Agent Reptilian: Exploiting Gold|editing

Chapter thirty nine: Looking for Phoenix (part two)

The three of us marched into the grocery store.

The agents said to check out the lines first so we headed towards the long queues of people standing with their carts or trolleys filled with varieties of groceries. It appeared that a storm was going to hit at any moment. The clouds had been darker than ever before, the wind stronger than ever. People had stocked up groceries and emergency supplies in case all hell broke loose. Hopefully it happened after we reached New York.

I hid behind a magazine rack and quickly dialed Nix's number. The bells kept going and eventually the automated voice came on and I canceled it. What was Nix doing? Did she not get my message? Was she still mad? I had told Nix that it was urgent and urgent means urgent. Even if both parties are ticked off at each other.

Once again I punched the call button on the phone and once again, the bells went off but she didn't pick up. I sent her a couple of more messages- maybe Nix thought I wanted to talk about the fight. If she wasn't going to pick up, the least she could do is check her messages.

I placed the phone back in my pocket and met up with the other two agents.

"Well, did either of you find her?" Agent Kaps, who was the third woman who had come into the house asked. I shook my head and the other agent- agent Liu crossed his arms and scowled.

"If I found her, don't you think she'd be standing next to me? Don't you think I would've told you I found her?" Agent Kaps face turned bright red.

"Well, you are known to be incompetent. You failed to catch Sterling because a chihuahua bit you." Kaps' green eyes opened slightly big as she spoke.

This was good. If both continued bickering each other, it could buy Nix some time. If only she would actually answer my calls. The two agents continued fighting over something while I stared at the entrance, waiting for Nix to walk through any moment.

But she didn't.

Half an hour had passed by, and Agent Kaps, Agent Liu and I continued dawdling around the store, trying to locate Nix but we could not. Why wasn't she still here? Surely she wasn't stupid enough to not check her messages especially when she wasn't at home and had no other way of communicating with me or Del.

There was only one thing I could do now. I turned around and both agents stopped in their tracks.

"We should split up. That way one of us might find her. This store is a bit of a maze and if we're clumped together we'll never find her." While Kaps nodded, Liu looked me up and down.

"We've been here for over thirty minutes and still haven't found her. You lied didn't you? Ms Scott has run away hasn't she?" I gaped at him. Run away? Why was that the first thing that came in his mind?

"No. I promise you she has not run away. Why would she run away?" But I was asking that question more to herself than Liu. Had Nix run away? No, that was impossible. Nix enjoyed Secretum as much as I did and she wasn't a stupid person. I shook that thought from my mind and continued walking.

I had to slip away from them somehow without them noticing. I had to leave this place and go find Nix myself. If any of the agents found out that we had been making friends and hanging out with people we weren't supposed to, it could actually penalize us. This was against the rules, especially with us being reptilians, we were told that because they were still amateurs at the whole thing that we could hurt others so it was best to avoid people.

I had to find a way to distract them both, get the two to start arguing again or something, then I would run.

But what to do?