Hidden Enemies | The Prime Archives #2 ✓

twenty-two

Emily was slowly losing her mind.

Granted, it wasn't all her fault.

Everything about the Senator Crane situation was setting off every alarm inside her head. The sirens had been wailing in her ears for days now. She couldn't stop the theories and conspiracies and thoughts. Her mind was a dangerous whirlpool; churning and spitting out different ideas at the speed of sound.

After Holly's funeral, she and the team returned to headquarters in Oregon. Everyone spent the next couple of days wallowing in their own grief and sadness. It was sickening. They were poisoning The Acropolis with their pitiful auras and downcast demeanors. Emily was determined not to fall into a pit. If she did that, she feared not being able to climb back out. So, she kept herself busy.

She spent most of her time in The Watchtower and her room—which looked more like a detective's evidence wall than a bedroom. Newspaper clippings, online articles, and whatever other pieces of information she could find on Crane and the Primes who abducted him were pinned to two of her four walls. She currently stood in the middle of her room with her arms crossed over her violet tank top.

Empty cups of green tea cluttered her desk. Dirty clothes were strewn across the floor. The room was shrouded in darkness, with only a few straggling rays of light shining through the gaps in the curtains draped over her window. Her bed was the only part of the room that didn't look like a hurricane had run through it—and that was only because she hadn't slept in a few days.

"What is the through-line?" she muttered to herself while staring at all the evidence she had gathered.

None of it made sense.

Why would those rogue Primes capture Crane instead of killing him on the spot? They hadn't accomplished anything. They hadn't even kept hold of the senator for longer than a day, as Crane's security detail managed to rescue him.

Emily still wasn't sure about that piece of information either. Despite scouring the net for hours, she couldn't find a detailed report on the recovery mission. Even the interviews Crane's PR representative gave were extremely vague. It was almost as if they were withholding something.

Something they didn't want the public to know.

She couldn't help but feel the entire thing was off. Something sinister was lurking beneath the surface and Senator Crane was at the base of it. His brilliant smile invaded her mind. She scowled.

In one swift motion, she grabbed a discarded arrowhead from the ground and chucked it at the wall. The tip sunk into one of her pictures of the senator, nailing him right in the forehead.

"What are you up to?"

A knock sounded on her door. The sound rattled her out of focus. Her entire body stiffened as her eyes cut to the door.

"Emily? You up?"

Shit.

It was Kai.

Emily lifted her arm and took a whiff. She instantly regretted it. Tears sprung in her eyes as she gagged on the rancid smell assaulting her nostrils. A shower was desperately needed. And judging by her appearance in the mirror on the other side of her room, her hair could use some treatment as well.

Her stomach twisted into a knot.

I can't let her see me like this.

"Emily, open up!"

"Just a minute!" she yelled back. Cursing under her breath, she dashed over to her closet and searched for anything clean. She yanked a black hoodie off its hanger and pulled it on over her shirt, which was stained with mandarin chicken sauce. Gross. With a sigh, she walked over to her door and opened it.