Malta was hot! Once they exited the airport, Jessie felt like she was melting. They didn't linger much as they followed their contact, a short, plump middle-aged man, to his van, but it was enough for sweat to start dripping down her back.

Despite the blazing sun, the sky was grey. Leander trees grew in the middle of the street, separating the two narrow lanes. The smell of salt filled the air, even if the sea wasn't visible from where they were. The surrounding buildings were all made of limestone, a tired beige against the silver sky.

After their flight, Jessie was exhausted, so once they settle inside the van, she leaned her head against Jimmy's shoulder and closed her eyes. He was still tense, she could feel it. He'd been that way ever since he heard about what happened to Tom. She wished there was something she could do to take away his pain. And not just his.

Sam's. It broke her heart to see him so numb, so confused. And now this Christine thing was the last thing he needed. Not that Jessie was Christine's biggest fan, but Sam needed all the love he could get in a moment like this. And then there was Kyle. Calm, collected, grounded. And it scared the crap out of her because she expected him to collapse at any moment. Just keeping his feelings in couldn't be healthy. And she knew he was hurting.

Her thoughts swarmed around her head like angry bees as the winding road lolled her into a half-asleep state. She jerked awake the moment the van finally stopped in a small courtyard, in front of yet another limestone building. This one had only one story and automatic glass doors.

She followed the others back into the blistering heat, picked up her rucksack and made her way inside. A sudden chill filled the air once the doors opened. What turned out to be some sort of reception area was freezing compared to the outside. The place was one huge room with a reception desk to the right next to the entrance, comfy chairs, some computers to the left and various tables set up for board games.

Made sense seeing as Herrison decided to introduce them into the country as foreign exchange students there for English classes. And since it was six in the morning, no one was around. Another glass door at the back of the room showed a view of some palm trees and a swimming pool surrounded by cramped little buildings.

Sam headed for the reception which was manned by a thin guy with black curly hair, a moustache and an exhausted expression, while the others settled in the comfy chairs. Once seated, Jessie leaned her head back and stared at the dull grey ceiling. She needed sleep. Or coffee. Or both. The jetlag was killing her.

It took Sam about ten minutes to return to them and passed everyone their own booklet. "I have bad news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"

"Oh God, what now?" Jerry asked with an exasperated eye roll.

"Since they have a no-mix policy but we have to stick together, Kay is now officially your sister," Sam said, passing Jerry another sheet of paper. "And Jessie is mine and Kyle's, so we'll be bunking up like that."

Jerry pursed his lips, but didn't comment. Jessie didn't honestly give a shit as long as she found somewhere to lie down for a few hours.

"Take care of your booklet thing because it has some ID cards that allow us to get the hell out of this place. Kyle, you're eighteen by the way."

Kyle huffed. "Seriously? I don't look eighteen."

"Trust me, you didn't look eighteen even when you were eighteen," Kay mumbled.

"What's the other bad news?" Jerry asked, waving Kyle's answer away.

"We can't go to our rooms until someone from staff comes to pick us up."

For the next couple of hours, no one did. Jessie spent her time staring into space, groaning, watching Sam pace with increasing speed and lolling her head on the back of her seat. Jimmy just stood with his chin in his hands, staring blankly at the computers in front of them. Kyle and Kay exchanged exasperated looks every few minutes and Jerry had actually taken a book out and was reading.

Outside, the sound of voices and laughter reached them as the entire complex came to life. The flurry of activity had them perking up, expecting the staff member to come walking in any second. It didn't happen. A half an hour later, they were still there, and Jessie couldn't take it anymore. Her body felt numb and her butt actually hurt. So she stood and stomped towards the reception desk. The guy behind it looked even sleepier after his graveyard shift.

"Excuse me," she said, trying not to spew venom with every word, "but when will the staff person show up to take us to our rooms?"

The man looked at her blankly, then frowned. "I'm not sure. I think Fanny is having breakfast right now," he answered with a thick accent.

Blue screen. One freaking, blinking, blue screen. "What do you mean you think she's having breakfast?" Jessie yelled, hitting her fist against his desk. "We've been up all night, waiting in here for over two hours and you're telling me she's eating instead of helping us settle in first?"

The guy cowered, trying to disappear under the desk, but was too tall to pull it off. "I'll call her right away," he whimpered.

"You can bet you'll call her if you want to live!" She pulled back, seething. Then felt horrible for the guy since this was probably not his fault, but she was beyond caring. So she whipped around and stalked back to her seat.

It miraculously took the damn woman less than five minutes to drag her orange t-shirt, jeans skirt and flip-flop wearing physique through the automatic doors, a huge shit-eating grin on her full-moon face.

"Hi there, I'm Fanny. I'm in charge of the summer program. Are you ready to have some fun?"

They all stared blankly at her and Jessie wondered if it was worth the effort to slap her across the face. Her accent was also thick and for a moment the quality of the coursework seemed rather questionable. Who cares? You're not here to learn English. Though Fanny's t-shirt advertised just that.

"Right then. I bet you're tired. Let me take you to your rooms."

"Nah. Ya think?" Kyle mumbled.

"Play nice," Jerry said, putting his book away.

The followed Fanny through the doors and out into a sunny courtyard filled with trees and the swimming pool. They walked on a narrow path to their left, lined with identical two story buildings, and finally entered one of them only to wind up in a cramped little hallway with a few doors and a staircase leading up. The woman gave them keys to rooms F and G and pointed upstairs before making her exit, her flip flops squeaking on the limestone floor. The air in the little house was incredibly stuffy.

With an almighty sigh, Sam led the way up the narrow staircase and ended up in an equally cramped hallway with three doors leading away. Without giving much of a crap, Jessie followed Sam into room F. She immediately noticed a few things that made her want to scream: the window was open, letting in slat and fish smelling heat; she'd almost bumped into the desk that was inches away from the door; the room was incredibly small. There was no bathroom or air conditioning, just a lone sink in the corner next to the balcony and a fan creaking away above it.

"Holy shit," Kyle muttered, dropping his rucksack on the bottom bunk next to the door. "How did they manage to fit three beds and two dressers into this box?" And that coming from Kyle who lived in an attic.

Sam had already claimed the lone bed on the wall opposite the door, facing the sink, so Jessie was free to climb into the top bunk and try to get some sleep. If only she could actually find a bathroom first. In the state of things, her hopes weren't up.

⭐⭐⭐

Angie dropped her rucksack on the ground and had a seat on a bench in the small park. She was almost at the airport, but she needed to rest her feet for a few minutes. Even if she could've taken a cab or the train, she chose not to because she needed to think.

Her eyes focused on a nearby tree as her brain whirled, playing out the past day. What Philip had told her seemed too good to be true, which it probably was, but she'd be a fool to throw the chance away in case it was real. The best part was that she had to change nothing about her life, at least for now. And whatever dubious mission she'd received from the agency, Philip would take care of without her having to get her hands dirty or the agency finding out.

At first, she'd wondered if she'd just become a double agent, a betrayer, but it was irrelevant. As long as the agency screwed them over, they had the right to screw them over back. It's going to be okay. Everything will be fine. She would never have to do something against her beliefs again.

She noticed two turtle doves hooting in the tree and she smiled. In under a day, she'd get to see Tom and the others and start another mission. It felt so much better knowing the entire group would be there. They'd help each other out and maybe even have a little fun. Missions didn't all have to be doom and gloom. And then she and Tom could be normal for a while. Because she'd seen how it was and she wanted more of it.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she jumped. The turtle doves flew away in a flurry of falling leaves. Chastising herself, Angie reached out and pulled her phone out. Sam. A tight knot formed in her stomach, but she swallowed her guilt, prepared the blatant lie and answered.

"Look, I can explain," she started.

"Are you sitting down?" Sam asked bluntly.

Angie froze. Sam sounded incredibly off. She still recognized his voice, but it felt like something was missing from it. Like someone had taken it and morphed into a numb tone Sam shouldn't ever have.

"What happened?" she whispered. A hundred possibilities swarmed around his head, many of them revolving around Christine doing something stupid, or the mission getting canceled.

"I... How the hell am I supposed to tell you this?"

She tensed, her fingers curling around the phone. Maybe it wasn't about Christine or the agency after all. Did he somehow find out what she'd been doing and had to pass on a harsh message from the rest of the team? She saw no other reason for Sam to sound so torn.

"I'm... I already feel like crap and having to do it to you too isn't helping at all."

"Do what to me? You're not making any sense." She paused, hoping he would enlighten her, but he was strangely quiet, except for what sounded like muffled sobs. "Sam, are you crying?"

"No. But I'm probably ten seconds away from it."

"Okay, you're scaring me. What happened?"

"It's Tom."

The words tilted her world upside down. It was the one possibility she hadn't even considered. Because Tom was fine. Already in India, way ahead of everyone else, as usual.

"What about Tom?" Shit, her voice was already trembling, even as her heart tried its best to keep beating, keep the hope alive.

"I can't feel him anymore, Angie. I can't—I couldn't do anything to save him. I wish—I would have—The plane crashed."

The air rushed out of Angie's lungs as if someone had taken a bat to her chest. Her entire body tensed painfully. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be dead. She'd have felt something. Not just like this was a bad dream.

"You're wrong!" He had to be. It was the third freaking time. Tom almost died. He never really did because he was a fighter. "Whoever told you that is an idiot and a liar and—"

"No one told me."

The words struck Angie dumb and her brain started whizzing through the pain, making sense of Sam's words. A plane crash. It was not poison or an explosion. It was falling from incredible height. It was fire.

"I... I felt it when it happened. I wouldn't have believed it otherwise either." Sam sounded desperate, hurt, dead.

And she understood. He really did believe it, because as much as she tried to convince herself that she had a psychic power which would've alerted her if anything happened to her boyfriend, she didn't. She was a normal silly girl, head over heels for an awesome boy. And like all things awesome, he had to disappear from her life in the most violent way possible.

"I can't do this anymore," she whispered. She slipped off the bench and landed on the ground, leaning her back against it, her body limp and unresponsive because she was exhausted. Tired of everything coming so hard, of having to battle the world at every turn just so she could have a normal life. She wasn't a bad person. Why did these things always have to happen?

"Angie, listen to me." There was a steel to Sam's voice. "I know it's hard and it hurts. Trust me, I really do. But you have to get up. You have to move on. You're a fighter."

"I'm tired of being a fighter." She craned her neck and looked at the pale sky. If Tom really was gone, she wished he'd beam her up. Maybe just for a minute so she could say goodbye. Because the last thing she'd said to him was a lie.

"I wish I could be there," Sam whispered.

She did, too. Except she didn't. An image of the last time Sam comforted her came to her mind. He was always there so they could agonize together over Tom's potential death. And deep inside, she was sure this was no different. With a frown, Angie got to her feet. Because she didn't believe Sam. Tom was out there and she was going to find him and prove everyone wrong.

"Where are you guys?"

"In Malta. We're heading to India after we're done here."

"I'll meet you in India, then."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to go look for Tom." She waited for Sam to tell her it was pointless, to advise her against rushing into the unknown.

"Call Herrison. Maybe you have the stomach to hear all the information. I couldn't." He hesitated for a moment. "And I really hope you find him."

"Call if you need me, but I'm giving up on this mission until I find Tom." And she hung up.

As she dialed Herrison, a new sense of confidence washed over Angie. She'd never felt more focused in her life.

🌟🌟🌟

A small note: the bits and pieces about Malta are based on my personal experience there. It's true that I went there when I was fifteen, so some things might've changed, but oh well. The geography is fairly accurate.

So... what do you think will happen now? With the no fun group and Angie?

Next chapter title: Lost Stars (yea, I'm dropping the title bomb this early. Or maybe the book is almost over. You can't know.)

Leave thoughts in comments or the kitty gets it 🐈