Disclaimer: Anthony Horrowitz is a genius and I do not take credit for his creations.
Two months ago, Alex found Scorpia and just as Yassen Gregorovich told him before he died, he found his destiny. Alex had found it difficult to follow in his father's footsteps as a trained assassin and to make him prove his loyalty to Scorpia, Mrs Rothman sent him on an assignment to kill Mrs Jones, the deputy head of MI6 and murderer of his father. Just before he departed however, Alex stumbled upon Scorpia's plans of Invisible Sword.
Desperate to stop Scorpia, he made a deal with Scorpia. In return for terminating Invisible Sword, he would assist them in invading the headquarters of MI6 and wiping all information on Scorpia. Scorpia hesitated, then agreed. However, the plan would only be terminated after the information was erased. Nile was sent to spy on Alex to make sure he did the job.
Alex succeeded, but on his way out was caught by Mrs Jones. After a confrontation in which he accused her of murdering his father, he fired a bullet. Not looking to see what he had done, he ran out of the building and managed to get away from security forces following him.
Nile had helped him to get back to Scorpia. Impressed by what Alex had done, Mrs Rothman ordered the termination of Invisible Sword and sent an assassin to the man who had employed them to carry it out.
Alex joined Scorpia now as a fully fledged member. Although he was following his dad's footsteps, Alex could not rid himself of the nightmare that had occurred. He was a murderer…
Think this is all? Think again!
On Air Force One, Alex had watched Yassen Gregorovich die before his eyes. But Yassen hadn't died. He was alive. He escaped the plane and was returning to Scorpia…
Chapter 1
Alex tossed and turned in his bed, his body covered in an ice cold sweat. He was murmuring feverishly to himself, though he was lucky that no one could hear him.
He ran through a deserted street. It was dark and cold, lit by only a dim streetlight. Alex could feel his heart pounding in his chest and could see the steam coming out of his mouth with each exhale.
He stopped dead when he saw a shadowed figure emerge in front of him. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
He tried to run, but no matter which direction he took, the figure was there.
Who are you? He tried to yell. But his voice seemed to drown in the darkness. The next thing he knew he was on a bridge. Immediately he recognised it. Albert's Bridge. More figures stood around him. Three at each end of the bridge. No. No, it couldn't be. But it was. Two people stepped forward, exchanging themselves. Which one was his dad? Alex had to save him. Mrs Jones would give the order to fire any second now. He saw him. At the same time he saw Mrs Jones reach into her pocket to pull out a radio. She spoke into it.
No! cried Alex, rushing at his father. He was a mere metre away from him when suddenly his father turned around. Alex stopped as a face was illuminated. But it wasn't his father's face. It was Mrs Jones! She held out a gun, pointed at his heart.
No! It's impossible! He turned around to the other Mrs Jones, whose face was brought into the light also.
It was his father's face! His father was speaking into the radio. At the same time, he smiled at Alex and nodded to Mrs Jones. Alex heard a gunshot and was thrown backwards by the impact of the bullet careening into his chest. He flew backwards off the bridge into darkness…
In his room in the Scorpia base at Malagosto, Alex's eyes snapped open and he shot up in bed. He was breathing as if he had run a mile. His sheets of his king sized bed were a tangled mess around his legs. His whole body was shaking, though not from the cool night breeze that blew in from the open French door leading to his balcony.
It was the nightmare. He'd had it every night from when he returned from Chelsea three days ago. He had returned a new man. In return for terminating Invisible Sword, he had erased information at MI6. He had wiped the memory banks of the computers and burned files. He had run over three miles and evaded even the highest level of security. But he had also murdered…he had murdered Mrs Jones. He had returned an assassin.
Every night he had experienced the same nightmare. It always took place on the same bridge his father was murdered. All of the plot points followed the footage Mrs Rothman had shown him weeks before of the exchange of his father in return for a hostage. Only instead of Mrs Jones making the order to terminate his father, she had been standing in front of him, pointing a gun. His father had ordered his execution.
What was the switch in roles say to him? That his father was the killer? Mrs Jones would kill him? That made no sense at all.
Alex looked at the digital clock on his bed stand. It was 4 am.
Sighing, he got out of bed and went to his bathroom-which was large enough to fit twenty people comfortably inside the bath-and splashed cold water on his face. He looked bleakly into the large mirror opposite the sink.
A boy stared back at him. Blonde hair, still messy from tossing and turning in his bed, brown eyes that were always described as serious. Although the reflection showed no change in his appearance since he got back from Chelsea, Alex felt a scarring change inside himself.
Get a grip, he told himself
The worse thing was, he could not afford to show how much the incident had affected him. Mrs Rothman, or anyone in Scorpia, would see this uncertainty as dangerous and would probably have him terminated. Alex thought about what this would be like if he actually had a father to confide in. But no, he reminded himself. His father was the reason all this had happened. It was his death that had set of the chaotic chain reaction.
Alex leant over the basin, suddenly feeling nauseas.
Find Scorpia. Find your destiny. That was what Yassen had told him. Alex had gotten more than he'd bargained for. He found himself wishing that Yassen was still alive to explain what his destiny was. Although they had barely spoken-only as enemies up until the plane- Alex felt somehow connected to Yassen. After all, the man had known his father; been his father's best friend. Alex felt lost.
He had no one. Not his best mate Tom. Not his guardian and friend Jack Starbright, who probably didn't even know he was still alive.
The only companion he had was Nile. He and the oddly coloured assassin had developed somewhat of a relationship, though both of them denied it. Nile was the one who had taken Alex to Scorpia. Nile had been the one to return him to Scorpia after the job had been done. Nile was the one Alex talked to most often. Nile had also tried to kill him on one occasion, before he knew of Alex's identity and the two of them chuckled at the memory now, though Alex had barely made it out alive. But even to Nile, Alex couldn't reveal his feelings.
He had work to do. Mrs Rothman, in a debriefing session the day he had returned to Scorpia, had told him that after a few days of rest and training, he was to be sent on a new mission.
Just steel yourself, Alex always told himself.
It was how he coped with carrying a gun.
Maybe it was what he had been thinking when he fired the bullet at the woman who had ordered the termination of his father. Mrs Jones. Probably the only person at MI6 who made him feel like he mattered. She was gone now. Alex hadn't dared look back after he had fired the shot. He had simply run away. It was because he hadn't wanted to face the sight of her falling lifelessly to the floor. To see the blood from the hole in her chest soak her grey blouse. To still smell the peppermint from her last breathe as she had screamed.
No loner being able to keep calm, Alex thrust his head over the toilet basin and emptied the contents of his stomach. He did it as quietly as he could, not wanting to even think about what would happen if he were found.
Steel yourself…
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