The Pawn | Chapter Twelve [Philophobia]

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[Chapter Twelve]

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Philophobia- Fear of falling in love or being in love

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Four hours and forty-three minutes later my watch's alarm went off.

"M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. MICKEY MOUSE! Donald duck! MICKEY MOUSE! Donald duck..." Blushing, I hit the button and looked sheepishly at Jay. He was tensed and had both hands fisted. I noticed that he had one foot placed in front of the other, as if he was ready to fight someone. "Eh he he..." I chuckled nervously, "sorry about that. I set my alarm so that I'd know when to stop working out. The doctor told me to not overwork myself..."

He still looked suspicious. Curse him for being so smart. Convincing him otherwise was going to take some work. Why did I have to fall for the smart guy? It would be so much easier if he was just a little slow, but Jay seemed to catch everything. Guess that came with being a government agent.

"I'll pretend to believe that for now," he said in a deadpan voice. "Since you're done working out, what would you like to do now?"

Putting on an innocent face, I smiled slightly and asked, "Can we go to the computer room?"

"Why?" Jay demanded quickly. Man, I felt like I was under interrogation. Seriously, his eyes were boring into my head, as if he was trying to read my mind.

Frowning, I tried to look confused as I answered, "To check my email. Well, and FaceSpace, of course. It's been ages since I've been able to." I worried my lip between my teeth, "Is that okay with you? I'm sorry that you have to chaperone me everywhere."

"Since when do you ask so politely for something? Or apologize for being a pain in the ass?" Jay asked. "Not that I miss your attitude or lack of manners, but there is something very suspicious about you."

I rolled my eyes and headed out of the gym, "Gee, thanks for the compliment, Jay."

He snorted and I heard him start to follow me. "Like you need to inflate your ego anymore," I heard him mutter. I sighed inwardly, hoping Jay would just go with the flow for once. I didn't need him to begin to suspect me or watch my every move. It was bad enough that I was still required to have a chaperone wherever I went and that the whole tech team needed to be present when I went on a computer. I mean, Kudos to Faux for being that smart and thorough, but it was a pain in my ass. It made everything more complicated, luckily, not impossible though. Speaking of the tech team...

"Do you need to call ahead to make sure Ted and his team of techies are there?" Stupid Faux and his stupid rules. With all of the computer guys watching my every move it would be nearly impossible to pull something, but I wasn't going to give up just yet.

Jay pulled out his phone and motioned for me to keep walking. "Hey Ted," he said into the phone. "Ains and I are coming to the computer room, are all your men there?" He paused and pushed the button for the elevator. "Yes, Faux's orders. Thank you Ted, see you soon." He hung up the phone with a decisive click and glanced at me. "It's your lucky day. They're all there, ready to watch your every movement."

We stepped into the elevator and I shook my head as the doors closed. "Do you have a problem with me, or something? I mean, usually you're a bit cold towards me, but you've never been this snappy before. Did I do something wrong?"

Jay looked at me and sighed. "No, I just...I'm really stressed at the moment. I don't mean to take it out on you." A pained look crossed his face before he ground out, "I'm sorry." A shocked expression must have graced my face because Jay made a sound close to chuckling and said, "Yes, I know how to apologize. No need to look so appalled."

Thankfully the elevator dinged, breaking through the rather uncomfortable moment. Jay never apologized...to anyone. It just wasn't something he did, but right here and now he had proved that wrong...over some inconsequential moment. We were both acting weird today. Maybe we were feeding off of each other, but whatever it was, it kind of freaked me out. I was worried that he knew more than he was letting on. Then again, he could just suspect something and have no proof. If that was the case, I was fine.

"Hi Ainsley!" Ted greeted me cheerfully as I walked through the door with Jay following.

"Hey Ted, long time no see!" I smiled, giving Ted a hug. "Do you have a spare computer I could use? I just want to check my email if that's alright with you guys."

Ted grinned, looking like the ultimate nice guy next door. He kind of had that whole Peter Parker thing going for him. It was cute. "I'm sure we can spare at least one computer for you. I'll have Ross set it up for you." He turned and motioned at some guy I assumed was Ross. "So how have you been? We heard all about the...incident, but I'm glad to see you up and walking. Are you recovering okay?"

"Yes, I'm doing much better, thank you for the concern."

"No problem," he said, slinging an arm over my shoulders, "we were really worried about you. We felt bad, because it was our fault. We didn't have the correct security procedures, even though you warned us."

I looked at him in shock, amazed that he would even suggest something like that. "Are you serious, Ted? There's no way that was anyone's fault, but especially not your fault!"

Jay cleared his throat rather forcefully. "The computer is ready for you," he said gruffly, glaring at Ted. I gave him an odd look and moved over to the computer.

"Oh wow, you guys went all out with security," I said, amazed at the encrypted codes Ross had set up. "No one can get through this tangled mess."

Ted grinned proudly and sat in a chair next to me. "We have to be prepared for anything, Faux's orders."

I gave a mock frown and said, "Well no worries, this would take me hours to hack through. You guys are really good at what you do."

"Oh please," Ted said, clearly pleased with himself as I logged into my email and FaceSpace. "We both know you're equally as good with computers. If we weren't watching you could probably get through in an hour."

Grinning because he was clearly flirting with me, I replied. "Nah, you have the training, I'm self-taught."

"Will both of you shut up," Jay growled. "You're both amazing at computers, the end." I smiled up at him, pleased that he was getting jealous. "What?" he said angrily.

"Nothing," I smiled triumphantly, turning back to the computer screen. "Hey Teddy?" I said sweetly, purposefully giving him a nickname. He was kneeling next to me in seconds, looking at me expectantly.

"Yes, Ainsley?"

I heard Jay scoff and mutter something, but I ignored him and focused on Ted. "Thank you for giving up your time for me today. I know you guys have many more important things to do and I really appreciate it."

"Oh," Ted said happily, trying not to stutter. "I-it really isn't a problem at all, Ainsley. We're more than happy to help." He stood up and shuffled nervously as I clicked through my FaceSpace. "Uh, Ai-ainsley?" he asked quietly after a couple seconds.

"What's up, Teddy?"

He blushed lightly, but cleared his throat. "I know you have better things to do, but someday I'd like to sit down with you and compare hacking codes and stuff. I know you're self-taught, but you're absolutely brilliant, and I'd like to see what I could learn from you, and maybe teach you something new in return. You know if...if you want to. I mean, y-you don't have to agree, I was just..."

I smiled warmly at him, and grabbed his hand in mine. "I would love to compare computer knowledge with you someday. It's not like I have anything else to do."

Ted blushed even more, turning his cheeks a darker shade of pink. I was fighting back a giggle because I could see Jay getting angry out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't trying to make Jay jealous, my main goal was to flirt with Ted so that he trusted me. Making Jay jealous was just a bonus.

Thankfully my FaceSpace chat noise went off as I was trying to figure out how to extract my hand. I made a sound of surprise and turned to see who had messaged me...even though I knew who it was going to be.

"Ethan Masterson?" Jay said skeptically. "Who is that?"

"Do I detect jealousy?" I teased lightly. "He's just a friend." I read his message and had to hide a grin. He was a sneaky little bugger and that's what I liked about him.

"Oh night or upon readiness we are yours. If nectarine tastes even naked," Jay read Ethan's message out loud. "What does that mean?"

Laughing, I prepared to answer Ethan's message. "We like to quote poetry to each other as a game. I'm not really sure how it came about, but we make up our own lines." I quickly typed out, 'Beloved end in nights gone where apples to cacti had even died. Amazing caresses tore nests of ravens mating at lunar.'

Jay made another angry sound as he read my nonsense message. Before he could start to argue with me, Ethan sent me another message, asking how I was doing. I pointed to it smugly and then continued on with my 'normal' conversation, making sure that I didn't let slip any information that Jay would find suspicious. He sure was hovering over my shoulder though, waiting for me to type something wrong.

"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!" he said suspiciously. "You are typing a code to him!"

"Jay," I sighed. "I typed WTF...not a code. It's a joke between us, chill out dude." He huffed angrily so I turned in my chair to look directly at him. "What is wrong with you today? Seriously, everything I do is suspicious. Do you have something you need to say to me?"

Looking flustered and rather caught off guard, he mumbled something and shook his head no. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, but turned back to send Ethan one last message. 'It's go time, over and out,' I typed. 'Ten-four,' he replied before logging off. I did the same and signed off of FaceSpace. Opening the history I started deleting my history, deleting all of the crumbs and links so that the boys couldn't trace any of what I had done.

"Uh...Ainsley?" Ted said nervously. "What are you doing?"

I paused what I was doing and looked at him in surprise. "Oh! Sorry. I was just deleting my trail out of habit. I'm sorry, I'm just so used to doing that, it's just out of habit. Here I'll show you." I quickly explained what I was doing so that he could see I had done nothing wrong. What he didn't know was that whilst my methods looked perfectly normal, the way I was going about erasing my steps, left little hooks for me to find later, if I needed to hack into the computer system. Sneaky. I know.

"Are you finally done?" Jay sighed, probably getting a little angry at how close Ted and I were. He had his arm around my shoulders as he leaned over to look at the screen.

"Yes, your majesty," I replied to Jay. I looked at Ted, politely shrugging his arm off my shoulder. "Thank you for your time, Teddy." Standing, I reached out and gave him a hug, grinning when he nervously wrapped his arms around me and returned the hug.

Jay cleared his throat pointedly when the hug went on longer than he was comfortable. I grinned and called out to Jay, "Don't worry, I'll give you a hug too." I released Ted and thanked him one last time before skipping over to Jay and throwing my arms around his waist. I buried my head in his chest and inhaled deeply. "You smell good." Jay was frozen in my arms, so I chuckled and shifted my arms, tightening my grip. "You're supposed to wrap your arms around me and hug me back, silly."

He slowly did as I said, letting his hands rest on my back. I sighed happily and took one more whiff of his amazing scent before pushing my way out of his grip. "See!" I smiled, "not too bad after all, was it?"

Jay looked very confused as he followed me out the door in a daze. Apparently he hadn't been hugged in a long time...if ever, because he was completely thrown off. We made it all the way up to my room before he finally said something.

"Did you hug me?"

I laughed lightly and grinned up at him. "Did you just now notice?"

He glared at me and unlocked my room door. Before either of us could further comment on the situation, his phone rang shrilly. It was a different ring than he usually had and the tone turned his skin an ashen color. "Storm," he barked into the phone, keeping me in the corner of his view. "Yes, sir. I understand, sir. She's with me right now. Affirmative. I'll let my men know." Jay quickly hung up his phone, grabbed my arm and towed me into my room. He called Kyle and barked a couple of orders to him I didn't understand, but I had other matters on my mind.

"Hey! What is wrong with you? What is going on?" I said angrily as he shut my door and locked it.

Jay stormed towards me, backing me into a corner. "What have you done?" he said in a low voice. I could see the anger in his eyes and I felt the fury rolling off of his skin.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"That was Faux on the phone. Apparently, we have some intruders. They tripped the silent alarm right before they shut it off along with the security cameras. I know you had something to do with it. Tell me now."

"Why are you so quick to blame me?" I asked in a hurt voice.

"Because! I...ARGH!" Jay punched the wall beside my head and cursed darkly. "I've been watching you. Your actions aren't adding up. I know you did something with your watch, I saw you in the mirror and I know it wasn't your alarm. You've been acting suspicious all day and I know you were telling that Ethan guy something today on FaceSpace. I'm not stupid, Ainsley. What is going on?"

"Nothing. I have nothing—"

"Don't even think about lying to me," he hissed. "I have Kyle on hold. He has the intruders surrounded. One call from me and he kills them all without a second thought. Tell me who they are or they die."

I stared at him, unwilling to believe that he was telling the truth. He couldn't just kill people he knew nothing about, intruder or not. I didn't believe he had it in him. Yet, part of me knew he wasn't messing around.

"It's your decision, Ainsley. Tell me who they are or you'll be responsible for their deaths." When I didn't move fast enough to answer him he opened up his phone and called Kyle. "Kyle? Yah, go—"

"Wait!" I cried out. "Please don't kill them."

Jay pulled the phone away from his mouth and glared at me. "Why not?"

I held back tears and replied in a whisper, "They're my team. Please don't kill them." Looking completely shocked, Jay hung up his phone and just stared at me. "Wait, what about Kyle?" I asked horrified.

"I didn't actually call him," he replied, never looking away from me. "What do you mean your team?"

"You...you what?" I was frozen for a moment before I started yelling at him and hitting him. "You jerk! I thought you were actually going to kill them! How could you lie to me like that?!"

Grabbing my arms, he pinned them to my side and stared straight into my eyes. "Tell. Me. About. Them. Now."

I gulped and quickly spilled a ten second summary of who and what they were to me. "After I escaped Lisa when I was sixteen, I was hacking into the computer library when a guy noticed what I was doing. I thought I was in trouble, but he just wanted to talk to me about my hacking skills. I was wary at first, but soon I came to realize that he wanted me to join him and his friends. I taught him and his friends what I knew and in return they gave me shelter and food and taught me knew hacking techniques. We became a little family, just the four of us, until we started adding more people. Basically, kids that had nowhere else to go. Ethan and I organized the whole thing with the help of his girlfriend Josie and best friend Ricco. Our biggest project was tracking Lisa and finding out what she was up to. I didn't want them to go after her, but once they saw how important it was to me, nothing could dissuade him. We've been tracking her for quite a bit.

"We made a plan to get into NANO to gather any information on Lisa. However, when you kidnapped me, the plans changed a bit and I went with the flow. I thought it was going to be a problem, but then I realized it might not be so bad after all...if you'd let me explain myself and ask you to help us. I realized though, that you would never allow that to happen, so I didn't bother telling you about them." I bit my lip and looked directly at Jay, knowing that I probably looked more vulnerable than I ever have in my life.

Jay looked shell-shocked for a good minute before pushing off of the wall and walking away from me. He paced for a bit before turning around abruptly and glaring at me. "This is pathetic," Jay muttered. "I'm just like your father."

"I beg your pardon?" I said, wondering if I had heard him correctly. "What do you mean by that?" I was ready to beat him up if he dared to insult my father.

Jay glared at me, as if it was my fault and said bitterly, "I've fallen for the enemy."

Ice crashed through my veins and I felt like my heart was slowly breaking apart. He fell for the enemy? But...I just didn't understand how that had happened. "You've fallen for Lisa?" I said in a small voice, wondering why it hurt so much.

He scrunched his brow, looking confused for a moment before anger took over. "No you silly woman. Not Lisa, you."

Shocked, I pushed myself further into the wall and tried to regain my thoughts. I didn't even know where to begin. I was elated that he liked me, but confused and angry that he considered me an enemy. "Since when have I become your enemy, Jay?" I asked harshly, hurt that he was accusing me so easily. "I have done nothing wrong, and you know it."

"Nothing wrong?" he laughed drily. "No, of course not. All you've done is lie to me and break into NANO. No big deal, it's not like you broke the law or anything!"

"The sarcasm isn't appreciated," I growled. "You know well enough that if I had come forward to NANO and asked for help you would have taken the information we had, and then told us to go on our merry way, because you would 'take it from here'."

Jay scowled at me and quickly defended his work. "We are better equipped to track Lisa. It would have been better if you had come forward and worked with us. Then we might have

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