Spy School: We Meet Again

Chapter 20: No more secrets

Ben's POV

When I was done, with taking care of the wound, I helped Erica walk to the couch. "I will bring you some clean clothes."

Everything has happened so fast. One moment she is alive, then dead, then again, I find her alive. The whole thing, with her bleeding and not allowing me to call the ambulance. It still hasn't really set in, of what I just did and experienced. I don't think my brain really processed the moment she was presumably dead, because I'm confused why I wasn't more surprised to see her there, in the tunnel.

I came back in my living room and gave her the clothes I gave her last time. "Here you go. Do you want to eat? I can quickly make something."

"No, thank you, Ben." She took the clothes and looked at me. "Although a warm tea could be nice right now." Erica gave me a small smile.

"Ok, I will make you one right now. You can change, don't worry, I promise I won't look and I will have my back turned. But if you want me to be in another room, I can be in my room for now. But you will have to wait for the tea." I was talking too much again. I'm nervous.

"Ben, calm down. Please go make me a tea and that's it." Why am I such a mess?

"Yeah, right. Sorry."

"About what?" I was in the kitchen now, but we still kept talking.

"To be fair, I'm sorry about everything." I really feel like a failure.

"Ben you just saved my life. You definitely don't need to apologize for anything. And about what happened years ago, I understand and I'm not mad at you. Now I'm just mad at myself, for acting like a baby and putting all my anger on you." She fell silent for a few seconds. "You can look now. I just changed."

I finished makings the tea and brought it to her. Erica was laying on the couch, not looking too good. I'm really not surprised, after everything that she has been thru today, she should be looking a lot worse.

"Thank you." Erica took the cup of tea.

"For what? I just made a cup of tea. After everything that you have been thru today, it's the least I can do."

"No Ben. Thank you for everything. Thank you for putting up with me and helping me out, even after I pushed you away." She sat up on the couch so she could take a sip from the cup.

"Yeah..." What should I tell her? Should I tell her how I feel? Should I tell her what happened?

"Ben... can I ask you something?" She was holding on to her last piece of energy left.

"Only if you promise me that afterward, you will go get some rest. And by the way, you are sleeping in my bed. No excuses. This time, I will sleep on the couch." I had to be strict with her, otherwise, I knew that she would be stubborn about the fact that she is, in her eyes, ok and she will sleep on the couch.

Erica was thinking about this. "Can we at least talk about, what happened when you disappeared and what happened today? I really don't want there to be any secrets between us. Not anymore."

I knew that she needed some rest, but I don't think, both of us will be able to sleep before we know what happened.

"Ok, but the moment I see that you aren't feeling well, or you are close to falling asleep, I will end this conversation."

"Fine." I could see that she was pleased with herself. "Can you please tell me what happened on the mission. What did Joshua say that made you disappear?"

"It's a long story, but I will try to tell you as much as possible." To be fair, I didn't really want to remember, but Erica has to know.

"Remember when they escorted me out of the room, all of us were held captive in?" She nodded her head. "The gorilla-like agent lead me through a lot of tunnels and doors when suddenly we came to a stop. He opened a door and, on the other side, there were a lot of SPYDER agent sitting down, around a long table. I recognized only one of them and that was Joshua." I took a deep breath and continued. "When I was forced to enter the room, they brought me a chair. Joshua came up to me and started to smile. He introduced me to everyone and then started to recap every time me and you have destroyed their plans. He had a whole speech setup. When he finished talking about previous plans, he looked at me and said- And this is the moment where I tell all of you, how we are going to get rid of Ben."