Susannah's POV
Jonah kissed my cheek and looked around the floor to see if I had dropped anything. "C'mon, you're missing the party,"
"And whose fault is that?" I asked as we reached the stairs. He began to walk backwards and held both of his hands to help me down them.
"Well I wasn't the one who asked for a room,"
"Touché," I agreed as we reached the bottom. Lucy was standing with her back against the wall. She smiled and Jonah kissed my cheek before running off.
"You know you have the rest of the night to do that right?" she pointed out, the biggest smile spread across her face. I linked my arm with hers and pulled her towards the kitchen. We strolled through admiring the aroma created by the chefs.
"Do you know what the package is?" I asked her. She didn't reply. "Lucille Temple you know I hate surprises,"
"Too many people use full names as a bad thing, I like mine so that's not going to work," she pointed out. "You could try asking Lucas but I'm sure he won't say anything because he has no clue,"
"Because he can keep a secret just as well as your father can," I finished. She nodded and we both giggled. As we reached the main-hall again Ellie approached the two of us.
"Guys, there's something going down," so she had no clue either. She took my other arm and I noticed that she wasn't carrying my bag.
"Where did you put my bag?" I asked her. She patted her sides then looked at me. "Your mother took it from me. She answered your phone,"
"She what?" I demanded. I looked over to her and she looked confused. "Oh shit,"
"What?" Both Ellie and Lucy asked. I just shook my head. I was about to reply when Jonah walked across the room and to the DJ who handed him a microphone.
"Ladies and Gentleman, and Amelia," the crowd of people laughed and she flipped him off, earning more laughs from them. "That's very mature,"
Amelia rolled her eyes and sat down on the chair she had risen from to make herself seen. "I have a surprise tonight, well another one but I'm not getting into that. This whole party is a surprise in a sense. I know she hates them but this surprise isn't just for my stunning fiancée, but for her family too. Her mother, her father, and her brother," he gestured towards the doors and two soldiers in black entered the room with automatic weapons. My brother followed them into the room and stood, in my father's stance, and looked around. Our eyes locked and my breath caught in my throat.
"Ben," I breathed. I removed my arms from Lucy and Ellie, which wasn't difficult because the three of us had gone limp as soon as the soldiers had entered, and ran towards him. I launched myself at him and wrapped my arms around him, the tears streaming down my face. My parents joined us and we encompassed him. We pulled away after about five minutes of just being stood there and people had moved away to give us room. Jonah had joined us and wiped the tears from my cheek. "Thank you,"
"Anything," he replied simply.
"But how did you manage this? I can't even get a minute's phone call," I admitted. We had all tried to contact him but he was the definition of remote. His superiors valued the seventeen year olds mind and talent to elude. He had been recruited by the same agency as Jonah and I.
I looked at Ben. He was bruised and hunched slightly and in the five minutes he had been here he hadn't said a word. He had received verbal thrashing from my father on behalf of my mother, who had also stood silently, and had barely moved. I walked closer to him and slapped him across the face, earning a look of shock from my parents. He snapped out of his stupor and pulled our mother into a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry mum,"
Jonah took my hand and held it in both of his. He knew why I'd just done that. "They've chipped him," I nodded. "Bastards,"
"For it to block his emotional response like that it can't have been in there long," I pointed out.
"I'd say about a week," Jonah agreed. "It's not covered up by the hormones of a fourteen year old like it was with us. I mean if we had come back from assignment and been unable to respond to familial interaction like that it would have been considered as hormonal. He's almost eighteen he has no excuse. The slap was a dramatic touch if anything,"
I smiled. "I'm accustomed to the fluctuation so a simple slap wouldn't suffice but with it being relatively new to his skull,"
"A simple slap would be sufficient,"
"Exactly, now it would take being hit by a car, stomped on by an elephant and shot with an old-school EMD for me to invalidate a persona. I've been thrown around too much on the other side of the chip. I'm more likely to completely re-programme my personality than combine two of them,"
"Been there,"