Interlude [h.s]

fifty-two

Jackson spins on his heels. "What did you just say?"

"They liked each other," Jayden repeats, hissing the words through his teeth. "He glared at me every time he saw me talking to her. He was jealous, and I know she liked him too."

Jackson barks out a laugh. "As if the President would ever be swayed by silly feelings such as these. You must not know him at all if you believe he'd ever let himself be blinded by emotions. No, if he didn't like you, he certainly had a good reason."

"I had the highest grades in my class! He gave me this job not even a month ago. What reason could he have to dislike me?"

"That you're a child, maybe," Jackson spits, stepping into the room.

"Excuse me?"

"Don't use that tone with me," Jackson warns him, a dangerous glint in his icy eyes. "You're good, yes, but don't make the mistake to think you're unique or irreplaceable, because you're neither. If you want to keep this job, you should keep in mind you aren't being paid to speculate on the President's life."

"Whatever happened, you were just as blindsided as I was!"

"And I'm not proud of it." Jackson rounds the table and picks up a white folder, flicking through it. "I'm going to tell you something, Bryce, and you'll listen to my words once and never repeat them."

Jayden takes a step towards him, but his supervisor interrupts him.

"If you think there's just him and us, you're wrong. If you think we're in trouble now, you have no idea of what will happen if they find out we lost the President. So work fast, shut up and help us bring him back unless you want to end up with much more than a high-profile missing person case on your hands."

One of their colleagues walks into the room. "It's been over seventy-two hours and we still haven't found him. Should we give the general alarm?"

"Not a chance," Jackson says fast. "The population can't know he's missing yet. They'll go crazy."

"We might need some extra help," Jayden reasons. "It wouldn't be so bad to have more people on the lookout."

Jackson shoots him a hard look. "The only thing you'll have that way is a hunting party." He turns to look at the other. "Do we have any news on his whereabouts?"

The newcomer, Cooper, sighs. "His card was used in Whitsen, but when the police arrived nobody was there."

Jackson frowns. "That means that whoever took him is well out of Northfair by now."

"And the President, too," Jayden interjects. "His card is protected by a code outside of the Palace, isn't it? I don't believe he'd ever give it away, so if it was used by someone in Whitsen, that someone was surely him."

"Likely to alert us," Jackson continues for him. "No one knows about his master codes, so they can't have forced him to use them. He did it on his own accord."

Jayden nods. "And that means he's alive."

"Should we wait for him to find a way to alert us again, then?" Cooper asks, but Jackson shakes his head.

"The longer he's out there, the more dangerous it will be, both outside and inside of the Palace. It's a race against time at this point." He throws the folder to their colleague. "Take a look at this for me, won't you? The President was working on it when he disappeared, I found it on his desk."

Cooper nods. "Will do. Should we put the Palace on lockdown?"

"Lock everything down," Jackson agrees. "Nobody comes in, no information goes out. Make up a lie to explain why no more videos are being aired. The population can't know yet, but they surely know the Palace was under attack a couple of days ago. We don't want this to inspire new acts of rebellion."