Princess

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

I smiled tightly to myself, ignoring the fifth knock in a minute. I was hoping that if I didn’t reply he would give up and leave but so far, it had only gotten more annoying. He knocked once more and I cringed.

“I know you’re there.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, I feel really stupid doing this. Just come out so I can talk to you face to face.”

I hummed lightly under my breath and oddly, I was humming a song that I’d heard in Dylan’s car today.

“Let’s see…what’s Mrs. Dower’s number?” He asked, so quietly that I could have imagined it.

My humming halted. What? Why did he want the residential counselor for?

Dylan said, as though he had heard what I was thinking, “I’m sure that if there’s someone who is in danger and refuses to open the door to let me in to help her, it would interest Mrs. Dower a lot.”

It would be obvious to anyone that I didn’t have any mental problems (except that one about letting people in-both figuratively and literally-but I was blaming that on stupid espionage skills), but not to Mrs. Dower. She had been blamed for many of the psycho outbreaks we’d had at Spencer’s Institution for Troubled Teens and the last I’d heard, she wasn’t taking any more chances. Anyone who got reported would get many sessions with her before they were deemed to be fine.

I doubted that being counseled would please Calloway much.

Resigned, I yanked open the door and hummed even louder, while glaring at Dylan.

He smiled infuriatingly at me, unfazed by my humming and snapped his phone shut. “Okay, glad that you finally listened to reason. I need to speak to you.”

“You already are.”

Dylan raised an eyebrow. “Was it that long ago when we were making civil conversation? Now we’re back to square one.”

He was right. I really had to work on my people skills. If I didn’t manage to keep being nice to him for a day, I was going to appear crazy by being nice to him for a moment and being mean the next. It was going to really looked as though I was instructed to do so.

Trying not to gag, I realized that I was going to have to try and like Dylan and not just certain qualities of him. “I’ll take that back. It wasn’t…polite of me.”

He shrugged, like it didn’t matter and a flicker of annoyance lit up before I quickly extinguished it. Dylan didn’t have to point it out if he didn’t think it was important. He had been picking holes in my façade…which was not as good as his moronic one.

“I guess I didn’t put what I wanted to say just now…tactfully.”

I chewed on my lip. He had been brutally honest but it had helped, not that I needed to let him know that. “You’re forgiven.”

“I didn’t say that I was apologising.”

Throwing my hands up in the air, I asked, “What do you want from me then? You can’t keep telling me these things and not explaining yourself.”

He nodded. “Okay, Princess.”

“What did you just call me?”

“I called you Princess.”

“Why?”

“That’s who you are.”

Recalling our conversation, I realised what he meant. Not only was he not apologising for what he’d said, he was pretty much rubbing it in by calling me that. Having a terrible gut feeling about this, I replied, vehemently, “Don’t call me that!”

“Princess, what’s the matter?” He blinked innocently at me but there was a grin developing on his face.

Oh great. He was never going to let me forget this. “Whatever…if you have nothing else to say to me…” I tapped the door.

He cocked his head to one side, his expression suddenly serious and said, simply, “You can’t always keep up a pretense that things are fine the way they are, Princess.”

My eyebrows rose involuntarily while my grip on the door tightened. But before I could think of a smart comeback, he had already left.
***
“Welcome to the Agency’s training camp, where the elite will be selected and those who don’t pass will serve as our helpers. For your sake, I hope that you all will pass. Observing the action and not being part of it is no fun, I assure you!” The instructor, John his badge said, smiled widely as though he was trying too hard.

A boy, ordinary looking, raised his hand and John nodded once, allowing him to speak. Moments later, we watched John’s face morph into regret instead as the boy said, “Uh, John is it? I thought the point of this camp isn’t to teach us about having fun; it’s to teach us skills that are vital. Besides, we would be working behind the scenes anyway. If we wanted credit, we would’ve gone for police training or something.”

John muttered something about kids being smart alecks, that in his day, he would’ve been spanked for talking back to an instructor and how he hated working here every summer but he kept his grin in place.

I didn’t like this training camp either. But it wasn’t as though I had a choice, unlike the other children here. I had a lot more weighing on this camp than they did. I did not want to go to back again, I was far lonelier there than here.

Therefore, working in the Agency was the way better alternative. I was going to have to work to get that job though, that much I could tell from John’s speech.

“You will have half an hour to get to know your fellow cadets before we officially begin boot camp. Enjoy this time while you can before things get serious.” He mostly directed this comment at the boy.

Well, John was clearly planning his payback.

There was silence for a few moments and then kids started chatting. Most didn’t know each other but they talked freely and openly, wanting to exchange as much information as possible. None spoke to me, probably because of the way I looked.

I didn’t appear comfortable and I was quite certain that my eyes reflected my disdain for them. They had everything going for them in their lives (parents who were alive, a warm home to return to everyday and probably friends back home) but they chose to give it up for a chance to work instead? Clearly, they were nuts since I would give anything to be in their position, where it didn’t really matter in a life and death kind of way whether I got in or not.

“Hey, my name’s Jeanne.”

I barely glanced at the girl even though I was impressed with her bravery. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t speak to the strange girl giving off weird vibes.

She sat down next to me. “I don’t know about this camp. I didn’t really want to come here but my Dad made me.” Her bottom lip jutted out in a pout. “He makes me do a lot of things that I don’t want to do.”

Biting back a retort, I simply nodded and hoped that agreement would make things easier, that she would just leave me alone. Most people just sought approval and once they found it, they were perfectly content by themselves. But this girl, Jeanne, merely beamed at me. “I think we’re going to be good friends.”

“You don’t even know my name.” The words slipped out before I could stop myself. Cursing myself, I went back to stoniness, trying to keep my façade of not caring when I did. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a small smile developing over Jeanne’s lips. She was sly, I’ll give her that.

“But I do. Your name’s Kristen Hart. John mentioned it just now, remember?”

Oh yeah. I suddenly felt like I wanted to speak to her, that she should be grateful that she still had a father to tell her things to do, when I didn’t. But I didn’t act on that impulse and the moment passed.

***
I shoved Jeanne into the pool and she came up for air, laughing. I bit back a smile, trying to look serious.

It’d been tough at training camp, which we had both attended and passed a few years back, when I wanted to talk to her but couldn’t since I was struggling for control. Thank God Jeanne didn’t give up easily and befriended me even though I kept blowing her off for the first few times.

Now we were the best of friends and on vacation, a rare break from working all the time.

We studied, like all other teenagers, but most of the time our priorities were on security, not education or anything else so this vacation probably wasn’t going to roll around for another couple of years or so. But it didn’t really matter, since Jeanne and I spent most of our time together being partners and all.

Just like me, she didn’t like talking about her family. I didn’t want to pry, because really, unless I wanted her to do the same thing to me, it was unlikely that she wouldn’t ask about mine.

Jeanne opened her mouth to say something but our cells beeped.

Raising our eyebrows at each other, we reached towards our back pocket for our cell phones. Nobody got called back during vacation unless something major happened. Not for special missions (we weren’t that high in the pecking order). Something major that happened at headquarters.

Little did I know that this would be the day where my life went for a downward spiral, like the many years before.

***
Before Jeanne or I could ask about why we were sent back, Calloway demanded, “You have five minutes to own up.”

I felt like laughing. She was always so paranoid. What did she think... that we’d purposely tripped the alarm system?

“I see. You dare to do this but you don’t dare to own up… I guess that if you hadn’t slipped up, you would prefer if we never found out.”

I glanced up at Calloway, something trapped in my chest that was making it hard for me to breathe. My eyes darted back and forth, glancing at Jeanne and Calloway. Did she mean...

A low chuckle escaped from Jeanne’s lips as she gazed coolly back at Calloway. I took a step back, the look in her eyes...I had never seen this side of her before. Jaded, cynical...sly, all adjectives to describe the way she was acting now. Staring at her, my brain tried to catch up with the situation. “It took you a while, Calloway.”

She spoke directly to her as my head spun to wrap my mind around it. The logical side of me sought every single memory I had of a girl whom I’d thought was Jeanne Ingrid and compared it to the person whom I was seeing now. They were one and the same, but I had never noticed it before...I never had to consider it. I had trusted her.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t pass whatever standards your father said we had.” Calloway said this lightly and I refused to look at her to see what sort of silent satisfaction she was emanating, the way she always did after a victory.

Did she even care about what this meant, aside from finding another mole?

I opened my mouth to confirm my suspicions but I couldn’t do it. No words came out when I tried and I doubt that there will ever be.

“Why don’t you try to explain this to Kristen? She certainly looks lost... I can’t even imagine what kind of wonderful situation you’d caused her to be in, whatever your name is.”

Jeanne’s confident smile froze and she blinked a few times, shook off whatever she’d been thinking about moments before. “I’m sure that there’s no need for this. You would explain everything that there is for me, Calloway, and put it in the worst possible light.”

“Oh, there’s no need for me to do that. You already have, considering that you two were partners... Everything that you used to be is not what you are. How does that feel, Kristen?”

I backed away quickly from both of them, my head swimming with this new information which I couldn’t accept despite how logical it sounded. Before I could be tormented any further by the smug Calloway or how calm and cynical ‘Jeanne Ingrid’ appeared to be, I sped away.

This was the first time I ran away from something I couldn’t accept and it would not be the last.
***
That night, I opened a Word document from Calloway.

Case File: R56
Name: - (Was known as Jeanne Ingrid during her stint with us)
Age: 15

Affiliated with: Mafia, father has involvement in it, but we are uncertain as to what extent
Cases handled: Has worked with partner, Kristen White, 15, on certain cases. Most are small involvements, having nothing to do with the Mafia. However she could have gathered much information from classified case files using her pass code.

Status: Was manhandled into interrogation room C455 but has escaped, bypassing a dozen security codes and gates before leaving had been spotted escaping from the building at 1950 hours. She was driven away in a black BMW.

More Information: Her real identity was only discovered after a slip up when she tried to gather recent cases with Mafia involvement. When caught by a fellow agent, she gave a vague reply as to what she had been doing, alerting our security which caused a more detailed background check. The check alarmed security as there were many dubious factors.

Calloway apprehended the agent today, at 1400 hours before she was questioned and brought into interrogation room C455, at 1420 hours.

Jeanne Ingrid is hereby terminated as Kristen Hart’s partner and as a member of our Agency. Anyone who has any news of her should immediately notify their superior.

I blinked a few times after scanning through the document. I thought about Calloway and why she would send me something to investigate when I didn’t have much of a part to play. Then I thought about Jeanne Ingrid. Then about what it used to be like, when being a spy didn’t mean doubting every person around you.

I deleted the document.
***
“What do you think you’re doing? Hey! You there! What are you doing?”

Panicked, I broke the second rule that had been imprinted in every good spy’s mind—never ever make eye contact when guilty. I looked up at the guy who had demanded an answer.
A fleeting look of confusion flitted through his features before they contorted one into comprehension and he drew a black, ugly weapon out of his pocket.

I recognised a gunman when I saw one and with the practised, precise aim he was taking, I knew that if I ever got out of this, I would be one lucky girl. With that last thought, I drew a dagger and poised it for his upper arm, threw something at him so that he would be distracted and charged towards him, stabbing him deep enough for a scar. Then I kicked him in the chest before removing the dagger.

I should’ve left then but I didn’t. I had even turned away, eyes darting around for any more back up but then I heard a groan escaping from the gunman’s lips.

My body whipped around, ready to silence him with a precise punch in the head but instead, I found him staring at me, his eyes firm and hard but shocked. I couldn’t look away from the blood seeping through his crisp, white shirt. Our eyes were in contact for a few seconds more before he closed his eyes and did not open them again.

Disgusted and more than a little ashamed with what my handiwork, I drew away from him.
I had graduated from weaponry workshop the top of my class. We had worked with targets, computers and dummies. We had not worked with humans. We had not seen their reaction or their tolerance of pain. We were not taught to think of these people as humans and that was why I reacted the way I did.

But before I could do anything, his back up had arrived and I fled.

When I returned, with all the information that I had needed to gather for this first mission, I was praised for my quick thinking and my application of the skills we had learnt but it had never felt so wrong to do something which I all along believed wholeheartedly was right.

And this was because we had not yet learnt of the line between protecting and hurting.
We were protecting things that mattered to us—friends, family, even the government. These were all people who could be hurt by the actions that illegal groups, terrorists and even the mafia, and so, they were the very ones that we were trained to keep safe.

In the process of doing so, we hurt others.

What we were doing was not a matter of good or evil, because there wasn’t such a clear line. As children, we were brought up to think that there was a line. Similarly, we also learn that we can do anything that we set our hearts upon. Neither of which is true, but both of which are things which we desperately want to believe in.

People who are caught doing bad things and punished for them could their own untold tales. But we hurt them, kill them, before we can learn any of the tales because it is easier to kill someone whom you think is bad than someone whose story you know.

But even if they were as bad as we thought they were, were we in the position to do this to them? To decide upon their form of punishment-- whether it was death, a jail sentence or a fine? Was it really up for us to decide?

Or was it just all a lie?

And even till this day, I can’t tell which is which. If what I was doing was protecting people I treasured...or if it was to hurt, to torment.
***
“You messed up on the Mafia case.”

I grimaced; each word spit out from her mouth—cold and calculated to make you feel like crap. She was good at that.

The case wasn’t even supposed to be mine to begin with but I got called back from vacation to do this case. The other agent who had been handling it promptly tossed it to me without much advice and I thought I had been making good progress…until…well…I messed up. “I know that and I apologize for it. But the house has changed from what I’ve read on the case file,” I said this firmly. I wasn’t going to accept all the blame for this. “There are weapons of every arsenal in very single freaking room-”

“Don’t put the blame on something else.” She gazed at me until I flinched and then shuffled through some papers. “I’ve already heard about your debrief and I’m pleased with the new information gathered but I’m deeply disappointed in the flippant way in which you conducted this mission. You were discovered because you weren’t in disguise, Kristen, and this is a mistake that you’ve learnt about in the very first course you were enrolled in. So why the hell were you not in one? And don’t give me bullshit.”

Trying not to be scared off, I attempted a cool tone, “I had missed an opportunity earlier on and decided to go for this chance without one.”

“Brave, very brave—I’ll give you that.” Calloway briefly smiled and my heart lurched as her features rearranged themselves back into one of a pit bull. “But also extremely foolish. If you had been in a disguise, you will not have been discovered although you may miss another opportunity. But remember rule 3: It’s better to live another day than to complete a mission by imprudent risks.”

I let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding. If this was as bad as it was going to get, it was a whole lot better than I expected. There would be a normal procedure which Calloway will proceed on but there were other legendary tales of the other agents who had messed up and I was counting myself fortunate.

“Despite your encounter with danger, you’re still on this case. But to be on the safe side, you’ll be put in a safe house for a few months.” I nodded, expecting this. “You’ll have to cut that long blonde hair of yours short and dye it brown because it is by far your most noticeable feature. There will be other changes on your appearance as well, those you will work with Claire...and you will be attending Spencer’s Institution for Troubled Teens, where you will be safe as well as get an education.”

I took my relief back. How on earth was I supposed to complete this case, which had stalled for years before I was on the case, while having to juggle school work as well? I knew that finding a safe house for an agent was no easy feat but I had expected something with more weaponry and technology so that I could practise as well as keep updates before carrying out the same stage again, but more cautious this time.

Calloway probably could’ve read my expression but hers remained blank and unreadable as always. “Your name is Christina Drake, you have problems controlling your temper and you’ve wound up hurting your middleclass parents, emotionally. They have decided that you are beyond control and have gotten a court order so that you would be sent to Spencer’s in hopes that your behaviour would change for the better. There will be more information given to you after the details are ironed out.”

“How long will I be there for?”

“A couple of months… So that the security guard who discovered you would have time to forget how you look like, if they haven’t sketched a rough idea of your features, and so that we can deal with him.” She smiled pleasantly, as though we had been making small talk about the weather or something equally mundane.

I ignored the last part, (as well as the sudden mental image of the man who I had killed today) thinking about something else. “What about my reward?”

She didn’t pretend to not understand. “Yes, you will still get it.”

“But…”

“It’ll be pushed back.” She rolled her eyes, impatient. “You will be allowed to leave the Agency but still remain my ward after your case completion date and since the deadline has been pushed back, so does your reward.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. There she was a few minutes before, saying that completing the case fast or slow didn’t matter, only that our safety were of utmost importance but now she was changing her mind. “But rule 3 states that--”

“I quoted that, so I remember it very clearly so there is no need for you to repeat it back to me. This is the end of our conversation, there is nothing else that you can say to change my mind, Kristen and I would prefer if we can keep it civil.”

Jerking my head down in what I hoped passed as a nod, I was going to end the video call before she added something, this time looking…almost faintly worried, “Kristen, do you remember rule 1?”

“Yes, to never get involved emotionally.”

She nodded, reassured and ended the video call.

Weird, I thought to myself, why did she want me to remember rule 1? It was important but it hardly ever came up in conversations.

But now I’m beginning to understand.
***