Freeze (The Jewel Project #4)

15.2|| Failure to Comply

Amboise was a big fat problem placed on top of a big fat hill. The town itself was small and picturesque with cobbled streets stretching at to foot of the walls of the castle, with cafes littering the place.

And even if a part of him appreciated how nice and tourist-y everything was, Kyle could hardly focus past the inconvenience. Castle with many windows on top of hill overlooking a town meant that they had to do their midnight search practically blindfolded.

"We'll figure something out," Jimmy assured him. "Get a feel of the place after the tour."

He just nodded, trying to believe that it would all work out, but after so much crappy luck, he doubted it would be that easy.

As usual, they took the tour to gauge what they were up against. The castle was fortunately much smaller than the palace in Avignon, much newer and a completely different style. It took up only a fraction of the gardens on top of the hill and the ramparts provided a beautiful view of the Loire river.

The inside was also a lot more interesting, with furniture, tapestries and ornate ceilings. Beautiful to behold, hard as fuck to search. There was no way they could map this one up and search in the dark.

Kyle pondered over this as they sat in a nearby cafe, waiting for the castle to close off to visitors. As usual, Jimmy and Jerry had done their infiltrating gig to freeze the cameras for the night and it had worked. Again. Kyle half expected something to explode because of that.

"You shouldn't worry so much," Tina said, sipping on her latte. "If it worked before, there's no reason it won't work now. And you'll figure something out about the light."

Jessie huffed almost inaudibly on his left. He'd picked up on it, too, Tina excluding herself from the group. Her being so certain everything would work out somehow but not coming with a solution. Not that he expected her to, that was his job, but her attitude was starting to get on his nerves.

Yes, he understood that she hadn't been spending that much time with them, that she'd never been on missions, that they weren't exactly friends... But she, even less than Chrsitine, had never made any effort to fit in. They'd never treated them any differently, yet Tina had been right the other night. She and Christine were something else.

"Do you think using candles would work?" Billy asked.

"I thought about it too, but flickering light could be just as dangerous as the beam of a flashlight," Kay answered. Her eyes studied the castle which was already shrouded in darkness, the lit windows very visible from their position. "And it would be harder to turn them on an off multiple times."

"It would also take longer to wonder around with cadles. And maybe we'll light something on fire," Jessie said.

Kyle just hummed, wishing Jimmy and Jerry were there. One of them would surely have something useful to say. As far as he was concerned, he agreed with Kay. Flashlights were better.

"You okay?" Kay asked. For a second, her hand hovered over his, but she fortunately pulled it back.

He gave her a small smile, grateful for her efforts, for her support. "I just want the others to get here."

She and Jessie both nodded in understanding. Tina gritted her teeth and returned to her coffee. Kyle clenched his fist and took in a deep breath.

"Okay, Tina, spill."

She jumped and her frightened eyes turned to him. "Excuse me?"

"If you're going to go ballistic on us again, I kinda wanna know in advance."

"That's an inappropriate term," she mumbled, looking away from him.

As much as he hated it, he could read the signs. She didn't want to talk with Kay, Jessie and Billy there, but was willing to talk to him. He hated being the sensible one, but someone had to do it and Jerry and Jimmy had both apparently failed. So... yeah, he had to be all sensitive and shit.