Hello!! Sorry this update took a while, chapter 18 is complete crap right now, I’m sorry, actually this chapter’s pretty crappy too. I just haven’t been in the Omega mood for a while and wanted to just finish the chapter before I destroyed it so yeah. Maybe I can go back and edit later, I don’t know. So yeah it may be a little while before I update again, sorry, because I had another idea for a book and I’m really excited and when that happens everything else leaves my mind, I think it’s ADD…but yeah. So thank you so much for being patient with me, I’m a terrible author really, and enjoy this chapter!! And please vote/comment loads, please tell me what you think, it means loads to me! Love you all!

Gracias!!! <3 vb123321

Chapter Seventeen



♣ Josh ♣



We were falling apart. I was most worried about Charlie, after his breakdown at the bar, watching him carefully as we exited the building and walked tensely in the growing darkness down a backstreet to the safe house. He was jumpy, his hand obviously tightly clutching the gun in his pocket and his eyes still wild, and he insisted we round the corner and advance the house from the back just in case anyone was watching the street. Gauging that his nerves were high-strung enough, I refrained from pointing out that if someone was watching the street, they could just follow us to the house.



“Don’t tell Astrid,” he said again suddenly, as we approached the house. “She’ll freak out, and I don’t want to worry her.”



I looked at him for a long moment, hesitating as my conscience and my brain had a little struggle. “Do you think she should know, though, if something’s the matter?”



“Nothing’s the matter.” His voice was vehement, and though it was too dark for me to make out his expression, I could see that his eyes were burning fiercely. “It’s just something that I have to deal with. I can get over this.”



I wasn’t too sure but nodded anyway, my heart heavy as I pushed open the back door of the safe house. This choice was completely up to him, as I didn’t even really know what was going on with it, but I still felt wrong, as though I should have argued with him longer. The look in his eye warned me not to, and remembering how distraught he had been in the bathroom and the shock on his face when he had seen the swarthy man, I kept silent.



Astrid appeared in the kitchen, alarmed, as we entered, and relief was evident on her face as Charlie shut the door behind us. “Thank goodness you guys are safe,” she said, but her eyes were on Charlie. “I was starting to get a little worried…” And then her eyes narrowed as she looked at our empty hands. “Did you forget where the grocery store is or something?”



We had forgotten that going to the grocery had been our excuse for getting out of the building. I glanced back guiltily at Charlie, who shrugged. He was looking at Astrid with an expression I couldn’t read on his face; it looked like it was taking all his effort not to run and put his arms around her. What had he said in the bathroom of the bar? He’s going to find her; he’s going to hurt her. What had that man done to him?



“They were out of eggs,” I said, turning back to Astrid with a straight face. “So we just went for a walk.”



“I didn’t ask for eggs!” But she smiled. “Come on; I have some dinner ready. You’re probably starving.”



“For your food?” I retorted, and she punched my arm. Laughing, I picked up one of the plates that were on the counter, inspecting the macaroni and cheese on it with a suspicious air before dodging another one of her punches. Hurrying out of the room to collapse on the couch next to a surprised-looking Joel, I called in a pacifying tone, “All right, all right! I’ll eat it!”



“You want some, Charlie?” I heard her ask. “I promise I didn’t put anything weird in it.”



“I’m not hungry, thanks,” was his vague answer, and a moment later I saw him leave the kitchen from the other doorway and enter the bedroom I was sharing with Joel. The door closed behind him, and for a moment there was silence in the kitchen. Then Astrid emerged, her dark eyes troubled as she sank down in the armchair with her own plate.



I looked down at my food, my stomach weighed down with guilt. Astrid was watching me with a look that begged me to tell her what she needed to know, but it wasn’t up to me to say, and so still I kept silent, forking a mouthful of cheesy noodles into my mouth and avoiding her eyes. She let out a minute sigh and began to eat as well.



“So how was your walk?” asked Joel brightly, and I glanced at him. His blonde hair was in a fluffy mess all over his head, falling into brilliantly blue eyes as he tapped his fork against the edge of his plate distractedly. I realized with a pang that he had to be feeling pretty ignored, because all of Astrid’s attention was on Charlie and I wasn’t used to putting up with kids. And yet he seemed happy enough.



“It was fine.” I made an effort to sound cheerful. “I was thinking – there’s an empty lot in back of this safe house, Charlie and I found it just now, so maybe we could find a basketball and we could practice some moves. Whatcha think?”



“Are you serious?” Joel almost dropped his plate. “That would be fantastic! I was just worrying whether or not I’d –”



“– be able to make the team next year when you get back,” I finished, laughing, and reached over to ruffle his hair. “Sure thing, kid. You can show me some of those sick moves you used in the game, and we can get you back in business so that you can impress all the girls when you get back to Michigan. What was her name again? Emily?”



He actually blushed, taking another bite to hide his embarrassment. “She’s a sophomore,” he mumbled. “And I think she likes the center on my team.”



“Ahh.” I nodded knowingly, bringing one hand to my mouth as if sharing a secret. “You might be right, you know. Astrid thought he was super hot, too.”



A smile played at the corner of Astrid’s mouth as she pretended not to have heard this, saying loudly that she thought people who whispered were rude. Joel looked at her dubiously, a frown pulling the corners of his mouth down, and then he sighed heavily. “So it’s true. All girls do think he’s hot.” He sucked the end of his fork morosely. “Why can’t that be me?”



“Don’t get yourself down,” I consoled him, punching his arm in a conspiratorial manner. “By senior year, you’ll be smoking. Just wait.”



He grinned. “You think so?”



“I know so. Blonde hair and blue eyes is a combination no girl can resist. I’ve hung around Astrid long enough to know that.”



She snorted. “Okay, Mr. Expert. I’ll have you know I have a thing for brunettes.”



“Oh, right, I forgot.” I smirked, and she gave me a stern look.



“She likes some blondes, too,” put in Joel suddenly, suspicious again. This kid switched emotions faster than I could blink – he was worse than Astrid. “Didn’t you always have a crush on my older brother, Astrid?”



Her eyes widened slightly before she quickly composed herself again. “Jay? I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, thank you.” Her air was haughty and it was all I could do not to holler with laughter.



Joel was smirking. “I have a better memory than you think. I know I was only six, but I remember how you freaked out when he came home that one time. From boarding school – or, wait…” He looked a little confused. “From spy school?”



Astrid smiled, a little sadly. “Yeah, spy school. Well, anyway, that,” she coughed, “was a long time ago. I’m seventeen now.”



“So old,” came Charlie’s voice, and we all turned to see him in the doorway of the living room, a smile touching his face as he looked mockingly at Astrid. I took it he missed the Jay comment or he wouldn’t be smiling. She grinned at him and gestured for him to come in. He walked forward, seating himself on the floor next to the couch and leaning against the armrest to my right. Joel suddenly looked uncomfortable, and I sighed inwardly, wishing I knew how to straighten out this mess.



“Hungry now?” Astrid was clearly making an effort to keep her voice casual.



Charlie shook his head. “Nothing on your food. I just don’t feel like eating. I’ll get something later.”



“Okay.” She bit her lip for just a moment and then looked over at me again. “Actually, now that we’re all here, I’ve been meaning to bring something up.”



I was wary. “Oh?”



Putting her plate on the floor, she crossed her arms and fixed me with one of those looks that usually sent me running from the room, but I figured that wasn’t an option just then. “I’ve been thinking,” she began, and all three of us groaned collectively. She looked affronted. “Just listen, okay? I’ve been thinking, and I think that we need to leave the safe house, because we’ve been here too long and you’ve ran into other agencies too many times.”



“Astrid, please,” I said wearily. “I promise you can trust Wulf.”



“It’s not about trusting Wulf,” she objected, though I knew it was. “We never stay in one place too long when we’re on an assignment, and seeing as we have an AWOL and who knows what else on us right now, it’s basically like we’re on one. So we need to use the caution we would normally use.”



“So we leave here?” I put down my fork. “Astrid, are you crazy? Where would we go?”



“I don’t know!” She was serious, I saw. “Wherever we would go if we were actually on an assignment; find a motel or something. Lay low. We’ve been here too long,” she restated, “and I don’t like it.”



“Looks like I’m not going to get my basketball training in after all,” said Joel gloomily, picking at his noodles. Even his hair seemed to droop, and I caught Astrid smiling at him.



“Maybe you will,” I told him with some authority. “I haven’t agreed to leaving yet.”



Astrid looked annoyed. “Josh–”



“Astrid.” I parroted her tone, and she scowled. “Look, we’ve been fine here, and I think you’re being a bit hasty in this decision. It would be way too difficult and crazy to move again right now.”



“How long have we even been here?” put in Joel with a thoughtful look. “I kind of lost track of the days.”



I opened my mouth to answer before realizing that I had to do some mental calculations first. Astrid looked a bit arrogant as she said, “It’s been two weeks. We flew to London on the sixteenth, and now it’s the thirtieth, and we’ve done absolutely nothing. Well,” she paused, “okay, finding Charlie wasn’t really nothing –”



“Thanks a lot,” said Charlie with a slight smile.



“– but we haven’t accomplished anything, really. Two weeks is an awful long time to stick in one place, and I don’t like it. Not when you’ve come across agents as many times as you have, Josh.”



I supposed it probably was not the best time to inform her that we had seen Wulf again just an hour ago, not to mention the mysterious Finn. That was Charlie’s ballgame anyway; I glanced at him to see him staring at the floor, his hair falling inscrutably into his face. Astrid also looked at him for a long moment before continuing her attack.



“Basically, I think we should leave. Joel probably thinks we’re all losers because we haven’t done anything and he was expecting so much more, right?”



Joel looked nervous, glancing at me before answering. “Um…I’m fine with just hanging out here…I mean, are you saying you want someone to come and chase you?”



Guffawing, I held up one hand to him for a high-five. “Good point, buddy,” I praised, and then stopped laughing as Astrid gave me an icy look. “Okay, sorry. But he’s right. We haven’t had any problems here yet, so why should we move on?”



“So what are we going to do, wait for someone to come try and kill us?” She glared at me, and as I refused to budge, she looked to my right. “What do you think, Charlie? Should we leave or stay?”



He looked a little startled that she had asked his opinion at all. “Um, I don’t know,” he said slowly, glancing at me and then back at her. “I mean, I can see both sides. Josh is right; it would be difficult to move just now, and we have been safe so far. But I also think,” he took a deep breath, and I knew he was thinking about the man in the bar, “that the longer we stay, the riskier it is. I’m not taking a side on this, though; I’ve barely been here and I don’t even know what’s going on. Your guys’ show.”



“So we’re not leaving right now?” Joel looked hopeful.



“No,” I said firmly, holding Astrid’s eye. “And that’s final.”



Astrid threw the napkin she had been holding down to land on her plate, coming to her feet with fire in her eyes. “Who do you think you are, the father of the group?” she seethed, and then she stormed out of the room. A moment later, we heard the door of her bedroom slam behind her angry footsteps, and for a long moment the living room was silent.



“Someone doesn’t like to be told no,” I muttered, feeling irascible. “What is her problem? What do we do with her, Charlie?”



But when I looked over at him, he buried his face in his knees and murmured, “Wow, she’s beautiful when she’s pissed.”



“Oh hell,” I growled, exasperated. “You’re hopeless.”



“Let it go, Josh.” He looked up at me, his eyes still starry. “You know what she’s like when she’s in that kind of mood. She’ll get over it in an hour and then you’ll be right. Just wait it out, that’s all you can do.”



“You would know,” I grumbled, but returned compliantly to my dinner. Charlie shook his head, leaning his head back against the armrest so that he was looking at the ceiling, although what he found interesting about it was beyond me. Joel stood and walked his plate back to the kitchen, coming back a moment later to plop down in the armchair.



“Can we play basketball now?” he asked me plaintively, and I grinned.



“Hold your horses, bud; do we even have a ball?”



His face fell. “I guess not. Oh well.”



“We’ll get one tomorrow,” I promised, finishing the macaroni and putting my plate to one side. “Maybe tomorrow can be like an errand day. We can go to the grocery and find a local Kmart or something.” Warming to my idea, I added thoughtfully, “Maybe we can cheer Astrid up by finding a beauty salon.” And as Charlie snorted, I looked at him with a grin. “Have you got anything in mind, Charlie?”



“I dunno about a beauty salon,” he said, running a hand through his mop of hair, “but I definitely need to get a haircut. I can barely see through this mess.”



“We could always get Astrid to French braid it.” I snickered, reaching over to lift up some of his hair. “It sure is long enough.”



He slapped my hand away, but not before I saw that I had managed to draw a smile out of him, which was good. There weren’t enough of them floating around for my liking. He shrugged, saying, “I think I’ll just get it cut. I feel like a caveman.”



“Well, long hair is a sign of savagery,” put in Joel very seriously. We both turned to look at him as he gave Charlie a searching look. “In fact, it would probably be a sign of someone letting their id take over. That’s their savage side,” he explained as we looked at him blankly. “It comes from the Freudian allegory.”



“Fried what?” I asked, frowning.



Joel rolled his eyes. “The Freudian allegory. We just finished reading Lord of the Flies in my English class, you see, and human savagery plays a big part, so we had to read a bunch of crap about this Freud guy.”



Charlie looked disbelieving. “Never heard of him.”



“I don’t think Honors English was a course at spy school,” Joel said with a touch of superiority. “Which means I actually know something you don’t.” He grinned suddenly, his teeth a flash of white in his tan face. “Maybe I should mark this on the calendar.”



“Yeah, well…” I couldn’t help grinning at his self-satisfaction. “I doubt knowing what that ick thing is would help us if we were caught by a gunman in a dark alley.”



“Id,” Joel corrected.



“Really, Josh,” said Charlie reprovingly. “How could you mess that up? After all, maybe that man had let his id thing take over and then we’d have to know how to counter that. Did you learn that in Honors English, Joel?”



“Well,” the blonde hesitated, “no – but I guess you could just, um, pull a gun on him?”



I laughed as Charlie got to his feet. “Guns don’t solve the world’s problems,” he told Joel with a slight smile. “But thank you for letting me know that I have to keep my id under control. Hopefully a haircut will help. Now I’m going to go shower – we’ll have to keep discussing this Freud guy later.”



And he walked out of the room, shaking his head. Joel watched him go, looking puzzled, and then he shrugged to himself and muttered something quietly. I looked at him with a fair degree of affection, appreciating what he was doing for Charlie – getting him to lighten up. Both he and Charlie were uncomfortable around each other, as Joel had never known him and had hardly met him in the best circumstances, and Charlie clearly thought he was too much like Jay. I hoped that this kind of lighthearted mood could continue.



Of course, that was a little too much to ask.



As I heard the bathroom door close, Astrid came back into the living room, holding a book in one hand. I offered her the couch as I stood and grabbed my plate. She sank onto it with a reluctantly muttered “thanks,” propping open the book and hiding her face. I pushed up the cover with one hand so I could see the title and saw it was a copy of the first Harry Potter in Portuguese. Dropping the book, I looked up into her irritated face.



“Haven’t you read that enough times to know exactly what they were saying even if they were speaking a Martian language unknown to humans?”



A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’m just bored, and I need to brush up on my Portuguese, that’s all.”



I shrugged. “Not judging.”



Turning away from her, I carried my plate back into the kitchen. The shower turned on as I set it in the sink, mingling with the noise of the faucet as I began to wash the small pile of dishes. Joel and Astrid’s voices drifted in from the living room as the former started a conversation that seemed to be making about as much sense as our previous one had. Smiling to myself, I wiped the last plate clean and stuck it in the small cupboard.



I then returned to the living room to see that nothing much had changed – Astrid was reading with an ignore everyone look on her face while Joel sat slumped in the armchair with a cranky expression on his face, his heels digging into the carpet. He looked over at me as I entered, his eyes pleading.



“Can we do something?”



That was the problem with us, I realized; we never did anything. Spy movies never showed how much down-time there was on assignments. I also kept forgetting Joel was ADD, which meant he had difficulty sitting still even in the most normal of situations, which this was far from. The kid was right, even though he meant it for right then and not in the long run. I made a decision to talk with Astrid and Charlie as soon as possible, to figure out what we were going to do. It was about time we did.



“Sure.” I lowered myself to the floor into plank position. “How about we do a workout drill? Twenty pushups?”



Joel pulled a face. “I think I’d rather sit through four hours of my English teacher’s lectures about Freud,” he grumbled. “At least I’d be learning something.”



I dropped my jaw in mock-horror. “You’d rather be in school? This is a problem! Come on, kid–” And I sprang to my feet suddenly, pulling him off the armchair. He complained loudly, but I caught him grinning as he toppled to the floor. “Don’t you want to stay fit? We can have a contest or something…”



Astrid looked up from her book with a look of incredulity. “Is staying in shape all boys ever think about?”



“No,” said Joel from the floor, looking up with big blue eyes, “but it’s important.”



I laughed as Astrid rolled her eyes and returned to her book with a few muttered words about how stupid boys could be. “Don’t worry about her,” I said to Joel, ruffling his hair. “She’ll get over herself, and then she’ll regret it when she can’t keep up with us.” And as Astrid snorted from the couch, “Okay, Joel, how about you grab your coat and we can mess around in the back outside, since Astrid clearly doesn’t want us here.”



“What are we going to do?” he asked reluctantly, and I reached out a hand to pull him to his feet.



“We’ll think of something. Come on, then.”



I pushed Joel towards the exit of the room as the sound of the shower ceased. As the blonde left with a grumpy expression on his face, I flopped back down on the floor, lying on my back and staring at the ceiling as I waited for the kid to return. After a moment, I heard his voice in the hall.



“Josh?”



Propping myself up on my elbows, I called, “Yeah?”



I detected a slight tremor in his voice. “Can you – come out here, please?”



Frowning, I got to my feet slowly, glancing at Astrid, who lowered her book with a confused and wary look on her face. She shook her head at me with narrowed eyes, and I understood, saying in a light tone, “You come in here, Joel. Can’t you find your coat? It’s the blue one, remember?” As I spoke, I reached into my pocket for my gun before realizing with an inward curse that I had left it in the bedroom.



“Looks like your friends aren’t quite so willing to help you after all,” came another voice from the hallway, low and harsh, and both Astrid and I sprang forward, although neither of us had guns. “Keep still,” the voice snapped, and then Joel entered the room, propelled forward by a dark-haired man who was holding a gun to his back and another in his other hand, which he promptly pointed at us.



“Hands where I can see them, please. Sorry for the cliché – my, we are unprepared, aren’t we? And they told me you were professionals.”



He spoke in a British accent, but naturally that didn’t mean a thing. My mind raced, wondering if he was from Delta – there were loads of agents I didn’t know – or Pierre’s agency or even G7, though I doubted that. The bigger question was, how had he gotten in? Or had we simply fallen behind that much in our surveillance patterns that we hadn’t even heard the backdoor open?



My hands held high, I kept my face as straight as I could, saying to Joel, “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”



“He’s fine.” The man poked the gun into Joel’s back so that the kid squirmed. “Now how about you two just turn around nice and slow for me?”



Astrid was livid, I could tell, although her face was expressionless. “Who are you? What agency are you from?”



“I said, turn around!” His last word was a sharp bark, accompanied by a jab of the gun pointed at us. “I’m not going to say it again.”



But as we began to turn around, another voice came from behind the intruder:



“How about you do the turning around?”



The man reacted as anyone would expect him to: He shoved Joel away from him, sending him stumbling to the floor, and then whipped around, both guns extended in front of him. Astrid and I stopped turning to look over his head to where Charlie was standing in the hallway, dressed only in a pair of sweats, his wet hair flopping into his face as he pointed his own gun at the man.



Everything after happened in a split second: Even as Astrid and I started forward, the agent fired two shots, one from each gun, and Astrid cried out as Charlie threw himself to one side to avoid them. A brief second of terror passed as he didn’t move, and then he threw himself forward at the other man’s feet, knocking him face-forward into the floor. A few more shots rang out, Charlie rolled to the right, and then he brought the butt of his gun down on the back of his attacker’s skull, and everything was suddenly quiet.



After a brief second of shocked silence, Charlie pushed himself to his feet, grabbing the back of the man’s jacket and trying to yank him up. I hurried forward to help, lifting the agent off his feet and pushing him into the armchair, which, as Charlie said roughly, was more comfort than he deserved.



Astrid was helping Joel to his feet. “You okay?”



As the blonde nodded, his eyes huge, Astrid looked over at Charlie, her own eyes frightened, and he looked a little self-conscious. “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “Just one sec.” He disappeared briefly into the bedroom and emerged again a moment later, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. In that moment I had picked up both the agent’s guns and was now holding them loosely in one hand, staring at the unconscious man.



“Who do you think he is?” I said aloud.



“Why don’t we find out?” Charlie moved forward, sticking his gun in his sweatshirt pocket, and before Astrid or I could say anything, he pulled the man’s hands in front of him and snapped a pair of handcuffs around them.



“Um,” I cut in, blinking, “where did you get those?”



“Your bag.” He began searching the pockets of the agent’s coat.



“Do you really think you’ll find something?” asked Astrid, leaning against the doorframe as she watched him. “I mean, agents don’t generally carry cards saying what spy group they belong to in their back pockets.”



Charlie held up a brown wallet in front of her face in answer. She frowned slightly as he thumbed through it, pulling out various ID cards and handing them to me. I studied them, taking in the names – all different and presumably fake – and the countries, of which there were many, and so it was impossible to tell where he came from.



“Nothing else,” Charlie reported with disgust, dropping the wallet to the ground. “Bunch of bills – all different types – and a couple ticket stubs. Nothing out of the ordinary.”



“I dunno…” Joel was looking through the ID cards with wide eyes. “These don’t seem ordinary to me.”



“Ordinary for an agent,” Astrid explained with a little smile. “But we can’t really figure anything out from them, which is a problem. So what do we do now?”



I bent down and picked up the wallet, sliding the ID cards back into it and then pushing it into my own pocket for later. Joel was watching us with worried eyes, biting his thumbnail as he glanced from us to the agent. I met Charlie’s eyes to see a light of amusement as slowly my brain accepted what I was reluctantly thinking. Astrid, I noticed, was looking very innocently indecisive, as if she didn’t know exactly what we had to do.



Exhaling loudly, I glared at her for a moment. “Looks like we’re going to have to leave after all. If whoever this was found us that easily –” I shrugged. “Let’s start packing, then.”



Astrid was a professional espionage agent, highly trained in all aspects, which included the art of keeping a straight face. But even she was unable to keep a small trace of a smug look off her face as she said, “I won’t say it, Josh. I won’t say it.”