#2 Double Agents (Librarians Fanfic)

Trust Wears Thin

"Jenkins! The-the-the-the," Cassandra stammered nervously. 

Stone and Ezekiel exchanged nervous glances, before Stone walked towards Cassandra and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. The sudden contact shook her enough so that she could speak again. 

"The clippings book, it's showing, but it can't," she said. She hadn't noticed Stone quickly stepping away from her and put his hands in his pockets. Ezekiel smirked, looking down at his phone so that Stone didn't catch him. 

"What? What's happened?" Jenkins asked, walking over to inspect the book. He glanced at Ezekiel, raising his eyebrow like he was asking "did you do the hair trick?" Ezekiel nodded, and Jenkins raised his eyebrows before looking down at the open pages. 

"But, that's impossible," he said, as if it were common knowledge. He looked up, and he gave Ezekiel another look. Ezekiel frowned and got up, thinking that he might as well read the book too if none of them were going to tell him what was going on. He looked down and the first thing he saw made his stomach jump. 

"What? Du Lac's alive!" he said quickly, sounding surprised even though he was secretly furious. There was a picture in the clippings book, and while it was blurry, it was clearly the leader of The Serpent Brotherhood. Finally the clippings book was picking up on the fact The Serpent Brotherhood was still around. Which meant hell for his secret girlfriend. "What else does it say?" he asked, because none of the others would speak. 

"Wait, hang on, that's not a newspaper," Stone spoke suddenly, pointing to a piece of old, dusty paper at the bottom of the page. Ezekiel frowned. Jenkins frowned too, but of course he could read it. 

"That's-," 

"The girdle of Aphrodite," Stone interrupted him, pointing at specific words. "But, Jenkins, we searched the Greek room recently, everything was there." 

"Ah! That's what i wanted to interrogate our favourite master thief about," Jenkins said, staring Ezekiel down suspiciously. 

"What? You think i'd steal something from the Greek room?" Ezekiel said, feeling his hands start shaking. He shoved them into his hoodie and continued, "I almost died in there once! Why would I steal something? Besides, where would I put it? It's not like I could take it very far from the Library." 

"You didn't die," Stone said, almost laughing at him. He could tell the younger Librarian was getting uneasy, so he tried defending him. "But he has got a point, Jenkins, where would he put it?" 

Jenkins looked shocked for a second, but he wasn't going to stop so easily. "Why, then, is it missing? And suddenly The Serpent Brotherhood appears in the clippings book. Now, Mister Jones, do you need to tell us you've been sneaking off to the Serpent Brotherhood?" he asked. 

"What? Of course not!" Ezekiel said, noticing Cassandra looked worried. She probably thought he'd betrayed them, but he hadn't. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he couldn't risk Jenkins thinking he was still double crossing them. He couldn't explain what he'd been doing the past couple of months, not even to her. 

"You have been disappearing Ezekiel," Cassandra said, rubbing her hands together nervously, "You've been disappearing for hours on end. Where-," she paused, and Ezekiel noticed her eyes looked shiny, "Where have you been going?" she asked. It wounded him to see her so convinced he'd betrayed them. 

"I've been, travelling," Ezekiel stammered. 

"Where?" Jenkins asked, stepping in front of Cassandra to shield her from him. 

"Everywhere," Ezekiel started, trying to think of an excuse without telling them about Mordred. "I've been researching the history of some of the artefacts, and I thought I should go to the places where they came from to learn about them properly." 

"Sorry, are we in a universe where you're intelligent? Absolute rubbish!" Jenkins yelled. Ezekiel could see Cassandra jump, and surprisingly, Stone did too. "What else does the Serpent Brotherhood have that should be in the Library?" 

"Nothing-," Ezekiel started. 

"WHAT ELSE!?!" Jenkins roared, towering over the younger Librarian. Anyone else, even Flynn would have cowered underneath the knight and confessed. But something seemed to have happened to Ezekiel that made him stronger than Jenkins harsh stare. 

"I haven't, stolen, anything." Ezekiel said, staring, unblinking up at Jenkins. 

The knight faltered. He looked away from the Librarian and sighed angrily. "Mister Stone, Miss Killian, please keep Ezekiel in this room." he said, eerily calm as he left. Ezekiel thought he might be going to get Baird, which worried him. He was definitely more frightened of Eve than Jenkins. 

There was silence for a moment, and none of them made eye contact. "Ezekiel, if you can't tell us what's going on how can we trust you?" Cassandra asked quietly. 

Ezekiel kept silent. He couldn't tell her the truth, but he wasn't going to lie to her again. She suddenly gasped, running out of the room so that they wouldn't see her cry. Ezekiel collapsed into a chair, noticing Stone was watching him cautiously. When he still didn't say anything, Stone tried talking to him. 

"I can't believe Du Lac's alive," he started, watching the younger Librarian closely. 

"I'm going to kill him," Ezekiel muttered. 

"We all want to little buddy, but we've gotta get this artefact back first. It's powerful, and if the Serpent Brotherhood use it properly, we'll have a bigger problem." He said, wanting to comfort the younger Librarian. 

"Well, I'm grounded, so I don't see how I can help," Ezekiel said, getting his phone out annoyingly. 

"Jones, come on," Stone said. Ezekiel glanced up at him, slightly surprised by his tone. "Is this about that girl?" he asked. 

"No," Ezekiel said, a little too quickly. 

"Well, maybe you should tell her, about this. Any girlfriend of Ezekiel Jones must have connections. If you want to convince Jenkins, and Cassandra, you should try and get some information about this." Stone said, picking up a random book to start looking for Greek myths. "You don't have to tell them about her, just find something to give us a lead on this." 

"Why do you believe me?" Ezekiel asked. 

"Jones, you took down Jenkins laser stare," Stone said, smiling a little, "No thief could do that." he said. 

"I am a thief. I'm Ezekiel Jones," he said, half joking. 

"Yeah, but you're a Librarian too," Stone said, "I just hope Jenkins remembers that."