Alfred picked up his phone Wednesday morning for a different purpose than talking to Ivan for once. He dialed Kiku and crossed his fingers that his friend would pick up. After the fourth ring, the museum worker was there with a cordial "Hello?"

"Yo." Alfred rubbed at his eyes. "Did...Did Arthur Kirkland happen to...call you, last night?"

The other side of the line was a clear sort of fuzzy. After a pause, Kiku answered. "He did."

Shit. "Um, okay, cool. And what did he say?"

Another pause. God, this was as awkward as their college breakup. "He told me about your problem. Not your problem as in—well, I mean the problem you and the FBI are having with...security."

The shivers were tickling Alfred again. "Right. Yes. Totally. I just wanted to know if you remembered the guy you were telling me about last week or whenever. I was doing some thinking last night and...the guy in the elevator. Him. You said he was weird…?"

"Yes, Mr. Kirkland and I have considered him as our main suspect. We are working on identifying him now through security footage. The timing fits, though it is difficult to imagine he was able to...do so much in such little time."

So they had already talked about everything and were considering suspects. Alfred was relieved that they were able to come to a conclusion and solve the hacking case so quickly, but worried about how Arthur had left Alfred completely out of the picture in doing so. It was a sketch move. "Did he say anything else about any other sort of problems?"

Kiku responded without hesitation this time. "No."

Alfred sighed grimly. "I understand."

The SAVE THE WHALES people were back. And today, they were blocking traffic.

"In Washington, D.C.!" Ivan complained, mostly to himself. This was much an annoyance. He and his sisters had rented a car with intentions to drive out to Chesapeake Bay and spend the day at the beach. But they couldn't do that if they couldn't get out of the city, could they. "Traffic is already bad enough here."

"Should we call an Uber?" Yekaterina wondered peacefully from the backseat. The sight of Ivan's sisters in their swimsuits and sunscreen, all ready to go if they only had a way, made him frustrated.

"How would it get here?" Natalya pointed out. "Let's just roll down the windows and tell them to move. Politely, of course."

Ivan sighed, watching the police motorcycles and pedestrians weave in and out of each other up ahead. Behind him there were horns. He rolled the windows down and let in some warm air, the same warm air that blew against the giant signs and banners. He inched the car forward.

A teenager wearing an oversized blue T-shirt that read "MARINE FISHING IS MEAN FISHING" was parading down the line of cars, peeping into windows and handing out flyers. Ivan almost rolled the rental's windows back up.

"Hello!" the kid said, somewhat meekly, when he reached them. He fumbled with the enormous stack of flyers in his hands, his eyes wide and frantic and on everything but Ivan. "Would you like—"

"I am sorry, but we are not interested," Ivan deadpanned. "Can you move?" he prodded, allowing his irritation to seep into his voice.

The teenager's gaze finally met Ivan's, and he gave a startled little hiccup. "O-Oh, okay." He put a hand in his messy light brown hair. "You are. Um. I will…" He turned and began power-walking back down the strip toward the rest of his nature-loving posse.

"Well," laughed Yekaterina. "That worked. I think you scared him, Vanya."

"Vanya hopes he scared them all as well," Ivan said back, only half-teasing. "I don't want stupid politics to ruin our beach day."

"We have an hour drive anyway," Natalya pointed out, propping her sunglasses on the top of her head and propping open a book. "May as well leave it up to fate."

Fate, as it turned out, was feeling generous. Within the span of five minutes, the road was clear. Whether this was due to Ivan's "polite request" or the police's further actions to control the situation could not be determined. What he knew was that once he hit the open interstate, nothing stood between them and the sea.

While on the freeway, Ivan turned up the radio and let his thoughts wonder. The overplayed pop anthems allowed him the perfect environment to muster over the morning's messages. He had received exactly one from the spy ring and none from Alfred. This was uncanny in the sense that the spy ring didn't often send him simple one-liner messages that just said [Due to recent events, the security of your identity and position have been threatened! Take preventative measures immediately!] and Alfred often sent him simple one-liner messages that just said mornin' or i didn get no sleep cuz of y'allll! It was an understatement to say Ivan was scared. So he roared out of DC with his sisters, intending to get away from life's complications for a little while.

Ivan gripped the steering wheel. In the backseat, Natalya was still immersed in her book while Yekaterina rested her head against the window, staring at the scenery outside. Maybe when he returned to the city, everything would be magically fixed.

Maybe he wouldn't even return to the city. Maybe he would snag Alfred and stowaway with his sisters back home. Self-care.

An hour later, Ivan brought the rental car to a stop near the rock wall separating a small Maryland beach town from the wide blue of the Chesapeake Bay. The world was quiet here, but Katya and Natalya certainly were not. The second he parked, they were hopping out and digging beach balls and more sunscreen from the trunk. Ivan helped them, carrying the picnic basket that held their towels. Taking a breath of fresh, salty air, they trucked down to the beach.

It was a sparsely-crowded and narrow strip of sand, but after a couple minutes of walking down through the tide with bare feet, giggling at the seaweed tickling their ankles, they found an open spot and set up camp. Natalya attempted blowing up the beach ball, her face turning a frustrated shade of red. Yekaterina bashfully slipped out of her cover-up sundress. "It's been a while since I've been to the beach; I fear my swimsuit body isn't ready."

Ivan smiled at her. "I think you're beautiful. You both are. And if anyone thinks anything different, I will kill them."

Yekaterina giggled and pushed sand at him. "Let's just see if I remember how to swim first."

The three made a break for the waves. Surprisingly, Natalya was the one to shy away at first, complaining that the water was too cold. The bow holding up her hair tossed in the wind. She danced along the edge of the water, hugging herself and only venturing in up to her knees until Ivan took her hand and showed her that, far out, there was a net keeping them from washing off to Virginia. And then Yekaterina splashed her.

"Hey!" Natalya shrieked. "Fine!" She let go of Ivan and waded in further. "I'm coming in. And I'm coming for you!"

They chased each other all the way to the pier. Ivan was a weak swimmer at best, but he was the tallest and strongest, so he could swing his sisters around on his arms, carry them through the water bridal style, shrieking all the way, and attempt to balance them on his shoulders. This did not always work out. "Water went up my nose!" Yekaterina cried, and they toppled into the sea. Somewhere along the line Ivan started to imagine Alfred was with them, wearing his sunglasses, holding the rainbow beach ball, dark tan and shirtless… Ivan wondered if Alfred would care about how Ivan's rash guard didn't fully conceal his layer of stomach fat or the waterproof bandages around his neck. Katya tried to tickle him and he splashed backwards, warding her off by pulling Natalya in front of him, who yelped, laughed and spun in a circle, dragging her arm to create a water spiral. Ivan stepped back again, his foot touching a rock underwater. When he tested the floor once more, the floor suddenly wasn't there, and he plummeted downwards.

Ivan flailed out his arms and opened his eyes in surprise. The brackish water stung, but he did catch a murky glimpse of something small and white floating in a ray of sun five feet to his left. He resurfaced and sputtered, swimming closer to his sisters, who had continued the splash fight without him.

"There's something in the water," Ivan informed dutifully.

"A shark!" Yekaterina sang.

Natalya just folded her arms and looked pointedly at him. "Have something to confess, Vanya?"

Ivan splashed them both. "No! I'm being serious!" Yet he couldn't help but giggle at their responses. "I'm not sure, but...I think it's a—"

A few meters away from them, a little girl in a purple princess floatable began to wail, pointing to the space in front of her. "JELLYFISH!"

Yekaterina's body went still. "Not a shark."

Natalya was the only one in the vicinity who immediately didn't begin to make her way to the shore. "Really?" she asked, trying to peek around Ivan for a better look. "Where?"

Ivan laughed, tugging her inland. "It could sting you! Come on!" They seemed to be having a lot to do with ocean wildlife in one day.

And so the three siblings washed back up to the beach. Ivan collapsed on his towel, trying to gasp and sigh at the same time. Yekaterina fell down next to him, dusting wet and dry sand off her legs. Natalya strayed, remaining at the edge of the water, watching curiously for more gelatinous bay creatures.

Once Ivan had caught his breath, he rolled over and dug his phone out of the picnic basket. He snapped a quick picture of the beach scenery and sent it to Alfred.

Ivan: happy birthday raven!

He responded back so promptly it made Ivan's heart rate speed up again.

Alfred: when we finally drive the british away Lafayette is there waiting

Ivan: what ( ･ั﹏･ั)

Alfred: what

Ivan: i came out to have a good time and i was almost attacked by a jellyfish. ;) how is your day

Alfred: a jellyfish omg that's rad tho do u have any pics

Ivan: no i look bad

Alfred: no no u look good

Yekaterina had lain down and put her sun hat on. Ivan readjusted to make sure she wasn't reading his messages or seeing his facial expressions.

Ivan: well, I did not come to america to be model

Alfred: ;)(;

Ivan: hey that's my thing ;)(;

Alfred: wait lol

Alfred: so why did you come to america

"Ivan," Katya chided abruptly, turning over. "When are you finally going to tell us who you're always texting so much?"

Ivan froze. How...how could she know? He hadn't...she hadn't seen anything, had she? In a nanosecond, his mind flashed back through every instance where he'd had his phone out in front of his sisters. His memory couldn't recall a particular instance where she'd gotten ahold of it. Like a broken faucet, he sputtered out, "What?"

Alfred: yo dude where'd u go

She grinned playfully. "Your older sister sees everything. Don't think that just because I've been gone, I've gone blind. You have a special someone on the other end of that thing, don't you!"

Okay, so she was more clever than he had presumed. Maybe it was the water in his ears, but the atmosphere was taking on more pressure. "I'm not texting anyone," he lamely said.

"You are!" In a horrifying moment, Yekaterina lunged for the phone and snatched it out of Ivan's hand before Ivan could un-freeze. She turned away and started scrolling through the text conversation.

Fire raced through his veins, and all of a sudden Ivan was furious. He pawed roughly at her shoulder, wrestling to seize back the phone. It fell out of both their grasps and plopped neatly on the sand a foot away, face-up. And the second it did, the screen lit up again with another message: Alfred's contact name, Alfred❤️, over a line of text that read hey are you there i asked a question. Yekaterina squealed.

Her English isn't good, Ivan told himself as he managed to secure hold of his phone. Maybe she hadn't really seen or understood it. He should have left the dumb device at home.

"It's for work," Ivan grumbled, the lie finally coming to him.

"Are you sure?" she teased.

"Yes!" Ivan glared at her. "And you're going to forget about it."

Katya shut up all at once, her face falling. Ivan had seen her be a crybaby many times before, but this time she looked less hurt and more pitiful towards him. He hated it worse.

Alfred: okay then lol that wasn't suspicious at all well i'll just go then byee

Ivan briefly glanced down at the messages. There was no way he could answer the "Why did you come to America?" question anyway, so he just didn't say anything. Maybe he could make up an excuse later for leaving him on read. He silenced Alfred, turned his phone all the way off, and threw it back into the picnic basket. "Don't touch," he warned Yekaterina. "I'm going to go build a sandcastle with Natalya now." So much for hoping his sisters would accept him.

"Okay," Katya whimpered, clutching her sun hat to her chest.

The rest of the afternoon proceeded relatively normally. After a while the mood lightened, as did the sun, and the three eventually came together to work on the castle. The sand always dried too fast to stick, causing a frustrated Natalya to punch a hole in the mock onion dome. The tide wasn't strong enough to flow in and make a moat, so they made due with a 15-centimeter-wide trench. The end structure reached up to Ivan's mid-calves, though, which was impressive. They took a selfie in front of it.

After packing up their gear and showering off, the trio walked the beachfront. Stretching all the way to the horizon were rows of cute restaurants and bars; they stopped for ice cream, and then stopped for lemonade, and then sandwiches. They ate supper at the end of a long wooden fisherman's pier, their bare, aching feet dangling off the edge, past the point marked DANGER ZONE.

"I want to sleep here," Ivan decided, curling his towel further around himself as a cool breeze drifted by.

"I wonder if the jellyfish glow in the dark," Natalya mused. Her bow had dried out with wrinkles and had slipped to the side of her head.

"I think I need another panini," Yekaterina voiced, burping, and then laughing.

The closer they got back to the rental car, the more unsettled Ivan's stomach became. He even considered booking a hotel out here for them to stay the night, but didn't think he had enough. He asked Yekaterina to drive. For some reason, he just did not want to go back home.

Natalya sensed something was wrong as she leaned her head against Ivan's shoulder in the back seat. The sunset tapped against the windows. "Why are you tense and scared, Ivan?" she whispered, taking his hand.

He pondered over the possibility of her knowing about his texting, too. "I'm not," he assured her.

"I don't want to go back home, either," she told him, drawing a circle on his palm. Ivan had the distant urge to pull away.

Instead, he just averted his eyes, watching the cars slip and slide alongside theirs on the road. "I think I would like to see Russia again."

Soon after, Yekaterina found a smooth jazz station on the radio, and they sank down into sleep.

Ivan had a dream. He was standing in his kitchen—not the kitchen in his DC apartment, but the kitchen that belonged to his childhood home, a cozy cabin on the outskirts of Moscow. It appeared he was making some sort of cake, but was following directions through comments on his meme account. Every time he tried to scroll up to find the next step, the page refreshed and he was brought all the way to the bottom. If this wasn't freaky enough already, Ivan was sure the cake smelled like Alfred's taco mess from their date. The sense was so clear. He turned off the WiFi on his phone so he wouldn't get any more messages, and then finally was he able to reach the next step in his recipe. But the final direction, in the form of a comment, just said "visit my profile." With nothing else to do, Ivan hit the link to visit the profile. The entire account was empty, except for the profile picture. It was a blurry photo of a black-haired man in an elevator. Ivan was gently shaken awake by his sister before he could do any more research.

"The whale people are gone," Katya commented with a yawn. They were back in Washington, the sun barely clinging to the horizon.

Ivan yawned himself and found he had a splitting headache. He closed his eyes on the streets outside. They were more tranquil than before, and substantially less crowded. Yekaterina was correct. There wasn't a terrified kid with informative flyers to be seen. How strange.

Ivan moved like a cloud, in a lazy haze to return the car, guide his siblings through the subway home, and unlock his apartment. He felt sun-dried and weary, too tired to stress over the present ambiance of wrongness that had attached itself to him the second he had woken up. Natalya mixed them all vodka cocktails, and Ivan downed his in record time. He moved to the shower.

The bathroom fan was loud and blocked out the sound of Ivan typing as he logged onto his illegal laptop computer. With gnawing dread, he opened just the last new email sent to him from his superiors. Like its predecessor, it was a simple one-liner, and it chilled him Ivan the bone.

[You've been discovered. The shadow is unsuccessful. We're in jeopardy.]

[Don't come back to Washington, D.C.]

Chief Matthew Williams of the metropolitan police also picked up on the fourth ring. Alfred was fed up. "What—do I have to go yodel in Wal-Mart to get any attention around here?"

"Hey, Al," his brother sighed. "Um, I'm sorry. I'm very busy at the moment."

He did sound like he had been working all day, which, Alfred could almost certainly tell, he had. "What's the latest on the situation?"

Matt's voice got quieter. "Uh...which situation, exactly?"

"Good golly, any of them at this point." Alfred tossed his spoon into the sink. He had just finished off the last of Ivan's sister's soup for a late dinner, and soon it would be back to the grind. "Today at work it was silent. Kirkland didn't say anything to us but 'Let me handle the rest of the hacking stuff.' It makes no sense, man. Please tell me you know something. Did he talk to you? Like he talked to Kiku and everyone else but me?"

There was a long pause. Alfred saw it coming. "You told me to talk to you whenever," he said, softer.

Matthew's voice was pained as he sighed out, "Alfred…"

"What. What is it. I'm listening."

More pauses, more uncertainty. "I'm sorry. I—I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I need to go. Goodnight, Alfred. Maybe we can talk again tomorrow morning at the station."

He definitely knew something. They all definitely knew something. Maybe there wasn't just a hacker probe happening here. Alfred was going to launch his own investigation into the mess.

"Goodnight," he told his brother, but the line was already dead.

danger zone - gwen

Wow, is it getting hot in here, or is it just me? You're in for another little treat next chapter! Watch your cameras.

Also, a good question was raised in the comments on here. I've been using mostly Cyrillic script for the few times I've used Russian on here (namely in the last chapter), but I could start using the ol' English alphabet for the words if y'all feel more comfortable with that? Or maybe I should just put translations at the end? I really have no preference, so it's up to what you guys prefer.