Third Person's POV
Early morning came and it was time for them to poke around the church. They were one step close to getting to the treasure, but a few obstacles were in the way: moncada, jo braddock, and the nun currently walking past the four of them with suspicion.
"Nuns. Why's it always gotta be nuns?"
"Yeah, why can't it be follow the butterflies."
"Isn't that from Percy Jackson?"
"No, Harry Potter, stupid."
"Told you he was an old man, and you didn't believe me."
"I am not old, thank you."
"Enough children." Chloe says snapping Nate, Sully and Halle out of their debate.
The nun gave Nate flashbacks of what he went through with the nuns at the orphanage, mainly Sister Bernadette. She was the scariest among all, at least that's what Nate tells Halle.
"Let's just split up and figure out where the keys go, huh?" Sully suggested as Halle mocked her father.
"Hey, Sully." Nate called as he was next to a rack of postcards as he was holding a zip lock bag of Sam's postcards.
"What?" Sully asked.
"Nothing." Nate says as he let the old man resume his research, though that didn't go unnoticed by Halle, as she nonchalantly made her way to Nate.
"You good?" Halle asked him as now he's sober, at least for the most part. She knows that he doesn't remember her calling her cute, as she grabbed a postcard and read it.
"Yeah I'm good." Nate tells her as something inside of her makes her think that he's lying, but she doesn't want to say anything.
"I was talking about since last night? You good as in sober?" Halle asked her as Nate gave her a weird look as she looked down at the postcard.
"What do you mean? Why did something happen?" He asked her as she felt a ping of guilt in her chest.
"N-no, just n-nevermind." Halle says wanting to desperately change the subject but she can't think of any ideas that come to mind.
Halle checked the floors to see if there was anything that she can find. There seemed to be something under a bench so she moved it and there laid a symbol.
"Uh, guys." Halle says getting the other's attention as they gathered around her. "J-S-E." What does that mean?"
"Uh, Juan Sebastian Elcano."
"Speak English, Nathan. Some of us don't understand geek."
"I am not---nevermind." Nate says knowing that she is in a mood. She gave him a side-eyed look before rolling her eyes at him.
"Look, if that's the cathedral.." Halle says as she traced the symbol going downwards then upwards. "Then these must be the stairs and they lead...that way."
The clue led them to a prayer room with a mini alter and a bunch of candles illuminating the room.
"Thoughts, altar boy?" Chloe asks.
Halle flashed the flashlight at the top of the entrance. "Caelum' that's latin for 'heaven' it says in the journal 'trust in your fellow man for one shall go to heaven and the other hell' so if heaven's up there, then hell has to be around here somewhere." Halle explains as her Dad and Nate look at her confused as she's been saying that she isn't 'smart' and or 'knows her history' and or telling them to 'speak english'.
"Hey, I got a skeleton with angel wings, that's kinda between heaven and hell, right?" Nate says as he pushed a button and something in the room moved.
"Does Mary seem a little off to you?" Chloe pointed out as Mother Mary did seem off, tilting slightly, as it's showing a bit of red on the other side.
"C'mon, open it up." Sully impatiently demanded Nate as he brought out bolt cutters.
"We're in a church man, have some respect." Halle tells her father as she wasn't the one to be 'religious' but she would sometimes listen to church songs.
"Scared of a little old nun?" Chloe teased him as Halle smiled at what she said.
"Well, you haven't met sister b, have you?" Nate says as he shuddered at the name.
Chloe cut the lock with the bolt cutters herself since Nate was too much of a catholic to do so, she opened the cage for him. He stepped in and tilted Mother Mary completely as a red painting of humans suffering in the fiery pits of hell replacing her. "Well, there's hell."
"Really, what gave it away." Halle smartly says as at this point Nate is mentally telling himself to ignore her.
The altar made noises, giving Nate and Chloe a fright as Halle jumped a little but not as much as they did. The altar became a puzzle, Halle saw two keyholes at the bottom which must be for the keys she had.
"Holy shit, you found 'em." Sully said happily as they knelt down, ready to insert the keys.
"What does the book say?" Nate asked as Sully flipped through the pages.
"Oh, right here, both of you turn your keys clockwise at the same time." He instructed suddenly darts came out of the altar as Halle ducked.
"Thanks a lot! You almost got me killed!" Sully exclaimed completely disregarding his daughter as she wasn't surprised.
"So, you won't care if I got killed, got it." Halle snapped at her father as he gave her a side-eyed look.
"Clockwise, Sully?" Nate says as his jaw tightened.
"It was a fifty-fifty, so I made a guess." Sully said.
"A guess? That could've been our heads!" Chloe shouted.
"Clearly, you should turn the keys the other way. Kids, I don't even have my glasses, I can't read this shit." Sully says as the others rolled their eyes at him.
"Yeah, clearly."
"Just be careful, aright? You're gonna get somebody killed."
"Okay, c'mon, counter clockwise." Nate and Chloe turned their faces before turning the keys counter clockwise. This time it wasn't a trap as the altar just made noises again.
"Wanna help Sully?" Nate asked.
"Don't ask him, I'm afraid he's gonna get us killed." Halle says as she got up to help the others.
"Yeah, no promises."
"Told ya."
After they moved the altar it revealed a secret passage way which was really dark, dusty and had cobwebs in every corner.
"Alright, we're making some progress, let's go." Sully was about to go in but Chloe raised her hand stopping him.
"No, wait. Hang on." She says as she turned to Nate. "What does the book say?"
"Heaven and hell, one of us goes up, and the other goes down." Halle summarized as she remembered them talking about it.
"I'll go down." Chloe decided.
"I volunteer going with Nate."
"Why him?"
"At least he wouldn't try to kill me." Halle remarked to her father.
"Fine, Nate, and Halle will come with me, and Sully will be fine on his own." Chloe says hastily.
"Really?" Sully deadpanned.
"You want me to hold your hand?"
"It's fine, give me the cross."
"I'm not giving you my cross, why would I?"
"I'll probably need it up there!"
"Good point, give me your phone."
Sully gave his phone to Nate after what felt like forever he swiped through his phone. "Oh my god. You have so many apps open. What is wrong with you? Tinder? Really?"
"Only old people use tinder." Halle commented.
"I'm not old."
Nate downloaded an app called 'gps yes' and connected Sully's phone to his and so that he would be able to know where his location was.
"Okay, so now you can track us?" He gave his phone back along with the cross. "Try to stay on top of us, okay?"
"Have fun in the haunted tunnel, enjoy."
"Yay." Halle says slightly unenthused about this as she wasn't really the biggest fan of haunted and or scary things, but will occasionally watch it but her favorite horror movie being the shining.
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Halle didn't expect for there to be a party deep in the secret passage way, the place smelled awfully a lot like naughty dog bar, but more of people's sweat from dancing.
"Hey, this can't be it, can it?" Nate asked confused. "This definitely can't be right."
"Look, above the bar." Halle pointed out as Nate looked above the bar was the word 'infernum' carved onto cement. It seemed that everywhere Halle went had bars.
"Isn't 'infernum' latin for 'hell?'" Halle chimed in.
"Yeah, it is, c'mon." Nate said as he stopped in his tracks as he narrowed his eyes at Braddock's henchmen clearly looking for the two of them in the crowd. He looked more as there was Chloe. That's when he realized that Chloe had been working for Jo Braddock. He cursed under his breath. "Braddock's backup."
"What?" Halle asked as she looked around as she was removing her jacket.
"We better keep moving." Nate says as he hadn't moved his eyes off the men until Halle had removed her jacket. "What are you doing?"
"Blending in." Halle says as she fixed her hair a little more, as she grabbed Nate and pulled him into the crowd.
"What are you doing?" Nate questioned her as they danced together on the dance floor.
"Do you want to get caught, or what?" Halle asked him as he nodded his head as he dipped her as they were doing the tango. Of course they did their own version of the dance, as the only part that they both knew was the dip.
"Good point."
"Wow, we finally agree on something."
"That's the first."
"So, what's up with you lately, you were fine before. What changed?" Nate asked her as they are somewhat alone, well without Sully and Chloe before he found out that Chloe had been working for Jo and her henchmen.
"After you left to get more alcohol, you were gone for at least ten minutes and no one else went looking for you and so I volunteered to look for you. So when I found you and blah blah blah you told me I was cute, but I didn't think anything about it because you were drunk, and I mean drunk." Halle explained as they both looked over their shoulders.
"I may have been drunk but I wasn't wrong." Nate tells her as she looks at him confused.
"What do you mean?" Halle questioned him, as he spined her.
"That you were cute, it's the truth."
"Okay, lover boy, when did you think I was cute."
"When we met at that bar."
"Make sense." Halle says as they danced their way to the bar acting like they were having fun like everyone else at the party. Nate distracted the bartender and grabbed a bottle of alcohol spilling its contents. He attempted to light the alcohol with Sam's lighter, but it couldn't work properly, so Halle grabbed a random lighter that was laying around and it engulfed in flames.
She knew that Nate was going to thank her later, as she was definitely flirting with Nate as she was vandalizing the stickers on the wall.
"Do you think it's another puzzle?" Halle asked as she touched the middle part of the wall.
"Maybe there's something under the stickers?" Nate suggested to her as he was trying to maneuver his way around the bar.
"Whatever it is, you better figure it out fast. I'll try to buy his some time." Nate says as he went into bartender mode. "Hey, can I get you a drink?"
A curly haired woman propped her arms on the counter and ordered. "Gin and tonic, por favor."
"This definitely isn't a gin and tonic but it's on the house." Nate says charmingly as he mixed the drinks.
"Gracias." The woman said as she wasn't able to get her order as she was shoved by the Scotsman.
"Woah, woah, woah, let me guess...pina colada?" Nate asked him as Halle couldn't help but chuckle at him.
He climbed the counter to attack Nate, but he smacked him with a bottle, making him fall back into the crowd of smelly people.
"The eye." Halle muttered under her breath to the smaller version of the eye in the providence she had seen in the passage way that was under a sticker.
Halle turned around to see how Nate was doing but that's not what caught her eye, as what caught her eye was the man that he was fighting. She recognized the man that she had fought at the auction when Nate was impersonating Spiderman. He was wearing an eyepatch and he was out of blood because of it. He looked more like a pirate than anything at this point.
"Nate! Behind you!" Halle exclaimed getting his attention as the Scotsman pinned him to the wall and punched his abdomen, and was holding him by the throat.
"Wait, I got it. Sex on the beach?" Nate quipped the man which made Halle chuckle to herself as she was multitasking which shocked her, as she never did it before.
"I figured it out!" Halle declared going in yet another passage way, as she saw Nate drinking alcohol weirdly. "Nathaniel, this is not a time for shots. Let's go!"
Halle grabbed Nate's arm and yanked him just as the door was about to shut.
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Maybe this is the chapter where they admitted their feelings, but idk? It is but to some degree, but it's fine.
Other than that it's going really good.
So what's your guys' opinion of Chloe working for Jo Braddock. In my defense I didn't really want her in the remaining parts of the book, because it seemed like her and Nate liked each other in the movie but with Halle being Nate's eventual love interest, it would seem weird to have both girls liking Nate.
Also, side note Halle called Nate 'Nathaniel'. It's not important to you guys but it's hilarious to me.
See you in the next chapter!
Love you all <3.