Mr. Anderson had managed to get me purple pants with stars, which was the biggest surprise of the day so far. Well, maybe the second biggest right behind accidentally starting a coup in a country I'd never heard of. I had been escorted to a bathroom to change and then taken to what seemed like a break room with the worst coffee I'd ever tasted before sitting down on a comfortable couch to listen to my options to help.

"So, you're saying the best way for me to help this whole thing is to get thrown in jail as a co-conspirator with these people? In a foreign country? On a Tuesday or whatever. I am so going to lose my job for this."

"If this works out, we can help you with that, too," Mr. Anderson explained. I'm sure he was about to launch into all the great things they could do for me, but I had to interrupt.

"I am not trained in taking down coups! Until today I didn't even know this country existed! What do you think the odds are that this will go well, huh? I'm not concerned what happens if I can pull this off. I'm concerned what happens if I can't. Because it seems like I'll be worse off than I was before."

Mr. Anderson looked down at his hands folded neatly in his lap, as though calculating how many fingers he possessed, before finally raising his eyes to mine. "I promise, if you do what you are asked, we will secure you another position and good references. You can be sort of employed by one of our... affiliate companies."

I knew they were spies. Had to be. A door slammed down the hallway and what sounded like high-heels clicked in the hallway, growing louder with every step until they stopped outside the door we were now sitting in. Mr. Anderson did not seem concerned so, like a passenger on a plane trusting the flight attendants, I chose to remain calm. At least on the outside.

"Fine," I said before whoever was approaching opened the door and took the opportunity away. "I will help you. But I'm going to need a shower. And I want to sleep in my own bed. And I want to see Olivia."

"That's it?" The look on his face told me I should have made many more demands. But really, that was it. Maybe some decent coffee.

"And I want breakfast ordered in for me in the morning at no cost to me." I amended. "It will make sure no hidden meanings are in tomorrow's Tweet. That's a good idea, right?"

His eyes widened and his shoulders relaxed into the chair he was sitting in. "It is, actually. I'll see what I can do."

The door opened to reveal the scent of vanilla and oranges as the owner of the high heels must have decided to join us.

Her sharp, angular shoulder pads and skin tight black dress were accented with lime green high heels, a bright yellow chunky necklace, and a pink clipboard. Her hair, probably the source of the scent, cascaded down her face and over her shoulders, pooling on top of the clipboard. "Hello. I'm Amanda. You must be Ms. Holland."

She click-clacked across the room and sat down in the chair Mr. Anderson had vacated. Only then did I notice that her nails had little gems embedded in their deep navy blue, matching a delicate belt she wore around her waist.

"Um... " I stuttered. "Yes, I am Harper Holland. Pleased to meet you Amanda." I reached out and shook her hand, noticing her claws left marks in the back of my hand as we did so.

"Excellent. So I trust Mr. Anderson has discussed our plans with you?" Her eyes darted quickly between my face and his, and then again until he finally nodded.

"Yes," I answered, swallowing the lump in my throat. "Yes, I think he explained the basics. I still have no idea what I'm supposed to do though. That part was suspiciously left out." I narrowed my eyes and trained them on Mr. Anderson's face and all I received in return was a noncommittal shrug.

"And that's why I'm here, Ms. Holland!" She smiled. "I'm going to go through how you can collect and pass information, what you can do to quell unrest, how you can avoid making it worse or getting caught. All of that!"

Getting caught? Shit I hadn't even thought of that. Was that likely? I probably should have asked, but she had moved on at least three times since then and I didn't want to look even more unprepared than I was, so I folded my hands in my lap and watched as she wrote things on her clipboard and handed me sheets of paper with basic undercover tips on it.

"This says I should commit to my cover story," I said, looking up from probably the fifth handout I'd been given, but the first one I was actually managing to absorb information from. "I have a cover story?"

Amber shook her head. "No, you are just being you. The only thing you are going to have to remember is that instead of being planted there, you want to act as though you are arrested. We'll set that up for you so it actually happens and you have some real memories of how it happened to base your stories off of."

"Sure," I let the sarcasm drip out my mouth. "Getting arrested twice in two days sounds like so much fun."

"Well, this time you won't run!" she said, as though it would make me feel better. "And I promise they won't do anything too terrible. Just some handcuffs and the usual processing at the jail."

That sounds pretty awful.

We finished the reading and I sat in the room drinking very disgusting coffee while she got a team together to escort me home. There were going to be undercover officers all over just in case something happened, and I was going to be treated to dinner and breakfast at their expense, apparently. This was supposed to get me to cooperate and keep me safe. All I wanted was to put this whole thing behind me, but I was in too deep at that point.

So, when Amber asked if I had any questions before sending me home with Anderson, Jackson, and a whole team of guys also named son, I just shrugged. "Nope! Crystal clear, really."

Anderson's snicker really bugged me but I plastered a smile on my face and shook her claw hand as she thanked me for my willingness to help and handed me back my phone. "Only while supervised," she reminded me before relinquishing control to me.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm a five year old. I get it. Can we go? I'm hungry?"

"Of course." Her sickeningly sweet smile was still plastered on her face as I followed my team out of the room and down a long hallway through a large garage door and into a black twelve seater van waiting out back.

Good luck to me, I thought to myself before turning to my phone to check all my messages from Olivia.