Chapter 1- Everly

I pressed the gun to his head, “Any last words goldilocks?”

I could feel him shaking under the gun as he tried to plead with me one more time, “Please you don’t have to do this. My people they have money.”

“Wow your about as original as all the other ones,” I muttered as I clicked off the safety.

The shot echoed through the room and the man’s body slumped forward, his long blond hair cascading his face. His eyes still laid open, tears still in them. I shivered, feeling as if his eyes were still on me.

I leaned down and pushed his eyelids down before gracefully making my way around the multiple dead bodies lying throughout the room.

I felt nothing as I looked over the bodies. I had learned to stop thinking about their families and their lives being left behind only a few short weeks after starting training. It was easier this way.

I had no idea why I had killed all these people, that’s how it worked. I got the order and I killed them, no questions asked. The less I knew, the better.

I turned the handle on the door and stepped into the bright, white hallway. I turned left, trying to remember where Jeffery had turned off.

“Well that was fast,” Jeffery said as he entered the hallway just in front of me a couple of minutes later.

“Are you joking? A bunch of whiney businessmen should have taken me half the time, I’m quite appalled with myself,” I replied.

He laughed at my pure disappointment and bumped shoulders with me, “Is that everyone then?”

I nodded and opened the door to the fire escape with my gloved hand. We climbed down the ladders to the bottom where our black SUV was waiting. Cliché, I know.

Jeffery took the driver’s seat, while I slid into the back with all the equipment. I pulled the spiny chair towards the desktop mounted to the wall of the car.

“Identification please,” the robotic voice rung out as I pressed the power button to bring the entire system to life.

I leaned in so my eye was at level with the scanner just below the desktop. A little green line ran over my eye, three times like normal. I pulled back and my face appeared on the screen.

“Williamson, Everly. Level nine. Access granted.” The robotic voice came back on again.

I grimaced at the picture on the screen. It was from when I had first started here, freshman year. My face was long and skinny making me almost look like a drug addict, just skin and bones. The brown eyes staring back at me were the only thing I recognized. My hair was no longer light brown like it was in the picture, I was a bright blond now and some miracle drug had added some fullness to it.

“You know you should be happy to hear those words,” Jeffery said from the front, looking in the rear view mirror at me.

“Being a level nine isn’t really something I’m proud of,” I muttered, annoyed with his jealously.

Jeffery had been my partner for six months now, he had already moved up two levels working with me on assignments. Though he still remained at a level five, he had a long way to go to level nine. I remember level five, I could still feel a sliver of my innocence then.

I had since then lost it.

I pulled myself away from thoughts that would lead me down memory lane, a road I was so not ready to travel on. Nor would I ever be ready for that trip.

I clicked through the passwords and lock codes before finally making it to Mission Progress. I clicked the box for how many agents were on it, what level of importance, how many agents made it out, and if the mission had been completed.

2, 4, 2, and complete. It was almost like filling out a survey for the quality of a restaurant.

The level of importance bothered me for some reason. Maybe because it was almost like we were rating the importance of people’s lives. Though I’m sure many of the deserved what they got and worse, but it still didn’t settle right.

For example those people that we had just executed in there had a 4/10 importance to the world. I wonder what level of importance the boss would give me if I had target on my back.

“Want to stop for food?” Jeffery asked, eyes trained on the road.

I stood up from the chair and moved to the front through a gap between the seats, taking the passenger seat next to him, “If you want.” He erupted into a smile, his eyes giddy, before I added, “As long as we don’t go to Mcdonalds again.”

His happy smile flipped and he glared at me, “What’s wrong with Mcdonalds?”

“A lot, but besides that, we are in California, there are much better restaurants around,” I glanced over at him, “In-and-out burger?” I sighed, at least it was a half compromise.

Jeffery took my offer quickly and turned off on the next exit.

After eating probably the biggest hamburger I have ever seen, Jeffery patiently waited for me to finish my plain hamburger and fries. And when I say patiently, I mean he just got more food to fill the time.

I laughed as he ate his 3^rd basket of fries, “You eat more than Nic-“ I cut myself short, covering my mouth.

Jeffery looked up in surprise, “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

Yeah and I hadn’t thought about him in a while either. I tended to have slip ups like this once in a while, but I had done really well the past year at controlling my wondering thoughts. Until Jeffery.

Jeff often reminded me of him in little things he did. Like the way he ate or his annoyingly clean ways.

I stopped myself from thinking further.

“It’s nothing, just finish so we can get back to base,” we both refused to call headquarters anything other than the base. Mostly because it reminded us both of military bases. Where people’s faith and hope could be broken for free.

“What? You’re not even close to done,” he replied gesturing to my half eaten burger and fries.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” I said as I got up to throw away my food.

“You know it’s okay to think about it sometimes,” Jeff said from behind me as he reached around and threw away his now empty fry basket.

I turned around so I was facing him, our chests touching, “There is nothing for me to think about.”

I dodged his arm and walked into the warm March night. We both got into the car and without another word, made it to base.

I walked through the large unmarked building, Jeffery trailing behind me.

I looked around the place for the thousandth time. The walls were still white and bare, giving the place a hospital feel. And the floors were marble which made the sound of our shoes echo the walls.

For anyone who walked into the building, it would seem like a normal boring office. But that’s because none of them made ever made it to the basement, where the “magic” happened.

The upper levels of the building were normal. Well normal for us at least. The different levels just had cubicles littered throughout them. But it was what information those cubicles held that were interesting.

Top secret folders stashed throughout every level, no one’s eyes had seen them all. Not even the boss’s.

We made our way to the elevators that would take us down to what we both liked to call the hellhole. Original, I know.

We stood in what was almost awkward silence as we waited for the elevator doors to open.

Jeff broke the silence as we stepped onto the elevator, “So I heard we are getting our new long lasting assignment today.”

I looked at him and shrugged, “Probably won’t be any longer than any of the other missions we’ve been sent out on.”

“I hear this time of year its rainy there though,” he whined.

“Rainy where?”

“I think it was Oregon,” he thought for a moment, “Portland I think.”

My eyes widened. It was fine, Portland was huge the chances of me running into anyone were super small. Right? The voice in the back of my head was telling me not to get my hopes up on that.

Jeffery took one look at my face and reconsidered, “Of course that’s just what I heard through the great vine, nothing is set in stone.”

“If these missions are so important, why does everybody in the office seem to know about them before we do?”

He shrugged and leaned forward to press B on the front side of the elevator. A keypad slid out from the wall and Jeff scanned his eye and typed in his code. He then moved out of the way and I did the same as him.

The same robotic voice came on “Jeffery Grande. Level five. Access granted.” She then paused for a moment and stated to me what had been stated in the car an hour before.

 The elevator began to move and as it glided smoothly, I could feel Jeff’s eyes on me. I shrugged it off, not wants to believe that the office rumors were true, that he liked me.

Yes, we may be a top secret assassin organization, and yes we may kill people for a living but we still had your everyday high school like “drama”.

I had checked Jeffery out once or twice, but I mean who wouldn’t? He was quite up there on the male scale. His light brown hair was always in a weird half spiked up do, but it made him look mature. I could sometimes still see the excitement glistening his bright blue eyes, excitement was rare around here.

But why would I even think about a relationship, the idea itself seemed pointless to me at this point. He was younger than me by a year at 17. And in this job you couldn’t get attached to someone because they could be ripped right from you. I had learned that the hard way.

Ding!  The doors slid open and we stepped out into the hellhole.

There was a light hum of conversations and the flutter of paper everywhere. Telephones rang throughout the large glass room. On the outside of the glass walls were the offices that belonged to some of the greatest agents of all time.

Most agents didn’t make it to 25 before dying from whatever their mission entailed. So if they did, they were considered great.

I was the youngest agent to ever have an office on the outside of the glass walls. I was also the only other agent besides the boss that was at level nine or higher. Boss often apprised me for being the best agent he had ever had.

That didn’t comfort me, I didn’t want to be the best at killing people. Who wants that?

I led the way to the boss’s office that was in the middle back of the room. We passed through the cubicles and made it past the glass wall.

I turned the door knob to the boss’s office and stepped in, giving Jeff time to make it in before shutting the door.

The room was the same as always. Nothing personal was in the room to show that there was even an actual person working here. The only thing in the room was a large wooden desk, a leather chair behind it, and two smaller leather chairs in front of the desk.

Jeffery and I took seats in front of the desk and looked at boss expectantly, “What? No hello for this old man?”

“Hi, boss” I replied my voice cold.

“I guess that’s better, but I’ve told you to call me Johnson over a thousand times” his meaty arms moved around the desk shuffling papers around before finding what he was looking for, “So mission successful?”

“If you consider 50 men dead successful, then yes we flourished at this mission,” I replied sarcastically. I was the only one to ever talk to him this way, what else could he do to me. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed my “services”.

His eyes narrowed at me, “No need to be rude.” He filled out the paperwork for our mission, asking us questions along the way.

Finally he filled the paper and stood from his desk. Due to his large size, instead of walking normally to his other cabinet in the room, he waddled over.

How this man was the best agent this office had ever seen was beyond me. The only thing he seemed to have excelled in was eating his own body weight.

To me that cabinet was the new mission central. I had always received all my information out of there and for that reason it was my least favorite thing in this whole building. Though it proved useful for studying up on the other employees here.

Johnson rummaged his chubby fingers through the files before coming across mine and pulling out a thick packet of papers. He went into Jeffery’s and did the same.

Handing us the packets, he plopped back into his chair.

Mission 007855

Location: Portland, Oregon

Importance: 9/10

Overall mission: Everly J. Williamson is assigned undercover as a senior in Jefferson High School…

There was a lot more to read, but my eyes went blurry as I scanned the name of the high school one more time. This had to be a joke.

I couldn’t believe it, I looked over at Jeffery and his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. Mine felt as if they had already run for the hills, I couldn’t see straight. It was as if the room had begun spinning around my head at light speed.

I had been trained to deal with the most painful tortue and not panic, not reveal I thing about myself. But this, this made all that seem like childs play to me now.

I brought my weary eyes up to meet Johnson’s, he had an evil smirk dancing across his face, “Excited for your new assignment, Everly?”

“What the hell have you done?” I seethed out through my gritted teeth.

He was sending me back to the high school and the people I had tried so hard to forget.

“What game do you think you’re playing here?” I shot daggers with my eyes as I stood up.

“A game you’re bound to lose.”

Author's Note

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