Raina O'Hara watched Leila Drake as the other woman drove them to her apartment. After the meeting, Drake had gone to file some paperwork and inform her captain of her new assignment and Justin pulled her to the side as they waited for the other woman to be done. She frowned, thinking about her AICs' order. “I want you to keep an eye on Drake and everyone that she introduces to you over the course of the investigation. Don't take any notes or try to inform me about anything in association with her associates, but be prepared for a full debriefing on them when this is done.” The other FBI agents' gray eyes had been even more somber than usual.
Isn't standard procedure to allow locals to maintain the confidentiality of their informants? She hadn't asked the man that, just nodded and figured that she would cross that bridge when she came to it. That hadn't been the most disturbing part of the day, however, that particular honor belonged to Justin and Drake casually agreeing to refuse criminals the right to plea bargain.
“Why do you care if some of the freed slaves decide to join the Army?” She broke the silence with a question that had been on her mind for a while. And why would the Army pressure the AG in order to get them?
“I don't,” Drake replied, making a left turn. “Though I somehow doubt it's going to be their choice.”
Raina stiffened. “What do you mean?”
"We'll be having dinner with your trainer, then we'll have about an hour training and the rest of my people will arrive shortly after. We should be done by midnight, you're welcome to the guest room if you don't want to go home that late."
Raina ground her teeth at the dismissal of her question. “What. Do. You. Mean.”
The other woman shrugged. “Do you think that the government is just going to let however many skilled, high class, combat psions just walk around free?”
Raina smirked, “Conspiracy theory much?”
“Yeah,” Drake drawled, “I'm a conspiracy theorist. That's why your boss agreed to put some pressure on the AGO before we even started the investigation as soon as I brought it up.”
The car was silent for the rest of the drive.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Raina followed the other woman into her apartment and looked around. It was fairly spacious and impressively clean, with a small sitting area, a fully equipped kitchen, dinette and a modestly decorated sitting room. There were several weapon racks on the wall with a diverse assortment of weapons hanging on them. Raina frowned at that, but it wasn't that uncommon for combat enhancers to need frequent replacement weapons. Drake gestured at one of the couches, "Make yourself at home." She offered, "I'm going to start preparing dinner."
Raina shrugged. “Want some help?” she offered.
“No thanks, the actual cook's getting here in ten minutes so I need to hurry. I'd just end up running around you getting everything ready.” Drake smiled to take the edge off the implication.
Raina didn't take any offense, it wasn't as if she knew where to find anything in the other woman's kitchen anyway. "Who's the cook?"
“My brother.” Drake grinned, beginning to emit powerful Enhance waves. Raina made sure that she was not directly behind the other woman, her previous experience with Enhance specialists having taught her that they sometimes kicked off the ground a bit too hard. She needed to get a healer during training after a rock hit her while watching a demonstration match between two Enhancers. The point of the demonstration had been to show just how much damage a good Enhancer could take before finally dropping out of sheer exhaustion. Raina had taken it as a lesson to never be the arresting agent when the perp was an Enhancer. She noticed that Drake hadn't hung her sword up ye. “Won't that get in the way?” She asked pointing.
“Nah,” Drake responded before blurring around the room. Raina watched in awe, as cabinets opened and food moved practically of their own volition onto the counter-top. She had watched the Enhancer match, but this was another league entirely! She had never seen somebody move so fast, yet with enough control that let alone break the floor, Drake hadn't even made a sound! Within five minutes, there was a chopped salad and pasta dough and ingredients waiting for Drake's brother to arrive.
Three minutes later, the brother came in. Raina blinked, surprised at how different the two Drakes looked. While Leila was a slightly tall 5'6 to Raina's own 5'4, Lila's brother, who looked to be in his mid-teens was probably an inch shorter than she was. Aside from height, the most striking difference between the two was their hair. Leila's was a deep blood-red that framed a face that hinted at an Oriental ancestry, while her brother's black hair did nothing to make his rather standard features any more memorable. The only feature that the two had in common was their eyes. Deep blue, with the same confidence in them that said they could take whatever was thrown at them. Even the FBI. Raina suppressed a shudder, imagining what may have happened if Justin had tried to push Leila Drake. The blur from before kept showing up in her mind. Instead of running around a kitchen, however, she saw it heading at her.
The teenager extended a hand as he formed two more out of psionic energy. “Jim Drake,” he introduced himself as the psionic arms extended to the kitchen and began to feed the pasta dough through a pasta maker. “I'm going to be your teacher for the month.”