"W-what?" That was the only sound that I could utter. A fog clouded my brain, obstructing my normal thought process.

"Claude Wintsor, we genuinely appreciate your call," Boyd said as if making a grand announcement. "If it hadn't been for you, we would have never found the real Jordan Bledou."

The wheels in my brain turned as they processed this information. The real Jordan Bledou...there's a guy here who looks like me...

"Y-you're Jordan?" I stammered.

The man in the choke hold pursed his lips, but didn't say anything.

"Yes, he is," Boyd stated. A smug grin settled on his face.

"Wait, you called Boyd?" Raven exclaimed. He whipped around to stare at me. His steely blue eyes raged like the sea.

I shrunk backwards. Please don't hurt me! I'm just an innocent bystander! I don't know or understand what is going on!

"I-I didn't like what was going on. I-I was scared!" I tried to explain.

"But you called our enemy, the man we are trying to collect evidence against?"

Evidence? What?

"What do you mean by 'evidence?'"

Raven huffed. "Boyd is the leader of a drug ring here in the Washington D.C. area. We've been trying to bust it wide open for years."

"Wait, you're the good guys?"

"Yes, we're a special unit within the FBI. We infiltrate gangs and drug cartels and turn them in to the authorities."

My jaw went slack. The world around me spun. My legs turned to gelatin, threatening to melt beneath me.

This whole time, I was working against the FBI? The Federal spy agency in our country?

I was working against the U.S. government?

A firm hand planted itself on my arm. I grabbed hold of it, stabilizing myself. My vision cleared to see Parrot standing in front of me.

"You okay there?"

I barely processed his question.

"But... why didn't you tell me?" I cried.

"I thought you knew!" Raven said. "I thought you were Jordan!"

"But I told you I wasn't!"

"I know, I know. But you have to understand, that's exactly the kind of stunt Jordan would try to pull."

Jordan raised an eyebrow and nodded in agreement.

"I thought you just didn't want any involvement with the FBI based on your criminal history," Raven continued. "We chased him down for years. In fact, we nearly caught him a few times, but he always managed to slip through our grasp. That kind of history isn't erased very easily."

"But you had me hack into stuff and break into someone's home. That was a private citizen, and I don't think you can do that." Truth be told, I had no idea whether it was legal or not. It just seemed illegal, no matter the just cause.

"We were locked out of the Federal archives. Hacking back in was our way of getting past the illegal blocks that they had put up. We had you hack into certain sites on the deep web for evidence against their illegal drug crimes. As for the Mayhad's home, we had a search and arrest warrant."

"But you killed the Mayhads!" I said.

"What do you mean?" Raven seethed. "We arrested them and called the police to come to the house and pick them up."

"Wait, did you think the police were coming after us?" Parrot laughed.

My face flushed, but I chose not to respond.

"But you were going to kill me if I didn't comply!" I cried.

"When did we ever say that we were going to kill you?" Raven asked, bewildered. "We only said that we would turn you in to the police on the charges of your previous crimes."

I was mortified. This whole time I had been trying to work against these people, thinking they were criminals. And yet, they were the FBI, simply trying to gather evidence to convict real criminals. I almost jeopardized their entire job.

I take that back. I did jeopardize their entire job. After all, if I hadn't called Boyd, they probably wouldn't have come here, lying in wait for Raven to show up.

"As much as I hate to break up your moment," Boyd said. "I'm afraid we're going to have to hurry things along. After all, we can't leave you around as witnesses."

"Why did you send me the parchment when you have no care for my safety?" I blurted out.

"We needed to gain your assistance. We figured that the FBI would be desperate to replace their star hacker, Shark, the one we killed."

A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the knife in his back. Don't think about the knife. Just don't think about it!

"When we found out that Jordan was heading into town that night, we decided to try to gain his alliance. We knew that although he had turned from his life of crime, he still would want nothing to do with the Federal government. After all, they have incriminating evidence on him. At a moment's notice, they could send him behind bars. I'm sure they have an arrest warrant out for him. Anyways, we decided to get him on our side. We gave him the phone number in hopes of getting him away from Raven in case he were captured."

"But that's not right!" I burst out. "You lied to me on the phone! You said that the Raven led a very dangerous gang!"

Boyd popped out his bottom lip. "Oh, boo-hoo."

Now I was really mad. But more importantly, the glint in his eyes made me very scared. My hands started to shake.

"What are you going to do to us?" I asked.

A grin crept onto Boyd's face. "I'm not sure yet. I may need to talk to my superior about that one. As of right now, I think we're just going to have to...get you out of the way. Orsel, Hodges, take care of them."

The man and the woman in black jumpsuits detached ropes from their belts. They started tying Raven and Cougar first and finished with me. The woman pulled the ropes tightly around my wrists. I winced in pain as it cut into my skin.

"We'll take them inside, then bind their ankles," Boyd said. He pulled out a gun and aimed it right at us. "Get moving."

I forced my legs to step forward, though my knees wobbled. I wasn't used to extreme pressure or situations. To be honest, I doubted I would survive the night. I glanced at the others. They marched inside, heads high and shoulders back. They refused to show any signs of weakness, including the real Jordan. They had lost everything—their mission, their freedom, perhaps even their lives. The only left was their dignity. But they were going to keep it at all costs.

The warehouse was crowded with chairs, tables, and boxes stacked high on top of each other. A metal staircase ascended in the rightmost corner of the room. In the back, boxes were stacked in two columns, forming a passage that rounded into another room.

"Sit over there," Boyd commanded. He pointed his gun towards an empty corner on the left side of the room, near the pillars of boxes. Raven started along a narrow path that forged through the mess, and we followed in line.

I sat down a little ways from the others. Based on the death-stares I was getting, I was scared what they would do to me.

The floor beneath was cold and hard. Couldn't I have a blanket to sit on?

The man and woman tied our feet together. I was so tightly bound that I felt like my circulation was being cut off. These people have no regard for people's safety.

"Push the boxes into place," Boyd told his minions. The man and woman stacked boxes high around us, locking us away in a make-shift cage. The boxes were so tall that they covered the entire body of Boyd. Only his head floated above with the most annoying, self-satisfied grin.

"We have a few things to take care of, then we'll deal with you seven. Start saying your prayers so that we decide that you're worth staying alive." He disappeared, three pairs of footsteps fading into the darkness.

"I cannot believe this!" Raven whisper-exclaimed. "You tried to turn us in to them!"

"Well, you didn't exactly give me confidence that you were law-abiding citizens," I protested. "Why didn't you tell me that you worked for the FBI?"

"We thought you knew!" Raven said. "We thought that you were Jordan."

"And how does Jordan know?"

Raven sighed. "Like I already told you, we've had multiple run-ins with him in the past while trying to track him down. We gave up the search five years ago since he went into hiding, erasing all traces of himself. He seemed to disappear into thin air."

"And how did you find me now?" Jordan asked. I turned to him, startled by his voice. I guess I had expected his voice to sound the same as mine since he looked the same as me. Instead, his voice was a deep bass. He sat in the furthest corner with a cold-blooded scowl.

Not the most pleasant man on the planet. I could see how he once could have been a criminal.

"We have ways," Raven stated. "But what I would like to know is how we missed you at the airport. Did you come on Flight 207 to Richmond, Virginia?"

"Wait, that was my flight!" I said. "You couldn't have been on the plane, otherwise I would have seen you."

"Oh really? You think you would have seen me out of all of those passengers?" Jordan spat.

"Uh, either that or the stewardess would have said something. After all, we look identical."

"Yeah, how did that happen in the first place?" Parrot asked.

Jordan pursed his lips. For a moment, I thought he wasn't going to talk. Then, he let out a huge sigh. "Look, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just ticked off that I had to get involved in something like this again. I thought I had escaped dealing with gangs and the FBI for good. I have a wife and three kids now. I have a stable job and income, and I just want to forget what's happened in my past."

"I understand that, Jordan," Raven said. There was a surprising amount of understanding in his voice. "But we really aren't the bad guys."

"Yeah, yeah," Jordan said, rolling his eyes. "Whatever. I'll tell you what happened. A month ago, I received a letter from a man named Mayhad—"

"John Mayhad?" Raven asked.

"Yeah, John Mayhad, asking if I would help him with some business. I didn't like the message I was getting between the lines, so I hid the letter away and didn't reply. Besides, it came right around the time I was leaving on a business trip. For the past three weeks, I've been on business in New York. I'm a programmer now, and every so often, my company does these 'employee bonding retreats.'" He rolled his eyes again. "Anyways, two days ago I received another message from Boyd, saying that if I ever needed protection, I should call them. They said that they would do anything to protect my identity and to beware of the FBI since they were after me. I was, well, completely terrified that I had been discovered. So I went to a costume store and purchased a disguise for the plane. I went through security as normal, but once I got past security, I slipped into a single-stall bathroom and changed into my disguise. Then, I boarded the plane."

"Ooh, no wonder we didn't see you," Cougar said. "Incidentally, what were you disguised as?"

Jordan flushed. "Well, you see, er, you can't laugh..."

"Why would we laugh?" Raven asked.

"Look, I'm just saying that it was the only disguise they had available, at least at the store I went to. And I didn't have a lot of time to shop around..."

"Just spit it out," Parrot said.

"I dressed as a woman."

Dead silence. The image of a woman's face crept into my mind, that strange feeling of déjà vu. Her round, icy-blue eyes, her slender nose, her oval face...

Slowly, my brain started to connect the dots.

"Wait...were you the woman who was—"

"Sitting right next to you? Yeah," Jordan said.

My already sore spine smacked the box behind me. But I was too stunned to care.

"Yeah, I was pretty weirded out," Jordan said. "I didn't know what was going on. I thought maybe it was an FBI trick."

"But how did you board the plane? Didn't people notice it wasn't you?" Falcon asked.

Jordan shook his head. "I only had to present my boarding pass to get onto the plane, which only states my name, which is a unisex name. They don't need a photo id."

Raven nodded. "And then when you stepped off the plane, everyone thought that, uh, what's your name?" He turned to me.

"Claude," I said.

"Right. So everyone thought that Claude was the actual Jordan."

"Which brings me back to my first question," Parrot said. "Why does Claude look like Jordan? Ooh, are you like twins separated at birth?"

"That actually wouldn't explain why they look the same, since Jordan got plastic surgery once he gave up his life of crime," Calico mentioned.

"Oh, right."

I tried to wrap my head around this. "So your plastic surgeon made your face look like mine?"

Jordan shrugged. "I guess she must have."

"Did you—"

"If you're suggesting that I asked her to make my face look like yours, the answer is no, I didn't. Why the heck would I want to look like someone who already exists? I just requested a plain and simple face that wouldn't draw much attention to me."

"Her? You had a female plastic surgeon?" I asked. I don't know why this fact stood out to me.

"Yeah, women can be plastic surgeons," Jordan said. I opened my mouth to say that I wasn't suggesting that women couldn't be surgeons, but he continued. "Her name was like Jamie Jefitz, or something like that."

I froze. Why does that name sound familiar? Jamie Jefitz...Jamie...

Oh my gosh. The image of a young woman with curly, platinum hair and dark brown eyes formed in my head, her face covered in a porcelain layer of foundation and her cheeks rosy with blush. I shoved my hand in my pocket. My fingers closed around two pieces of paper.

There was no need to check the name on the paper. I knew that it said 'Jamie Jefitz.'

There's no way it's the same person. There's no way.

"Her name was Jamie Jefitz?" I said.

"Yeah, you know her?"

"Does she have shoulder length black hair and brown eyes, and is she kind of petite?"

"And she has a shrill voice, and always sounds like she's flirting with you?"

I nodded.

"That's the one," Jordan said. "To be honest, she would have been my last choice of a plastic surgeon under any other circumstances, but I didn't get a choice. I had to find someone who wasn't going to turn me in to the authorities. Turns out she's a released convict herself. She did her time in Juvie for theft. She worked her butt off once she was released and managed to find one college that accepted her. She graduated as a plastic surgeon and has been pretty successful at it. Anyways, she sympathized with me since I wanted to go straight. She said that she would help me out and make me a new face free of charge. I thought she did a pretty good job..." Jordan's eyes narrowed as he looked at me. "Until now."

Thanks a lot.

"I had this face first," I said, crossing my arms. "Think about how I feel. You used to be a criminal."

Jordan just rolled his eyes.

"Enough you two, this is not the time to be acting like children," Raven said. He lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "We need to come up with a plan to escape." He reached up to his scalp and to my shock, he pulled his gray hair off, revealing a gun sitting on his bald head. I nearly burst out laughing. Raven caught my eye and glared at me. "Don't laugh, we don't want to attract attention."

I covered my mouth with my hand to smother my laughter. I have to say, it was a genius hiding spot. Who would think to look for a gun in a person's hair?

Raven repositioned his toupee. It was so perfect that I couldn't even tell that it had been removed.

Parrot leaned over. "It's classified information that Raven is bald. If you tell anyone, you will be violating federal law."

I nodded. It made sense. He could carry a weapon around with him everywhere he went. If word got out and he were caught again, criminals would know to check for weapons under his hair.

Calico reached into her boot and pulled out a slender, but sharp knife. She set to work cutting her ropes. I had to avert my eyes from the gleaming blade. The tip seemed to pierce me whenever I looked at it.

"Good job, Calico," Raven said. "Does anyone else have weapons?" Jordan and I shook our heads. Raven rubbed his temple. "Oh gosh, it's like I'm seeing double."

"Maybe I can find a weapon in the boxes," Cougar suggested. "If something is thrown with enough force, it can knock a person out."

"Good thinking. You and Parrot can throw the tables and chairs at them. Calico, untie Cougar next so he can open the boxes and look for weapons." Calico nodded. Her wrists were already freed. Raven glanced down at his watch. "Good grief, it's already 10:56. We need to get moving if we want to get out of here on time."

"I'm moving as fast as I can," Calico said. She had already slit Cougar's ropes, and was moving on to Falcon.

"Hey, Calico, I'm going to need that knife to cut the boxes open," Cougar said. Calico nodded and allowed him to cut the tape off the box. He pulled the lid open. "Darn it, it's just more teapots."

"What's it with all the teapots?" I asked.

"It's what Boyd has been using to hide the drugs," Raven explained. "Pretty genius, right?"

"And that was why you needed the teapot from Mr. Mayhad's home?"

"Yes. It had incriminating fingerprints on it, both Mayhad's and Boyd's. We already had enough evidence to convict Mayhad, hence the arrest warrant, but Boyd's been a slippery one."

"But now we have enough evidence to convict him," Parrot said. "In fact, we all can testify against him in court."

Jordan stiffened from across the floor. "You want me to go to Court?"

"No, that isn't necessary," Raven said. Jordan breathed a sigh of relief.

"And what about me?" I asked. Calico moved in front of me to cut the ropes binding my hands and feet. I stiffened. Everything is fine. She's not going to hurt you in any way. She has control over the knife. It's not going to slice you. Just don't think about it. I tried to focus on Raven as she took my wrists into her hands, slipping the knife under the rope. The cold metal brushed my bare skin. I whimpered.

Raven squinted at me. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't speak. I was completely paralyzed. It felt like it took an eternity for Calico to slit the ropes (in reality, it probably took less than a minute). I didn't dare move, or even breathe, until she had finished. I collapsed against the boxes. That was a close one.

I realized that everyone was staring at me in confusion. I waved my hand. "I-I'm okay."

Jordan nudged Raven. "How did you mistake me for him?"

"A lot can change in five years. But more importantly, we thought he, I mean you, were pretending to be weak so that you didn't have to assist us," Raven stated.

Jordan shrugged. "Fair point."

"As for your question, Claude," Raven continued. "No, you will not be forced, or even expected, to appear in court."

"Thank you. I think I'd like to put this experience behind me," I said.

By now, Calico had freed everyone. I stretched my arms and legs out. I hadn't even been tied up for an hour, yet I had already missed my freedom.

"Before we go out there, we need a game plan," Raven whispered. "Cougar and Falcon, move the boxes for us. Calico, hide your knife. We need it as a last resort in case they tie us up again. You and Falcon will need to rely on your martial arts training. Cougar and Parrot, throw tables and chairs at them. I'll use my gun if necessary. Jordan, figure out how to turn the lights out if you can. And Claude...uh, do something useful. But whatever you do, just make sure that no one gets a hold of you. They will threaten to kill you if we don't stop fighting."

Thank goodness! For once I'm not given an active role in life-threatening situations.

I took great pride in my job. It sounded easy enough. All it boiled down to was 'don't get caught.' And I could do that no problem.

"I have a better idea," Falcon said. "We need to hack into the computer system, right? Our job is just to collect evidence and tie up Boyd and his two minions. So Claude's job can be to hack into the system."

"Excellent idea." Raven glanced at his watch. "Especially since we are running out of time. It's nearly eleven p.m. Claude, as soon as Cougar moves the boxes, follow Jordan. Jordan, you're going to first turn off the electricity. Then, you both will find the computer and hack into it. Remember, all locks on files in the computer need to be disabled, and the computer needs to be detached from the wall."

In the distance, I heard the rustling of conversation. Shoes clanked on the metal stairs.

"They're coming," Raven said. "Everyone to your stations, we're about to break out." Cougar crouched in front of the boxes. "Ready, set, go!"

Cougar charged into the columns of boxes, creating a gap that Jordan darted through. He disappeared around the corner. I blinked. Wait, what am I doing?

Shouts rose from the other side of the room. Boxes squeaked across the floor. Motion blurred in my peripheral as Raven and Falcon ran past the blockade.

Oh, right! I'm supposed to run after Jordan.

I squeezed past the boxes and forced my legs to propel me forward. My whole body screamed with exhaustion, but I kept going.