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“I prefer face to face conversations.”

“Am I the one flirting now, Mister Caldwell?” I say curiously.

“No, I am,” he admits and I freeze for a second.

“Bold of you.”

“If you don’t want to do it you can refuse it.”

A small laugh escapes me before I can even hide it. “You know I can’t risk failing…”

“You won’t, I’ll make sure of that.”

I smile before turning back to the mirror. “I don’t want to get my professor involved in this. I can do it, trust me I’ve done worse.”

His chest is now against my back as our eyes meet in the mirror. “I don’t like when you say that.”

I turn back to him, our faces so close I can see every pigment of blue in his eyes. “Don’t look at me like I’m weak, I hate that.”

“You’re not weak at all. But if you need anything tonight, know that I’ll be watching you.”

Then he leaves like he didn’t drop a bomb.

He’ll be watching me.

65

Mireya

Play - Forget Her by Jeff Buckley

Showtime

Hayzel laces her fingers in mine as we all walk up the cobbled driveway.

“It’ll be okay, Mireya,” she shrugs casually. “Right? Tell me it’s not a bad thing.”

She’s nervous, that’s new. My best friend, the social butterfly, is nervous about this exercise.

I grab her hand and intertwine it with mine, “It will, think of it as one of the parties we used to have back in the day. But safer.”

She nods before kissing my cheek and says, “Okay, good luck, Reya.”

The heels on our stilettos clip against the cobbled ground and the sound rings in my ears as we head inside. The door to one of the smaller classrooms is opened and we are greeted by Ms. Green who ushers us all inside.

She shuts the classroom door and closes the curtain. Ethan and Will are standing looking dapper in their three piece suits and Damien is sitting on one of the small tables talking to a few other instructors and looking over all of us.

When silence spreads across the room, he stands up and talks. “As field officers or operatives, you must be able to recruit people or gain vital information from your marks face-to-face.” He pauses before continuing, “In this case, tonight, you’ll be using your mind and body.”

Ms. Green says next, “Your objective is to create more of a personal relationship with your mark in order to gain information that's needed.”

She holds up a brown beat up leather satchel and stares at every student. “Here is all the information you need on your target ladies, Mister Caldwell has the same for the male agents,” she continues. “Your fake IDs and the name of your targets are in the envelopes.”

One-by-one we line up to retrieve our own.

I grip the faded picture in my hand before analyzing the small text that says Marc Cooper.

He’s older, mature and he’s an MI6 agent. British… he shouldn't be that hard to find.