Forever Fighting | ✔️ | [previously Espionage: double-cross]

Chapter 37

Alex got back to her room and crashed on the bed, groaning at the ceiling. Life just had to go and make things difficult. 

The place she had come to care about, think of as a second home was really behind her mother's death at that hurt. 

Knife in the back much?

Years ago she promised herself she would avenge her mother's death, bring her killers to justice. And no matter the pain that crippled her, she would achieve what she set out to do, even if it meant hurting someone she had once regarded as family.

Speaking of family, Alex grabbed her phone to call her dad, try and explain the situation and was shocked to see she had 17 missed calls. For someone who rarely called her and never really answered, this was an anomaly, one that spoke of danger.

She called him back and was once again surprised to hear him pick up after one ring.

"Alex?"

"I'd hope so."

"Thank god. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm guessing you haven't been back home in a while huh."

"No, been at ahem, boarding school you know."

"Good, don't come back." His voice was strained and Alex could hear him rifling through the house.

"What happened." 

She could tell her father was running his hand through his hair in agitation. "I just got back and everything is ruined. Unless you managed to start a tornado in our house that managed to get into every draw, someone was here and they were looking for something."

Alex inhaled sharply, mind already piecing things together.

"Every draw?"

"Every draw." He confirmed.

Alex could practically imagine their filing cabinet, one she had never been allowed into when she was younger, hanging open with its hinge broken and contents flung around the room. 

She choked. "Is everything gone."

Her affirmation was a grunt. 

Anything she had from her mother had been in that draw, any photos that weren't too blurry had been printed out and stored in that draw. All her memories, mementos, reminders had been safely stored in that draw. She didn't have much to remember her mother by, that cabinet the safety net from her messy experiments and dangerous hobbies. When she got older, night were spent through that draw, trying to remember anything she could, trying to piece together the fractured memories in her mind.

"You can't stay there."

"I know, I'm heading to a hotel now before I'm off again."

Her heart sank. "So soon?"

"Duty calls."

Neither one of them was ready to end the call just yet, comforted by the familiar breathing on the other side of the phone line. So Alex heard when her dad's breathing changed, sped up and each breath was short and sharp.

"Dad, you okay?"

Her only reply was the slight crinkle of paper.

"Dad, what is it? Did you find something."

"Yes." But it wasn't good. His voice was dark and thick with emotion.

"What's going on. Shall I come back?"

That brought him back to the conversation. "No! Stay where you are, anything is safer than here." Alex scoffed at the inaccurate statement. 

"About that, I need to tell you something, important. It's about Mum."

"No! Alex listen to me. You can't call me, don't say anything on an unsecured line. They're everywhere and they're listening. Promise me you'll stay safe."

"Of course."

"You won't do anything reckless?"

"Sure."

Alex could hear his eyes narrow. "That wasn't convincing."

"There was a reason for that."

"Am I going to find out why?"

"It's to do with the thing I apparently can't tell you."

"Don't do it. If it's reckless, don't do it. Just don't do anything, lay low. I'll try and find you. When you're safe, away from everything, then you call me. No sooner, okay?"

Alex nodded and then realising he couldn't see her stuck to a simple "Yes," despite knowing it wasn't something she could promise. Most of her ideas bordered on reckless, the plan building in her mind was no different.

"Okay then," he sounded reluctant to let her go. "Stay safe."

"Always."

The line clicked off. Alex looked at her phone and then at the dust littered clothes that acted as a reminder of the evening. 

There was what she knew and all it had done was created more questions than it answered. If anything, Alex felt more lost now than she did before.

One thing she knew for certain was that she had to get out of Auxilium. Where she would go she had no idea. How she would take the revenge she was so rightfully owed, she didn't know that either.

This plan was one of her favourites, her go-to.

She was going to wing-it.