Folie Over Belief
A story about the two best female spies from the south who find love while on one of the biggest missions of their career
Prologue
Normally when you're 19 you'd expect to see yourself working at college, a part-time job under your collar to keep up with the student loans, weekly shopping and to help fix that wall you broke at your neighbour's drunken party that you don't seem to remember. Your life follows the same routine you can remember by heart now: get up late, wash, dress, bolt down a hurried breakfast of a piece of burnt toast, grab half the wrong books, run straight past the room you should be in and then spend the rest of the morning trying to wake yourself up. Meeting your friends for the hour of freedom every lunchtime is one of the highlights of the long day. Now you can chat and forget about that big essay you need to finish by tomorrow. And when the day is finished, you roll wearily into bed, setting the alarm early even though you won't wake up to it, and fall into a deep sleep just like every other day.
O.K. That might be you at college, you could be brilliant there, you could wake up in time. But for some people that isn't the case. Some days it could be. Other days they might be rescuing an important official from a special government. Oh yeah these people exist. You mean you don't have people like that at your college? Well, read on anyway and you'll find out just who are normal people leading happy, normal lives. And those that are secret under-cover agents. This story is about two particular female (yeah alright lads, simmer down!) spies who lead these sort-of lives, full of danger, suspense and homework. And this story is about the most dangerous, exciting and best mission of their entire career. Don't believe me? Well see for yourself…
Chapter 1
There was a loud knock at the door. Inside the dark room, two single beds occupied half the room. In these beds slept two figures. There came another longer and louder knock on the wooden door again and one of the figures twitched and groaned.
"CLAIRE! JULIA!"
A muffled yell travelled through the thick door.
"YOU'D BETTER BE UP IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES, 'CAUSE IF YOU'RE NOT, HUDGENS IS GONNA BE SO CHEESED OFF WITH YOU GUYS!"
The sound of footsteps walking away was the last thing the two 'Sleeping Beauties' heard. The first girl rolled over, sat up and stepped out of bed reluctantly, swaying slightly from weariness. The second, on the other hand, curled up even tighter under her duvet, and it wasn't till her roommate yanked the covers back did she eventually roll right out of bed onto her knees. The usual routine of their mornings. The girl crawled round to the wardrobe whilst the other drew back the curtains. Light streamed through and they both yelped.
"Close it, close it!" the one on the floor screeched. She ignored her friend's whimpers and drew them back further, although wincing slightly at the brightness.
The first girl was Claire Ebony, the younger of the two but only by a few days. She was quite short at around 5'4", with thick, dark brown, straight hair that reached down past her shoulders. Even though she was small, she had a slim figure. Her eyes were a sapphire blue and she had a big, cheerful smile that got everyone else grinning too.
The second struggled to her feet and swayed slightly due to head-rush. Claire giggled and turned back to her desk. The second of the two was Julia Skart, the elder one. But only by a few days. She was a lot taller than Claire and stood at 5'8". Her almost-straight hair was a darker shade of brown with dark purple highlights under the fringe and all over her layers, and her hair had grown to half-way down her back. She had a slim build too, dark green eyes and her smile, like Claire's, could grab the attention of anyone present, but it was a cheeky grin hiding a mischievous plot she had just concocted off the top of her head. Both were funny, intelligent, witty and popular girls and a hit with students and teachers alike at their University.
Unfortunately they had to frequently cancel plans of socialising with their friends due to one reason: they were secret, under-cover spies working for a multi-million pound secret organisation that dealt in cases more severe than the FBI or CIA. Picture, if you will, James Bond in a top-secret mission. Now picture two female James Bond's in the same mission, but prettier. They tended to specialise in kidnapping/rescue missions, but now and again they were put on a stop-the-bad-guy-take-out-the-villains mission. They didn't mind these particularly difficult missions. The pay was good, they were doing their bit for the country and they were getting fresh air. The slight flaws of their job were they weren't allowed to go out with their friends as much as everyone else. What with the pressure of Uni. work, having to work on a different scenario at least once a week or sometimes twice a week, and the pressure of being invited to parties but not being able to drink too much so as to keep a clear head, they weren't happy all year round to be working in such an exciting job. Also, as part of their under-cover work, they had to work in a part-time job so as to fit in with everyone else, so their schedules were tight and sometimes they felt like rebelling big time.
Claire took out some fresh clothes from their wardrobe and went to their small, fancy bathroom they had connected to their dormitory, thanks to anonymous funding from their organisation. Ten minutes later and Claire returned from the bathroom fully-clothed in dark blue skinny jeans, blue, patterned Converse trainers, a stripy black and red top and a black jacket with a small logo in the top-right corner: a small, red bat with a black love heart in the centre. Julia jumped past her, literally. Jumping was the only thing she knew that woke her up properly and refrained her from falling asleep again. Claire sat down at their small dresser and started applying eyeliner to her face. Not on her face as in everywhere obviously, on her eyes. In the reflection of the mirror, lots of posters, drawings and photos covered the walls and stared back at her lifelessly. Fifteen minutes later and Julia came hopping out again in black skinnies, black, patterned Converses, and a plain dark-red hoodie, concealing the black band t-shirt she had on underneath. Claire looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.
"You're still not properly awake?" she questioned with a tone that showed her disbelief. Julia stared back.
"No, I kicked the sink again," she answered wearily and limped along to her bed.
Claire opened her mouth but didn't say anything, instead tried to hide the smile that always appeared when her friend had done something stupid and predictable but oh so funny. After dumping her pyjamas on her unmade bed, Julia walked awkwardly over to where Claire sat and nudged her slightly. Claire sighed, finished applying her make-up and got up with a flourish. Julia sat down heavily and began straight away with the black kohl eyeliner. Their daily routine compared to everyone else's in the building. After they were finished making their selves look good, they did a quick sweep of their quite untidy room, shrugged and snatched their bags from the back of the chair.
Once their dormitory door was firmly shut, they glanced round at the last few stragglers making their way to class. Claire dragged out her timetable from the depths of her shoulder-bag and searched over it to Friday.
"We're in Lecture Room 13 for role call first off," she read back to Julia who stood patiently listening.
"You do know 13 is an unlucky number?" she questioned as they started making their way down to their destination. "In fact Friday is an unlucky day too."
"And did you know you are REALLY superstitious?" Claire answered back sarcastically.
"Hey, have you ever seen Friday the 13th? Any of them?" Julia said indignantly, stopping in her tracks and pointing a finger at Claire.
"Not all the way through," she admitted, shrugging slightly.
"Well when you see every single one, you come back to me and tell me you don't get paranoid some crazy guy's just gonna come round in a hockey mask and try to kill you. Although, saying that, we pretty much go through that sort of thing every w—"
She was cut short as Claire waved a hand at her impatiently. It was a necessity that no-one else knew of their secret identities. If word got round, they'd have to resign from their post at once, no questions asked.
When she was satisfied that she wouldn't say anything else, Claire rolled her eyes and continued walking swiftly to Lecture Room 13. Julia put her hands out in a questioning manner and jogged after her. They reached the Lecture Room just as the Professor began calling out names. They made their way sheepishly to their desks situated halfway between the door and the small stage from which lessons were taught.
"Claire Ebony?" the Professor called out, looking around for her familiar face.
She raised a hand and he continued ticking off students.
"Julia Skart?" he said loudly. There was no answer.
"Julia Skart?" he called again, looking round with a look that showed he was used to this.
Claire raised an eyebrow and turned to her friend to find her staring up at the ceiling, a glazed look in her eyes and with a small smile on her face. Claire rolled her eyes as the Professor sighed irritably.
"Is she still asleep?" he asked the large class, both bushy, grey eyebrows crossed in frustration. "Has anyone seen her this morning? Can someone please just go and wake her up." He waved a hand, motioning for someone to go to Claire and Julia's room.
"She's here Sir," Claire sighed, prodding Julia sharply with her elbow to bring her back to reality. She jumped, blinked and stared round whilst everyone groaned and giggled. She grinned with embarrassment as the Professor ticked off her name.
"As ever, you're either asleep or day-dreaming," he said with a serious look on his face.
Julia shrugged her shoulders as Claire suppressed a giggle…