Hand tilted towards me, Shinobi wiggled his fingers.

"What?"

"My bomb. Hand it over." His fingers move again and I would have assumed his pun was intentional. But this is Shinobi, he doesn't do jokes.

Which is the reason he's probably not going to like what I say, even when I play it off with a laugh. "Eh, we might have a problem."

Shinobi turns, looking at me with a deadpan expression. Even though his eyes are the only thing I can see through the opening in his mask, I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. They cloud with an indecipherable look that makes me want to cower.

I cross my arms, gloved fingers digging into the flesh of my clothes arms, reminding myself that he cannot see I'm intimidated unless I let him. Shinobi is one of the few people I can't read, it scares me.

Even though I'm just as clueless about the actual identities of some others in the room, I know who they are. It's not related to their physical attributes, after all, I'd only know what they look like once their masks are off-- no, it's more than that. Like how Little Red, who is actually more of the Big Bad Wolf, is only in this game to find the person who abused her in her early teens. And maim them. Like how Morrison Maverick is in it for the money, to pay off the extremely high hospital bills of his ailing wife who is battling cancer because apparently, a 9 to 5 job doesn't actually get the job done.

But not all who are gathered have noble intentions. Others like The Bloodhound and Legion have a sadistic craving to see people suffer. And in the case of Rewind, it's seeking acceptance, people taking you in and treating you like an actual person, even if it's behind a cloak and a made-up name.

With me, it's breaking away. Freedom. That's all I seek and what I have found. Here, there are no rigid rules on what to do, no expectations to live up to. You pick your role model; you follow footsteps. You stumble, you get back up. Most importantly, you're never left behind or forgotten.

"No. You have a problem." Shinobi points out. "I just have an irresponsible girl who keeps making the dumbest mistakes. How could you leave it behind when you know-"

"Sheesh, calm your tits," I mumble before I realize what I said. My teeth bite onto the tip of my tongue as I shake my head. "I meant, you shouldn't get so worked up. Isn't it like those throw-away weapons you have? Like your shuriken?"

Again, his eyes hold my gaze with an intensity that makes me lower my head. I breathe in deeply, telling myself that he can't read minds, he doesn't know what I'm thinking; he doesn't know.

"Unfortunately no. It is not 'throw-away.'" He rolls his eyes, pupils and irises disappearing for a solid second. It makes him look like Raiden from those Mortal Kombat games. "You have to get it back. It's very expensive and-"

"I could give you the money. You know, to cover the expenses of making another one."

He shakes his head. "Ecstasy, you need to learn that not every problem can be solved by simply throwing money on the table." Where does he want me to throw it then? The ground? "You're going to have to get it back. There's a tracker on it, find it and return it immediately."

Little Red nods in agreement, even though I hear a slither of doubt crawling around in her head as to whether it's really necessary.

I'm handed a device that looks a bit like the compact mirror I carry in my purse. Except this one is surprisingly heavy, aside the fact that it beeps every few seconds.

"The green dot, that's my weapon. Retrieve it."

"Alright, Sensei." I bow, clasping one hand around the fist I make with the other.

I hear Shinobi laugh under his breath. "You want someone to go with you?"

"Oh, so I lose one tiny bomb and now you wanna treat me like a rookie again, huh?" I ask, cocking my head to the side, the sound of my boots resonating on the floor as I back up. "Don't worry, you'll have your toy back."

"Good. No crazy stops today, you need to be back in time for the heist later tonight."

"Aye aye, cap'n."

I check the device as soon as I step out of the dense walls of the lair. From what it seems, the blinking dot isn't far from my current location. I might even be able to walk there.

My feet carry me onward until I'm just a couple of feet away from the green dot. The trail leads me to a warehouse off a barely thread road.

The biggest disappointment meets me when I step through the doors I break open. It's bare. Empty. Literally just a space of nothingness. Nothingness and dust, a whole load of it. If I've learned anything, from years and years of analysing crime movies-- particularly Scooby-Doo-- it's that eerie looking warehouses are either a hideout or the perfect base for setting a trap.

I expected either one or both of these once the rusty lock gave out but alas, my expectations aren't met. Such bullshit.

Flipping open the device, I check the tracker again to see that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. So where's the goddamn weapon?

The weirdest thing begins to happen when the dot moves. To a location halfway across the city. Just like that!

The guy from last night is a teleporter? That might be the case, because there's no other explanation to justify what I just saw.

Groaning, I start towards the hideout with the aim of taking a motorcycle because I can't possibly walk to my new destination. The beeping on the compact intensifies when I'm almost to the hideout and I check it, only to find that the stupid dot has shimmied to another location. The one where I just came from.

"You have got to be kidding me," I scream.

When I find that guy, I'm killing him. No one can have me running around on a wild goose chase-- especially not someone of their kind.