"Laurel?" Raven called after her before getting up and going after Laurel.

--

Nic paused for a short moment again before replying in the same tone, "Yes."

Laurel ran down the halls, trying to find the group.

--

The other neonates looked away, disgusted. Wolfe's eyes iced over completely, "Most people... might not care about your past in the bedroom. But you've stumbled onto a group who have a past written with incest... and will not tolerate it," he voice had grown deadly.

Raven continued to run after Laurel.

--

Nic said nothing, keeping his calm demeanor.

Laurel kept going, her panic kept building. Something was wrong, why was Raven chasing her?

--

"Get out," Snow spat when Wolfe fell silent, "Get away from us. We won't let you defile Laurel further."

"Please slow down," Raven told her. "Talk to me."

--

Nic's eyes grew darker at Snow's words. "The only defiling that has happened recently has been Rosen defiling me," he replied as an angry edge came into his voice.

"No!" Laurel shouted, "Something's happening!"

--

Rosen seemed to take offense to that but Snow beat him to it, "You were more than defiled before our Rosen got to you," she spat back.

"You'd done it enough times before to be good at it," he added, getting angry himself.

"What do you mean?" Raven asked.

--

"I will not justify myself to you," Nic spat at them as he became angrier. "I loved David, and I will not tolerate anyone trying to sully what we had!"

Laurel didn't answer.

--

The neonates fell silent, someone had opened the door. Frei stepped inside and Wolfe motioned her to come over to him with a sigh. Frei's blank eyes stared at Nic, "You had an incestuous relationship with your brother?" she clarified. All the neonates except Wolfe shifted uncomfortably.

"What's happened?" Raven repeated again, getting short on breath.

--

Nic's anger slowly started to fade as Frei entered. He waited a short moment for Frei to get comfortable before repeating in a more even tempered voice. "We loved each other," Nic clarified, not saying anything more.

"I don't know!" Laurel shouted before hitting a dead end and cursing.

--

Frei nodded, "They are very protective," she told Nic as she glanced at Wolfe and the others, "Incest is a taboo word here. In runs... deeply in my family." The cold, blank voice coming from the tiny teen was as unsettling as ever. "You must leave, I will not let you have Laurel."

Raven sighed as he kept going after Laurel, but at a slower pace.

--

Frei didn't unsettle Nic too much. He didn't back down. "If I leave, Laurel is coming with me," he announced. "I promised I would not leave without her, and I won't break that promise."

Laurel was slowing down as well. This place was so huge...

--

"If you're worried about breaking that promise... We'll make you disappear instead, you don't stand a chance against us. As soon as Laurel hears what you've done, she won't go after you," Snow stated.

"You going to make another bet?" Nic asked, directing the question more to Wolfe than to Snow. "If I 'disappear' I will not stop until I get back to Laurel. And if truly don't want to hear from me again, you better put a bullet between my eyes right now."

Wolfe was silent for a long moment, "Do you not think something is wrong with your brain?" he asked Nic, eyes piercing.

Nic's temper flared darkly for a few moments like when Rosen had prodded him about David. But after a little more time he managed to at least get a grasp on it. "I loved David, and I did everything in my power to make him happy," he snapped. "And he loved me back. I did nothing wrong."

Wolfe pondered that for a long moment. He looked like he might respond but the door burst open.

"What... the terra is going on?" Laruel demanded, out of breath.

"I told you to lock the door," Snow muttered to Rosen.