And we're back.

Eteri: they do need a better plan, he won't stop that easily!

Well, we left our two locked up in the cube with Warton shooting at them: what's going to happen now?

Loker stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby announcing his arrival with a loud yawn that echoed in the empty space. Despite having gone home he hadn't had a pleasant night, alternating what were supposed to be sleeping hours between getting up to check the lock on the door and disturbing images of knife-branding maniacs visiting his dreams.

Yet, he hadn't even considered not going back.

Before going to bed he had spent some time messaging with some of his colleagues, pretending he had received the same communication and that he had no clue about what the "situation" was. It had seemed the most sensible thing to do, playing along and keeping the bosses' secrets under wrap even though they hadn't expressively asked him to do so. Partly, he was doing so because it was too crazy to tell anyway, and he hoped Torres was doing the same. After having been given the opportunity to choose if she wanted to be part of the problem or of the solution, Ria had gone home but she had kept in touch with him, mostly, it seemed, to keep tabs on Lightman's mental state.

He liked Torres, they worked well together and occasionally had some fun, but he thought she had been way out of line in her last outburst and had not learned from it. She was smart and a fast learner, but sometimes he thought the whole 'natural' thing got to her head, so he had decided to keep his responses to the minimum and rather focus on-

He was halfway through another yawn, followed by a long sip to the coffee in his hand, when he turned the corner to get to the cube lab and stopped dead on track. A couple of the plant pots in the hallway had been knocked over, spilling dirt all over the floor, but that was nothing. Further down the corridor, Loker could see a thin red streak of what could only be blood, more of that smeared on the wall as if a child had tried to leave a hand mark. Careful, wishing he had taken one of Lightman's guns when he had the chance, the young man kept going, fearing the eerie silence around him, his eyes scanning the scene which revealed more and more details as he moved forward. He saw broken glass, smaller blood drops here and there and, way ahead, what looked like the biggest knife he had ever seen and a mobile phone. Gulping nervously, Loker focused on the phone and recognised the sticker on the back of Lightman's device, something he would always struggle to associate with the man, but as he walked past the door to the cube lab he froze.

The door was open, not simply unlocked but wide open and that was a simple yet meaningful anomaly as scary as everything else he had just seen. That door was never open, not even at night when nobody was in the office; it was the entrance to the core of the Lightman group, some of the employees didn't even have the code for it and to see it wildly open was not a good sign. Threading even more carefully, Loker kept going trying not to touch or step on anything, slowly peeking his head in the door. The lab was in no better condition than the hallway, the room had been trashed and a lot of the equipment was pretty much destroyed. For him, who pretty much lived in that room, there was no pattern to the destruction. Some things looked like they had been ripped off, others picked up and thrown and others just tipped over. He had a vague idea of how expensive all of that was, but as reasonable as it was that wasn't his main concern. The value of the equipment went beyond money, it allowed them to do what they did, but at least he sighed relieved when he realised that the cube main dashboard was untouched.

Then, cursing himself for taking so long, Loker asked himself where the hell Lightman and Foster were.

As if to answer himself, he looked up at the cube, which was in blind mode, gasping at the circular cracks left by what he easily figured out must have been bullets fired at it. He looked around, suddenly fearing someone would come out of a dark corner and jump him, and that was when he saw a gun discarded on the floor. He took it all in, his research-oriented mind struggling to come to terms with the chaos and its meaning, then stretched a trembling hand to the dashboard and flipped the switch to reveal the inside of the cube.

As he did so, the first thing his eyes saw were the other bullet marks, equally targeting every side, and a shiver ran through him. Then he saw the flipped table, pushed close to the door but not entirely against it. And when he noticed a bare foot peeking from behind the makeshift barrier he finally shook off the confusion and surprise and sprang into action.

"You should go to the hospital." Reynolds mumbled, not for the first time. "Both of you."

"I'm ok- Ouch!" Cal winched in pain when Gillian placed the sterile gauze on his chest, feeling the discomfort on his skin and a deeper painful wear within. "Nothing is broken, and Gillian here needs to work toward her First Aid merit badge."

Gillian shot him a glare, one of those that meant business but was somewhat nullified by the hint of a grin on her lips. But she kept her mouth shut and kept working on the medication, carefully covering the superficial cut on his chest with gauzes before patching everything together with medical tape. It was a half-assed job and Cal knew it as much as she did, but she went through it with such focus and confidence that Reynolds and Loker easily believed she knew what she was doing.

"How about your ankle?" Loker asked, nodding at the swollen appendix sandwiched in between two ice packs.

"Not broken," Cal protested, with the delusional verve of an injured athlete who didn't want to be benched. Then he reached for the painkillers in his pocket and swallowed two dry, rattling the bottle in his hand. "Rest and some of these and I'm good to go."

"Go where?"

Cal rolled his eyes and grunted.

"Manner of speaking Loker, manner of speaking." He huffed, then nodded a silent thanks to Gillian as she finished patching him up. "Although I guess it's fair to say here is not as safe as we thought."

"You should have called me," Reynolds sighed, and this time it was Gillian's turn to roll her eyes.

"There was no time for that," she rebuked, not mad at him but certainly not happy with the implication they hadn't been too smart in their course of action. "You'd never got here on time, and even if you had there's no guarantee you would have stopped him."

Cal nodded to himself, once again admiring her strength and will not to let that nightmare get to her. Still, Reynolds shook his head and sighed, not willing to concede on the point but knowing he didn't have much further to counter. He too was impressed by Foster's seemingly unphased facade, even more knowing what he knew about her past encounter with Ward, as well as by Cal's stubbornness to carry on despite having now two attacks on his back. Sure, from what they had told him he had been able to dish back the second time around, but the man was now a walking collection of wounds.

"At least let me get some EMTs here to check you out."

"I'm fine, Reynolds." Cal cut him off, sounding incredibly strong and decisive despite his conditions. Then he glanced over at Gillian who was coming back towards him with two glasses containing some much needed liquid balsam. "We're ok."

"Drinking alcohol at 7.30 in the morning?" The agent scoffed, but Cal and Gillian looked at each other and shrugged.

"Breakfast of champions," she mumbled then, raising the glass to him in a quick toast before gulping down the content, much to Cal's amusement.

"Well, why don't I go get some actual food? And coffee?" Loker jumped in, siding with Reynolds on the fact they needed to look after themselves.

"Take Miller with you," Reynolds suggested. "Just in case."

Hearing his name, the man who had silently stood by the door of Cal's office throughout the whole conversation made the first, small, movement, since he had entered the room. He had come along with Reynolds when the agent had rushed back after Loker's call, and was yet to say a single word or make a gesture of his own will. Cal thought he looked like the recruitment poster boy for the FBI, with his broad shoulders, the clean cut and impeccable posture and probably as squared in his head as he was in appearances, but Reynolds swore on him and that was as good as it got in Lightman's book.

Honestly relieved to know he didn't have to go on his own, Loker nodded and turned around leaving the room with Miller close behind him. Once they were gone, Reynolds sighed and sat down on the armchair, staring at the items on the coffee table. The knife, the gun and Cal's phone were lined up, individually bagged to be potentially considered as evidence. If that had been a normal case, he'd already bagged them up properly, processed and sent over to the Bureau labs to be tested. He knew Warton's prints would have been all over at least two items, plus of course DNA and blood samples they could get from the hallway and likely from their clothes and hands. But what was the point?

They already knew it was Warton, that it had been him since the attack at Cal's house, and he knew they had images of him paying his visit to the offices the night before. Who wasn't a mystery, but the rest of the key questions still had huge question marks. Sure, they did have an idea of why he was after them, but there was too much they still didn't know. Why then, after so many years? Why the toying and multiple attacks with no conclusion? And how could he have known what happened to his brother and who was responsible for it when the truth had been swiftly and conveniently buried by official channels?

"Don't overthink it, Ben."

Hearing Gillian' voice, saying those words and with that tone that was somewhat uncharacteristic for her, Reynolds looked up in surprise. She was looking right at him, sitting on the edge of the couch where Cal was trying to find a comfortable position, the empty glass still in her hand. He was yet to watch the footage of the night before but could imagine it hadn't been a walk in the park for her either, yet there she was, defiant and not willing to be kept out of the loop.

"It's not that easy, Foster," he sighed, leaning back on the chair.

"It is actually," she insisted. "Take the knife and the gun, whatever else you need and do your testing. Now we know who we are dealing with and that he's a real person. His prints will come up, the police will know who to look for. It might not help to find him but it can't hurt."

"What about the…rest." He paused, not sure himself what he meant with that word. "What if this makes things worse?"

"Worse?" Cal let the word escape his mouth with a guttural and sardonic laugh, which sounded somewhat terrifying. "How could they possibly get any worse?!"

"We don't know how he knew to look for you, not yet. You told me the true story was buried, yet he seems to know enough." The agent shook his head, thoughtful. "What if by pulling out his name we get other people's attention?"

"Then we find out who they are and go after them," Cal said in a low voice. "Listen, we tried to stay put and this happened. We found out who he was and coming here was his next move. I don't care if we ruffle some feathers or expose him, force his hand." He looked at Gillian, somehow hovering over him with a protective presence, then he looked at Reynolds again. "Emily is coming back in less than a week, I want this bastard neutralised before that happens, whatever it takes. He nearly got to us last night but I also nearly got to him. Next time I will be ready."

With what had happened, and he still didn't know the half of it, Reynolds was surprised that of all the things she had heard and seen and said, that last sentence from Lightman seemed to be one thing Foster couldn't take. When he finished his sentence, that not so subtle hint he was ready to make his next encounter with Warton the last one, for better or for worse, Gillian stood up as if something bit her and paced away from the couch. Reynolds had seen them exchange many silent and knowing looks over the past two days, understanding each other with embarrassing ease and finding a way to support each other, but in that moment it didn't seem possible. She walked away, back to where the bottle was and considered a second round but deciding against it, while Cal closed his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing if he'd looked at her he'd probably only seen something he didn't like.

"I'm not saying I want to draw him out for a face to face," Cal said then, possibly not for Reynolds' benefit but mostly Gillian's. "But we can be ready. I made a mistake, I thought we were safe here and didn't consider he might be so bold-"

"He's not just bold," she cut him off, sitting on one of the chairs by the desk. "He came here alright, but I think it was telling that he didn't have a gun. He was on the hunt, and despite how things went down I am not sure he meant to kill us. And he doesn't care. He wasn't trying to hide his face, he left the knife with his prints behind. By now he must know we figured out who he is so the element of surprise of pretending to be Ward is gone." The men listened carefully, knowing it wasn't the target talking but the expert instead. "It fits his profile, he's not organised. He knew how to get in but didn't know the place. He wanted to attack but had not planned how. And after we locked ourselves in the cube he went on a rampage that had nothing to do with exercising control or playing with us. He's unhinged, right now it's impossible to predict his next move." She stopped and sighed, not believing what she was about to say. "Cal is right. If we get his name and his face out there he might feel cornered and make moves we can use in our favour. And if someone tipped him off about us, we're gonna have to put pressure on them too."