The Whisper On the Wind

Chapter One

I suppose it all began when I died.

Well, according to my family and everybody but the CIA.

It was beautiful, really. The explosion occured when I herded everybody outside, before it all blew up.

According to my mom, my dad, my brothers, everybody, I was still inside.

It was in that explosion that Whisper Lake was born.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Now that I think about it, that wasn't when I died, it was when I met Alexei.

I would be like any other girl, if not for two people: my dad and Alexei.

My dad is amazing, he should've worked for the military but he didn't. He forced his son and his daughter into jiu jitsu and krav maga, riflery, you name it. Most girls my age took piano lessons or Girl Scouts, I learned the seven ways to elbow somebody. Every weekend, while the Girl Scouts sold cookies to remincint adults, I was out in Sutton learning how to handle a .22 pistol.

My dad was a working class man, who did everything in his power to protect his little girl. His son was a gamer, not the kind of kid who cared about the seven ways to elbow somebody. He would rather stay home and live stream on his YouTube channel.

I learned how to survive, how to manage my time, how to do fancy tricks.

My mom gave me my first trench coat, hidden inside were all sorts of fancy gadgets. My dad's office worked to create fun stuff like lasers and tranquilizer darts.

My dad's first lesson in using a gun was,"Always treat a gun like it's loaded. Always."

His second was,"If someone's going to kill you, you can kill them in self-defense. If you can tranquilize them, taze them, do it. But if you can't, you must pull the trigger."

"But, Dad,"I'd argued,"We're the good guys. You can't fight fire with fire."

"Then the world would go up in smoke,"he smiled,"But Alexander Hamilton died in a duel when he fired at the sky. You may only kill in self-defense. If there's another way to stop them, then by all means use it."

I nodded.

Alexei was very Russian-looking. He spoke Russian at home and had the dark hair and eyes that was unique to the country. He had one mole on his forehead and his eyes changed color in the sunshine.

He was a foreign exchange student in our class. I didn't know a lot of things about him.

The bell rang when our teacher let us go eat lunch and he commented on my trench coat.

"You can hide a lot of things in a trench coat,"he muttered casually.

I nodded agreeably, rubbing the handle of my tranquilizer gun.

He slipped away, only to be cornered by Fist Drizzle.

Fist was the star quarterback of the football team and had a problem with new kids.

Alexei shot me a desperate look. Though he was approaching six feet, he had the pale look of a kid who had barely ever been out in the sun.

"Fist,"I smiled charmingly, strolling over,"Leave the kid alone."

"Who's gonna stop me?"

"I will."

He laughed,"Try me."

"You go first, unless you're too chicken."

Alexei's face was a mix of something, admiration, pride, a bit of relief. I didn't have time to analyze it.