a point. I had seen from the chopper that to the west was nothing but jungle for miles and miles.

The hunters soon disappeared through the entrance, and we were left with nothing to look at again. None of us could think of much of an explanation, so our speculations fizzled out and gave way to silence until Ben and Lucas finally returned. I could already tell from their expressions that their excursion had not been successful.

Making themselves solid, they both slumped down into seats. “Nothing really to report,” Ben said. “We probably roamed through fifty laboratories. We checked bottles and ingredients, couldn’t make out what most things were for the life of us. Also checked residential quarters. They have a massive underground compound for mutants, though that’s nothing new. We didn’t manage to eavesdrop on any pertinent conversations. I would suggest, however,” Ben added, “that we try again at a different time of day. We’re here now, so I suggest we stay the night. Lucas and I can enter again tonight. If we still have no luck, then I guess we’ll all just return to the island.”

“All right,” Derek said. “Does anyone have any objections to that?”

Everyone shook their heads.

Nightshade, our helicopter-cum-tank, was equipped with bunks, and there were also toiletry supplies and plenty of food and water. I ended up sharing a double bunk with Grace. Around eleven PM, after Ben and Lucas left again, we snuggled up next to each other on the mattress.

I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Good night,” I whispered.

“Yeah…” she said, smirking. “Like either of us is gonna get any sleep.”

She had a point. My mind was too alert now that we were here, just outside the IBSI headquarters. Grace especially would be worrying about her father.

We ended up chatting late into the night to take our minds off the wait. We talked about school, mostly, before I broached the topic of Heath. To counteract this, she quickly changed the topic to my “love life”.

“Well, Vicky?” she asked, propping her head up against the pillow. “Do you really not fancy anyone on the island?”

I smiled at her, then shrugged. It wasn’t like I avoided boys. I had a lot of male friends whom I was close to. I guessed I just hadn’t found that “spark” yet… whatever that even was. I told Grace this, and there honestly wasn’t much more to say on the subject.

We continued chatting about other things until I took a break to go to the toilet. On my way back, I stopped by the fridge to grab a cold bottle of water. I was about to return to the bunk when Kyle, who had still been sitting in the control room, called, “More of them.”

Everyone jumped out of bed and hurried to the control room. Indeed, we saw more of those uniformed hunters. There were eight this time, carrying two large metal cases between them. I guessed they contained equipment of some kind, maybe weapons. But, again, where were they coming from? It made no sense.

As they disappeared into headquarters, we were once again left to our speculations. Only this time, Rose said, “I want to go take a look through those trees.”