Falling For His Secrets

The next morning I woke up to find Maria frantically rushing around the room.

"Is everything okay...?" I asked her.

"Fine. Just fine. Watch the video from last night." Maria said without loosing her pace as she raced around the room.

I groggily stood up and made my way to the computer to watch the surveillance from last night.

Maria had explained how to use the program, so I rewound the video to where I saw Ben walking away after we said goodbye last night.

I sat down and watched about 5 hours of empty hallway until I saw movement in the corner of the screen. Someones hand was close to the camera. Probably touching the camera. Then, just as fast as the hand had appeared, it was gone.

"Maria... I'm confused, what was that?" I asked looking at her.

She froze in her place. "A hand, Ali. A hand."

"Yeah... but whose?" I asked.

"I don't know. But they messed with the camera! They set it to stay on the same photo while they walked by. So the camera wasn't actually taping anymore, it was stuck on the same picture." Maria said before she turned and walked over to her nightstand.

"Oh... is this bad?" I asked. I obviously knew it was, I just didn't want to admit it.

"Yes. Very. They know we're here, and if they knew we had camera's set up, they know most of our plans." Maria said not even bothering to pretend everything was okay.

"Does Ben's family know?" I asked a wave of panic hitting me. What if the people snuck by our camera, and hurt Ben or his family?

"I called their room. No answer. I don't know what to do." Maria admitted sitting down on the edge of her bed.

"I do." I said remembering something from a dumb movie I saw once. "We need to leave, but no one can know we left. We have to stay checked in." I said.

"And how are we supposed to do this? What about the others?" Maria asked.

"We arrange to get wake up calls, we turn on the TV. Do anything we can to make it look like people are here." I told her. "And then we climb out that window," I pointed to the balcony, "And we somehow get to the others rooms."

Maria's face looked doubtful of my plan, "Okay." She said finally. "It's the best we have."

So we packed our stuff, took everything except the camera outside. We couldn't risk opening the door or moving anything.

I stood on the balcony looking down at the London street below. I could hear Maria on the phone talking to the front desk. "Yes, a wake up call for 8:00 am, tomorrow morning, thank you." She said in her fake British accent as she hung up.

That's one thing I've noticed, where ever we go Ben and his family use face accents, and they are pretty good at them. Not even real British people knew they were faking.

"Ready?" Maria asked as she came out and stood beside me.

"Yep." I replied. Maria lifted herself up onto the railing of the balcony and swung her leg over onto a small ledge that went around the whole building. Once she was on it and griping the bricks around her, she motioned for me to come.

I shakily climbed onto the railing, the same way Maria had. I put one foot on the ledge and glanced at the ground. Getting 5th floor rooms was not a good idea.

"It's okay, don't look down!" Maria said.

I climbed onto the ledge and clawed at the wall. It was hard to get a good grip on the bricks, but somehow we managed.

We scaled the wall, climbing around windows and in and out of balcony's to random rooms until we reached Ben's. Somehow we made it without killing ourselves.

I pulled myself through the window after Maria had said it was okay.

"What the hell!?" Asher shouted when he saw us come through the window.

"Hey," I said awkwardly.

"Ever heard of the door, Maria?" Joshua joked as he came over to hug her.

Maria pushed him away. "Someone messed with my surveillance last night. They froze the video on the same spot, so that they could pass our room without them being recorded. They know we're here guys, and they know our plans!" Maria said frantically.

I stood there looking around the room. Where was Ben?

"Asher, call mom and dad's room. On your cell." Joshua said, automatically getting serious.

"AND! I called your room as soon as I realized this morning, and you didn't answer!" Maria shouted at Joshua.

"We thought they like, attacked you guys or something." I said.

"They must have disconnected our phone somehow." Ben's voice said from behind me. He was standing by the bathroom, holding something small and black in his hand. "I found this on the Kleenex box... it's a mic." He said holding it up.

We all stood there shocked and scared. They had been in this room? While everyone was asleep?

"ASHER!" Joshua said angrily.

"I'm calling! I'm calling!" Asher said dialing on his phone at a record speed.

Ben came up to me and placed his hand on my back comfortingly. "You okay?" He asked quietly.

"I'm fine, I can't believe they were in here while you were sleeping..."

"We don't know that for sure. Maybe they got here before us or something." Ben said without any enthusiasm. We all knew that wasn't true.

"Lets go!" Asher said as he hung up the phone. "Dad said meet them on the roof in five minutes."

"The roof?" I asked confused as usual.

"Helicopter." Ben whispered to me.

The guys gathered their things up and got some gear. Ben handed me a wire and earbud.

"Put this in. We all have them on... it's just in case we get separated." He said as he helped me wire myself up.

"Ready?" Maria asked peeking out the peephole in the door.

We all nodded. Joshua swung open the door and checked the hall, he waved for us to follow him as we exited the room.

I glanced back to see a figure turning the corner of the hall. He had an all black suit on, and dark sunglasses. Again my heart pounded and recognition ran through me.