Disclaimer: I own nothing besides my own characters. In no way, shape, or form am I making any profit and this is purely for entertainment purposes.
"Okay, wait, the vision to see the treasured past must refer to a way to see the map." Ben starts off, already starting to pace. "Any ideas?" he asks Lara and I, before I begin to rack my brain, sorting through everything I know about US History.
"I thought the cipher was the way to see the map." Riley states, obviously confused, and it almost made me want to laugh at him.
"No, the cipher was a way to lead us to the way to see the map." Lara says, and Riley just crinkles his eyebrows in confusion, causing me to actually laugh this time.
"The way to see the map will be revealed when the timely shadow crosses the House of the Liberty Bell; Pass and Stow, Independence Hall, right?." I say, and Ben nods.
"Right. And timely shadow, it's a specific time!" Abigail exclaims, looking up at Ben. He smiles down at her before Riley interrupts, asking what the specific time would be. I smile, already coming to the conclusion.
I think Ben realizes the same time I do due to the look on his face as I make eye contact with him. I smile and nod as he hoists the Declaration up higher on his shoulder, making his way past everybody to speak to the lady working at the cash register. "Uh, excuse me? Could I see one of the hundred dollars I just paid you with?"
"No?" she says, more like a question with a weirded out look on her face.
"Oh, well, here." Ben says, pulling up the sleeve of his jacket. "I have this diver's watch, I dive with it. It's actually quite valuable. You can use it as collateral."
"Whatever." the girl says, taking it from him and then handing him one of the hundred dollar bills out of the cash register.
"On the back of a hundred dollar bill," Ben says, turning to us. "there is an etching which is actually a painting that was done by a friend of Benjamin Franklin's in the 1780's. I think that if we look at this clock tower, we'll see the specific time." Ben picks up one of the water bottles on the counter, using it as a magnifying glass.
"What do you see?" Abigail asks, peering over to get a closer look.
"2:22." he says before putting the water bottle down.
"What time is it now?" I ask, intrigued and happy, especially since we were right about the hundred dollar bill. I must say, well played.
"Almost 3." the cashier says, and our faces all fall. Well, so much for that. I let out a sigh, rubbing my head in frustration as Abigail feels the need to state the obvious. Now Ian will probably crack open every part of Independence Hall to get what he is looking for, regardless if he knows about the timely shadow or not.
"No, we didn't." Riley says, causing me to immediately perk up. "We didn't miss it because...you don't know this?" He crinkles his eyebrows in confusion. "I know something about history that you don't know!"
"I'd be very excited to learn about it, Riley." Ben says, resting his hands on the counter in front of us.
"Alright. What I know is that Daylight Savings wasn't established until World War I. If it's 3PM now, okay, that means in 1776, it would be 2PM."
"Riley, you're a genius." I compliment as Ben gets his watch back and we start to make our way down the steps of the store, Riley following behind all of quickly. I laugh as he tries to have another moment of showing up the history buffs, but it didn't work out for him.
It didn't take us that long to get to the Liberty Bell. I mean, we were in Philadelphia already anyways, so it all worked out. We got inside the building and immediately latched onto a tour, and they didn't even notice us. Wow, what great security they've got here.
We went up the steps by stepping over the chain that told us we weren't allowed to go there very easily, and we were constantly looking out to see if anybody was coming. I was secretly looking for Ian, but I wasn't going to let them know that.
The winding staircase to get to the bell was pretty tiring, but once we got up there, the view was absolutely worth it, as well as being able to see the bell. It was the one that replaced the Liberty Bell, and as far as I knew, not many people actually got to see it up close.
"Wow." I say, letting out a breath of awe, causing Lara to smile at me.
"Pretty cool, huh?" she says, coming to stand next to me as we looked over the railing. "It's pretty cool to be up here to begin with, but I think the reason is even cooler." I nod in agreement. I mean, what could be cooler than finding treasure? Probably nothing.
"What bell is this?" Riley asks as he makes it up to the top deck with us.
"It's the Centennial Bell." Lara says, not taking her focus away from the bell that she had suddenly started paying attention to. "It replaced the Liberty Bell in 1876." He nods as he comes to stand by me, and I smile, leaning in slightly, but I doubt he even noticed.
"There it is." Abigail says in awe as we look at the shadow of the steeple pointing to the area where the next clue would be. We all smile as Ben nods his head.
"Alright, I'm going to go down there. Meet me in the signing room." We all nod as he turns to leave.
I smile as Ben disappears down the staircase. I was about to follow him as Abigail and Lara went as well, but Riley grabs me by my elbow and pulls me back. I let out a small smile as I look up at him to see his cheeks were tomato red. "What's up?" I ask, actually growing curious as to why he kept me back when we were supposed to be in the signing room.
"Well, I…" he trails off, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I was just wondering what you were going to tell me before we saw Ian. You said it was important, right?" I nod, suddenly becoming interested with the floor, and I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet. That was just nervous habit that I had come to pick up.
"Listen, Riley, I don't think we should talk about it just now. I mean, Ben needs us right now. I promise I'll tell you later." I say, reaching down to his hand before giving it a small squeeze. I turn on my heels and move to the staircase, going down to the signing room.
I could tell by the footsteps behind me that he was following me, and I couldn't help but smile. So he did care about what I was going to tell him. I hope he didn't know just exactly what it was. I mean, I was going to tell him eventually, but I feel like it'd be really weird if he knew beforehand. If he knew that I liked him.
I guess that was going to take some getting used to. It was really weird to consider the fact that this guy - whom I just met - was somebody that I had a crush on. It was strange really. I don't know what it is about him, but something just made me fall head over heels.
Sure, I've had some relationships in the past, but it's weird. I'm not even dating the guy, and yet I feel like this is different. In fact, I know it's different. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. The fact of not knowing makes me just want to rip my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs in frustration. I didn't even know if the guy liked me back, and here I was, getting insanely worked up about it.
Either way, we head down the stairs in silence, and Abigail and Lara were no where in sight, obviously. They were ahead of us by a couple minutes. Finally we got there and Abigail immediately gives us a strange look. "What took you guys so long?"
"Oh, we wanted to stop and look at a couple of things on the way. No big deal." Riley says like it really wasn't. Abigail gives us a skeptical look, but I shake it off as Lara just winks at me. Okay, she definitely knew.
I lean against the wall as we wait for Ben to get back from getting whatever was in the brick wall. Whatever it was, I really hope that it was important and relevant.
As we waited, I kept sneaking a few looks over at Riley. I guess that could be could be considered really creepy, but a lot of things about him fascinated me. There was the way that he had to constantly keep pushing his glasses up whenever he looked down, or the way that he brushed his hair to the side even if it wasn't getting in the way. Maybe they were just little things, but they were really cute little things. Maybe I was a little bit past just liking Riley.
He comes back moments later, and we all snap our attention to him, completely knocking me from my thoughts. "Hey, what'd you score?" Riley asks, but I could tell that he was slightly excited about it.
"I found these." Ben says, reaching into his inside coat pocket and showing us a some form of glasses but they had multiple lenses. "Some kind of ocular device. The vision to see the treasure past?" I smile as he hands Riley the glasses.
We slowly unroll the Declaration before Ben takes the glasses back and looks through. "What do you see?" Lara asks him as I was biting down on my lip super hard; probably hard enough to draw blood.
"It says 'Heere at the Wall', take a look." He hands the glasses to Riley, but before he could take them, Abigail snatches them out of his hand. Riley sighs as I giggle lightly, even though I shouldn't be laughing.
"Why can't it just go here to the treasure, spend wisely?" I smile as Abigail hands me the glasses to look through. It was blue - due to the tint of the lenses - and it had a cross with the trinity symbol and then what Ben said it said.
"Oh no." Ben says, and I look up, seeing what he was looking at. We could see some of Ian's goons through the window. Riley walks up and opens the curtains slightly, confirming it. "Look, we don't want them to have the Declaration or the glasses, but we especially don't want them to have both. We'll separate the lock from the key; we're splitting up."
We do just that. Ben took the empty container for the Declaration as well as the glasses, probably to trick them. Abigail had the actual Declaration with her.
We got stuck in a crowd until I heard yelling behind me. I grab onto Riley, squeezing tightly. He looks toward me before he hears the yelling too. All four of share a look before we break out into a run. I didn't even feel bad about pushing people out of the way. They weren't running for their lives like we were.
We somehow made into a market, and that was when all hell broke loose. We immediately got separated, but Riley grabbed me and dragged me away. We ended up hiding behind a curtain that separated some of the stands, but we pulled it back so it would cover our whole bodies and not just half of our bodies.
I look through the curtain to see Shaw walking across our path. "Holy shit!" I yell, letting the curtain fall back into place, hoping that there was no way he saw us.
"What?" Riley asks, his voice laced with panic.
"Shaw's out there, but I don't know if he saw me." I try to get my breathing under control as I focus all my attention on the ground. The next thing I knew, Riley pulled me into his arms carefully, like I was so fragile that I would break. He strokes my hair softly.
"Hey, don't worry." he says in a reassuring tone. "He probably didn't, and even if he did, we'll be okay, alright?" I nod slowly, looking up at him before resting my head on his shoulder and wrapping my arms around his waist, squeezing tightly. It's just moments like this that confirm my thoughts even more.
"Thanks, Riley." I mumble under my breath before pulling away. "We should probably go find Abigail and Lara." I say with a smile, and he nods before we walk outside the makeshift dressing room to go find the two of them. I almost wish that he would hold my hand, but I don't do or say anything.
The rest was a blur, but I do know that we met up with Abigail and Lara. We were running through the streets, and Abigail made it through, but the rest of us were blocked by a load of people in City Hall. She turns to look at us before running right into a biker and falling to the ground.
It all went in slow motion as the Declaration rolled out of her hands and came to a stop in the middle of the road. When she went to go get it, a semi was conveniently driving in the very spot, and Riley had to pull her out of harm's way. Because of the momentum, they fell to the ground, taking me with them.
I groan in pain as I fall against the concrete, scraping everything up, and I'm positive I heard clothing tear. Sure enough, when I sat up, my sweater was ripped in multiple places. I sigh before looking across the road. Abigail and Riley were already sitting up, and they watch helplessly at the event before them.
Then time stopped as Ian picked up the Declaration.
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