My instincts, honed by years of specialist training, kicked in immediately. "Down!" I yelled, grabbing Agent Hand by the jacket and pulling her to the ground with me. We were just in time; the second my face hit the mud, a hail of bullets laced the air above us. Automatically, my hand went to my earpiece. Then I remembered: someone, presumably whoever was shooting at us, had jammed our communications. Their guns sounded like automatics, P-90's, maybe? These guys weren't playing around.

"It's a trap!" Coulson shouted from his position behind the bush. "They were waiting for us!"

"I noticed!" I retorted. Then, seeing Hand trying to sit up, "Stay down if you want to get out of here in one piece."

I pulled my gun out of its thigh holster. Much as I prefer hand-to-hand, I know my way around a firearm. Turning over on my stomach, I raised the weapon, looking for movement, a muzzle flash, anything to give me some idea where the enemy was. Nothing. It was like the bullets were coming out of nowhere.

"Got a visual on the hostiles?" I called to Coulson over the sound of the gunfire.

"Negative!" came the reply. It was a little farther away than last time; I hoped he'd found some decent cover. Bushes are great for concealment, not so much for avoiding bullets.

A round hit a sapling next to me, and shards of green wood rained down on me. Shit. They were using explosive ammo. If I took a bullet, I was as good as dead. The thought didn't scare me as much as it once would have, but I still had no desire to meet my maker, not yet.

"Visual contact!" Duvall shouted. "Three hundred meters southeast." I quickly got my bearings and turned around as best I could without raising my head. Hand followed suit, gun at the ready. Sure enough, the sunlight glinted off something metal. Seconds later, I saw a muzzle flash. I emptied two rounds in that direction, wincing at the noise. The acrid scent of gunpowder was beginning to fill the air.

"We need to regroup!" Coulson shouted, his voice carrying a frightened edge. This was bad. Coulson was one of the most unflappable people I knew; if he was rattled, things were really hitting the fan. "Behind that ridge; take separate routes!"

You left, me right, I signaled Hand. She nodded. Keeping my gun at the ready, I crawled on my stomach across the forest floor, pushing off with my elbows. It was hardly comfortable, but I didn't care. Something about being shot at really puts things in perspective. I watched Hand slithering through the leaves towards the ridge, having the good sense to keep the tree between her and the source of the gunfire. Maybe she was more stealthy than I'd given her credit for.

I reached an open patch of ground and crossed it with a rather awkward crouching run, hearing a bullet come perilously close to my ear. I wasn't scared. I just dropped back down to my stomach and continued crawling, branches hitting my body and thorns tearing at my clothes. A particularly sharp branch tore right through the leg of my tactical suit and took a nice strip of skin off, but considering the amount of fire we were under, I didn't think even the old Melinda would have taken much notice. I glanced to my left, looking for Hand, but couldn't see her. The ridge was right up ahead. Gun still clutched in my right hand, I stretched out and rolled over the top of the ridge, twisting in midair to land on my feet with my weapon drawn. To my relief, Hand was there already, facing away from the ridge and white-knuckling her gun.

"You hurt?" I asked.

She shook her head, looking slightly shell-shocked. Her maroon-streaked hair had fallen from its ponytail and hung in damp strings around her face, which was completely devoid of color. "Y-you're bleeding," she said, nodding at my leg.

"Just a scratch. Tree branch, not bullet." It could still become infected with God knows what kind of jungle bacteria if we were out here for any extended period of time, but I wasn't about to tell her that. In situations like this, panic is an agent's worst enemy.

I took stock of the situation. The ridge was tall enough that, as long as Hand hunched her shoulders a little, we could stand up and still be covered by it, and the forest behind us was dense enough that we could disappear into it if necessary. Leg aside, Hand and I were both uninjured, though I had my doubts about how well she'd hold up under pressure, and we still had most of our gear. The gunfire was dying down, but we didn't know if there were hostiles still out there. I'd had no word from Coulson and Duvall, and I'd dropped my earpiece back by the trail. It was useless anyway. We were alone.

"What now?" Hand asked me.

"We wait for Coulson," I said firmly. "If he and the others are no-show, we go back to the mobile base and radio for an extraction."

"Okay." She exhaled audibly. I guess having someone else take charge had relieved some of the pressure. "Everything's going to be okay, right?" Without giving me a chance to lie and tell her it was, she barreled on. "I mean, those guys won't be able to find us here, will they? And you're, you're the Cavalry, so even if they—"

"Don't ever call me that," I snapped. "And please, for once in your life, shut up. Right now, we wait, we watch, and we listen. Quietly. Got it?"

So we waited, and watched, and listened. Quietly. The gunfire eventually stopped entirely, leaving the forest deathly silent. I considered going out to look for Coulson and the others, but the lack of animal noise told me that there were still people nearby. It would be best to stay here and wait it out. But if Coulson were injured or … no. I wouldn't let myself even consider the possibility. Phil Coulson was the closest thing this new Melinda had to a friend. He'd helped me pick up the shattered pieces of myself after Bahrain, to put my fractured mind back together, at least as much as was possible. He couldn't be dead. He didn't deserve it. It just wasn't an option.

The sound of a twig breaking rang through the trees, loud as a gunshot. I glanced over at Hand, ready to read her the riot act very quietly, but her eyes were glued to the trees behind us. I spun around, gun at the ready, but it was too late.