"I seem to be at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't think I've ever seen you around here before," says Diana, smile still intact.

I quickly go through the backstory Kalen helped me come up with in my head, trying to remember the details. We spent a good two hours testing each other on our secret identities, and I'm not about to let all that hard work go to waste.

"Where are you from?" He asked me, lying next to me on the floor of the living room. I would answer and ask him a question, which he would then answer. Ask, answer, ask, answer, consecutively until we knew our stories so well, we had started to believe them ourselves.

"I just moved here with my parents a couple of weeks ago," I answer casually, the lie rolling off my tongue with ease. "My father got a new job position at Delle Inc and we had to move, I used to live in Saint Richards, Opia."

She nods, looking pleased with my answer. I chose Opia because nobody really knows much about it. It's one of our smallest states, with a population of about 3.000 people. People knew enough about it to know where it was, but not enough to ask too many questions.

"So, do you go to the high school here then?"

There is longing in her voice that I don't miss, and my heart gives a painful thud. Diana isn't allowed to go to a regular high school, her father had her homeschooled since she was a child, which means she never got to meet other kids our age unless it was at charity events or parties held by the President at their house on special occasions. She must feel so lonely.

This is why we made my story a lonely one as well.

I make a show of frowning, lowering my head and playing with the hem of my sleeves. I need Diana to feel as identified with me as possible, that will give me a better chance of connecting with her, and hopefully, of getting her to talk about her own private life in return.

"No, I've never gone to high school actually, or any school for that matter."

I look back at her, and find her staring intently at me, recognition and sympathy lighting her pretty blue eyes.

 Gotcha.

"One of the reasons we moved here was because my mother is the head of the Elite compound stationed in the city. I was raised to be the perfect little Elite and do everything I was told. I've been at the Opia compound since I was four, and now I'm continuing my training here."

"You're Tatiana's daughter?"

I nod, glad that Mara had the good sense of calling up the compound before we left and telling them about our mission. If anyone were to check that I was Tatiana Dorian's daughter, they would find pictures of the two of us in her office and birth certificates in the record books. All fake of course, but no one needs to know that.

"Wow, so you're an Elite, what is it like?" She leans forward, resting her head in her hands.

I shrug.

"What's it like being a Norm? I mean,  I am what I am, nothing special."

She smiles again. Diana is all for equality between ranks, Norms and Elites are the same in her eyes. I didn't need to change that part of my sorry for it to be true. It's one of the things I admire most about her.

"Oh! And my name is Sofia by the way," I say quickly, realizing I still hasn't introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you Sofia."

She stretches out her hand and I shake it, trying not to squeal. I can't believe that everything is going so smoothly. I couldn't have planned it better myself.

Sadly, it looks like fate only planed for us to meet for a short while because in come five men dressed all in black, sun glasses covering their eyes, and scowls painted on their faces. I jump in surprise when one of them looks our way, catching sight of me before his gaze lands on Diana.

The president's daughter notices my panicked stare and turns around, shoulders lowering when she sees who is watching her.

"Well," she says, getting up from the chair, picking up her bag and putting on her scarf and hat.

"It looks like that's all the time I have. It was a pleasure meeting you." She smiles at me again and turns around, pulling a book out of her bag while she approaches her guards.

No! She can't leave yet. How am I supposed to contact her again? My brain goes into overdrive, questions and backup plans jumbling together in my brain. I'm so shocked by the sudden interruption that I can't come up with any way to make Diana stay longer, and panic starts to claw it's way up my throat. 

She fiddles with the book for a second, and in my anxiety induced haze I notice her slip something in one of the pages before handing it to the librarian.

"It was a great read, thank you."

She turns to me one last time.

"It's a very good book, I recommend it."

And with that she follows her bodyguards out the door, disappearing into the crowd of people mingling on the street.

I sigh, sitting back in my chair. So much for getting closer to her. Now what am I supposed to do? I groan and flop back into the cushions, staring halfheartedly at the ceiling as my only chance at getting closer to the president walks further away. I look back towards the old librarian, who is unsurprisingly, reading a book at her front desk. The book that Diana returned catches my eye, sitting on the edge of the old womans table, forgotten until she decides to put it away later. I study it from afar, feeling a sense of familiarity come over me. Something is telling me to get up and grab it, so putting down my comics, I push myself off the sofa and head over to the counter.

"Hello again," I say to the librarian. "I was just wondering if I could take a quick sneak-peek?" The old woman stares up at me, eyes comically large because of the big round reading glasses perched atop her nose. She smiles at me.

"What am I here for if it isn't to let you look at books?"

I smile at her remark, grabbing the book and heading back over to my previous spot. I look at the cover. "The Jade Assasin's Curse" Huh, okay. I guess Diana likes mystery and action novels.

I flip through the pages, stopping every once in a while to scan its contents when a little paper flutters to the ground.

Bingo, just what I was looking for.

I bend over and pick up the small paper, closing the book, and taking out my TekPad from my bag. There is a number written on the paper, and I am hoping that with any luck it might be Diana's. Who knows, maybe our fascinating little chat about superheroes sparked some interest in her. I quickly wright the number in Dove, waiting for a match to come up, and sure enough, someone who goes by the name D.K. pops up on the screen.

"So, why did you give me your number?" I type, hoping that I'm right, and I will get the answer I am expecting.

It doesn't even take more than a minute for the response to come in.

"You seem fun, I need some fun in my life"

I smile. This girl really is something. I pocket my TekPad and return the book to the old librarian, who makes me promise to come back another day, and I walk out onto the street. There are fewer people now, I can walk without having to press myself against somebody else's shoulders to make room. An ambulance speeds past me down the road, a cop car followed close behind, but I'm too busy trying to retrace my steps to notice. I've almost made it back to the shuttle stop when I feel my pocket start to vibrate. I take out my TekPad and check the caller ID, answering when I see that it's Mara.

"Hey, how's everything going?"

"Bri! Thank God!" Mara exclaims on the other end of the line, the worry in her voice making me frown.  I can make out voices in the background, but the noise from the cars is making it hard to hear, so I hold the device closer to my ear.

"Mara? What's going on?"

"Bri where.... yes, yes I got through to her... are you still at... She's fine! Can I please finish my sentence?"

I may be imagining things, but I'm pretty sure the voice I'm hearing in the background is Kalen, which is odd because he isn't supposed to be back yet. Heck, we didn't know when he would be back. I can make out a few muffled words like "where" or "hurt" and my worry increases tenfold.

"Mara what's happening?"

I hear Mara ask the people in the background to be quiet, before she finally starts talking again.

"Bri, are you still at that book shop?"

"No, I just left, why?"

I hear a sigh of relief, and I can imagine her sink into one of the stools at the kitchen counter.

"You have to get back, there was an attack at Merics Park, it's all over the news."

Merics Park, that was just three blocks north from here. Right next to the little bookstore. I pick up my pace, spotting the shuttle stop in the distance.

"What happened?" I ask when I finally reach the metallic bench, sitting and waiting for my ride back.

"No one knows, there hasn't been any information yet. But four bodies were found in different locations of the park, and at every location witnesses say that they saw a suspicious-looking man wearing a black suit. It could be nothing but..."

"But it could be our ghost" I finish for her.

But why is he suddenly going after innocent people? So far, he has only been targeting Elite trainees.

"Yeah, anyway, it's not safe. You need to get back here now. Kalen is wearing a hole in the floor with his constant pacing. We tried to get a hold of you five times already, what were you doing?"

I see the shuttle hover up to the stop, so I stand and wait for it to get to me.

"I was a little busy chatting with our future president," I say, receiving nothing but stunned silence on the other end.

"I'll tell you everything when I get back," I add, imagining Mara nodding when I don't get an immediate response.

"Okay, see you in a bit."

I hang up just as the shuttle makes it to the stop, scanning my TekPad in front of the panel on the door before taking a seat at the front of the vehicle. As it rolls away from the city, I see two more ambulances and police cars heading in the opposite direction, and I get a sinking feeling in the pit if my stomach. Why is our mystery man changing up his MO, what is he doing?

The pressure to get closer to Diana is even stronger now. If we want to catch this guy, we need to find out who he is, and dear old daddy is first on the list of suspects.