Not If I Save You First

twenty-three | plaintext

I tacked up the three pictures of Leo Krasnikov, Maxim Ivanov, and Anton Popkov.

"Is it a coincidence that Diane Petrov is a Russian immigrant and these men all have ties to the Russian mob?" Little Dean questioned.

Little Dean was sitting on the floor against my bed.

"Gray?" I asked, letting him do his thing on the computers.

"No apparent connections between families or occupations. The only similarity is that all four of them were born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Went their separate ways after being in Russia for most of their lives. No communication between them after leaving Russia," Grayson explained.

Skipping over the Russian connections, I continued with the hierarchy.

"Above the Russians is Donovan Halstead. He's higher than the three Russians because he hired them to carry out the murder and kidnapping," I explained.

Whoever this woman was, she devised this plan in secret. Her involvement wasn't known until Donovan Halstead let it slip that a woman was involved. She could've flown under the radar this entire time.

Maybe Donovan Halstead did that on purpose.

Maybe he purposefully planted the information to make sure I knew he was talking about a woman. This woman could be the only thing standing in his way from getting what he wants.

What could he want?

"New theory," I said, nodding at Thea. She was writing down anything we needed to know. "Donovan Halstead was a third and unmentioned participant in Experiment: Ariel & Carl Rhea. Maybe he wants to be more powerful and wants another dose of the psionic pills."

"Why wouldn't Halstead brag about that?" Little Dean asked. "If he had some kind of superpower, then he'd want everyone to know that he's better than them."

Archer, who'd been eerily silent, suddenly spoke up, "Because he doesn't have his superpowers anymore!"

Everyone looked to Archer for an explanation.

At first I assumed he wasn't paying attention to all the espionage talk. Archer has been reading through the files of Ariel & Carl Rhea. Ever since I first gave him that file, he's been reading through it line by line. I'd assume he has it memorized by now.

I found those files in the safe in Archer's bedroom. The experiment name wasn't listed on those files, because of the secrecy, which I assume is also why the files were hidden in Archer's bedroom.

"This is ridiculous," Thea sighed. "Superpowers aren't real."

"Thrilling, isn't it?" Celia grinned.

We all ignored Celia. I looked to Archer to explain his reasoning.

My latest theory isn't proven. It hasn't even been put to the test. There's no way to prove whether or not Donovan Halstead has ever taken the pills created by Maya and William Hawthorne.

"The Elegance of Eight," Archer muttered.

"I'm sick of numbers," Celia whined. "Don't spy's use anything other than numbers."

"Numbers are our friends," Grayson muttered.

Archer flipped through the files and explained, "My parents used to talk about the elegance of eight all the time. It was a code so I never knew what it meant, but it had to do with pills."

"Okay ... let's say you're thinking of the correct thing. What do you know about the elegance of eight? And how do you know that if Donovan Halstead had psionic abilities, that he doesn't have them anymore?" I asked.