Emery's eyes ogled on the bright text in front of him, and he'd already begun to move his hands forward to say accept when-
"Nice to see you're awake, Emery."
He snapped out of the stupor and dropped his arm to his side. It looked suspicious from the outside, but the man who entered didn't care. He recognised the man—one of the people from the counter.
"Mr Chris, right?" he asked, trying to remain as composed as possible.
Chris nodded and stopped in front of the bed. He was dressed differently from where he was behind the counter. Right now he wore a large overcoat and a button-up shirt under. It was nothing like the casual, easygoing person he initially met.
The full outfit combination gave him a sort of official look. Like a government official on a business trip.
"That is right. I had to come here to talk to you first. Your lady friend refused to talk to any of us."
"Elyn?"
"I'm assuming that would be her name. Yes, Miss Elyn. She vehemently refused to talk and did… quite a number on our people."
Emery's blood froze. He didn't have half enough strength to go up against Hemp's men. Just thinking of that large Konnor man made his blood curl up in nothing but fear.
"Is that what you're here for? I'm sorry for her behaviour." Emery asked, mind thinking of ten thousand different ways they could escape easily.
Chris gave him a weird look, "Do you think we care about that? In fact, that only increases my insistence on certain matters."
"What?"
"I want you, to work for us."
That took a far different thought than Emery had expected, and he didn't even need to hear anymore before deciding on his answer.
"Join Hemp's gang? I'd rather not."
Chris chuckled.
"I suppose I may have phrased that sentence wrong. We've done our fair share of digging and from all of Carlos' visits to you. I know you have an aversion to our 'kind' if you could call us that, but that's not what we're here for. We have chefs; we don't need you. What we are looking for is something different."
"Ok… but I'm still not working for you."
"Again, I phrased that wrong," Chris said. "Think of it as a collaboration rather than you actually working for us. You give us what you want, we give you money, status, protection amongst others."
Emery hesitated. That did sound good. And Hemp's men themselves weren't the ones that wronged him.
"Go on,"
Chris smiled as if he had already gotten what he wanted.
"Your efficiency in killing beasts is astounding. There have recently been a lot of Low-classes in the area and most of our Awakened are too busy with other things to deal with them. And the Class Ten Awakened we can send to accomplish is always outnumbered by the Beasts."
"So you want us to handle them?"
"Correct."
That indeed was a win-win situation. They got their problem handled and he got money. He needed a lot of money for the plans he had in mind.
But that was when some things stopped making sense.
"Why us though? There are probably far stronger people who you could ask to do this. Our efficiency is also not as great as you're making it out to be. What exactly is your game here, Chris?"
That hit the mark. Chris paused, hesitating for the first time since the conversation started but it didn't last long.
He frowned. "I'll reserve my right to keep that a secret, Emery."
Emery didn't force the matter but he didn't want to accept just yet. Something like this could put him in serious trouble if he didn't.
But a part of his brain nagged him, hitting him with all the facts he'd chosen to ignore so far.
'Do it. You know why Carlos needed those people. You know why. If you get rid of all those beasts you can stop whatever Carlos is planning,'
The thoughts were far too specific to be just some thought in his mind. He glanced at Chris who stood innocently to the side.
Something was up with him.
After a short mental power, Emery came to a decision on what he would be doing.
"I accept, but I do have one more condition."
"What is it?" Chris smiled.
"I want a space in this building. Large enough to build a small restaurant."
"Done."
Then the man stretched an arm out, "Do we have a deal."
Emery reciprocated, "We have a deal."
Without waiting any more time, Chris walked out of the room, his large black coat flapping behind him. Emery watched his back. It was obvious that the Chris man wasn't so simple. At first, he thought Elyn refused to talk to him because she was scared or shy, but now he wasn't so sure about that.
He did something, or at least he tried to do something.
Emery hadn't fallen for it, but he did something there. Chris tried to mess with his mind, but it didn't work because he'd already made his decision in the first place.
A while later, the chef tossed all those thoughts to the back. He would have the answer to all these questions in time. The most important one being, would he regret this decision or not?. . . .
*Elsewhere in the building*
Two figures stood in a dark hallway, one slightly shorter than the other.
"You should have been more careful!" a female voice said.
"What did I do? I only brought some of his deeper thoughts to the surface. I'm sure you're just overreacting and he didn't notice.
The woman rolled her eyes, "Why did you go to such lengths, anyway?"
"My power acted up again."
"That power?"
"That power," the man nodded, "It gave me a few strange premonitions that I couldn't ignore. The two of them will be crucial to our future plans, darling."
"Hmm."
"It will be fine."
The woman nodded, "I know. I just hope your power can give us an appropriate answer this time. I just really hope so."