Destruction - The Oasis Project Book 2 (Complete)

Twenty-Two - Ira

"Morning, Ira." Doctor Nita towered over me as I finished up my omelette. She didn't take a seat next to me like she usually did, and she looked like she was in a hurry.

"Hey," I said after an awkward pause. Nita followed me to the kitchen as I washed my dishes, hurrying me with her gaze. Celestia came in halfway through, and I said a quiet hello, to which she replied with a small smile. She and Nita greeted each other but didn't talk beyond that, despite the fact that the two of them worked closely than anyone else. When I finished, I followed Nita into her office without a word. It was a spacious room with a generous white desk. "What is it?"

"We want to send you on a small mission," she said. "Do you think you're up for it?"

I knitted my eyebrows together. "Do you have a lead on Four?"

"No, this isn't related to her," Nita explained. "Something else has come up. We found a woman in the States who has been running illegal businesses and potentially bribing government officials with a large amount of money she's obtained." She pulled out a cream-coloured folder and passed it to me. "The officials who are allegedly involved are under investigation, but we'd like to bring her and anyone involved in for questioning."

I opened the file; it wasn't huge and barely had any solid information to go on, but I knew better than to question anything. The suspect had a long list aliases, none of which was confirmed to be her real name. She appeared to be an active member of organized crime in New York, but all of the evidence was patchy and the pictures of her mostly obscured her face. She looked down and wore her hair differently in every photo, using possibly wigs, and huge sunglasses that obscured most of her face. I closed the folder and looked up at Nita. "What will I be doing?"

"Our source has told us where she lives, so you, Desmond and I will be going to her apartment to look through her things, arrest her and anyone she might be with," Nita said, her instructions as clear as ever. As always, she didn't seem pleased about having Desmond around, but she didn't complain this time. "If you think you are up for it, commit these documents to memory, and we will go through our plan of attack tomorrow. I'll arrange for a plane right away."

"Alright." I tucked the folder under my arm, knowing that in the end, I had no choice. I just wanted this to be over with as soon as possible, and I hoped that Desmond would just ignore me for the entire mission.

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"Desmond is creating a diversion, you are disabling the CCTV, and I'm heading up first," I recited the bare bones of the plan to Nita while fiddling with the earpiece I was going to wear. The building was old, Nita had informed us, so there was no way to hack into the surveillance remotely. Even with all the running and hiding I'd done my entire life, I didn't have much confidence in me going alone for the first part of the mission. There were so many things that could not go according to plan. Even Desmond looked uneasy as we went over the floor of the building. Maybe that was the point.

The jet lurched, as did my stomach. I'd drunk too much water during the long-haul flight that my stomach was sludge, I thought I was going to be sick every few minutes. Over this time, I did lock myself up in the bathroom to hyperventilate until my face was red in the mirror. I had a terrible feeling about what was going to happen in New York, but the more I tried to think about why the more my anxiety spiked. Nita and Desmond were fine enough to fall asleep, reclining their comfortable seats as far as they could go.

When we stopped to refuel, in the middle of the night and seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I finally threw up what was left in my stomach. I was lucky that I didn't have any appetite on the plane. I rinsed out my mouth and went back to my seat, pretending to be okay. Nita gave me an encouraging smile while Desmond stared out the window, tapping his long fingers on the armrest.

"You're going to do great, Ira," Doctor Nita reminded me. "You're very talented, and you're ready to do great things for the world."

I clenched all the muscles in my body so as to not shudder. She echoed the smooth voice in the darkroom, right before they let me out. As the plane took off again, I tried to remember the ways that Stuart had taught me to keep calm. Visualization and breath. I couldn't think about a snow-called forest without thinking about blood, and I couldn't think about a warm beach without hearing the desperate screams on Dell Island. In the end, I settled on a Russian tune that I hummed under the rumble of the jet engines. I saw birds taking flight against evergreen trees before I dozed off.

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"You in position, One?" Desmond's voice crackled through the earpiece.

I pressed on the small button at the back of my ear while scanning the streets. Cars and people passed me all the time, but nobody turned their heads at me in my oversized black hoodie and sunglasses. "Good to go," I told Desmond, pushing down the knot in my chest. I released the button, relieved that the mic was disconnected.

"I'm moving," he said, and I fished the ring of lock picks out of my pocket, looking around and keeping a hand on my hidden gun. A fleeting scene came to mind of the same lock at the back door, except my hand held rusty keys that jingled. I blinked it away and shook my head. The door clicked open and I hurried inside.

"Nita, how is it looking?" It didn't matter that I was already running up the stairs if Nita was going to get to the security footage soon.

"Clear," she replied. I took three stairs at a time, a strong deja vu possessing me. Fourteen floors up the stairs only made me slightly winded, but my heart was pumping. The wall of anxiety finally gave way, and the memories came flooding back. I'd been here before. I'd taken the same route to apartment 1406, put the keys in the same lock...

"One, are you in?"

"Yes." I pushed the door open as my spinning head spun the pieces of the puzzle into place. I wasn't here to arrest a criminal; I was here to destroy evidence of my old life. I held my breath as I let myself in, lightheaded.

"Eva?" a voice drifted from the living room. Soft indie music was playing, and a thin brunette man with glasses looked up from from the dining table in shock. I didn't need to look at the large sheets of paper to know that they were filled with architectural designs.

"Nate?" I whispered. This was why I shouldn't make friends.