Espionage? Teenage spy? Sounds bonkers. That kind of thing only happens in movies.
Normal teenagers wake up every morning and go to school, come home, do homework, do their chores, go to sleep - then wake up and do it all over again.
Ariella Alder...
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𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝚘𝚗𝚎 | 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
"What have you got?" I questioned, storming into Grayson's office like a demon being exorcised from a possessed person.
Little Dean has officially taken the wheel away from me. His fingers worked like casting a magic spell against the keyboard. Nothing was going to take him out of the zone. I don't even think he heard me come into the room. I've never seen Little Dean completely in the zone.
I didn't notice it at first, but Archer was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. His breathing was even, but I could tell from the bobbing of his head that he was struggling to keep his emotions in check.
One more minute of uncertainty, and we might lose Archer to the darkness in his own head.
"Grayson is a genius," Little Dean said. He's watching the same few seconds of the video, before he rewinds to start over from his exact spot. "At first, I thought he was trying to untangle the knot on his wrist restraints. I've zoomed in and cleaned up the footage of what he's doing."
"What am I looking at?" I asked.
Little Dean made sure I could see Grayson's hands clearly. He pushed play and slowed down the video.
I intently watched as Grayson's hands moved. He wasn't playing with the knots. He wasn't even trying to escape his restraints.
"It's sign language," I stated. "Play it again."
Little Dean rewinded to the start of Grayson's hand signals. "B – A – S – E – M – E – N – T."
"I'm ready to backtrack on the fact that Grayson is a genius. The two of us could've deduced that they were in a basement easily. He couldn't sign the address or anything useful," Little Dean complained.
"Basement," I whispered. Grayson's office isn't big, but I tried to pace around the room. "They're in a basement. Manhattan has buildings with thousands of basements."
Grayson Alderidge isn't an idiot. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. No matter how much he hates espionage, he knows that sending a distress signal or coded message is the most important message you may ever send. It could be your salvation or the result of your demise. It could be the last message you ever send.
If basement was the only thing that Grayson could say, then he knows that this is the word he wanted me to know.
Thinking about basement all around Manhattan is stupid. My brain is one of the most impressive in the world of espionage, but even I can't deduce where Grayson is being held just by knowing the word: basement.
Archer silently stood up and walked out of the office. Without second guessing myself, I started following him out of the office. "Keep working," I told Little Dean.
