Chapter 7

Ben's pov

( After arriving at the CIA's Academy of Espionage)

"Okay, now where is she Ben?!" demanded Cyrus.

"I'm right here Grandpa." said the still, small, voice of Erica Hale.

We all looked up, and there she was, watching us through the air duct for some weird reason.

"Erica?" Mike and Zoe said in the same instance, which then led them both to a blushing state.

"Erica? Why are you in the air ducts instead of someplace we could easily look for and find you?" asked Alexander.

"I'm up here because I knew I heard people, so the first thing I thought of was to jump onto that ledge, swing forward, and then pull myself up into the duct. I barely made it in before ya'll enter into the hallway."

"Ohh, that makes sense, I think, but I still don't understand why you are still up there even after you saw that it was us."

"Um, Erica?"

"Yes, Ben?¨

"Could you possibly come down? Because my neck is starting to hurt from looking directly upward for so long."

There was a weird combination of groans and complaints which was mixed with statements of agreement after I mentioned that my neck was sore.

"Sure thing Ben," she said as she flipped down from the air duct with the grace of a ballerina and a swan combined. She then proceeded to state, "Okay, now that the gang is all here, we need to go over the evidence that I have gathered."

"Okay," the whole group said.

We then proceded to gather around a large circular table in the library, which is where we all had the fondest memories of studying how not to die during finals. ; )

"So here is the information that I have gathered so far," she said as she quickly approached the round table with maps and clues and weapons gathered on it, and apparently she had also been sleeping in the library, as there was a sleeping bag and pillow with her suitcase on the floor, off to the side.

Then she preceded to pull up the video feed of Joshua, which was when Alexander fainted, and the rest of us gasped.

"Why was HE here?" Zoe questioned.

"I don't know quite yet. All of the student's files and belongings are right where they were previously left, but I needed Ben to help me solve this. Because if he didn't take anything then why would he dare to show his face to us again?"

"Well, I think he knows that we are able to track him down, and I think he might want us to do that exact thing. Erica, you mentioned he left some sort of message on the recording? Is there any chance that we could possibly see that?"

"Oh," said Erica, flustered that she hadn't shown us previously, "Yeah, here it is."

After the whole group had seen the message on the recording, everyone's faces had the same exact expression on them, bewilderment and astonishment.

"Why do they want you? And why did we all come to the Academy if that's exactly where they wanted us to go? It has got to be a trap!" I exclaimed. Then suddenly it seemed as though it clicked in everyone else's minds too, as the thought ran rampant in their minds.

"Scatter!" said Zoe and Mike at the same time, "No!" Erica and I said at the same time, "No," I explained, "That is exactly what they want us to do so that they can then pick us all off one by one!"

"Ben and Erica are right, the last thing that you should ever do in a situation like this is to separate the group," said Claire calmly.

"Good job, Ben, Erica, and Claire, you should never split apart, or else I will find you, and I will destroy you, just like your group of meddling spies has destroyed me!" said a voice that resonated over the speaker system.

"Wait, where did that come from? The PA system is broken?" said Jawa and Chip.

"Uh, guys?"

"Uh, guys?" said Zoe nervously for the second time.

"Yeah what?" we all said at the same time.

"You might want to turn around, very slowly, very slowly…"

And then very very slowly, we all turned around, to see Him, who would soon become everyone's worst nightmare, even including Erica...