My breath caught in my throat and my lungs tightened so much, it was suffocating. A nervous cold sweat that I had never experienced before washed over my entire body and I could feel my legs starting to give out on me.
It couldn't be. There was no possible way. It wasn't logical. It couldn't be him. I'd watched him die!
I mentally screamed at myself to snap out of it. It had to be the danger, the chase, the drama of the firefight getting to me. It had to be the lack of backup and not being able to contact my team. Or maybe it was the jetlag. Maybe I'd overexerted myself and my body was reacting negatively to the stress. It could even be the fact that I'd sworn off alcohol for this mission, though my body was so used to having it daily. Yes. That had to be it. It was the addiction fucking me up and making me hallucinate. It wasn't him. That would be impossible.
Yet, the familiar scent of cologne with just a hint of vanilla in it wafted through the air that encompassed us. Mixed with a man's natural musky scent, the smell was more intoxicating than the Jack Daniels I usually passed out on.
My chest felt like it was about to cave in. I recognized that smell, remembered it perfectly. Memories flooded my mind in connection with that smell. I could still remember the way he smelled every time I hugged him, every time we had sex, every time he was soaked in sweat after an extra challenging mission. And I could still remember the way it felt to be in his arms, my back to chest, when he'd come up behind me and hold me and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. It smelled just like this. It felt just like this. And my captor's voice sounded just like his. But damnit, it wasn't possible!
"This isn't real," I said aloud to myself, squeezing my eyes shut as tight as I could and praying that he'd be gone or that I'd snap out of the hallucination when I reopened them. "It can't be real. This can't be real."
I was trying to convince myself, but I wasn't believing me.
Still, I searched for any possible explanation. If it wasn't a hallucination, then it had to simply be another man whose voice sounded like his. People experienced that all the time, right? There was always someone who looked like someone else or sounded like someone else. It was possible, right? Then again, how many people had the same voice and scent, and felt the same when they held you?
"Damnit! No!" I shouted, feeling like I was about to go utterly insane over this.
In the blur of frustration and angst, I hadn't even realized he'd removed his hand from my mouth, but when he slapped it back over my mouth, I realized my outburst had likely alerted our – my – enemies to our location. I had to get away right then!
I jerked out of his grasp with as much force as I could muster, retrieving my pistol from the ground and spinning around, ready to shoot the man. But I couldn't get a clear shot in the darkness. It was pitch black, no moonlight to help me see his face or anything else. It would be pointless to hit him in the vest. I needed to shoot him where it would count – and quickly, as I could hear voices coming closer!
"Don't do it, Tali," the man warned, and his gruff tone brought a pain to my chest. "You can't see what you're shooting. Don't make that mistake twice."
Twice?
Suddenly, I was met with a gruesome flashback to the night in Enrique Bellucci's drug warehouse in Washington, D.C. I remembered every aspect of it like I was still there right that second. The frigid temperature, the sound of gunfire, the way Tess's blood felt sticky on my hands. I remembered every detail. Especially the part I wanted to forget the most. The mistake. I couldn't see him in the dark.
"How do you know my name?" I demanded in a hushed tone, hoping no one else could hear me. "Who sent you?"
The man was silent for a moment and then said, "I'll hand you my gun. I'll prove you can trust me."
An involuntary jolt of terror ripped through my chest and it felt like someone had their hand around my heart and was squeezing as hard as they could.
I knew that line. I'd heard it before. I remembered that line.
Toss me my gun. I'll prove you can trust me. Dallas's words echoed through my mind from the first night we'd met in Atlanta.
But goddamnit, this wasn't Dallas! Dallas David was dead!
The man took a step closer. Then another, and another. Then I could barely make out his silhouette as he reached out, holding his gun out for me to take, the barrel aimed at himself.
Was this man on a suicide mission?
"Take it," he ordered, and chills rippled through me at the sound of his voice again. "I trust you, Tali. You can trust me, too."
"Yeah. You can trust me to kill you," I told him, taking the gun from his hand.
Our fingers brushed against each other and I felt something like electricity at the connection. He'd removed his gloves. Some fucked up part of me in the very, very far back of my mind wondered what it would feel like to hold this man's hand, but I quickly shoved that thought out the window along with the rest of the insane ideas roaming through my head.
I was in control now. He'd given me his gun. He couldn't harm me because I'd kill him. There was nothing keeping me there with him. I could run away to safety right then. So why the hell was I not running?
"You could kill me. Yeah," he spoke again, his voice completely calm, just like Dallas's had been the night we'd met.
Damnit, Tali! He's not Dallas! I screamed in my head.
"But I think you might end up regretting it," he continued, leaves crunching beneath him as he took a step closer. "Besides, you weren't exactly successful last time around."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, refusing to overthink the memories that came to mind again.
"We don't have time for this right now," the man said in a suddenly rougher tone. "The police are headed into the trees. We need to get out of here now."
"We?" I scoffed, pointing both pistols in the general direction of his silhouette. "There is no 'we'. I'm not going anywhere with you, and you're not going anywhere with me."
"Fine. Have it your way. But I'm going to get my gun back one way or another."
Dallas... He'd said that same exact line the night we'd met, too.
I couldn't respond. My mouth had gone dry and my breathing had halted. I couldn't believe this. I refused to believe it. It wasn't happening. Was I still hallucinating? Had I simply gone insane? Maybe this was paranoia and it was focusing on the one person I'd been needing the most for the past four years. I'd heard about agents losing their minds in the field. The stress and near death experiences had finally gotten to them and they'd just lost it. The switch just simply flipped. Was that what was happening to me now?
I didn't get a chance to say something back when his body came crashing down on mine, pulling me to the ground in a heap beneath him. At first, I started panicking and struggling again, convinced that he was attacking me and trying to reclaim his pistol, but then I heard several loud pops near the tree line. Gunshots. He was lying on top of me to shield me from the bullets flying into the trees.
"I told you we need to get out of here, Tali," the man said, trying to keep his breathing steady. "You're coming with me whether you want to or not. I know you don't believe me, but I promise you can trust me. I'm trying to help you. Let me fucking help you."
His words. His voice. All of it. Everything was just like Dallas. Everything.
I couldn't breathe to form a reply.
"I'm familiar with Berlin," he whispered to me as bullets raced overhead. "I lived here for a few months. I know where to go to get away. Now, come with me, Tali."
Dallas had lived in Berlin at one time, too... I remembered him talking about it once when we were in Sydney.
I was too exhausted, too fucked up, too everything. I didn't have the energy to argue anymore and we'd already wasted too much time talking. I was going to have to trust him.
"Then get me out of here."
I swallowed hard and tried to push away the terror pumping through my veins as I handed him back his gun.
He rolled off of me and waited for the right break in gunfire to stand and help me back up. I could still only make out his silhouette, but even that I recognized, and it absolutely horrified every nerve within me.
I knew there was a chance that I was imagining all of this, and there was a decent chance that he was bluffing and going to kill me later anyway, but letting him help me was a chance I had to take if I wanted to make it out of the trees alive.
"This way," he said, leading me quickly through the trees, shoving branches out of the way and hopping over fallen trunks.
I was practically dizzy over the way his hand gripping mine felt. It was too familiar. Too real. Too Dallas.
We climbed and pushed and pulled our way through the trees for what seemed like forever until we finally came to a clearing where a small creek was rolling by. With the thick foliage out of the way, the moonlight shone down on us, and I knew if I looked at him now, I'd be able to actually see him and all his features. I wasn't ready for what I might see, though, and I refused to look at the man who was escorting me to safety.
He continued to pull me along behind him, still keeping a firm grasp on my hand where I was feeling pins and needles everywhere that his skin was touching mine. I was trying so hard to stay focused on the ground, watching for obstacles to step over, so that I wouldn't be able to look at him. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I just needed to get to safety and then get the hell away from him. I had to keep my head in the game and stay concentrated on the mission, the reason I'd come to Berlin in the first place. I couldn't allow my whole state of mind to be scrambled like eggs over this man. I was liable to get myself killed.
After wading through the knee-high water, we hurried across the field on the opposite side. Gunshots were still ringing out in the trees behind us and we could hear several people, presumably the police, yelling for us to stop and surrender. Somewhere in the distance, I also thought I heard a man speaking Italian, possibly on a phone call. I tried to file the odd detail in my memory to jot down later.
We struggled to fight a path through more dense foliage and then came out the other side on what appeared to be a service road near a highway. I managed to look everywhere but at him as we ran across two roads parallel to each other and then behind an old brick building that looked like a rundown bar that was closed for the night. Finally, we came to a stop when we reached a dark blue sedan.
The man turned to me, but I continued to stare at the ground. Now was my chance to be on my merry way. He'd helped me get out of that mess and now I was free to leave. Yet, for some reason, my shoes felt like they'd been filled with cement. I wasn't moving. It was like I was anchored there to the concrete and we were standing way too close.
"What are you waiting for? Get in the car," he said like it should be the easiest thing in the world for me to do. "We're not safe here, Tali."
That clenching in my heart had returned with a vengeance, along with an entirely new feeling. It was like a magnetic pull that was drawing me closer to the man in front of me. It was almost like I needed to stay there with him, like my heart couldn't let me walk away.
"You're not even going to look at me?" he asked, his words laced with hurt.
I was fighting, arguing with myself. There was a war going on between my head and my heart, and they were both losing the battle.
Slowly, I started to lift my gaze, seeing his black boots first, then his dirt-covered black pants, the black vest that covered his torso, and then...
Hazel eyes. Deep and dark and full of passion. Fiery. The kind of eyes you could get lost in and never return.
"Dallas..."
And then it all went black.