It took a few minutes for Charlie's eyes to adjust to the darkness in the apartment.

Patch was already on the move, checking rooms as he moved with grace. Charlie was consistently impressed with how agile he was. He seemed almost inhuman in his motions.

She made her way around the apartment using only her hands to feel for edges in the darkness. There was little light coming in from the windows and Charlie wondered how Patch was able to work so quickly in such low light. A few minutes past before he appeared next to her again.

"He's in the bedroom. Asleep." He whispered, cracking his knuckles. "I'm gonna bring him in here. Can you grab that chair?"

Charlie looked around in the darkness. She could make out lumps of furniture but definitely not a chair.

"What chair? I can't see anything."

"Oh yeah, sorry." He moved to a lamp by the couch and flipped it on. Charlie grabbed the chair from the kitchen table and plopped it in front of Patch.

"There's your chair."

He grunted in response and left the room to grab the man. Charlie paced. She wasn't sure how she felt about the whole situation. On one hand, she was uneasy. So many things could go wrong. She could get hurt. Patch could get hurt. The man they were about to interrogate could have been preparing for a situation like this, he could have backup lying in wait. A self destruct button. A big dog.

On a moral side, she wasn't really positive of what Patch was capable of. What if the man didn't know anything and Patch becomes ruthless? Could she stand by and watch? Would she be able to stand up to Patch? Was she capable of hurting another being?

Even if it meant preserving herself?

Patch's fighting never bothered her before because the threat was always obvious. The attackers were always upon them before she had time to absorb what was happening. It was all self preservation, all black and white.

This was a man, sleeping in the comfort of his room. Sure, Patch had reasonable suspicion to believe he was harmful (or at least Charlie hoped he did).

A thought began to dawn on her. Oh my God, what if Patch wasn't helping at all and just needed someone to pin a murder on? An accomplice? A-

Patch barged into the room, man in tow, before Charlie's mind could blow even more out of proportion. She pressed herself against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible as Patch forced the man onto the chair and proceeded to duck tape him down.

The second the man was contained Patch turned to Charlie and gave her a nod. They discussed on the way over how this was going to go down. Patch would handle the interrogating and Charlie would search the apartment for any information that would lead to the discovery of more partners.

She ducked her head and slipped down the hall. She could hear Patch beginning to ask questions and the man denying any knowledge. She'd seen enough crime shows to know that no one ever confesses immediately.

The first door she reached is a simple bathroom. It's pristine, as if no one actually lives here. The smell of clorox reaches her nose and she holds her breath before closing the door behind her. I doubt anything will be in there.

The next room is his bedroom. Pillows and blankets litter the floor. The contents of an entire bedside table are strewn around the ground. Signs of a struggle.

Charlie flipped on a light and began to pull apart drawers, looking for something, anything.

And all she got was a whole lot of nothing.

Frustrated, she threw her hands in the air pushing a bunch of useless Playboy magazines onto the ground. A muffled scream ricochet down the hall and Charlie regained her composure, remembering why she's here. She has a job to do.

She fled back to the hall and approaches the final door.

It's locked. She pulls a bobby pin from her hair and hurries to pick it. Yet another upstanding citizen skill she learned from her years in college.

The second the lock clicks open Charlie hears Patch shouting at the man. Is he not worried about the neighbors? Regardless, it forces her to work quicker to preserve both herself and Patch.

The small room turns out to be a very cluttered office. She throws open drawers and skims every paper searching for a name or corporation that could link this man to her case. She's about to give up when her eyes fall on a manilla folder buried under sheets of tax information.

The cover reads:

Charlotte Evedyn

Shit.

She plops into the office chair, the folder grasped in front of her

This is it.

This is what she's been searching for. It's cool and light in her hands as if unaware of how it's contents could change her life. She peeled back the cover revealing a single sheet of paper with a picture of her clipped to it. The paper contains her birthday and other basic information regarding her appearance. A handwritten note at the bottom reads:

Agile, skilled date thief. Limited combat experience. Non-threatening. Easy target.

Eliminate at all costs.

Charlie's eyes linger on the final two words, semi insulted. She thought of the frail man sitting in the chair outside. I bet I could take him in a fight.

The paper is signed at the bottom in some illegible handwriting that Charlie could barely make out. Attached to the paper is a receipt for a fairly large sum of money. She folded the paper and tucked it into her pants snug against her hip. The man strapped to the chair outside screamed cueing her that it was past time to go.

She darted down the hall and burst into the living room seeing Patch crouched over a heavily bleeding man.

"Tell me what you know, I won't ask again." Patch's voice was a low rumble. Malice laced his words. His back was to Charlie but she could tell that he was holding something in his right hand. A knife, probably.

"Patch, chill. I found something. We should get out of here. Someone must have heard us by now."

Patch made no move away from the man who was looking at him with pure terror.

"Patch."

"You go on ahead, I'll be right behind you." She could tell from his voice that he had no intention of leaving the man without answers.

"Patch, he's just a bloody mercenary. We aren't going to get anything else from him. He probably doesn't even know who paid him."

She reached forward and grabbed his arm taking no notice to how close she got to the man in the chair. This seemed to stir something in the feral man and Patch pulled back from the shaking man to address her.

"Are you sure?"

Charlie held up the folder.

"I wish there was more, but this seems to be all he has."

It happened in a split second. The man leapt up from the chair and had his arms around Charlie in an instant, pulling her towards the window they had used to gain access to the apartment. He heaved her onto the windowsill and pushed her so that she was leaning out the open window. The folder slipped from her hands and fluttered down to the bustling street eleven stories down. She struggled weakly against his grip and was able to kick him rather solidly on the chest warranting a grunt from him.

"Really, missy? Kick the man who is the only thing standing between you and death?" His bruised and bloody face broke out into a sadistic grin. Charlie regretted not grabbing a ski mask from her closet. He had been hired to kill her and it looked like he may finish the job after all.

Patch made a run for the window but the man quickly turned his focus to him instead.

"One more step and she goes flying."

God, this is cliche. I shouldn't have gotten so close. I really am just a liability. Charlie cursed herself silently her mind working to think of a way out of this. From across the room she could see Patch's jaw shift and his hands clenching and unclenching. He was thinking too.

"What? You think I don't know how to get through a rope without a weapon. Come on, son. They didn't hire me for nothing. I'm the best of the best." The man stated smugly.

"And why did they hire the best of the best to hunt down an untrained woman?" Patch's head cocked to the side like a puppy. "Afraid she'd be too much to handle?"

"Originally, no. But we started to hear some rumors that a certain vigilante had shown interest in her well being. Had to up the game."

"Glad I'm worth the upgrade."

Charlie scoffed. The man turned his attention back to her.

"Something funny, cunt?"

It was all Patch needed. In a second he was across the room and pulling the man back into the apartment, Charlie in tow. A battle broke out and Charlie did what she did best- hid. She ran across the room to the kitchen island struggling to maintain her head. Suddenly a masked man popped up over the counter.

"You okay?"

"Is now really the time to be asking?"

He shrugged as the man charged across the apartment and leapt at him from behind. Patch side stepped him and he hit the counter, hard. Patch brought down his arm on the man's head and he went down like a rock, groaning.

"I feel like always a good time to make sure you're alright."

Charlie rolled her eyes and made her way to the window, looking down at the traffic far below.

"Dammit, that was our only lead. There was a signature at the bottom that I couldn't quite make out." Her unruly hair had fallen out of the tight braid she had put it in earlier and it began to swirl around her mixing with the her sweat and the cool rain. A hot tear ran down her cheek.

Patch came up behind her and placed a hand on her back and the other wiped the tear from her cheek. She looked up at him and for a moment everything seemed okay.

"There will be other leads. No need to waste your tears on this."

"Easy for you to say, you do this for a living. I'm just trying to make it out so I can continue with my life."

Patch smiled sadly at her. He looked like he wanted to continue saying something but he stopped.

"We need to work on your fighting skills."

"Skills? I think that word implies that I have some to begin with."

"Exactly, tomorrow, we start your training."

"Excuse me?"

Patch released her and moved back towards the fallen man before replying.

"Can't have you getting yourself captured again. Makes it look bad on my part."

"And how is that exactly." She crossed her arms and glared at him from across the room as he crouched by the man ignoring her comment before whispering into the man's ear.

"Drop this job. Or else I will find you. And kill you."

He got up slowly and made his way back to Charlie.

"Come on, let's get you back home. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow."