Blacklist [h.s]

four

Grace

One more realization came to me. 

Jamie was a chess piece in a sick and twisted game and that's all we knew. We didn't know when or where or how, we just knew that she was going to die and the time was ticking to save her. 

Hunter, Cooper and I spent another hour digging around trying to find clues on Weber, trying to find clues on Mikhail, Carrie. But none of them seemed to exist. We checked every database, every internet post, the black web, and still nothing. 

But we knew they existed because Jamie was gone. And there had to be a reason for it. 

Harry is sitting back, confined in the metal chair again when I reenter the dusty warehouse. I wish I weren't here. I wish I had come into work today, sat down at a desk in an office and put together profiles of suspects. Instead, I had a little girl's life literally in my hands. 

Harry smiles whenever I walk in, a big dimple plastered smile. 

"Where is Weber taking Jamie?" I ask as I pull up a chair in front of him and take a seat.  I'm so close to him that our knees are nearly touching. He leans forward to close the space between us, I think it is a way to intimidate me, but I hold my ground and don't move.

"If I tell you, you'll have to give me something in return. No more restraints, no more dingy warehouses. He needs to think I'm free, staying in my favorite hotel, keeping in touch with old friends," Harry smirks. I sigh. He is so complicated.

--

No more than an hour later, agents are busting down the door to Mikhail's location, taking him and Carrie into custody, questioning them, and booking them. And Harry is staying in a five-star hotel, eating a medium-rare steak and asparagus with complimentary Chardonney, handcuff-free. He's wearing a pair of patterned orange pants and a white tank top that exposes even more tattoos. His curly hair is slicked back from a fresh shower. 

I sit across from him at the other end of the table, watching as he excitedly cuts into his steak and takes a bite. He waits to speak until he's finished chewing. 

"You know, Gracey. You should really go home and get some rest. Cal is probably worried?" he said. Cal is my ex-boyfriend. He was an agent too. 

"How do you-" 

He clanks his fork on the plate. "It's going to be a while before I hear back from Weber," he said.

 I shake my head at him. He knew how to get under my skin and it annoyed the fuck out of me. And how the hell did he know so much about my personal life? I stand up and walk out of the suite, down the hall into another room where Cooper and Hunter are watching Harry on monitors.

"Is this some kind of joke or something?" I ask them, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Some kind of like a first-day test? How does he know so much about my life?" I throw my hands up in defeat and sit down on the edge of the bed.

I almost felt like they were playing a prank on me.

Cooper looks at me from behind a monitor, eyebrows furrowed, head cocked to the side. "We don't know Agent Tyler," he said. "We know as much as you do, but I can assure you this is not a joke." 

I shake my head and shrug my blazer off. I felt trapped in it all of a sudden. I've felt trapped all day. 

 "I need to go home, get some dinner or something," I mumble. "I'll be back in an hour." 

Cooper doesn't say anything as I walk out, leaving my blazer behind as I do. 

I've only recently gotten used to the Metro and the constant buzz of people, the hiss of the trains pulling in and out of stations, and the ding sound the machine makes when I load my SmarTrip card.