Earlier that day-

"I'm going to go for a run before breakfast." Mika had announced before leaving Raizo with an ache in his groin and an eerily empty house. As soon as she'd left everything felt ominously still.

He picked up his phone and dialled a number from memory.

"She'll be fine," Jacob said answering.

Raizo was pacing. He never paced. "You will be watching her?" It was more statement than question.

Jacob sounded like he was driving. "We will. You know this has to happen."

Raizo stopped pacing and closed his eyes for a moment then sighed. "I know. I just wish I could be there."

"You know that is a bad idea friend. Sit tight. It will all be over soon. I have to go."

"Sure." Raizo said just before Jacob ended the call. Once more, he was outside of his comfort zone. Caring for someone else was exhausting. Killing people was so much easier.

Later that evening -

Jacob was sat on the back-porch cleaning two curved daggers when he heard the gentle beep of the security system perimeter sensors go off. He got to his feet effortlessly and spun the knives in his palms defensively more out of muscle memory than for fear of a real threat. When he checked the wall-mounted monitor, he saw Mika stumbling down the driveway and shortly thereafter, the doorbell rang.

Raizo ran to the door as soon as he heard the sound. He knew he wasn't allowed to go to her until she'd rang that bell and when she did, he felt like he teleported to the door he moved so fast. One minute he was stood in their kitchen watching Mika struggling to stay upright in the doorway and the next she was in his arms and those few moments in between felt like forever.

"Mika!" Raizo picked her up and lay her on the couch.

"She's safe…" She mumbled with exhaustion as Raizo went over to the kitchen and took out a dish towel that he dampened under the tap.

"Shhh," He soothed, taking the cloth and wiping some of the blood from her face. He needed to check her over. "Mika, I need to take your sweater off."

Mika just nodded in silence trying to roll on to her side to sleep, her eyes fluttering shut. Raizo had the hem of the garment and tugged it up gently. Mika groaned in pain before he even got to raising her arms. "I'm sorry, let's try something else." Raizo got up and went over to the kitchen counter where he'd left the knives he'd been cleaning before Mika arrived.

Mika opened heavy eyelids to see Raizo approaching her with a beautifully engraved blade. The hilt was silk wrapped. She knew that blade and she knew why Raizo was coming toward her with it. She almost pouted like a child. "Nooo…I like this hoodie…" She protested weakly. She tried rolling on to her side again, "Just let me sleep a little…I'll feel better…"

Raizo's anxiety at initially seeing Mika in the state she was, started to dissipate. If Mika had the strength to be stubborn it meant that she wasn't at death's door. Still, he needed to get to those wounds. "I promise to buy you a new one." He smiled kneeling beside her and gently encouraging her to roll on to her back.

Mika sighed, giving in. "Fine." She just wanted to sleep.

Raizo tugged her hoodie slightly up off Mika's stomach to reveal a handgun to his surprise. The reality of the situation Mika must have been in was starting to weigh on him again. He put his hand on the handle to pull it out and Mika's hand instantly covered his with a firm stillness. Her eyes were wide almost as if her body's survival instinct were acting independently of her. When she looked at Raizo's concerned face looking down at her she came back to herself and relaxed her hand before moving it away.

"Sorry, I needed to…"

"No." Raizo interrupted her. "No explanations." He took the gun, emptied the chamber and then put it and the bullets in a ziplock bag in the kitchen. When he returned Mika was asleep. Raizo slid the blade flat against her bare skin and cut through both her vest and her hoodie in one fluid and easy motion. He peeled the fabrics apart and revealed the true damage. There was swelling and early-stage bruising around Mika's ribs. More importantly, she had an ugly puncture wound on her side that was still bleeding. He'd seen wounds like that before. She'd been shot. Raizo shut down his emotion and went to his still place. He needed to be a physician, not an enraged lover right now. Mika was lucky, she wasn't what they called, 'gut-shot'. The bullet was through and through clean and very close to the outside edge of her stomach so no perforation of her intestines. Jacob would call it a graze, but it still needed cleaning and stitches. Raizo did as best he could while Mika lay in slumber on the couch. When he'd stripped Mika down to her underwear, he'd feared more bullet wounds but instead, he found blade wounds. She'd gotten in good and close just like he taught her but she'd paid the price. Her upper left arm needed stitches to a long deep wound. She had smaller lacerations to her wrists which Raizo bandaged. He roused Mika enough to wrap her ribs but she protested less this time as if the exhaustion was stronger than pain at this point.

Raizo ran Mika a bath while massaging pressure points on her that would ease her pain somewhat. When the bath was ready, he stripped her of the rest of her clothing and lowered her in. He bathed her as if she were a newborn baby. With gentle strokes of the washcloth, he removed the muck and dried blood from her face and body, head to toe. He'd noticed bruising around her kidneys at one point. Raizo's keen senses were able to tell the angle and size of the blades used against Mika. He could tell the height and approximate weight of her assailants just from looking at her wounds like a mental living autopsy. He knew how Mika got all her injuries and he wished he didn't because if he closed his eyes and concentrated enough he could conjure the images in his head to play out like a movie and it sickened him.

Once Mika was cleaned up he dried her, moisturised her skin as she would do for herself, and re-dressed her wounds. He'd even managed to wash, detangle and moisturise her curly natural hair. He'd seen her do it enough times that he felt confident enough to give it a go and it seemed amiss to leave her hair dirty when the rest of her was now clean. He gave her two French braids while she slept. He had to admit to himself it was slightly trickier than he'd first envisaged but he managed alright and eventually left Mika to sleep in their bed.

Mika's sleep started off the kind of sleep you have when you drink too much, more unconsciousness than slumber but slowly her mind pulled her to that place where images begin as a smattering in the mind before they melt into a fevered dream. She was reliving the whole night again over and over in an endless loop. In one version of events, she couldn't untie herself in that cabin and the panic had overwhelmed her. In another version, she'd made it to the cabin but Lindy had been killed in front of her. In a different version, Mika had been captured and tortured. The twisted memories came at her with a vengeance over and over again but the one to thrust her out of haunted sleep and cause Mika to bolt upright in the bed was a twisted version of events where Lindy was tortured and Mika forced to watch.

Raizo in the living room heard Mika's bare feet running to the bathroom to be sick. He found her eventually dry heaving over the toilet bowl. He gave Mika a damp washcloth to wipe her face and helped her rinse her mouth over the sink before helping her back into bed. He then left the room and was back a few moments later with a glass of ginger ale.

"Here, drink this." He passed Mika the glass while he moved to sit down in the bed beside her.

Mika took a few sips before speaking. She liked ginger but she was still afraid that it might cause her to be sick again. She waited a moment longer. When she realised her stomach wasn't protesting she took another sip.

"I don't know what that was." She said looking genuinely confused.

Raizo arranged some pillows so Mika could sit up better. He took her hand in his and ran his fingers over her bruised knuckles gently. "It was shock. It happens to a lot of people in their early days."

Mika gently cradled her ribs trying to sit up more but eventually just settled back into the pillows. "I was dreaming about it."

"That happens too," Raizo replied sympathetically.

"It was so real. I kept living it over and over, I couldn't stop it."

"The dreams will soon fade," Raizo said giving Mika's hand a gentle squeeze.

Mika took a few more sips from her glass and then set it down on the bedside table. She seemed to be searching for words. "How long have I been asleep?"

"About four hours."

Mika looked up at Raizo with big brown eyes that seemed to see straight into him. "Do you know what happened to me?"

Raizo gave her a simple and honest, "Yes."

"Was this a test?" She asked softly.

"Of sorts," Raizo replied. "This was the practical to your theory you might say but also your true induction."

Just as Mika had suspected. "Were you there?" She asked tentatively.

Raizo shook his head. "It wasn't my place." He slowly pulled his hand back from Mika's. He had a sudden overwhelming feeling that reaching for her affection was somehow inappropriate at this minute. There was silence in the air. It was heavy like a cloying humidity. The sun was starting to rise on a new day. "You want to tell me about it," Raizo said gently, his hands in his lap and his gaze finding Mika's.

She gave a small nod seeing an almost helpless look in Raizo's eyes. "But I can't can I?"

"No." He replied with a small sigh. "Your assignments are yours alone. They are your duty and your burden." He sounded like he was reciting a mantra. "Your handler will discuss details with you but only minimally."

Mika sat up a little more. Pain coursed through her midsection, but she breathed through it. "What if we were assigned something together?"

"It would depend on the details." He moved himself to sit back against the headboard beside Mika. Their shoulders were almost touching.

Mika was looking down at her hands, running her own fingers over her bruised knuckles. "You carry that all inside." She said quietly. "On top of all the abuse, the vicious training, you carry all those missions inside. How does it not eat away at you?"

Raizo gazed off across the room looking at the reflection of himself beside Mika in the closet mirrors facing the bed. "You can't let it. You compartmentalize it. A box for every demon." He pulled his legs up to cross them. "It takes time, but you will learn to do the same. The alternative is self-destruction."

"Have you seen that?" Mika asked Raizo's reflection in the mirror.

He nodded.

Mika reached up to trace the bruises on her face. The person sitting there in the mirror was not the person who left to go jogging what seemed like a lifetime ago. She reached over to take Raizo's hand in her own and interlaced her fingers with his while resting her head on his shoulder. Eventually, she fell asleep. Raizo stayed for a while just watching her. He saw her face change as she wrestled with unwanted memories and bad dreams and watched her face eventually settle into stillness.

Now they both had secrets and Mika would never know that the night before, while she slept, Raizo left the house and found that cabin in the woods that held the poor kidnapped Lindy. She would never know that with every throat he slit he felt renewed. These people would need to be cleaned up anyway and he knew that he would never have a chance like this again. Mika would learn not to leave living witnesses in future but even so, Raizo felt like Mika had passed her test while he felt like he had failed his own. Jacob and Mel knew they had to step back and let Raizo exercise his pain in blood. He needed this and now it was done. Now they could all move on with their new lives.

Mika awoke in the early afternoon. She felt rested until she tried to move. Her body screamed at her from head to toe before the pain went from sharp to a blunt ache. She heard chatter coming from the living room and instantly recognised the voices. Mika pulled on a vest and some jogging pants painfully and very, very slowly. This time it was, fuck the bra.

She padded into the living room to find Mel sat on the floor, Jacob sat on the couch and Raizo sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. There was a bottle of vodka on the coffee table without a label. It was a quarter empty. Mika stood in the doorway cradling her ribs and looking suspicious.

Mel of course, was the first person to make a sound as she approached Mika with open arms. "Mah love, mah' love. We are so proud of you!" Mel took Mika's face in her hands and kissed her gently and lovingly on the mouth and then lay a kiss on her forehead before rushing over to the coffee table to pour a shot of vodka into a glass which she then thrust into Mika's free hand.

"I err.." Mika stammered.

Raizo tried to assist, "Mika's not been feeling so well, maybe we can drink another time."

"Nonsense!" Mel responded immediately. "Tell them, Jacob, vodka is thee best medicine." She glanced over at Jacob who had a glass in his hand already.

"Can't argue with that." He replied with a smile. He raised his glass at her and tipped his head.

"Then it is settled." Mel ushered Mika further into the living room by her elbow. "We must toast. Come skoenlapper," She beckoned Raizo and he came to stand beside Mika placing a protective arm across her back gently. He leaned in to give her a gentle kiss on the cheek and as he leaned in, he whispered, "I'm sorry, I did try to stop her."

Mika smiled. She believed him. Mel thrust a glass into Raizo's hand and topped it up along with her own. "To Mika and new adventures!"

They all raised their glasses and then in unison Mel, Jacob and Raizo all added, "A bullet in the head beats a bullet in the gut." And then they each downed a shot. Mika downed her shot and nearly choked on it.

"Jesus! You could forge steel with this stuff." She coughed.

"It's Jacob's homebrew," Raizo said going to get Mel a glass of water.

"We save it for special occasions," Jacob added.

"Then I'm honoured." Mika smiled at him. Raizo pulled up a stool for Mika to sit on knowing it would be easier for her to perch on a barstool rather than try to sit down on the couch with her injuries. He stood beside her protectively.

Mel went over to a metal briefcase and took out a small folder of papers. "I shall leave these here. Bring them back to me within a fortnight."

Mika looked quizzically at Raizo. "HR stuff." He smiled at her.

Mel smiled over at Mika, "More like a contract-come-waiver. Raizo will walk you through it." Mel took a zip-up wallet out of the case and passed it to Jacob. Jacob opened the wallet up like a book and lay it flat on the coffee table. It contained a syringe, scalpel two small vials, tweezers, a plastic packet and other generally first aidy looking materials.

Mika instinctively tensed up. Raizo felt it emanating from her. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry it will be over quickly."

"Nothing to fear malysh nindzya," Jacob said gently as he went over to her and placed the wallet open on the breakfast bar. He pulled a joint from behind his ear and lit it. He took a long, slow drag and exhaled thick white smoke. He pointed to some of the contents of the wallet with the joint still between his fingers. "This is a tracking device. We will make a small incision here, "he took Mika's left hand, "Ah we are lucky. You have already prepared us a little mailbox to deposit our package." Jacob was smiling, pointing at the bandaged knife wound on Mika's outer arm. "I can use this opening. No sense in making another." He took another drag on the joint and then handed it to Mel.

"Lay your arm here." Jacob requested, placing Mika's left forearm on the breakfast bar, palm down. "Raizo, please remove the bandage." He asked while he put on some surgical gloves. Jacob then swabbed Mika's wound with a damp gauze that burned like hell. "Sorry Mika, is just a little local numbing solution," Jacob said to her. "It should take a few moments to activate."

Mel came over and placed the joint back between Jacob's lips for a few puffs before taking it back. "spasibo moy lyubimyy." He said to her while he prepared the syringe and removed the scalpel from its packet.

"Hold still now." Jacob requested as he prodded the flesh around the wound to be sure it was sufficiently numb.

Raizo came around to Mika's right side and turned to face her and she found his kind, concerned eyes with her own. There was no way she could watch Jacob do what he was about to do no matter how small and simple he claimed the procedure to be. "Do you have one of these?" She asked Raizo as she felt Jacob gripping her arm tightly.

Raizo nodded. "It's protocol."

Mel chimed in. "Let's say your love is behind enemy lines Mika, and for one reason or another through no fault of his own, he happened to perish horribly. Well, of course, you would have no immediate details about his assignment or its location but should you feel compelled to retrieve Raizo's sexy little body for a proper burial then you will be permitted to do so, at your own risk of course. And this is how we would locate him. Well the part of him that hosts the tracker at least."

"Stop scaring her Mel, I can feel her pulse hopping all over the place." Jacob interjected.

Mel shrugged with her hands palm up with feigned innocence. "She is playing in the grown-up pool now Jakey." Mel took a drag from the quickly diminishing joint and then offered it to Raizo who shook his head politely. When Mel offered it to Mika, she couldn't take it quick enough. Mel was beaming from ear to ear, "Ah, she learns." Mel clapped her hands as Jacob finished up with Mika's arm and re-bandaged it. Mika choked on the second deep inhale.

"Careful there," Jacob said smiling at her. "Slowly." He said taking the joint back from her to demonstrate and then handed it back with a charming wink. When Mika took a few more drags then went to hand it back, Jacob shook his head. "You finish it. I think you need it a little more than me right now."

Jacob ignored Raizo glaring at him and stifled a smile. "Right, we better be on our way." Jacob announced packing up his things. "You have something for me brother?" He finally looked over at Raizo.

For a split second Raizo wasn't sure what Jacob was talking about but then he remembered and went behind the breakfast bar to retrieve a plastic bag from under one of the kitchen counters. It was the gun that Mika had returned with. "This needs disposing of." He said handing it to Jacob. Jacob nodded and, in turn, handed the packet to Mel to put in her case. Jacob and Mel had a trusted contact who would melt the weapon down into nothingness for them. Problem solved.

Mel went over to Mika and hugged her. She then went over to Raizo and lay a gentle kiss on his lips. "I am so proud of you both." She gushed with her palms pressed together. She blew them both a kiss before heading to the door.

Jacob patted Raizo on the shoulder. "See you soon brother." He placed a gentle hand on the back of Mika's head pulling her to him to place a sweet and gentle kiss on her forehead. "You did good." Mika was speechless. Jacob had never touched her before, not with any affection. Something about his directness kinda made Mika want to wrap her arms around him and be drawn into his aura of power and confidence that he always seemed to give off. Why hadn't she noticed how strong that was before? She gazed down at the joint that had burned down to the roach and quickly put it down on a glass coaster on the breakfast bar.

After the door shut, Raizo noticed Mika staring at it. He smiled. "Are we okay?"

"Huh?" She looked up at Raizo grinning. "I am A,Ok mister." She gave Raizo a thumbs up and noticing her ribs didn't hurt as much anymore. She got up off her stool only to stumble into Raizo's arms when the head rush hit her.

"Easy there my little steam train." He set her up-right again. Mika could smell Raizo's shampoo. She sniffed a trail from his shoulder to his ear drawing the scent in deep. "Raizo!" She gripped the collar of his t-shirt as if letting go would mean she might float away.

"Yes Mika," Raizo was going to have words with Jacob and Mel regarding the potency of their future offerings.

"Raizo, I think maybe I might be just a little stoned." Her eyes were checking the corners of the room for movement of any kind. Shadows were not to be trusted.

"Mika, I think if you were any higher I'd be swatting you off the ceiling with a broom." He walked her over to the couch to sit her down. She didn't protest or emit any sounds of pain. "I'm going to order us some dinner." He said, hoping she'd be less spacey with something in her stomach.

Food came an hour later, and Mika ate like it was her first meal in days. Raizo was afraid her nausea might make another show but she seemed to be keeping her food down just fine. When they were done they had curled up on the couch and watched the sun set paint its way across the evening sky. Mika was snuggled against Raizo's chest within the protection of his arms and starting to feel drowsy. "Babe," She asked looking up at him with hazy eyes. "Thanks for looking after me." Sleep was now almost upon her.

"You're most welcome." He smiled down at her, stroking her hair and feeling thankful that she was back in his arms, whole.

Mika snuggled in closer to him drifting off mumbling. "That…fucking cat knew….." Sleep took her completely before she could finish.