Spy School: Danger is my Middle Name

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"I'm here!" panted Jayden, bursting out of a clump of bushes.

 Sweat dripping on his head, he struggled a few steps, doubled over, then promptly collapsed into a heave on the ground. His chest was heaving up and down, meaning that he had been running at a particularly fast speed for a while.

"Two minutes late," Trixie noted curtly. "Dylan was carrying me, and he still beat you by a mile. You really need some training."

"Shut up, Trixie," Jayden breathed. "You're just a talented girl who relies on her thousand-pound ego. You don't know the low life."

Trixie huffed a breath, dusting herself off. "Deal with it. You're just built differently. Anyway, we've got to get going. Dylan, take Jayden to the backseat."

"Me again!?" Dylan groaned. "First I have to carry you for five miles, then this!?"

Jayden grinned from the floor. "Come pick me up, honey. I'm waiting."

"Not in a million years," Dylan said, grimacing and heading over to the car. "I'd rather do anything else at this point. Especially since you're covered in a thick layer of sweat- I don't want to get dirtier. Trixie already left me with a lingering smell of roses"

"You'd rather do anything else?" Kylie raised her eyebrow. "Watch your words, boy. Now that you said that, how about we make a deal? I'll carry Jayden, but you have to kiss Trixie. How's that sound?"

Dylan's faced paled. "Shut up."

Three agonizing minutes later, Jayden was in the backseat, flashing his trademark smirk at Dylan. Meanwhile, I had to stand the pain of sitting next to the sweat monster. It wasn't until now that I understand why Dylan was permanently scarred after doing the horrendous task.

"Why do I have to sit next to Jayden?" I complained, crossing my arms together. "It should be Dylan- after all, he's already soaked in sweat. If he gets even wetter, then it wouldn't matter to him."

"He's suffered enough," Trixie stated from the shotgun. 

"Thank you!" Dylan sighed. "Wait- actually, take that back. I'm not thanking Trixie after she made me carry Jayden here."

Ignoring Dylan's remark, Trixie propped a strategically placed gun on the window. After making sure the ammo was loaded in, she took a wide arc of a glance at the forest around us. "I don't see any danger. Taxi, let's go."

The driver nodded curtly, flooring the gas. We virtually went from zero miles per hour to a hundred in five seconds, and the forest around me turned into an indistinguishable blur before my eyes.

I took a few seconds to take in the situation. So far, there had been a group of enemies trying to hit us with long-range sniper rifles, and they'd managed to take out Trixie. Since the run to the taxi, she'd regained her consciousness and sense (thankfully), and now we're cruising down the highway at a hundred and forty with no sense of abiding by the traffic rules.

Eh, that's nothing. I've been through worse.

"Ben," Kylie suddenly said, shocking me out of my thoughts. "I'd like to take a second to thank you."

"Thank me?" I said in confusion. "For what, not eating all of the waffles this morning? I already told you, I wasn't hungry."

"Not that- well, actually, for that also. But more importantly, I'm thankful you remembered the lesson at the Academy."

The realization hit me. Because I'd navigated us into the darker area of the beach, we'd managed to get out of the area unscathed. So that was what she was talking about.

"Oh, it's nothing," I said nonchalantly. "My memory is just a little bit above average. I tend to remember unneeded things at times."

Kylie put a hand on my shoulder. "Without you, the CIA would be a wasteland of double agents at this point. I've heard about your amazing brainpower- deducing multiple SPYDER plots just from a tiny bit of evidence? That's not above average. That's incredible!"

I blushed. "You don't have to flatter me. I've been rewarded enough medals."

"Erica gave him a kiss after they defused the thermonuclear bomb in Colorado," Jayden sang. "That was enough of a payment for his duties. You don't have to give him more- a kiss from Erica? That's enough to overlap his expected rewards by a thousand."

"H-how do you know that?!" I shouted in embarrassment. I didn't like it, but I could feel my cheeks warming up. "Erica said if I revealed that info, she'd kill me! You just sealed my fate!"

"We all know she would never kill you, Ben," James said. "She loves you too much to do that. Did you see the look on her face after you got hit by those bullets yesterday? It was by far the worst devastation ever."

"That's not true!" I said, refusing to believe this. If Erica had a crush on me, she was really out of her mind in multiple ways. "Why are we talking about this in the first place? There are a plethora of agents that just knocked Trixie unconscious! This isn't the time to chat about fake romance!"

"The romance isn't fake," Trixie said. "If you've seen Erica when she talks about you, Ben, you'd reconsider your thoughts."

"If you reveal more information about my private life, then I'll reveal information about your private life," a voice butt in from the roof of the car.

Trixie's face turned red multiple times over, putting her gun down and sighing in disbelief.

"Hello, agents," Erica said from the sunroof of the SUV. "I hope you still have a lot of energy left, because I've identified where the Croatoan are living. And we're infiltrating that exact place tonight."