A V E R Y

I was not about to let my nerves about the gala and potentially life-threatening mission after spoil my mood, seeing as I was with Clara, trying to help her find a dress for her school disco.

Key word here being trying.

'What is wrong with you?' she shrieked, when I held up a navy blue dress that would go up to just before her knees. 'Are you deliberately trying to make me look like a nun, or what?'

'Christ, okay, calm down,' I grumbled, discarding the dress and flopping back to sit on her bed. According to both her and Maddie, my fashion sense was terrible.

Nice to know.

Clara looked over at me, her eyebrows drawn together in frustration. She clicked her fingers in front of my face and I blinked at her, trying to remember whether I was that confident and full of attitude when I was her age.

I didn't think so.

'Can you get up and help me?' she whined, tying her hair up in a frustrated manner. 'If you don't, I'll tell Sienna about your boyfriend.' The look on her face was smug and victorious, seeing as she'd thought I'd finally break and help her.

Ha. No chance. Avery Ellen Green did not take well to being blackmailed.

At all.

I narrowed my eyes at her, proud that I looked as if I wasn't bothered on the outside - a complete opposite to my raging heartbeat and the blush that was rising from my chest.

'Now what do you know about my so-called boyfriend, Clara?' I said coolly, raising an eyebrow at her.

My sister folded arms and I was shocked that she looked a little intimidating. Just a little, though.

'I know that you're not meant to be with him for some reason, and I also know that you really, really like him.'

'And how did you find all of this out?'

She shrugged. 'I heard you and Maddie talking in your room a few days ago.'

I chuckled, not taking the situation seriously. 'You heard or you eavesdropped?' I asked, trying to keep a straight face.

Clara pursed her lips. It made her look like an old woman. 'Eavesdropped. I definitely eavesdropped.'

I let out the laugh I'd been holding in and my sister looked at me in confusion before her features relaxed and she began to giggle too.

'I don't even know why we're laughing,' she gasped, her red face and constipated expression making me wheeze with laughter.

It took me a full five minutes to calm down, and then I went back to the matter at hand. 'You're right about some stuff, Clara, but I'll tell you some of the stuff you didn't figure out.' My sister settled down onto the bed beside me, all thoughts of the school dance forgotten as she waited intently to hear the story. 'I really liked this boy, see, and we hit it off pretty easily. And for various reasons, he was wrong for me, though I didn't figure that one out until later. Anyway, I really liked him, and things were kind of getting serious, but I had to stop whatever were doing because my safety was important.'

Clara was silent for a bit, and then she spoke up, her voice strong and assured. 'I won't tell Sienna, by the way. I was only teasing. And if you really like this boy, why not just be with him?'

'It's complicated, Clara, and I told you in confidence, so don't go around telling the girls okay? It's not exactly my favourite topic to talk about.'

She nodded, already moving to pick up another dress and hold it up to herself to inspect in the mirror.

I loved her, but she really did have a short attention span.

'What about this one?' she asked, watching carefully for my reaction to a dark green dress with a little bit of a low back.

I grinned at her, coming up from behind to twist her hair up and tie it to see what it would look like styled with the dress.

'It's perfect.'

***

The party in New York was in less than two weeks and at Salvation HQ, we were busy with work.

When I first decided to start planning this mission, I honestly didn't think that this much work would have to go into it - I mean, there were guns to transport, clothes to get pressed, make up artists to hire, blueprints and maps to scour through.

Even when I wasn't working, I was thinking about doing all the work we still had left and believe me, I was pretty sure grey hairs were growing because of it.

Not to mention the fear in my heart that we wouldn't get everything done in time.

That fear left me awake at night, wishing I could pour my heart out to someone, yet the only person I wanted to talk to I couldn't.

But I so, so desperately wanted to.

More than I ever thought I would.

Call me naïve, but I truly thought that breaking up with him would get whatever the hell was in my system, lust or hormones, out, but it hadn't helped yet.

And I didn't really think it would go away, either, but that was the one thought I refused to linger on.

'Avery, please stop daydreaming, we have work to do,' Eric said, exasperated. 'You want to save the world and kick some ass or what?'

I blinked at him. 'Yeah, I do.'

He clicked his fingers in front of my face, clearly satisfied with my response. 'Well, these guns aren't going to check and clean themselves now, are they? Focus, kid.'

I picked up the Glock closest to me and checked it over, pulling out the magazine and inspecting the bullets. Seemed good to me.

The next hour was spent logging and sending the weapons we'd ordered off to be packaged and flown to New York ahead of time, so that when the time came, our arrival didn't look suspicious.

Precautions were everything, according to the old man at the top.

Asa popped her head in to the room, her black braids swinging. She motioned me over and I gladly went to her.

Though my job was necessary, it was boring as fuck, too.

'What's up?' I asked, sitting down next to her when she told me to do so. The computer in front of her showed what looked like a few trackers across the town.

'I'm assuming Miss Clifford told you about her idea of keeping a close eye on Luke?' Asa began, turning back to the screen and zooming in when I nodded. 'Well, I've been keeping an eye on him, and he seems to be visiting the places that used to be DM bases, or near to it.'

'How do you know this?'

'Mr. Fuller arranged for a covert operation yesterday for someone to plant a tracker on Luke. It went successfully.'

Well that was certainly a good turn of events.

'So do we move in? Do we get to bring him in for questioning?' I asked, eager for the asshole to go down.

Asa laughed, patting my shoulder and shaking her head. 'Nah. Mr. Fuller has asked us to leave the boy alone until he actually does something, or else there's a chance we could be playing straight into someone's trap.'

Damien had a point, but he was clearly aiming the message at Maddie and I. We were the ones with the biggest grudge towards that piece of shit.

Pardon my french.

I thanked Asa and walked back to my work station, sighing as I sat down to do more weapon checking. By the second hour, my arms were beginning to ache and my vision was going funny from squinting too much.

'Hey,' Eric called from the other side of the room, wiping his hands on a tissue, 'Go take a walkabout and then come back. I don't want the boss on my back about inhumane work conditions. Scram.'

He waved his hand at me in dismissive gesture. Grumbling, I hauled myself out of the room and the building, sucking the much needed fresh air into my lungs.

Eric hadn't exactly specified how long my break was, so I decided to hell with it - I might as well go get food whilst I was out.

My stomach grumbled in agreement and I checked my purse for cash. There was enough for a pizza, thank god.

I ambled along the streets and ordered a spicy chicken pizza at Marion's diner, letting the delicious smells of the bakery lessen my hunger a little.

'Here you go, sweetie. One spicy chicken for you.' Marion called out, pushing the box across the counter. She smiled when I inhaled the aroma and handed me a few cookies from the bakery.

'On the house, darlin'.'

And they said Samaritans didn't exist anymore.

Feeling like the world was in the palm of my hands, I began the long journey back to the Salvation, pizza box resting in one arm, the bag of cookies in another.

'It's a good day,' I said to myself, not even minding the winds that whipped my hair back violently and left me looking like a hell hound.

I even stopped to take a slice of pizza from the box and munch on it as I walked.

'Melted cheese is the shit,' I groaned, shutting my eyes against the onslaught of heaven in my mouth.

And so I didn't notice when footsteps padded behind me, getting faster and faster until someone slammed into me.

The pizza fell from my hands along with the cookies, and I whirled, anticipating some sort of attack.

An unfamiliar girl swung her hand up to try and shove a handkerchief, no doubt laced with rohypnol or some other roofie, onto my mouth and nose. I glared at her and swung her arm away, pushing at her chest with a firm hand so she stumbled back; then I stuck a foot out and let her trip over it.

'You little-'

I sighed, looking down at the tall, dark-skinned girl with pity as she squirmed and gasped over the foot I had on her throat.

'How about we not attack each other, huh?' I reasoned, grabbing a slice of pizza from the box that lay open on the floor and chewing on it. 'We should talk things out, woman to woman, and then go our separate ways. How does that sound, hmm?'

My attacker let out a string of garbled curses and spat at me. Not surprising really, seeing as I pretty much had my foot down her throat.

I finished off the pizza and wiped my hands together. 'Why can't we be nice to each other?' I asked, lifting the pressure a little so she could talk.

'I'm not paid to be nice.' she growled, trying and failing to swipe at my legs.

Her attempts were going to work sooner or later, and we couldn't exactly stay like this forever.

I smiled sweetly at her. 'Neither am I. Tell your boss that if they want to talk, let me know; I don't take well to being almost kidnapped, 'kay?'

The girl spat at me again as her wriggling intensified. I blew out a breath and delivered a blow to her head that would keep her sleeping for a while.

Then, being the considerate person I was, I left her a pizza slice and turned away, wanting to get back to Damien and report as quick as I could.

A bat swung and hit the side of my head, and for the second time that day, I went down.

Idiot. Of course she brought reinforcements.

And this time I didn't get back up.

***

Hello, my little assassins! You're not hallucinating, I promise. Another early update? This is what happens when I have spare time 😉

Dedication to Nicco for trying this book out and voting - love ya!

What did you think of the chapter? What do you think will happen to Avery? All will be revealed soon...

Your comments and votes are the only way I know how you feel about this story, so keep them coming!

Love you all for the support, and remember to VOTE!

-M