How to Become a Spy

Chapter Fifteen

I didn't know how I managed it, but somehow I made it through the rest of the day. Not much happened after my 'bathroom incident', I had just gone on to the rest of my classes and listened to Tasha talked about how she thought Charlie from our maths class was 'totes a hottie' for most of the afternoon.

By the time I made it back to the RUA, I was beat. I felt too tired to even stand. But I didn't want to seem weak, after all, If I was going to whinge about just a few simple bruises while most of the agents had probably faced a lot worse, how stupid and immature was I going to look? I mean, Cassie had a desk thrown at her for God sake.

I made my way to Eric's office knowing he was going to be in there instead of the gym since he would be going over the police files on Misty's interview. I opened his office door to find him buried away in lots of folders, going over information.

"Let me guess, nothing on Misty," I said to him as I entered the room, closing the door behind me.

He looked up surprised. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Well it seems like this Henry guy gets around more than we thought, he's Misty's boyfriend," I answered, feeling like I was finally working things out.

Eric looked like he was caught by surprise with this new information. "Didn't see that one coming," he said simply.

"So what did she say in the interview? About how she got the drug?" I asked as I walked over to his desk.

"She s- are you limping?" he asked as he noticed my walk.

Crap. I straightened myself up and kept a straight face as I ignored the pain. "Nope," I answered. I tried to look as casual as I could.

"She said that she found the drug in the bathroom and just simply took it." he informed.

I raised my eyebrows "Seriously? That's the stupidest lie I've ever heard."

He shrugged. "She claimed she had no idea who the previous owner of that pill was. But yes, the bathroom part was an obvious lie."

"But now you think that was all a lie and she was covering up Henry's tracks," I added.

He nodded. While leaning back in his chair, letting it sway from side to side while he was thinking.

"Tasha also believes that he was with her the night she took it so there goes any chance he has left of an alibi," I said as watched him continue thinking. His eyes looked so dark yet beautiful and I couldn't stop myself from looking at them.

He stopped swinging on the chair after a moment "How often do you see Henry at school?" he asked, turning his head towards me.

I quickly looked away from his eyes to make it seem like I hadn't been watching him or long. "Oh, um, to be honest, I haven't seen him around yet. I don't have any classes with him and I've only seen him once and it was outside of school," I answered.

"Sounds suspicious." Eric said taking in all the information, "Try to see if you can find him at some point tomorrow if you can."

"Will do," I responded as I nodded my head.

Just then, the door opened and we both turned to see Cassie enter the room. From outside I could see Troy, the man who had helped Debby this morning along with a few other agents crowded around a computer screen working on another mission. Cassie shut the door as walked into the room holding a laptop.

"Anything to report?" Eric asked as she placed her laptop on the desk in front of him. Cassie had been in charge of looking over today's footage that had been taken with all the cameras that we had set up last night.

"Not really. I looked over a lot of the footage twice without finding anything suspicious but one the third round I noticed something," she reported as she played a clip on her laptop in slow motion. Students had begun to exit their classrooms and file into the hallway. "Okay, now see this?" Cassi asked, pausing the tape and pointing at a person who had just entered the frame. They were wearing a black hoodie so it was impossible to identify who it was. Cassie continued playing the tape as we watched the hooded figure walk into an empty classroom. "Okay now watch this," Cassie continued as we stared at the footage. "About ten seconds later someone else walks into the room," she said, pointing at someone else who began walking towards the door. They had their back facing the camera, but from what I could tell it definitely looked like a guy.

"So fast forward a few seconds," Cassie said as she hit a key on the keyboard making the tape resume normal speed until she slowed it down again. The hooded figure walked out of the classroom quickly with their hands in their pocket. I still didn't catch a good glimpse of their face.

A few seconds later the male also began leaving the classroom. "Look at what he's doing," she said as we all leaned in closer to look at the screen. He was placing what looked like a clear bag in his pocket.

"They're dealing the drug during school hours?" Eric asked sounding absolutely dumbfounded.

"Wait, pause it," I said quickly. Cassie obeyed me and paused the tape. I pointed at the face of the male that was putting the drugs away in his pocket

"That's Henry," I said after staring at the blurry face for a few seconds.

"You're sure?" Eric asked.

"Positive," I said nodding as I looked closer at the image.

"This was at 10:30am," Cassie said, turning to face me.

They both looked at me while I tried to think "I was..." I tried to remember the events of today, "I was leaving English class and then I went to the bathroom." I said as the memory came back to me.

"Were you with anyone?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, I was with Charlotte," I answered. Another memory hit me. "And....Brad, for a bit," I added.

Eric sighed.

"Does this make him no longer a suspect?" I asked almost hopefully. I was surprised by how much I wanted to believe he was innocent.

"I don't know. He could still be in on this operation, we can't just cancel him out because of one tape." He answered.

"Are you freaking kidding me? One of the few classrooms we didn't get a chance to bug and that's where the dealing happens" Cassie growled as she threw her hands down at her side.

"Don't worry, something tells me that they don't always deal in that classroom, otherwise, it would become too suspicious," Eric assured her.

She sighed and began pacing nervously. That must be an agent thing. "Look, okay I'll see how we go tomorrow," she said as she grabbed the laptop from Eric's desk and shut the lid. "I'm going home to put ice on my goddamn back," she said as she left the room.

We both stayed silent for a while ignoring Cassie's dramatic exit, just thinking. Eric probably thinking about the mission, me thinking about how incredible his jawline was before he finally spoke up.

"Can you keep a close eye on Henry tomorrow?" he asked.

I nodded, "I'll stay nearby."

Satisfied, Eric turned his attention back to the folders on his desk and started sorting through them. I watched awkwardly, not knowing what to do at that point. I noticed that the bruises that had been on his arms from a few days ago had started to fade away. I hoped the same would go for the ones on my stomach. Thinking back to that night made me sick, I was supposed to fight back, I was supposed to help the team and instead, I just gave them more trouble. If I had attacked back, we would have caught the person instead of Eric having to waste time by saving me. I felt like a disappointment. I felt like I was useless and I felt like the RUA didn't need people like me wasting their time.

But as I looked at Eric working,something inside me changed in that moment. Instead of just feeling sorry for myself and mad for my mistakes, I felt something I hadn't felt in myself for a long time - determination.

If I wasn't worthy enough to be on the RUA team then I would make myself worthy. The 'maybe it's because I'm too young' thing wasn't an excuse anymore. Eric was the same age that I was when he joined the team and he proved himself worthy of being there. And even if I was just on this team for one high school mission before I returned to my normal life, I was still going to make this mission the best I could.

"Eric?" I asked, speaking up.

He looked up from his folders that he was buried into.

"Do you think we could do a bit more combat training now?" I asked nervously.

He looked at me almost surprised. "What about your stomach?"

Screw my stomach. I wasn't going to let some stupid bruises stop me from living my life over the next few days. "It's fine," I replied, "I feel a lot better now."

He studied my face for a second and I tried to look like I wasn't lying at all.

"Okay, let's go to the gym then" he stood up, placing the folders and files back on his desk and following me out of the room.

We started training as soon as we entered the gym. Even though Eric was cautious about my stomach, he showed no mercy.

I groaned as I slammed against the mat from one of his blows.

"You're fine," he said casually as he walked over to the other side of the gym and picked up his water bottle.

"This sucks," I grumbled, rubbing my head. "I can't believe that I managed to knock you over a few times but couldn't handle myself when I was getting attacked by some teenager last night".

"Well," Eric began. I could immediately sense the reluctance to talk in his voice.

I cut him off, gasping in shock. "Oh my God, you let me overpower you didn't you?" I asked as I sat up.

He didn't reply, his face still holding it's emotionless expression. That was all I needed.

"Eric!" I yelled in shock.

"To be fair, I am the strongest agent in this whole division, there was no way you were going to take me down. On the few occasions that you showed improvement, I did let you attack me without my resistance," he replied.

I looked at him with a hurt expression. After all, it felt like he'd been lying to me the whole time we were training. "Even on our first training session? When I knocked you back?" I asked.

"No, that time you actually did surprise me, I underestimated your strength."

My expression softened. At least I had gotten him one time.

"The only other time you actually did knock me down was when..."

I knew what he was talking about. the other day when I fell on top of him. I nodded at him to let him know that I knew what he was talking about.

After a moment, I sighed and got back up off the floor. "Just don't it again, if I want to win a fight against you I want it to be genuine."

"Of course," he responded walking back over towards me. "But, you're fighting skills have improved, you would have been able to take down other agents in this division, just not me."

I felt better hearing that. I meant that I was good at, or maybe even better than some of the other agents here. "But.. the other night, I couldn't even take on someone my own size," I said.

"You weren't ready." Eric replied, "And no one was expecting an attack that night."

I sighed as I walked over to the benches on the side of the gym, Eric followed me and watched as I sat down.

"Were things this complicated when you did you first missions? I mean, would you have ever expected as dangerous as this?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No one would have ever expected anything like this, at least not for a high school mission."

I watched him as he put his water bottle down on the seat next to me. "What about now? Your missions would have to be a lot tougher than this." I pointed out.

"They are," he replied, "But I've trained enough for them."

"Well yeah but, your parents must be concerned, do they know you're a spy? Your twenty and out of school so you must have told them something about what you're doing." I said.

I saw the pained look in his eyes that I remembered from the time we were in the limo and I had first brought up his family.

"My parents and older sister all died in a car crash when I was sixteen, a year before I joined the RUA" he responded.

I had to resist the urge to cover my mouth with my hand in shock. The only thing I could manage to say in reply was "I'm sorry." I had not been expecting that reply.

Eric stayed silent looking towards the door.

After a moment I managed to speak up. "So... that's why you joined the RUA?" I asked softly. "Because if something happened to you, there would be no one to miss you?"

"That's why I was allowed to join the RUA" he clarified.

"What about me then?" I asked.

"You had more skills than I did, you were allowed to join because of your extraordinary gymnastic skills."

I felt my heart rise at his compliment. Extraordinary gymnastic skills. But I was still in a quiet mood after Eric had told me about his family. I used to spend most of the time thinking that he was just some workaholic but when you have no one left on this Earth to love, what else can you do? I realized why the RUA was so important to him now. It was like his family. Every single member of this team meant something to him. I wondered if I ever would too. But thinking of him in a family way felt weird. I mean, I wouldn't want him to be my older brother or something.

"So, you want to train some more?" I asked trying to distract Eric from the thoughts of his family. It was clearly something he didn't talk about much.

He walked over to the center of the gym in response so I got up and followed him.

I now knew how important the RUA was to people and how dangerous it was and there was no way I was going to stuff up things from now on. If people wanted to attack me they had better prepare because I wasn't going down without putting up a fight.