Cruel Summer

Chapter 6

A/N: more tea because I think it's fun haha? As always, I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

Ginger Perkins was a woman of singular talent and usually only regarded as a receptionist for the members of the SOE, rather than an actual agent. Being called in last-minute as the handler for one Marguerite Lewis, one of their deep-cover agents, came as a whole surprise to her. They had no extraction plans for the young woman, so she shouldn't have been very surprised when Meg had taken things into her own hands.

However, as another young woman who had been in deep cover in Poland for a few years and someone who had had their cover blown, it came as a relief to learn that another female agent had made it through alive . What her mental state was, what Meg's information she had brought them—that was a whole other story.

The interrogation room that they sat in was tense. The simple fact of the matter was that for Ginger Perkins, she didn't have many words for Meg. The SOE wasn't quite sure what to do with her now that one of their most prized informants had been found out and was back in England.

Ginger leaned forward, gloved hands catching her chin as she looked at Meg. "I'm going to be quite frank with you, Agent Lewis, the SOE isn't sure what to make of you."

"Is that because of how things ended?"

"Partially," Ginger murmured. "Your role in France was crucial to several networks and without you there, your own spies are left without a ringleader."

Meg knew that. She knew that like she knew her own name. That in her own self-saving actions, she had probably just condemned her own agents to the horrors of being on their own. She remembered well what that was like—when her mother had died and she had lost contact with the SOE for months. It had been nerve-wracking and every day made her feel as though she were stepping along a tightrope with flames licking at her feet.

"I can be a handler here. You can't send me back into France."

"We can't send you back anywhere," Ginger corrected, carefully pulling a newspaper from her purse. The headlines said it all: Dangerous Widow Of Lille Kills Soldiers—Wanted, Dead or Alive .

Staring at the newspaper in front of her, Meg just felt a pit in her stomach grow. "So make me a handler. You can still utilize me."

"Is that where your talents are going to be of the most use?" Ginger's soft and questioning tone seemed to hit her more harshly than any slap had.

"I can train the other agents. I was deep-cover for six years. Let me train women, girls—agents that you're sending into the field. No one else has the amount of time that I had in the field."

Ginger piqued a brow at that. Meg Lewis was correct on that front. Correct in the fact that no one had the experience, the feats, the survival skills, the intuition, that Meg Lewis had when it came to being a spy. It was a miracle she had come back intact at all.

"If we put you in as a trainer, that's only part-time. There's not enough spies to need you in London full-time. And quite frankly, with how high a target priority you are, it's going to be hard to convince the Brass to help protect you," Ginger explained plainly.

Meg's features hardened—and this time, she leaned forward, hands on the desk separating them. "I don't need anyone's protection. You and I both know that I can handle myself. I'll handle my own protection detail," Meg insisted, curling her lips into a firm purse. This was a staredown between two hardened women, between two spies, between two steel traps of danger.