Mirrored Exile (HS)

fifteen

chapter fifteen - the lakes

"take me to the lakes
where all the poets went to die,
I don't belong, and my beloved,
neither do you."

Lucy Caddel

Harry and I spent ages breaking down the reports, taking in every last detail that my Uncle recorded. It began to get late and we were both tired.

"He only ever got to find out the code names, look here it says Falcon, like what you found." Harry points to a printed photo of jumbled letters. There was also smudged and faded ink at the top of the page, random lines, and curves. It looked like the printer might've had a mishap or they had been out in the weather for a while.

"There has to be more, right? I mean, he only ever got up to where we are." I fretted and played with a strand of hair.

"Did you say your Uncle had a place where he did most of his research?" Harry stood up, flicking through more of the papers.

"Yeah, he never told me where though." I shrugged.

"There is one thing we could try." He rubbed his finger on his chin. I looked up at him and nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.

He looked directly into my eyes with a piercing stare. "Public records inside the FBI, these reports have been read and dumped. They have to go through a system before they can be sent in. Traced in case there's any information that threatens the security."

"So these reports have their own reports?" I tilted my head at him in confusion.

"Sort of. The system is made up of when they came into the FBI and like all agents, there are fake names to avoid cyber-related tracings. If we find your uncle's, we could find the right public records and track where he lived." He scratched the back of his neck and handed me the papers back.

"And how do we do that?" I stood up next to him and folded my arms, eager to take on his idea.

"Well, they know I'm not in that FBI department, and it'd be suspicious if I was there but," He looks at me. "You on the other hand."

"What?" I stare into the black pupils that swallow his green eyes from the dark room.

"I don't know, it probably won't work." He shakes his head.

"How do you know that?" I watched him pace around the room while he played with his hair.

"I was gonna say, we could try to get you into the FBI file storage room to see if we could find the file but it won't be easy." His eyes dart to mine to see my reaction before putting his head back down.

"We can make it work, right?" I smiled as his face lifted from looking at his hands.

"You're a lot more optimistic than me." He chuckled softly and sat on the bed. "How do you... get that hope you have? Even when these dead ends keep coming up, you seem to keep motivated?"

The conversation mood instantly changed. It had become deeper and more fragile than it was. I stared quietly, trying to think of an answer. But only one stupid thing kept replaying in my head.