Under the Radar

Saving My Brother (For Some Unknown Reason)

‘Fantastic.’ As I crouched by myself in a bush outside of Mercury’s house, I could make out two assassins watching the house. Clearly they knew I had been there and were waiting for me to show up again. They hadn’t seemed to have caused trouble yet, but that doesn’t mean that would stay that way. If I didn’t show, they might go in there and just kill everyone.

I crept back to the truck. “Assassins. Two of them. I need to take them out ASAP, before they decide they are tired of waiting for me to come back.”

“I’ll come with you,” Lorna said. “You could use the back-up.”

“Sure. And Jinx, you should come too. You need to start somewhere, might as well start where you know where your enemies are. It isn’t always like that in the field.”

“Yeah, just ask Owl,” Dakota laughed. “One mission, she saw this really hot guy in the street, so she started flirting with him and invited him to dinner with us and he ended up being an informant for this enemy agency so…”

“Hey! He was cute!” Alia protested.

“You get the point,” I said. “Owl, can you monitor the outside of the house? Let me know if something changes.”

“Okey dokey!” she chirped. She grabbed a pair of binoculars off of the floor. Seemed kind of random but then again, this was Henderson’s vehicle. Who knows what kind of gadgets he keeps?

As we exited the vehicle, Gretchen added, “Hope your brother gets stabbed! Not killed, but maybe cut up at least a little bit…”

I rolled my eyes, grabbed my backpack from under my seat and slammed the door. I knew Gretchen was kidding. Of course, she may have partly meant it too. Mercury loves to bug her. That may be because I told him to in the first place and he just continued to do so, but still.

In truth, I really hoped he would be okay. Who was I supposed to yell at to shut up in my classes if he was hurt? Besides, his sister and I are the only ones allowed to beat him up.

Alia climbed up a nearby tree and, with the binoculars in her hands, started monitoring the area. When she was in position, I nodded to Lorna and she and I started creeping towards the “hidden” agents on our hands and knees. Jasmine quietly muttered a complaint about crawling on the ground, but she did it anyways, keeping right behind us.

As I neared the first agent, I silently pulled a knife out from my boot. Jasmine’s eyes went wide. ‘You actually going to kill that guy?’ she mouthed.

I shook my head and pulled a rag and a bottle out from my backpack. ‘Chloroform’ I mouthed. The knife was just for insurance. I tipped the bottle over the rag and waited until the rag was wet. Then I handed the bottle back to Lorna and jumped the guy from behind.

He tried to let out a cry of surprise, but I covered his mouth with the rag and threw my other arm around his throat, cutting off his airway. No way was he alerting the other dude that we were here.

Granted, I probably got a few bruises. The guy was twice my size and he tried to put up a fight. But eventually, he passed out. Lorna pulled him off of me.

“Scorpion, you and Clue can deal with this body once,” I quietly spoke into my radio. “Lucky you.”

“Why do I have to?”

“Because right now I have more important things to do. Just gag and tie him and stuff him in the back. He can be Henderson’s problem when we get back.”

Lorna and Jasmine had already started creeping towards the second guy. I crawled right behind them.

“If we are just going to knock them out, then why did I come with you guys?” Jasmine whispered.