The Survivors

Chapter 12

For some unknown reason, Jude had appointed himself as the team's one-man welcoming committee. 

When I entered the entrance hall, it was his silmy figure waiting for me at the end of the entrance hall, and as soon as he saw me, a big smile formed on his face. He ran towards me, wrapped his thin arms around me and bombarded me with questions. 

"Lilli!" He cried with joy, like a small child who had just received a new toy. "Did everything go smoothly? Did you just get back?"  

I couldn't say he didn't bother me sometimes, but before I could even answer his questions, he grabbed my arm and dragged me all over the room. 

It was only now that I noticed Nico was sitting at one of the tables, but when we sat down next to him, he didn't move. Not at all. I followed his gaze on the device in his hand. A chatter. 

The chatter was developed by a few greens from old cell phone parts, with the idea that agents can take photos and videos on our missions and communicate with each other. They are based on a network that the Greens created and which could not be tracked. 

"What's going on?" I asked and looked at Nico, who looked at me now.

Jude swallowed and glanced at Nico for a moment before he leaned forward and whispered in my ear. "Cate came back from her mission a few days ago, and I guess things didn't go according to plan."

"What do you mean?" Now I was seriously worried. I didn't like the thought that something might have happened to Cate. 

"We don't know exactly." Nico replied this time. "The only thing we know is that Cate tried to get two kids out of a camp, but she and Rob only got here with one." 

Rob Meadows is one of the best agents in the League. Even his file is perfect. He went to Harvard, was an army ranger, even an FBI agent for a while. He knows all sort of weapons and speaks passably Spanish. He's also Cate's boyfriend. But I don't trust him. Somehow he has a dark shadow that can really scare you.

After a while of silence, Jude reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. "Would you like to play a round?"

I sighed, but finally nodded. With everything that was going on in my head, a round of card games with Jude and Nico would certainly do me good. "Okay, but just one round." I said and Nico started shuffling the cards. 

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In the end one round turned to ten.

However, I was on another planet with my thoughts, so I only came to my mind when Jude called out that I was cheating for the third time.

"You're cheating again. You should have drawn two cards." He said, pushing to cards towards me. 

I smiled an took the two cards. I was losing, but I didn't mind. It was just nice to sit with the guys in the entrance hall and not have to worry about anything. 

It was nice to hear Jude laugh, which was so contagious that you just had to laugh with it and I had never seen Nico as happy as today. Most of the time, he just sat quietly in a corner and tinkered with some tech stuff that I didn't understand.