Uhh, Hi?

Dodges a tomato thrown at her.

I'm SOO sorry for taking so long. I've been REALLY busy. Like, insanely busy. and besides that I wasn't quite positive if I wanted to do this or that for this story. Cause if I did that then it would have turned out that way but I decided to do this so it turns out this way. Anyway I guess it all comes down to I didn't get it down because

a) I was EXTREAMLY busy

b) I wasn't positive what I wanted to do so I had to figure some stuff out.

But still thats no excuse I swear on the river Styx that I will try and post more regularly. Well, I guess I've kept ya'll waiting long enough so without further ado

Chapter 4: If your a spy long enough

(Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider)

Alex Pov...

It had been three hours sense they had told me that I would go live a normal life with the Pleasures and I still didn't quite believe them. I mean how could? They dragged me in because they needed me and no matter how many times they told me I was done. No matter how many times I said no, they always managed to get me to do it. So why now? What would they just let me go now? It didn't make any sense. Then I stopped. No, I knew exactly what they wanted me to do. I was interrupted by a knock on my door, without waiting for a reply Blunt stepped in. He looked around the room emotionlessly, but then again when did Blunt ever show emotion?

I rolled my eyes. "Your welcome." He turned his head to look at me.

"What for," he asked simply, I almost lost it.

"What for!" I shook my head.

"You hired a sniper to make sure that I went to India, Blunt," I said my voice cold and even.

"I did what had to be done," he said simply.

"Jack is dead because of you," he shook his head.

"No Alex, Jack is dead because of you," I didn't say anything, I knew it was true so there was nothing I really could do.

"You let Jack come with you. You helped Jack with the escape plan. You didn't do anything to help her. You sat and watched as she died Alex. Its your fault that Jack is dead," he had said everything emotionlessly, like he didn't care. My hands balled into fists at my side.

"What do you want Blunt?" I said, staring at the floor in front of me to hide my current rage.

"On your way to Forest Hill you'll spend the night in London. Ten miles from the house lives a man named Gerret Swiller, he's a drug dealer. He only sells to teens and every time we get an agent near him he always seems to know, therefor successfully evading us. All we need is a little evidence to bring him in. Thats where you come in," he turned around without further explanation.

"Take two rights a left go strait for three doors and then turn left," then he left. A smirk slowly twisted my face. After all, who knew MI6 better then Alex Rider?

—

Two rights a left three doors and another left brought me to a plain wooden door, I sighed and opened it, what greeted me was one of the last things I expected. I was immediately engulfed in big, fat, chubby arms. Mr. Smithers pulled away and ran his gaze up and down my lean form.

"God Alex. What the hell did they do to you?" He breathed. I shrugged, Smithers rolled his eyes at my antic.

"You shouldn't be going back out," he said blatantly. I shrugged again.

"Its not like I have much of a choice," I cringed slightly at the look on Smithers face.

"Soooo, you know why I'm here?" I asked after a minute of slightly uncomfortable silence. Smithers visibly brightened.

"Of course!" He went to the other side of a desk and stared rummaging through it. Eventually he came back out holding three items, he handed them to me. There was a pack of gum, a black leather bracelet and a shark tooth neckless. I knew better then to start messing with them. With Smithers, well, lets just say I wouldn't be surprised if the pack of gum blew up in my face.

"What do they do?" I asked. He smiled.

"This here," he held up the bracelet.

"Its a lock pic, see if you do this," he ran his thumb along the small seem pressing lightly and a small pic slid out with the pressure.

"There's half a dozen in here so your going to have to figure out which is where on the ride," I nodded. He picked up the neckless.

"This is a small knife. He gripped the tooth and worked of a plastic casing that fit snugly on the tooth, it still looked like the tooth but it was obviously a lot sharper. He handed it to me, I turned it around in my hand then tested the blade. It was definitely sharp enough to cut through rope and it could easily break skin. I nodded.

"And this?" I asked, he smiled.

"That, my boy. Is a flash-drive," he took it from me and pulled out the middle piece of gum. It was then that I noticed that the pieces of gum where thicker then normal. Unwrap this and peel away the coating and then its the flash-drive. The rest of the pieces are explosives so don't try and eat them," he winked, I smiled.

"Thanks Smithers." He smiled but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

"No problem kiddo," I was reaching for the door when Smithers spoke again.

"Alex, promise me that you'll make sure to get yourself out of all this," he said. I smiled sadly.

I turned around and opened the door throwing the comment behind me. "Its not really my choice."

—

We where back in London at my old house in Chelsea. Apparently Blunt had 'forgotten' that the safe-house mentioned in the files was actually my old house. I had received a file holding all the information that I needed in order to complete my mission successfully. We where back in London so that I could grab some more stuff if need be and so I could go to Jack's, to the funeral. I could just imagine hearing Jack's voice calling me to get off my ass and go help her unload the groceries. It was so hard to think about her, talking was even harder. But if there was one thing I learned from MI6 it was how to lie. Wether you where lying about your appearance or making up a backstory to keep your cover safe. But the one that I had to learn the best was how to hide emotions. Pain and anger where the hardest to hide, even though they should be the easiest. After all, they where the ones I hid the most often.

I was in my room sitting on my bed staring out the window watching all the neighbor kids play basketball when A voice called from outside my door.

"Alex? You in there?" came Eagles hyper cry. Oh yeah. Did I forget to mention that MI6 sent K-unit to escort me to Forest Hill? Well they where. One of MI6's many 'nice' surprises.

"Mm," was my oh so intelligent reply. Eagle opened the door, I gave him a lazy look as he looked around the room. It was a simple room, a bed a dresser a desk a bookshelf with The Young Samurai and Percy Jackson series, a poster of Star Wars and one of Terminator on the wall. Actually it would have looked exactly like a normal teenage boy's bedroom if you added video games. Ian didn't like video games so he never let me get any. He said it dulls your senses and rots your brain. Eagle's gaze turned to the window and he noticed the kids playing basketball he mistook my watching them for wanting to play and his face lit up.

"Yes! I was looking for someone to go and play basketball with me but Ben, James and Zach don't want to go play," he pouted. I had learned the others real names in the car on the way here do to the fact that we weren't supposed to use our code names. I had already known Ben's but Wolf was James Wood, Snake was Zachary Philips and Eagle was Joseph Thompson. I had completely blocked Eagles voice out as I had unintentionally started doing sense leaving the base in India so I jumped slightly when he grabbed my arm and started pulling me towards the door. I barely stopped myself from attacking Joseph. There was no way that I would admit it but recently anything that might be slightly hostile, or feel hostile in that second freaked me out. I would get this image of someone else I loved dying. It was usually Tom or Sabina.

"Where are you taking me?" I growled.

He chuckled. "No need to get hostile!" He said, by that time we had gone down the stairs and we where passing the kitchen to the front door. I glanced inside the kitchen where Snake, or Zach was making grilled cheese for dinner. I sent him a pleading look but he just shrugged and mouthed.

'your on your own.' Joseph opened the door and started dragging me to toward the basket ball game that was going on.

No! I thought. I couldn't go over there. Someone would recognize me.

"Joseph no," I said. He ignored me and kept walking.

"No!," I said again, more urgently this time. It was just my luck that someone decided to look over at me and Joseph.

"Alex?" I froze. That was a voice I knew all to well. The game stopped and they all looked over at me. A couple of my friends started running over.

"Alex where the hell have you been?" Charles asked. I smiled nervously. And then all the questions began. 'Where have you been?' 'why did you go?' What happened?' and on and on. I had heard them all before and I really was not in a mood to answer any of them. I smiled and started to back away, trying to escape the seemingly many people. Then someone grabbed my wrist and started dragging me back toward my house. I whirled around and was about to shake him off me when I realized who it was.

"Tom?" I asked. He flashed a ridicules smile.

"Run," was his simple reply. I smiled as I remembered all the other times he had said that. It was usually right after we caused some kind of trouble. He let go of my arm and we both bolted to my house. Eagle entered last and slammed the door shut behind him, as soon as we where 'safe' from all the other kids Tom whirled around to face me.

"Where the hell have you been?!" He yelled at me. "And who the heck is he?" He said the last part pointing to Eagle. I opened my mouth but he beat me to it.

"Don't you dare lie. I know this has something to do with MI6 and your other life," I closed my mouth. Just then James, Ben and Zach ran into the room, I could tell by the way James and Ben had there hand behind there back that they where holding there gun and Zach had his knife in his belt. Seeing that it was only me Joseph and this other kid, also that I nor Eagle where attacking the kid that it was okay. James and Ben subtly put there gun in there waistbands and put there shirts over it to hide it.

"Ookkaayyy," Tom drew out the okay still taking in what he just saw.

"So now MI6 is baby sitting you to, its not bad enough that they take you for weeks to months away from school and from your friends, risks your life, lets you get tortured, blackmails you to make you go on missions, makes it so that everyone who knows about that life freaks every time you disappear and besides that who knows how many times you've almost died? I mean probably a dozen at least! And then there was the time with the-" I put a hand on his shoulder knowing that he was going to start talking about the sniper.

"Tom. Enough," I said calmly, stopping his rant. He took a deep breath.

"Okay. I'm good now." Eagle held up his hand tentatively.

"Um, how does he know about all that?" I shook my head.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," I said.

"Scratch that. MI6 have been blackmailing you?!" James sounded alarmed.

"Tortured!" Zach looked pretty damn mad.

"I wasn't really tortured," I said quickly. "Not physically anyway,"

"Not physically! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" It looked like James was going to explode. The last thing I wanted to do at the moment was explain everything to them so I went with the one word that could make people want to strangle you within a minute.

"Classified," I said emotionlessly.

"CLASSIFIED!" James yelled. I nodded once not flinching under his glare. Tom took half a step back.

"Correct." I said and walked into the living room plopping down on the couch. Seconds later everyone else came in.

"So you gonna introduce us?" Tom said, gesturing to K-unit. I gestured to everyone as I said there names.

"This is James, Ben, Zach and Joseph, or Wolf, Fox, Snake and Eagle there K-unit in the SAS or Ben was until he became a spy. Wolf is the leader Snake is the medic Eagle is the sniper and Fox was the communications expert."

"Don't forget you! Your the teenage underage child kid spy?" Eagles voice trailed off under my glare.

"Technically I never joined the unit," I said, Eagle shrugged.

"Anyway thats them so K-unit, Tom, Tom K-unit," I gesture to K-unit who where all standing more or less together, then to Tom then Tom then K-unit.

"Hey, I haven't said hi to Jack yet!" Tom jumped up. I cringed when he said her name.

"Tom," I started.

"Hold on I'm gonna go say hi. She's probably in her room unpacking," he ran toward the staircase.

"She's gonna kill me for not saying hi sooner!" he mumbled and ran up the stairs. When he was out of earshot Ben spoke.

"You gonna tell him?" I nodded.

"Do you want me to?" he asked.

"No. I need to tell him." Ben nodded.

"Okay." Tom ran back down the stairs.

"Wheres Jack?" He asked.

"Tom," I said again.

"Hold on Al I'm gonna go check in the kitchen," he started running to the kitchen but I grabbed his arm, stopping him from going any further. He looked slightly surprised at my grip.

"Alright fine what is it? But make it quick cause if I don't say hi then she's gonna kill me."

"Tom thats what I wanted to tell you." He looked distracted and kept glancing toward the kitchen.

"The last mission," his interest peaked at the mention of one of my missions.

"It went bad. They knew I was coming and they where ready. They caught Jack and I," It felt more like I was trying to convince myself more then I was telling him.

"Tom, she's not coming back."

—

Six hours later I was getting ready for my tenth mission. After I told Tom that she wasn't coming back he went into the disbelieving stage. He laughed and said that that was a cruel joke and how it couldn't be true and spouting off different ways how she wasn't gone and then he started trying to make me tell him that it was just a horrible joke and how any second now she was going to come in and give me a lecture on how its not nice to do that to people and so on. After that he went to the stage of trying to convince himself how it wasn't true. then came the accepting. After twenty minutes he finally sat down on the couch put his head in his hands.

"Is it true?" He asked.

"Her funeral's tomorrow," was my way of confirmation. He had sat there for ten minutes, unmoving, when he finally looked up.

"How are you taking it?" He asked. I could tell from the look on his face that he thought it was a dumb question but he needed to say something.

"I'm fine," he looked at me quizzically. It was a lie of course, I was anything but okay. I had tried to sleep and I kept having night-meres. The car would explode over and over again, except that I could hear Jack screaming, sometimes she would talk to me. Except that she would be accusing me of killing. Killing her, Ian, Mom, Dad, Ash and everyone else.

I sighed and rolled up the window in my room. In was raining again, it seemed like it was always raining. I sighed and swung my leg out the window, then it occurred to me. This was the first mission that I wasn't blackmailed into, all the others I didn't have a choice.

I smiled bitterly. I guess that if your a spy long enough it grows on you. You begin to like it. Then crave it. The wind whipping your hair and face as you run. Adrenalin rushing through your veins as you dodge the bullets aimed at your heart. The sense of satisfaction you get when you come home successful. In a way, I guess I loved it. The smile disappeared from my face. But then again I hated it. Jack would be disappointed in me if she knew what I was going to do.

"I'm sorry Jack," I whispered, and jumped.

Sooooo, thoughts? likes? Dislikes? PLEASE tell me! I REALLY need to know what you think! Yours reviews make my day;)