Temporary Alliance

Chapter 22 : Fear

"Are you sure?" I looked around where we were.

Alexander and I were currently in the middle of nowhere. There was one single road here and the rest were tree upon trees. After we had breakfast and he showed me the little encrypted message my father had sent, we both took our morning to decipher it using the games that my father played with us years ago and drove a few hours through the rain to our current location. We also made sure to contact Emmaline and Victor to inform them of where we were headed just to let them know we wouldn't be at Headquarters until later.

Lucky for us, the rain stopped a few minutes before we arrived.

Alexander was quiet as he led me a few paces away from where we just abruptly stopped the car in the middle of the road. His face was a blank mask, so different from how he was this morning.

When Alexander stopped moving, I stopped walking to stand next to him. We were standing right in front of a tree; a very thick, tall tree. Alexander stooped down to eye the ground carefully as he slowly walked around the tree.

"The ground doesn't look to be overturned," Alexander commented as he stood up straight once again. Then, he looked upwards and I understood what he meant.

"You think whatever my dad wants us to find is up a tree..." I trailed off as I circled around the tree while looking upwards, trying to see if anything was up there.

He didn't reply as he unbuttoned his suit jacket.

"Wait, I'll go up." I reached out and grabbed his hands to stop him from moving.

Alexander eyed me carefully.

"You're a bit bigger than my dad, who knows if a tree branch will snap or not under your weight. I'll go."

A small frown appeared on his face as he reluctantly agreed.

"Stay and stand guard," I ordered him and turned towards the tree.

Ignoring the amusement radiating off of him, I grabbed one of the thick bottom branches and hulled myself up. Planting both of my feet solidly on the first branch, I glanced around to see if there was anything out of place. However, unable to see anything, I grabbed another branch to climb higher.

"Of course, dad would climb a tree in the middle of nowhere," I grunted as I lifted myself higher, eyes scanning around the entire tree as I did, "to hide something. I mean," a small gasp left my lips as my foot slipped slightly from loose bark, "couldn't he have chosen a safety deposit box or something?"

"See anything?" I heard Alexander's baritone voice from the ground, just barely loud enough for me to hear from up in the tree.

"Not yet." I rolled my eyes as I reached higher. "You'll be the first to know if I did."

I was around fifty feet off the ground when I saw a small, thin black box the size of my index finger stuck solidly into a hole at the root of a thick tree branch. Hooking one arm around a branch to stabilize myself, I reached with my free hand to yank out the box. The little box loosened from the branch as I wiggled it. Getting frustrated and utterly impatient, I gave a tug and the box slipped out and soon it was solidly within my grasp.

"Blades," I called out while carefully making my way down, hoping that I don't slip and unluckily fall the rest of the way downwards.

"Yes?"

"I think I got it," I huffed as I stepped down on another sturdy branch.

When I arrived close enough to the bottom, I jumped and landed on my feet. I gave an exasperated sigh when I saw that Alexander was casually leaning against the tree I was climbing, staring deeply into his phone.