10

"I'm gonna puke," Carmen groaned, leaning over a trash can that Colton had set in front of her just moments ago.

"If you do," he said from across the aisle in his own seat. "Aim for the garbage, please."

They had been on their flight to Las Vegas for at least an hour. Colton had helped Carmen pack last night after Kendra informed them of where they were going and what would be happening on the mission. Alexa had lent her an extra suit case and Colton spent their time, after finishing packing, to teach Carmen basics about how to lie low when undercover and how to look natural in a setting like the one they would be in within the next 36 hours. Her and Colton had still woken up early enough to do more exercises in the training room. He said that he didn't believe in any days with breaks, Carmen groaned in response to this and he only chuckled and decided that as soon as he felt Carmen was ready, he would let her have the weekends off. Until then, it would be 7 days a week for 3-4 hours.

They had only an hour to eat and shower after training before they would have the leave the compound at noon for the private jet. Colton had driven his car to the air strip with Carmen, Alexa and Santana. Clayton had driven with Ainsley, Luke and Sophie. When they arrived, Colton brought over he and Carmens suitcase to the workers who were loading baggage into the cargo hold. She was sure to note the three stainless steel cases that Ainsley, Luke and Alexa handed off to the workers as well as the two duffel bags that Clayton gave them. When Carmen looked to Colton with a questioning glance, he explained that the silver cases were the sniper rifles, and the black bag held extra guns and equipment that they would need for the surveillance van being driven down to Las Vegas by an agent from head quarters.

By this time, Colton, Carmen, Alexa and Sophie sat in one section of the air craft towards the back and the rest of the group sat up front. The two cabins were blocked off by a single door. Colton and Carmen sat in the front row across from each other while Alexa and Sophie sat across from each other in the back row. Alexa had a pair of rose gold headphones placed on her head and was tapping her finger against her thigh to the beat of the music. Sophie was reading a book and completely blocking out the rest of the world.

"I've never flown before. Can you tell?" Carmen asked Colton.

He nodded. "You're more likely to get into a car crash, you know that right?"

"I know, but every time we get turbulence my whole life flashes before my eyes."

Carmen squeezed her eyes shut as she began to fan herself with her hand and she heard Colton laugh lightly. Something about it was able to somewhat set Carmen at ease. The nausea didn't settle, but the sound did make Carmen want to smile.

"Why don't you try to distract yourself?" Colton asked.

Carmen took a deep breath before sitting back up in her seat and opening her eyes. She hadn't brought anything with her. Small talk would distract her, wouldn't it?

"Why did everyone else sit up front?"

"We're sitting in the 'quiet cabin'. Everyone in here wants some peace and quiet and the ones up front are the ones who can barely sit still during a flight and feel the need to be loud and obnoxious."

At that same moment Colton spoke those words, a loud laugh sounded from the other side of the door. It was distinctly male and Carmen rose her eyebrows at Colton. "Was that your brother?"

Colton nodded.

"Wow," Carmen said. "I didn't even know he could smile, let alone laugh."

He smirked. "Clay is a bit of a hard ass, but you just have to get to know him. He's not so bad."

"I'm pretty sure he would rather bury me than get to know me."

Colton shrugged. "I think you both come from different worlds and you're obviously going to clash."

"What do they even do up front?"

"Well, most of the time I think they're just causing trouble and being annoying. But, I know that Ainsley likes to sit in the cockpit with the pilots and play music over the speaker sometimes. I think she does it to try and get us out of our seats in here and join in on their fun but I would rather not."

"Ainsley being annoying." Carmen forced an obvious fake smile. "Some things never change."

Colton shifted in his seat and stared at the floor, clearly uncomfortable. Carmen glanced over her shoulder at Sophie.

"Hey, Sophie?"

Sophie's eyes flicked up from the pages of her book to Carmen. "Yeah?"

"Do you have that file on Ryder Hanson?"

Before they left The Compound, Kendra gave Sophie, Santana and Clayton files on Ryder Hanson for the mission.

Sophie nodded and grabbed her backpack off the ground, she dug around in it for a few seconds before she pulled out a stack of stapled white papers and handed it to Carmen. "Thanks."

If she needed to distract herself, she could at least get some insight on what they would be walking into tomorrow night.

**

"Alright," Clayton said loud enough to gather everyone's attention. The group fell silent and all eyes went to him. "Everyone listen up."

The group had landed their plane on the air strip nearly 30 minutes ago and were transported to a hotel where Kendra had booked rooms for them to stay during their time here. At this time, everyone was standing in the hotel lobby after finishing checking out, Luke was loading everyone's suitcases onto a luggage cart.

"My mom only booked four rooms, so siblings bunk together. We'll discuss the details for what's gonna happen tomorrow later tonight. For now, here's the room keys." He handed Ainsley, Alexa, and Santana each a plastic card with the hotel logo etched onto it.

With that being said, everyone split up between the two elevators. Carmen followed Colton into the elevator he was taking with Clayton and Santana up to the 6th floor where the rooms were located.

Colton leaned against the wall of the elevator and Carmen planted her feet beside him. He peered at her and smiled when she met his glance.

"I would rather cut my leg off then share a room with her," she muttered to him and folded her arms over her chest.

Carmen looked ahead and noticed Santana, who was standing in front of her beside Clayton, had tilted her head a bit at this comment.

"It'll be fine," Colton assured her. "If you need to get away or something, my room should be a few doors down. So you can just come find me."

Clayton straightened and, to everyone's surprise, turned around to fully face Carmen. He locked his green eyes on her. "Look," he started, "I don't really care about your little feud with Ainsley. But, you'd better keep it in check while we're here. The last thing we need is you fucking up a mission because you two can't get along."

"Clay," Colton said in a warning tone. Clayton shot a glare at his brother and arched an eye brow.

"What?"

"Ease up."

Carmen clenched her jaw, it was obvious that Clayton didn't like nor trust her. She didn't appreciate being talked down to as if she was a child.

"Don't worry about what I do," Carmen snapped back, not keeping the bite out of her tone.

All eyes on her.

"I'm your leader," Clayton retorted. "It's kind of my job to make sure you don't do or say anything stupid that will throw Ainsley off tomorrow. She's our best sniper, we need her focused."

Carmen unfolded her arms and took a step closer, peering up at him. She didn't care to hide the scowl in her expression. "You can stop acting like you're saying this for any other reason than you don't like me. Which is fine by me. I don't care who likes me. But, you're sure as hell not going to tell me how to handle anything with Ainsley. I'm an adult, I can handle myself, Clay," She put emphasis on his nickname that made it perfectly clear to him that she didn't give a damn who he was.

He blinked in shock, and then inhaled deeply as anger masked his face. "I'm your leader-"

"You're a dude on a major power trip." She scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "The last thing I'm going to do is let a dude think that he can order me around." Carmen looked him up and down. "Especially one with a massive ego."

The elevator had made a ding noise that alerted them that they were at the 6th floor. The door slid open and Carmen didn't take her eyes off of Clayton. She could practically feel the seething disdain that was radiating off of him. Knowing that she had gotten him at a loss of words, she stepped around him and walked out of the elevator. Colton followed behind her and cursed in a low voice at what had just taken place.

"You definitely pissed him off," Colton said.

"He pissed me off. I was only returning the favor."

The two had halted outside the elevator when Luke exited the elevator that he was in followed by Ainsley, Alexa and Sophie. He began handing off everyone's luggage to it's owners. When Carmen had her own, She saw Ainsley taking her bags from Luke.

Colton gently nudged Carmens arm, drawing her stare to him. "If you really can't be in a room with her that long, let me get my stuff put away and then I'll come get you."

She smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Colton."

He returned the smile. "No problem."

With that being said, she watched as he turned around and headed to his own room. She redirected her body towards Ainsley who was staring at her. "Ready?"

Carmen said nothing.

Ainsley waited a moment for a response, and slowly shook her head in disappointment when she didn't get one. Then, Ainsley walked over to their door and inserted the key card. She heard the beep and opened the door, Carmen followed her inside.

There were two queen sized beds, neatly made and pressed against a wall. The thing that had caught both their attentions right away was the large window that looked out over the city. Ainsley dropped her bags onto the floor beside the closet to their right and walked over to the window. Carmen plopped her suitcase onto the bed closest to the bathroom door and sat down on the mattress.

"You can see the tiny version of the Eiffel Tower from here," Ainsley noted.

Carmen picked up the folder that was sitting on the nightstand between their beds and pretended to be interested in the contents tucked into the pockets.

Ainsley looked over her shoulder at her sister. "You're really going to ignore me. Aren't you?"

Carmen didn't reply, she only looked through the channel guide that was inside the folder for the TV in front of their beds.

"You're so stubborn." Ainsley rolled her eyes and began walking towards the bathroom after grabbing one of her bags off the ground. "If I didn't already know you, I'd assume that you were a Sagittarius."

Carmen ground her teeth together as Ainsley went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. "You're a Sagittarius too, bitch," she whispered under her breath.

It was a few minutes before Ainsley stepped out of the bathroom wearing a red string bikini with a pair of black sunglasses resting on top of her pink hair.

At that moment, a knock came at the door. Ainsley walked over and answered it to see Colton and Luke standing in the door way. The two walked in and Ainsley let the door shut behind them. Luke was in his own swimming trunks, hands shoved in the pockets. Colton glanced at the two of them. "Where are you guys going?"

"There's a pool outside. You guys should come with," Luke answered as he leaned against the dresser that the TV sat on.

"You guys don't have to do a bunch of preparing for the mission tomorrow?" Carmen asked as she looked at Colton.

Colton shrugged. "If you ask us, no. But, if you ask my brother, he says that we do."

"Did you get an earful when you left?" Ainsley asked as she began to tighten her ponytail in the mirror.

Colton nodded. "The same old bullshit about how we don't help him when it comes to planning for missions. It's not like my specialty is in ground work anyway."

"Isn't that Santana and Sophies skill too?" Carmen asked as she recalled the files she read on each specialty.

"Yeah," Luke started, "but, Sophie and Alexa are going out for a lunch date and Santana wanted to go shopping. I know that Clayton wants to prepare early and all this stuff, but I'd actually like to relax the day before missions. Especially when we get to travel to do them. We don't really get to do stuff like this very often. So, whenever he sees that we want to go off and do tourist things, he gets upset and says that we don't help him with the planning and that he always has to do it alone."

"Well, do you?"

"Do we what?" Luke asked.

"Do you help him plan?"

A brief silence fell amongst the four before Colton perked up to talk. "That's not exactly our skill, and he can handle it anyway."

A feeling of guilt hit Carmen in the gut and she pursed her lips at this.

"I want to get down there before all the good tanning spots are taken," Ainsley said. Luke nodded and Colton stepped aside so that the two could walk out of the room.

The door clicked shut behind them and Colton looked to Carmen. "I was thinking that maybe we could go shopping with Santana, maybe you could find some clothes that you actually like to keep at The Compound?"

Carmen sighed.

I can't fucking believe I'm doing this, Carmen thought to herself with a soft sigh.

"Actually," Carmen said. "You guys go on without me, I think I'm just gonna hang back here for now. I'm feeling a bit of... jet lag."

Colton raised his eyebrows at this. "We're only three hours behind New York."

Carmen shrugged. "First time flyer."

"Okay..." Colton trailed off. "Well, I'll see you later then."

"Yeah, you too." She lifted her hand in a slight wave.

She waited until he left the room and the door fully closed behind him before she threw herself back onto the pillows and groaned to herself in annoyance. "I swear to God." She rubbed the temples of her skull. "I'd better not regret this."

Carmen pushed herself out of the bed and grabbed the extra key card on the dresser before she left the room and walked down the hall, two doors down from her own. She sighed heavily as she halted in front of the door and tried to convince herself that she wasn't about to do something ridiculously stupid. She rose her fist and let it tap against the wood three times before folding her hands behind her back and waiting.

The door opened and Clayton sighed heavily when he saw that Carmen stood with a smile. "Hey," she said with a chipper tone.

"What do you want?" his tone of voice was audibly agitated.

"Wow, what's up your ass?"

"You." Clayton began to shut the door, but Carmen quickly stuck out her hand to stop it from closing and smiled once again.

"Uh-uh. That's just rude, Clayton. Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" She didn't let the clear mocking smile fade from her face.

Clayton offered his own fake smile to mimic her. "None for criminals."

Carmens smile disappeared. "Well, this criminal heard that you've got quite a workload." She peered over his shoulder to see the stacks of papers and files strewn across the bedspread of one of the beds behind him.

"And?"

Carmen looked back to him and shrugged. "I want to help."

Clayton scoffed. "Why?"

"Look, I know you don't like me, I'm not exactly a big fan of your shitty attitude either, but I know that everyone else is off doing their own thing except me. I'm the only one who's willing to step up and offer help so that you don't have to do all this by yourself."

Clayton said nothing, he only gave her his usual cold and hard stare that made Carmen's blood boil. Carmen let a few more seconds pass by before rolling her eyes. "Okay, whatever. I knew that I shouldn't have even bothered. You've got too many sticks up your ass to even possibly consider accepting help from someone you don't like." Carmen sneered at him.

"Do it your damn self." She turned and began walking away from his door to head back to her room.

"Wait!" There was a slight sense of pleading in his voice that made Carmen stop dead in her tracks and glance over her shoulder at him.

He was half stepped out of the room and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and shoved the other in his jeans pocket. Clayton closed his eyes and released a loud exhale. "I guess I do need help."

Carmen fully turned to him and crossed her arms. "I thought so."