Sorry about the delay on this one—I'll try to get them out faster. Please remember that this story is rated T for a reason. Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.
Wood sat down. A victory for Rider, Maggie thought. She took her eyes off of the angry-looking boy and turned back to the front of the room, where Rider had taken a seat behind the teacher's desk. He put his feet back on the desk.
"Do any of you know why you're here?" he asked, after a brief pause. Maggie saw the hand of the blond boy next to her go up. Rider pointed at him.
"To train," he answered quietly. "We're going to be teenage spies."
"Correct to a point, Lowe," Rider said, his eyes boring into him. "But spy isn't the word I would use. Spies focus on surveillance. You'll be doing much more than that."
"So what would you call us?" Lowe asked. He didn't sound intimidated, though Maggie thought he might be faking it. There was something about Rider that sent chills up her spine—and she wasn't one to admit that lightly.
"Special operatives," Rider said without pause. "Even if they tell you that you'll only be doing surveillance, it isn't true. You will be required to uncover plots, sure, but you'll also be required to stop them. You can never be caught by off guard—you have to have an option for every situation."
He stood up, and Maggie would've missed the little grimace of pain if she hadn't been looking for something just like it. His teeth clenched and his eyes closed for the briefest second before he opened them again. He was looking right at her.
"Carson," he said, looking at her. She fought the urge to look away from his gaze. Something about it was off-putting. "You're one of the two people here with family still alive."
It wasn't a question, but she nodded anyway. She wondered who the other person was. Suddenly, Rider moved, making a knife appear out of thin air at the same moment he grabbed the girl sitting in the front row, pulling her over her desk.
Maggie had barely finished processing his sentence before he had a knife at the girl's throat. She looked young and terrified, with reddish brown hair and a quivering jaw. Maggie tensed. She also looked eerily like her younger sister, Liz.
"What would you do if this was your sister, Carson?" he asked, tightening his grip around the struggling girl's torso. "How would you fight me off?"
Maggie could picture the scene all too well. A dark ally, a mugger hidden in the shadows. Or a group of men, ignoring her fists and nails as they cheered one another on. Liz in the centre of their circle. Blood on her face and in her hair and on her fists. It was all her own. Oliver, slumped unconscious but looking dead next to the dumpster on the opposite wall. Will and Lucy gone, running. Her sister, cowering in a ball, too small to fight them off as they closed in on her.
Her fists tightened, and she felt the skin break. "I would kill you," she said, not caring if her voice quavered. "With my bare hands."
"How?" Rider asked, moving the knife the slightest bit. A thin line of blood appeared on the girl's neck. "Do you know how to kill without a weapon? When your opponent is armed?"
Maggie was too angry to answer. After a long pause, someone spoke up. "A front heel across the kneecap," a small voice said, "to break it and end the fight. You would need surgery to correct it. Or a front snap to the lower back. That could permanently cripple you. If she really wanted you dead, she could do a front snap to the throat. That would smash your throat and your Adam's apple and most likely kill you.
Maggie took her eyes off of Rider and the girl to look at her saviour. She mentally kicked herself. She had gotten too lost in flashbacks to answer correctly, making her look like an idiot.
It was a very small girl—she didn't look like she could be any older than ten. With her dark brown skin and hair in braids, she looked perfectly innocent. It didn't match the encyclopaedia methods of killing she had just spouted. Great. She had just been shown up by a ten year old.
Rider let go of the girl. Maggie let out a sigh of relief she hadn't even known she'd been holding. The other girl glared deeply at Rider, wiping off her neck, before sitting back down.
"Very nice, Townsend," Rider said to the small girl, putting his knife away. But the first thing you should try and do is get his knife out of the picture. If you're the only one without weapons, it won't end well no matter how skilled you are."
Maggie finally let her hands loosen. Wiping the blood from the little crescent shapes on her palms on her pants before looking back to Rider, she nearly missed the look he sent her, darkly appraising. She glared back fiercely. Let him think of her what he would based on that dismal performance, but she wasn't one to back off.
"Break off into groups," he said suddenly, looking away. "Two groups of four and one with three. You're going to learn how to disarm a single opponent."
Maggie looked around her. There was the blond boy sitting next to her, and the little girl a few rows in front of her. She pursed her lips. She wasn't exactly very social.
"Would you like to be in my group?" she heard. She turned her head toward the blond boy, who shrugged at her. "I'm Aaron, by the way."
"Maggie," she said, scooting her desk closer to his. He looked nice enough—smart, too. It couldn't hurt to pair up with him.
The little girl was making her way toward them, trailing a fit, tan boy. "Got room for two more?" she asked, brightly. Maggie glanced at Aaron, who nodded.
"Sure," Maggie said, a little reluctantly. "And thanks, I guess," she said awkwardly to the other girl. "For helping me out."
She shrugged. "I'm Grace," she said, holding out her hand. "From what I can gather, this is Luke. He doesn't talk much." Maggie was grateful she didn't seem inclined to rub it in. She hated being made a fool of.
"You two know each other?" Aaron asked, surprised.
She shrugged again. "Not really. We were in the same home for a little while."
Maggie looked up at Luke, who nodded at her. She fought the urge to blush. He was cute. It had been a while since she had seen many boys who weren't her brothers. But she wasn't going to act an idiot just because she had seen a cute boy. She had embarrassed herself enough that day.
"Your number one friend in a knife fight is distance," Rider said suddenly. "If they can't reach you, they can't stab you. But remember, you'll usually have to disarm them. You can't do that by running away. Your number two friend in a knife fight is speed. You have to attack before he can interpret your intentions and react to them..."
Maggie listened intently. For all she hadn't liked his earlier methods, she couldn't argue that he was a decent teacher.
She couldn't help the shiver that ran through her. This was it. She was training to become a spy; a 'special operative' as he had put it. Never again would she be defenceless. There was no going back now.