The Royal Resistance

Chapter 9 - This is War.

"It's my fault."

The gun shots of an hour before rang in Maria's ears. Images flashed across her mind. The dark car, materializing from the night; the woman in uniform; the shock of the Portuguese man; the fear in James' eyes. The moment kept replaying in her mind: the dark shadows moving swiftly across the ground, infiltrating her vision, coiling around her dangling feet. She saw herself falling into the darkness, further, further. Helpless.

"It's all my fault. If I hadn't followed the symbols, found the MI5. If you hadn't taken me home-"

"If we hadn't taken you home you would be the one in the enemy's hands right now. Which I suspect is exactly what they wanted. That was no ordinary fight Maria, it was an ambush."

Maria shook her head, her breaths becoming quicker as she remembered the gun in her hand pressed against the man's stomach, the fear in his eyes. It shook her to the core. Why want her? Why take Carlotta? Why take anybody? She didn't believe that people could do such a vile thing. The power of the gun was still radiating off her hand, her fingers twitching violently with the evil presence. They were monsters - she saw the terror in the man's soul - but so was she. "I don't want to do this anymore," she whispered. James looked at her from the other side of the MI5's meeting room - where they along with Martha Rose, the General and Agent 004 were having an emergency meeting. A mix of emotions swirled in his eyes - fear, disbelief, sympathy, anger. His face however remained blank. "Please," she whispered, "I can't." In the corner of the room agent 004 increased the speed with which she twisted a dagger across her hands.

"Maria-"

"I can't Ja- Junior! I can't. I saw the fear in that man's eyes, he thought I was going to kill him." The asian girl's dagger spun faster, grip tightening on the hilt.

"And I saw his smirk when he was killing you!"

The general stood up from his chair next to the top of the table, "I know what we can do," Maria waited for the biting remark, "my lady does not wish to be part of the organization. Upon signing a contract of release with terms of secrecy and consequences should she fail to keep it, we should let her go." The royal looked up in astonishment at his happy smile.

004's dagger slammed into the block, "She knows too much. If we let her go... well one slip from er' royal mouth could cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Allied forces."

"I would never-" Maria started to say.

"It doesn't matter," James's sharp tone cut in. "That attack was planned and now they have the advantage of knowing that Maria is vulnerable. If they come back for her and take her, well she doesn't know how to defend herself. They'll use her for information-"

"So you tellin' me I got to sit' a royal?"

"Or they'll use her to get information out of Blackbird." The girl was quiet. Maria eyes darted back and forth between the fierce glower of the girl and the stern façade of the pilot.

"So what do we do now?" Maria whispered, fearful of tipping the heavy tension in the atmosphere against her. Agent 004's piercing stare became darker as it swiveled to meet her. But she didn't say a thing. No one did. Except Martha Rose.

The four of them looked at the woman who had been busily pacing up and down mumbling to herself since they had arrived. "He warned me about this," she was saying, "he told me something like this would happen. I should've known." She reached the corner of the room turned around and started walking again, oblivious to the stares of the others. The general coughed. Martha reached the end of the room and turned around again, mumbling incoherently. He coughed louder, but Martha kept pacing.