16. Holden
Chapter 16
Holden
F inn strolls into my room and plops down on my couch. He looks like he hasn’t slept all week. It’s possible. I haven’t seen him on campus since we caught Eloise snooping. “Where you been, man?”
“On a solo challenge.”
My brows shoot up. “It’s been a while since any of us has done one of those.”
“That’s the same thing I said, but my mentor said The League insisted I do this one on my own.”
His dad is his mentor, but him using the distinction is telling. “You okay?”
He jerks his head. “I’m okay.”
“Did you complete it?”
That question earns me a scowl. “Of course.”
“Hey, I’m just asking. You’re usually riding a high after a challenge, but right now you look a little.. off.”
“I feel a little off.” He sighs. “The whole challenge felt off.”
Something in his tone sets off warning bells. “How do you mean?”
“It’s like you said. When was the last time we were sent on an individual challenge? We work as a team and break off if there’s more than one thing happening, but I couldn’t even tell you guys about this. They sent me to the other side of the country, with zero prep time. Then, when I went to the vault-”
I interrupt him. “You turned the item in already?”
“Like I said, it felt off. This was an immediate turn in action.”
We haven’t had too many of those since the beginning of our first prospect year. That’s usually a warm-up phase to make sure the prospects know where to go and what’s expected when we’re turning something into the vault. Most of the items are presented in chamber, but it’s still not out of the realm of things to be expected.
I say, “We’ve gotten used to the idea of holding onto whatever we retrieve, just to prove we can protect it from other Wrens, but that doesn’t explain why you thought things were off.”
“Malcolm on the phone in a private room, with the door open, was the part that felt off.”
Tilting my head to the side, I consider his words. “The text you sent me was pretty vague. What did you hear?”
“I’m not even sure. Something about a patient and him hoping she doesn’t come back. I kept replaying his words over and over on the ride back to campus. Malcolm’s not known for being careless. It feels like too much of a coincidence that he was at the vault at the same time I was.” Finn scrubs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure if I was meant to hear the conversation or not, and if I was, was I supposed to keep quiet about it, or tell someone?”
Given our history with Malcolm, it’s hard to say if it was a test or not. “I think we should keep this between us, for now.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I experience the same sense of doubt Finn was just talking about. Keeping quiet about Malcolm is how we ultimately wound up here. Finn sits forward, pointing to the scraps of paper I have laid out on a puzzle board next to the coffee table. “What’s all this?”
“Campus trash.”
“You’re digging into the trash?”
“Hell no. This was delivered to me last week. When I opened the box and saw what it was, I thought someone was fucking with me. Then I started wondering if it might be part of a challenge. It sat in the corner for two days and I never got an alert.”
He chuckles. “Your curiosity got the better of you.”
I nod. My curiosity always gets the better of me. I need to know things, and hate leaving puzzles unsolved. “At the organizational meeting, Pax was writing something instead of paying attention to Dean Gibson. Afterwards, he made a point of ripping up the piece of paper before throwing it into the trash. Anyone could have seen it and figured out we’re having problems, so they sent me the trash as a joke.”
Finn lets out a whistle. “That’s one fucked up prank, or-”
“Or there’s something here.” I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find, but my gut tells me this wasn’t randomly sent to me.
“Have you found anything interesting yet?”
“No. I had other things to deal with.” Glancing up at him, I add, “I caught Eloise on camera snooping around up here again.”
“In my room?”
“This time she was in Pax’s room. The master key fob she has doesn’t work on your door anymore. It’s my fault she got into your room the last time. I was distracted and hadn’t gotten around to reprogramming the master codes on our locks. It’s done now.” I did the same thing to Thea’s door even though it shows as unavailable in the system. I left Pax’s door untouched.
“Pax’s room? Seriously? Did he finally convince her to be waiting naked in his bed for him when he got home?”
I roll my eyes at Finn’s joke. “Come on, man. I do not need a visual of that. She was trying to get into my room before that.”
He gives me a knowing look. “What did you do?”
I shrug, holding up another piece of torn paper and turning it over in my hand. “Her fingertips will be a little sore for the next few days.”
Finn chuckles. “Did you set up an electric shock on the door handle, like you talked about last year?”
“I did.” The plan was to install it on the bunker door, in the off chance that someone found our hideout and tried to get in. “We’ll call this the testing phase before we put it on our bunker.”
“So all of this?” He gestures towards the papers again, bringing the conversation back to his original question.
“Names. Dates. I recognize a few of the names as students on campus we rejected as pledges. Others are parts of different fraternities and sororities. This could be information I’ll need for a challenge later on.”
He asks, “You think I have a box of trash waiting for me?”
“If you do, it’s at the front desk, but I haven’t heard of anyone else getting one. Maybe it’ll be a solo challenge, like the one you just did.” I return my attention to the items in front of me. “Right now, I’m trying to piece these pages together as much as possible before running it through my software to get a better rendering of what the original documents looked like.”
Finn leans over, looking at what I have so far. “I’m pretty sure the one that says R.W. Emerson is a piece of an English paper.” He slides down onto the floor next to me, his back against the couch. “Okay, let’s see if we can make some sense out of this confetti.”
I’ve been working on the paper puzzle all week. Today I see something I haven’t noticed before. I’m just not sure what it is. Less than half of the ripped up pieces of paper makes any sense. Of the pieces that aren’t utter gibberish, I know there are details missing. I called Finn an hour ago to help. He walks in complaining, “This paper chase couldn’t wait? I had a good lead on someone from Mayhem Night.”
Others would have given up on finding answers months ago. Not Finn. He gave Thea his word, and he’s gonna honor it, no matter what. I turn on my television, casting the image from my laptop onto it. “What do you see?”
“More pieces of your trash puzzle.”
“Really look at it, Finn. What do you see?”
“Can you blow it up?”
I enlarge the photo. It becomes more pixelated, but it’s still readable. He tilts his head to one side, then the other. “It looks like the impression of something. Like when you press down on a piece of paper too hard and the letters go through to the page underneath. Or when you pull apart pieces of paper that were stuck together, and the ink gets left behind.”
Nodding, I say, “I’ve been staring at it all day.”
“It’s a bunch of numbers and letters that got cut off.” He steps closer and taps the screen. “Are those dashes?”
“At first I thought it might be a phone number, but the digits and locations of the dashes don’t really make sense.” I rotate the image on the screen. “I guess it could be an account number, and the letters don’t matter.”
Finn turns to face me, and says, “It reminds me of an overseas address.”
This is why I have him helping me. Behind the jokes and violence, Finn is one of the most intelligent people I know. People don’t give his life experiences overseas enough credit. “Finn, you’re a fucking genius.”
“I know, and if you’re done with me here, I need to take my genius on a hunt.”
I enter the numbers and letters I can make out in the search bar. A lot of permeations come up, so I refine the search to include addresses. If there’s a match out there, I’ll find it. “Enjoy your hunt. I’ll let you know if I get a hit.”