Around two months later.

"Well if you would have told me, I wouldn't have whacked you in the head." I say to Taylor as he puts an ice pack to his head.

"Ya, well, don't go around whacking people in the head if you don't know who they are." He says and glares at me. Then Greg walks in.

"Nice job on the mission except for whacking your partner in the head." He says and looks at Taylor.

"He said east side, not west side, it's not my fault." I say taking my hat off.

"I was wearing all black like you not white like the people we were trying to get away from." Taylor argues and sits in the chair.

"I've said sorry, but it's also your fault." I say and look at the time. 8:00, crap need to get to grandma's. "Hey Greg I'll talk to you later. I have to go to my grandma's."

"Ok, have fun with the fireworks." He says and walks out of the room. I grab my blue jeans, my white tank top, and my short red sweatshirt. After I change into them I put my hair in a messy bun and wait for Taylor.

"Is this good enough for red, white, and blue?" He asks. He has jeans on with a red sweatshirt and of course his hat.

"Sure, now come on, we still need to get Trinity and Zack. And do you ever go anywhere without your hat?" I ask and walk out the door.

"Sometimes, but I like having my hat." He says and we jog to Trinity's and Zack's room. Knock, Knock.

"Where coming. I'm trying to find my flip flops." Trinity says as we enter their room.

"There still in my room when you slept over," I say and run out of the room to get her flip-flops. I find them under my bed and run back to her room. "Here, now can we go. My grandma is going to kill us if we're late." I say and look at everyone. Trinity is full out wearing red, white, and blue. Her plants have white and blue stripes on them and her tank top is red with white stars. Zack has a flag shirt on and jeans, we all tried that's what counts. "Ready?" I ask everyone and they nod their heads. We decided to go in Trinity's car because it's easy to get through traffic. When we get to her car she goes to the driver side and I go in the passenger side. We listen to music and talk about training mainly. When we got to my grandmas she told us to go and make our beds now so when we came back we can just go straight to bed. Trinity is sharing my bed with me and the boys are on the couches.

"Do you have to have so many pillows?" Trinity asks and throws three on the ground.

"Yes, I like having them," I say and she shakes her head at me. We both make our sides and go out to the living room where we see the boys. They're talking about rating girls. Trinity and I nod our heads. We walk up to them and smack them both in the back of their heads.

"Ow." Both boys say and turn to us.

"Rating girls?" I ask and both boy's look at the magazine.

"Yes, but how they did in the movie they were in not how they look," Zack says and looks at Trinity.

"Oh, let me see," Trinity says and grabs the magazine. We look at it and they have a picture of them and then the movies they were in, Like Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Shailene Woodley, Lily Collins, Jemima West and a lot more.

"Come on children." We hear my grandma say.

"Well good and sorry for whacking you in the head then," Trinity says and puts the magazine down. Zack chases her up the stairs and into the car.

"Now've whacked me with wood and slapped the back of my head. What is it with hitting me in head?" Taylor asks as we walk to my grandma's van.

"Payback for when you would touch my cut without a warning," I say and hop in.

"Hey, I did too give you warnings it was just a very short warning." He says and buckles.

"Where even, and I think your bruise has gotten more purple," I say and he touches his forehead and winces. I smile and shake my head.

"Ok, when we are leaving grab someone's hand and if you break apart meet at the gas station down the road." My grandma says. We nod our heads and my grandpa starts driving.

"K, so let me get this straight. You don't like crowds of people at all, you don't like loud noises, you don't like the drinking, and you don't like the people smoking and yet you love going to the fireworks." Taylor asks confused. He turns towards me giving me his full attention.

"Yes pretty much." I say and he shakes his head at me.

"Weird, just weird." He says but is smiling. He turns back in his chair and looks out the window. 

It takes a long time to find a parking spot, but we didn't really care. My grandparents were talking about something, Zack and Trinity were flirting and Taylor and I were listening to my playlist.

"K lets go." My grandma says. Everyone gets out and Trinity pulls me all the way to the spot where she wants to sit. She lays the big blanket out and we lay down.

"Move your tushy." My grandma says to Trinity and I. We sit up and smile at her.

"Love ya." We both say and she shakes her head at us. I keep looking behind me because people keep going behind me and it's very annoying. I always feel like someone is going to scare me or come up and grab me.

"Hey, can you hold my hat?" Taylor asks handing it to me. I grab it and put it on my head. He pulls his sweatshirt on and looks at me. "You wanna wear it?"

"Sure, your head is kinda big though," I say as the hat falls down to my eyes. I push it back so I can see.

"My head is normal, your's is just small." He says laughing.

"It is not." I say and act like I take offense to it.

"It kinda is."

"I know." I say and put his hat back on his head.

"Well good things can come in small packages." My grandma says and winks at me. That is very true. Another person walks behind me. This is going to drive me insane.

"Having fun looking back?" Taylor asks and I turn around.

"I don't like people walking behind me, it makes me nervous."

"Me either. Go back to back with me." He says and turns. I turn and lean on him.

"This might work, but we need to angle the other way so we can see the fireworks," I say and he laughs. We turn and then turn our heads so we can see. Then the fireworks begin.

Taylor's P.O.V.

She jumps everytime the pop is a little louder. I turn my head at her and she looks mesmerized.

"She looks mesmerized," I say to Karen.

"She loves fireworks." She says back and looks at the sky. When the grand finale comes Alaina covers her ears and watches it. She doesn't jump once during the finale.

"K Grab someone's hand." I hear Alaina's grandma say. She grabs her grandma's hand and mine. Zack has Trinity on his back because her feet keep getting stepped on. Trinity grabs my hand, so I have one-half way in the air and the other being pulled by Alaina.

"Having fun." She yells because it's so loud. I nod my head at her and laugh. She is crazy. Alaina's shoelace comes untied so she keeps tripping because people keep stepping on it.

"Here." I say and bend down. She hopes on my back and grabs Trinity's hand. We lost her grandparents when a group of drunk guys came running and nearly trampled us. Zack and I are walking shoulder to shoulder and the girls have each other's hands.

"You're lucky you're light," I say to Alaina and she steals my hat again.

"Ya same goes for you, Trinity." Zack says and jumps. Trinity screams a little and lightly hits him on the arm.

"Don't do that." She says smiling.

"You know your hair has marks where your hat sits," Alaina says and messes it up.

"Ya, but I love my hat and now my hair's all messy, thanks," I say and shake my head to try to get it back to normal. It doesn't work. We walk a few more blocks and find the gas station. Alaina's grandparents are laughing when we get to the van.

"There you guys are." Karen says and looks at all of us. "Girls get tired of walking?"

"No, people kept stepping on my feet so I got a piggyback ride," Trinity says and Zacks puts her down. I put Alaina down and her grandma looks at her for an explanation.

"I kept tripping because people kept stepping on my shoelace." She says and points her shoe at her. Karen laughs and motions for us to hop in the van. Zack and Trinity go in the back again, so Alaina and I go in the middle.

"Can I have my hat back?" I ask and try to grab it. She moves so I can't reach.

"I look better in it." She says and the hats falls over her face again. She laughs and hands it back to me. "Just kidding, I'm not a fan of hats." She says and tries to fix her hair that it's now even messier than a regular. "I give up." She says and drops her hands. Her phone goes off and she reads it, but her face drops immediately.

"What's up?" I ask and lean forward.

"Nothing just some spam mail." She says and puts a fake smile on.

"K, who wants chocolate and who wants vanilla?" I hear Karen say. When'd we get to McDonalds?

"Chocolate." Zack says.

"Chocolate." Trinity says. Then Karen looks at me.

"Chocolate." I say and she turns around. I look over at Alaina confused.

"She knows what I want." She says and still sounds disappointed. What was the message she got that made her sad or angry? I can't figure out which one maybe it's both.

"K, five chocolates and one vanilla." Karen says and hands back the ice cream. I grab one chocolate and then hand the holder to Alaina. She grabs the vanilla and hands the holder to Trinity and Zack.

"You like vanilla more than chocolate?" I ask surprised.

"Yup." She says and licks her ice cream.

"Black sheep," Trinity says and looks at Alaina.

"More like white sheep." She says and holds her vanilla ice cream up. 

"Hey did you finish your schedule for next year?" She asks and takes another bite of ice cream.

"Ya, for one of my college classes I took communication," Alaina says and turns to look at Trinity.

"Nice, I took another business class." She says. 

"Ya, have fun with fashion and don't ask me for help because I don't know anything about it." Alaina says and she acts like what was on her phone isn't bothering her anymore. 

"Don't plan on it, but I will ask you for help when I organize everything." 

"Sweet." Alaina says and sounds excited. I will never know why someone would like to organize for fun. We don't talk the rest of the way home, just listen to Alaina's grandparent's music.

"K, go to bed you four," Karen says as Rick parks the car. He doesn't talk much, I almost forgot he was with us. 

"Grandma the youngest one here it 17 and it's only" She looks her phone. "10:34." 

"Yes, but you have to get up a 5:00 tomorrow because we're leaving for our trip." She says and hops out of the car.

"You're going on a trip?" I ask Alaina and get out of the car.

"No my grandma is in this Send Out Cards thing and goes on a ton of trips and my grandpa is going with this time. They want me to stay at a friends because they're leaving for a week." She says jumping out of the car. 

"Oh, cool." I say and walk into the house. Zack goes straight for the couch and passes out. Alaina and Trinity walk to Alaina's room talking about girly things. I change into sweatpants and plop on the couch. I can't stop wondering what made Alaina act so different. 

Alaina's P.O.V.

I look over at the clock. 11: 48. Everyone should be asleep by now. I grab my laptop and walk out of my room and go behind the bar that's a few feet away from the couches that the boys are sleeping on. I log into my laptop and start looking for more leads on my dad because I got a message earlier saying my other lead was a dead end. I hear movement so I put my brightness on the lowest point. I go through everything again, but I can't find anything. This is so annoying. I hack into the police department and look through the case again. They don't have any more info on the case, of course not.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Taylor asks. I nearly throw my laptop. 

"Don't do that," I say in a whispering yet angry voice. I close my laptop so he can't read what I was doing.

"What were you doing?" He asks and sits next to me.

"Nothing, just reading." I lie.

"You can fool everyone else, but I saw your face when you read the message on your phone. What is wrong?" He asks and sounds serious. 

"It's personal, it's nothing," I say and close my laptop completely. 

"You can trust me. I'm not letting you move until you tell me." He says and blocks the way I can get out. He doesn't remember that I can just jump over the counter if I wanted to. 

"It's nothing." I lie again.

"When will you stop lying to me?" He asks and sounds frustrated. 

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are and stop. Why can't you tell me?" He asks and runs his hand through his hair.

"Because it's none of your concern," I say and stand up. Taylor stands up too, still blocking my way.

"Yes, it is because I need to know if you have my back." He says. Is everything about the stupid missions and making sure that everything is on track.

"You don't have to worry about that. I will keep my missions and personal frustrates separate." I say and jump over the counter. I drop my laptop on the bar and run outside. Is that all he cares about? Why should I even care? Grr, this is annoying. I feel tears in my eyes. Why do I cry so much? I wipe the tears away and run into the tall grass. 

"Alaina, that's not what I meant." I hear Taylor say. I turn and see a blurred figured. It's so dark I can barely see him, but I hear him run into the grass. 

"Sure." I say sarcastically back to him. He runs up to me. 

"It wasn't." He says breathing heavily. 

"That's all you care about is making sure that the missions go perfect," I say trying not to raise my voice.

"No, it's not. Why would I want to know if you're ok if all I cared about was the missions?" He asks and takes another step towards me.

"So that I cover your back and will make sure that we get what needs to be done." I say still not believing him. He huffs and I see he runs his hands through his hair again.

"No that's just an excuse so that I can-" He says, but stops talking.

"An excuse for what?" I say raising my voice not understanding what he means. Why are guys so confusing? 

"So I can talk to you and know how you are." He says a little embarrassed. 

"What do you mean? You can just ask me." I ask even more confused.

"Ya, but..."

"You are confusing me. What is it?" I ask frustrated. I look at his grey-blue eyes for an explanation. I can't see him well, but I know what he looks like. He takes a deep breath and kisses me. The thing is I kiss him back and it feels good. Those butterflies I get when he looks at me or grabs my hands are ten times worse now, but I don't want it to stop. He pulls me in closer to him and my arms go around his neck. I don't think he has a shirt on which gives me more butterflies. When we pull back to catch our breaths I smile at him. "You know kissing someone you like is actually really nice." I say still in his arms, he laughs. His lips look puffy which makes me want to kiss him again.

"Yes it is." He says and looks down at me. "If you'd told me you liked me I would have done that a long time ago."

"Hey, you could have told me to mister." I say with a smile.

"Ya I guess." He says still looking at me. I go up on my tiptoes and lightly kissed him on the lips and then run. "Hey, you're a tease." He says running after me. I run and hide in one of the big trees by the house. He walks around the tree confused. I end up laughing so he runs to the tree and grabs me. "Haha." 

"Not fair that I can't contain my laughter." I say and cross my arms.

"I think it is." He says and pulls me out of the tree. We walk back into the house and go into the basement careful not to wake anyone up. "Hey, you want to tell me what you were looking up?" 

"I had a lead on my dad's killer, but it turned out to be a dead end," I say and pick up my laptop off the bar.

"Ya using the computers at our place is a bad idea." He says as we sit on the couch.

"Wait. How do you know I used their computers?"

"There are cameras and even if you hack the computers I know what you're looking up." He says in a whisper voice. 

"You could have told me." I whisper back.

"Ya but it wouldn't have been fun then." He says and smiles at me.

"Jerk." I say playfully. He puts a hand over his heart dramatically and gasps. "You're such a drama queen." I say and shove him.

"I know, but that's what makes me fun." He says sitting up.

"K, talk to you later in the morning." I say and he looks at me confused. "It's 12:56." I say and he nods his head understanding me.

"Good night."

"Night." I say and close my bedroom door. I go to sleep smiling.

"Alaina come on wake up." I hear and someone is shaking my shoulders.

"Noooo." I say and turn over.

"Go ahead, I give you permission." I hear my grandma say and then someone starts tickling me.

"Stop. Stop. I'm up." I say and pull Trinity's hands off of me. I glare at her and she just smiles at me. Meany. 

"You two can go wake the boys." My grandma says and hands us a pan and a spoon. Trinity and I look at each other and smile. I grab the pan and she grabs the spoon. We run out there and she slams the spoon on the pan. Both boys pop up immediately and look at us. They don't look too happy either. We drop the pan and spoon and run. We run to the trees and start climbing. When I make it high enough that I might break the branches I stop and Trinity sits right under me. 

"Do you think they'll make it up this far?" She asks and looks up at me.

"I don't think so." I say and see the boys at the bottom of the tree. They don't even try to climb, they just wait at the end of the tree. "They're going to wait us out," I say and Trinity goes to say something, but then we here my grandma.

"Kids come and clean your mess." She yells. Trinity starts going down and the boys wait for us to get down. When we both get to the part where you have to jump we jump and run into the house so the boys can't catch up. We shut my door and lock it. After making my bed and finish laughing we walk out of the room. The boys are waiting right by my door.

"Hello boys. How's it going?" I ask and Trinity takes a step closer to me. 

"Great after we get playback," Zack says and takes a step forward toward Trinity and Taylor walks towards me. 

"I don't think that's necessary," I say and take a step back. Trinity gets tackled. Taylor lifts me over his shoulder. "What are you doing?" I ask nervously.

"You'll see." He says and walks to the living room. He lightly throws me on the couch and tickles me.  

"Stop I already got tickled this morning," I say trying to fight him off.

"You should think about that before you woke me up with a pan and a spoon." He says and tickles me more.

"Having fun Alaina." I hear my grandma say.

"No. Can I have a little help here?" I ask her and she laughs.

"Nope." She says and walks to the washroom. Taylor stops tickling me and I have tears in my eyes.

"Jerk." I say playfully and wipe my eyes.

"I could say the same missy." He says smiling at me. Then Trinity comes out and slaps Zack on the arm lightly. 

"Kids, you ready? Me and Rick need to go." My grandma says and walks in the room. 

"Ya." All of us say at the same time.

"Good." She says and pushes everyone up the stairs and through the garage door. "Hey, I get a hug don't I?" She says and puts her arms wide open.

"Of course grandma," I say and give her a hug and then my grandpa a hug.

"Love you guys, have fun," I say and my grandma pulls me towards her.

"I saw you last night in the grass and I like him and grandpa approves. You picked a good one." She whispers in my ear, but before I can say anything she pushes me out the door. I get into Trinity car and sit in the back laughing and blushing a little.

"What's so funny?" Trinity asks and Taylor turns around to look at me.

"Just something my grandma said." I say still laughing. On the way to the place, Trinity and I end up falling asleep. We wake up to the boys screaming at us. Both of us glare at them as they laugh. They get out of the car and we follow.

"We were even, now it's our turn for payback," I say and we chase them all the way to the training room before we tackle them down. We have them both pinned to the floor.

"What's going on here?" Greg says and looks down at us.

"Just a little payback." Trinity and I say at the same time. 

"Fabulous don't want to know why. I need Alaina to come up with me." He says and looks over at me. 

"K I'm coming," I say and get up. I follow him all the way to his office and he motions for me to sit. "What's up?" I ask a little curious. 

"I have to go through the counselor questions again." He says and grabs some papers.

"I want to be a counselor I know how to answer the questions right." 

"Ya I know, but I still have to go through them with you." He says and starts reading them off and writing what I respond to it. After 30 long minutes of questions, he finally lets me leave. I go to my room and grab my phone and headphones. I head down to the workout room and start running on the treadmill. After I get to four miles I hop off, but it feels weird to walk. I head up to the roof and find Taylor, Trinity, and Zack training. 

"Hey have fun with Greg?" Trinity asks and after doing a backflip off one of the walls.

"No, I had to go through the counselor questions again," I say setting my phone down. 

"That sucks." She says and walks with me.

"Ya tell me about it," I say and we start training with the boys. Then a group of people come on the roof ready to fight. "What is this?" I ask Zack because he's been here the longest.

"Sometimes groups of people want to go against others and we happen to be the other people, it's good practice." He says and we all walk towards them.

"Hey, you guys want to train?" One of the guys asks.

"Sure, but be prepared to lose," I say and the other group laughs and circles around us. All four of us go back to back and get ready to fight. The others come at us first. We don't punch too hard because we don't want to harm each other too much, but some of us will have bruises. Another person comes at me, but there off balance so I lightly kick them in the leg and he falls to the floor. Once you fall you walk out and watch. There is only four people left vs me and Taylor. We are back to back waiting for them to come at us. Two come at me and two go to Taylor. I knock the first one to the ground hitting a pressure point and then the other one I have to fight with before I finally get him down. Then someone behind me puts an arm around me. Really, Taylor, you couldn't get this guy, I think to myself. I jab him in the gut and kick his leg. He staggers to the floor, but he goes down. Finally, done. The guy that I jabbed gets up and walks towards me.

"Nice job." He says and extends his hand. I look down suspiciously.

"Thanks?" I say and shake his hand. He doesn't do anything surprisingly. 

"See you guys around." He says and his group goes down the roof.

"That was kinda fun," I say as Trinity, Zack, and Taylor walk over to me.

"You are the weirdest person ever." Zack says laughing. "But you're a good fighter so."

"Nice one girly," Trinity says and booty bumps me. 

"Really?" I say and look over at her. She nods her head. Crazy best friend. 

Trinitys P.O.V.

I hear Alaina's phone ring and she jogs over to it. 

She says, "Hello?" 

"This is. Why is there something wrong?" I here Alaina say and she sounds scared. I start walking over to her and she falls to her knees.

"Alaina what's wrong?" I ask kneeling down with her. Taylor and Zack are right behind me looking worried. Alaina doesn't move, but she looks sad and I see the tears running down her cheeks. Then her phone rings again. She brings it up to her ear but doesn't say anything. Then out of the blue, she throws her phone down and runs to the next building. 

"I'll get her." I say to the boys and run after her. "Alaina." I yell at her. She doesn't even look back. I chase her for three miles before I can't run anymore. She has been sprinting for three straight miles. My legs are jello. I know that Alaina will come back when she's cooled down, but she doesn't seem to be paying attention to anything, just running. I walk back to the Shadows and go to Taylor and Alaina's room. When I enter both boys jump up and look at me.

"She sprinted for three miles and was still sprinting when I lost sight of her, I can't keep up with her." I say and look down. Zack grabs me and gives me a hug.

"Hey, you tried. She'll be fine. She can defend herself." Zack says and tries to calm me down. 

"We tried to see the message, but she broke her phone pretty good and she has it coded," Taylor says and puts Alaina's damaged phone on the desk. 

"Something bad must have happened for her to blow up like this," I say as Zack lets me go. Taylor nods his head agreeing.