Chapter 333.<h4><b><strong>Chapter 333. Troubling Developments: Finding a ce to Stay. (3/5)</strong></b></h4>


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uh, but before that, there’s somewhere I want to check out.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Where?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, it’s in a ghetto area of the city.” I figured it was at least worth a shot. I doubt they’d be open right now though, but I could at least scope the ce out before deciding on whether to make contact with that Faceless girl.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What do you n to do there?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Nothing much. But hotels around there should be pretty cheap.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm… good point. The cheaper the better.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">At a red light, I pulled out the card I received from the Faceless girl and plugged the address into the maps app on my phone for directions. I memorized the route and made my way there. Fifteen minutester we were in an unfamiliar area of the city I rarely ever visited.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The ce was like night and daypared to other areas of the city. The condition of the road was in a pitiful state, littered with cracks and potholes. The curbs along the sides of the roads in the area were all worn down and heavily degraded too. There were many old buildings with graffiti stered all over the ce. Garbage and trash were littered across both the roads and sidewalks.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“This ce is practically a dumpster. I didn’t even know this ce existed in the city.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, it’d be a perfect ce to go if you’re thinking about going into hiding though, don’t you think?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“True. Haaaaah, it sounds like I’m some sort of fugitive on the run. How depressing.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I doubt they’d think to look for you here though.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Those girls who enjoy luxury would never step foot in a filthy ce like this or even think to look for me here, that’s for sure. But are you trying to suggest that I give up my apartment and move here? Is that the sort of n you thought of?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No. I’ve got something else in mind bying here.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I came to a stop in front of a building. It definitely wasn’t in the best shape, but it was at least good enough to run a business out of.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Right now it was 11:00 PM, all the lights were off. As expected, they were closed and it didn’t look like anyone was around either.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What is this ce?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s a mechanic repair shop.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? Why’d youe here? To service your bike?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’ve never actually been here before. Actually, to begin with, I never thought I’d ever even have a reason toe here.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then why are we here?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That girl from before, she apparently runs this ce. Though I don’t know for certain whether that’s true or not since I haven’t ever been here before and I’m just taking her word for it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Even if she does own this ce, what can that girl possibly do to help with my situation?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… I figured the best way to deal with things was to fight fire with fire. This girl… she ims she’s a gang leader… again, I have no way to verify her im, but we might as well see if she’s telling the truth or not.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hah? That girl? A gang leader? There’s no way that’s true, she’s obviously messing with you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Maybe. But this is the best solution I can think of when there’s the potential threat of a gang leader getting involved in this.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“This is the dumbest n I’ve ever heard of. What reason would she have to help me out? None. There’s no benefit at all.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Perhaps. But there may still be a way. It all depends on negotiations and circumstances. Basically, what I need most right now is information. What gang is that crazy bitch involved with?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“As much as I agree that she is a crazy bitch, she does have a name.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“And how would I know what it is?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s Malory White. As for your question, her boyfriend is the leader of Swastika, a very violent gang filled with murderers and rapists.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaah. Why couldn’t they be something less intimidating?” Compared to Faceless, this particr gang I had heard of. Nothing but bad things. I’d seen a lot of headlines in the news about them when I got older and started to actually pay more attention to the news.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Malory looks down on all of them, they’re nothing more than useful pawns, convenient tools for her to live her life of luxury,” Yuna spoke about it indifferently like none of it mattered to her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You sure sound calm despite the scary backing she has.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“She might try to make me experience awful things so I hate and despise men the way she does, but she doesn’t kill other women. The one with the highest odds of being killed by her would be you right now if she finds out you’re not my boyfriend and that you already have another girl who’s your real girlfriend.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to have one of her girls seduce you or something, then records it to show me how you’re cheating on me. In her mind, she probably thinks she can get me to hate all men the way she does by doing something like that. She’d try to make it so I would want to kill you myself and get me to use men the same way she does.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“If I told her we broke up now after everything… she’d still try to make use of you to try and make me hate men. She’d think I did it to protect you and she wouldn’t be able to stand that.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaah. Really… if you’d just kept and ignored the way he was acting earlier today none of this would have happened.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“There’s no way I could know just how insane she was. I thought she was just some broke slut mooching off guys, maybe even entrapping and extorting those guys for money with her group of girls. Her being a gang leader’s girlfriend wasn’t something I considered.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, what’s done is done.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Besides, there’s no saying things wouldn’t have escted between the two of you further down the line anyway.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I dismounted the bike, approached the door, and knocked a couple of times. I was just making sure there really wasn’t anyone around. Naturally, nobody answered.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I knocked a couple more times, but still nothing. Resigned, I decided toe back tomorrow when they were open. Well, at least I confirmed the location. It turned out to be a pointless pit stop in the end though. It was worth a shot if it meant saving some money.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Just where did that girl go at this hour? Was she just bored and felt like going for a ride? Well… she did seem like a free spirit.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I climbed back on my bike with a sigh and said, “Haaaah. Let’s go, nobody’s around. We’ll have toe back tomorrow when they’re open. We can find you somewhere to stay close by. This ce seems pretty dangerous, but when you’re already escaping from something dangerous, hiding somewhere dangerous can be the best ce to hide. A safe ce like the police station would be the absolute first ce they’d look now that I think about it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hmmm, now that you mention it, that’s true. They’d probably find us if we’d gone there first.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Since there’s a gang involved, it’d probably be better to operate under the assumption they have eyes on the police station at all times. One call to that boyfriend of hers and we could have been intercepted before we even got there. We actually dodged a bullet there. Hell, when really thinking about it, they could have eyes looking out for us in other parts of the city by now for all we know. They might be watching popr hotels anticipating we might check into one. Luckily the area we’re in right now is another gang’s turf, so I doubt they’d have any eyes here.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Haaaaah. It kind of feels like we’re in a movie right now.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A bit.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I searched on my phone for hotels around here but was disappointed to discover there were none in this area. Well… it made sense. What hotel owner would dare set one up here?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“There’s a bit of a problem, Yuna.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What is it?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“There aren’t any hotels around this area.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Seriously?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, see for yourself.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I held my phone up to her and she immediatelyined, “You’ve got to be kidding me, how bad is my luck?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… maybe the area’s so bad that hotels just aren’t listed or something. We could drive around a bit to see if we get lucky ande across one.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re really grasping at straws, don’t you think?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haha… yeah. Let’s give it a shot though. It’d really be best to find somewhere around here for you to stay.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Alright.”