Ains

I gritted my teeth against the burning in my thighs and continued to watch over the top of the crate I was hiding behind. An unusual occurrence, I envied Caroline her shorter height – she would've had no problems crouching behind the crates, and that would have kept her out of Sergei Alexandrov's clutches for as long as possible. I looked down over the wooden crate, and from here, I could see Jase's back, and the side of Alexandrov's girlfriend's – Rachel – head as she spoke to one of Alexandrov's henchmen. I was suddenly more relieved than ever that Oscar had made Caroline wear that brunette wig; Rachel was blonde, and roughly the same height as Caroline from the back. Alexandrov easily could have mistaken Caroline for Rachel if she wasn't wearing that wig.

"Stop worrying," Vanessa muttered from her spot beside me, as I watched Caroline walk out and say something to Jase. Jase turned and said something back, and I could sigh of the white button-up shirt and black tie he wore. I decided I didn't like the way Vanessa had done Caroline's makeup – she looked so much older than a-week-away-from-seventeen. She didn't look like herself.

I turned to Vanessa. "I'm not."

"You are," Vanessa replied. "You're not telling Care, but she's picking up on it and it's making her nervous. Stop. She'll be fine."

"I know she will," I said. "It's not her I'm worrying about."

"Alexandrov?"

"He's got a history of being unpredictable," I said. "How do we know he hasn't got a gun on him?"

"We don't," Vanessa replied. "We have to make the arrest before we get to find out the hard way." She sighed. "Seriously, Ains, relax. Caroline'll do fine. She's badass, and she's got that thing that you gave her and Oscar gave Jase a gun. "

I turned. "He gave Jase a gun?"

"Your jealousy's showing, Williamson. You might trust him a little more if you would bother to look at his record. It's amazing. He – "

"I don't care, Ness. How did he even get into MI9? He was into drugs, wasn't he?"

"He gets tested every week for it," Vanessa replied. "If they find any in his system, he's out."

"How do we know he wasn't dealing?" I hissed.

"Care would have said – "

I glanced at Caroline's back. "She might not have known. For all we know, Jase was lying about Maliah."

"For all we know, Dan was," Vanessa replied. "Just, say attention to him, will you? He cares about her. Not to the extent that you do, but he really does care about her. And he's not coddling her like you are."

I gaped at her. "I'm not coddling her!"

Vanessa scoffed. "You are. You've sworn up and down a thousand times to Dan that she's stronger than she looks, yet you've been coddling her ever chance you've gotten since Camden died."

I chose to ignore the flicker of grief that passed across her eyes. I figured she wouldn't appreciate it if I turned the conversation towards her and instead muttered, "She's not used to pain."

"She knew what she was signing up for."

"She signed up for strength and the chance to be close to Dan again," I said. "She didn't sign up to watch one of her best friends die and to be placed on the top of KORPS' 'most wanted' list."

"She knew what she was signing up for when she told you she loved you instead of breaking things off then and there," Vanessa replied, and I flinched. Her words were harsh, but somewhere inside of me, I knew they had to be said, and I also knew that Vanessa was the only person who would have the guts to say it to my face. Even Zoe, who had basically faced death and given it the middle finger on multiple occasions, wouldn't have said that to me. Dan might've, if you could get him drunk enough. He was bitter enough towards me right now, despite whatever Zoe had said to him, and I had the feeling that he was the kind of drunk that just said whatever came to mind. I made a mental note to ask Zoe if she had ever seen Dan drunk.

I thought back to that first night at Wilbur's, when I'd told Care that I couldn't trick myself into believing that ending things with her would do any good. I remembered her eyes, how dark they had appeared in the darkness, but how easily I'd been able to read the expression, the fear but also that love. No one had ever loved me the way, or with the strength, that she did, and I doubted anyone else ever would.

"She'll fight for you, you know," Vanessa said quietly, leaning her head against the crate beside me. "Even if it kills her, she'll fight for you."

"Yeah," I said. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Vanessa glanced over at me but didn't say anything. I was pretty sure she didn't know what to say, but as she opened her mouth to say something, Alexandrov appeared, with a man I recognised all-too-well beside him. Caroline reacted only slightly to him, in the slight rising of her shoulders. Jase threw her a concerned look as he slipped his hand into his pocket.

"Isn't that – ?" Vanessa broke off, turning to look at me as she slipped her hand into her pocket and produced her pencil communicator, placing it on top of the crates so that we could hear everything that was said.

I nodded grimly, keeping my eyes fixed on the newly-emerged man at Alexandrov's side, praying that he wouldn't recognise Caroline. By the looks of it, the makeup and the hair were enough to make her unrecognisable to someone who didn't know her well. "Jared Nesbitt."

" . . . this quick," Alexandrov's deep, heavily accented voice carried through Vanessa's communicator. His accent wasn't one I heard often – not like Vanessa's blend of Australian and British – it was an actual accent, I was sure, it was just one I didn't hear all that often. After a moment, I placed it as Russian. "What is this weapon?"

"We won't take up much of your time, Mr Alexandrov," Jase said, and I saw him make a quick gesture with his hand. In one easy movement, Caroline lifted the case that held the capture ray and placed it on the table, opening it.

"Capture ray, Mr Alexandrov," Caroline announced. "We heard that you are in possession of the other and would be interested in owning its twin."

Rachel eyed Caroline down squarely. "What do you know about it?"

Caroline didn't miss a beat, and her tone was flippant. I realised that Caroline was much better at this than any of us had given her credit for – sure, we were all trained to be well-rounded agents, but I decided that the undercover stuff, this was where she shone – she explained the capture ray and every single one of its functions as easily as an actual arms dealer might have. She explained it so well that Alexandrov's henchman that wasn't Jared Nesbitt – or whatever the hell his name was – who looked to be about nineteen, looked her up and down, as if he was seeing her for the first time. "Hot."

Vanessa dug her nails into my arm, as if she expected me to blow our cover and jump down off our little ledge and strangle the guy. Instead, I watched, grinning quietly as Caroline looked at the guy, and when she spoke, she sounded bored as she picked up the capture ray, holding it as if she was testing its weight in her hands. "We should see how hot you find me when you're on the ground, unable to move because of this thing."

The guy grinned. "I'd like to see you try."

Almost as if she wasn't aiming, she shot at the guy and he groaned, falling to the ground, unable to move. Alexandrov started to laugh, but then Caroline shot at him too. It was then that Rachel and Jared realised that something was wrong, and took off the other way. Caroline shot at Rachel with the device I'd given her, and Jase took off after Jared, returning with him in tow as Vanessa's and my feet touched on the floor after vaulting over the wooden crates.

"Are we taking them all to MI9?" Jase asked, pushing Jared into the ground.

"Yeah," Vanessa replied, throwing Jase a pair of handcuffs. "But not him. He's coming with us."

Jase looked puzzled, and I realised that no one had bothered to tell him why MI9 didn't just settle for three agents in the St Hope's MI High team, apart from the fact that one of us was the child of the world's most wanted criminal.

After glancing between Caroline and Vanessa, I turned to Jase. "Because he's important."

Jase looked from me down to Jared, who struggled to sit up with his hands bound behind his back and turned his glaring eyes from Jase to me. Jase looked on, puzzled, but his expression changed as, to my horror, Jared turned to Caroline and grinned. "Caroline Morgan. I hoped I'd see you again."

So he had recognised her, after all.

Caroline's face twisted and she lunged towards him, slamming her heeled shoe into his chin. Jared slumped against Jase's legs and Care moved into my side, her fingers finding mine and squeezing. I noticed that her violence just now with Jared was different from when she punched Jase. With Jase, she had been driven by emotions and her desire for him not to be around. With Jared, she genuinely wanted him to just shut up, and this was the most effective way to do it.

"Did you see me?" Care asked quietly, looking up at me.

"Absolutely amazing," I told her, leaning down and kissing the end of her nose. Caroline giggled, wiping at her cheek, and smudging her makeup. She didn't seem to care, and kicking off her shoes, sighing as her bare feet came into contact with the cool concrete of the warehouse floor. She might be good at it, but I was fairly sure she didn't like the heels that came with pretending to be an arms dealer.