The Young Spy (Book One)

Chapter 25: Under Siege

Blackness was the only thing Swift's eyes saw. He feels a strange sensation across his entire body. His eyelids were still closed, but when he opens them narrowly, he still sees the same dark atmosphere. He opens them wider, still dark. He then realizes that he is standing still in a room shrouded in darkness. He tried moving his own body to see where he is. To his dismay, he failed. His arms are folded oddly, his legs close to his chest. The cold surface of metal met the surface of his skin. Adrenaline spikes inside him as he starts to panic knowing he's in a tight space, yet he doesn't know where.

"Hello?!" With his palm near the metallic surface, Swift bangs on the wall several times. "Hello??!!" He shouts louder, hoping someone would be there to help him. He starts breathing in and out intensely out of panic. A dim light shines through from three little holes above his head in the wall. He realizes his right shoulder rests against another wall that is a lot more hollow to knock on than the other. There's a small space on the side that lets him build momentum, and that's how he figures how he'll get out of the tight spot he's in if his suspicion is correct on where he is.

After nearing his left shoulder next to the other wall, Swift pushes his right one towards the hollow wall, a yell leaving him. Nothing happens, yet he still does the same thing. He tries it once or three times more until he feels his body fall out of a confined space. He collapses to the side, his cheeks touching another different surface but with the same temperature, the cold ceramic of the floor. Swift looks back to where he was and his suspicion turns out right, he really was locked in a locker. Reasons? He wasn't sure yet. He couldn't remember anything that led him to be here. Here, as in... Northview? Swift realizes that he's in the school's hallway, a dark hallway that lacks light, with no other students in sight since it's nighttime. The only thing illuminating the place that tells him where he is are the hazy lights coming from somewhere. He starts to wonder, How the hell did I get here? Why was I locked in a locker? He's scared, mostly of the fact that he was trapped but now that he's free, his being alone in an empty school somewhat worsens it.

"Am I dreaming?" He murmurs.

Swift feels as if his eardrums are scratched. Eyes closed and teeth gritted, he covers his ears when he hears the disorienting sound of microphone feedback from a loudspeaker. Shortly after, he hears a voice sounding from the school's PA speaker.

"I can assure you, kid, it's real." A voice calls Swift out.

"Hello?" Swift looks around frantically at the ceiling.

"I'm surprised you got out of there faster than I thought. You are as good as they said." The voice says again, echoing throughout the hallways. It came to Swift on whose voice was talking to him through the speakers.

"That voice," Swift's eyes grow wide. "Matt?!"

"Hello, Ryan," Matt replies, unresponsive to Swift calling his name out, which confirms it instantly. "Hope you had a good nap."

"What the hell is this?! Why are you doing this?!" Swift then rushes down the hallway.

"You know exactly why I'm doing this, you sly, little rat." Matt snarls, continued by a pause.

"Did you decrypt it?" The voice of Lars suddenly comes through, and Swift slowly grasps why it did, and why Matt played a recording of that familiar question.

"Uh, m-maybe. Not sure," Swift hears his own voice. Somehow, his phone call with Lars from last night is known to Matt. But how? "One of my friends is handling it. Turns out the file has a thicker kind of security that'll take... probably a few days to crack,"

"How did you find that?!"

"It was easy. Picked up Lars' phone after one of my boys took care of him." Matt replies.