A R K E L L

It had barely been minutes since I entered Jack's office and Victoria had already barged in to call us for a meeting. Officer Smith was a new addition to the NIA, responsible for the security and communication department. After taking the headquarters by storm, David Porter affiliated her with most of the tasks of the organization. Other than having access to all the files inside the Vault, she was in charge of checking the entry and exit time of all the staff members.

In only two days, Victoria had already cleaned out all the redundant folders, organizing the archives in alphabetical order, and implemented a new and improved security alarm.

"What's going on?" Jack murmured taking his seat, visibly annoyed.

"We have found some discrepancies between the files possessed by the agency and those declared in the contract. Officer Smith checked all the files and there were a few missing."

"We tend to clean out folders with inconclusive results. It's not something unfamiliar, we have to make space for new cases and sometimes we forget to mention it. It happened to all of us," Jack affirmed with his calmest voice, crossing his fingers on the table.

"I would still like to double check at the Central Operations."

The Central Operations was a one hour ride from the headquarters, home of all the contracts and agreements between the NIA and third parties. It also had the list of each and every file possessed by the agency in the last decade.

"You're getting out of focus," Walker commented. "What happened last week was just an accident and it shouldn't deviate your attention from what's really important."

"What happened last week wasn't an accident, but a misconduct on your parts. And I'm sure I'm focusing on the right things."

Jack looked over me with squinting eyes, he couldn't wait for this meeting to be over already.

"Take it as a reminder to do things better next time," he added, "Victoria will lead the operation, you can send your officers as well."

"If this will prevent you from calling a meeting every ten minutes, then go ahead."

Jack Walker moved out of his seat and so did I. Once we reached the end of the hallway, he reached out to whisper something on my ears.

"He doesn't know where to put his hands and it shows."

I turned around to see Officer Cavanaugh following us.

"What about the operation?" I asked.

"A one hour drive to Millville, a city in New Jersey. I guess you two are going with Victoria," he said turning to Mike as well.

I stopped in the middle of the hallway and gazed on my side. Victoria Smith was still in the meeting room, her hair collected in a low bun, while her eyes shot fire at mine. She will crawl me in trouble, I can sense it.

Once the meeting ended, Officer Smith, Cavanaugh and I headed to the parking lot. Victoria was giving us the lead, with her eyes fixed on the first row of the VIP side. She unlocked the Porsche and put her hands on the steering wheel.

"We are just going to the Central, I don't think grabbing so much attention is necessary." Mike tried to convince her, but it only backfired.

"Out of all people, you're talking to me about grabbing the attention?" She frowned at his green shirt and brown formal pants. "You look like a planted vegetable."

I tried to hide it, but her comment did make me laugh. I didn't know she could have a sense of humor.

"I go pretty fast," she said, starting the engine, "Who wants to sit on the front?"

After picking the front seat and sending Mike on the back, the car finally started. With the car stereo switched off, we were drowning in our own thoughts. Bearing her for the entire ride wasn't easy. She had that mean girl vibe written all above her.

Victoria Smith was one of the few female officers in the headquarters, but surely the most striking one. Her intelligence was hard to ignore. She didn't let anyone take her for granted, be that as a minority in this male dominating world or as an officer. I had already heard quite a few things about her character. She had participated to many undercover state missions and guarded the queen of England after only two years of training. Her fame proceeded her. She was tough yet charismatic, calculating but also intuitive. It felt like she was always on attack mode, ready to shoot at everyone who was a thorn on her side.

As I watched her next to me, I couldn't help but wonder if she was the same at home or if she had been trained to be like that. It was difficult to know people when they showed nothing but the appearance. She didn't let anything hang on the surface. She was who she needed to be at that moment.

When the vehicle stopped, Officer Smith was the first to unlock her seatbelt and get out. The sound of her high heels clicking against the floor alerted everyone that we were here. As I walked, Jack's words kept buzzing on my ear. I couldn't let Victoria know about our secret. The missing file.

"I don't think we're getting out of here anytime soon," I complained to Mike, who was walking next to me, but I was sure Victoria could hear me too.

"This place is immense," Mike replied, assessing me, "It will take us hours."

"We can get divided in sections," I proposed, waiting for her reaction. But she didn't have any. She just listened.

"I can do this side," Mike affirmed, pointing at the left side of the library.

As soon as she heard him, Victoria turned her heels to the other side. And, naturally, I followed her. I couldn't let Officer Smith out of sight.

We spent the next hour looking at all sorts of contracts and lists and it turned out that there were a good amount of files and contracts missing on our archives. Porter wasn't so wrong about being concerned, after all. What really bugged me was Jack's lack of responsibility to manage it. He used to be a hardworking, careful perfectionist. What happened to that?

As I moved in between the aisles, collecting folders in my hand, I caught Victoria scanning me from head to toe. She was still figuring out whether she could trust me or not.

"Have you find something?" I asked her, breaking the ice between us.

"Not yet."

We went back and forth for the next few hours, looking for holes while I tried to distract her as much as possible. After gathering all the evidence — minus the file I was in charge of — we headed home. The ride wasn't as quiet as I expected it to be. This time, Victoria filled me up with questions, both personal and professional. This was her way to break the ice, I guessed.

"Where are you assigned momentarily?"

"I'm doing back and forth between Arlington and New York. I'm working on a counterespionage operation."

"Sounds fun," she replied staring at the road, "Is this the only reason why you're going to New York?"

I didn't answer, but I could see her smirk from the corner of my eye. Who was Victoria Smith and how did it feel like she knew everything about everyone?

.  .  .

By the time I got back to my apartment, it was already evening. Living on the edge of two lives had never been an easy job. The tiredness slowly turned into a delusional state where I couldn't distinguish the truth from what was not. My mind was a barrel of information sprinting at light speed, not giving me any rest. No matter how many times I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, my nightmares were there to haunt me. I wasn't a saint — I knew that well — but I wasn't evil either. I was stuck in this limbo, on the verge of heaven and hell, without a way out.

After finishing the shower, I went to the kitchen to grab a beer. Hunter was on the couch watching TV.

"Busy day?" He asked, turning to my side. I nodded and he returned his eyes to the screen. I grabbed my bear and was about to head to my room when he called me.

"I'm getting bored here. Would you like to go out?"

"I had a long day, I think I'm gonna pass." I stopped in the middle of the hallway, glimpsing out of the windows. It looked like a nice day out, the weather seemed also nice.

"You've had even longer days. Just come and you'll feel better. Tell me when was the last time you had some fun."

"You won't leave me until I say yes, will you?" I sighed, putting the beer back in the fridge.

"A couple of drinks and we'll come home." Hunter got up and bolted to his room.

I put a white shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and was ready to go. We took a ride to Time Square and walked from there. The sunset was sneaking behind the tall buildings, with the crowd dispersing around the streets. I didn't remember the last time I went out to have fun and not for duty.

Hunter and I walked to Central Park, talking about life, our goals and things that happened to us in the last few years.

"It feels good to have someone to talk about what is going in your head," Hunter murmured, looking at the lake show his reflection. "This job can get very isolating, you know. You get so used to wearing masks that you forget how you really look like."

"I'm happy that you are here, even not for long. It's nice to come home and see a familiar face. Someone that isn't work-related."

"What about your father?" He took a long break before wording his thoughts. "Did you find him?"

He was one of the few people that I told about my dad. It was not really a secret that I started to work with Jack and the NIA only to find him. My father was a man with many enemies. I didn't know what he did as a profession, all I knew was that he messed up with the wrong people and now was facing the consequences to that. The last time I saw him, I was seven and used to live in Baltimore with my mother and my brother Kevin. Kevin was six years older than me, and always knew better. He was so eager to know the truth about our dad that he went to live on his own as soon as he turned eighteen. Life hadn't been easier later, for neither of us. While he wandered around the busy streets of foreign cities, I was home alone with my mother. Something about her felt strange after a while. She didn't smile or talked to me at all. And, right before I turned seventeen, my house was caught up in a fire with her inside. I didn't know if it was an attempt of suicide or a tragic coincidence.

"Not yet," I replied, with a bitter taste in my tongue. I had been looking for him nonstop, but it looked like he vanished from the face of earth. I was sure he was still flesh and bones because dieing was too easy. There was a bigger hell for him here.

"You'll see... everything will fall into place."

I was crossing the street when I heard a strange buzz on my phone. I thought it was a text message so I instinctively put my eyes on the screen. Turned out, it was a notification for Saffron's position. She was on a twenty meter radius from here. I carefully looked around and moved to my right. When the radius started to shrink, I knew I was going to the right place.

"Have you ever been here?" Hunter asked behind me, watching the sign over the door. It said Connolly's.

"No," I said and entered. The pub was full of people, with a loud music playing on the background. I walked past the crowd, scanning everyone's faces but hers. I sat on the stool next to the counter and faced the mob. The app said that she was just five meters away.

"Two dirty martini, please." Hunter ordered, sitting beside me.

"Are you following me?" A voice suddenly blust in my ear. I turned around to see Saffron behind the counter. What was she doing here?

"What a funny coincidence!" I never stopped to look at how blue her eyes were. I felt like I could drown in them.

"Coincidence?" She raised her eyebrows and then looked at Hunter.

"I didn't know you worked here," Hunter noted with a veil of surprise in his expression, "I thought you were just visiting New York City."

"Change of plans."

I sipped from my glass and listened to them talk, wondering how did they ever meet. It had been only two days.

"We're neighbors then, it's official." Hunter raised his glass and cheered with mine. "To Saffron, New York's new addition."

We spent the night drinking and talking, with my eyes occasionally meeting hers. Apparently, this was her first day at the Connolly's and the rest of the staff seemed like they went easy on her.

"Another round," Hunter shouted on top of his lungs with the music getting louder in the background. After taking the order, Saffron prepared our drinks. When she handed me my fourth glass, the tip of her fingers touched my bare hands. At that moment, it felt like hundreds of bolts exploding inside of me. It might have been the friction or the after effect of the alcohol. I was gulping down every bit of rationality that I conserved. I have never seen myself go so wasted, or at least, I didn't remember it.

We were the last pair getting up and move to the exit when the pub hang the closed sign. It was already two am and the promise of only a few drinks vanished into the air. As we walked outside, the breeze of the cold night shivered down our spines. We weren't alone, though. Standing under the lamppost there was Saffron and her composed self. She was hypnotized by the darkness coming from the road like it was calling for her. The wind played with her long blonde hair as she stood in silence. But her eyes said a million things at once. They screamed 'save me'.

As the taxi arrived, both me and Saffron approached the door. She gazed at me with eyes that I couldn't identify. I didn't know what she was thinking at that moment, but I surely knew that I would have done anything to know that.

"Are you going home?" She asked, looking behind my shoulders.

I nodded and she opened the door.

"We can share the ride, we are all going to the same place anyway."

After I accepted, Hunter put himself on the front seat while Saffron and I sat behind.

I didn't know if it was because I was drunk but the cab looked smaller than I remembered. As the car started, I felt myself dangerously close to her.

The moon, from above, was digging holes into our hearts to let the secrets flow with time and space. Nobody could hide forever. Sooner or later, the truth would have come out. They were right when they said that New York was the city that never slept because the traffic was all over the road. I didn't know how to bear the tiredness that filled up inside of me like an overflowed cup. Few minutes later, my head leaned against the glass and my eyes shut down. I had fallen asleep.

A\N

Hello readers, thanks for reading and commenting. I just wanted to give a shout-out to samanthaawritesx for her book Finding Emily, written from the pov of James — the male character. This book is so well written that I'm gasping for words on how to describe it. If you're looking for a young adult that talks about life, love, and family then this is the book for you!