My Classified Life

Chapter Eleven: The Hunter And The Prey

It always seemed that the perfect day and what would turn out to be the perfect night’s sleep had to always be interrupted lately. I thought that the ‘break’ my mom gave us was real this time. I thought we’d have another week, maybe two before the next mission. But lately the missions had been coming so rapidly. I felt like I should have expected another mission was coming up soon, but I was blindsided.

She gave me ten minutes to get a bag together and get outside where The Raven was still waiting for us. I managed to throw on some jeans and a graphic tee, a breakfast bar and grape juice, and repack my satchel with the same things from last mission. Before heading out I quickly nabbed some money just in case and sprinted headlong down the stairs, stumbled and fell on my butt. Only Christina saw me in the kitchen and it was too early in the morning for her to be laughing at me. I got up slowly and whispered “That’s gonna bruise.” and managed to slowly limp outside to the jet. It was still in it’s pristine condition with made up bunk beds that looked like heaven at that point. I noticed Brit and Sammy weren’t inside when we took off but my eyelids closed before I bothered to ask why. I was out and dreaming about gloating in the clouds before we reached them.

　

It’s amazing how long a person can sleep. I still believe mom might have slightly influenced the time we spent sleeping on that plane but she’s never admitted to it. Either, way thirteen hours after leaving Washington D.C. I woke up at 10:47 A.M. in Tokyo Japan the very next day. I laid on the bunk bed I’d collapsed on all alone in the jet.

“Hello?” I shouted as I rose up from where I had been sleeping. My body was stiff and I started to stretch out a bit before the realization that I was all alone in a foreign country started to set in.

“Hello! Anyone here! Pilate dude?” I yelled as I came into the cockpit. “Mom? Christina!? Anyone?” but only the empty Raven responded.

I started to pace around the plane and try to come up with a plan of action. “Okay, so I could stay here and wait for someone to find me. Or wander around Paris all alone with just a few bucks and no idea what to do or where to go? Oh gosh!” I was thinking out loud. “I can’t just stay in here! I’ll go outside and check it out.” I went over to grab my satchel when I noticed a note on top of it. I picked it up and read:

Dear Emily,

The hunter has become the prey. You’re being watched. I’ll be waiting for this

letter back at the Imperial Palace at three. If you can’t come alone, don’t come

at all.

                                                                                    -Mom

Under the note was a ton of Japanese currency. I had about 4 hours to loose my tail and get to the Imperial Palace. ‘Great. Amanda had like 15 hours. How is this going to work?’ I needed a good plan to loose the person who was following me very quickly. I thought about Paris and how Amanda had almost lost us. I either needed a large crowd or a place where they couldn’t follow me very easily. The only place that came to mind was Chidorigafuchi, and it was perfect. Chidorigafuchi was a giant cherry blossom filled cemetery in remembrance for Japanese unidentified soldiers. And in this time of year the blossoms were in full bloom. All I needed was a new outfit. And so I grabbed the bag and the money and stepped cautiously out of the jet. I was in an airport landing field somewhere near Tokyo. After finding my way to the airport exit I managed to figure out after five tries to hail a cab. Lucky enough for me I had an app on my phone that translated my voice to Japanese and the cab driver understood me enough to drive me to the Tokyo shopping district. I felt like I was being watched the whole time and I looked about he cab once inside but I couldn’t see any familiar faces.