Suicide Mission (Guarded Secrets Series Book 1)

by Sara Schoen

  He rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut as he shoved a few more pieces of his sandwich into his mouth. I waited for him to swallow so I could hear his new answer, instead of the smart-ass answer I knew had been about to come out of his mouth. He took his time, even glanced around the room as if he was worried someone was listening to us, before he spoke.

  “Everyone trains a little differently, Sara. They do it in order to enhance different aspects of their abilities, so even though she isn't a thief, she was trained by one. The best one we had for years, she trained so many recruits and was proud of every one of them, especially Rum. She knows what Hess had her do and knows what you will need to practice from listening and bonding with her mentor. You should go back to her training if you really do want the chance to stay at the home and make it through your mission in one piece.”

  “I just don't agree with her training ideas,” I said. My eyes locked on Demon's as he opened his mouth to speak, but quickly shut his mouth and looked down at the table. I felt my face scrunch up in confusion, but before I could ask a new voice joined in on our conversation.

  “You don't have agree with them in order to learn from them,” I heard Rum's voice state sourly from behind me. I froze momentarily before I turned around to see the pure anger in her eyes. How long had she been standing there? “You'll thank me one day, but if you don't like it then don't show up to training after lunch. I have better things to do then put up with an unappreciative little prat,” she said. From the way she said it, I could assume prat was an insult and I didn't like it. She glared down at me for a few more seconds before sauntering off and leaving me looking between my teammates. Each of them looking at the others awkwardly, unsure of what to say or do, but quickly Raider got up and left, followed by Spit Fire and others at the table.

  Demon moved in his seat after Spit Fire and Raider had cleared out and seemed to be out of ear shot. “It comes down to your choice, Sara. Stay with her, or risk not having a mentor and teaching yourself everything. Your choice,” Demon reminded me as he got up, tray in hand, and left me to make a difficult choice alone.

  Chapter 14

  I went to see Ms. De Luca after lunch instead of going back to Rum's training. I didn't want to go back, I just wanted this day to be over and for me to go to bed. I was literally dragging my feet down the hallways because I was so tired, and I could sleep on the floor perfectly content with my choice. The days of training and all information I was given were starting to mesh together, and it honestly felt as if these two days were actually two weeks of training, and then smashed into one day. That would explain why I'm so tired, I thought to myself as I turned down another hallway.

  This life was like a whirlwind trip to Paris, sudden and fleeting, and now I was in a complete jet lag from everything that happened. I could only hope that this meeting with Ms. De Luca would go quickly so I could go to bed early, but something told me that she liked to talk and it would take longer than I was hoping for. I might even fall asleep just talking to her, I thought and silently prayed that it wouldn't happen so I wouldn't offend her, but I was exhausted.

  I would still be exhausted if I made it out alive from this mission, but thankfully it was a four day weekend from school. I could get a day to go home and rest before going back to school. Now that was something I was looking forward to, even if my weekend was cut short by this mission. I tried to think of what would happen after so that I could hold off the fear of going through the actual mission. This was either going to change my life or end it. Those were the only options and I could only hope for the former.

  I stopped outside a familiar set of doors and pushed them open to reveal a redesigned room. The rectangle tables had been replaced with circle tables with six plush chairs around them to provide more room to move around in. There were now different magazines on the tables, but at a first glance they seemed the same, then again all magazines looked relatively the same to me. This room, while redesigned, still reminded me of a waiting room at an airport before boarding a flight, and I wasn't sure I ever wanted to be in here when it was busy of it was as packed as an airport got. I could just imagine it filled with agents, all getting ready to go on a variety of missions.

  The conversations must be so interesting to hear, I thought as I heard a throat clear behind me. I turned on a dime to see Ms. De Luca, or Jen as I reminded myself that she preferred to be called, behind me with a smile.

  “What can I help you with, sweetheart?”

  “Damon,” I paused momentarily. I had to start using code names. “Demon, I mean, told me to come and see you before I went to sleep for tonight.”

  “It's just after four in the afternoon,” she said checking the watch on her wrist. “Shouldn’t you be coming to me after you’re done training for the day?”

  “I'm not sure I'm still training today, so I thought I would just come see you before heading to bed,” I explained, but as I looked at Jen I could tell if she was deciding on how to answer. In the end, she decided to not reply, and just motioned me to follow her back to the closet, as I affectionately called it.

  “You won't be gone too long, so I already have your bags packed,” she said as she led me through the racks of clothes. “You have two sets of clothes and your mission clothes. I figured after the mission you'd want to shower which is why you have the most clothes out of the group, but feel free to change them if necessary. We will get to those at the end of this though, first I want to explain your equipment since it's all going to be new to you.”

  I followed her as she took me to a back room filled with boxes and random accessories lying around. She walked further into the room to look at some of the boxes, ordering me to take a seat near the entrance. I turned in the swivel chair to look back out into the racks. Across the room from me was another room with the title “Disguises” hanging over the door. I tilted my head slightly and tried to figure out what happened in that room when I heard a thud behind me.

  When my chair turned back around, there was a box labeled “Thieves” in Jen's hands. She didn't waste any time jumping into the equipment once I turned around. It was almost as if she was rushing through it to get me out of here.

  “We have sticky gloves; these will allow you to temporarily scale walls, hold onto walls in a tight situation,” Jen said as she gave me the gloves. I put one on while she went to get the next item, and put the glove on the wall next to me, but when I tried to take it off, I couldn't. I felt panic sweep through me as I tried to pull the glove off the wall without Jen noticing. I put my left hand on my right wrist to cover the opening of the glove and pulled. It didn't budge; I put my feet on the wall for a little extra leverage and pulled again. There was a loud pop as the glove broke free from the wall and the leverage I had used to get the gloves off backfired on me as my chair fell backwards and I landed on my back.

  “Don't play with these until later please, and also don't hurt yourself,” Jen said when she put them back on the table. “You don't yank them, you slowly peel them off the wall. If you yank them, you fall, but if you take it slow then it will be an asset to you.”

  “Got it,” I groaned as I got up from the floor and put the chair into an upright position. She moved through the rest of the box with lightning-fast speed.

  “Locator or tracker, whatever you prefer to call it,” she said as she produced the locator and showed it to me. “You'll push this button to turn it on and then Demon, who has the other tracker, can find you.” I nodded as a response, and allowed her to move on. “Backup knife, self-explanatory really. Then a gun, for you to use as a last resort. Don't lose it,” she said, glaring at me as if I had already lost one prior to this.

  “Got it,” I said with a small nod as I took the gun in my hand. I had taken shooting lessons a few times with my dad before he died, but to be honest, I didn't remember a whole lot except to line up the dots on the pistol and pull the trigger when I was ready. Every other time keep the safety on and keep it concealed. Jen must have real
ized that, because she quickly took the gun away from me and put it back in the box.

  “Finally, these are your clothes. Check them out and make sure you're comfortable with them,” she said, handing me a black duffle bag from under the table. When she set it down on the table, I followed her orders and I pulled the bag toward me. Immediately, I opened the bag to look through the clothes she had packed for me. “All the necessities are in there as well, such as toothbrush, hairbrush, and contact supplies.”

  “Thank you, Jen,” I said as I continued to look through the bag.

  I pulled out all the clothes and smiled at how well she knew my style without knowing me that long. She packed skinny jeans and loose tank tops, but my favorites were the shoes she gave me for the trip. Hidden heel wedges to wear while traveling, and then black Converses to match my completely black mission outfit. My mission shirt was a black three-quarter inch sleeve top and black straight leg jeans to allow me better range of motion while running around. The last shirt was a black t-shirt with the same design of Rum's Hamsa tattoo. I sighed heavily, and accidentally regained Jen's attention on the original topic from when I first came into the room.

  “Tell me what you're thinking. I give great advice,” she said with a cheeky smile.

  I smiled lightly, but was hesitant to answer. I didn't know what to say, or do, and I did need help, but what if she told Rum what I had to say? I was already on her bad side now due to the lunch time mishap. I sighed again, what did I really have to lose at this point if Rum already hated me? She probably didn't hate me, but according to Demon I had most likely lost her as a trainer and a mentor now that I had upset her. I was just speaking my mind, but it wasn't fair to her. I wasn't being the friend and mentee I should be. Jen must have heard everything by now, what would be different about me? What's one more thing to complain to her about? I really could use the advice.

  “Her training just doesn't make any sense!” I blurted out, not even trying to make it clear to her what I was exactly talking about. “If Rum has a plan for me then I'm not seeing it. I don't understand what breathing and stretching have to do with being a thief! Yeah, they are important, but not for stealing stuff. It's like she isn't even trying to prepare me for this mission and she's just doing basic training because she thinks that I can't handle it!”

  “Her training may be different than what you're used to, or what you would have expected, but remember she has been training since before she was ten. She has great knowledge to pass onto you and that's invaluable to you in your profession. We lost our last thief in this mission, her mentor, and her friend. She's going to help you focus on what you need to do to make it where Hess failed. She doesn't want to lose two friends to this mission. She wants to protect you.”

  “Well that would be great if I could get her talking about Hess and see what Hess did wrong so that I don't do it. I did get her to talk for a while, but then she cut it off to have me focus on breathing and posture. For the first time she seemed like a real person, someone that I could connect to, but she cut it off and closed off again.”

  “She did that for a reason,” Jen said with a laugh. I tilted my head to the side in confusion and waited for her to continue. “She did that because you won't learn from her by her talking to you like a friend. She's making you see her as a trainer first and a friend second. She wants to be your friend, but to do that she has to get you out of the Cardoza mission alive. That's a lot of pressure for her.”

  “I'm sorry?” I asked, still confused.

  “You'll only learn from her in this short amount of time if she pushes you and has you practice the basics. She's worried about losing another friend; she lost her mentor and now she could lose her first real mentee if she doesn't prepare you adequately. That's a lot of pressure on her, and I don't think you see that. She is having you practice aspects she thinks will keep you alive, and that's what should matter to you, not how she goes about it. She may open up if you do well in this mission and decide to stay, but right now she is focused on keeping you alive to give you that choice.”

  “I never looked at it that way,” I admitted after a few moments of us standing there in silence. “I considered it as if she was babying me because she thought I couldn't handle the mission handed to me.”

  “She believes in you or she wouldn't have taken you under her wing. Just give her training another try; your mission is tomorrow. Just give it a try, a new mind to see and experience from is a gift. Don't throw it away,” she said as she turned on her heel. I sat down in the chair again to think, but when Jen got to the door she stopped and turned to me again. “It's only a quarter before five.”

  “So?”

  “So, you still have time to catch her before dinner and then you can sleep after you eat,” she said with a smile before she walked out and left me with the answer to my choice. I was going to see Rum and finish her training before I went to sleep, even if it meant a little less sleep tonight. I owed it to her, and to myself to give myself every chance I had to make it through this mission. Hopefully I would come out stronger, and by the end of the mission have a friend in my mentor, but that was only if I made it out a live and to be honest, those chances were slim.

  Here goes everything, I thought as I followed Jen out of the closet and raced out of the room to find Rum.

  Chapter 15

  After thinking over what Jen and Demon had said I decided to give Rum's training another try. Maybe I was just being close-minded because it didn't seem like useful training, but if Rum was trained from such a young age then she must know a lot. That knowledge, like Jen said, would be powerful and life-saving in this job, I just had to get through her training methods to learn it.

  I pushed open the double doors to reveal the training room where Rum usually was, but this time she was nowhere in sight. The room was empty, the equipment was put away and out of sight, the only thing in the room were the wooden floors and a small mattress that Rum had used to stretch and meditate on. I glanced around the room to see if she was on any of the bars or hanging rings along the walls of the room, but there was no one in here.

  I guess she figured I wouldn't come back, I thought sadly to myself. She made it sound like she never left this room, Demon said she rarely left even for meals. So either she left for dinner or she was already asleep.

  I had treated her so poorly and now I had lost a mentor, maybe even a friend. I wouldn't see her at all tomorrow, this was the last chance I had to show her that I was here to learn from her, but I had lost it. I sighed heavily before I started to stretch as I had done with her earlier today. If she wasn't here, I would just have to train anyway. I needed to be as prepared as I could be, and Ms. De Luca had told me that Rum was teaching me these skills for a reason. If they would keep me alive I would use them, I just hoped whatever the reason was would get me through the mission tomorrow.

  After going through all stretches, until I could actually touch my toes without straining, I sat on the floor to practice my breathing. I tried to focus on my stomach for the breath, but I still caught myself breathing from my chest. I tried to hold my chest in place, but it was harder than I thought it would be. When I finally found myself breathing mostly from my stomach, I let my hand fall so I wasn't holding my chest still anymore, and focused on the breathing. The breaths I took were deep and relaxing. In fact it was so relaxing that I dozed off into a light sleep until the doors to the room opened and shocked me awake.

  “There you are, Sara,” Damon said, sounding genuinely surprised, as he push open the doors and came into the room. I didn't move from my position, but I opened my eyes so that he knew I was listening to him. “I've been looking for you all over. It's almost nine, I think you should go to bed and get some rest for the mission tomorrow; we leave early.”

  “How early?” I asked curiously, but I knew he hated when I asked that question earlier. I was hoping that Rum would come and continue our training, and this was the only place I knew where to find her. I didn't know wh
ere her room was and I felt like that would be intrusive to just show up at her room; that was her escape and her small piece of home. It showed what our lives were like when we joined the agency, the exact same as the bedrooms we lived in, but I was sure they changed the longer you lived here. Your ideas of style and function would change, but would they change the rooms or do they remain the same as a reminder?

  “Early,” he repeated, interrupting my inner monologue from continuing into more topics of the agency that I didn't understand.

  “I will go to bed soon,” I said, glancing up at him.

  His eyes narrowed to produce a look of pure concern. I could see the fear in his eyes that he held for me. He was worried I was backing out, but before he could speak I started talking again.

  “I promise, Demon. I will go to sleep soon, and I won't complain. I just want to finish the session before going to sleep. I'm almost done with my breathing exercises, then I just have a few moments of meditation to do so I can center myself and mentally prepare for the mission.”

  I watched as his eyebrows skyrocket to the middle of his forehead in shock before he recovered and went back to his neutral expression. “Okay, I will check on you around eleven then. I hope you'll be asleep by then,” Demon said before he turned on a heel and walked out of the room.

  I nodded as a response, even though he was out of the room. Then with a heavy breath I went back to concentrating on my breathing. I focused on using my stomach more than my chest to allow for a deeper breath as Rum had taught me. I could feel my lungs expanding with each breath, the push of a muscle I had used minimally and was now focusing on. With a last deep breath I ended the breathing exercise and went into my mediation as Rum had taught me to do.