I've dedicated this chapter to Stephanie5717 because of her amazing message she sent me and just as importantly, she deserves it! Thanks a ton, dude! :)

Chapter 7

You would have thought there would have been some sort of celebration or at least a congratulations after finished my first test, and having finished it pretty well if I may say so myself. But all I got when I had gotten back was a moody ass Drew.

Turns out Carter and Jolene had come back and were not too happy about me skipping out of my first training session the day they had left.

‘Every second counts,’ they had said. ‘You will need to learn that to ever be allowed on missions. Every second, every detail and every piece of information is absolutely vital, no matter how small.’

Please, they didn’t even take into consideration that I had been kidnapped and drugged and my real life all dumped on me that very same day.

Not that I told them that… No, when they got angry they didn’t lose their tempers or throw things or shout. They were more like the quiet kind of angry. I don’t know about you, but I find that to be the scariest kind. With shouting, I could shout back, with throwing things, I could duck… at least then I would know where I stood and could sort it out, but how am I meant to know what they were thinking if they were quiet with their anger? It was unnerving.

At least now I understood why Drew was in such a sour mood, he must have known how they would react when they found out.

I don’t know whether to call it lucky or not but they didn’t seem to decide to punish me. At least not in an obvious way. They upped my training mega time though. If I wasn’t exercising I was learning how to use various weapons. If I wasn’t practising survival skills, I was memorising pages of what I would call, useless facts. Drew insisted that knowing all these little things could easily be the difference between completing a mission and death. After hearing that death part I threw myself into knowing every fact that was thrown my way.

By now I knew so many random facts I could write about ten books. Did you know that the colour blue subconsciously relieves stress? And if so, have you ever notice that Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter are all blue? It’s scary how many secret subconscious messages the world sends you all the time. Not only the world, but people too. Their body language can give away just as much as their words. Which could turn out to work both for and against me. I’ve had to practise lying so much that it has started to feel natural.

Drew had explained to me that it is actually physically easier for your brain to tell the truth then lie. Something about only a small bit of concerntration needed and what not but basically, the truth just comes out naturally.

When you lie your brain has to work in over drive, having to have to weigh the hundreds of options, figure out what is already known by the person you're lying to, then make up a plausible story, all while still trying to act normal as if you are not concerntrating at all. Often it’s the latter part that catches people out because your brain tries too hard to act normal it over acts. This is where a tell is born which, if you didn’t know like I never used to, is a subconscious habit you get whenever you tell a lie.

Aside from body language I had also learnt all the ins and outs of every weapon we had available. And yes, I said we. Lately I have started to feel less like it’s me versus them, my captors, but more like I’m part of their team… if you can call it that. I don’t think I’d actually ever call them family, I will always regard the people I left behind as my family. No-one can ever and will never replace them. Especially not Carter and Jolene, I’m still not too friendly with them. Drew I’m getting closer to but Carter and Jolene just give off this superior commander vibe, not really the caring parent vibe you would hope for from our parents.

And when it all starts to feel too much I would use my breaks I get to go back to my little slice of heaven, my cove I had found that day of my first test. I would switch off the tiny ear piece I had to have on 24/7. It was my direct link to Nikky and acted as a phone like system that was on all the time. It was pretty useful and actually really really cool but you were never really alone.

Getting away from everything back home was just closing your bedroom door and putting the music up but here it was much harder. If I wanted music I could just ask Nikky but then I wouldn’t be alone, which is what I wanted more than music.

So with no-one knowing about my cove, I could relax there. I could talk myself into coping. It was quite hard with no-one that loved you to turn to. I had Drew but he was still one of them and had to love me as a brother has to love a sister.

I actually have started to feel sorry for Drew. He grew up with parents that act more like they’re robots than humans that have a son to care for. They are always in ‘agent’ mode and are gone most of the time on missions anyway, it’s like he grew up parentless.

But back to those weapons I seemed to stray from talking about. Note, when I said weapons I didn’t really mean guns and grenades. I meant, yes, dangerous weapons, but used in a not so deadly manner. Carter never missed an opportunity to remind me of this.

‘You never take a life,’ he would start. ‘Knock unconscious, yes. Injure if you really need to but death is not an option. As I’ve said before, every small piece of information is absolutely vital, people are much more useful alive than dead.’ Carter paused before he told me the next part, which he only ever mentioned once.

‘It is only under one condition that you are ever permitted to kill, and that is if your cover is blown. I’m not saying when someone finds out you’re actually 18 when you’ve been pretending to be 16 for your cover. No, it’s if anyone ever finds out that you’re Melissa. If they know that, they know you’re agent Zero and absolutely no one outside of this base knows about you.’

So although I’ve been practicing with weapons like dart guns and tasers, I've mainly have been using random things you might find around the average household.

‘You never know when you’ll need to defend yourself,’ Drew had told me once. ‘No enemy will ever wait for when it’s convenient for you. They will rather actually wait for when it is not. Also it’s better to not have a preferred weapon. You’ll feel disadvantaged if you don’t have it with you so rather get used to improvising.’

I have learnt what the perfect amount of pressure required to knock someone unconscious is and exactly how far the body could be pushed before being broken. Obviously there’re different variables with different people but that is all down to the practise.

Right now I was in the fitness room for the third time today alone. Drew seemed to be pushing me today and it was starting to show. I was doing pull ups on a bar and I had done them for so long my arms had started to feel like jelly.

“I don’t see why I have to do so many,” I complained between pull ups, my breath getting slightly heavier from the effort. “I mean, my arms are already stronger than they’ve ever been.”

“You’ll be grateful,” Drew replied, tapping on his tablet like he always does when I was using the machines.

“Well I’m not right n-”

“You will be when you’re hanging off a ten story building with only your arms keeping you from falling to your death,” Drew interrupted firmly, looking straight up at me, daring me to make another comment.

I abruptly shut my mouth and turned back to continue with my pull ups.

Drew was all business today. Carter and Jolene had just returned from their latest mission and were personally taking me for my training for the next few days. I have to admit that I was slightly nervous about that too.

***

Later, once I had been allowed to turn in for the night I still lay awake for quite a while, my brain racing over all I had learnt. I really didn’t want to disappoint Carter and Jolene tomorrow. After all, they were my biological parents and every child could never shake the yearning to make their parents proud.



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