Anyone But You

Chapter 3

I picked up each page and tried to read the sentences in hopes it would provide me we with a landmark or some other clue.

"Well?" Aramis shouted at me.

"It would be a lot easier to figure this out if we worked as a team," I shot back angrily.

"I’m not losing my Alpha status because some b***h can’t figure out a map." Arthur shouted slamming his pointer finger into my collar bone, pushing me backwards. Onyx growl ripped through the air temporarily deafening everyone present. Arthur took a shaky step back and lowered his head to my father in submission.

"Put your f*****g hand on me again, and I will drop you where you stand." I said holding my ground. We locked eyes for what felt like an eternity before he put his hands up in surrender.

"You told us you had figured it out," Atlas spat taking a step towards me.

"I said I think I figured it out." I said stopping him in his tracks with a glare.

"I understand 'think' is not something your familiar with, so I understand your confusion." Atlas clenched his fists before running his hand through his hair. "We're wasting time," he yelled in frustration.

I looked around at the remaining items on the ground and tried to mentally piece together how they would help us.

"What am I missing?" I yelled at no one as I pushed myself off the rock I was leaning against and scanned our surroundings for the first time since we started the challenge.

The bright sun was a complete contrast to the darkness of the woods, and it was too hard to tell direction because everything looked the same. I looked back at the discarded items, then to the map, and back at the scenery.

"That’s it!" I screamed, breaking the silence and making everyone jump as I quickly collected the compass and flashlight from the ground. "It’s an Androf Cipher," I said, setting the items down by the map and picking up the journal pages.

"A what?" Arthur asked, watching me completely confused.

"That took you way too long to figure out," my father yelled from the sidelines.

"No comments from the peanut gallery." I yelled back, looking at him with a smirk. He smiled at me and shook his head. "An Androf Cipher was invented by the Germans in World War One as a way of sending secret messages." I said, looking at Arthur.

For the first time since we arrived, I had the boy’s full attention and silence.

"The Germans would choose a book, or piece of literature, and send messages using a sequence of numbers and letters." I explained as I laid out each page under it’s corelating X on the map. "They would find a page, put the number of the page, the number of the sentence, the number of the word, and the number of the letter. Whatever letter in landed on would be the first letter of the message, or in our case, page two, sentence fifteen, word three, letter two, gives us the number 21532." I said, writing the number under the X two. I continued until all the numbers had been found and written out.

"It’s latitude and longitude," Aramis said with a genuine smile.

"Exactly," I said. The boys and I shared a knowing glace and smiled. Finally feeling like we actually had a shot at winning this thing, we each took a seat next to the map and got to work.

Fifteen minutes and some creative compass work later, we finally got the map facing the correct direction, and we all started off towards our first spot.

"I think we should follow the Xs in sequence to avoid traps," I said as we walked.

"I don’t think we have enough time left for that," Atlas deadpanned as we reached our first destination.

"As much I don’t want to admit he’s right, I agree," Arthur said as he started digging at the ground.

A few minutes later, they found a shovel.

"Great," Aramis said sarcastically, pulling the shovel from the hole. We all looked at each other with a smirk and than back over at where our fathers were standing.

"They really gave us a shovel." I stated, shaking my head.

"Come on," Atlas said, leading the way to our second spot. Five feet away, I smell it.

"STOP!" I yelled, causing everyone to freeze. "Atlas, there’s a trap close by, I can smell the iron." I said, scanning the ground.

"Found it," Atlas said, slowly bending down and picking up a stick. He jabbed the trap, and it snapped shut around the wood, causing it to splinter.

"Bear traps, really?" Arthur asked in confused shock.

"Are you sure they aren’t actually trying to kill us?" Aramis asked jokingly serious.

"If they were, Arthur would be the first corpse," Atlas smirked as he continued walking.

"Why am I getting corpsed?" Arthur asked while shoving a very giggly Aramis out of his way.

"Because you pissed off Onyx," I deadpanned.

"Oh yeah. So, about that," Arthur said slowly, spinning to face me, "Any chance you can sweet talk him into letting me keep my head? I am very attached to it."

I smirked at his attempt at being innocent. "Onyx does as he pleases. Half the time, I wonder how much control my father actually has over him." I said pointedly. Arthur's face instantly morphed into fear, and I couldn’t help but giggle. "But maybe some extra ear scratches might keep him at bay." I said, giving him a wink.

As the hours dragged on, we avoided all the traps and retrieved six additional items. Along with the shovel, we gained a key, rope, a second flashlight, an axe, and a wagon. With less than two hours, the boys and I stood at our final X.

"A tree?" Arthur question comically, "Our final X is a tree?"

We all nodded our heads and nominated Aramis to climb it. Arthur flung the rope over a high branch and tied it into a makeshift harness around Aramis, and wrapped the rest of it around him, making a pulley system.

"Boys got skill," Atlas said, slapping Arthur on the back playfully.

"If you tell anyone in my pack, I’ll deny it," Arthur said as he tightened the rope around him as Aramis ascended the tree quickly.

"Why are you afraid of being seen as capable?" I asked, keeping my flashlight pointing up the tree.

"Because then he runs the risk of being a disappointment," Aramis shot down to us.

"Hey! "I shouted up at him.

"It’s true," Aramis continued, "His Beta is mated to my Beta’s sister. She told us everything."

Arthur dropped his shoulders with a heavy sigh "It’s true," he admitted. Atlas and I exchanged glances as he continued. "My father expects so much from me, I don’t think I can live up to his standards, and i am afraid im going to fail him."

And there it was. The silent truth we were all feeling had finally been spoken.

"You know you're not the only one who feels like that." I said honestly, looking between the boys and the tree.

"It’s true, none of us are adequate, and we know it. Just have to figure out a way to do it." Aramis said as he reached a hole in the tree.

"Speak for yourselves," Atlas said arrogantly, causing an exhausted groan from the rest of the party.

"Shut up, man," Arthur said as he moved back a step to add tension to the rope.

"Dude, you’re such a damn liar," I said, moving the light to give Aramais a better view inside the hole.

"I am not," Atlas defended. "I understand why y’all are worried, especially you, but I am badass." He said, gesturing between himself and me.