2/ Sean

I'd heard the fight over the earpiece and I knew that Alex and the mission were in danger. Her contact lenses had lost signal as soon as she'd entered the room, so I was blind to who was winning. I was about to throw open the door and rush to her help when my action was stolen from me. The car door was almost ripped off its hinges and I turned ready to fight off the enemy.

"Nikita?" I frowned, staring at the slender woman stood in front of me. She smiled impatiently at me before grabbing the front of my jacket and hoisting me forwards so that our faces were just centimetres apart. She did not look happy.

"Where's Alex?" she demanded.

"She's in trouble, I have to help her," I snapped, pushing Nikita away from me. She stumbled slightly backwards and two hands grabbed her shoulders to steady her. I followed the hands with my eyes until I came to a familiar face. Michael. I'd never met him in person, but he was a Division legend. I should have known that he would be wherever Nikita was.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, momentarily distracted from the rescue mission at hand.

"We followed you. I knew from the start that this mission would end in disaster. You put Alex in the line of fire with so much as a needle as her protection! Do you even know anything about Alex and what she's been through?" Nikita snarled at me.

"She wanted to be part of this mission!" I struck back. She glared at me and I glared back. We were not each other biggest fans.

"We heard over the line that she's in trouble," Michael cut in, his voice calm and full of reason. Nikita dropped her gaze at the sound of his words and seemed to relax a little.

"Do you have an extraction or clean up team nearby?" she asked.

"No. This is an undercover Division mission personal to Amanda," I replied. Nikita rolled her eyes and ran both hands through her long straight hair. She sighed heavily as if she was trying hard to bite her tongue.

"We need to get in there," she said, doing her best to hide the undercurrent of annoyance in her tone. She wasn't used to working with people, that much was clear.

"Is her tracker still live?" Michael asked forever the collected.

"Yes," I replied, ducking my head inside the car to check the small monitor of my laptop. Just as I did, the red dot that was Alex flashed twice and disappeared. I watched as it returned and then began blinking. A large warning window opened on the screen. "Until now. It's still live but we've lost signal," I murmured.

"She's underground," Michael whispered, "did they know she wasn't working alone?"

"I think they presumed…" I replied with a shrug of my shoulders.

"We need to move, now," Nikita said.

I reached inside the car and closed the small laptop which I stuffed under the driver's seat and my jacket which I shook my arms into. I then sealed off the monitors which blinked on the dashboard so that if anybody peered into the window they would just see a regular car. I also flicked a switch under the steering wheel and a fake second licence plate closed over the real one to conceal it at both ends of the car. After that I shut the door and made sure it was locked before swinging around to the boot and collecting my gun. Just as I slammed and locked it shut, two suited up security guys rounded the corner of the building on a routine sweep. Nikita grabbed me and dragged me behind the car just in time and their flashlights avoided highlighting us.

"All clear in the parking lot," I heard one of them say into a talkie as their footsteps faded away.

"Do you know how to get into their underground?" Michael asked me as we straightened from our crouched position.

"I have a rough idea," I mumbled, slotting the gun into the inside pocket of my jacket and led the way towards the building.

"I can't believe you let her go in there without a real weapon," Nikita mumbled under her breath, but I chose to ignore her to avoid further argument. I didn't care about how she thought about me; I just cared about getting Alex out of there alive.