I avoided glancing at Zach and Agent Rosewood for the good part of an hour and focused instead on the case files, going over pictures and eyewitness accounts and biographies. My mind was occupied for the most part. But as Max swept all the papers into a pile and the waiter took away our empty glasses, I couldn’t help but look across the room and notice that the booth previously occupied by Zach and Agent Rosewood was empty.
“When we were looking over the files, did you notice anything strange?” Max asked me as we made our way out of the club and onto the deserted street.
I glanced at my watch. Quarter after midnight. “Strange? You mean beside that fact that three students were found dead in an elite boarding school?” I added sarcastically.
“That’s just the thing, though,” Max said. “You say this boarding school is elite, yet the majority of students come from middle-class households. St. Margaret’s is lauded because it makes a top of the line education accessible to students who normally wouldn’t be able to afford attending such a school. Yet I noticed one similarity between two of three victims.” Max paused thoughtfully. “Two were the children of wealthy businessmen. Millionaires.”
“But the third?” I asked.
Max shook his head. “The last student to be found dead, Tommy, he wasn’t wealthy or famous. Like 97% of St. Margaret’s students, he was a normal boy from a middle-class family.”
“So let’s say this was murder,” I began slowly, “and wealth did have something to do with it, Tommy was targeted for a completely different reason-” I stopped midsentence as footsteps approached us from behind.
“Hey!”
Max and I both turned around.
A man in a hooded sweatshirt came up to us, his face hidden in the shadows. Another man was suddenly visible below a nearby streetlamp. He too was dressed in dark clothing. He was watching silently. I found myself drawing closer to Max and eyeing the deserted street. I felt my spy instincts kicking in, my heart starting to pound, my feet ready to take off at any moment.
Max’s hand found its place on my back. He felt it too. When something was amiss, the atmosphere changed, the air became thicker, the silence deafening. “Can I help you?” he asked politely, yet I heard the wariness in his voice. I wondered how discreetly I could slip his stun-gun out of his pocket.
The man, sounding out of breath, stood in front of us. His chest rose and fell beneath the sweatshirt. Perhaps one or two feet separated him from us. I could now see the man’s face. He was very young and I felt like I had seen him before…
He wouldn’t answer Max’s question. Instead he silently stared at the two of us.
“Well,” Max said, guiding me along quickly, “good night.”
Suddenly the man’s arms were around Max’s neck as he grabbed ahold of him and threw him to the hard cement. Max kicked and pried at him, the two boys rolling around, struggling. The man sat on Max’s stomach and gave him a hard blow to the lower jaw.
I jumped into action, throwing my arms around the man’s back and pulling him away. “Let him go!” I cried. “Help!” I shouted, my pleas bouncing off of the buildings and into the night, going unanswered. I dug my nails into the man, trying as hard as I could to pry him away from Max.
Strong arms wrapped around my waist and lifted me into the air. The other man, the one who had been beneath the streetlamp only seconds before, had ahold of me. “Max!” I screamed, though I knew perfectly well Max was in no position to help me.
“Run, Laura!” he shouted before being silenced once more by a rain of fists.
I struggled in the arms of my captor, flailing my limbs around, writhing until I was free. He dropped me to the sidewalk and I felt my legs scrape against the rugged cement. I frantically lifted myself up, feeling the burning on my skin and the warm, sticky blood make its way down my knees.
I didn’t make it too far.
“Oh no you don’t!” The man snaked his arm around my neck and dragged me along before I was even able to stand upright. I couldn’t cry for help, his arm was wrapped so tightly around my neck.
I wanted to fight back, to do something, to save Max from whoever these people were, but every ounce of spy left in me had suddenly disappeared.
The man dragged me into an ally before pinning me against a brick wall. He pressed his body against mine, squashing me into the building’s exterior. I squirmed, but there was nowhere to go. Even his nose was pressed against mine. He took a few deep breaths. Every time he exhaled, the puff of warm air hit my face. I could smell the cinnamon gum he must have been chewing only minutes before.
Like the other man, he was young too and rather handsome, model handsome. And once again I couldn’t quell the feeling that I had seen him before. But where?
He leaned in towards my ear. I wished I could just sink into the wall and disappear. “I like when a girl puts up a fight. Aren’t you enjoying this?”
I whimpered, my voice lost.
“Maybe this will do the trick.”
For an instant, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and the unforgettable cold barrel of metal was placed against my temple. A day hadn’t gone by when I didn’t think about Paris, the loaded gun against my head, the trigger only moments away from being pulled as I took what I thought would be my last breath. I had never imagined it would happen again. Last time I may have been able to escape it, but could I be so lucky again?
Last time I had Zach.
I squirmed and another whimper escaped my mouth. The catacombs in Paris. The bodies. Masks. Blood. Roses. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Laura!” Max shouted.
“Shut up!”
My eyes shot open. Max was being dragged into the ally as well. He struggled, pulling against his captor.
I was wheezing. Blood. Paris. Bodies. Guns.
And then it was dark.
“Agent Porter?”
My eyes flickered open slowly.
“Agent Porter!” the male’s voice was more urgent.
I lifted my head and looked around, the world tilting back and forth as if it were balanced on a seesaw. I was still in the alley, sitting on the dirty asphalt. Hundreds of faces were staring at me, right up against mine.
As my vision cleared, the number dwindled and the faces blended together. Finally I only counted six faces, all recognizable. Pillington’s face was the closest as he waited for me to say something. Max sat next to me, an icepack clutched to his bloody lip. Zach and Agent Rosewood were standing several feet away, scribbling on tiny notepads. When my eyes settled on the final two faces, fury bubbled within me. The thugs who had assaulted us were watching the scene silently, their hoods pulled back, their young faces visible in the moonlight.
“This was all a show, wasn’t it?” I asked Pillington. “You sent them after us?” I nodded towards the “thugs.”
“Agent Porter, I assure you I didn’t do it as sport. It was a test to measure your self-defense,” Pillington said, defending himself. “Which arguably needs some work.”
Agent Rosewood snorted as she jotted down more notes. When I caught Zach’s eye, he looked away.
“This isn’t funny, Lilly,” one of the “thugs” snapped at Agent Rosewood. With his hood down and his face visible, I recognized him as the agent who had be entranced by his smartphone earlier in the day. Even when his nostrils were flaring and his lips were snarled, he was model-handsome. “She was so frightened, she fainted.” He turned his visible anger towards Pillington. “This whole idea was sick, do you know that?”
“Calm yourself Agent Miller,” Pillington said rather calmly. “I wasn’t the one holding a gun to her head.”
Agent Miller ignored Pillington’s words and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t okay! I had just been assaulted in some game so Pillington and Zach and some bimbo could grade my expertise in self-defense. An even further pain hit me when I realized that Zach and Agent Rosewood had been spying on us all night from the restaurant. Even the realization that they hadn’t been on a date, as I had imagined earlier, didn’t stop the horrible ache in my stomach. In fact, it worsened it.
Despite all of that, I nodded.
Pillington stood tall and straightened his coat. “Agent Freeman, take note that both Agent Porter and Agent Spencer should report to Langley tomorrow for a last-minute lesson in self-defense. Our classes run every two hours, but you two will both report at seven AM because you need all of the help you can get.” He sniffed and took in the scene, me sitting on my butt, scratched and bloody and Max sitting beside me, with a swollen face and two black and blue eyes. “I don’t know which one of you is more pathetic.”
With that, he turned on his heel and swiftly exited the dingy alley. “Agent Freeman, Agent Rosewood, Agent Miller, and Agent Dackery!” he snapped.
Like little ducklings, the agents followed him out, one by one.
“I really am sorry,” Agent Miller said over his shoulder.
Zach was the last to leave. He stood there, alone in the alley for a moment, staring at me and Max. I thought that maybe he would say something. Instead, he turned his back to me and followed his new group of friends.
“Let’s get out of here.” Max took my hand in his and helped pull me up to my feet. He steadied me when I wobbled. “You sure you’re okay?” he whispered.
I nodded numbly. “Flashbacks,” was all I managed to say.
And Max simply nodded because flashbacks were scars every agent had and every agent learned sooner or later it was just better to keep them covered than open the wound all over again.