Undercover (Boyxboy)

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Ooh, this is a nice room! Jennifer, what are you doing here?" he proclaimed before I shut the door behind him. I heard him shout when the door slammed followed by frantic poundings against it. He was trying to open it but it was futile - it couldn't be opened inside. At least not by Hugh.

There was another finger recognition device in the room that only Jennifer could use.

"Harry! What the hell?" he shouted. It was muffled through the walls but I could hear him clearly.

Tears slipped down my cheeks as I walked away, back the corridor we had come.

"What are you doing?" Ethan questioned lowly, not budging from the door/painting and looking extremely bewildered.

I glanced back, wiping my eyes. "I told Harvey to have this 'safe room' ready if anything like this was to happen. Jennifer will explain everything to Hugh and calm him down. Only her finger print can open the door from the inside but Hugh doesn't need to know that right now."

Ethan walked to me, still not understanding. "Why is he in there?"

"Because he's not strong enough to be out here. He isn't a trained agent like us - he's just a normal, soppy, emotional guy. He wouldn't stand a chance. Jennifer will be with him, it's okay. Now let's keep moving. My position is actually with you and Harvey in the control room."

I kept walking down the corridor, sniffling and wiping my eyes roughly. I would see Hugh again - there was no time for tears. I couldn't dwell on the fact that I may not make it out alive.

There was a vent inside in the room that led to a secret tunnel out of the mansion. They would be okay, even if the rest of us demised.

My big brother would be okay.

Ethan followed wordlessly. I could nearly hear his mind racing, full of questions to ask me and full of accusations to hurl at me. But now wasn't the time.

The control room was located ten minutes away, down the electronically lit corridors of the underground centre, built beneath the luscious grounds of the mansion. It was a silent walk the entire way. I kept sneaking looks at Ethan, trying to read his face but to no avail.

He was gone back into his former self - it had taken me years to get that constant stoic look off of his face. I had never been able to read him before, back when we first met. And I felt that way again. It frightened me that he was being serious. That our future was over.

The dreaded feeling of what could happen today was sinking in, though. With every passing second of our silent walk to the control room, my mind was racing. The last time I had encountered Michael Taylor, it was in a collapsing warehouse. He would have shot me dead if Georgie hadn't pushed me out of the way and taken the shot himself.

Today would end with another death - either mine or Michael's, my daddy dearest. Nobody else would die for me. This was another thing I had spoken to Harvey about. If it came down to it, I would be the one to face Michael - nobody else.

People did what Harvey said. And if Harvey told people to back down from killing Michael so I could, they would do it.

"How do you think they found us?" Ethan asked. We were two minutes away from the control room. The corridors we were walking now were sickly white and illuminated with bright, blinding lights. It was a big change from the old-style historical mansion we had left.

"I'm guessing the double-agent told them. I don't know. I don't really care, either. I've been waiting for this day for a long time - might as well happen today," I said, biting my lip anxiously. I was anxious, but I was ready.