I wake with a start - my eyes snap open, but my body doesn't move. I blink a few times, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. There's little light filtering into the room but just enough to let me see that I'm in The Sanatorium. I'm lying on a hard bed with crisp white sheets. There are three empty beds surrounding me, making us form a square, each with their own little curtain for privacy. It really is like it's own hospital.

In the chair next to my bedside is a male figure sprawled out, breathing deeply. I don't need much light to know it's Elijah, he's asleep, one long leg stretched out in front of him, his arms across his chest. I feel strangely touched by his presence, comforted too. I sit up, and then I remember why I'm here.

Mum is dead. Mum was a spy. Dad was a spy. They're both dead. I'm an orphan. The only people I have in my life now are the ones here in this school. I've only known them for a month, that's the longest anyone in my life has known me now, a month. That's no time at all.

My old life has been eviscerated.

I always thought mum was a doe-eyed, spaced-out hippy, but turns out she was a spy. It was an act, a really good one too, because everyone fell for it. Everyone thought she was innocent, dreamlike and beautiful. No one will have thought of her as a trained killer, because she was so unassuming and fragile looking.

It's very bizarre to think back to the people you thought you knew best, only to see you didn't know them at all. It seems like another world where dad was just an engineer. It was all an act. Was their love for me an act? How do I even know I'm truly their daughter? How do I even know they're dead?

I sigh, because I know. I know the truth deep in my bones, I know dad loved me, maybe mum did too. I know they aren't here with us anymore. Nothing will have kept dad from me this long, he would have given me some kind of sign that he's watching me. But there is nothing; just this empty, pulsating feeling in my chest; an ache that doesn't feel like it will ever leave.

Tears spring to my eyes and I wipe them away immediately, they have no place here. I'm not the one who is dead. I'm not the one who was shot in the head in front of her daughter. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm not to sink into the grief that is ebbing at me. I am in spy school, for heavens sake! Spies don't cry! They mark them up and move on.

Saying this to myself doesn't stop the tears from furiously spooling over though, even my own tear-ducts are traitors.

I must make another noise because Elijah's eyes snap open and he looks at me. We gaze at each other for a second, then he sits up straighter and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His face is blotchy of purple, red and blue bruises from where mum knocked him out.

"Hey," He whispers.

"Hi," I whisper back, trying to stop my voice from sounding so thick.

"How you feeling?" He asks.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" I point at his face. "Is it sore?"

He chuckles, "Yes. Very. She got me good."

The tears well up again as the image of her blood covered face fills my mind. She was a spy! "I didn't even know her. She was my mum and I had no idea who she was."

"Hey," Elijah says, in a cooing way. "She was a spy, Amelia. You were never supposed to know. They would have been terrible spies if you had even the slightest idea."

"But I did," I huff, then I have to take a deep breath because the emotion is threatening to overthrow me. "Not about mum. But dad - dad had an office, in the house and I used to joke he was James Bond. They both thought it was hilarious. They would mock me for it endlessly. But he was so secretive and particular - I always had to be supervised every time I set foot in that bloody room! I used to joke about it! And he actually was-"

"-Like James Bond." Elijah finishes for me.

I nod to the darkness, "Or Jason Bourne or whoever you want to compare him to."

Elijah heaves a sigh, then his voice comes low and fast, "I'm not going to pretend to understand what you're going through, because I don't. Both my parents are alive and I remain a chronic disappointment to them. But I do know that Stan and Miss Gateshead and just about everybody, is going to question you. So you need to think, really think, what story you want to tell them."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Your mum must have said something - anything, that you might not want anyone to know?"

"She told me not to trust anyone." Including you, I think but I don't say it. "And that the boys with the backpack were in on it."

"On what?"

"I don't know." I say to the abyss. "I don't know anything."

"That's good," Elijah says, "Work with that."

I sit up and push the covers off me to get a closer look at him. "Are you telling me not to trust our teachers?"

Elijah leans back in his chair, and even in the darkness I can see the look of apprehension on his face, "All I know, is when you started, me and Grace were under strict instructions to watch you."

I sit, stunned for a minute. "So, you only became my friend because it was a mission?"

"No." Elijah says, "I was told to watch you, not befriend you. I did that all on my own."

"Still," I fume, "It's easier to keep a close eye on me when you're with me nearly all the time. Right?"

"It wasn't like that!" He snaps, then he takes a calming breath. "Look, when I came back around today and saw you sat in blood I nearly had a bloody heart attack. I thought you'd been seriously injured - and when those boys were looking at you, I wanted to rip their skulls from their tiny necks. I don't know what this is, or what we are, but I do know I will quite literally jump in front of a bullet for you."

As far as romantic confessions go, and for someone like Elijah, that was pretty good. But to do it the day my mum was shot dead in front of me, my life flipped upside down, and he just admitted that he was explicitly told to watch me? Yeah, timings a little off.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to that? 'Thanks, I sort of feel the same way too, but can you give a few weeks to digest everything that's happened before I respond?' I don't know, seems a little insensitive.

Instead, I say, "Elijah, my mum was quite literally shot in the head, right in front of me, a few hours ago and you think now is-"

"-I'm not expecting you to tell me you feel the same or anything, I just wanted you to know the truth."

I sigh, why is this all such a mess? "How do I know I can trust you?"

There's a silence as we both look at each other, and then Elijah breaks it by saying softly, "You know."

I do. I do know. I know that Elijah feels for me, and I know that he's telling the truth.

"So, you want me to lie to them? Miss Gateshead, and your brother?"

He shrugs, "No, not really. You said yourself you don't know anything. But don't tell them about the necklace."

My hand reaches to my neck straight away, "How did you...?"

Elijah gives a chuckle to himself, but it's devoid of humour. "I notice everything about you, if one freckle on that face disappeared, I'd know about it."

I don't know how I feel about what those words conjure up deep in the pit of my stomach, coupled with the grief coursing through my veins. Elijah is handsome, and strong and he sees me, he knows me; he understands me, and yet somehow I always feel like I'm on the edge around him. The edge of what I don't know. Like I'm just about to jump into it, the feelings, or whatever, but something tells me to slow down, wait. I might trust him with my life, but I don't trust him with my heart.

Maybe it's because in the last month alone I've lost both my parents, maybe it's because I know that losing someone else would make me fall apart. I'm barely holding it together as it is, one more tragedy and I'm done for. I'll never get the answers, I'll never understand how the hell my life got here; what this necklace is for; how I feel about Elijah, but I decide to trust him. I decide right there and then, that he is my person. I have no choice but to trust him, without he and Grace, who else is left?

"They're going to be here in twenty minutes," Elijah says.

"I know nothing," I tell him.

Elijah grins at me, "That's my girl."