Get Your Spy On

Get Your Spy On

Chapter 8

Eric’s POV

“What do you mean Wendy Pierce has left the country?” The Alpha asked one of his many assistants.

His assistant looked down at his black dress shoes, blushing. It must be embarrassing to have to tell your boss that a spy has gone on her own quest without permission. “Well, sir, it seems that she’s trying to find her father’s family.”

The Alpha leaned back in his chair, his eyebrow raised. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. I know what he’s going to say before he even says it. “So, Eric, what do you have to say about this predicament?”

I felt my face grow hot. Of course he’d blame me for not knowing about Wendy’s plans. I should’ve known I guess, but as you already know, she still isn’t too fond of me. I was the only one he could blame since it is my job to keep track of the spies on my team.

“I-I-I-I-I don’t know what happened, sir,” I say slowly, feeling weak. “I didn’t know she was leaving to go find them. I didn’t even know her father’s parents left him.”

“I see,” The Alpha said, no trace of expression on his face. He turned to Sloane next, his eyes burning into her. I can see it in his eyes; he wants an explanation whether it’s true or not. Sloane stared back at him, her face having no expression as well.

The Alpha looked at Alex, smirking. He may have done well on the test, but there’s no way Alex could lie to the Alpha like Wendy, Sloane, and I can. Nobody knows where Wendy is, that’s for sure.

“Alex,” The Alpha said, his voice lighthearted, “You have an obsession over Wendy, right? You must know where she is, don’t you?”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know where she is. She doesn’t talk to us. You know that, don’t you sir? If she would tell anybody, it’d be Eric.”

Thanks, Alex, thanks a lot. The Alpha turned back to me, a delighted expression written all over his face. I can see flecks of gray hair in his mane, making him look wise. His suit is crisp in his usual manner, and his wisdom is just as spot on as ever. “Eric. This is your chance to redeem yourself of your horrible scores so far. If you know where Wendy is, now would be a good time to stop acting like a hero and tell me.”

I looked at Alex, and gave him a good stare down. “Like you said, Alex is the one in love with her, not me. If I knew where she was, wouldn’t you think I’d be with her right now, helping her accomplish whatever that is?”

Sloane pinched my leg warningly. She knows something, something I don’t. The Alpha shook his head, disgusted by our actions. I felt Sloane tense up as his gaze returns to her, his eyes now boring into hers.

“Listen,” Sloane said, her voice cold. “We don’t know where Wendy is and we don’t know when she’ll be getting back, but what I know is that what she’s doing isn’t something one of your workers should be doing.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and cocked her head at the Alpha. He looked taken aback, but he recovered by getting up from his chair and walked over to her. He leaned down until they were eye to eye, then gave her a devious smile.

He has the power to kill her, to kill all of us. There’s nothing stopping him, but he needs us, because without us, he can’t get Wendy back. Nobody knows Wendy, but if anybody had to, it’d be us.

“If you leave now, you should be able to catch the two o’clock flight to Paris, where I expect she should be. Her uncle’s business is located there, find it. Don’t come back until you get her as well.”

We all stood up, staring at him. He’s serious. I’ve never been out of the country before, not even Canada! We left his office, then slowly we started walking back to our cars. Sloane kept glancing at me, waiting for me to make the first move.

Right, I say to myself, trying to get myself together. I’m the leader, so I make the calls on what we need to do. “Alright, let’s take your car Alex. Do you know how to get to the airport from here?”

Alex nodded, but he looks uncertain. I get in the passenger’s seat, leaving Sloane in the back. As we started driving, I started thinking about all the things we’ll need to get to Paris: money, clothes, a place to stay in case we don’t find Wendy within an hour, oh and school, yeah that’s important too.

“Alright,” Sloane says, breaking the silence. “Our phones won’t work once we get there, and we don’t have anything. I have a credit card, so we can buy the tickets, but once we get there it’s going to get messy. Right now it’s almost nine o’clock there, so when we arrive, it’ll be nine or ten in the morning over there.”

“And a better chance to find Wendy,” I supplied.

Sloane nodded, and continued talking, “Once we get there we go to her uncle’s business, whatever it is, and then we ask him if she’s been there already.”

I get my phone out of my pocket and start doing research on Wendy’s uncle. It wasn’t easy, but eventually I got a lead on what looks to be a produce company. I write down all the information on a pad of paper, then I read it out to Alex and Sloane.

By the time we got to the airport, we knew almost everything we needed to know. Sloane got the tickets, then we all waited in our gate. Alex has been quiet for a while, so I look at him and nudge him. “What’s wrong?”

He looked over at me and shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just I can’t stand people always branding me for ‘the guy who was obsessed with Wendy,’ you know? I mean I don’t even like her anymore.”

“You know what pisses me off?” Sloane said, her blonde hair whipping in her face as she spoke, “Is that we are the ones who have to take the blame for her blunt escape.”

“I know guys, but it’s what we have to do,” I say calmly, even though I want to rant as well. Wendy is careless about everyone but herself. The least she could’ve done was tell us where she’d be. Instead she left us to pick up the pieces.

We boarded the plan, and believe it or not, we didn’t have to wait too long on the runway. It was nice that we all weren’t sitting together, so we didn’t have to spend the ten hour plane ride together. I felt myself snuggling into my seat as the stewardess hands me a blanket.

Sloane’s seat is right in front of mine, so I give the seat a good kick before leaning back. Alex, whose sitting in the row next to mine, rolled his eyes, but he was laughing. I hear Sloane mutter something to herself, but I couldn’t catch what she said.

The stewardess starts talking about the safety rules and all the other rules nobody listen to. I’m sitting next to a woman and her friend, both of them talking enthusiastically. I couldn’t help but stare at them; how could they feel confident about going to another country with each other? I’m barely able to keep myself from vomiting all over myself right now.

I peeked through the side of my seat, where you can see all the seats ahead of you, but Sloane’s eye was blocking my view. “Listen, there’s probably going to be tons of secret agents once we get there. I bet they know there’s a spy by herself in Paris.”

I nodded my head. She turned around back into her seat and plugged in her ear phones. I look over to Alex, and I see him looking uncomfortable sitting next to a woman with a baby, and the other woman crying because she’s scared of heights.

I heard Sloane giggle softly, making me to laugh as well. Alex mouthed ten hours without anything to do but sleep, great. I nodded my head, suddenly wishing I could go to sleep on the spot like everybody else on this plane.

For the first hour of the flight I thought about what we need to do once we get there and what’s going to happen once we find Wendy. Is she actually going to want to go back home with us, or will she pick a fight with us?

For the second hour I thought about Wendy and our workout yesterday. We didn’t talk much, but boy did it feel great to actually have somebody listen to my troubles. I’m not going to lie; I felt embarrassed when I lost my temper with Wendy in my room. I saw she was wary of me, but she seemed to relax by the time we finished working out.

By the time we hit the fifth hour on the plane, I felt like I was going to pass out of boredom. I looked over at Alex who is staring at Sloane intensely, as if he was going to jump up from his seat and walk over to her. Sloane’s talking to the boy next to her, who seems like he’s a freshman in college.

Alex sure seems to be jealous all of a sudden. I wonder if there’s something going on between them. Seven hours in, I fall asleep as well, but suddenly I felt somebody start shaking me. I wake up and see everybody getting out of their seats, and heading to the front of the plane.

Sloane stood over me, Alex right next to her. She looked tired, but determined. “Listen, my dad says that if secret agents find out that spies are at the airport or anything like that they’ll be there waiting. We’ll have to hurry in order to get some money transferred and get a cab.”

I nodded, and we all made our way out of the plane. Once we got out, Sloane grabbed my hand with her left hand and grabbed Alex’s hand with her right. She led us to the counter to exchange her money, her eyes scanning the airport every few seconds.

I saw Alex give her hand a squeeze before he let go. “Listen, Sloane, don’t kill me, but I have to go to the bathroom.”

She turned to him, her eyes widening. “Are you serious?”

“I’ll go with him,” I offer.

She looks at both of us and shakes her head in disgust. “Fine, but be quick. If you aren’t back in five minutes I’ll leave.”

Alex and I hurried to the bathroom. I went as well once I saw everybody peeing. Alex and I hurried back to where we left Sloane, but she was nowhere to be seen. Minutes went by as we looked everywhere for her, but we couldn’t find her anywhere. None of us wanted to mutter the words that we both know are true.

“I’m not going to find Wendy until I find Sloane, you do realize that right?” Alex said once ten minutes went by.

“I know. If what Sloane said was true, we’re going to have to contact the Alpha.”

We looked through every gate, every room, but we couldn’t find her. We were about to go outside of the airport, when we saw Sloane running toward us. “RUN!”

We started running, not knowing who was chasing us. Sloane easily caught up to us and got in the first cab she saw. We jumped in after her. She looked at the driver who to be honest looked frightened. She started speaking to him in French with a rushed tone. He nodded his head and drove away.

I noticed three men watching our cab leave with a disgust expression. Sloane looked over at us, and couldn’t help but start laughing. “Dude they took me right there in front of everyone. I got away though once a pedestrian asked them if they were kidnapping me.”

“Where are we going anyways?” I ask, not wanting to hear about her escape.

“I gave him the address to Wendy’s uncles produce company. It’s not too far from here. I figured we’re going to look like lunatics, but it’s worth a shot.”

When we arrived at the building, I was flabbergasted. This building has to be one of the most ghastly buildings I’ve ever seen. Sloane paid the cab driver, then got out of the car. We both stood in our spots, staring up at the building. I expected thunderclouds and lightning to start shooting down, but of course, this is reality.

“This certainly isn’t in a good area,” Alex noted as a group of suspicious looking men passed us.

“There must be a mistake,” Sloane says, shaking her head. She looks at the address and sighs loudly. The website looked professionally done, so why wouldn’t the company building be up to par?

Sloane opens the door, and walks in uncertainly. Alex and I follow in after her. There’s an unmistakable musk of mold and there’s dust on all the desks and flooring. It’s unkempt, and let’s be honest; who’d buy produce from a company whose building is a pigsty?

I was about to open my mouth to speak, when a woman in jeans and a t-shirt appeared out of nowhere. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know this building is being evicted?”

I looked at her, really looked at her. She seems nice enough to be able to give us the information we need, with a little persuasionof course. “Hi, we’re looking for the owner of this company? His name is Bradley Derk.”

The lady rolled her eyes at me. “Of course I know who Bradley Derk is, kid. Listen, American boy, why don’t you and your friends run along now and do what tourists do.”

“Listen,” I say trying to sound cool and collected. “I don’t want you to get flustered. All I want you to do is tell me where Bradley is and we will be on our way.”

She folded her arms, her ponytail swishing. “I’m not authorized to tell you where he is buddy boy. What I can tell you is that it was nice meeting you.”

She walked away, cackling. Sloane swears, and Alex breaks a nearby chair. He takes three of the broken legs and hands one to each of us. So, was this a trap? Did Wendy get here and get caught by the secret agents as well?

“Something’s telling me that they know fully well where Bradley is,” Alex says, stating the obvious.

I hear the sounds of creaking above me, and to my right I hear a whisper. Sloane whipped her head around and stares directly at a noise down the left corridor. In one swift movement she starts running toward it, the broken chair leg in hand.

We run after her, but two secret agents come out at once, shooting bullets as if it’s open season. I duck behind what looks like a secretary desk and start forming a plan in my mind. How can we kill them if we have no weapons of our own besides broken chair legs? I hear the sounds of struggles, then the sounds of more bullets being shot. I look up and see Alex has both guns in his hands and is shooting at the secret agents pouring from both corridors.

I take the risk and run for my life toward the secret agents and take as many guns from them as I can. After I created a small pile of guns, and there are no more secret agents in sight, we continue on down the corridor where Sloane went.

When the corridor was about to split in four different directions, Sloane appeared pointing two guns at me and Alex. “Sorry, I thought you were more spies.”

“Where do you think Wendy and Bradley could be?” Alex asked, looking at both of us.

“My best bet would be looking for Wendy’s grandparent’s house. I have no idea where that could be, but we can’t just do nothing.”

Sloane looked around for a moment, her eyebrows in a V form. She started walking down the left hallway until she turned into a dark room. She turned the light on, and started looking around.

“What are you looking for?” I finally ask once a few minutes have gone by.

She opened a cabinet, and took out a folder. She flips through it, her mouth moving as she reads to herself. She’s looking for something, but I have no idea what it is.

She finally looked up at us, her eyes suddenly full of life. “Just like I thought and probably what you guys probably know as well; this isn’t the actual produce company building.”

“But it was on the website, you and I both looked at it,” I say, frowning.

“I know,” she says, smiling now excitedly. “The secret agents hacked into the webpage and changed it. Now you’re probably thinking “why would they go through all the trouble and do that” well, I have the answer. Bradley knew something crucial about the secret agents, something unexplainable.”

“But how would you know that, Sloane?” I asked curiously.

She laughed out loud. “That’s the ironic part of all of this; I don’t know. It’s just this hunch I keep getting, then I hear my grandfather telling me I need to go to Wendy’s grandparents’ house.”

“Well maybe he can whisper an address too,” Alex says sarcastically, leaning against the wall. “As much as I trust you Sloane, I don’t trust your grandfather’s voice in your head.”

She shook her head, clearly uninterested in what Alex has to say. She turned to me, a hopeful glint in her eyes. I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s all in her mind, but I also don’t want to go on a wild goose chase in an unknown country.

“If you don’t want to listen to my grandfather, what are you going to do then?”

I look at her, sighing loudly. “Fine we’ll listen to your grandfather, but if it leads us to nowhere, I’m going to have to talk to your grandfather.”

“She doesn’t even have an address!” Alex protested, giving me an ‘are you crazy?’ look.

I shrugged my shoulders and gave him a smirk. He wasn’t going to be the one making the decisions around here this time, or any other time in that matter. I looked at Sloane, and spoke to her in a serious tone, “Where do we need to go?”

She looked at me and gave me a thankful smile. She closed her eyes, concentrating on her thoughts. Normally this would freak me out, but lately nothing is surprising me anymore. She started whispering, her voice soft and sad. She misses her grandfather, and that may be why the voice in her head is her grandfathers, not her own.

Her eyes flew open and looked at me and Alex, her smile overwhelming. “I got the address.”

“Excellent,” I say, high-fiving her. We collect knives and guns from the secret agents, then Sloane called a cab with a nearby pay phone. I checked everyone to make sure our weapons were well hidden in our clothes, then gave everyone a thumbs up.

We all got in the cab, then drove to our destination. When we got there, a black gate guarded off an easily three million dollar house. The cab driver looked over at us, raising an eyebrow. “Is this your destination?”

Sloane nodded, her eyes widening. The cab driver pushed a button underneath the speaker, then a deep man’s voice answered. “Who is this?”

Sloane got out of the car and leaned into the speaker. “Hi, my name is Sloane Adams. I wanted to speak to you about your granddaughter, Wendy Pierce. Do you think we could come i-“

“Hurry in.”

The gate opened, and Sloane paid the cab driver through the window. She motioned with her hand to follow her, then she took off.

Alex sighed loudly and got out of the car, followed by me. We raced her down the long path to the mansion, and were greeted by a man with silver hair. He looked tense, and hurried us into his home, locking the door consisting of four locks. This man sure is wary of his surroundings.

“What do you want?” He asked once he locked the final lock.

“Is Wendy here?” Sloane asked gently, not wanting to scare the man into a frenzy.

He looked at her, his eyes filled with curiosity. “Yes she is. She’s with her grandmother by the pool. It’s rather rude of Wendy to invite her American friends over without telling me, no less spies.”

“Wendy didn’t invite us,” I inform him promptly. “The Alpha knows she’s here, and we’re here to take her before they do it themselves. Problems will erupt if we don’t hurry back with her soon.”

The man turned on his heel, and then guided us out back. We found a woman sitting with Wendy, both of them talking, smiles to ear to ear. Wendy looked up and widened her eyes once she noticed it was us. “What are you doing here?”

Before I could utter a word, Sloane walked over to her, an annoyed expression on her face. “The Alpha sent us. Thanks for letting us know what your plans were. Do you know how inconvenient it was for us to come here?”

“I didn’t ask you to come here, Sloane,” Wendy said angrily, standing up from her chair.

“No, you didn’t,” Sloane said, her voice icy. “You didn’t have to. I don’t know how many times I haveput up with your attitude toward me until you realize we’re actually trying to be your friend. I swear do you even know your uncle was kidnapped?”

“What?” The woman said alarmed, standing up in fright.

“Didn’t you notice the address on his website was a hoax? When we got there secret agents tried to kill us. They knew you were going to be there one way or another, Wendy.”

Wendy looked at both of us, confused. She really was un-prepared for this trip. Did she even go to the building? Wendy coughed loudly, then looked at Sloane in the eye, her face suddenly filled with concern.”We have to find him, guys. I know we haven’t been a team at all, but I need you guys to help me get him back.”

Alex made a noise of displeasure, and I didn’t want to mess with the secret agents right now without the Alpha’s approval. Sloane on the other hand though, walked up to her until there wasn’t room left in between them. Sloane wrapped her arms around her, and at first I thought she was going to strangle her, but no, she hugged Wendy.

When Sloane pulled away, Wendy looked completely baffled. “You’re really forgiving, you know that right?”

“I’m not actually,” Sloane says, smiling at her. “I just am for family.”

Family. That’s what we’re supposed to be, but I never thought any of us would utter the word. I gave them both a hug; if Sloane can forgive Wendy, then without a doubt I could forgive her as well. Alex groaned out loud, but hugged us as well. He’s still a little iffy about Wendy, but he doesn’t want to be the brat in the group.

“Okay,” Wendy said, returning back to her stiff manner. “I have his home address and his actual business address, but I don’t think the secret agents have him in either. Do you think it’s possible they took him back to the States?”

I looked over at Wendy’s grandparents to see their reaction. They didn’t seem pleased with the idea whatsoever. Wendy’s grandfather looked stressed out just of the thought of the secret agents taking his son away.

“Wendy we need to know now what we need to do,” Alex says strongly. “If we don’t hurry, the Alpha will be the one taking care of this, and I don’t think your uncle will live in the process.”

“I know where he is,” Wendy’s grandmother spoke up, her voice soft and scared. “There’s a secret agent headquarters near the grocery store.”

“Grea-a-at,” Alex said sarcastically. “We’ll head into their headquarters, just the four of us, barely spies, but hey, why not?”

In mere minutes, we were there. Alex was swearing in various languages, and Sloane kept smacking him in the arm, swearing at him in various languages as well. Wendy kept looking over her shoulder every time she heard a single noise in the car, even though we were perfectly safe.

“Once we go in, we can’t leave until we have my uncle,” Wendy said, looking at all of us in the eye. “Even if it’s too dangerous.”

Everyone nodded, but I can tell if it does get too dangerous we’ll all leave in a nanosecond. We got out of the car, then we hurried to the left side of the building, hiding our faces from any of the video cameras that may be filming us. We put the hoods of our sweatshirts over our heads (purchased at a local store) and then I smashed the window with my elbow.

Sloane jumped through the broken window first, doing a somersault roll in the process. Wendy went in next, then Alex, then I finally jumped through it. Immediately three secret agents appeared shooting guns like they were nerf guns. I dodged them the best I can, but I felt one graze my leg as it went by. I looked down and see my jeans sliced, and blood trickling down.

A secret agent grabbed a knife out of his pocket, and threw it at me. Sloane grabbed it midair, and stabbed it right into him. Alex and Wendy fought off the rest of the secret agents, giving Sloane and I time to gather the weapons. Sloane took the knife and wiped the blood on the carpet before sliding it in a compartment in her boot custom made for a knife.

“Where the heck did you get those?” I whisper at her.

“I may have taken them from Wendy’s grandmother when she wasn’t looking,” Sloane answered, adverting her eyes from me.

Once Alex and Wendy killed their secret agents, we continued on down the hall, straining to hear what secret agents were saying up ahead. Preferably trying to hear Bradley, even though we don’t know what his voice sounds like. Wendy got out two guns from her back pocket, and started shooting, screaming at them. Sloane grabbed a gun, and started helping.

Wendy’s not thinking straight. All her bullets are missing, something that rarely happens with Wendy Pierce. Sloane handled the two secret agents, and then summoned us with her hand to follow down the hallway. The hallway has shaggy carpet, and the paint on the walls is peeling.

As we were heading into a split hallway, the lights went out. Total darkness surrounded us. I didn’t dare to move a muscle in my body, afraid a secret agent could see me. I didn’t hear my team make a single noise, making me feel even more self-conscious of my surroundings.

I heard it from far away; the sound of someone loading their gun. I went down to the ground in one fluid movement, hoping my teammates heard it too. Boom. The first bullet went off. I prayed it wouldn’t hit us, and thank God it hit the wall.

I heard another gun being loaded, closer than the first one. Seconds went by, then finally, from where the first bullet was shot from, I heard a groan. I stood up slowly, then peered down the left hall, seeing a shadow of a body on the floor, and a shadow towering over it.

“It’s me,” Alex says quietly, moving toward me swiftly.

I let out a sigh of relief, but automatically feel a tip of a knife on my back. My body goes stiff. This is it, I’m going to die. I’ve escaped death too many times, and now, I’m going to get what’s been brewing for a long time.

“NO!” Sloane screamed all of a sudden.

The killer loosened the knife long enough for me to turn around and put my own knife into his stomach. The killer groaned and fell to the ground, lifeless. I felt Alex rush pass to me to Sloane’s voice. I follow close behind, but once we got to where we heard her voice, there’s no shadows there.

“Where’d they go?” Alex says, his voice filled with anxiety.

I shake my head even though he can’t see me in the darkness. We went down the east side of the building, our ears strained for voices. I started feeling hollow at the thought of losing a teammate so soon. If Sloane got killed, it’d be my fault because I’m supposed to keep everyone on my team safe, no matter what.

Minutes have gone by, and by this point, we know we’re going the wrong way. We could be going in circles for all we know. We turned down another pitch dark hallway before we hear the sound of Wendy’s voice.

“Sloane?”

Wendy’s voice sounds raspy and pained. We ran down the hallway and saw two shadows on the ground; one moving, the other not.

The moving shadow has to be Wendy, so I rush to her aid, touching her gently on the shoulder. “It’s me and Alex.”

“Sloane? Sloane!” Alex says urgently, kneeling down next to Sloane. “She’s not moving. What happened, Wendy?”

“I was shot and was dragged by two agents, she tried helping, but one of them stabbed her. I don’t know where, but she withered in pain, then stopped.”

“Wendy we need to get out of here. I can’t tell where the blood is coming from in the dark, and the only way to safety is outside.”

Wendy wants to protest, but I can tell by her body language she can’t say no. I put her on my back piggy back style, then start walking back from where we came, I think. Alex is right behind me, telling Sloane to hold on a little while longer.

“We have to save Bradley, Eric,” Wendy said, her voice timid.

“No, we don’t, Wendy,” I answer back. “This isn’t our problem anymore, especially if Sloane’s dead, Wendy.”

She starts crying, but I’m not sure if she’s crying over Sloane, or crying at the fact we’re leaving her uncle to his death. I don’t know why she’s even hung over about him. It’s not like she even exists to him. As we keep going, I know we’re heading in the wrong direction since I hear the sound of a computer humming.

I stop in my tracks, and turn around. This is it, now or never. Whoever is in that room will hear us, so it’s either we try to fight him, or outrun him. Wendy stopped crying, and now I feel her body slowly slacking from my back. She’s losing too much blood, both of them.

Alex nudges me, then through the darkness, I can see his movement for a second, and see him pointing at the direction we just came from. I nod my head, then we both start running for our lives. The door flies open behind us.

I race down the hallway, realizing I’m lagging behind Alex as we turn every corner. Alex seems to know where he’s going by the time we hit the fourth hallway. What’s up with hallways here? I see the glass door and immediately let out a scream of triumph. Once we’re in daylight, we run into the car and start it. Alex drives away and I check out the wounds.

Wendy seemed fine, but is shot in the shoulder. I pull it out the best I could without it being excruciating for Wendy. She sighed in relief once it was out, but blood was still pouring out of her. It took every ounce of me to finally turn my gaze to Sloane.

Sloane. I gagged when I saw her. She’s cleanly stabbed in the side and it’s a miracle she’s still alive. There’s nothing I can do for her but put pressure on the wound. She’s not even here with us. Every minute that goes by she’s somewhere else. She’s dying on us.

“Alex, Sloane will die any minute now! We need to go now!”

When we got to Wendy’s grandparents house, Alex started honking the horn like a maniac. Her grandparents came rushing out, and they immediately helped us. They took Sloane and carried her inside, and I lifted Wendy out. Alex turned the car off, shut the doors, and locked them. He helped me bring Wendy into the house, but I can tell his mind is on Sloane.

“Is she okay?” We all ask once we get into the house.

“Did you guys find Bradley?” Wendy’s grandmother asked, glancing up at us as we walked into the grandfather’s office.

“No,” Wendy says, her voice tired. “He’s dead. They killed him, and I knew once I was shot that he wasn’t there.”

Her grandmother, so old and fragile, crumpled to the ground in defeat. After years of protecting your son from the spies and agents, she failed. Wendy kneeled down next to her, whispering her apologies. Alex looked over at me, and shook his head as he saw me leaning down to hug Wendy.

He wants me to leave her alone like this. Why should I listen to him? Just because he stalked her almost his whole life doesn’t mean he knows everything about her. If he did he’d be the one dating her, not . . . me?

No. We aren’t dating. She and I may have hit it off from the beginning, but she turned on me. She pushed me away from her, and I pushed her away as well. If she wanted to regain that connection, I’m sure she would’ve done it by now.

I hear a cough from the table. Sloane! I walk over and see her eyes slowly blinking awake. She looks around, trying to process the last twenty minutes. She tried sitting up, but Wendy’s grandfather gently pushed her back down.

“You need your rest, dear.”

She looked at Alex, her face brightening once she sees him. Wendy doesn’t do that when she sees me, not at all. I take a closer look at Sloane, and I’m not going to lie; she still looks terrible. I can tell she feels horrible too by the way she keeps gritting her teeth whenever she moves any muscles in her body.

“Does she need to go to the hospital?” Alex asks, looking stressed.

“What’s the hospital going to do?” Wendy’s grandfather said, snorting. “When you get deeper into your training, you’ll learn everything you need to know about being a doctor.”

We all sit there in silence until Wendy has enough nerve to stand up and take a look at Sloane. All the pain Sloane’s going through is because of her. Wendy never liked Sloane for a minute, and even now I don’t think she cares for her too much.

“Now, Sloane,” Wendy’s grandfather said, his voice trying to sound soothing, but you can hear the urgency in his voice. “The only way you can get your full treatment is if you stay with me for two extra days.”

“You want me to . . . stay here?” Sloane asks, sounding pained just to talk.

“Well, yes,” he answers. He turns to me and Alex, trying to muster a smile. “It’s quite logical really. If she stays here I can make sure everything is healing as it should. If you want, I’m sure Wendy could stay-“

“No,” we all answer. If Wendy stayed here, the Alpha would kill us all. It would be a slow painful death, something none of us are ready for. He shrugged, then returned his attention to Sloane.

Wendy stands next to me, looking uncomfortable. “We should be leaving soon if we don’t want to die in the hands of the Alpha.”

Alex nods, but he won’t leave Sloane’s side. Wendy and I gently started pulling Alex away, leading him to the car the best we could without me actually throwing him on my back and throwing him into the car. Wendy’s grandmother drove us to the airport, and when we got on the flight, Alex and Wendy went right to bed.

I leaned back in my seat, my eyes closing. I’m not a huge fan of airplanes, probably because I don’t like sitting this close to unknown people. I’m sitting next to a five year-old and her brother who is seven.

“That’s my coloring book!” She says in a high pitched voice, grabbing the coloring book with all her might.

Her brother cackles and pulls back. “Just let me have it before mom comes over here and takes it away from both of us.”

I see their mother sitting one row up with her baby and a three year-old. Sighing loudly, I open both of their trays, take the coloring book, open it to a page with pictures, and put it back down. “Is that better?”

The kids look at me, flabbergasted. Finally they’re speechless. I’ve had to listen to them bicker about that damn coloring book for nearly fifteen minutes. Whether it wasn’t the right picture, or one of them wanted both pictures. I was finally the adult and told them what page they could each color and if they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to color anymore.

Now, if their mother heard me tell her kids this, I’m sure she’d try to beat me, but she isn’t here, and I don’t think these kids want to even mutter a word about this. I look out the window, my mind slowly turning off. It’s been running all day as if I drank six cups of coffee in one hour.

Right when I was dozing off, the plane landed. I sit up and meet Alex and Wendy once everyone’s filed out of the plane. Right when we walk out of the gate, I see the Alpha waiting with three body guards. He smiled at us until he sees Sloane uncounted for.

“Come now,” The Alpha says, his voice light.

We walk behind him, all three of us giving each other petrified looks. We don’t like the Alpha, and we don’t want him to be the person to kill us. If I’m going to die, I want to die in the hands of someone who has a reason to kill me, not because we didn’t bring back one of our teammates who somehow is breathing.

Once we get into the limo, he looks at us, smirking. “See, Wendy? Look what happens when you do a task much too high for your level. Now Sloane’s dead, one of the only people in this squad I had hope for.”

“Actually, she’s alive,” Alex says, narrowing his eyes at the Alpha.”

“Then where is she?”

“She’s with my grandparents,” Wendy says, her voice tense. “She nearly died, it’s lucky she survived.”

The Alpha smiled widely. “I knew it! I knew she’d be able to survive almost anything! Her father trained her to the bone. Well, when she returns, we can fully discuss the matters of this situation.”

The limo dropped off the Alpha first, and then Alex. As we drove to Wendy’s house, I can tell there’s tension in the air. I look over at her, and lightly touch her shoulder. “You shouldn’t feel this bad about what happened to Sloane.”

“I know, but it’s still my fault she’s in another country still and not with her family,” Wendy answers, her voice wavering from okay to danger mode.

“She’s not mad at you, Wendy. She chose to help you, remember?”

“I keep hurting everyone, Eric,” She says back sadly, looking over at me. Her eyes are red from crying, and for once, she looks innocent.

“You can fix that, Wendy. You’ve already have. When Sloane comes back you can apologize and move on. “

“Oh yeah? And how about you? Don’t even think for a second I haven’t seen that look you give me every time you think I’m not looking. I don’t like you that way, Eric, and I never will. If you must know, Alex is more appealing to me than you are at the moment.”

Smacked. Smacked right to the face. She threw my heart on the ground and stomped on it repeatedly. How can she like Alex more than me? I saved her and carried her out of the secret agent building until we were safely back home. She won’t do this to me again, no she won’t.

“If you think you can just get rid of me like that, you’re wrong,” I say, looking at her, making sure she meets my gaze. “You’re going to be spending every day with me whether you like it or not. If you think that Alex likes you, you’re mistaken. Don’t try to change his mind, because if you do, Sloane won’t have a hard time killing you.”

She looked at me, her face hurt, but understood. She got out of the limo once we arrived in front of her house without another word. Whether she realizes it or not, in the end, she’ll be the one begging me to be with her, not the other way around.