Code Name: Untraceable

Chapter Fifty: Snacks and Slipknot

In the common area...

Bob opened the pantry to grab one of the protein bars Frankie hated.

Instead, he froze.

Right on the second shelf-neatly arranged next to the coffee stash-was a fresh pack of sour candy sticks.

Actually... multiple packs.

And beside them?

A few other things he'd run out of last week. His favorite energy drink. A pack of socks still in the wrapper. Even the brand of gum he always bought but could never find anymore.

"Okay, that's not an accident," he muttered.

Yelena leaned over his shoulder. "What did she do now?"

He held up the sour sticks. "She... bought these."

John appeared behind them. "You mean she stole them."

"No," Bob said, quiet but sure. "She saw they were gone and got more."

Alexei clapped him on the back. "She loves you, little candy stick."

"She does not-"

"She does," Ava said, walking past, "in her own terrifying, knife-polishing way."

Bob held the sour sticks like they were fragile.

Yelena smirked. "You're blushing."

"I am not," he muttered, which meant he definitely was.

Alexei leaned closer. "If she bought you snacks, she loves you."

Before Bob could argue, John pulled open the next cabinet over-mostly out of curiosity.

And froze.

"Uh... guys?"

They turned.

Inside was a whole shelf of snacks.

Not just Bob's.

Yelena's favorite off-brand crisps, spicy and impossible to find.
Ava's exact brand of protein gel packs-always gone in stores.
Alexei's pickled beets. In glass jars. With labels in Russian.
John's stupidly expensive energy bars.
Even Bucky's black coffee pouches-the strong ones-stacked neatly in a corner.

Silence.

Ava blinked. "Okay. That's... weirdly thoughtful."

Yelena stared. "She remembered all of this?"

Bob looked down at the candy sticks in his hands.

"She noticed."

John whistled low. "We are so hers now."

From the armory, music roared.

And everyone instinctively agreed not to bring it up to her face.

Meanwhile... in the armory

Frankie had Psychosocial by Slipknot blasting at near-military volume.

The sound rattled the walls.

She was crouched over the table, sleeves rolled up, oiling the slide of a pistol with rhythmic precision. Her knives were laid out like a ritual-each one gleaming under the light.

She wasn't angry.

She was focused.

Focused and ready.

A motion sensor pinged quietly on the corner monitor.

She didn't flinch.

Didn't react.

Just switched to her rifle, disassembled it in under ten seconds, and kept the music playing like a war drum behind her.

Outside, high above the treetops, a drone hovered-silent and small.

Too bad it had picked the wrong tree to spy on.

Frankie didn't look up.

But she smiled-just a little.