CHAPTER 1.

It was late. So late that all the pubs and bars had kicked the last alcoholics out and not one light seemed to be on in the large residential area. If you looked up past the hazy orange glow of the street lamps, you could have imagined the inky blackness of the sky, like the depths of a person's pupil, stretching to infinity above you. Not a sound could be heard except for the soft crunching of a girls feet on wet tarmac. It was hard to tell whether she was in her late or mid teens, both of which would've been out of place in this particular neighbourhood at this particular hour, yet she seemed quite comfortable in her surroundings, ignoring the drunk heckles of the rowdy men on the other side of the bare street. She had the hood of her jacket pulled up over her head yet every time she passed under a street lamp, her features were illuminated by the glare. The girl had never been described as pretty, but she'd never been called ugly either, her physique was a little bit skinnier than it should've been for the tall height that she was, which was emphasised by the tight black jeans she was wearing, every so often her jacket flapped open because of the icy winds revealing a plain dark grey vest top which hung low, highlighting her prominent collar bones. The first thing you noticed about her face was her sharp yellow eyes which stood out against the dark circles which were her shrunken eye sockets. Her short scraggily red hair rested just above her shoulders, the pale skin was taught against her high cheekbones and drew attention to her hollow cheeks and temples. Her nose was a faultless right angle with perfectly straight edges, just below that was her constantly parted, slightly chapped lips where you could glimpse a small gap between her two front teeth.

In the past, lots of people had described her as "nondescript", but those people were gone now, along with everything else that used to be.

The girl walked without purpose, she varied her pace, turned down a street when she felt like it, crossed the road or even stopped altogether, seeming to stare into nothingness with a slightly glazed look across her piercing eyes. She had headphones in that seemed to be plugged into an electronic device of some kind in her pocket yet she wasn't listening to music, she had tuned in to an Turkish radio station and half listening to the news in one ear, the other earphone was silent except for the faint static that sounded like a snow storm.

She continued along her journey, her eyes never shifting from straight ahead but she walked as if she didn't need her eyes to see where she was going. She walked for half an hour, seemingly with no direction, and then all of a sudden, in a flash she had sprung over a garden fence, if you had blinked you would've thought she had disappeared into thin air. She sustained her pace whilst making her way through gardens and back alleys, every so often hopping out of the way to avoid a security light, however she had added more of spring to her step now, she treaded lightly, making no more sound then the wind through the grass beneath her feet as she jumped fence after fence, until she seemed satisfied and ended up on a small disserted high street lined with closed shops. She stopped for a second, scanning her surroundings, apparently searching for something.

"Where is he?" The girl muttered under her breath; as she tilted her head down to hide her face with her hood.

"Sorry what was that Fox?" A boy's voice replied sarcastically in her right headphone, if she had been surprised to hear someone talking to her through her earphones, she didn't show it.

"Where the hell is he... Jingo." She said with a tone of voice that made the hairs at the back of your neck stand up, it was very clear that she didn't like to have to repeat things.

"It's Jango, like from Star Wars," the voice in her ear said, sounding quite annoyed as if he had the same trait of hating to have to repeat himself, except he seemed to be able to take it with a pinch of salt. The girl raised her head a fraction, just enough to see her eyes flick for a millisecond to the camera located by an ATM just ahead of where she was standing, she then proceeded to scratch her cheek with her middle finger in the direction of camera. "Well that's rude." The voice continued in her ear.

She very slightly rolled her eyes as she said, "Well that doesn't answer my question. Tell him to hurry up."

"Why don't you tell me yourself?" A voice behind her asked out of the shadows. He was everything the girl wasn't; his looks deserved attention, not a quick glance. He was tall, at least 6ft, even taller than the girl who was 5ft 10", with broad shoulders, a strong jaw line, perfect bone structure and unkempt black hair that stuck up in all directions.

She turned her head slightly to acknowledge his presence then continued walking down the high street, not even bothering to check whether her new accomplice was following her. However fast she was walking with her long legs, the boy instantly fell into step with her without even working for it. "So you're the infamous Fox? You're not quite what I imagined..." He said, breaking the momentary silence as he looked her up and down quickly out of the corner of his eye, "You're more..." He paused as he tried to find the right word to describe her, she didn't bother to tell him there wasn't one, he'd find out soon enough.

"Jango, what is this?" She spoke bluntly; like she was trying to injure the boy with her words, interrupting him as he still struggled to uncover the best adjective for her.

"You asked for backup so here it is," the boy in her headphone answered , accompanied with the sound of machine gun fire, sounding distracted and disorientated.

"The key word being backup Jango, not decoy, he stands out too much, he definitely won't do," she replied eyeing him with raised eyebrows, taking in everything from his high cheekbones to his hands that were shoved firmly into his pockets, giving him a look of extreme confidence. "... And get off your bloody video games," she added.

"You know he is right here don't you?" said the boy next to her, huffing like a small child.

"Yeah well we can't all look 'heroin chic' Fox, it's him or nothing," continued the boy in the headphone, completely ignoring the other one, who on closer inspection had an earpiece tucked safely within his ear. The girl just sighed and continued down the street as if she had no energy to make a snarky reply to him.

They continued down the barren street in silence, every so often slipping into the shadows to avoid an unexpected car drive past or some security cameras. They walked until they entered yet another residential area and the girl once again navigated the maze of identical houses without consulting a map or even really looking where she was going. And then just when the boy was going to break the stony silence and ask how much further, she darted down an alley into absolute darkness, waiting a couple of seconds for the boy to follow. She walked a few steps then instantly stopped, frozen on the spot, every muscle tense, listening for any sound that would tell her they were being watched. After a while she seemed satisfied that they were alone because she turned to the boy next to her, who was uncomfortably close to her, both their backs were on opposite walls but still they were inches apart, the old version of the girl would've swooned at being so close to such a 'handsome' boy, but now? Not so much.

"Okay look, there are jammers on this building so our comms won't work, if I'm not out in seven minutes then leave and don't look back, just keep watch and if anyone comes... I don't know stall them or something," the girl forcefully instructed, already taking things out of her pockets and pulling her hair into a small bun.

"What even is this place?" the boy asked staring up at the high walls and up and down the alleyway. As his eyes were averted to the sky, the girl thrusted a small electronic device into his hands and took off her jacket and wrapped it around her hands.

Ignoring the question she said, "A green light will flash on the screen once the silent alarm sounds after the seven minutes are up, that's your queue to go."

"And what about cameras?" he asked, in response she reached over and typed in some commands on the gadget and then turned, took a small leap at the wall, rebounded off it onto the opposite one and continued climbing the wall like this with such agility and grace it was hard not to compare her to an animal like a fox.

She reached the top and gripped the top of the wall with her wrapped up hands listening to the crunch of broken glass underneath the material, she then hoisted herself up, crouched there for a millisecond taking in her surroundings then dropped down onto the grass on the other side of the wall, landing without a sound. She made her way through the impressive grounds, sticking to the shadows, thankful for the amount of trees there were for cover, until she reached a bush on the edge of an open space of grass 20ft wide with a guard post stationed to the right hand side along another stretch of the perimeter wall. She swore under her breath, the post had not been shown on the blueprints of the building she had consulted earlier that day, she silently cursed Isaac for providing such out of date floor plans. She could feel her mental stopwatch counting down the seconds as she crouched there trying to figure out how to pass the guard sitting in his booth, staring at the television screens that showed the now looping footage of three minutes beforehand to cover her tracks. She shifted her weight slightly as her dominant leg started to lose blood circulation and accidently kicked a small stone a couple of centimetres, she looked around to make sure that she hadn't drawn any attention to herself and that's when she saw them, staring at her from the trees near the guard station, two pairs of yellow eyes just like her own peeking out from the darkness. She smiled slightly to herself as a plan came to her and wasting no time, threw the stone towards the two hidden animals with perfect aim, saw them bound away, rustling the leaves around them vigorously as they fled, drawing the attention of the guard who grabbed his torch and hurried after the retreating foxes. In a flash she had hurtled over the grass and towards the back door, whilst pulling out a small black pouch. Once she had reached the door, she chose a few thin silver instruments from the pouch and crouched down and started picking the lock; she got the door open in her own personal record of 26 seconds.

The back door led her straight into a dark, gloomy corridor which had nothing but a thin rickety staircase and another door at the far end which held far more security precautions than the back door, lucky for her she didn't need to go through there. She tiptoed as fast as she could up the old servant's staircase of the grand manor house, fully aware that she had five and half minutes left before the silent alarm went off, and six minutes before the ear-splitting sirens that would wake the whole house and the owner's small private army. Once she was up the stairs, she opened another door praying that it wouldn't creak, then darted across landing, past a slightly open door where she heard some voices arguing about how lucky they would be with the exchange rate in turkey tomorrow. She passed by unnoticed and once again picked another lock of a grand oak door in 31 seconds; she slipped inside and took in her surroundings. She was in the office of the house, it had an imposing wood desk with a lit lamp and a vast bookshelf filled with books that had probably never been touched, the chairs were upholstered with royal green leather and the carpet was plush but had a few worn spots where someone had clearly been pacing a lot.

She got straight to work and climbed onto the desk, trying as hard as she could to avoid the mountains of paper on the surface, reached up to the fire alarm and put a tiny wireless microphone inside it, ready to transmit every conversation Richard Baker would have in this office. She then climbed down and started taking pictures of everything she could see with a tiny digital camera, she took one of the bookshelf, the view from the window which overlooked his luxurious front driveway, the contents of his bin and finally everything in his desk drawers and the piles of paper on the top. She was just about to leave with two minutes to get out when she noticed a file on a small table by the door, it was marked with the CIA seal and stamped "top secret". Without thinking she snatched it up and riffled through it, words jumping out at her like "Circle Of Cavan", "Blackthorne", "Gallagher Academy", and two name's that kept cropping up-"Operative Morgan" and "Operative Solomon", but before she could read what those words mean, the big heavy door next to her swung open revealing two men cut off their conversation, look utterly bewildered for two seconds and then open their mouths as if to shout for help. But the words never came as the girl dropped the file and swung her leg round in one fluid motion knocking both the men over. On their fall, one of the men hit his head on the banister and tumbled down the stairs, knocking himself unconscious but alerting a hoard of stamping feet on the ground floor that something was wrong. The girl cursed and charged at the other man who was already on his feet ready to fight, she rammed him in the shoulder so he also went flying over the banister and dropped 15ft onto the floor, a pool of blood began to form instantly around his head on the tiles below. By this point 5 other men were bounding up the stairs, she ran in the other direction heading back towards the servants staircase but halfway there she saw too late a small marble statue come crashing down on her skull from one of the men who had been discussing the exchange rates. She instantly felt blood dribbling down her face and matting her hair and she saw double vision. She sent a wildly aimed fist out in front of her and surprised herself when it hit a target, the man doubled over and started coughing but before she could continue running she felt in a punch to her side and she instantly felt a rib crack. The force of the punch propelled her further towards the small door at the end of the landing and thankfully her legs responded to her brains commands and started running, she yanked open the door but just as she was about to take the first step her legs gave out and she went tumbling down the stairs and crashed through the door, glass shattering everywhere, making deep gashes and rips all over her skin. By this time her two and a half minutes were up and the alarms were deafening her, she put her hands to her ears to dull the noise and sprinted back through the garden, hearing bullets being fired and seeing the trees splinter around her where they missed. She didn't have time to get out a rope to cross back over the wall; she could already see at least 30 men running after her, their sights trained on the back of her head. So instead, dodging another bullet as it whistled past her ear, she leapt up a tree, ignoring her body which was screaming in protest and climbed it as fast as she could, forgetting all about graceful. Without even looking down at the 25 ft drop she closed her eyes and jumped, knowing the landing was going to be anything but injury free. But instead of landing and potentially breaking both her legs on concrete, she landed in someone's arms, she snapped her eyes open to find herself looking into the blurred image of the green eyes of her backup, she realised with a jolt she didn't even know his code name let alone his real name.

"I thought I told you to leave when the silent alarm goes off?" she slurred as her eyes rolled around in their sockets struggling to lock on to anything.

"I thought I'd have some fun of my own," he smirked as he gestured towards the small pile of unconscious bodies behind him.

"I said stall them, not knock them out," she replied feeling the darkness close in around her vision.

"Yeah well my way was more enjoyable... We need to get out of here, there's more coming and you're not gonna last long."

The shock of him throwing her other his shoulder jolted her back to reality as he sprinted back down the alley, barrelling through two men as they pulled their guns from their holsters.

"Well no shit Sherlock I could've told you that," she replied sarcastically from her upside down view point, "We need to get a car, drive us to 35 Dalton Way, in East London." He bounded for an old, dusty looking Ford and smashed the window open with his elbow to open the door, time had run out to pick locks and think about safety as an unmarked white van screeched round the corner no doubt full to the brim with more armed guards. He dropped her onto the passenger seat then raced round the car and got in the driver's seat.

"How are we supposed to start it?" he practically shouted, panic starting to fill his voice as he watched the van shriek to a halt and the side door slide open 20 metres away.

"Oh for god's sake," the girl muttered as she mustered up her last bit of energy to lean over, rip open the panel underneath the steering wheel and spark the red and green wires together. She felt his body tense as she ran out of energy in her muscles to hold her body up and let her head rest in his lap, whether that was because there was in fact a girls head in his lap or men had started spilling out of the van and were racing towards the car she didn't know, she hoped it was latter because let's face it, the former was a much more scary thought. She finally felt the purr of the engine as it started and he didn't waste any time in slamming his foot down on the accelerator, she pulled herself back into a slumped position on her seat as the car speeded away and her eyes slowly began to close.

"No, no, NO! You are not allowed to go to sleep!" he shouted as she felt her muscles truly relaxing.

"Why not?" she mumbled, unable to resist undermining the blatant order she had been given as a soft smile played on her lips.

"Because if you go to sleep there is a very small chance you won't wake up, I cannot let you get amnesia!" this last statement bought her back to the present a little bit and she turned to see his jaw clench and his knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel.

"What are you talking about?" she murmured, she realised that amnesia comment hadn't even been meant for her, and then she begun to understand that maybe this boys past isn't any brighter than hers.

"It doesn't matter, talk to me, I've got to keep you talking, what's your name?" he asked as he reached behind him into the back seat of the car and pulled out a map of London and started flicking through the index, his eyes darting from the road to the map every two seconds.

"i can give you directions you know-"

"What is your name?!"

"Now that would be telling."

"Look, I'm trying to help you, I could've left you to be killed back there, I don't even know you and I saved your life so tell me your fucking name!" There was a short silence after his little outburst as he panted and continued checking the map but she was nowhere near unconscious anymore, every cell in her body was screaming at her for being so stupid, how could she let herself owe someone a debt? She had broken her one rule; never have to rely on someone else.

"It's Raye... my name's Raye," she whispered after what seemed like hours of silence.

"I'm Zach, nice to meet you. 35 Dalton Way, is it safe?"

"It's the safest place I know."

"Good. How old are you?"

"17."

"How did you get into the clandestine services?"

"I'm not really in them."

"You don't work for the government?"

"Kind of, it's hard to explain."

"Who trained you then?"

"A mix."

"Excuse me?"

"A mix of people."

"Well who?"

"Myself, my grandma and the government."

"... So if the government trained you why do you not work for the government?"

"Because I started out with my grandma teaching me the basics just to take my mind off... stuff, I guess... she's a retired MI5 operative you see, when I was nine I started putting what she taught me to practise, and picked up some of my own skills which, let's face it, nine year olds really shouldn't know, I got in with some wrong people when I was eleven and did some stuff that I'm not proud of, I got on the governments radar but instead of hushing me up, they took me in, I guess someone somewhere believed I would be useful to them. They trained me and by the time I was 14 I was going on full blown missions that any junior operative would dream of, but I was a nuisance for MI6, I liked doing things my own way, they didn't know what to do with me, I was too dangerous to keep and I was too valuable to 'get rid of'. So instead I created a new... occupation shall we say, I am basically a MI6 contractor, I don't work for an agency, I am my own boss, they can hire me out for certain ops or for certain periods of time, the jobs they give me I do on my own terms, just as long as I get the job done, this way they get what they need and I'm out of their hair and still doing what I'm good at." She didn't know why she was telling him all this, it was like the irrational side of her brain was just taking over and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Throughout her monologue she could feel herself sinking further and further into the dark corners of her mind, her eyes were slits, just wide enough to see the streetlamps flash by, her hands were shaking, she was taking heavy breaths, she could no longer feel her toes and the blood continued to pour out of every gash in her body onto the fabric seats.

Zach had also noticed that she was drifting into oblivion as he said, "Hold on Raye, not long to go now, so how do you know Isaac?"

"He's my brother," She garbled, "how do you know him?"

"He's an asset... but he works for MI6 doesn't he?"

"Yeah he does, they found him through me, I got him to run comms on an op I did in Brazil when I was fifteen and straight after that they hired him."

"Where did he train?"

"He wasn't trained, he taught himself. When he was eight he hacked into your precious Langley and planted a virus that made every computer screen which was hooked up to the server show an animation of a dinosaur eating the flag of North Korea. They had to rebuild the whole thing because no one could get rid of it."

"... What did you mean my Langley?"

"Well you're American aren't you?"

"How did you guess?" he asked, reverting back to his original accent.

"Your accent was good but when we were getting in the car you went to put me in the left hand side and that's the driver seat..."

And with a sigh she felt her last bit of energy leave her as her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She felt dull sensations that felt like someone shaking her but she couldn't be sure and she didn't really care, she felt so calm, darkness had never been so inviting to her.

Zach shook her and shouted at her to wake up but nothing worked, they were two minutes away and he couldn't coax anymore speed out of the old beat up Ford. He turned one more corner and counted down the house numbers until they reached 35, he screeched into the empty driveway and pulled Raye from the car, carrying her in his arms, she was as light as a feather and for the second time that evening he felt how bony she was and it reminded him of another time, another girl, and another head injury once again. He ran to the door but stopped dead at the sight of an old woman standing in the doorway in a nightie and a hairnet with a shotgun trained at his forehead.

"Who the hell are you boy?"