Sapphire

Chapter 6

Over the next couple of months, Shay was alone at the mansion more often than she wasn't.

Normally, people would say that this made Val a bad mother. Leaving a sixteen year-old behind in a mansion full of guns and valuable things for days on end? Unheard of.

Except Val locked the door to get downstairs, leaving Shay with nothing to do but read. Summer was gone, Eli, Val, even Noah. He had become a part of the 'in' crowd and got to go to conferences with them, so their training sessions had become few and far between.

School bored her. She realized that really early on, before her parents died even. It's not that she was super smart and already knew everything, it was just that she wasn't learning the stuff that interested her. She wanted to become a badass like everyone else in the house. Books were not going to teach her how to do that. 

She did have a BB gun though. Thanks to Wendy and her unsuspecting brother, she had smuggled a BB gun into the house and hid it in her room. Now, months after she had shot a real gun, she was out at the shooting range with a toy one this time. She once saw a movie about kids shooting aluminum cans that hung from trees so she set up her own range and started practicing.

Then one day, the black SUV returned. Shay heard the doors slam harder than usual, followed by shouting. Her heart leapt to her throat as she started sprinting into the house through the back porch, the possibilities of everything that could have gone wrong running rampant in her head.

Shay saw Eli first. He was the last to run inside and he was moving in the direction of the living room but stopped once he got to a door to the right of it. After punching in the code, he was inside with Shay slinking in right behind him. Apparently, there was another secret room in this house that Shay didn't know about.

It had a hospital bed, and Noah was lying in it.

Shay stood in the doorway, stunned to silence as she watched Valerie put pressure on the wound in his shoulder. There was blood oozing out of hole that no doubt had come from a bullet.

"Shay, get out of here. Now." Val's words were stern enough that Shay knew better than to argue. Shooting Noah a reassuring smile, Shay stepped out of the room and waited, sitting with her back against the wall of the hallway and knees drawn to her chest.

Summer came out next, about five minutes after Shay had been kicked out. Apparently, they wanted as few people in that room as possible.

"What happened?" Shay probed.

Summer looked down at her with a stoic expression. "He got shot."

"By who?"

"The bad guys." Instead of walking away like she normally did, Summer took a seat across from Shay and waited with her.

"Is he going to be okay?" Shay asked.

"I hope so."

Time passes slowly when you want it to go fast. It's like it knows you're waiting for something, and the more anxious about it you are, the slower time moves. With each minute that passed, the bad feeling in Shay's body increased. She didn't know much about healthcare but the more time it took to fix something the worse it was, right?

Forty minutes later, Val walked out followed by Eli. Her hands were covered in blood so she went to bathroom to wash up. Eli stuck around, letting them know that Noah would be okay.

"It didn't hit any major organs." Eli told her and Summer. "He'll be good to go in no time."

"Can I see him?" Shay asked, hoping her puppy dog eyes would be enough to convince him.    

"Sure. He's awake now."

Summer took that opportunity to go in first, giving Noah a light hug before stepping back to smile at him. "I'm glad you're okay. And hey, your scar is gonna be a lot cooler than mine." They both chuckled then, the inside joke lost on Shay.

Thankfully, Summer left after that, leaving Shay alone with him.

"I thought you died." Shay accused, standing five feet away from his blood-stained sheets.

"It'll take more than one bullet to kill me."

"Good."

Noah looked at her for a while longer before speaking up again. "Val told me you want to be a part of this one day. You sure about that?"

Shay hesitated. What did she want exactly? Only one thing popped into her mind, and it had everything to do with being a part of a family "Yes. Maybe you all will stop treating me like a child when I'm fighting next to you." 

"You are a kid, Shay." Noah reassured her. "You should enjoy being young while you still can." 

"My childhood ended when my parents died." Shay stated. "I want to be an adult, just like you."

"Trust me, it can wait."

Shay looked him over again before taking in the rest of the room, noticing the shelves full of medical equipment and IV currently hooked into his arm. She felt like she'd been plucked from the house and dropped into a real hospital room, that's how legit it looked. If anything, it just confused her more. "What do you guys do exactly?"

"We stop bad guys." Noah's answer sounded rehearsed and condescending, making Shay wonder if Val had given everyone the same line just in case she were to start asking questions.

"You know that's a bullshit answer as much as I do."

"That's all I can say."

Frustrated, Shay clenched her fists at her sides. "For being family, all you guys do is lie. Even when you're lying in a hospital bed, bleeding out from being shot, you can't even tell me why." Shay snapped. "If I have to figure it out myself, I will."

Shay had spun around to leave the room when Noah spoke up. "Wait."

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she slowly turned to glare at him.

"We're spies. We go on missions to stop people from doing horrible things, like trafficking and murder. The reason we don't tell you about it is cause it's dark and hard to explain."

Finally, a real answer. Shay opened her mouth to ask another question but Noah's voice cut her off.

"That's all I can tell you. I promise, when you're eighteen, we'll be able to tell you more but for now, please just let it go. Otherwise Val might change her mind about letting you be a part of it." Noah warned. His earthy eyes were looking at her with concern as a strand of hair dangled in front of his face, the beard growth on his face now at three days. With a sheet pulled up to his chest as he sat up against the pillow, Shay felt a warmth in her chest at the realization that he was starting to care.

"Ok. I'll let it go." Shay agreed, if only because it was Noah that asked her to.

He smiled in relief before ushering her out. "Now go practice downstairs. You better be able to beat me by the time I get out of this bed."

Shay grinned at the challenge. "Game on."