Chapter 6

“Gosh, he’s so petty.” Daven broke the silence with that and I couldn’t agree more. Pettiness was one of his main characteristics, as well as dumbness and stupidness. You wait until I get my hands on him, I’ll strangle him until he faints first.

“Can any of you understand the meaning of the numbers Nicolas gave us?” Tristan asked the two coders with us the the work room. Tristan and I were in the same shoes when it comes to anything concerning codes.

“I’m not so sure, the codes were a bit confusing. Nicolas is the king of codes, so yeah. I’ll try encoding them though.” Daven offered.

“They’re not just codes, they’re meaning something else entirely. It felt like it meant something else entirely.” I cut in after turning the thoughts around in my head.

“Hm, let’s see... where are the numbers, Daven?” Esther asked as she brought her laptop on the spot beside the one I was facing.

“It’s... ready?” Daven paused, throwing Esther a confirming glance. Esther nodded her head without raising her head from its bent position.

“3 15 13 5 - 23 9 20 8 - 1 - 12 14 20 - 15 6 - 7 21 1 18 4 19. 9 12 25.”

“I don’t know... this looks really confusing, honestly.” Esther finally said.

Fuck. I ran my fingers through my hair in agitation. They have to mean something. Something important, if not Nicolas wouldn’t have risked his life to just tell us something useless. Nicolas was smarter than the whole lot of us when it comes to brains. And that was saying a lot since my IQ was really high, along with Tristan. Only that Nicolas’s IQ’s really higher, along with his sister’s but we barely allow her grasp details of anything happening concerning this part of our lives.

I don’t want her innocence to get tainted, only her getting shot in the shoulder was enough to introduce her into this part of our life fully.

“Hey, hey I just thought of something. Let’s say 3 is for C in the normal alphabetical and numerical order... maybe Nicolas wanted us to change the numbers to letters.” Daven gushed out. 

Why didn’t I think of that immediately? Sounds real brilliant if that’s really what Nicolas expected us to do, that is.

After about a minute, Daven lifted his head from its bent position with a wide grin on his face.

“You got it?” Esther pressed, mirroring my impatience.

“Yeap. He meant we should come with a lot of guards while coming. See for yourself.” Daven explained before turning his laptop around so we could all stare into it.

The words were bold which says; Come with a lot of guards.

I bursted out laughing for no main reason, trust Nicolas who’s in a lot of pain from his head wound to still remember to shorten the word ‘I love you’ even in codes.

Gosh, I love that kid so much. I thought, relief filling up the hollow hole in my chest. 

We’d plan tomorrow.

“Let’s head out. Daven you track the phone call while Esther, can you try to trace his voice with anything?” I pushed up from my spot on Daven’s chair, stretching my arms a little. 

Tristan stifles a yawn, today has taken a great toil on every one of us, obviously.

“Of course, we’ll give you feedback in the morning.” Esther replied for herself as well as Daven who was already in the chair I was in some seconds ago, tapping away on one of the laptops.

I exited the room after Tristan who was already making his way downstairs and into the kitchen. He stopped beside the fridge and dug out two beers. He tossed one behind him without turning around, I caught it and opened it before taking deep gulps, the cold drink sliding down my throat in waves did nothing to sooth the ongoing war in my head. I finally stopped swallowing when nothing came out from the bottle. I wasn’t even surprised the drink got finished in only a minute and my thirst is far from being quenched.

“Grab me another bottle, Tris.” I called as I went and deposited the empty bottle into the bin. I unbuttoned my whole shirt and shrugged out of it, my chest felt tight all of a sudden. I really need to hit the gym tonight.

Another bottle got tossed into the air which fell into my open palm without a hitch. I uncapped it and drank it all under a few minutes. 

Tristan was still nursing his second bottle of beer beside the fridge, his eyes unfocused which only means he was lost In thoughts. I pulled open the fridge and the sound made him jolt back into reality. He took a mouthful of his beer before making his way out of the kitchen.

“Tristan...” I called out tentatively but he didn’t even pause as if he heard me call out his name, in the next heartbeat, he was out of the kitchen.

I breathed out a sigh, knowing Tristan was emotionally withdrawn for the night, this whole day must have taken a harder toil on him since he even had to see our baby sister unconscious in her room.

Fuck, I should probably go to him to reassure him that everything was gonna be alright or something like that but my demons were already fighting another war in my head.

There was only so much I could go through without going crazy.

I haven’t had anything to eat today and the thought of food was sickening as it is.

I slammed the fridge shut after grabbing two bottles of beers and made my way outside to exercise some of this restless power off and take a cold shower.