Agent X

xx| 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝚃𝚠𝚘 |xx

My eyes opened to see pale light peeking in between twisted branches overhead. Oh no. I fell asleep.

I bolted upright in my seat. Well, I'm still in the car, so that's good. The double agent didn't seize the opportunity when we were all unconscious to turn us over to the enemy. This thought was hardly comforting, though, since the traitor was still at large.

I scanned the rest of my team. Everyone lay motionless, heads against the back of the seats and eyes closed. I was the only one awake. Good. This will give me time to evaluate our situation without their influence.

I looked out the window. Huge oak trees towered above us. They clustered close together, the thicket impossible to look through.

My pulse quickened. At any moment, a WAOIC agent could pop out from behind a tree and take us hostage. There were probably security cameras, patrols, or at a bare minimum, other WAOIC agents taking the same route as us to headquarters. We were lucky that no one had found us yet.

Unless, WAOIC knew we had arrived, but didn't want to take us yet. A chill ran down my spine at the thought of it.

I pressed the side of my watch to turn it on. The screen lit up with my inbox. You have one new message.

I opened the text. It was from the Director, asking me to check in with him on how everything was going. He didn't mention the double agent directly, just in case someone intercepted the message, but I could read between the lines. I quickly typed a reply and sent it just as Dari stirred in the front seat. Part of me wanted to pretend to be asleep again, just to see if she would contact WAOIC or something. But Dari stretched, her head turning in my direction. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled, as if to say 'Good morning, X.'

There goes that plan.

My stomach rumbled. I picked up the food bag from the day before. It crinkled as I pulled one of the last remaining muffins.

I suddenly realized that we had not brought enough food with us to last the next few days. Perhaps I can send Finn into a nearby town to find some food.

I peeled back the wrapper on the muffin, about to take a bite, when I saw Dari stretch out her hands towards me. I tossed her the last one. My teeth sank into the sweet dough. Sanding sugar on the top crunched in my teeth.

This muffin was nothing like the one I had yesterday. Sickening sweetness and artificial blueberry flavoring overwhelmed my tastebuds.

Xara wouldn't be caught dead eating this. But it was food, which meant that I would have energy to make it through the day.

I finished the muffin then began constructing a new plan for the team. The good news was that we were way ahead of schedule. Today was July fifth, and we didn't actually have to break into WAOIC headquarters until the eighth. But I knew we were going to need every second of that time.

I pulled out my laptop and started planning. The sun rose higher in the sky, casting rich, golden light over the forest.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the others stretching and yawning.

"For a second, I thought you were Dari," Ty said to me.

I continued typing on my computer. It was nice to have a reason to ignore people's questions and comments.

"Good morning," Finn said.

"Morning," Dari replied.

"You did a good job getting us here," Ty said. "I thought for sure you'd crash into one of the trees."