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She could taste the blood in her mouth. She ran her tongue slowly over her teeth, they all seemed to be there. Good, less clean up if I get out of here. She thought. She probably split her lip or maybe the blood was coming from her nose. It wasn't the first time she broke her nose, or the second. But it wasn't the pain in her face that kept her from moving. It was the sharp pain in her chest every time she drew in a breath that held her to the floor. Broken ribs, she thought to herself, if she got a chance to run that would be a problem. As the stabbing pain continued she realized she beyond the point of running. She could hardly see out of her right eye, his first strike had been one of the worst. She had been hit so many times today, she wasn't sure how long it had gone on. She hadn't been conscious for all of it, she knew that much. Her head hurt more than any headache she'd had in her entire life. A concussion, she thought to herself, hopefully nothing more serious.

They had left her alone for a moment. Well, not entirely alone, they were still in the room but he had taken a short break from beating her. She laid on the cold cement floor, the coolness felt good on her body, even though every part of her hurt.

She heard the door open and her head exploded as the door screeched open scrapping against the cement floor. "Go get cleaned up." A man's gravely voice said clearly, and a parade of footsteps left the room and the door shrieked shut again. In four relaxed steps the new man crossed the room. She watched his jet black oxfords step across the floor. Instead of moving toward her like she expected he walked over to a chair just a few feet from her, sat down and waited. She didn't even try to turn her head so she could see his face. She knew who he was.

So this was going to be how he played it. He wanted her to make the first sound. He wanted her to beg for him not to hurt her anymore. He was waiting for her to plead for her life. He wanted her to ask him what he wanted. He wanted her to ask him what she could do to make the beatings stop. She wouldn't play his game.

"Tell me where you hid them Claire, I promise I won't get mad." A twenty year old Michael questions his nine year old sister who is sitting stone faced with her chair turned away from the dining room table staring at the wall behind him.

"It's just you and me, I won't tell mom." The little girls brown eyes don't move from the wall paper behind him. He steps into her field of gaze and she stares vacantly up into his face. "Where did you put the keys to my Jeep?" he says slowly enunciating every word. Her eyes remain blank and her face reveals nothing.

"I know you don't want me to leave but I'll leave, with or without my Jeep. This won't stop me." She redirects her gaze at the wall. "I'm gonna be gone at least six months is this really how you want me to leave? Angry with you?" He walks back into the kitchen and pulls open a junk drawer and picks through it. The curly haired girl watches him but her face remains stoic. He's already checked that drawer, and she hid both sets of car keys not just his everyday set, she's not an amateur. "Damit Claire!" he snaps slamming the drawer shut, losing his composure.

"Tell me where they are!" He barks "I'll call a *$&ing locksmith!" he shouts, she directs her stare away from him again and back to the wall not reacting in the slightest to his outburst.

"And I'll tell mom you swore." She whispers speaking for the first time.

"She'll be more angry with you for hiding my keys! But, I won't tell her if you give them back."

"No, she'll be mad you swore." She whispers, glancing up menacingly in his direction, and he knows she's right. Cursing in Claire's presence is not tollerated in this house. He takes a few short breaths and combs his fingers over his freshly buzzed hair, clearly he hasn't learned anything from his interrogation tutorials.

"What do you want from me Claire?" He questions finally conceding and asking her openly what she wants to gain.

He watches as the tears build up in the nine year olds eyes as she stares at the wall. He waits, any other child would break down sobbing, but his stupid sister can hold out forever. He knows it makes her sad when he leaves, he knows she misses him when he is gone and he knows that however safe he tells her he is, she's afraid he won't come home.

She won't tell him what she's thinking, not when she gets upset. Most kids cry and bawl and tell the world everything that made them sad or angry. They tell their parents which kid was mean to them at school, how they scrapped their knee, or how her best friend got the exact same toy they really wanted for Christmas. Claire is the opposite, if she's upset she just shuts down. She won't tell anyone anything until the moment has passed. He's never been sure if it's a conscious decision not to speak or if she truly just can't get the words out, like some kind of strange stutter. If he was around tomorrow after she calmed down she might tell him but today she won't.

"MICHAEL! We need to go!" their mother shouts as she walks quickly down the stairs."Good, you're packed," she reaches for one of the duffles on the floor and groans as she tries to lift it from the floor. "on second thought, you put them in the car."

Michael walks over and picks up the duffle bag with ease "I'll need your keys."

Samantha, their mother, locks her eyes on her daughter in the next room, without breaking her gaze she finds her car keys in her purse and holds them out for Michael. Claire redirects her eyes down at the floor looking guilty for the first time in the exchange. He takes the keys from his mom and drags his bags out to her car. "Claire, sweetheart, he wants to drive his jeep to the airport. Where did you put his keys?"

The little girl doesn't move. "Fine Claire, get in the car, let's go see him off." Every parent thinks their child is stubborn, but Samantha's convinced they haven't met stubborn till they've met her kids. The little girl shakes her head furiously. "Now you won't come to the airport?"Samantha half whines at her daughter but she doesn't move off the chair where Michael set her to question her. "Fine Claire, we don't have time for this, he can't miss his flight. If you don't want to go then don't go." She turns around and walks briskly back through the kitchen "Keep the doors locked while I'm gone, stay here, don't answer the door, don't tell anyone on the phone you're home alone, and no friends over." She rattles off the usual rules as she heads for the garage. "Michael! Say goodbye to your sister she doesn't want to come to the airport." The mother walks swiftly out the door as Michael steps back into the house.

"You're going to be like this? Really Claire?" He shuffles through the kitchen and crouches down, right in front of her face. "Fine, I'll say goodbye if you won't. I'll miss you kid, I'll see you when I get home." He kisses her on her forehead as the tears begin to fall silently down her face. "I love you, And when I get home I'll want my keys, so don't lose them!" He teases finally smiling at her, he can't stay mad at her, and he doesn't want to leave her thinking he really is angry.

"Promise you'll come back!" she chokes through the tears, it's the command that kills him, it's the promise she always wants him to make. He knows that what he does is dangerous and in reality he can't promise he'll come back. But he's also young and invincible in his own eyes. He makes the promise because it makes her feel better about him leaving, if it makes her cry just a little bit less it's worth it.

He didn't know what made him choose the words he choose. As he says the words his stomach turns, and although he's said similar words to her before, he feels for the first time like he might be lying to her. "I'll always come back for you."

She coughed, oh it really hurt to cough, it was the pain that woke her up. Had she really fallen asleep? No, she was in far too much pain to fall asleep, she must have passed out. Slipping in and out of consciousness was not a good sign. When she opened her eyes she saw blood on the floor in front of her. Had she coughed up all that blood? This might be worse than she had thought…

"I'll make this quick, tell me where Director Lauriet's disk and keys are, and I'll get someone in here to clean you up." His gravely voice pierced through her own thoughts. She could tell a few things from the one sentence he spoke. She'd learned a lot about reading people, in her line of work she needed to. First he didn't really care where the disk was, it wasn't personal for him. Second, he wasn't terribly uncomfortable with her lying on the floor in pain. His voice was void of all emotion. She doubted he was as malicious as the man who had done this too her, otherwise he would have done the beating, but he was not about to give her any relief. She couldn't play him; she couldn't whine a little louder, cry out in pain constantly, or force more blood up. He wouldn't cave and it was possible he was prepared to watch her die in front of him. Third, and potentially the most significant for better or worse, he didn't have a clue who she was.

"Your statement, it was extensive. It took some time to verify." A kind faced middle aged man sits across the desk from her paging through the documents on his desk. The room is unremarkable, a small office with only a desk, two chairs, an ugly fake plant, and a window. The view out the window shows small regional airline carriers taking off and landing close by. "Your test scores are all proficient, you rated exceedingly high on the field work portion of the test, not surprising given your training. And you passed our psychiatric evaluation. I think we may have a place for you here Ms. Ross. That is of course, if you are still willing."

"I am." She answers simply.

"There is one project in particular I think you would be useful for. Given your current employers you may be in a optimal position to gather some information for us. You are not oppose to returning to the Alliance? Acting as a sort of double agent?"

"I can go back."

"Good, of course you aren't the only double agent in that affiliate. We tolerate their existence mostly because of the intelligence they are able to gather for us. It's a fairly disorganized group, I'll get you the files to read, so you are up to date. There is minimal danger of being found out as a double agent through them. The greater danger, we suspect comes from the organization you are gathering information about."

She nods in confirmation, "Now the assignment I am purposing, it is highly classified, and it is uncommon for us to assign such a new agent to a highly classified project but given your background, training, and connections we believe you are a good match. We have been receiving intelligence of some high level, organized, espionage activity. We can't attribute it to any of our enemies, or any allies. There are suspicions, nothing confirmed, that it may be one of our branches, carrying out unsanctioned actions. You are to gather information about this unknown organization. From a position outside of the U.S. Government you are to learn about this group. Because of the sensitive nature of this project, you report only to me, your handler, and the director of the CIA himself. This is not the type of mission that will be discussed at staff meetings. No other CIA staff will be aware of your allegiance. The chair of the Senate intelligence committee himself, will be unaware of your involvement. We strongly suspect there are high level officers aware of these activites and they are actively engaged in covering it up. Your reports will be paper only, scheduled dead drops, coordinated with your handler, I don't want an electronic trail on this."

"If I'm not labeled as CIA what is to stop your own operatives from capturing or killing me?"

"You will be labeled as an informant. An asset. Agents will be authorized to arrest you, but are under strict orders not to kill you or seriously harm you.. You are wanted to provide important information on highly classified security systems. I didn't even need to make that up." A slight smile crosses his face, and then in an instant it's gone. He stares directly into her eyes, trying to gauge her reaction to his proposal. "That being said there, is always an inherent risk in our line of work."

She coughed again, "Oh Shit!" she heard from somewhere nearby. It wasn't the same voice as before, and it wasn't one of the men who had beaten her earlier, it was the voice of the man who had spoken to her when she had first been brought into the building. Before the beating had started."Lena? Are you awake?" his voice was concerned, and a little frantic, but he kept his words slow and even. She couldn't answer him, she tried to open her eyes but everything was blurry. "That's it, open your eyes, come on." he coached. She forced her eyes to stay open even though she couldn't make out the man's face. He was seated staring down on her; they weren't on the floor anymore. "Lena can you show me where it hurts?" Everything hurt she thought to herself but she didn't even try to speak, she was too tired. "We have to do something." That time his voice wasn't directed at her, it was directed somewhere else. There was a strength and a confidence in his voice. He might be someone she could believe in, for now.

"You blew the opp! you idiot." She snaps as she wrenches open the driver's side door of the van. A man sits in the driver's seat, grasping the side of his head. He groans softly as she carefully pulls off his gold wire rimmed glasses and brushes his messy brown hair out of the way to reveal a goose-egg, already beginning to form just above his eyebrow.

"You'll thank me later." He answers.

"Move over. We need to get out of here." He crawls over to the passenger seat as she leaps into the van and skillfully pulls away from the collision he just caused. "You compromised the opp."

"The opp was already blown, he didn't have the data on him." He answers as he looks around the van for something cold to put on his head.

"You don't know that. You were tasked to watch and listen, not cause a head on collision. If this van didn't have a ramming gate on the front we would be stuck out here with out extraction! You just don't think do you?" She spits as she weaves easily in and out of traffic, going faster than any other car on the road way. "And even if he didn't have it, he might have led us to it if you would have followed his car!"

"What, and leave you behind with his guards?" He snaps back angrily. "So they can shoot you as soon as they realize they've been compromised. I didn't peg you as the sacrificial type."

"I would have gotten free. I've been in worse situations."

"yea well, I didn't want to take that chance!" He hisses. "It was my call. I made it and I don't want to hear anything out of you." They sit in silence for few moments as she continues to drive. The man eventually finds a first aid kit and places the ice pack on his forehead.

"What did you hit your head on?" she asks cautiously, a small smile creeping across her face.

He waits a moment taking a few short breaths to calm himself. He looks up at her, she is smiling softly, he feels the corners of his mouth turn up slightly; it is a strange feeling for him. He's not used to smiling. In fact, he's not used to people smiling at him and least of all, he isn't used to seeing a smile reach the person's eyes. Her cautious smile lights up her eyes, even in the dark. "The laptop. I didn't secure my laptop before I rammed his car." He watches as the smile grows larger across her face.

"My employers aren't going to like this." She whispers as she comes to a red stoplight. She turns to look into his pale blue eyes and gently raises her hand to brush back his dirty hair away from his eyes. She lets it rest there. He removes the ice pack from his head as he turns his face toward her.

"Yea neither are mine." His voice is barely audible and he raises his hand to catch hers, then kisses her palm.

It wasn't her own pain that woke her up that time, it was the arguing. They were so loud. Her head started to explode again. She didn't even try to open her eyes as she heard the two men fighting about her.

"She needs a doctor!" the one who had been sitting by her earlier bellowed

"Amanda doesn't have one in the area." The gravely voiced man answerd. His voice was much calmer.

"Then she needs to go to a hospital."

"You know we can't do that."

"No! what I know is that I don't want this innocent girl dying in front of me! There's a reason I hide behind a computer, I can't handle this!" she hears his boots stamp angrily across the floor.

"She is certainly not innocent, Birkhoff."

"Yea well, she had the chance to kill me, she didn't, and she had the chance to kill you, twice! In our line of work, she's a F-ing saint. And here you are, killing her."

"You know what Percy would say about your little tantrum here?" The calmer man tries to change the subject.

"Don't threaten to rat me out for this, we both know you're bluffing. You're not telling Percy."

"I didn't kill her, Roan did the beating, not me and not on my orders. I agree with you that he went overboard, and I will documented it in his file."

"You are just as guilty if you let her die on this couch." Birkhoff spat out the words so fast Lena hardly understood them. She waited for the calm man to respond to him. The response didn't come. He didn't have an answer.

After a moment Birkhoff spoke again. "Is there a kill order on her?"

Another long silent moment passes between the two men before Birkhoff spoke again. "Then tell me, Michael, why we are carrying out a hit?"

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