Chapter 83 - Killing Each Other

"What?!" Raine burst.

"Well, he was acting like he was your boyfriend," Tyrone added as he followed Raine out of the secret room.

Shaking her head, Raine sat on the couch not far from her bed and said, "He's not my boyfriend. Also, I don't see any hints of what you're referring to as Janus acting like my boyfriend in his words or actions at all. Janus is just the protective type of a person, so it's natural for him to think about the safety of discussing sensitive information like that. Not to mention that it's his first time meeting you."

Stewing on her words, Tyrone sat beside Raine and tapped something on his iPad. Raine, on the other hand, turned to look at him with a smirk. She couldn't help but tease, "You sound like you're my jealous boyfriend."

"Why would you think that? I'm a man, and I can easily tell that the man's interested in you," Tyrone retorted. "That's why he glared at me more often than not. I'm pretty sure he's the jealous one in this situation."

"Well, I haven't noticed any of it. But now that you mentioned it, maybe I'll consider observing Janus," Raine mumbled in amusement. "Well, he isn't half bad. He's handsome and intelligent, in his thirties, and is still single. Surely if I wanted to, it wouldn't be so bad to entertain someone like him."

Raine rested her head sideways as she comfortably raised her legs up on the couch. Hugging her knees, she keenly stared at Tyrone, observing his usual stoic reactions for any sign of change.

"He's a nerd," Tyrone suddenly murmured.

Raine fought the urge to laugh as she replied, "Nerds are hot these days. I can tell that Janus has a lean body behind all those layers of laboratory coats."

"You sound like a pervert," Tyrone scoffed, his eyes still glued on his iPad as he spoke.

"I'm a pervert for hot and sexy men. To that, I can shamelessly plead guilty!" Raine proudly declared before noticing that he wasn't paying his full attention to her. "What are you doing anyway?"

"I just realized…" Tyrone trailed off.

"What is it?" Raine asked.

"We have memory loss powder, but what's the chant for it? Surely we don't just blow on people's faces and whisper the memory we want the person to forget."

"Hmm? Why the sudden curiosity about it?" 

Tyrone looked at her and straightforwardly asked, "You haven't tried this on me, have you?"

"Huh?"

A long pause settled between them, a protracted battle of intense staring ensuing between them. Raine inwardly cursed as she regretted her instructions to Lyne about informing Tyrone on everything including the weapons and tools that they used during hunting.

Thinking up of decent a lie, she suddenly laughed out loud as she said, "Are you nuts? Why would I even use it on you? Do you think that some parts of your memories are missing?"

Tyrone shrugged his shoulders, "Who knows, right? If you used this powder on me, then I probably wouldn't remember a thing about it in the first place."

Raine, deigning not to answer, stood up from her seat and deflected, "Ah, I'm suddenly craving some ice cream. We need to discuss important matters, so how about we focus on that instead of some nonsense things like that memory loss powder?"

"In the meeting, you haven't mentioned the Exordiums' ledger," Tyrone pointed out.

"Well, it's not our main focus, so I've decided to put that on hold," Raine crossed her arms as she paused by the glass windows overlooking the city. "I don't need to hunt right now. What I need to do is gather more evidence against my uncle. That's the only way to save Xander." 

"What do you mean? How would gathering evidence help him?" Tyrone asked.

"I can't stop my uncle from killing Xander, and I can't just kill him either to stop him. That leaves me with the only option, which is for Xander to call for a Mirage Trial," Raine explained. "He is entitled to ask for one, so I'll just help him out on this while keeping him safe during the trial. When that happens, Uncle will be punished according to the laws of the Mirage once proven guilty…" 

"What would be the punishment for your uncle's crimes then?" Tyrone curiously asked.

"It would be death. After the sentence, if delivered, the plaintiff will get to choose what kind of death they would want for the defendant," Raine morbidly discussed. "There's hanging, beheading, and many other ways to choose from in imposing the death penalty on the defendant."

She blinked at the sudden thought of choosing a punishment. She would have to consult the Earth Clan in this matter.

"There are also a lot of connections in our charts, like with how Xander Yang is connected to the military through his father's side. He's the Field Marshal's nephew, so things could be easier to accomplish regardless of how hard it may look," Raine smiled.

"But getting too involved is dangerous for you. What if your uncle finds out about this?" Tyrone reasoned. "Your father's about to wake up. Do you think that he'll still spare you if he finds out that you helped in bringing down his brother?"

Raine turned around to stare at him.

"That's why we need to be careful when feeding Xander's team the information they need," Raine nonchalantly replied. "We just have to keep their investigation on the right track…"

Tyrone understood what Raine meant, but he was still worried about it all. He knew that he shouldn't feel this way, but he just couldn't help it.

"We need to finish this quickly. I only hope that the Convel Society won't attack us by then," Raine sarcastically mumbled out. "Just have to make sure to save Xander before I meet my doom. No pressure.." Raine murmured.

"You saved him before, right? Do you really think he'll hurt you? That.. boy… Nathaniel…" Tyrone whispered.

Raine let out a long sigh and replied, "I don't know either. But one thing I'm sure of is that he wants revenge. He'll want to hurt my father, so as his daughter, I ought to protect him…"

She held a wry smile on her face as she met Tyrone's eyes and added, "So what do you think would happen? We… We might just end up killing each other."