I woke up to the sound of gunfire in the distance. My surroundings quickly came back into focus as I remembered where I was and why. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and went to stand up when I felt the cold barrel of a revolver pressed to the side of my head.
I ducked as fast as I could and tried to turn my hand around to shoot whoever was behind me, but to no avail; my gun was snatched from my hand and I felt the revolver return to my temple as a strong arm wrapped around me, pressing me to my attackers chest.
"I'd prefer not to shoot you again. Your partner took mine out, so I need a new ally," I heard Roger say from behind me. Wait, Roger?
I was suddenly much more aware of the fact that I was pressed up against him, his arm holding me like a vice, his face a mere centimeter away from mine.
"Wait, you shot me the first time?"
"Of course I did. If I would have tried to talk to you while you were aiming a gun at me, I would have gotten no where."
My thoughts wandered to Aliana, who instead of attacking me to convince me to be her ally threw down her weapons in submission. Obviously Roger chose to take a more aggressive approach.
"Fair enough."
"Now, ally or not? My old partner will wake up in one minute and twenty seconds, but you're a much better shot anyways."
I blushed, and for once was thankful for the dim lighting around us. "Deal. Now let go of me."
Roger released me and handed me my gun back. I peeked into the room across from ours as I followed Roger down the stairs and saw Aliana and Piere sprawled across the floor.
"I thought you would have been with Derrick."
"We thought about it, but didn't want to beat you all that quickly. Besides, it's more fun for us, knowing we have an actual challenge hiding somewhere out there," he said as he walked out of the building, constantly checking his surroundings.
We ran across a field to the tallest building in the town, a four story tavern of sorts. Roger quickly scanned the windows and perimeter, taking out two people in the process.
"What type of ammo do you have?" I asked him quietly as we entered the building. He didn't answer me, or rather, he didn't have time; as soon as we walked towards the stairwell someone had popped their head around the corner in front of us and fired, missing both of us, and was promptly shot in the forehead by Roger.
Whoever it was fell to their knees with a scream, their body writhing in pain on the floor. Roger stepped over the body nonchalantly and began walking up the stairs as I stared down at the squirming person on the floor.
"Are you coming or what?" Roger said, quickly poking his head out from behind the wall to see what was taking me so long.
"Y-yeah. Was that-?"
"The special dart, yeah. Try not to get in my line of fire, because those ones hurt like hell. Now, are you coming?"
I nodded and stepped over the person on the floor. He had stopped writhing in pain, but was twitching slightly, his wide eyes aimed towards the ceiling, seeing nothing.
We made it up the next three floors to the top with no problem, tranqing people as we went. Turns out the ammo I had picked up was regular tranq ammo-- stronger than the five minute knock out one, but not as painful as the special one that Roger had.
We silently scanned the floor, making sure all was empty. "You watch the roof access point, I'll watch the stairs," Roger said, turning away from me to face the stairwell. I turned towards the door leading to the roof, and we were silent.
The only noise was the gentle wind rustling the few abandoned papers that lingered on the floor. I don't know how long it was like that, but after the longest of whiles I heard Roger take a sharp breath. "Did you hear that?"
"What?" I said, turning my head around to face him.
"The sound of a gun reloading. Very faint, sounded kind of like a..." he trailed off as he turned his head to the right, then to the left.
"Sniper," he said, turning fully towards me as he tackled me to the ground.
And not a moment to soon. As soon as we began to fall to the ground I heard two bullets whisk by from the window on my left-- two bullets that would have hit me had not Roger thrown me to the ground. I grunted as my back hit the hard floor, Roger's full weight on top of me.
"Are you okay?" He asked, slightly lifting his body from the floor so that he wasn't crushing me, yet our bodies were still touching.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Did you just... save me?"
I instantly regretted my words. How much more stupid could I sound? It was only a tranq dart, for crying out loud.
Despite my stupidity, Roger cracked a small smile. "I suppose so."
His unique eyes glittered in the dim moonlight, bringing the flecks of gold in his irises into higher contrast. Our faces were inches apart, and I could feel every inch of his hard body as he held himself above me. I temporarily forgot where we were, and the question of why he hadn't stood back up yet eluded me.
After what seemed like an eternity he stood up, and held out his hand to help me up. Both our backs were turned from our original lookouts, facing each other instead.
"Thank you."
"Of course. I couldn't just let my partner get shot, now could I?" He said with a soft smile on his face.
That smile sent shivers down my spine-- but what made my blood run cold was seeing someone encased in shadows slowly reach the top of the stairs and raise his gun towards me, or rather, towards Roger's back.
Time seemed to stand still. I quickly shoved Roger as hard as I could to the side as the shadowed figure fired, turning to face Roger and meet his inquisitive eyes with my determined ones as the tranq dart pierced my chest.
Then everything exploded.
Well, at least my senses did. As soon as the dart pierced my skin it felt like fire was running through my veins instead of blood, and I collapsed to the floor.
I heard screaming coming from somewhere, and I vaguely heard the sound of bullets firing and of someone being beaten to a pulp somewhere.
As I writhed in pain I saw Roger's face appear above mine, filled with worry. Worry? That couldn't be right. And how could he be screaming if his mouth wasn't open?
Oh. That was me screaming, not him.
I quickly attempted to stifle my screams by moaning and groaning instead, feeling as though I was being skinned alive. "Gracie, you're going to be okay, it's not real, I promise," I heard him say. His voice was more like an echo, barely audible through the wall of pain that consumed me. I watched him gently raise his hand to caress my face, but I couldn't feel it-- the pain was everything, numbing my skin, poisoning my organs.
My sight slowly dimmed until I was able to see nothing. I felt my body shutting down, overcome with pain, able to see nothing, feel nothing, hearing nothing but echoed conversation above me.
"That's enough. I said that's enough, Theo!"
Theo? What was he doing here? Enough of what? I must be in some sort of pain induced hallucination.
"He-- deserves-- every-- punch," he replied, sounding unexplainably angry.
"I couldn't agree more, but there are other ways to get back at him. Stop. That's an order from your trainer," Roger said sternly.
By now I could tell that my entire body was asleep, with only my ears refusing to shut down, determined to hear the rest of this conversation.
"Fine." I heard someone's body thump to the floor. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Nothing. Just making sure she's alright. Those special darts are really painful."
"Oh my god. Is she hurt? I'll beat Hector to a pulp if I find out she's hurt--"
"She'll be fine. See how she's only slightly twitching, and her eyes are glassy? That means she's out by now, can't feel a thing. She'll wake up tomorrow with only the memory of pain, and that's it."
There was a brief moment of silence.
"Here, I'll watch her, you guard the door or something."
"I'm her partner. I can easily watch the door while keeping watch over her. Besides, your partner was the one who shot her, so I think it would be better if you just back off a bit."
Wait, what?
"How could I have known it was her! If I had known, I never would have even gone into this damn building!"
I heard the faint sound of splintering wood as Theo finished speaking.
"Calm down. If you yell any louder everyone will know where we are," Roger said irritably.
Silence ensued once again. I struggled to stay awake, fighting the numbness of the dart for as long as I could.
"Look, I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but I think Gracie would prefer it if I watched over her, not you. And besides, aren't you the guy responsible for her being shot in the first place? Being her partner and all, it is kind of your fault. Had I been with her, I guarantee she would have been fine--"
Theo stopped speaking as I heard the faint sound of a bullet hitting him, and the sound of his body hitting the floor.
I heard the floor creak as Roger stood up and walked over to where I assume Theo was laying on the floor.
"I have two suggestions for you. One, don't piss off the guy with better aim than you. Two, next time you're going to make out with one of my trainees, have the decency not to do it in a fucking hallway."
Roger was silent after that, and I finally relinquished the little control I had, letting the comfort of darkness consume me.
*********
"Two large bags of popcorn? Really?" I said as Ian walked towards our seats, mumbling 'excuse me' repeatedly as he walked past other moviegoers. In answer to my question, he flashed me a smile.
"Yeah. You told me you wanted a lot, and I had no intention of sharing," he said, plopping down in the seat next to me.
Ian and I had a tradition that the first Saturday of every month we would go to the movies, just us, and stuff our faces with popcorn. I always looked forward to it-- watching movies, being able to relax, the feeling of having a hand to hold when things got to scary.
It was an action movie, the newest installment in the Bond franchise. Ian and I loved everything from the twisted, complex plot lines, to the spectacular action sequences, to Bond's frequent affairs with as many women as he could romanticize.
We watched the movie progress, watched the action play out on the screen. Somewhere in the middle I felt Ian's hand brush my own, and we gently entwined our fingers.
I briefly met his gaze, then turned my full attention to the screen, hoping he couldn't see my blush.
My heart stopped as I saw what was on the screen. The movie had become footage of me, running through some building shooting down everyone in my path, a few of my fellow trainees following close behind me.
I watched myself mercilessly shoot bullet after bullet, I watched as the film zoomed in on my determined, emotionless face.
"What?" I heard Ian choke out beside me. He immediately ripped his hand from mine, and I turned to face him. His forgiving brown eyes were full of fear, as if he didn't recognize the monster sitting next to him. "What... Gracie... how could you?"
I screwed my eyes shut, hoping that when I opened them the movie would go away, hoping that Ian's look of betrayal and fear would fade away, hoping I wouldn't still be a monster.
When I forced my eyes open the scene had changed, becoming a dimly lit room in which there was nothing but me and one other person, facing away from me towards the wall.
I silently watched the figure turn around. His face was engulfed in shadows as he looked towards me, saying nothing. I opened my mouth to say something, but the words never came: suddenly the man's mouth was on mine, kissing me as if he would never get another chance, as if I was all he had left in the world.
He kissed me feverishly, running his hands across as much of my body as he could, slowly pushing me backwards until my back hit the wall. I kissed him back, letting the feeling of our lips melting together consume me.
He wrapped one arm around my waist as he broke the kiss, bringing his other hand up to gently brush my lips with his fingertips. His face was still encased in shadow as he brought his lips down to kiss my collar bone, sending fire through my veins--
"Gracie? Are you awake?"
I slowly opened my eyes, slightly annoyed that someone had woken me from that wonderful dream. My annoyance vanished when I saw Theo's concerned eyes gazing into mine, somehow making him seem hotter than he already was.
"Yeah. What time is it?" I said, looking around what appeared to be the infirmary section of headquarters.
"Five in the afternoon. We've all been out cold most of the day, except you and the others who got tranqued with those special darts."
At the mention of those painful darts Theo's concern switched to anger, a sort of fire filling his emerald eyes.
"Gracie, I'm so sorry about what happened. Hector didn't know it was you, and neither did I, but when I realized it was you I beat that unthinking bastard to a pulp. He'll be out for a few days at least, I hope," he said, a frown on his face.
"Theo, it's fine. I can barely remember the pain," I said with a small smile, taking his hand in mine.
I lied-- every second of that awful burning sensation was locked in my memory-- but seeing a smile light up his face made it worth it.
"Thank God. Well, we have a few hours left, and our weekends are free time. Want to head back to my room? We could watch a movie or something."
I smiled at him. "Sure thing."
After I had left the infirmary we walked slowly towards his room.
"Oh by the way, what were you dreaming about earlier? You kept squirming around and muttering things to yourself," Theo asked, and I tried to keep from blushing as I remembered both dreams: one terrifying, and one sensational.
"Oh, nothing. I can't remember, to be honest."
Theo nodded, and I looked the other way, smiling softly to myself.
*********
Hello everyone!
I hope you all liked this chapter. I'm going to try and make it my goal to update this book AT LEAST once a week.
I hope you guys are having a great summer! See you soon 😊
~Alyssa 💕