CHAPTER 9: THE CREEPY SWAMP

I turned around and saw a couple of willow trees and ran to hide behind them. Right after I confirmed I was well hidden, I sank to the ground and started listening.

"Agent Clayton! Lovely seeing you here! Is there anything I could, maybe help you with?" It was a very sneaky, high voice of a girl. I slowly turned my head to look at her, making sure she wouldn't see me.

I Sam trying to get in front of Ethan with his fists literally clenched. The girl had long, platinum blond hair, tied in a ponytail. Her name was Venessa Elias. She was also an agent working at the ENAC. Everybody knew she had a thing for Ethan.

"No, there is not." It was Sam who answered. "Agent Clayton has come here with me. We have some important business on level 4."

Venessa had obviously ignored Sam's comments and was still staring dreamily into Ethan's eyes with a very stupid and childish smile. "Agent Clayton, you could follow me to level 4. I already have some work there, so I can even show you around."

I was about 3 meters away from them but I could still feel the jealous fumes rising from Sam. I barely managed to stop myself from laughing. "I said that I will-" Ethan cut Sam off and said "sure! That would be helpful."

I knew Ethan said that only to annoy Sam, because even he, himself, disliked Venessa.

She beamed at Ethan and made a gesture to follow her, apparently inside an invisible building.

Ethan barely looked behind and gave me a slight nod and starting walking beside Venessa. Sam took a deep breath and followed behind them too.

The reason the building was invisible for me was because I wasn't wearing one of the Vills watches. It basically worked for every magical agency and organizations. Ethan being a member of The SST and Sam of The OENAC itself, could both see it.

It was basically surround with a super powerful spell. And it was done by Ellie Smith. This spell cast a barrier around the entire agency, and all the different departments and buildings.

To a random person, it would just seem like a disgusting swamp surrounding an abandoned cottage. The OENAC was located at a secret location. It was on Earth but nobody, except for the Director knew the exact location.

I started counting down the time. The sun was setting here. The sky was a shade of pinkish orange. It was strangely quite. There were no birds or any other type of animal.

I sat down on some rocks behind the tree, just far enough that nobody coming from the institute could see me, but I could see them.

I waited and waited. A while later, I thought I saw a black figure, a shadow of a man behind the trees, some 12 foot away. I blinked and it was gone. I thought I was seeing things. "Why does this place have to be so creepy" I muttered under my breath.

Just then I heard something else. Like a small stone dropping into the water. It was a very quite splash. But I knew exactly what I heard. I stood up very quickly and scanned my surroundings. The sun had set. It was almost completely dark. I couldn't see anything.

"Could this place actually be haunted?" I whispered to myself and turned around again to look at the invisible institute.

"Maybe" I heard someone breath against my neck. I gasped so hard and pulled out a silver knife from a pocket in my dressand turned around.

It was a man. He was smirking, seeing that he had succeeded to scare me. He had shiny black hair with very thin highlights of white in the front of his messy bangs. He had bright gray eyes and his white skin looked cold as ice.

My heart was beating so fast and I wanted to just punch the hell out of him but I restrained myself from doing so.

"Why are you here?" I asked him without much though and I knew, the second I had uttered those words from my mouth, how stupid I sounded.

"I think it would be more adequate for I to be the one to ask you that question, Miss Silver." He asked still smirking. I didn't answer and just held onto the willow behind me for supper.

I literally couldn't breathe. He was so close to me, his hands in his pockets. I think I'm right to say that any girl, no matter how much she wants to hate him, would be swayed by his handsome face everytime.

I had never said this our loud. Probably because I didn't want to admit it but the guy I was in love with, and it definitely wasn't just some stupidity crush, was not Joshua Ryans. It was Ryle Mason.

It didn't matter to me how obnoxious, annoying, cold and selfish he could be to everyone, because he had been kind to me. After I made the most horrible mistake I could ever make, he was there. And he comforted me, in his own cold way.

But if he hadn't found me then, I would never have come back, in the fear of facing my best friends and my family who trusted me so much.

"Are you planning on answering me anytime soon? Or should I just arrest you for trespassing?" He asked in a teasing tone, still smiling.

"I wanted to talk to my sister..." I said in a out-of-breath voice, without making any eye contact. He didn't say anything for a while and just stared at my face.

"You should leave." He finally said. "Why? Is she not in there?" I asked, hoping so hard that he wouldn't actually arrest me.

"No, she's in there. You're lucky I don't want to be burdened by the likes of you. Which is why I'm letting you go easily and politely... Unless you want the people who helped you get here in trouble too."

I looked up at him. He had an eyebrow raised. I could tell from his face that he knew that two of his closest friends were the ones who sneaked me here. That was the only reason he was speaking 'politely'.

He was waiting for me to speak. I clenched my jaw. I really didn't want Ethan or Sam to get in trouble because of me. I was till debating in my headz whether to stay or leave when Ryle spoke again.

"They won't be able to find your sister either. She's not in her department at the moment."

I now understood why they hadn't come back yet. It had been over 35 minutes.

"But she is in there, somewhere right?" I asked him.

"Yes."

I was about to ask him to relay the message I had for Cait but then it hit me. 'He knows everything as well! He's the director.'

"What do you know about Aaron Malcolm's whereabouts?" I asked him seriously.