Hi everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! <3

Just wanted to let you know that I will be posting another chapter shortly after this as a holiday present for you all! I really hope you enjoy!

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Love, Luckycharms!



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Rue wasn't lying when he said he wasn't going to say another word. The second he finished what he was saying, he closed his eyes and didn't respond to any of Thea's follow up questions. Though Thea was furious that this man was willing to play such a silly game when his life was on the line, she also was well aware of the fact that he had told her something of importance.

There was a notebook.

Had the State really not cared to investigate it?

When she left his cell, the first thing she did was tell Luana to go to the Prison Warden and ask where they kept the prisoners things, but knowing damn well that the Warden would make a big deal about whether or not they were even allowed to access is, she went to the nearest phone and called the General.

It was Mrs. Railer who picked up, but she connected her to the General quickly, and the second she heard his voice she spoke up, wasting no time and explaining the entire situation.

"Yes, I can grant you access to that," the General said. "But Thea... I can't guarantee that his things are even still there."

Her heart stopped. "What?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "But when Crows come in, there's no expectation that they'll actually ever leave... so there's no reason to keep any of their things. And even if they did keep it, the State Prison is notorious for their mismanagement."

"How could a state facility be so careless?"

"Keeping things messy is the easiest way to hide mistakes... or things the State wants to make look like mistakes."

Of course.

It would be easy for the State to simply say that someone they killed in that prison never existed if there wasn't anything to prove they did.

"I still have to try looking..."

"Of course," The General responded. "I'll talk to the Warden."

"Thank you, Sir."

"No problem."

She was going to hang up, but heard him call out to her again. "Thea."

"Yes?"

"Good work."

To that, she chuckled. "I don't know if learning that there may be a needle in a haystack is good work."

"It's better than anything anyone else has come up with," he said. "At least we know there is, or was, a needle to begin with."

She let out a breath that was both exasperated and amused. "I appreciate it, Sir." And with that, she found her way to Luana, who was, as expected, arguing with the Warden. At least until his phone rang. Then, after a few 'yes sir's' and 'of course sir's,' the two of them were led to the huge, horrifyingly messy archive room.

Thea gawked at the sight of the massive room that was filled with shelves and shelves of boxes and folders and papers and god knows what else. The place was in a complete state of disarray, and though the shelves were labeled with numbers, the Warden put Thea in a state of distress when he said that unnamed Crow prisoners had their things and folders "thrown at the back."

"Thrown at the back?" Thea asked as Luana already began to make her way in.

"Well, they're shelved," he said. "Most of it... and I can't promise it's in any better state than the rest of the place."

She looked at the man with a scowl. "You do realize that this is a gross act of negligence on your part?" She asked. "This cannot be allowed!"

The man simply scowled back. "Ninety percent of the men that come into this prison are the worst of the worst... the majority of them Crows who are most certainly never leaving," he said. "No one would argue with the fact that there is no need to treat anything in regards to those men with respect. In my opinion, it would be more worth our time to burn it all."

He didn't wait for her to respond. Instead he turned and left.

"Don't bother," Luana said. "You think this is bad? You should see the provincial prisons."

Thea let out a frustrated breath as Luana sighed before scratching the back of her head. "At least we know where to start."







Thea and Luana looked through folders and boxes for hours, and when Luana had to leave to fulfill her other duties with Kaya, Thea was left in the mess alone.

The state of the documents and boxes in this room was almost unbelievable. There were hundreds of folders, all with names or numbers on them despite being completely empty, making Thea wonder if they were empty because there was never anything in them to begin with, or because they got rid of it.

How many of these names and numbers belonged to people with friends and families who had no idea where they were?

Like Aaryan.

And how many of these people were gone forever?

It made her heart ache.

There were no windows, so Thea had no way of telling how much time had passed, plus, the only clock was all the way near the entrance and Thea did not think to put on her watch this morning since she was so tired.

To make things worse, while she sat on the floor, going through the folders on the bottom shelves, she found herself growing exhausted, her eyes beginning to droop as she opened the thousandth folder that evening. She couldn't blame herself for being tired though, she hadn't had a chance to sleep properly since before she left for Danyo.

Soon, her eyelids became too heavy, and it was as she was about to doze off that she heard the door unlock loudly and click open.

At first she thought it was Luana returning to help her, but the footsteps were heavier and when the figure emerged from behind the shelves, she was surprised by the sight of the General.

"Sir," she said, suddenly feeling a lot more energized.

He gave her a smile. "I thought you'd still be here," he said as he handed her a mug with hot coffee and paper bag which had a warm sandwich in it. "Dinner," he added. "Luana said she was going to come check on you but I told her to get some sleep."

"Thank you! But what about you?" She didn't fail to notice the exhaustion in his face, his eyes looking darker and his skin looking paler than usual. There were bags under his eyes and his hair wasn't as perfect as it usually was, made even worse when the General ran his fingers through it.

This, of course, was expected. At least she had a chance to sleep a little during some of the trip back. The General didn't even get that.

"I thought I'd come give you a hand," he responded as he began removing his coat.

She hesitated. "But Sir, you look exhausted."

"As do you," he countered as he tossed his coat onto the floor, an action that surprised Thea. It was his military coat, a coat that always looked so pristine that she sometimes thought he washed and ironed it absolutely every day. "I knew you'd probably be here all night... so I thought, what the hell? One more sleepless night won't kill me."

To that, she chuckled.

"So, what's going on?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "Where do I start?"

She smiled before gesturing at all the shelves in the back rows. "The warden said that these shelves are dedicated to all the Crows who they don't know the names of, so Rue's folder or box will be here somewhere," she said. "The problem is that everything is supposed to be labeled and organized by their identification number, but they aren't. Everything is just haphazardly placed wherever they thought it'd be convenient."

"So you're looking through everything," he asked, "one by one?"

She nodded. "And I'm trying to bring some organization into this place while I do it," she sighed. "I'm putting all the individuals whose id's start with one here," she gestured at a pile of folders at the far corner of the back of the room, before motioning to the piles next to it. "Twos there, threes there, and so on."

"That's not your job, Thea."

"I know," she said, "but this is ridiculous and something needs to be done," she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. "I started filing them as I was looking but that took too long. So I thought I'd just organize them by number for now and file them after we save Rue."

He kept his eyes on the piles and piles of folders that Thea did her best to keep organized. Then he took a deep breath, looking back at her. "Alright, how about I start at the other end?"

She nodded as she began to comb her hair with her fingers and knot it back around itself to keep it out of her face. "That sounds perfect," she said, before she noticed he was still watching her as she messily knotted her hair up. Embarrassed, she dropped her hands, the loose knot tumbling sideways. "Seven-nine-five-five-three-R," she said rather quickly. "That's Rue's number... want me to write it down, Sir?"

He turned and began walking off. "It's fine, I got it," he responded. "And it's after hours. Just call me Niall."

She felt her cheeks warm.

Another night alone with the General... or, Niall.

She wondered if this was going to become a normal thing for them, and couldn't stop her mind from thinking about how great that just might have been.

She blinked a few times.

Why on earth would she think that?

That was completely inappropriate.

So she shook her head before getting straight back to work.

Despite Niall's presence, the two were rather silent, the only sounds being that of papers crumpling, boxes opening and shutting, and folders shifting. Niall did exactly as Thea had asked, organizing the folders and boxes in the right piles, which resulted in quite a bit of walking back and forth. Once or twice the two had nearly bumped into each other, but for the most part, they stayed out of each other's way.

It was hours later that Thea found herself beginning to doze off again, the effects of the coffee clearly wearing off, and the only reason she knew that hours had passed was because as her eyes began to shut, she saw Niall, who was sitting in a chair he had brought over, pull out his pocket watch and look at it before it clicked back shut. "It's 2AM," he said.

His voice made Thea's eyes open and she watched as he stretched and leaned back in his seat. He wasn't wearing a tie, seeing as he was still wearing exactly the same outfit as what they had arrived here in after the train ride back to the Capital, but he tugged at his collar, seeming to be from habit, looking as if he was loosening a tie that wasn't there. He then sighed, looking over at Thea. She was a few steps away from him, sitting on the floor, her eyes drooping. "Maybe we should call it a night?" he asked. "Neither of us can barely keep our eyes open."

He was right, she knew, but she couldn't help but feel guilty.

It was 2AM, which means it was the next day. That meant she had less than a week to prepare for the meeting that would determine what happened to Rue.

He was watching her, waiting for her response, and when she didn't respond right away, she saw him smile and look back at the shelf that was nearest to him. "So you really are planning on pulling an all-nighter..." his voice trailed off.

Thea watched as the General's eyes fixated on something. He then stood, walked over to the nearest shelf and pulled a relatively thick folder out of it. His lips parted and his eyes widened. "W-what is it?" Thea asked.

He walked over to her, holding the folder up and pointing at the identification number on it.

Seven-nine-five-five-three-R.

Thea was almost instantly wide awake. "That's it!"

He knelt down next to her, handing the folder to her and allowing her to be the one to open it and she was thrilled, a giant smile on her face as she took the folder from him. "Time for the moment of truth," Niall said, taking a seat next to her. "We've got the folder, but let's hope there's something worthwhile in there."

She nodded, taking a deep breath, but before she could open the folder up, a small little notebook slipped right out from it and into her lap. She blinked before picking it up.

It was here.

Rue's notebook.

When she looked up at Niall, excitement in her eyes, she didn't even notice how close their faces were. "This is it!"

He smiled back at her, his expression warm. "One step closer."

She nodded before flipping through the small notebook that was only a little bigger than the palm of her hand. It was filled with pages and pages of what looked like notes written in a rather messy but still legible handwriting.

Rue was certainly a writer.

However, as she slowed down her flipping and began to skim the contents of the pages, she noticed that not all of them were simple notes.

Frankly... most of them weren't.

She held her breath for a moment, before looking at Niall to see if he was seeing what she saw. When she saw that he was, and that he also looked confused, Thea's eyes fell back down onto the notebook as she turned to the first page.



It's cold outside. I hear my brother's voice In the wind, and though I want to believe It's him speaking to me... I know it's not. My mind is growing fickle. I suppose Loneliness does that to you. Or maybe It's the anger in me... that must be it. Or maybe it really is him. His ghost Coming back to tell me to put my gun Down. Maybe I am making excuses, Because I don't want to believe that he Would be disappointed to see that I Am holding a gun in the hands he died Protecting.



She blinked, remembering what he had said to her. You told me your reason for why you fight... that notebook will tell you mine.

This wasn't a notebook filled with plans and locations and names and things of that sort.

It was, at least to him, more than that.

"Rue..." Thea was left rather breathless. "Rue writes poetry."