Chapter 24: Chapter 24

THIRTEEN

"So..."

"So, what?" I ask when Devin doesn't continue on with whatever he clearly wants to say.

He's been grinning like a fool since taking the seat in the cockpit next to me.

"You and Cody..." He trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

I just glance at him out of the corner of my eye and he waggles his eyebrows at me. I shake my head but don't make any comment.

"Oh come on. Say something."

"Something."

"That's not what I meant."

I shake my head again and smile slightly. The ringing of my phone keeps Devin from asking any more questions. I take one hand off the controls to pull it out of pocket. I check the caller ID before answering it.

"Cell phones can take down planes you know," I state instead of greeting him.

"Don't land."

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean don't land?"

"Exactly what I said. Don't land." He repeats and I notice Devin looking at me curiously. "There's a trap waiting for you when you touch down."

"And how do you know this?" His response is silence. "How do you even know where I'm going to land?"

"Sorry." He finally mutters simply and I feel my anger flare up.

"What happened to having each other's backs?"

"Daggers now is not the time to have this conversation."

"Then when's a good time? When I get shot out of the sky?"

"You know I won't let that happen."

I shake my head even though I know he can't see me. "Whatever. I'll change routes." I mutter. I reach over to the control console and begin to plot in the new destination.

"Be safe." He says simply before he hangs up...as always.

I grumble string of curses under my breath and Devin looks pointedly at me.

"What?" I snap at him.

"Who was that?" He asks calmly, curiosity shining in his eyes.

"No one."

"You were clearly talking to someone."

"Devin just drop it." My tone is firm and final. I'm not going to answer that question and he knows it. "Flight's going to take a little longer than previously planned."

"As long as there's no turbulence, that's cool with me."

I smile and jerk the steering to side quickly before correcting it. It's enough to cause Devin to tumble from his seat. He scowls at me.

"Not cool Thirteen."

I keep my laughter contained and let a smile grace my face instead.

***

"At least this one's an actual house, and not some run down creepy horror shed," Devin announces as he gets out of the car and stands in front of the house. The last location on the list.

"Ever been here before?" Chase asks me as he exits the car behind Devin.

I shake my head and stare at the simple two-story house. "No."

I walk up the driveway and try to open the door. It's locked.

"Well, looks like no one's home, let's go." Cody grabs hold of the back of Devin's shirt before he can duck back into the car.

I stare at the strange lines next to the door. They look like a keyhole of some kind, but it's not any key I've ever seen. I raise my fingers up and gently brush over them. It's an extremely thin opening.

"I wonder." I muse to myself quietly. "Can one of you grab my backpack?" I call out over my shoulder, still staring at the slits.

Cody hands me my backpack and I take it from him, placing it on the floor and rummaging through it. I pull out the familiar case. I pop it open and stare at the object resting inside.

"Perhaps the reason I could never open this," I twirl the CD in my hands. "Is because it was never meant to be opened." I push it gently into the slit next to the door and suddenly it's pulled from my fingers into the opening and it disappears. "It's a key itself," I mutter as the door clicks open.

"I can't tell if that's really, really stupid, or freaking brilliant," Jason says as I pull open the door and step inside.

"It's freaking brilliant." Devin supplies for him as they walk into the house behind me. Chase flips on the lights as we enter.

Everything's covered in a layer of dust. Clearly, no one's been here in years. Nothing's jumping out at me, nothing begging for attention. It's just a simple house, normal furniture.

Devin goes to walk in further and move past me. My arm shoots out across his chest stopping him. He gives me a funny look.

"I'd watch your step if I were you," I say in response to my actions. "Lily loved traps with a passion."

"Great," Chase says flatly.

"Let's split up and see what we find," I suggest. "Just keep a sharp eye out. It wouldn't surprise me if she set up trip wires or pressure plates of some kind."

Jason and Devin head up the stairs, Cody walks further back into the house but stays on the first floor, and Chase begins looking through the living room we entered into.

"I think I'd rather just wait outside," Elaine states, glancing nervously around as if something's going to jump out and bite her.

I just shrug. "Fine by me."

I walk over towards Chase as he glances over the furniture in the room, occasionally opening a drawer only to close it soon after once he sees that there's nothing in it.

"So what's up with the boys not knowing about Megan?" I ask innocently and he shoots me a glare.

I pick up a picture frame sitting on the coffee table. It's a picture of me and her. She's got her arm slung around my shoulders and she sticks her tongue out the camera in a childish way. My eyes are closed but you can clearly see that I'm laughing. I smile and put it back down.

"I was going to tell them eventually." He finally responds. "But I just...I don't know. I like to keep my personal life and agency life separate. I didn't really see a point in telling them about her if it wasn't serious."

"And now that it is?"

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I don't know." He admits. "I feel bad for keeping it from them but...I've kept her safer because of it."

I nod in understanding. "You're more like Lily that you realize," I say simply and he points to the picture on the coffee table.

"That her?"

"Yeah. You're like her in the sense that she didn't like mixing her personal life with her agency life either. That's probably why I never met Ryder until a couple years ago."

He furrows his eyebrows as he turns to me. "Then how'd you two meet?"

I laugh. "Long story, and it's so much better to get him to tell it. He gets extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed."

I laugh again. "The short version. He shot me."

Chase's jaw practically drops to the floor. "He shot you?!"

"Then arrested me."

"How in the hell did that happen?"

"Well our agency and the FBI don't exactly communicate with each other. So we both happened to be chasing down the same guy." I shrug as I go? through a couple drawers. "I was undercover and didn't have my badge on me when Ryder decided to charge in guns blazing."

I shake my head with a smile on my face and laugh. "He got in a whole lot of trouble with our agency and his father. After he introduced himself properly I realized who he was exactly."

"I know it's none of my business," He starts hesitantly. "But why didn't you two ever date?"

"It wouldn't be fair to either one of us."

"How so?

"He looks at me, and he sees the little sister he lost. I look at him and I see the best friend I lost." I shake my head sadly as I stare at a picture of Ryder and Lily hanging on the wall. "We can put on a smile and pretend otherwise, but it'd be torture if we were forced to see each other every day."

Chase nods in understanding and goes back to looking through whatever else is in this room. So far there's nothing...not even any traps. But that's a very, very good thing.

"There's nothing in this place," Cody announces as he comes back into the living room.

"I found a light switch upstairs that doesn't work!" Devin says proudly as both he and Jason come back down the stairs.

"Good for you." Chase retorts sarcastically.

"Show it to me," I order and Devin looks surprised that I want to see it. Lily would never leave something in the house that doesn't work.

She's one of those people that have to have a purpose for everything they own, and a light switch that doesn't work is not something she'd have...unless she set it up that way on purpose.

Devin leads me up the stairs into what looks like a library at the end of the hallway. He begins to flip the switch on the wall on and off over and over and over, but as he said, it doesn't work. Nothing happens.

I look around the room. Lily loved to read, so having a library is not something out of the ordinary for her. My eyes scan over the book titles but nothing stands out to me. I glance up at the ceiling, noticing several of the bulbs to the lights need to be replaced.

"Odd," I mutter quietly.

"What's odd?" Cody asks as he looks up at the lights same as me.

"It's odd that she'd have so many lights in this room. The lights that are on right now provide more than enough light to light up every corner of the room." I make a sweeping gesture with my hand to show just how bright the room already is.

"It's odd she'd need more lights, but half the lights aren't even on, and the room's lit up entirely."

"Maybe she just liked light," Devin says as he goes back to playing with the light switch. I notice something as he does that.

"Devin?"

"Yeah?"

"Turn off the lights in the room." He looks at me funny but shrugs none the less and flips the switch to plunge the room into darkness.

"What is the point in this?" Jason questions.

"Flip that other switch Devin," I say simply ignoring Jason's question. Devin just shrugs and gladly flips his 'broken' switch.

"Holy crap..." Jason trails off as the extra lights emit a low glow, and the invisible ink that's been painted on the floor begins to glow, becoming visible.

"Black lights," Chase says as he looks up at the lights in the ceiling.

"That's freaking cool," Devin says.

I look at the arrows painted on the floor. They all point to the bookshelf in the far corner. I walk up to it only to see numbers painted on seven of the books.

Seven books. Seven teammates.

I reach my hand up and pull on one of them, it comes partially off the shelf but stops halfway and there's an audible click.

"It's a combination lock," Cody says from behind me.

"What happens if you get it wrong?" Devin asks.

"Hopefully nothing," I respond.

"Those are the numbers of your team," Chase says and I just nod mutely.

"Order we met," I mutter, more to myself than the rest of them. I had already pulled the book with the number 13 written on it...hopefully, that was right. Cause technically both me and my brother met each other at the same time. We were the first two on the team.

"45," I reach up and pull on another book. "77,61,83,60, and...57." I pull on the last book and the click can be heard...but nothing happens.

"Maybe a different order?" Chase suggests.

"Like what?"

"Numerical order?"

"The order in which they died-Ow! I'm just giving out suggestions."

"Without thinking." Cody hisses back at Devin.

I repeat the code, switching the numbers around to numerical order. Still, nothing happens.

"Like I said, try-Ow! I didn't even finish my sentence!"

"Good!" The rest of the boys hiss in unison and Devin holds his hands up in surrender.

I shake my head at Devin's suggestion. "That's not going to be the code. She was still alive when she put this in. She wouldn't have known when she was going to die."

He shrugs, but then his face lights up like he's had the biggest realization ever.

"Who said the code used all the books?" He questions before pushing past me and pulling on only three books. The ones marked with 13, 57, and 77.

There's a low vibrating sound and the bookcase slides away from the wall, leading into another room.

I turn to look at Devin in shock, everybody else looks just as shocked as I do.

"What?" He asks innocently as he shoves his hands in his pockets and tilts his head to the side like he's genuinely confused.

"How'd you guess the code?" I ask.

He smiles at me. "Easy, I picked the three people on the team who meant the most...to you."