"Over here," I said, holding the curtain partition to the arcade booth open for Cana.

  She ducked past me and slumped to her seat.

  I ducked in next and just melted down next to her. She put her hand on her chest, letting out a huge sigh.

  Good thing we found this vacant, cockpit-style arcade booth. The booth's enclosure and curtain partition that serves as the door hides us from unwanted eyes from the outside. Not to mention that it was dark inside. The only light was coming from the game's screen.

  We stayed like this for a while, not one of us talking. I didn't see anyone suspicious when we followed behind a group of college students on our way here so I'm pretty sure we were in the clear. But still, I can't help but to take a second to look around.

  And as expected, there were only students here from different universities here. Then there's this parents being dragged by their kid to the counter. No doubt to buy tokens. A crowd had gathered in front of the Dance Evolution machine. It reminded me of the one we've had back at the dorm. A series of images flashed across my mind. It showed Caprice and Indigo mimicking the avatars on the screen, gaining high score to the song, Kimono Princess.

  Indigo... I thought. Suddenly, a pang of guilt gripped my heart when the realization of what we've done sunk.

  "We left her there..." I said, finally breaking the silence. "Indigo."

  "Don't," Cana said, blinking back tears. "Don't do that. Not right now."

  I kept quiet. All this time, my mind was on high alert, looking out for potential pursuers and in finding a safe place that there was simply no more room for anything else. But now that we are rested and found this booth that provided us a sense of safety and security, my brain decided that it was time for us to acknowledge the fact that we've abandoned our friend to run for our lives.

  "It all happened so fast..." The words left my mouth with my permission. My throat was starting to tighten. "I didn't know what to do—"

  "Vergil!" Cana shouted.

  I blinked at her. Then I took a look around, certain that we've just exposed ourselves. But I saw that no one even bat an eye towards our direction.

  I felt Cana's hands cupped mine. I turned to look at her.

  Looking at her eyes, it was clear that she was barely keeping it together. "Remember what we did back in the dorm during breakfast after the night Kent died?"

  "We don't talk about it..." I said, almost as a whisper. "Or just change topics whenever it was brought up."

  "Exactly," she said, her eyes that were welling up with tears. "Right now, that's what we should do."

  It was easier back in Biringan, where we have the dorm and Major Coleman and all the others that provide us comfort just by being there. But I know Cana was right. We mustn't lose our heads and our hearts now.

  I cleared my throat. "Change topic, huh?" I said. "Should we talk about the weather instead?"

  That got her to smile. "How bout we talk about our next plan?"

  "Well," I started. My brain active again, thankful for the distraction. "Major Coleman didn't really give us any directions of what to do if we've got separated."

  Cana gave it some thought. "I guess he never thought we would get separated."

  "And for good reason." I said. I remembered our conversation back at the university. We were in disguised, escorted by all those armed soldiers. We were literally never alone. The only people who knew were the ones in the dorm. And having their Shade abilities, anyone would expect that those cultists would attack at night. We've been had.

  "Can we find Biringan on our own?" She said. She pulled her jacket closer to her. The air conditioner wasn't that strong. So I wondered why she was getting cold. Then I remembered. We've shared her jacket as cover. She must've gotten wet while I stayed dry with my jacket on as we've ran through the rain.

  So I zippered down my jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She didn't protest. She must be feeling really cold.

  "We can google Biringan..." I said. "We just need to find a public library. But I doubt that its location is on Wikipedia."

  "How about we google other bases?" Cana asked, wrapping my jacket around her tighter.

  "But I thought was Biringan supposed to be top secret?" I said. I thought of suggesting to keep our voices down but I figured the chatters and the pinging of the machines here would drown out our conversation.

  "You mean not even the other bases knows where it is?" Cana said.

  "Isn't that the whole point of Biringan?" I said.

  "I don't know..." Cana said. "Let's file that away for now. What other options do we have?"

  "Not much," I said. "We don't have any money or our cellphones with us. And we're on our own."

  Cana kept quiet for a while. Then she perked right up. "Didn't that cultist give you something?"

  My hand went to my pocket and took the items out. "This journal," I said. "And this...amulet?" I gave it a close look, flipping it over and again in my hand. The amulet has all the twelve zodiac signs and a black sun at the center–the exact replica of the cult's ritual symbol.

  "Let me see," Cana asked.

  "Looks like nothing special," I said as I handed it over to her.

  "You don't think there's any secret writing on it or something?" She said.

  "Do you see anything?"

  "...No," she said. Then she handed it back to me. "What about the notebook?"

  "Journal," I said.

  "Whatever," She said. She pulled away the band that held the journal close and flipped it open.

  The journal was filled with names, which, according to the cultist, were names of other cult members. From the looks of it, it was alphabetized, since the first page was filled with names starting from A. Each name had a 1x1 picture stapled next to it.

  "Looks like that cultist was telling the truth," I said, pointing to the name, Aaron Ward, our disappeared school nurse.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Cana nodded. She flipped the pages till we hit the names starting with B. She ran down each name and photo with her finger. I thought we've already covered this but I guess she just wants to see the evidence or the lack thereof with her own eyes. So I just stayed silent beside her. When she got through the B list, she smiled.

  "Satisfied?" I asked.

  "Yeah," she replied.

  "Although Major Coleman already confirmed that Dr. Bernardo wasn't a cultist..." I said. "And I said I was sorry—"

  "I know, I know," she interrupted. I watched in silence as she continued flipping through the pages till she reached a page that only contains a single line.

  "An address?" She said.

  "That cultist did say so," I said.

  "I don't suppose you know where this is," she asked.

  I shook my head. "You?"

  She did the same. "Why'd you think that cultist gave you this?" She asked. "With all this information, Major Coleman can put an end to them, once and for all."

  "I don't think he wanted us to end it," I said.

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "If I remember it correctly," I said. "He said that he came to get us."

  "Right," Cana said. "Because he's a cultist. They're targeting us, remember?"

  "So were the two others he killed," I argued.

  "So he's a traitor..." Cana said. "But why? Why would he do that?"

  "I think he gave this to me as a sign of trust," I said. Then I pointed at the address on the page. "He wanted us to go with him to this location."

  "Well, he really is crazy if he thinks we're going with him," Cana said. Then she fixed her eyes with mine. "Right?"

  "Of course," I said. And I wasn't lying. Why voluntarily go to the person who wanted us dead?

  Because he didn't want us dead. The thought just popped out of my mind. And I believe it. Really. He killed he's own buddies to save us so clearly he didn't want us dead. Then he gave us this journal that could lead to their downfall. And if he really wanted to abduct us, couldn't he just hit us in the back of our neck with his gun and dragged our unconscious body back to his SUV? Why the need to gain our trust? Now that my head is clear and I'm no longer fearing for my life, I'm starting to think that maybe that guy wasn't a threat to us. Of course, at the time, when he was holding a gun at us after riddling our SUV with bullets, it didn't seem like it.

  So I am really considering it. But I kept it to myself because I have a feeling Cana wouldn't be too excited with me proposing we went to the cultist's location on our own.

  Cana snapped her fingers. "Indigo."

  "I thought you said we shouldn't talk about her," I said.

  "No," she said. "I mean, how did Indigo get to Biringan?"

  "Oh!" I said. "The city hall." That's right. She was homeschooled. Unlike Cana and I who were identified at our school, Indigo and her parents had to go to the city hall to report that their child was a haunted.

  "The cultist said that they have people inside the police, the barangay..." Cana said. "And the other thing."

  "I think it was school staff," I added.

  "Right," Cana said. "But he never said anything about the city hall or the military. If Indigo was brought to Biringan without any issues—"

  "Then that means the cult doesn't have people working inside the city hall." I finished.

  "We literally passed by it on our way here," Cana said.

  "But what do we do exactly?" I said. "Who do we look for? What do we say our business is?"

  "It's still October," Cana said. "Let's just ask around. I'm sure there's a haunting-related helpdesk there or something."

  Not really convinced with her plan of just asking around but what else can we do?

  "Okay," I agreed. "One thing though," I said. Then I pulled the collar of my uniform disguise. "We need a change of clothes. The cultists who chased us probably radioed in what we were wearing. Not to mention, you're shivering."

  Cana thought about it for a while. "I got an idea."

  She drew the curtain door and stepped out of the cabinet at her side. I drew the curtain at my side and followed her.

  We walked by other students playing on coin-operated slot machine. I leaned close to her ear. "What idea?" I whispered.

  "I'll tell you when we get there," She said, not stopping nor slowing down as we headed for the exit.

  "Where are we going?" I said. "They could still be out there you know."

  "That's why I'm walking fast." She said. "Keep up."

  So I did and followed in silence. We rode the escalator up. Luckily, we were surrounded by college students so there was no need for me to keep alert. Cana followed the college students in front of us. We pass by boutiques. I can't help but to look back, to see if anyone was following us. But looks like we're in the clear. Then Cana turned left, into the department store. I hurried after her till I found myself at a clothes rack, Cana picking an blue, striped v-neck. She pushed the shirt to my chest.

  "This will do," she said.

  "What are you doing?" I said. "You know you don't have money."

  I looked at the shirt she's pressing against my chest. "I don't even wear V-necks."

  "Well, you should," she said pushing the items in my hands. Then she pushed me inside one of those changing room. "Just trust me on this one." She said, and then she drew the curtain door closed.

  "The money part or the v-neck part?" I asked. But I didn't hear any reply. The blue v-neck... I don't think I can pull this off. And what's the point of trying this out when I know we won't be able to afford this. But I don't have any better idea and quite frankly, I'm still tired so I decided to just change into it and get it over with.

  "Not bad," I said, checking out my disguised in the mirror. I looked like any, ordinary high school student on their way to their friend's house to hang out. I looked at my college student disguise at the floor. Do I bring them with me? Would it be rude to just leave them here and have the staff take care of it? In the end, I decided to fold them nicely and kept them at the corner of the booth.

  "Hey," I heard Cana's voice call out from the outside. "You ready?"

  "Yeah," I replied. I drew the curtain door opened. She was wearing an elegant white top that exposes her morena shoulders. The body had folds like curtian. I swear this girl just looks so...

  "Cute," I said. Then my eyes popped out of their sockets when I realized that I said that out loud.

  "Thanks," she said, smiling.

  I averted my eyes, my face burning. "So how are we going to pay for these?"

  "Ask that staff for her opinion on your clothes."

  I looked back at her, confused. "What?"

  "Just do it."

  "Fine," I said, feigning annoyance. But really, my feet couldn't get me out of there quicker. My face was still burning and it gave me an excuse to walk away and calm myself so I happily obliged.

  "Excuse me, miss," I said.

  The staff turned around. "Yes?" she said, bringing out her customer service smile.

  I raised my hands at both of my side. "Is this working?" I asked.

  This is stupid, I thought.

  "OMG yes!" she shrilled. "Your girlfriend has good taste."

  My face felt hot. "She's not my girlfriend."

  "Uh huh, sure," she said. "But if I may," she continued. "I would go with green rather than blue. Brings out those brown eyes more." Then she led me to another rack of v-necks.

  I looked around while the staff was busy checking the v-necks hanging on the racks.

  Where is she anyway, what is she doing? I thought.

  Then, overhead, the sprinklers came on. The staff screamed. My hands went instinctively above my head, as if that will prevent me getting wet.

  Fire! I thought. Is it them?

  I turned around and looked for Cana, leaving the staff behind.

  I saw her at the entrance/exit of the department store, waving at me to come over. I ran over to her.

  "Are you okay?" I asked

  "Yeah, let's go," she said.

  "But what about the clothes—"

  She pointed at the people running out of the store with the bags and clothes in their hands. The detectors started beeping but the staff didn't arrest them or anything. In fact, a senior staff was on a megaphone, telling people to stay calm and exit the store in an orderly fashion.

  "Let's go!" She said. We ran out of the store.

  "Hey!" An angry voice called out from behind us. But we didn't stop.

  My heart started pounding at the thought of getting caught. My feet carried me faster than I expected. We were nearing an escalator but I was surprised that Cana kept running. We ran to the end of the mall and flew down the flight of stairs.

  Once we got to the ground floor, we slowed down to a walk as we hit our limit.

  "Good thinking," I said, catching my breath. "Using the stairs instead of the escalator. We needed to lose them. The escalator was within their sight. They could follow us no problem."

  "Huh?" Cana remarked absent-mindedly. "Oh, yeah. Totally what I was doing."

  "Wait," I said. "So you just ran?"

  "I ran as far away as possible," Cana said.

  "That worked. I guess," I said. Since there were still no security running after us. "Still, that was some luck there. A fire starting when we needed free clothes."

  "There wasn't a fire," she said.

  "What?" I said. "What do you mean?"

  "I set off the sprinklers."

  "What!?" I shouted. Then I looked around. Good thing no one's paying attention to us.

  "How'd you do it?" I said. "No, scratch that. Where did you even get the idea?"

  "This morning..." I said. "At the library."

  "Who are you," I said. "And what happened to stranger-avoidant Cana?"

  "She died when Demi, Eris and Kent died," she said. "Now it's just survival Cana."

  That was a bit of a downer. But I tried to keep things light. "I like her." I said. "Shooting a guy and now stealing. Can't wait to know what other crime I'm about to do today."

  Finally, we exited the mall and were out in the streets once again.