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This could not be happening.
Aria felt sick to her stomach as she stared back at a wide-eyed Ezra Fitz. Everything she'd planned for the first day of her mission was ruined. Gone was the option of being bold and abrasive Venetia. Her strategies, means of approaching the subject, tactic, everything that followed from her character sketch would have to be trashed.
Breathe. She told herself. The situation was still salvageable -she'd just have to start anew. Venetia Russe was already on the attendance roll but she could still have a new identity and a new situation. It helped that Ezra had already seen her in different roles-from the aloof, emo-type eccentric in the elevator to the attractive, intelligent girl at the restaurant. All she had to do was combine both and her cover would still be intact.
Pulling herself out of her thoughts, Aria made a quick decision and smiled at Ezra. If she was going to be a student here for six months, it was imperative that she got along with him. Ezra smiled back slightly, confused and unsure of whether to acknowledge her acknowledgement.
At that moment, a girl with thunderous heels walked into the room, and zeroed in on Aria. Aria frowned, wondering where she knew her from. There wasn't much time to entertain the thought as the girl approached her, heels clicking.
"You're sitting in my seat." She told Aria, enunciating every word as if speaking to an inferior.
This is it. Aria told herself. Now was the moment where she would determine the character she was going to be playing for the next six months. She could either stick her nose up and stare the girl down, or acquiesce.
Taking a closer look at the girl, Aria finally figured out where she'd seen her before. The girl had been there during the first day of her training, kickboxing with some of the other decoys. Gary. She thought. Gary was somehow watching her right now and had realized she'd already begun to fail. And he'd tried to help by sending in a decoy to create a situation and allow Aria to reclaim the mission. As much as she appreciated Gary, she didn't want his help. Decoys were dangerous in missions as precarious as hers-they were to be used sparingly. She was going to have to have a word with Gary.
Without another glance at the girl, Aria got up from her seat and looked around for another, noticing that the entire class was fixated on her. Perfect.
Making her way through the rows, she searched for a particular face, without making it obvious that she was looking for him. As expected, there was an empty seat beside him.
"Is this seat taken?" She asked.
The ashy-blond boy had his head on his desk and lifted his head briefly to shake it no. He'd been the only one to ignore the situation with the girl, oblivious to the world around him. Aria could feel the twenty sets of eyes on her as she sat down beside him, likely making history as the first person to do so.
"Whoops. I just realized that I'm in the wrong class." Everyone's eyes traveled back to the girl with the thunderous heels, who was now peering at a piece of paper in her hand with an etched frown. "This isn't AP Calculus is it?" She asked Ezra.
He shook with head with a laugh. "I really hope not."
"Right. Well, toodles." With that, she sprang out of her chair and into the hall.
Smooth exit, Gary, Aria thought. Exceptionally executed.
"Alright, now that we've all settled in," Ezra began, "why don't we introduce ourselves to one another? State your name, two interesting facts about yourselves, and then pick the next person you'd like to hear from. I'll start"
Clearing his throat, he clasped his hands together and smiled. "I'm Mr. Fitz, I enjoy Taylor Swift…her music, I mean. And I am currently homeless, living in a hotel for the time being."
He looked around the room and landed his eyes on Aria.
"You. You're next."
Aria had hated these first day of school games the first time around, and this time was no exception.
Aria stood up, her chair screeching slightly.
"My name's Venetia. I was born in Milan, hence the Italian name. And I hate…Dickens."
Aria watched in enjoyment as Mr. Fitz flinched in response to her last statement. He looked up at her and saw her trying to hide a smile, before turning to the boy next to her.
"You're up," she told him.
The boy with the ashy-blond hair stood up in a daze, as the rest of the class looked on in shock at him being chosen.
"Jamie. Loki. Dickens." He said simply, giving Aria a pointed look as he said the last word.
Aria gave a little laugh. Already building a rapport with him, Gary would be proud, she thought.
Ezra watched the exchange, feeling a strange stir in his chest.
"You have to pick the next person, Jamie."
Jamie chose the person to his left, and the game went on until everyone had introduced themselves. The bell rang soon after, and Aria rushed to collect her things and escape before Ezra decided to do something stupid like ask her to stay behind class to confront her. A confrontation was imminent, she knew but she wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.
Consumed in her thoughts, Aria failed to notice that she'd dropped her agenda. Jamie noticed it on the floor, and hesitated before deciding to pick it up. He wasn't one to engage much in human contact, but he couldn't just leave it there.
Tapping her on the shoulder, he gave her the agenda.
"Oh, thank you, Jamie. And by the way, Loki is pretty kickass...evil, but kickass."
"He's misunderstood, not evil." He replied conclusively. "You're into Norse mythology?" He was clearly skeptical.
"Why is that such a surprise?" She asked in mock offence.
He gave her a look.
"Okay, fine. I'm not really. Mythology's not really my thing."
"Neither is Dickens." He stated.
"Neither is Dickens." She laughed.
Aria could feel eyes boring into her from the front of the class. She looked up and saw Ezra quickly turning away.
"Okay." Jamie said awkwardly. He wasn't sure how to react to her laugh, and desperately wanted to exit the conversation. "Bye." He said, turning on his heel.
Aria watched as he walked out with quickened pace. She knew it would take time to warm up to him and develop a friendship, but she was willing to wait. As far as she was concerned, today had been a success.
There was just one detail she had to take care of. She noticed that all the other students had left in the room. Now was as good a time as any. It didn't really seem she had much of a choice but to deal with the wandering eyes at the front of the class, eyes that kept coming back to her.
Reluctantly, Aria walked up to Ezra's desk. He was seated in silence, writing in a leather bound journal.
"Hi." She called, fidgeting with the straps of her backpack.
Ezra looked up from the journal, and closed it shut.
"Hey." He said simply.
"So…do you want to deal with this now or…"
"Deal with what?" He asked, leaning forward, his arms folded.
Aria rolled her eyes in frustration. He obviously wasn't going to make this easy.
"Oh, come on. You must have questions. Fire away."
Ezra shook his head, placing a finger on his chin.
"No, I don't think so. Last I remember, you didn't want to talk to me anymore. You pretty much said, stay away from me, and I plan on respecting that."
Aria looked at him. Grabbing a chair from one of the desks, she planted it in front of his desk and sat.
"Look, I know what I said then. But, obviously the situation's changed and I don't want us to have this wall between us. Especially considering the fact that you will be grading my papers, if I'm completely honest."
"Well, you're clearly not completely honest." Ezra began. "You made yourself seem a lot older than seventeen at that hotel restaurant. You knew how inappropriate the situation was- I told you I was starting a teaching job. Yet you strung me along for the evening and then cut me off."
Aria stared back at him in astonishment.
"Inappropriate? What was so inappropriate about debating Dickens and libraries? I didn't cut you out because it was inappropriate, I told you that I did it because of your jealous girlfriend."
"And I'm telling you that I don't believe you. Jackie was hardly jealous. Just admit that you played me along!"
"Do you realize how insane you sound? It's my-"
"Hold that thought." Ezra interrupted.
He stood up and shut the door firmly before finding his way back to the chair, and placing his crossed legs up on the desk.
"Continue." He told her.
"It's my fault that you have a warped concept of jealousy?" Aria asked him, outraged. "And the fact that I'm seventeen didn't make it inappropriate at all. I mean, we were discussing Dickens!"
"It wasn't the subject matter that made it inappropriate. It was the fact that it seemed like we were on a date or something." He said, throwing his arms up.
"That's just…ridiculous. The only way it would have been anything like a date was if we were into each other. And that's obviously not the case."
Ezra stared at Aria for a few seconds and then looked down at his desk, shuffling a few papers.
"You're right." He said, remaining fixated on the papers.
Though Aria knew his answer should have caused a sigh of relief, she felt her heart sink. She realized how much she wished he'd disagreed, even though it was forbidden to involve such emotions in an investigation.
"I…I have to go." She told him, advancing toward the door.
"Gary, I know it was you. You really shouldn't have sent her! What if the enemy recognized her?"
Aria walked up the steps of the hotel, pushing the revolving doors as she talked to her mentor on the phone.
"I know how unlikely it is, I just-"
A shrill scream interrupted her talk, and Aria turned to face the direction of the scream. She saw a man in a black hoodie running toward the doors with a purse in hand. On reflex, she dropped everything and ran toward him with her arms in motion. Since age six, Aria had been a student of karate. Her parents had enrolled her, believing that her small size might lead to bullying. What they hadn't anticipated was how skilled their daughter was going to become, achieving black belt by age 15. Her remarkable self-defense capabilities were one of the reasons she had been recruited to the agency.
The man never knew what he had coming to him until it happened-Aria attacked him with a series of roundhouse kicks and square swings, before pinning all 250 pounds of him on the ground. Within seconds, security rushed to her aid, and Aria stood up to immense applause. She looked up at the small audience that had formed in front of her, and there she saw a stunned Ezra Fitz.