Chosen_Book One

by Rebecca Thomas

  “I think we can find you something more exciting,” he said.

  They approached the first bed and pulled back the curtain to reveal a slightly older guy, who had an Eastern European look about him, and a bandaged left leg.

  “Stefan, this is Hallie and Lily, the ladies I told you about earlier. Ladies, this is Stefan, one of our operatives who was badly wounded on a reconnaissance mission last week.”

  “I was lucky to make it back with my leg intact,” Stefan told them, his English accent on the posher side. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Jack tells me that one of you is a healer?”

  The man looked at Lily first but had to turn his head when Hallie raised her hand.

  “That would be me.”

  “Ah, you’re very young,” he said, looking a little surprised. “A lot of the healers I’ve met found out later in life.”

  “Why is that?”

  Stefan shrugged his shoulders. “It’s usually because they didn’t have any family members who were healers or because their parents waited until they were older to tell them. It’s a lot of responsibility.”

  “Well, that probably would have been the case for me too, but a few eventful weeks meant that I discovered what I was a lot earlier than usual.”

  It was strange to think of all the things that had to align in order for her to discover that she was a healer. Kiara becoming a Chosen, already knowing Caleb, finding Lily… If all those things hadn’t have happened, then she would probably still be none the wiser.

  “I see,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t take too much of a toll. Pace yourself in the beginning. You’re going to see a lot of terrible things in your life because of the things that you can do, don’t do too much too fast.”

  Hallie smiled a little. It was nice getting some advice. Alastair didn’t tend to dole out helpful tips about how to handle it all, only what she needed to know.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. Now, do you want to have a go at healing this mess?”

  Lily and Jack stood back to give Hallie some room. Hallie looked at the bandages and pursed her lips.

  “I’ve never tried to heal through bandages before.”

  “So we don’t scar everyone, I think it’s probably best if we try to leave them on for now,” he warned.

  “I’ll give it a try,” she agreed.

  Like Alastair taught her, Hallie extended her hands out over the part of the leg she wanted to heal. She found it went better if she could close her eyes, then she wasn’t distracted by any of the things that were happening around her. Once she was ready, she said one word over and over again in her head.

  ‘Heal, heal, heal…’

  Her hands got warmer the more she said it and she opened her eyes to see that the pale glow was there, which was a comforting sign. As her senses began to connect with his body, she could feel the extent to which his leg was mangled. It gave her chills and almost threw her off, but she was able to rein herself back in.

  The sensation she felt when she was repairing something was strange. It was like she was knitting everything back together in her mind’s eye. The bones, the arteries, the muscle, the skin, anything that needed fixing.

  Hallie could feel herself getting a little woozy as she persisted, trying to make sure that everything was completely healed before she stopped. Apparently, what was ‘a little woozy’ to her was actually her looking like she was going to pass out.

  Lily came up behind her and carefully broke her connection with Stefan’s leg, holding her up so that she didn’t keel over.

  “I wasn’t done,” Hallie said, blinking.

  “Yes, you were,” Lily told her. “If I’d let you go on, you would have fainted.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll tell you what, I think you’ve done a good job, though,” Stefan said, sounding a lot happier. “Jack, help me with these bandages.”

  Between the two of them, they were able to unwrap Stefan’s leg. Apart from a few red patches and some bruising, it looked as good as new.

  “Wow,” Jack said, seriously impressed.

  “I’ll be up and about in no time, thanks to you,” Stefan told Hallie.

  “That’s great,” Hallie smiled, although she was still having to hold onto Lily for support, otherwise she was going to fall over. “Don’t go flaunting your leg about too much, wouldn’t the other folks in here to get jealous.”

  Stefan chuckled. “I’ll be discreet.”

  “Ha, that’s funny! Discreet, because you’re a spy.”

  Usually she wouldn’t have found that so funny, but the drowsiness was really starting to hit her.

  “I think we’d better find somewhere to sit you down and get you something to eat,” Lily said.

  “We’ve got a canteen on the next floor down, we can go there,” Jack said, stepping in to help Lily hold Hallie upright.

  As they made their way towards the door, Stefan called, “I owe you one.”

  Hallie saluted in reply, thinking that a spy owing her a favour might come in handy someday. Now, if only she could walk in a straight line...

  ~

  As they began to move about the floor, Kiara started to look less intimated and more intrigued, which was good because Caleb knew that she would have to get used to these sorts of surroundings. They would be visiting plenty of different agencies over the new few years, some scarier than others. He could admit that there were still times when he was a little unnerved, but once they got stuck into whatever mission they had agreed to take part in, his nerves usually settled down.

  At MI6, Zoe’s presence always helped. For someone who dealt with such serious issues, day in and day out, she was a very laid back and friendly person. It made her a great contact and an even better friend.

  “This is incredible,” Kiara said as they entered command ops.

  It was wall to wall screens, with a large table in the middle that people could congregate around. There were a couple of people in there going over some files, occasionally pointing up at the screens, who ignored their presence. The screens showed all sorts of different things, from surveillance to intelligence. Caleb never looked too hard in case he gleaned something that he was better off not knowing.

  “Our equipment here is always state of the art. Sometimes we use lower tech stuff out in the field as it can help us fly under the radar, but for the most part, everything around here is several years ahead of what the general public knows exists,” Zoe said.

  “Seriously, so cool,” Kiara grinned.

  “I was impressed when I came here for the first time too. My original plan was to join the FBI, but my boyfriend at the time got a job over here and I retrained with British intelligence.”

  “You’re not still together?”

  “No, it got too complicated,” Zoe shrugged. “It’s all right though, I’ve got a little something-something going on with a bartender who works not too far from here. She likes to keep things super casual, which is fine by me,” she winked.

  “Gotcha,” Kiara chuckled.

  “Zoe asked me out once,” Caleb said, which elicited a very funny expression from Kiara.

  “I didn’t know about the rules, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. I have always wondered, though, would you have said yes if you had been free to?” Zoe asked.

  Caleb narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together, like he was having to think hard about his answer.

  “Hmmmm.”

  “Jerk,” Zoe laughed.

  “Of course, I would have said yes,” he said.

  “My ego is grateful. Now, should we move on to the training room? The guys there are probably wondering where we’ve got to,” she said, elbowing Caleb as she passed him.

  Kiara giggled.

  The training room was down in the basement, which meant a quick ride in the elevator, back the way they came. It was sectioned off into rooms using plasterboard wall between the building’s structural beams. The part they wanted was just aro
und the corner, where two agents were already sparring.

  The woman had her legs wrapped around the man’s neck, his arm pulled out at an awkward angle so that he couldn’t wriggle away or try to get the upper hand.

  “All right, all right,” the man choked as he tapped out.

  She released him, although she looked very pleased with herself as she did.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said as she rolled onto her feet. “We were beginning to think that you weren’t coming.”

  “We got caught up looking at the ops center,” Zoe explained. “Kiara and Caleb, this is Maya and Todd, both field agents.”

  Todd was black and stocky, with big ears that stuck out from his head. He had a couple of piercings, one in his left nostril and another at the top of his right ear, as well as a nasty scar that poked out from the neckline of his top. Maya was long; long body, long legs, long blonde hair, which made her look taller when she was stood further away. In reality, she was still shorter than Caleb. Her ivory skin and round blue eyes gave her an innocent look, but she was missing part of her left eyebrow, which suggested she had been in just as many scrapes as Todd.

  “It’s great to meet you,” Maya said, stepping forward to shake both their hands.

  “We’ve heard a lot about you, Caleb, from people all around the building,” Todd joined in. “What you were able to pull off in Costa Rica was impressive to say the least.”

  “Thanks,” Caleb said.

  “Wait, what happened in Costa Rica?” Kiara asked.

  Todd and Maya both looked at Zoe for confirmation they could tell the story.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you have to?” Caleb looked embarrassed.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Maya told Kiara. “He’s clearly just being modest.”

  “Caleb and his Chosen at the time got sent out there to bring back a rogue agent who had sold stolen intelligence to one of the region’s warlords. Long story short, he ended up saving the Chosen, the rogue agent, and several others from a burning building that was about to collapse, all by himself. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have been able to recover all the information that was stolen, and it would have been a catastrophe for our government.”

  “He’s considered a bit of a legend by the agency,” Maya said.

  “Oh yeah?” Kiara looked up at Caleb, amused.

  “See? That look was exactly what I was afraid of,” he sighed. “I’ve made more mistakes than I can count.”

  “Doesn’t make the good you’ve done any less important,” Zoe pointed out.

  This conversation was not going the way he hoped it would. He didn’t like to boast about any of the things that he had achieved because he was doing it all in the service of the greater good. Caleb also knew that if his ego ever showed signs of getting too big, Master Mahmid would quickly deflate it again.

  “I thought you were both here to try your hand at sparring with Kiara?” he said, trying to shift the topic away from him.

  “Yeah, of course. So long as you’re game, Kiara,” Maya said.

  “I think so,” Kiara said, tugging off her jacket and putting her boots to one side. “I’ve only been training for a month.”

  “That’s plenty of time from what I hear,” Todd nodded.

  The three of them spread out across the mats, while Caleb and Zoe stood back against the wall, so they could watch.

  Kiara glanced across at Caleb. “Any advice?”

  “Just remember what I taught you and you’ll be fine.”

  “Okay,” she said, not sounding so certain.

  This was going to be an interesting test for Kiara. Back at the safe house, while they were sparring, she had a safety net because she knew that he would never it take it too far. She had also got used to his moves, countering him had become predictable to a certain extent. Now, however, she was fighting not one but two people who she didn’t know, each with their own fighting style. He wanted to see how the lessons she had learned so far stacked up against a close to real life scenario.

  For a minute, it didn’t look like anyone was going to make the first move, but then Maya decided to launch an attack. Kiara deftly dodged Maya’s first punch, rolling out of the way of a spinning kick. Unfortunately, she sprung up right in front of Todd who was able to throw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing whatsoever. She hit the mat with a slam that made both Caleb and Zoe wince.

  “Shake it off,” he called to her.

  There was no way she was giving up after one take down.

  As she got to her feet, he said, “Remember to use your greatest asset.”

  If she was going to win this fight, then she had to start using her senses. Anticipating their moves was the best way to figure out how to take them down.

  Kiara had one of them on either side of her now, circling her as she slowly turned in the center, looking at each of them in turn to see if she could guess what they were going to do.

  When she had her back turned to him, Todd made a run at her, but she bent down at the last minute and stuck her leg out, sending him flying. Maya was on her a moment later and tried to lock up her arm the way she had done with Todd earlier. Kiara wasn’t having it though, twisting out of it before Maya could firm up her grip. She then turned the tables on the other woman, jabbing Maya in the face while her arm was immobilised, then letting go so that she could boot her in the stomach. As she fell over too, Caleb smiled.

  “Good, that’s more like it.”

  A few more moves like that and she might prove herself ready to go out into the field already, which would be a first for one of his Chosen.

  The two agents came back with renewed determination, having been taken off guard by her speed. This meant that they wouldn’t underestimate her again. It also meant that they knew they had to work as a team in order to make any headway, which was where it started to go wrong for Kiara.

  At first, it wasn’t so bad. Kiara was actually able to play them off against each other. But, as she learned, they adapted. They started to land more blows, disorientating her to the point where she got unsteady on her feet. Using one last big move, Maya was able to get Kiara to lose her balance. Todd caught her but flipped her around his body once before sending her soaring across the mats, landing in a heap against the far wall.

  Caleb didn’t think twice before sprinting over to her, carefully unfolding her so that he could see her face. Her eyes were closed.

  “Kiara? Can you hear me?”

  When she didn’t respond, a guilty sounding Todd said, “I’m sorry, I got a little carried away. I thought she could handle it.”

  Caleb ignored him, holding Kiara’s cheek in his hand. “Kiara, open your eyes. Look at me, please.”

  He waited, his heart pounding in his ears as he waited what seemed like an age before she coughed, then she peered at him through her squinted vision.

  “Why are there three of you?” she asked quietly.

  “You’ve got a concussion,” he told her. “Don’t fall asleep on me, okay? We need to get you to Hallie, she’ll be able to take care of you.”

  “I’ll find out where they are,” Zoe said, pulling out her phone.

  “Just stay awake,” Caleb said as he scooped Kiara up into his arms.

  “I’m sorry again,” Todd said.

  “Yeah, feel better soon, Kiara,” Maya added, looking like she felt awful.

  “Byeeeeeee,” Kiara murmured as she was carried out of there, still managing to be friendly even though they’d just wiped the floor with her.

  “They’re in the canteen, this way,” Zoe said, then ran ahead, making sure that the elevator was waiting for them when they arrived.

  Hallie and Lily looked aghast when they entered the canteen, the former almost falling out of her chair as she tried to get up.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Her sparring partners got a bit rough,” Caleb said. “She’s got a concussion.”

  “Head spinny,” Kiara confirmed.


  “Don’t worry, babe, I’ve got you now.”

  Hallie laid one of her long hands across Kiara’s forehead, looking at her with a concerned expression as her palm began to glow. It didn’t long for Kiara to fully open her eyes, looking up at Caleb and Hallie.

  “I think you can put me down now,” she said, looking glad to be back on her own two feet.

  “What would you do without me, eh?” Hallie said.

  “Probably be on the way to the hospital,” Kiara replied, giving her girlfriend a grateful hug. “The next time we got on an outing, can we keep fighting to a minimum, please?” she requested, looking at Caleb in particular.

  “Of course, it’ll be awhile before we try anything like that again,” he said. “You did well though, considering.”

  “Yeah. A little more practice and I would consider pinching you from the Guardians,” Zoe said.

  “Thanks,” Kiara said, although she didn’t look convinced.

  Caleb had hoped that this would boost her confidence, he would feel terrible if it had done the opposite.

  “Sit, I’ll go get you a slice of chocolate cake,” Lily said, pulling out her chair.

  “I’ll come with you,” Caleb said.

  Once they were out of sight of the others, Lily turned to face him, stopping him in his tracks.

  “You stop those thoughts right now,” she ordered.

  He was surprised by her forceful voice, he had never heard her speak like that to anyone before.

  “Nothing about what you did today was the wrong idea. If Kiara is going to learn to defend herself, then she needs to take off her safety wheels. You had no clue that agent was going to go too far.”

  Caleb wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

  “You’re right, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling bad. I don’t like seeing her get hurt.”

  “Neither do I. But sometimes it’s a necessary step to a person learning the lessons they need to in order to be the best they can be.”

  Caleb let out a quiet breath.

  “Have I mentioned how helpful it can be sometimes that you can read my mind?”

  “No, but good. It makes it so much easier to know what you need to hear.”