* * * * *
The suspense was killing Samantha. She bolted upright. "Alright! Someone tell me what's going on!" She looked at Sydney's shocked face. "I never went to sleep. I just lay there all night, pretending to sleep to keep you happy. I want to know why it's so urgent that we get out of here."
Vaughn passed the photos to her. "Here, you're old enough."
Samantha took the photos. She looked at them carefully. "This is the airport."
"Yep."
"And this guy in it is the guy that shot everyone."
"Yes. He's here for you. Should be driving this way as we speak. Which is why we need to get you out of here."
"Why do they want me?"
Sydney stopped unplugging the machines. "I thought you understood this."
"I do. I mean I understand why they want me and everything, but I can't understand why they won't wait two months for me to turn 18."
Sydney smiled, understanding where Samantha's confusion was coming from. "I hate to break the news to you, but Sark, and his organization- whoever he's working for at the moment- won't be the only ones hunting you. Everyone wants to see what they put into your head."
"You apparently have a more perfect key to the perfect spy, than Sydney does." Vaughn said, helping Samantha stand up.
"Seriously? You're the perfect spy?"
"There are some that believe that, yes."
"How so?" Samantha called from the bathroom, as she changed into her own clothing.
"At a young age, the skills that are needed to be someone like me, were finely tuned, so that when I grew older, I could learn them again with ease."
"So how can anyone be more perfect than you?"
Sydney smiled, although Samantha couldn't see it. "I act upon my emotions too much."
"So what ever was inserted into me, takes away my emotions."
"We don't know."
Samantha stepped out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to go. "What now?"
"Weiss is getting a couple things with the hospital taken care of. Then we're going to hide at the safe house for a couple hours, while Sark looks for you, before we head to the airport."
"Airport! I thought I could stay here in Hillside!"
"When Sark showed up at the airport, our plans and orders changed. We're to take you to LA where you can hide easier."
"I don't want to hide! I've never been a good hider. In hide and seek- I couldn't hide, or seek! I'd just run around in circles until someone spotted me, or they'd get bored and leave their hiding spots."
"Samantha, if you want to live, I recommend coming."
"I can't go. I have nothing to live for really. I haven't slept all week. Every time I actually do fall asleep, I can see Cher dying, and Carly falling to the ground, and it hurts. My parents, who aren't really my parents, are U.S. traitors, along with my favorite aunt. My mother tried to kill me, and my best friends think I'm suicidal. I'd say my life pretty much bites right now."
"Sam, you'll have way less of everything if you stay here. You'll literally have to disappear. You wouldn't be able to go to school, or see your friends. You'd live your life as a hermit in the safe house, with people watching you 24/7. In LA we'd give you a new last name, and we'd give you a closely monitored house, but not a safe house. You'd have a life."
"Use me as bait! Catch Sark, and then you can set me free!" Samantha exclaimed.
Sydney had had enough. She looked Samantha in the eye. In a tone that was both threatening, and scary, she tried to get Samantha to understand. "Don't you get it, it will never end, you will always be a mouse, and the whole world will be a cat. You will always be hunted. Sark is just one evil, of many. This will never end."
* * * * *