Try Me

Chapter 1

Cameron's POV

16 years old.

You had to be 16 years old to even know about the spy organization. Or to start your training.

That was the first, and most important, rule. Breaking it entailed severe consequences.

The second rule was that you couldn't tell anyone about the job or organization. Not your family members. Not your friends. No one that wasn't already a part of the organization.

Naturally, it seems that my case was all but an accident.

My name is Cameron Lee. When I found out, I had only been 15.

Rule 1: broken.

There really weren't any guidelines for cases like mine. The idea was that if you broke the rules, you suffered the consequences. Even more surprising, not one person in the organization had run across a situation like mine.

Since there hadn't been any other cases like mine, the organization officials didn't know what to do with my family. Some called for us to be punished. Others said it had just been an accident and a case of interesting circumstances. Luckily for us, my uncle has been the head of the organization for as long as I've been alive. We didn't get the easy way out. No. There would have been an uproar. But my uncle is a sensible man, and in the situation we were in, there hadn't been any other options.

A year later, however, there were still tensions between us and other agents. My family had broken the first rule in the book. Most couldn't forgive that. The reason that rule, and other rules like it, were in place was so that young agents couldn't get ahead of others. You only got far in the organization with pure skill, so it wasn't fair if you were developing those skills long before anyone else.

The rule worked well in theory, but people broke it all the time, somehow evading the consequences. But for me, it was stressed even more after the fact. I hadn't started my training yet. So yes, I knew about the organization, and I knew other agents. I knew when one of my siblings or my parents were going on a mission. But I never got to go along. I never even heard a peep of the subject matter. Not for anything. Ever single detail regarding the organization was kept under tight wraps.

So I have been entirely clueless, but people still held something that wasn't my fault against me and my entire family.

How lovely.

Let's get to the story, shall we?

It had been around the same time last year, just a week after my 15th birthday. My family had randomly decided to go to Target at eight in the morning. It was a true miracle. All six of us. Mom, Dad, Michael, Eleanor, Luke, and me had all gotten out of bed before noon. But the fact that we were all there together was a miracle in itself. It was a very rare occasion when all of us were together, doing something. Everyone was always so busy, especially my siblings, all of them older than me. They spent pretty much their entire lives going on missions. My parents at least were able to be home more often because they still had me to look after.

But what happened after that was even weirder.

Being the basic and annoying teenage girl that I am, I went to Starbucks. That was the catch of being up so early in the morning: I had to have my coffee. The rest of my family, seeing no danger in a suburban market, left me to all do their own shopping. That was a fairly regular occurrence. Whenever any of us went shopping together, we always split up to separately find what we needed. That was just far more efficient, and we were a family of efficiency.

As I stood in line, waiting to order my drink, I could feel someone's eyes on me. It was disturbing to say the least. I was already slightly paranoid at that point, and in that moment I didn't want to be alone. When I finally placed my order, I swayed around, trying to see who it was. It was a man, probably in his late twenties, wearing a pair of joggers. He stood uncomfortably close behind me. Within seconds of me looking at him, the man caught my gaze. His eyes burned into mine, but not in a romantic way. Not at all. It felt like he could see my every thought, the very essence of my soul.