Matthew and Daniel arrived at the detention facility where Emma had been and would be kept until the day of her court trial.
They stepped into the building, which smelled rather new. He could feel the atmosphere filled with the strong scent of freshly coated paint, which reminded him of Jake's museum. He shook his head, turning his mind away from the memories he wished to forget.
As they walked further into the facility, Matthew noticed the cells where the inmates were kept temporarily. The metal bars and brick walls made it seem exactly like a regular state prison, although it wasn't. The ceiling lights that were suspended above the two of them shone brightly to the point that it felt like a hospital for a moment.
"Sirs, please state the rationale of your visit," a worker at the facility requested as soon as the two approached the registration counter.
"We're here to visit our former colleague, Emily Anne Watson. She worked at the NYPD with us before she was arrested," Matthew answered promptly.
"Could you show me some form of identification while I search through the facility records for your requested inmate?" the worker added.
"Sure," Matthew replied. He glanced at Daniel briefly, ensuring he was doing the same. "Here are our NYPD ID cards," he said, placing his and Daniel's cards on the table.
"Thank you," the worker nodded as she looked away from the computer and checked through the detectives' cards. "All right, you've been approved for visitation. Also, I have found your requested inmate. Emily Anne Watson, inmate 5152," she announced. "Follow me to the visiting room."
As such, the two walked with the worker towards the visiting room. They sat down on the rusty metal stools, which felt much older than the rest of the prison.
"Apologies for the uncomfortable seating. These were transferred over from another prison as we didn't have enough in our budget to acquire new chairs," the worker added as soon as she noticed the detectives' frustration.
Meanwhile, an exhausted Emma, dressed in a numbered grey shirt and a matching pair of pants, walked out from the cell block into the visiting room.
"Why did you want to see me?" she slurred wearily. Dark patches surrounded her eyes, and her heavy eyelids were about to fall. Her eyeballs were worryingly red, and her cheeks seemed rugged.
"Emma! I'm glad I finally got to see you!" Daniel said as he stared at Emma, his gaze never moving away from her tired face. "How have you been?" he cheered.
"Seriously. What do you want?" Emma replied rudely, which was an unexpected response to Daniel.
"W-what do you mean? We're just happy to see you," Daniel answered, puzzled.
"And what? Is coming to visit me going to change anything?" Emma questioned suddenly.
Matthew raised an eyebrow. He was bewildered by Emma's behaviour. Besides being exhausted, Emma seemed somewhat irritable all of a sudden. To Matthew, she felt completely different, as if the cheery atmosphere that used to surround her constantly had been diminished or, in fact, completely destroyed.
Daniel shook his head rapidly. "I didn't mean that. Let's not talk about Yael just for now. Please, let's just have a proper conversation—"
"I don't want to have a proper conversation!" Emma screamed, infuriated. She breathed heavily despite only having yelled a short sentence at them. She instantly took out all her built-up rage on the two detectives, the anger she had kept in her heart for a month.
"You think wasting time coming to visit me will be any help? How about Megan? Have you found her? It's been over a month, and if you haven't, she's probably dead!" Emma continued to flare.
"Emma... how could you say that? How can you... how can you assume she's dead?" Matthew sighed. He just couldn't believe Emma's new attitude, the cold air surrounding her.
"Because she is, isn't she? All your search efforts have been fruitless, aren't they? The least you can do is take down Yael!" Emma ranted, causing Matthew to feel the rage burning in him too.
"That's enough, Emma!" he bellowed all of a sudden, his jaws shaking in anger and his cheeks reddening.
Emma stayed silent. She didn't expect either of the two to scream back at her, but it happened.
"I'm not some infinite-sized airtight container, all right? I'm a damned cup with a limited capacity. A damned cup!" he yelled. "That's right. I will overflow if you keep lashing out your anger at me! And I'm damned! Damned to fix Yael's mistakes! But that doesn't mean I'm immortal and invincible. And it doesn't mean I know everything!"
Daniel stared at Matthew. He had never seen his friend so furious for years. Until then.
"I don't have the resources and knowledge to bring them down yet. So stop pushing me. Sitting in this stupid facility and getting nothing out of it all day probably shaped you into thinking I could do much more than you. But I'm just achieving ten times what you can get in here. Ten times nothing, and it's still nothing! But at least I'm trying! And so is Daniel. So give us a damn break, will you, Emily?"
Emma closed her eyes for a second, exhaling deeply. All that she could think of were her crimes. How she had almost betrayed the detectives just to save herself and her father. How she was motivated to murder them coldly without regrets if she had reaped the rewards from Yael.
How she had turned herself to the other side.
"I have no hope already. By accepting my fate and letting myself be trialled with that liar, I'm with Yael now. But you guys aren't. So, leave. Don't get yourself mixed with a shrew like me. Once a traitor, always a traitor," she stammered as she almost began to sob. "Stop wasting your time with me, and get your asses out of here!" she wailed before getting up from her seat.
Matthew pursed his lips. He needed time to process whatever was going on. Emma has turned herself over to Yael? Nonsense, he thought. Emma was indeed guilty of attempting murder, but she shouldn't have let herself be controlled by Yael.
"If you guys aren't leaving, then I am," Emma said as she faced away from the two and rubbed the tears off her face. She stopped where she was standing momentarily before shouting to the warden in the other room.
"Officer!" she called out. Within seconds, the warden entered her room to follow her request.
"Take me back to my cell, please. I'm done with the visitation," she told the warden.
As such, the warden cuffed her hands and brought her by the shoulders to the other room.
"Emma, wait! Don't just go like that!" Daniel cried desperately as he watched the two leave the visitation room.
It was hopeless. Emma had refused to go on with a regular conversation as Daniel had wanted before leaving. They could do nothing about it. An inmate refusing to see their visitors anymore couldn't be helped.
"Sirs, you have to get going now. Your visit is over," another officer said, coming from behind to escort the two detectives out of the room.
"A-all right, then," Daniel said reluctantly as he walked with the officer out of the room, together with Matthew, who stayed silent and didn't utter a single word.
* * *
The next day...
"I guess this will be our routine from the days on," Matthew chuckled as he sipped hot coffee from his porcelain cup. "Isn't it troublesome for you to drive all the way here, though? We could pick some other place to eat at next time."
Daniel shook his head. "It's fine. The food here is very well worth the trip," he commented.
"All right, then," Matthew nodded, satisfied.
"About Yael..." Daniel began. "I've been researching some things on them for the past few weeks. I've compiled them all in a document, and it's saved onto this flash drive." And so, he brought out a thumb drive and placed it on the table.
"Everything that has been made public by them is in here. Also, their headquarters is in Philadelphia. Have a look at the contents when you get home later."
Instead of keeping the thumb drive, however, Matthew grabbed out his laptop from his bag. Other café-goers must have thought that he was insane to bring such a heavy valuable along for what seemed to be a casual chat at the bakery, but he was well prepared to switch the subject to a more important thing—to Yael.
Daniel pursed his lips, lifting his eyelids, thus expressing his surprise. "So... you brought a laptop.... Interesting," he commented as he watched Matthew lift the lid of the seemingly heavy device,
"It's not as bulky as you think," Matthew laughed. "I brought it just in case you want me to research or check up on something. And there we go, a laptop prepared for a flash drive you brought me. What do you have in the drive, by the way?" he questioned as he looked up at Daniel.
"It's hard to explain the contents. Just check it out yourself," Daniel answered quaintly.
"All right," Matthew nodded. "Everything documented about the assassination attempts on us, transcripts of Yael's press conferences, theories... basically everything we already know?"
Daniel sighed, responding, "Yeah. I couldn't dig further than what was made public by them and what we found out—"
"This theory, though. Number three..." Matthew trailed off as he focused on the third pointer under the "theories" section.
"What about it?" Daniel raised an eyebrow.
"Well, it seems like the most feasible one among these. The NYPD probably did a quick search through all of Yael's facilities and didn't find any physical or digital documents detailing their assassination plans on us. And Yael obviously isn't done chasing after us. So, it's likely that they have hidden the remaining documents in a flash drive or computer somewhere," Matthew elaborated.
"Great. I was about to bring that up. Anyway, the problem is that the NYPD couldn't have seized and searched the entirety of Yael Tower. It's just too big," Daniel shook his head in dismay.
Matthew clicked on a folder titled "Yael's Headquarters" and entered a picture file. He then turned to laptop around to face Daniel directly. "You mean... this is Yael Tower?" he asked, slightly nervous.
"Yes. It's currently the tallest building in the States. It literally has a hundred and thirty floors—who knows what they are hiding in there?" Daniel clarified reluctantly.
Matthew clenched his hands onto his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. "This is frustrating," he exhaled. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked up. "Wait..." he stopped.
"What?" Daniel frowned.
"What if... what if they're keeping Megan in there? I mean, there are thousands of rooms to hold her hostage in," Matthew theorised.
Daniel breathed out heavily, stretching his hand out to Matthew's. "Matthew. The Philly PD scrutinised every nook and corner of that cursed skyscraper as well as they could. Yes, they could have hidden a tiny flash drive anywhere, but not an adult woman. Also... we may need to consider the possibility that Yael never even took Megan in the first place...."
Matthew gasped. "W-w-what do you mean?" he stuttered.
Daniel pursed his lips, doubtful of whether he should make his comment. However, he decided that he needed to. "Well... maybe Megan ran away on her own...."
"What do you mean? She completely fainted that day. She couldn't have crawled back to New York. And even if she did, why would she refuse to see us?" Matthew dissented.
"Maybe she's upset. For now, let's not put finding her as our primary goal. From now on, let's set taking down Yael as it," Daniel said.
Matthew stood up, enraged. "Are you kidding me?" he yelled as he threw down his fork, causing other café-goers to stare at him. "Are you telling me that—"
All of a sudden, his phone began to ring, cutting his rant short. He brought it up and stared at it. His brother, Jean, was calling. "Hello?" Matthew answered the call.
"Matt, I need you at Edison Palmer Hospital now. Mum's in critical condition!" Jean mumbled in a panicky voice before trailing off.
"W-what? What's going on with Mum? Tell me!" Matthew yelled again.
"The doctors say that she's in critical condition. You have to get here... n-now!" Jean panted.
"All right. I'll be there in a bit," Matthew said before hanging up. "Sorry, Dan. I need to head to the hospital now. My mother's condition has gotten severe."