Heavens Almightly, I haven't updated in a while. Sorry about that, I've had things going on with my family, and the school year is starting up, and I babysit two out-of-control boys all day long. And then, on top of that, I got sick. I guess my time's been a little tight lately. But here is chapter 14! It's longer than the others but I'm not sure if that'll make it better. Leave your feedback! :)

And if you want me update faster, tell me! Otherwise, I sort of just let it go on the backburner... oops.

Chapter 14. Easier to Lie (by Aqualung)

It was hard to keep my feet at an even pace beside Zach. My muscles ached to run, run, run far from the person following us. The pharmacy was only a few yards away, but the distance seemed to last for miles.

"He's from the Circle." I whispered. I wasn't sure if it was to Zach, myself, or nothing at all.

Zach replied anyways. "Yes."

"He's following us." He nodded.

"And if he catches up to us what will he do?"

We finally reached the steps of the pharmacy and put his hand on the small of my back, guiding me up them to the door. "We're not going to wait to find out."

I entered the store with him right behind me, and started to ask him what he had up his sleeve when a voice in the store said, "I'm sorry, we closed at ni-"

I reacted instinctively. "God, I think I'm going to be sick." I hunched over and wrapped my arms around my stomach.

Zach seemed to know what I was doing and rubbed my back with the hand still resting there. He asked the cashier if we could use the bathroom and she waved us on. She took a couple of steps back when we passed the counter like she didn't want whatever I supposedly had.

Zach opened the bathroom door and ushered me in. He looked the door behind us, and I straightened up. Through the thin wood of the door, I could make out the sound of the door chimes as someone entered. I heard the girl from behind the counter repeating what she had told us earlier about the store being closed.

I turned my attention away from the door. I quick look around the room showed no windows or stalls. There was nowhere to hide or escape. "Now what do we do?" I whispered.

I heard Zach sigh and I whipped my head around to see him leaning against the wall. He ran a hand through his hair before looking at me. "Shit, this is my fault." He said.

"Yeah, it is." I felt bad as the words came out, but I was a little frustrated. My attitude softened a bit when I saw the stricken look on Zach's face. I came up next to him. "But it's also sort of mine, too."

Zach shot me a sideways glance. "No, it isn't."

I slapped his shoulder. "Hey, I'm trying to make you feel better here." I smiled at him and he returned it. My smile faded a bit when I let my thoughts drift. "That guy out there. I remember him from Blackthorne." Zach nodded slightly.

"You know who he is, right? You know what he'll do if he catches us."

Zach hesitated. He looked straight at the door where we could hear no sound on the other side. "He wouldn't do anything with an audience," He finally said, resting his eyes on my face for a second before bringing them back to the door. "He likes subtlety."

He looked like he was going to say more but then there was a large bang in the other room. My hand went to my wrist where the bracelet Liz had given me rested. Zach and I both rushed to the door, and before either of us had thought anything through, we were opening it.

My mind prepared itself to see the man with a gun or something and the cashier on the floor. It didn't prepare itself to see the girl crouched on the counter with the man several feet away, clutching a bleeding leg. My eyes widened as the girl grabbed a spoon. Now, I'm sure that it was just a regular spoon used for innocent, albeit fattening, ice cream incidents, but this moment didn't have anything to do with ice cream and that girl suddenly looked far from innocent. So yeah, the spoon looked pretty dangerous.

The guy who had followed Zach and me into the pharmacy started backing away like he too was afraid of the spoon-wielder. He shot a glance at Zach and me which meant that he didn't see the spoon flying toward him and hitting its target right where the sun don't shine. He doubled over, and the girl jumped down from the counter. As he was facing the floor, she executed an excellent Hamp Style kick, causing him to fly onto his back and promptly lose consciousness.

The girl stood with her back toward us for a minute. When she started to move, my fingers sought the little button Liz had shown me on my bracelet. She turned around and looked at Zach and me. "Having a blast out on the town?" She grinned for a second. Her voice was drastically different from what I had heard minutes earlier. Now, it bore a strong Australian accent.

"Give a hand," She said turning back to the defeated Circle agent at her feet. "No reason I should clean up your mess all alone."

I advanced slowly toward her, ready to test just how strong the tranquilizer in my bracelet was. Zach, on the other hand, strode easily toward her. He grabbed an arm and leg and looked at the girl. "Where to?"

She grinned again and pointed behind the counter. At this, I snatched a roll of paper towels and hydrogen peroxide from the nearest shelf and went to mop up the blood on the floor that the man's wound had left. The girl crouched next to me while I worked, and I took the chance to really look at her.

She looked older close up than I had assumed she was. She was slightly shorter than the average woman, and her hair was a dark blonde color. "So I guess you aren't from Roseville?" I said.

She gave a little smirk. "That would be a good guess." She looked me in the eye, and I noticed how green her eyes were. Like grass right after a rain. "And I guess you got over your bout of nausea."

I shrugged and changed the subject. "What part of Australia are you from?"

She straightened her back. "What makes you think I'm from down under?" She replied in a perfect Southern accent. I frowned.

"So you just change accents for the hell of it?" I finished wiping and sterilizing the floor. I picked up the used paper towels and chucked them into a garbage bin next to the door.

"Hey, if you're free to do so, then do." She walked over to cash register where Zach was standing with his hands in his pockets. I may have given her a weird look behind her back but that doesn't matter. "Move it, Goode." He scooted farther down the counter, and I seated myself on the stool next to him.

The girl-or woman I guess was the more accurate term-punched a few numbers into the register and with a ping, the side of it slid out. She grabbed what resembled a walkie-talkie and walked off into a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

She came back a minute later and stood across the counter, device still in hand. "You're in luck, kids. Phillips is coming for you." This time she sounded Russian. She was really starting to sound like a show-off.

"And that's lucky for us why?" Zach asked.

"Because Henderson would bite your head off if she knew you snuck out of Gallagher." She said, still with a Russian accent. She looked at me. "So would your mom."

"If?" I said, not daring to believe that they hadn't been informed of my rule-breaking.

She smiled at me. "Phillips has always believed in letting people roam as they please. She doesn't think you should get in trouble for wanting to escape your cage for a night, Cameron. I agree. It tends to get us in trouble with our superiors but screw it."

Her use of my name reminded me that I still didn't know hers. "Who are you?" I asked her.

She looked over my shoulder before answering me as if she were afraid somebody unwanted would hear, and I had to remind myself that there was a Circle agent just a few feet away so her precaution might actually be called for. "Jonah Peters." She extended her hand to me.

I shook it and asked the question I already knew the answer to. "What brings you to Roseville, Virginia?"

"The same thing that's brought legends like Henderson and Phillips here." Jonah gave a laugh. I was starting to get used to the frequent accent change now; I barely noticed that she sounded Indian that time. "You."

There was a knock on the door, and Jonah went to open it. I shivered as the brisk aire washed over me and looked in the reflection of some spoons to see an upside down version of Fiona.

"Merry meet, Fiona," Jonah said, and I heard Zach try to pass his laughter off as a cough.

Fiona shrugged off the weird greeting and went right on to the accent. "What have I told you about doing that all the time, Jonnie?"

"Not to do it." Jonah's voice took on an Australian accent again. She sighed. "It just gets hard sometimes."

Fiona smiled which made me realize just how little I'd ever seen her smile. She was usually so serious. "You'll get over it eventually, I'm sure. I did." She turned to Zach and I, and her smile faded.

"Come on," She said, and I jumped off of my stool. I gave a little wave to Jonah as I passed her, but her attention had moved on to the agent in the back room. Fiona held the door open for Zach and I, and we shuffled out of the pharmacy. She paused as she left the store and turned back to Jonah. "I'll send one of the guards from the school to help you with him." She waved her hand in the direction of the unconscious man, and Jonah nodded.

I looked up at the night sky as we walked to Fiona's car. The stars were out and shining, and it felt like the sky went on for all eternity. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt like sky; free to go wherever I wanted. I wonder if I ever had been allowed to do that...

Fiona went around to the driver's side of the car and unlocked the doors. I managed to snag the front seat which forced Zach to get into the back seat that was littered with various devices half of which I didn't recognize. When we were buckled, Fiona still didn't start the car. Instead, she stared out of the windshield and down the road that led back to Gallagher. Without looking at either of us she said, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tell Rachel about this the second we get back to school."

Thankfully, I knew how to answer this. "Because if I have my information right, you are now in charge of security at Gallagher." I took her silence to mean I was right, so I continued. "And if you are the head of security that means you either knew about what Zach was doing to the security tonight and didn't report it right away, or never knew about it. Either way, it doesn't shine nicely on you."

"Did you know what I was doing?" Zach's curiosity got the better of him.

Fiona rubbed her face. "Of course I knew. The security at the school is too good for you to have gotten through it in just a week, Zachary."

I gaped at her. "So you let us go into town. Why?"

Fiona's eyes met mine for a millisecond before she put the keys into the ignition. She powered the car up and put it in drive before she answered. "Because I like being cooped up even less than you two do. Besides," She bit her lip. "It was the easiest way to get that agent."

"What?" Zach leaned forward as far as his seatbelt would let him. "You used us as bait?"

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Mr. Almighty," Fiona exclaimed, and a giggle escaped me before I could help myself. Zach glared at me, but I ignored it. "I had all my agents in Roseville on the lookout tonight. It was a win-win situation. You get a night out, and we capture an enemy agent. And," Fiona's voice rose as it looked like Zach was about to interrupt. "It was the only way in hell I was about to let you 'sneak' off grounds. You were protected almost to the point of absurdity."

The car was quiet for a couple of minutes until the walls of Gallagher Academy became visible. "Get in back, Ms. Morgan." Fiona said. I unbuckled and shuffled over the console, almost falling right into Zach's arms. He grabbed a pile of blankets behind Fiona's seat and handed one to me.

"Do you hide people in your car often, Fiona?" Zach said. "Personally, I think it's a little amateur."

"Hey," She snapped. "It worked in Barcelona, and it'll work now. You better be thankful I keep blankets back there."

I heard him mutter, "Or worried." I smiled as I threw the blanket over my head and scooted down between the seats. The car slowed down as Fiona approached the gate. I heard the lowering of a window.

"Hey, Fiona." A man's deep voice said. "What was going on with Jonah?"

"An enemy agent walked right into the store. Must have recognized her from a previous mission or something." Her voice held the perfect amount of disinterest in it. I wished I could see through the blanket covering me to physically see her in action as she lied her ass off to a retired field agent. "I need you to send a couple of your men down to gather the agent up and send him to Langley."

"Will do." I heard the window start to go up, but it stopped as the man kept talking. "Did you figure out what that alarm was a while back?"

There was a split second of overwhelming tension, and I was absolutely certain we were about to get caught. Thankfully, Fiona's answer came swiftly. "False alarm. No enemy agents, just idiots from town." I could imagine her rolling her eyes as she said that.

The guy chuckled a little and then said his goodbyes. Fiona proceeded up the drive for another couple of minutes before pulling off the road. She parked the car, and I shed the blanket covering me. I saw Zach doing the same.

Fiona was already several paces away when I got out of the car. She looked like she was debating with herself. "Fiona?" I called.

She turned toward me. Her expression shifted as her eyes landed on my face. She sighed and said, "I suppose you want to know about Tillie."

I tried to not let my surprise show. I guess I really had no right to be as she was the head of security here. Obviously, she was tracking the research of the students. "Sorry?" I asked, giving her a confused smile.

She scowled at me, and I got the impression that I had disappointed her in some way. "Cut the crap, Morgan. I know about you and your friends' work. The hacking is impressive…covering it up, not so much."

I grimaced and felt Zach come up behind me. "Are you offering assistance or something?" He asked mockingly.

Fiona shrugged and said. "I was thinking more along the lines of advice." My eyebrows shot up. Tillie's partner was fine with us investigating her?

I can't keep myself from asking, "Why?"

Fiona looks down at the ground, contemplating. Her voice was subdued when she responded. "All of us spies, we're different, you know? I guess I'm a little odder than most in my ideas. And Tillie, she's…" Fiona looked around as if trying to find the words to explain the spy. "She's secretive. None of us like revealing pieces of ourselves but at the same time, we want to know everything about everyone else."

"I'm not sure I'm following." I said.

Fiona looked me in the eye. "I want to help because I want to know. Call it selfish or going behind her back, but in the end it's exactly what you're doing."

We stood there for a minute, none of saying anything. Finally, I said, "What's your advice?"

Fiona bit her lip, and I had a feeling it was to keep from smiling. "Stop looking in Langley. There isn't any damn point."

"But then how will get Tillie's background information?" Zach asked, sounding confused.

Fiona rolled her eyes. "Certainly not at Langley. Matilda isn't exactly the type to trust her life into the government. At least, that's how she's been for as long as I've known her. It might sound ironic as she works for the government but...Tillie's full of contradictions."

"So why do you need us?" I asked. "It seems like you know Tillie plenty well."

Fiona gave a small, sad smile. "Everyone lies. There's no point in saying we're honest people in our world because it's bullshit. No matter where we are, whether on assignment or at home we're living a cover." Her voice lowers so much, it almost gets lost in the wind. "Eventually it gets to the point where we don't even know the truth anymore. Who we are just disappears, and we end up just playing game after game. Lying becomes easier for us than being honest."

Something about the way Fiona said that pierced my heart. In the short time I'd known the woman I could see how solid she was; how thick her walls were. But when she was standing there telling me that, I could see that she wasn't all that different from me. She felt just as lost in what was going on as I did. She was just better at hiding it.

I wanted to tell her that she wasn't alone, and that I would help her. I wanted to hug her close and heal the unseen scars she carried. I started to speak up in an attempt to comfort her when she pulled herself together and reverted back to her normal impenetrable self. Her eyes were flinty as they stared into mine. "I'm sick of being lied to. I want to know the truth, and you can find it for me. Will you?"

My reply stuck in my throat, and I bit my lip. Zach was the one that spoke up and agreed. Fiona pursed her lips and nodded. Her shoulders seemed to relax as she turned around and started walking away. She glanced back at Zach and I where we were still standing and said, "The alarms for the front door are only down for another two minutes and thirty-three seconds. You might want to hurry."

He and I exchanged a glance before booting it towards the great double doors of Gallagher.

I'm a little disappointed in myself. I wish I had put more action in. But what's done is done.

What do you think of Fiona's character? Is she believable enough? Do you think she has an ulterior motive?

And who do you like best of the new characters: Tillie, Fiona, or Jonah?

REVIEW and in return I'll put in a little *gasp* ROMANCE! OOOOH, girl fights dirty!