Chapter 36

Martin left to go inform his boss, Jacob Stern, while Frankie rushed to find Rory. When he wasn't in his office, she went to their suite of rooms hoping to find him. Pushing the door open, she walked in, looking around for him. Hearing his voice in his bedroom, she crossed to the slightly open door. Before she could push it open and announce her presence, she heard another voice that turned her into stone.

"I'm about tired of all this sneaking around, you know," Glenda said with an edge of irritation.

"God damnit, not this again," Rory snapped. There was a rustle that sounded like him getting out of bed. "I get this shit enough from Frankie, do I have to get it from you too?"

"Well, if you would quit playing games with her, you wouldn't have either problem."

"Maybe I like playing games with her," he answered.

"More than you like fucking me?"

"Sometimes."

There was a thud and grunt, "don't be a clingy bitch, Glenda."

"You're getting your rocks off twisting her around your finger. How far are you planning to go?"

"Until she's completely broken. When she has nothing left to live for and wants to die. When she doesn't know reality from fiction. Then, I'll put her out of her misery and out of my mind."

"Wow, remind me never to cross you."

"I won't hesitate to crush you if you do."

"God, you're hot when you're like this," Glenda purred. "Come here."

"We don't have time for that now. I have to get back to the office and plan this op."

"Fury won't know what hit him."

Frankie's knees felt weak, and she leaned against the wall for support. Rory didn't love her at all. It was all fake. She would have slid to the floor, but the movement in the bedroom suggested Rory was about to leave the room. She looked at the outer door in alarm. There was no way to get to it and get outside before she was seen.

She stepped to her bedroom door, carefully opening it to keep from making noise. Slipping inside, she closed the door softly behind her and hurried over to her closet to duck inside of it, just in case. From the closet, she couldn't make out what Rory and Glenda were saying, but she heard their voices as they left the bedroom and walked across the living room. She waited, her heart thundering in her ears, until she heard the outer door shut behind them then forced herself to count to 100 before leaving the closet.

There was no struggle between him and Glenda for control of the cell. It was all a sham, she thought numbly. They were working together. This whole time she thought she was trying to save Rory, but he had no intention of being saved. Instead he wanted to destroy her. Everything she had been through, everything she had done; it was all for a cause that didn't exist. How could she had been so blind? She prided herself at being an expert judge of people, but Rory had been her blind spot.

Well, she was done playing the fool. It was time to end this charade.

Taking a fortifying breath, she drew herself up to her full height, squared her shoulders and walked resolutely from her room, shutting the door behind her. She had no intention of ever coming back.


Rory was back at his office when Frankie arrived. Walking into the room without knocking, she stopped in front of his desk with her hands on her hips.

"Not know, Frankie," he said without looking up, "I'm in the middle of something."

"No," she said firmly, "you're going to give me your attention right now."

He looked up with surprise, "since when do you think you can give me orders?"

"Since I found out the truth," she snapped.

Pushing his chair back, he regarded he curiously, "what are you talking about?"

She stepped forward and slapped her hands down on his desk, "I was there. In our rooms. I heard everything."

Understanding dawned in his eyes, "everything?" He stood and walked around the desk to stand over her. "You have no idea what everything is," he sneered.

"I know there's no power struggle between you and Glenda. You're banging that bitch!"

"At least when I fuck her it isn't like fucking a corpse!"

She slapped him. Without hesitation, he backhanded her, nearly knocking her down.

Holding her throbbing face, Frankie spat blood on the floor. "There you are. I've been deceiving myself all this time that the Rory I knew was still there. Now I can see the real you. The monster."

He closed the distance between them, and she refused to back away or cower.

"If I'm a monster, it's your fault," he shoved her, making her take a couple steps back to catch her balance. He stepped back into her space. "You're the one that left me buried under that ruble to die."

The guilt she normally felt when she thought of the accident fought for a foothold in her consciousness, but she refused to let it take root this time. "I'm through beating myself up over that. For almost five years, I thought you were dead and wallowed in guilt and anger. But I'm not the one that put you there. I'm not the one that told you to follow them down that road to get a better look at the action. I'm not the one that crashed the car into the scaffolding. It was not my fault!"

She nearly screamed the last part. Something inside of her broke free at that moment. It was as if something had been hobbling her for the last five years and now, she could finally run.

"And speaking of those years," she stepped into him this time and forced him back a step, "you let me think you were dead all that time. You never made any attempt to contact me, to let me know you were alive."

"I told you the reason for that. Besides, it's not like I owed you anything," he countered.

"You didn't owe me anything?" she reeled back in shock at his statement. "I only pulled you off the street, kept you from becoming a child prostitute. I fed you, clothed you, put a roof over your head, so you could go to school and make a better life for yourself. No," she shook her head, "you didn't owe me anything. Everything I did, I did for love. Because I wanted to. Only a monster would think otherwise."

"Maybe I was already a monster," he spat, his spittle hitting her in the face.

"No," she said softly, "you weren't a monster then. You were a wonderful boy on the verge of beginning your life. No, something made you into a monster and I won't be held responsible for that."

She turned away from him and walked to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm leaving. There's nothing left for me here," she said over her shoulder.

"The hell you are!" he grabbed her and spun her around. "You don't go anywhere without my permission."

"So what? Now I'm a prisoner?"

"You're whatever I decide you are."

Releasing her, he went to his desk and picked up his phone.

"Send a security guard to my office now," he said into the phone, the disconnected.

"You'll be escorted to your room and you will stay there until I decide what I want to do with you," he told her. "Maybe I'll give you back to Glenda and let her play with you some more. The last time was so entertaining."

Frankie shivered at the memory. "You're going to let someone else do your dirty work for you? That's lame."

"I'm the commander. I can do whatever I want."


When the security guard arrived, Rory instructed him to escort me to the suite and lock her in her bedroom. The poor guy was young and looked scared shitless of Rory. Frankie almost felt sorry for him. As he escorted her through the facility, he didn't cuff her, instead keeping his rifle trained on her back. The people they encountered as they made their way to the upper level looked away as they passed.

Reaching the room, he had her enter first, then followed her across to her room. It was now or never, Frankie thought.

She faked a stumble, reaching out to steady herself and inadvertently grabbing his arm that supported the weight of the rifle. Changing directions quickly, she spun around and pushed the arm up in the air, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow. Surprisingly, he maintained control of the weapon and used the butt to bash her in the head. Her eyes watered as the pain exploded through her, but she held on to his arm and tried to grab the barrel of the rifle with her other hand.

The young guard was better trained and stronger than he looked. He twisted away from her giving her only two options: either hold on to the rifle and lose her balance and leverage or let go and allow him regain control of the situation. Frankie chose the first and held on as she was pulled off her feet putting all her weight on the rifle. It was too much for the guard and his grip on it slipped as she pulled it to the ground with her fall, though he didn't completely let go. Instead the muzzle dipped.

Both realized the implication at the same moment. The guard reached for the trigger to fire off a shot and she twisted to get out her body out of the line of fire while shoving the muzzle towards the floor. The barrel heated and jumped under her hand as it fired, but she held on. Then, as he tried to rip it from her, she kicked out with one of her feet, aiming for his crotch. Her foot connected with a hard surface and was deflected.

"Seriously?" she grunted.

"Always be prepared," he smirked then struck out with a kick of his own.

He aimed for her crotch, but she squeezed her thighs together, capturing his foot between them.

"Fucking boy scout," she snarled.

With his foot trapped and still holding the rifle, she rolled away, pulling him off balance this time. He crashed down, headfirst to the floor, knocking over a nearby table holding a lamp. The impact should have at least stunned him, but with the helmet he was wearing, he recovered quickly, kicking out to knock the rifle from her hands and sending it spinning across the floor and under the couch. Frankie scrambled after it on her hands and knees. She only made it a couple feet before a heavy weight landed on her back, pinning her to the floor.

"Got you now," the guard said, grabbing a fist full of her ponytail and used it as a handle to slam her face into the floor.

Again, she saw stars, but this time she let her body go limp under him and shut her eyes. He stayed on her back for a bit to make sure she was unconscious before starting to rise. Daring to crack her open, she spied the lamp nearby and the cord within reach. Waiting until he was off her and bent over to retrieve the rifle from under the couch, she grabbed the cord and launched herself at his exposed back. Dragging the lamp across the floor, she wrapped it around his neck before he could react and pulled it taunt.

Frankie remembered something from her tiny bit of hand to hand combat training, and pitched backwards, pulling him with her. Once again, they were on the floor with him on top of her, but this time they were face up and she had her knees up between them, making him arch backwards across them. This gave her the leverage she needed to keep the tension on the cord tight and deprived him of the leverage he needed to free himself.

He grabbed for her, but his position made it impossible to get a grip on her, so he tried grabbing the cord to pull it free. He kicked wildly and twisted to try to roll off her, but every move he made tightened the cord around his neck.

Tears ran down Frankie's face as his struggles weakened and he finally went limp. Still, she held on, her arms shaking from the effort. When she was sure he was dead, she let go and shoved him off, hurriedly getting to her feet. Her hand trembled as she covered her mouth to stifle a sob. She didn't have time to give into her emotions. She needed to keep it together if she wanted to get out of here alive.

Grabbing the guard by the feet, she pulled him into her room then closed and locked the door. Going to Rory's bathroom, she cleaned up the blood on her face from the fight. Righting the table, she replaced the lamp, straightening the shade, then surveyed the room. At first glance, it would look normal. Only a close inspection would discover the cracked lamp wasn't plugged in and the tear in the shade. The bullet hole in the floor was hidden from direct sight of anyone standing in the doorway. It was as good as it was going to get.

Hopefully, it would buy her the time she needed.


It was hard walking through the corridors of the facility as if nothing was wrong. She nodded at the people she met along the way, greeting those she knew with a smile. She expected alarms to start blaring at any moment and by the time she made it to her destination, she was almost nauseous from the stress.

Letting herself into the lab with her access code, she breathed a sigh of relief that Rory hadn't deactivated it yet. Maybe he was too busy having victory sex with Glenda, she thought crossly.

The lab tech, an older woman who she didn't know, looked up as she shut the door behind her.

"Can I help you?" she asked, turning off the laser knife she was using and setting it down on the workstation.

Frankie had the beginning of a plan forming in her mind but wasn't sure exactly what she would need to make it happen.

"Yeah," Frankie put on her best game face and made her best guess, "I'm here to pick up the EMP bomb for my mission."

The woman frowned, "you're supposed to check them out from the armory."

"Didn't you get the message from Stern? The last batch sent to the armory was defective. We don't have time for procedure, we need the bomb now. The mission departs in thirty minutes."

"This is highly unusual," the woman reached for her phone. "I'm going to have to call my team lead."

Frankie lunged across the room, knocking the phone from the lab tech's hand, and grabbed the laser knife off the workstation.

"No, I don't think so," she told the woman as she waved the knife threateningly. "Put your hands in the air where I can see them and take a step back."

"You're not going to get away with this, you know," the woman told her calmly.

"Luckily for me, you don't have any say so in the matter," Frankie responded as she herded the woman to the back of the lab where the storage area was.


Stepping out of the lab ten minutes later, Frankie had a small bag hung from her shoulder containing three micro EMP bomb. Margery, the lab tech, was gagged and locked in a large storage locker where she hopefully wouldn't be discovered anytime soon. The lab didn't have any personal weapons, so she held onto the laser knife figuring it was better than nothing.

Her original plan had been to disable the servers, armory, and assault vehicles with the EMP bombs, then plant a regular bomb on the spacecraft. However, she realized she would never be able to get close to the spacecraft without Rory by her side, and the armory was so heavily guarded that she likely would be captured there. In fact, the fewer places she went, the better her chances. So, she settled on the server. That would cripple the facility long enough for her to make it to the hangar bay and steal a vehicle to make her escape.

Frankie reached the server room with no problem. It was on the lowest level of the facility, one down from the hangar with the rest of the utilities and she took the stairs to avoid as many people as possible. Trying her code on the door, she discovered she was out of luck this time. Her code didn't work on this door. Pulling out the laser knife, she activated it and shoved it into the door's handle. Within moments, the handle fell onto the floor with a clatter and the door swung open. Slipping the knife into her pocket and kicking the broken handle into the room, she slipped in and pulled the door shut behind her as well as she could, hoping nobody would come by in the next few minutes.

Inside, the room was nearly identical to the server room at the SHIELD compound. Not sure of the area of effect of the micro EMP bombs, she placed all three of them around the room just in case. Now all she had to do was get far enough away that her other devices wouldn't be affected, and she could set it off with the remote detonator.

So far, everything was going smoothly, she thought, stepping out of the server room and shutting the door behind her. She just needed to get to the hangar.

Turning to head that direction, she ran right into a solid chest. Hands came up to grip her arms and stop her from fleeing.

"What do you think you're doing, Frankie?" Rory said softly.