Chapter 2

My head was buried deep beneath my pillow, yet I could still hear the unmistakable sound of someone pounding on my door. The loud sound of a fist striking repeatedly on the heavy metal door finally awoke me from my deep slumber. I grumbled under my breath, stupid Jacob, always having to do everything early in the morning. I kicked off the warm comfy comforter and was greeted by the cold draft in the stark room. Still grumbling I padded across the white tile floor and opened the heavy door. I was greeted by Dmitri. Dmitri was Jacob's main guard. Guards were the inside muscle men, they answered only to Black and to Jacob. If a recruit were to ever cause problems, the Guards went in late at night and "took care of the problem." Only thing I know is that whenever a guard was rumored to have taken out a recruit the recruit was never heard from or seen from again.

Dmitri looked at me, and his deep voice rumbled "Isabella the private jet taking you to Sea-Tac will be waiting for you at Runway 5, please report in 15 minutes." I nodded, and was about to nod my head and close my door, when Dmitri shoved something in my hand. Before I could say or do anything Dmitri had already walked away and was disappearing around the bend in the hallway. I stepped back into my drab room, with the plastic bag in my hand. Walking back to my cot, I placed the plastic bag on the cot and reached inside. The first thing I felt were a pair of jeans, I have not seen yet alone worn a pair of jeans in the last 2 years. Recruits were always subjected into wearing grey track jackets and black track pants, like I said they were all about bright colors here. Shaking out the contents of the bag I was greeted with a pair of dark jeans, sneakers and a plain sweatshirt. Noticing a piece of paper at the bottom of the bag, I picked it up and skimmed it quickly.

"Isabella, considering we want you to blend in, I think it is best if you were to change into more civilian appropriate clothing. Please change into these, and leave your recruit uniform on the bed. It will be taken care of. Make sure to bring nothing, weapons will be provided to you on the spot. –Jacob"

I changed quickly and left the room that was my home for the last 2 years. Quickly walking to the elevator at the end of the dormitory hallway, I nodded at the guard; he opened the elevators door, and waited for me to step in before following in step behind me.

Neither of us exchanged words, normally, recruits were never allowed into an elevator without supervision, and even if a recruit did manage to sneak into an elevator, it's not like they would get anywhere, like all the doors in the building the elevators were code protected and a guard was needed to operate the elevators. I noticed the numbers on the elevators, all recruits were housed on floor 20, and recruits normally only operated on Floors 16-20, and everything else was off limits.

Like I said, Black corporation was huge, and to take down a corporation as large as this, would take an immense load of planning and Intel, and even with that it would still be near impossible.

The numbers continued decreasing, as we neared floor 1 (which was ground floor, considering it was the only floor above ground,) my breathing started to speed up.

The elevator dinged, indicating its arrival, and the doors opened, to reveal a nice suave lobby. However, it wasn't the ornate decorations or large crystal chandelier that I noticed; instead my eyes were immediately drawn to the sliding doors that led to the outside. Noticing that the guard had already stepped back into the elevator, I quickly walked toward the glass doors.

It was so strange, to see something like this. For the past 2 years I have tried to remember the feeling of the cool morning air blowing against my face or the smell of the crisp air. And the Sunlight! It has been years since I have had the chance to feel sunlight heating up my face.

I walked, as if I was in a trance, and as I neared the sliding doors they slid open with a whoosh, and all the sudden I was experiencing everything that I had yearned to remember all those years. Suddenly I heard a loud "Isabella, "I quickly looked toward the source and I saw Jacob with 2 guards angrily beckoning toward me. I quickly jogged over, when I stood in front of him; he looked at me disapprovingly "Took you long enough."

"Sorry Sir."

"As long as we get there in time," he quickly turned around and walked up the stairs that lead to the door of a medium sized aircraft. I followed in after him. The plane's interior was quite nice, it housed 10 rows of plushy recliner seats, and to the back was a small bedroom. I sat down at a seat, and Jacob sat next to me. I turned to him, confused, "I wasn't aware that you were accompanying me."
He turned to me and said "Normally one of the higher up agents would be accompanying you to your hideout; however the person who I had in mind to escort you is no longer available. Therefore I will."

I nodded and then turned to look outside the window. After a moment of silence, Jacob cleared his throat once again and said "Did you read the files that I gave to you" I nodded once.

"Good, now I am going to go through a preliminary test to make sure that you have absorbed what is important."

I nodded confidently, I was typically great at memorizing minor details, it was me who excelled at the training activities such as memorizing street signs, shoes that targets were wearing, license plates, etc. "Who are your parents."

I answered almost mechanically "My parents are Brian and Kelly Newman, they are both real estate developers and they are currently living abroad in Oxford, England. I have a strained relationship with them, because I did not decide to follow in their footsteps, which would explain the lack of their presence."

"Where did you grow up? Your childhood?"

"I grew up in a small town called Greensville, Ohio. Went to Greensville High School. I was a quiet kid, which didn't allow me to have friends, and I graduated a year early from high school and booked it out of the town."

"What is that you want to do in life?"

"I want to go to medical school. Currently at the University of Washington I am a bioengineering major and am working toward an Italian studies minor."

This continued on for several minutes, if anything Jacob was anal about these kinds of things. Recruits, like all other humans, talk amongst themselves, and from the petty gossip floating around, I have heard that Jacob is painfully observant when it came to his recruit. That's why he did what he did.

Almost 30 minutes before landing, Jacob cleared his throat yet again, he had left me in peace for a good 2 hours after the mad quizzing section about my life, I turned to him careful to not show my annoyance.

"Now Isabella, when we get to Seattle, I will be accompanying you to your apartment, and showing you all the security enhancements of the apartment, I will catch a flight back to headquarters. There are approximately 2 agents that are located near you. There is one Agent in Portland, Oregon and another in Spokane, Washington. If you ever need immediate help with a mission you will contact them first. There numbers have been inputted in your phone."

He then handed me a glossy sleek new phone. I took it and just gazed at it, never in my life had I held a phone in my hand. My parents were never ones to believe in corrupting the preteen mind with a cellphone. Jacob looked at me, I suppose he was trying to gage my reaction, he opened his mouth and continued speaking

"This phone has a tracker, on the phone you will see that both Agents phone numbers are in your contact list. Now they are listed underneath there code names. All Agents who have graduated have a code name, and when you do contact another agent you are to say their codename and then introduce yourself using your codename. Your codename is Agent Sparrow. Also you will find on the phone the number for headquarters, if you ever have an issue—say a stray civilian hearing too much about our organization you are to call headquarters immediately, and we will send agents who specialize in clean up duty your way."

I shuddered when Jacob mentioned "clean up duty," Black corporation being the highly secretive agency it was, could not afford to be discovered by outside sources. I have heard stories, of when agents have gotten too attached and the consequence for that was to always kill.

Jacob seemed to notice my deep in thought expression "Isabella, I cannot stress to you HOW important it is that you remember your real reason for your life. You are to not form close relationships with anyone, it just simply is not safe."

I nodded quietly, and went back to my pondering mode. Moments too soon the jet landed smoothly on the large private runway in Sea Tac. Jacob motioned for the guards to stay on the place, and he quickly escorted me out of the plane and into a waiting Mercedes. We both slid into the back seat of the car and shut the door. The car quickly pulled out of the runway zone and started making its way to the busy highway.

Finally the car pulled to a stop in front of a large all glass skyscrapers. Jacob got out of the car and held the door open for me as I sled out. We both quickly walked into the sliding doors, and out of the busy people clogged sidewalks. He quickly walked up to the main counter and I only caught tidbits of the conversation. Finally after 15 minutes of watching Jacob talk lowly to the employee behind the counter, who was clearly infatuated with Jacob, we finally made our way to the 4 large brass elevators at the north end of the lobby.

We stepped in the plush elevator interior and started rising. Finally the elevator dinged open and let us out on the 20th floor. I chuckled at the thought of living on the 20th floor again. Jacob noticed my chuckle and looked at me strangely, but made no comment. He quickly produced a key and opened the oak door.

"Isabella, Black corporation has been very generous in paying for you to stay in this penthouse suite. All costs will be taken care of, and the money you do earn at the side job can be used for whatever you like, we just ask that you deposit all money within your agent account. "

I nodded, and Jacob then walked quickly to the closet next to the door, when he opened the closet door a complicated looking alarm system was mounted on the back of the door. "This alarm only recognizes 4 people that are you, me and the two back up agents. When you immediately enter into your apartment you are to do a retina scan" as he said this he bent down and allowed the machine to scan his retina. "If a disturbance is ever detected headquarters will be contacted, and someone from headquarters will contact your cell phone to see if the emergency was serious." He then lead the way into the bedroom, and opened the doors leading into a spacious walk in closet, in the back of the closet I spotted a heavily armed safety deposit box. "Inside this safety deposit you will find numerous weapons, the safety deposit works the same way as the alarm system, there is a retina scan and a code, that I have texted to your phone." Before walking out of the closet I noticed that the closet was completely filled with clothing of all sorts. I saw a satin blue evening gown and noted to myself that was something I must save for an occasion.

Jacob led the way back to the entrance, and then turned to me "Well I have nothing any further, just remember that you are to report to work on Monday, and there will be a debriefing period of 3 weeks to allow you to grow accustomed" I nodded and quietly said a "Thank you."

Jacob just nodded roughly and said "Don't thank me, just do your job." He let himself out of the apartment, and all too soon I was left alone.

The dreaded day has finally come, work. Never in my life have a worked, well that is unless you count the last 2 years where I have done nothing but training. I could barely hear the sounds of traffic, considering I was 20 floors above the street that came as a bit of a surprise, mumbling to myself I rolled out of bed and padded across the hardwood floors to the double doors that lead to the massive walk in closet. Finally picking out a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt I headed back toward the safety deposit box to find something small enough that I could easily conceal.

After completing the retina scanner and typing in the 10 number code, I propped open the door and peered inside. Safety deposit box might not have been the right word for what this really was, instead it was in ways a walk on addition of the closet. The room was small, the size of a normal closet, and it housed different kinds of weapons. There were blades, guns, hand guns, snipers, and a plethora of other kinds of weapons. I quickly grabbed a .22 caliber hand gun and carefully concealed it. Making sure to set the alarm up I grabbed my "civilian" cell phone and headed out of the massive penthouse.

Making my way to 3rd Ave and Pine Street I finally spotted the Starbucks that I was supposed to be working out for god knows how long. I maneuvered around the clumps of tourists and Seattleites until finally I was able to make my way into the equally bustling interior of the Starbucks.

I waited until the line had dwindled down to just one person, and then I finally was able to get a good look at the people standing behind the counter. My eyes first went to a giant of a man, he stood probably around 6'5" and he looked like he was averaging 270 lbs. My brain automatically went to all the jujitsu moves that I knew and all possibly ways I could take him down, if he chose to threaten me in any way. The other guy wasn't as big, he looked around Jacob's height, and slightly slimmer than Jacob, which wasn't saying much since Jacob was massive. It satisfied me to know that in the heat of the moment I could probably take both of those down in the blink of an eye, and that would be without cocking my gun.

"Excuse me," a silky voice said, I looked up surprised and the first thing I noticed about the 6'3" guy was that he was gorgeous. Probably one of the finest specimens to walk on the earth, his hair looks soft and his eyes were a bright green color. He grinned at me when he noticed he finally caught my attention, "Sorry I've been trying to get your attention for the last 5 minutes is there a drink I can get started for you?"

I flushed and blinked, and then I repeated Jacob's mantra, it's all a cover, none of it is real. "Ummm, I'm actually the new barista? I believe"

He chuckled and wiped his hands on his apron and then rolled up his sleeves on the black button down he was wearing, "Well new barista, I'm glad you are here, are you Isabella?"

I nodded, "yes, but please call me Bella." He smiled and shook my hand, "Well then Bella it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Edward, and this," he motioned to the giant who was now making a complex looking drink, "is Emmett." I was still caught up when I heard him say Bella, it has been years since anyone has called me Bella. Bella was the nickname that my parents used for me, and when I did arrive at Black Corporation I never corrected anyone when they did bother to call me by my name rather than Recruit #23.

Author Note:

Well there you go. Chapter 2, I have had this idea bouncing around in my head for a good 6 months or so, and its finally now that I have the time and foolishness to tackle this task. I hope you guys are enjoying it and I would definitely appreciate comments containing constructive criticism and/or plot ideas you would like to see!