The True One

Chapter 33

Verity

Perched on porch swing outside her mother's front door, Flora picked at a loose thread on the swing's cushion while scowling at Alek, who stood a few feet away. "How can you trust anything he says, Verity?"

"Did I say I trusted him?" This exchange came at the tail end of me laying out for her what Alek had told me: contrary to what we'd grown up believing, her mom and mine had known each other prior to the Aurum Venari experiments. Val had at least been somewhat aware of what they were doing in those experiments, and now, it was Alek's belief that a freaking treasure hunt, of all things, would lead us to where Val was staying.

"To where she's being kept prisoner, you mean," she'd said to me, taking issue with how I phrased things.

"She may not be a prisoner," Alek interjected, proving tact was not his forte in times of high stress. "You may have to come to terms with the fact that she's been a willing participant all along."

"Shut your piehole," Flora responded, and in the name of all that's holy, he'd listened to her.

I spent the next ten minutes trying to convince her that going on a treasure hunt was our best move. It was hard to convince someone with Flora's understandable doubts considering how stupid the whole thing sounded when I said it out loud. Luckily, Flora's other avenues for rescuing her mom weren't exactly promising, a fact I couldn't help but remind her of.

"Have the police been any help?"

She hung her head. "None. They seem convinced she left of her own accord."

Which she probably did. Alek delivered his opinion directly to my brain.

I don't need to hear your opinion, Alek, not out loud and especially not in my head. I put up my barrier to keep any further attempts at intrusion at bay.

Taking a seat next to Flora, I slid an arm around her. "If the police won't help, then let us try again. What have you got to lose?"

She raised her chin and gave Alek another sour look. "Just our freedom. Probably our lives."

"Maybe," I said. "It's not like I trust him either, but if we are walking into a trap, we can handle ourselves."

"You mean you can. But me?" She let out a long sigh. "I'm out of other options, though, so I might as well do the stupidest, most desperate thing I can think of, which is to go with you guys."

I let out a little squeal and gave her a hug.

Flora hugged me back, then gently pushed me away. "Let's get to it. What's our first clue?"

Now the official holder of the treasure hunt sheet, I took it out of my coat pocket and we studied it together.

"Sept.." Flora placed a finger under the long word at the at the top of the sheet that was listed as clue number one. "Septentrionalis 134227. What does that mean?"

"It's Latin," Alek said. "We're supposed to go North."

"Really? Are we supposed to just take your word for it?" she asked him.

"No, it's true," I said. "I looked it up."

"Okay, fine. So, we go North. North from where? This house? Verity's apartment? How far north? 134227 miles?"

"North from the Aurum Venari Treasure Adventures headquarters. Norvin assumed I'd remember what this clue meant. There are four lockboxes that he keeps around the city, each in a different cardinal direction from that center point. So, that first clue indicates that we were to go to the lockbox located north of the Adventure headquarters."