Chapter 1
‘Drop dead, you make me sick…’
Jen wipes a tear from the corner of her eye, carefully dabbing around the minimal mascara she’d applied this morning before she’d left for work. Her hands tremble a little and she slaps her hand on her lap to snap herself out of the sorry state she’s in.
‘You fucking prick, get outta my head…’
She silences the CD player with a harsh push of her finger. For a moment she stares ahead at the seemingly innocent art gallery in the small distance between her car and the entrance. She squints a little, seeing a fresh painting hung fruitlessly in the open glass window, advertising the goods that TKG arts definitely has to offer . Or rather, what her dirty sleazeball of a boss Steve has to offer. In truth, the quirky little art gallery was a front for a top secret spy center, created by one Eileen Wood and handed down to her twins; Steve, a slimy businessman with a penchant for dirty dealings and a certain charm he turned on all of the young girls employed by him, and Ben, a quiet man who only accepted part owning the business to please his mother.
A car she’s never seen before sits beside hers in the small parking lot; it’s Eileen’s new one, Steve’s wicked witch of a mother, she can tell by the plush covers on the seats that must have cost her at least half a thousand dollars.
Jen’s interrupted by a ping on her cell phone, she rummages through her pocket and sees her mother’s name light up on the small screen,
‘have a good day honey, love you x’
and she scoffs, throws it on to the seat beside her after turning it off and climbs out of the car, grabbing her bag and phone as she does. Her mother thinks she’s working at the estate agents just down the street from their home, thinks she’s gaining key skills in a paid internship that Jen will be able to use when she’s older, thinks she’s earning money that’s squeeky clean and not as mud splashed as the cheques she brings home every month to put towards Samantha’s chemotherapy. Breast cancer. She quickly blinks back the tears that form in her eyes, shakes her head to rid herself of the dread she feels when walking into that fucking innocent little art gallery every morning. She’s doing it for her , she reminds herself.
It’s quiet as she heads into the training quarters, a large hold-all bag hung off her shoulder, carrying the clattering knives and nunchucks. The sound of them scraping together as her bag bangs against her thighs echoes throughout the large wide stretch space. Jen quickly puts her hair up in a tie, taking it from her wrist and throwing it into a tight bun preventing distraction. She’s usually early, likes to get a head start on training without the others pestering her for help with their self defence techniques or knife throwing methods. There’s one girl, Bambi, she’s around Jen’s age, probably older but she acts as if she’s in kindergarten, especially in theory classes where all Jen’s trying to do is listen and perhaps listen to all the ways she can avoid getting killed on her next mission. All Bambi cares about is if ‘her lipstick is too dark’ or ‘what the weather will be like in Miami when Steve sends a group of them there to take down the next big money launderer’. At least this morning, she can throw her knives in peace.
She prefers working alone anyway, there’s nothing worse than having to actually work with the other spies down here. Her ex partner, Ted, proved that to her; he was typically “handsome” and of course had the stuck up personality that went with that which meant most of his time working with her was spent musing on whether his new hairstyle suited him or how many of the girls fancied him.
She had hated every second of being his partner almost as much as she hated working for Steve.
Ultimately, their partnership was short-lived as during their third mission together Ted had accidentally fallen from a sixth story window and had unsurprisingly been pronounced dead at the scene.
Jen shakes her head, throwing her bag down carelessly beside her as she stands on the running machine, ready to warm up. She hates thinking about that day, hates the numb days that came after it, caught up in Steve’s fake sympathy, a mandatory employee therapy session with a stuck up pencil pusher with the shittest counceller degree ever, and her mothers eyes following her around the room whenever she was home, knowing something was wrong.
The only upside was that she was pretty sure she had managed to convince Steve that she worked better alone, that she definitely didn’t need (or want) another partner that would almost certainly be an unwanted distraction.
Then a certain Judy Hale shows up.
*
Judy’s life hasn’t been easy. It’s been one wave crashing into the other at a hundred miles an hour so it causes a massive distraction in its wake. It’s been that way since childhood, since she was old enough to remember the way her mother steamed home at 2am bringing drugs and homewreckers with her. Chaos is wherever she goes, it’s like she can’t escape it, unable to settle down and actually live her life doing the thing she loves, paint; she wants to be an artist, because as soon as she is settled anywhere the stabilisers come off and the downfall comes next. Like yesterday, before twelve noon she was living her life in a small yet cozy apartment where she had her own space to paint and listen to music and meditate, without foster brothers or sisters poking their heads in on everything she did just for the purpose of making fun of her.
Judy Hale had grown up in foster home after foster home, she moved around like a fly, never still for long. She’d first moved into a group girls home when she was 14 years old, after sentencing her mother to years in prison for drug dealing and drug abuse, all she did was tell the truth and now she’s definitely paying for it. By 16 she’d been in three cities, the farthest all the way in Brooklyn where she’d lived on a farm with her foster parents; Rachel and Addy. She thought she was staying there forever, she loved them and the life that she had, she was able to spend time with animals and care for them in open fields and warm barns. Then, Rachel found out she was pregnant and she was shipped back to her group foster care home like an Amazon parcel, quickly and without much care.
After that she’d not stayed in a home for longer than a few months, and by the time she was 18 the system left her to her own devices. Thankfully, she could cook, had no choice but to learn when growing up with a mother as incapable of caregiving as Eleanor Hale. She wasn’t exactly ‘street smart’, she’d been targeted many times on the subway by pickpockets that didn’t even have to get their hands dirty, just had to spin a sob story and Judy would fall right for it and hand them the last twenty dollars in her purse. But, she was tactful and careful enough that she could walk back from her small waitressing job at three in the morning and make it to her apartment alive.
Speaking of, she’d missed last month's rent, the little money she made waitressing down town was spent on visits to the prison and paying the lawyer that represented her mother. So by the end of the week, she’s out, as her landlord had bellowed through the phone. It’s how she finds herself pushing a suitcase full of her best paintings down a small street in Laguna, the cool air breezes and blows her bangs in the wind. It prompts her to step up her pace, and it’s not long before she’s outside the gallery she’d researched online.
Steve Wood, the owner, had asked her here for a meeting, had told her to bring a few pieces of her work and assured her that he’d be able to sell at least a couple of them. Judy had emailed him asking if she could a few weeks ago, he’d only just gotten back to her last night but she’d told him she’d be there at 10am on the dot the day after.
She’s a little nervous as she approaches TKG arts, her eyes quickly taking in the other amazing paintings displayed, Judy prays her paintings are even as half as fabulous as the ones already in the window.
“Hello?” Judy calls out, voice wavering nervously as she takes in the desolate gallery floor. She doesn’t hear anyone, and the spotlights on the ceiling are turned off, perhaps they aren’t open yet.
“Hello!” She shouts louder this time and soon she’s jumping at the touch of a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh!”
“Judy Hale?”
“Yes! You must be Mr Wood?”
He tugs on his blazer, standing straight and towering above Judy. “Please, call me Steve.” He says, giving her a wide smile that doesn’t reach the corner of his eyes yet Judy mirrors it anyway.
Judy takes in the man in front of her, he’s as she pictured; formal and businesslike, he dresses in smart clothes costing probably more than she pays for her apartment each week (or misses to pay). He beckons her to follow her down the hallway, she nods her head and has to almost jog to keep up with his long strides.
“So, Judy, tell me-“ Steve leads her into an office, it’s dark and Judy notices the blackout windows. There are a few pictures on the desk he gestures for her to sit at, one of him and his twin, Judy notices that the two are practically oxymorons, Ben; the twin, Steve tells her, looks like a cowboy with his floppy hair and checkered shirts.
“...what’re your skills?” He finishes.
“My skills?” Judy frowns, not really knowing why he’d want to know her ‘skills’, she’s just offering her artwork not well...herself. “Um, well I’m a painter,” She bends over to drag the suitcase closer, “I mean, not just a painter, I also do drawings, mainly black and white sketches, and mainly portraits but I’ve also dabbled in beach landscapes-“
Steve stands abruptly, Judy closes her mouth and sits back up straight. “I’ve brought some pieces here to show you-“
Steve just ignores her and goes to collect something from his filing cabinet. Judy busies herself with pulling out her favourite piece, a portrait of a girl that has a missing heart, she’d spend hours on it and technically it was her cleanest piece. “This one is-“
“Hey-“ Steve interrupts. “Just, take a look at this…”
He heaves out a large box and dumps it in front of her on the table, the loud bang makes her jump.
“Okay?” Judy says, leaning over to open the box. It’s filled with envelopes. “What’re they?”
“Open them” He tells her and she does, gasping when at least a hundred $50 notes spill out. Judy looks up at him questioningly.
“That is what you’ll be getting paid if you choose to work for me”
Judy’s eyes bulge. “Seriously! Oh my god this will literally change my life you have NO idea!” She claps her hands together excitedly. “So which painting did you wanna use? I can even do some more if you want me to I really don’t mind-“
A laugh interrupts her. Steve shakes his head, coming to stand over her like master and slave, his arms fold in front of him. “I’m not selling your paintings.”
“Oh-“
“I mean honestly,” he grimaces, feigning sympathy. “They’re not even that good”
Judy’s face falls and she feels tears spring to her eyes, she hides them efficiently, an expert at dealing with rejection by now. God knows she’s had enough of it.
“Okay, I understand” The smile on her face isn’t as honest as the small one she came in with.
“Truly,” Steve holds his hands up in a surrender position, walking up and down his office like a general addressing its army. “You didn’t actually expect to be used as an artist did you?”
Judy frowns confused.
“Judy.” He shakes his head, taking the box back and flashing the money again. “You really think we make all that by selling measly paintings?”
Judy shrugs, mouth knitted shut as she watches him force the box back into his cupboard.
“I run quite a...niche, confidential operation” Steve paces, palming his hands together. “With a team of highly trained members, a top notch training quarters with high class equipment and key links to huge businessmen and...unconventional businesses all over the world…”
Judy takes it in, or tries to, she truly has no idea what is rolling off his tongue, then she sees a gun on display in a cardboard box next to a plaque with an elderly redhead woman on the front, ‘Lorna’ titled on the bottom.
“...I’m the head of an outstanding -“ He emphasises, “spy centre, we’re we make our money by taking down some of the filthy criminals that haunt this town and our nation.”
“A spy centre?” Judy voices and goes pale, her lips opening to form a surprised ‘o’ shape.
“Yes,” He frowns. “God is there an echo in here?” Steve laughs at his own joke dramatically and Judy tries to pull a smile.
“We have a job coming up, I need a spy, you need the cash, desperate for it as you said,” Steve gestures to her in a nod. “And now you have a chance to join me , join my team and make a whole lot of fucking money.”
Judy clears her throat. “Wow, I mean-“ She licks her lips, trying to put some moisture in them after how dry they’ve just gone. She swallows, “I don’t know what to say.”
Steve nods, taking a crouching position beside her and balancing by placing a hand on her thigh. Judy fights the urge to wriggle uncomfortably. “Take some time to think over it, we’ll discuss further if you accept my proposal,” Steve winks and starts caressing his thumb on Judy’s lap, over her long floral black and white trousers.
“I better be heading off then to um...think about your offer.” Judy says and manages a smile, she stands quickly and pats down her trousers, honestly she just wants to get outta here .
“You have until Wednesday“ That only gives her two days but she nods quickly and rushes out of there, tripping up over the suitcase she pulls as she does.
“Oomf!”
“Oh!” … “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
Judy offers a hand to the blonde whom she’s just barged into and knocked straight over. It’s not accepted and the taller girl stands up herself, rubbing her dusty hands on her black workout leggings.
“I apologise-”
“You already did, twice” A deeper voice than she’d imagined comes out of the blonde, an edge to it that suggests to Judy she’s kinda mad that she’s just been barrelled over by a random girl, and she should totally be .
“I really didn’t see you, I’m sorry…” She trails off, tilting her head in sympathy.
The taller girl shrugs, waves her hand and breezes past Judy, muttering “don’t worry ‘bout it” and then she’s gone as abruptly as Judy had bumped into her.
*
Two days later Jen still hasn’t been assigned a new partner, and with a new mission scheduled for the next week she’s almost certain she’s finally being left to work alone. She hopes so anyway. Hardly anything’s been said to her about this new job Steve’s sending her on, he’d mentioned it in passing while she was heading out to her car the night before but he hasn’t spoken to her since. It’s the way he is, everything’s only ever half finished with him, expecting his minions (which Jen despises that she kind of is one) to scurry around and make it up for themselves. Probably not a lot of his spies take more than one job; herself, Ted and a couple of others were the only reoccurring ones, coming back mission after mission for no other reason than the pay check at the end of each one.
She’s almost finished with her workout in the training room when she sees Steve swing open the glass doors, wearing a fake smile and a suit that makes her roll her eyes. He always walks like he owns the place (which she guesses he does) and everybody in it (which he definitely doesn’t) and she despises it. She swings a leg down from the exercise bike she had been working out on, deciding she’s going to get back upstairs before getting roped into a conversation with him
“Jennifer!” he says, zeroing in on her and she swears under her breath. She was hoping he’d leave her the fuck alone for once and bother one of the other girls instead.
She closes her eyes and forces herself to count to five before turning to face him, busing herself with dabbing her sweaty forehead with a towel and grabbing her water from the drink holder. It’s as she looks up that she finally notices that he’s not alone; hovering at his elbow is a vaguely familiar girl with dark bangs and a floral dress that just reaches her knee. She breaks out into a wide grin as Jen meets her eyes; Jen averts her eyes quickly.
“This,” Steve starts, gesturing to the girl, “is Judy Hale.” He leans in in a move that’s way too familiar for Jen’s liking and stage whispers, “your new partner.”
“What the fuck?” Jen says without thinking, her chest suddenly going tight and anger bubbling. “I told you I work alone. I don’t need some new kid following me around dragging me down.”
“Jen. Stop.” Steve’s voice is clipped in a warning. He looks back at Judy, whose face has fallen slightly, and says, “Maybe you should get better acquainted.”
Judy musters up a smile and steps forward, holding out a hand to Jen. “I’m Judy! I think I remember you from before?”
Again, Jen rejects the hand; instead, she channels in on Steve with an upturned lip, and if she feels slightly like a bitch as she sees Judy’s hand fall to her side as the brunette gulps and nearly tears up...then... no she doesn’t.
“No. We’ve never met.” Jen deadpans, busying herself with grabbing the rest of her stuff so that she doesn’t have to look at Judy Hale’s crushed expression.
“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I crashed into you on my out the other day,” Judy doesn’t take the hint from Jen’s tone, her speech tumbling out quickly, punctuated by wide eyes and an earnest tone. “Which I’m so sorry about by the way!”
Jen doesn’t have to reply because Steve cuts in, “I want you both in my office, ten minutes” and then he walks away in spite of Jen’s protesting grumble.
She shakes her head, crouched to her knees to loosen the laces on her shoes, feels Judy’s eyes watching her as she does so. “Well, I guess we’d better go and see what Steve wants to tell us!” Judy says brightly, it makes Jen cringe.
Ten minutes later they’re both sitting in plastic chairs on one side of the desk, Steve sat at the other side watching them carefully. Judy taps her foot on the floor nervously, the sound of her shoe hitting the ground and the ticking clock fill the silence between the three of them.
Jen quickly reaches over and puts a hand on Judy’s knee, stilling her leg before averting her eyes and taking her hand back as if she’s just been burned. Judy smiles apologetically and Jen wonders if that's the only thing Judy ever does.
“So, are you gonna tell us why you’ve dragged us both in here or just sit in silence for the next half hour?” Jen asks, folding her hands together and resting them on the desk in a manner that makes her look regal.
Steve narrows his eyes at her, and Jen see’s him bite his cheek in frustration, fucking good, she thinks. “I’ve brought you here because you two are being sent on the latest job,” He tells them.
Judy’s eyes widen in anxiety and excitement; the anticipation of being sent on her very first job is a little overwhelming.
“What job?” Jen says, a sigh coming out of her downturned mouth.
Steve practically glares at her, “If you’d shut your mouth for five fucking seconds then I can tell you.”
Jen rolls her eyes but folds her arms and tries to keep quiet. She can feel Judy’s eyes burning into her and she shuffles awkwardly in her seat, folding and unfolding her leg a few times.
Steve takes a breath in. “Okay.” He pulls out a file, opening the various papers from it and displaying them in front of Jen and Judy. “This,” he points at the black and white photo inside, “is Andrew Peters, he was arrested for a hit and run while being under the influence, he got bail and now he’s trying to make a getaway across the country, he’s headed for the Mexican border as we speak, now...Perez is already tracking him,”
Jen snaps her head up at him at her name, Ana Perez is one of the other spies, a good one at that.
“...And you two are going to be there to catch him before he leaves,” Steve adds, he flips towards a printed map, circling, ‘The Barton Motel’, which is where Andrew is currently hiding out under a false identity, he informs them.
“And you want me to take some untrained new girl on this?” Jen scoffs. She doesn’t chance a look at Judy, knowing without looking that her eyes would be shimmering with hurt. “No fucking way. I’ll go myself.”
Steve slams the files shut, sweeping the papers into a semi-neat pile. “No,” he says, “Peters isn’t due to arrive at the hotel for another two days and so that gives you two ladies two days to train your little asses off.”
Jen starts protesting but stops when Judy’s soft voice is heard for the first time since they’d entered the office.
“I’m ready,” Judy says, sounding surprisingly sure of herself.
Jen snaps her head and frowns, before she can say anything Steve stands. “Well there you go…” he shrugs. Jen shakes her head at him and fights the urge to smack him straight across his face. “Jen, show Judy our training quarters, I have a meeting in five minutes so you two-“ he points his thumbs towards the door and practically shoos them out.
Jen stands quickly and heads out first, brushing roughly past Steve with her shoulder as she does while Judy’s left hastily gathering her jacket and bag from the floor. She trips over the table leg as she leaves, mutters a “sorry” and then grins as she walks past Steve and out of his office.
“You coming?” Jen says from metres in front of her already, her back towards Judy.
“Yup!” Judy has to jog to keep up with her, shrugging her jacket on as she does.
*
Jen leads Judy into the training room, she hears Judy’s small “wow” as she takes everything in, the archery station with computer panelled targets on a transparent wall, the knife throwing area with many slots already carved into the wooden board hung on the wall, the gauntlets; benches and blocks of all shapes and sizes in order for balance and obstacle training, Judy’s never seen anything like it.
“Take off your clothes,” Jen nods towards her dress and holds out a pair of workout clothes she’d grabbed before coming down here.
Judy’s eyes widen and Jen quickly finishes, “You can’t wear that to train,” She says, turns around and points to a door in the near distance, “there’s a bathroom and changing room in there, leave your bag and clothes next to mine, it’s the red hold-all, you should see it.” Jen says and then nods her head as Judy tells her she’ll be right back.
When she finally returns (after taking a little longer than Jen would have liked) she crosses the roll back to Jen, looking apprehensive but determined.
“So what first?” She says, meeting the older girl’s eyes. She pauses, glancing around the room and settling on the knife throwing area. “Ah what about this!”
Jen stops her with a hand to her elbow, a deep laugh vibrating in her chest. “Oh no, babe,” she smirks. “Let’s start with something a little less - uh- dangerous to begin with.”
Judy’s face falls a little and it makes Jen feel a little bad, so she quickly leads her by the arm towards the archery station. She types something in on the rectangular computerised board, Judy peers over her shoulder and watches in awe as Jen navigates through the different settings and levels, tapping beginner and setting a time for ten minutes.
Jen turns around and she’s startled by how close Judy’s standing towards her, and even more shocked that Judy just stays there and doesn’t move back, like... at all. Jen smiles awkwardly and moves to grab a bow and arrow.
“Here.” She hands it Judy, and when the brunette looks at her expectantly she huffs and goes to help her shrug it on.
“Oh! I’m left handed,” Judy says, and Jen wishes she’d said that before she’d set her up for being a rightie, but she bites her tongue and quickly changes the arrow around.
“Okay, when I press play there’s gonna be circles on the screen, when you see one shoot at it, try like...actually aim at it.” Jen intructs, Judy just nods seriously and takes a stance that looks like she’s about to start fucking boxing or something if it wasn’t for the arrow in her hand.
Jen shakes her head. “No, like this…”
She leans forward, adjusting Judy’s left arm and pointing it, she loosens her finger off too because with the amount of grip she has on it she’d take herself with the arrow when she lets go. Judy smiles a little, she can feel Jen’s warm puffs of breath on her cheek, it makes her a little tingly but she focuses on holding the arrow in exactly the same position Jen showed her.
Jen steps backwards and presses play on the computer screen, when she does about half a dozen circles float onto the transparent screen in front of Judy, the life size dots almost make her feel as if she’s under attack. So, she does what she does best and panics, quickly letting go of the arrow and it flies off past the screen in front of her and straight over Jen’s head, if she hadn't ducked it would’ve taken her head off.
“What the FUCK!” Jen gasps.
“Jen! Oh my god-“
“You just almost-“ Jen turns around and looks at the arrow, stuck deep into the wall metres behind her.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m just- I can’t,”
Jen sighs at seeing tears form in Judy’s eyes and she makes her way over to take the bow and arrow from her before she does any more damage to anything else or herself.
“I can’t do this, god I’m so stupid.. ”
“No-it’s,” Jen stutters, stuck because she’s not used to this, actually sympathising with someone who she’s just met and barely even knows, however cold people may think she is, and a lot of people she doesn’t care to think about do believe that about her, she’s not heartless and doesn’t want to see Judy cry.
Even if she did just almost kill her.
“Judy come on, it’s fine, you, well, missed anyway” Jen scoffs a laugh, meeting Judy’s eyes with her own, she sees them brighten and crinkle as Judy smiles. “Let’s just do a warmup, we can do a few weights and laps exetterra…” Jen beckons for her to follow.
Judy stands and dries her eyes before walking after Jen. “Okay.”
They head into the gym area together, Jen sets Judy up and on a light walk on the treadmill and hops onto the one beside her. There’s a dead silence until Jen tells Judy she can connect her phone to the speaker in the corner.
“We usually do the gym at least 5 times a week,” Jen tells her, over the song ‘500 miles’ that Judy’s chosen to play (which she guesses was supposed to be a joke, she guesses it’s a little funny). “There’s a lot of cardio because well, as you can probably imagine our job isn’t just sitting in an office all day….”
“I guess not,” Judy says with a small laugh that is a little laboured with the effects of her running. “So, how’d you get into this business anyway?”
Jen is quiet, an awkward silence falling over them both. She doesn’t talk about her personal life with anyone, not even her own mother, and so she doesn’t really feel like getting into the details of her family's financial struggle following her mothers’ cancer diagnosis.
“I could ask you the same, you don’t really strike me as the type of person to want to do something like this” Jen says trying to deflect the topic away from herself.
Judy’s shoulders shrug, and grabbing a drink from her bottled water she says “well,” she places it back in the holder, it wobbles a bit and she has to force it in the slot, “I’m basically homeless as of Friday, or...apartment-less, but details details…” she waves a hand and Jen finds herself watching how it falls onto the handles, fingers gripping and releasing. “And I need money for, other stuff, my waitressing job doesn’t really pay me that much so...here I am” Judy says, purposefully not mentioning Eleanor and her whole situation with her because she doesn’t fancy delving into that situation with Jen, doubts she’d appreciate the long conversation about the ins and outs of foster homes, prisons and drug dens, so she quickly diverts the topic to something else before Jen can ask further questions.
It’s not until later that she realises Jen never said how she became a spy, she finds herself crawling into her bottomless mattress that night wondering about Jen, if that’s even her real name, she could be undercover or something… She laughs lightly, reminding herself of the fact that they’re on the same side, they’ll actually be working together on a job soon.
Honestly she’s quite excited about it.