Not If I Save You First

twenty-four | in unity we spy

My lips aren't swollen, my heart isn't racing, and my eyes aren't dripping with lust.

I'm completely fine.

Completely in control of myself. 

Everyone sat in silence drinking their coffee. Thea and Grayson were snuggled on the floor drinking their coffee together. Celia was sprawled across my bed sleeping. Little Dean was still going through notes, theories, and files while eagerly sipping on his coffee.

Archer and I ... Archer and I were glancing at one another, subtly looking up from our mugs to steal a peek at one another.

"Where were we?" I exclaimed.

Loud enough to wake Celia from her daze. "Out of my office, pipsqueak!" Celia looked around and noticed she wasn't at work. "Fuck! I was dreaming that I finally fired that sexy yet moronic receptionist in the lobby."

"She's easy on the eyes," I agreed, stretching out my back. "But she sent me to the wrong office to come and see you."

"I know," Celia sighed, standing up from my bed. Thea jumped up along with Little Dean. The two ran to get a spot on my bed. "I bring her into my office once a week to fire her, then she gives that pout and I don't have the heart to fire her."

"Get over your schoolgirl crush and do it!" I stated, ready to get back to work.

"Three, seven, eight, and nine," Grayson started. "Are we looking for two other people that have aliases by number?"

"Actually," I said, remembering what Archer and I were talking about. I pointed to the blank space above Donovan Halstead. "Figuring out the leader is the key to taking them down. She's been the backbone of this operation from the start."

Celia and Thea brought out all of their female names from the files. They filtered out people who had been born prior to 1994. We didn't have an exact year that this person was born, but we stuck with years around the time Maya and William Hawthorne were born. A child wouldn't be invested in this experiment.

Maya and William Hawthorne don't experiment on children.

"Female suspect and Donovan Halstead says that Archer looks like her," Grayson thought out loud.

"Look just like her," I muttered to myself. "You look like her. Just like her, but you're not like her," I muttered again, pacing around the room. "Who's her? Why would she care? Who do you have nothing in common with?"

Left foot. Right foot. One foot in front of the other. Keeping a steady pace, a rhythm. Keeping my head focused on the details, rather than the world around me.

"Does she always do this?" Little Dean asked.

Grayson groaned. His aching back cracked as he twisted around.

"It's usually much worse," Celia answered.

"Wait for it," Grayson muttered. "Gum popping in 3—"

My tongue stretched the piece of gum in my mouth. I immediately put a new piece in after drinking my coffee. The disgusting taste of coffee mixed with mind-numbing mint gum doesn't affect me anymore.

When the gum was stretched, I rapidly started popping it in my mind. No blowing out bubbles, then cracking them. I sucked the bubble into my mouth and frantically popped them until there weren't any left.

"Is she okay?" Archer whispered.

"It usually doesn't get any worse than this," Grayson assured him.

"She looks robotic," Little Dean whispered.

"Or on drugs," Celia countered.

I calmly shut my eyes, trying to focus on my thoughts. Who is she? The question giving third degree burns through my brain. Who is she? I don't know who she is. How could I not know who she is?