I glance over at the group on the second couch, then back toward where Slender had been standing. He’d just finished tearing into us for sloppy work, for almost getting caught, for letting things spiral the way they did on that last mission. Especially that one. It had been a mess from start to finish, and every one of us knew it.

There’s been a group watching us lately. Asking questions. Digging where they shouldn’t. We’re pretty sure they were some offshore government branch, the kind that doesn’t officially exist and doesn’t share information unless it benefits them. The order was simple: find their hideout, erase everyone inside, take whatever they had on us, and burn the place to the ground so nothing could crawl back out later. We split into two teams. Jeff, Clockwork, Toby, and you took the front end. Me, Nina, BEN, and Jack covered the back. Same split as the couches we’re sitting on now, like the room itself is mocking us.

I look back at your couch. You all took the worst of it. Things went sideways fast. One of the targets wasn’t supposed to be able to fight back, but he did. He knocked Jeff out cold and held him there with Jeff’s own knife pressed to his throat. From what we were told, he ordered the rest of you to stand down or watch him die. You didn’t really have a choice. If our group hadn’t intercepted him on his way out, he would’ve escaped. That much is obvious. But it didn’t matter. We still caught hell for it. There was evidence left behind after the fire died down, fragments the police managed to recover. Not enough to identify us, but enough to confirm something happened. BEN was sure he’d wiped their systems clean. Apparently, he missed something.

Slender slips out of the room without another word, long limbs disappearing into the hallway. The silence he leaves behind is thick, heavy enough to sit on your shoulders. Nobody moves. Nobody talks. I don’t even realize I’m fidgeting until I look down and see my fingers twisting together in my lap. BEN glitches out first, vanishing in a stutter of static. Jeff stands up next and storms off without looking at anyone. The rest of us stay where we are, stuck in place. Toby clears his throat, trying and failing to break the tension.

“So… that was fun.”

I glance at him briefly, then lift my head and look at Nina beside me. She’s quiet, but I can tell she’s thinking the same thing I am. We don’t really know what happened in that room. Not fully. My gaze drifts back to your couch, then settles on you. Something tells me you’ll answer before anyone else does.

“…What did you guys even do? When he had Jeff at knifepoint?”