A/N: The Non-Conformists are joking about Alex's latest book...

Taylor: How's this for a slogan? "Alex Rider...in the jaws of death!'

Josh: Om nom nom.

Clara: Hi, Dezzy. Bye, Dezzy. You are so yesterday, but FANGS for the memory!

All: *ROFLMAO*

OK, so how much did that book SUCK? A LOT, that's how much. AH sold out! He gave Alex the boot! He gave up, ditched his best series at the last hurdle and betrayed his creative soul! He might as well have ended it with Scorpia if that's the way he's going to carry on! Disclaimer: no, I totally would never write something so lame. I mean, Alex has been threatened with dissection and stuff, and then this Desmond upstart comes along boasting that he's going to make Alex feel more fear than he's ever felt before...and it's a bunch of crocodiles. Come on!

Wait, have I not updated since before Croc Tears? I AM SUCH A BAD AUTHOR!

Chapter 25: Following

The house was full of a shocked, ringing silence. Yassen was sitting in an armchair in the living-room, trying to feign indifference to the atmosphere. Around him, the Non-Conformists were clustered, each dealing with the tension in their own way: Clara pacing, Jane glancing around as though looking for someone to scream at, Josh entirely still except for his drumming fingers. Taylor was looking between his friends, clearly wondering what he could say to comfort them. Alex he knew to be outside, watching K Unit as they examined the area for clues, glaring at them as though daring them to make a slack job of it. Clara sighed, dropped into the chair next to Yassen and buried her face in her hands. She couldn't remain in that pose for long, though, any more than any other, and sat up again, jiggling her knee. She was tense, but for once it wasn't because of him. He felt almost irrelevant in this scene; they no longer had any fear to spare for him, and they saw no reason to include him in their anxiety.

There was a tramping of feet in the hall and Alex entered the room, shivering, his cheeks and nose bright pink with cold. K Unit followed. Wolf waited until they were all assembled in the room, and then spoke.

'We've made a thorough examination of the area, and, like Gregorovich said, it's clear that Roberta's footprints don't reach the door. But there's no sign of any others, no sign that she turned around and backtracked, no tracks from an unexplained vehicle.'

'Nothing?' Yassen asked, staring steadily at Wolf.

Wolf frowned. 'Maybe...no.'

Alex's face contorted. 'Damn!' He spun and lashed out at the wall with both fists, then staggered back, teeth clenching in real pain. He collapsed onto the sofa between Josh and Taylor, running a hand distractedly through his hair. 'This is my fault.'

'No,' Clara said in a low, flat voice. 'No, Alex, it's not yours.'

'They'd have given up by now if I wasn't involved.'

'If you weren't involved I'd probably be dead,' Clara said. 'If it's anybody's stupid fault...' She made gestured with her fist, grimacing. '...it's mine. That bloody poetry...but I didn't think it was that contentious, I just...' She rubbed her fingers over her eyes, and they came away wet.

'But where?' Alex jumped up and began to pace. 'Where did they take her? The only motive that makes sense is to try and make us come after her – use her as bait. So she must be somewhere where we're supposed to be able to find her. But how did they take her away like this? With no tracks? Without anybody hearing anything? How the hell...?'

'No tracks?' Yassen said. Silence fell. All eyes turned to him.

He looked to Wolf again. 'Just a moment ago, you said, "maybe." Maybe what? What is it that you saw? Any little thing may be important.'

'Well...' Wolf paused and frowned. 'The snow looked a little disturbed around the footprints. As though a strong wind had blown over it. It was frozen into ridges. But how...' He stopped. Yassen had nodded.

'Ah,' he said. 'I think I begin to see.'

'What?' Eagle demanded. 'What is it?'

'I think I can understand the method by which Roberta was snatched,' he said, enjoying, just a little, the feeling of having them hanging onto his every word. Recently, Scorpia have been researching new forms of stealth transport, and they developed a new vehicle. We call it a hoverboard.'

It was really rather amusing, the way every jaw in the room dropped simultaneously. He supposed it did sound rather fantastic, as one's mind wrapped around what the name must mean. Wolf was the first to recover – from his expression it was clear that he was furious at having reacted that way, and was going to take it out on Yassen.

'Are you trying to be funny?' he spluttered.

'Not at all.' Yassen could have laughed at the reaction, but he realised that given the current mood it would hardly be appropriate. He needed to keep them onside – well, as much as an assassin could.

'These are not science fiction, Wolf,' he said. 'I assisted in their development myself, test-riding prototypes. When Ash attempted to kill me, just before I came to you, I escaped on one. They are very real, and they work.'

'And do they...' Eagle began hesitantly, 'you know...hover?'

Yassen nodded. 'Like skateboarding in midair.'

'Wow,' Eagle murmured, shaking his head.

Yassen nodded once. 'Yes. But here is the point. These boards fly using rotor-blades similar to those used in helicopters – only with the blades rotating vertically rather than horizontally, of course. The disturbance that you described in the snow may well have been caused by a low-flying board. A rider could have approached almost soundlessly – the boards make only a soft hum when ridden gently, or one can cut the engine and glide – skimmed low, and snatched Roberta off the ground as she approached the house. And then they would be able to escape without leaving any tracks. Take her to a van a mile away and drive. And even I, out walking in the field, would never have heard a thing.'

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Their wide eyes were fixed on his face. Yassen kept his expression neutral, leaning a little towards concerned. This was perfect. They were all listening, waiting for him to tell them.

'So we know, then, that Scorpia took her,' Alex said. His voice sounded a little rough, a little high, but his words were clear and rational. Yassen knew he would have to watch him, whatever he said next. 'You explanation sounds plausible,' he said to Yassen. 'We know how they took her. But does it give us any clues as to where she might be now? You're the only one who has inside knowledge of Scorpia. Do you have any ideas?'

Yassen let out a tiny breath. It was the best question Alex could possibly have asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'The hoverboards are experimental aircraft. Now, Scorpia has mainly administrative offices in England. We prefer to conduct our other activities – training, weapons development and so on – abroad, in places where the authorities are more likely to turn a blind eye. But there is one experimental facility – up North, in Scotland. It's where we did most of the test-flying for the hoverboards in England, and it's inconspicuous, out of the way. It seems to me that it would be the perfect place to hold Roberta.'

'Scotland?' Alex was still sceptical. 'That's a long way to take her.'

Yassen shrugged. 'Not so very long. They could easily be half-way around the world by now, but I have a hunch.'

'I see.' Alex sighed, biting his lip. 'I think...that it would be better to check this place out first, rather than going jetting off to unknown locations all around the world.'

'Scotland for I, laddie,' Eagle said in an exaggerated accent, slapping Snake on the shoulder.'

'They'll be expecting us to try something, I'm sure...well, we'll just have to be very careful,' Alex said. He turned to K Unit. 'You have experience of assignments like this?'

'I helped spring those kids from Point Blanc, Cub,' Wolf reminded him. 'This is right up my street. But that time we knew the layout of the building. We had you.'

'Well,' Alex shrugged, 'we've got Yassen.'

'Gregorovich.' Wolf glanced at Yassen, who was sitting serenely in his armchair. 'Great.'

Yassen kept his face impassive, but a slow, controlled bubble of triumph was rising inside him. It was reasonably likely that the girl was being held where he had said she was, but that wasn't the main reason for his suggestion. According to the research he had been conducting over the past days, hacking into the Scorpia databases via the internet, this facility in Scotland was where the operation that had transformed Ash had been developed and conducted. The site stored equipment, instructions, and data on all the research that had gone into developing the operation. If the information he needed to find out what was causing his strange flashbacks, and what Ash's cryptic statement about prototypes had meant, was anywhere, it would be there. And with Alex Rider and a crack SAS unit to watch his back, he could find out everything he needed to know.

'Don't forget,' Clara said, 'that we're heading north.'

'So?' Alex said rather breathlessly, as he slung the last holdall into the car boot and slammed it shut.

'I just wanted to make sure that you'd all packed for cold weather,' Clara said. She was looking at Jane in particular. 'Not just skinny jeans as opposed to shorts; I'm talking coats.'

Jane rolled her eyes. 'Of course we've packed properly, Clara. Stop fussing. Roberta –' She cut off for a moment, then continued. 'Roberta is the only one who thinks fishnet tights in the snow are a good idea.'

'Yeah, but you do wear skinny jeans a lot.'

'Whatever.' Jane swung her rucksack over the open top of the car and plonked it on the back seat. 'I've packed an anorak. And speaking of keeping warm – have you considered that your car is a convertible.'

Clara grinned in a touché sort of way. 'Yes. I'll put the hood up. But I'm not relishing the prospect.'

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon – the time it had taken, since they had discovered Roberta's disappearance, to check out road maps, pack clothes and perform a google search for bed and breakfasts – and it was almost dark, the sky a deep shade of blue that made your vision blur when you stared up at it for too long. Clara, Alex and Jane had just finished loading their bags into Clara's car, and now they made their way back up to the house, squinting through the glooming and scuffing their shoes carefully across the ground in front of them, searching for ice. They entered the house and headed into the living room, where Josh, Taylor, Yassen and K Unit were sitting waiting, with rucksacks between their knees and coats zipped up to the neck.

Alex wasn't entirely sure why the Non-Conformists were coming. He knew that they could do less than nothing to help; in any battle or hostage situation they would only get in the way. And yet from the moment Yassen had said Roberta was in Scotland, all of them had seemed to assume that they were coming, and he hadn't had the heart to tell them to stay behind. Why was it? Because with them he felt accepted and equal, and didn't want to set them apart and treat them like children, the way he himself had been treated so many times? Because, even now, he felt that they somehow had more right to rescue Roberta than he did. They had all known one another long before he came on the scene, after all, even if it had been his arrival that had drawn them all together. And they were the musicians, the social outcasts, the weirdoes-and-proud-of-it. If it hadn't been for MI6, he wouldn't have been a part of them at all.

So what right did he have to tell them to stay behind?

There were ten of them, and eleven seats – four in Clara's car and seven in the monstrous jeep. So, as Clara had pointed out, there'd be a spare seat for Rob when they found her.

Alex's stomach was twisting with nerves. To walk deliberately into unknown danger on this dark December night...he shivered, and then realised that Yassen was watching him closely.

'We're all ready,' he said. 'Uh...everybody got everything they need? Coats? Water bottles? Last minute toilet stops?'

'Yes,' Josh said decisively. Everybody else nodded.

'Then let's go.'

They headed out to the cars. K Unit instinctively stuck together, and Clara unlocked her own car and got into the driver's seat. Alex stuck with her through long habit, but he realised that they hadn't stopped to think of any kind of seating plan...

No sooner had the thought formed when he and Clara were joined in the convertible by Jane and Yassen.

Facepalm, Alex thought. How does this keep happening?

The jeep started up first, revving with a growl, its headlights bursting into glaring life. It nosed out of the drive and into the road, and Clara put her car in gear and followed after it.

After about ten minutes they reached the motorway. Alex knew that it was quite likely that they would get separated by a mile or two during the drive, and they had agreed on a rendezvous in a small town, near where the Scorpia facility was supposed to be. He wasn't worried about that. But now it seemed that he was the last line of defence against Yassen. Fabulous.

They drove. It was completely dark now, except for the two streams of car lights, white one way and red the other, stretching on into the distance. Flecks of sleet were hitting the windscreen, and Clara had the wipers on, clunking steadily back and forth, mopping a clear patch across the glass. The fan blew warm air at their feet and the windscreen, making the air warm and humid and adding a low, drowsy roar to the sounds in the car. Nobody was talking.

'Alex,' Clara said, 'could you get my i-pod out of my bag and stick it in the dock, please?'

Alex complied, and Clara switched it on and selected an album. A blare of piano and guitar chords sounded from the speakers as the i-pod began to play ABBA's 'Hole in Your Soul.'

'You feel bad, let me tell you, we all get the blues...'

'More lame rock,' Alex mumbled.

'Gotta stay awake somehow.'

'Sometimes life is a burden, way down in your shoes...'

'True enough.'

He sat back in his seat, staring out of the black windshield, thinking. Thinking of twisting his fingers through riff after complicated riff, of the shrieking guitar stabbing in his ears and shivering down his spine, of the sweat and light and screaming of a concert...had he really done that only twice? Of Roberta's deep, husky voice saying dryly, 'aptitude is pain, Alex, aptitude is pain.' And then Clara had translated it into Latin and Josh had painted it like a crest over the door of the garage...'Non-Conformists. Aptitudo dolor est.'

'But if there's one thing for the better, that can turn you loose
'There's gotta be rock and roll,
'To fill the hole in your soul.
'There's gotta be rock and roll...'

His fingers were itching. He twisted round in his seat, reached over Jane, who squawked, and past Yassen, who stared at him silently, and pulled a guitar out of the boot.

It was a proper guitar, not a bass, and he and Roberta hadn't done more than an idle demonstration or two of how to play it, so he went for trial and error, playing the chords Roberta had showed him, followed by the ones he thought he might have seen her play during rehearsal, followed by complete guesses. He had to hold it awkwardly, with the neck pointed towards the back of the car, so as not to poke Clara with it.

For a long time his actions brooked no response from anybody, which meant they must be more asleep than he'd realised, but finally Clara said in a low voice,

'Try and play along with the music or something. You're clashing.' Then she said, in a more alert voice, 'Alex, is that Rob's guitar?'

'You're tired,' he said quickly. He glanced at the luminous clock on the dashboard. They'd been on the road for three hours. 'Let me drive for a bit.'

'You know how to drive?'

'Learned when I was eight.'

'OK then.' Clara was obviously too used to his odd abilities now to comment. 'Thanks.'

She pulled onto the hard shoulder and stopped, leaving the engine running.

'Clara?' Yassen said from the back, and both of them jumped. Alex had almost forgotten that he was there.

'Yes, Yassen?' Clara said.

'If you want some sleep, we can swap seats.'

'Yes thanks,' Clara said. Alex had a feeling that there was some good reason why he should object to that, but he was too sleepy to think what it was. Clara and Yassen both got out of the car, Alex slid across to sit behind the steering wheel and Yassen got in on the passenger side. Alex heard Jane murmur a sleepy hello to Clara as she climbed into the back, and Clara sigh in response. He pressed down on the accelerator pedal and slid out into the oncoming traffic.

He had never driven on the motorway before, but if anything, once you got used to the speed, it was easier than country lanes with sharp twists and turns. But of course, that could make it more dangerous. It could lull you, like it had been doing to Clara. He sat up straighter and tried to concentrate.

It was nine thirty in the evening – two and a half hours into Alex's driving stint, pitch black and cold – when Yassen spoke.

'Alex?'

Alex sighed. Of course. That was the reason why he had wanted to disagree when Yassen suggested switching seats. Because the Russian wanted to talk to him.

Of course, he had waited. Clara and Jane had been murmuring on and off to each other and to him, but they had been silent for half an hour now. Yassen still seemed in no particular hurry. The guitar was propped between knees, and he ran his fingers slowly up and down the strings, making a very soft squeaking sound, staring into space.

'Yes?' Alex prompted him at last.

'You are angry,' Yassen stated.

'Angry with you?'

'Maybe. That is what I'm wondering.'

Alex sighed again and began to speak quietly. 'Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry that this whole spy thing ever happened. I'm angry that my friends have to be in danger, that we can't just hang out and forget all of this. I'm angry that I still couldn't protect Roberta. But no, I'm not really angry with you. I don't particularly like you, but...'

'You are not angry with me?' Yassen said, not surprised or incredulous, but just politely asking for clarification.

'Psssh.' Alex made an exasperated sound. 'What would be the point? In the end, it's not really you're fault that Clara got into trouble. You just carry out the orders; I could kill you, but that wouldn't get rid of the root of the problem. And this time you really had nothing to do with it.'

'You believe that?' Yassen asked, and Alex blinked. It had never actually occurred to him that Yassen might have orchestrated the kidnap.

'Yes, I do,' he said, shaking his head at himself as he spoke. 'I suppose I could say that it's your fault she was targeted, because you came to stay with us. But I could have handed you over to MI6, so I guess that one's my fault as well.'

'And yet you don't particularly like me...?'

'I still believe that killing is wrong, Yassen,' Alex said. 'Julia Rothman tried to make out that I was just the same as you and her, but I'm not. I only killed when I had to. It's not the same as murdering in cold blood, or for money.'

'Mmm.' Yassen bent forward a little and propped his chin on his steepled fingers. 'The way...' he said, '...that your friends look at me...is rather amusing. Good and evil...it's not true to say that I don't believe in them. Untrue to say that I don't see the difference, anyway. But I don't believe in absolutes. Look at Mr Blunt, for example. Manipulating a teenager in the name of the common good. He –'

'We've had the Mr Blunt rant before, Yassen,' Alex said. 'This is not new. Couldn't agree with you more, but whatever.'

'Alright,' Yassen said, 'but that was only one example. There is also your father.'

'Right.' Alex groaned internally. 'My father.'

'I told you what he did. He was an assassin, like me. He killed people for money, to support his wife and child. He made them rich. By your generalising standards, that would make him a bad man.'

'You think I'm afraid to accept that my father was a bad man, Yassen?' Alex said louder.

'I suppose not. That is excellent. Very objective. But the point is that to me, he was a good man. He was the best man I ever knew.'

Yassen stopped, as though gathering his thoughts. His eyes, in the passing glow of the streetlamps, were wide awake, and less dead and frozen than Alex had ever seen them before. Yassen's voice was measured when he next spoke.

'He trained me, Alex. He looked after me and helped me to turn from a refugee into a healthy young man with a successful career. When I was fourteen, I had no hope. Scorpia gave me my life back. Your father gave me my life back. He saved my life. All these things, to my mind, qualify as good actions.'

Alex shifted his fingers, focussing on the leather grain of the steering wheel beneath them. The i-pod had moved on from ABBA long ago, and was playing something choral and classical. A lullaby. It was making him even more tired, but it allowed him to keep calm. He wondered if he should tell Yassen the truth. That his father had been a double-agent. A spy for MI6. The words sat on his tongue. How should he speak them? Defiantly? Soft and consoling? He shook his head. He was afraid, he realised, that if he told Yassen the truth, the assassin might decide that his obligation to Alex no longer existed, reach across and casually strangle him. Instead he said,

'On Air Force one, you told me that my father saved your life. You said he gave you that scar on your neck. How did that happen?'

Yassen frowned thoughtfully, fingering the scar. In the field, in the snow, he had told Roberta that it was a long story. But this was Alex. And he had all night to kill.

'It was during an assignment in the Amazon jungle,' he said. Alex listened as the picture formed in his mind's eye: the heat of the jungle, the green, holy silence, the drug dealer in his sealed-in complex, concealed from the world by swathes of leaves. And hacking towards him, the two assassins, his father and the young Yassen – Cossack – with determination in their hearts and death in their hands. Comrades. A team.

'Hunter?' Alex said. 'Was that seriously the best he could come up with?'

'Hmm.' Yassen pondered this. 'I suppose I never really thought about it at the time.'

'And if he was a Rider, how come you got to be Cossack?'

'The Cossacks are Russian.'

'Not really. Slavonic, maybe.'

'True, but they're closer to Russian than British.'

'Whatever.' Alex made a disgusted sound. 'I just can't believe you had a cooler code name than my dad.'

Yassen chuckled and continued, telling about the spider, the safety of the helicopter, the Commander and the bullet.

'He shot the spider off your neck?' Alex demanded.

'Yes.'

'That's ridiculous.'

'I know.'

'Ridiculous or not,' came a voice from the back, 'you tell a mean story.'

The car swerved as Alex jumped nearly out of his skin. 'Clara!' he hissed. 'I thought you were asleep.'

'I was, for a while.' He could hear her rustling and yawning behind him. 'But I woke up. That sounds epic, Yassen.'

Alex sighed between gritted teeth. He wanted to demand to know how much she'd heard – particularly if she'd heard Yassen talking about his father and Alex not correcting him – but he decided that silence would be safer. Clara was sounding completely unconcerned, her voice gaining focus and volume as she talked.

'If I was writing your missions as a story,' she was saying, 'I would totally put that as, like, a prologue. And then reveal who it was dramatically, at a later point.'

'Which is essentially what happened,' Alex said, exchanging a glance with Yassen. 'But I don't want you to write a book.'

'Aw, come on, Alex, it would be fun. We could see how close we could cut it to the truth. Send Alan Blunt a copy and watch him twitch. Make up for some of those cheques you didn't get.'

'Clara,' Alex said firmly, 'remember that book of poetry you wrote? The one that inspired someone to pay Yassen here to come after you? Well, this would be the same thing, only with assassins from all the organisations mentioned in the book coming after you. And this time I don't think I'd be able to charm our way out of it. So don't. Please?'

'OK, I see your point,' Clara admitted. There was a pause. 'Your father, though...'

'Don't talk about my father!' Alex said brusquely. He hoped that Clara would get the message, and thankfully she fell silent.

'I'm sorry,' Yassen whispered. 'Did she know?'

'Yes,' Alex said, his eyes on the road. 'She knows.'

Of all three of them, Yassen was the only one who had known John Rider. And yet Clara knew the truth about his father, and Yassen didn't. To Alex, it didn't quite seem fair.

A/N: OK, so a few things happened in that chapter, and ALEX AND YASSEN FINALLY TALKED GLORY HALLELUJAH! This chapter had better be dedicated to saremisam17/Ridergirl9, who, I seem to remember, has been clamouring for this since chapter one, practically. And to anybody else who wanted them to talk. There was definitely somebody going, 'I want Alex and Yassen to talk!'

The 'lullaby' which I imagined Clara would have on her i-pod is 'Seal Lullaby' by Eric Whitacre. It's something we've been doing in my choir at the moment. There's a recording of it here: http: / www . youtube . com/watch?v = zbZdIkQyrM4 Take out the spaces. You can find 'Hole in Your Soul' anywhere.

Well, whoever it was asked for A and Y to talk, there you are. I feel so good! I updated!

NCW: Thanks so much for your lovely review! I must get Alex to write a song! Maybe while he's angsting along with Roberta's guitar (that he stole)? Alex&Robbie? I have a feeling Roberta would eat him for breakfast...but maybe she'll have to make do with him in the long run. The fact that you are writing these like proper pairing-names is a super-shot to my ego!

Hmm, they are going to Scotland. Are they going to go to a castle and meet a certain slack-jawed laird and his Crocodile Bride?

NOT!

True