Page 182 of The Casualty of Us
Two becoming one whole. Huh.
Something about the idea pulls at me even as I start to drift off to sleep, fully tipping over the edge at some point with the words still circling around my head.
Chapter Forty-One
OPHELIA - DECEMBER 2013
I’m tuggedback awake by something a few hours later, words looping around my head still and leaving me sighing sleepily. Trying to figure out what about two becoming one—
That’s it.
I open my eyes with the instant knowledge, already moving to slide out from under Hayes’s body. Trying my hardest not to wake him as I scoot off the side of the bed and walk straight to where my laptop is still sitting on the floor from earlier. Stopping just long enough to pick it up before I grab a spare sweatshirt from my vanity chair and return to the spot beside him. I sit down while pulling the sweatshirt over my head and cross my legs to set the laptop down on them. My gaze flicks to where Hayes is all sprawled out beside me now and I consider waking him for a minute.
Right up until he gives a little snore that has my lips lifting briefly and me discarding the idea. Knowing the information won’t change by morning.
I crack the laptop and quickly turn the brightness down, pressing my finger on the button to unlock it before pulling up the program I’ve been using to run the ciphers. Quickly changing the parameters from Vigenère to one that I’d originally playedaround with but discarded. Thinking that it was too complex or too much of an ask because it requires a two-number passkey, but—
It makes perfect sense. The affine cipher.
If he sees himself as Hayes, then it makes perfect sense that he would choose something that would represent two halves becoming one whole even in the world of codes and ciphers. My stomach gives a twist at the logic, and I have to swallow down the sick feeling that comes with it. Hating that I know I’m right here.
Hating that anyone could ever think to replace this person who’s essential to me even as I try to figure out what those two numbers could be so that that very thing never happens. Trying to slay my nightmares in the dark hours of the night as I rack my brain, typing number after number into the mod and watching nonsense be translated across the screen.
I frown down hard at the computer, knowing this is it and that I have everything I need. Even that language is specific, though. As if he gave it to me personally….
A scowl springs to life on my face with the realization. It’s the fucking flowers.
It has me typing quickly, recalling the order in which Ophelia gave her flowers and the ones he’s given me in one form or another, thinking there’s no way it’s that simple until—
My name is Adam.
“Fuck.”
I slap the laptop closed and shove it from my lap, heart suddenly racing with panic sinking its claws into me. My throat trying to lock up as I gasp for air.
“O?”
“I–I can’t, fuck—”
“Ophelia.” His arms wrap around me in the next instant, pulling me up against the warmness of his chest while demanding, “Breathe, baby.”
I suck in a quick breath through my nose at the command as he holds me tight, head above mine moving like he’s looking for danger. Reminding me that he’s the only one I’m here with. That I’m safe.
Thathecan’t touch me now.
“The laptop,” I gasp out shakily, jerking my head to where it’s sitting on the bed. “I–I figured it out.”
“You figured—” His voice cuts out suddenly as it clicks, body going tense against mine for a beat before he sits up fully and pulls me between his legs. Pausing for another second before reaching for the laptop to set it down in front of us and open it up, the same phrase blinking at me there in green and making the breath rush out of me. “Adam.” The simple name is a violent thing as it leaves him, syllables so sharp I’m surprised they don’t break while falling from his lips. “You figured this out in your sleep?”
His fingers wrap around my waist with the tense rasp, giving me a squeeze, and I force out. “Kinda before and during, I guess, but yeah.” I lift a finger to the screen in explanation and use it to anchor myself. “See how these characters here repeat?” I point to the two O’s at the start and the end of the encoded message at the top. “It gives away that it’s a substitution cipher.” Quickly taking a breath before I start to rattle off, “At first I thought it was a Caesar or a Vigenère, that seemed most likely, but then when I was going to sleep and thinking about us…it made me think that it’s an affine.” I slow down enough to point out the equation and break it down. “Each letter is replaced and encoded based on the formula a times x plus b mod m, with a and b being the encryption keys and x standing for the numericalvalue of the letter, and the module m is the number of letters in the English alphabet, right?”
I turn my head to glance at him, watching his eyes stay on the computer screen for another second before coming back to mine with a slow. “Right.”
“Two keys,” I repeat, explaining even while I’m still processing. “They were the corresponding order number to Ophelia’s flowers that he’s given me. He picked it because it’s like two parts becoming a whole, like when you and me—”
“No.”
He’s the one slapping the laptop closed this time, making me frown at its mistreatment from us both. “But—”
