Twelve

"Come on, Lizzy! You can do it, just one more time," I encourage the fourteen-year-old girl as she is training, her cheeks red from the effort.

I cross my arms, watching her. Not only do I do all sort of missions for the agency, I need to train the kids who joined the North Agency. Lizzy has been here since she's twelve and I can already tell she has potential. She's very strong for her age.

But she hates sports.

Annoyed, she lets herself fall to the ground, giving up.

"I can't anymore. I hate sports," she grumbles, looking up at me, her green eyes tired.

I smirk. "I should call you Lazy."

She glares at me. "Don't."

Shaking my head with a small smirk, I watch as she gets up from the ground. I'm training her with everything since she joined the agency and somehow, I can see a bit of myself in her. She doesn't talk to a lot of other kids, saying they are too 'immature and stupid' for her.

Lizzy looks at something over my shoulder, a scowl automatically appearing on her face.

"I really hate that bitch," she mumbles, shaking her head.

Raising my eyebrows, I turn my head to look behind me. I'm a little surprised to see that she's talking about Nova.

I narrow my eyes. I haven't said anything to her since last mission and I don't plan to. I'm afraid I won't be able to control myself.

I look back at Lizzy, crossing my arms.

"Lizzy." I shake my head with a look of disapproval, but I'm surely not offended at all by what she said or unhappy.

"What? You do, too." She crosses her arms and shrugs with a small smirk. "This is pretty obvious. Seriously, if she wasn't here, you could be back with your lover boy. I mean, he was still your boyfriend when he 'died'—"

I tense, giving her a hard and surprised look.

"What? What are you talking about? How do you know this?" I narrow my eyes and take a step towards her.

Unfortunately, she's not afraid of me. I think I've been a little bit too nice towards her. I don't know how it happened or why. Maybe the fact I could really see my younger me when I looked at her have something to do with it.

I blink, realizing all of this just now. Then, I clench my jaw and shake my head, telling myself I'll need to change this. If she thinks I'm her friend, she's wrong.

I can't be nice to anyone or care about anybody. That's way too dangerous.

"People talk here." Lizzy shrugs again, looking far behind me.

I blink. "Seriously?"

She nods, untying her ponytail. Her brown hair falls on her shoulders.

"This is so obvious, anyway. Just the way you look at each other, sometimes. Without even realizing it."

"What are you talking about, again?" I ask in an annoyed tone, my eyes narrowed and my body tensed.

I don't like where this shit is going.

Lizzy sighs. "Turn around."

"What?"

"Just fucking turn around." She rolls her eyes and ignores my cold glare.

She's clearly not supposed to talk to me like that and she knows it. I decide to let that one go and turn around because that girl won't stop until I do it.

I sigh, looking behind me. My eyes wander around when I see him. Brandon is staring right at me, his arms crossed, ignoring something Mr. Neil is currently saying to him.

Since our late night talk in my door room, I guess something calmed down between us. I stopped automatically scowling at his presence. We haven't talked that much, but now that I see him looking at me, now that I think of him, something inside me burns with sudden anger.

I'm angry to do that. To stare at him back. To wonder why he's looking at me.

He has a girlfriend. You're his past and he's your past.

Why is it so hard to let go of it, then? The damn past that I told myself to let go four years ago, and I thought I did. Until he came back, and everything is now different.

I turn back towards Lizzy, pissed. "What the hell! Why did you tell me to turn around?"

"See?" She shrugs, smirking.

Dear God, I am letting myself influenced by a fourteen-year-old.

"I'm just saying that technically, you two never broke up," she continues, and I'm surprised by the sudden soft tone she's using.

I don't like it at all.

"Your training is done," I conclude, turning around.

"Wait, Sophia—"

"Agent Montgomery," I cut her off, glancing in her direction. She freezes, seeing the serious expression on my face. Looking down, she nods.

"Yes. Agent Montgomery," she finally says, gathering her things.

I swallow the lump in my throat and tell myself that I'm just tired and stressed by everything. That what Lizzy said didn't affect me more than it should.

*

"Agent Montgomery, Mr. Neil would like to see you in the computers room," the agent announces, giving me a small smile.

I nod to her, not returning the smile and walk towards the room. When I enter, I can already tell that Nova, Andrew, and Brandon are here. They turn towards me when I arrive.

"Finally," Andrew mutters under his breath, shaking his head. "We waited forever."

I glare at him. "Do you have a problem?"

He narrows his eyes. "Yes. Waiting for you because you're tired and have personal problems are not good excuses."

"Watch out, Drake," someone growls lowly and I can see from the corner of my eyes that Brandon is glaring at a pissed Andrew.

The sudden thick tension between them hits me and I frown, looking between the two of them.

"Really? Defending your e—"

"That's enough!" Garry interferes just in time, glaring at the two men.

Andrew just turns towards him, his bored expression back. I glare at him with all the hate I can, because I can't believe he nearly said this in front of a confused Nova.

Nova tried to comfort Brandon, her arm going around him. He only tenses more and steps away a little bit, rubbing his eyes.

"If I asked all of you to come here is to talk about the last mission," Mr. Neil starts saying, looking at all of us seriously. "The USB key."

My heart skips a beat and I forget about what just happened. "What about it?"

He turns towards me, smiling.

"I'm glad you were able to bring it back here despite everything that happened that night. We went through it and found this."

Mr. Neil taps something on the computer and a second later, a document appears on the screen. When I look more carefully, I notice that it looks like a list of... names.

"Is that... a list of names?" Brandon voices my thoughts, frowning.

Nova has her arms crossed beside him, her face blank of emotions and her eyes staring at the list like it's not a big deal. She raises her eyes, waiting for Mr. Neil to continue.

"It is, indeed," he answers, glancing at him. "At first, we didn't think it was a big deal, just like you are probably thinking. But what if those names you see could answer a lot of our questions?"

My eyes automatically meet the board a bit further, where the words CIRCLE, BIRD, and MASTER are written on it.

Master doesn't need me tonight.

That's what the man said that night on the phone.

It all makes sense. This list of names could really be the answers we're searching.

I don't know why I don't voice that supposition I have. I prefer to wait and see, I guess.

Matthew King

Charles Barton

Vincent Fitzgerald

. . .

For now, these names don't ring a bell.

*

I have my own mission to fulfill. There's no way I can forget that.

Now, a couple of hours later after this reunion with Mr. Neil and the others, I finally have a bit of time for myself.

I lock the door of my dorm room and walk towards the bookcase. When you look at it, there's nothing special. Just a simple bookcase.

I start pushing it to the side. Then, behind it, hidden from all eyes, is my own board for my own mission.

I step back and look at all the clues, the old pictures, the cities, the names...

Everything I conserved to find my father.

I cross my arms.

Where do I begin, tonight?

*

HI GUYS!

It's been a while since I updated here, I'm sorry! :(

There was a time where I haven't written in days (lost of inspiration, writer's block)...

And then, I started writing the SEQUEL of SAMB! It's out now if you were a fan of SAMB! It's called Secret Agents: My Savior 😏

This chapter is shorter than usual, but I still hope you enjoyed it! ♥️ I'm trying not to go to fast with the story, or else I feel like everything will be over too soon.

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