Spy Surf School

Escape

"I can't believe they're recruiting Trixie." Erica Snapped, storming down the linoleum hospital hallway. I ran after her, trying to reason while also clutching the stitch in my side.

"Look on the Brightside!" I said, finally reaching Erica's side. "then you get to see your sister more often!" Erica completely ignored this, ranting on.

 "Its bad enough they're bringing in Jessica, who is the offspring of two evildoers and has no experience whatsoever, but my own sister? This is exactly the life we were trying to protect her from!" I grabbed Erica's arm and she finally stopped, wheeling towards me with fire in her eyes. 

"What?" I took a small step back, gathering myself.

"Erica. I know this is upsetting, and I completely see your angle. You and your family have been protecting Trixie from the world of espionage for her entire life. But your mother and father have made up their minds, and Trixie has a bunch of people behind her! In addition, with a little training she could be molded into quite the incredible spy. She already has her family's innate talent." 

"But-" Erica protested, but I cut her off. 

"Take a deep breath and just think about what I said." Erica narrowed her eyes, angrily mulling over the situation. Then, to my surprise, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, sinking down onto a bench that sat against the white washed wall. The hallway we were in was nearly empty, with only the occasional nurse rushing through it with a cart of sharp instruments or wheeling a patient in a wheelchair to another room. I sat down next to her. 

"Trixie will be fine." I said again. Erica paused, then slowly nodded. 

"I... guess so." 

"Okay. So we have that problem out of the way. Now lets discuss Jessica." Erica's eyes narrowed again. 

"It just makes no sense!" she argued. "I mean why do we recruit her- a practically random teenager- to the CIA?"

"I was a practically random teenager." I pointed out. 

"No you weren't." Erica grumbled. "you were chosen for a mole hunt because you looked like what they needed on paper. You were practically perfect bait. The only reason I see to recruit Jessica is that she knows about us, and there are other ways of taking care of that." I rolled my eyes. Erica had never been a big fan of Jessica, and the feeling was mutual between them. I could see where Erica was coming from, but I could also see Catherine and Alexander's reason as well.

"Jessica has nowhere to go. She knows about us, and she helped us in Colorado when her dad was trying to escape. In addition, she has a boatload of money that she said she plans to donate some of to the academy, and we could really use that for updates." Erica huffed. 

"Whatever."

"Look, all I'm saying is that its not as bad as you're making it seem. Two new recruits is two more people who will back us in any fight against bad guys in the future and four extra hands is always helpful." Erica didn't say anything. I smiled, seeing I was getting through to her. Also, sitting so close to her was making me a bit lightheaded. I suddenly found myself looking directly into her icy blue eyes, unable to break her stare. Her usual lilac and gunpowder scent was intoxicating. 

"Ben." Erica waved a hand in front of my face. I snapped out of my trance, shaking my head and blinking furiously.

"Sorry..." Erica rolled her eyes, but I could see the faintest hint of amusement twisting at the corner of her lips. Her lips, that less than forty-eight hours ago had been kissing mine. There was an awkward silence where each of us kind of stared at the other, unsure what to say or do. Ever since the kiss on the emperor of the seas, Erica and I had been in a bit of an odd place. She had opened up to me quite a bit, admitting that she was glad she had friends around and that she may have even made a mistake in blocking out relationships. She had even said she was thinking about going out with me! Since then we hadn't really discussed it much. After the kiss, which had been longer and a lot better than the one in Vail, we had broken apart and kind of stared at each other. After a moment it looked like Erica might have been considering kissing me again, but then a flock of angry seagulls had suddenly swarmed the deck. Apparently when I had dropped my plate of food overboard, a crab puff had rolled off onto the ship deck and now the flurry of white feathered bodies were in a death match over who got it. Moment ruined, Erica and I had slipped back into the suite, where we had each respectively passed out due to sleep deprivation. 

"We should go back to everyone else." Erica said, snapping me back to reality once again. I nodded, standing and heading quickly back to room 482 where Catherine was. Erica and I burst through the door to find everyone staring at us. There was a heavy, intense feeling hanging in the air. 

"What?" Erica demanded. 

"We just got a call from Central Intelligence." Catherine sighed. A chill went up my spine. In that moment I knew what had happened without anyone even having to inform me. I had been worried that something like this was going to happen.

"What did they say?" Erica pressed, a glint of worry in her eyes now too.

"There was an... incident... aboard the ship about a half hour ago." Alexander said. "we don't know exactly what happened, but the agent on the phone informed us that a group of men in full riot gear dropped onto the ship and started attacking passengers."

"Oh god..." Erica groaned. 

"That's not the worst of it though." Mike said nervously. "Uh, Ben..."

"I know." I sighed. "Murray escaped, didn't he?"