Fatal Attraction

Chapter One: Spotting Her

Blake's POV

They prepare you to take down national security threats, terrorists, and some of the most frightening individuals on the planet. You learn how to fight your way out when you're outmanned, outgunned, outsmarted. They ingrain strategies and tactics into you until they replace your own name, until the job becomes your identity. They teach you everything there is to know, make you hone it, perfect it, until you are a weapon in a person, an instrument of death. 

But nothing prepares you for the death of a friend.

Not when it's your fault. 

I slide on my sunglasses and stuff my hands in my pockets, sweating under the sticky late summer heat. The sun glares down in an open sky, already cooking the parking lot at 9am. A few months ago, I would have mocked the teenagers milling about, their high school drama and chemistry tests and football tryouts, their planning for a future of university, steady jobs and families. I would have arrogantly scoffed at the smallmindedness of a small town, thought myself so above them that I could not even fathom being here right now. But right now, all I can think of is how jealous I am, how I would kill for the blissful ignorance of a normal teenage experience. 

I shift my backpack strap and walk inside, shouldering through the glass front doors and making my way to the office. I try to act my age, reduce myself to a student on his way to class, but before I've even taken three steps I've marked the exits, scoped potential weapons, and assessed the hallway for threats. Work comes easier from breathing--that's not something I could unlearn if I tried. Even if I wanted to be normal, I couldn't. But there's no point dwelling in any of that, not when I'm faced with the stench of sweat and garbage in the hallways that nearly makes me nauseous. I climb to the third floor, having already memorized my schedule, but take one look at the catastrophe of an art room in front of me and turn around, walking right back the way I came and out the door.

Just like that, the moment passes, and normal is back to being fucking gross.

I dart down the steps, knocking a boy off his feet to the rumbling of a motorcycle in the parking lot and the thump of a basketball behind me. All I have to do is show up. Grades don't matter, friendships don't matter. I won't even finish the year here if things go as planned. High school is only my cover; I'm not really here. 

I stand near the smoker's pit, waiting out the urge to leave this instant, and take a deep breath of burnt paper and tobacco. I deserved a punishment. I wanted to lie low. I needed time away. But now that I'm here, I would rather be literally tortured than go to my 9:15 class. Too bad sleeper missions don't give you any options. 

"Jack," a voice says.

"Jibril," I say, not even glancing his way. "Welcome to hell."

"I'm only here to make sure you don't jump off the roof," he says.

"I thought you volunteered for this."

"I'm your friend, dumbass." He grabs my arm and pulls me back towards the doors, ignoring the glances thrown our way. They can think whatever they like about me; I won't be here long enough for them to remember me past Christmas, and I don't plan on touching student life with a ten metre pole. 

The first bell rings and we walk back inside. I feel more eyes on me and turn to a row of lockers where a girl stands, book in hand, watching me. I meet her stare with a blank expression, waiting for her to grow uncomfortable and move on, but instead of looking away she takes me in, somehow seeing all of me without even looking me up and down, and something snags her attention. Her eyes narrow. It's small, nearly imperceptible, but it sets something off in my gut. Then we're past her, being corralled up the stairs to the room that smells of something rotten and decade-old paint. I frown.

"What's up?" Jibril asks.

I glance over my shoulder. "I don't like the way she looked at me."