Our territory.

At the party...

" I am worried about her. She seemed a little bit distracted earlier." Hannah said 

"I know and it is not like her to leave without her phone,"Dove added 

"Well...I asked for her phone earlier because I could not find mine so she then left hers with me."

Dove frowned, " What? Why did you not return it to her?" 

Hannah felt aggravated and wronged because of Dove's tone of voice" It slipped my mind and I did not know that she would leave the party without saying a word to any of us."

Dove sighed, " Okay, let us not fight. Maybe she did not go far and we can look for her. I am feeling uneasy." 

Hannah could only nod because she felt the same way. Alyssa was not the type of person to disappear without a word and that was why they were worried. 

They prepared to leave the party to search for their friend but then they got intercepted by a groupie.

" If it isn't our rumor runner-ups, how are you doing this fine evening?" One girl said to Hannah and Dove as she approached them, they could not identify her because of her mask but strange enough she was able to tell who they were. 

" Oh wait, you don't have to answer that. Answer this instead, do you guys feel no shame at all right now?" The girl said making her minions snicker at the comment in order to further provoke Hannah and Dove. 

" By the way, speaking of shame, where is your partner in crime? Are you not supposed to be the three musketeers or something, after all you all did a shameful thing together." The girl said with a smirk. She wore a dark red lipstick that made her smirk or smile sinister as though she took great pleasure in torturing other people.

"Excuse me, I don't know what your point is but now is not the time, please go bother someone else," Hannah said 

The girl laughed and revealed her perfectly white glistening teeth, " Why? Are you in a hurry? Is it because of your little friend? That perhaps she 'lost' her way?" As the girl said this a dangerous light flickered through her eyes so fast that no one noticed it. 

"What do you mean?" The meaning behind her words did not escape Dove's sharp ears 

She laughed again, " Whatever, I just thought right now. Do you guys want to know what I thought about? Ohhh, I know can one of you take a guess?" She said this facing her minion groupie.

One of the girls in her groupie raised her hand and vigorously waved it in the air, "Oh, Oh, I know.You are now bored, right Tavia?" 

"Bingo. I don't want to talk to you two any longer. Even sharing the same air as you is just exhausting." She said as she turned around to leave 

" Wait, I want you to tell me what you meant with your words earlier. Did you do something to Alyssa?" Dove asked with a dangerously low tone. 

"Oh? Are you accusing me of something? Can you afford to? And even if I did do something, what would YOU do about it? Do not forget that this is OUR territory, not yours."With that, the girl turned around clicked her fingers twice and she and her groupie walked away. 

Dove moved forward to go after the girls but she was stopped by Hannah shaking her head, " Don't do it, Dove, they are not worth it. Let us just focus our energy on finding Alyssa." 

" I know but I feel like they know something or at least they might be the reason why Alyssa disappeared for so long." 

" I get that but going after them will not bring us any closer to the truth anyway because they probably won't kiss and tell so it would be just a plain waste of our time. Besides, getting mad like that..." 

Dove sighed and ran her hand on her neatly combed hair without ruining her hairstyle, " I know, I am sorry. I lost my cool for a minute there. But I still hate sitting and letting them do whatever they please to do especially after what happened with the rumors issue,If they have their way one more time we might actually face serious difficulties." 

Of course, Hannah knew that too. The girls who confronted them were most likely military-based medical students and they were painfully showing it that they were purposefully sabotaging them but they could not do anything about it because that groupie leader was right, this was not their territory and they were far from home.

" We still can not afford to be dealing with something else right now. Remember what Mr Park said about being careful and not offending people, it is our last day here so it won't hurt if we let it go this once." Hannah said.

Hannah sighed, " I really do not like the dynamics of power and politics."

She also did not like the idea of being bullied into submission but they had no choice ever since that talk with Calix and Dan about dangerous forces lurking in the dark with regard to their rumors issue, Hannah has been feeling a little bit unsettled.

It was not just her Dove and Alyssa felt the same because they know that in the world they live in there is no greater rule or law other than power and influence and they had none in Areela.