Bucky/OC, rated M for violence and sexual situations. Set directly after CATWS, will contain elements of Civil War but AU. Several chapters already written, aiming to update every week.

The man stood in front of the memorial to Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, staring intently up at the large picture of … himself.

His mission was to find out about his past, find out who he was. He had always just been the asset, the soldier. He had never questioned his orders, getting a job done with cold determination and no hesitation - but then the man on the bridge had looked at him in recognition and called him by a name that had struck a chord deep in his mind.

Bucky.

His name was Bucky.

Reading the memorial, it appeared that he had been a Sergeant in WWII, a member of the Howling Commandos and best friend of Steve Rogers, Captain America … the man on the bridge.

Staring fiercely at the exhibit, his head pounded as he desperately strained to remember something about this past life, but the only memory he could force to mind was the terrifying sensation of falling, Steve Rogers' hand still outstretched towards him as he plummeted down into a cold abyss.

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw tightly as the memory was swiftly followed by another, this one much more recent, from just a few days ago - Steve Rogers falling from the exploding helicarrrier while he hung from a beam and watched him splash into the river, only to then make the impulsive decision to dive down after him.

Still trying to remember, he read the memorial once more. Upon rereading that he'd been a prisoner at a Hydra camp an old memory unfurled like a cold, clammy tentacle in his mind - being strapped to a table while a man loomed over him, injecting him over and over as pain wracked his body.

Armin Zola, a voice from a long forgotten corner of his mind whispered, making him clench his fists in his jacket pockets while his head throbbed in pain.

A small movement beside him caught his attention; a young woman was stood a few feet away from him, also looking curiously at the memorial above them. She glanced at him beside her, smiled absently when she caught his eyes, and then paused. Her gaze travelled between him and the large photo on the memorial once, twice, her lips parting in growing recognition and shock.

She had recognised him, he realised instantly.

Acting on instinct, Bucky seized her upper arm in an iron grip and propelled her swiftly towards the side of the exhibit, where there was a door that was marked staff only. "Hey!" she said in indignant surprise, trying fruitlessly to pull her arm free as he forced her into a thankfully empty corridor. "You -"

He cut her off with his metal hand, which was hidden by a pair of gloves that he had scavenged, covering her nose and mouth. She was fearful now, struggling desperately against him as he dragged her along towards an emergency exit. By the time they emerged in an alleyway towards the back of the museum she had gone completely limp in his grip, passing out from lack of air.

Bucky glanced down towards the mouth of the alley, noting that the line of sight was mostly blocked by a car parked half way down. Nevertheless, he put the woman down behind a dumpster to shield her from view before squatting down beside her and patting down her body, checking for weapons - nothing, it appeared that she wasn't with either Hydra or SHIELD.

He grabbed the messenger bag that was slung diagonally across her body and sat back on his heels as he rifled through it, still trying to ascertain if she was a threat to him. Inside he found a phone, purse, a passport, a hairbrush, a glasses case, a folded leaflet on tourist attractions in DC and a sleek, modern laptop computer in a separate case that also contained a charging cable, hard drive and several professional documents.

The ID in her purse identified her as Katherine Summers, twenty-five years old and British, her passport stamped for US arrival just over a week ago. He was able deduce from a student card that she was studying computer science at Imperial University in London.

Shifting his gaze to the unconscious woman herself, he scrutinised her carefully. She didn't look like much of a threat; she was diminutive, long dark hair spilling haphazardly over her pale face after he had carelessly deposited her on the dirty alley floor, but the fact that she had seen him, recognised him, made her dangerous.

Bucky considered simply leaving her, but he knew that would leave a trail; she would doubtless tell the authorities, which would leave leads for Hydra and the man, Steve, to follow.

The solution was obvious.

Reaching out, he wrapped his gloved, metal hand tightly around her neck and then paused, hesitating.

It was easy, simple - it was what the soldier would have done if a mission was compromised

But he didn't have orders to kill; he hadn't killed the scientists when he had briefly returned to the Ideal Federal Savings Bank after the incident on the helicarriers a few days ago, nor did he now want to kill an innocent woman.

Nevertheless, she still posed a risk to him if he left her here.

A decision made, he released her throat. He slung her bag over his shoulder and hauled her limp arm around his neck, picking her up with one arm circled around her back and his metal arm beneath her knees. Carrying her easily, he headed towards the car that was parked half way down the alley.

Katherine regained consciousness slowly; dazed and confused, she groaned and blinked her eyes open, then she immediately tensed at what she saw.

She was in a car that was travelling at speed, strapped securely into the front seat.

The man from the museum was driving, his dark cap pulled down low over his eyes to shield his face. He had grabbed her from the Captain America exhibit, covering her nose and mouth with a hand that had felt unusually hard and unyielding as she had struggled until she had passed out from lack of air.

Panicked, her breath was coming in sharp bursts and her heart raced as she shrank back as far away from him as she could in the front seat - it didn't help that the man seemed determined to ignore her, not even acknowledging that she was now awake.

Her eyes flicked down to the gun she could see shoved into the waistband of his dirty jeans - if she could just get it …

"Don't," the man rasped without even turning to look at her, no doubt guessing her intentions.

Her breathes still coming quickly, she looked at her kidnapper. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with untrimmed brown hair hanging limply to his collar and thick stubble coating his jaw. She noticed that there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and that the pupils of his pale blue eyes were dilated, making her wonder if he was on something. His gloved hands were clenched tightly on the steering wheel - and there, in the small sliver between his jacket sleeve and his glove on his left hand, she saw a flash of metal.

Katherine's lips parted around a gasp, her eyes fixed on the metal - the news over the past few days had been full of the events of SHIELD, Hydra, Captain America and a metal-armed assassin that no-one seemed to know anything about, the media coverage making her immediately question her choice to take her sabbatical from her Phd in America. "You're … you're the man that's been on the news," she said softly, her voice catching in fear as she thought of the blurry footage she had seen of the man dressed in dark tactical gear, the metal arm glinting in the sun as he reloaded a rifle.

The man didn't reply, his gaze fixed rigidly on the road ahead.

"And at the museum …" she whispered, remembering what had initially caught her attention about him back at the exhibit, how he was identical to the man in the memorial. "You're … you're him, aren't you?" she asked dazedly, wondering how on earth it could be possible. "Sergeant Barnes."

Again, he didn't reply - however as she said the name his hands clenched so tightly on the wheel that it actually bent slightly under the pressure.

"How …" she started to ask, but then trailed off uncertainty at the dangerous expression on his face, her heart still pounding in fear.

The news had called him the Winter Soldier, a Hydra assassin. How had Captain America's best friend since childhood, comrade in arms who had supposedly died in action in WWII, become an assassin for a Nazi organisation seventy years later?

More importantly, to her mind, why had he now kidnapped her?

There was a very long silence, during which Katherine managed to get her breathing and heart rate somewhat under control as she looked helplessly around her. They were out of the city, heading north on the interstate in what was quite clearly a stolen car, if the lack of key in the ignition and mass of wires dangling down from beneath the steering wheel was any indication.

Eventually she worked up the courage to ask her kidnapper another question. "Where are we going?" she asked quietly, her voice cracking ever so slightly once more.

Still, he didn't even look in her direction.

Feeling utterly bewildered and overwhelmed, she blinked back the tears that were pricking fiercely in her eyes. "Please," she whispered past the vicious lump that was forming in her throat. "I … I don't know who you think I am, but -"

"Katherine Summers," the man said, interrupting her and making her blink in shock. His gaze still fixed on the road ahead. "Twenty five years old, originally from Oxford, England. You work with computers," he said emotionlessly, essentially summing up her life in a few short, clipped sentences.

He must have looked through her purse, she realised, slowly exhaling a deep breath. She bit her lip to suppress the tears as she looked out of the passenger window. She was on a sabbatical from her Phd, intending to fulfil a lifelong dream of travelling across the America's while she wrote the computer code she was working on. There was no one to report her missing - with her mother long since deceased, her father practically estranged, interested only in his new wife and the child they were expecting, and a small circle of friends that were anticipating her being unreachable at times while she was travelling, it could be weeks before someone became alerted to her peril.

"What … what do you want with me?" she asked fearfully, not having the courage to look at him, staring instead at the cars that passed on the road as she nervously laced her fingers.

There was a pause, and for a moment she thought he might not reply. "You recognised me," he said simply, making her turn to look at him - that sounded like a confirmation of her suspicions, that he was indeed Sergeant Barnes from the exhibit. "I couldn't leave that trail for Hydra to follow."

"I won't tell," she whispered, her voice catching once more.

"I don't believe you," he replied instantly, his tone grim and final.

She pressed her lips together, looking down into her lap and twisting her shaking hands. "So what are you going to do with me?" she wanted to know, fearing what he had planned for her.

Once again, he didn't reply - she quietly resigned herself to not knowing her fate for quite some time. She curled up tightly in her seat, staring blankly at the road ahead.

Several long hours passed in silence, during which they drove through Baltimore and Philadelphia without once stopping, heading North. Eventually, once the sun had gone down and cars on the interstate had started turning on their headlights, she once more worked up the courage to ask another question. "Are we going to New York?" she wanted to know as they passed a sign for the city, glancing at her silent kidnapper.

There was an almost imperceptible head shake; she assumed that was all the response she was going to get from him.

He kept on driving, skirting the edges of New York and heading into a residential area some way outside of the city itself. He pulled up on a curb on a quiet street, under the shadow of a streetlight with a blown bulb.

They sat silently for several minutes; the man - Sergeant Barnes - was staring intently at a plain, non-descript house just down the street. "Where are we?" she whispered, wondering what they were waiting for.

Another pause, and then, "This was a Hydra safe house," he replied emotionlessly, still staring at the house from beneath the rim of his cap, tense and alert.

"Hydra?" she repeated, her voice coming out as a faint squeak - the news had been full of horror stories about the Nazi organisation, why had he bought her here?

He didn't reply, and there was silence for another few minutes.

"Why -" she started to ask, but he shot her a dangerous, warning look to indicate that his patience with her questions was running thin. She obligingly bit her tongue, clenching her trembling hands into fists in an effort to stop the shaking that had started again.

They sat and watched the house for well over an hour; there was no lights on and no one was coming or going. Even the street itself was quiet, the only people they saw being a dog walker and a middle aged couple, probably on their way back from an evening at the pub.

Abruptly, Sergeant Barnes reached for something in the back seat and then opened the driver's door. "Follow me, quietly," he ordered as he got out of the car, closing the door behind him with an almost silent snick.

Katherine scrambled to obey, unfastening her seatbelt and clambering out of the car, not quite managing to close the door as quietly as he had. He was waiting for her at the front of the car. He had his gun drawn and lowered by his side, though she was somewhat relieved to note that he also had her messenger bag slung over one shoulder since she had thought it had been left behind at the museum. He immediately grabbed her upper arm in a bruising grip, in almost the exact same place he'd grasped her before in the museum, and marched her towards the house, his eyes flicking warily from side to side as they walked.

He swiftly opened the door by simply grasping the handle in his metal hand and twisting until the lock broke, pushing her before him into the house and closing the door behind them.

The house was dark and silent, looking more like a deserted and neglected suburban home than the Nazi refuge it apparently was. Sergeant Barnes didn't turn on any lights in the hall and Katherine followed him down the corridor towards a disused, dusty kitchen, where he flicked on the light, which was a single bare bulb. He put her bag down on the table and moved to check that the backdoor and windows of the house were secure.

Hesitantly, she crossed to the table to look in her bag, wanting to make sure all her belongings were accounted for. He didn't stop her, seemingly not even paying any attention to her as he examined the lock on the backdoor. She looked inside the bag, breathing a quick sigh of relief when she saw that her computer bag was still inside - that bag was her life at the moment, containing the code she was working on for her Phd.

There wasn't much in the bag, just things for a day trip to a few of the museums in DC and then the library; the rest of the possessions she'd bought with her were in a suitcase in the room of the hotel she was staying at, a room that was paid up for a week. She wondered what they would do with it when she didn't check out at the end of the week, if they would report it to the police or just dismiss it as nothing.

She wondered if she would even be alive at that point.

Her hand closed around her phone within the bag and she hesitated, wondering if he would notice if she slipped it into her pocket. She could use it to contact someone, anyone - but the thought was immediately pushed from her mind as the phone was suddenly seized from her hand and ruthlessly crushed in a metal hand.

She looked up to find the metal-armed assassin towering threateningly over her - Sergeant Barnes was glaring at her as he slowly opened his fist and dropped the mangled phone onto the dusty table beside them with a faint thud.

"I wasn't …" she started to say defensively, but then quickly quailed and fearfully lowered her eyes under the wake of his furious stare.

Heart pounding, she exhaled another shaky breath and kept very still as he resumed checking that the kitchen was secure, not wanting to give him any reason to damage anything else, such as herself or her computer.

There was another long silence and she eventually worked up the nerve to peek up at him once more. He had stopped moving and was now stood on the opposite side of the table. His jaw was clenched and his gaze was fixed on the crushed remains of the phone on the table between them. He caught her looking at him and frowned deeply. "Wait here," he ordered brusquely, and then vanished through the kitchen door.

Katherine exhaled a deep, shaking breath, sat down at the table and waited. Seconds dragged into minutes and still he didn't return. She briefly stood up to listen at the door to the kitchen, but could hear no movement in the rest of the house. She thought about making a break for it, of just sprinting down the corridor and out onto the street - but she feared what his reaction would be if he caught her, given that he had crushed her phone simply because she'd touched it.

She had been on her own in the kitchen for what felt like over an hour when her stomach rumbled, making her think back to when her last meal was - the croissant she had snagged from the breakfast bar at the hotel earlier that morning before she headed out to explore the museums, and now it was well into the night.

She tapped her fingers on the table, waited another few minutes, and the stood up to investigate the cupboards of the kitchen, finding several packets of mre food. She bit her lip, wondering if he would mind her eating, but another stomach rumble made the decision for her. Leaving two packets on the counter, she tried the tap at the sink and grimaced as the water spluttered and came out brown from the pipes. She left the water running to clear it, and soon enough the water was running clear.

She busied herself filling and heating a saucepan of water, adding the mre packets to the water; she was so occupied with what she was doing that she didn't notice Sergeant Barnes returning and standing in the kitchen doorway to watch her.

Bucky stood in the kitchen doorway of the Hydra safehouse, his head tilted ever so slightly to one side as he watched the young woman move around the kitchen. She was tense and fearful, moving with slightly hunched shoulders as if she expected a blow, but still something about her movements tugged on a long-forgotten memory in his mind.

An older woman stood with her back to him in a very different kitchen, her dark hair curled and wearing a long, floral dress with an apron around her waist, humming as she stirred a pot on the stove.

His mother?

It was only the briefest flash of a memory, but nevertheless his lips parted at the intensity of it.

He must have made some noise or movement, since the woman tensed even further and looked in his direction, appearing for all the world like a spooked animal. She swallowed nervously, glancing between him and the pot of boiling water. "I … I hope you don't mind, I'm making food," she said, sounding hesitant, like she was asking for his permission.

He didn't reply, simply looking intently at her to see if any other memories surfaced.

The woman, Katherine, seemed uncomfortable with his intense scrutiny, her eyes regularly darting to him as she once more moved cautiously around the kitchen. She plated up two portions of food with visibly shaking hands and sat down at the table, keeping her eyes lowered. One plate was in front of her, the other opposite, apparently meant for him.

It was his turn to hesitate, unsure of what to make of this offering, before he slowly crossed the kitchen, sat down opposite her and picked up his fork.

He stared down at the plate of food, trying to remember the last time he had eaten anything.

He'd been given food as the soldier, of course, but it had always been on metal trays, hardly solid and flavourless mush to accompany the cocktail of what was no doubt mood suppressant drugs and other supplements they had plugged him with. He suspected the withdrawal from the drugs was the reason he'd spent the past few days retching, sweating and shaking in the back alleys of DC after not returning to his handlers at Hydra before finally having the strength to go to the museum exhibit that he had found a damp, tattered flyer for.

Certainly he thought that this may well be the first meal he had shared in company in what was likely seventy years, if what the memorial had said was indeed true.

Slowly, he took a bite of the food and chewed carefully. With the first mouthful he became aware of just how hungry he was and quickly took another bite, then another, wolfing down the food.

It hit his empty stomach and immediately nauseated him.

"Are you alright?" the woman, Katherine, asked him, looking at him in some concern.

He didn't reply, his empty stomach roiling - roughly pushing the plate away, he lurched to the sink and vomited, followed by dry retching as his stomach continued to heave.

Feeling weakened, he slumped down on the floor, leaning his back against the kitchen cabinets and closing his eyes. He felt exhausted, not even remembering the last time he had slept - truly slept.

He became aware of the young woman moving around the room, followed by the sound of the tap running. He sensed her slowly approaching and crouching down in front of him, but he kept his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

"Sergeant Barnes?" she said softly.

He didn't respond at first, then remembered that that was his name - she was talking to him.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was kneeling down on the dirty kitchen floor a few feet away, holding a mug of water out to him with a look of concern on her face. He took the mug and sipped the water slowly, making sure his stomach would not recoil again before he took another mouthful.

Katherine was biting her lip, still kneeling down so that she was on his level. "You should probably go to a hospital," she suggested quietly, sounding like she didn't expect him to like the idea.

"No," he replied, his voice rusty; they couldn't go to a hospital, he'd be found instantly.

There was another very long silence between them as he drank the water. He managed the whole mug without his stomach protesting again and felt much stronger for it, though he knew he would have to eat properly soon.

He was aware of Katherine staring at him from where she was crouched a few feet away. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and she seemed like she was mustering the courage to speak once more. "Please ..." she said eventually from where she knelt, her voice very soft and hesitant. "I have questions."

Of course she did, he had kidnapped her from a museum in broad daylight and scarcely given her a word of explanation.

His eyes flicked up to her and she took this as permission to speak.

She took a deep breath. "You are Sergeant James Barnes, aren't you?" she wanted to know.

He looked at her, a deep frown creasing his brow. That was the name that had been beside his picture in the museum and it did indeed seem familiar, somehow. "I don't know," he admitted honestly.

Katherine blinked at him, tilting her head slightly to one side.

"I don't remember him," he continued, the words coming out with difficulty since he was not accustomed to conversation. "Barnes," he added, as if he was speaking about someone else and not himself. He closed his eyes once more and leant his head back on the cabinet. "I don't remember anything except what they made me."

"They?" she repeated hesitantly. "Hydra?"

He nodded, keeping his eyes closed as the nausea rose again at the very mention of the name.

There was another pause, then she spoke carefully once more. "It said on the news that - that Hydra was a Nazi group that were trying to kill millions of people with those helicarriers," she said with quiet fear.

He gave a small movement, like a shrug. He didn't actually know what the helicarriers were for, his mission had been to kill the man - Steve, his supposed best friend.

"You're ... you're an assassin," she continued, her voice a scant and fearful whisper.

He opened his eyes and gave her a sharp, suspicious look that made her visibly flinch back. "How did you know that?" he wanted to know in a dangerously quiet tone, his fingertips just brushing the hilt of the knife he had in his boot.

"It was on the news," she said quickly, clearly spooked by his sudden tension and wanting to explain herself. "They've been talking about nothing but the attack and the files for days."

Bucky blinked at her and frowned - he knew that files contained information, he'd often been sent to retrieve them, killing people to get them. "Files?" he questioned intently, staring at her.

"The Hydra and SHIELD files that Black Widow released on the internet," she said simply. He was still looking at her blankly, unable to believe that all of that information was potentially there for the taking; she tilted her head once more, frowning slightly at him. "You didn't know?"

He got up swiftly, startling her and making her flich back once more. "Show me," he ordered simply, one hand braced on the kitchen counter for support as he reached down and pulled her roughly to her feet.

Several minutes later Katherine found herself sat with her laptop at the kitchen table with Sergeant Barnes hovering over her shoulder. It had taken them some time to get set up, with Katherine having to hunt around the Hydra safehouse for a router to connect to the internet, something that had felt strangely mundane.

It didn't take her long to find the files, not with how high profile the Black Widow's data leak had been, but hit a snag when she found that they had been ring-fenced, probably by some government department. The government couldn't actually remove them from the internet, but they had made them near impossible to access to a lay-person.

Katherine, however, was not a lay-person - she was working towards her Phd in computer science. She adjusted her reading glasses and set to work, her fingers moving with lightning speed.

Typing deftly on the keyboard, she bypassed the data stream and found a back channel into the files. "We aren't the first ones here, not by a long shot," she said, her gaze fixed on the screen. "There's digital fingerprints all over this." She exhaled a long breath and briefly bit her lips, not having anticipated just how much data there would be. "There's more here than I thought, it's millions of pages and most of it is encrypted."

"Can you decrypt them?" Barnes wanted to know, shifting to lean impatiently further over her shoulder, his breath stirring her hair.

"I - I can try," she said, pecking at the keyboard and then reaching for her external hard drive; it was small, portable and expensive, but had the capacity to hold all the data files they were loading without even taking up half of the space. "My computer won't have the space for that many files so I'll need to download them on to my external hard drive first before I can run any decryption programs," she bit her lip and glanced up at the man towering over her. "It won't be quick though, it's a lot of files," she warned.

His jaw was clenched as he stared at the screen. "Do it," he ordered.

She plugged in her hard drive and typed away at the keyboard. A progress bar appeared as the download started.

There was yet another long silence as they both watched the progress bar move at a snail's pace. Barnes was clearly impatient, shifting on his feet. "What's taking so long?" he wanted to know after several long, tense minutes.

"I told you it would take a while, it -" she was cut off as the computer let out a warning beep and the progress bar suddenly flashed red. Recognising immediately what was happening, she leapt into action, pulling up a different data stream to see where the problem was.

"What's going on?" he asked sharply, his suspicion evident.

"My code is attacking the data files," she said simply, typing furiously away and frowning at the computer.

"Your code?" he repeated, sounding more than a little confused.

"I'm working on a computer code to prevent systems from being hacked, but it shouldn't have activated unless …" she trailed off slowly.

"Unless what?" he seethed, his frustration at not knowing what was going on evident.

"Unless there is a threat to the computer," she finished, not even raising her gaze from the screen as she pulled up her own code schematics and canvased around the feed. "Hold on … shit," she said, abruptly renewing her furious typing.

"What?" Barnes hissed sharply, his patience clearly running thin.

"There's a virus, it's like it's … barbed," she explained, still focused on the computer. "It's subtle, most people wouldn't even notice it's there, but has embedded spikes into my system."

There was a pause, and then, "What does that mean?" he wanted to know, his hand clenched tightly on the back of her chair.

"I'm not sure yet," she said, grimacing slightly as she worked. "It must be intended to track those who take an interest. This isn't a secure server so they'll have a pin on us, that's for definite though."

The metal hand on the back of her chair tightened further, splintering the wood. "We have to go," he said firmly, though his gaze was also locked on the screen with an almost hungry expression. "Stop the download."

"Do you want these files or not?" she argued, surprising herself. "It's not the files that have the virus so I can still download them. The virus is in the host site, but I can remove the spikes as I leave." She glanced up at him, meeting and holding his eyes. "If you want these files then I need them on the hard drive to be able to decrypt them."

There was a brief silence as he looked at the screen, his jaw clenched. "How long until the download is complete?" he wanted to know; clearly he was desperate to get these files.

She pulled the progress bar back up. "A couple of minutes," she said. "It's the size of the data files, that's the problem."

He jerked his head in a nod. "Be ready to leave the moment it's done," he commanded simply.

Following his orders, Katherine dashed to the bathroom she had seen when she was looking for the router; by the time she got back Sergeant Barnes had wiped down the kitchen to remove their fingerprints and had two plain, black bags ready and waiting by his feet, as well as a large assault rifle slung over his shoulder as he watched the progress bar intently.

Finally, several tense and silent minutes later, the download was complete. "Done," she said, exhaling a sigh of relief.

Barnes grabbed her upper arm once more. "Let's go," he said, his impatience obvious.

"Wait," she said as he reached out to close the laptop. "I need to remove the spikes or they will be able to track the computer."

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but nevertheless he jerked his head in a nod and released her to sit back down once more. Clearly on edge, he crossed to the window, his gun at the ready. Evidently he was expecting an attack of some sort imminently, something that rather worried her.

It only took her a few minutes to clear the spikes from the computer and disconnect from the internet, wiping all digital traces that they had ever been there from her laptop. Confident that they had the files on the hard drive and now couldn't be tracked, she pulled off her glasses and closed the laptop. "Done," she said, slipping both the computer and the hard drive back into her messenger bag, which she then slung diagonally across her body.

"Come on," Barnes said tersely, taking her by the arm and propelling her out of the room.

They moved silently down the corridor towards the front door, then he pulled her to an abrupt halt. There was a brief, tense pause. "Wait here," he commanded quietly, then slipped off down the corridor with his gun poised and ready.

It felt eerily silent in the dark without him and Katherine found herself trembling once more, her heart pounding as she waited, clinging nervously to her bag. Suddenly there were noises ahead, a distinct scuffling sound followed by a muffled thud.

She instinctively took a step forward, half thinking to investigate and make sure Sergeant Barnes was alright, but she was abruptly grabbed from behind. Her assailant viciously twisted her right arm behind her back and she cried out in pain as unbearable strain was put on her shoulder. The cold barrell of a gun was pressed tightly under her chin, forcing her head up.

"Drop it!" the man holding her shouted down the corridor, and she saw Barnes at the far end with his gun pointed at them both. She whimpered as her arm was pulled even tighter back, her shoulder threatening to dislocate under the strain. "Drop it, or I'll shoot her."

A deafening gunshot rang through the house.

Katherine felt something white-hot whizz past her cheek and a split second later her face and torso were drenched in hot, gushing blood. She screamed and staggered as the man released her and collapsed to the ground. Looking down, she saw that half of his head had been blown away - she kept screaming.

Barnes seized her arm once more, the same one that the man had held her by, turning her scream to a gasp of pain as he wrenched it to get her moving. He dragged her forcefully along, out of the house and towards the car. She was vaguely aware of him using his metal arm to shield them both from gunfire, firing several more shots himself in turn that made the guns fall eerily silent.

He shoved her brutally into the car and climbed in himself, twisting one of the wires he had hotwired earlier to start the ignition before roaring down the road at full speed with Katherine gasping and trembling in the front seat.

There was absolute silence in the car as they drove for hours, the blood of the man Sergeant Barnes had killed drying into sticky, brown streaks on her skin, hair and clothing. Katherine huddled in the front seat, her tears leaving tracks in the blood that was splattered all over her face as they drove into the darkness.

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