PoV: Kaylee

We continued to drive despite the sound of the helicopter. It was very stressful, as the sound would get loud, then die off, then come even closer, then move away again, only to come back, not as loud as before, then leave. I couldn't make out a pattern, and neither could Julia.

"Hopefully they are just crop dusting or something equally harmless," she said, then corrected herself, "Well, not to say crop dusting can't be dangerous. And it's not very likely that they would be doing that in the fall."

I nodded, looking out the window, both hoping I'd be able to see the helicopter, and hoping it would stay out of sight.

"So, if the helicopter is after us, what can we do?" I asked, figuring that planning for the worst was a good idea.

"It would be nearly impossible to hide from them, and it would be difficult to lose them in an outright race, but with a dose of luck, we should be able to beat them to the border. There we'll be safe as we'll be out of their jurisdiction."

I grinned, "That sounds great! How likely is it for us to beat them to the border?"

Julia paused, "it depends on if they continue whatever search pattern they are doing, or if they actually find us."

I gulped, but nodded, "Okay, so we have little to no control over what unfolds."

"Exactly," Julia said.

We drove in silence for a while, both of us very much on edge.

We had enjoyed almost twenty minutes of helicopter free quiet when it came back, and loudly.

Julia did her best to look behind us, but couldn't see anything. I turned around all the way in my seat to look out the back window but saw nothing.

"They're probably behind us," Julia said, sounding stressed, "but our roof is hiding them from view."

My mouth was dry, "Do you think they've seen us?"

"With how little shelter we have and how loud it sounds, I'm positive they've seen us."

I looked behind us again, "It's going to be close, isn't it?"

She nodded, speeding up the car slightly.

I bit my lip, trying not to get too stressed as we drove.

Trees began to line the left side of the road as we raced along.

"We may be able to get a look at them up at this turn," Julia said quickly, "Kaylee, can you look out for them?"

"Sure, will do," I said.

More trees appeared, this time on the right side of the road. As Julia took the corner more than slightly over the speed limit, I was able to see the helicopter.

"It's a police one!" I said, "do you think there are police cars behind them?"

"Don't know, don't want to," Julia said snappishly, "can you let me drive?"

"'Course, sorry," I apologized.

The road turned again, to the right this time, and a less severe curve.

"How far back are they?" Julia asked.

"They are just getting over the top of the trees," I reported.

She nodded crisply, "Acknowledged."

We got out of the wooded area and back to some fields for about thirty seconds before we were back in the pine trees, continuing to speed along the road, all respect for the speed limit forgotten.

Finally, we got into the small-townish place at that border. Up ahead I could see the US border building and the sign that directed us across to the Canadian border services. However, instead of following that sign, Julia turned us sharply to the right just before the sign.

"What are you doing?" I asked, confused.

"We need to dump the car," she said, taking another sharp turn, this time to the left, and followed the road. There were a couple of houses on the road, but it ended in a dead end.

Julia turned the car into one of the houses driveways, stopped the car, and ordered, "Kaylee, grab your stuff, we are going to run this last stint," as she grabbed her own backpack and leapt out of the car.

Not anticipating this turn of events, it took me a couple more seconds to join her. As we stood next to the car, Julia gave the hood a strong shove with her back/backpack, and the car began to roll backwards.

"Come on!" She said, beginning to sprint towards the trees behind the house we had stopped in the driveway of. I began to follow, trying to ignore the whirring of helicopter blades. And to ignore my very helpful brain bringing to mind all the movie and video game scenes if watched that involves people getting sliced up by helicopter blades.

"Come on!" Julia yelled again, turning toward the road.

I sprinted after her, adrenaline coursing through me as well as fear of being caught. We reached the road, and ran alongside it, racing up the hill there.

Thankfully Julia's detour seemed to have confused the helicopter slightly, but there were now back on us.

We got to the top of the hill and kept running, past the duty-free store.

Then, as we reached the road which had split into two, one for people entering the states, one for people leaving, joined together again, the helicopter began to draw off.

"Yes!" I heard Julia call triumphantly, "Ha, you can't touch me now!"

"You know you're just asking for more trouble, right?" I asked, but I was also grinning hugely.

"The thing is that they can't cause any more trouble! We're home free! Come on, we should be able to get a car from the border guys," she began to walk along the road again, half walking, half skipping.

I followed slowly, trying to catch my breath after the pulse-pounding sprint. It also was head pounding, as my head felt like my heartbeat was in my head. I called after Julia, "Can you wait up?"

She looked back, "Oh, sure."

I caught up with her, and we walked the rest of the way at a leisurely pace, Julia grinning from ear to ear, and myself just trying to keep up with her half skipping pace.

We got to the customs building and Julia walked right up to the door that lead inside. Opening it, we walked into a room with yellow walls and white room trimming on the walls at about shoulder height. There were some basic looking chairs against one wall, and a hallway extended both ways from the entrance and I saw some office like rooms both ways.

Julia walked in like she lived in the building, turned left down the hallway, and walked over to an office which was labeled as belonging to Noah Greene. I could see through the frosted window that someone was inside, but before Julia could knock or enter or anything, three men jogged up from the right side of the hallway.

"You two are trespassing, please leave immediately, " one of the men commanded.

"I am not trespassing, I am here to speak with Captain Greene," Julia replied firmly, standing up straight, legs spread apart slightly, and hands clasped behind her back, "I am Lieutenant-Colonel Bourne and I do not have an abundance of time."

I blinked. Again, her entire demeanour had changed, but this time I was looking at a teenaged, annoyed army officer.

A different man scoffed, "All right, come with us. We'll have some questions for you, sir."

Julia rolled her eyes, ignoring the men trying to lead us away, and knocked on the door.

"Hey!" the third man snapped, stepping forwards threateningly.

Julia danced back a few steps, watching the men cautiously as I stayed as close to the wall as possible, hoping they'd stay focused on her. As one of the men reached for his walkie-talkie the door Julia had knocked on opened, and an official-looking middle-aged man stepped out, surveying the hallway.

Julia's face lit up ever so slightly when she saw him, and as soon as he saw her he smiled, looking relieved.

"Men, stand down. I don't know why you want to attack her, but I'd strongly recommend against it. Regardless, go back to your stations," he said in a commanding tone, but I thought that I heard the hint of a laugh in his voice.

The men departed, and Julia walked back down the hallway towards me and this Noah Greene fellow.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you, " he said, still smiling at her.

"Oh, why is that?" Julia asked, "Has something happened?"

"Let's step into my office. And this is Miss Boardman, correct?" He gestured at me.

Annoyed that he had addressed Julia instead of asking me, I decided to answer, "Yes, that's me, why do you ask?"

"I was only confirming your identity," Mr. Greene replied calmly, "Would you be so kind as to wait outside while I chat with Miss Bourne?"

"She will be joining us," Julia ordered.

He turned to look at Julia sharply, "She has nowhere near to the security clearance she would need to join us."

"Look, I'll be telling her almost everything you say anyway, so she may as well join us. I'm sure I can fix the security clearance issue later," Julia sounded exasperated, "Can we just get on with it?"

Julia was looking tired now as if the exhaustion of our sprint had finally caught up with her.

Mr. Greene sighed, "Is that an order?"

Julia paused for a moment, "Yes, it is."

He nodded and held the door open for myself and Julia, and we filed into his office. It was a fairly neat one, all of his pens organized in jars, and only a few papers on his desk. He had an office chair behind the desk, and one in front.

He closed the door behind us, and pulled a chair over from the wall, setting it up in front of his desk, then went around to his seat.

Julia sat in one of the chairs and I took the other one. I looked around the man's room wondering what was going to happen next.

To my surprise, it was Julia was the one who continued the conversation, asking, "Why are you so relieved to see me?"

"Agent Blackwood has been stressing out about your safety, and so he naturally told all of the borders captains to watch out for you. When he called me he said something about not locating your normal message, and therefore was extra concerned," Mr. Greene explained.

Julia looked shocked, "That's very strange, I left him a note in the false back of a drawer, nothing fancy, I have no idea how they would have missed it."

"It's possible... do you think it's possible someone found the note first?" He asked, looking thoughtful.

Julia frowned, "I suppose, and someone else finding it is the only logical answer. Now the question is what they did with my message."

"You did encode it in some form or another, right?" Mr. Greene was looking very concerned about the idea of someone finding this note.

"Of course I did," Julia said defensively, "I used a date code, as usual."

He shook his head, "Of course, I'm sorry Sir."

Julia paused for a moment, then shook her head slightly, "I'm sorry, that caught me off guard, after being a civi for a while, you know?"

Mr. Greene nodded understandingly, "Of course, I'm sorry."

Now it was Julia's turn to shake her head, "Don't be, I'm glad you brought that to my attention. Anyways, do you have a car around that I could use for the last part of the journey to Alberta's HQ?"

"I'm sure we can find something," he said, "Do you want to call Agent Blackwood before you go?"

Julia shrugged, "No, I think I'll wait to speak to him face to face. I don't like giving mission reports over the phone."

I decided to chime in, "Too hard to read the person on the other end?"

"I... That would make a lot of sense," She said slowly, "Huh."

I turned to Mr. Greene, "So, you can get us a vehicle?"

"Yes, I can," He said, looking slightly uncomfortable, "I'll get Dave to help you two with that as I call Dan- Agent Blackwood."

Julia rolled her eyes slightly, and I assumed that she was annoyed at his backtracking what he was saying.

"All right, " Julia stood up, "Where can we find this Dave?"

Mr. Greene looked at his watch, "He'll be getting off shift at the border soon, you should be able to catch him before he leaves for his home."

Julia nodded crisply, then smiled, "Thanks, Noah. And it was really good to see you again. Oh, and my apologies for dropping in unannounced."

"I appreciate that you restrained yourself from literally dropping in," he said, returning her smile, "I'll see you around."

I stood up and followed Julia out of the room. After the door close, before Julia could walk off, I grabbed her sleeve.

"Okay, how do you know that guy? And why did he call you sir? Are you honestly a Colonel, whatever you said?" I asked sharply.

"Lieutenant-Colonel," she corrected, "And I know Noah because Tata was in the army with him. I'd even say that Noah is a friend of his. And he called me sir because I outrank him. Any other questions?"

I closed my agape mouth, "You... outrank a middle-aged man? How does that happen?"

"It happens by being really good at my job and being given missions where I am in command, and some people have trouble taking a child seriously, so I have to pull rank to get them to listen to me," Julia sighed, "I really hate it when people don't want to listen to me just because I'm young."

"I can imagine," I said, "Um, I don't think I have any more questions. Shall we go find a Dave?"

"Yes, that would be a good idea," Julia said, then began to walk down the hallway, back towards where we had entered.

I followed her while trying to process the new information. I thought to myself, Okay, so Julia, who you thought was Megan, has a military rank and has been pretending to be a civilian for the past four or so months. She also outranks a Captain and seems perfectly comfortable with pulling rank and ordering people around. Storms, why does the only exciting thing that's ever happened to me have to be so confusing?

We managed to find Dave, who found a car for us, a Ford Focus. Less than an hour later we were back on the road after saying a final goodbye to Mr. Greene.

As Julia drove, I found myself staring out the window a lot. Tall conifers lined the road and went up the mountains surrounding us.

Mom and I had travelled to the mountains before, but only ever in the summer. As I'd gotten older, I realized that was probably because of dad's death. Seeing snowy mountains would probably not ever be enjoyable for Mom again, and she definitely was not interested in skiing at all.

Suddenly Julia pumped her fist, "Yes!" she yelled, and swapped lanes.

"What?" I asked, "What's going on?"

"We have to go to Tim's," she said quickly, turning off the highway, "Oh, I've missed their donuts."

"I don't follow," I said, very confused, "Who's Tim?"

Julia snorted but didn't answer.

"Are you going to tell me?" I asked, thinking that I already knew the answer.

"Eh...not yet." She said, her face far too calm.

She's holding something in, I thought, narrowing my eyes at her, Probably giggles.

"Alright," I sighed, then looked around. We were in a town called Creston, and as I looked for what could be related to someone called Tim, Julia pulled into a parking lot. I saw a Subway, a Mcdonalds, and a spot called,

"Tim Horton's?" I asked, "Is that Tim?"

"Yep!" Julia was grinning hugely as she parked the car, "Come on!" she opened her door and almost bounded out.

I followed as quickly as I could, but as she had a head start, I entered the building a couple of seconds after her. In that time, she'd already lined up to order. I walked over to her, then took a closer look at the restaurant.

It had an overall feeling of brown, even though the tiles and tabletops were more of a whitish brown, it all felt brown anyways. There was a fake fireplace with some comfy looking chairs off to the right, and other tables and chairs set up around the room. However, I quickly got distracted from the appearance of the room when I looked at their baked goods.

Ten minutes later Julia and I were in front of the fake fireplace with a box of Timbits, aka the hole from the centre of their donuts, as well as a mocha for me and a hot chocolate for her. As we sat there eating and drinking for a while, I began to understand why Julia had been so excited to go here.

"What do you think?" Julia asked after a while.

"These are amazing!" I said, reaching for another Timbit, "But weren't we in a hurry or something?"

"Naw, we don't have to rush too much, " she said, "We are safe here, so we can make our way to HQ a bit more leisurely."

"So... could we wander around downtown before we leave town?" I asked. I loved exploring new places and had been hoping against hope that we'd be able to walk around a bit before leaving.

"That's not a good idea, we still have a lot of driving to do," Julia said, "Sorry."

"Aw come on!" I complained, "So we had time for your donut trip, but not enough time for me to explore? All I need is thirty minutes!"

She sighed, then narrowed her eyes at me, "Twenty."

I nodded firmly, "Deal."

And so, thanks to my excellent bargaining skills, after we finished our Timbits, we walked outside, set a twenty-minute timer, and headed downtown.

We parked on the main street, though it was actually called Crowsnest Highway for some reason and began to wander. Knowing that my time was short, I made the difficult decision to not enter the bookstore I spotted and instead kept walking along the street. It had a pleasant small town feel, though kind of dingey at times. In the end, I opted not to enter any of the stores, other than a gas station for some snacks, and because of that we made it three blocks away from our car by the time we turned back.

As we walked, I noticed that Julia kept on looking around us suspiciously.

"Is something wrong?" I asked after noticing her using a shop window to look behind us.

"I'm not sure," she admitted quietly, "But something seems off, that's for sure," She looked over at a man across the street suddenly, then back to the sidewalk in front of us.

"Do you want to do anything about it?" I frowned, suddenly feeling as if someone had a gun or something trained on my back. I resisted the urge to check, knowing it was probably just my imagination going a little crazy with Julia's nervousness.

Julia shook her head as we got back to a intersection and waited to cross, "Naw, I'm probably just being paranoid."

We stood there for a couple seconds, Julia shifting from foot to foot tensely as she looked around.

Suddenly her eyes went wide and she yelled, "Get down!"

Instead, I froze, so she kicked my leg out from underneath me while in a crouching position of her own.

As I crashed to the ground I heard a bang, which I was unfortunately now able to identify as a gunshot.

"Ow!" I complained after I had finished falling.

"Are you hit?" Julia asked quickly.

I shook my head, "No, but I did just-"

She interrupted me, "Great, we've got to move. Follow," with that she stood up and ran, turning to the left instead of crossing the street.

I got to my feet as quickly as I could and followed, trying not to limp. I followed her around the corner, sprinting as well as I could to catch up with her. She turned left again before I reached her, and just as I was about to turn the corner I panicked for a second, worried that she might have left me behind with a sniper. But instead, as I turned the corner I nearly ran into her. She had paused for a moment and was standing with her back pressed up against the wall, looking determined.

"You're limping," she observed, "You gonna be okay?"

"Depends on how much more running and leg kicking I have to endure," I answered.

"Sorry about that, but I don't know who they were aiming at, or if they were shooting to kill or not," Julia explained, "Anyways, we should head this way, the local RCMP spot is this way, and the closer we are to them, the better our chances are," she pointed to our left, continuing away from where we had parked.

I shrugged, "Okay, let's go. Faster is probably better."

"Definitely," Julia agreed, "Let's go."

We ran off at a steady pace, Julia in the lead every so slightly, and I was definitely going slower than usual, which I was very annoyed about. About a minute later we got to a T intersection and Julia turned to the right this time, following the sidewalk. I began to cramp in my side, and I realized that it was probably the Timbits. Sparks, that was dumb, I thought, which was followed by the thought, Ow, ow, ow. Julia seemed unaffected by anything like that, but she'd eaten even more Timbits than me. I frowned and decided that meant she had superpowers, and was, therefore, a super spy. The rational part of my mind pointed out the unlikeliness of that, but I chose to let the rational part of my mind focus on the whole staying alive part of things. A black truck turned onto the street we were running down.

It looked like it was going a bit faster than it was supposed to, and I remembered that I'd seen a playground zone sign earlier for this road, and the truck was definitely ignoring that. As the truck got closer, I noticed some movement by the tinted windows.

Julia suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me behind a decorative bush that was out front of a business we were passing. I yelped in surprise but followed her behind without resisting. We crouched behind it, and as the truck passed I saw that the windows closest to us were rolling up.

That must have been the movement I had seen, I realized, suddenly very concerned that there might be more than one person after us.

"Mierda!" Julia said it like it was a profanity as she looked out from behind our bush, "They've dropped off their people and it looks like they might be going to slow up the RCMP," she took a deep breath, "Come on, we should keep going. We need to take this conflict as far away from civilians as possible."

"All right," I said slowly, "Where shall we go?"

"Let's follow their truck," She decided, standing up, "We should still try to close the distance as much as possible between us and the police."

I stood up to follow her, and commented, "You know, it was only an hour ago we were running from police"

"That is true, but we don't have the time to discuss that. How about when this is done?" she suggested, then tensed up, "They are coming this way. Let's go around them," and with that, she left the cover of the bush and turned down the gravel driveway next to the shop.

I followed her, not sure what she was planning as the driveway was fenced in, but as we got to the back Julia turned to look at me.

"Let's do the same thing we did in the gardens," She said quickly.

"You boost me up, then follow me with your awesome parkour skills?" I confirmed.

Julia shrugged, "Well, yeah. Come on, we don't have much time," she walked over the edge of the fence and crouched down to boost me.

Shortly after we got over the fence I heard the sound of people talking, but I couldn't make out words. I tried to figure out what they were saying, but Julia poked me and pointed for us to go to our left before I figured any of it out.

We were more stealthy this time, more concerned with not being noticed than going fast. We passed behind another business, but after that, it was an open grassy area followed by a parking lot.

Walking calmly, Julia kept going, even though we were completely exposed. I jogged to catch up with her again.

"Isn't walking out here in the open a bad idea?" I asked, looking around for the people following us.

"Yes, but I'm hoping that taking a more direct route will be fast enough that we won't be spotted until it's too late," She explained, her voice tense, but her body language only communicated that she was out for a leisurely stroll.

"Also, I thought you said we were safe. Who are these guys? Weren't we supposed to be untouchable once we got into Canada?" I tried to mimic her body language, but I was too stressed to do a good job.

She looked over at the road on our left, "I was wrong. We are safe from the American Police, but I... I made a mistake."

I realized that she was doing what she had done when she first came to live with me and Mom, she was beating herself up. When she had first arrived she had the habit of beating herself whenever she messed up and withdrawing for hours to days to herself senseless. Mom had helped her get out of it, but now it was back.

"Hey, Julia, you know that it's okay, right?" I tried to get through to her, "Whatever mistake you made, we still are doing better here than in the States, correct? Here the law supports you, um, based on what you've told me."

"Yes, it's better, but I completely let my guard down, and now either one of us, or both, could be shot or killed," she snapped, "All of this could have been prevented, and I was the one who should have known to prevent it!"

"But you know what?" I asked, "That doesn't matter. Right now we need to focus on getting to that RE- Police place," I elbowed her gently, "After that, you can get back to beating yourself up."

"I... I guess I am," she frowned and looked back at me, "I may have to work on that as Julia."

"What do you mean by that?" I also frowned.

"It's a coping method for me and my aliases, it's as if they are different people, and I always have to come back to Julia, the teenage spy," she explained, glancing back at the road, "Uh oh, Kaylee we have trouble."

I looked over at where she was looking and saw that four people were following us, jogging to catch up. They were dressed similarly to the people who had attacked Julia back at the gardens in Spokane.

"Okay, forget looking normal," Julia said sharply, "Run!"

We sprinted off again, and of course, both my side and leg began to ache. However, I kept running, not knowing what would happen if we were caught, and not wanting to find out.

Once we got about halfway through the parking lot the people following us were uncomfortably close, about three or four parking spaces back. Julia began ducking in-between cars to throw off our persuants, and I followed her as well as I could. However after a couple sudden turns on her part, I lost sight of her. Suddenly I felt very alone. All I could hear was the thumping of footsteps around me, and I couldn't tell who was a friend and who was a foe.

I wanted to call out, but I knew that was a bad idea. I decided to crouch down by the wheel of a truck and stay still. One of the people raced past me, appearing not to notice that I was there.

I could hear the sounds of combat, yells, grunts, and cries of pain, though I couldn't tell who was making the sounds. I found panic building up inside of me, and I tried to force it down, with moderate success.

I heard some footsteps approaching and I prepared myself to bolt in the opposite direction. Sure enough, one of the people jogged around the corner.

I shot to my feet and sprinted the other way. In the two seconds, it took me to get to the back of the truck I heard the person say, "Now!"

Before I could register much else happening someone stepped out from behind the end of the truck, grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. I tried to get my arm free, but they just grabbed my other arm and did the same thing with it. I tried dropping to my knees to throw them, but they continued to hold me up by my arms.

I looked over at the person as best as I could, their shoulder length blonde hair tickling my neck. After some wriggling, I finally got a good look at their face. It was the woman from the Spokane gardens, and she looked very mad, yet focused.

The person, agent, whatever, who had startled me out of my hiding spot suddenly jumped, turning to the side with their gun pointed at someone. Next, I heard a gunshot, and they dropped to the ground.

Julia stepped out from behind the front of the truck, looking like she'd just come out of a zombie movie. Her clothes were ripped up, blood was splattered all over her, and her glare made her look ready to murder someone.

I heard a slight click as something metallic was put around my wrists, and I realized I'd been handcuffed.

Julia pointed her handgun in my direction, and I desperately hoped that she was aiming at the woman, not me.

"Let her go," Julia said calmly, "Or this will end just as well for you as it did for your men."

"I did some research on the captain you quoted earlier," the woman had a conversational tone, but I saw out of the corner of my eye that she was pulling out a handgun from her belt, "I learned that he's fictional and that after he said that, he was beaten up quite thoroughly, until an adult came to back him up. And it looks like you are still waiting for your backup," she was almost taunting.

"I said let her go. You have ten seconds," Julia was still pointing her gun at us.

"We both know you can't shoot me from there, the truck is in the way. If you shoot, you'll hit Miss Boardman here," She was definitely taunting Julia now. She pointed her handgun at my head as she said, "Admit it, you've lost. Slide your gun over here, and I won't shoot her."

I slowly realized what she had said, and what it meant for me. Steeling myself, I called over to Julia, "Don't surrender! I'm the redshirt, remember? I'm expendable, you're not. Go!" It felt like the words were saying themselves, and I felt panic building up in me.

I am going to die, I thought, then forced myself to continue the thought, I am going to die protecting my sister, and she will survive. It's the sort of way I've wanted to go out for years. I am okay to die here and see what comes next.

I watched as Julia registered my words. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and when she opened them, I realized that she'd raised her walls. Despite that, she managed to meet my eyes for a moment, and with a slight nod, said, "As you wish," With that, she flicked something on her gun, then tossed it at the ground between herself and the woman and me.

It exploded with a small burst of flame, a bullet ricocheting into the side of the blue car to our right. When I looked away from her gun, she had vanished.

I blinked, realizing that she might have been making a princess bride reference. Did she just express that she appreciated my existence? Right before I get shot? That girl's timing is so annoying! I thought.

The woman grumbled angrily, her gun still shoved at my head, "Very well, a friend for a friend."

I watched out of the corner of my eye her finger tightening on the trigger.

"Wait!" I said, "Can I have my last words?"

"What? Fine," she sounded annoyed.

"Okay, um, here they are," I said, trying to calm my breathing, "For the record, you are a horrible antagonist."

I saw the look of confusion on her face and grinned, even as I watched her finger tighten on the trigger yet again.

Bang!

A/N Sorry! Ish...

Please don't hunt me down and kill me.