Zoey felt cold and empty. She had come all this way and disobeyed the agency to find her mother—only to find out that she wasn’t even here. Her great plan had been a great waste of time.
“Do you know where she went?”
Rusty shrugged. “No. She didn’t tell us, and we didn’t ask. She never talked much about herself before she came here. She was very quiet about it. I always thought she looked sad, but she never talked about it. I’m really sorry about the cage. We were just playing around, having some fun.”
He stuck out his hand. “Friends? No hard feelings? We would have never killed you for real.”
“Yeah, like I believe you,” said Simon sarcastically and jumped at the sight of Crusher leaning closer to him.
Zoey shook Rusty’s hand. “No hard feelings, Rusty. It has been a very educational experience.”
Rusty squeezed Zoey’s hand. “When you find Elizabeth, tell her—tell her we miss her.”
“I will,” she said, feeling sorry for him, “if I find her. I promise.”
From the folds on his coat, Rusty pulled out their DSM’s.
“Here,” he said as he handed the devices back to them. “I figure you’ll need these to get back home.”
“Thank you.” Zoey took her DSM gladly, but her heart was heavy. She had no real leads. How was she ever going to find her mother now?
After a moment, she looked down at Rusty. “Thanks for not killing us.”
Rusty’s eyes were bloodshot and wet. “If ever you need anything, anything at all, just let us know—it’ll be a pleasure to see Elizabeth’s daughter again. I feel like I’m looking at her when I look at you now. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. I’m sorry.”
Zoey smiled at the small man. “It’s fine, really. And thanks. I’ll hold you to that promise. I have a feeling I might need it someday—maybe sooner than later.”
“Zoey, we should go,” said Tristan as he popped his DSM open. Simon shifted his weight anxiously, eyeing Zoey impatiently. He mouthed come on.
“Good-bye.”
With a final smile at the leprechauns, Zoey flipped open her DSM. She angled her reflection properly, stood very still, and a second later her body flickered, transformed into a semi-transparent shadow, and she disappeared.
Chapter 15
Suspended
As soon as Zoey, Tristan, and Simon reappeared back at the hive, Agent Vargas was waiting for them with muscles bulging. He eyeballed them like an executioner. Zoey shrunk back at the sight of him.
“YOU!” he bellowed. His red face contorted grotesquely, and Zoey could almost see the fumes coming off his head. He could only speak in single word sentences, as though he would run amok if he didn’t discipline his words.
“You! Follow! Me! Trouble!”
The three of them followed the agent wearily. Their lack of sleep had kicked in, and Zoey had to concentrate to keep her lids from shutting. She kept bumping into Tristan, who couldn’t keep up because he was supporting Simon with one arm. Like a sergeant major, Agent Vargas marched down the hall and held the academy door open for them. If he could have shot lasers from his eyes, Zoey was sure they’d be burnt to a crisp.
Once they entered the classroom, she could see through the windows that the sun was just coming up over the hill and trees to the east. She figured it was about seven or eight in the morning. Classes hadn’t started yet. Thank God. It would have been a million times more humiliating to be scolded in front of the entire academy.
Zoey’s stomach did a somersault when she spotted Agent Barnes. He was leaning on the far wall, behind the agent’s desk. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he looked as livid as Agent Vargas. This time, she really did think she was going to be sick.
“Sit!” ordered Agent Vargas, and Zoey jumped. A large vein pulsed on his forehead, and his face looked as if it were about to explode. The three of them sat silently and hung their heads. Zoey was certain everyone could hear her heart thundering in her chest. She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. She didn’t dare look at Tristan or Simon—she kept her eyes low. What were they going to do to them?
With his fingers curled into fists, Agent Vargas paced around the room.
“I don’t even know where to begin? This is so outrageous, such unbelievable recklessness. I must be dreaming? How can my own operatives act so irresponsibly? How could you be so foolish—so senseless? Did you not think how this would reflect on the hive? No! Of course not! You were only thinking about yourselves!”
Zoey looked up and found her voice. “This is all my fault, Agent Vargas—”
“SILENCE!” bellowed the agent. He was silent for a moment, as he tried to control his anger.
“Imagine the state of panic your parents went through when they discovered your empty beds? Their children—vanished—gone. They thought their boys had been kidnapped!”
Zoey wasn’t sleepy anymore. The intensity of the situation sent adrenalin soaring through her—or was that her overwhelming guilt? She was sure it was going to get a lot worse any second now. She tried to get Agent Barnes’ attention, but he avoided her gaze as he watched Agent Vargas. She felt isolated.
“They called the agency right away,” he continued, “and asked if we knew anything about your disappearance.”
His eyes turned to Zoey. “I had my doubts, but when we searched your room and found you gone—then I knew where the three of you had disappeared—where I specifically told you not to go—where even agents are not allowed! You disobeyed me! You turned your back on the agency!” His voice rose and his face reddened even more.
He placed his hands on Zoey’s desk and looked down at her. Beads of sweat trickled down his temples. “Am I to suppose that you were the instigator in this mess? I never had any problems with Tristan or Simon until you came along.”
Zoey’s bottom lip trembled, and tears swelled in her eyes.
“Yes. It’s all me. All of it.” And then she added quickly, “It’s not their fault Agent Vargas. I forced them to come with me. They didn’t want to come, but I blackmailed them.”
“You forced them and blackmailed them? Really, how so?”
“I told them if they didn’t come—we wouldn’t be friends anymore,” she lied.
The words pained her as they left her lips. Tristan turned to look at her and shook his head, mouthing the word no. But she ignored him.
“So you see—they’re innocent. I’m the one to blame. I did this, not them. I’m the rule breaker. I only thought of myself.”
She took a deep breath. “I’ll accept any punishment you give me. I won’t complain.”
Agent Vargas raised his eyebrows. “Oh you will, will you?”
“Yes,” said Zoey. “You can lock me up in a prison and starve me and torture me—I deserve it.”
“Stop your nonsense,” said the agent.
His voice softened, and he seemed to relax a little. “We don’t torture little girls—even if they disobey the rules and endanger the lives of their fellows. What were you thinking? You could have been killed.”
“I needed to know if what Agent Scott had told me about my mother was true,” she answered.
She inhaled shakily. “I had to find out. I couldn’t help myself.”
Zoey saw an opportunity and took it. “But we survived, and we found out some really important stuff.”
“What stuff?” Agent Barnes walked towards them slowly, his arms still crossed. “What stuff are you talking out, Zoey?”
Both Simon and Tristan nodded their approval as she spoke. She took a deep breath and told the agents about the swamp Grohemoths, the leprechaun gang, and more importantly about the imprisonment of the woman, Elizabeth, and the role of the Alpha Nation.
Agent Vargas wasn’t buying it.
“First you tell us an absurd story about a strange deformed looking woman who has the stolen interloper—and now this! Why are you making up these lies? What purpose do they serve?”
Zoey shrank back in h
er seat. Her words wouldn’t come. She wanted so desperately for them to believe her, but she knew it was a lost case.
Tristan raised his hand. “Wait a second, Agent Vargas, what Zoey is saying is—” he began. Agent Vargas silenced him with brisk a wave of his hand.
“You are not permitted to speak, until spoken to, Tristan.” Agent Vargas looked as if he was about to sprout horns.
“I vouched for you, Zoey,” said Agent Barnes suddenly. “What were you thinking? How could you let me down like this?”
His words were like knives stabbing her in the heart. Her eyes burned, and the room got hazy. She didn’t understand why she cared what Agent Barnes thought of her. He wasn’t her real father. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been scolded a million times by her foster parents—why was this any different?
“But it’s the truth,” was all she was able to say without letting go of the tears that threatened to flow down her cheeks. She looked at Agent Barnes, but he was staring at the floor with a frown.
“Truth? Do you even know the meaning of the word?” Agent Vargas started pacing again.
“I don’t know what to make of all of this. Understand this, Zoey, management will be advised of your actions. We have a meeting about this shocking episode this morning—and I doubt it will turn out in your favor.”
He pointed a large hand at Tristan and Simon who shrunk back in their seats, looking guilty. “You two are to return home today to your families. You’re both suspended for one day.”
And then he turned to Zoey. “And you, Zoey St. John, are suspended indefinitely.”
Zoey stared out her bedroom window longingly. She watched the other operatives on their lunch break as they lounged on the vast hive grounds. They were laughing and eating like normal kids, enjoying the last warm days of October. She saw Tristan and Simon shooting their S9 slingshots at a line of plastic water bottles on a picnic table. Tristan hit every bottle. Simon purposely stepped over the target line when Tristan’s back was turned, then yelled out in delight at the fallen bottles.
She ached to be with her friends, but it was impossible. She was on lockdown in her room, a prisoner. She had been restricted to the Wander Inn for four weeks now, and had been forbidden to have contact with any other operatives, especially Tristan and Simon. Even her beloved golden boomerang had been confiscated. That hurt.
Management’s final decision regarding her fate with the agency was still unresolved. The waiting was excruciating. From what Agent Barnes had told her the one time he had come to visit, she understood that management was divided about whether she should be reinstated or sent to live in a secret neighborhood with a Seventh’s family.
It seemed that no one believed her story. Management and the agents seemed convinced that she had made it all up to gain attention. They claimed it wasn’t her fault—that her behavior was the result of being an orphan and tossed from foster home to foster home since she had been a baby.
While Zoey was reckless and headstrong, she wasn’t a liar. And she was determined to prove it to them, if it was the last thing she ever did.
But for now all she could do was wait, and it was making her crazy. It was a miracle that she had actually obeyed her instructions to stay inside the Wander Inn and not broken out already. But there would come a time when she would, and she knew it was going to be very soon.
She was still preoccupied with what had happened to Elizabeth, and why she had been imprisoned in Troll City. If Elizabeth was truly her mother, she needed to find her no matter what. She couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. That wasn’t who she was.
With nothing to do but think for the four weeks she had been imprisoned, she concluded that Elizabeth must have been an agent who had discovered something so important that she needed to be silenced. That was the only thing that made sense—you didn’t imprison ordinary people for no apparent reason. No, Elizabeth must have known something dangerous—and they had locked her up to keep her from talking.
Zoey knew that orphanages kept records about every child who had been in and out of their facilities going back for decades. The agency must keep records about all their agents, too. And she had a pretty good idea where they would be.
Zoey figured that the longer it took management to make a decision about her case, the smaller were the odds that she would remain in the program. It was pretty obvious she was going to get kicked out—so why not go out with a bang? Bangs are good.
Zoey sighed and rested her forehead on the window. Stuart walked casually across the grounds with Claudia at his side—the way they were walking so close to each other they almost looked like they were dating. She couldn’t understand how anyone—even Claudia—could stand Stuart. There was something different about him. He seemed to know things the others did not. It gave him airs, and she hated him for it. What could he know?
She watched them as they joined another group of operatives at a bench. Stuart’s lips moved, and they all started laughing. Then one by one they looked up and stared at Zoey’s window. Even from a distance she could see the evil smile on Stuart’s triumphant face. It was almost as though he already knew her fate, and by the self-satisfied grin on his face it could only mean that she was on her way out. He lifted his hand and waved.
Zoey closed the curtains and stepped away from the window. She picked up a blueberry muffin, yelled in frustration, and hurled it into the wall in an explosion of crumbs. It wasn’t very helpful, but she felt a little release.
It wasn’t over yet. Zoey had a plan, and it started tonight.
At the stroke of midnight Zoey rolled out of bed in a t-shirt, hoody sweater and sweat pants. She pulled on her sneakers and grabbed the flashlight she had nicked from Aria’s kitchen at dinner. She tiptoed out the door and down the stairs. As silent as a cat, she closed the front door behind her and crept to the front entrance of the hive. She pulled open the door and looked around. The main hallway was empty—her timing was perfect. She was not about to get caught again. She pulled off her sneakers and hid them in a large plant pot near the entrance door.
She sprinted towards the main stairway on the right, and after sliding and slipping up the stairs, she reached the fourth floor. She held her breath and peeked around the corner. The corridor was empty. She made her way down the corridor and found a gray metal door with a sign at the top which read: Supernatural Affairs, Room 4A.
This room was off limits, and she would definitely get kicked out of the program for breaking in here. But finding the truth about Elizabeth was more important to her. She didn’t care anymore. She had to do this.
If she was right about Elizabeth being an agent, then she might be lucky enough to find out information about her father, too. Maybe he had also been an agent? But she didn’t want to get her hopes up too high just yet. For now, she focused exclusively on her mother—the rest would follow.
With her nerves fluttering in her belly, she wrapped her hand on the handle and pushed in carefully. The room was dark, and she waited for her eyes to adjust. She didn’t want to use the flashlight just yet and shoved it in her front pocket. The room was as large as the entire main hall. Thick drapes hung from tall windows at the opposite end. Shadows slowly took solid forms, and she could make out a long rectangular table in the middle of the room, with chairs around it and a large screen. There was a seating area with couches and chairs. Pictures lined the walls, but it was too dark to make out what they were. She crept inside. There were two other doors on the far right.
She opened the first door—a kitchenette and a small bathroom. The other door revealed a small office. A computer sat on a wooden desk, waiting to be hacked. But she wasn’t a hacker, and it would take forever to figure out the password. She didn’t have the luxury of time. A large high-back upholstered chair stood in the corner, and three large file cabinets backed against tall bookshelves that wrapped the right side of the room.
“This has to be it,” Zoey whispered to herself. She could feel that she was very close to disc
overing something. She closed the door to the office behind her and switched on her flashlight.
The metal-gray filing cabinets were about four feet tall with three large drawers. She read the front labels on the first cabinet: Headquarters - London Affairs, AN, Mystic Treaty.
The second cabinets’ drawers read; Sevenths, AD - BC, Census - 1295 – Present.
And then on the last cabinet she stuck gold. The labels read: List of active agents, List of retired agents, and finally, List of MIA agents or Deceased—if her mother was still in hiding, then this was the only drawer that her file could be in.
She pulled out the drawer gently and began to finger through the alphabetical labels. There were hundreds of missing-in-action agents. She put the flashlight in her mouth and searched, but after half an hour she had gone through every name—and nothing.
Then at the very back she found a picture of a woman with fire-red hair and large green eyes. Zoey’s blood turned to ice.
It was as though she was looking at an older version of herself—the woman in the picture even had the same tiny little dimple in the middle of her chin. She knew this had to be her mother. The name at the top of the file read: Elizabeth Steele. Trembling all over, she pulled out the file, ran over to the desk, flattened it out, and read.
Agent: Elizabeth Steele
Years in service: 15 years
Service stationed at: Hive # 416, Toronto Branch. Last known station: Hive # 202, New York Branch.
Status: Single, no family or children on record.
Parents: William and Nora Steele, both deceased. No living relatives known.
At the bottom of the file written in big bold letters was—MIA, PRESUMED DEAD.
Tears fell freely on her cheeks, and the words on the paper blurred as she fought to control her emotions. All those years of searching had come to this—her mother was missing. There was no mention of her father, or of her for that matter, but for now it was the best news she could have hoped for. She held real tangible evidence in her hands. She had finally found her real mother. There was no denying it—they were practically twins.
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