𝗜𝗧𝗖𝗛 ✔

𝟓𝟎. 𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒

"Right, so. Anonymous Kelly posted again. I need your help deciphering the cryptic-ass content," Taelyn explained. She motioned towards her computer screen, which depicted the article from before.

" ' J-U-S-T-I-C-E'?" Cara read aloud, eyebrows furrowing as the information entered her brain.

"Yeah. I told you. Cryptic as hell," Tae sighed. "Aiden?"

Aiden was already deep in thought, cheeks sucked in as his mind worked. "Justice....justice...." he muttered.

"Yes, that's what it says," Cara deadpanned.

"No, but look how it's written..." Aiden pointed to the screen. "It's spelled out, almost like it's supposed to be written letter-by-letter, not the word as a whole."

"We see that....But why is it written like that?" Cara bit her lip as she looked at the article again. "Is there any other content on the page?" she asked Taelyn.

Tae shook her head. "No, just that, and the author's name, which we know already."

"Jay, you, ess, tee, eye, see, ee..." Aiden mumbled the letters out. "What does it mean?"

"Dammit," Taelyn cursed.

Cara, feeling defeated, took out her phone to check the time. Then, she typed in the password to unlock it...

Suddenly, her phone was knocked out of her hand and a small gasp eluded her lips. "What the hell, Aiden!"

"I knew it!" He exclaimed, palming the phone off the floor and swiping to the password page. "Look here...for every number, there are letters underneath...that's how you dial things when you're with an operator or something, right?"

Cara and Taelyn nodded.

"But in that case, you would look at the numbers, not the letters. In this case, we have to look at the letters first. Jay, you, ess, tee, eye, see, ee. Justice. Those are the letters we have to look at." Aiden found each letter under its corresponding number on the password keypad. "And look, if we put the numbers above each letter together, it makes a number pattern. 5, 8, 7, 8, 4, 2, 3. That's jay, you, ess, tee, eye, see, and ee as numbers on the keypad."

Cara jumped up, almost knocking him over. "That's it! Those are the numbers to the keypad, aren't they? Aiden, you're a genius!"

"How do we know it's the correct one, though?" Aiden countered.

"Always thinking pessimistic," Cara rolled her eyes. "It's from Anonymous Kelly. He wouldn't just say this for nothing. And even if it's wrong....we honestly have nothing to lose, right?"

"Um, we'll lose a leg from those dogs," he pointed out.

"Not if we found out how to distract them," she fired back.

"I feel like a third wheel, keep the fighting outside," Taelyn grinned. "You got one of our answers! That's one step closer."

"Fine, fine," said Aiden, putting up surrendered hands.

"Now we just have to find out how to distract a bunch of angry, big-ass dogs," Cara grinned.

"I feel very motivated," Tae rolled her eyes.

"Shut up. Anyway." Cara walked over to the computer and began typing away in the search engine, mumbling the words softly. "How...to..distract...a trained...dog."

"Aren't dogs supposed to be distracted or something?" said Taelyn.

"Most," Aiden muttered. "Just not these ones."

"Wow, we got beautiful luck," Tae deadpanned.

"Oh, shut up, I'm trying," argued Cara. "What are you doing?"