If you've read my AU Fic called Stuck, I told you that I was working on a huge oneshot. Here it is you guys. I'm giving you the numbers, so get ready.
19 pages on Google Drive (size 11, Arial), 7,016 words total. Also, a week of revision and a bit of a plot change.
It's big, you guys. It's huge! Please tell what you think of this story, since I worked a long time on it. Sit back and enjoy, y'all.
It's seven in the morning, and Jasmine is in desperate need for a coffee.
"So, you've been assigned to this flank, eh?" Mitchell says. He's a gangly man who has the mind of a genius, always the one who comes up with the battle strategy. "That side is definitely the most guarded. You need an expert who can get through."
"That's why they asked me to do it," Jasmine says with a yawn. The room is blinding with streaks of light coming to the windows. She blinks sleepily, unable to think about anything but her daily caffeination.
He shifts forward in his seat and flicks away a strand of perfectly gelled hair. "Are you sure you're ready for the task? Even though our ally is sending their top agent doesn't mean -"
Jasmine snaps awake to hear his skeptical comments, and rolls her eyes in annoyance. "It means that she and I can handle it."
"Actually, it's a he. His name is Logan Watson."
She gives a half-hearted shrug, too drowsy to process the information. "Same difference. Just tell me what we have to do."
He swivels around in his chair to retrieve a tablet, and the screen flickers with images. "First, what you have to do is get past their first line. This one's going to be a doozy, so we're sending in others to take the brunt while you two sneak past. Only fire if necessary. Their second wave is going to be weak, getting past them will be child's play."
Jasmine finds herself falling asleep once more, and the thought of a mocha latte flits tantalizingly through her mind. She wills herself to focus.
"First wave, don't fire; second wave, free-for-all," she mutters to herself groggily.
"The orders will be relayed from the command center," he says. "The third and fourth wave are the thickest of all, and although their weapons are inferior, they can kill you."
"That's what weapons do," she mumbles. He glares at her.
"Finally, you'll have to disable the land mines. This is the trickiest part. After you're done with that, the rest should be easy. You run into the headquarters, and since all of the command center is probably weak like me, you should be able to destroy the disk. Should."
Jasmine frowns. "So this is what it's all about? A disk?"
"A disk that holds the personal information of everyone in the world. It used to belong to us, but they've installed some kind of virus into it. What you need to do is burn it, drop it on a landmine, destroy it."
"Dang. Sure, okay."
"The mission starts in a week. Training starts in, hmm, thirty minutes?"
Jasmine groans. She really needs that coffee.
She actually gets to the gymnasium on time; the clock reads seven forty-five, exactly thirty minutes from when her meeting ended. The instructor ushers her off to do shooting, and so far, she's getting the hang of it, hitting the exact center almost every time. This is her first time handling a real gun, she realizes, not the plastic ones. And she's getting good.
About fifteen minutes later, when she's hit the bullseye at least twenty times in a row, she can hear the pounding of footsteps outside in the hallways. She turns around to look just as the door bursts open, and a man steps out. He looks about her age, only much taller. He has dark blonde hair and these blue eyes and Jasmine can only think, damn he's hot. He's holding papers and gasping for breath, as if he ran all the way from the lobby, which is pretty far away. He glances at everyone in the gym (Jasmine, the bewildered instructor, and a lone trainee) and announces, "Sorry that I'm late."
The instructor takes his papers and leads him over the the weights, and when he starts, Jasmine can't take her eyes off his arms. Those things were a work of art, the way they flexed. She forces herself to go back to shooting, though she's so disoriented that the plastic bullet hits the very edge of the target. Get your game on, Kang.
Finally, after an immense twenty minutes of immense concentration, she can see him from her peripheral vision get up from the weights and saunter over to the guns. He grabs a pistol from the back table and blindfold himself. He then fires at all the targets, and the bullets stick in the middle of each. He is actually vain enough to shout to all in the gym, "Hold the applause!"
"Shameless," she thinks out loud, making a face. She hopes he doesn't hear her remark.
He hears her remark.
"You saw that shot, right? It was noteworthy." The way he says it is so confident, Jasmine almost punches him in the face, but she doesn't. She knows he's just being cocky as a joke.
"Yeah. The way you show off is pretty noteworthy too," she jabs, and he grabs his heart as if he were hurt. He's still smiling though.
"Touché," he replies. "Let's see how you shoot, assuming you're going to look at the target, not my arms."
"Very funny, you," Jasmine says back, fighting a blush. The nerve of him is implausible. She goes to the back of the area and launches herself into a somersault, shooting multiple bullets at the same time. When she gets up, she examines her work: Four bullets making a perfect little ring around the center. Jasmine mentally applauses herself - it's good shooting. No, fantastic shooting.
The guy whistles lowly. "Damn." He holds out his hand to her. "Logan Watson."
"Jasmine Kang," she says, shaking it. She vaguely remembers the name…
Oh.
It was going to be a hell of a mission.
On the day of the mission, Jasmine finds out that the chances of her dying are pretty high.
Sure, practice went well. She did grenade throwing, knife throwing, and a lot of other throwing. She also continued to practice at the shooting area, allured but the thought of guns and the mission and Logan. They had little contests, where they would try to outshoot each other, all the while playfully dissing the other. Jasmine was pretty sure that she would make it out of the mission, but she still had her doubts. Then, Mitchell showed her a picture of how armed the rivals were.
"Crap," she curses. "I'm supposed to get through that?"
"Sure," he says, looking sort of smug, "you said you were up for the job, right?"
Jasmine thinks for a moment about how to reply. "Yeah." Fantastic choice of words.
"You'll find a way." He pauses for a moment, then with a sly smirk, "Just don't try seducing the rival again. That definitely did not work out the way you wanted it to."
Her face flushes when she thinks about when that happened. "I'm this close to judo flipping you out of the window."
"All I'm saying is that you should do fine," he amends, neatly stacking some papers. "You should go; you have a disk to destroy."
When she is dressed and prepped with an earpiece and two pistols, an intercom calls her into the flight room. Buzzing with adrenaline, she wonders if she really coming back. How would she die, anyways? A grenade? A landmine? A bullet to the head? She tells herself to stop worrying and focus on what is ahead.
But the thing is, the risks were huge. She'd never faced chances of dying so prominent, and then there was Logan. A hot, incredibly accomplished agent, who could probably plow through the mission himself. Still, she worried. The risks were sky-high, and this time, she would have another life to feel responsible over.
She reaches the room. Logan stands a little ways off, hands shoved deep in his pockets, and his the sides of his lips quirk up with he sees her. She gives him a nervous smile in return, heart thumping at an irregular speed. The pilot shouts for them to get into the plane, and Jasmine can't help but think cynically that there's no turning back.
Logan's being there with her makes her loosen up a little, but not much. This is her most dangerous mission yet.
During the plane ride, the suspense almost kills her. When they land, the two of them immediately barrel into place behind some bushes. The army from headquarters shouts to get the enemy's attention, and they launch into battle. Logan and Jasmine scurry along behind the bushes, and Jasmine can hear Logan grunt every time a stick pokes his face. She end up being comfortable enough to manage laughter.
After a while of crawling, they're in the clear. Logan quickly stretches and tells her, "I could hear you laughing, you know."
She smiles a little and moves ahead.
Mitchell is right, the next battle is child's play. Logan and Jasmine shoot down every single guard, trying to avoid giving fatal injuries. The last guard attempts to shoot her, but she just laughs as the bullet misses her. "No hard feelings," she tells him as she shoots his foot in an indirect hit. He winces in pain and they run past him.
Going into the third battle, Jasmine is cocky and smug, no longer nervous, but that quickly fades. The entire mass of the rival army isn't good at all. A quick message is relayed into her earpiece: "Turbulence in the air. Code 651. Turbulence. Code 651."
She glances, horrified, at Logan, who pulls her behind another bush. He winces as another stick pokes him on his jaw, but Jasmine isn't in any mood to laugh.
"Listen, if the army is delayed, we can't do anything. We'll be slaughtered," he hisses. You don't say, she almost snaps, but she knows it's not fair to him if she says that.
I need another coffee, she thinks. It's been a long morning.
"Don't you think I know that?" she groans. "Look, you need to check for landmines and deactivate bombs. I'll send a message explaining our situation. I might throw some grenades too."
He pauses, thinking over the consequences.
"Fine, be careful," he says. "I don't want you getting hurt, even as badass as you are.
Impulsively, she kisses him on the cheek. "You really are an idiot, aren't you? I'll be fine."
Jasmine wishes that she took tree-climbing training over the past week, because she sucks at it.
Using common instinct, she knows getting on higher ground is safest for playing with grenades, although getting on higher ground is harder. With a heave of effort, she curses the tree for trading lower branches for smooth bark.
When she finally does get up though, she relays the message to Logan. She's met with a reply saying he's deactivated at least five landmines, and she's giddy with anticipation. I might actually make it out alive, she thinks.
She finally gets the message across to Mitchell, who replies with, "Holy crap" and "Sending more armies". She senses his panic, and tries to soothe him with the progress Logan's been making, which only worries him further.
"There must be, what, three thousand landmines? You need to tell him to be careful out there. They could find him."
"Do you think it'll be safe to throw grenades around here?" she asks him.
"Definitely not right now, but I'll tell you when." A pause. "You need to tell Logan to shoot down a couple of soldiers. They're gaining on him."
"Will do."
She repeats the message to Logan, who, in turn, shoots down the enemies. She can hear the gunfire through her earpiece, and Logan is breathing hard into the mike.
"Thanks, Jaz," he says heavily. "We're a pretty good team."
"Yeah," she replies, but her twenty-two year old mind is pulling a twelve year old one, fangirling over the fact that he called her Jaz. "No problem. More armies are coming from both the headquarters and the enemies, and I'm going to start throwing grenades."
"Wait, hold on. What?"
She ignores him and continues talking. "I need you to stay covered and avoid killing, since that'll draw attention to you. I'll throw down a couple grenades. It might blow me out of the tree and kill me, but, you know. What's done is done."
"Jasmine, you can't do this. Not on your own," he says. She can almost see him frowning, his eyebrows knit together in that adorable way.
"Well, I'm going to have to. I think I'll survive. The headquarters' armies are coming anyways." She grabs grenades from her pack.
"You're impossible," he grumbles. "Good luck, you."
She almost fumbles the grenades when she hears him say that, but her hands are too full to press the speaker button and say it back to him. It sucks that she can't do it, since she'd rather not have (possibly) her last words with him to be arguement.
She readies herself and thinks, Here goes nothing, and throws the lit grenades.
It's actually kind of funny at first to see the mass panic below; grown men screaming their heads off, running in circles in their attempt to stay away. After the grenades explode, she's glad that she's going to live, but when she sees a couple dead soldiers and many, many casualties, her heart sinks with guilt.
"Jasmine, you okay?" Logan asks her through the mike.
"I'm fine," she says after a while. "Let's move."
She jumps down from the tree, ignoring the searing pain in her feet when she lands (it must've been at least one story high) and runs after Logan, who is running and deactivating at the same time. When she's caught up to him, he gives her a crooked grin, that almost makes her heart soar out of her chest. She breathes a "hey".
"Glad to see you alive," he replies, and Jasmine thinks, dang, that's way better than just a hey. "I just got a message from my sister, at the other command center, that their armies are still behind."
"You have a sister? How's she like?" Jasmine asks, keeping her thoughts away from what's ahead. They continue to sprint through dark alleys, seeing the shiny headquarters with neat planted trees and bushes there. What was it with them and bushes?
"We're twins, and she's really smart," he says. "She's how sisters go, I guess, always teasing me and stuff. She likes to hold it over my head that she's older by a minute or so." He laughs. "She's a pain in the ass sometimes, but she's pretty cool."
Jasmine wonders what it would be like to have a twin brother.
He clears his throat. "How about you? Any siblings?"
"Uh, no," Jasmine says. "Just an only child. It's boring, really. I'd rather have an annoying brother."
"Are you indirectly talking about me?" he says, the beginnings of a smile on his lips. He looks incredibly amused.
"I may or may not be," she says, and they laugh together, continuing to jog towards the headquarters
Suddenly, she can hear voices and rustling, and the two of the go behind a bush yet again. "We need to stop doing this," Logan groans softly, and Jasmine shushes him.
Suddenly, a voice buzzes through her earpiece, "Flight landing. Launch attack."
"We can attack now," Jasmine whispers to Logan. She checks her bag for the grenades, "Where the hell are they?"
"What are you even talking about?"
"Just stay here and wait for orders."
She turns towards him. The bush is way smaller than the other ones, so they're pressed tightly against each other. His eyes are so blue, and his hair is ruffled from the wind and action. He has a shallow cut on his cheek (probably from the sticks poking out from the bushes) and the corners of his mouth are pulled down. He's so concerned it's adorable and she can't help but think how kissable he is right now. Thank God for bushes, she thinks.
"Too late," he murmurs, breaking the moment, "here they come."
A hovercraft lands, and streams of agents march out in perfect formation, and Jasmine looks at him again, thinking This is it. This is the sole purpose of why we're here. Her body pulses with adrenaline.
He must've been thinking the same thing, but he says, "Just wait for orders, right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, okay."
After two minutes or so, a voice buzzes insistently in her ear piece. It's Mitchell. "They're closing in on you. Just run!"
"Shit, we need to go!" Jasmine cries, pulling him along with her. Both the rival and allied army notice her, which makes her heart pound. Their pursuers chase after them.
Logan wrenches away from her and starts shooting down enemies who have raised their guns. She barrels forward, straight into a crowd of enemy guards, who are too startled by their surprise appearance. They only load their guns after Jasmine is a good hundred meters away from them. After another agonizing few minutes in the crowd of enemies, Jasmine's given many minimal injuries and escaped bullets around five times. Logan is about the same.
At the last minute, a group of surprise attackers jump them. Logan's already ahead somewhere, and Jasmine has no choice but to wrestle her enemies off of her. She goes into a stance, and with the other five surrounding her, she doesn't have any choice but to turn around slowly and carefully, judging the others, waiting for them to strike.
And one foolish rival comrade does. He jabs the back of his rifle into her stomach, which knocks the air out of her. She recovers enough to shoot him in the arm, and he falls to the ground with a shriek. The others close in on her, and though she really isn't a parkour kind of person, she jumps on top of a comrade, and does a backflip off of him. She starts shooting them down before they can react, and breaks into a run after the direction Logan went.
When she sees him, he's staring at her, almost the same way she did when he first arrived a week ago at the gym. Catching up to him, she teases, "Who's staring at who now?"
She swears she can see him blush, but maybe that's just her imagination. "You were so badass, how could anyone not?" he says, grinning. "Also, nice flip. That was hot."
"You are such a flirt, Watson," she says, unable to stop the smile on her face.
"Guilty as charged," he shrugs with a laugh. "Let's go. We don't have all day to talk about my charm."
Together, they break into the headquarters. They run straight for the fire emergency stairs, all the way up to the top, just as Mitchell instructed.
"This is it," Logan pants lightly as they reach the twentieth flight of stairs. "I just want to say, it was a pleasure meeting you, Kang."
"You too, Watson," she says, and it really was.
"You know…" Logan hesitates. "Assuming we survive, you know, the mission, you want to go for a coffee? I know a good place."
Jasmine was just thinking about all the ways she could die in this last stage before he says the very line that makes her mouth dry. He asked her out. Jasmine definitely did not think it would be in this kind of scenario, but he did.
Logan must've sensed her hesitation, because he adds, "But only if you want to."
"I, um, yeah, I'd love to go! I mean, but what if I die?" she says quickly, trying not to lose the opportunity, "I wouldn't want to leave you, uh, hanging."
He gives her a smirk. "Please. If anything, I would be the one dying. So what do you say?"
He's really never looked so handsome. His blue eyes seems to glitter in the dark lighting of the staircases.
"Sure," she stutters.
He gives her a huge smile, one that basically makes her melt like hot wax. "I'll hold you to it. Let's keep moving."
There's a large hallway, in which Mitchell warned were actually packed with guards. The two of them step cautiously out onto the smooth marble floor, shoes making the tiniest of squeaks. "It's so quiet here," Logan murmurs. Jasmine promptly puts her hand over his mouth, since he seems to be rambling and flustered since he asked her out.
Logan shuts up, and Jasmine takes her hand away.
"Okay, Mitchell told me that the disk is in one of the wings," Jasmine says, loading the barrels of her pistols. "This'll be dangerous, but I'll go to the west wing and you'll go to the east."
He gives her an incredulous look. "Are we splitting up again?"
"Yes, if we're going to get any work done. We can keep chatting over the mikes. You tell me where you are, what you've done, et cetera, et cetera."
"Okay, but one last thing," he says. He pulls her over and kisses her briefly, which leaves her feeling like she rode the Screamin' Eagle at the amusement park. He gives her something that resembles a smirk and a genuine smile. "Now go kick some rival ass."
He runs off, and Jasmine is almost completely dazed from his last action. Her heart is thudding at an irregular rhythm, and Jasmine curses him for being so hot and sweet and such a good kisser. She sighs in a both exasperated and wistful way, and runs off to the other side once she collected her bearings and knows her left from her right.
It's a little while later, Jasmine knows she is probably going to die. Especially with that bullet in her arm.
The first part was a trip to the park. She shot down countless enemies, all with their guns locked and loaded. They seemed wimpy in comparison to the other comrades that she'd shot down, and her adrenaline was only building. Now, she is surrounded by soldiers who probably weigh more than twice of her. They aim for her with their bazooka-sized guns, probably savoring the moment before they finish her off. Her vision is blurry from pain. The excitement has throbbed away, and all she is left with is a searing pain in her left arm. She glances down at the gash and winces. It doesn't look good.
"Hey, guys," she tries with a winning smile. Seductive techniques sounded really good right now. "Would mind giving a girl a hand?"
They all laugh at her. The pathetic way that she's standing is probably the cherry on the cake for humiliation.
"Nice try, girl," one says, his gun lowering, knowing she'll probably bleed to death from her wound (and frankly, it feels like it too). "How old are you? Sixteen? Fifteen?"
"Twenty-two," she growls. Screw the seductive act.
They all laugh again.
"'Twenty-two'," another one mimics in a high-pitched voice. "How pitiful. Maybe we should kill right now, to end your suffering."
Suddenly, she can hear a voice. "Jaz? How are you doing?"
She nearly cries from joy. Logan.
"Not good," she says from under her breath, grunting from the pain that even this is causing her. The men surrounding her are looking at her, deciding that she has finally gone delirious from the blood loss.
"Well, I found the disk in the East Wing, and deactivated all the security cameras. You coming?"
"Well aren't you the little fix-it," she mutters. "And I'd love to come. Only there's a bullet in my arm and there is security surrounding me."
Jasmine knows that - naturally - Logan will panic. "Shit, what? I'm coming to get you. Uh, act hurt and pathetic or something. Like you're going to die."
She grunts. "Believe me, this isn't an act sweetie."
"I'm going now. Hang on." And then the mike is silent.
Jasmine doesn't know how much longer she can hold on to life.
When Logan does come, he makes an entrance.
Jasmine watches as he bursts into the hallway and single-handedly shoots down every guard. They all shout as they go down. Logan runs over to her, where she sits, slumped. After many minutes of pain, she is standing up, next to Logan, who is supporting her as she walks.
She blinks away the stars from her eyes and comments dryly, "Now you've had your badass moment, Watson."
He gives a little laugh, his eyes trained forward. He almost looks a little upset. "Not my worst."
"Hey. It's not your fault I was shot. I'm not indestructible," Jasmine tells him. He's still not looking at her.
"I know," he says. "It's not completely that. I just thought, if you go down, what are the chances of us surviving the mission?"
She ponders this for a moment. They continue on in silence. Jasmine feels sharp stabs of pain every time she makes a move, and can't help but let out small, whimpering sounds each time she takes a step. Despite it, she chides herself for being weak. She can't baby herself right now, even judging by the wound's condition.
"Hey, you okay?" Logan says, pausing to look at her. The concern in his eyes is so earnest and palpable, she has this weird feeling where she wants to kiss him and punch him in the face at the same time.
"I'm fine," she says, gritting her teeth from the new wave of nausea. "We don't have forever. Let's keep moving."
"If you're sure…"
"I'm sure," she lies, and gently extracts herself from him, already missing his warmth. "Also, I only hurt my arm, Logan. I think I can handle walking."
She takes a few steps away, but almost immediately she stumbles, falling to the floor. He scoops her up, and says, "Really, Kang? Didn't peg you as a liar."
"You'd better get used to it," she mutters, but she loves the scent of him so much, she almost doesn't bother arguing with him. His cologne is definitely a turn-on, and the scent of fresh cotton is almost irresistible. Jasmine stops herself from snuggling closer.
"I suppose I should." He smirks at her, and Jasmine almost has the feeling that he's reading her thoughts. "You're right, we need to get moving. Also," he rips a sleeve from his shirt off and wraps it around the wound, "you'll need this. Damn, you're losing a lot of blood."
She barely has time to reply before she collapses in his arms. All she can see is spots, and before she knows it, he's muttering, "Closing in? Already? Crap. Crap crap crap," and he's carrying her and running and running, and her mind goes completely blank.
When she's regained full conscience, she notices, first of all, she's not in his arms anymore. This makes her a little disappointed, but she shoos away the thought, and focuses on other things. Like the battle ahead of her.
Logan is going full out, punching and wrestling men to the ground. One of his pistols has skidded to a stop next to her. From the looks of it, the battle is not going so great. Three comrades have surrounded him. One has pinned him to the ground, and the others have started circling him.
Right when Logan notices Jasmine, his eyes go wide and the three men have cut off the air to his lungs. He's still flailing in their grasp, but the movements are slower and slower. Jasmine starts to panic and thinks, What the heck will I do? and then the pistol next to her registers in her mind. She crawls over to it, ignoring the flaring pain in her arm, and grabs it. She checks the barrel. Three bullets.
There would be no redo.
She is strangely confident as she raises the pistol and aims. Logan's face is turning purple but no air, and when she fires the bullets at the men, she knows she's aimed right. They release him, he's choking, she's leaning against the cool surface of the wall.
Finally, after an eternity, the air is back in his lungs, and he crawls back over to her weakly. "Hey, Jaz, what happened?"
He shakes her lightly. She blinks slowly, and mumbles, "Hey."
"Are you feeling okay?" The relief is his voice is so evident, she almost laughs. If she weren't so light-headed.
"I'm fine, Watson," she says. "Just a little woozy."
The way he looks at her makes her insides feel funny.
"Do I look like I've almost died?" she asks him.
He studies her. His hair is so ruffled that Jasmine resists the urge to straighten it with her fingers. "No. You look fantastic, actually."
She smiles - hoping she doesn't look too bashful and fangirl-y - and punches him in the arm. "Again, such a flirt."
He helps her up, and she notices how much better she's feeling. A little unsteady on her feet, sure, but the pain has reduced to small spikes in her arm, which is stitched up neatly.
"Who did this?"
"Nobody, really," Logan shrugs, "just a flirtatious blonde who wanted to get into my pants."
"You're kidding."
"I'm not, I swear," he says, laughing. "I could never stitch up your wound so neatly. All she required in payment was this." He shows off his very well toned arm - Jasmine swallows when she sees his biceps - in which someone had scrawled their number. "She was like, 'Call me.' And she winked so seductively. I almost burst out laughing."
His laugh almost makes her forget about the burning sensation in her arm. She laughs too. "You should've seen my last mission. It was nothing compared to your situation with the blondie."
"Oh really, now?" He raises an eyebrow, a grin playing across his lips. "This should be interesting, Kang. You'd better tell me after this is all over."
"Count on it, Watson."
He chuckles. "Come on. Let's get moving, if you're any feeling better."
When they reach the West Wing, Logan turns towards her says, "This is it."
It sounded so sinister. He looks at her for permission to go into the wing, and she nods. The pain in her arm has lowered to a sore.
Once they go in, they startle a couple of guards, and realizing that she has only a couple bullets left, Jasmine grabs her tranquilizing gun. Before they can react: boom boom boom - they're lying on the floor, montionless.
"Nice moves," Logan tells her, and she's so pumped on adrenaline that she needs a moment to process this.
They continue breaking into different rooms, startling comrades and racing to the end of the halls. Jasmine has never felt more confident, almost certain she and Logan are going to get out of the mission alive, especially when she finds a seemingly limitless supply of tranquilizer darts in her pocket. Her arm is a little sore, but Jasmine is too energized to feel it.
They break into the final room, and Jasmine isn't surprised when she see all the guards packed into it. She shoots then without a second thought, her mind only buzzing with one thought: the disk.
The disk is locked in a bulletproof glass case, and apparently has some sort of fingerprint lock. Through the chaos and confusion of the endless guards, Jasmine barely makes a plan.
"Logan," she mutters into her earpiece. "Logan, you idiot, answer me."
She can hear him panting. "Sorry, a little busy."
"Yeah, well, same. We need to devise a plan to get to the disk."
She can hear his frown in his voice. "We don't need a plan."
"What?"
"Look, we don't need a complicated way to get the fricken disk. All we need to do is shoot everyone and go."
She groans. "Seriously?"
"Hey, no plan is the best plan."
After many darts and guards later, Jasmine shoots a guard with her last dart. There seems to be no one left. She hears Logan breathe a sigh of relief from the other side of the room.
"We're safe," he says. Jasmine lets out a long whoosh of air.
Pro tip: Never believe that you are safe.
A man in a suit strolls out the doorway, stepping over unconscious bodies. He's thin with a pale complexion, and something that resembles a smirk plays on his lips. His eyes are unnerving, and they sweep over Jasmine and Logan's profile distastefully.
"So you've made it," he drawls. "I've been expecting you."
"Yeah, same here," Jasmine says. "Where's the trap? The catch?"
He laughs without humor. His eyes are trained into hers, and she can feel a shiver along her spine. "Oh dear, going straight to business, aren't we? I'm afraid this is a trap."
He strolls up to her, looking closely at her features. "What a beautiful girl, with such talent too. Would be such a shame if you died."
The man glances over at Logan. "And you, young man, remind me of myself when I was younger - strong, powerful, quite handsome too."
"Hard to believe," Logan mutters.
The man narrows his eyes. "No need to get touchy, here. All that I bargain is this: You destroy the disk, I take one of your lives."
"How about I give you a better deal?" Jasmine says, cocking her pistol at him. There is only one more bullet. "You let us destroy the disk, we go off in peace. You continue to do whatever you do. Everyone wins."
"Oh, but what's in it for me?" He laughs. Then, lightning quick, he pulls out a pistol of his own and aims it at Logan. Jasmine lets out a strangled gasp from her throat. "I could kill one of the top agents from my rivals. There would be one less pest to worry about!"
"You wouldn't dare," Jasmine says, unknowingly quoting one of the most cliché lines from her favorite action movies.
"But I would," he says, with a wicked smile. "I've been waiting a very long time for this, my dear."
They stand like that for a while, both guns cocked at someone's body. "Well, what's it going to be?" he snarls. "Choose!"
The moment she shoots him in the head is the exact moment he shoots Logan in the stomach, and the man dies instantly. Logan crumples to the ground, and the worst part is that he doesn't make a sound.
After a moment of shock, she sprints over to his side, kneeling next to his head. "Logan, you idiot, talk to me," she gasps. She checks his pulse. It's still beating, but faintly.
She sends a quick, urgent message to Mitchell, who replies that the medics are already on their way. Jasmine clutches Logan's hand, forcing back tears and hysteria. When he opens his eyes, it's all Jasmine can do to not envelope him in a bone-crushing hug.
"How you feeling?" she asks him. He gives her the smallest of smiles.
"Like I've been hit by a bullet."
She laughs and wipes tears from her eyes. "The medics are coming. Just hang on, Watson."
"I'm trying. And if we can't go on that coffee date, it's okay. You're the coolest partner anyone could ask for," he says, and Jasmine immediately hates him for making it sound like his last words.
"Don't you dare leave me hanging," she threatens.
"I'll do what I can," he says. "I told you that you were going to be the one surviving."
Logan goes into a coughing fit. The blood gushes out of his wound faster than ever, and Jasmine quickly tears off a piece of fabric off a fallen comrade's jacket. She presses it against Logan's wound. His warmth is fading.
"Destroy the disk," he rasps with effort.
The disk! She races over to the glass case, and tries her fingerprint. No dice. She grabs the dead man's hand, and presses his finger to the glass. The screen reads, Recognized, and the case opens. She looks at it for a moment, then smashes it on the floor. It breaks into tiny shards. After it's been done, she notices that Logan's gone silent again. She rushes to his side.
"Now my sacrifice isn't in vain," he says. His eyes are cloudy. "You have a good life, okay?"
"You are such an ass," she replies, trying not to cry.
"It's what I do." And then his pulse almost stops and he closes his eyes.
When the medics bust through the doors she is completely numb from shock and sadness. They help her up and tell her soothing words, but the buzzing in her ears drowns them out. She looks at the stitches on her arm, and a wave of nausea overcomes her. The reality of the situation hits her hard. She can barely contain tears.
They take them away, and she prays he'll still be alive.
A week later, Jasmine refuses to get out of bed. She's locked herself in her room at the headquarters, sleeping and rethinking everything that had happened. People had been in her room countless times to tell her to wake up, to get her blood pumping. But what was the point? She'd just roll to the other side and close her eyes. Dreaming was a lot better than reality, after all.
She opens her eyes anyway. She can't go a minute without subconsciously replaying that one scene over and over. She shouldn't of pulled the trigger. Logan shouldn't of died. They should've made a plan.
"This was your fault, you nitwit," she says out loud. "But it was my fault too."
She sits up in bed. Why haven't they delivered any news about him? Is he alive? Is he dead? Jasmine shivers at the last thought.
Suddenly, a knock sounds at the door.
"Come in," Jasmine croaks.
Mitchell flies in, seemingly in a good mood. "Jasmine, I have some good news."
Probably not enough to cheer me up, she thinks. "Shoot."
"First of all, your awards ceremony is on Tuesday," he says quickly, glancing at Jasmine's serious case of bed-head. "Second, Logan's alive. They managed to save him."
"What?" She nearly flies out of bed. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
He shifts uncomfortably. "I just received the news about fifteen minutes ago. Also, he wants you to go stop by."
Jasmine's heart beats faster. He wants to see her? Well, she definitely wants to see him. She quickly drapes a sweater over her shoulders, twists her hair into a messy bun and runs out the door before Mitchell can ask what she's doing.
The infirmary isn't very far away, but when she gets there she's panting. The nurse at the front desk tells her that Logan is in the room down the hall, in emergency care. All of the doctors and lobby-goers stare at her strangely, but all she really registers it that he is alive and she has to get to his room.
She bursts into his room, panting, and the first thing she sees are his eyes. They're not looking at her though, they're trained on a blonde, who is standing over his head. They're having a teasing argument, the girl fussing over the wires and his equipment while Logan is laughing. This makes Jasmine's heart drop a little, and she watches them as they banter on, smiles alight on their faces.
Finally, Jasmine just can't stand it anymore and makes a small ah-hem noise. They both stop their chatter and look at her.
Once Logan's seemingly recognized the situation at hand, Jasmine can see his smile grow. "Hey Jaz," he says.
"Hey," she mumbles, adjusting her zippered hoodie. She glances down at her sweatpants and feels a little self-conscious of what she's wearing. Does the hoodie hide her camisole? She needs a mirror. Maybe she should've changed before she came.
The blonde is watching them carefully, like she's trying to figure something out.
"Oh, right," Logan says. "Jasmine, this is my sister, Lindy. Lindy, this is Jasmine - we were… partners in the mission."
Jasmine catches herself before breathing a sigh of relief. Of course she's his sister. Good looks must've definitely ran in the family.
Jasmine smiles and sticks out her hand. "Nice to meet you."
Lindy returns the smile and shook it. "Same here."
An awkward silence hangs over the room, and Lindy looks at her watch. "Oh, man," she remarks. "I'm kind of late to a meeting. See you later, Logan. Nice meeting you, Jasmine."
When they've bid their goodbyes and Lindy dashes out the door, Jasmine turns towards Logan. "I can't believe you're alive," she breathes.
Logan lets out a small laugh. "Me, neither."
She crosses the room to him. "How does your stomach feel?"
"Okay." He shrugs. "They stitched it up alright, and gave me some kind of numbing sensation to make it hurt less. It makes me really tired though." And he yawns, to prove his point.
Jasmine yawns too.
"So I heard that you slept the entire week since the mission," he comments, sitting up a little.
"Yeah," she admits.
"You got a nice, sexy bed-head going on right now, though," Logan says with a grin.
This time, his comment doesn't make her blush. She laughs. "Flirtatious as always, Watson. Even when you're weak and lying in bed with a bunch of tubes attached."
"My charm is unbeatable."
"I'll say," Jasmine scoffs.
His glances up at her, and the way his eyes are trained on her own is enough to make two grown woman faint. "As I recall, you agreed to go on a date with me?" He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
"You're such a dork," she says, smiling.
"I'll take that as a yes."
They both laugh and before she knows it, he's kissing her, and she's kissing back, and she thinks, Wow, what was I missing out on? because he's a damn good kisser. She's getting really hot and flustered and when Logan traces her jawline with his fingers she feels like someone has released a butterfly farm in her chest. Finally, Logan pulls away and smirks at her. "You were getting a little excited there."
"Psh, don't pretend that you weren't either," she says, and breathing hard from their ministrations. She's a little light-headed from pleasure.
He gives her a sideways grin. "You got me. You free next weekend?"
She almost bursts out laughing, but instead she just pulls him close and kisses him again. He doesn't object.