Spy School: 'The Aftermath'

Afterwards

Set after Spy School at Sea. Don't read this if you haven't read that.

Armistead Dormitory

The Academy of Espionage

Washington, DC

May 21st

0200 hours

About four days had elapsed since the whole Emperor of the Seas fiasco had occurred. My internal clock had told me it was 2:03 AM, and that I should really get some sleep. Unfortunately, my brain had other ideas. After every mission, it was always a challenge to get to bed and go to sleep. My sleep schedule barely saw any improvement until at least a week and a half afterward.

I was tired, but not tired.

I sat at my probably lethal iron desk with corners that could gouge someone's eye out, (I should probably put those corner protectors that are for babies on there. I can't even count how many times I accidentally bumped against it and it broke the skin.) in my tiny chair, in my tiny room. I had a considerable amount of makeup work I had to do during my time away on the mission, and you'd think saving the Panama Canal, a cruise ship, (with people on it, mind you,) and a sizeable amount of the world's economy would earn me a Get Out of Makeup Work Free Card, but I guess I was wrong.

So I figured I should at least make the most of my sleep deprivation and insomnia.

My brain also said no. So I just stared. Stared at the worksheet before me. Stared at the splotches of printed ink on the paper, and zoned out.

Someone could absolutely stealthily break in right now and kill me on the spot. After all, it had happened before. Sort of. No matter what I would try to do to stop it, my efforts would be futile. Could I? I mean, I had learned a thing or two about the spy business but I doubt I could fight a man trained to kill. Erica had always helped me out with that.

Erica. We hadn't spoken once since after the ride home. She's been subtly avoiding me after the you-know-what happened. She had been talking to me even less than before, which normally was about 7.5 words per week not counting missions. I did the math. Obviously. I was about seventy-five percent sure she had requited my crush before, but now, it's way above one hundred.

To be honest, I feel kind of scared by the whole thing, because like, what now? She had given relationships a 'maybe', before literally kissing me—which makes me even more confused. The ride home was really awkward, and everyone could see it. Mike had tried asking me about it, but I shot the question down quickly. Not because it was embarrassing, but because Erica would probably shoot me down, definitely literally if she found out that I had told anyone about the kiss. I think everyone knew something happened. Maybe Erica and I will talk about our feelings when we inevitably get whisked off to face another super-bad guy on a mission.

I audibly groaned. Girls were so complicated. People were so complicated. Life itself now was complicated. Math equations weren't. Maybe that's why I'm so good at them.

I decided makeup work was a bust and laid down face up in my creaky, hard, cheap mattress, thinking some more.

Part of me wants to go back to the safety and security of before.

It was tremendously boring, but at least I wasn't undergoing a face-off with death. Everything was so simple, the same routine every day. Get up for school. Get ready. Meet Mike outside where we both rode our bikes to school. Go to class. Try and tolerate the incessant passive-aggressive comments. Avoid flying cartons of semi-frozen chocolate milk during lunch. Still better than what I've experienced on missions. Instead of chocolate milk, I get shot at by terrorists or enemies of the country. Probably both most of the time.

The other part of me though thinks this life is beyond thrilling. I've gained friends, saved the world, (or a country or two) its economy, nine times. Heck, I've saved the president's life and then some. I forgot how much stuff I actually did with close to a year and a half of my residence here. I probably wasn't leaving anytime soon.

It was 2:12 AM. When am I ever going to fall asleep?

I heard something. Someone. I quickly sat up in my bed, fearing an attacker, but it was too late.

And then I started to fall asleep. Not because of my own doing, though.

There was a tranquilizer embedded in the nape of my neck.

I quickly tore it out, as I learned in one of my classes that you should always do this to not let all the contents enter your bloodstream.

Someone was standing, or rather, crouching, in the corner of my room, because the ceiling was so short. They looked about in their early twenties. Skinny. Probably why they were able to fit through my tiny window. Adorned a black sweatshirt and black sweatpants. They had the tranquilizer gun held in their shaky gloved hand, and a pocket knife in the other. They looked kind of frightened and trying to hide said frightenedness. As if it was their first time snatching, or possibly murdering a kid in their own dorm room.

I might have been able to take them if I wasn't rapidly losing consciousness. I had to come up with something, and quick.

I slid off my bed, landing on my feet but instead crashing to my knees, resulting in a loud thunk noise. I then reeled over to my nightstand, where I proceeded to swipe everything off of it with my arms. My ancient ceramic lamp fell and shattered on the ground. In short, It made a lot of noise. Especially if the walls are paper-thin.

My vision was clouding and fading. The cacophony of crashes sounded like they were twenty feet away more than they should be. The person immediately knew that they were going to get caught if they stayed any longer and gunned it out of there. My tired, half-open eyes followed them as they made their escape, and they gave me one last unsure stare, with a little anger and frustration mixed in with it, before tossing themselves out the window.

I took one slow blink, trying to process whatever the hell just happened.

Then I crumbled in on myself, hitting my temple (thankfully not my eye) on the corner of the lethal iron desk that could probably kill someone.

Ow.

Now I should really put some corner protectors on there.