"How did you do it?"

"What was she like?"

"Was it just like you predicted?"

"Why the hell did it take you so long to answer?"

This last question is thrown at me by a very upset looking Kalen, gray eyes boring holes into mine. When I finally got back, I was bombarded with questions, both Mara and Asher wanting to know how I did on the mission, and Kalen wanting to know why I didn't answer the first few times they called.

"I already told you, I didn't hear my TekPad. I had it on vibrate."

My answer only seems to make him madder, as he turns around and stomps off into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

I turn to Mara incredulously.

"What's his problem?"

Mara is staring after Kalen, a sad look on her face, and she turns to me with an apologetic smile.

"You know how he gets. He didn't have a great day and then you weren't answering and we didn't know if you were okay or not... he was really worried Bri, probably the most worried out of all of us."

I try not to think too hard about the implications of that, instead focusing on the first part of her sentence.

"Why didn't he have a good day? Did he have trouble on his mission?" Is that why he's back early?

Asher, who had been sipping some water and observing up until now, jumps into the conversation.

"You could say that," he mumbles, swatting his copper curls away from his forehead, putting the glass on the table and standing across from me.

"Both Cassie and Xavier were accepted, but Kalen...." he gives me a pointed look.

Oh, now I understand.

I look in the direction that Kalen disappeared to, feeling my good mood from earlier evaporate like smoke. He didn't even have a chance at his part in the mission. It's the first important one he's been on in months, he trained so hard, I watched him leave his blood, sweat, and tears during classes just to prove his worth. And now he must feel like all that work was for nothing.

I look at Mara, and she shrugs. I suppose it was bound to happen, that something would go wrong eventually, not everything could go according to plan. But it's still a harsh reminder that we can't control every possible outcome.

"I'll go check on him," I say, getting off from the stool and heading towards the room Kalen would have shared with Xavier if he were here. It looks like Kalen will have the room all to himself now.

I pause outside his door, debating whether I should go in or not.

"Come on Bri, Kalen needs you. He's been there for you, now it's your turn to be there for him."

I take a deep breath and clench my hands at my sides. I knock twice before pushing the door open. Kalen is sitting with his back to the door, so I can't see his face when I come in, but his shoulders stiffen when I call his name, and it looks like he's barely breathing when I sit on the bed next to him.

"What do you want," he mumbles, nothing like the usual snarky Kalen that I'm used to.

I much prefer sarcastic or arrogant Kalen to defeated and sad Kalen. I place my hand on his shoulder and tug, inviting him to turn around. He follows my guidance and faces me, but keeps staring at the ground, as if he can't quite meet my eyes.

"I don't want anything, do you?"

I ask, keeping my voice calm and reassuring. If he wants to talk, I will be there for him, and if he doesn't then I will support him in silence.

He heaves a shuddering sigh and finally looks at me, and what I had previously mistaken for sadness I now see is a fiery rage burning behind his beautiful stormy eyes.

"I can't believe I wasn't able to complete it. I didn't even have a chance to start!" he exclaims, throwing his hands up only to bury them in his hair. "Something about my backstory didn't add up. They didn't like the fact that I was supposedly still a trainee and that I was sent in the name of my compound. I guess that has never happened before so they got suspicious. They threw me out almost instantly." He groans.

"I should have done something, made up some story on the spot, but I just... froze. Everything that we have trained for, all that time practicing and studying our backstories, just to fail in the first five minutes."

I scoot closer until our knees are practically touching. He looks at me, levels me with such an intense stare that I have the sudden urge to look away. This boy just doesn't seem to get a break, even after everything he's been through. I watch him, and he watches me, and for the longest time nobody says anything. We just sit, and stare.

"Then you weren't answering, and I got so worried," he mumbles, moving closer. "I couldn't stop thinking that if I never saw you again, if something went wrong, that the last thing we did was fight. I wouldn't be able to live with myself." He grabs my hand, and his fingers are warm in my own.

"But now you're here, and even though I failed, I feel like I can breathe again."

My breath catches in my throat as his gray eyes flicker down, landing on my lips, and he starts to get closer and closer until ...

I quickly look away, getting up from the bed in a flash. Kalen looks up at me in shock, mouth still slightly parted.

"Sorry, I just remembered that Diana gave me her number, I'm going to go see if I can contact her," I stammer, looking at the floor. I already contacted her before, but Kalen doesn't know that.

Before he has a chance to respond I rush out the door, taking two large strides over to my room, shutting my door and locking it behind me. I lean against the cool wooden surface and breathe, willing my heart to calm down. Kalen was going to kiss me, wasn't he? But what if it was just because he was upset? Yes, that's probably it. He is just confused from all of the emotions he is feeling right now. Am I confused? I mean, are there any emotions to be confused about? No. No, there aren't. There can't be. 

I pull at the hair that falls into my face, twisting it into a messy bun, and I walk over to my bed. I catch my reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall across from me, and I stop to look at myself.

I've changed in the short months I spent at the compound. I've filled out a bit, no longer all bony angles and long limbs. I might have gotten taller too, and my skin is paler than before because of the lack of sunlight, but not unhealthily so. My hair shines in the light, and the eyes that once watched the world with envy and distaste now seem brighter, more alert, more alive. I look older somehow, more mature.

I grab my TekPad from my pocket and open the chat that I started with Diana.

"Hey, is there a reason why you gave your phone number to a stranger? That's how you end up getting kidnapped you know."

I wait for a while but no answer pops up on the screen, so I decide to go have dinner with Mara and Ash. Kalen doesn't look at me while we attack our takeout, and I try not to feel too hurt, after all, I'm the one who ran away, not the other way around. Once we are done everyone retreats to their rooms, Mara and I settling into our respective bunks.

"So, any particular reason why you and Kalen avoided each other like the plague at dinner?"

She asks me, leaning over her side of the bed to look at me. I just shrug, not wanting to admit how much of a fool I made of myself or how bad I felt, when I hear a notification come in on my TekPad. I scramble to get it, opening Dove and nearly throwing it across the room when I find a message from Diana.

"People that read about Spider-Man aren't strangers."

I smile and type back a quick response before she logs off again.

"I'm honored. I never thought I would become friends with the president's daughter."

Once I've sent it I worry that I might have been too forceful, calling her a friend when I only just met her a few hours ago. But she texts back right away.

"I never thought I would have any friends. I guess this is new for both of us."

"That can't be true," I reply. "You must be drowning in people that want to befriend you."

"Not really. The perks of never getting alone time outside of the house."

I frown. She has no friends? How is this girl still sane? She practically only has her father and bodyguards as company.

"Would you be willing to meet up again?"

I stare at the message for a second before it registers in my brain.

"Of course!" I say out loud before I realize that she can't hear me, so I type back as fast as I can.

"Where to this time?"

Mara watches me from her bunk, peeking over to see what I'm writing. When she finally seems to understand what's going on a smile brightens her face, and she gives me two thumbs up. I smile back.

"How about at Merics Park? I hear it's a great place to read a book. I might be able to escape next week, how does Thursday sound?"

Merics Park. Wasn't that where the four bodies were found? I almost say no to her offer, but then an idea occurs to me. That would be a great opportunity to bring up our mystery killer without seeming too suspicious about it. I doubt Diana knew anything, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she knows about her father's misdeeds.

"Sounds like a plan," I type. "See you there at noon?"

She sends me a thumbs-up sign before finally logging off, so I turn off my TekPad and lay back on my bed.

Things are going very well, but they are also going very fast.

"Hey Mara, have you heard anything from the rest of the team?" I ask.

I hear shuffling before Mara's head appears over the side of her bed.

"I got a message from Jay earlier. He says the three of them got in, and the first thing they did was drive to the president's house. And get this, it was right next to that abandoned area where Jack and his team encountered you-know-who."

I raise my eyebrows in surprise, shifting so I can get a better look at her.

"Are you serious? Isn't that a bit too obvious?"

She nods.

"He told me that Cassie was able to go back later in the day and look around the place. The reason we don't have any footage of what happened with Quinn and the others is because the traffic cam was wiped. Someone has the video of what happened, and I can take a pretty good guess at who owns it."

I mull over her words. Wasn't that too much of a coincidence though? I mean, for the President to live right next to the scene of the crime? It's possible he never thought he would be a suspect, so he isn't taking as many precautions as our usual rogue would. However, if it is him, what he did today proves he is escalating, and we need to stop him before more innocent lives are lost.

Mara yawns, laying back in her bunk and away from view. "I'm beat, do you mind if we call it a night?"

I don't bother answering, instead leaning over to hit the light switch on the wall, enveloping the room in darkness.

"Goodnight," she says.

I hear her roll around until she finds a comfortable position, breaths evening out in a little under five minutes. I just stare at the top of the bunk bed, running through different scenarios in my head. Seeing Diana, the killer, catching the president. My mind just doesn't want to shut off. I force myself to close my eyes and pretend I'm back in my apartment. Mom is downstairs, on the porch with her plants, and I'm listening to my favorite song on the radio. Soon she will call me down for dinner, and we will eat our meal while watching the newest episode of The Big Crunch Theory. Eventually, sleep starts to overcome me, and I let myself sink deeper and deeper into the darkness.