"who has to know? when we live such fragile lives, it's the best way we survive."

***

Less than ten minutes. We have less than ten minutes until the library closes.

     The revolving door is still, meaning they're already starting to end the day. I push the regular door on its side and rushes in despite the librarian's attempts in trying to stop me.

     "There's a process!" she yells, though her voice is still pretty low. We're still in a library, after all, and I guess she'd hate to break her own rules. She points at a piece of paper on her desk furiously, but I keep going. Ocean is right behind me.

     "We're really sorry, ma'am." I hear Dylan say in an apologetic tone, trying to calm her down. "It's kind of an emergency. We forgot about this big presentation tomorrow and we just need to do some extra research. Here, I'll sign our names."

     I hear her mumble something under her breath, but she eventually lets it go, handing Dylan a pen. When I turn at a corner, I see him writing fast yet still keeping a friendly front. There's a slight smile on his face and the librarian returns it. Dylan and his charms.

     Splitting up, Ocean runs toward the entertainment area filled with magazines, CDs and DVDs in its cracked cases. Xander is gone by now, exploring on his own. As I walk, I keep my gaze on the endless racks of books. The seats are empty except for a few college students hiding away behind their laptops and scribbling away in their notebooks. As I pass by them, I try not to make eye contact. Then, one by one people start to leave. Barely five minutes left, and the announcement rings through the speaker. I convince myself that I can't hear it and keep going, despite not knowing where I'm heading. My pace is steady. Whenever I start to race, I tell myself to slow down. And whenever I'm taking too long, I tell myself that time is running out. That thought itself is enough to keep my alerted.

     I go to the fiction aisles, stopping in front of a high rack filled with novels. Putting my hands to both sides of myself in attempt to warm up my cheeks, I whisper to myself, "Okay, Ann. If you were a sneaky, creepy stalker where would you hide a clue?"

     I want to laugh at the thought. I want to laugh at this whole thing. Everything seems almost impossible. But it isn't.

     "Guys!" I hear Dylan shouts over the deafening silence. I don't spare a moment to think or to question if I'm so tired that I'm beginning to imagine things. I just run. The high skyscrapers of books around me seem to me mocking my every step.

     Ocean, Xander and I reach the front desk at the same time. Dylan stands there with an envelope in his hand. His grip is strong, but his expression is still calm.

     There it is.

     "My brother just texted me," he says. Funny, I think. Dylan doesn't have a brother. I hope the librarian doesn't see right through him. "He found his book!"

     "Finally!" Ocean follows along. "See, I told him to check under the bed!"

     "I know, I know." Dylan turns to face the librarian and sighs, once again working his charms, "We're sorry again—you know for running and stuff. This presentation is huge."

     The librarian smiles at him and only him. Her eyes follow the rest of us all the way until we're out the door. Xander shuts the door loudly behind him on purpose.

     We all get in the car and the sound of engine roaring once again enter my ears.

     Before the car moves, Dylan lifts the envelope in front of him. There in the corner, I see his name typed in bold letters.

     "This is it," he says, his voice rushed. Xander takes a quick look at it before turning his head to look at the back window of the car, getting out of the parking spot. "Apparently, the librarian found it near the back earlier today. She remembered when I was filling out the sign in sheet."

     "What the hell?" Ocean asks. "Did she see anyone suspicious?"

     Dylan shakes his head, "She thought nothing of it. People lose their things all the time, right? Shit, I'll open it."

     He tears on the side of the envelope and tilts it to the side. A single sheet of paper slides out, folded in half. There isn't a single sound other than the engine's vibration under us.

     "What is it?" I ask when he stays quiet. "Another riddle?"

     "Adrenaline," he whispers. Then, he turns to look at me.

     My eyes widen at the mention of the word. It can't be.

     "What?" Xander asks as we go around the corner. "What does that mean?"

     No. No. No.

     "Adrenaline," Dylan repeats.

     I finally manage to let the words out, voice shaking. "Aunt Vanee."

***

"I'll probably fail at this point," I rambled on and on, pretending to sleep on the table. "I mean, with all the memorising—I'm hopeless!"

     Dylan was doodling away in his notebook, not a care in the world. We were twelve.

     "Now, come on," my aunt stood up from her chair. She knocked on the desk with a stapler and I jolt back up. "It's only hard because you guys have no interest in it!"

     "So. Many. Words." Dylan groaned, covering his face with his hands then rubbing his eyes to keep himself from being sleepy. "Aunt Vanee, I swear I tried!"

     "Don't you want to know how your body works?"

     "No, thank you," I said while stretching. Aunt Vanee gives me a look and I shrugged. "You think it's easy because you're a nurse!"

     "Alright, alright," she moved to sit on my bed. I turn my chair to look at her and Dylan did the same. "I'll give it one last try. But you both have to promise to listen, okay?"

     "We were always listening!" Dylan argued and I nodded in agreement. We were a duo.

     Aunt Vanee took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "Hang on, I'm trying to make it as simple as possible. Let's see—ah, alright, I got it!"

     Dylan and I stayed quiet.

     "Think of it like a bicycle," she began, furrowing her brows as if trying to explain it to herself as well. "The steering wheel—oh wait, that's for cars, isn't it? What are they called on bikes, again?"

     "The handlebars!" Dylan shouted out, suddenly all excited. "Am I right?"

     Aunt Vanee pointed at him. "Yes! Okay, so the handlebars—think of it as our nervous system. It helps us with our sensitivity. When we go down a road and sense danger, we change direction, don't we? It's like that. It'll make more sense, I promise! Are you guys with me?"

     I shrugged.

     "Good! Then, we've got the pedals. It's kind of like the muscles in our body, if you think about it. It pumps energy, right? You can also think of it like our hearts."

     My attention was with her now, and so was Dylan's. He sat there with his brows knotted together, thinking hard.

     "The pedal provides power the same way the heart pumps blood around the body. It becomes the source of our energy, our strength. Now, we've got the chains, which keeps turning and turning until you stop the bike. That's kind of like our respiratory system! Our lungs, how we breathe. We never really stop breathing, do we? We can try, but eventually, we don't stop until we die," she pauses. There was something in her eyes which I never ended up figuring out. It stayed with me, though. And when she passed away later that year, that look became clearer than ever in my mind.

     She continued, "Now, the wheels! It's simple. The wheels are our cells. Did you two know that within every second, millions of our cells die? That's amazing, isn't it? Our cells are constantly working to make sure we're the best that we can. It never forgets. Now, am I missing anything?"

     "Um, the saddle I think?" Dylan answered. "Yeah, yeah, the saddle!"

     Aunt Vanee thought for a moment, "That's easy. The saddle is the ground. It's what keeps us balanced. I know that's not a part of our body, but we step on it every day, making it a part of us."

     "How's that?" I asked.

     "Well, sometimes, what makes you is not the things that you notice, or the things you do every day. It's the little details, the rare ones. You don't realise it, but it stays with you."

     Dylan flipped through his notebook. "Aunt Vanee? They say you get this adrenaline rush when something big happens, right?"

     She nodded.

     "What part of the bike would that be?"

     "Hm, that's a nice question, Dyl," she got up from her spot and walked toward the door. She turned to look at us before leaving the room and smiled, "But, I don't know actually. Why don't you two think about it and let me know?"

     Dylan and I spent the rest of the day asking everyone in the house until we found an answer we liked.

***

The car is parked on the driveway now. We're all still inside.

     "The parts of a bicycle," I say quietly to myself, yet it ends up being loud enough for everyone to hear. Their eyes are on me. "Aunt Vanee was helping Dylan and I study for our test and she explained biology as the parts of a bike."

     Silence.

     "We asked her about where adrenaline fit into the whole," I pause, thinking for the right word, "equation. Anyway, she told us to solve it on our own and—"

     Dylan cuts me off. "We asked West when he came by later that day. He said the wind."

     "What?" Xander asks. Ocean is still looking at us confused.

     "The wind." I slowly think back on the memory. "Adrenaline is the wind."

     We look at each other. Dylan lays out the paper which contains that one single word typed neatly on the centre of the page.

     "Like on a roller coaster," Ocean blurts out. "The new theme park just outside the city, what's it called again?"

     Xander answers without skipping a beat. "Holy shit. Rush!"

     Dylan and I exchange glances. "Adrenaline rush," we both say in unison.

     The theme park is our next destination. I'm terrified, but not because of that. I want to search for the next clue. I want to solve this.

     But Dylan and I were only twelve back then. Whoever this is—they'd been watching us since then.

***

(A/N)

Apologies for the lack of update(s) this week! Uni is starting so soon and I've been some time to familiarise myself with my new subjects :(

Anyway, I hope you like this chapter! It went through a lot of changes, but I'm finally happy with how it is! As always, don't forget to let me know your thoughts so far! Who's your favourite character? Who do you think is 'the person'? What would you do if you were in their situation?