The man they were tasked to follow was one Greg McAuley. He lived with his wife Barbara in a house in the suburbs of Westford, MA and Barbara's sister had hired them to investigate. She said that Greg was hitting his wife and kids, but she wanted proof before taking it to court.
"So we're like private investigators?" Shay clarified. After sending the others to talk to Eli about their upcoming mission, Shay and Noah had stayed behind to hear about theirs.
And Noah did not look pleased.
"Yes. Not every case we take on ends with a body bag." Val explained. Shay pursed her lips, surprised by this information.
"Shay can do this on her own. She doesn't need me." Noah argued.
"You're her mentor. I need someone to show her the ropes and you're it Noah, whether you like it or not." Val's voice was firm. "You will begin your recon today. Everything you need to know is in that folder."
Noah swiped the documents off of the table before Shay could thumb through it again. Annoyed, she followed him as he went back upstairs and stopped at his room. He had reached for the knob and was about to go inside when Shay spoke.
"Why are you so mad at me?"
"Take a guess." That was all he said before he opened his door and went inside. She heard the lock click and suddenly had an idea. Running into her room and then to the bathroom, she ran past the sink to his door, which was open. He had thought of the same thing and attempted to close it on her, but she wedged her body in between.
Instead of fighting her, he rolled his eyes and walked over to his dresser.
"Tell me what I did so I can fix it." Shay reasoned.
"How about you just go back to your apartment and leave me alone." Noah growled, taking off his sweatshirt to reveal his bare chest. He then grabbed a black t-shirt and threw it on, but not before she got a good look at him.
"I don't know what the hell is up with you." Shay muttered, still standing in the entrance to the bathroom. "Ever since you found out I've been with other guys, you can barely look me in the eye."
Noah grabbed a gun from his bedside table and stuffed it into his waistband before looking at her. "You're just different than I remember, that's all."
"How?"
"You're hiding something, number one. And two...." Noah trailed off and started grabbing other supplies from his room. "I don't know, you're just different."
"I'm not a kid anymore. I grew the hell up and that's not a bad thing." Shay snapped.
"I really hope fucking random guys isn't your definition of grown up."
"No, but you surely set a good example with all of your midnight disappearances. Or are you the only one that's allowed to have one night stands?"
Noah rolled his eyes as he gathered some other supplies from his room. He wasn't looking at her anymore as he concentrated on the task at hand, obviously done with the conversation. "Come on. We're leaving."
With a huff, Shay turned on her heel and grabbed a black sweatshirt from her closet. Not knowing what else to bring, she followed Noah downstairs and grabbed a snack. Then they were in his truck, on the road to do her very first stakeout.
She was supposed to have updated Alec. Of course she didn't remember until now, when she was sitting two feet away from someone who couldn't know her secret. Her phone buzzed in her pocket only seconds after they got on the road, just proof of how accurate the tracker in her arm was. If she ever doubted the seriousness of the situation she was in, she didn't anymore.
"Why do you do that?" Noah asked her suddenly. Shay glanced down to see that he was staring at her finger, which was trailing against the implant. Feeling a slight panic, her hand shot back down to her lap where she nervously started to fiddle with her thumbs.
"No reason."
He didn't seem convinced but let it drop, his attention going back to the road. He drove with one hand draped over the steering wheel, his body slumped into a relaxed position while his other arm was resting on the center console. He was so close that she could just reach out and touch him, and she almost gave into the urge in order to get some sort of comfort. Lying was getting to be overwhelming, the tug of war happening inside of her making her physically exhausted. She just wanted to know what the right thing to do was, and she didn't.
It made her want to chop off her arm and fly away again, far from the cops, from Val, from everyone.
Too bad she still had Noah, her anchor, the one thing tethering her to the ground.
Noah parked a couple of houses down from the target's house and turned off the car. Unfortunately for them, it wasn't visible from the street. There was a thick layer of trees between the road and the front door, so they would have to go outside to do their sleuthing.
After grabbing binoculars and a camera, Noah started creeping along the tree line next to the driveway, staying out of sight even though they were probably at work. Shay followed close behind as he found a spot in the backyard behind a boulder about twenty feet away from the back door. Kneeling down, he peered into the large windows while Shay waited next to him.
"We're gonna have to wait a while, huh?" Shay asked after a couple minutes of silence.
Noah sat down next to her on the grass and placed the binoculars next to him. "Yep. They'll probably be out for a while."
Shay nodded, knowing that the silence was only going to torture her more. She had too many things that she'd kept to herself, too many emotions that she had to get off her chest once and for all. She needed someone to listen. Better yet, she needed Noah to listen, to know the things she was feeling. Otherwise, she might go absolutely insane.
"I have to talk to you."
Noah's eyes darkened, his lips set in a taut line as he glared at her. "It's fine. Really."
"No, it's not. You're still mad at me and I get it, but you have to know why I did it."
"Shay-"
"I can't stand having you mad at me so please, just let me say this." Her voice was louder than it had been before, and a little shaky. Noah must have realized how dire the situation was cause after letting out a sigh, he gave a nod.
So she let it all out.
"Ok. As you probably know, I didn't have a great start with my parents. And then they died, and I had no one. Not until Val. When she took me in... she became family to me. Everyone did." Shay couldn't bear to look at him as she spoke. Swallowing the lump growing in her throat, she kept her eyes focused on the trees as they blew in the wind. "My parents were addicted to drugs and it made them neglectful and borderline abusive. They were awful. And I know that, but they were still my parents. They raised me for fourteen years and when they died, it killed me." She swallowed again, trying to keep her emotions at bay. "I saw them die, Noah. I saw them with vomit coming out of their mouths, their bodies cold and rotting on the floor of our trailer. It took me forever to get over that. I still wasn't completely better by the time you came, and that was two years later."
Shay braved a quick glance at Noah, who had stayed silent. His hands were in his lap as he sat cross-legged staring at her, his expression blank as he waited for her to continue.
"When I found out that it wasn't an accident, that Val killed them, it felt like I lost them all over again. Except this time, I didn't just lose my parents. I lost Val, too. And Eli, and Summer, and you." She gulped as a tear escaped from her eye, but she kept going. "Even if you had nothing to do with it, I couldn't trust anyone anymore. I couldn't look any of you in the face without wondering about what other lies you'd told, who else you may have taken from me. So I did the only thing I could. I left."
The tears were falling steadier now, with whatever control she still had in her body fading. She looked past the drops in her eyes to focus on Noah's face, realizing he looked sad, too. And he never looked sad.
"And you wanna know the worst part?" Shay asked, not looking for an answer. "The whole time I was on the run, every city I went to brought me closer to the house. To you. The guilt kept me from coming back, cause I knew you'd hate me, but deep down I always wanted to. I wanted to have my family back, or at least talk to you to make everything okay again. And now I have, but it's only because I was forced to."
Noah looked at her in confusion, finally opening his mouth to respond. "What do you mean?"
Shay took a deep breath, already regretting what she was about to say. "The feds found me and threatened to throw me in jail if I didn't cooperate."
Noah's face was blank, just as it had been for most of her monologue.
"I'm their inside man."
Finally getting real with each other. How do you think he'll react to this admission?