Too Good...

Chapter 20

Sorry it took so long...

I don't even know...
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"What?" Austin asked and turned to me.

"I designed the software," I said, still looking out the window.

"We heard that but why?" Drew asked and I turned around, looking at Zach. He had a warning look on his face and I gave him a subtle nod. He gave one back and I looked back to the other two.

"You guys might want to sit down," I said and pointed to the bed.

"Before I came to Blackthorne, I went to other schools. Before that, I went on missions with my parents. But even before all that, I... You have to understand that it wasn't my choice," I said desperately.

"What are you talking about?" Austin asked carefully.

"Have you ever hear of the 'Inner Ring'?" I asked quietly.

"Wasn't that a band of people aiming to take down the CIA? What's that got to do with anything?" Drew asked.

"Yeah! Especially considering they were disbanded in 1764," Austin nodded. They both looked at me with questioning looks and I looked down at my feet.

"They only wanted people to think that it was disbanded. It's true that the CIA had an operation in which they took out part of the Inner Ring," I said quietly, "The Inner Ring was made by some bad people in the early 1800's. They stayed strong for two hundred years."

"We know this, Six. Where are you going with this?" Austin asked.

"Six and I-" Zach started but was cut off.

"Wait, you're included in this?" Drew asked, shocked.

"Yes. Six and I were in the Inner Ring," Zach said bluntly.

It was quiet for a solid seven minutes and forty two seconds while Drew and Austin took this in.

"That's not possible. The operation wiped them out..." Austin said but I could hear the doubt in his voice.

"The Inner Ring is basically a tree. There are branches jutting out at all different areas. There could be two members of the Inner Ring sitting beside each other and not even have a clue. Zach and I found out what the Ring's main objective was and-" I started but was cut off.

"Wait, you said that two members could be beside each other and not even notice. So how did you and Zach know about each other?" Austin asked. Drew had been unnaturally quiet and it was starting to worry me.

"Pure luck," Zach shrugged then continued our story, "When we found out their objective we hightailed it out of there. Both of us ran to the CIA and that's where we met each other."

"The CIA interrogated us. Hard. We told them everything we knew and they showed us pictures of stuff," I said and was interrupted again.

"Stuff?" Austin asked.

"Past missions, other members they caught, each other, the works," I said, "Anyways, they finally realized that we were just innocent kids and they put us in the same room together. That was when we started brainstorming. Little did we know the CIA was recording every conversation we had and BAM. The week after we were out together there's an operation to take out the Inner Ring."

"The Ring dispersed after that. The CIA only got one branch of it but that would be like cutting off a root of the tree. The Ring couldn't function without it," Zach said quietly.

"Why'd you say that it wasn't your choice?" Austin asked me with a hard tone, "Sounds to me like you got outta there pretty easily."

"I was a kid, Aus. These people were bad. They took children, innocent children, from their parents and trained them to be fighters, warriors, assassins. You don't understand the horror I - we - went through," I told him.