AGENT 23 BLACKOUT (Agent 23 Book 1)

CHAPTER 11

I'm about to open the compartment door when Kayla says, "I think we should leave. We have no business being in this place. We should at least try to get out of here."

My hand hovers over the release button. As I crane my neck to look at her, confidence swells within me. Right now, I feel like I could take on Agent 24. But when I turn back to the compartment door, that confidence flutters away on an invisible breeze and vanishes. Standing on concrete as solid as rock, I find myself wobbly again. My heart jitters in my chest. My breath constricts in my throat. I realize in a microsecond that Kayla is right. We're in deep water. I'm not Agent 23, no matter how convinced that assassin is of my identity. I'm Aiden Quick, a high school student and a wannabe museum curator one day. Not anything close to a secret agent.

As a wave of nausea settles over me, with another headache on the verge of racking my brain, I stumble forward and bump into the compartment door. By accident, my hand presses the release button and the door opens.

Only it's not a door, it's a drawer.

Once again, the episode is short-lived.

I right myself, leaning against the wall. Kayla appears at my side, a hand on my arm for support. As I return to normal, the drawer slides out and reveals a cache of weapons. I don't know how or why, but I know each weapon that's laid out in their depressions on a display case: a Glock 17M nine millimeter, a Springfield Professional Custom forty-five caliber, and a SIG Sauer P226 nine millimeter. Next to each sidearm are spare magazines, loaded and ready for action. There are suppressors too. I'm not sure how, but I'm aware each suppressor is custom made to screw into the end of the handguns. Another odd piece of information: these are the same sidearms used by the FBI. But I know this isn't an FBI stash, only that whoever built this secret room under the museum has access to government issued firearms.

"Aiden." Kayla gasps, peeking over my shoulder on the tips of her toes. "I think you should shut that drawer."

"Aren't you the least bit interested in why these weapons are down here? Why this room is down here?"

She shuffles around to my side. "Sure, but what if this place belongs to some assassin? Like the hulk that attacked us on the bus?"

"I work in the basement, Kayla. I think I'd know if Agent 24, or anyone else, was sneaking past me to enter their secret lair."

"What if they came later at night, after your shift?"

I bob my head. "That's a possibility, I guess."

Without closing the first drawer, I move over to another and open it. "Wow."

My mouth forms an uppercase 'O', and my eyes widen to the lowercase version. Inside this drawer is a Remington 700 sniper rifle, an M4 carbine, an MP5 submachine gun, a 12-gauge shotgun, and an H&K 416 assault rifle. Once again, I possess an intimate knowledge of how each weapon works. For instance, the H&K 416 uses ten, twenty, and thirty round magazines. While fifteen, thirty, forty, or fifty round magazines equip the MP5. And the sniper rifle weighs only nine pounds, making for easy transportation on the run, in sticky situations. Not that I've been in sticky situations, except for the one with Agent 24.

A third drawer reveals rows of hand grenades, some frag and others flash-bang.

Frags separate limb from limb, and flash-bangs blind and stun.

I know all of this, somehow.

When Kayla sees the grenades, she closes the drawer like she's handling crystal or expensive dishware. "That's enough. I've seen enough, and I think we should leave before someone shows up."

"I think you're right, but what about the assassin? What if he's still out there looking for us?"

Her eyes clasp shut and her chin sinks to her chest. "I know, I know. I don't want to go out there either."

After shutting the other drawers, I face Kayla and, ever so softly, touch her shoulder. My arm stiffens and my effort comes across as awkward, but I lower my gaze to catch her attention. "Whatever we decide to do, we need to think this through. We have to consider all the possibilities before we put ourselves in danger."

As my hand falls away, I pause for a second. "What if I call a friend? He works at the museum on the weekends, during the day. He's a janitor."

"Don't you have any friends at school?"

My gaze dashes to the floor.

"Oh," Kayla says. "Sorry, I meant nothing by it."

"It's okay. I'm not all that good at being social." I check the bars on my phone. "We should probably call an adult, my grandparents or your parents. But I don't want to drag my grandpa and grandma into this."

"I don't want Agent 24 killing my parents, either."

"I don't have a signal down here anyway, and you said you didn't have a good one upstairs in the basement. We'd have to go to the first floor of the museum, but up there, we might run into Oscar. Or we'd have to go outside, and out there, we might run into you-know-who."

"Yeah, I-know-who."

At the sound of her reply, I glance up at her, and my field of view lingers for a moment. I'm reminded of seeing her at the coffee shop earlier. She's not smiling now, but she's genuine and raw, uncut, and looking at her flushed cheeks, questioning lips, and unavoidable blue eyes; I feel like I'm going to be woozy again.

Despite everything we've been through tonight during our brief encounter, the corners of her mouth crack with a weak smile.

I wish I had the right words to say. A confident message that says everything will be all right. I've had moments of clarity and confidence tonight. Hot flashes of a personality that's anything but me. But right now, I have nothing. I'm coming up empty, and the longer I hold her gaze, the more I feel the need to look away. Not because I don't want to look at her. Believe me, I do. But because I know deep down, she's out of my league. As I shy away, catching sight of Kayla's hands stuffed in the front pockets of her jeans, unbelievably, that's when another one of those brain-quaking headaches rips my skull apart. This one is the mother of all headaches, and it brings me crashing to my knees.