I waited for about an hour, watching her from a safe distance. The plan was to retrieve the paper once she returned the book to the shelf. However, things took a different turn when she packed her things and inserted them into her backpack. Including the book.
She rose to her feet, slung the backpack over her shoulder, and walked away. I watched her bid the portly woman behind the counter goodbye, then head out of the library.
I shook my head and rose to my feet, rubbing my eyes with my fingers. This young lady had no idea what she was carrying in her backpack; she was unaware of the storm circling around her.
Quietly, I followed her out of the building, keeping a safe distance. She’d just stepped into a world she knew nothing about, and nothing could’ve prepared her for the horrors to come.
Chapter 3 —Eva
I pushed the door open and walked into my dorm, rolling my neck in a massaging motion. My back ached, and my waist was killing me. Exhausted, I took off my backpack and fell face down on the small bed, groaning into the mattress.
After all the effort I put into this assignment, I received a notification about fifteen minutes ago that the deadline had been extended. Why hadn’t we been informed earlier? I wouldn’t have bailed on Emi so soon. I rolled over, facing the ceiling with my hands under the back of my head.
The image of the tall man at the library flashed in my head again, reminding me of his commanding presence. The scent of his cologne still lingered on the back of my hand. His skin had brushed against mine while reaching for the same book.
And since then, it felt like I carried a piece of him wherever I went. Not that I’d gone anywhere else anyway.
Who was he? What did he want with the book? He was too sophisticated to be a student or a professor at the university. So, who was he, and why did he want the book? My brows knitted together as I recalled his awkward silence and the chills it sent down my spine.
I remembered the ruggedness etched on his face, his blank expression and those icy gray eyes that seemed to stare into my soul. My heart skipped a beat, confused about the mysterious man’s intentions.
Although I had no idea who he was or what his deal was, I knew for sure that he wasn’t the kind of man to be messed with. He didn’t have to spell out how dangerous he could be—everything about him gave him away. Especially those scary eyes of his.
I wasn’t one to stereotype people, but the fact that he looked like he was Russian only made matters worse. Those guys were always linked to one gang killing in the city or another. That said, the question remained: What was he doing in the school’s library, and what did he want with the book?
I jolted off the bed, picked up my backpack from the floor, and headed to my reading table by the window. I set the backpack at my feet, withdrew my laptop first, and then the book. The plan was to try to figure out what was so special about this psychology book.
I’d read more than a few chapters of it earlier and still hadn’t seen anything interesting beyond psychological facts. Maybe there was nothing eerie about this whole thing. Maybe my mysterious Russian man just wanted to have a good read.
Deep down, I didn’t believe it. I sensed that there was more to this, and my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to let it rest.
I had barely opened the book again when the same neat sheet of paper fell onto the table. I hadn’t taken a good look at it earlier, but I was determined to do that now.
Sitting back in my chair, I studied the scribbles on the paper, trying to figure them out. However, nothing made sense to me—just random numbers, chaotic lines, arrows, and a language I assumed was Russian.
It looked messy—something a normal person would easily dismiss as unworthy of their time. Well, I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t a normal person; I was a curious kitty cat obsessed with solving puzzles.
And this was definitely a puzzle.
The main reason I didn’t rule it out as nonsense was the Russian inscriptions on the paper. It somehow explained why my mysterious Russian man would be interested in the book.
Wait a minute.
I squinted, wondering whether this paper was what he was actually after, not the book itself. Yeah, sure, he might have been a learned man trying to read a book. But why this particular one—the one with the Russian inscriptions on a sheet of paper? Coincidence? I didn’t think so.
What if the last person who read the book was Russian, and these were all notes from the book? It was possible, yes. But the numbers circled in neat red had nothing to do with the book. I was sure because I’d already read it.
A quick Google search would reveal the meaning of those Russian words, but for now, I was focused on these numbers. They seemed to have been repeated over and over, always in sets of four or six.
I stared at one, my eyes drifting between the figures.
13-19-05-04
Whatever this was, it must be some kind of coded message. But what could it mean? Could it be a substitution cipher—numbers corresponding to letters? No, that would be too easy to crack.
I ran a quick calculation in my head, just checking to see if this was somehow actually a substitution cipher.
13 equaled M.
