A/N: Thank you for all the offers of laundry assistance. I am happy to announce that it is all clean, folded and stacked up on the couch and coffee table. Small victories, right?
Bella couldn't sit any more. Not right then. Not with the way her thoughts were careening around inside her skull. She stood and paced, barely taking six steps across her tiny apartment before being forced to turn around and go the other way.
Going undercover was simultaneously frightening and innervating. She was surprised by how much she was anticipating those first moments of stepping into her role as Marie. With the 18th fast approaching, her senses were on high alert. She was more in tune with her body; her breathing, her heart rate, the flex and stretch of muscles over bone, the flow of blood through her veins and the feel of fabric brushing against her skin. She saw more clearly, heard more distinctly. Her brain was capturing and cataloging data almost spontaneously. Bella barely recognized herself. Her mind and body had never functioned so. . . so. . . dynamically.
Studying throughout high school and college, she had viewed her academic goals as keys she needed to attain in order to unlock opportunities post-graduation. At the academy, her objective was simply to gain acceptance into the FBI. She had learned the standards and made it her mission to achieve marks as close to perfection as possible.
The stakes in this game, however, were far greater than anything she had ever fought for in her life. She felt ill-suited to being cast as Agent Masen's partner. He was her superior in all things. Disguise, intelligence gathering, athletics, combat. . . everything.
At the same time, she had some strengths that were perfectly suited to the role she would be playing. Those traits encompassed more than just gender and appearance. She was driven. She was a fighter. She knew she was intelligent, but she was also very aware of how much she had to learn and how little time they had to prepare. She was humble enough to listen and follow instructions. Among her classmates, humility was a rare trait, and she had seen how damaging misplaced pride could be. Most importantly, she was committed to their mission. For all her shortcomings, for all her inexperience and naivete, she was certain she was the best agent for the job.
What was it that SAC Mahardy had told her on day one? "You're the right agent for the job. Don't ever doubt that. Just make it true."
With a renewed sense of purpose and a clearer head, Bella sat down, logged into her e-mail and downloaded the videos Agent Masen had sent her. The first one was not at all what she had expected. She had visualized a martial arts instructor disarming a mock villain. Instead she was receiving an anatomy and physiology lesson, but it was a lesson unlike any she had experienced before.
The video broke down the human body into a collection of pressure points and vulnerabilities. Many she already knew; sensitive areas like the eyes, throat and groin. Others were revelatory. A jab to the armpit, a blow to the side of the knee, pressure points to weaken the arms or hands, and many, many more. The video revealed a collection of anatomical red zones where sudden or unexpected pressure could cause weakness, distraction or debilitating pain.
At the end of the 40 minute tutorial, Bella turned her laptop to face the room, stood in front of it and hit 'replay'. She located each of the locations on her own body as the video described them and how to exploit them, pausing periodically to back up and ensure she had it right. She took a short break for a snack then plunged right on to the next tutorial.
The second video was more like what she was originally expecting. She watched closely as the instructor demonstrated techniques for disarming an opponent who was larger and one who was smaller, sometimes with a knife and other times with a gun, assailants approaching from different angles, and even an unwitting opponent he took by surprise. Each scenario called for a different stance, a variety of skills and absolute commitment to the action. He moved swiftly, using a combination of holds, strikes and weight shifts to strip the weapon out of the other man's hands. Then, like a replay during a sporting event, the video broke it down in slow motion.
Bella imitated the maneuvers, imagining a faceless figure dressed in black, gloved hands gripping a variety of weapons as she pinned, twisted and wrenched them out of his grasp. Her focus was so intent that she could almost feel the flex of muscles, the twang of tendons and the grind of bones beneath her fingers. She was winded and sweating when she heard steps outside her door and a key turning in the lock.
Bella paused the video and spun around to face the door, automatically holding her breath before the imminent stench of Agent Masen's repellent get up. When the door opened her jaw dropped. No matter how open minded she was, he always managed to knock her off balance.
"What in the world have you been up to?"
"Shopping."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"I thought you would be happy. It's an improvement, right? I even had a shower before I came over."
Bella shook her head in disbelief. The man standing in her tiny apartment was not the man who had walked out the door six hours earlier. Dressed in a dark blue suit with a wide yellow tie and a big gold ring on his right hand, he looked like a news anchor or an insurance salesman. But he had changed more than just his clothing. His hair was slicked back and dyed dark brown. His eyes were brown, his cheeks were puffy and he carried an extra 20-30 pounds around his middle. The bruise on his clean-shaven jaw was barely visible through a layer of matte concealer.
"What did you do to yourself?"
"Don't look so put out. It's not permanent." Agent Masen unbuttoned his jacket and shirt to reveal a padded suit beneath. He grabbed a couple of hangers out of her closet and hung up his clothes, placing his polished dress shoes neatly alongside hers.
In an undershirt and boxer shorts he looked almost normal again, but the changes to his hair, eyes and the contours of his face were disturbing. Bella watched with wide eyes as he withdrew pink rubber oral inserts from behind his lower lip and inside his cheeks. He rinsed them in the bathroom sink and dropped them into a small plastic case then looked up with a grin.
"You still look terrified."
"I'm not surprised. That was quite possibly the creepiest thing I've ever seen."
He smirked and popped out his contacts, then dunked his head under the shower to wash out the brown dye. "There are two kinds of invisible," he explained as he towel dried his hair and wiped the water droplets from his face, neck and shoulders. "The things people don't see because they would rather not look, and the things they overlook because they are so commonplace that they aren't worthy of attention. In busy cities, bums and middle-aged businessmen are the simplest disguises ever. With the right tools, you can change your appearance, walk, scent and language. . . all in under 30 minutes."
"Speaking of your scent. . ."
"What, you don't like my cologne?"
"It's an improvement over earlier, but I honestly hope you don't wear it ever again."
"Don't worry. It's not really my thing. I see you've been watching the videos I sent. Learn anything interesting?"
"Sure. I've been practicing five different techniques for crushing a guy's testicles."
"I hope that's not all you got out of that," he said with a bark of laughter.
"I might have picked up a few tricks. But I need a practice dummy."
"I'm your man. Go get me a knife."
"Wait. . . what? A real knife?"
"Ms. Swan, I'm reasonably certain that the Volturi guards use actual knives. They may even sharpen them once in awhile. If you don't practice with one, you'll be at a disadvantage if you ever face one in real life. We'll go slow. Don't worry. I won't let you cut either one of us."
Her face went from cold to hot and back again. She went through the cutlery drawer in her kitchen and settled on a paring knife with a 3-inch blade. Masen moved the furniture back until they had a ten foot diameter clear space to work. She held the knife out to him hilt first and he eyed it skeptically.
"You don't have any real knives?"
"Um, no."
"Oh, well, it'll do for the basics. Stab me."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Stab me."
Bella reversed the knife in her hand and made a half-hearted jab towards her partner's stomach. He slapped her hand hard. The knife went skittering across the floor and slid under the cabinet.
"Ms. Swan, if you seriously think I'm going to buy that, you're far less intelligent than I thought you were. You couldn't hurt me if you wanted to. At least pay me the compliment of trying."
Bella held her throbbing hand to her chest, wiggling her fingers until the pain faded to a tingle. Feeling utterly humiliated, she crouched down and retrieved the knife from beneath the cabinet overhang. She wrapped her fingers around the handle and held it low by her hip, thinking back to one of the scenes from the video. The attacker had approached slowly, dropped to one knee, then stood up within arm's length of the instructor, bringing the blade up with an underhanded strike to dig beneath his ribs.
What if she actually cut him? What if her hand slipped and she cut herself?
She had seen Agent Masen in action at the gun range. He was fast. She knew he had been doing this kind of thing for years. Trust him, she told herself and took two slow steps forward.
She kept her eyes fixed on his, soft brown staring down flinty gray-green. When she was only a few feet away she sprang into motion, taking a rapid breath as she dropped into a lunge with her left foot leading, then propelled herself forward and up, her right hand swinging hard in an underhanded arc straight for the soft tissue below his left ribs.
It felt like she was experiencing a slow motion scene from a movie. Masen's knees bent slightly and his upper body tilted smoothly away from the blade's path. His hands came together, converging at her wrist. She brought her left hand over to grab his right forearm, still driving up with the force of her entire body. Rather than stopping her, he pulled her hand up further, the tip of the blade catching and slicing through the fabric of his undershirt. Using her own momentum against her, he forced her hand high above his shoulder. He twisted it counter clockwise as she rose up on her toes, spinning her off balance and into the circle of his arms. As she desperately tried to regain her footing he plucked the knife from her hand and released her with a gentle push.
Bella staggered and turned, her heart pounding like thunder in her chest. Her eyes were wide and her brain was racing, trying to process everything that had happened in those two seconds.
"How. . ."
"Drop and lunge. Not a lot of options," he explained matter-of-factly. "It's either a straight in attack with the knife, in which case you would have led with your shoulders and started four to six inches further back so the blade would enter my stomach at the highest velocity possible. Or, it's an upward strike like you chose. The fact that you dropped down so close to me made it immediately clear that you would strike beneath my ribs at a relatively shallow angle. I only had to move back a few inches to be in the clear. The force necessary for such an attack is immense, coming primarily from your legs as you surge up from the lunge. All your weight was on one foot. It took very little effort to pull you off balance. Very few people can maintain their grip on a weapon while falling. If this were a true combat scenario, this knife would have been planted in your throat." Masen paused, his eyes flat and calculating. "Now, Ms Swan, it's your turn."
Their roles were reversed. With the knife held casually in his right hand, he took a step toward her. Then another.
Bella swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry. Her eyes were glued to his. Trust. That word was beginning to take on new meaning.
A/N: Yes, I ended the chapter there. Please don't throw things at me. Please. . . ?