Spy School Out West

Chapter 28

If you don't like how I thwarted the plot, please read this. If not, you can go right ahead to the story.

Ben is constantly taking on the load of thwarting the enemy plans. I get why Stuart Gibbs does this; it's more exciting to read, which makes people buy more books, and he has a family to support, so he needs people to buy more books. But I also started this book under the premise of "what if we did things a little differently?" This is something I did differently from in the books, because there will never be a book published where the thwarting takes place over the span of just a few hundred words. Plus, I feel like, if this was real life, it would be Ben's turn to be the side character at this point.

Also unrelated but does anyone know if Zoe is gay or bi? It's been nagging at me :/

--
Mike's POV (I figured it was about time to switch it up again)
--
A Random Alleyway
Paris, France
August 4
1600 hours
--

"Hey, man," I said, sitting down beside Ben. He still had his face in his hands, crouching by a brick wall. His body rocked with sobs as I approached. I felt awful for him.

He groaned slowly and looked up. His eyes were rimmed with red. "What is it," he said in a pained monotone.

"I have news." I searched for eye contact with him.

Ben seemed to register this information and looked me in the eye. "Hit me," he said hoarsely.

"Erica was shot, but you probably knew that." Ben nodded as I talked. "Somehow she didn't break any bones, but she was bleeding like hell. Catherine was going to fix it, but they had to get her to a hotel first. So that's where everyone is now."

Ben perked up. "So she's good?"

"Probably," I said. "Come on. Let's walk." I stood and offered my hand to help Ben up. He took it and stood next to me. I led him out of the alleyway and onto yet another pleasant Parisian street.

"Details," Ben requested as we walked.

"Okay, so Erica lunged for Murray when he was reloading his gun," I explained. "He saw her, finished reloading, and just shot. Hit her just above the collarbone on the right. She stumbled back a few steps, probably just shocked. Catherine and I kind of steadied her. Erica stood back up, then gasped and kind of staggered around for a minute before Catherine caught her. Catherine passed her to me, and she started to go 'oww' for a really long time. Then she started to go 'Benn' for a really long time which was honestly so sweet, she loves you-"

"Mike," Ben said, his face red with embarrassment. "Stick to the story."

"Oops," I said sheepishly. I hadn't been lying, it was so freaking sweet of her that she wanted Ben to hold her. I wondered if Trixie would ever do that for me. Mike. Focus.

"So then, she just kind of slumped and passed out. This whole time, Catherine had been threatening Murray and stuff, so he ran back inside. We had to play up the dead act with Erica because we kind of thought she was dead, so Murray basically gave us Cyrus back because I guess one of you dead was good enough for him. Cyrus was pretty beat up, so the adults' hotel room is kind of a Patient First now. Balto's doing pretty well helping, from what I heard. Chip and Jawa carried Erica back, and they sent me to come find you. I haven't heard anything since I left." I held up my still-silent radio as evidence.

We entered a section of Paris that had more cars and people than any other we'd seen so far. The streets were filled with honking and shouting. I led the way to a wedge-shaped hotel called The Three Lions. (The first to figure out which book this came from ( it's not the UK football team) gets a follow and a shoutout here: )