"I hope everyone enjoyed the fashion show by Yuzuha Hitachiin and I'm honoured to be your host tonight." Akito started his speech and I listened to him and my jaw dropped.

The annoying nephew I once knew had been totally replaced by a well-educated prince and with shock I realised what kind of situation I would be into if Akito would recognize me, things would get really bad if that were to happen…

Intuitionally I quickly grabbed Taka-niichan's arm and hid behind his wide back. If he was surprised about my actions, he didn't show it and didn't ask question but instead straightened his back to make himself even longer so that no one would see me.

Grateful I placed my head against his back as a silent thank you and to my surprise Taka-niichan stiffened. It seemed like the other host club members hadn't noticed anything. Akito kept talking, what felt like an eternity.

I was afraid he would never shut up but then he thanked his guests and an applaud followed.

"Akito-sama is getting really good at his speeches, right, Takashi?" Mitsu-niichan asked.

"Indeed." And he turned around to face me but I had already left the room. Worried Taka-niichan frowned.

I had left the room as soon as the speech had ended and Akito got distracted by people whom congratulated him. I tried to close the door silently.

"Haruhi-sama?" Arata's voice asked from behind me.

With a squeal of surprise I jumped up and turned around. "Arata!" I hissed, signing him to whisper.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered.

"What do you think I'm doing here?" he whispered back, I looked at him and noticed he was also wearing a costume just like the other guests present at the party.

"You're here for the party?" I asked.

Arata sighed and went with his hand through his black hair. "Yes…Yes, I'm here to party." He said slightly sarcastic and grabbed my hand. "Now, let's get out of here before someone notice us." He sighed again. "I didn't expect for that stupid prince to show up.

"You didn't?"

"My sources weren't accurate enough."

"Your sources?" I repeated, I never had thought about how Arata actually got his information. If he doesn't find his information himself that means he isn't working alone, right? So that meant more people knew my real identity?

We ran down a staircase. God, this manor is big.

The party was being held in one of the manors of the royal family, apparently my family has a lot of such manors. I don't understand why it always has to be so big.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"We're going to the garden, there is a car parked nearby, I placed it there just in case. I'm going to bring you back home." Arata answered.

"Wait!" I said and pulled my hand away while I stopped running. "I can't just leave the party. My friends will get worried, I'm first going to say goodbye."

For one moment, it ended to fast so I'm not sure if it was my imagination or not but I thought saw signs of annoyance on Arata's face. "Haruhi-sama, you're safety is top priority, right now, you can apologize tomorrow but if Akito's people find us now there won't be a tomorrow for us." He said. "If Akito wouldn't have shown up, it wouldn't be necessary to leave but that's not the case now." He explained. "With Akito here, you're in great danger."

I hesitated about going back and Arata took a step closer, he reached his hand out to my face but stopped before he touched me.

"Haruhi-sama, I…" He hesitated and clenched his hand into a fist. "I – "

Suddenly the sound of a trigger being pulled echoed through the hallway and Arata's reaction followed immediately, he placed the hand that already had been near my face behind my head while he wrapped his other arm around my waist and turned us around in a swift movement so that he was facing the bullet now.

The bullet grazed his shoulder, the place where my head had been just a moment ago.

"Arata!" I yelled as I saw that the fabric became red with blood.

"Don't mind it. We have to get away from here." He said, he stayed surprisingly calm under the circumstances, this time I didn't refuse to follow him.

We just passed a corner when a bullet hit the wall, I looked over my shoulder and saw one of the security guards point his gun at us.

"They aren't afraid that the guests will notice this?" I asked Arata, between two gasps for air.

Arata laughed. "Like they would care, even if someone would see us, they wouldn't help us out of fear for the royal family." He replied while we ran through a corridor.

The sound of more running footsteps came from behind us, Arata stopped and I thought he had started to panic but instead he opened one of the doors in the corridor and pushed me inside.

"I'll lead them away, don't come out until I'm back." Arata sadi and he left me alone in the dark room. I heard him run away, followed by others.

"They are going into the direction of the garden! Sent reinforcements!" a voice reported.

A second group of footsteps followed and another one after that, after ten minutes had passed, everything went silent.

How!? How did they know I would attend the party tonight? How!?

I knew I shouldn't have come!

I wanted to hit the door with my fists in frustration but kept silent, afraid they would find me.

"Don't come out until I'm back, he says," I repeated him out loud. "What the…"

'Haruhi, don't come out until Ryouji is home, all right? Be a good girl.' My mother patted my head before she closed the door of the wardrobe.

I closed my eyes. "Mom…" I said. "What would you do?"

I opened my eyes again and looked at the door. Thinking about what my mother would do gave me new strength and I felt myself getting angry at Arata, always bossing me around!

"Does he really think I'm just going to sit here and wait till he dies?!" I asked the door in anger. "Like hell I'm going to sit here and cry!"

I opened the door and checked the corridor, it was completely empty.

That person had said that Arata was going to the garden, it shouldn't be too difficult to find it. Though I still felt sorry for Tama-niichan and the others, Arata was more important right now.

Afraid that I would get unwanted attention I decided not to run around recklessly but to walk and to check every hallway for people. I went into the direction of what I thought that was the right one until I heard faint gun shots coming from another direction.

I forgot everything about being careful and ran into the direction the shooting came from.

Please, let Arata be all right!

But then I heard running footsteps behind me, slightly panicking I started to run harder.

They cannot find me!

While I ran through the hallway, a hand suddenly grabbed my wrist and pulled me into another hallway. I was too surprised to scream when the stranger pulled me close and covered my mouth with one hand, the other hand stopped me from moving.

"Be quite." A voice whispered in my ear. The voice sounded rather familiar but it wasn't Arata's.

Through the hallway, where I just had been running through a moment ago, ran some security guards to the direction I had been heading to. The sound of guns being fired had stopped.

When the men passed, my saver relaxed and released me. I turned around and gasped.

"Good evening, Haurhi." Akito greeted me smiling. "It's been awhile."

"A-A-Akito?!" I managed to say, things just went from bad to worse.

He smiled a boyish grin. "My excuses for surprising you."

My lips moved but there didn't came any sound from my mouth.

Akito laughed softly but stopped abrupt when we heard more footsteps coming. Akito grabbed my wrist again.

"Let's go!" he said and started to run while dragging me with him.

What the hell is going on?!

^_^ the story is progressing really good and I got a lot of new ideas for the next chapters, I might ask you guys to vote for the second host who finds out her secret (I already decided whom finds out first) but that's for later, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I want to thank everyone for the nice reviews ^_^