It was still dark when we were dropped off in London, on the Westminster Bridge. Just as quickly as the MI6-authorized car got us into the city, it sped off into the dark, just another car driving through the city's labyrinth of roads. The lights of London's ancient buildings rippled in the water of the Thames, sparkling. For a moment, I felt like I was staring into another world I wasn't a part of. The reflection flowing in the waters of the river was a world that didn't have Jayden and Professor Lewis and brutal murders. It was another world, one that I so desperately wished I could visit.
"Now what?" Millie asked, in the similar disinterested tone a child would use when whining "Are we there yet?" She was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "In all of the books, there are car chases and fights." A man on a pre-dawn bike ride wheeled past us at a snail-like pace. We remained silent until he was across the bridge. "You know...excitement."
"There are ups and downs to every job," Fred said flatly just as the cell phone in his pocket began to chirp one of Beethoven's symphonies.
He whipped it out of his pocket so quickly, it nearly fell from his hands and toppled into the river. After a fumble or two, he brought the phone to his ear. He nodded once, though the person on the other end of the line could not see him, and handed his phone to me.
I knew who it was before I heard his voice. It was my turn to be nervous and I worried that the phone would slip from my sweaty hand.
"Laura?" he breathed.
"Zach." It wasn't a question or an exclamation. Just a word, a word that meant a whole lot to me at the moment.
Max and Fred began to stroll down the length of the bridge.
"C'mon Millie." Max held out his hand.
"But-" Millie was watching me, eagerly. "This is getting good. A mysterious phone call.' Max had her by the hand and was gently pulling her away. "Who is it?" she asked me over her shoulder. "Who's Zach?"
"It's a really long story," I heard Max say.
"Too long of a story," Fred added.
I turned away from them and walked aimlessly towards the other end of the bridge, my feet feeling separated from the rest of my body. I so wanted to say something to him, but suddenly my words became lodged in my throat, stuck somewhere between my vocal chords and my usually-big mouth.
"What's up?" I finally said before cringing and wishing I could throw the phone into the water after all. What's up? He had just saved my life, again, and all I could think of saying was "What's up?" A lot was up. A group of serial killers were on the loose somewhere, maybe in London, maybe out of the country. I was in the middle of the city with two secret agents and the daughter of a prominent politician. I, more than anyone, knew what was up, and what was up was not good.
"I hacked into the Department of Transport's database. Professor Timothy Lewis purchased six train tickets for London late last night. His train arrived in London about two hours ago."
"So they are somewhere in the city?" I asked. I leaned against the bridge's railing. So we had to find six people in a city of over 8 million. Had I been in the mood to be sarcastic, I would have said how easy such a feat was.
A pause. "For now," Zach said.
"For now?"
"Professor Lewis purchased six additional train tickets upon reaching London this morning. Six one-way tickets to Paris." He let the name of the city linger between us for a few moments. I didn't think I could handle the irony. "But he bought tickets for an evening train," he continued. "They are still in London. Somewhere in London," he said slowly.
His voice perfectly captured the hopelessness that suddenly enveloped me. "Did you know," I began, channeling my inner Max and my own library of useless facts because I was at a loss as to what else to say, "that London is over 600 square miles."
"Then you should have no problem finding them," he said dryly.
Silence.
"You should've said all of this to Fred instead of me. He is much more adept at handling bad news." I leaned over the railing and peered into the river.
"But then I wouldn't get to hear your voice." I brought my heavily-bandaged hand to my cheek, which was warm all of a sudden. "And as awesome as Fred's accent is, his voice isn't the one I've been waiting to hear."
"Because my ditzy, valley-girl voice is so attractive." I rolled my eyes. "I faintly remember you, like, making fun of me for it. Once. Or twice."
Before he had time to say anything else, there was a knock on the door on his end of the line. The horrible image of Pillington or Lilly barging in and hearing Zach on the phone with me flashed before my eyes.
"I've got to hang up. I'm sorry," he said hurriedly.
"Please don't get into trouble," I begged.
"I should be saying the same thing to you." Then, a constant, monotone buzzing signaling he had ended the call.
Max and Fred had been watching me, lingering awkwardly several feet away. They inched closer after I hung up the phone, but it was Millie who nearly ran towards me and grabbed my good hand into hers. "This is just like a story I read-"
"Fred," I said, interrupting Millie before she had time to compare my life to one of her novels, "they are still in London, but have tickets for an evening train."
"This is excellent!" Fred exclaimed suddenly. "Wonderful!" While I had been sardonic in my enthusiasm, Fred appeared truthfully ecstatic.
"Fred, London is one of the biggest cities in the world! To think that we can just find them in a matter of hours is ridiculous. I'm supposed to be the naïve idiot here, and you are supposed to be the voice of reason!" I pulled myself out of Millie's grip and handed Fred's phone back to him. "So please be reasonable!"
Fred was smiling. "We can quarantine the city," he said.
"Cut it off from the rest of the world?" Max asked.
Fred began to march forward, striding across the bridge with more confidence than I had seen him carry in months. He was a man on a mission. "We are going to shut down every train station and underground. We will ground every plane and cancel every flight. No one will be able to enter or leave this city. MI6 will position strategic checkpoints to take care of cars and buses." Millie, Max, and I were struggling to keep up with the long steps his lanky legs were making. "When the sun rises over this beautiful city, London will be at a complete standstill."
I grabbed ahold of the sleeve of Fred's suit. I asked him to be reasonable, not psychotic. "Fred, we are four people. Four total and complete losers. No offense, guys," I called out over my shoulder to Max and Millie, "but we are."
"Ehh, I'm used to it." Max shrugged.
"We can't just call up London and be like 'Yo, so some alleged murderers are on the loose in the city. We need you to shut it down for a few hours,'" I continued.
Fred was no longer smiling. He was beaming. The lights of the Palace of Westminster were shining brightly in his eyes.
Max was alongside me. "Laura, maybe we can." It was my turn to gawk at Max now. He was supposed to be a genius. Couldn't he see how completely insane such a plan was? To shut down one of the world's largest cities? Not only was the plan certifiably crazy, it would probably piss off millions of people.
"I am beginning to realize I am no longer the stupidest person in this group," I sighed.
"Listen, Laura. Fred was at one time one of the most prominent MI6 officials." Max was starting to go all know-it-all on me all of a sudden.
"Even if you do think I am your 'loser' godparent," Fred cut in.
"He's dined with the Queen and worked with five prime ministers," Max continued.
"And I have Sir Paul McCartney's number on speed dial." Fred puffed out his chest a bit.
"Oh my God," Millie breathed.
"If anyone has sway in the United Kingdom, Fred does."
Fred's smile could not get any larger. "Thanks, my boy." He patted Max on the back.
"Do you really think this could work?" I asked, a little more calmly and quietly. I started playing with the necklace I was wearing; the one Max had bought me only days ago.
"I'm sure of it." With that, he started once more towards the opposite end of the bridge. Above us, ever so slowly that it was almost unnoticeable, the sun was beginning to rise. "You all begin your search," he instructed.
"But where are you going?" Max asked.
Fred nodded towards the long parliament building.
It was Max this time, not me, who sort of lost his composure. "You can't just walk in there! Even if you do know the Queen and FaceTime with Paul McCartney and all that!" Fred continued to saunter across the bridge. "Parliament is not some town hall meeting that you can just burst into!" he called after him. "Laura!" Max reasoned, turning to me as his backup, his cavalry.
I held my head. I couldn't argue with Fred anymore. "He's got, what did you call it? Sway?" I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed Millie's hand and then wrapped my other arm around Max's waist. "Let's go."
At the end of the bridge, Fred went one way and the three of us went another. The sky, which had been black when we first arrived in the city, was lightening with every passing moment.
"Now, how should we do this?" I released Max and Millie and like two magnets, they were next to each other, making me feel like a third-wheel on some twisted date.
"How should we somehow find one rogue philosophy professor and five murderous teenagers in a city with 8 million people?" Max swept his unkempt hair away from his flushed face. "No idea."
It wasn't exactly reassuring, having a genius not know the answer to something.
Max glanced behind him, at the retreating figure of Fred, a lone, tall, skinny figure off to turn the city of London upside down for a few hours. I was waiting for an epic explosion to follow Fred's self-possessed trek.
"Haylee," Millie nearly spat her name out like venom, "has an aunt and uncle that live by St. James's Square, in a ritzy flat. That's where she spends her holidays sometimes, when she doesn't feel like going home." Millie pointed in the direction we should head to reach St. James's Square.
"You think they crashed there for some rest?" I asked, following Millie's direction. It was worth a shot.
"It's the only place I can think of that Haylee has talked about incessantly. In all of my crime novels, the suspects always return to a place they know and feel comfortable in. Haylee liked her aunt and uncle much more than she liked her parents and five younger siblings. Sometimes she would even lie and say she lived there, that it was her flat." She broke away from Max's side and took the lead, her blonde curls bouncing.
Max could not take his eyes off of her as she ran across the deserted street. She waved for us to hurry up. "She's amazing," he said breathlessly.
"You two are cute together." I meant it. I was happy for Max. He deserved someone like Millie, who liked him for being, well...for being gawky, dorky, adorable Max.
"What if...what if she doesn't like me?" he asked suddenly, sounding more like a schoolboy.
"I wouldn't worry about that if I were you."
"Hurry up!" Millie was practically jumping up and down as she waited for us in front of the tree line of St. James's Park.
Past the green trees and freshly-mown grass of St. James's Park we walked, past the park's long lake and the gated Downing Street. We hurried around Charing Cross, past the towering statue of Charles I and past the lions looking over Trafalgar Square. The buildings were stone and ornate and beautiful, chiseled by the hands of artists.
The sun had risen and more people, early risers, were beginning to file into the streets little by little. But the amount of cars on the roads was sparse. Not a single giant red bus, the double-decker ones on nearly every postcard and t-shirt for sale in the tourist shops, could be seen. It made me wonder if Fred really did just waltz into the parliament building. I could almost picture him breaking in, like a character in one of Millie's beloved books. Maybe he kicked down the door and beat up the guards and did a somersault into the House of Lords or the House of Commons and broke up some early morning meeting. Or maybe, probably more realistically, he didn't have to break in at all. A CIA badge gave you a lot of leeway, once in a while.
Millie studied each white building intently as she passed, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed.
"Is everything alright?" I asked. "Millie?" Her fingers were combing through her mane of hair, the way Max combed through his own hair when he was nervous or excited. With her crinkled forehead and her squinted eyes, however, Millie definitely looked more nervous than anything else
"I just can't remember if Haylee said it was the fourth building in or the fifth building in from the block." Her hand fell from her hair. "And if she meant coming from this way," she turned to her right and pointed down the street, "or this way?" She spun in the opposite direction.
"So you've never actually been there?" Max tried to ask the question as sweetly as possible, but I couldn't help but notice a slight edge to his voice.
"I never said I have!" Millie was beginning to raise her own voice, tears brimming in her large, doll-like eyes. She was spinning in circles, like a broken toy with a glitch.
"It's okay, it's okay," I repeated several times, just as a middle-aged woman in a pantsuit nudged past me.
She was talking loudly into her cell phone. "I'm going to be late, George. The bloody tube is closed." All three of us, our mouths parted in surprise, followed her with our eyes and strained our ears to hear the rest of her conversation as she walked further away. "Yes, the entire tube. Not a train running. There were police guarding all the entrances, said there was a malfunction or whatever."
I turned back to Millie, giving her the best encouraging smile I could muster. "It's alright Millie, we have some time." I tried to reassure her with a slight nod. "Try and think as hard as you can." Millie was once again spinning in circles and I had to grab ahold of her shoulders. I turned her to the neat, crisp row of buildings. "Which one?"
Her back rose and fell with every shaky breath. You would have thought she was playing a game of Russian roulette. Anxiety riddled her body as she thought long and hard about the choice she was making.
"What would one of the characters in your book do?" Max asked quietly.
Several silent, tense moments of concentration.
"That one." Millie jutted her chin towards a tall, white building, the fourth one from the left. It was the windows of the home I noticed first, the third floor windows. They were adorned with colorful flower boxes, beautiful bright boxes of different shades of red and green and purple. But that wasn't what made the windows stand out. Every window lining the entire block was propped open. Curtains fluttered in a slight breeze that squeezed its way along the narrow city street. But the home Millie had handpicked had its third floor windows tightly shut and the thick curtains drawn together. Air conditioning not the standard in England, the flat must have been sweltering in the early summer heat. It didn't make sense for the windows to be closed, the curtains to be pulled together.
"It's like they are hiding something," Millie said.
I couldn't help but throw my arms around Millie and hug her tightly. She was a genius, just like Max. "All of those detective and mystery novels you read paid off wonderfully!"
Max was already at the door, pressing the buzzer. After three buzzes, he banged on the door with his fist. The door remained as tightly closed as the windows above it.
Millie joined him, banging her own hand on the door.
That's when I saw it, a quick movement in one of the windows. The curtain was swaying, as if someone had pushed it ever so slightly to the side so they could sneak a peek at the street below.
"Someone is watching us," I told Max and Millie. They both stepped back and peered up at the windows. The curtain did not move again, but I knew what I saw.
"Move aside," I ordered, waving at Max and Millie with my good hand. "Move, move, move."
The two eyed each other warily before slowly standing to the side.
I backed up, the heels of my feet at the edge of the sidewalk. There was a break in the crowd of morning commuters. No one was at either end of the street. No one would block my path.
"Laura," Max began cautiously, "what are you doing?"
I braced myself and eyed the door. I had the urge to rub my feet several times against the pavement, like you see bulls do before they are about to charge. "I'm going to kick down the door."
"You're going to get yourself killed." Max shouldn't have been the one talking. In the short amount of time I had known him, he had proven himself to be just as much of a klutz as I was. "You are going to break your leg. Or your other hand. What good are you with two broken hands?" Still, he backed away even more.
"I'm a pro at this," I lied, rather well I thought.
Rushing ahead with all of the speed I could assemble, I flung out my foot and kicked down the door. My eyes were closed, my face contorted into one of the ugliest expressions imaginable, and the door was a lot sturdier than the one I had kicked down in the ancient Marble Manor, but it broke away from its bottom hinges, leaving just enough space for the three of us to squeeze through.
"That was brilliant!" Millie said as Max helped her into the building's dark entrance way.
We ran up the rickety steps, to the third floor apartment. Max already had his badge pulled from his pocket, and I had one of the dart-shooting pencils held tightly in my fist. We were an odd-looking bunch of misfits, ready to take down the odd-looking band of villains.
Another door blocked our way.
"Let me!" Millie squealed before I had time to get a running start.
"I don't think that is a good-" Max began, but Millie had already burst forward, slamming her leg into the door and letting out a rallying cry. The door splintered and Millie stumbled into the apartment. She grabbed ahold of a nearby armchair and steadied herself.
"I like her so much," Max whispered to me as we tiptoed stealthily into the apartment. The living room was very clean and as white as the outside of the building. There was a white sofa and a white armchair. The white curtains were pulled shut and the room was roasting. I felt perspiration bead above my lip and behind my neck. There was a white bookshelf with black and brown leather-bound books that were so dusty I doubted they had been opened in years. Framed portraits also dotted certain spots of the bookshelf. There was one of a man and woman on their wedding day. There was another of that same man lounging on a tropical beach somewhere. Then there was one of Haylee, sitting in this very living room, smiling as she tore open a wrapped Christmas present. We were definitely in the right place.
"Someone is in here," I said, "I saw them move the curtain."
"Look!" Millie pointed to a second window, in the adjoining dining room. The curtain was crooked, hooked on the back of a dining room chair. Someone had just been there.
"Oh my God!" Millie suddenly shrieked so loudly, both Max and I instinctively grabbed her and blocked her with our bodies. But she wasn't hurt and no one had entered the room. One hand covered her mouth, while another pointed at the door of a small coat closet. My stomach churned when I noticed the red stain seeping its way from beneath the door, staining the white carpet.
Max was the first to move. He crept towards the closet. For a moment, his hand hovered above its doorknob and I saw the Adam's apple in his throat bob as he swallowed hard. Finally he opened the door. I only caught a glimpse of two entangled bodies, large bodies, before Max slammed the door shut again. When he turned around to face us, his face was a light shade of green.
"It's them," he croaked before gesturing towards the wedding picture on the bookshelf in the living room.
My spine tingled with the sudden realization that the very people who had murdered Haylee's aunt and uncle were somewhere in this apartment with us. I couldn't keep my gaze steady, the room was spinning around me. The whiteness of it was suddenly blinding me.
What was worse, we had gotten Millie into this trap, into the hands of the very people that wanted her dead.
Max knew this too, and he was staring at her with quivering lips and heartbroken eyes.
"Millie," I tried to keep my voice calm and quiet, but it cracked halfway through saying her name, "you are going to leave. Now."
Max was already pushing her towards the broken door.
She wasn't protesting, shock rendering her incapable of speech.
"You're going to run, okay? You're going to run until you get to the nearest police station. You are going to tell them that Alan Pinkerton sent you," I ordered, giving her the secret phrase policemen around the world knew as the CIA.
"But," Millie finally spoke, "what about you guys?"
"We are going to make sure these people never hurt anyone ever again." My throat was so tight, I could barely make those words more than a whisper.
"You don't sound very confident about that."
A boy had his hands around my mouth before I even had time to scream. Professor Lewis, his clothes bloodstained, had a hold of Max. It took three boys, two of them Jayden's cronies from the night of the fire and Jayden himself, to hold back a kicking and screaming Millie. Haylee, her face pale and her mascara streaked in long lines down her cheeks, was standing in the corner of the room. Her hands were fidgeting with the hem of her St. Margaret's skirt.
"We had to kill them, you see," Professor Lewis said. "They were going to call the police. We had to kill them. We just had to." His floppy hair was standing up in several places. His glasses were askew, the eyes behind them flickering back and forth like a madman's. "Just had to," he said again.
From her corner, Haylee let out a whimper and covered her eyes.
"We are going to have to do the same to you," Professor Lewis slurred. "Yes, the same. Exactly the same."
My scream was muffled behind the sweaty hand of my captor. Professor Lewis had a knife against Max's neck. Max's knees wobbled and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, like he was about to faint. Millie went manic. She flung her legs out, kicking down a white wooden table and a white base of flowers so that dirt and water and lilies scattered the floor.
"Don't you dare hurt him, you monster!" she cried.
"Then we'll do the girl first." Professor Lewis directed the knife in my direction.
My own knees went weak.
"No, no, she is my friend. They are both my friends!" Millie implored.
Professor Lewis wielded the knife towards Millie. "Then you can go first!" he yelled. "Thank you for volunteering, Millie!"
Max fought against Professor Lewis.
I suddenly remembered the pencil in my hand. I glanced down at it, held tightly beneath white knuckles. All eyes in the room were on Professor Lewis. No one, including Professor Lewis himself, knew who he would go to first. Haylee cowered in the corner.
I jabbed the pencil into the thigh of the boy behind me. I felt it break into his skin and dig deep into the muscle. He released me as both hands shot towards his leg, the pencil protruding from his thigh. He howled, but then wavered. He swayed back and forth, before crumpling to the ground, unconscious.
The lull in commotion gave Max the opportunity to elbow Professor Lewis in the stomach. The knife fell from Professor Lewis's hands, landing with a soft thud on the plush carpet.
Max dove for it before Professor Lewis, who had fallen to his knees, even realized what had happened.
"Let Millie go!" he ordered, pointing the tip of the knife towards Jayden.
Jayden, who had remained rather quiet throughout the entire scene, began to chuckle. "You'd sooner stab yourself than drive that knife through me, you giant klutz." His two friends didn't look as amused.
Max reached behind him and dragged Haylee into the center of the room. His hand wrapped tightly around her upper arm. "Let's trade," Max suggested.
Jayden scoffed.
Max raised the knife.
Jayden's face fell. "You wouldn't."
Max wouldn't and he looked sick just thinking about it.
"If you hand over Millie, we will give you a five minute head start," I butted in. "Five minutes, to run as far as you can."
Professor Lewis groaned and creaked as he raised himself up off of the floor. "Don't you dare, Jayden."
Jayden watched Haylee, who was whimpering. "But-"
Professor Lewis grabbed the collar of Jayden's leather jacket with one hand, and a fistful of Millie's hair in the other. He pushed the two other boy's to the side, sending them toppling on top of each other. He was dragging both Millie and Jayden out of the apartment.
"No!" Haylee finally cried. "You can't just leave me! Come back!"
The two boys who had been cast aside stumbled to their feet and chased after Professor Lewis and Jayden.
"Your pencil, Max!" I said.
Max dug into his pocket, maintaining his grip on Haylee, and threw me his tranquilizing lead pencil.
I followed the five of them into the hallway and shot the pencil. A piece of lead flew from the pencil like a dart and stuck itself in one of the boy's back. He fell instantly and tumbled down the stairwell. I was jumping down the steps, taking them two or three at a time. I was aiming for Professor Lewis, but he had turned a corner and the second piece of lead hit the upper arm of Jayden's other friend. His eyes rolled and he fell into the stairwell's wall. I tumbled down the last few steps, but Professor Lewis and Jayden had camouflaged themselves in the crowd of the city. It was too risky to fire the pencil.
"Millie! Millie!" Max was dragging Haylee down the stairwell, his voice echoing. "Laura," he asked frantically, "what are we going to do? They'll kill her!"
I didn't think they would. Not when we had Haylee. Jayden may have been a lot of things, but he clearly liked Haylee enough to not allow anything to happen to her.
I shook my head. "They won't. Not yet. Not while we have her."
Haylee was no longer whimpering. She was blubbering.
We had a very valuable hostage.
A/N I cannot say thank you enough for all of your patience! I realize that I am probably one of the worst updaters on Wattpad! I'm am really really sorry. This chapter was extremely hard to write. I had writer's block about halfway through it and I really didn't know what to do. Hopefully everything fit together and you guys enjoyed it. There will only be a few chapters of Making the Grade left. Then I have some exciting changes in store!
I recently attended an amazing writer's conference through my university. It was a wonderful experience and I got to work with a totally sweet author who gave me so much inspiration on building my characters and my plot. She even talked about how Wattpad is changing the future of publishing during one of her panels. She taught me so much over the three-day conference, that I realized there is still a lot I can do with this series. As a result, once Making the Grade is completed, I will be returning to the original Model Spy book and doing a complete edit of it. It will still be the same story all of you read, but a cleaner, crisper version with way more information on Laura and Zach and Dylan and everyone else. Think of it as the same story, just with the deleted scenes added in. I am so excited to return to the story and make it the best it can be for you guys. Then, of course, I have two more new novels in The Model Spy series I cannot wait to start uploading.
I will definitely keep you guys updated with all of the new changes. I have a Twitter account that I plan on using to keep you guys updated (the link to it is on my profile). I also am experimenting with a tumblr, as a way to blog and talk to you guys more. I will send out the link to that once it is ready! Please let me know what you think of this chapter! Writing it was definitely a struggle at times, but I hope you enjoyed it :) Thank you again for your patience and the continued sweet comments you guys constantly send that make my day.