The Assassin - a Denied Spies Novel Book 1

Ava

When we reached the headquarters, the door was already opened and Kate was waiting outside for us.

"Hey girls," she chirped. Charlie and I waved while making our way up to her. She looked at me, smiling, "You're needed in the mind-challenge room." As she talked her smile grew bigger and bigger. Something was up.

"OK, excuse me," I said to Charlie who polity moved out of the way. Something was definitely up – Charlie always wound me up when I asked her to do something nicely. I stared at Charlie as I entered the garage and she smiled innocently. Yip, something is definitely up.

I shrugged the feeling off as I walked to the mind-challenge room – I'd never been in there yet. When I entered the room, Alex was doing chin ups, his muscles twitched under his shirt like it was no effort at all. I stood at the door trying my hardest not to look at Alex, or specifically, his chest – so that I didn't end up drooling. So instead I looked around the room, at all the equipment.

"I'll be a minute," he said hardly out of breath, like he just started his mini workout. I nodded in response while I shut the door behind me and walked further in the room. I walked around the room looking at all the equipment – again. I was about to touch a little plain white box when Alex grabbed my hand away. "Please don't touch a thing," he said clutching my hand. I nodded and tried to tug my hand away but he had it in a tight grasp – he however didn't even realise that he was still holding my hand.

"Emm..." I said looking down at our hands. Alex followed my gaze and quickly dropped my hands.

"Sorry," he mumbled making his way to a metal table with two chairs. He sat on one chair and indicted for me to sit on the other.

Slowly I made my way to the seat – the 'something is up' feeling was back. "So what was the reason that I couldn't go to the Spy School again?" I asked as I tugged off my jacket and hung over the back of my seat.

"You can't go to the Spy School yet because you're being watched and you could the school in danger if you were followed there so you're stuck with this place for the time being. Now how about a game of snap?" he replied indicating to the deck of cards sitting in the middle of the table. I sat down across from him while he shuffled the cards.

"What exactly has a game of snap got to do with my training?" I asked very unenthusiastically. Alex must have sensed that because he just smiled.

"You never know what might come in handy," and with that he dealt the cards. It wasn't long before the cards were dealt and we started playing. Alex was winning and to be honest I couldn't care less, all I could think about was the voice in the back of my head telling me to leave, that something was wrong. And that little voice couldn't have been more right.

Half of my cards were gone when I saw the lights flicker. It wasn't long after that they flickered again. Three more times and I couldn't help but smile. Five times the lights flickered, five months is how long I've known Charlie, five is our number and right now she was sending me a message; get ready. Five seconds later the lights went out and I heard Alex's chair tumble to the ground with a smack. 

I sat on my chair for a few more seconds while my eyes adjusted to the darkness. There on top of the table was the biggest shadow I've ever seen. Just as the shadow leaped at me I slid off my seat and under the table. The shadow tackled the chair to the ground before realising I wasn't on it. But by then it was too late, I was already at the opposite side of the room.

I tried to open the door but it didn't budge – great, I'm fighting everyone today. As soon as the realisation sank in there was a loud bang just above my head. I ducked and rolled for cover. I hid in a corner of the room while quickly thinking of an escape route. What had I seen, only equipment and the door. I was about to give up when I remembered about the box that Alex didn't want me to touch. The problem was that the box was at the opposite side of the room, near Alex –who was probably guarding the box.