Alright, so here's Chapter 10 of Escape. Whether you'll like it or not, I don't know, but oh well. It's my story, and this is all I could come up with :P

Hopefully you'll like it, but if you don't, please don't flame me - give constructive criticism. Or just lie and say it was an awesome chapter, and I'm an awesome writer. Either way, I'll be happy :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider, unfortunately. However, the plot is all mine :D

Escape, Chapter 10

Alex Rider

The driver really is an exceptional man, Alex mused silently to himself as he sat in the quiet car. After driving for the Sprintz's for several years, or so Alex presumed, this must have been the most excitement the man would have seen in a very long time. To keep a straight, unemotional face under the circumstances, as well as not asking questions must have took some professionalism.

Although, if he wasn't a professional in his job, the Sprintz's most probably wouldn't have hired the man; they had money, and as such, would only want the best of the best.

Alex could see that Mr Sprintz in the front seat was not best pleased; eyes closed, fists clenched, breathing fairly heavily, it was pretty obvious to any on-lookers that the man was angry, and he had every right to be - his son, a teenage delinquent, had left him in some way or another, which meant Mr Sprintz had to take time out to go look for him, and when he finds him, not only has he got a tag along teen with him, but was also being chased by several men in black uniform.

Not exactly something that would make any man - much less a father - calm.

James, on the other hand, was totally different to his father. His mood was almost energetic, with his leg bouncing up and down, hands fidgeting in his lap and his head moving to look at Alex every other second. If Alex didn't know better, he'd bet that the boy was either on drugs, or that he had a disorder of sorts. ADHD? Alex mused silently.

When Alex caught the boy looking at him again, he raised his eyebrows in a silent question of well, what do you want? In case James didn't understand his silent question, he opted to question him out loud.

"What?" he asked, a bit of amusement in his voice.

James grinned at him, and took the chance to ask him about why the men in black were after him.

Alex smirked, before answering, "who knows? People these days…" he left the sentence hanging, his smirk still on his face.

"Come on! That was brilliant," the boy almost yelled, leaning in towards Alex. "You - invisibly - somehow - took down a bunch of what looked like soldiers, actually, why were soldiers after you?" he questioned, for a moment forgetting his point. Remembering, he continued before Alex could get in an answer, his accent coming through evidently as his rambling quickened, "then magically got a load of bugs, like, out of no where to appear where the men where! I mean, that was wicked!" again, the boy was almost yelling in enthusiasm.

"James!" his father snapped, breaking up James' one-sided conversation, even though he was intrigued to hear what had happened in the park. "Be quiet. You have no idea how much trouble you are in. And as for your friend, as soon as we get back to the hotel, we are calling your parents to come and collect you. Understand?"

James nodded, dejected, and Alex followed his actions, even though he had no intention of letting Mr Sprintz phone anyone - after all, who was there to phone? If Alex told him he had no parents, or that he was here with nobody, Sprintz would most likely call the police to come and deal with him, and there was no way in hell he was going to let that happen.

There was only two ways out of this. The first was that as soon as he, James, and Mr Sprintz were alone in a room in the hotel, he would have to knock out the father and leg it out of there. Alex didn't like this plan, though. It was getting fairly late, and while Alex had thought he could maybe hide out in a tree in a park at night, now there was no way he could do that; the closest park was most likely going to be watched for a while, and he didn't fancy his chances of finding another one close to where he was going now. However, he kept this option open in case his second idea didn't work out in the way he wanted it to. Setting it in motion, Alex leaned across to the boy beside him and whispered one word in his ear, "Dusseldorf."

It certainly got a reaction out of the boy. He jumped slightly in his seat, his movement restrained by the seat belt crossing his chest and lap. Whipping his head to face Alex, his eyes widened and his mouth formed an 'o' as he took in the grin on the other boys face. Confusion was evident in his facial expressions, and Alex decided to put the boy out of his misery.

Looking forward to see if Mr Sprintz had noticed this slight conversation, and noting that he hadn't, he leant forwards towards James and again whispered in the boys' ear, "come on James, remember me? Point Blanc, James. Think"

He moved backwards in his seat, and watched as James' face transformed from confusion, to excitement, to confusion once more.

"Alex?" he whispered, almost as if he didn't believe Alex was really there. "Alex Friend? Er, Rider?"

During his mission to the French Alps, when Alex had discovered where James was locked up, he'd told the boy - and those around him, unwillingly - who he really was, which included his surname and his job as a spy of sorts. James must have remembered his surname, but had still thought of him as 'Friend.'

The second option Alex had was to get James even further on his side; he'd remember Alex had saved his life, not to mention saved his father a lot of money and assets if Dr Grief's plan had worked.

James couldn't say much to Alex as his father had told him to be quiet, and with the way he was worked up, he knew he wouldn't be able to whisper much. As such, he didn't say anything until they reached the hotel, at which point the grabbed Alex by the arm and raced to the lift, hitting the button to call the elevator repeatedly until his father grabbed his hand and forced it down to his side, and unimpressed humph coming from his mouth.

When they reached their room, and after James had received a very annoyed glare from his father, Mr Sprintz finally spoke to Alex.

"So what's your name then?"

"I'm Alex, sir." Alex decided to be polite; it might make things better for him in the long run.

"Right then, Alex. What is your parent's phone number?"

At this, Alex had to pause. There wasn't a number he could give the man. Instead, he looked towards James who sat quietly to his left.

"I don't have parents, sir." He put his head down, acting like he was upset, grieving.

"Don't lie to me, boy," Mr Sprintz almost shouted at him, really worked up and not in the mood for anything but the truth. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either I can phone your parents to come and take you, or I can phone the policia and have them take you away and deal with you. Do you understand? Yes?"

Alex nodded, and again looked towards James. The other boy took the hint, and started to work to Alex's plan.

"But dad! He really doesn't have parents. I -"

"Oh? And how exactly would you know whether he has parents or not?

"Because I met James at the Academy at Point Blanc, sir," Alex had decided to interject; the argument had gone on too long.

"Oh, so you've been expelled from other schools, then, too. Great. Two boys with an affinity for trouble," the man wasn't seeing what point Alex was trying to make.

"No, sir. I've never been expelled from any school. I was sent to the academy to find out what was going on up there."

"Yeah, dad!" James butted in, "The only reason I'm alive and you've still got money is because of him," at this, he pointed a finger at Alex, but kept his focus on his father. "Remember what happened at the academy? You didn't want anything more to do with it 'cause of the publicity, but remember there was a boy that stopped the clones? That was him!" Again, James pointed at Alex with his finger.

"I am here, you know." Alex said, an amused smile on his face, but it did the job and got their attention. Mr Sprintz spoke first.

"Is this true?" he asked.

Alex nodded in return, slowly. Hopefully, the man wouldn't call the police or try to contact anyone now that he knew who he was.

The man gave another 'humph' before speaking again, "so what are you doing in France, boy?"

At this, Alex couldn't help but grimace as a memory of the day came to him, but he pushed it away; now wasn't the time to dwell on the past.

He didn't really want to answer, but knew that the situation would only be made worse if he didn't. Instead, he told a half truth, unwillingly to tell them the true reasons.

"I ran away, sir. My guardian died this morning, and I would just but put in a kids home, so I decided to get away before that could happen." Again he put his head down, mumbling slightly as he finished his explanation and shrugged his shoulders as if it was the natural thing to do.

Mr Sprintz looked speculative, considering his options. Finally, he sighed before he told the two boys his plans.

"Alex, we'll discuss this more in the morning before I have to leave for a meeting. For now, go to bed. I won't kick you out yet. Apparently, I owe you my son's life," at this, he looked towards James pointedly. "But right now, I'm not opposed to letting the policia deal with you. However, I have the feeling you'll somehow find a way to leave before they get here, so I won't do that. Go to bed. The both of you."

Both boys did as he said, Alex following James in his hotel room, unsure of where he was sleeping.

"James!" Mr Sprintz called. When the boy looked towards his father just before entering his room, he continued. "Don't think I've forgotten about the stunt you pulled tonight. We'll also be discussing your punishment tomorrow."

With that said, he looked forwards out of the window, a silent dismissal.

As James and Alex walked into where they would be sleeping for the night, James pointed to a comfy looking leather sofa and said that Alex could sleep there for the night. Although it would have been courtesy for James to give up his own bed, well, he didn't really think of that.

"I didn't recognise you in the park, you know." James broke the silence after they both lay on their own beds. Alex didn't say anything, opting to just 'hmm.'

"You've got longer hair, now. Taller, too. Although not much," James smirked into the darkness. "And you haven't got that earring in anymore. But I guess only you could pull off all those moves on those men. They were soldiers, right?"

At Alex's almost-silent "yeah," James continued speaking.

"So what's the real reason you're in France? I believe you ran away, but not 'cause you don't want to not be put in a home. Oh, oh oh! Are you working for them again? Doing something for them?"

Alex didn't speak for a moment, gathering his thoughts. James knew only a bit about Alex; he knew that he worked for MI6, and was a 'sort-of' spy for them, but not that they kept on asking him to work for them. As such, Alex didn't want to tell James more than was necessary.

"When you strike the Empire, the Empire strikes back," Alex quoted from Star Wars Episode V, and knew that James would instantly understand this. When Alex first met James, he'd been wearing a Star Wars T-shirt. However, he wouldn't necessarily understand how that applied to Alex's situation.

He left it at that, and James didn't speak again.

Alright, so yes, it's short - but the rest of the chapters most probably will be. This way, you'll most likely get faster updates… or maybe you wont. Meh. I will try to write as frequently as possible (right now, I'm writing for about half an hour - 2 hours a day, depending on the types of college days I have - short or late.)

"Dusseldorf" is the school James went to before his father sent him to Point Blanc academy - yes, in the second novel of AR, Alex was told this fact. I originally had "James" in there, but then when re-reading, I realised that Alex would know his name because his father had just shouted it…

The quote "When you strike the Empire, the Empire strikes back" is a quote from Star Wars Episode V - I haven't actually watched any Star Wars before, and honestly, I can't say that I really plan too… anyway, thank you to my friend Eric for the quote.

Told you I'd use it somewhere :D

Anyway, review, pelase. Leave me some wonderful feedback :D