Agent 1 (Book 3)

Chapter 4

Cody's POV

Devin continues to flip through channels on the TV. He'll find something he wants to watch, watch it for a grand total of five minutes, and then switch it to something else.

He's already swapped channels after he got 'bored' about ten times now.

"Devin can't you just pick a show and stick with it?" Chase questions in annoyance.

"Well Thirteen needs to get better channels." Devin huffs, throwing the remote down on the couch next to him.

"Speaking of Thirteen." Chase says. "Where is she?"

Both Devin and Chase turn towards me for an answer. I give them a flat look.

"I do hope you realize I've given up on trying to keep track of her." I tell them.

"Wise move." Devin replies. "You know come to think of it, I haven't seen Lily in a while either."

"Is that a bad thing?" Chase asks.

I just shrug. "Lily's probably with Thirteen or Angel."

"And if she's not?" Chase questions.

"Be afraid. Be very afraid." Devin humors, a wide smile spreading across his face.

Henri walks into the room and takes a seat on the recliner in the corner, grabbing one of his books from the side table next to him. He opens the window blinds for more light and places his reading glasses on his face.

"Hey Henri?" Devin calls over and Henri looks up from his book to Devin, waiting for him to continue. "Have you seen Lily or-"

"Weapons room." Henri cuts off Devin and goes back to his book.

"Oh...You know I've searched this entire house-twice-and I've never come across the weapons room. Where is it?"

Instead of answering, Henri puts down his book and gets to his feet, waving at us to follow. We all share a look before getting to our feet and walking out of the room after him.

He walks up to the keypad by the front door and punches in a code. He presses enter and a green light flashes on the keypad. He turns towards us and points over our shoulders. We turn around just in time to see a section of the wall push in backwards, and slide away to reveal an elevator.

"The elevator goes down to the basement. It is completely sound proof down there so if you end up needing anything you will have to use the intercom." Henri says. "The weapons room is also the training room. Miss Kingston and Miss Marshal have been down there for the better part of their stay here training. This week it is hand to hand combat."

"Well what else would they be using?" Devin asks sarcastically and Henri gives him a flat look.

"Last week it was knives." Henri tells him. "I spent a good deal of my time stitching the two of them up. They are not going easy on each other so do not be surprised if it genuinely looks like they are trying to kill each other."

With that being said Henri turns and walks back off to continue on with reading his book.

Devin looks at me. "I'm actually kind of scared to go down there."

Chase is the first one to get into the elevator and I follow. Devin's the last one in, but the first one to push the button to go down.

I'm glad Henri warned us in advance, cause the second the doors open up, we're watching Thirteen slam Lily into the wall on the other side of the room.

Lily's back and head connect with the wall and Thirteen's fist pulls back to punch Lily in the face, but before she can Lily brings her fist up into Thirteen's stomach repeatedly, kneeing Thirteen in the face when she doubles over.

Thirteen's leg swings out and Lily just barely dodges it. She swings her fist forwards and Thirteen blocks it, grabbing hold of her wrist a moment later.

She spins Lily's arm behind her back and applies pressure before kicking her legs out from under her and slamming her down into the floor, pinning her, face down.

Lily lets out a groan of pain as her head seems to bounce off the floor. There's nothing but a thin layer of mats to cushion the blow.

"s**t, you ok?" Thirteen questions, picking herself up off of Lily as Lily rolls over onto her back.

Lily takes advantage of Thirteen's distraction and kicks her in her upper thigh, then her stomach, before finally swinging her leg out and knocking Thirteen's feet out from under her. Thirteen gets to her feet and makes a move to go at Lily but Lily holds up her hand to stop her.

"I'm done." She says, placing her hands on her knees and breathing heavily. "You win. Besides...we have an audience." Lily points over at us and Thirteen whirls around.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly with her heavy breathing. They've both clearly been at this for a while. Sweat glistens across both their skin as they take a breather.

Both of them wearing gym shorts and sports bras, but where Thirteen's are black in color, Lily's sports bra is tie-dyed with several different bright colors, and her gym shorts are a bright royal blue.

"Please don't stop on our account." Devin says smugly, purposely making a show of checking them out.

Lily flips him off while Thirteen mutters something under her breath.

"What was that?" Devin questions, putting his hand behind his ear and leans towards her dramatically.

"Pervert." Thirteen says louder this time before tapping Lily's shoulder and motioning for her to walk with her.

They make their way over to a couple metal benches lined up against the wall. Thirteen grabs a water bottle and takes a drink and Lily does the same, but all the while she seems to be shielding Thirteen with her body.

She whispers something to Thirteen who merely nods before pulling on a pair of sweats over her gym shorts. She says something back to Lily that none of us catch and Lily finally moves away.

"You can join in if you like." Thirteen announces, making a sweeping gesture with her hand to the racks, tables and walls full of weapons on the other half of the room.

There's also a shooting range, and a corner filled with wooden mannequins for knife throwing. This room is probably the size of the entire first floor of her mansion. The middle of the room is layered with several mats, though they aren't very thick.

"Go ahead and use whatever you like-no Devin I was not talking to you."

Devin freezes with his hand hovering over a large gun. He scowls at her and crosses his arms over his chest and pouts like a child. Lily goes bounding over to show him how that gun works.

Might as well kill us all now.

"Lily don't you touch any of those grenades." Thirteen orders and Lily drops the grenade she was holding back into the chest she got it out of.

"You're no fun." Lily mutters before grabbing a couple of batons off one of the tables. She holds them up for Thirteen to see. "You good to keep going?"

Thirteen nods and Lily tosses her the two batons in her hands and goes to grab two more. I shake my head but smile.

"What?" Thirteen questions as she studies me, twirling the batons in her hands and tossing them around a couple times to get a feel for them.

"I shouldn't worry about Garrett or Lydia killing you. Not when you and Lily keep going at each other like this."

She smiles widely at me and twirls the batons a couple more times. "Garrett's not going to go easy on us so there's no reason to pretend otherwise." She shrugs. "Might as well give it our all."

I notice Lily trying to sneak up on Thirteen. She stands a couple yards behind her and raises the batons before charging at her full speed. But right before she makes it to Thirteen, Thirteen steps gracefully out of the way and ducks.

Both of them begin to take swings at each other, the impact of the batons echoing through the room. Lily gets in several hits at a time, but there's not a lot of power behind them. Thirteen doesn't get in nearly as many hits as Lily but her hits have Lily stumbling and taking a second to recover.

Lily slams her baton down on Thirteen's thigh and Thirteen falls to her knees. She brings her baton up to block one of Lily's before it can come down on her head.

"Really?" Thirteen grumbles and Lily stops. She walks back towards Thirteen after backing up and holds out her hand for Thirteen to take.

Thirteen takes it and nearly falls over before finally steadying herself on her feet, avoiding putting pressure on her leg.

"Garrett's not going to let up." Lily tells her sternly. "And the moment he realizes that your leg's still healing he's going to use that against you."

"I know." Thirteen grumbles. "But did you seriously have to hit me that hard?" Lily just grins smugly in response.

She gets back into a fighting stance and makes a motion for Thirteen to come at her. Thirteen gets in a stance similar to Lily's and then they're both going at each other once again, but this time Thirteen's got Lily pinned pretty quickly. Thirteen helps Lily to her feet before turning towards us.

"You guys are going to fight her." She jerks her thumb in Lily's direction. "I need to know where she ranks in terms of this team. You guys also need to start training more to get better. We're not taking on Garrett till each of us has an equal shot at beating him. I'm not going to have you guys fight him, only for him to kill you in the first two minutes."

"I'm personally flattered you think I'll last the first two minutes." Devin chimes in and Thirteen just rolls her eyes. "But if I may make a suggestion, you can train us all you want but it's not going to make a difference because we'll get up to your level, but we still won't be able to beat you...and considering you and Garrett are pretty well tied in terms of fighting skills, we need to be good enough to at least tie against you."

"I know." She says simply and shakes her head. "I've already thought that through but for now there's nothing I can do about it. We just have to work with what we've got."

"There's nothing you can do?" Devin questions her doubtfully.

"What are you trying to say?" Thirteen asks with annoyance. "You have an idea?"

Devin nods. "You said Agent 53 trained you right?"

"Yeah so?"

"So why can't you have him come here and help train us? Wouldn't that work?"

I notice Thirteen's expression go blank, and her eyes spark with anger as she clenches her fists at her sides.

"No." She says calmly.

"Why not? That would work. Besides, if we were fighting against you we wouldn't want to hurt you, no matter what you say. So we'd obviously be holding back. You and Lily fight each other so hard because you know each other really well. You know each other's limits and breaking points. We don't know that about you, but with Agent 53 we wouldn't be as concerned about hurting him."

"Believe it or not, I've actually thought about that." Thirteen tells him.

"So what's the problem?"

Thirteen crosses her arms over her chest and frown makes its way onto her face. "Me and Agent 53 don't exactly see eye to eye."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Chase mutters but Thirteen hears him and throws him a deadly look.

"He may have trained me and Garrett, but that doesn't mean I like the guy. He's Zero's lap dog. Does anything and everything Zero asks of him without question. Just blindly follows Zero's lead."

"And that bothers you because?..." Devin trails off and Thirteen scowls at him.

"Because I don't like Zero to begin with and agents who just blindly follow his will and worship him like some god piss me off to no end. Granted he can help us, but I'm not really too keen on having him here. He's been trying unsuccessfully for years to catch me slipping up on something or other so he can run back to Zero and tattle on me like a little child..."

She trails off and her tone of voice suggests there more to it than that, and Devin seems to notice as well.

"And?" He presses.

She stays quiet for a moment as if going through the options in her head. Finally she seems to decide on what it is she wants to tell us.

"Him and Henri really don't get along."

I feel my eyebrows wrinkle in confusion. "Henri doesn't like him?" I ask and Thirteen's lip twitches like she's trying so hard not to smile.

"That's the understatement of the century." She says and she finally allows the smile to spread across her face.

"Saying he hates him, is also a grand understatement." Lily adds in with her own smile. Both of them clearly remembering something we don't know.

Thirteen shakes her head with a wide smile. "Alright I'll call him up...purely for my own amusement." Thirteen finally agrees.

Devin's nose crinkles up in confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Thirteen and Lily both smile at him with a smile that clearly spells out how much more about this they know.

"Believe me," Lily starts. "It's not going to be pretty. You've never seen unpleasant Henri. As I'm sure you've been able to tell, he's very polite...but not with Agent 53."

"The firecrackers in me and Ryder's rooms...is nothing compared to what'll happen to Agent 53." Thirteen finishes.

"What exactly did Agent 53 do that pissed off Henri so much?" Chase asks. Both Thirteen and Lily share a look.

"Wouldn't you like to know." Thirteen says in a teasing voice with a smile on her face, but there's a hidden meaning behind her words, the look in her eyes as she says them confirms it.