A/N The chapters will most likely be shorter (between 1,000 and 2,000 words) from now on, but that means that updates should be quicker. Yeah! I'm on holidays until the 7th of October, so I will try and write and load the last two chapters of The Assassin's Touch and another couple for this fic.

Chapter Ten: You Are Not Alone

I was frozen in terror, my fists bunched together so tight I felt my nails digging into my palms. My jaw clenched, grinding my teeth painfully together and making my mouth ache. It wasn't the face of my would-be murderer that had me so on edge; we'd left him far behind.

It was Hex's driving.

'Please...slow...down.' I managed to force the words out without ungritting my teeth.

'Huh?' Hex looked sideways at me. He was enjoying himself. Actually enjoying himself.

'Slower,' I said, sounding a touch strangled.

Hex's expression turned sheepish for a second as he lifted his foot off the accelerator slightly. 'We need to get as far away as possible. Right into the city would be best. Bear with me.'

My anxiety escalated a couple of notches as Hex took one hand off the steering wheel and started fiddling with the radio. Classical music. Opera. Country. The tunes flicked my.

'What are you doing?' I shrieked. 'Can you stop changing stations and just focus on-' I was cut off by a burst of sound coming from the speakers.

Whoa Black Betty

Bama Lamb

Yeah Black Betty

Bama Lamb

'What?! Are you mad?'

Shrugging, Hex said nonchalantly, 'How am I meant to drive while listening to opera? I mean, we're fleeing for our lives.'

I clenched my hands even tighter.

I survived the ride. Just. Parked outside Headquarters, I had to wait a whole five minutes before I could force my cramped muscles to respond. Hex spent those five minutes pacing up and down the sidewalk, occasionally with his mobile pressed to his ear and always with his mouth set in an anxious frown. Despite his far from adequate driving skills, I was so happy to see him, so happy to be with him again.

'What're you smiling at?' Hex's question came out of nowhere. I tried to flick my expression back to annoyed, but my grin got wider.

'I dunno. Just happy I guess.'

Hex smiled back, but my grin died a little as I remembered saying similar words to Jasper at the restaurant weeks ago. Stop it. I mentally rapped my knuckles with a ruler. He ordered your murder. A stupid part of my brain piped up, You did betray his trust, but I blocked it out with a huge, imagined brick wall.

'I can't get through to anyone,' Hex said, pulling me by the hand out of the car. 'We better go see what's going on.'

By the time we reached Harry's office, I was about half dry, although my hair was still saturated. Betty, the cleaner, wouldn't have been happy with me if she knew I had been drip-drying all over her floor.

'Hi guys. What ya been-' I never got to finish as I immediately found myself being crushed in another Paulo-Li bear hug. Hex trailed in after me and got a whack on the shoulder from Li.

'Next time you get the sudden urge to rush off without telling anyone where you're going, don't.' Li scowled, then sniffed and gave Hex a tight hug.

'Where's Alex?' Paulo asked, looking towards the door like Alex was about to come waltzing in.

'Ummm...' I was confused. How on earth were we meant to know where Alex was? I hadn't even seen him since he delivered that letter to me from Harry when I was at work.

'I thought he'd be here with you guys.' Hex's frown was back. 'I can't reach him on his mobile.' The frown depended. 'Or Harry for that matter.'

Li looked worried, but Paulo just shrugged.

'They're probably off doing something. I heard a rumour that Harry's got a solo mission planned for Alex, so maybe they're going through it, or whatever.'

I don't think anyone, even Paulo, really believed that, but what could we do?

'Well,' I said, 'we can either sit around here doing nothing or we can take a little trip and pick up a very important bag.'

Li's eyes lit up. I felt sorry for her: starved of excitement and adrenaline-packed activities, she must have been going stir crazy.

'Awesome. Let's go.' She grabbed Hex's car keys from his hand and took off out the door. We followed, Paulo looking amused, Hex grumbling and me praying like crazy that Jasper had decided to go on a spontaneous vacation to some out of the way place, far from us. Tasmania preferably.

Paulo gave a low whistle. 'Fa-ancy.'

Looking at Jasper's house through new eyes, I started to notice the "fa-ancy" parts for the first time: a manicured lawn, each blade of grass the exact same length; a garden well under control, highly organised and colour coordinated; modern everything; a brand new lick of pant on the render... The whole place shrieked "wealth" and if you didn't know Jasper you'd assume a very well-off businessman or rich lawyer lived there. Well, I knew Jasper and I also knew that wasn't where the money came from.

'So your bag is...' Hex glanced at me in the semidarkness of the car. Under my protests, Hex had driven us here in his dinky car a fact that neither Li or I were very pleased about. The quality of Hex's car and his driving was demonstrated by that one fact: adrenaline-junky Li, nothing-can-frighten-me Li, free climbing-extraordinaire Li, was nervous at even the prospect of riding in Hex's car when he was at the wheel.

'Behind a potted plant near the stairs.' I chewed my lip and squinted, trying to see if anyone was at home. The curtains weren't drawn and no lights appeared to be on, but still...

'You know,' Li aid, 'that whenever someone mentions potted plants I instantly think of our first mission. Alva's office, with all those ferns. Honestly, what is people's fascination, people's obsession, with a huge plant made up solely of delicate fronds that look like they're just waiting to creep out and eat you?'

'I really don't know, Li,' I answered, only half concentrating. 'Does it look like anyone's home?'

Li wasn't really listening either, still babbling away on her own train of thought, although what I'd just said had swayed that train slightly. 'What're we going to do if someone does come along? Duck?'

I'd been looking at Hex, about to ask his opinion on the situation, when Li made that comment. Immediately a stupid blush crept onto my cheeks and I thanked my lucky stars that it was, a, night time, and b, my skin was dark enough to cover the pinkness.

'What other option would there be, Li?' Paulo asked. Why, of all the topics, did this one have to continue? 'Invisibility shield? Teleportation device? Beam-'

'Ok, ok,' Hex interrupted, sounding a bit flustered. 'It doesn't matter because no one will come, alright? We're going in, getting the bag, coming out and driving straight back home as fast as possible. Understand?'

'Why do we all need to go?' Paulo piped up. 'I mean, Amber obviously does 'cause she knows where the bag is exactly and she knows how the house is laid out, but why doesn't just one of us go with her? The other two can act as lookouts.'

'I'm driving,' Hex said. 'So I can't go.'

After a few minutes debate, it was decided that Paulo would come with me. Li gallantly forfeited her spot on the retrieval team, saying that she might have found it difficult to keep quiet and stealthy, considering she'd been cooped up all day.

Paulo and I crept up to the front door. I lifted the third paving stone from the right up and found the spare key, quickly unlocked the door and put it back where I found it. Together, we shoved the door open and tiptoed inside.

Alex flicked through the pile of papers on the kitchen bench in Amber's mission apartment. Credit card application. Letters from her uncle and friends back in the States. Flyer for a school fete. Pay slip and cheque from work... Nothing relevant. In the lunge room, Harry was also conducting a thorough search. Not that he didn't trust Amber, but it didn't hurt to be safe.

'Nothing,' Harry called, standing up straight and stretching his back.

'Ditto.' Alex's head appeared from around the corner of the half wall separating the kitchen from lounge room. 'You didn't really think Amber would-'

'No, no, no,' Harry said quickly, shaking his head. 'But I thought it better to be safe than sorry.'

Alex nodded and joined his boss in the lounge room. They sat on the couch, both staring at the coffee table, deep in thought. Neither of them heard the front door open and then swing shut. Nor did they hear the soft footfalls of the intruder before it was much too late.

Jasper was just as surprised to see the two men sitting on the sofa as they were to see him standing in the door way. Quickly, Jasper regained his composure and drew his gun, training it on Alex and Harry.

'Come over here quietly and no one gets hurt,' Jasper said. His voice shook slightly, although his hand remained steady. Alex and Harry immediately obeyed, not wanting to aggregate him. With bloodshot eyes and deathly pale skin, Jasper looked anything but stable.

In his backpack by the front door, Alex's mobile vibrated softly. Yet another missed call.