On my first day at Golden Oaks Academy, I was ushered into a classroom and given 'the talk.' 

At most private schools, that kind of thing would probably be used as a time in which the Headmaster explained the rules.  No students out of bed after curfew.  No male students in female students' rooms (and vice versa).  No violations of the dress code.

That wasn't what I got.

Instead, we were met with things like 'no removing explosives from the Covert Ops practice room' and 'no attacking each other in the halls—even if it is for practice.'  We were told that we weren't allowed to speak English before two o'clock in the afternoon to better our multi-lingual language skills.  But, most importantly, we were told that what we did behind the secluded gates of Golden Oaks academy had to be completely confidential.  VIP's only. 

Golden Oaks wasn't like most prep schools.  We didn't have sports teams or cheerleaders.  There weren't the typical clichés like the jocks or the pretty girls or the nerds.  Our clichés were more of the 'he blow's things up the fastest,' or 'they have the best take-down time,' and 'she's one of the best street-artists we have.'

Another thing that set Oaks apart from all the other schools?  There was no application process.  There were only two ways you get into Oaks Academy.  The first was dependent on your parentage.  Chances were, if either of your parents went to Oaks, then you were almost guaranteed to get the Golden Ticket.  The second was by way of intelligence.  I didn't know how they did it but somehow the Trustees had the entire world wired.  If you had the brains, they would find you. 

That's why I still wasn't quite sure how I got in.

I had an IQ of one-hundred and sixty-seven.  It wasn't bad, not by a long shot, but considering the fact that eighty-point-three percent of my classmates were pretty much walking computers, including one of my roommates and best friends, I was of the stupider variety of attendees to Oaks.  I had absolutely no clue on how I'd ended up here.  But, there was one thing I did know and that was the fact that I wouldn't change it for the world.

Not even right now when I was in the middle of one of my final examinations.

Along with my classmates, I'd been dumped out on the side of the road with only a communications unit, a map, and a flashlight for use.  The unremarkable black vans had then disappeared, heading back towards the school, we presumed, which was where we'd eventually find ourselves. 

Now though, we'd divided ourselves up into three groups.  We had our objective, a little computer device inside of an old warehouse which was currently being guarded by some of MI6's, an intelligence agency based in London, best operatives.  Some of those people were more widely known amongst us as our teachers while several others, I happened to know, were parents to some of my classmates. 

But, just because we had some families coming together on the field tonight didn't mean that we got any sort of hint as to what we were up against.  If anything, the edge of competition only heightened the seal on the confidentiality of the situation.  Everyone just wanted to prove that they were the best. 

A hand brushed across my shoulder and I didn't even have to turn around to know who it was.  Maxwell Bennett.  Max.  He'd been the first person that I'd met at Oaks and we'd become fast friends, though now the term family was probably the one used most commonly to describe our relationship.  He was like a brother to me, more so than my own brother, Wesley, who I hadn't seen in well over three years. 

Max had turned into handsome man too.  When we'd first met, he'd been tall and gangly and it had constantly seemed as if his limbs were just going everywhere.  Now, though, he was more solidly built.  His face had filled out some and he'd put on nearly fifty pounds of muscle from the day we'd met.  That, combined with his piercing blue eyes and clean-cut sand-coloured hair had made him quite the catch at the school where the dating pool was unsurprisingly limited. 

Accompanying the fast friendship Max and I had built, another blossomed from one of my two roommates, Amelia, or Lia as she preferred, Grimes.  She was the daughter of esteemed MI6 agents Brent and Lydia Grimes, the former of whom had shown up at my house to recruit me.  Lia and Max had managed to form a rock-solid foundation for their friendship very early on and it was clear to almost everyone that the two were practically destined for one another, though it took the pair until the beginning of senior year to realize what we'd all seen years before.

"Hey," he murmured to me.  His voice was low and deep and as soft as velvet.  "We're almost there.  Just another hundred yards or so."  His lilting English accent reached my ears and I nodded up at him. 

"Ok."

We weren't the only ones in this group, though he was the person I was the closest to here.  There were three other girls, Cassie, Marisa, and Isabelle, as well as another boy, Tyler.  All four of them were our classmates. 

True to Max's words, we reached a break in the forest around a hundred yards later.  In front of us, lit only by the bright full moon in the sky, was a large cement building in bad need of a remodel.  It was breaking down and worn in many places with cracks etched into the cement.  It was several stories high and looked extremely out of place here at the edge of the foliage.

"That must be it," Marisa said as the six of us came to a stop at the edge of the forest.  No one moved any further.

My fingers moved deftly up to the communications unit in my ear.  It had been silent for the greater part of the last twenty minutes, allowing everyone to get into position, but now that we were, it was time for the real test to begin.

I pressed on the little switch on the unit and said, "This is alpha two.  We are in position.  Repeat alpha two is in position."

There was the soft hum of static and then, "Copy that alpha two.  This is alpha one, we're approaching the edge now."

"Alpha three calling in.  We're fifty yards out from the target location."

A few minutes passed before alpha three reached their location and then we were all moving forward, ready to embrace the second part of our task.  My group began to move forward, swiftly approaching the building from the east side.  Alpha one would be coming in from the north while alpha three took the southwest entrance. 

The air seemed unnaturally still.  The night was warm, more so than I expected for early June.  The sky was so dark that it looked like liquid ink with splotches of little stars to brighten up the scenery.  The night was clear enough that all the constellations could be seen without any hiding behind the banks of cloud coverage.  The grass beneath our feet was damp and I could feel the dew seeping in through the soles of my shoes to soak my sock-clad feet. 

It took only a moment to cross the field.  Then, we poised by the door.  Max took the lead, silently slipping the door open and stepping inside.  I nodded at the others to make their way inside before I took up the rear.  Behind me, the door shut with a barely audible click. 

Immediately, we were bathed in darkness.  There was no moon to guide us now.  The only source of light we had were those of our flashlights, but no one was too eager to take those out.  While they no doubt would be beneficial, it wasn't worth the risk.  They could so easily set off our position and while this was only an examination with very little personal risk, in the real world, it could mean the difference between life and death.

Up ahead at the front of our group, Max came to a complete stop.  The corridor branched off, one side leading down another dark hallway and the next opening up to a large room that seemed to be central to the entire building.  As Max surveyed the large room, Marisa beside him to watch his back, I shifted so that I had complete view of the area behind us. Tyler stood half a foot back from me, facing the same direction, while Cassie and Isabelle glanced down the dark hallway.

"Clear," Max whispered from up ahead.  He glanced back down the line at the rest of us.  "Let's keep moving.  We have to get to the west side which means we're cutting straight through this room.  Stay sharp."

And so we did.  We kept in our formation, moving silently throughout the echoing building.  We'd only walked seventy-three paces when Max came to an abrupt stop.  He flattened against the wall and signaled for us to do the same.  No one so much as breathed.  His eyes swept the around the corner of the hall and then he ducked back in to where the rest of us waited.

"Two," he said to us.  His voice was no louder than a breath of air.  "Up ahead.  With guns."

"What's our course of action?" Marisa asked in the same low tone.  "Two against six.  I like those odds."

"We need stealth and silence," Tyler added.  "If we're too loud we'll get caught."

I stepped around the others and passed by Max to take a look at who were dealing with.  There was one male and one female, dressed entirely in black, and carrying sturdy black guns in their hands.  The man, who had his back to me, was carrying a flashlight.  The woman, whose body was angled towards us, had the capacity to spot us only if she looked deep enough into the shadows.

Which, I figured, she wouldn't.

Before any of the others had a chance to ask what I was doing, I crept around the corner.  I kept tight to the wall where the brightness from the flashlight didn't quite reach.  Silently, I worked my way close to them until I was only about ten feet away.

That was when the women looked up. 

Swearing under my breath, I lunged forward.  I shoved the man in front of me, using him as a shield, and grabbing his gun in the same swift process.  As I ducked behind him, the woman fired and a splatter of red paint blossomed on the man's chest.  He fell and as he went down, I stole the gun from his hand and fired once.  A spot of red surfaced on her chest.  She fell, landing beside the man in a heap,

The moment she was down, Max and the others came racing up to me.  "You okay?" he asked.  "You didn't get hit?"  His eyes surveyed my body, searching.  "That was a stupid thing to do, Mel.  You should have told us you were going to move."

I rolled my eyes.  "The rest of you are too indecisive.  You have to trust your gut.  That's what keeps you from getting killed."

Cassie narrowed her eyes at me.  "If this was a real situation you could have risked the lives of your entire team with a stunt like that."

"But she didn't.  Miss Clarke is much too swift for us old coots, isn't that right?  There was hardly any risk."

I looked down and giggled at Professor Peterson.  He was lying on the floor with his eyes closed and assuming a state of death. 

"I thought corpses couldn't talk," Max muttered with a grin.

"We can't," our other teacher, Ms. Perth, stated.  Her lips hardly moved as she spoke.  She was one of the younger teachers at our school and generally didn't venture out into the field too often.  But she was a technological whiz and was largely responsible for monitoring the school's security system when she wasn't off teaching super, super advanced coding that I could hardly dream of doing.  "And watch who you're calling old."

Max chuckled and swiped the paintball gun from her hand before turning to me.  "We should keep moving."

I nodded.  "Let's go."

On the ground, Professor Peterson and Ms. Perth began debating the possibility that there would be any chocolate scones left in the kitchen upon our return back to the school, ignoring us completely.

We moved back into formation with Max taking the front and me bringing up the rear except this time we were both armed, which made all of us feel just a little bit better about the situation, even Cassie, though she was still clearly unhappy with how I'd handled the situation.  Slowly, we maneuvered our ways through the halls and emerged in yet another large room.  The scene in this one was much different than the one we'd previously seen.

At the last large room, we'd come to, it had been completely empty, allowing us to pass through with ease.  This one was filled with people.  While it some of them were complete strangers to me, I recognized most.  This was mainly because the majority of the people in this room were my classmates who were currently engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a large majority of our teachers.

Even as I watched, I saw Tina Alvarez knock Mr. Andrews, our disguise teacher, to the ground.  A few steps over from her Joshua Monroe side stepped one agent, causing him to go flying into one of his one colleagues.  And...there.  My eyes locked onto Lia's stunning form as she whirled and kicked and punched without any apprehension.  She was a naturally gifted agent—it was clear that it was an inherited trait within her family—but humble.  She wasn't one to brag about her abilities despite recognizing that she was an extraordinary agent.

I was just glad that she was one of my best friends and someone that I knew would always have my back.  She wasn't the type of person I would ever want to cross. 

As I took stock of my classmates, I found myself grinning manically.  We'd crossed paths with Alpha one, as we'd originally planned.  Alpha three was nowhere to be seen and that was a good thing.  It meant that our plan was working.

Without hesitation, the six of us lunged forward, joining in on the fray.  We weren't the only ones who'd managed to acquire guns but most people were too close to the chaos to be able to fire them with much precision.  Max and I strayed to opposite sides of the room as the other four members of our team lunged into the fighting with expert ease and began picking off our teachers and their colleagues, giving our classmates a brief reprieve from fighting multiple opponents.  The two of us fired when we could, the startling red paint coating multiple surfaces and several people, some of whom collapsed to the floor in "death."  Of course, we also succeeded in drawing unwanted attention on ourselves and it was only seconds after firing off a couple of rounds that I found three agents advancing towards me at once.

I shot one, point blank with a paintball and he fell to the floor, feigning death, and knocked another with the butt of the gun.  She stumbled backwards, off balance, giving me enough time to send a punch flying towards the third.  He blocked my strike easily, side-stepping and throwing a fist my way.  His advance was denied with a swift swipe of the gun.  He tried to knock the weapon out of my hands but my reflexes were faster.  I fired a shot, hitting him square in the chest, before turning to send another paintball flying at the woman. 

She'd disappeared.

I nerve saw the blow land.  I just felt the air rush out of my lungs, more in surprise than pain, as a fist fell into my ribs.  My hesitation gave her the opening she was looking for and, a second later, I felt a foot collide at the same spot. 

Instant pain shot through my body, leading me to believe that I may have potentially cracked a rib, but I didn't have time to think about it before the agent was preparing for another attack.  This time, when she went to strike, I blocked her advance with my arm.  Just as I was preparing to launch an assault on her, she went completely still and fell forwards, crumpling in on himself.  As she went down, I saw the bright red blossom of pain on her back.

I looked up and grinned.  Lia, standing beside Max on the other side of the room, had swiped his gun.  As I watched, she placed the weapon back in his hands, winked at me, and then danced off into the fray without missing a beat. 

I maneuvered my way back into the onslaught, managing to fire off a few more rounds before I ran out of paintballs and had to resort to using the gun as a club instead.  It was still fairly effective as weapons went for it was sturdy and end-weighted and so it packed quite a lot of force when swung around like a baseball bat.

"This is alpha three," a voice said in my ear, ringing out through the communications unit.  "We have secured the target.  Fall back.  Repeat, we have secured the target.  Fall back."

As fast as I was able, I weaved my way around to the other side of the room to where Max was.  Together we held our opponents at bay as we slowly retreated, fighting our way through the masses.  We worked our way back to the corridor from which we'd entered and then, once we'd reached there, turned and ran.  Footsteps pounded after us, accompanied by hasty shouting but the two of us were fast and lithe and were able to work our way through the maze that was this old building a lot faster than they could. 

It didn't take the two of us long to reach the door from which we'd entered.  Our pursuers had fallen behind us slightly, giving us enough time to yank the door open and dart for the coverage of the trees where the shadows would hide us from easy view.

Max and I ducked into the foliage.  We crouched, watching through breaks in the leaves, as two of our pursuers jumped out into the night.  They looked around with uncertainty, not knowing which direction we'd run off in.  The pair split up, one going left and the other right and neither of them heading towards the direction in which Max and I waited.

"Well done," he whispered to me.  He was panting lightly and his tone was breathy. 

"You too."  I drew a few slow breaths, trying to calm my racing heart.

"Let's go.  We're about a hundred yards away from where we need to meet the others."

I nodded and we took off.  It was a strategy we'd devised earlier in the night.  When the target had been acquired and it was time to fall back, we'd each grab our partner and head out to our groups, only to meet up and work our way back to the campus together. 

Max followed my lead as moved through the cover of the forest.  The good thing about working with Max was that we knew each other's movements so well.  In many ways, working with him was like working with an extension of myself.  Two halves of the same whole.  He was someone I could trust to always have my back, no matter what.

Part of the reason Max and I were so close, I gathered, was because we truly were cut from the same cloth.  He, like me, was an outsider at the school.  Though he was a naturally gifted and stunning agent, he held no parental ties to the secret world we lived in.  His father was an accountant and his mother a doctor.  He'd left his parents much the same way I'd left mine.  Without a word and without looking back.

Perhaps that was the reason we were as close as siblings.  The two of us filled a void in each other that could only be filled with family.  And with Max it was safe to talk about the past.  Safe to confide in someone to say that I felt horrible about missing my younger brother's sixteenth birthday or that my parents' twentieth anniversary had passed without me.  It was okay to tell him that I sometimes missed my old life.  That I missed Daniel, the only real friend I'd had before Oaks, and wished that I could speak with him again. 

Max understood and confided in me with similar problems.  Our other friends didn't understand that need to speak about the past as we did.  The majority of them still had their families, having grown up in this world their entire lives.  They hadn't had to give everything up as we did.  The only thing they'd