7

"How long do you think they can keep this up?" Colton asked his team members.

Santana, Luke, Colton, Sophie, Alexa, and Clayton were standing around the desks watching intently while Carmen and Ainsley stood a foot away from each other screaming and yelling at one another. Kendra retreated to her office just a few minutes ago once she had gotten annoyed and decided to let Clayton handle this one. The two girls had been at this for 15 minutes so far.

The worst part is the neither of them had even stopped to let the other speak, they were just screaming over the other. When Carmen first saw Ainsley, after a moment of trying to regain her thoughts, Carmen grabbed a plastic cup meant to hold pens and pencils and chucked it in Ainsley's direction. Obviously, Ainsley deflected it with no problem and sent pens and pencils flying everywhere. Carmen only started yelling when Ainsley laughed at her sisters failed attempt to injure her. Ainsley had dodged bullets, it made her laugh that Carmen really thought a cup would do much damage.

None of them were quite sure exactly what the twins were saying to each other given that they were screaming over the other but it was apparent that Carmen was pissed. Ainsley was simply matching her energy in a means to defend herself and her reasons for being here.

"I have no idea. I might get some popcorn." Santana chuckled.

"It's Ainsley," Luke started. "You know that she can go on forever and if Carmen is anything like her then so can she."

This thought only gave Clayton motivation to take a deep breath and yell loud enough to grab both their attentions, "Girls! Shut up!"

They instantly stopped screaming and turned to glare at Clayton for interrupting them.

To everyone's surprise, it was Carmen who spoke first. "You know," she began. "I see your lips moving but all I can hear is bullshit."

Even Ainsley gave her a wide eyed look. Clayton only gave her a stare that made Carmen certain she would end up in a grave within the next couple seconds. Luckily, a light laugh that distracted them all broke through everyone's tension. It came from Colton. "Man, I'm telling you, I like her."

Clayton raised his eyebrows at his brother in annoyance. "Whose side are you on?"

Colton's smile didn't fade as he rolled his eyes.

Ainsley went on, "Carmen."

"Save it." Carmen whirled on her. She took in her sisters looks. The last time that Carmen had seen Ainsley, she had blue hair that reminded Carmen of blue raspberry cotton candy. Now, Ainsley had bright pink dyed hair and a double piercing in her right ear. She was about an inch and a half taller than Carmen. Other than the maturity of her body and face, she seemed relatively the same. She even stood the same, she would lean all her weight into her right side in times of her being defensive. Carmen had spent every day for the past 5 years knowing that she would give anything at all to get the opportunity to see her sister once more. However, at this very moment all she could feel was anger and betrayal. "How long have you been here? What happened? Where the hell did you go and why are you here?"

Ainsley took and deep breath and glanced at Clayton. "It's a long story, Carmen."

"I don't care!" Carmen exclaimed. "You abandoned me for five years, you'd better have a damn good reason."

Ainsley reverted her eyes back to Carmen. "I've been here for four years. I've been training ever since I got here and that's all the explaining I'm doing right now."

Carmen's eyebrows rose in response. "You've been here since you were sixteen? You're telling me that you've been training as a spy since you were sixteen?!"

"Basically."

Clayton glanced over his shoulder at his brother whose smile had faded as he watched the two interact, though he managed to catch Claytons eyes.

"That's enough. Show Carmen her room."

"Bullshit," Carmen hissed through gritted teeth when Colton slowly nodded in response to his brother. The boys looked back to her. "She owes me a lot more than that."

"It's been kind of a long day for you, Carmen. Don't you think?" Colton asked as he stood from the desk. "You probably need to sleep on it."

"I agree," Ainsley said.

"It's a good thing that I wasn't asking you." Carmen glared at her sister.

This response surprised Ainsley. Sure, she wasn't quite sure how Carmen would react upon seeing Ainsley again after all this time. But she was hoping for a bit of a more positive reaction. Maybe a hug? Some tears? After all, Carmen was the more emotional one of the two of them.

Ainsley thought about this for a moment.

That was a whole lifetime ago for her, Ainsley certainly wasn't the same person she was when she was 15. Ainsley never really stopped to consider that Carmen wouldn't have been either.

"I'm breaking this up." Clayton sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Colton, give her the paperwork and show her to her room. I'm exhausted and we have a long day tomorrow. Everyone needs their rest."

"I don't know how you expect me to sleep in this place." Carmen crossed her arms over her chest.

"Try," Clayton said through gritted teeth. Carmen met his blazing green eyes and huffed a sigh.

When Carmen's eyes became trained to the floor, Ainsley knew that there was nothing else to be said. Colton took this as a sign to walk over to Carmen, she only lifted her eyes from the carpet when he stopped in front of her and motioned towards the door. They both left the room, Ainsley's shoved her hands in her back pockets and released a loud sigh.

That didn't go as planned.

**

Colton and Carmen walked side by side into the corridor where most of the bedrooms were. Not all of them, however, were in this wing, they were split between the second and third floor. Ainsley, Clayton, Santana and Sophie's rooms were on the third floor. Colton, Alexa, Luke, and now Carmen's rooms were on the second. There were about 13 other empty bedrooms besides theirs. But those haven't been occupied in a few years, back when they had more twin spies to train.

Carmen only halted her steps when Colton stopped in front of a tall black door that stood out against the dark red carpeting of the hallway. He opened the door and they both walked into the room.

Carmen took in the sight. Her new room had a large king size bed with heavy comforters and multiple pillows lying on top of it. There was night stands on either side, a closet with double doors to her right and an open door that led to a bathroom beside that. No windows, unfortunately. Carmen frowned. Her apartment had windows right beside her bed and one of her favorite things about it was when she would wake up early and watch the sun rise over the peak of the buildings.

Colton and Carmen both walked farther into the room. She looked over her shoulder at him as he dug his hands into his pockets. "My mom and Alexa stocked the closet full of clothes for you. They had to take a guess on your sizes but if stuff doesn't fit just let my mom know."

She nodded in response. "Thanks."

"No problem." He smiled softly. "You need to be ready to start in the training room by 8. Wear something you can exercise in. If you have any questions, I will answer them tomorrow."

She would have plenty, but as he said, she would have to ask them tomorrow.

Colton then motioned to the stack of beige folders sitting on the desk in the front of the room, "I recommend looking through these before you go to bed. It might help get some insight on what we do here."

"I think I'm just going to go to sleep," Carmen muttered and turned back to her bed.

Colton exhaled slowly. "I think that you'll come around to this place soon, and everyone here."

I doubt it. Carmen thought to herself, but she decided to keep anything else she had to say to herself for the rest of the night. When she heard the door shut, she knew that Colton had left her alone to her thoughts.

**

8 am. That's when Colton told Carmen to be ready to start training by. However, Carmen was tossing and turning in her bed throughout the night. She didn't feel safe enough to sleep. In fact, she cursed herself numerous times while lying in bed for not working with people to help protect her from situations like this. Well, situations that would land her under arrest. She can't exactly say that she's known too many people who have been in situations where they're recruited over night into the CIA and reunited with their long lost sister. Despite Ainsley staying in the same building as her for the first time in 5 years, Carmen still didn't feel like her safety was sealed. She could still feel Clayton's eyes burning holes in the back of her head like they had been when she was in the elevator on their way up to the screening room. This place and these people were strangers to her. She had no clue what to expect, and it terrified her.

Carmen rolled over after not shutting her eyes for more than 20 minutes the entire night and saw the bright light from the alarm clock shining 5:43 AM. She released a heavy groan, turned on the bedside lamp, and flipped the covers off her. Immediately upon rolling out of bed, her toes touched the ground and she grimaced in response. She was used to the hardwood of her apartment floor being the first thing her feet touched when she woke up in the morning, instead she was feeling a rough carpet. It seemed like such a silly thing to be annoyed over but it only reminded Carmen that this wasn't home.

The first thing Carmen did was open the door into the large walk-in closet that reminded Carmen of what Colton had said to her about Alexa stocking her room full of clothes. He wasn't kidding. This walk-in closet was packed with clothes. There were drawers full of socks, undergarments, pants, shorts, bathing suits, etc. There were also countless shirts, jackets, and dresses on the hangers and Carmen inhaled sharply as she tried digging through it all to find something she could train in. She eventually settled on a dark blue tank top and black sports shorts. She was looking around the ground when she spotted white tennis shoes and checked the tongue to see that they were about half a size too big and instantly began to wonder if the clothes she grabbed would even fit her properly.

After Carmen took a shower she brushed her teeth with the new tooth paste and tooth brush that had been sitting on the bathroom counter top still in their box beside a white hair brush. She brushed out her black hair and changed into the clothes she chose. As she exited the bathroom, she spotted the stack of files on the desk where Colton had left them. She knew that she had some time before she needed to leave to head to training so she decided to pick them up and sat down on the bed.

There were 12 files total. 7 of them had a name on them, they were the names of everyone involved in the Twin Operative, including Ainsley. The other 5 had one skill printed out on each of them. Deception, Ground Work, Weapons, Martial Arts, and Technology. She remembered that even though Kendra was telling her everyone's skills as she went on, she still had no idea what Kendra was talking about. They must have given these to her so she would know. She shoved the first 7 files aside and focused on the 5 still in her hand. Carmen picked up the Deception file and opened the beige folder as she began reading.

The top of the paper had a list of people who had this skill set and then began reading the description:

Spies who have developed the 'Deception' skill are most trusted to go under cover. They typically have the skillset to assess any situation and use their taught abilities to decide how to manipulate the situation in their favor. This includes but is not limited to: acting, seduction, body language recognition, and exceptional listening. They have passed the tests required to show that they surpassed the ability to remain calm in high stress situations. Use of this skill requires the agent to be expected to talk themselves out of any situation without being compromised. Most anyone with this skill is compared to pathological liars as it is hard to differ their Deception from reality.

Carmen inhaled sharply as she finished reading the file. She remembered Kendra saying that Ainsley had this skill. Carmen currently saw her sister as a lot of things, but a potential pathological liar hadn't been one of them. She decided to continue reading each file pertaining to the skills. She wanted to know what she was up against.

Weapons: Any personnel with the 'Weapons' skill are the only agents allowed to have access to the armory in their designated location. They must have knowledge on exactly what type of weapons are in their arsenal, how many they contain, and a detailed background on each weapon. Agents must have provided a perfect scoring presentation on how to safely assemble and use everything in the armory. These spies are trusted to be the main lookout for any danger during missions and are encouraged to distance themselves from any missions that don't contain combat skills (ie: Weapons and Martial Arts) unless stated otherwise by their compound director.

Martial Arts: This skill is one of the deadliest skills that an agent can have. Typically, any spies that have this ability have the potential to be one of the best agents on their team. Aside from the years of research and practice required to attain the title of this skill, they must show a great respect for every form of martial arts that they have learned. Not only is this the hardest skill to reach, it is seen as statistically the most dangerous. When the time for testing comes, the agent must be able to hold off multiple opponents at once with no weapons. They are not only encouraged, but expected to carry themselves carefully given the risks and severity of this ability.

Ground work: Anyone who has developed this skill has already gained the necessary steps taken towards becoming a potential leader for their team. Most of the time, they are in charge of planning for missions/tasks. They must have each file on every member of their team memorized. Agents who hold the title for this ability are typically very responsible and like to keep things in order when it comes to their compound. Having the 'Ground Work' skill also puts them in positions of going undercover. They will usually be first pick for members that need to be on the ground during missions but will most likely be working close with agents that are skilled with 'Deception'.

The last file to go over was Technology and Carmen could still hear Kendra's voice in her head as she read the title page, Luke's skills are in weapons and tech, much like you. This was Carmen's skill. It was the only thing that she could bring to the table. She couldn't explain why the thought made her fingers tremble lightly, but she ignored it and opened the folder anyway.

Technology: The 'Technology' skill is and always has been the rarest skill of all. The testing and tasks needed to attain this title is extremely extensive and the hardest of them all. It is believed that anyone who has this skill is the brightest pupil of their team. Much like spies with 'Deception', they need to be able to think their way out of any situation presented before them. Unique to this skill, it has many different variations such as: engineering, development, and hacking. The hacking portion is part of the most intense testing in order to have this skill.

Aside from reading the basic descriptions of them, Carmen spent the next couple hours reading through the skills files and learning the background of them.

Eventually she glanced over at her clock to see it reading 7:50 and immediately hopped up from her bed, slipping on the shoes she grabbed. Carmen realized that she didn't actually even know where the training room was. She was so heated over her encounter with Ainsley that when Colton brought her to her room, she had only wanted him to leave so that she could be alone with her thoughts. She didn't even think to ask where to meet him.

This realization had her sprinting out the door.

**

Clayton shuffled his feet against the carpet flooring, rubbing his hand through his hair and the other was resting in his jack pocket.

The sun had just risen when Colton woke Clayton from his slumber to tell him that Kendra needed the both of them in the screening room as soon as possible. It didn't surprise Clayton in the slightest to see his younger brother already wearing workout clothes and seemingly ready to take on the day. One thing that Clayton could never understand, was Colton's early bird tendencies. Even when they were kids, Colton would run around the compound building pulling anyone and everyone, that would allow the small child into their rooms, from their beds. Clayton could still hear Colton's young and high pitched voice yelling: Rise and shine! Up and down the halls at 7 am every morning. No one seemed to tell Colton that it annoyed them, no one dared to break the joy from his young face.

But that was many years ago, when the compound would be constantly filled with training twin spies. Now it was only the 8 of them, including Kendra. 9 counting Carmen's arrival. Clayton and Colton had grown up watching several aspiring spies come and go. They would train for months to years and complete missions. But they all left over time, it was either better opportunities or the testing process that managed to drive them away. Clayton still remembered the last set of twins to leave were two fraternal sisters, Khalilah and Anaya. Colton had been closer to them given that they were the same age. They came in the way most did, a dark background filled with horrors that would keep them awake at night. But, eventually they were offered positions in Paris and took them without question. After they had left, about a year passed before the Thornton twins came along, then the Mendoza twins, and then Ainsley. They had stayed, never being offered any other positions or opportunities that seemed better. To all of them, this team was the best it could ever get.

Clayton walked into the screening room and walked down the steps to approach his mother and brother. Kendra wore a dark blue pantsuit, her hair and makeup already done. She was leaning against one of the many desks.

Colton stood beside her, arms folded over his chest. He wore a dark grey t-shirt with black sports shorts and tennis shoes. It was obvious that he was headed to the training room after this, no doubt to start Carmen on her first day. Clayton observed both their outfits and glanced down at what he had crawled out of bed wearing. He was barefoot with black and red sweatpants, and an unzipped black jacket, that he had barely grabbed in time to exit his room, covering his bare chest.

The two of them instantly looked over to Clayton when he stopped abruptly in front of them. "Where's everyone else?" His voice still somewhat strained due to him just waking up.

"I just wanted to speak to you two."

"Why?" Colton narrowed his eyes at his mother.

Kendra straightened and gave the boys one of her I mean business looks. "Can I trust the both of you to keep what I'm about to tell you to yourselves? There's a reason I'm not including the rest of the team.. for now."

They both nodded. "Of course," Clayton replied.

"Do you boys happen to remember that gang that I spent a few years tracking before they disbanded?"

Colton shook his head, but Clayton nodded. Clayton might have been only 14 when his mother started taking down the gang but he will never forget that it was one of her biggest projects.

"The Serpent Kings," Kendra began. "They've been dormant ever since most of their members, including the leader, were arrested and are now currently sitting in prison." Pride gleamed in Kendras eyes, and the boys knew that it was because she was the one who put them there.

She continued, "However, recently there's been word spreading around that they are becoming active again. There's talk that they have a new leader and this leader is getting involved with some members of the Cartel. One of the CIA's snitches say that they plan on making a deal soon."

"Why doesn't the DEA handle this then? Drugs aren't our usual thing." Clayton shrugged.

"They've asked for our help."

Colton tilted his head. "Why?"

"Because the Twin Operative has proven itself to be quite useful to them from time to time and it's not our job to question why, it's our job to help. They aren't sure why they are coming out of hiding, it's likely because of this new leader, but if they are making themselves known then it's probably because they are planning something big," Kendra explained.

"Big enough that we might have to infiltrate?"

She nodded. "That's all the information that I have for now. I'm going to keep an eye on this and update you both when I know more."

"Is that it?" Clayton asked, and Kendra nodded in reply.

Colton stretched his hands above his head and nodded. "I have to get to training Carmen."

"Give me an update?" Kendra asked.

"Will do." Colton then looked to his brother. "You want one too?"

Clayton trained his eyes on the floor, he couldn't hide the tensing of his jaw and slowly shook his head. "Nope."

Clayton would be lying through his teeth if he said that he trusted Carmen even a small bit. She was just another one of the black market dealers that they'd arrested. Although, they had never decided to keep any around. The thought of bringing Carmen into this place, his home and where his family slept, set him on edge. It was enough for him to keep his loaded gun just a bit closer to him throughout the night. He'd been trained all his life not to trust people who did the things she had. Especially when he'd seen all the repercussions of what her inventions had caused. He wondered if she even knew the damage that she had done, the lives she'd allowed to be taken. Maybe she didn't care. Either way, she was the enemy.

"Clayton," His mothers voice broke him from his thoughts and he glanced at her, her face serious once again. "Play nice."

"I haven't said anything."

"You don't have to," Colton said. "It's all in your face."

Clayton raised his eyebrows at his brother. "Oh, so you're just magically okay with this?"

"No. I'm not okay with it. But this is our situation now and it is Ainsley's sister. So I'm not just gonna be an asshole about it. Besides, this may be a good thing. You never know."

"Whatever," Clayton muttered.

Colton decided not to press the situation so he said nothing more before he left the screening room and headed to the other side of the building.