After a few hours of restless sleep, Alex finally rolled out of bed and started pacing. It was barely three in the morning but his mind buzzed as if he'd drunk an entire litre of coffee before lying down to sleep. Despite all the assurances that Blakemore - well, Mr. Blakemore, as there was an entire family of Blakemores - had given towards Danielle's safety, Alex couldn't shake the lingering feeling that he was making a horrible mistake.
He felt the steady, throbbing stress of impending events thrum against his chest, dangerously close to being overwhelming. His mind alone was pulling him in a dozen different directions; his reality had its own set of obligations and decisions. There was the trial, of course, which he was dreading in the way that he usually dreaded performing for a particularly ornery critic because not only would he have to present a somehow credible testimony (without the help of MI6, who were now acting as if he didn't exist, not that they had ever gone out of their way to acknowledge him in the first place) but also because he would have to see Troy again.
Of course, Alex saw Troy nearly every night in dreams that usually ended with piles of corpses and rivers of blood and people broken into pieces like instruments that had been crushed underfoot.
Besides the trial, Alex was also supposed to be an exchange student, which meant a file of made-up classes and schedules for events that he would not be partaking in because, as far as he knew, they didn't exist. He quickly reviewed the information and schedules he was supposed to have committed to memory; sooner or later, someone would ask what he was studying or when he needed to be somewhere.
Alex's fingers, drumming against his legs, ached for his violin as he paused his pacing to look out the window into the brightening dawn. He hadn't noticed it before, but the Blakemore's house backed a large segment of Virginia woods. The yard held an ancient trampoline and a swing set that appeared to be well used, according to several dents in the metal legs and the rusty chains, but the brown grass quickly gave rise to saplings and undergrowth that predicated the deeper reaches of the forest. There was a deck too, with a large grill and a sad-looking deflated swimming pool.
Unease sank into his stomach and settled. Luck had allowed him to skip out on meeting the rest of the Blakemore family - well, besides Catie, and that was only briefly - which was good, because Alex didn't know how to interact with them. He didn't remember his parents and had no blood-related siblings to grow up with, and for nearly four years he rarely saw anyone besides his best mate, Tom Harris, thanks to the crippling depression that his last mission for MI6 had caused.
A flicker of motion caught Alex's eye, coming from the woods outside the window. Somewhere within the trees, a flicker of light made a warm orange glow and stayed, pulsing, for a few seconds like a torch. Alex instinctively moved back from the glass and to the side, far enough that he couldn't be seen from outside, but close enough to observe further.
After a few moments, the light went out and didn't come back on. Alex kept watching until he was sure that no one was going to emerge from the woods, then he walked over to the window, found the chain for the levered shade, and pulled it down until the weighted bar at the bottom thunked against the windowsill.
The incident faded from his mind after a few moments and he sat back on his bed, suddenly drowsy, and fell asleep.
Catie Blakemore's alarm went off at five o'clock in the morning, but she was already awake. The floor had been creaking at the end of the hall for hours, from Alex's room, as if he was pacing or something, and the noise had woken her up a few hours ago. The neighbor's dog had been barking too, which grated on her nerves. When her alarm blared, set to one of the local radio stations, she quickly leaned out of her bed and shut it off as not to wake her younger sister, Agnes, who slept on the twin bed against the opposite wall.
Catie felt the muscles in her abdomen twinge as she rolled off her bed and flung the plaid quilt somewhere towards her pillow, rubbing her eyes. Her room still looked different because Agnes had moved in to make room for Alex Rider even though she probably would have ended up in Catie's room anyways. Catie had pushed her bed to the corner near the window, leaving Agnes' to be against the opposite wall with two dressers lined up against the wall between their beds and the closet split in half against the other wall. It had been a hassle, but Catie didn't mind. She was used to hassles by now.
She tried to avoid the parts of the floor that creaked as she tiptoed over to the closet and eased the folding door open, rummaging around in one of the storage compartments for a long-sleeved t-shirt to pull on over the running shirt she'd slept in. The house was always cold in winter - her mom had blamed the old windows, but Catie was old enough to understand how expensive their ancient, inefficient heating system was.
Catie held the railing for balance as she forced herself to walk down the stairs but had to pause and lean against the wall, tightly gripping the banister, and cough. Her lungs already ached, and her stomach hurt even more at the irrepressible convulsions. The coughing was always worse in winter because the cold air hurt her lungs, like they didn't already have enough to contend with.
Once she was able to get downstairs, Catie unplugged her phone from its charger and jammed her earbuds into her ears, switching to one of the songs she listened to for her French class, to start making breakfast for her siblings.
The song begun, muffling the clatters of bowls and drawers as she quickly gathered the ingredients for pancakes and flicked on the stove. She listened to music to keep the silence from setting her on edge; the house was always quiet in the early morning, as both her parents left early for their jobs.
Catie hummed to herself as she worked, lost in a cycle of flipping pancakes, warming finished ones in the oven, and listening to music that she could barely understand for a class she didn't like.
"Je te l'ai dit, tu as ce sourire, au coin des lèvres quand tu mens. Tu t'imaginais pouvoir t'en sortir, encore et encore facilement-" Catie paused the song on her phone and slowly repeated the words, struggling to get her mouth to cooperate with the odd sounds and vowel combinations. French was easily her most frustrating class, but she needed a decent grade in it for college - no, it was too early to think about college. And the acceptance notification from - no, too early.
When Catie turned away from the stove to grab something from the kitchen table, she saw the person standing in the doorway and flinched. Her hand hit the glass of water that she was reaching for, knocking it to the ground with an ominous shattering noise.
"Great. I'm so sorry," Alex said, looking very apologetic.
"It's fine." Catie quickly coiled her earbuds around her phone and reached for a towel to start mopping up the water. She smiled ruefully at Alex. "I'm sorry, I was distracted."
He shook his head, a motion that made his shaggy hair flop around his face, and knelt next to the broken glass. Carefully picking up the larger shards, he discarded them in the trash can next to the counter. Catie delicately folded the now-soaked towel and left it on the stairs as a reminder to herself to throw it in with whoever's laundry that had to be done today.
"Do you always wake up this early?" Alex asked. He sounded tired too - no wonder, if he had been up pacing for most of the night.
"Yeah," Catie replied, glancing back at the stove to be sure that none of the pancakes had burnt. "I try to help out in the mornings - Mom and Dad leave early for their jobs, and the others are too young to use the stove, so I make breakfast."
His eyebrows flicked up. "Every morning?"
"Yup. Would you like pancakes? The first batch is done," Catie turned back to the stove and turned the front burner off, having used up all the batter.
"Uh. Sure."
Within a few moments, they were both sitting at the kitchen table with plates of pancakes, which was embarrassingly cluttered.
"You can shove all that to the floor," Catie said, pointing to the pile of books next to Alex's arm. "I'm sorry. The house is kind of a wreck -"
"It's fine," Alex replied. "My stuff is disorganized too - my sister hates it, she's always trying to order it."
"Maybe she can help me when she gets here." Catie took a bite of pancakes and tried not to choke as the urge to cough once again made her chest constrict. "Dad said she's coming next week."
"Yeah," Alex said, and she noticed that he was already halfway done eating. "So. French music?"
Catie felt her face redden and fixed her eyes on the table, refusing to look at him. "I'm in AP French. It's driving me insane. I suck at languages."
"Your accent sounded pretty good. Maybe pronounce the r's a little softer."
She glanced up at him. "You speak French?"
He shook his head. "Haven't in awhile. My uncle made me learn a bunch of languages when I was little - had some idea that I was going to grow up and work for the government or something. So yeah, I know French, German, and Spanish. And English. Obviously."
Catie felt a stab of envy. If only she could learn that many languages; as it was, she struggled to remember the basic conjugations of regular French verbs. At least this would be her last year of struggling with it; she was eighteen, and her curriculum was almost done. She was nearly six months ahead of the other people in her co-op.
"Well, you speak English very well," she joked.
"It's about the only thing I can do well," Alex replied in the same manner, and she rolled her eyes.
"That's not true. You wouldn't be here otherwise, the program's insanely hard to get into."
Alex set down his fork as a shadow flickered over his expression, darkening his eyes. "Yeah, I guess." He sounded distant, but the gloom passed from his expression in the next second and he stood, clearing his plate and utensils to the sink. "Can I help you clean up?"
Catie shook her head, pushing strands of hair out of her eyes. "I'll do it after I eat. Thanks, though -don't you have class soon?"
"Yeah," he sighed. "Your dad said there's a tube station a few miles away at . . . Tyson's corner, I think?"
Tube? Oh, right. The subway. "Yup. Did he offer you his bike?"
Alex nodded.
Catie swallowed the last piece of her pancakes and stood as well, dumping her dishes in the sink and leaning against the edge of the counter until it painfully dug into her hips as a wave of dizziness washed over her. "I'd offer you a ride but there's a ton of construction going on down there. Biking is way faster, it's only about a mile. You won't miss it."
"Thanks."
"No problem. Hey, let me give you my number before you leave so you can call if you need anything. D.C.'s a beautiful city, but sometimes the people aren't."
Alex gave a short, cut-off laugh. "I will."
Catie fell into the rhythmic lull of clanking dishes and running water as she washed all their plates and utensils, and the other stuff she'd used that morning. The pancakes were warming in the oven, and it was almost six o'clock. Time to wake up the twins and Agnes - the boys had co-op at seven, and Agnes had a therapy appointment at seven thirty. Catie resigned herself to a busy morning and tried to finish the cleaning as fast as she could, even though the dizziness hadn't abated. She took a deep, shaky breath as her lungs laboriously absorbed it. This was what her parents got for homeschooling their kids: A tired, overworked daughter, two hyper boys, and a little girl who needed counseling. And, of course, their collegiate son, who had managed to - well, no use dwelling on it now.
A twinge of guilt made Catie pause and stare at the window. The front yard was withered and dry from lack of precipitation, and she couldn't help but see the same decay in her wavy reflection.
The incident with Agnes, her youngest sister, hadn't been her parents' fault. If anything, it was Catie's. And the twins . . . well, they had it hard anyways, being identical and having very different interests. They tended to be treated like a single person instead of as individuals.
Catie stood on her toes to yank the curtains across the window, not wanting to see herself anymore. A familiar pressure pulsed at the base of her throat, somewhere between suffocation and nausea, and she coughed, feeling the familiar constrictions begin.
The last year had been hell on earth. First Agnes, then -
No, Catie told herself again. Too early.
As she set the dishes out to dry and abandoned the kitchen for the upstairs, Catie couldn't shut off the cold voice inside her head that told her it would always be too early, too soon, to think about anything that had happened in the last year.
Well, maybe Alex would understand. Catie had recognized that look on his face, that fragile shadow: Guilt.
"Alex! Nice of you to show up!"
The salutation was belted out by a college graduate with hair that gave him a disturbing resemblance to one of the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings: Sebastian Yerkes.
Alex forced a pleasant expression to his face despite the overwhelming urge to yank the styrofoam coffee cup out of Sebastian's hand and throw it at him. He was exhausted, and the child on the tube wouldn't stop screeching, much to the embarrassment of the mother and the displeasure of the other passengers. No matter how high the volume on his music was, Alex couldn't block out the child's screams.
"Morning, Sebastian."
Sebastian brandished a set of jangling car keys. "The car's ours, let's go."
"Go where?" Alex asked, slightly suspicious. Where were the other people? They did work there, right? He hadn't seen Mr. Blakemore - well, Agent Blakemore - all morning, perhaps because he was on another case. The American intelligence agencies were supposed to be insanely busy with the healthy mix of paranoia and a large territory that created more threats than people willing to carry them out - and more opportunities for damaging attacks.
"To find Christie Dome. Remember how Elise - Elise Baron, the blonde lady? - well, one of her informants said that Christie was found returning to her home this morning. We get to go bring her in - and we get the car," Sebastian added the last part with extra emphasis, as if getting the car was the most important part of information that he had to offer.
Alex sighed and dropped his backpack on the chair behind his desk, which was already cluttered with papers and that envelope with Danielle's pictures in it. "Okay. What's the deal with the car?"
Sebastian gave him an incredulous glance. "It's FBI regulated, which means it's a really nice vehicle, but more than that - the parking spot, Alex. You saw that monstrous parking garage on the corner, right?"
Alex nodded.
"Okay. It holds about seven hundred cars at any given time," Sebastian said as he gathered his things, including a black messenger bag, and strode briskly over to the door. "Finding a convenient parking spot is the same as searching for the lost island of Atlantis. Emphasis on lost. But this car, the car, has a reserved spot on the ground level right inside the entrance."
Sebastian's explanation reminded Alex rather absurdly of Eagle, one of the men in the SAS Unit that Alex had been forced to train with and, more recently, work with. This was exactly the kind of thing he'd be in to, and had actually complained about a very similar parking issue that garnered more empathy from Ben Daniels instead of Alex. Alex couldn't bring himself to care very much about parking spaces and commute times, nowhere near as much Sebastian's proselytic enthusiasm, but maybe because he didn't live in D.C. and didn't have to deal with parking and driving every day.
As Alex trudged down the hallway in the silence left by Sebastian's enthusiastic explanation, he couldn't think of anything to say in reply. A thrill of anticipation ran down his spine because - because.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
He was enjoying this.
Working with a team of people who seemed to be on the right track, the thrill of finding the first suspect and digging into their history - Alex, for all the times he'd cursed MI6 to hell and back, had been trained for this. Second day on the job, and he wasn't burdened with the clenching anxiety and apocalyptic stress that accompanied his other missions. Of course, parts of them had been fun. Sometimes he had even found himself entertaining the idea of working for MI6 as an adult, as a paid agent. . .
Yes, sometimes he had liked feeling like a hero, even if no one knew.
Then Jack died and Alex understood, finally, the grim reality that his uncle had lived with: spies don't get to be heroes.
They get a pile of the dead.
"Alex?" It was Sebastian, who'd paused by the lift with his finger hovering over the button.
Alex blinked, realizing that he'd been glaring at the carpet, and hurried over as the lift doors dinged open. "Yeah? Sorry."
"It's fine," Sebastian said with a knowing glance.
After a few floors, he spoke again. "I've read your file. The official one, at least."
Alex rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and prayed that the ride would end, or the lift would jam, or catch on fire, or anything to prevent him from having to answer that statement.
Sadly, nothing happened.
"Really."
Sebastian nodded absently. "Were you really fourteen?"
"Yes."
"Damn."
Well, thought Alex. That pretty much covers it.
The woman's name was Christie Dome, and she was afraid.
Her knuckles were white where they were clutched around a steaming ceramic mug as she stood with her right foot slightly behind her left, leaning on the corner of the countertop as if it were a shield. She guardedly watched Sebastian with frigid eyes that were colored like the arctic sea. Her hair was dark, cut at a slashed angle from her shoulders that made her pale face take on an even more angular appearance.
"I can't tell you anything," she said through gritted teeth, making an almost imperceptible movement to lean away from Sebastian. "Please, leave my home."
"You let us in," Sebastian muttered. "And we have footage of you witnessing a felony."
Something flashed across her face.
Fear.
"This is an international emergency," Alex said softly. And we have authorization to hold you on obstruction charges.
She gave him a hostile gaze but her eyes flickered away when they met his, towards a bookshelf made of dark wood. It was sparse of any books but held several statues, one of which, a porcelain snow leopard, looked to have been recently broken. There was an ugly crack across the animal's neck where the head had once been severed; whoever had done the repair job wasn't very good at piecing things back together.
"I have nothing to tell you," she said in a flat tone. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Again her gaze locked onto the bookshelf.
Alex frowned, glancing back at it. Something wasn't right - it was almost as if Christie was afraid of the shelving.
The partially-mended leopard stared back at him with dull eyes.
Alex slowly walked over to the bookshelf and saw that the shelves were thick with dust - all but the second one from the top, where the thin layer of dust was smudged by two fingers and the imprint of a statue's base where the leopard had been slid back into position. There was something else too, a nearly invisible circular impression where something else had been set down on the dusty shelf.
Behind Alex, Sebastian cleared his throat. "Under the Convention of -"
"It's fine, Sebastian," Alex cut him off. He understood now, about the leopard and about why Christie looked as if she were standing at the gallows. "We can come back another time with an arrest warrant." He looked at Christie, who glowered at him. "You should leave her your work line, Sebastian. She can ring you if she changes her mind."
Sebastian gave Alex a questioning look and slowly removed one of his business cards from his lapel pocket and left it on the counter that Christie had taken shelter behind. Alex grabbed it, took one of the pens scattered around the surface, and scribbled something on the back. Then he held it out to Christie.
She took it, quickly scanned the back, and glanced back at Alex - surprise mixed with intrigue.
Alex gave her a grim smile and followed Sebastian out the door.
"What was that about?" Sebastian asked as he jerked their car to an abrupt halt at a traffic light. "We don't have time for her to grow a conscience, Rider."
"Did you see the way she was looking at that statue?" Alex replied. "It's obviously important to her - center of the shelf - but it wasn't repaired well at all. Someone else broke it and fixed it, not her. I think it was tampered with."
"Someone bugged her statue."
"Probably."
"Do you think it was that congresswoman that she works for?"
Alex shrugged, tucking his seatbelt under his arm. "Maybe. She did witness a felony. Or someone else could have seen her."
"Well, she obviously knows about it."
"They probably warned her."
Sebastian shook his head and accelerated at the prompting of the car behind him, which came in the form of an obnoxious pulse of the car's horn. "This is moronic."
"Actually, it's very well thought out."
"Eh. So, any word on your sister's stalker?"
Alex winced at the phrasing that was uncomfortably reminiscent of Danielle's experience with one of the most influential drug lords in London. Stalker didn't begin to cover it. "Stalker? I don't think it's that."
"Then what?"
". . . watcher?"
Sebastian snorted out a laugh. "Right."
"There's no reason for her to have a stalker. She's not the type. If it was some kind of crazed fan, the pictures wouldn't have ended up at the FBI."
"Fan?"
"She's a pianist."
"Oh. A crazy fanbase, I'm sure."
"Sod off. And turn here," Alex said, reaching over to point to the left side of the intersection.
Swearing quietly, Sebastian tried to switch lanes but failed when the SUV next to them slowed down. There wasn't enough room between it and the other car for him to merge.
"I'll just drive around, the city's a grid. Where did you want to go?"
"I wrote the address of a cafe on the card in case Christie wanted to meet us there. Tidier than an arrest warrant."
"How'd you think of the statue being bugged?" Sebastian asked as he pulled the car around in a sharp turn onto a one-way street, making Alex brace himself against the car door.
"It's what I would have done."
The cafe wasn't in the best neighborhood; it was more of a diner, with an extensive breakfast menu and coffee that tasted like tar. It was filled by laminated tables and chairs with vinyl cushions, and several customers.
Alex and Sebastian only had to wait for a few moments at the cafe before Christie arrived, marching across the tiled floor in high heels. She sat down in the chair across from Alex and dropped a spiral-bound notebook on the table.
"Couldn't have picked a better meeting place? This is a hole."
Alex didn't answer in favor of pulling the notebook towards him and flipping back the front cover. The first page was covered in lines of cramped, tiny handwriting that he didn't have time to decipher. He quickly skimmed over the paper, catching a few here and there like 'wire' and 're-election' and 'campaign fund'. There was a date, too: November 12th.
The twelfth. . . that was two days ago, the same day that the body was found.
"Is your boss up for re-election?" Sebastian asked, having been peering over Alex's shoulder at the notes.
Christie nodded, her dark hair swishing around her face. "This year's a critical one for her. There's a high chance that the elections could change the majority party in the Senate."
"You were at the street," Alex said. "What did you see?"
She gave him another hostile glance and tapped her lacquered nails against the tabletop. "You're not from here, kid. Do you even know how politics works? No matter what the truth is, Janice -my boss, the Congresswoman- will find some way to dodge it, probably implicate me. I can't risk that." She paused for a second, appearing to gather her thoughts, then continued, "Look, everything I know is in the notebook. I started keeping records when things went downhill. There's no proof or anything, but I think someone international is funding my boss's campaign with a vested interest in having her in the Senate."
Sebastian's eyebrows flicked up, nearly disappearing beneath his unruly hair. "Really? What makes you say that?"
With an exasperated sigh, Christie snatched the notebook away from Alex and turned to the next page, jabbing her finger at a patch of yellow highlight. "A few days ago, she made me do a wire transfer from her account. Look at the other bank account number. It's Swiss."
Alex glanced at the long string of digits, twenty numbers preceded by an alphabetical identifier of the country of origin.
Something chimed on Christie's watch. She glanced at the time, quickly fumbled to shut off the alarm, and pushed back her chair. "I have a meeting," she muttered, pulling her purse back onto her shoulder. "Can't be late. You can keep the notebook."
Sebastian started to say something, but she beelined for the door, escaping before he had the chance. He looked slightly bewildered, shook his head, and glanced back at the notebook. "...what?"
Alex was also struggling to process what had just happened; they had tracked down Christie for information in a murder case, but instead found yet another corrupt politician and a scared senatorial aide. Despite the raging hostility that Christie radiated, Alex couldn't forget the look in her eyes when they had first arrived at her flat. No matter what her job demanded or what information she possessed and wanted to share, she was terrified.
"Should we look into this?" Sebastian asked.
Alex drained his coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste, and shrugged. "You're the American, you tell me. Is it legal to investigate a politician based on conjecture alone?"
"Usually not. Besides, we don't know if any of this is true or if Christie made it all up for contingency."
"Yeah."
"Is it like this in England?" Sebastian made a vague gesture towards the table. "Do you guys have this much red tape?"
"They like to pretend that I don't exist so it's never been an issue."
"Ah. I mean, a Swiss bank account can't mean that much, can it?"
Alex shrugged, not having the depth of knowledge about the American government that could give him any answers. "I'll research it."
"Sarah or Elise will probably do that," Sebastian replied. He stood up from his chair and pushed it under the table. "Speaking of which, we need to go back to the office."
Alex mirrored his actions without comment.
He was going to do his own research, and it wouldn't just be relegated to the internet.
Fortunately, the Senator's D.C. residence was one of the few historic homes in the district of Georgetown, the very place that Alex was supposed to be spending copious amounts of time at. Sebastian was right: someone else on Blakemore's team had already pulled up a dossier on the Senator. The only problem would be transportation - Blakemore had just told him to go home, and there wasn't a bus line anytime soon that would take him to Georgetown. Alex had checked the bus routes on his phone, and the nearest tube platform was five blocks away and didn't go anywhere near the Blakemores' neighborhood. How was he supposed to get back to their house?
Sighing, Alex slid his phone back into the front pocket of his jeans and set off down the streets, heading east in the vague direction of the towering Washington Monument. If nothing else, he could wander around for a few hours until Blakemore's shift was done.
The street was choked with cars, lines of them crammed between stoplights, a river broken only by the endless streams of pedestrians that crossed the crowded street in huddled packs. Streetside vendors were set up in carts and food trucks, beacons that parted the seas of people hurrying down the sidewalks. An elderly man with tinted sunglasses was selling pretzels that smelled enticingly salty; Alex paused, fishing a few American dollars out of his wallet, and bought one. The man gestured with one cocoa-colored hand to take a pretzel off the rotating warming plate, and it was then that Alex realized the man was blind.
Each of the wrought-iron lampposts lining the streets was crowned with a golden eagle, wings spread in mid flight. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from several storefronts on the crowded street; in the distance, the white dome of the Capitol building rose above the monolithic sandstone museums and offices.
Very patriotic, Alex thought, and he was tempted to take a picture of the eagle streetlights to send to Danielle, but he didn't want to mark himself as an outsider to everyone else on the street. He was careful to keep his pace casual, avoiding the temptation to crane his neck around and look at everything, and walked purposefully as if he had somewhere to be.
After a few blocks the tall buildings and brightly-colored storefronts gave way to an iron fence that was erected on a low brick wall, leading down the rest of the sidewalk as a barrier between the street and the expanse of grass on the other side. Soon both gave way, and Alex found himself standing next to a massive lawn in between two wide roads, each lined with museums and upscale restaurants. A few blocks ahead, the lawn was bisected by a perpendicular road, then continued towards the cordoned-off base of the Washington Monument spire.
Alex suddenly felt less inclined to spend the afternoon mindlessly wandering around when he could be doing something for the case or, more importantly, for the trial so that he could go home as scheduled.
The trial.
He had managed to forget about it for a few hours, what with tracking down Christie and everything that had followed, but now the thought of being in a courtroom made his stomach twist uncomfortably. The defendant had to be present at the trial - he knew that much, it was the same in most countries - which meant that he would have to lay eyes on Galen Troy.
Alex wasn't sure that he would be able to control himself around that despicable excuse for a human being. Troy's action at the Palace Theatre, one of London's iconic performance venues, had almost killed Danielle, Ben Daniels, and Wolf along with dozens of civilians. Some did die, and since the official reason for the explosion and fire was a freak gas pipe bust, Parliament was limited in its ability to offer reparations to the families of the deceased. Officially, nothing had happened. It was a freak accident.
Officially, Galen Troy didn't exist.
Alex knew that he would never forget that night, never forget the feeling of red-hot flames lick his skin until it blistered, the ice-cold bullet's bite when it sank into his stomach.
Waking up in the hospital with more health issues than when he had been brought in, to find Danielle with her leg in a massive cast from hurting her leg on a stage light as she was trying to escape the theater and go for help.
Galen Troy had hurt so many people - innocent people.
And, oh, how he'd promised to do so much more.
Despite the relatively warm breeze, Alex couldn't ignore the chill that crept down his spine at the memory of Troy's voice, words whispered between falling plaster and crackling flames.
I'll make you beg for death, Alex Rider.
His leg bumped against something, startling him, and he noticed the bench that he'd inadvertently walked into. Alex sat down, finished the remnants of his pretzel, and pulled out his phone. He stared at his most recently added contact: Catie Blakemore.
"Call if you need a ride or anything," Catie called, waving with her free hand as she held Agnes by the shoulder with her other. "I'll be out pretty much all day."
Would calling her be worth it? There were only four hours left until Mr. Blakemore was due to leave his office, surely Alex could find something to do for four hours . . .
He also had no idea where he was or where he could go to find information on participating in federal criminal trials without raising eyebrows or awkward questions, and he didn't want to run down the charge on his phone to do research in case of an emergency.
Catie had offered.
No, Alex couldn't waste her time like that.
But four hours. And he had very pressing matters to attend to.
Finally, with a sigh, he pressed the green call icon.
The line rang once before Catie answered. "Hey, Alex."
"Hi Catie. Would you mind doing me a huge favor? If you're busy, it's no big deal." Alex found himself drumming his fingers against his leg, an old nervous habit. He forced his hand into a fist. Why was he nervous? He had no reason to be.
"Sure," she replied, no trace of irritation her voice. "What's up?"
"Well, class ended two hours ago-" he felt another uncharacteristic stab of guilt at the lie "- and I'm kind of stranded."
"Two hours?" she sounded shocked. "Why didn't you call earlier? What've you been doing?"
"Well, some of us took the tube into the city. The others went back to their dorms. I'm in the middle of the grass near all the museums," Alex said, figuring it was best to sound as much like a tourist as he could.
Catie laughed, a pretty sound like someone playing a major arpeggio in one of the upper octaves. "The Washington Mall."
"Isn't that what I said?"
"Sure, sure. Anyways, I can come get you - that's what you're asking, right?" Somewhere in the background, other people were talking, and Alex could barely make her words out.
"Yeah. . . thanks." he internally grimaced, feeling incredibly selfish for asking her to drive into the city to get him.
"I'm actually pretty close to the Mall -guys, shut up- so I'll be there in . . . like, fifteen minutes?"
"That's fine. I'm by the . . ." Alex glanced to his right, at the nearest building with a large sign that was nearly illegible from across the street, ". . .Smithsonian Museum of Natural History."
"Awesome. See ya there." Catie hung up, leaving the dull dial tone.
Alex shut his phone off and started walking towards the sidewalk so he would be able to see the approaching cars. The flow of pedestrian traffic was rapidly petering off after the lunch hour rush, which meant more places to sit and wait, which Alex tried to do but found himself too jittery. He needed to run, bike, do anything physically exerting before his muscles eroded even more. After his pancreas had been damaged by the bullet wound, Alex had found himself constantly overcome by unshakable fatigue, a side-effect of the interim time period between his body adjusting to the new insulin pills that he had to take and when the insulin actually became effective. He knew he was lucky that he didn't need an insulin pump yet - the higher concentration of insulin would cause him more harm than help, according to the doctor, even though the insulin pills weren't proven to actually be very effective. Very reassuring.
Well, I haven't passed out yet, Alex thought to himself, smirking bitterly down at the concrete beneath his feet.
He still had nightmares almost every night of the accident that had ravaged his body; so often, in fact, that he was used to waking up in a cold sweat from dreams of flames, bullets, and corpses scattered around the ground. The most persistent vision was a burning graveyard that bore the tombstones of everyone he knew.
Something clenched in his chest at the thought and suddenly Alex could smell petrol and burning wood.
He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing his forehead, and rolled his shoulders back, swinging his arms out to stretch. The fabric of his sweatshirt pulled tight against his chest and restricted his movements.
Alex sighed again. This was why he shouldn't be alone: He had too much time to think and too much time to remember things that were best considered late at night when there was nothing better to do and no one better to see. He tried to pull his thoughts back to the present, just in time because a car door slammed a few metres away and someone called his name.
Catie waved, standing next to a silver Honda that bore several scratches across the front bumper. A sudden gust of wind sent her hair flying into her face as Alex hurried over to her. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, grimacing, but grinned at him. "Hey!"
"Hey. Thank you so much for the ride." Alex didn't even have to fake the gratitude.
"Oh, anytime," Catie said as she opened the door in the driver's side. "You actually rescued me from socializing with my Mom's family. They're all awful."
Alex laughed, slouching down in the passenger seat, and glanced over at her. He was expecting some kind of humor in her face, but her jaw was set like stone. "Really? That bad?"
"Yeah." she sighed, wrenching the keys in the ignition. The car's engine reluctantly sputtered to life. "Hey, do you mind if I make a really quick stop on the way home? It can wait if you're tired -"
"No, it's fine," Alex reassured her. "Honestly, I don't care where you go as long as I can sit in the car." He could use the time to text Danielle back - knowing her, she was probably a little concerned that he hadn't contacted her in almost twenty-four hours. He was half-tempted to text Ben Daniels too in case he'd ever had a similar case from MI6, but he was reluctant to infringe on the anxious days that were preceding the arrival of Ben's first child. According to Danielle, Ben was almost catatonic with stress and his wife was actually the calmer of the two. Somehow, Alex didn't doubt it.
"Same," Catie said as she twisted around to glance out the car's rear windshield before pulling out into the street. "Except I actually have to get out of the car and do adult things."
"I'm nineteen; I'm doing adult things just by sitting here."
Catie impatiently pushed a few wayward pieces of hair out of her eyes. "You don't look that old," she said.
"You wound me."
"It's the hair," she said, glancing at him with a wide smile.
Shaking his head, Alex leaned back against his seat and crossed his arms. Pretending to be a normal university student was easier than he had anticipated. Or maybe he and Catie just happened to get along very well.
Without turning his head, he allowed his gaze to flick over to her for a sliver of a second. She held the steering wheel firmly but not in a death grip, and the firm set of her jaw had
relaxed into a gentler, softer expression like the transition from a lively cadenza to a demure adagio passage. Her hair was falling out of its braid, framing her face in the afternoon sunlight.
As Alex stared out his window, he couldn't help but think that Catie Blakemore was very pretty, almost distractingly so.
He took a few moments to compose his thoughts and strengthen his resolve to focus on the case and the trial and those things only, allowing them to take priority over interacting with his host family.
Alex knew he didn't need any more distractions.
Catie's quick stop turned out to be at a pharmacy. She disappeared inside the folding doors, leaving Alex some time to check his phone. He never did reply to his sister.
Danielle had sent several pictures of a music piece that she was working on for one of her classes with questions about harmonic melodies and variations, which Alex tried to answer as fast as he could.
There was another text from Ben Daniels, alias Fox: CHECK THE NEWS.
Bemused, Alex opened one of the American news apps that he'd downloaded before his trip had started to keep up with American politics.
The first headline caught his eye.
High-Profile Criminal Escapes Custody, Disappears
He felt a lump of dread sink through his stomach and settle into his bones, knowing before he clicked on the link what the article would say because this was his trip and his luck.
Washington - 9 a.m.
At approximately 10 p.m. on November 14th, a convicted criminal escaped custody of the Federal Detention Center in northern D.C. Galen Troy was being held on charges of espionage, treason, and murder, and was formerly employed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
A/N: Hi! Sorry for the late update; college things have been keeping me very busy.
A few quick notes -
1. The French that Catie's listening to means "I've told you, you have the same smile on your face each time you lie. You thought you'd get away with it, again and again easily." It's from a song called Brise by Maitre Gims - yeah, my computer won't do accents, sorry :( It's a really great song! As an AP French student, I can say that music is an excellent way to build listening comprehension. Also, putting effort into the class would also be a good idea because I certainly should be *cough*
2. Fun random fact: The scene with Catie in the morning is probably going to be the only scene I'll write from her POV; I was trying to write it with Alex but it wasn't flowing right.
3. Other characters from the series will be coming in! I know it seems like I'm using a lot of OCs, but A) I was a novelist before I was a fanfic writer so pls forgive and B) the others have to get to Alex in a way that's somewhat realistic, which will take a bit of plot progression.
4. Catie's character is based off one of my good friends, who has a similar name and five younger siblings, one with autism, that she basically takes care of for most of the week.
5. Reviews are never ever frowned upon!
Review Replies:
Spiritsong - Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I hope you enjoy!
Format Freak - It's totally fine! I'm pretty used to harsh criticism, playing the violin and all lol. Awesome, I'll make those changes, and thank you so much. Pleasepleaseplease feel free to keep adding any notes/grammatical points - anything to improve, right? Or should I say write? (I'm so sorry. I love puns. Especially bad ones.)
