Keep Your Enemies Closer | a Bars and Melody Story [COMPLETED]

Chapter Four

"Where are you going?" Charlotte startled at the voice behind her. Leo folded his arms and smirked. Charlotte stepped away from the wire fencing that circled the house perimeter. "You can't keep me here." She countered. "Fine." Leo said. "Go back to your stupid little spy school, I'll never tell you what happened." Charlotte laughed. "You wouldn't tell me if I stayed." She reached for the fencing and started to climb. "Why do you have to make me do this?" Leo muttered, shaking his head and beginning to climb with her. "What are you doing?" Charlotte asked, stopping. Leo kept climbing past her, until he reached the top of the 6 foot wire fencing. He smiled down at her, "I'm coming with you." He looked entirely too pleased with himself as he dropped to the other said, Charlotte quickly followed because as much as she didn't trust him, he had answers she desperately needed. "I don't need protecting." She told him, landing besides him. "I'm sure you don't." He said, and then things got quiet. Scarily quiet. "Sooooo.." Charlotte let the word drag out. "Don't you have a plan?" Leo asked. Charlotte refused to look at him as she admitted "No..I was just going to leave and, I don't know." She shrugged, Leo rolled his eyes. "That spy school did you no good." He started to walk away, she hurried to follow him. "No, what did me no good was that you killed my mother." She snapped. Leo stopped, he glared at her. "Are you dumb?" He snapped. "I didn't kill her. They killed her and they were going to kill me too." Charlotte kept walking. "Damn shame they didn't." She snapped over her shoulder. Then she stopped when she realised Leo wasn't following her anymore. Charlotte turned and looked over her shoulder, he just stood there with his hands shoved into his pockets looking back at her. "Well, are you coming or not?" She yelled, her voice carrying on the wind, because as much as she didn't want to admit it - she needed him.

It took them six days to reach the safe house, but eventually they did. As they disabled the motion sensors and slipped under the wire fencing, the sun began to rise on the horizon. "What is the place?" Leo asked, as a lodge began to come into view. Charlotte didn't answer him, it was her chance to have the upper hand, to keep a secret. She just kept walking until Leo grabbed her arm and forced her to stop and look at him. "Is this safe?" He asked her, she tried to pull away. "Charlotte, is this place safe?" Leo snapped, voice rising. Charlotte couldn't help but laugh. "We're twenty miles from any kind of civilisation, of course it's safe." She said, marching straight up to the lodge's bulletproof door. "Can the school trace you here?" Leo asked, not moving an inch from where he stood. "No." Charlotte said. "Who exactly owns this place?" Leo asked, still stood frozen, Charlotte glanced behind her at the lodge. She ran her fingers across the logs, and for a while, Leo thought maybe she wasn't going to answer him at all. "Mum's." Charlotte whispered, not looking at Leo. "It belonged to my mum." The air seemed colder then, somehow, and Charlotte shivered standing there outside her mother's safe house. Leo walked over to her now, unzipping his jacket. He placed it over her shoulders, not saying a word, as he stepped inside. She stood there for a while, with Leo's jacket around her. Maybe if she was a normal girl she would've wondered what that meant, why a cute guy would give you their jacket but ignore you afterwards. But she wasn't a normal girl, Charlotte knew that, especially when Leo shouted from inside the lodge. "Charlotte, maybe you should come look at this?"

Inside the lodge was eerie, a different kind of eerie to Leo's old home. Maybe it was the memories of her mother here or the stories she had heard about this place. Maybe it was what she stared at, as Leo slid aside a solid stone wall. "Secret passageway?" Charlotte guessed, her eyes wide. Leo nodded, he seemed lost for words. "Does it go anywhere?" She asked, stepping inside. But Leo grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn around and look at him. His eyes were filled with panic and fear, and she didn't know what had freaked him out so much, because surely future spy-slash-assassin-boys weren't scared of spiders or the dark. "You don't know what's down there." He said, and Charlotte wanted to point out, that in fact, that was exactly why she wanted to go down the secret tunnel, but she kept her mouth shut. Something in Leo's eyes told her he wasn't telling her something. "Don't lie to me Leo." Charlotte said, jerking her arm away from his grasp. "Please don't go down there." Leo was pleading with her, but Charlotte didn't want to listen. She took another step into the blackness, not looking where she was going. Maybe that's why she didn't notice the ground fall away beneath her, as the trap door opened and she fell into the black below.

The landing was hard. Like, I-think-I-just-heard-my-bones-crack hard. Charlotte sat upright and tried to see through the dim light of the room. The air was dank and dusty. "Nice of you to drop by." Charlotte screamed, scooting backwards on the hard dusty floor. "Charlie." She hissed, starring through the blackness. She saw a figure reach for a light switch. The lights flickered, casting shadows across the underground room as Charlie sat on an overturned crate starring at her. Charlotte bolted to her feet, and started backing away. "What are you doing here?" Her mind raced, as a million reasons came to mind, none of them good. "It was a trap." Charlotte whispered, she could hear Leo from above her. The sounds of rappelling cord as he made his rapid decent into the basement below. He landed on the floor besides her, and Charlotte told herself her heart was racing purely because she was trapped. "It was a trap." She said to Leo, staring at him through the eerie glow of the lights. Leo shook his head, "no, it wasn't meant to be." He stepped towards Charlie. "Not anymore anyway." Charlie shrugged, as if Leo never let him have any fun. "Why didn't you warn me?" Charlotte yelled. "Because I didn't think he would be this stupid!" Leo snapped back, pointing to Charlie. "He is here." Charlie said, rolling his eyes. "He won't be for much longer." Charlotte snapped, lunging forward, but Leo caught her mid-air, stopping her from landing a well placed blow to Charlie's head. "Leo!" She yelled. "Do you hear that?" He shushed her. "Hear what?" She asked, then she listened. There was a distant beeping noise carrying through the trap door. "A bomb?" Charlie whispered. Charlotte shrugged. "Mum rigged everything." Then she realised what she said. "Mum rigged EVERYTHING!" She yelled, already sprinting to the cord Leo had rappelled down.

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I n s t a g r a m: pengmendes

- Naomi x