Page 121 of Hide and Seek

“Sorry about that, bro and non-bio bro,” Jace says as he comes into the room. “Didn’t mean to scare the bejeezus out of you.”

“What the fuck happened?” I ask before I can stop myself.

When we left him earlier, the only physical sign of his involvement in an altercation was his slightly messy hair. Now the front of his hoodie has dark stains on it, and there’s a fine splatter of blood over his neck and smears of it on his hands.

“Don’t you worry about me, kiddo.” He winks and goes to his desk to pull out a pack of wet wipes. “Things just got a bit messy while I was getting answers. I’m right as rain.”

“Are any of them still breathing?” I ask dubiously.

“All of them,” he says regretfully.

“Even the one I stabbed?”

“Well, Jax also shot him, so even if he did croak, it wouldn’t have been just your fault,” Jace points out as he pulls a few of the wipes free.

“But he’s alive?” I press.

“Yup.” He busies himself with wiping off his neck and hands. “Did I get it all?”

I nod.

He shoots us a grin and pulls his sweater off. “I wonder if the people who do our laundry ever get tired of scrubbing blood out of our clothes, or if they just accept that it’s a part of life here?”

“Probably a bit of both,” I tell him.

“You said you got information?” Jax says before Jace can go off on another tangent.

“Yuppers.” He lumbers over and plops down on the settee across from us. “You two are as nauseatingly adorable as Killer and Felix.” He shakes his head. “But anyway, back to what I learned.”

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation to speak?” Jax asks dryly when Jace doesn’t continue.

“Nope, just pausing for dramatic effect.” He looks at me. “I imagine the name Cipher means something to you?”

My brain glitches out again as it feels like all the blood drains from my face and pools in my feet.

“Cipher?” I croak.

“Like his gaming friend?” Jax asks sharply.

Jace nods.

“What does he have to do with any of this?” Jax asks.

“Remember how you couldn’t figure out how Jensen knew about the charity job you did?”

I nod.

Jax told me that Jacob’s real name was Jensen. He also explained the link between Jensen and the man whoorchestrated the hit on Felix and how Jensen ended up on campus.

The only part of the puzzle we haven’t been able to figure out is how the orchestrator knew about me and my particular skill set.

“And how you thought that you fucked up when you found the blackmail files and that’s how they tracked you?”

“Yeah,” I say slowly.

“Turns out, you didn’t fuck anything up, and Jacob got the information from his boss, who got it from a source close to you.”

“Cipher?” I whisper.