My Undercover Life

Episode 2

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“Don’t be afraid,” the guy in front of me said in a surprisingly calming tone. “You’re not in trouble, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He chuckled, causing me to raise an eyebrow at him. Looking at him closely now, he seemed to be about twenty-five years old. He had one of those mature kind of faces but at the same time you could tell he was young by his kind blue eyes, and the wrinkle free-face.

“I’m guessing by that ‘oh-s–t’ expression on your face earlier, you’re Lily Avery Ace,” he said with a close-mouth smile when I didn’t respond back. By now, he probably thought I was some kind of an idiot, just staring at him. But could you blame me? What do you even say when two guys that could literally hurt you with a snap of their fingers show up on your doorsteps asking for you? Even though they appeared to be friendly, I couldn’t let my guard down just yet.
“How do you even know my full name!?” was my clever comeback to his statement. Only close family members knew my middle name; I made sure the media didn’t know me as Lily Avery Ace. Then again they refer to me as ‘the face’, or the ‘cutest child star ever’. Sadly they still call me that even though I’m seventeen and had already left the entertainment world.

“Wow, I’m hurt. You don’t even recognize your own cousins,” the second guy said, finally making direct eye contact with me. His soft grey eyes were filled with fake-pain, and amusement; though I wasn’t sure for what. If he thought this situation was funny, he has another thing coming to him.

“Cousins? You’re joking right?”
“Why would we joke about that?” he all but asked, stepping forward, his six foot five frame, towering over my short five foot five frame. “We’re from your mother’s side of the family,” he explained, pointing to his partner then back to himself.

“Distant but we’re still family,” he added afterwards.

“Prove it.” I stubbornly crossed my arms, as I watched them look at each other in thought before turning back around, opening their mouths to respond simultaneously.
“Lily, who’s at the door?” I heard my dad’s voice asked, cutting off what they were about to say. Listening to the quiet footsteps get louder and louder, I knew he was getting close. By the sound of his voice, he had most likely just woken up, wanting some breakfast or something. Instead his face is probably in a thin line, looking absolutely confused, just like all of the other times when we had unannounced visitors.
“That was your dad’s voice,” the first guy stated. I nodded not knowing what else to say. Either they were telling the truth about being my cousins, or it was just a lucky guess.

Feeling my dad’s presence behind me, I all but heard him gasped, before I was pulled inside, behind him. Looking at my dad, he was around the same height as those two guys, and even though he was in his late fifties, he was still pretty well off—youth wise. Sure if you look at him, you could tell he wasn’t the youngest guy out there, but he still didn’t look like he was in his fifties. He could still very well pass for someone in their early forties, and he could still kick some butt if he wanted to.

“Demitri, Skylar, what are you guys doing here?” he murmured, looking at each of the guys respectively.

“Chill out uncle,” Skylar, the second guy, remarked, “we just wanted to visit you guys and to see how our dear baby cousin is doing.” His grey eyes met my blue ones, as he flashed me a quick smile. I rolled my eyes at that. Baby cousin? I bet they’re only like five years older than me.

“Right . . .” My dad rolled his eyes, copying my actions not believing them for even a second. I couldn’t blame him, because even though I just met them, I knew they weren’t telling the truth by their presences alone. “Now tell me the real reason why you’re here.”

He took a deep breath, sighing, looking at Demitri for a nod of approval before he began telling us the truth. “Fine, as you may already know, there’s a killer on the loose.”
“You mean with the Bryant case?” I asked, before my dad could. Everyone and anyone already knew that. It’s been all over the news.
“Yes, but that’s not the only case,” Demitri uttered out causing my eyes to enlarged. There’s more killings!? Seeing the terror on my face, he quickly started to elaborate, as my dad took my hands in his, trying to comfort me. “In the past four months, someone is going around killing young girls left and right. Every first friday night after midnight, two bodies are always found dead. One raped and the other beaten. All located dead in alleyways, right after a high school party. The victims all had something in common. They were all seniors in high school, and their names all started with the letter ‘A’. But that’s not all, the most important thing between all of the victims is that they all shared the same birthday and were born roughly around the time they passed away.”
“How come we never heard of this?” You would think if a serial killer was on the loose killing young teenager girls around places that are relatively safe this news would be all over the media and the social web, right? So how come I’m just hearing about this now!?
“We just recently pieced all of this together,” he said, telling both of us. “Each killing happened in different states. The Bryant’s case was the first in New York. The FBI has been working on this case since the third attack, but every single person who had witnessed these crimes took place always described the killer as someone totally different. Almost like there’s more than one killer out there, but we know that’s not the case. We tested the DNA in the sperm sample we collected in each of the victims bodies and they were all a perfect match. So either this person is a master of disguise or the witnesses are giving us false information.”
I nodded, trying to take everything in. To know a crazy psycho is on the loose would scare anyone shitless. And right now, I’m beyond frightened. If it wasn’t for my dad holding me up right now, I would be on the ground, passed out.

“Do you even have any leads?” my dad asked, holding me close to him, rubbing soothing circles upon my back. He was trying to calm me down by whispering comforting words to me, but all I could think about was the killer. What if he decides to go after someone whose’s name doesn’t start with the letter ‘A’? What if he decides to go after Megan or me? Then what?
“Three. We finally got some leads during the Bryant’s case. The suspects aren’t exactly who you would picture as blood-thirsty killers though. They’re all eighteen, and two of them are brothers. And they all reside in this lovely town called Woodway,” Skylar said, as he ended his sentence in a sarcastic tone.

My face paled, freezing on the spot. D-d-did he just said what I think he said?
“And just why are you exactly telling us this? Isn’t this suppose to be top FBI information?” my dad questioned for me, seeing as how I couldn’t even blink my eyes, let alone ask questions at the moment. “If we’re just hearing about this so-called serial killer, I’m pretty sure they wanted to keep this on the downlow.”

“Well yeah, but you guys aren’t just anyone,” Skylar said, putting air quotes on the word anyone.

“W-what do you mean?” I finally spoke up, amazed I didn’t stammered on my words too much.

“The real reason why we’re here isn’t because we wanted to visit you guys or to scare you, Lily half to death with all of this information,” he grimaced, both of them looking quite guilty and apologetic.
“Then what are you here for?”
“We need you to go undercover,” he blurted out bluntly with a straight face.

It took me a second, before I fully grasped what he had said, before I cried out, “U-under what!?”

“You heard me.” He tried to pulled of a smile. “We want you, Lily Avery Ace to go undercover to help us solve this crime.”
“W-why me?”

Their faces turned serious when they uttered the sentence that made my blood ran cold.
“The three suspects all go to your town’s private school, Woodway Prep.”
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