Chapter 30: Chapter 30

Thirteen's POV

"What the hell just happened?" Jason mumbles as he rubs at his head.

Lily hides the taser behind her back. "Not my bad," She says. We all look pointedly at her. She shrugs.

"We could ask you the same question," Chase says as he holds his hand out and hauls Jason to his feet.

"What are you talking about?" Jason questions.

"You've been missing for months now. We've been looking for you."

Jason looks at all of us in confusion. "Now I really don't know what you're talking about."

Chase gives him an incredulous look. "Do you remember the last time we saw each other? Do you remember Garrett hitting you in the head with that metal chair?"

"Yeah . . . what's the problem?"

Lily snickers, Devin rolls his eyes, Zack looks like the entire conversation is boring him, Sam's got a blank look on his face, I glare at Jason, and Chase looks like he's going to strangle him. Jackson rocks back on his heels, hands his pockets, an amused smile on his face.

"What's the problem?" I repeat, my voice deadly calm. Lily sticks her fist in her mouth and turns away, her body shaking in silent laughter. "The problem is that the last time we saw you were on your death bed and then you vanished and we don't hear from you for months. You basically dropped off the face of the earth and now we find you again, following this idiot." Jackson lets out a protest when I point my finger at him.

"Dude," Devin starts. "you'd have to be pretty crappy at following people for him to pick you out. I'm embarrassed for you." Jackson glares at Devin.

Jason gives us a look of confusion. "I wasn't following him. I was following someone else. He went into the club and I was waiting for him to come back out."

"Huh, I hope it wasn't the guy I tazed. Cause in that case you're going to be waiting for a long time."

Jason turns and gives Lily a look, and then studies her closely. His eyes narrow in confusion and then widen in shock. "Lily?" He turns from her and to me and back again. "I thought she was . . . and what's Zack doing here?"

"You've kind of missed out on some things," Devin says.

Lily narrows her eyes at Jason. "How do you know who I am?"

Jason just points at me.

Lily nods. "Makes sense." She continues to study him, eyes narrowed. Finally, she turns to me. "I don't like him."

Jason narrows his eyes at her. "You tazed me. If anything, I shouldn't like you."

"Yeah but I can get away with doing that stuff."

"Give me one good reason why."

"I'm cute."

Jason gives her a look of bewilderment before turning to me. "Is she for real?"

"What have you been doing during the entire time you were MIA?" I ask him, ignoring his question.

"I was not MIA, so I really don't know what you're talking about."

"We were looking for you and we couldn't find you. We called your phone about a billion times and you never picked up."

"Ok well, if I'm being honest, I don't know where the hell my phone is."

"That still doesn't explain where you've been," Chase interjects.

Jason looks at us in confusion once again. "Zero didn't tell you?"

Chase throws his hands up in the air and I let out a groan. I really am going to kill Zero.

"You could fill a library of books with all the shit Zero doesn't tell his agents," Lily mutters.

"Zero told us nothing," I tell him. "We were under the impression he believed you were missing as well, and he said he'd put some teams of agents on tracking you down."

Jason gives me a look of disbelief. "He visited me at the hospital and said he needed me to take care of something for him. Said you guys had already left on your mission and he'd inform you about what I was doing and then I'd meet up with you guys later."

"When you woke up in the hospital, was Devin in the room with you?"

Jason shakes his head. "I was the only one in the room." He pauses as he thinks over what I just asked. "Hey, wait a minute, what happened to Devin?"

"Nothing interesting," Devin says quickly and we all shoot him a look. "What? It really isn't all that interesting."

"He moved you," I tell Jason. "You were in a room with Devin. Zero had you moved."

"And apparently it slipped his mind," Chase grumbles angrily.

Jason shakes his head. "Zero said he told you. Had I known he didn't I would have gotten in contact with you."

"He didn't tell any of us anything. Except for something about a video of you walking out of the hospital."

I notice Devin gets uncharacteristically quiet. I turn to him and narrow my eyes. He lets out a nervous laugh.

"Ok, now before you get angry with me," He starts. I don't let him finish.

"You knew! And you never said anything!" I yell at him. Chase gets deadly quiet next to me and Devin looks guilty.

"In my defense, Zero told me and-"

"That's not a good defense."

"-and this conversation was never brought up, so I was under the impression you all already knew about this. Had I known you thought he was missing I would have said something."

"Why you little-" Chase doesn't finish his sentence before he's charging at Devin. Devin lets out a scream and runs in the other direction.

He doesn't make it very far before Chase tackles him to ground and they both begin rolling around, with Chase throwing punches and Devin blocking.

"Help! Someone do something! He's going to KILL ME!" Devin shouts.

Jason grimaces as he watches them. "You know, I did not miss this."

I watch as Devin accidentally knocks Chase in the jaw while trying to block his punches. Chase goes deadly still and narrows his eyes at Devin. Devin scoots back across the floor as far away from Chase as he possibly can.

"Oops?"

"Is that a question?" Chase growls out at him. Devin's eyes get wide.

"It's not my fault! I didn't know you didn't know! I would have said something!"

Jason shakes his head and turns away from what is no doubt about to become another wrestling match. He turns back to me and then freezes and takes a second to study Sam, who's moved from his position at the beginning of the alleyway, to right behind me.

"Samuel," He says.

I look at Sam and then back to Jason, my eyes narrowed slightly. "You know each other?" I question. Jason looks confused as if he can't remember where he knows Sam from.

"No," Sam says from behind me.

Finally, Jason shakes his head. "Not really."

"Then how do you know his name?"

"We trained together when we were younger once. But we didn't really know each other. Samuel kind of kept to himself."

"Sam," He corrects Jason. "And I didn't like you."

I roll my eyes. "You never like anyone," I tell him.

He turns his gaze to me, and there's a playful spark in his eyes. "That's not true." I turn away.

"So," Jason says as he looks from Lily to Zack, to Devin and Chase, to Jackson, and then back to Sam and me. "what did I miss? And where's Cody?"

"A lot, and Cody's been temporarily resigned. I'll fill you in on everything later," I tell him. More than I care to explain, really. "What's going on with you following this guy?"

Jason shrugs. "Zero asked me to follow this guy around for a while. I've been following him for like a month now. Nothing interesting's been happening."

"Do you know if you're guarding the guy or spying on him?"

"I honestly think I'm supposed to be guarding him. But I wasn't the only agent assigned to this task. So it's no big deal if I'm not watching him half the time. Someone else is always watching."

"Zero give you a time limit for how long you have to follow this guy?"

Jason shakes his head. "Just until he tells me otherwise."

"Right now I'm telling you otherwise. Ditch this, we need your help with Garrett."

Jason just nods. "No problem. I'll tell Zero to invest in a spy drone next time he calls for me to check in."

I smile. "Good to see you again."

Jason nods. "You too."

"What a touching reunion," Jackson mutters. "I think I might vomit."

"Why are you still here?" I ask as I glare at him.

Jackson shoots me a wide smile. "Lack of more interesting things to do."

"I hear hospital visits can be interesting."

He glances down at his watch. "Well would you look at the time, I better get going." He gives me a finger wave as he starts to walk away. "I'll call you with anything else I find."

"You do that."

I hear a yelp of pain and look over at Jason who'd clutching at his arm, and Lily's got the taser in hand.

"Oh calm down, I toned down the voltage."

"That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt," Jason hisses at her. He turns to me. "Keep her away from me."

"Why? I'm not so bad," Lily says.

"I'm not concerned about what you'll do to me."

"Concerned you'll do something you'll regret?"

"Oh no, I won't regret it."

"You attack me and I'll retaliate in the worst possible way."

"I don't doubt that. That's the only reason I'm restraining myself."

Lily puts her hands on her hips and sticks her tongue out at him. He gives her a look and shakes his head.

"There's something wrong with her," He announces.

"You're just now figuring that out?" Chase questions as he comes walking back over to us. Lily grumbles a string of curses directed at both Chase and Jason.

I raise my eyebrows at him. "You done?" He shoots me a glare. He shoves his hands in his pockets and Devin walks up, coming to stand next to me and as far away from Chase as possible.

"So . . ." Devin trails off. He looks at me. "Are you going to call Zero for his latest screw-up, or shall I?"

I shake my head. "I'll take care of this one. There's no need for you to step in."

I'd rather Devin still had some relationship left his father by the end of all this.

Devin shrugs. "I can take care of it. It really isn't a problem. I know just the person to tip-off." He smiles widely.

I shake my head again. "I needed to ask him about something else anyway. So, either way, I'll be giving him a call."

"Alright then."

"Since our business here is clearly done," Zack speaks up. "Can we leave now?"