Chapter Nine
Thoughts from the previous night filled my head as we walked on. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd made a promise to myself that I would at least try not to but it was hard when I was constantly around Eric 24/7. He walked ahead of me instead of beside me like he had the past few days, and I knew that was his way of keeping his distance. I was angry and hurt, but most of all confused. Though like always, my feelings for him were the least of my worries at that moment.
I just wanted to get off the island. I was starting to grow sicker and sicker of seeing it every day. If I hadn't been trapped on it and fearing for my life all the time, I might have been able to appreciate it's beauty. But that was far from the case.
By that point, the walking had become completely unbearable. We'd been at it for so long and even the few hours of sleep we got at night weren't nearly enough time to heal. It felt like a constant pain to take a step or even stand completely still - making breaks seem less enjoyable than they should have been.
The incline up the mountain had definitely been taking its toll on us over the past few days. As if another reason was needed to make things harder. My thighs were burning and my breathing was so heavy that it was all I could hear.
It was late in the afternoon when I started hearing a soft sound. With my loud breathing and the other forest noises, I hadn't really thought about it at first. But the sound grew louder and louder the more we walked on and soon, I knew I hadn't imagined it.
It sounded like water. The trickling sound of water flowing. The moment the thought seemed to hit me, it also seemed to hit Eric. He turned to look at me as if to check to see if he was imaging it. I gave him a very assuring look, to let him know that I'd heard it too.
But Mackenzie was already onto it, walking at a faster pace as she tried to follow the sound. Instead of walking forward, she headed to the right, making her way through a mess of trees and bushes. Eric and I quickly tailed her as we dove through the mess of tree branches and leaves.
I stopped short when I saw her standing completely still. She was in front a lake. It spanned about half a mile and was still managing to glisten even with the dimly lit sun. It was surrounded by rocks and the water looked clearer than I could have ever wanted it to be.
"Please tell me I'm not imagining this," Mackenzie muttered from next to me.
I shook my head, never taking my eyes away from the lake. "You're not imagining this."
That was all she needed to hear in order to step forward. I wasted no time watching as I stepped forward myself, heading towards the inviting water. I immediately removed my shoes, kicking them to the side as I brought my feet slowly into the lake.
At first, I grimaced as the stinging pain from my feet hit me. The water was cool but the cuts and bruises on my feet didn't give me much time to enjoy it. I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to wait for the pain to pass and inhaled a sharp deep breath in order to resist the urge of crying out.
Once the pain passed, I tried to enjoy the coolness of the water more. My face was probably red and I knew I was covered in sweat so I tried to pour as much water over me as I could in an attempt to cool down. Relief flooded through me with the thought that we no longer had to worry about our low water supply and when I turned to Mackenzie, I saw her drinking some of the lake water out of her own hands. Eric was a few meters behind me, cooling off himself.
"So, are we up high enough?" I asked him hopefully.
He reached into his pocket, grabbing out his spy device that was in his pocket. His lack of use for it had allowed the battery to last as long as it had. After turning it on, he stared at it for a moment before sighing as his arm dropped to his side. "Still no signal."
"Please tell me we're not going to be walking more." I pleaded desperately. The thought of it made me sick.
"No more walking," he shook his head. "I think we'll be high enough to send the flare. But we'll have to do it tomorrow morning."
"Woah, woah, tomorrow?" Mackenzie cut in. She walked towards us through the water at a quick pace while it splashed around her. "Why not now?"
Eric gestured towards the sky. "It's getting too dark. We can better our chances of being found by sending it in the morning when there's likely more people looking for us. Plus, I'd like to get a better look at the island then, now that we're high enough. We know that the RFI are still looking for us too and if there's any chance they're on this island, we're probably going to want to know before we alert them of our exact location."
"I'm sick of waiting!" Mackenzie complained. "I don't even want to spend one more night on this god forsaken island. The quicker we send it, the quicker we're found and the less time we have to be captured. We should send it now."
"It's too risky," Eric argued back.
"It's too risky to wait another night!" she countered quickly.
"Do not release it. That's an order." Eric's voice was firm and he looked determined to get the last word on the matter.
Mackenzie stayed silent for a moment, her piercing eyes never leaving his but Eric also never backed down. I watched in silence at the long confrontation. She sighed a minute later.
"Fine. I'm going to set up camp," she grumbled as she walked off in defeat.
We both watched her for a moment as she grabbed the bags and then disappeared into the forest. The tension in the air was high and I stood back for a moment, not really knowing what to say.
Eric ran a hand through his hair as he released a deep breath. He looked like he was growing tired of everything and wanted to be off this island just as much as the rest of us.
"Well that was...interesting," I commented flatly.
"I just wish she wasn't so defiant all the time." he massaged the temple of his head with his hands.
"At least she listened to you," I shrugged. "Maybe now we can just through the rest of the night and deal with this all tomorrow."
The sky was almost completely dark at that point, and I was beginning to grow more and more tired as time went on.
"I just want to get things back on track," he admitted. "We were supposed to be in Russia working on a highly important case. This job is very important to me."
"More important than a lot of things," I muttered out loud before I could stop myself.
"What does that mean?"
I sighed, getting mad at myself for unintentionally starting the conversation. "You know what it means."
"Becca-"
"Eric," I cut him off quickly. "Just forget I said anything. I'm tired and we don't need to bring this up right now."
"If it's bugging you that much, we can," he replied with an annoyed tone.
"No, we can't." I shook my head. "I'm tired of having the same fight with you. Plus, you pretty much said it all last night."
He inhaled a deep breath. "It's complicated. Maybe if things were different-"
"But they're not different. Are they?" I asked impatiently.
I waited for him to answer and he opened his mouth a moment later, but then paused at a noise.
A weird cracking sound distracted us as we both turned our heads to the sky. A beam of light followed by a trail of smoke shot up into the sky and burned brightly. I watched as it sparked and flickered up high before slowly fading out as the sky grew darker again.
Eric wasted no time storming off in the direction of where Mackenzie had set up camp and I quickly followed as I got out of the water. I pushed through the branches and leaves in my path, keeping a close distance to Eric as we arrived at the destination where the camp had been set up.
Mackenzie was standing there with an empty tube in her hand and a satisfied grin on her face.
"Mackenzie! What did I say?" Eric snapped. His face was growing red and his voice boomed. "You just disobeyed a direct order from your superior!" he shouted at her angrily.
Mackenzie threw her hands in the air dramatically. "WHOOP DEE FUCKING DOO!"
"I gave you a very clear instruction," Eric growled. "Not following it is going to get you into huge trouble once we get back to headquarters!"
"Newsflash Eric," she replied. "I don't care! I have bigger issues than worrying about you snitching on me to Captain. There are people after us, and we have no way of defending ourselves. The quicker the RUA finds us the better. My life matters to me way more than my job does. Plus, we have another flare so I really don't understand why you're getting so worked up about this."
"I'm getting worked up about this because you just gave away our location to whoever may be on this island! This is exactly why I wanted to send it tomorrow morning. So I could check to see if there was anyone camped out. But you just jeopardized the safety of all of us!" he continued yelling.
I'd never seen him get this angry before. I thought I'd seen the worst of him when he'd snapped at us both the first day Mackenzie and I had fought, but this was a whole new level.
"There's no one else on this island. If there was, they would have found us by now." she crossed her arms defiantly.
"Mackenzie, you don't know that." I shook my head. I'd decided to join the conversation and come to Eric's defense which felt a little weird considering we had been arguing with each other only moments ago.
"Oh great, now you're going to try and have a say in this?" she sneered towards me. "If I wanted the opinion of a teenager, I would have read the advice column of a school newspaper."
"I'm sick of you treating me like that!" I snapped at her. "I'm not even in high school anymore! If you're so annoyed by my age, then why are you acting even more immature?"
She scoffed lightly. "That's so typical of you, pretending like you're some experienced agent who's more intelligent than everyone else. You've only had one case and it was a high school drug bust mission that you completed out of pure luck plus, you got stabbed several times."
"Twice. And I never claimed to be more intelligent than anyon-"
She quickly interrupted me. "The only reason you're still standing right now is because those knives didn't stab you hard enough."
"Excuse me?"
"But what more could you expect from two teenage girls?" she continued. "Give me a butter knife and I could have done a better job."
I finally caved. Eric's words had been echoing in the back of my mind the entire time she spoke to me. He had said we were a team and we needed to work together. We couldn't fight with each other.
We couldn't fight with each other.
But I didn't listen.
I pounced on her, knocking her back a few feet. She was caught off guard for a moment, but then returned the same force I'd given to her. We both tackled each other to the ground and I felt the burst of anger shoot through me. I'd grown sick of her comments and her attitude towards me - and I wanted to teach her a lesson.
She'd grabbed a fistful of my ponytail and was already attempted to drag me with it, but I'd began clawing at her arms in an attempt to get her to release me. It was a petty fight and I knew it. But I couldn't stop myself. Every single ounce of anger and resentment I'd held from her over the past few days came pouring out of me aggressively as I attempted to swing a punch at her.
Eric quickly stopped me, grabbing my fist and lifting me off the ground. He was too strong for me to fight back against so I angrily clenched my jaw as he dragged me away from her.
"For the love of God, can you two stop it?" he yelled. "This is the last thing we need right now. I told you that all we had was each other and now look at us!"
Mackenzie stayed on the ground with her eyes glaring towards me but we both stayed silent. She had twigs and leaves in her black curly hair thanks to me shoving her on the ground.
"We're fighting against each other when we're supposed to be fighting with each other. At this rate, we'll tear each other to shreds before the RFI can even get their hands on us!" he continued. He released his grip on me, allowing me to stand up by myself. "I told you both to know who the real enemy is. But just in case you need the clarification, it's not each other!"
I pursed my lips as I let his words sink in. I knew he was right, but my anger towards Mackenzie was clouding my judgment. We were all an emotional mess. These last few days had taken their toll on us and now, we were turning against each other.
"Look, you're right," I mumbled reluctantly. "But I'm going to bed. I can't deal with this right now."
I walked past him and didn't bother to glance down at Mackenzie who was still on the ground. The sleeping bags had already been rolled out by her and I headed to one quickly, crawling into it.
"We'll talk about this more in the morning," Eric said, his voice a bit softer and less angry. "We're all just tired. But we need to stop all this and work ourselves out. Especially if we want to get out of this alive."
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A/N: THE DRAMA IN THE CHAPTER GOT ME LIKE
Also, um okay wow holy fuck. So less than 2 weeks ago, Wattpad featured 'How To Become A Spy' and ever since then, my amount of readers has shot through the roof. This book has more than doubled its readership and HTBAS went from 90k reads to 160k and is currently sitting at #54 for Teen Fiction.
Can I just say wow, this is amazing. If you're one of the new readers and you're experiencing me update for the first time then hi! Sorry for the long wait, but I'll definitely make sure I update more frequently now. I'm currently working on a story called 'Dissolution' and it's almost completed and it's on my profile right now. It would mean the world to me if you would check it out and I've even left the little blurb below just in case it sounds like something that would interest you.
There's action, drama, romance and humor all rolled up into a Fantasy story that I promise you won't be too confusing to follow. An on top of all that, I'm about to start another story too which is currently titled 'Her Hitlist' but I will probably change it's title soon bc I hate it ahaha. It's going to be a good story though!
But honestly guys, thank you.
The support and lovely comments from you guys honestly means the world to me. I laugh so hard at your funny comments and smile so much at your compliments. You're more than just readers to me, you're my Wattpad family.
- Dorothy x
also my fav line from this chapter was "WHOOP DEE FUCKING DOO!" - Mackenzie, 2k16
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