Game of Secrets and Shadows (Book One in the Covert Operations series)

Twelve

If I was being honest with myself, I hadn't expected 'home' to be Oaks Academy. Sure, it was the place I'd lived for the past four years and was the only stable housing situation I'd really had since leaving Oregon, but it seemed a rather obvious choice for people to come looking for me.

Brent had assured me that this had already been thought over and, while it was a concern, Oaks was simply the safest place for me. With all of its security and fortification, not to mention the amount of secret passageways which could be used for a quick getaway, it was the most secure location they could have chosen. Whether or not it was actually the safest, I had no idea.

We drove in two separate cars to the school. Daniel had been ushered into one with his parents while I had clambered into the back seat of another with Brent and Lydia. It was a relatively quiet drive. I was debriefed by Lydia, recounting every detail of what had transpired since I'd landed in Oregon. It was a painful questioning, especially having to go through every factor pertaining to my mom and dad's deaths. I knew, though, that it was all valuable information. Everything Daniel and I could tell them would hopefully get us one step closer to my brother.

The Grimes' also enlightened me on a few other facts which had been lingering in the back of my brain but hadn't been addressed in our other discussion. The first of which was why Scorpion had only chosen to attack me now when I was fully capable of fighting back.

"Well," Brent said when I brought it up, "we knew it was only a matter of time before they found you. We're not quite sure how they got your location, but we're assuming it came from your offers into certain agencies after graduation. Their agents must have found out about you from there. Even though your last name is different from your parents', it wouldn't take much digging to find out whose daughter you really are. Especially not for an organization as skilled as they are."

"Okay," I said to him, "so then why did you even offer me a place at Oaks if you knew that they'd be able to make that connection so easily?"

This time it was Lydia who answered. "We knew that Scorpion was looking for you. They'd been getting more desperate to find you over the years leading up to your recruitment and we'd heard word that they were starting to close in on the location of a girl who was rumored to be the daughter of Jack and Elizabeth Briar. We couldn't risk your safety. And besides," she added with a gentle smile at me. "You really did have the highest score we'd seen in years on that test. It measures intelligence and protective instincts among other things. As soon as we saw your results we knew that you'd inherited your parents' skills and knew that we had to offer you a spot for your safety and well-being."

"What would you have done if I refused to go?" I asked her. "Would you have forced me to leave?"

"No," she replied immediately, non-hesitation. "We'd planned to have a security detail to watch over you in the event that you refused our offer. They were set to begin that afternoon if you decided to stay in Oregon. The only way we would have ever forced you away from home was if they showed up on your doorstep. We promised your parents that we'd keep you safe and that's exactly what we intend to do."

"That's another thing I have questions about. You said earlier that Jack Briar has been MIA for the past fourteen years. I was given to my aunt and uncle when I was one and a half. That means there are two years where he wasn't missing that I was with them. What was he doing?"

"Running and hiding mostly," Brent said. "There were so many people hunting him down that he had to live completely off the grid. I know that he was also trying to find the people who were directly responsible for your mother's death."

"He wanted to revenge." Not a question.

"Yes," Brent told me anyways. "He hated them for taking her away from him and also for the fact that he had to leave you behind. His goal was always to make it back to you but he knew that Scorpion had to be all but destroyed before he was able to pursue that dream. The last thing he wanted was for you to be in danger and as long as he was being hunted, he knew that he could never be the father that you needed."