Noah clutched his bleeding arm where the blade had sliced through his skin as cleanly as through paper, an inch-long wound. It was all he could thought to do as Gula's blade had swished through the air, to hold up his arms in defence. She had pushed straight past Ollie in direct denial of his request to talk and attacked Noah directly.

As soon as the blade had cut through the skin of his arm, Robyn had immediately grabbed a hold of his arm and pulled him towards one of the shelves. This was where the two of them were now, crouching down behind the alleyways of bookshelves. Gula had initially made to follow but Noah had watched Ollie leap forward to grab her arm before they had disappeared behind the shelves.

The Hearthome library was always bigger than one would suspect as its shelves connected floor to ceiling and hid the full size of the room. This type of design had made somewhat of a maze if one disappeared into the corners of the library. The library itself occupied a lot of the first floor of the Administrators building as when it was first constructed, they had knocked down inner walls to expand the library itself.

Noah wasn't feeling well at all. His eye socket was pulsing in pain, matching the pain in the back of his head. Both these throbbing lances of pain were more prevalent than the fresh injury to his arm. He still felt sick and exhausted. He could feel himself getting worse and worse with every moment. Just what was wrong with him?

"Noah… You don't need to hide," Gula's voice called out.

From beside Noah, Robyn flinched. Her hands were shaking slightly, and she was pale but otherwise seemed okay. She opened her mouth to talk but Noah quickly put a finger against his lips. Robyn got the message and nodded. Noah put his eye against a gap in the bookshelf over the bindings of books to see Gula standing in the middle of the library. Thankfully the library seemed completely empty of everyone else which wasn't too surprising as it wasn't the most popular place in Hearthome. Noah could see Penelope had pushed herself against the wall and was watching Gula warily, but the masked woman had no attention for Penelope. Where was Ollie?

Noah found the young man and grit his teeth. He was face-first against the library floor in a pool of blood. Was he dead? Noah couldn't be sure.

Pulling away, Noah tried to control his panic. He was still finding it hard to compartmentalize the fact that someone was out to murder him, wielding a knife that his body had proved first-hand was extremely sharp. The suspicions of Penelope were still prodding at his consciousness, his injuries were hurting him, now the worry of Ollie. What could they do? How could they get out of this? As far as Noah could see it, they had three options: Run, hide, or confront Gula.

Hiding could only get them so far. The library was big, but not that big. It was possible that if they hid long enough then someone else could enter the library and help them, maybe an orderly or something, but Noah wasn't going to bet on that, what if Gula injured them? Running posed a similar problem, and besides, they'd have to pass Gula to get the entrance. Running also meant leaving Ollie and Penelope behind and even despite Noah's reservations about Penelope he couldn't just leave them like that.

So that left confrontation, but Noah wasn't certain on this decision either. As Ollie had said, none of them were fighters. Penelope wouldn't be a help. Ollie wasn't moving. It was just him and Robyn and neither of them were fighters. Gula had a knife. How could two people face-down somebody with a knife? Especially when one of them was feeling less than fifty percent and the other was trying to stay strong, but still was affected by the shock of Finley's death.

"I don't want to play cat and mouse!" Gula's voice came from the other side of the room. The thing that worked to their advantage was that Gula seemed unhinged. She didn't seem entirely sane which was ironic within the Hearthome psychiatric hospital. Could they use that to their advantage?

And what about Gareth? He had said that he would be watching and would help if Noah was in trouble. Where was that help? Noah had to accept that there was no way anyone could do anything from far away when they were within the library, that only had windows on one wall. No, it was only the four patients and this murdering masked sin.

So what could they do?

Jason stared at the two masks in either hand. He looked back to the two men tied up with their backs against the wall, on either side of Berlin who was standing between them with crossed arms.

"I don't get it," Jason said, throwing the masks on the floor in front of the men. "You two work for the sins?"

Dave and Derrick, the pair of orderlies that Jason had a run in with before, just stared up at him. It was no surprise that Berlin had taken care of them with such ease. These two couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, let alone take on Jason and Berlin. Just what were they thinking?

"So are you going to answer my questions?" Jason asked, looking to both of them. Each of them wore resolute expressions on their faces. "Or are we going to have to do this the difficult way?"

No response.

"Who else is within your group? What reason did you infiltrate Hearthome?" The suspicion of course was that they were here for the weapons, but Jason wasn't about to let that particular cat out of the bag in case they were off mark with the sin's motives. "Why did you take John Doe, Imogen Banks, and Ollie Cox? What's your objective?"

Again, no response. Their lips stayed resolutely closed, eyes simply staring at Jason. There was something strange with their eyes. Nothing physical just… something off. Jason couldn't quite put his finger on just what it was but he felt like he was staring at those eyes and seeing nothing behind them.

Jason crouched in front of the larger Dave. "You can either answer my questions or you can see what happens if you don't. You know who I work for. I have no desire to do anything untoward but you know that I will if I have to."

Dave responded by spitting straight in Jason's face. Jason slowly wiped the saliva off his cheek and let out a sigh. He straightened up and walked towards the desk. "Berlin, gag Wright for me."

Without hesitation, Berlin reached into a jacket pocket to pull out a black cloth. He scrunched it up into a ball and pushed it straight into the taller Derrick's mouth. The man tried to resist but Berlin easily wrestled past the clenched jaws to push the fabric inside.

This was the part of the job that Jason had never gotten used to, but he fully understood the necessity of doing it. "Berlin, hold his arm out."

Again Berlin complied, untying Derrick's arms. Derrick tried to fight back but Berlin held his left arm in a tight grip behind Derrick's back. He held Derrick's right arm straight out to the side, in front of Dave whose eyes were flicking back and forth between his friend and Jason. Jason took off his black jacket and gloves, placing them on the table so he was only wearing a black t-shirt underneath. His dog tags jangled as he walked in front of Derrick but looked at Dave.

"Let's start simple. Your name is David Chetton. This is Derrick Wright. Is this correct?"

Dave looked confused at the obvious questions. "…You know it is."

"Good, you can answer me. I'm glad we have clarified that. You have now set a precedent that you will answer my questions. Next question, you both have been working at Hearthome for approximately the same time, correct?"

"…Yes."

"You knew each other before Hearthome having met at school, yes?"

"We did."

"Did you join the sins before or after joining Hearthome?"

Dave blinked slowly and didn't respond. Not taking his eyes away from Dave, Jason raised his boot over the stretched taut arm of the fruitlessly struggling Derrick. Dave looked at the boot and back to Jason.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Jason stomped down hard, snapping Derrick's forearm instantly. Behind the gag, Derrick writhed and groaned mutedly. Dave visibly flinched as Derrick's arm went instantly floppy like it was made of rubber.

"What the hell are you—" Dave's voice raised but Jason crouched in front of him agai,.

"You will answer my questions truthfully or I will continue to break the bones of your friend. I will not hurt you. I will not touch a hair on your head. If you remain stubborn and I finish breaking his bones, I will start pulling out his finger nails. And then I will pull out each tooth, one at a time. I will then take each eye. He will be in such agony that he will likely go insane. I know how to draw out pain if I feel it necessary. Are you comfortable having that on your conscience, Dave? Are you comfortable being responsible for this mutilation? Maybe you are. Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe your friendship with Derrick here is simply a front you put on to keep up the façade. Maybe I'll have a look later. For now, I am going to continue asking my questions."

Dave's eyes widened slightly. Jason could see the sweat beading on his forehead now.

"Did you join the sins before or after joining Hearthome?" Jason asked again, never taking his eyes off of Dave, even as Derrick writhed next to him.

To Dave's credit, he seemed to visibly struggle to talk. Finally the big man closed his eyes and practically spat out, "We don't work for them."

"What? I told you to tell me the truth. Berlin, hold out the other arm—"

"I'm telling you the bloody truth!" Dave said through gritted teeth. "We were told to either talk or kill Jason Ryan. We chose to kill as we thought we might have surprised you. We're not part of their group."

"You are wearing the masks that is known to be the ones that are worn by the sins."

"We were given them!"

"By who?"

"What?" Dave blinked.

"Who gave you the masks?"

"I…" Dave's eyes fluttered. "I-I…" He looked at Derrick's pained face. "We were given them."

Jason narrowed his eyes. What was that reaction? "If you are not part of their group, why choose to go along with it?"

"We were asked to."

"And you just decided that this kind of thing is right up your alley? What was your motivation."

"We… We were asked to," Dave cocked his head slightly. "Why wouldn't we?"

A shiver ran through Jason's spine. Something was really off. The eyes, the tone of voice. The answers didn't make sense to what was happening. It didn't feel like he was talking to a human being at all, it felt like he was talking to some kind of doll pretending to be human. He shrugged it off and looked to Derrick. "Berlin, gag Chetton. Let's try this again."

Conner had always been deceptively strong, despite the fact there wasn't much big muscle on his lean frame. Not only was he strong, but his stamina was top notch as well. This combination of strength and stamina had always gotten him out of trouble. Even though John was a lot taller and slightly awkward to carry, and even though he was running through the woods, Conner found that he was still keeping his energy going.

He did not like letting Penelope go like that but he knew that he didn't have much of a choice. It wasn't that he necessarily wanted to save John, it was that if he had chosen Penelope over John, then the DHP might have seen that as an infraction and all his hard work over the last three months would have been for naught. And of course, Conner owed John now. John had stopped him from going too far with Penelope. He wasn't certain if he would have gone as far as killing her but even just the idea that he could have was unnerving. Could his convictions have been so easily swayed?

John hadn't woken yet and Conner knew that he needed to get him to Rhino and Wasp fast. With their help, it wouldn't be long at all to get to Hearthome's medical facility.

He heard the cracking of twigs but had no time to prepare himself as something extremely large barrelled into him like a truck. John went tumbling off of Conner's shoulders while Conner himself felt something thick grab his throat and push him back-first against a nearby tree.

The fingers were thick and tight and Conner desperately tried to pry himself free of the iron grasp with no luck. He stared at the figure, confused and surprised.

A man was standing in front of him, large and broad, not quite as big as Rhino but close to it. He was wearing a mask, a mask with three horizontal stripes, the mask that Marcus Morris had worn as Irae. Only Conner was confused. These eyes were not the eyes of the man whose mask had been broken by Rhino. It was the mask of Irae, but this was not Marcus Morris.

"Whatever you think you know," the man's voice was distorted just like the other masks, deep and rumbling despite the distortion. "You are not even close."

He continued to hold Conner for a few seconds before finally letting go. Conner dropped, coughing and choking, but if this Irae was going to attack, he wasn't being quick about it. Conner glared up and found himself angered at seeing the wide back of Irae, turned away from him.

"That's it?" Conner called out. The man's grip had been far too strong. "What the fuck do you people actually want?" Conner dug his heels and made to chase Irae.

"Chase if you like but do not forget about your quarry. His life is in your hands," Irae's voice rumbled as he walked through the woods. After a few seconds, he was gone, and Conner clutched at his throat, more confused than he ever had been. What did this mean? Two Penelope's, now two Irae's, but unlike Penelope Conner was certain that under that mask he didn't look like Marcus Morris.

Despite his whirring thoughts, Conner crouched down next to John who lay crumpled in a bleeding heap. "You better not die after all this," Conner grunted, grabbing both arms and awkwardly pulling John back onto his shoulders. The man was pale to the touch. Conner knew that he had lost too much blood and must have been knocking on death's door, if he hadn't passed it already. But there was a faint tickle of breath on his ear and the slight rising and falling of the chest. These were the only signs that John was still alive.