The next day, Herrison finally called. In a blank, impersonal voice, he expressed his regrets for what had happened. It was a plane crash, beyond his control, but he still felt guilty for setting it up. Sam couldn't handle the platitudes, so he bluntly just asked for information on their departure. It would be in two days and they would be going to Malta, not India.

"We don't have all the information we need," Herrison had said. "You've seen the research papers. They're meager sketches of what we need. So we've found a deserter – one of Snitch Gravel's men who has run from his organization. He's hiding out in Malta and we need him to tell us everything he knows."

Sam didn't care. He just wanted out of the house. None of them had had the courage to tell their parents about Tom. Sam knew that his brothers still hoped, and he just couldn't do it. Not now. Probably not ever. He didn't even want to think about it. All he wanted to do was bury himself in work and numb himself out.

He and Jimmy had secured covers from their school. The internship had turned out to be highly successful, so the company in Japan demanded more interns. Sam, Jessie and Jimmy were next on the list, so they'd be sent out. It was sickening how happy and proud their parents were about that.

The problem was for Jerry and Kyle to get out of the house. Jerry already complained that he'd barely started college and he already had to leave, but he sucked it up and tried coming up with an excuse. The problem was that he and Kyle actually came up with the same excuse.

"You can't be going to a conference. I'm going to a conference," Jerry argued, waving his spatula at Kyle.

"So that means I can't go, too?" Kyle said, his eyebrows raised.

"It will look silly."

"Yes, for you, because you just started college two weeks ago. I'm in my second year."

"Yes, but science conferences are much more believable."

"Then what? IT?" Kyle huffed. "Just drop it, Jerry."

"Sam." Jerry turned to him, his hands on his hips.

Sam didn't really care, but he raised his eyes from his book and looked from Kyle to Jerry and the pancake smoking behind him on the stove. The smell turned his stomach over.

"I don't know. Why can't you just both go?"

Jerry swelled. "Because it would seem too unrealistic."

"Why?" Kyle asked exasperated. "Your college is sending students to a conference and so is mine. There are no limited spots and it's not like we're going to the same one."

"Yes, but we can't just both go—"

"Why not?"

All three of them froze and turned to their mother who stood in the kitchen doorway with a questioning expression on her face.

"Why can't you both go to these conferences?"

"Because it would be... too much?" Jerry whispered.

Maxi huffed and walked over to the stove. "This is about your education, Jerry. Nothing is too much. I never want you to think you can't go to something you enjoy." She flipped the pancake and the smoking stopped. "Is it about the money? You know that's never an issue."

Kyle smirked at Jerry over his mother's head. "That's what I was telling him."

"So when are you supposed to leave?" she asked.

"In two days," both Jerry and Kyle said.

Maxi turned from one to the other, frowning. "At the same time as Sam and Jimmy?"

"Exactly," Jerry said with a defeated sigh.

"Oh, sweetie, there's no problem that you're all out of the house at the same time. Your father and I won't get lonely." She laughed. "But it's cute that you even thought about it." She next focused on Sam who was just sitting at the kitchen table, minding his own business. "Weren't you supposed to be in school?"

"We got time off until we leave," Sam lied with no difficulty.

There would've been a time when lying would sent his stomach into a twisting fit. Not anymore. He'd learned how to lie. Last time he was nervous, he hadn't even known Tom. But he was actually alive. The sight of his mother was suddenly unbearable.

"Okay, then." She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then did the same to Kyle and Jerry. "I'll see you kids tonight." And she was out the door.

Sam couldn't wait to be out the door, too.

⭐⭐⭐

Their parents had been much easier to fool than Sam had expected. He had spent as little time with them as possible, because he couldn't look them in the face without feeling like he was a miserable fraud. He should've told them about Tom a million times. Well, shoulda, woulda, coulda.

He stayed in his room, getting ready for his "internship". He'd read a little on Malta, but the little island in the Mediterranean was of no interest to him. Nothing that wasn't a huge jewel in India was. In order to function, he'd reduced himself to a reading zombie. When it came to moving, he just followed the others around blindly, trying to focus on the little things that brought him an insignificant amount of joy.

Like when Jimmy finally started talking again, even if they were mumbled phrases, or when Kay last came over and her eyes were no longer swollen from crying, or when Jerry finally took a break from scrubbing the house.

It was really lucky that Kyle and Jessie had remained grounded and did their best to make the others feel better with inappropriate, morbid jokes. Even if he never cracked a smile, Sam appreciated their intention and felt like hugging them both for at least trying. He was also a tiny bit curious what had happened to Jimmy's hand, since his knuckles were bandaged, but he didn't dare ask and he and Jessie were both silent about it.

But even so, the tension in that house was more than he could bear, so Sam was more than... well, not happy, but maybe comfortable to be out and on the plane, ready to leave his normal life behind and at least not have to think about it for a while. Hey, maybe I'll die too and then there will be no awkward telling the parents. That was such a stupid thought.

"This flight is going to take freaking forever," Jessie mumbled next to him.

Sam only nodded. Yes, it would, but who cared anyway? Jessie kept grumbling that she was in the middle seat and hating it. At least she had Jimmy to sleep on in case she wanted to. Sam only had the window.

"Don't you guys find it weird that Tina and Christine are left out of every mission?" Kyle asked, turning to them from the seat in front.

"Not really," Jerry mumbled from Jimmy's right, burying his nose in the inflight magazine.

Christine. Sam had been avoiding her like the plague since what happened to Tom, and he wasn't sure it was because of the nagging or being afraid he'd yell at her. Maybe both. He hadn't even told her he was leaving which was really insensitive.

"Maybe they're not really in the agency," Jimmy said.

"Not so sure about that. They've been to training sessions," Kyle said.

"Unlike us," Kay mumbled.

"Yes, but you two go on missions, at least. Not to mention Angie," Kyle pointed out.

"I don't know. Maybe Tina and Christine are backup," Sam said with a shrug.

The subject was giving him a headache. And honestly, if it were up to him, neither of the two would ever see field work. Not with how they've been performing in training. Christine actually refused to run if she started sweating and Tina tripped over her own feet.

Jerry grumbled something unintelligible. Sam's phone vibrated in his pocket. He struggled to pull it out without elbowing Jessie and stared at the screen. A private number. With trembling fingers, he answered.

"Sam, thank God!" said a desperate voice.

Huh? "Who is this?"

"It's me. Eddie." Now he sounded offended.

Sam's chest swelled with hope for a moment. "Eddie? I thought you were dead."

At the sound of his voice, the others piled around him, hope written on their faces.

"Well, I'm not. No thanks to these agency assholes. They didn't even come looking for bodies."

"I'm so happy you're okay! How are the others?"

Eddie fell silent and Sam's heart sunk again. He'd been stupid to doubt his feelings. A wave of cold shook his body and snuffed out his hope. His temples pounded and his heart felt even heavier than before. It felt like Tom died all over again.

"I'll cut the crap. Tom and Billy are gone."

Sam squeezed the phone in his hand, trying to keep himself from trembling. "Angie?" he whispered.

"Angie's fine. She stayed in Tokyo for some reason. She doesn't even know about the plane crash."

A wave of happiness swept through Sam, immediately buried by dread. Another person they had to tell about this and he should be the one telling her because this was Angie, his... well, Tom's girlfriend.

"Where are they?" Jimmy asked and Sam repeated the question.

"I don't even know," Eddie said, annoyed. "We're commuting and I have no idea what country—"

"Wait, we?"

"Yeah. I'm with Yuki and Emiko. Your cousins."

Well shit. Apparently the agency had really reached out to everyone in the family. But then again, Sam realized it would've been really weird for him to be in the agency all alone, without the others' support. Though it maybe would've been better because the others wouldn't be in danger then.

"Sir, please switch off your phone, we're about to take off."

Sam jumped and looked up at the flight attendant hovering over them. She seemed unsure how to tell them to break it up too because they were theoretically in their seats.

"Gotta go," he mumbled to Eddie.

"Good luck!" he said with a huff and hung up.

Sam switched off his phone and turned to the others who were looking at him expectantly. The stewardess also lingered, watching them with raised eyebrows. He cleared his throat and they all returned to their seats obediently. Until the woman left and they could huddle up again.

"Angie and Eddie are alive and well," Sam whispered. "And Yuki and Emiko are apparently also in on the mission. Billy's half brother and sister," he clarified.

"Thank God," Kay breathed and nestled under Kyle's arm.

He looked at her a little worried, then turned back to Sam as if requesting permission to leave the conversation and tend to his girlfriend. Sam frowned, but nodded. It wasn't like he had more important news to impart, but it felt a little weird. He considered Kay and Jessie part of the group, real agents, so it was sometimes hard for him to mesh that image with that of his brothers' girlfriends.

Seeing Kay like this, broke his heart. Kyle should never have to ask for his permission to be there for her. They both returned to their seats and Sam could see Kay leaning her head on Kyle's shoulder. Jessie leaned against Jimmy, too, mumbling thanks under her breath, her face set in a frown for some reason. And at that moment, Sam felt very lonely.

He shot a glance at Jerry, but he had returned to his magazine, squinting at the pages. Was he lonely too? In the jungle, Sam had Christine to turn to in moments like this, when he needed a hug. On their last mission, he could at least think about her longingly. But now... Now he found no comfort in thinking about her.

As the flight went on and he watched Kay climb into Kyle's lap, and Jessie and Jimmy sleeping against each other, he couldn't help but feel that he'd failed. Maybe if he'd done something differently, he and Christine would be like that, not barely speaking, always bickering over the most inconsequential crap.

His thoughts led him into an uneasy sleep in which he and Angie faced the others alone, surrounded by cold light that would only dim when they came near each other. But it was wrong, so wrong to be near her, to touch her. Because Christine was like a vengeful spirit watching from the skies. And the skies rained, drowning the city, filling it with the waters of an apocalyptic flood. He couldn't swim, he'd never learned how. And his scars hurt, especially the one above his eye...

Sam jerked awake, rubbing his forehead, right above his eyebrow. There were no traces of a scar there; because he didn't have one. Cold hit him like a punch, reminding him that dreaming about his twin wouldn't bring him back. And at that moment, Sam only wished he had died instead.

🌟🌟🌟

Sad Sam is sad. Sad story is sad. But is it also interesting or do you feel like telling Sam to get his head out of his ass already? Is the narration voice believable numb and hurt or just emo and annoying?

Also, how do you feel about Sam and Christine at this point? Is Sam right to avoid her or should they talk? Leaving without telling her was super crappy of him.

Finally, everyone met up. Time to have some fun in exotic destinations 😁

Vote for the goat 🐐