Note: I meant to get this updated earlier what with the whole rapid updating thing, but I went fishing last weekend and got caught up in writing a new AR fic And the Truth Will Set You Free (which you should totally check out! :D) So yes, sorry about that guys. I tried to get this chapter done ASAP and after posting, I will definitely be working on the next one right away!

I'm also relieved that you don't think my chapters are that long. I don't know why, but I've always been paranoid about keeping readers' attention. Unfortunately, this one's a bit shorter than I'd like but I know for sure that the next will be better :)

Chapter Ten – Mens Rea (Guilty Mind)

-Addie-

I sat there, rooted to my seat in complete disbelief. Kylie was like a fish out of the water, her limbs flopping and jerking around her. It was like an electric current was running through her body, making her shake uncontrollably.

Arianna screamed. The sound broke me out of the stupor I'd been drowning in and I began to panic. I didn't know what to do; despite the first aid classes I took every other year, my brain was still refusing to believe what was happening. I managed to notice that the surrounding students were equally gaping in shock, pointing and widening their eyes in fear.

Someone pulled me to my feet as two boys started taking charge. It was Derek and Alex. They were ordering people to move, pushing the tables out of the way to make room. I forced my eyes away from Kylie, seeing that it was Andrew Walsh who was holding me. Arianna was a few feet away, sobbing into someone's shoulder. The school's security had rushed in and one of them was speaking into their radio. The students in the cafeteria were being ushered out into the halls.

"Come on, Addie," Andrew was saying into my ear. "We have to go." He attempted to turn me towards the doors.

"No," I tried to say but my lungs wouldn't breathe. I couldn't take my eyes off my best friend; part of me yearned to do something, anything to make her stop but I knew there was nothing I could do.

Andrew bent down and blocked my view. "The nurse is here, Addie," he said carefully as if talking to a child. "She'll take care of her." On cue, the nurse appeared in the corner of my eye, the principal trailing after her.

Reluctantly I let him lead me outside. I slumped down on a bench in the hallway and said thank you to whoever handed me my crutches. Andrew put a hand on my back, telling me he'd be right back with tissues. Part of me didn't think the nurse would be able to do anything. I wanted to be there with Kylie but most of all, I wanted to know why it had happened.

Burying my face in my hands, I willed myself not to cry. A huge lump had formed in my throat and the horrid image of her kept replaying in my head. I didn't understand. Kylie wasn't epileptic. She was a tiny person who had an abnormally large appetite, but that wasn't a reason for her body to do that… was it?

As a few tears slid freely down my face, the doors of the cafeteria were opened and Alex appeared. His blond locks were messy and he was breathing heavily. Behind him, Kylie was lying in a recovery position, her head tilted to the side to allow the saliva to run out of her mouth. Her eyes were closed and her body was still. She could've been sleeping.

Alex scanned the hallway where several students still lingered, and finally his gaze landed on me. As he walked towards me, I stood up, feeling anxious. He examined my face for a moment and the look in his eyes gave him away: he was scared too. I stared at him, hoping he could read the burning question in my own eyes.

He took a deep breath and nodded. "She's all right. They've called for an ambulance and—" He was cut off as I threw my arms around his body, a sob escaping my throat. It took a moment for him to register what I'd done and react by doing the same.

No longer was I holding back the tears; instead I was holding Alex tightly, distraught and afraid. For the second time, I cried into his shoulder as he held me, swathed in a comfort I'd never had before. He was only a few inches taller than me and I felt him lean his cheek against my head. We stood there for a while as he repeatedly said she was okay. He spoke in a voice so soft I couldn't help but think it was just for me.

"Everything will be okay," he said. And I believed him.

Several hours later, Alex, my parents, and I were supposed to be heading to the doctor's office to get my cast removed. I had been excited for this particular day the moment I was told my leg had been broken… but all I could think about was Kylie. The rest of the school day had gone over my head and still I hadn't heard anything from anyone, not her family or Arianna. It was driving me insane.

"Addie, stop it," Mom said when she saw me. She and Dad had come down the stairs, ready to leave until he had to take a call in the kitchen. I was sitting on the couch, bouncing my good leg up and down while staring nervously at the wall. Alex had been watching me from the other end but I'd barely noticed.

Sighing, I quit fidgeting. "Sorry. I'm just really worried about her."

"We know that," she said in a soothing voice, coming to sit opposite me in a chair. "We are too. But you have to give her some time and let her rest. I'm sure her parents will give you a call sooner or later."

"It's the later part I'm worried about." My leg had started bouncing again.

"I'm sure she's fine, Addie," Dad reassured me as he entered the room. I noticed that he looked exceptionally untidy today like he'd just rolled out of bed. He only looked like that if he was stressed. Had something happened while he was at work? Looking at Alex, he said, "That was for you, Alex. David asked me to drop you off at headquarters after the appointment."

Alex didn't seem to be surprised. He only nodded and turned to gaze out the window. This was exactly how he'd acted since first leaving with David and Ben the other night. Though he could normally be quiet, there was certain intensity in him that I sensed. It had captivated him for days… and I always wondered why.

Mom's eyes were on me, soft yet penetrating in that they seemed to read me and see past my thin veil of pretense. "We're sorry, Addie."

Shaking my head, I insisted, "Like you said, I'm sure she'll be fine."

"No, that's not what I meant." She blew out a sigh. "I was talking about you leaving with Alex after school. Your father and I want to apologize." The sternness had disappeared from her face and I could feel her armor stripping away. "We were just so scared that afternoon. How would you react if you'd tried to get a hold of one of us and we never answered? We can't afford to lose you, Addie…" Immediately I knew what we were all thinking: while Mom and Dad couldn't lose another child, I didn't want to have anything happen to me either.

"We would rather be safe than sorry, sweetie," Dad added, giving me a sympathetic smile as he put a hand on Mom's shoulder. "And so we wanted to say sorry to both of you for… overreacting." The two of them looked at us expectantly.

"You weren't overreacting. I should've let you know where we were going," I admitted, wringing my hands. I'd always felt embarrassed when apologizing; I was never one to let go of mistakes easily. "Next time, I'll make sure to do that and check my phone regularly," I guaranteed, smiling sheepishly.

"It's my fault too." We turned to see Alex smile a bit though I thought it looked forced. "I didn't think to check my phone or let you know where we were."

Dad nodded. "We know you're doing your best." The three of them were looking at each other and I couldn't help but wonder what he meant by that. Was he talking about the Castillo case?

"I could've carried Addie home but she manipulated me into indulging in fatty ice cream." Alex shrugged.

My parents laughed and I mockingly ran my eyes over him. "I don't know about that. You probably would've gotten hurt."

He grinned this time but it never reached his eyes. "Let's go get this cast off," I said quickly, getting off the couch. As I grabbed my crutches, Mom and Dad came over all smiles. Mom hugged me and Dad gave me a kiss on the forehead.

"You know we don't like to fight with you, Addie," he said, ruffling my hair. "I just want my little secret agent to be safe."

I groaned as Mom laughed and headed towards the front door. "Really, Dad? Was that necessary?" He only chuckled and walked away, leaving me to pout at his back. The silly nickname didn't bother me of course; I felt glad and relieved that things had been settled. Almost.

"Can you believe that?" I tried to laugh. I turned to find Alex but the living room was empty. He was gone.

-Alex-

I'd come to the headquarters expecting one thing: the unexpected. When I'd first sat down in the chair of another conference room (it was identical to the last one I'd been in), the last thing on my mind was French verbs or calculus derivatives. The incident with Kylie had shaken me and furthermore, it had absolutely terrified Addie. I remembered when I'd felt like there was nothing I could give that was more than mere comfort except cross my fingers and hope the girl was okay.

I was right about that at least. According to David, Kylie was in a stable condition at the hospital and she would be free to go home soon. "But there's just one thing," he said as he paced in front of the projector screen.

"Isn't there always?" I murmured, twirling a pen between my fingers.

"Alex." Ben was sitting across from me and I could see the concern in his eyes. "Are you alright?" Everyone else was looking at me: David's unit, Anthony, and Holden. Mr. Garcia wasn't present, handling the situation with Kylie elsewhere.

Shrugging, I sat up and avoided looking directly at him. "I'm fine. Go on," I told David. David appeared to want to say something but he moved on, bringing up more files on the screen.

Truthfully, I was troubled. My first night here at headquarters had drastically changed things and raised the stakes. Now that Mather was interested in me, I had to watch out for myself too. I thought back to a few hours earlier when I'd watched Addie make amends with her parents. I had never realized it before, but underneath that weighty sense of obligation to protect her… I knew that I would keep her safe whether or not it was my job to. What had first felt like a whisper of something trapped in comfort had now turned into much more, a warmth and light that I was drawn to. That much had become evident at the doctor's office the moment her cast was removed.

I couldn't help but smile when she did, more because it was kind of infectious than it was a relief to see her on her way to a full recovery. Yet while she was happy that it was off, somewhere in those green irises swam anxiety and fear for Kylie… things that I felt too.

I brought myself back to reality in time—a woman who had earlier been introduced as Jensen was standing at the front of the room. She was dressed smartly in a navy pantsuit with her blonde hair in a high ponytail. David had said that she studied bromatology, food science.

"Kylie Abrams consumed the Twix bar that Daniels had in her pocket," she began. "A blood sample was taken and we found traces of numerous amounts of food chemicals and additives." She counted them off on her fingers. "Monosodium glutamate, theobromine, copper, caffeine, aspartame—which, in other words is the sweetener you put in your coffee—and the list goes on. Each of these contributes to and increases the risk of seizures. Many of these aren't even normally part of the ingredients of Twix candy."

"How is this connected to Miss Daniels, then?" Holden asked.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" Jensen pulled something out of her pocket: a Twix bar. "Addie was meant to eat that bit of candy. It was supposed to give her a seizure, not her friend."

"Mather must have found a way to get that into her house," David thought aloud, tapping a pen against his chin. "Maybe that was what the intruder did when they broke in last weekend. Slipped it into her stash of chocolate."

I frowned. "But what would that achieve? Was it supposed to kill her?"

"And how would they know that she's the only one in her family that actually eats chocolate?" James added.

"Frankly, they know quite a lot about her." Ben rubbed his face tiredly before continuing, "I don't know that the candy was supposed to kill her but I have a feeling that Mather wouldn't do that. As a torture expert, he'd want to be there. He'd want to be the one inflicting the pain."

Suddenly it came to me. I had run the whole day's events through my head and put one and one together. "Kylie was sent to the hospital after that seizure. Perhaps that piece of candy was only the first step. He might have been planning on—"

"Kidnapping Addie from the hospital," David finished, nodding. "That makes sense."

"But it didn't happen," Stark pointed out. She ran her dark eyes over everyone as she added, "Mather's got to have a backup plan of some sort. I'm sure he isn't very happy about this one failing."

"And he has another target." It was the deputy director speaking. I shifted, knowing who he was referring to. "One who hasn't consumed a poisoned piece of chocolate."

I doodled in the corner of a document in front of me, stopping only when Ben gave me a look. "I don't eat much chocolate," I replied blandly.

"What's the point of having him around then?" James asked, jerking his chin towards me. Next to him, Stark threw him a dirty look.

"What are you saying, James?" David folded his arms, his eyebrows raised.

"If Mather wants him too, doesn't that double the risk factor?" The agent didn't seem to realize that most of everyone was glaring at him. "Every time they're together, they're increasing the chance of both of them getting killed. It's a whole new meaning to killing two birds with one stone."

Ben, who was looking increasingly annoyed, leaned forward to speak but I beat him to it. "That may be true, but you're still missing one thing." James frowned at me, probably because he didn't like looking stupid. "I'm not their primary target; Addie is. I'm just a small prize on the side if they happen to catch me too but it won't matter that much if they don't. I still have to watch out for her. She may have gotten her cast off but she won't fully recover for at least another few weeks. If I can still save her life, I will."

"Alright," David sighed decidedly, running a hand through his hair. "Alex is going to continue with what he came here to do. We just need to figure out what we're gonna do with Kylie and her family. They'll want some answers."

"You can't just tell them about what was inside those Twix bars." It was Jensen who'd spoken. I'd almost forgotten about her; she hadn't spoken since debriefing us. "You'll have a court case on your hands because they would want to sue the company."

"Then what are we supposed to tell them? They know nothing about Addie being part of the CIA."

I thought about it as they talked. It was true that none of Addie's friends knew that particular part of her. While Kylie and her family deserved to know how exactly her seizure had come about, there was no way of stopping them from trying to sue or something. What could we tell them that would keep them from doing anything drastic?

They were still debating and throwing ideas in when I lifted my head and said, "Just tell them."

They stopped and glanced at me. Ben asked, "What do you mean? Tell them what?"

"Don't lie to them, if that's what you're thinking." I shook my head.

"What are you suggesting, Alex?" Anthony probed.

"I think you should tell them the truth."