Omega: the Sequel

Chapter Five

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Chapter Five

♥         Astrid       ♥

            “I just want you three to know that you’ve messed things up rather nicely for us here at Delta. Tracking down Cloying is not going to be pleasant.”

            Alan Young folded his hands on top of his desk, fixing us with a stern stare as we sat in front of him in a silence. Josh did not look pleased, his eyebrows furrowing dangerously as he glared at the director; Pierre merely looked impassive, as I was discovering was his favorite emotion of late. I kicked at the ground dully with my heel, allowing my eyes to drift around the room.

“Miss von Shauff, did you hear me?”

Strongly reminded of a kid in a principal’s office, I glanced back at my boss, making my face look attentive. “We messed up. I got it.”

It was Young’s turn to look displeased. Heaving a sigh, he lifted a file folder from his desk, leafing through it with pursed lips. Josh and I exchanged a raised eyebrow, a touch of a smirk brushing his mouth. It had been a few days since his return, during most of which he had been sleeping, and the fatigue had mostly left his face. His shoulder also seemed to be healing, and the old spark of mischief was back in his eyes.

“So, all in all,” Young was saying now, “you’re saying that not only did you allow one of your fellow agents to be killed, you ‘escaped’ this manor without finding out anything further about this man, and, I may add, without discretion; you found it necessary to call in a full-fledged team of agents; and you let Cloying get away from the manor. He is now gallivanting across Europe, we have lost his location, and his resources seem to be much better than we had believed.”

There was a long silence, and then we seemed to realize he was looking for a response to his deduction. “Uh…yeah, that sounds about right.” Josh’s tone was blasé as he looked calmly into his boss’s face.

Young made a noise of irritation, placing the folder back down on his desk without addressing it and leaning forward to stare us down in turn. “You three have never failed me before. Well…” His eyes drifted to me, and I bit my lip, remembering the days with Jay in Australia that had ended in total disaster. I glared at him until he continued, his eyes moving back to the boys. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Are you almost through?” Josh sounded bored. “I think we missed dinner.”

All three of us jumped as Young’s fist collided with his desk. “I am serious here!” he hissed. “You have caused all of us a great deal of inconvenience, and the loss of an agent has not been good for this agency!”

“Oh, right.” My anger sparked, causing me to sound overly sarcastic. “It wasn’t ‘good for the agency.’ What about Charlie’s family? What about us? You think we didn’t care? But this isn’t a death to you, no – it’s a big game, isn’t it, your own little game where if we fail you, you can–”