I awoke in the raft. Surprisingly, it had held up. Yet even with this good news, I was miserable. The raft was insanely wet. My jacket, my sweater, all of it was soaked.
Which left me very cold. I, however, had no choice but to continue on. I sat down on the raft and looked up at the stars. And then, I saw it! An old house sitting right next to the river. I took my high tech makeshift paddle (Otherwise known as "Stick") and guided the raft towards the ground. Immediately, when I hit the dirt, I jumped out and pulled the rest of the raft into land. I gathered my belongings and reached for the knob. I turned it, yet it didn't budge. A car pulled up behind me.
I started to run, but then came to the grim conclusion that there was nowhere to run to. Behind me was the river and in front of me was the enemy. The person walked out.
"Hey, you know you should check no one's around when you try to break into a house." Her voice was cheerful. She took off her mask and a pair of eyes greeted me. Immediately, I jumped back. I had seen those eyes before.
There was only one explanation,
I was looking at a Hale.
"W-who are you?" Was the only thing I could squeak.
"Jennifer Hale, but you can just call me Jenny, "Jenny replied. So she was a Hale. Maybe I wasn't as screwed as I thought I was. "Who're you?"
"Ben," I couldn't help but sigh with relief when I said it.
"Hey, you're not off the hook yet." Jenny went to the door. She motioned for me to go inside. "Sit." She pointed to a chair.
The house was filled with decorations and all in all, was a cozy place. Everything about it seemed normal, except with the bulletin board filled with pins pinning down pictures tied to other pins. It looked like a stereotypical detective scene.
"So," Jenny said as she sat down. "Why are you here?"
"I-uh-er." I stalled, trying to decide whether, to tell the truth, or lie. Finally, I decided to instead ask her a question, hoping that it might just throw her off of the interrogation. "Do you have a relative named Erica?"
It worked. Jenny's eyes went wide. "Who?" It was obvious that she wasn't as good as Erica at this whole spy thing.
"Erica."
"Hahaha, never heard of her." She then decided to align ourselves back to the original questions. "So why are you here?"
"Ok, I need you to answer my question," I said. Jenny started to retaliate yet I put my hand up to hopefully halt her. "After that, I will tell you why I'm here."
"Yes." She sighed. "Yeah, Erica's my sister. How did you know?"
"Just so happens that I go to the same school as her," I replied.
"Wait! You mean the CIA academy of espionage?" Jenny asked.
"Yeah," I replied.
"Oh, I was homeschooled," Jenny said. This fact shocked me. One of the Hale's not going to spy school? No, it couldn't be. My situation, however, was quickly deteriorating with each word of the conversation. What if Jenny didn't have the skills of a spy?
"Who homeschooled you?" I asked. My sanity depended on her answer.
"My mom, of course. She taught me everything there is to know about spying." I breathed another sigh of relief. "Ok," Her tone was becoming more serious. "I've answered your question, now you answer mine. Why. Are. You. Here?"
"Spy school's gone," I said. "Captured and razed to the ground by SPYDER."
"How could that happen?"
"They just walked in and tried to take it over peacefully. Lucky for us though, Erica got me out. Mike and Zoe got out themselves." I replied.
"Speaking of Erica, where is she?" Jenny asked me.
"I don't know, in the middle of the night, yesterday, she and Mike just left… I then woke up with cuts all over my body. I don't remember what happened. I then decided to build a raft to find civilization, spotted this house, and then decided it would be an ok place to spend the night in." I answered truthfully.
"SPYDER, you say?" Jenny asked me.
"Yeah, why?"
"Turns out I know where they're based."
"Where?" I asked.
"The UK," Jenny replied. The United Kingdom? No, the answer sounded so outlandish and unrealistic to me. Yet SPYDER never failed to surprise. "All I need." She continued. "Is a key."
The key, how could she had known about it? "Which color?"
"Silver."
"Turns out, I know where it is," I Said. I walked over to her massive map. I pointed to D.C, "spy school."
"How could they have hidden it at spy school?" Jenny asked? "That seems a bit insane but possible."
I laughed. "Actually, it originally was on the leaders of SPYDER down in Mexico. Erica and I just got the key. It's next to the entrance of the subterranean tunnels."
"Tunnels? There are tunnels under spy school?" Jenny asked.
"Yes, there are," I replied.
"Interesting." Jenny walked up and grabbed a suitcase from the nearby closet. "Well then, we better get there as soon as possible. I'll tell Erica."
"Wait, you have phone service here?" I asked. There didn't seem to be a tower anywhere.
"No, you idiot. I have a GPS phone." Jenny said. She started to throw clothes along with weapons in there. She then picked up her phone.
"Hi, Erica!" She said. "Yeah, long time no see? Yeah. Uh huh. Pretty torn up about that ain't you? Yeah, don't worry. Got 'em here. Yeah. Well, we're going to D.C. Ok, yeah. Meet you at the airport. Yeah. Bye."
I had to get a GPS phone. Maybe even a waterproof one, if any such things exist.
"Do you want something to eat?" Jenny asked me. I nodded my head. She went to grab me some granola bars from the cupboards. We eat for a few minutes. And then she stood up. "Alright, time to go."
I followed her to the car and was allowed shotgun. I was surprised to see there was an actual shotgun on the seat. This was something that Cyrus and Alexander have done, yet I didn't know it had passed down to Jenny.
We arrived at the airport at around noon. We bought tickets for the first flight to D.C. Surprising the both of us, Mike and Erica were already there.
"Hi, Erica!" Jenny went up and gave her a hug. "I haven't seen you for years."
"Yeah," Erica replied. Her tone was trademark icy.
"Hey, dude." I walked up to Mike.
"Hi," Mike replied. He didn't see to have much to say.
The gate opened for the flight. We sat on. Apparently, not many people wanted to go to D.C. at that time of the year. We arrived on the 7-3-7 and braced ourselves for the flight. The past few times had not turned out well.
The plane taxied out to the runway and took off.
