A/N: Your responses to this story have made me so happy. And look! Another chapter! So crazy how that works. . . .

Wednesday started with another early morning, but instead of running at 4:30, Masen had her drive them to a local high school track at closer to 5.

"What are we doing here?"

"Running."

"I see that. Three miles again?"

"Yep."

"Why on a track?"

"You were not confident in the distance of our route yesterday."

"Well, I was just curious how you knew how far. . ."

"Three miles on a track is 12 laps plus about 28 meters. 8:20 per mile means we'll be done in 25 minutes. Let's go. I'm hungry."

He set off running from a point three quarters of the way down the straight stretch. Bella tripped, caught herself, and ran hard to catch up. Day 1 of running with Agent Masen hadn't been so bad. Day 2 was hell. She hadn't slept well the night before, and her muscles were stiff and burned with each stride. Not only that, the 10 second per mile increase in speed felt a lot faster than it sounded.

By their fourth lap, Bella was struggling to keep up. Masen glanced over his shoulder at her a couple times but his pace didn't waver in the slightest. By the sixth lap she was cursing her big mouth. Running circles on a track was tedious and made the distance seem so much longer than running on sidewalks. At the start of their third mile, her legs no longer hurt. They just felt rubbery like the muscles were pumped full of glue. Little by little her partner pulled away as her strides became increasingly irregular and breathing got more difficult.

Bella gritted her teeth and tried to come up with a song to distract herself. When she wasn't thinking so hard about running and breathing, it usually helped. However, all that came to mind were names and faces, snapshots of the data she had been studying for the last two days. She felt panic setting in when she realized Masen was almost 30 meters ahead of her. She was determined not to fall back any further. She drove herself harder. Pain was stabbing through her left side, radiating from a spot behind her ribs. She pumped her arms and dug her heels into the rubber surface of the track, forcing her fatigued muscles to extend and contract just a little harder. A little faster.

It was the final lap. She knew she could catch up. She fixed her eyes on the figure ahead of her; dark hair, sweat-stained shirt, muscular legs churning relentlessly around the turn. Bella reached deep for the strength she knew she had within her, drawing closer and closer to him. On the final stretch, she finally pulled alongside her partner. A part of her, the part that was proud and competitive, pushed her to go all out and sprint for the finish line. But the conscious and controlled part, the disciplined agent, remembered the expectation he had laid out at the beginning: Three miles. 8:20 per mile. It wasn't a race.

Side by side, they came down the final stretch, crossing the line simultaneously. Bella's legs wobbled and she almost tripped again, but she stayed on her feet, put her hands behind her head and forced herself to walk. Step by trembling step she regained her balance and muscle control, sucking the humid air deep into her lungs. On the far side of the curve she turned around and started walking back, keeping to the outside of the track. A few other runners and joggers were moving around the oval and she watched them curiously as she recovered her wind. What was wrong with them? Did they actually enjoy running?

Masen was waiting for her at the point where they had first entered the track. "Nice run."

"No it wasn't. It sucked."

"Did you run three miles?"

"Yes."

"At the required pace?"

"Sure, if you average it out. As long as we can trust your mysterious internal pedometer."

His eyebrows lowered and his lip twitched but he didn't respond to her baiting. "Mission accomplished. Good run. Simple as that."

"Are you trying to teach me something?"

"Are you willing to learn?"

"Yeah. . . I mean, yes. I want to learn."

"Then, yes. I am. Now, let's eat."

Bella felt a little green at the idea of food, but by the time they pulled into the parking lot by her building her stomach was growling. After running two days in a row, Bella wanted something more than oatmeal to eat. She washed her hands and pulled eggs, butter, cheese and bacon from the fridge. The kitchenette was nowhere near big enough for two people so she was glad Masen didn't hover.

He disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes then came back out, stripped off his sweaty running clothes and pulled on the wrinkled, stained shirt and jeans he was wearing the first day she met him. Bella wasn't trying to watch him but there were no walls and it was impossible not to see him. It made no sense that he chose to change in the middle of the room when there was a perfectly good lock on the bathroom door.

As he dressed, she microwaved the bacon, toasted bread, scrambled the eggs in the pan with butter and shredded cheese then loaded up two plates and brought them to the table along with two glasses of ice water. Masen sat down across from her with a grunt of thanks, or at least that's how she chose to interpret it. He began shoveling the food into his mouth so fast she felt a little uncomfortable watching him.

"In a hurry?"

"Yep."

"You going out like that?"

"Yeah. Why, do I stink?"

"Yes, actually. You kind of do." She scrunched her nose a bit and smirked. "You look downright disreputable."

"That's the idea."

"Hmm. You don't like explaining yourself."

"It's a waste of time."

"But you'll tell me everything I need to know?"

"Check your email. Gotta run. Thanks for breakfast."

Bella looked down at his plate as he wiped the last chunks of eggs up with a wedge of toast and crammed it in his mouth, then threw back the rest of his water and got up. He shoved his arms into his jacket, pulled a poorly stitched beanie down over his hair and slung his rucksack over one shoulder. He threw her a mocking two-finger salute and slipped out the door. She heard the lock click behind him. So he did have a key.

Bella left her half-eaten breakfast and crept to the window. Between the cracks of the blinds she watched Masen jump down the last couple steps and set off across the street at a steady run. She doubted he was meeting up with legitimate, law abiding citizens looking like that. She was also pretty certain he had access to another vehicle close by. Running all over the city was very conspicuous.

Her appetite was gone, but she forced herself to finish her food and tidy up the apartment before she showered and dressed for the day. Masen had recommended that she visit Tanya again, but he had also told her repeatedly to check her e-mail. She set up her laptop and logged into the secure server. Sure enough, there were several emails from accounts she didn't recognize.

The first few emails contained simple instructions on standard formatting along with a couple of templates to be used when submitting their written request for funding. Each one was sent from a different address, but the contents were obviously all from Agent Masen.

The most recent email contained a long list of expense items and their projected costs. Her mouth hung open. $125,000 for a car? First class airline tickets, $16,485 on clothes for him, $4,760 on lingerie and clothes for her, makeup and spa services? Was he out of his mind? Bella scrolled down the list and blanched when she saw his requirements for multiple bank accounts in the name of Edward Cullen with 7-figure balances. Did Masen really believe the government was going to set him up as a millionaire playboy? Based on what she was reading, he not only believed it, he expected it. She didn't get to the good stuff until the last page. Phones, cameras, bugs and sensors. . . there were enough gadgets and gizmos on the list to make a Radio Shack employee self combust. She was feeling a little shell shocked.

Bella checked the time and figured she could work on the cover letter, forms and mission plan revisions until mid morning, head into town and dig through Tanya's archives for a few hours, and still make it home again before the afternoon rush hour started. She put a pot of coffee on, cracked her knuckles and started typing. It was going to take some pretty fancy wording to convince Mahardy that even half of the things on Masen's list were necessary.

She had a rough draft almost ready when a chill climbed up her spine and across her shoulders. One thing was very conspicuously missing from the list - weapons. . . She hadn't seen a single one, not even a knife. They were going into the enemy's territory armed with nothing but what they carried in their heads, just like Masen had warned her.

Driving into town was a welcome break. However, hours spent in front of one of Tanya's computer screens left her brain a muddle of names and images that she could barely make sense of. She returned home mentally and emotionally oversaturated. Her brain felt like a sponge that had absorbed all it could and now sat on the counter in a puddle of water, bloated and leaking from every pore.

She fixed herself a light dinner and sank wearily into a chair before her laptop, forcing herself to sift through the new text and email updates Masen had sent over the last several hours, adding and editing lines in the draft documents. By the time Bella heard a key turn in the lock, it was dark outside, her neck was stiff, her eyes were burning, and her leg muscles were cramping from the combination of too much running followed by too much sitting. She eyed Masen suspiciously as he stepped in and shut the door behind him. He had smelled pretty bad that morning. Now he looked and smelled like he had been wrestling with a wild animal in a dumpster, then hosed himself off with malt liquor.

"You need a shower."

"In a minute."

"No. Now. And burn those clothes."

"I can't. They're irreplaceable."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Trust me. They are a necessary evil. But if you get me a couple garbage bags we can at least contain the problem."

Bella hopped off her chair. The smell had already filled the tiny apartment and she was working hard to keep her dinner down. She barely flinched when Masen stripped down to bare skin in the entryway, balling his clothes up like before and shoving them into the bag she held open for him.

"You're right. I need a shower."

She nodded emphatically, holding her breath as she tied a knot in the black garbage bag, stuffed it into a second bag and tied that, too. She let the air out with a relieved whoosh, turned on the kitchen fan and the bathroom fan then cracked the window. Masen climbed into the shower, laughing at her the whole time.

Ten minutes later he came out of the bathroom drying his hair roughly with the towel she had loaned him. Bella looked at him frankly for the first time, her eyes traveling from his greenish gray ones, over his muscular frame, down his legs and back up again. She had seen many men in various stages of nudity, she had even slept with a few of them, but she had never seen anyone as comfortable in their skin as Agent Masen. She had also never seen anyone who wore the evidence of a horrific and painful past so blatantly, almost defiantly.

Standing only a few paces away from her, he held her gaze. One eyebrow lifted as if to ask her for permission to carry on. She shrugged one shoulder and turned back to her laptop.

"You're not going to ask me about my scars?"

"You won't tell me your first name or show me where you live. Why would you share something so personal?"

"Who said it was personal?" he asked flatly.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously. I've been shot more than once. Business, not pleasure. Nothing personal about that."

"Were you whipped or caned, too?"

"Something like that."

"There you go again. Why are you always so cryptic and secretive?"

"On Monday I offered to let you stay at my place. How is that being secretive?"

"Because you knew I would say no."

"You're learning," he said with a light laugh.

"Stop. My head hurts. Why don't you put some clothes on and come over here to review what I wrote."

He dressed in athletic shorts and a tank top before walking over to stand behind her chair. With one hand braced against the wall and the other resting on her shoulder, he read through the letter and reviewed the forms, stopping her occasionally to make minor changes.

"Are they really going to give you all this stuff?"

"It doesn't hurt to ask, does it?"

"It just seems like a lot."

"Don't worry. Most of it will be funneled right back into the coffers when we're done."

"Don't worry, don't worry. Right," she muttered as she saved their changes.

"Nice work." He patted her shoulder, walked over to the fridge and pulled out a cold water bottle. "How did things go in the crypt? Learn anything interesting?"

"I pretty much just reread everything I read yesterday. I don't know if anyone or anything really stood out for me, but I'm retaining more of the details. I think I'd like to go back again before we head out."

"I agree. We'll do that. Well, it's pretty late and we've got a big meeting tomorrow. E-mail those docs to me and get some sleep. And we'll run at 5 o'clock again. 3 miles. 8:15." With that he settled onto the couch and shut his eyes.

He hadn't said which address to send it to, so she cc'd all of them. Bella rubbed her face roughly. 9 miles in three days. It was official - Agent Masen was a sadist.