Life After Life

Disclaimer: I don't own the St. Trinian's franchise or any of its characters. I am just borrowing them here for a little while.

"You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be."

—Chuck Palahniuk (b.1961)—

One: Chechnya

Kelly Jones' fingers twitched as she contemplated giving into the temptation to itch her nose for the third time in forty-five minutes. So far three hours on a stake out and their target still hadn't even shown up yet. The normally infallible girl let out a soundless breath and watched the small group of men on the dirt road as they debated in a mixture of heavy Russian and Chechen what was keeping their leader.

Kelly leaned her back more solidly against the stone ledge she was on, overlooking the road and town/city of Argun in the growing evening, feeling the security the barrier offered. So far, their inside man was doing quite well. A British-Chechen by birth, Agent Mlakar was managing to impersonate the minor rebel they had assassinated convincingly enough that neither the gathered guards or the Russian they were dealing with knew he wasn't the real deal. According to their intel, the guy Agent Mlakar had replaced was a minor mover between the regional government and this group of mercenaries they had employed to move arms safely through the mountains. So far though, no one had seemed to know what he looked like enough to spot Mlakar as a fake. It had been their one stroke of luck on this trip.

Kelly looked over her shoulder and noticed headlights of a canvas covered lorry speeding towards them. The dark haired girl bent low to whisper into her earpiece. Her voice sounded loud in the stale air though she was sure no one else could hear her, but her two companions. A newer agent probably would have panicked, but Jones remained calm.

"You boys in position?"

Two responses crackled to life in her ear.

"Ready."

"Almost."

Both agents were supposed to be set up on the ridge opposite Jones as cover just in case things got dirty. One would be on the left side, overlooking the curve in the road. The other was further up, parallel to Kelly's own position only the miserable sod wasn't ready yet. What was taking him so long she didn't know, but it wasn't acceptable.

"Jensen, what the bloody hell is taking you so long? Christ! We've been here for three hours what have you been doing? Wanking off?" She seethed through the earphone.

"N—no, I was in position, I just fell asleep is all," came the sheepish reply. Kelly didn't know what had prompted her supervisor to assign two newbies to her team. One was too much; two were doing her head in.

"You've got to be fucking joking!" Jones sighed, more to herself than to anyone else.

The lorry was slowing down as it approached the men in the road, the guards moving to opposite sides to let it pass by them and pull up to Agent Mlakar and the Russian.

"Right, Jensen, we don't have time for this, just get ready to back me up."

"Got it."

Kelly clicked the safety off of her gun and narrowed her eyes as a man in a fur cap dropped down from the vehicle's driver side and greeted the Russian amicably. Mlakar fidgeted, looking awkward and out of place even from a distance. What is he doing? It distracted Kelly, but not enough to keep her from her ultimate target. She braced the M24 sniper rifle against her shoulder and peered into the sight, the green of her night vision goggles tinting everything a Kool-Aid green. If only the man in the fur cap would turn around. They needed a positive ID on him before she could blast him into another life. It was supposed to be Asa Zupan, international black market arms dealer and direct link between the regional government and the weapon shipments they were importing under NATO's nose.

Kelly's attention was drawn from the man still with his back turned to her toward Mlakar who was looking around him nervously. That wasn't like him. What is the bloody man trying to do blow his cover? Black arms dealers were like primal first years: nearly able to taste fear in the air before you even knew you were afraid. If even one of the guards on the road suspected Mlakar of being a fraud, he wouldn't even have to ask for permission to shoot him. Then the whole mission would be bollixed. They still might be able to take out Zupan if they were quick, but to capture the mercenaries and the Russian representative as evidence against the regional government they would need the situation to stay as quiet as possible.

Mlakar though didn't seem to be following the original plan. His eyes were straying everywhere. And when he backed up, the slight movement of one hand gave him away. Jones' eyes widened. Bugger. A second or so later, Mlakar's hand disappeared into his jacket pocket and retrieved his 9mm pistol. Without warning, he cocked it and shot the Russian in the back of the head. The guards shifted at the sound of the gunshot and fired at the man as he desperately ducked for cover. Kelly squinted through the scope as Zupan fell to the ground, a bullet in his back. A group of seven heavily armed men came out of the treeline and Mlakar reappeared with them, shooting the Russian guards dead.

"What the bloody hell?" flittered through her earpiece, "That wasn't part of the plan."

Kelly slid the silencer off of the end of the muzzle and detached the barrel as well as the scope, expertly packing the weapon away.

"We've been set up," Kelly hissed, "Abort the mission. Jensen, Shay get the hell out of here, immediately!"

For all of the newbies incompetencies, she didn't have to tell them twice how to run. The camouflaged men below were the scattered militia of the rebel forces that still opposed the regional government. If Mlakar was with them then it stood to reason, that not only was he a traitor, but a double agent as well. This mission was supposed to be covert. No one but Jones, the agents involved, and her supervisor knew they were here and why. If they were caught by the rebels now, they would be shot or imprisoned or worse in an effort to gain sympathy for their cause by insisting they had been ambushed by the intelligence force of a foreign country.

Kelly slung the military pack over her shoulder and pulled out her Beretta U22 as she made her way down the dirt and rock path that would lead her down the ledge and into the woods to relative obscurity. As she rounded the rock face, she could make out four men in the road. Three were unaccounted for and since she hadn't heard any gunshots yet, they likely hadn't found her companions. The balls of her feet absorbed the impact of her steps on the frozen ground, making no sound as she squirreled herself inch by inch away from the road. The quiet was deafening and it shouldn't have been. There should've at least been some talking or the sounds of footsteps moving rapidly around, but there was nothing.

Jones' stopped moving and squatted low to the ground. She was ten feet from the rock ridge where she had started. The road was clearly visible from her vantage point in the short grasses of the clearing between her and the woods and still four men were milling about. Mlakar was pacing around with a cigarette between his fingers. He'd probably sent the other three to search the area for Jones and her agents. The fact that Kelly couldn't see them didn't make her nervous, it pissed her off.

She raised her pistol and aimed for the slowly ambling figure of Mlakar moving across her green night vision. Take this you wanker! The recoil felt like a natural movement as she pulled the trigger. The loud sound of a gunshot filled the night as the bullet struck Mlakar in the head. He immediately fell face first into the snow like bag of rubbish and the men around him scattered. Jones straightened up. It was time to blow this popsicle stand as quickly as possible. The first of many gunshots spurred her into action as her feet began to race toward the treeline a kilometre and a half away.

That wasn't her best idea, Kelly knew, but she rationalized it to herself as she ran: the bastard fucking deserved it! Idiotic pillock. She focused on the green outlines of trees as she moved closer and closer to them. Her blood rushed in her ears, breath coming out in sharp, short gasps of visible heat. Her legs ached for no particular reason; maybe three hours was a bit long to crouch in one place. Her arms sliced through the cold at her sides, giving her the momentum to equal her long strides. Her vision blurred slightly with every step as her goggles were jostled on her face with every heavy footfall…yet in feeling all of this, nothing of the experience quite stood out from the ordinary. And then everything stopped.

It began with a sudden pain in the left side of her chest that exploded into tiny pinpricks of light behind her eyes with the first breath she took after the bullet ripped through the bottom corner of her lung. To quit running wasn't really an option, too much momentum. Instead, her muscles stopped and her body fell forward into the snow. The intense feelings alternated between searing pain and cold numbness as Jones thrashed about, trying desperately to right herself. Every intake of air was an exertion. Every gulp of oxygen left her mouth wetter than it had come in and Kelly had just managed to roll herself onto her back when the coppery taste registered in her brain.

Blood. Her blood.

Bollocks, she sighed, the tail end turning into a soggy coughing fit. There was no aplomb, no drawing of a curtain. No memories flashed in front of Kelly Jones' eyes. Nothing and everything existed all at once as cold air filled her lungs, then poured out in one last sour gurgle that left a bad taste in her mouth only mother nature could contemplate.

No worries readers, Kelly Jones is infamous for a reason and I guarantee you she will be rising from the dead at some point soon. Reviews will determine how quickly though~! :]