Operation 007 (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 26: Part Three

Forger did that on purpose, he thought. She knew he needed something to cling to. She was probably clinging to it herself and he felt a little less alone.

Damian checked his hands and they were still shaking. He fisted them and wrapped his arms around his stomach, leaning against his legs.

"Hey. . ." He said and Forger looked to him. "Why didn't you tell anyone about this place?" Damian needed a distraction and he'd been wondering about this for ages.

Forger looked down as if she needed to consider. She sighed shakily and played with the hem of her uniform. "I didn't think I'd need to. . ."

"But . . .at school. . .you were watching for them. You knew they were around and you still didn't say anything. . ."

She looked sharply up at him.

"Am I wrong?" He asked though he had never been so sure he wasn't.

She grimaced and cast her gaze down again. It didn't seem she would elaborate.

Damian fell quiet and let it rest. He didn't have the energy to pursue it, and he found it harder to care in that moment than he thought.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

The room felt sullenly empty, a silent grave of their spirits that rung in their ears with subdued nothingness and bated apprehension. It seeded chills on Damian's skin and fostered an anxious stillness in his mind.

He wanted this all to be over. The waiting was almost worse, the unknowing.

The quiet was strongly present and the longer it went, the less it felt it should be broken. So when the faint echo of footsteps came from the hall outside, it was jarring and harsh. An unwelcome sound as the kids tensed.

He was coming, they both thought. A shot of adrenaline. A creeping panic. Damian deciding waiting was better as they inched away from the door they couldn't look away from.

And then the person passed.

And their steps receded.

Damian took a deep breath through his nose and found his arms were shaking now too.

He wanted to go home.

"How long do you think we'll be in here?" He asked softly and Forger shrugged morosely. Damian did not find that comforting. The impending return of the director haunted him and he'd rather stay in this room until they were rescued. He didn't know what he was looking for from Forger, but he was hoping for more of a solid answer.

She turned her face away from him to rest a cheek on her knees and held a tight grip on her legs.

Damian buried his own face and took a deep breath. Another one.

His father paid little attention to him and seemed to hardly react to important events in Damian's life. Even the hijacking. He hadn't come and Damian felt the crushing dejection that he'd hold little response to this as well. Would he care? What would he say? Would he be disappointed in him for getting involved? The thought left him even more scared and a new kind of inadequacy.

Damian shivered though the room wasn't particularly cold.

How did it end up this way? He was supposed to be back at the dorms by now. He was supposed to ride the bus back to school with his friends and complain about how terribly common the field trip was for an elite private school no matter how much he'd enjoyed it. He shouldn't have gone after Forger. He should have left when she told him. He shouldn't have gone digging into her life.

The gun.

He'd have nightmares for the rest of his life.

Why did he have to stick his nose into this? What a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do. And in the end, running after her was even more stupid. She'd had a tracker. She would've been fine if he didn't interfere. This situation wasn't worth what'd he'd learned. He regretted ever. . . . .

Damian turned his head ever so slightly to peek out at the girl who sat beside him. She had seemed so small in the mess hall when the director loomed over her. He had terrified Damian and he didn't ever want to know what it was like to have all that rage directed at him. He didn't want to imagine Forger here alone and. . . and he didn't regret it. As stupid as it was, as pointless as it might've been, he wouldn't want to deal with not knowing what had happened to her again. There was a strange, terrible peace of mind he couldn't explain. It was thin and faltering, though, wavering under what might happen to them, the things he imagined that he didn't want to see.

He shuddered and a chill seeped into his skin.

He wanted to go home.

His gaze had lingered a moment too long and Forger tensed as her shoulders scrunched. It was like a signal went off in his head and he immediately looked away.

Damian hadn't thought of it much since that afternoon, the scarily accurate sixth sense she had, and he was beginning to think she was psychic or something. How did she do it? She wasn't even facing him most the time and it freaked him out a little. It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head, could feel when he focused on her and it made him prickle when he thought on it. It didn't feel natural at all and it was as if. . .

It was as if. . .

Damian wasn't sure if he'd noticed this before.

At the school, she knew those people were there. She felt them. How? How could she possibly know that? It was way more than simply noticing when his attention on her, and Damian felt sick at a rising notion.

Damian hadn't ever thought it could be connected to the kidnapping.

And he began to wonder.