"Make sure you keep track of where we are!" Naomi warns, trailing behind the others.
Sasha turns around, walking backwards for a moment. "Relax," he assures them. "I've navigated catacombs when on the run in Cairo. I think I know what I'm doing." He turns to face forward again and Zach can't help but wonder if he's ever done anything normal.
"He thinks he is so cool..." Zach mumbles under his breath. In the corner of his eye, he sees Liz smile. Looks like she heard that. Oops, Zach thinks sarcastically.
"Yeah. Well, one time Li—" Seeing Liz's face, he quickly changes his wording. "—Eliza and I were trying to hunt down the descendants of some Nazis because they had some information we needed, and ended up having to hide in a convent to get away from their goons."
He sees Liz smile again, which causes his heart to soar up to the clouds.
"Oh my God! Remember how mad the nuns were when they found us? And then one of them was actually Kassy—" Zach notes how her voice falters at the mention of their friend K. Belle. That isn't her real name, of course, but it was how everyone in the Blue Star knew her.
"Oh, and how Kas had to use some karate to hold them off once they realized she wasn't actually a nun!" Zach can't help but laugh a bit. Those were some good times. It was back when he and Liz were still together, kicking ass one mission at a time.
"Their reactions were priceless! I think I even heard one of them curse!" Liz looks up at Zach through her lashes and he wonders if she knows how much that has an effect on him. His heart is melting.
"Wow, you've got a stuffy Catholic nun to curse. Congratulations." Naomi rolls her eyes, but there's a small smile pulling at her features. It is quite hilarious to imagine them all red-faced and irritated in their habits and veils.
"That's not a huge accomplishment. On a mission in France I made a priest swear like he was an old sailor!" A sly grin pulls at Sasha's face.
Wow. Way to ruin things, you show off. Zach is about to say something back, but Liz beats him to it.
"Oh, so now it's a competition to see who can make the holy people swear?" Liz counters. "You're pathetic, you know."
Sasha turns back around, once more walking backwards. Zach doubts that he's actually keeping track of where they're going.
"And you know it's why you find me so irresistible," he wags his eyebrows and all Zach wants to do is wipe that smug grin off the Russian's face. Preferably in a painful way.
"Ugh! Will you stop already, Volkov? Just because you saved my life once, that does not mean that you can just...flirt with me constantly. It will never happen. Period."
Sasha's face turns into a dangerous snarl. "I could've left you to die. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be here."
By now, the group has completely stopped and is standing in the middle of the hallway. Liz's whole demeanor has changed and Zach worries that she may kill Sasha herself.
I sure hope she doesn't, he thinks. That's supposed to be my job!
"Well," she huffs. "I guess you're just as selfish as I thought you were."
Ooh! This is getting good, Zach thinks. He can't seem to hide the triumphant look from his face. That is, until Liz whips her head around to him. He is quick to mask it, but it seems he wasn't fast enough.
Uh-oh.
"And you, Zachary Elsher, aren't any better. Just because we have some history doesn't mean we're still close, got it?" Zach's face flushes slightly, but he brushes off the warning like it doesn't hurt as bad as it does.
How can she say that after all they've been through together?
After the countless times he was there for her, the times she cried on his shoulder, the times they spent talking into the early hours of the morning. What about the night he first told her that he loved her? Was that all meaningless to her? Was it all just a lie?
He hears Naomi snickering, and he suddenly decides that he doesn't like that girl. But when Liz discretely winks at him, all of his misgivings disappear. At least he knows Liz doesn't hate him, even if it seems like she does sometimes.
Zach almost fails to contain his laughter when Sasha walks into a door.
"You're supposed to open the door, not walk into it." Zach grins.
"Zachary." Liz glares at him, causing the grin to be wiped from his face.
"You think you're so funny! Try making those jokes when you're facing me!" Sasha says.
Liz puts a hand over her face, clearly exhausted by the arguing.
"¡Callarse la boca!" Naomi shouts, silencing them. "Will you three stop with your relationship issues!"
"Why don't we find out what exactly is in this room, Naomi?" Liz decides to completely ignore Zach and Sasha.
"I completely agree. Maybe we'll actually find something useful." Naomi plays along, knowing how mad it will make Zach and Sasha.
Liz opens the door with a loud creak. It opens up to a nice sized room, beige in color. A wooden desk sits in the center of the room with a piece of paper and a small jar of ink on top. Sasha walks over to the bookshelf in the corner, carefully examining each book. Zach, on the other hand, examines the small fireplace and the small knick-knacks that stand on top. Naomi sits down at the desk and proceeds to open every drawer. Meanwhile, Liz is enraptured in the stained glass window that depicts a girl of sorts.
"Is that...a Doll?" Liz asks, staring at the window. Zach turns his head to look. It didn't look like a human; the skin was too pale and the eyes were too dark. Zach comes to a chilling realization: The window depicted The Doll described in the letter.
"Guys! There's something in the fireplace!" Naomi draws everyone's attention to the lit fireplace. With a final look at the window, Zach walks over to the fireplace and looks inside. The only thing he sees behind the fire is a dark void.
"We could extinguish it, see what's behind it?" Naomi suggests, already looking around for something to put the fire out.
"There's nothing here that can put out a fire of that size." Liz crosses her arms.
Sasha decides he's done with the fire and starts examining a chess piece that sits on the bookshelf. Naomi leaves to examine the stained glass window in detail.
Zach takes a closer look at the things on the fireplace. There is a book that reads 'Revenge: The Real Cost' and a small, broken clock. Next to the books there is a small vase holding a single dead rose. Curious, he gently pulls at the rose.
It feels stiff, almost as if it isn't meant to be removed, Zach thinks. He looks inside and notices there is a string attached to the stem, holding it down.
"Find anything, Sasha?" Naomi asks, entranced by the window.
"No. The only thing interesting about this chess piece is the fact that it is very rare; only ten of its kind in the world. It'd be very expensive to get." Sasha turns over the piece in his hands.
"How do you know that stuff? Are you a chess geek or something?" Naomi teases.
"No, I don't play chess. I have one of these that my grandfather gave me. It's really not that interesting. And, since there's nothing here, I think we should leave."
"Me too. I think there's a pattern or some sort of puzzle here, but I'm not seeing anything." Naomi finally drags her eyes away from the window to look at Sasha.
Setting the rose back down in the vase,, Zach turns to the group. "You guys go on ahead. I need to talk to Eliza."
Liz is ready to protest when she sees Zach's face. "Yeah, we do."
With that, Naomi leaves the room. Sasha eyes them before he follows her to the hallway.
After their footsteps can't be heard anymore, Zach closes the door.
"Okay, Zachary, you are going to tell me exactly what is going on right now."
"Fine, fine. Come over here and look at this."
Zach walks over to the fireplace and puts a hand on the dead rose.
"What? I don't see anything. It's just a dead flower." Liz looks at Zach, frustrated at him.
"Look. There's a string attached to the stem."
Liz's eyes searched the mantle for something that could help her understand what the string meant. When she suddenly walked over towards the bookshelf, Zach knew she had found something.
"What is it?" Zach asks, moving to stand next to Liz.
"This," Liz points at a book, "is titled 'Revenge: The Real Cost'. There is another book exactly like this one on the mantle of the fireplace."
"You're a genius." Zach walks over to the rose and pulls it out of the vase.
Liz barely gets out of the way in time when the bookshelf slides open with a loud creak. It reveals a dark passageway that leads to a place Zach can't see.
"I'm gonna go down the passageway." Liz says
"No you're not. I'll go."
"I said that I was going. You can't stop me. You need to go with the others so no one gets suspicious." Liz looks up at him through her lashes and Zach can't argue with her.
"Good luck." Zach looks over at her, only hoping she could tell he was trying to say, 'Be careful'.