Princess

Immediately, Owen realised that it was the wrong thing to say. A slow blush was creeping up his neck that he tried to hide by smoothing his collar. “Um…don’t misunderstand. I meant that I liked you as a friend.”

Owen Harrison was getting flustered over me, Kristen Hart? If I could, I would’ve laughed at the sheer irony of it. Instead, I coughed awkwardly. “Oh. Well, I like you as a friend too.”
He nodded once. “Perhaps we should get back?”

I didn’t reply immediately. I gazed at the beach, the sound of waves crashing against the coast melodious in its own way and remembered a time, a day when I had fallen in love with a boy who had loved the ocean.

Dylan had said to me once…maybe you wanted to believe that it was love happening right before your eyes.

Maybe I had. Whatever it was, I let that memory pass and replied, “Yes, we should.”
***
Owen visited the next day again. The guards exchanged glances when they saw him and left us alone in the house’s sitting room.

This time, I recalled a conversation I had with Calloway a long time ago, something about her saying that Owen had applied to leave the Agency after completing the case. But I had never asked him about it. Perhaps it was time to test the depth of how much he liked me… “I heard from Calloway that you were planning to quit.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
“Why?”
“About time for a change, don’t you think?” Owen nudged me slightly with his knee.
“As if. Honestly though, you’re totally suited to do this job.”
Owen Harrison shrugged. “Surely you know that the killing and manipulating does take a toll after a while, Kristen. You were never all that comfortable doing it anyway.”

Really, why had I been so happy with Owen back then? I really couldn’t understand it now—he was so prickly all the time and kept reminding me of how inadequate I was. “But that’s me. You were always in control of the situation and you never minded taking someone out in order to do your job.”

“On the surface, maybe I appeared that way.” He slipped on his sunglasses, a trick we’d learnt so that people couldn’t read your expressions. We both knew that it was an avoidance technique but here he was, using it on me. There was definitely something he was hiding.
“Are you saying that you never liked it?”

“That’s for you to figure out for me to know.” He smiled and slipped his hand into mine.
Though that simple act sent warning signs throughout my nervous system, I made no effort to remove my hand from his. Let him think that I was still the trusting Kristen.

He’ll soon be proven wrong anyway.
***
I had never tried to find out information about another fellow Agent before (though I had heard of cases where new partners obtained each other’s files to read so that they would have complete trust in each other) and having to do that was much harder than I’d anticipated.

Sure, I knew that I would receive no help from Calloway, especially because this Agent was one of her favourites. But I thought that the blonde and the redhead, the very same guards who’d let Owen and me go out the other day, would’ve told me something when I asked.

But instead, the redhead said, “I don’t know very much about him, only that though he’s young, he’s been very capable. Oh, and I heard rumours that he’s planning to quit after completing the Mafia case.”

From the way she spoke, I could tell that she was totally smitten with Owen, even though she had only met him once. Clearly, she was going to be of no use to me. So I turned to the blonde man.

He, at least, was more informative. “He’s worked for Calloway about as long as I’ve and I’ve been on his team once, during a recovery mission. Harrison’s pretty focused, does the job when he’s told and doesn’t ask questions. He has many contacts all the over place…puzzles me that he’ll leave when he has so much going for him.”

So Owen probably did have contacts in the Mafia. Did he intend to join the other side then? But it made no sense…he couldn’t leave until he was done with this case, which meant that the Mafia would be destroyed and he couldn’t join them. Was it some other crime mob that he was looking out for?
***
To: christinadrake16@sitt.com
From: lukeouverson@sitt.com
Re: News

Christina,

I probably shouldn’t be writing this to you. But I never follow the rules anyway, so why start now? I don’t know where you are and I suppose that it’s best if you have no idea where Tia and I are, but I hope you’d get to read this.

Tia’s fine, unhappy with the whole situation (though I don’t know if she’s unhappy because we kept the truth from her or because of the state her parents are in) and maybe a little shaken, but on the whole, she’s as safe as I am. I’m okay too.

The last I heard, Jenna was caught. She knew all along about my uncle’s plans for Dylan and his plans for you and she never liked Dylan much, so I don’t know what she’s told you about Dylan. I’m expecting the worst from her though. All I have to say is—I’m sorry for lying to you and I think that Dylan fell for you in the end. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but it had been getting harder for him to keep up with the whole charade towards the end. I had misgivings about the mission to be honest. But I guess there’s no point saying this now, eh?

I don’t know where Dylan is now and I doubt that your Agency would be able to find him either. He’s good at hiding when he doesn’t want to be found but I hope that, at least, you’d be clearer on everything that’d happened.

I just realised that I addressed you as Christina. Sorry about that mistake, Kristen.

Luke

I read through the email twice before deleting it.