A Life for A Life

*Caitlyn’s POV*

It was probably six o’clock in the morning whenever I heard the hotel room’s phone go off. The noise pierced through my ears as it continued to drone on. “Louis… answer the damn thing…” I murmured, reaching over the bed to get him to wake up.

There was no body, which rung warning bells in my head. My head jerked up, seeing that he really wasn’t there. He wasn’t on the floor either, nor the couch. I heard no motion whatsoever in the bathroom. He had no reason to leave the room either, not if he had the chance to sleep of last night’s exhaustion.

Right?

I jumped up from the bed, seeing how the phone was refusing to shut up. I knew I might regret doing this, but I answered anyways. “Caitlyn.” I heard a familiar voice broke through.

“Agent Lee?” I heard myself ask.

“Thank God you are up. Listen, the boy, he’s in danger-“

“What?” I asked. I looked around the room, feeling myself starting to get frantic. “What’s going on?”

“Agent Landon and Carl, they’ve both left on a plane not an hour ago and is expecting to arrive in LA in four hours… Not only that, but I just found out something you should know. Something important.”

“Quit beating around the bush and hurry up and spit it out!” I practically yelled into the phone. “What’s going on? What’s happened to Louis?”

“With those two gone away for the past few days, I managed to get myself into their offices. I just found on their computer text messages sent to an unknown number. I called a few connections and they confirmed the number belonged to Louis. It seems they’ve made a deal out of him.” I heard him take in a few breaths, trying to calm himself. I waited for him to continue, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“What?” I urged him to continue.

“A life for a life.”

It clicked. Those five little words. “That fucking idiot!” I screamed as I slammed the phone shut. I knew exactly what Louis was doing. He knew how bad I wanted my freedom, but I was never expecting him to willingly give up his life like that. A life for a life. That was the deal made for my freedom. It was either his life or mine.

But I had to think for a moment. A life for a life. Just how far was I willing to go for my own freedom? With the years of survival running through my veins, instinct was the first thing that took over. My instinct was telling me to choose him first. But the mere thought of having to kill him for my own happiness… I knew that wouldn’t work. I would never be truly happy again if I knew I was the cause of someone’s death. I wanted to protect him, so I knew I would choose my life instead if that meant he could stay alive. His life was so much more out there than mine and it held more meaning than mine ever will. There were people that actually cared for him and didn’t want to see him hurt. Hell, I didn’t even want that. Even I had to admit I grew a soft spot for him in my heart, and because of that I wanted to protect him in whatever way possible.

I didn’t want to see him dead, and for damn sure I didn’t want to die. I could feel the blood boiling in my veins out of anger and hate. Two agents of the CIA were going as far as to killing an innocent boy that had nothing to do with all of this. All because of me. I could feel my nails digging into the wooden desk and splinters coming through. If I wanted both of us to get out of this alive, I had to get rid of the problem. So I pretty much summed up everything that was going through my mind at the moment.

A life for a life. It was either his life or mine. My instinct that lead me to choose him at first, my heart that regretted it to be me instead, but my mind that finally made me decide on what to do.

I would kill my parents and save both of our lives.