The Piece System

Chapter Six: ALEX

The rattling of her keys taunted as she tried to fish them out of her coat pocket. Eventually, she slotted them into the apartment door and made it. Every single time she opened that door it felt like a success, and not just because it scuffed the floor when it tried to open, but because Alex had made it out of her childhood home. Leaving it had stung a little, but it was worth it to get away from the person hiding behind her father.

A year into her rent, she was content being a high school history teacher who got the pay bonus of a Bishop because she got to help people like she'd dreamt of doing at The Set working for The King. After everything she'd found out three years ago, working in The Set was the last thing she wanted. All she wanted now was to help people. And while she tried to find some sort of lead on the mistreatment of Pawns, teaching was her way to do that.

A big, brown and black mass barrelled into the doorframe as she walked in.

"Hey Cricket," Alex laughed, reaching down to rub the Alsatian's poor head. Cricket licked her chops as her owner put down her bag and parked her overflowing trolley, whining when her empty bowls were ignored.

"I know, I know, I'll fill them after I get 11a2's books out." Alex gave her another rub before dragging her trolley over to the table.

Now it wasn't like she didn't like the independence, she did. There was nothing like having her own place, even if that place wasn't as big or fancy as her dad's mansion and not having people tell her what to do or fuss over her leg was beyond satisfying. But she would admit it grated on her sometimes. Having an extra hand to carry some of her books wouldn't go amiss, seeing as one of hers was always occupied with her crutch.

Once Cricket was wolfing down her food louder than Lisa ever had, Alex finally sat down to mark at her dining room table and, like usual, it was so dull that it made the black tiles of her kitchen seem like a cinema screen.

Oh my, she shook her head a few hours in, how many times were they going to forget the capital 'n' for Nazi?

It was on her final few books that she saw it, a little doodle in the margin. It was a circle underneath three, side by side diagonal lines. Alex frowned and ran her fingers over the paper. She'd seen it before. With a root around the files on the glass table, she grabbed the right one. This file, it was her most prized possession and hiding it in plain sight was her favourite way to disguise its presence. 

"Come on," her whole body buzzed at the idea of a lead. Finally, three years later, a lead that was more than just a few murmurs.

Leafing through the various Daily Checkmate clippings and notes, she came to the back, where the catalyst lay smiling up at her. The signed letter she'd found on Brennan's desk that day.

Shakily, she lifted it out and placed it next to the symbol in the margin.

"Oh my gosh," her throat went dry. Cricket perked her head up as Alex's crutch clattered to the floor with how roughly she pulled the page out of Kieran Lackey's history book.

The symbol in the margin was a direct match, albeit a little sketchier and not quite a circle, to the stamp on the bottom of the letter.

The weirdest thing was, the stamp on the letter hadn't been there when she'd last looked at it. Someone had been in her house.

***

With books in a satchel that threw off her already limping walk, Alex made her way through Blackmoore High School with a million frenzied thoughts but only one intention.

She needed to talk to Kieran Lackey.

When the school bell rung, Alex stayed rooted on her chair, trying to find a match on her computer for 'circle with three lines'. Nothing like what she had in her bag came up. And as the teenagers started streaming in, bringing the noise of the corridors with them, she watched the door. She watched it until her eyes burned.