Suicide Mission (Guarded Secrets #1)

6: "She's a rookie. She's useless!"

"You could have killed me!" I cried as I glanced at the knives in the wall behind where my head and chest had once been. I had seen the flash of metal before he threw the knives at me, and was able to jump aside the first time, but then he forced me to move quicker and dodge faster. I had to use cheerleading moves that my sister and I used to do together four years ago, and I think I pulled something for not properly stretching.

"I needed a reaction, Sara. You have to be fast, quiet, and effective. For that you need to be trained for years. Unfortunately, we only have a few days and that means extreme measures must be taken. I'm sorry," Damon said as he walked over to pull the knives from the wall and then assist me so that I would get up from the ground. "We break at one, until then, watch out," he said just before he tossed the knives again and forced me, on instinct, to back handspring out of range just as one of the knives swept past my face and cut a few strands of my dirty blonde hair off.

I stumbled backwards out of surprise and fear as he threw the remaining knives in my direction. To be honest, I didn't see what this was teaching me. I already knew how to do these moves, I knew how to escape and move quickly, but this was clearly not for those skills. The only thing I was learning was fear, and to be alert because every time I stopped for even a second Damon would toss a few more at me. More than anything I was learning that getting sliced by a knife hurt, even if it was just a superficial wound.

We trained like this until one, more like I ran until Damon finally stopped chasing me around the blue padded room and put the knives away. The moment he stopped I crashed to ground and laid down so I could catch my breath. Running was my least favorite form of exercise, I would say because it was boring, but when knives are thrown at you while you run, that's not really true. I was dripping in sweat and about to pass out from exhaustion when he tapped me on the shoulder with the toe of his shoe and gave me his hand to help me up.

"It's time for lunch and a well-deserved break," he said as he lifted me easily off the ground and guided me out of the room.

"How did I do?" I asked as we walked around the tiled building. There was black tile everywhere, or at least in the parts of the building I had been in so far. I could vaguely remember the director's office since I had rushed out before taking in my surroundings, but I believed that it was tiled. It was odd, because you could hear everything once you were in the hallway. The footsteps from upstairs, that would echo off the floors and walls, the voices that would bounce around and the click of boots on the tiled floor. I was going into sensory overload.

"You did well for a rookie," was all he said as he continued to lead me through the building.

I could tell from his curt reply that he didn't want to talk about it. I must have been worse than he thought I would be or he was looking at a bad situation about to go worse, I thought to myself as we walked through the main hub of the building. It seemed to be the center of the building judging from how it was arranged with long rows of padded chairs for agents to sit while they waited for news on their missions and watch the large monitors which were displaying details from all over the globe. A few bulletins swept by as we walked through the room and my feet hit carpeted floor for the first time I had been here.

"This is where you hang out or wait for a mission. It just depends on where you are comfortable, most come here to watch the news of our missions. As agents report in, there will be a bulletin that will pass by, and you'll know what's going on wherever those agents are. If there's an emergency then it will be in red and a buzzer will sound. Then other agents will be sent to help out, hopefully before the mission goes south," Damon explained as we walked up the stairs and left the room behind us.

"How big is this building?"

"It's huge; I haven't even explored it all yet and I've been here for five years," he said as a few people passed us and waved.