The Elites

Chapter Two

Jared Kloss was the brother of Lara and Cara Kloss. Putting those two names together you'd think they were twins. Lara never failed to tease her parents about naming their two daughters with a three year age difference Lara and Cara. Jared - stuck as the middle child - was forever grateful that his name didn't rhyme, though when Lara first learned his name in childhood, she could only call him Jara at first.

Occasionally, she'd still call him that. He was never impressed.

Lara and Jared had an unusual relationship. She was always closer with Cara, mainly because Jared wasn't around much during their childhood. Their parents never knew where he got it from, but Jared was... troubled. From the age of seven to eleven, Jared was shipped off to an all-boys boarding school in Utah, famous for its talents in 'ironing out even the most crumpled boys.'

That was the actual school motto.

It was only when Jared set fire to his 'mortal enemy's' bed that his parents finally withdrew him from the school. The school could never prove that it was him, but it was obvious to everyone there who the arsonist was.

Jared went back to New York and was home schooled for the next year before the family moved to London. Jared always said that the fire incident shook him a bit, and being alone while he was taught took the rebellious edge out of him.

Moving to London helped Jared a lot. He became closer with his parents and sisters - mainly Lara. He learned how to play the guitar and he got decent friends. He didn't go to the same school as Lara and Cara, so I only saw him whenever I was at Lara's house. Lara always said that, though Jared had good friends, he liked to keep himself to himself as he got older. Often I'd just hear music coming from his room before he'd duck into the kitchen for food, nodding awkwardly to me with headphones still firmly over his tall blonde quiff. Jared and Cara were both tall, blonde and pale, whereas Lara was shorter, dark haired and tan.

Cara went to my school, but she seemed to instantly fit in. Unlike Lara, Cara was always amazingly confident - sometimes over-confident. Almost instantly becoming what Lara called 'the queen bee,' Cara pretty much refused to acknowledge Lara at school. I suppose in hindsight I was grateful for it as it made her more clingy to me in the early years. I was her first friend, and for quite a while her only friend. Lara - like Jared - was a lot less outgoing than Cara. She relied on a few good friends rather than many who'd leave you in a heartbeat... which is what Cara's friends did to her after she graduated.

Lara and I did have good friends, but after being forced into the Agency we went our separate ways. The Agency was a big deal - we were instant celebrities just for being trainees, but we weren't the kind that cut ribbons at supermarket openings or released a charity single that wasn't actually for charity at all. Everyone knew who we were, more so depending on your skills and the kinds of cases you get. For example, Blair always preferred the smaller cases that kept her out of the spotlight, whereas Lara, Will and I were always given the bigger ones.

As a rule, the first three years when you're in a group of four are filled with amateur cases. Once you're twenty-one, you're on your own with whatever cases the Agency wants to give you. Whenever Mr. Hetley or Mr. Paxley compared the Agency to the CIA, I'd always remind them that the CIA didn't flock their agents about like Hollywood actors.

I think that's what made it harder for me after my bad period. Everyone knew what had happened because of... circumstances. Having your personal life in the papers is bad enough, but when it was something like my bad period, it's hard to get over it.

Especially when it's followed up by the Ashton thing. Everyone knew all about that, too.

When I look back, it's hard to believe that the bad period or the Ashton thing even happened. I always told myself that it was because of the pressures of the Agency. Just before the group split up in July 2008, our last case had been one of the biggest in the Agency's history. It was extremely uncommon for agents to get big cases while still in their group. In Mr Johnson's, the then overseer's, defence, it wasn't meant to be a big case. In fact, it started off as a simple research thing. A series of mass murders coined the beer keg murders; aptly named as all victims, primary school teachers between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-nine, were found brutally stabbed in beer kegs at pubs scattered around London. Will and I had been sent to see the headmaster at Battersea Girls School, where the latest victims - Margo Fisher - had worked. We'd simply been sent to interview him with questions given to us by Mr Johnson, but Will's investigative - or as I call it: nosey asshole - instincts had taken over, and he had insisted on snooping around his office while he was out taking a phone call.