A Truelove of Turtle Doves

Chpt 19 - By The Sea

"Hey, girl," I muttered, stroking (H/N)'s side, "Ready to head out?"

Her reply was a snort and a shake of her head, which I took as a yes.

I mounted her and was about to leave the grounds at full speed (to avoid being seen) when I caught sight of Josie and Lauren running up to me, Edward close behind them. What do they want now? I couldn't help but feel slightly agitated by their appearance.

"What?" I sighed as they reached me.

Both of them were panting heavily, but Lauren recovered first.

"This is never... going to work," she heaved.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh shut up, yee of little faith. It's not difficult."

"Yeah, but your parents aren't stupid," countered Josie.

"Debatable."

"Alright, Michael and his assistant aren't stupid."

"Probably," added Lauren.

I sighed again. "We've been through this. Just cover for me until I get back, okay? I don't know how long I'm going to be, so I might run over my curfew again, and if they catch me a second time I'm not going to get away with it."

"And if they figure out that the four of us have been lying to their faces for the past 2 and a half weeks then we are all as good as dead," warned Edward as he reached us.

"Didn't feel like running?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Edward has a point. Maybe you should just wait a bit and let everything settle before you go out and do crazy stuff with Francis again," reasoned Josie.

I shook my head. "I can't do that. I already told him that I'd meet him today. I can't just not show up. Do you know how worried he'd be if I did that?"

"Do you know how dead we're all going to be if this goes wrong?" Josie and Lauren both had their arms folded and were regarding me with skeptical looks.

"Guys, come on! Trust me on this. We'll be fine. We have Penny and Ava as back-up in case things get too close for comfort, and Clark is happy to let anything slide as long as he doesn't get into trouble."

"We're just... worried," admitted Lauren, "I mean, if you don't know when you're going to be back, then we don't know how long we are going to have to cover you for. It would be so easy to slip up."

"You won't slip up," I reassured, looking at each of the three people in front of me in turn, "I trust all of you. I know that you guys are going to breeze through this. Please. I need you to do this."

I knew I was asking a lot of them. Lauren and Josie were used to telling a few lies to their parents, but not to mine. Never to mine. They would be in serious hot water if they were caught, and so would I. Edward, on the other hand, could lose his job. So his was much more serious. That was part of the reason why we just needed him to deter Michael; if the situation got desperate, he could claim that he didn't know that I was missing, and that he was just following the sisters' orders. Edward wasn't thrilled by this, but we didn't give him much of a choice. After the close call three days ago, and the fact that we hadn't gotten any leads on who could be helping Michael, we had to be careful with our next steps.

Josie sighed heavily. "Alright. I trust you. But if this all goes to shit-"

"Which it won't," I interjected.

"If  this all goes to shit, I am never speaking to you again, understand?"

"Deal."