A/N: Huge apologies for the lateness of this! I was at work for a whole 2 weeks, then when I got home I got fairly sick, so didn't even go near the computer, and then my parents took us to the coast for a last minute holiday! I think everything in my family is doomed to be last-minute deals. Massively inconvenient for me, and I feel so bad for making you wait so long!

Thankyou so much SasoLOVE111, TempusSimia, MusicIsAlwaysThere, RavenclawSlytherin, 'LilObsessed, sontiama, kikikiki, MozzaPinkly, DraggonflyMaiden, Wolf-follower, MAMfanfic, Happy2BeeMe, dragonrain618 and Some-chick-who-doesn'treview for the reviews. I'm sorry I didn't get around to replying to them. But they mean as much to me as always, (: Thank you,massively!

. : Chapter 24 : Taking A Stand : .

Claudia-Jane eyed me suspiciously and slowly lowered the cup of flour she'd been oh-so-carefully measuring to the bench top. "What haven't you told me?"

I swallowed, suddenly nervous. This was more difficult then telling her that I had werewolf genes running through my veins. Strange.

"Well…"

"Evie, honey, honestly. What could be more terrible then what you've already told me? I mean, you just proved to me, almost beyond a doubt, that werewolves,and I repeat, were-wolves, do exist. Seriously, sweetie, don't sound so worried." She gave a delicate little laugh. "Really, don't. You're making me nervous."

"Sorry." And I was sorry, though I couldn't really bring myself to make the apology sound any less weak. "But…just don't do anything rash, okay?"

"Evie."

"Adamisbackinthecountry."

She blinked her bright, chocolate eyes at me several times, before carefully asking. "….What?"

I inhaled slowly and closed my eyes, trying to imaging the sweet, calming scent of pine trees and rain. The one that used to work so well calming me down.

It didn't work.

Maybe I hadn't imagined it right? I knew that wasn't the reason, though. Any comfort that place had given me before, died with the trust between me and my past.

"Adam. Is back. In the country."

She was quiet for a moment, and very, very still. Like an animal that had suddenly been caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. A speeding truck.

"You mean Adam,Adam, don't you?" She said, finally.

I nodded mutely, my eyes straying again to the text from Wayne.

"I…I don't understand, Eves. He's in America?"

"He's in Boston."

"Boston?"

"He landed in New York, he rang the agency, he'd have been here…He's looking for me."

"Oh god. Why's he in Boston, then, if he's looking for you?"

"We had our first date in Boston. He used to live there once. I liked the places he showed me, said I wouldn't mind living there, one day, maybe."

"Surely he'd know that…that he wouldn't be welcome here now, though. It'd be stupid to come back, every agency in the country has money on him, deadoralive."

"CJ, I was pregnant." I said boldly, more boldly then I had ever spoken on the subject. "Adam may not know I was caught in the explosion. And even if he does know that, he may not know that I lost the baby."

Her eyes widened dramatically. "Oh…shit."

"Yeah, 'oh shit' is correct."

She let loose a string of words her Mother would have scrubbed her mouth out for, and must've kicked the bench. Then she cringed and swore again. "If I get my hands on that arsehole…"

"You'll do nothing." I interrupted, frowning at her disapprovingly. "Adam is my problem. I'm the one he hurt the worst…"
"What about Joey, Evie? He'll never walkagain…"

"And I'll never have children of my own. I'll never trust another man that way again. I'll have to live with the pain, and the guilt, of never holding my baby boy in my arms. Have to live with the knowledge that Icaused that disaster. It's my fault Joey won't walk again, my fault Austria cut all alliance with America andBritain…My fault Oliver never took his first breath."

"What bullshit, girl! How the hell was that your fault? Adam pressed the detonator."

"Everyone knows that if it weren't for me, Adam and Joey wouldn't have still been here. It's because of me that he put in that request for them to stay on as permanent liaison. If we hadn't started dating, he wouldn't have been at that job, wouldn't have pressed that detonator, and wouldn't have fucked up so many lives. I can take the blame, CJ. I need to take the blame."

"No, you don't. Itisnotyourfault. We've been through this before, for god's sake!"

"It doesn't matter how many people tell me that. How firm you are when you say it. You can't stop making me believe that it wasn't, isn't, my fault." I growled. "You can't make me stop feeling how I feel. It's not a little button you can press when you don't like the channel I'm on! You think I like feeling this way? That I chose to be like this? Of course I didn't! It's just how I am! It's what two years worth of trauma has done to me. What all those years in training did, what all the death of my Daddy did, and his abandoning me, and my parents fighting did to me…I was fucked up long before I started field work."

"Evie, please…"

"No! I won't shut up! I'm tired of shutting up! That's all we do, is be quiet! Keep this secret, and this one, and this one…doesn't matter how bad they are. 'There were four civilian casualties during the op. Oh dear, how awful, but oh well, we got our target or our information, those dead innocents lying in the street don't matter. Don't let that get out, now, will you?' That's all we hear, CJ!" I stared down at my hands, remembering. Remembering the losses that shouldn't have occurred, the families whose hearts I had to have broken when I shot their relatives.

Just casualties of a bigger war, I was told at the time. It was a speech that was memorised by superiors and used over and over again. The same time that those families were being told that their children, their flesh and blood, had been so unfortunately killed in a freak fight between local gangs. We never took the blame for those things. That's why I had to take it now. So many times when I had deservedit, it was always hushed up and brushed aside. Like those people didn't matter.

Their blood would always been on my hands, no matter what the news headlines claimed to be otherwise. No matter how many times I washed. I knew the truth, and the truth is the hardest thing to live with.

"Sometimes…" I whispered. "I like being lied to. It's somucheasier that way…your told what you want to hear and you move on with your life, happy, free…pity now, that I wouldn't believe anyone if theydid tell me what I wanted to hear."

"You wouldn't like being lied to, hun." CJ said gently. "It's not nice then, when you do find out the truth. It hurts more then. And you do find out the truth, Evie. It has a way of making itself known eventually. It may take years, but the longer it does take, the more it hurts when it does appear."

I 'hmm-ed' in response, dropping my phone back onto the table and my head into my hands, massaging my temples slowly. I knew I knew she was right. Deep down.

"It's going to be alright, hun." She said softly. "You'll see. We'll sort this out."

"You see?" I looked up at her, expression void. I didn't know what I felt anymore. "You're telling me what I want to hear. I don't believe you."

oOo

Jay and Yas both reacted in the way I had expected them to. Lots of swearing and cursing and furniture kicking. I had to yell at them for kicking my desk though, that thing cost a hellofa lotta money.

A new string of choice words flew from Jay's mouth like icicle daggers as he glared holes in the study floor. "If that fucker thinks he can get any where near you…"

I shrugged. "He's a spy as well, Jayjay."

He looked at me, eyes so dangerous my breath hitched. "I'm a better one." He sounded so sure, so deathly calm, I'd have really thought twice about taking him on if I'd been an enemy. Thank the heavens we weren't enemies.

"Why didn't you tell us as soon as you found out?" Yas demanded, her almost-legendary temper turned up full tilt. She was young, hot headed, silly almost. She had to learn to think before she acted. But be damned if she wasn't good.

She'd come from a bad home, bad neighbourhood, fought a lot even as a child. Abused, angry. She'd been discovered in a similar way that I had, as most spies were discovered. We were chosen, very young, and offered places at the academies.

Originally, I was chosen for my brains. I was getting perfect grades at school and it had caught their attention. I would've been a tech agent, like Dan or Tyler, but it had become apparent very quickly that I also had a lot of talent in the field.

And let's face it, field agents die a lot quicker then tech agents, so new ones are always in demand.

Yas had been chosen for her skills in combat. I suppose they found her though the various police reports and complaints from other kids' parents. Her parents, mother and step-father, had only been too pleased to ship their only daughter away. I knew that hurt her, more then she'd ever admit. But it went without saying that she was better off away from that place.

I shrugged again, lounging back in my big leather office chair. Clasping my hands and resting them in my lap, hopefully to stop them from shaking. "I knew what you'd do. I want…"

"You don't know what you want." Jay said, harshly.

I glared at him. I realised then I didn't know how he'd been discovered. Where or what age, or what for. "Don't snap at me. That's irrelevant, anyway. Maddy was the one who found out he was here."

"How can it be fucking irrelevant, Eva?" He glared back, determined. "What are you going to do? Take him in again?"

"No!"

"Then will you kill him?"

"Yes…No…Urgh! I don't know, okay! Jesus!"

"But what will you do?" Jay pushed. "He's wanted by the country. If anyone else finds out that you know and haven't told them…you could get yourself into a lot of trouble for this. You can't run into this head first, Evie. You have to think."

"Personally, I don't give a fuck what they think anymore. I think it's my right to deal with Adam however Iseefit. And I told you, didn't I? What're you gonna do, turn me in?"

"Do not accuse us of disloyalty, Eva." CJ snapped, sounding so unlike her normal pretty self. "Don't you dare, understand?"

I smiled, not a particularly nice smile either. "If they do find out, you're all risking your careers, before they've even begun even."

"We're aware of the consequences." Jay said, folding his arms across his broad chest. "But we all know the agency will screw us over if they see it in their best interest. We'll be better off if our loyalty is to each other first. All units are the same. We're good, while we're assets. But ultimately, we're just chess pieces. You love the work, like we all do, but you trust the agencies to much."

"We're not graduated yet, but." Yas frowned.

"I do not trust them that much, Jay! They were gonna leave me for dead, remember?"

"Does that matter, Landmine?" He asked, winking at her, ignoring my comment. "I say our little group is pretty unstoppable, if we put our minds to it."

"Hang on a minute, we're not launching a fucking rebellion here…" I cut in, confused.

"I'm just preparing." Jay replied smoothly. "Don't fret, baby girl."

I watched him carefully. "You sound like your preparing for a fight."

"If they think we're going to go AWOL, they will try to stop us."

CJ narrowed her eyes. "By any means necessary. Good spies are only kept alive as long as their chained. If we drop out, they'll kill us to keep us from ever possible becoming an issue."

"All the more reason for you to keep out of this and let me deal with it."

Yas snorted. "Yeah, right, like that's ever gonna happen. Like numb-nuts here said, we've got each other's backs. If it were the reverse situation, would you sit out?"

I was quiet, because I knew the answer. OfcourseIwouldn't.You'remyfamily.

Yas smiled brilliantly, like she'd won the lottery. "You see?"

"Get Maddy on the phone." Jay ordered. "I want her and Dan-the-man home ASAP. Get connected to all the security cameras in Boston where shitface might go. Let's find the fucker. Get onto Ty, too. We'll be needing an electronics genius. Better pull Tess from school, too, as soon as her exams are finished."

Yas raised her eyebrow at him. "Any thing else, your majesty?"

"Yeah, go get me a latte. Carmel, lots of cream. Oh! And some biscuits."

She snorted. "Fuck off."

"You're sodelightful."

"I will kick you in the balls, you know. I'm not above that."

oOo

I went in to check on Benny. By some miracle he was still fast asleep, Mutt was laying flat on his back next to the boy, snoring.

I'd just left their room when my phone rang, nearly making me jump out of my skin. Carefully, I checked the caller ID and couldn't stop myself from groaning.

Great. Just what I needed.

CJ stuck her head out of the study as I continued to stare at the cursed device and weigh up my options.

"Who is it?" She asked, cautiously.

"My mother." I announced dryly. "I forgot she was in New York, she wants to catch up."

My dear friend cringed, sympathy evident. "Sorry hun. You'd better answer it though. You know what that woman is like. It might do you some good to get your mind of this other shit for a little while, too."

"Mmm." Still didn't make it any more appealing though. I'd rather take my bikes out.

"Is someone gonna answer that bloody phone or not?" Jay called from inside the study.

It stopped ringing. I cringed.

"Call her back, Evie." CJ urged. "You can't avoid it forever. She'll only get worse the longer you avoid her."

I nodded and trudged down the stairs to the lounge room and made myself comfortable in one of the lounges, before reluctantly calling the woman back.

"Evangeline." My mother's crisp voice answered after only the second ring. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten how to answer a phone."

I swallow. "Sorry, I was…in the shower."

"Mmhm. Anyway, at least you didcall me back. How are you, darling?"

"Oh, you know…the usual."

"Are you unwell?"

"No."

"Good. You'll be able to meet me for lunch, then. That delightful little Italian place I like so much, you know the one?"

"Yes, but…"

"Excellent. Twelve. Don't be late. Goodbye, dear."

"But, Mum, I…" The line went dead.

Snapping my phone shut, I dropped it onto the seat next to me and messaged my temples. "Great, just bloody brilliant. Lunch with mummy-dearest. Thank you, universe, for proving that you really do despise my guts."

A/N: And the twists keep coming! (Hope you don't mind too much!) What did you think? Please review and tell me, this time around I'll try to get back to you!

I wanna thank all those for the well wishes for my Grandfather. I'm extremely relieved to report that he has been improving and is finally out of hospital :). On other news, it's looking likely that we will have to move again, as the place where we are living is looking like it has sold. So, once again, my life will be tossed in to utter chaos. I have a week until I go back to work and then I'm supposed to be going away for a month to my best friend's. But who knows what I'll be doing when, now with the moving development.

Good news is that I managed to get quite a lot of writing done while at the coast, must've been the sea air? Anyhow, I have a few chapters already written, so the gap between updates will, hopefully, be much shorter. I'll try to only have them be 2-3 days apart so yeah. But my parents are talking about moving pretty much as soon as we get home, which will really take up my time.

I promise that I'll do everything I can to make up for this wait though! Know that I am trying, it's just difficult.

Thank you so much for your patience, and now with this ridiculously long AN I'll leave you be, haha. It's also midnight and I've been in the car for more then 12 hours, so, sleep is required. Hope your all well, enjoyed this chapter and in less stress then I am! Lol.

Lots a love,

~Meg xx