Import_US Invasion - 2. Russian Roulette

Chapter 2

The rest of the day showed some semblance of normality and went off without any more incidents. That was until lunch hour. As I walked up to my mismatched crew of misfits, I realized they were awfully excitable as I approached. Now I normally wouldn’t be bothered by this cause, let’s be honest, I don’t care about whatever teen angst they were going through but this time Mason saw me first and immediately whispers harshly and the pack quiets down before I even reach our table.

Mason kept no secrets from me. I know this because in our twelve years of friendship, there was nothing I wanted to do more, than tell him mine.

About my past, Before he met me.

Before I moved to the States.

Before the Haynes’.

RUSSIAN ROULETE

I guess I should let you know how this all started. How I became a sixteen year old killing machine. Well, in all honesty, even I don’t know how it came to being. I just was.

I am part of a top secret intelligence agency, a distant descendent of the KGB, so off the grid that very few of the topmost officials knew of its existence. The Agency was a collusion of a couple renegade organizations of international security, whose sole purpose was to overthrow the US government and its expansive empire.

We specialized in the retrieval and study of intelligence in vast foray of fields ranging from military, medical and industrial just to name a few. This was critical to the growth and ultimate superiority of the agency to advance its cause and mandate.

The best war tactic known to man and proven it accuracy: Divide and conquer. To dethrone a present day powerhouse like the United States of America would take pulling all our resources and not being above exploiting theirs in our favor.

This entailed the search and procurement of: weapons, military secrets, manipulation of international and governmental instability, political agendas, industrial technology, medical breakthroughs and innovation, computer advancements. Several and any methods to attain the necessary funds to run this elaborate operation including but not restricted to: corporate espionage, fraud and embezzlement- a large presence in the black market where these lucrative trades could be made beneficial monetarily and influentially in terms of securing ties and partnerships. All faculties to our disposal and their detriment would be recouped and utilized strategically and covertly until the opportune moment to reveal ourselves.

We operated solely on back channels and through discrepancies that would remain undetected and almost entirely untraceable to anyone looking.

Clinical tests were administered on us as far back as infancy. We were injected with a serum that couldn’t be given to adult agents because their immunization had fully formed and their tissues had long undergone cell differentiation-which made then inadmissible for the treatment.

The synthesis of the drug and the host cell would soon after merging become unstable and progressively hostile. This would result in the body eventually rejecting the enhancing drug. The serums’ function was to heighten the senses and reflexes of the test subjects.

Unfortunately for the researchers, anti-bodies would always mount an attack against the invader substance and since the serum binds with the host cells, the subjects’ body would attack itself. This biological defense would manifest as an ugly, more aggressive form of autoimmune disease that killed the victim in no more than a week. Rapid cellular degeneration.

In testing, the scientists would observe clear indicators of success: faster reflexes, greater pain tolerance and a higher resistance to disease but a few days into the trials the individual would wither rapidly and die. This outcome was unavoidable for all their adult test subjects. A dead-end to their project. A major investment by a then thought to be defunct KGB. One of the proudest and oldest pioneers in international intelligence. The doctors couldn’t find a way to counteract this undesired biological response to the body’s own tissue and organs.

The experiments did however show that subjects really were stronger, faster and immune to most pathogens injected into the blood stream. In other words, they had created the perfect soldier.

So evidently the ultimate killing machine could be engineered. But couldn’t be transformed at such a late stage in development but maybe they could be bred. Like maybe from kids.

That’s how LoneStar came to being.

My earliest memories included a dark under-ground society. A labyrinth of tunnels and chambers. An entire fortress kept hidden from the human eye by the mere fact that it was several feet under everyone else. Out of sight. There was a lot of rock and steel-very sparse light, except in the laboratory where they conducted all the tests. The lab setup was typical with blinding lights, several monitors and many cloaked personnel with either clipboards or medical equipment in hand. The harsh sterile smell of disinfectants in hospitals still triggered memories of that place for me.

They never spoke to us directly, just between themselves. They didn’t treat us like a doctor would his or her patient but as plain objects. I guess that’s what we were to them. Human weapons but weapons none the less. We had no idea what human affection even looked like since we’d never witnessed anything remotely akin to it. This place was all that we knew .This set the precedence for all human interaction in our minds.

They would routinely check progress, synthesis and then inject you with an enabler, like a catalyst to the original shot. This booster shot would send a searing heat all through your body like you were being burned from the inside out. The seething pain would have you writhing and wracking against the examination table. We regarded you as lucky if you past out from it.

I was among the fifty odd children in this ‘home’. I use the word home for lack of a better word. Actually military facility would be more apt ‘cause that’s what it really was. We had no sense of individualism besides our phenotypic differences. We all had shaved heads and wore white linens at all times. We were never to be addressed by our birth names probably because we never had any. Legally no government had record of any of our births so we were literally ghosts within the system.

That’s the fact that the entire success of the agency hinged on: that we did not exist, undetectable and untraceable. Like phantoms. Nothing we did could ever be followed back to the LoneStar HQ.

Every day was the same yet so much harder than the previous one, it would drive you insane if you didn’t find a way to compartmentalize what we were subjected to. It actually did turn some kids into foaming lunatics and the weak always got the same treatment-execution.

If the chemicals being poured into us didn’t kill you or the rigorous training regimen, then you had only one other factor to worry about-Each other. We had no regard for human life so a simple misgiving over bed space or toys would be sorted out by a duel to the death. This was so customary it hardly drew any attention from the rest who were going about their daily activities outside of combat training. The wardens, our guardians, used to bet on who would win and the winner always had to clean up their mess. In other words, dispose of your opponent’s body and clean up what blood was spilt.

We were constantly going in and out of tutoring lessons, in cognitive thought, recollection, linguistics, anatomy, Kyusho Jitsu (pressure points) and the doozy -impulse response. Sort of like the spies lie detector, we had these tests once a week. They would read you a story and tell you that this was your life-your truth and for that hour, you needed to believe and sell it because you were about to take a lie detector test on the fictional life you were given. This tactic groomed and molded me into a master of selective disinformation.

Forget academy award recognition, we were expected to perfect the art of duplicity early on. A fail meant solitary and a grotesque form of torture that I still have trouble revisiting.

Mental training, mental fitness was what they could it. Mental conditioning was what it truly was. I was made to believe the USSR was wronged. That we were robbed. We needed redemption and the only way to get it from an underhanded adversary like United States of America was to take it. We believed we were beyond justified in our cause. We would help rebuild our fallen empire. Very patriotic knowing you were fighting for your own people’s liberation and virtue.

It was our last year of ‘conditioning’ that I remember the most. We were trained to be ruthless, unfeeling soldiers long before I even knew what life meant- I knew how to end one. I was five when I first killed. By the time we first saw daylight- outside of the artificial simulation in the fortress, only seven of the strongest remained and I was shipped off for adoption.

We were ready.

You should know that there are several sleeper agents’ present within the United States and its affiliates. Besides the seven that were part of my division, there are others in various levels of government, media and as civilians. All trained and awaiting their orders.

We were taught in over eight of the world’s most spoken dialects in our extensive tutoring sessions. So we could pass off as any nationality when the time came. We picked up the accents easily because of our young minds and innate ability to pick up inflections, changes in tone and hitches most people would miss.

Friday was game night. We had no attachments to society so the things most would consider unfitting for our age, was the norm for us. We had a thirst for violence. And even stronger than that was our competitive edge, we were always pitted against each other, you’d always want to win. Out do the rest and prove your worth.

Those nights we were allowed to play with our favorite toy. An old Colt Dragoon Revolver and play a very dangerous, very real round of Russian roulette. The wardens loaded the gun, sometimes there was a bullet. Sometime if you were lucky, the barrels were completely empty. And on really special occasions, they would be more than one bullet in the pistol.

We didn’t fear death, mostly because we were never really alive to begin with. If you chose not to play, you would have a tough time in the dorms once the game was through. You’d immediately be labeled as weak. That was a very dangerous title to wear in a room filled with remorseless predators.

Like I said, if the system didn’t kill you, one of us would have.

My New Life

The foundation for Mason and I’s friendship predates our own existence. My mother and Mason’s are old college roommates, actually sorority sisters from the good old Chi Beta house. Don’t judge me; you don’t get to pick your parents! Even when you’re adopted.

They later lived together after graduation in an apartment here in the city and la di dah met their future husbands.

Mom and dad got hitched and had Victoria and Justin a year before the Crawford’s had their second born, Mason. He had an older half-brother Hudson. Naturally, the mother’s wanted their children to grow up as best friends, if not as family. The whole ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ motto was not a myth among these folks.

They shared parental duties from the very beginning. Whatever kindergarten and later elementary school the twins went to, Mason would follow right behind. This system would have worked perfectly had mom not enlisted for ‘Doctors Without Boarders’ and saw the after math of nations in war in Northern Africa.

Before she left on a flight back to the US she was informed of a boy who’d come down with his parents who were reporters from California. The couple was held by a rebel group before being killed execution style in front of their five year old son. The Nato troops came down on the camp far too late.

She made the mistake of letting her feelings get the better of her while working and asked to see me. That was all it took. She looked into my hazel eyes and decided then to take me back with her, before even consulting dad.

To say she expected PTSD was an understatement. She always warned the twins not to play roughly with me. The instruction was more directed at Justin than the well-mannered Victoria. I took the lead from her, that it was okay for me not to be ‘present’ and to act asocial. It was only natural from such trauma. See my objective was long engrained in my mind, unlike her, I wouldn’t get attached. This was a vehicle for my calling. The family was my cover. That was all. A means to an end.

The whole rebel group hostage fiasco was all a set up. It was my in. It was meant to get me absorbed into the adoption system where allies would allocate me a ‘convenient’ host family.

What was highly annoying after moving into this new family was how cramped it was. Not space wise, the home was a large two stories and had an expansive backyard. It’s the number of kids wanting me to play and the double set of parents that was stifling. It felt like I was suffocating. I knew then that something must have gone wrong, surely Master wouldn’t test me like this. He promised me an affluent couple that had more money than they needed and more importantly commitment to their jobs, so I would be undetected when I had my missions to get to, no one to question me or my where-a-bouts.

I was stationed with the wrong hosts. My mom had already single handedly ruined the first phase of my assignment. By the time agents could trace back the process it seemed more effort than it was worth, most result in some unwanted attention if they intervened any further in my adoption.

What proved to be the greater test however, was getting the five year old Mason to leave me alone. I guess maybe he felt left out of the whole Justin-Tori twin dynamic they had going on at the time and he probably wanted to have the same vibe with me since we were the same age. He thought wrong.

I figured, if I showed enough disinterest and ignored him completely he’d eventually back off. I thought wrong.

He would offer me his favorite toys and I’d either throw them at him, literally, or break them. The kid would make excuses for my reaction like ‘yeah you’re right it is a stupid action figure’ or ‘I’ll ask mom to buy me a better one, then we can play’. Wrong sport, you play there-away from me.

He’d find me sitting under the huge oak in our yard and sit next to me. I’d naturally get up to leave until I came up with sinister idea. If I climb up the tree, he’d be sure to follow and if I climbed just high enough he’d get stuck. Then I’d be left alone and so that’s what I would do.

This back and forth went on for a long while, I can’t tell you how many times the fire department was sent over to retrieve the boy from that tree. I always led him up and would leap with the agility of a cat to get down, never looking back.

The thing that started to gnaw at my mind though, was how after the sixth time, he still never sold me out. It would always be his fault and that’s that.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Several unfortunate things would befall Mason at my hands over the early years. He’d never tell. I take credit for breaking his nose when we were seven, a fractured rib a year later and finally dislocating his shoulder at nine. Not once did he alert the parents that these accidents were not all that accidental. He would always take the blame and provide iffy details as to how he incurred the injuries. Truth be told, he was partly to blame. He was hurt either by invading my space or grabbing me in an attempt to play or by touching MY STUFF.

I still had side effects of my previous surroundings. Always on your guard. That’s why even then-especially then, never sneak up on me. I responded with a vipers speed at the possible threat. Hence his injuries.

I realized then that I needed to stop, or the next logical step was to kill the bugger because he was certainly not giving up on me. I had never witnessed this brand of foolishness or blatantly disregard for personal safety. I didn’t get it. I was a five year old who could assemble and operate a handgun, decipher military grade coded text, translate scripts into eight different languages- not counting Latin and ancient Greek and kill a grown man using only a string of yarn but this- this was BEYOND me. He was always happy to see me, even though I was his potential death trap. He dubbed me his best friend and would always have these grand tales to tell people of what we did together. Whereas the truth was, he was playing while I was avoiding him.

Hide and go seek was my favorite since I’d always make him hide and go read a book instead. It would guarantee a Mason-free environment for at least another three hours. Or hide so well in one of my several secret hide outs that he wouldn’t be able to find me even if he had the FBI on his side.

So I started exercising some serious restraint around him. Serious Restraint. Only to use some mild arm twisting or jabs to the side if he got over eager. Touched too much, laughed too hard, sat too close-those kinds of things. He’d pick up on that and back off. It was our special form of communication. He could do whatever he liked and if I didn’t shake my head, it meant that it was okay. If he didn’t heed that warning, the arm twisting usually cleared his head of all that dust.

That was the beginning of me tolerating him. The beginning of my affection towards him was in the second grade. Kids were making fun of me because of my ‘strange’ eye color; saying I was some strange sea monster that eats boogers or something to that effect. Naturally I couldn’t care less but what I didn’t know was that it bothered Mason- a lot.

One day after school, I was waiting with some of the other kids at the bus stop but Mason didn’t show. Annoyed that if I left without him, I’d have to explain why I was home and he wasn’t. I had to go out looking for him.

I saw a bunch of kids in a circle before a teacher spotted them too and shouted for them to break it up. The group quickly dispersed leaving a disheveled Mason with a bloody nose.

I walked up him and asked what happened, he wouldn’t budge. That’s until I threatened to hold his Buzz Lightyear lunchbox hostage. He finally spilled.

“They were making fun of you again and I told ‘em to stop it,” he mumbled sheepishly.

Long story short, they didn’t and he thought he was tough enough to take all three of them on. I wasn’t concerned at all by what kids my age were doing but the fact that he’d go out and risked his neck for me really struck a chord.

That day on the late bus home Tori helped me as we cleaned him up. We hid the incident from the parents because even back then, Mason was ‘such’ a tough guy. He had a short fuse so fights were not an anomaly in his early school years.

The next day I followed the group to the bathroom, switched off the lights so they wouldn’t see who it was. Then I proceeded to beat the living daylights out of them. I later realized that most kids my age, did not have the same pain tolerance as me. Amazingly fragile-they broke so easily. They were rushed off to the ER once a cleaner found them on the bathroom floor .The locals believed it was part of gang activity that had been invading state schools of late. What else would explain a violent attack on such young children?

For a second there, I wondered if I’d taken it too far. The worst of them took four months before returning to school with his cast still intact. Needless to say, the group at their young age developed some serious fear of the dark and some PTSD of their own to deal with-no time to be harassing their peers anymore. They’d probably always carry those emotional scars deep into their adulthood because they told police it must’ve been some wild animal. Like a werewolf -too viscous to be human.

The second moved to another state not long after to get better psychiatric help. The last ended up in a juvenile detention facility by the sixth grade and the leader…his drug addiction got him into trouble with some real gangsters by the eighth.

I had clearly grown heartily affectionate of this show off of mine back then already and for the longest he was the only one who could get a full smile out of me.

That was until my parents had Mathew, although he was an accident. Ten years younger than me and plainly unaware of all the barriers I had. Luckily for him, Mason was a pioneer. He paved the way for a safer transition for my bubbly younger brother. I had already worked out my kinks by then.

I took to him instantly and would often be left alone to babysit him. Dad was cautious of it at first. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust me. It was the fact that I had been such an enigma for the longest and I was only recently showing affection to both my parents and siblings that a baby might set me back.

Quite the opposite really, for once I learned to look after another and care for their well- being. This helped me understand how a family really worked and I began to notice all the little things that my older siblings had been doing for me since day one- to protect me.

I still call Matthew my light; he held the shadows at bay when I eventually had to remember why I was in the US to begin with. I had finally come of age, being sixteen I was no longer a sleeper agent and was ready to take on my cause.

Be an active member in what history would come to call the biggest coup d'état known to man. The destruction of the US government, along with all its allies, from the inside out. The very same which broke the sovereign ties the great Soviet Union once had would cease to exist. A shell of its current stature. So the mother nation would finally reclaim its former glory. USSR would soon become the dominant force it once was and I was a part of the vision.

====++====

Back in the cafeteria I still felt uneasy about their change in energy amongst my friends. What were they talking about?

“Okay guys, let’s have it.” I commanded.

The guys shifted uncomfortably which only aided to my increasing paranoia. Jenny came to the rescue because unlike them, she wasn’t confined by such trivial male relations.

“Mason has a date tonight!” she said with a bit more bite than I think she intended to put in that message.

I felt a cold sweat break out down my back and a resulting falter in my heart beat. I tried for all I am not to let the change show on my face.

“You didn’t tell me,” I said addressing Mason directly for the first time. Somehow convincing myself that the others have it all wrong, Mason didn’t do dates. I’m his best friend, I would know.

But the look of discomfort on his face said it all.

“Yeah, uhm sorta, Amber was really persistent and…” he stammered with a shrug of his shoulders. Like I said, the new dynamic between Mason and I just made this situation; which would normally be dismissed, rather awkward. We stared at each other for a while like the others weren’t at the table with us.

Honestly, I wasn’t staring him down. In actual fact, I was fighting the raging war within me. A conflict of emotions that was unwarranted. I had no claim to him. We were JUST friends, so I should be happy for him right?

The answer was NO.

No, I wasn’t happy for him.

I didn’t know how I felt but happy was not part of the equation.

He looked at me like someone who was begging you to take them out of their misery. As if I was the cause of this. What did he want me to do, say ‘no don’t go’. Believe me; I wanted to but then what? Mason and I were crazy close; the only human that could dethrone him was my little brother. We had surpassed the friendship territory and somewhat flirting with the boarder where lovers dwelled but we never dared to cross it. I could not be that selfish.

“Jeez Mase, man you don’t have to explain yourself. It’s not like you two are a thing.” Damon’s biting drawl chimed in as he rolled his eyes at us.

“Come on, D “said Ziggy admonishing his overt hostility. My and Mason’s relationship was complicated. Most didn’t understand it and no one was most perplexed by it than Damon. He felt that I had this incomprehensible pull on Mason that he didn’t quite get.

I must explain, it’s not that Damon didn’t like me- or maybe he really didn’t, I couldn’t be bothered. But he was Mason’s friend first and hadn’t made it a secret that he believed I’m to blame for Mason’s non-existent love life. At first I didn’t get it and thought he was delusional, but now sitting at this table; I realized it might not be as farfetched as I had believed.

If I told Mason no that I wasn’t okay with him seeing Amber. Even if I didn’t give him a decent enough reason. Some ludicrous drivel about it causing me to break out into hives. He’d sacrifice his happiness for me, I knew that. He wanted me to. He promised he’d always be there for me and he was yet to break a single one in our ten years of friendship.

I decided I needed to stop being selfish. He deserved to be happy. He was a great guy, even better friend. He sacrificed so much for me without me having to ask, so it was time I sacrificed my pride for him.

With a deep breath I looked him in the eye and said.

“That’s great Mase,” knowing it was utter bull.

Jenny breathed out completely exasperated and not hiding her frustration at all. So to ease the tension- as always, Ziggy changed the subject. Talks of his latest online-computer game commenced.

“No! one day you’re going to lose a bet so large you’ll be living of the streets or worse. Serving out your youth in a state prison because you were hacking a site you had no business sniffing around,” argued Jenny.

“I’m bound to make bank this time though,” Ziggy defended his latest project. The deep under world of the interwebs where computer-wizzes lurked in dark cramped rooms was his niche. Making challenges taking bets with anonymous gamers was how he spent his pass time. And allowance

Their back and forth morality versus techno-geek fortitude carried on. They carried the conversation for the entire lunch period.

I should probably explain why I said I only have one friend yet spend lunch with three other people. They’re more Mason’s friends than mine. I seriously doubt they’d stick around if he inexplicably vanished.

Mason and I were naturally inseparable all through elementary school. In middle school he started playing baseball and became instant friends with a teammate of his named Damon Sibthorpe. Later that semester in our biology class we met Jenny. She spotted us and since our bunk had the only available seat left she had no choice but to be our third wheel. It didn’t take much for her and Mason to hit it off and before long she was following us out of class.

I surprisingly recruited the last member of our group, unintentionally of course. I had to join a club and because I wasn’t a people’s person I wanted to join one with as small of a social aspect as possible. I figured the Mathletes was my biggest shot. A bunch of antisocial, awkward teenagers who loved math, easy right?

Ziggy was in there. He joined because he genuinely loved math. But he had this sad delusion that he was way cooler than all the other kids that frequented these sorts of clubs. So you can imagine his delight when I walked into the room, broad shouldered, striking eyes, universally attractive. Bingo, friend.

He was completely content with talking to himself around me. One day after a meeting he followed me to our lunch table and never left.

====+++====

Wednesday afternoon before practice I needed to take Tori’s car to practice and she would catch a ride back home with either Justin or a friend from her newspaper.

Before I could drive off downtown to my gym, I discovered that she had left her laptop in the backseat. She’s going to need that to function the rest of the afternoon. See, Victoria is the editor of our school paper and writes a weekly column of her own, so you can see how this would have been a problem. She pours a lot of her time into the paper, it’s a shame that most of the school only reads it for the gossip section aptly named ‘Psssst… ‘.

Making my way to the east wing of the school where their ‘office’ was located I started thinking. Tori wasn’t a forgetful person. Even more so, she wouldn’t forget her laptop on the day she was having an after school meeting with her troops. ..this just smelled like a trap.

She did this on purpose and I was being lured there. The question is why?

Or I’m just being absurd and exceedingly suspicious of everything -occupational hazard. I walk into the busy room with over a dozen other students to find my sister, in the back by the big desk looking all the part of an editor. The Ringleader in her element. She opted for her glasses instead of contacts and her hair is pulled back into a messy bun. She’s wearing a white button up shirt and has it tucked into a pair of khaki high-waste short-shorts. I think that was her being edgy.

She looked up and spotted me and her eyes immediately began a frantic search around the room as if she was expecting someone else.

“Aw Hunter, is that my laptop?” she cooed. As if she couldn’t tell from the black laptop bag I had slung over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I almost left with it.” I responded before setting it down on her desk and turned to leave.

“Wait! I mean, you’re not in a hurry, practice only starts in an hour.” she said acting awfully weird-even on Tori standards. As if she was stalling.

“Tori, I have those stills of our last year’s camping trip you asked for,” came a strangely familiar voice from behind me. Yet I still couldn’t quite place where I knew it from until I turned around and faced the source.

Creepy camera guy.

“Oh Ryan, I just realized I’d rather hold off that piece until we have more recent pictures of the team,” she answered over my shoulder.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Ryan said as he squared his eyes solely on me as soon as he noticed my presence.

“Yeah…”I said awkwardly as I realized that this was a setup orchestrated by my meddling sister.

“So Tori tells me you’re a gymnast, like Olympic good.” He said running his hands down his jeans as if to wipe them. Were his palms sweaty, it’s not that hot out? Or was Is it because he was nervous?

“She’s exaggerating,” I retorted shortly. A Typical trait of mine in conversation. I’m sure Tori told him about that too since I’m clearly qualified as subject matter between the two of them.

“Oh stop being modest Hunter, he’s already being approached by colleges to compete for them,” she boasted while ‘playfully’ shoving me in a manner that said ‘participate’. No way lady, you want him here, you entertain him.

Everyone knows a silence becomes awkward after it reaches the four second mark. We were now on six. I refused to be Tori’s show pony. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence which I wasn’t bothered by but clearly the other two were. Ryan cleared his throat and announced he was about to leave.

“I’ll email the cover photos by Friday night latest,” He addressed Tori. So there goes the mystery surrounding this guy, she knew him because he’s the photographer for the paper.

“It was nice seeing you again, Hunter” he croaked in a low tone, almost a whisper. Like he’d suddenly lost his voice in midsentence.

“So…?” My sister poked as soon as he exited the room, looking very proud of herself.

“I have to go, Mihai hates it when I’m late,” I replied in a monotonous voice as a way to exit this conversation.

“You’re never late and it will only take you forty-five minutes to get to the gym. You have at least ten to spare for your favorite sister,” she compelled of me while sitting on her desk fixing her gaze on me. She capped this off with a sweet smile like she hadn’t disguised a command as a suggestion. I guess that’s was the secret to how she ran such a smooth ship round here, she made her staff believe they had wanted to do whatever she asked instead of the obvious which is that they didn’t quite have a choice. She was so sweet most people would never draw the deductions I did but I saw right through her tactics.

I dropped my shoulders a bit knowing I was going to regret doing this. With my driving I could get there in twenty but I’d much rather have a super long warm up than have this discussion. Especially if I am right about its direction.

“What do you want to know?” I asked with a regretful sigh. The other students were working like a beehive. They were so busy milling about their tasks that they couldn’t be bothered by what their editor and her younger brother were talking about.

“Do you think he’s cute? I mean, you have to be blind not to see that right?” she fired in rapid succession. She sounded quite certain of herself, which poses the question: Why ask me?

“I guess.” I answered with a shrug as I fingered my long black hair.

“Would you date him?” she fired next.

Whoa! Slow down. Who said anything about dating? I thought this was one of our mindless talks where she tried to gauge what my type was. Which up to this point, had amounted to no one on this side of the galaxy.

I just gave her a scrunched up expression and without skipping a beat she went in for her plea like she was his pseudo-defense council.

“He’s such a nice guy Hunt. I could tell on Monday already, even when you went all ninja on him that he likes you. It’s so cute, he asked me about you in History and over email last night.”

I said nothing. Just continued to stare at her with a blank expression. Yeah was cute but I don’t date- can’t date. That entailed I’d have to get emotionally attached. I couldn’t do that. Not in my line of work I was compromised enough as it is. I don’t need word getting out.

“That’s great, let him down easy for me okay?” I said as I exited the room.

“We’re not done here!” she shouted after me.

As far as I was concerned, we didn’t even have that conversation. I’m a secret agent for one of the oldest intelligence agencies around the world. I’ve already broken so many rules by loving my adoptive family and Mason too. I won’t allow this to become a trend, the more people I bring into my life, the more vulnerable it makes me. In a world of no certainties, that was never a great state to be in.