Spy School Party Failure

Chapter 6

A/N
Sorry for the late update! I went through and fixed spelling and grammar mistakes, but then I got lazy and stopped writing. Feel free to let me know if you find any other mistakes! Thanks for reading!

Unknown Location
Building That Looks Like A School
Washington, D.C. (Hopefully)
February 29th (Probably)
0530 Hours

I was shocked. But then, I wasn't. Because if you think about it, that would make sense. It was unlikely that a student would come to Spy School in the middle of the year, be put into a class younger than their age group, claim they've never done anything like spying before, but manage to be amazing with a gun. Okay maybe it wasn't that unlikely, as I know people who fit at least one of those categories, but I still should have known something was up. I also guessed she'd been the ones sending me the notes. I didn't see her walk by me in the cafeteria, but she was in the bathroom, meaning she could have seen me throw the note out. She was also in my class when the fire alarm went off, and it's a safe bet to say the fire alarm was set off by another SPYDER agent that was in on the plan. Even though it made since, I still felt betrayed.
"You're working for them?" I asked her, even though I knew the answer was yes. "But I thought we were friends." I'll admit, I probably sounded like a little kid whining, but I couldn't help it. "You taught me to shoot a gun."
"Look, Ben-" Emily started to say something (probably something along the lines of "Ben you're so amazing, I would never betray you" or "I'm just kidding, I'm only pretending to be on SYPDER's side") but Joshua cut her off.
"Yes, and I do wish she hadn't done such a good job at that." He looked in Emily's direction. "He's already smart, we don't need him trained in other skills. We had an advantage on him, but now he's slightly competent." Emily hung her head, slightly.
I was about to protest the fact that he insulted me, and I was talented in other fields (maybe not, but I like to pretend) but Joshua said, "Emily, will you please escort them back to their room? And here," He handed her a gun, "In case anyone tried to run off." She took it dutifully and poked the gun at my back, signaling that we should start walking.

I walked back through the hallways, but it didn't feel as homey as it had before. Emily stood in the back of the group, gun at the ready, and I stood in front of her. Erica led the way.
"Turn left," Emily reminded her.
"I know where I'm going," Erica snapped back.
"Well sorry." Emily rolled her eyes.
"You should be," I muttered.
"What?"
I said you should sorry!" I said angrily. "I can't believe you would do something like this." We'd arrived at the door leading to the room we were in.
"Hasn't your "friend" Erica already taught you this? That's just how spying is." She flipped on the lights in the room, "Why are you guys sitting in the dark like a bunch of weirdos?" She turned to walk out the door.
"Wait," I called out to her, "It was you who sent me the notes, wasn't it?" She looked at me in a way that confirmed the question. Then she left, and closed and locked the door behind her.
I scanned my eyes around the now brightly lit room and saw that everyone else was up now. Catherine rushed over to us.
"My goodness, you've really given us a scare," She chirped in her delightful British accent, "But I'm glad to see you're all okay. What happened?"
"Ben here is crying over his friend Emily because apparently she's evil now," Erica stated coldly.
"Hey!" I was upset, but she could clearly see I wasn't crying.
"Wait Emily like the Emily who goes to our school?" Mike asked. I nodded. "But she seemed so cool. You never told me you were friends with her."
"That doesn't matter," Erica snapped, "Because you're not supposed to have friends in the spying business! Now you're gonna be all upset this whole mission and it's gonna ruin everything!"
"You have friends!" I pointed out to her, "They're standing right there!"
"I just brought them along for the mission."
"Mission?" Zoe asked, "This is a mission? I thought you were inviting us to your birthday party. Did you really have this planned the whole time?"
"Obviously." Erica gracefully stormed into a small corner of the room and put her head in her hands.
Catherine walked over and slung an arm around Zoe to comfort her. "I know Erica can be a bit... Rude at times, but we have much to discuss," She waved Chip and Jawa over, who were standing against the wall, trying their best not to engage in the conversation. "Okay, so the plan is to stall here as long as we can until we can get a location and send people to rescue us and capture the SPYDER agents here in the process. Excuse me well I go discuss things with Erica."

I was sitting against the wall, thinking about everything. I had been betrayed before, but it hurt even more the more times it happened. And Erica. She seemed so angry. I know we'd had the "you can't have friends and be a spy talk" plenty of times over, but I can't believe she would say that she didn't have any friends when people she had called her friends were right in front of her.
"Hey." Valerie came and leaned against the wall next to me.
"Hi," I said weakly. She slid down to sitting.
"So you and Erica are close?" She asked.
"I thought we were. Why do you ask?"
She chuckled a little bit, "I dunno, I just kinda figured since you'd been on a lot of missions with her that you might have gotten close to her."
"She doesn't let anyone close to her."
Valerie sighed, "Erica's not actually mean, she just wants to be the one to save the world, and doesn't want anyone to get in her way."
"Yeah, and she'd push anyone in the way of danger for her sake. And pushes everyone away from her."
Valerie cringed, "Well Erica's had bad experiences with people getting too close to her."
That I knew. "Joshua," I said quietly.
Valerie nodded, "Mmhm, and between you and me, I think that's why she was acting so mean. Well at least more angry than she usually is."
I laughed. "Do you know the whole story behind them?"
"Yeah, um, as you know, Erica has known me for forever, that part wasn't a lie, and one summer, she came home and told me about this amazing guy she had met." Valerie stopped herself, "God, I shouldn't be telling you about this. You know she'll kill me if she finds out I told you."
I laughed, again. I was surprised someone like Valerie would be friends with Erica. "I won't tell her you said anything."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She took a deep breath, "Okay, so she came home one summer and told me about this guy and how he was nice and funny and a really good spy, and I thought, 'no way could Erica Hale actually have a crush on someone' because Erica 3 years ago was exactly like the Erica you know today. But I could tell she liked him.
"Now, the girls and I have an odd relationship with Spy School, but we were welcome there, so the next school year she took me to meet him. I didn't like him. Even then he gave off a sort of intimidating vibe, but Erica either didn't care or didn't notice. I'm sure that in her eyes, he was the only spy there who was as competent as she was, and so they became friends. And they were really close friends too. They were always teaming up together for capture the flag, and working on projects together, so you can imagine how she felt when she found he was working for SPYDER."
I could. At least a little bit. I had just been betrayed by someone I thought was my friend. And I had only known her for a couple of days. I couldn't imagine what I would do if I found out my closest friend was working for an evil organization.
"So you think that's why she's upset?" I asked her.
Valerie shrugged. "Maybe. I was thinking that seeing what Emily did to you caused her to think about what he did to her."
I nodded slowly. That made sense. I felt a little bad about how mad I was at Erica. But only a little, because who knew if Valerie was right or not.
"Ben! Valerie! Come here!" Catherine called us over to everyone else.
Valerie sighed and stood up, "But then again, what do I know?" She offered me a hand and helped pull me up. She looked me in the eyes. "Remember, promise."
I nodded, "I promise."
We stood with the rest of the group.
Catherine huddled is all in close, "All right, we've got a plan."