The Elites

Chapter Eleven

It didn't take long for me to start getting pissed off with Chase. Technically, he never wasn't pissing me off; just him being there made me want to kick someone. It was clear that Paxley's sudden change in attitude wasn't enough for his favouritism of Chase to be diminished; him and Chase's father were lifelong friends. Like Chase, Paxley always had the attitude that it was necessary that he became an Elite. However, the difference was that Paxley was actually deserving of Elite status, whereas Chase certainly was not. His father might have been excellent, but Chase was often considered a hindrance rather than a help.

Alice - who was much older than the rest of us and had been to way more parties than we had - started to lead the way towards the kitchens. Usually, the doors wouldn't be locked but were considered indefinitely closed to the Agents as they gathered in the hall, and no one - as far as I knew - had every attempted to go through them. As Chase had so nicely put it, that side of the building was for the peasants.

Chase started to coo over Juliet, swinging an arm around her waist and whispering in her ear, kissing her cheek every now and then. I wasn't exactly sure when Juliet decided that opposites attract was true for her and went for Chase Gordon, but whenever it was I was glad I didn't have to be around for it. Will had tried to keep me updated on the people in The Agency that we actually knew during my time in America, including people like Juliet, Chase, Stasia and Saffron.

Before you get put into your initial group of four, you have a few months of training as a large package group. If your parents had willingly signed you over, chances are you'd know of a fair amount of your fellow trainees before you started. If you were anything like me or Lara, whose parents had lied to us our entire lives about being signed over, you wouldn't have a clue. Will and Blair both came from a long line of Elites whose families had worked closely together over the years, however they couldn't stand each other at first. Neither mine nor Lara's parents were Elites, but there were a few that knew who we were. One of them was Juliet, who seemed absolutely in awe of Lara.

It turned out that Lara's mother had saved Juliet's mother from a certain death in their youth. They were in an initial training group together, and - like my group - had had a much higher profile case than was intended for rookies. Thus, their family always had the idea of being in debt to the Kloss family, and Juliet so desperately wanted to be in a training group with her. Lara had always said that she wanted Juliet to be with them instead of Blair; the two of them really didn't get along at first. However, she also realised that it meant Will and Blair wouldn't have got together, so she was ultimately grateful.

Juliet was always nice and sweet and talented. It was no wonder she was made an Elite fairly young by Agency standards.. But her taste in men made her much less credible than she'd ordinarily be.

I caught up with Alice to avoid being in their personal bubble and started to murmur irritably.

"Is he always like that with her or is it just because she's an Elite now?"

"They were together long before she was made an Elite," Alice said, turning a corner as they passed through the endless corridor. "They're always that sickening."

"Fantastic."

Alice came to a halt outside of a large wooden door, attempting to peek through the small window at the top. When she couldn't see through it even standing on her tiptoes, she awkwardly turned to me and nodded towards it.

"Perks of being a giant freak," I sighed, and took her place and peered through with ease.

"Not as giant as Ashton," I heard Chase chuckle from behind me. A short thud sounded, and I assumed that Juliet had hit him somewhere.