Ben paused for half a second, before he extended his hand outwards towards the group, offering them a handshake as a welcome. Aoife took it first, followed by Rowan, then Nadia, and the trio stepped inside.
The inside was sparse, and it reminded Rowan of the interior of the awakened management Bureau with the amount of room there was inside. Looking around, he didn't immediately see Ben's injured friend.
Instead, he saw a closed door in the direction Ben's eyes had darted earlier.
'She must be resting. Hopefully they have some useful abilities, otherwise it'll be a tough trip back with dead weight.'
Rowan didn't deny that an injured person was dead weight. At the end of the fight with the hybrids, he had experienced how futile it felt to be injured. Thankfully, his regeneration could make up for it, but it sadly couldn't extend to the injured girl.
Rowan decided to make himself at home, finding a couch and falling back down into it. After all, it wasn't like it was Ben's house. They were all journeying home and making use of other people's stuff.
Nadia and Aoife remained standing, with Aoife shooting a very pointed look in the direction of where the girl likely was. Ben left them standing to go and sit down next to Rowan, hunched over on the couch.
"Do you have any food, Ben? If you don't have much, it's alright, but we've only just escaped our Hell. We haven't had the time or opportunity to go hunting yet."
Rowan said it casually, but in truth he had started feeling pangs of hunger a while ago. It was no worse than what he was used to in the complex, but he had grown used to having his stomach feel full.
"I do! I've harvested some fruits from some kind of vine monster, I store them in the basement cause that's where it's the coldest. I have too many to carry right now, so you guys are more than welcome to eat some."
Nadia and Aoife seemed to ease slightly at that, and Rowan visibly watched the tension drop from their shoulders. He wasn't sure what they were so afraid of, did they not believe Ben about his friend, maybe?
Deciding to ask them in the basement away from Ben, he figured out where the door was and descended down the stairs into the dark room. Aoife produced the word of light on cue, and they saw a stockpile of fruits lying in the corner across from where the stairs had led down.
Some were considerably older, shrivelled up, but others were firm and large, and it was those that they grabbed for their first meal in a while. Before he took a bite of his, Rowan turned to Aoife and Nadia to ask them what he had been considering.
"You guys seem really wary of him. Did you notice something off? Or is it something else?"
Nadia and Aoife finished the bites they had already taken before Aoife answered him.
"It just feels odd. He's a lot more timid than you are, Rowan, and yet he somehow survived solo in a Hell after his teammate was injured? It's no secret that most orphans die in their first Hell, and the few that do survive don't survive alone."
"So it's because he's from the complex."
Rowan's retort came faster than his mind had time to think, though he only half regretted being unable to stop himself. After how hard he had thought in the Hell, they still thought of themselves as that much better?
Rowan knew that he had easily fought better than Nadia and Avery, and had killed his fair share of wolves. But the half regret came from how he knew he would be dead were it not for the others. Had Lenny not taught him about cores, had Aoife not been as impossibly strong, he definitely would not have survived the caves.
"Yes. I'm not saying it to be mean, Rowan, but he looks even skinnier than you did when we first met you. She would have had to be injured right at the very end of the Hell. There's no other way he could have survived."
"Then why don't we ask him? If you're that worried about whatever it is, just ask him. We could also ask his teammate."
The others nodded quickly, as though they had already planned to do so as soon as they were finished eating. Rowan quickly finished his fruit, leaving the red skin behind in the same way Aoife and Nadia did. He had tried to taste it, but it was much too bitter and difficult to chew.
Following up behind them, Ben was still seated in the same spot on the couch, and looked up as they re-entered the room. Aoife was the first to speak, and Rowan could only hope that she would at least be polite about it. After all, Ben had been the one to let them into the safehouse.
"Ben, before we go to sleep, we just want to make sure we can trust you. Can we see your teammate?"
Ben blinked rapidly, seemingly shocked by Aoife's accusation, and Rowan didn't blame him. It felt like a baseless accusation, even though they hadn't seen her yet.
"Her name's Leah, and she's sleeping right now. You can check in the morning if you want, but she needs time to recover."
Aoife and Nadia stiffened slightly, but Rowan saw the reason in both of their viewpoints in this exchange. They didn't trust him because he wouldn't let them see her, but Ben simply wanted to let his teammate rest.
"How badly is she injured?"
Rowan decided that maybe some more information would help put Nadia and Aoife's minds at ease. Rowan figured that if he answered that it was light or heavy, the group's accusation would make sense.
If Ben said light, it wouldn't make sense for her rest to be so paramount. If he said heavy, he likely would have asked if any of them had healing abilities before they even walked in.
"It's not too bad, but she has an infection, so it's really important she gets her rest."