It's been a while hasn't it? I've finally updated. I'm sooo sorry, but school is a handful! I hope you like it.

Chapter 12: Trust no one

NARU'S POV

I've downloaded everything from the computer lab onto the drive I brought along. The mission is a success. I check up on the teams. All the vampires were destroyed and the hostages were saved. The Vampire Rebellion Tokyo base has been wiped out. I sigh in relief when suddenly my radio goes off.

"This is Team Captain Sato. Mai Taniyama has disobeyed my orders and left the scene. Her location is unknown. Over." A male voice says.

Leave it to Mai to take matters into her own hands. Peter did warn me about her. I should have put her in my team but Masako insisted we should be in the same team. I couldn't over look her demands, as selfish as they are.

"Kazuya Shibuya speaking, return to your post. I'll go get her. Over."

"Copy." Sato says on the radio.

My good mood is shattered. Mai is definitely a handful. I grab my gun and run over to the manhole she entered. As soon as I'm about to jump in, she comes out of it. I stand there annoyed but secretly relieved she's okay. Wait, relieved? I ignore my inner thoughts as I study her face, she looks nervous. A fresh bruise on her left cheek and a small cut on her chin causes my anger to increase.

"Yay? I'm alive?" She smiles nervously. I pinch the bridge of my nose in attempt to control the anger boiling up inside of me.

"Do you have even the slightest capability of obeying orders Mai?" I say in the most calmest tone I can.

"Yes, but we didn't clear the area... I wanted to make sure the hostages got out first. It'd be reckless to take them along with us, plus they needed medical attention as soon as possible." She says. Did she say reckless?

"Reckless? Mai what you did was reckless. I knew you were an idiot but you have definitely gone past my expectations of an idiot. You're a complete fool. Reckless is not following orders. Reckless is leaving your team to go off on your own. Your mission was to save the hostages and get out. Not go looking for trouble. You could have been seriously hurt or even killed. I'm responsible for you." I glare at her. She glares back twice as hard.

"I can take care of myself. Who do you think you are? I'm not someone to be underestimated you stupid jerk!" Her voice gets louder and louder.

"I'm your employer and I'm responsible for your life. If anything would have happened to you, it'd be on me." I say calmly. I can't believe she doesn't understand what I'm telling her. It's common sense.

"If you're so worried my guardian will sue you if I die, I'll write a letter taking all the blame so you won't feel "responsible". So get off my back." She says. She turns on her heel and walks away. I can't believe how disrespectful she is. She's driven by her emotions and I will not let her bring down my team.

"You're suspended. For a month. Don't come back until you've learned manners and respect." I say. She stops and spins around, wide eyed.

"What?" She says in disbelief. I turn my back on her and walk away. I hear her call out my name, but I ignore her and dismiss the team. I get in the van and Lin drives us home.

When I get home, I take a quick shower and change into my black silk pajamas. Mai is on my mind. I can't seem to stop thinking about how reckless she is. How in the world did she manage to lead Japan's top vampire hunting team when she can't even control her own emotions? She couldn't even lie properly. Before I met her, I thought she was impressive for her age. She has solved over 35 cases successfully, earned a black belt in karate when she was only 12 years old, is a top student in her class and she can handle any weapon without worry. The first few times I met her, I believed she was the first female other than my mentor to impress me, but all of that has washed away now that I'm actually working with her. She does everything on her own, she's reckless and doesn't take her own life in account. She doesn't trust her teammates completely, if she did, she wouldn't try to do everything on her own. She's extremely hard to work with.

Why did she go back on her own? She's a bad liar so it definitely wasn't to clear the area. I walk back and forth in my room. I've always thought something was off about her and her guardian. I just couldn't pin point it. I've done countless background checks on both of them and each time it came back clean. She's hiding something, something that can't get her to trust anyone but herself and Peter. I call Lin and tell him to do another background check on them. Something just doesn't click. I sigh in frustration and go to my study. Enough of Mai. I need to find out what happened to my brother. I sit down at my desk and plug the drive into my laptop. There's hundreds of files. I click on the first one, it's named V BLINK. A bunch of photos and videos of humans tied to chairs pop up. They're being experimented on. It has the experimentees name, birth, height, weight, and medical background. Chris Hemmer is patient 1, he's 24 years old, 6 feet tall and weights 160 pounds. He has dirty blonde hair and green eyes. I click the video to play. A vampire doctor states Chris's age, height, weight, and medical background. He's holding a syringe with purple liquid in it.

"I've managed to fuse human and vampire blood, this is the first human trail. I've obtained a healthy human male with no past medical illnesses." Chris begs the vampire doctor to let him go, the vampire Doctor ignores him and inserts the syringe in his arm. For the first few mins nothing happens. Then Chris suddenly starts screaming. "My brain! My brain is on fire! Someone help me! My brain is on fire!" He screams. He starts bleeding from his eyes, ears and nose. After a minute of disturbing ear piercing screams, he goes limp. The doctor just stands there and waits. After a few minutes, he sighs. "V blink prototype one is a complete failure." The video goes black. I sit there in silence. Then I click the next file. It's going to be a long night.

MAI'S POV

I slam my hotel door shut. What is Naru's problem? Does he have to be a complete douche all the time? I keep replaying the scene is my head. I know I was wrong, but he went above and beyond to punish me. My emotions got the best of me because he just couldn't understand where I was coming from. My parents were killed by the vampire rebellion and they'll do anything to kill me if they know I'm alive, which now they do. I can't control my emotions, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed and I'm scared. I regret flipping out on Naru and letting everything get to me, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And while he was talking to me, the only thing I could think of was the picture I saw of him strapped to a chair. Was he working undercover for the vampire rebellion, is that why he wanted to go in there? To destroy the files? But that wouldn't make sense. He would've just denied the case. Everything's so confusing. I can't trust anyone. That's why I always act alone. But Naru is especially not trustworthy. There's something weird about him, about his name, about who he is and where he came from. I call Yasu. He answers in the second ring.

"Yes pumpkin?" He jokes.

"Hello darling, I need the biggest favor in the world." I say sweetly. I can practically see his smile on the phone.

"Anything for you my love" he says.

"I need you to hack into Naru's database and I need you to do a thorough background check on Naru.. Also one on Lin and Masako too." I say. He's silent for a few moments.

"Did something happen?" He asks, completely serious now.

"There's something fishy about them Yasu. Think about it. They pop out of no where and take over the team. Then we break into the vampire rebellion and annihilate them for what? Two kids? That's definitely not the reason. There's something he's not telling us and I want to know what it is." I say. He's silent again for a few moments, thinking it over.

"Pretty please?" I beg. He sighs deeply.

"I'll look into it.." He says. I squeal in delight.

"Yay! Thanks Yasu I owe you one." I say.

"Yeah yeah, I'll get to work right away boss." He says.

"Okay thanks again." I say and hang up.

I take a hot bubble bath letting everything that happened sink in. My aniexty starts building up. They know that I'm alive. They could be anywhere. My heart races in fear and it becomes hard to breathe. I get up from the tub and wrap my body in a towel. Suddenly I hear a knock on my hotel door. My aniexty continues to rise and I become nausea, I try to calm myself down by breathing in and out slowly but it makes me worse. I feel like I'm dying. My vision gets blurry as I stumble out of the bathroom and into my room. I hear the someone knock on the door again. It's 3am, who could it be? I grab a knife from under my bed. My hair is dripping wet. I wrap the towel around me tighter. I can barely see. Is it someone from the vampire rebellion? Did they find me this quickly? My nausea gets worse and my chest hurts so much that I can barely breathe. The banging on my door gets louder and then my vision goes blank. I drop the knife and pass out on the floor.