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

Chapter 15

It had been a mere few weeks but Alex was already settled into Auxilium, enjoying her new found life. Didn't deny the name still sounded like a spell from Harry Potter though.

The agency was strict with their recruitment program; the basic training they were currently going through was really another test that was used to see if they could pass on to advanced classes. The pressure was mounting, no one knew when their trial period would end so it was a constant battle. Everyone needed to prove that they were the best.

Alex didn't really care, not really, not where it mattered. She was too busy actually enjoying herself for once. Of course she knew they were being tested, it was too obvious to go unnoticed, bust Alex wasn't really worried. There was something about exams that had always excited her, that adrenaline rush where you got to show everything you had learnt. Testing had come easy to her, much to the annoyance to the people around her who noticed her easy state, and knowing her performance wouldn't change no matter the conditions let her focus on other things.

Each person was allowed to continue with their normal education (if bomb-diffusion classes weren't counted as normal anyway) but it made the size of their workloads skyrocket. Despite enjoying it all, Alex had to admit she was running on milky coffee and adrenaline at this point. She didn't have the energy to continue with her other hobbies, not when she would collapse onto her bed at 9 o'clock to wake at 8 the next morning. At least fighting was now a part of her daily routine and all of the survival tips she had picked up could actually be put to good use.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Any free time was spent in the library or with Ava, something Alex could have never foreseen. Ava was like a bullet - so much energy that came in and rocked your life. Alex loved it, though. Ava was almost the complete opposite to her, complimenting her personality perfectly. If they were colours, Alex would be a dark red and Ava a bright almost neon yellow.

After years of not being close to anyone but her dad, it was a change but one she was enjoying immensely. Funnily enough, she looked forward to the moments her day wasn't spent alone or with a book as her only company.

The only downside to interacting with actual human beings were the more frequent interactions with him. Mark. The devil incarnate.

For some reason he had decided to try to push into Alex's life. He was always there, everywhere she went, always trying to but into conversations with that annoying smirk.

So of course he would try to make her life worse in lessons too.

She looked forward to combat and Samuel Grey was growing on her, slowly but surely. Every day for varying lengths of time, her class would practice skills and hand-to-hand (weapons only to be used in their specific lessons) either in chosen pairs or random.

It was on one such day when the latter was favoured that Alex decided that the world would be better without him, a day when she contemplated murder.

Her fighting skills were well known about, no one but Ava willing to partner up yet they were all ready to watch and even bet (an activity Alex used to make rather a lot of money while she wasn't fully employed). Multiple times she had been pushed into a fight, ones that randomly sprung up in the corridors, only to leave a few minutes later. What else was to be expected in an agency training teenagers to fight?

Samuel seemed particularly vindictive that day, with a sadistic smile etched onto his face that had no intention of disappearing. He didn't speak because he knew his silence would be more alarming. Alex noticed immediately that something was about to happen, the quiet atmosphere a vast contrast from the usual military barking and unnecessary yelling.

She took her usual place in the room, foregoing the option of sitting on the floor like everyone else but rather leaning on the wall just behind them with her arms and legs crossed. She was the picture of ease; a show to be put on in the room where foreboding reigned.