Spy School King's Cage (Completed)

The last piece of the puzzle

Hi everyone! This is a double update. I'm in the process of writing another chapter, so maybe if I finish it it'll be a triple update.

Enjoy!!!

Then I gave it a second thought. Catherine would probably think about my theory from a different perspective, so I shook my head, darting in the opposite direction.

I stopped outside the library. The two guards who stood outside the library shot me dirty looks. I slipped inside the library.

No one was in there, and that was a good thing. I found the spot where Piper and I were seated.

As I has suspected, no one had even bothered to clean up. The book that Piper had been reading lay open. The book I had been flipping through lay closed with a laminated bookmark sticking out of it.

I grabbed the book and opened it up, recalling my brief conversation with Piper the other day.

"That's nice." I opened my book up again, and noticed that the last sentence from one of the pages was missing. It looked like it had been ripped.

"Hey, what happened here?" I asked.

Piper walked over and examined the book. "I don't know, I think something got ripped out or whatever."

I glanced over at the page. Figuring that it was the least of my worries, I closed the book, placed it aside and stood up as well. "I have to get going too."
She flashed a smile. "See you later."

The strip of paper in my hand fit perfectly into the ripped section of the book. Someone had ripped the last line off the book and slipped it into my hoodie.

Until then, I hadn't noticed the dried-up lilac flower and pinch of gray powder next to it.

Erica.

She had somehow done this.

But why this line? I wondered as I stared long and hard, thinking of any connection.

Then it dawned on me.

I raced out of the library and upstairs. I needed the help of the one person I could trust.

Piper was just opening the door to her room as I found her. "Piper!"

"Back already?" she asked with a smirk.

I nodded, almost out of breath. "Yes. I need your help."

"What do you need?"

"A map."

She smiled. "I'm a living, breathing one. Where do you need to go?"

I took a deep breath and ran over my plan in my head before turning to her.

"I think I know where Erica is."

Piper's face lit up. "Really?"

"I mean, it's a vague guess, but yeah." I pulled out the piece of paper. "It's a clue," I explained. "Where's the laundry place?"

Piper walked out down the hallway, gesturing for me to follow. "It's near the base gardens and the pool in the basement."

I followed her down the stairs to the ground floor. She opened a door, revealing more stairs heading to an underground level of the house.

"I'm not allowed here," Piper explained. "But my parents are trying to kill you, so who cares?"

She scurried down the stairs, and I followed her. Once she reached the bottom, she flipped on a light switch.

The floor plan was exactly the floors upstairs. "No one really comes down here," she explained. "It's completely deserted."

"But you have a laundry room down here?" I asked, curious.

The basement was cold. It was only when Piper turned on the thermostat did I realize that I was shivering. Heated air began to pour in through the vents.

Piper smiled. "There are washers and dryers, but it's really deserted down here. There are about twenty rooms, but they're all storage and trash. One guard comes down here twice a week to do laundry."

I nodded. "Nice."

"Why are we down here again?" she asked.

"I got the slip of paper in my hoodie when it came from the laundry, right?" I said. "That means whoever sent this to me, which I'm assuming is Erica, had to have access to the laundry room. This is from that book I was reading with you. There was a dried-up lilac flower and a pinch of gunpowder there. Erica's traits," I explained.

Piper was in awe. 'How did she...?" she asked.

"I'm clueless too," I said. "But she's Erica."

Piper opened the door to the laundry room. "Here we are. Why do you want to see the laundry room?"

"I don't have to see the laundry room," I said. "I just want to know if there's a pool table near here. Near the laundry room."

"A pool table? Why would you want to know if I have a pool table?" she asked.

"I'll explain," I answered. "Do you?"

She nodded. "We did, but it broke, so it sits down here with all of the other random junk that's down here."

Perfect, I thought. It all makes sense. "Awesome," I replied. "Where is it?"

"One of these doors," she answered. "Junk is junk. I can't do much around here with all this junk."

I nodded. "That makes sense why no one comes down here.

"Why exactly are you asking for a pool table?" she asked. My mind flashed back to our adventure in Britain before I answered.

"We were on a mission in Britain," I started. "There was an explosion involving a pool table. Erica got caught in the blast and was temporarily blinded by it, and she didn't want to freak her parents out, so she trusted me to guide her. This line makes perfect sense. She's trying to make me recollect that moment, and she's also hinting that there's a pool table near her. Or a pool cue. Or a pool ball."

"That's so cool!" Piper gasped. "Man, being a spy sounds so much fun."

"You'd think," I said, smiling. "Imagine having to submerge in a bunch of poop."

She made a face of disgust. "Eww."

There was a vibration. I felt around in my hoodie pocket for my phone, but all I felt was a granola bar and the cold metal of a gun. My phone wasn't vibrating.

"Oh no," Piper said, taking her phone out. "It's Tim. My horseback riding instructor. He's really mean. I have to go."

"Oh, okay," I said. "I'll just...um,"

"No, no, you can continue your stuff," she said. "I'll just cook up an excuse like a sprained ankle and be right back."

Then she hurried off, leaving me alone.

I started opening door after door, searching for any broken pool table or anything closely related. But I only found random junk.

As I opened another door, though, I was bombarded by trash. I quickly shut that door and continued down the hallway.

"Ben?" came a voice. I reflexively spun around.

Behind me was a door left ajar. Inside the room was a certain someone, handcuffed.

The person was none other than Erica Hale.