"What's going on, Oscar?" Ains asked.
Oscar sighed. "This is Austin Cowen. He's been developing a new training method for new agents, in which agents are confronted with their biggest fears and have to conquer them as quickly as possible."
Austin nodded and looked across at Ains, who held his gaze for a moment before he looked away at Oscar. "So?"
"He wants to test it on one of you." Oscar said.
"I'll do it." I said. When everyone turned to look at me, I fought the urge to blush and curl into myself, instead standing with a straight back, and meeting Austin's eyes. "It only makes sense. I'm the newest out of all of us so I'm the closest you're going to get to an agent fresh out of training. I've only been out a few months."
Austin turned to Oscar and shrugged. Oscar sighed and glanced between Ains and I, jerking his head towards the door. "Go on."
I was sitting on a chair that was a little hard to be considered comfortable and I kept shifting to try and get comfortable as I could, as Ains fiddled with the computer. Finally, he stopped what he was doing and looking up at me, his full lips curving into a smile. "What's with you?"
"This chair's too hard," I told him, shifting uncomfortably.
"You won't be able to feel it in a minute anyway," He said. I nodded in reply, pressing my hands together so that he couldn't see them shaking as I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Are you alright?" He asked, his dark eyes watching me carefully.
I nodded and gave him as convincing a smile as I could muster. "Yeah. Just nervous."
"You don't have to do it, you know." He told me, going back to fiddling with the computer.
"It makes sense for me to do it," I told him.
"Camden's only been an active agent two months longer than you." He said. "Camden could have done it just as easily."
"I need the distraction," I said sharply. He stopped again and looked at me, his eyes seeming to stare through me, right into my soul. He sighed and looked like he wanted to say something, but he just ran his hand through his hair and turned back to his work, although his clenched jaw told me that he had something he wanted to say.
"Say it," I told him.
He sighed and looked up at me. "You don't need a distraction, Caroline. You're stronger than you think you are."
"That's debatable," I told him. He shook his head and smiled at me as he walked over with a glass of water in his hand. He offered it to me, his mouth curving into a gentle smile. "Here, Caroline. Drink this."
"What is it?" I asked, taking it from him.
"Water. It's got transmitters within it that'll transmit what you see in the hallucination to the computer, so that I can make sure that you're not having a heart attack."
"Okay. What am I going to hallucinate? What am I going to see?"
"Your fears, Care. If it gets too much, if you want to stop, just say so and I'll end the entire thing, okay?"
"Okay. What do I need to do?"
"Conquer each fear one by one." Ains replied. I nodded and then downed the water, screwing my face as the salty water slid down my throat, and I nearly gagged on it. Ains apologised as he took the glass from me, but I just shook my head and gave him a small smile. I noticed that he was staring at me over the top of the computer, his dark eyes watching me carefully as I took a long, deep, shaky breath.
"What?" I asked, unable to stop myself from smiling. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Ains smiled and shook his head. "Nothing, Care. It's . . . it's nothing. I'm just trying to figure out if you are incredibly brave or just very, very stupid."
I cocked my head to the side and smirked, even as my eyelids became heavy with whatever drug had been put into that water to put me under the hallucination. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe my hair colour has more to do with my intelligence that we originally thought?"
He shook his head. "No, Caroline, because I know for a fact that your hair colour has nothing to do with your intelligence."
"And how do you know that?" I asked, smiling as I closed my eyes and let my head rest back against the back of the chair.
"Because we wouldn't be dating if you weren't an intelligent blonde." He told me.
I opened my eyes, shaking my head. "So my hair colour is part of your attraction to me."
"Oh, yeah," he said, grinning. "You are like a living, walking and talking contradiction, Caroline Morgan."
"Oh, yeah. That's what gets all the girls going – being told that they're contradictions." I told him, laughing.
"Maybe it's not all the girls I'm worried about," Ains said quietly, and that stopped me short. The implication of what he meant was there, and I stared at him, trying to sum up the courage to ask him what he meant, even as my body tried desperately to drag me down under the relentless tide of consciousness.
"Well, as much as I would love to continue this conversation," I said, shifting my position on the chair, "I have to go and face a hallucination in the form of my worst fear now. 'Kay?"
Ains laughed. "Be brave, Caroline Morgan."
"Aren't I always?" I joked, but I closed my eyes and relaxed into the chair, letting myself be pulled under into unconsciousness so that my boyfriend's reply was lost in the sea of darkness.