CHAPTER VI - TANGELO'S WATCH
906 Words
[Gray's POV]
The night had settled in like a velvet curtain, draping the sky with a blanket of stars. Gray Angeles had just slipped into the comfort of her bed, muscles finally relaxing after a grueling day of drills and simulation fires. Being a firefighter-s***h-assassin wasn’t exactly a stress-free profession. She had just closed her eyes when her comm buzzed angrily on her nightstand.
Groaning, Gray reached out and checked the ID—Cody Velarde. Again.
“Gray. Pick up.”
With another sigh, she accepted the call. “Veridian, do you even sleep?”
“Get up,” Cody snapped, breathless and tense. “We’ve got something. About Alya.”
Gray sat upright instantly, heart picking up its pace. “What do you mean?”
“I think she’s hiding something. I’ve checked everything we have access to. Nothing adds up. No military history, no traceable agent file. It’s like she was planted with a perfectly clean civilian identity.”
(Gray swung her legs off the bed and grabbed her hoodie, knowing this wasn’t just paranoia. Cody had a tendency to overthink—but rarely without reason.)
“Where are you?” Gray asked, already slipping into her boots.
“My apartment. Bring your gear. We’re going deep.”
---
(Cody’s place looked like a war room. The table was buried under maps, notes, and a dozen sticky notes bearing names, dates, and highlighted digital prints. She’d connected her laptop to a wall-sized monitor, lines tracing data connections and dead ends.)
Gray took one look at the madness and raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t kidding.”
Cody didn’t smile. “I’ve scoured the agency’s registry, Interpol’s archives, hell—I even pinged three private intelligence boards. Nothing. Alya Arcania is either a ghost or... something else.”
“Maybe she’s using an alias?” Gray suggested.
“Even aliases leave fingerprints. Fake IDs. Slip-ups. She’s too clean. That’s what bothers me.”
(Gray rubbed her temples. It was 2 a.m., and Cody was pacing like a lion caged with her own thoughts. This had become more than curiosity. It was obsession.)
“I think we should tell Madison,” Gray finally said.
“No,” Cody said sharply. “Not yet.”
“Why not? She’s our leader.”
“Exactly.”
(Cody’s voice held venom now, her frustration bubbling over.)
“She’s always the leader. Always the favorite. Everyone listens to her. Jayden trusts her with every move. But what if this is the one time she’s wrong?”
Gray’s eyes narrowed. “You think Madison knows something?”
“I think Madison’s blind. She’s too close to Alya. You saw how she looked at her. The way she defends her like she’s already part of us.”
“She doesn’t even know Alya’s Aegis.”
“Exactly!” Cody growled. “And she’ll never see it. Not until it’s too late.”
(Gray crossed her arms. “So what—you want to dig until you find something to expose her?”)
“I want to know who she really is before Madison gets herself killed,” Cody snapped. “Or worse, compromises the entire group.”
Gray walked over to the laptop and scrolled through Cody’s search logs. Dead end after dead end. Security redirections. Fake addresses. Sanitized data.
“Maybe it’s meant to be hidden,” Gray muttered.
“What?”
“Maybe it’s not about what’s missing. Maybe it’s about who wants it missing.”
(Cody went silent, her fists clenched at her sides. She hated when things didn’t make sense. It reminded her of the time Specter lured one of their old teammates into a trap with just enough fake data to seem like a lead. That teammate never came back.)
“I just want to protect all of us,” Cody said after a moment, voice quieter now.
Gray finally smiled, tired but sincere. “I know. But Madison’s not just some hotheaded boss, Cody. You might hate that she leads us, but she’s earned it. She’s not perfect—but she’s strong, sharp, and brave enough to carry the weight we can’t.”
Cody scoffed. “You sound like Jayden.”
“Maybe Jayden’s right.”
They stood in silence for a while, the buzz of the computer the only sound.
“Do you really think Alya’s dangerous?” Gray finally asked.
Cody hesitated. “I don’t know. But she’s not a regular civilian. I can feel it.”
“And what if she’s... not an enemy?”
“Then she still has secrets,” Cody said. “And in our world, secrets are the deadliest weapons.”
Gray looked at the frozen screen—Alya’s profile staring back with a smile that felt too perfect.
“Then we dig,” she said. “But we dig together.”
Cody looked at her, surprised.
Gray smirked. “You’re not dragging me out of bed at 2 a.m. just to rant.”
They both chuckled softly. The tension dissolved for a second, but the weight of the unknown lingered in the room like smoke after a fire.
(They didn’t know Alya’s true identity. Not yet. Maybe fate was protecting them from it. Or maybe it was hiding a storm that would change everything. But one thing was clear: the darkness Alya kept wrapped around herself wouldn’t stay hidden forever.)
And when it unraveled, someone would bleed.
- Writer
