Chapter 2- Everly

“Sit down, Everly, you look like your about to pass out,” Jeffery tugged on my arm, and I gave in sitting back down in the chair.

“Why are you sending me on this mission?”

Boss’s smirk never wavered from his faced, “Because you’re the best agent I have and that exactly what this assignment needs.” He seemed to be contemplating something, “I also have heard you have your connections there.”

I shot out of my chair, “You b*****d!” It took every ounce of self-control I had to keep my feet on the ground instead of lunging at him.

Jeffery shot out of his chair and wrapped his arm around my waist, he knew right where I was headed with this, “Everly, calm down,” Jeff whispered in my ear.

I took a deep breath and counted to ten, “I’m fine,” I said as I shrugged his arm off. Then continuing my deep breaths, I sat back down again.

“What is going on at the school that’s so important anyways?” I couldn’t see Jefferson high school being the next target for our agency. It was always so calm, the kids were too worried about making it in to good colleges to do anything else, but study the years away.

“There is believed to be a drug ring running out of there,” he replied no longer looking at me, but now down at the file.

I sat up straighter in my chair, “And since when is that our problem?”

“Since the drug leader is believed to be threatening students into being mules. Our suspect is Mr. Jorgen at the moment.”

I did a double take, now he had to be joking. Mr. Jorgen a drug leader? The man who was too afraid to give the students detention because he was terrified we would rebel against him. The man who gave out A’s on homework for effort, you didn’t even have to do the actual assignment, just write down a bunch of random stuff.

The guy had to kids for Christ’s sake, “Now you’ve got that wrong, Mr. Jorgen was my math teacher for my only two months in 9^th grade. There’s no way.”

“Another reason why we are sending you in, he teaches 12^th grade now.” Of course he does.

“And why can’t some other department send other people in?” I was not understanding the thought process going through this guy’s mind. We rarely ever gave drug dealers the kind of day, especially didn’t give them a level of importance as big as a nine.

“Because they asked for us, Everly. They asked for you.”

“Who?” Though I had worked here for three years, I had never known who the orders came from. I’m not sure anyone did.

“That is classified.” I rolled my eyes in annoyance, he probably didn’t even know.

Jeffery spoke up, “When do we leave?”

“April 7^th.”

That was a week and a half from now. I had a week and half to pull myself together enough to face all of them again. I had focused all of my energy these past years on forgetting, now he was forcing me into remembrance. Just another reason I hated that guy.

Nick knew I wasn’t dead like everyone else thought, I had made sure of that the night before I supposedly died in a car accident on the way to school. At least I think I was clear enough with him. He had to have put the pieces together.

I had stuck around long enough to see my parents and Lou’s reactions. I knew that Nick could lie, just not to me. I saw through his tears the moment I saw him.

They weren’t tears from losing me, they were tears from missing me.

Lou and my parent’s reactions broke my hearts. My mom had been behind the wheel when I “died”. She could barely take the guilt. I made sure they got some pay off from the guy running the red light and hitting us.

I pulled myself from my thoughts and regained the conversation Jeff and boss were having.

“How is this going to take any longer than the other drug busts?” Jeff argued.

“You’re going to have to get close to the students to find out anything, that’s why I’m putting you in different grades. Divide and conquer.”

I took another look at the packet, it was huge. How bad could this really be? My high school was full of bill gates wannabes, they wouldn’t chance messing their futures up this badly.

I sighed and stood up, “I’m headed out, it’s been a long day. Jeff you want a ride?”

He shook his head at me and I headed out the door without looking back.

I pulled my red Jeep into my apartment complex’s garage and parked in my permitted space. The garage was full of cars, but no people in sight. They were all in bed as I wished I could be.

The fluorescent lights flickered as I made my way through the vacant garage to the elevator. I pressed the up button to the elevator and while waiting checked my watch, 11:34. The elevator creaked open and I cautiously stepped in.

Elevators made me uneasy for some reason, but this one took it to a whole other level. It creaked endlessly as it made its way up to the 6^th floor. I was careful not to move because I knew that would result in unnecessary swaying of the cables that pulled me upwards.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I quickly exited the elevator. I made my way down to the end of the hall, where my welcome mat lay at my doorstep.

I pulled my keys from one of the many pockets of my black pants and unlocked the door to my one bedroom apartment.

Flicking on the lights, I threw my keys to the side where the table sat. They landed with thump and slid across the oak wood until they hit the back of one of the chairs pushed in. Another chair sat opposite of that one. A simple brown leather couch that seated three sat a couple feet away placed in front of my small plasma screen tv.

Much of my time was spent of that couch, eating microwavable meals and my couch had many stains to show for it.

The door to my room was just past the tv.

I turned to my small kitchen behind the table. Pulling an apple from the bowl, I rested my elbow on the counter and grabbed the tv remote nearby. After spending countless minutes trying to find something good on, I finished my apple and gave up.

The tv screen went black as I went past it holding the remote in my hand, I then tossed the remote on to the couch before entering my room.

The walls were just as bare and boring as when I had left that morning. No pictures on my small beside table. Nothing to tell you what kind of person I actually was. Just a white comforter that covered my queen sized bed, a small dresser, and a treadmill in the corner.

My bathroom was off to the left and I made a quick stop there to shower and brush my teeth. I braided my wet shoulder length hair into a side braid and change from my robe into my simple boxers and tank top.

After pulling my shades closed, I turned off my overhead light and climbed into bed.

But it was pointless, there was no sleeping for me. No matter how tired I was, I just couldn’t get my brain to shut off for the night.

I kept picturing his face in my head. His cheekbones stood out, making his face look even more attractive than before. His sky blue eyes peered into me and I just couldn’t get the sight out of my mind.

I wonder how tall he is now, when I had left he had towered over me at 6’1. But I’m sure he hadn’t been done growing then. I sure hadn’t, I went from 5’5 to 5’11 in one year.

I’m still convinced it was the agency drugging me.

I couldn’t stop my thoughts from wandering to my parents. I knew that they still had the same house, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. I could easily find all these things out in the agencies data base, but I knew better than to let myself go there.

Lou crossed my mind as my thoughts drifted back to Nick. She had been the reason I met him 7^th grade. Nick moved in next door to her the previous year. We both ogled at him for a year before getting up the courage to “accidently” kick our soccer ball over his fence.

Nick came back with our ball and played with us for hours. The three of us ended up on his front porch that night, talking into the early hours of the morning. It sounds cheesy, I know.

I still could remember the exact feelings that began to blossom for him the two years. Though I couldn’t feel them anymore.

 That was why I choose him that night, why I choose to leave my burden on his shoulders. It was selfish of me, but it would have been almost as selfish to let him think I died. At least that’s what I told myself the many nights it kept me up.

I tossed and turned the whole night, my eyes never closing for more than a minute or two. I got to know my ceiling even better than I had before.

When my alarm clock went off at 7, I groaned. Yanking off the covers, I placed my feet on the marble floor and shivered.

I looked over at my treadmill and shook my head, “Not today buddy.”

I lugged myself to the bathroom where I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and washed my face.

After getting dressed in my normal attire of a dark red v-neck, black pocketed skinny jeans, a black leather jacket, and combat boots, I made myself a cup of coffee that was soon turned into 4 cups of coffee.

I checked the time on the microwave, 7:23. I had an hour before I had to be at work. I really needed to find a hobby outside of intense exercise.

So I sat there for 45 minutes, doing nothing. It was better than heading into work early, then it would actually seem like I cared for my job. Which I didn’t, at all.

I gave up and at 8:03, I began my 5 minute commute to work. Stopping at Starbucks to get a heavily caffeinated drink maybe me early to the parking lot only 10 minutes early.

So I finally went to my last resort and pulled out my iPhone 5s. I had two contacts, Jeff and the boss, and I had one game, zombie world. My lock screen was black and I think if anyone normal looked at my phone they would assume I was a gothic teenager with no life. Well I guess they could make that assumption by looking at me too.

The sound of car tires pulling next to me pulled my eyes away from my screen that was filled with flesh eating monsters. Jeff’s old ford truck was parked next to mine. He was already out of his car and walking towards mine.

I rolled down my window as he approached, “I think this is the earliest I have ever seen you at work, I think you’re actually on time,” Jeffery acted way too surprised at my sudden surge of timeliness.

I playfully glared at him, “I think I should be given an award for this actually, because this is the first time I have ever been on time for work.”

He laughed and stepped back as I gestured to him to move away. I rolled the window up and pulled my car keys out before slipping them into one of my pockets. I pulled the door open and jumped out.

“I’m proud of your sudden responsibility, kid, maybe I am a good influence on you.”

I punched his arm as we made our way to the doors, “Don’t ever call me kid again.”

Jeff laughed, “Whatever you say, kid.”

“You just had to add that,” I muttered as he held the door open for me.

I wish somehow I could have slowed down the next week, but my wishing for that only seemed to make it go faster. And soon enough it was April 5^th and I was beginning to pack my bag for the morning of the 7^th.

Boss had sent Jeff and I out shopping a couple days before to get “normal” teenage clothes. Apparently all black wasn’t normal enough for him.

It was easy for Jeffery because all he had to do was buy some ripped jeans and some plain colored tee-shirts. I, on the other hand, had to buy skirts, dresses, cute little capris, and my least favorite, colored shirts. Cute blouses others might call them, but they were horrid to my eyes. Never had I ever bought so much pink in my life.

Apparently to fit in with the “it” crowd I had to wear pink and other bright colors that were blinding to the eyes. At least I got to buy black yoga pants, the only black thing I was allowed to buy.

Jeff had been the most annoying shopping partner, I had actually asked he Victoria Secret employee to kick him out of the store and told her that he was a creepy guy following me around. I spent to most time in Victoria Secret just for the reason of him not being there for a half hour.

Don’t get me wrong, Jeff was like a brother and probably the closest thing I had to a friend, but considering the fact that we spent basically all of our time together, he got on my nerves sometimes.

The night ended the way it had started, me packing then constantly getting sidetracked by my worried thoughts. Finally I rolled into bed and followed the same pattern as I had for the past week, staring at my ceiling. Needless to say I had gotten quite good at using makeup to cover up the bags under my eyes.

The next night was worse than all the others and I told myself that what I was about to do was for the better of the case.

I searched up Nick Catter on Facebook.

 I was the first time I was seeing his face in three years and let me tell you, those three years had done him good. He was now at least 6’4 and was muscular than before. He could probably attribute the muscle to being the baseball team’s and soccer team’s captain. Nick had turned into the movie star high school student, just as I knew he would.

Nick was tagged in tons of photos, but didn’t have any of his own posted. Odd.

His photos showed him at a lot of sporting events at the top, but as I got lower into his feed I saw all the partying shots. Most of them were from junior year it seemed.

I had never been to a high school party, obviously, but I had I feeling if I ended up in the “it” crowd, where boss wanted us to be, that I would be experiencing quite a few.

I ignored the thought of becoming friends with Nick once again. It would be my personal goal to avoid that as much as possible.

I twisted my woven anklet that Lou had made me in the 6^th grade, around my ankle, a nervous tick I had. I debated whether or not to take it off for the assignment, I always did for other missions I went on. Taking it off gave me an idea that I was taking off my humane self and going into terminator mode.

I decided against taking it off because I doubted that I would need to even go into terminator mode. Maybe some handcuffing, some punches thrown, but I prayed to god I would not have to pull out one of the many weapons I had stashed in my suitcase. 

I decided to go onto Lou’s Facebook, but when I typed in her name nothing from that area popped up. So typed in her full name, Louise Finch, nothing again. She must have deleted her profile. Weird, she was always the one making me post stuff on mine, the social butterfly that she always was.

So I went onto some of our other friends profiles and looked through their pictures in search of my best friends face. I came up with nothing again.

I checked the clock on my computer, 8:43. S**t! I was going to be late, normally that would be okay but boss got angry at late leaving flights.

I pulled my packed suitcase of my bed and pulled my combat boots on over my normal attire. I tucked my computer into my backpack that held all the files I needed and slung it over my shoulder. I made my way out of the garage in my Jeep and made it to the private air field with a minute and twelve seconds to spare.

I pulled into my normal spot and grabbed my cover from the ground, I covered my Jeep so it was ready for when I got back. Pulling my suitcase behind me, I made my to the private jet that was preparing for takeoff.

Jeff greeted me at the top and took my bags from me, “You arrived with 14 seconds to spare, pretty impressive timing.”

I laughed and took my seat in the plush, light leathered seat. Outside the sun was shining brightly and we were holding at 73 degrees. I knew once we landed in my hometown we would be incased with rain.

Just another thing for me to look forward too.

Author's Note

Be brutally honest please! thank you:)