Daniel seemingly stared up at Matthew in fear, shaking unnervingly. To Matthew, however, this was all for show. And he thought that Daniel just wanted to make himself look innocent, such that Matthew would release his grip on the firearm.
"M-Matthew? W-what are you doing?" Daniel shuddered in fear as he tried to close his eyes and remove the image of the gun on his forehead from his mind.
"Well, why don't you tell me what the hell you were doing with Yael?" he interrogated Daniel, yelling.
"What do you mean, 'Yael'?" Daniel questioned back. "There must be a misunderstanding! I told you I was—"
"You were what? Talking to the SRA in the middle of the night?" Matthew questioned sarcastically. "Look, Daniel. I'm tired of this, all right? I'm sick of Yael, I'm sick of this outbreak, and I'm sick of you."
"S-sick of me? What—"
"Stop treating me like I don't know shit because I do now. So shut your trap and stop trying to explain things with your lies," Matthew screamed.
As a result, Daniel kept silent. There was nothing he could do now. It was obvious that Matthew and likely Megan had already discovered everything about his connections with Yael, or at least enough to superficially understand what was happening. And just by glancing over at the distasteful look on Megan's face, he could confirm that his cover was truly blown.
Meanwhile, Matthew refused to move the gun away from Daniel's forehead. He wanted to ensure that he wouldn't try anything funny. However, he still had more to say to and about Daniel. A lot more to say, in fact.
"I know what you are now, Daniel. You're a psychopathic, two-faced monster that would blend in with people before betraying them just for the fun of it," Matthew scoffed. "Back in NYU, you were the one that assaulted Alyssa, weren't you?"
Daniel didn't answer his question, however. Of course, Matthew didn't expect an answer. He just wanted Daniel to listen up and get his mind straight. Because he definitely wasn't in the right state of mind considering that he would betray his conscience and friends to help Yael for no apparent reason.
"Sure you were," Matthew continued. "I've always had suspicions about that day, you know? The victim claimed she had left a scratch on the perpetrator's right arm. And you had one such wound on your right arm too. But I didn't say anything, all because you proved my innocence when I was accused of attacking the girl. But now I know you enjoy being the villain in the dark and playing the hero in the light. And that's as simple as it can be."
At that moment, Matthew released his finger from the trigger and moved the gun away from Daniel's forehead. Daniel sighed in relief, although it t wouldn't last long. The tension between the three detectives remained, and it would always be there as long as they knew for a fact that Daniel was a traitor—worse than Emma was.
"Don't think for a second that we're going to let you off so easily. You'll be dealt with the moment we get out," Matthew said as he moved himself to the other side of the room, his gun still in his hand.
Daniel looked across the observation room and stared at Matthew. At that point in time, Matthew's face had almost become as emotionless as Daniel's. However, nothing could beat how psychopathic and remorseless Daniel was, not even to regret what he had done.
"So," Daniel started talking again, "since you know it all now. Where's the flash drive?"
Matthew raised an eyebrow. He was surprised that Daniel had the cheek to even ask such a question after all he had done. As such, he decided to play a little "game", just like the one that Daniel himself had played with them. "What flash drive? The empty one that I got from the hospital?"
"Don't act like you don't know," Daniel stopped him. "You told me not to put on a show about my true self. So why don't you follow your own rules, huh?"
Matthew snickered indifferently. He found it hilarious that Daniel had reacted agitatedly to him, pretending to be clueless about the flash drive, which was what he wanted after all. He then nodded, "giving in" to Daniel's request.
"All right then," Matthew said as he reached into his pocket and grabbed out the flash drive—the one that Daniel had given him that was supposed to only contain theories about Yael. The flash drive that turned out to be the one that had all their corrupted information backed up in when they deleted all other records during the NYPD investigation. "It's all in here," he said as he waved it before Daniel's face.
Daniel frowned bitterly, showing his tightly clenched teeth. He never expected that Matthew would discover the contents hidden inside, thinking that the safest place to hide something from one was to place the item in the very hands of that person. He was wrong, however. As such, he reached forward hastily in an attempt to grab it from Matthew, who instantly pulled it back behind his back. He then slipped it back into his pocket and grabbed his pistol out.
He held the gun to Daniel's head once again. His eyes locked with Daniel's as he glared right at him. "Don't even try," Matthew warned as he touched the trigger once more to threaten Daniel. "All it takes is one bullet," he added, chuckling afterwards.
"You're a maniac," Daniel scorned.
"Why? Don't you already know what it feels like to be one?" Matthew taunted him back. "Feel the pain that you caused everyone else to suffer. Feel it!"
Daniel gave up on arguing as a result. The two then sat down as they stopped the debate for a moment. The tension in the room eventually died down, but that didn't make the uneasy atmosphere disappear, especially with a violent creature pounding on the other side of the glass.
Just then, an announcement came through the intercom system. The speech was made in some sort of code language, but Matthew could tell they were calling for someone. And it didn't seem like very good news for them.
Thus, he moved to the left and peered out the glass windows. He wanted to make sure that no one was coming after them yet. Fortunately, no one was in sight, and neither could he hear any approaching footsteps.
Unfortunately, the unideal event that was imminent was indicated by a gasp coming from Megan and the cocking of a gun behind him.
"Drop your gun, Matthew," Daniel spoke from behind him. As such, Matthew turned slowly to see him armed; his gun pointed right at his neck. He then lowered the weapon, although Daniel expected more. "Don't think for a second that you were the only one with an extra weapon. Now, drop it!"
Without a choice, Matthew let go of the handgun, which fell to the floor. Daniel then confiscated and unloaded it before tossing the magazine and the weapon to the corner of the room, away from them. He then forced Matthew to the wall, keeping the gun on him.
Daniel then proceeded to reach into Matthew's back pocket with one hand; his other kept on his gun. His hand exited the pocket with the flash drive that Matthew had kept in it. He smirked as he retreated backwards, holding the thumb drive up for Matthew to look at it again.
He then snapped it with one hand, throwing the broken pieces down to the ground afterwards before dusting his hands. He looked down at Matthew and grinned viciously. "Well, there goes most of your evidence," he chuckled. "And by tonight, I'll have your documents on Yael all burnt away, so don't worry about the remainders."
Meanwhile, Megan knew she couldn't just sit there and watch Matthew continue being interrogated and threatened at gunpoint. It was utterly unfair that Daniel could be so remorseless despite everything he had done. And so, she charged right at him when he had least expected it, grabbing onto his arms and trying to remove his grip on Matthew. Unfortunately, she couldn't overpower him and was thrown to the ground instead.
She began yelping in pain as she put pressure on her foot painfully. Soon enough, blood started leaking out of the shoe—a sign that her foot was badly injured. Without any second thoughts, Matthew slipped himself through Daniel's grasp and ran straight to Megan. Daniel himself didn't try very hard to restrain Matthew anymore, though.
"Are you okay?" Matthew said as he helped Megan remove her shoe so that he could inspect her foot. However, what he found was nothing much as he had expected. In fact, nothing seemed to be wrong with her foot.
Instead, Matthew stared not at her foot but at the shoe. He just looked at it for moments until Megan began eyeing him and the shoe. As a result, Daniel became slightly suspicious, so he made a query. "What's up with her? She isn't that badly injured, is she?" he asked, although he was full of apathy.
"Well," Matthew said as he dug something out of the shoe. "You should probably ask yourself the same question after this."
He pulled a small revolver out of the shoe before aiming it right at Daniel and pulling the trigger. The bullet entered Daniel's right shoulder, causing him to let out a cry of pain before falling to his knees. He grabbed his wounded shoulder with his left hand before seeing the dangerous amount of blood being lost as it stained his fingers.
Meanwhile, the other two detectives worked fast to escape the room. Matthew began shooting at the locked door that guarded the corridor from the laboratory. At the same time, Megan scurried around the room to pick up Matthew's unloaded pistol and the magazine that was taken out from it.
Daniel, who was still groaning in pain, wasn't faring so well, on the other hand. The excruciating pain brought him out of his normal state of mind—being a psychopathic traitor. However, he was going insane and began yelling and hurling nonsensical remarks all over. It was almost as if he was crying for help, and the detectives knew that they had to slow the chairwoman or her workers from arriving so quickly. If they were to let him scream more, they would hear it and quickly approach them.
As such, Matthew brought out two extra bandages that he had and began tying them around Daniel's mouth and hands to restrain him. His screams could still be heard within the room, but they were rather muffled.
And soon enough, Matthew was able to break the room's security system by shooting through the circuit. "The door's open!" he alerted Megan as he pushed the door outwards. "Let's get out of here and search for the chairwoman."
However, Megan stopped him for a moment. "What about the thumb drive? Maybe we could recover the pieces—"
"That isn't even the real thumb drive!" Matthew said as he grabbed her out of the room.
The two detectives thus headed out of the laboratory, slamming the door. However, they were unable to lock the door from the outside since the security system had been broken by Matthew to get out, and to lock it manually, they would need a key. As a result, they left the room as it was—with Daniel still inside—and ran through the corridor towards the elevator lobby they had been brought from.
Matthew and Megan pressed the elevator call button. As such, an elevator came zipping up from one of the lower floors. The doors then slid open, allowing the two to flee from the floor quickly. Matthew pressed the button for the 128th so that they could get back to the chairwoman and hopefully detain her.
The elevator quickly brought them back up to the chairwoman's office's floor. Within twenty seconds, give or take, they were back on the floor. The duo then stepped out of the carriage quietly in an attempt to make sure that the chairwoman didn't notice their arrival.
Nevertheless, she didn't seem present in the room. They could tell as the doors were wide open. Palmer's body was still on the floor, and so were their guns. Instead of the chairwoman, however, a new set of guards appeared from the room. And unfortunately, the two detectives were spotted by them.
"Get back to the elevator!" Matthew yelled as he dragged Megan back with him to the elevator lobby. Luckily for them, the guards weren't armed, excluding the fact that they all had batons in their hands. They began to catch up to the detectives, which was a wake-up call for Matthew to move faster than ever.
He spammed the elevator call button once again, opening the doors to the elevator that was still on the floor. This allowed them a quick escape from the guards. As soon as the two of them entered, he punched the door-close button, hoping they would shut before the guards could get to them. And thankfully, they did.
The unfortunate part would come later, however.