Chapter 3 —Eva
I pushed the door open and walked into my dorm, rolling my neck in a massaging motion. My back ached, and my waist was killing me. Exhausted, I took off my backpack and fell face down on the small bed, groaning into the mattress.
After all the effort I put into this assignment, I received a notification about fifteen minutes ago that the deadline had been extended. Why hadn’t we been informed earlier? I wouldn’t have bailed on Emi so soon. I rolled over, facing the ceiling with my hands under the back of my head.
The image of the tall man at the library flashed in my head again, reminding me of his commanding presence. The scent of his cologne still lingered on the back of my hand. His skin had brushed against mine while reaching for the same book.
And since then, it felt like I carried a piece of him wherever I went. Not that I’d gone anywhere else anyway.
Who was he? What did he want with the book? He was too sophisticated to be a student or a professor at the university. So, who was he, and why did he want the book? My brows knitted together as I recalled his awkward silence and the chills it sent down my spine.
I remembered the ruggedness etched on his face, his blank expression and those icy gray eyes that seemed to stare into my soul. My heart skipped a beat, confused about the mysterious man’s intentions.
Although I had no idea who he was or what his deal was, I knew for sure that he wasn’t the kind of man to be messed with. He didn’t have to spell out how dangerous he could be—everything about him gave him away. Especially those scary eyes of his.
I wasn’t one to stereotype people, but the fact that he looked like he was Russian only made matters worse. Those guys were always linked to one gang killing in the city or another. That said, the question remained: What was he doing in the school’s library, and what did he want with the book?
I jolted off the bed, picked up my backpack from the floor, and headed to my reading table by the window. I set the backpack at my feet, withdrew my laptop first, and then the book. The plan was to try to figure out what was so special about this psychology book.
I’d read more than a few chapters of it earlier and still hadn’t seen anything interesting beyond psychological facts. Maybe there was nothing eerie about this whole thing. Maybe my mysterious Russian man just wanted to have a good read.
Deep down, I didn’t believe it. I sensed that there was more to this, and my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to let it rest.
I had barely opened the book again when the same neat sheet of paper fell onto the table. I hadn’t taken a good look at it earlier, but I was determined to do that now.
Sitting back in my chair, I studied the scribbles on the paper, trying to figure them out. However, nothing made sense to me—just random numbers, chaotic lines, arrows, and a language I assumed was Russian.
It looked messy—something a normal person would easily dismiss as unworthy of their time. Well, I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t a normal person; I was a curious kitty cat obsessed with solving puzzles.
And this was definitely a puzzle.
The main reason I didn’t rule it out as nonsense was the Russian inscriptions on the paper. It somehow explained why my mysterious Russian man would be interested in the book.
Wait a minute.
I squinted, wondering whether this paper was what he was actually after, not the book itself. Yeah, sure, he might have been a learned man trying to read a book. But why this particular one—the one with the Russian inscriptions on a sheet of paper? Coincidence? I didn’t think so.
What if the last person who read the book was Russian, and these were all notes from the book? It was possible, yes. But the numbers circled in neat red had nothing to do with the book. I was sure because I’d already read it.
A quick Google search would reveal the meaning of those Russian words, but for now, I was focused on these numbers. They seemed to have been repeated over and over, always in sets of four or six.
I stared at one, my eyes drifting between the figures.
13-19-05-04
Whatever this was, it must be some kind of coded message. But what could it mean? Could it be a substitution cipher—numbers corresponding to letters? No, that would be too easy to crack.
I ran a quick calculation in my head, just checking to see if this was somehow actually a substitution cipher.
13 equaled M.
19 equaled S.
05 equaled E.
04 equaled D.
I edged forward, grabbed a pen, and scribbled down MSED on a sticky note. As expected, it didn’t make sense. Even when I tried shifting the sequence backward, like the simplest encryption twist, I ended up with LRDC. Which, by the way, still made no sense.
I considered the possibility that these might be acronyms for something. But after browsing the net, I found nothing interesting on them—they were just random letters.
I tucked my hair behind my ear, my fingers rattling across the keyboard. With my eyes fixed on my laptop’s lit screen, I searched the web for the translations of the Russian words underneath each number.
The first word was translated as “Move.”
The second was “Cargo.”
The third was “Night.”
And the fourth was “Bratva.”
My heart skipped a beat at the last word. I leaned back in my chair, my eyes scanning the room as if to confirm that I was still alone here.
The Bratva was a Russian criminal syndicate infamous for their ruthlessness and the death that followed wherever they went. Why the hell was their organization mentioned on this sheet of paper?
My pulse was racing at this point, and a voice whispered in my head, telling me to close my laptop and let this go. I could do that, but my curiosity got the best of me. Plus, there was no way I’d let this go without first connecting the dots.
Move.
Cargo.
Night.
Bratva.
Those words weren’t random; they must mean something. If they didn’t, why were they all scribbled under each number? Speaking of numbers, what the hell could they possibly mean? What did they stand for?
A noise came from outside, drawing attention to the window. It was just two boys arguing about God-knows-what and laughing so loudly.
“Hey, when’s the game next month?” one asked.
“On the seventh,” the other replied.
I returned my eyes to my laptop screen, fingers rubbing my temples. That’s when it hit me. “Date,” I said, my eyes widening like I’d just solved a part of the puzzle.
The numbers weren’t letters as I thought—they were dates! But dates for what?
My eyes returned to the words above each date, and the longer I stared at them, the more they began to look like a set of instructions.
Move. Cargo. Night. Bratva.
I spotted something else at the base of the paper.
2200-18-07.
Stroking my chin, I observed it for a while, trying to decipher what it meant, until something clicked. Military time. A location marker. A month.
22:00 hours. 18th. July.
I wiped the sweat that dampened my forehead, a warning that I was digging too deep. Even though I wasn’t ready for whatever I’d find, I couldn’t help myself.
My stomach tightened after I translated the Russian beside it.
“Warehouse by the docks,” I murmured to myself.
The more I tried to crack this thing, the deeper I fell into it. Hours passed by in a blur, and I didn’t even realize how much time I’d spent chasing every possible interpretation.
Before I knew it, it was almost midnight, and my eyes were starting to sting despite the thrill of discovery that kept me locked in place. One thing I’d come to realize from this whole situation was that someone out there was planning something big.
They were using this book to send secret messages to each other. At this point, I could bet my life that the man from the library was in on whatever was going on. That’s why he didn’t want me to take the book with me.
Wait a second.
Given the secrets hidden in this book and the man’s obsession with it, wouldn’t he come after me for taking it home?
Shit.
My pulse quickened at the realization that I might have walked into something much bigger than me. Right now, I was supposed to be crippled by fear, but that didn’t stop me.
I kept unraveling truths I wasn’t ready for until I eventually fell asleep on the table. Hours passed, and then I was awakened by the sound of my alarm clock buzzing incessantly.
My head pounded like a friggin’ drum, and my neck was stiff from the way I lay on my table. I let out a quiet groan and stretched, basking in the warmth of the rising sun.
I rubbed my tired eyes while struggling to get out of my chair. That’s when I realized something was missing on my table. My laptop was still where I left it, and my notebook and pen were untouched. But somehow, that psychology book had vanished without a trace.
“What the hell?” I mumbled, scanning the room for it. “But it was right here.” I gestured toward the spot where I’d left it last night, then wiped my palm across my face.
I hadn’t risen from this desk all night, and the book never left my table. So where the hell was it? I looked around, trying to make sense of it. The door was locked from the inside, and my roommate had traveled two days earlier. Nobody else had access to my dorm.
My keys were still on the table—untouched—and my window was shut. So how did this happen?
I stood in the middle of the room after searching everywhere and finding nothing. My fingers combed through my hair, confusion and fear bubbling inside me.
The only logical explanation I could think of was that someone had come in here while I was asleep and taken the book. But how did they get inside? Was I even safe?
This was a mystery, one that was more terrifying than it was intriguing.
“Fuck,” I whispered to myself, my heart racing in my chest.