Agent's Revenge

Chapter One

The best thing about running is the feeling of exhilaration you get after every single step you take. Every time your foot lifts off the ground and lands back down again, you can feel everything spark inside of you. It’s the feeling of your heart pumping in your chest, your muscles stretching and releasing, the sweat falling down your face. I couldn’t find one thing about running that I didn’t like; even the pain afterwards was all worth it. I used to love running as a kid; you know, running on the school oval, running on the track team, running home from the bus. I guess I never knew that it would come in handy when chasing down a known murderer and gang leader.

I could hear boots hitting the pavement behind me; it was Ben, probably, but I didn’t take much notice of that. All I could focus on one was the curly-haired man who was dodging around poles, pushing through people in crowds, and trying to escape from something he couldn’t run from; me.

Car horns and shouts erupted as I leaped over a taxi, landing solidly on my feet. They didn’t understand at all, though; they couldn’t possibly understand that I was chasing down someone who had been so close to blowing up numerous amounts of buildings in their own city. Who stopped him and his group of evil masterminds? That’s right, we did. The Secret Agents Organisation of America. They wouldn’t ever thank us for our work though – note the word secret.

This wasn’t exactly secret though; me running down the streets of the city with a gun strapped to my thigh, leaping over anything that would get in my way. I could feel the distance between Ben and I growing, but he knew that if anybody could run this man down then it would be me. Besides, he would catch up eventually. He always did.

“Don’t let that man through!” I shouted as I saw him emerge from a crowd of people. I pushed a teenager out of my way, ignoring the profanities he shouted at me, and slipped between a pole and the side of a store. I was getting closer to him now, and he knew that. He kept glancing backwards to see where I was, and every time his eyes landed on me, they widened. And every time he did so, I smiled to myself. He knew that it was game-over.

Suddenly he veered to the right, away from all the shops and pedestrians, to the other side of the road. Cars braked sharply, screeching their tyres and turning away from the man who had suddenly ran in front of them. I followed lead eagerly by sprinting after him, leaping over the hoods of the cars and quickly apologizing as I did so. I could feel my heart pumping; I was so close to him now, barely even meters. He turned again, to his right, and headed straight for an alleyway.

I stopped in my tracks. There was a part of me that was whispering “Don’t follow him Olivia, it’s obviously a trap. Dark alleyway? No one would run into a dark alleyway without help. He wouldn’t, nor would you.”

But then again another part of me, the danger-loving part, kept saying, “Go after him Olivia, you’ve gotten this far. If it’s a trap, then you can handle it. Don’t let him get away.”

I rolled my eyes to myself and sighed, “Fuck it,” before running after the curly-haired freak and into the World’s Creepiest Alleyway. Imagining Ben’s angry face almost stopped me from turning that corner. Almost.

It was dark, obviously, but that wasn’t the creepiest thing about the alleyway. The creepiest thing was the number of bins placed along the walls, so large that anybody could hide behind them. It was also the mould, the water dripping from pipes and down the cracked brick walls, the graffiti everywhere. It was the least appealing thing about the entire city.

“Come on, you prick,” I called out, taking my gun out from its holder and gripping it with my two hands. I walked slowly and carefully, well aware that he was hiding behind any of the bins. “I know you’re here,” I whispered. My eyes scanned every single inch that I could see, but I couldn’t spot him.