Scorpion's New EQ

Chapter 34

  I guess the least I could say was that I was shocked by that statement, but it did cause my brain to go into a state where I seemed to think clearer. Maybe that was the time when my EQ should have taken over and I should have been crushed because of the fact that three people that I was extraordinarily close to were missing. But instead, I just began to try to figure out where they were. Which is a good thing in its own way, but not allowing yourself to grieve can definitely affect you.

  I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, Sylvester had given me Walter's laptop and my hands were working frantically to type in the code to get past all of Walter's security measures. As I didn't know the passwords to get through it all, I had to resort to hacking my way through. And as I was pretty rusty, and within a short five minutes I could feel my shoulder begin to ache, I knew that I was probably going to be there for a while.

  "I have tried to get passed it, as has Ralph, but although we are pretty good at hacking, we aren't you." When Sylvester noticed that I was probably not going to respond to that, he continued, "We aren't sure if there is any kind of evidence as to of what happened to them all on here, but at this point we are trying everything and anything."

  "Okay, what about their phones?" I asked, slightly exasperated as a tried to roll the starting ache out of my shoulder. I had a job to do, and my injury was just a roadblock that I was going to have to get past in order to accomplish this job.

  "Cabe has them, I was able to track them and found them left in a garbage bag on the side of the road."

  "And where is Cabe?"

  "Him and Paige were needed at the Homeland headquarters, they should be back here soon," Sylvester answered, rapid firing out everything that I needed to know.

  I nodded but still didn't take my eyes off of the computer screen as I typed viciously. Sylvester got my hint and he moved away from my side, back to his desk I presumed. It wasn't even a minute before his spot had been filled by Zach, who had been walking around the garage for the last ten minutes or so.

  He was quiet at first as he watched my attempt to crack the code on the laptop. Finally, he said, "I can tell that your shoulder is bothering you."

  "I'm fine."

  "Taylor. . ."

  "I said I'm fine," I snapped before he could push my weakness upon me even further. At that moment I could almost feel the code beginning to work its way into the laptop and I knew that before long I was going to be into it. Sure, my shoulder was bothering me, but I had three geniuses I had to find. My injuries could wait.

  "I know that you think you can just power through this right now, but if you need to-"

  "I'm in!" I cut off Zach quickly as the laptop's main desktop popped up on the screen, bringing with it all of Walter's files and other miscellaneous items. I heard Zach let out a frustrated sigh but soon Sylvester appeared on the other side of me, his eyes wide as he began to scroll through the various items on Walter's computer. I couldn't help but feel a swell of success within me.

  "Taylor, I need to talk to you," Zach pushed even further. I sighed in frustration as I realized that he wasn't going to leave me alone until I gave in and listened to whatever he had to say. I got to my feet and lead Zach to the back of the main area of the garage where I could remember having my first argument with Caine.

  Caine. Great. There was something that I hadn't allowed myself to think about for a while. Why had he texted me that night if he never had met me at the hotel? Or had he been on his way to the hotel when Al had attacked me? And if he was, did he get injured in any way?

  "Taylor? Are you okay?" Zach asked, his voice cutting through my thoughts. While my mind was preoccupied with Caine, Zach had asked me a question and I felt like an idiot for missing it because I was too far into my head.

  "Sorry, just. . . crunching numbers," I quickly lied. "What did you ask?"

  Zach looked at me skeptically, his eyes not hiding the fact that he knew that I was blatantly lying to him. Nevertheless, he repeated, "Do you need me to look at your shoulder? I could tell that it was bothering you from putting so much strain on it all at once."

  I shook my head, "It aches a little but it's nothing that I can't handle." I don't know why I was telling the truth to him instead of lying about it like I already had. Maybe it was the fact that I had quite literally slept in the same bed with him the night before and for some reason, he had calmed my nerves that even I couldn't at times.

  Zach seemed to judge how truthful I was being before he said, "Alright, but don't do anything too far out of your abilities right now, you already got a bullet plummeted into you, there's no reason for you to go making it worse."

  Before I could say anything more, I heard the door opening and in came Paige and Cabe, who were in a heated conversation.

  "-Need to put more people on this case, these are four of the government's most important people that are all missing with no sign of them. No one just disappears like this and you, Ralph, Sylvester, and I don't have the ability to score the entire city and beyond." Paige's voice drifted towards me and I couldn't stop myself from stepping more into view and away from Zach.

  "Good thing you have one more person capable of looking, then," I said, my mouth curving up into a warm smile as I saw both Cabe and Paige freeze in their tracks and astonished looks cross their faces.

  "Oh God, Taylor!" Paige finally said before racing across the garage to me. I stepped towards her as she wrapped me in a tight hug. She seemed to be muttering a prayer under her breath, but who could blame her after everything that she had been through in the past week.

  As Paige pulled back from me I heard Cabe walk up beside me and he said, "I never throught I would be saying this, but damn, it's good to see you kid."

  "It's good to see you too grandpa," I said jokingly. And it was the truth. Although Cabe and I didn't quite see eye to eye of many things, I still appreciated everything he had to offer to the team and each of its individuals.

  Before any more heartfelt things could be said in that moment, Paige asked, "And Taylor, am I allowed to ask who this boy is?"

  I looked over my shoulder at Zach to see him standing with his hands in the pockets of his jeans with an uncomfortable look on his face. I couldn't help but smile at that, because there was nothing better than Zachary Pintok looking incredibly embarrased as he currently did.

  I moved away from Paige, back to Zach's side as I said, "This is the boy that did everything besides actually injure me. In fact, he basically kidnapped me, but with good intentions. And he, as much as I hate to give him credit for it, is the reason that I am alive and standing before you."

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Author's Note

HEYYYYYYYYY GUYSSSSSSSSS

I busted out and wrote this chapter in basically forty five minutes if we ignore the five hours in which I screwed around on the internet.

It's been a super long time but that's hopefully not going to happen again because I finally have a laptop to write from and a whole lot of ideas for the upcoming chapters and it's gonna be lit fam ima bout to start swingin. (I'm a living, breathing meme)

Sooooo how did you guys like that chapter? It really is showing just how much Taylor's EQ is beginning to waver when she really needs it.

ZACH AND TAYLOR HOW BOW DAH, ZAYLOR FOR DAYZZZZ

Anywaysss I love all of you guys for waiting so long for this chapter, I am in the process of rewriting one of my books at the moment so I'm kind of everywhere. But I hope you guys liked this chapter, if you wanna leave a fun comment, please do because I love to read your comments :)