Chapter 25

As Anette's body is now fully unconscious because of the effects of the drug dosage, Vilea lays her down the cold floor and put her eyes on Jennifer. Her patience runs out as she sees her holding a syringe and is headed for Cherry. Vilea rushes towards her and as Jennifer hears footsteps from behind she turns around only to be spin kicked by Vilea.

The syringe held by Jennifer, was eventually dropped on the floor, breaking the glass into smaller pieces of shards and the dissolved drug scattered on the floor. Jennifer fell on the ground a few inches away from the shattered glass, her lip bursting droplets of blood from Vilea's kick onto the floor. With her lying with her face on the floor, Vilea took her arms and chained her with handcuffs before she could do anything more.

But as Vilea rushed towards Cherry, the combat between the two rivals is still ongoing. Landing punches and dogding attacks, both of them no intention of backing down. Noah's expression turns into a dark look. But because Dave is turning tired, Noah uses this chance to take his opening and pushes him down. With Dave facing the floor, Noah also takes a handcuff from his pocket and chains him.

But right after putting the handcuff, he forcefully turns him to face him. Noah's gaze full of anger and rage that it's obvious that he's about to burst any minute.

"What did you do to her?" He asks him, tugging his collar towards him but he shows him a mischievous smirk instead. Noah's expression full of irritation, he tugs his collar harder, slightly shaking Dave.

"I made her happy" Dave responded followed by a slight chuckle. "That's all I ever wanted to give her"

He became more irritated. Without hesitation, Noah's fist lands a foceful punch on Dave's face, making Dave tumble on the floor.

"What exactly did you do to her? What is that thing you say your experiment is?! Why can't she recognize me?!" Noah shouts at him while Vilea takes care of the uncounscious ones, Anette and Cherry. Vilea looks at Cherry and knew Dave did something to her that could explain both Cherry and Anette's condition.

She examines the room and sees a door to another room. As she went inside she sees a lab. Full of chemicals and flasks, computations on a board, equipments and machines. But she needed to find a computer fast. She searches every cabinet and shelf but no computer, until she saw a box of a laptop. As she opened it, she knew it's a brand new laptop and she's hesitating because it's one of the latest computers she haven't tried hacking yet. Praying and hoping she succeeds, she opens it and reads the manual as fast as she could. She tries the algorithms she used in other devices and she connected it to her phone. Transferring data algorithms and patterns, so the cctv fottages on the room they're in be copied to her phone.

Meanwhile, Dave, full of bruises and wounds, still finds strength to remain conscious though his vision is slowly blurring out. As for Noah, he recognizes the woman in handcuffs and sighs in irritation. He takes the back of Dave's collar and drags him beside Jennifer, making her aware that she's been seen.

"What role do you have with this, Jennifer? Why are you on his side?" He asks her, trying not to lose his cool to her. But she's already panicking inside and trembling on the outside. She knew that if Noah found out, it would give him more reason to avoid her. As she thought of those things, she hurriedly tried walking on her knees towards Noah, making him back away slightly. Her eyes on the verge of tears and begging for him to forgive her.

"I had no choice! I knew I couldn't have you when that girl is around! I needed to do something! Then I found Dave. He's so obsessed with the girl so he asked me for help so we could get what we both wanted." Her voice filled with sadness as she tries to explain to him. She's practically begging him to stay.

"But that's not a problem now! She doesn't like you anymore. I'm here. Now, you can see my worth for you. I'll make you happy. I can make you happy. I promise you. Please. Just love me and everything will be fine." Noah's expression changed from irritation to pure pity and disgust.

"I can't believe you needed to become so low just to get what you wanted. Pathetic." He says. Noah's words struck her. He left her wide eyed, recollecting everything she did wrong while Noah walked towards Dave. He tugged his collar one last time and glare at him, their eyes just inches away from each other.

"Tell me what happened to her. Speak up while I'm being nice. What's in that syringe?" He asks and after a long pause, Dave spoke up.

"Dopamine... Methamphetamine..." Dave's voice becomes husky and low because of the pain he's bearing.

"I used methamphetamine in both the syringe I used on the girl and Anette... But I included a certain amount of dopamine in Anette's. Dopamine increases a person energy and makes them happy in a short period of time. And the first person she wanted to see was you, but she saw me... so she eventually thought I was you" He wryly chuckles as he explains it to him making Noah more pissed. "She was so happy when she saw me... I mean you haha"

"Don't feel all high and mighty just because you're me in her eyes. I will save her before you even take her" Noah exclaims but Dave gives him a mischievous laugh, making him confused and irritated. "Why are you laughing.?"

"How about YOU don't try and be all high and mighty. Because before you even think you can save her, she'll suffer even more as she dares not to take the drug. She'll already be addicted to it because that's why I made it. The more she doesn't take it, the more she'll crave it. And she won't recognize you anymore."

After Dave's explanation, Noah grits his teeth his anger already filling the atmosphere. Suddenly the door slams open with a loud pound. Vilea coming from the room, along with the new laptop and footages.

"Let's get out of here!" She shouts as she thinks of a way to carry Cherry. And just as suddenly, another door bursts open. Agents and spies circling them, with guns in their hands, pointed towards Noah and Dave.

"Are you alright?" Asks Chris. Patting Noah's shoulder and taking him away from Dave. With them walking away, Dave knew Noah's patience is already beyond the edge. Smirking as he looks at them, he spoke.

"You'll never save her" Dave's words strucks Noah making his stop on his tracks. "She won't see you as Noah anymore, won't she? She'll see you as her enemy, which she'll hate her whole life." He couldn't stand it. He moved fast, taking a gun from one of the men, pointing at Dave. His anger is boiling and overflowing.

Just as this is happening, Anette's slowly regaining consciousness. Slightly aware of her surroundings, she looks at the direction of the commotion and she sees Noah in handcuffs and Dave pointing a gun at him. Unable to take in everything she's seeing, she couldn't voice out anything.

Then she hears a loud bang.

He already pulled the trigger.

Without hesitation, she stands and runs toward Dave whom she still thinks is Noah. Her eyes filling with tears again as she swore to herself that she'd protect him. As the real Noah sees her running, he screams as loud as he can as he dropped the gun he's holding.

"NO!"

I love you, Noah. And I'm sorry. Anette said in her mind. She pushes Dave to avoid the gunshot and...

She ended up getting shot instead...