"Aiden, I'm floored. I didn't know—I don't know what to say."
"There's not much to say," I reply. "Is what it is."
Kayla peers at me through misty eyes as she contemplates the unfortunate circumstances of my childhood. Solemnly, she wipes her hands over her jeans. As she does so, I notice an odd shape in one of her pockets. I remember feeling the object pressing into my lower back as I leaned against her earlier. It's about the size of a key fob, but Kayla said she didn't have a car when we were on the run from Agent 24. Besides that, the object is slightly bigger, shaped like an oblong oval. When my gaze lingers, her arms fall and she clutches her hands in front of her in the perfect spot to hide the object behind her wrist.
She turns away. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get out of this room."
As she stands there with her back to me, dallying like she's not sure what to do next, first I suspect the object is her phone, but it appears too small. I think about how Kayla has been around for all of my killer headaches, even the first one when I was strolling down the sidewalk, approaching Lattes. Even then, she was mere feet away from me. Then I had another headache near her bistro table. Unfortunately, I can't recall where her hands were when I stood there wondering why she was talking to me.
Why was Kayla Sims talking to me?
Were her hands positioned on top of the table or underneath, maybe near one of her front pockets? Near the mysterious object? It was at that bistro table where a calm alter ego took over me for a few unusual seconds.
As I ponder the peculiar nature of this evening, Kayla puts her hands behind her back, peering back at me strangely.
I roll the possibilities around in my mind. She was with me for the next headache when we entered the basement, and then she was present for the last one, here in the secret room. Of course, I hadn't noticed her around me much in the last two weeks as the headaches occurred randomly, but she could've been there somewhere. She could've been hiding. The times I remember being in the same room with her were during classes and occasionally in the evenings at the coffee shop.
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her hands wringing against her palms. As she fidgets, I ask myself the most obvious questions: Can an electronic device cause my headaches? Is that a possibility? Is Kayla responsible for them? And is she trying to seize control of me and turn me into Agent 23?
The last question makes my insides quiver, but it all adds up.
"What are you hiding, Kayla?"
She turns around and her eyes lock onto me. "What are you talking about?"
"You're acting so nervous," I say. "Why did you turn away from me? And why are you concealing that device in your pocket with your hand?"
"I'm not hiding anything."
"Really?"
"Really," she replies.
I raise my chin. "Prove it."
Kayla moves her hand and shows me the outline of the object in the pocket of her jeans. "See. Nothing to hide."
"What is that?" I jab a finger at her.
"It's my phone."
"Your phone is in your back pocket."
Her cheeks redden, and she shakes her head.
"I never would have suspected you, Kayla, of all people."
"Suspected me of what?"
My mouth flies open, but it takes a few seconds to get my next words out. When my accusation comes, it's sharp and to the point, like a dagger out for blood. "It was you all along. You've been causing my headaches with that device in your pocket." I point at the object again. "Haven't you, Kayla?"
"I know what it looks like, Aiden, but you have to believe me—"
"I hardly know you. And since we've been on the run, I was hoping I had a chance with you."
Kayla approaches me and exhales loudly. "I wasn't trying to hurt you, Aiden. Believe me." She touches my hand, but I pull away.
"What were you doing, then?" I ask.
"I was trying to help you."
"Help fry my brain into a pile of mush?"
"No, I was trying to keep your brain from getting, from getting, getting mushified." She finally spits it out.
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"She's telling the truth," a man says from the shadows of the open doorway behind Kayla.
I flinch at the intrusion. I haven't heard that voice with the familiar gravelly undertone in years.
"Who are you?" My mind, perplexed as it is, works out this mystery and rapidly comes to an unsettling conclusion.
"He's Agent 1," Kayla says. "He's the one who gave me this." She produces the small silver device from her pocket. "It blocks the signal to your brain. It's not supposed to give you headaches, it's supposed to stop them, sort of. The government has cranked up the amps to activate you. Unsuccessfully, thanks to Agent 1 and this little thing, that's obviously not my phone."
I inhale and let out a slow breath. This is a lot to take in. "But I'm only sixteen. Why would they want me?"
"They have a group that operates in the shadows as assassins. They're called The Collective. Agent 24 works for them, and technically, so do you. Or at least you were supposed to."
I realize something. "So, I am Agent 23, but they couldn't activate me?"
The man in the shadow of the doorway inches forward, but his face remains hidden. "It's mind control, Aiden."
Kayla touches my hand again. This time I don't pull away. "They have a method of mind control that overtakes you and fills you with whatever skills you need to accomplish their goals. With your first mission, it's murder."
"But I haven't killed anyone yet?"
"No, Aiden, you haven't."
Relief floods me and my eyes grow moist with tears. I do my best to hold them back in front of Kayla. I swallow the feeling instead.
"Since you wouldn't respond, or activate," Agent 1 says, "The Collective dispatched another assassin to take your place. His job is to kill you and then kill the target, but we won't let that happen."
"I wanted to save you, Aiden, to keep you from becoming a killer," Kayla says. "But there's another reason I'm helping Agent 1."
When she refers to the man as Agent 1, I wince, because I have a growing suspicion of the man's true identity.
Before I can question her about the deeper motivation for trying to keep me from claiming my first victim as an assassin, the man steps from the shadows and removes any doubts I may have had concerning his identity.
I haven't seen him in four years, since I was twelve years old. My heart burns with the hot mixture of love and anger. No matter how many moments he missed in my life, even while he was still around in my childhood, I still loved him. But now I know why he wasn't around. He wasn't on business trips; he was an assassin. When I was a kid, he was killing people. The thought squeezes the love out of my heart, wads it up, and crushes it into something I can't recognize.
"Moments ago, you might have received another text from The Collective," Agent 1 says.
I recall my phone buzzing against my leg while I was in the middle of a mind-shattering headache.
"Don't bother checking it," he says. "I've already intercepted the message. It's your last order to activate. Your mission is to kill Agent 24 and then kill the target if you are to keep your place as their assassin."
"I'm just a teenager." My legs weaken, and I take a step back to keep my balance. I don't know what else to say.
"Or you can help us," Kayla says. "Save the target and possibly kill Agent 24."
My eyes widen at the thought of another tangle with the big assassin.
"With my help, of course," Agent 1 says.
I gather my nerves as I stare at the only agent to walk away from The Collective and live. Possibly a legend in the world of government spies and assassins. The man I know as my dad. Obviously, Kayla doesn't know that yet.
"Now," he finally adds, "I'll answer your questions, but we need to hurry and come up with a plan, because time is running out for us all."