Absent

Prologue

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I was afraid. There were four walls, blank and unfamiliar, surrounding me and there was no one else here to explain what was going on. Not that I would believe them anyway.

I did not know what to believe. These people, they- they killed Dominus. Would they kill me too? Most likely.

My mind was racing with questions. Only eleven days had passed since we had been taken. Eleven days of silence. No one had said a word to me. They had taken my DNA: my saliva, blood, hair follicle and urine sample. They took my finger prints, and footprints, medically examined me, my vision and hearing. Without any explanation, they forced me to undergo all of this. I wanted to know where the rest of the Agency had been taken; my fellow trainees and operatives. What had happened to Bella?

Bella. She was a prodigy like no other. She excelled in every form of training they had given us. She held the highest scores that anyone had achieved in years. I had admired her and strived to be more like her for as long as I could remember. But then, that night... what she said did not make any sense.

We had been placed into the Agency as infants, all of us. We were chosen at birth. There, we trained our entire lives for seventeen years. It was in our eighteenth year that we became true operatives. True members of the Agency. That is the year we were given our final assessment. No one could have prepared me for what this assessment had in store.

I was only in my sixteenth year, but Dominus, our leader, had sensed danger coming. He had me and two others do our final assessments early. He wanted us to join the Specialists to protect him. That was what the Specialist team did. It was Dominus' final line of defense and it was the strongest.

That night, I was given my first assignment. It was... different than what I thought it was going to be. I still remembered every detail. I had wanted to prove myself so badly. I wanted to be one of the best, like Bella. So when Kenneth, the Specialist in charge of giving me my assignment, told me what to do, I didn't hesitate.

I could still feel the way my heart pounded in my chest. I remembered it all. The weight of the gun in my hand, the ear-shattering echo of a shot, the scent of blood wafting-

My stomach turned and I breathed in deeply to quell the nausea that suddenly took over me. I had only done what I was supposed to do- what Kenneth had told me to do. I thought that the other trainees had done the same. When we got back to the Agency that night, I wasn't  expecting to see the other trainees who had finished their assignments like I had.

But then Bella came in. She had seemed so upset, in a way I had never seen. We were taught to hide our emotions, but Bella disregarded all of that. She looked angry and hurt, and distraught.

She had said things about Dominus. Crazy things. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

Now I was here, in the cold, empty room with nothing but my thoughts. I sat at a small table with three chairs surrounding it, the one I was sitting in and the two across from it. Two men had come to my holding cell that morning and dragged me here. They hadn't uttered a word, just pushed me in here and left. There wasn't even a handle on the door, meaning no lock for me to pick. No air vents, no windows, no escape. Just one long strip of glass along one wall that showed nothing but my own reflection.

Dirty, blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail. Naturally tanned skin, and dark blue eyes. It was my first time really seeing my own face. It wasn't the way I had imagined it all of these years. The small reflection I got from computer screens and pools of water had been misleading.

I was seeing details now that I hadn't before, like the soft shape of my nose and the light freckles that dusted my cheeks right below my eyes. I pulled my gaze away from the glass and back to my hands that still remained bound by handcuffs. I could have broken out of them easily, but I didn't want to anger whoever had brought me here. My first and only goal was survival.