Andrew
It was well after nightfall when Sasha and Isabelle got home. "Ella's asleep. The adrenaline rush knocked her right out. Everyone else is in the office."
Sasha nodded. "Thanks. You get that to the lab." She said to Isabelle before taking off down the hall.
"So where are we?" I asked as the two of us walked into the lab.
"What do you mean?"
"This whole situation. What do we do? Shouldn't we file a missing person's report or something?" I asked. She wouldn't meet my gaze as she unpacked the field kit. "Isabelle." I tried. Finally, her brown eyes met mine.
"We can't." She said, although her face betrayed her guilt on the matter. "There's just been an act of international terrorism, the NYPD is going to put this on the back burner. Besides, between Sophie, Sasha, and I there will have been at least ten illegal acts committed in this building before midnight. We really don't need the police hanging around for that."
"Are you sure about this?" I asked.
She took a deep breath, a sure sign that she was stressed. "Honestly? No, but I trust Sasha to do everything she can to get Kyler back. Until someone who's equipped to deal with this situation gets home, I'm going to trust that she knows the best course of action."
"Then I will too. How can I help?" I asked.
"Well, you can take these to your brother for starters. And maybe stay in the office? I don't want you to be here while I'm doing illegal things." She gave me a sad smile and handed me the canisters from her kit, each one making a metallic jangling sound as they transferred hands.
"If you need anything, I'll be right down the hall." I said.
As I walked out the door, she picked up her phone. "Hi, Daddy. Yes I'm okay. I need your help with something."
*Kyler*
"What is this?" I didn't know who was speaking, but he sounded angry. Keeping my eyes closed, I tried to assess the situation. Whatever I had been drugged with was wearing off, but I could feel bindings on my hands and feet and I knew I wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight until it wore off completely.
"We got the girl, just like you asked." Said another voice on my left. "She put up one hell of a fight too. Shot Raymer in the knee before we were able to drug her. You said this was gonna be an easy mission with minimal resistance."
"I did." Said the first voice coldly. He had a strong English accent, probably from a middle class home near London. "And It would have been if you imbeciles had gotten the right girl. This one's of no use."
A door opened behind me. "Now, now Dr. Ashby. I'm sure we can find some use for her." The voice was a woman's this time, her accent suggesting that she was Scandinavian. "What happened?"
The second man, the american one, spoke again. "It was her, a redhead, and some other girl who was a couple inches taller than them. She never took her helmet off so I didn't get a good look at her face. This one and the redhead were both armed and trained. After we hit her with the drugs she started yelling at the other in French I think, then some other language I didn't recognize. Maybe Chinese? Anyway, Red drove off with the tall one and Blondie here hit the ground not long after." I focused on keeping my breath steady and pretending to be passed out, but my mind was suddenly buzzing. Sasha and Ella must have gotten away, which means I just have to hold out until someone comes for me.
"I told you to get the girl with the blonde curls. She said she had almost no training." Dr. Ashby said. "It was probably the one with the helmet on, you moron." They were after Ella.
"You said to get the blonde, and I did. Not my fault you didn't factor in more than one blonde girl." Replied the second man.
"Without the Rogers girl, all of our research will have been for nothing!" Shouted the doctor.
"Calm down, Ashby. I'm sure this one will prove herself useful. Take her to the sunroom and wake her up." Ordered the woman. "The good doctor and I have some other matters to attend to before Monsieur Lagarde arrives. Oh, and I suggest you come up with a way to explain yourself before he does. Lagarde pays you and your team good money for good work, but this was less than satisfactory." I heard heels clicking on the floor as she walked away.
Liam
It was well past midnight, and we had made little progress in our search for answers. In fact, it seemed like every time someone came up with a new piece of information we acquired one answer and five new questions. Sophie had managed to get a look at the vehicle's plates, but they weren't registered in any DMV records, and Nolan hadn't been able to glean much from the helmets. The biggest breakthrough of the night had taken place when Izzy came scurrying in from the lab down the hall.
"I have hacked six databases with increasing illegality and finally found a match to the blood sample from the scene. It belongs to one Jonas Raymer. He's a known mercenary."
"Soph, can you figure out who the last person to hire Raymer was?" I asked. Sophie nodded, turning back to the computers in front of her.
"Where is everyone?" Izzy asked, toying with the end of her long, dark braid. Save for me and Sophie, the office was deserted.
"Nolan took the bullets and casings down to the workshop, Andrew is checking on Ella, and Sasha said she needed to 'do something useful.' I think she's getting frustrated."
She nodded. "You should go make sure she's okay. The last thing we need is for her to start making poor decisions out of anger."
"You're probably right. Make sure you and Sophie get to bed soon, okay?" She nodded, giving me a tiny smile. With that, I headed out the door.
I found Sasha in the range next to the armory, taking shot after shot at the targets lining the walls. When the magazine was empty, she pulled her knife from her belt, flipping it open an sending it hurdling towards the target so fast that I nearly missed it.
"Sasha? Are you okay?" I knew what her answer would be before she even opened her mouth. I had seen her with sprains and fractures and blood trickling down her face and every single time she just smiled up at me with a storm brewing in her silver-blue eyes and said "I'm fine." But not today.
"I should have taken the shot."
I eased the gun from her hand and she looked at it as if realizing for the first time that she had pulled it out. "You didn't have a clean shot. What if you had missed?"
"Did I miss?" she said indicating the neatly butchered targets.
I didn't know what to say. I knew she needed something from me, but I didn't know exactly what. I settled for putting a hand on her shoulder, and took it as a small victory that she didn't shrug it off. "Even if you had made that shot, what would you have done? You were outmanned, outgunned, and trying to protect Ella." I took a deep breath. "Thank you, by the way, for doing that. I didn't think it was possible to feel both guilty and grateful at the same time. You took care of my sister without any thought to your own personal safety, and I owe you for that. If you had made a different call, I would probably be standing where you are right now."
Her right hand absently went to trace the delta tattoo on her inner arm, the one that mirrored her sister's. "Between the two of them, Kyler had the best chance of coming out of this alive." Someone who didn't know her that well wouldn't have detected the slight change in tone on the word 'alive,' but I was someone who knew her very well. I could tell she was fighting to keep her breaths even beneath my hand.
"Sasha, tell me what you need."
She finally turned to face me and I realized that Sasha Barton, the indestructible girl, was broken.
"I need my sister."
She fell apart quietly, hot tears soaking into my shirt as she rested her forehead against my chest.
I could've said a lot of things in that moment. I could have told her how I felt, or that we would get Kyler back, or that everyone was doing everything they could, or that this wasn't her fault, but I finally knew what she needed. She needed someone to hold her together, just for a little while.
So I did.
Andrew
It was nearly two in the morning by the time I managed to coax Sophie out of the office, staying behind for a few minutes to put things back in order. As I passed the lab on my way to the elevator, I noticed that the computer was still on and in front of it was Isabelle's sleeping form. Her arms were resting on the table, cradling her head between them. She must have been intending to go to bed and gotten sidetracked because, like me, she wore sweatpants and an old t-shirt.
I didn't want to wake her, so I carefully lifted her into my arms and carried her back to her room, pulling the covers up to her chin after setting her on the bed. I was about to switch off the lamp and leave when her hand closed around my wrist.
"Will you stay? I don't want to be alone tonight." She mumbled sleepily. She looked so … fragile. I knew I couldn't deny her request, even if I had wanted to.
"Okay." I nodded and she wordlessly scooted over, making a spot for me on the bed. As I flicked the lamp off she tucked her head under my chin and I remembered how cuddly she was when she slept. Happy to oblige, I wrapped an arm around her waist feeling the familiar fabric of one of my t-shirts beneath my fingers. I smiled, pulling her closer and letting our legs tangle up beneath the sheets. She could steal every shirt I owned and I wouldn't mind one bit. How could I when she looked this beautiful in them? With that thought in mind and the sweet smell of her hair beneath my nose, I finally drifted off to sleep.
I awoke to Isabelle crying out. She was tangled in the sheets, her breathing shallow and uneven. The warm light of the lamp fell across her face as I flicked it on. "Isabelle!" I said. "Isabelle, wake up. It's just a dream."
Her dark brown eyes flew open as she gasped for air. "Andrew." She breathed, and I noticed the tear tracks glistening on her cheeks.
"Isabelle, what's wrong?" I asked, sitting up with my back against the headboard. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
She shook her head, indicating that she didn't want to talk about it at all, but nonetheless she said through fresh tears, "I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything. She was right there bleeding out in front of me and I was stuck."
"Isabelle." I said, gently brushing away the tears from her cheeks. Before I even realized what had happened she had crawled into my lap and tucked her head under my chin. "It wasn't real." I assured her, wrapping her up in my arms. "Nightmares are just the subconscious surfacing of our fears. You're worried about Kyler, and scared that you aren't going to be able to help her."
Her breathing had evened out a bit. "I'm scared for her." She admitted. "I should have done something."
"What could you have done?"
"I don't know." She said, frustration growing. "Something, anything. People are messing with my family, Andrew. I should be able to stop them."
"We're going to figure this out, okay?"
She nodded, burying her face in my chest as I rubbed small circles on her back. "I love you."
The words were muffled, but I was sure I had heard her correctly. I pulled back, trying to look at her face, but she looked away and avoided my eyes. "Isabelle, please look at me."
She glanced up at me nervously. "I figured now was as good a time as any to admit it."
For a long moment I didn't know what to say. Say you love her too, dumbass. I knew that's what I should do, but it just didn't feel like enough. "I don't know how to say this without sounding like a total moron, but I am impossibly and unwaveringly in love with you, Isabelle. I'm sorry it took me so long to admit it."
She was about to respond when a dinging noise came from her bedside table. "It's Sasha. She wants everyone in the office." She said, reading the message off the phone. I nodded, and the two of us rolled out of bed. A glance at the clock told me it was just past 05:30. Great.
It wasn't all horrible, though. Isabelle decided to tuck herself under my arm on our way there.
*Sasha*
"Where are we?" I asked as Ella walked into the office carrying a tray of fresh muffins.
"I just got off the phone with my dad," Nolan started "and he says that until yesterday's hack gets figured out, all flights are grounded. Most countries are threatening to shoot anything with a motor out of their airspace. International travel of any kind is at a near standstill."
"So for now, we're on our own." I said, picking up a muffin and peeling away the paper.
"What about SHIELD?" Izzy asked, still tucked under Andrew's arm. I had only gotten about an hour and a half of sleep, but I wasn't too tired to notice the clear shift in their relationship. "Surely we can get help from them, or at least Uncle Phil or Maria."
Sophie shook her head. "Uncle Phil left for a vacation in Australia as soon as the gala ended, and Maria's one of the new directors. Theres no way she'll be free to help us until this airline thing blows over. Our parents may work for SHIELD, but Kyler is technically a civilian, which means this would fall under the NYPD's jurisdiction."
I took a deep breath, trying to clear the mess in my head. "Nolan, what did you find out about the bullets?"
"About as much as I expected to." He said. "One of them was definitely fired from Kyler's Heckler & Koch, but without a control bullet from the assailants' guns, all I can really tell you about the other two is their caliber."
"Alright, any luck with Raymer?" I asked, turning to Sophie.
She pulled up a few files on the holotable. "He's got a juvie record longer than your arm, but no arrests as an adult." She said, flicking through his rap sheet.
"He was probably working as a merc by the time he became a legal adult." Andrew reasoned.
His sister nodded in agreement. "He's pretty off-grid, no house or apartment in his name, no credit cards. But, he does have a cell phone, which he uses to call Unification International several times a month." She said, pulling up a different website. The top of the screen flipped through pictures of volunteers handing out food and water to disaster victims around the world.
"I've never heard of that organization before." Izzy said.
"The website says that they're based out of France, but they have facilities all over the world."
"See if they have any facilities in New York." I said. "Mr. Raymer doesn't really seem like the humanitarian type." Sophie gave a small salute before turning back to her screens.
"I think I might have something." Ella said sheepishly, pulling out her sketchbook and flipping through to the page she wanted. "I don't know if it helps, but I remembered some of the faces of the men who attacked us."
"This is really good." Nolan said, taking the sketchbook and looking at the three sketches she had done. "If we can figure out who they are, we might have better luck tracking down their employer. Izzy, can I borrow the lab? I'll need to do a software download for facial recognition."
"Oh goody, more illegal things." She said without humor. "Go ahead."
Nolan thanked her before taking off down the hall with the sketchbook in hand.
"I know a few exercises that might help you remember more." Andrew offered. "If you're up to trying them, it could help." Ella nodded and followed him out of the room.
"Izzy, stay here and help Sophie."
"What about us?" Liam asked following me out of the room.
"You and I are going to go to the armory and create an extraction plan." I said, carefully avoiding the word "we" in reference to the two of us.
He nodded, following me into the elevator and reaching for the button that would take us to the armory in the second sub-level.
"Not that armory." I said, and I punched the button for the floor above us instead.
Kyler
The "sunroom" was not nearly as pleasant as it initially sounded. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an expanse of gray concrete, interrupted by a metal door that reminded me of the ones in the lab of the tower. The second thing I noticed was the strange lighting that illuminated the rubber floors and the straps that held me to the chair I had been dumped in. That had been several hours ago, and now as the sun rose I realized that the strangely patterned ceiling was actually a really dingy skylight about 12 feet over my head. I estimated that it was around six in the morning when the door slid open and a pale woman with platinum blonde hair walked in.
"Good morning Ms. Barton. You and I have much to discuss."
A/N: Sorry this one took so long, but it's finals time so I'm a little busy. As usual the link to the Q&A blog ison my profile. Please check it out, and maybe leave a question or two. And of course, if you have a moment, I would love a review.