I’d never run that fast in my damn life, going from the house to the Archives in less than two minutes.
I pushed the door open, praying that Lola was still with Dimitri at the hospital. Hoping that no one would be here and that I’d get to speak to Margaret. Hoping I understood the last lines of this damn journal wrong.
I closed the heavy door behind me and strolled to the desk, catching my breath. My mind was a mess, blood thumping loudly in my ears.
“Margaret?”
Silence. My fingers drummed on the edge of the desk, impatient. She better not play with me now…
“I finished the journal,” I continued.
Still nothing.For fuck’s sake.I strained my ear, trying to catch even the most quiet sign of her presence. She was always around. Always pestering me and stuffing her ghost nose in business that didn’t concern her. Shehadto be here somewhere.
“Margaret,please,” I pleaded, letting myself fall on the desk chair in defeat. “I—you can’t leave me hanging now. I need—” I gasped as the computer turned on, straightening on my chair. “Thank god, can you—”
My words died in my throat again as I saw the letters slowly appear.
“Aisle 78.d.”
“Aisle seventy-eight D?”
What was in that aisle? I tried to think of all the boxes I went through over the years. It was definitely one of the faraway rows; one we rarely went to. My brain was interrupted as my chair was pulled back from the desk and shoved a couple of times toward the corridor.
“Okay, okay, I’mgoing. Jeez…”
I walked in between the rows of bookshelves, reading the numbers as I went, counting under my breath.
“There,” I said, turning into the right one.
All the shelves were arranged in arc circles around the desk area, with four main corridors between each sector, one larger leading to the door. Seventy-eight was nearly at the very end of the eighty-two rows. And, since the room was just a large circle, the farthest were the largest fucking ones.
It would take mehoursto go through each book, file, and boxes in that damn aisle.
At least Margaret mentioned it was sector D… Three less huge ass rows to search.
I groaned as I crouched, starting to go through the volumes. What was I even looking for? Was Margaret really not going to help me more than this? I was looking for fucking answers and she only brought me more questions.
“What a—”
Something rattled a few shelves farther down. My brows lowered as I stood, walking toward the source of the noise.
A box was slowly shaking its way out of its place. I crouched again and pulled it out, placing it on the floor to rummage through it.
Various electrical items—mostly power strips and extension cords that we used during events—were overflowing from the plastic box. Would Maragaret feel insulted if I just emptied it on the floor?
Probably. The damn ghost felt insulted by every fucking thing I did.
So I carefully moved everything around, searching for—What the Heavens was I even searching for? Certainly not a damn extension cord.
“You’re not even going to give me a hint there?” I asked with barely concealed annoyance. “You could have at least let me ask a question before sending me on a treasure hunt.”
My muscles stiffened when an eerie laugh traveled to my ears.Damn creepy ghost.
“I don’t understand what’s going on! Is Lola…Is she an Astral?Wasshe? Before she sold her soul or something?”
The box rattled again on the floor. I groaned as I kept searching through it, not bothering about the potential mess now as I placed everything on the ground around me.
And then I saw it. What Margaret wanted me to find.
