But she was right. People around me kept dying. I couldn’t blame her for being hesitant, but I still needed her help. She was the only person who I could turn to right now.
“I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. As long as I’m on the Kings’ good side, they won’t touch you,” I told her.
Buffy held my gaze for a moment, weighing my words. She then nodded.
“Alright, I’ll help you. I don’t want to be caught, though. I don’t want the Kings to even have an inkling of suspicion about me,” she said with firmness to her voice.
I nodded, not wanting that for her either. She had always had my back, which I appreciated. True loyalty was hard to come by.
“Thank you. I can meet you late tonight,” I replied, wanting to move fast in case Zephyr increased his surveillance of me.
“I hope this is worth it,” Buffy said.
She had no idea how much I hoped for that too.
My flashlight beam swept from side-to-side, casting a soft glow on the numerous piles of old boxes that were stacked on counters and on the floor. All of these files needed to be organized, but I wasn’t going to waste precious time putting them into a functioning system. I had to dig through everything and hope that I found something that mattered.
“What a mess,” Buffy muttered as she shone her flashlight on a pile of dusty boxes. She peered inside one of the boxes at a row of unlabeled folders. “Where do we even start?”
“A box at a time,” I replied before drawing in a deep breath. Only a year ago, Gail and I were digging around in these archives, searching for the truth of our families and pasts. So much changed after that. I wondered if what I found tonight would change everything once again.
Buffy started digging around in a box, pulling out folders and peering inside at the papers inside.
I went through all of the boxes in my vicinity, looking at financial records, blueprints of the school, and inventory sheets. None of this mattered, but I finally found a box of files that sparked my attention: alumni records. I searched through the files, looking for any names that were recognizable. I then froze in place when a familiar name popped out at me in the middle of the row.
Dimitri Stamos
That was Sol’s father. I quickly pulled the single piece of paper out that had basic information about him. I already knew about the year he started school here and when he left. His birth date and address didn’t matter. However, what actually caught my eye was the grainy, black and white picture of him.
For some reason, I felt a glimmer of familiarity. A flicker of a memory of meeting him in person flashed through my mind. It was gone as fast as it appeared, though. Was it real, or did I make that memory up since Sol looked so much like his father? The black hair and the straight slope of their noses was very similar.
The possibility of that memory made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. What did that mean if I had met him in person before? I had all of these pieces of information, which were all connected in some way, but I couldn’t see the entire picture yet.
“Find anything?” Buffy asked me, shining her light toward me.
“Not yet,” I said, not wanting to waste time over a memory that might’ve happened or not. I needed something solid, so I kept going through the files. There were multiple alumni boxes of notable past students, so I figured we would be here for a minute. Not too long, though. I didn’t need anyone else knowing that we were down here.
I almost finished with the box in front of me until I saw Amelia’s real name, Simone Agrippel, at the top of one of the files. I pulled the paper out, scanning the document for any sort of clue. At the bottom was a name scribbled in pencil, a quick footnote, that peaked my interest.
Estrella
That had to mean something. I didn’t know her last name, but I was determined to search through the files until I found her. Why would someone write her name on Amelia’s file? They had to be connected in some way, and if someone was connected to Amelia, they could possibly be linked to the Kings.
“Help me look for someone named Estrella. Check these boxes,” I told Buffy, pointing my flashlight toward the other alumni boxes. We got to work, combing through file after file. The sound of papers rustling filled the room as we worked under soft lights, checking every name until we found the one we were looking for.
“Here!” Buffy called out, holding up a sheet of paper. She handed it over to me as we huddled close together, shining our lights on the words.