Bared

XII

Back inside the cave, Quincey had found nothing. Neither had Jon. I huffed, and sat down in my chair. I took the picture from Jon, and examined it. The triangle seemed to be burnt into the tree, while the little addition seemed to have been clawed into the bark later. “Daedalus,” I mutter.

“The ancient Greek dude that made the Labyrinth and tried to escape it with wax wings? What about him?” Jon asked. “The triangle seems to have been there longer than the extra line. The triangle, in the greek alphabet, is the delta: the symbol of Daedalus, the great inventor,” I answer. Ben sits down beside me, and looks at the picture over my shoulder. My spine tingles with electricity as he leans closer to me, but I ignore it.

“It could be a clue,” I say,”I mean, I drew this the night I got the text. Maybe my subconscious told me to draw it.” “Or, maybe, you had a vision. Again,” Ben said, his breath ruffling the hair next to my ear. Shut up, I thought. Then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out. On the screen shone a text message from an unknown number.

Hello, Alexis. Havin’ fun? Finally decoded what the triangle on the tree is?

I gasped, and another text appeared, from the same number.

I’m not as stupid as you might think, Lex. Guess something gets to go boom. Sunset, wolf. That’s your time: solve riddle.

Quincey was tapping on his computer again, his fingers just a blur. “Damn it!” He yelled a few seconds later. “The person used a burner phone. I was trying to locate them. But they destroyed it before I could get a signal.” Quincey groaned, and put his head on the table. Jon looked shocked, and took my phone carefully in his hands, like it was a bomb.

I forced my thoughts back into order; the texts had scrambled them up. I said,”Ok. Calm down, guys. We can figure out this clue. It’s just like 39 Clues.” Quincey looked up at me, and said,”39 Clues had bombs, explosions, guns, poison, and death. If this is 39 Clues, I’ll take the million bucks.” He put his head back on the table.

I looked at the picture once more. This person-this Liekos-was taking a lot of stuff from Greek mythology. Maybe this symbol was from Greek mythology as well. I grabbed Quincey’s computer, and searched for greek symbols. What I found made me groan. “The triangle means wolf in Greek.” I told them, and everyone groaned once more.

But the Daedalus idea still stuck in my mind. I played around with it a bit, but no more information came up in my mind. I looked over at Ben, but he was deep in thought. Over what, I didn’t know. Suddenly, an image appeared in my mind.

An old man, with golden-white wings on his back, leaping out of a tall window into the open air. His arms flapped rhythmically, keeping his aloft. A distant shape on the horizon, something that looked like a bird, plunged into the sea. The man screamed in pain and grief, and arrows sailed from the direction of the window. They almost hit the man’s wings, but none made contact. The man screamed again, and the image faded.

I blinked, and looked around at everyone else. It seemed that only a moment had passed while I had imagined, but Ben’s eyes were on me. They held a question. I shrugged, and Ben seemed to accept my answer; he went back to thinking. The sudden vision had rattled me, but it wasn’t because it was sudden and quick. It was because I had become the man, and had felt his grief as if it were my own.

Frustrated, I got up from my chair, and walked down one of the tunnels. After walking for several minutes in silence, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned, expecting to see Ben, but instead saw Quincey. “Quince,” I asked,”What’s wrong?” Quincey shrugged, and murmured,”You and Ben are acting strange. A few days ago you hated him. Now…” Quincey didn’t finish. The smell of worry with tinges of fear leaked from him in small rivers.