We were on the couch with our hands tied behind our backs.

“My, my. You girls sure are pretty.” The man was in his early thirties and had black hair and brown eyes. I recognized him immediately.

“I’m Christopher Cuttingham. You must be Miranda, Daniela, and Belina?” He was the murderer bailed out earlier today.

“Who bailed you?” Daniela asked.

“He’s not important right now. All he said was to kill you three.”

“Well why haven’t you yet?” Belina said. I kicked her.

“It would be a waste,” he came over and sat between Daniela and me, “and besides, he never said I couldn’t mess around with you before I kill you.” He placed his hand on Daniela’s bare thigh, sliding it up. She flinched. I growled and suddenly, she kicked him in the face, knocking him out on my lap.

“Wow, one kick did it all,” Belina commented.

“I still don’t get how you can kick your foot up that high…” I said.

“He’s a weakling,” Daniela replied. I rolled him off my lap and just in time, police sirens sounded in front of our house. They barged in and immediately grabbed Chris and handcuffed him.

“What took you so long?” I complained as one of the men came and untied us.

“Sorry,” a woman said. Chris became conscious. She bent down to where they were face to face.

“What happened to killing yourself afterwards?” The policeman holding him laughed.

“May I get your names, please?” she asked taking out a notepad.

“Miranda Evans, Daniela…” I started.

“Wait, ‘Evans’?” she echoed, “Agent Matthews told me about you. Well, I must say, you three are definitely on someone’s hit list. Is there anything you can tell me?” the woman asked. I looked at her nametag; Desiree Salazar.

“To tell you the truth, we’re completely clueless, but we’ll let you know if we figure something out,” I answered. She handed me her number and left.

“Why did you lie? You could have gotten us protection!” Daniela said, while sweeping the broken glass. I glued in a new plate of glass into the door.

“Guys, if we can prove to the guy that we can keep his secret, maybe he’ll trust us and leave us alone.”

“We don’t even know the secret and he’s out to get us!”

“Don’t worry. I know how to be one step ahead of this guy.”

“How?” Belina asked.

“Notice a pattern? He’s been sending the most dangerous people to get us and all of them are talked about on the news. We can be sure that Charles and Chris won’t be around anymore because they both failed at getting rid of us.”

“So then who’s next?” Daniela asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, smiling. They sighed and Belina threw a towel at my face. I dumped the last bit of glass into the trashcan.

“Shoot,” I sat up straight on the couch, staring at the clock, “Guys, get up! We’re going to be late for school!” I darted upstairs to get ready. We only had five hours of sleep last night, taking turns on guard duty, being we ended up falling asleep anyways.

“Come on!” I yelled. We dashed out the door and opened the garage; Dad’s Mercedes. I was about to put the key into the lock when suddenly, Daniela grabbed my arm.

“Maybe you should check it out first,” she said. We inspected it; inside and out. So far, there was nothing. I slowly slid the key into the lock and turned. Ha. No bombs. Thank God. We got inside and I drove us to school.

I only had a minute to get to class. When I arrived, the first thing I saw was Justin’s face. I couldn’t read his expression, but it seemed like he was disappointed. I ignored him and sat down. Kaiser came in.

“Time for a quiz. Everyone, take out a pencil,” he announced. Shoot. I didn’t study.

“Okay, first question,” I thought, “What program keeps certain people confidential? A, witness protection program; B, witness relocation program…definitely B.” I zoomed through the test using what I had in my subconscious. The bell rang and I immediately received a text.

Daniela told me what happened last night. Are you okay?! –David

Ugh. I was going to kill her. I sighed and texted back.

Yeah, I’m fine. Hi David, how are you? –Miranda

Sorry. Hi Mirs. I’m good; a bit worried, but good. –David

I slipped my phone back in my pocket and went into the hall.

“Mirs! Over here!” Belina called. I walked over to her.

“Hey.”

“What’s wrong?”she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly.

“I think I failed the quiz last hour.”

“Have confidence.”

“You’re one to say that…”

“Hey!” She laughed. I smiled. We entered our English class.

“Attention! Get to your seats!” Hayes shouted. We spent most of our time writing during class, Belina and I were whispering to each other. Surprisingly, we weren’t caught. I glanced up at Hayes a few times, who was busy typing away on his laptop. Suddenly, I noticed his eyebrows furrow and he looked in my direction. I put my head back down. That was weird.

“So will your mom be home tomorrow?” Belina asked unexpectedly.

“Yeah.”

“Should we stay over one more night?”

I thought about this carefully. If they stayed, we could protect each other in case someone should come, but that puts us all in danger. If they went home, we could be attacked individually and that would also put more lives at stake.

“I guess the best idea is for you to stay again.”

“Okay.” Belina turned to look at Conner again. Their eyes met and he smiled, but when he saw me, he looked away. “Did you say something to him?” Belina asked. I glared at her.

“Oh yeah. I told him you thought he was annoying,” I said, sarcastically.

“Sorry,” she apologized, realizing I wouldn’t have done anything, “I just really like him.”

“I can tell.” I sighed and focused back on the work.

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