13

Even during the car ride back to the hotel, Carmen's throat ached. She had been on the verge of crying out of anger, but she did not want to breakdown in front of Clayton of all people. He didn't press the situation or try to get her to talk, but he did inform her that the others had beaten them back to the hotel because it took forever to get the key back from the valet workers that had been at Ryders party. So, Carmen knew that the second she walked into the hotel room that she would be met with Ainsleys wrath and she had begun mentally preparing herself.

She walked side by side with Clayton through the lobby and to the elevator. Once the elevator stopped at their floor and the doors opened, they stepped out. Santana and Alexa were the first ones they saw. The two of them were standing outside Carmen and Ainsleys room. As soon as the two noticed Clayton and Carmens presence, Santana grew angry once again. Scowling hard at Carmen, she took a step towards her. "If you ever say-"

"Santana," Clayton snapped, cutting her off. "Don't."

Santana didn't let her angry stare falter. Alexa nudged her. "Come on, let's go."

The two girls walked to Alexas room next. Carmen didn't want to say a word to Clayton, so she walked over to her door and instantly heard Ainsleys distressed voice on the other side.

She opened the door and stepped inside to see Luke and Ainsley standing in the center of the room. Carmen was taken back at the sight of Ainsleys bloodshot eyes and the wetness on her cheeks.

She couldn't remember the last time that she'd seen her sister cry.

Luke had both hands placed on Ainsleys arms, trying to talk to her in a soothing tone as Ainsley rambled on with a strained voice.

The second the door clicked shut behind Carmen, the two of them looked over in her direction. Ainsleys facial expression instantly changes to extreme rage.

"Get out!" Ainsley said to her sister, her breathing hard and heavy.

"We need to talk." Carmen looked to Luke. "Alone."

Luke only looked back to Ainsley and gave her a small nod before walking past Carmen to leave the room. As soon as the door shut behind him, Ainsley unleashed her anger.

"You had no right to keep this from me!" she yelled as her hands shook at her sides.

"I didn't keep anything from you, Ainsley! You could have figured it out on your own. You and your friends watched me for 3 months, you're telling me that you never noticed dad wasn't there the whole time?"

"I wasn't the one watching you, I had no idea what they were seeing when they had you on surveillance!"

Carmen flinched back as if someone had struck her across the face. "You're telling me that while your friends kept me under surveillance, not only did you neglect to check up on how your family was doing for years before that, but you never even asked or tried to see what was happening?"

"Don't you dare try to put this on me." Ainsley shook her head with wide eyes. "Don't you dare-"

"It is on you, Ainsley!" Carmen screamed so loud that she wondered for a half-second whether or not someone would call the lobby to complain about the fight. "You are the one who didn't bother to check on us. For five years, you chose to live in your blissful little ignorance. Well, are you happy now? Did it work out for you?"

When Ainsley snapped her mouth shut, Carmen only continued on with her rebuttal, "For all you know, every one of us could have been dead. I could have been dead, Ainsley." She knew that the news of her father had hit Ainsley where it would hurt, but she knew that the hypothetical scenario of Carmen being dead would hit even deeper. Or would it? "You never would've known, because you never cared enough to keep tabs on us."

A tear slipped down Carmens cheek and she angrily swept it away with the back of her hand.

"What happened to him?" Ainsleys voice went soft, it was a softness that Carmen had only heard Ainsley ever use with her years ago.

Carmen closed her eyes, the memories of her father on deaths doorstep permanently burnt into her mind. "Two weeks after our eighteenth birthday, he got diagnosed with brain cancer. He passed last June."

A tear ran down Ainsley's cheek and she ignored it. There were very few people who had ever seen Ainsley cry before. Carmen always wondered how her sister could keep such a rough exterior, even as children. But now, Ainsley was a different person. That rough exterior was pure concrete. But what Carmen had said, and how she'd said it had cracked the concrete.

"How could you..." Carmen paused to take a breath as her throat tightened around the words. "Did you not care about us anymore? Did you not care how we were after you left? You just left us in the dust and figured that you wouldn't have to see how it affected everyone else, that's it isn't it?"

"I tried, Carmen. For the first six months that I was with the Twin Operative I did keep tabs on you all occasionally." Ainsley shook her head. "But it was hard, you have no idea how hard it was to see you all living your lives and know that I would never be able to see you again. I thought I would never be able to face you. It was harder than you could ever imagine to even try and let you all go."

It was harder than you could ever imagine.

That was the sentence that had Carmen staring at her sister in utter bewilderment. "You think that was harder than I could ever imagine?" Carmen scoffed. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to wake up one night and find out that your twin sister, your other half, ran off in the middle of the night and was long gone? To spend the next five years always hoping and wishing that she's not dead in the middle of nowhere and that someday, maybe she will come home? To watch our parents lives fall apart and watch our mother fall into such a deep depression that the only reason she even got out of bed in the morning was because you were the one pulling her out of it, and the only reason she even brushed her hair or her teeth or ate was because you helped her do it? Do you know what it's like to watch dad lose hope any time that the police told us that they had found nothing about where your sister was or how in the hell she managed to fall off the face of the planet with no trace for years? Because I do. Because that is what you put us through, that is what you did to our family. And you obviously didn't care. You were my whole world and then you just left." Carmens cheeks were soaked with tears by the time she was done speaking.

Ainsley only stared at her. Carmen could have sworn that for a moment, guilt or regret flashed across her face. But it was gone as quick as it came. As if the curtain that Ainsley held before her at all times to keep people from knowing how she was truly feeling had slipped for a moment, but she'd instantly pulled it back up as well as patching the crack in the concrete. Ainsley wiped her tears, remembering who she was.

"Don't try to even pretend that you know how it affected me to leave, don't pretend that you have any clue what I've been through in the past five years," she spoke sharply, only making Carmens body fill with anger once more.

"Whose fault is that?"

Ainsleys jaw clenched and she stiffened. "I'm so sick and tired of your pity party."

"I'm sick and tired of looking at someone who looks like my sister but acts... completely different. What the hell happened to you?" Before Ainsley could even answer, Carmen went on to hammer the final nail in the coffin. "I guess that 'no matter what' was all just bullshit, wasn't it? I guess that I should have realized it meant nothing to you our whole lives. Nothing else did, you only ever cared about yourself and you still do. That's the only thing that hasn't changed about you. Everything else... I don't recognize. I have no idea who you are, because you sure as hell aren't my sister. You're a stranger."

That was it.

That was what had done it for Ainsley.

"This is who I am now," Ainsley stated, her voice rising with every word. "You need to get over whatever version of me still lives in your head. I am who I am, so either accept that or get the fuck out of here!" Ainsley screamed.

"Carmen," A familiar masculine voice caught both their attentions.

The two looked to the doorway to find Clayton and Colton standing beside the door, Colton had a suitcase in one hand and the other hand was shoved in his pocket as he stared at the floor. Clayton looked back and forth between the twins. Carmen and Ainsley had been so wrapped up in their argument that they hadn't even seen or heard the boys walk in.

"Come on." Clayton nodded to Carmen. "Grab your stuff."

Carmen didn't bother to look back to her sister as she walked over to the closet and grabbed her suitcase, she had kept everything inside so she didn't need to grab anything else from the hotel room. Colton stepped to the side to allow her to pass through the door. She halted and looked at him. He didn't meet her gaze, a blank expression on his face while his eyes remained trained at the floor.

Carmen shook her head, sighing and stepping in the hallway. Clayton followed her out, closing the door behind them both and leaving Colton inside with a fuming Ainsley.

She looked to him. "Are you kicking me to the curb?"

Clayton shook his head and motioned to his own door. "You and Colton are switching rooms."

She didn't know whether she should be grateful or not.

They silently walked into the room where the McGuire brothers had been staying. It was a copy of the set up that Ainsley and her had stayed in. Clayton motioned to the bed closest to the bathroom. "That one is yours."

She set the suitcase on the bed. "Where are you staying?"

"Here."

Carmen shot him a confused glance. "Why would you agree to sleep in the same room as me?"

"I didn't feel like hearing you and Ainsley bicker all night." He shrugged, leaning against the door with his hands in his pockets.

The two were still in the clothes they'd worn on the mission.

The mission that had gone horribly wrong.

She rolled her eyes at him. "You didn't have to switch rooms. I would rather sleep in the bathtub."

A sigh of annoyance escaped Clayton and he walked over to his suitcase that had been opened on the bed. Carmen spotted this and wondered if it had been out because he and Colton were deciding who was going to take her place in the hotel room. "Colton refused to stay in here with me, didn't he?" she asked.

Claytons hands, that had been pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a shirt, had halted. He didn't answer or look up from his pile of clothes. It was all that Carmen needed to know she was correct.

She sat on the bed and sighed. "Great. I lost my only ally here and now I'm stuck with someone I can't stand."

Clayton shot Carmen an offended look. "You might want to drop the attitude considering I'm literally the only person here who isn't pissed off at you right now."

Carmen blinked at him in surprise. "You're not mad at me for what happened with Ainsley?"

He shook his head.

"Why not?"

Clayton huffed a sigh and began zipping up his suitcase. "Look." He set the suitcase beside his bed. "I love Ainsley like a little sister." He spotted the wince that ran through Carmens body and almost regretted saying it. "But, I've been telling her for years to reach out to your family. I never agreed with her trying to keep her distance. The second my mom told us that you were going to be recruited, I told Ainsley that however you reacted to her being here was justified. As surprising as it is." He shrugged. "I'm actually on your side in this. Could you have told her better? Yeah, definitely. But he was your father too, and she's the one who decided to stop keeping tabs on you and your family. So, whatever she does and doesn't know is on her."

Carmen had wanted to say something, but she remained silent. Clayton was the only one who agreed with her? This egotistical asshole was the only one on her side? Maybe Carmen had been in the wrong. She mentally reprimanded herself at that thought, remembering the emotions that ran through her every time she was in the same room as Ainsley and remembering her father dying never knowing that his daughter was alive after all. She knew her feelings were valid.

Clayton picked up the shirt and pants he'd picked out to sleep in and motioned to the bathroom. "I'm going to get ready for bed. Once I'm done, you can do the same."

He walked into the bathroom without another word. After about five minutes of Carmen hearing sink water running, Clayton walked out in a different outfit and carrying the clothes from before. He walked over to his bed and began tucking them away in his luggage as Carmen grabbed the shorts and long sleeve shirt that she'd picked to sleep in and went into the bathroom.

She'd changed and brushed her teeth before gathering her clothes together and walking back out into the room. Claytons back was turned to her and fidgeting with something.

She'd thought nothing of it and shoved her clothes and dental pack into her suitcase once more before closing it and sitting on her bed.

Carmen looked up to Clayton just as he'd turned back to her. A gun in his hand as he'd cocked it back.

Carmens eyes went wide. "What are you doing?"

He looked up to see her concern and shook his head. "Relax. It's going under my pillow."

"Do you always sleep with a gun?"

"No," he answered.

Realization struck Carmen and she straightened. "It's because I'm here isn't it? Those bullets are for me."

She suddenly began thinking that maybe his reason for keeping her in this room was to keep her close in case he'd deemed her unsafe for his team. "You still don't trust me," she said in an observational tone when he didn't answer.

"I have no reason to." He crossed over to the other side of his bed.

Carmen watched as Clayton slid the gun under his pillow. "Why did you tell me to stay in here if you still don't trust me?"

"Have you ever heard of keeping your friends close, but your enemies... closer?"

She tilted her head to the side, wearing a concerned expression. "You think that I'm the enemy?"

Clayton looked up, no emotion filled those eyes. "For now."

If this were a normal scenario, Carmen would have jumped to defend herself. She would have brought logic into the discussion with evidence as to how she was everything other than the enemy. But she knew right away that there was nothing she could say to change his mind. She'd spent several years working for the same kind of people that he'd been trained to hate. Of course he would view her as the enemy. Carmen couldn't even deny for a minute that she didn't view him as her own enemy. But for the night, she would need to put that to rest. Carmen remembered that she had discovered bigger enemies tonight.

Clayton turned the lights off and crawled into his own bed and Carmen laid back into her pillows, snuggling up beneath the weight of the comforter.

The thought of those new enemies lurked deep in her mind, as well as the loaded gun only feet from her head.

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Chapters 1-13 published 7/30