"Okay, so far we have been tested with steganography in the lift, morse code in the notebook and we had to work out the connection between a painting and a fireplace so we could unlock the lock, that was done by substituting letters for numbers, all quite older versions of cyphers so I assume that all of our tasks today will be to do with cracking codes?" Eyeing the paper, Zoya typed the code into the laptop, pressed enter and stepped back.

The screen fizzled out to black only to reappear with a dark shaded image of a man.

"Is that meant to be Jesus? You can just about make out the thorns in his hair" squinting nearer to the screen, she jumped up onto the desk beside it. "Okay, so whatever cult this is, is old fashioned and has links to Christian faith, anything spring to mind?"

"What's the bets whoever is leading this thinks they're Jesus?" Aditya ran a hand over his stubble. "We need to be thinking about the possibility of a copycat cult, what famous cult leaders were seen as Jesus?"

"Wait" she jumped up, "The song in the elevator, who was it sang by?"

"Depeche Mode, covered by Marilyn Manson, oh" he smiled as it finally clicked, "Charles Manson said he was the reincarnation of Jesus, that's what this all has been pointing to" brushing his hand through waves of his charcoal coloured hair, he smirked, "Shit, you're smart".

Her eyes widened slightly at the compliment, in truth she hadn't been expecting it, people rarely took the time to say anything nice to her, especially not men and she definitely appreciated praise to her brain rather than to her beauty, she'd worked her ass off to get where she was and she yearned to be recognised for that. "Uh, thank you" she wrung her hands, covering her face with her hair so he wouldn't make out the blush.

He gasped "Are you smiling? Did I just make the great Zoya smile?" He teased, laughing as she shoved his arm.

"Oh, go away" but this time she didn't really mean it. Eyeing his watch, she glanced over at her own reflection "Charles Manson said 'Anything you see in me is in you, if you want to see a vicious killer, that's who you'll see, do you understand that? If you see me as your brother, that's what I'll be, it all depends on how much love you have, I am you and when you can admit that, you will be free, I am just a mirror', I bet this mirror is double-sided".

Aditya really was blown away by her intelligence, her way of thinking was worth so much praise, the saddest thing about it was how clear it was that she had no idea of her own capabilities. Following her, he pressed his nail to the mirror "Nail touches the reflection, it's two-sided" wrapping his hand in a towel, he flung his arm back and then into it so it smashed around them.

Rolling her eyes, Zoya crossed her arms "Why so macho? You could have tried to move it first" she sighed, stepping over the shards to enter the new room.

"A strong man attracts a strong woman" he winked, face dangling before hers, "Are you attracted to me yet?"

"Pfft" she scoffed, looking anywhere but at him, "In your dreams".

"Oh" he tutted, tongue clicking, "You don't want to hear about my dreams, you're usually naked in all of them" he chuckled briskly as she smacked him again. "If you keep touching me like that I might start to believe you're doing it on purpose".

"Oh, shut up" she growled. She liked him for all of one second, now she hated him again, he really, really rubbed her up the wrong way.

●◇●◇

Abir slid his phone into his back pocket "Meth is sometimes legally used for obesity and ADHD, soldiers were given it in the war to stay awake, so I assume we're meant to take it to do just that? Though I don't exactly believe in following orders blindly".

"My sister will kill me first" she gulped, sniffing the small crystals, "Though it doesn't actually smell of meth, so maybe?"

"Are you seriously suggesting we get high? Never took you for that type" it was probably about time he stopped making assumptions about her, it clearly wasn't getting either of them anywhere.

"Well" her nose turned red, "I'm not sure what else we can actually do" she shrugged, "So unless you've got a better idea?"

"Anything is better than that" he snapped, he knew exactly why they'd been placed in this room, it was a test of faith, whether he would crave a past fix more or his job, sure it had been years since he'd dosed up, but the feeling matched no other and he'd been desperately searching for something similar during his work only to come up empty. "You have no idea how easy it is to get addicted, fifteen days max and you're done for" he turned away, hoping to find something else they could use as a clue. Running his eyes over the thermostat that continued to reach new heights, he reached for the bowl "Meth can be known as ice, we need to cool down the temperature" he delved the pointer into the bowl, watching as it slowly turned toward the twenty, then he moved it away, "Right, I have it on normal room temp". Carrying the bowl, he placed it on the weight "Zero point three grams, we need more numbers, I think it's an equation".

Mishti removed the clock from the wall "It's quarter past ten according to this, the time is wrong" she chalked the numbers on the board, "Either a fifteen or a three, if we add the numbers that makes thirty-three point three or forty-five point three".

"No, wait, come here" he stood her next to him, "See the thermostat is an exact line between the clock that was above it and the scales below it, so the rest of the numbers should be added and divided by the number twenty, so" his brows furrowed, "Thirteen point three or twenty-five point three".

"You really have an eye for these things" she commented under her breath.

Watching her from the corner of his eye, he lifted the chalk "That would be why you always find me looking at you".

It was such a simple sentence, but it made her stomach flip. Yes, Mishti knew he was just flirting for no reason, but she'd always been such a big romantic and his behaviour really didn't help her heart! "Hold on, there's another twenty scratched onto the ground" she brushed over it with her shoe.

"That just brings the numbers back to what they were" writing out the equations, he stepped back, hands on his hips.

"That doesn't seem right, those numbers don't mean anything" she stepped beside him, a befuddled look on her face.

"Unless" he wiped off the numbers, "Maybe it's like what divided by twenty equals these numbers, in that case, it would be" his brows knit as he wrote more.

"That's the Devil's number" Abir muttered as he keyed in the number to the keypad beside a vault. The second it clicked open, smoke fizzled around him, drowning his lungs in a murky substance that had him coughing up phlegm. Waving his hand before his face, he jumped back "What is in there?"

"Devil smoke is the name of a type of mouthpiece for shisha" she filled in, "Seems all of this has something to do with drugs and the devil".

"Hyoscine is the devil's drug" he whispered, "I know what we're dealing with".

Ah I love, love, love writing this! Hope you're loving reading, I find the images make it feel more real, do you prefer them there or are they annoying?