Alex's compliant silence lasted all of about fifteen minutes into the car ride, at which point her curiosity won out. "Where are we going?" she asked, trying to be polite, but also quite annoyed with the way her day had gone sideways.

The agent driving the car glanced away from the road to share a silent conversation with the agent in the passenger seat (the one who had essentially – legally – abducted her). The conversation lasted a brief moment before the driver nodded once in concession.

"You're being relocated," the passenger informed her curtly.

"Relocated?" she repeated incredulously.

The agent nodded. "For your own safety," he added, without truly explaining anything at all.

Alex sighed in aggravation because, really, that only begged more questions than it answered. It seemed, though, that she wasn't going to get any of them answered. Namely because the car had turned off the main road and parked outside a small airstrip, at which point Alex was ushered quite unceremoniously from the backseat and towards a waiting plane.

"Wait!" Alex said, glancing over her shoulder at the agent following her up the steps, "What about, you know, my things? I'm assuming that being relocated means I'll need more than one change of clothes..."

"It's been taken care of," came the gruff reply.

Alex found her temper wearing thin at the cloak and dagger of it all and, if she'd been more the sort of vamp to make shows of force, she might've bared her fangs for the sake of attempting to frighten the men into giving her some answers. (Not that she thought that would actually work...) As it was, she heaved a weary sigh and climbed the rest of the steps into the waiting aircraft.

A third agent was waiting for her – a woman this time – and she smiled warmly at Alex and gestured to the seat across from her, which Alex took, albeit a little trepidatously. "I'm sure you must be very confused," the woman said, which was more compassion than she'd been shown that day. "I'm going to explain everything. At least, the parts that aren't classified."

Her brows leapt up her forehead. "Classified?" she repeated incredulously. What could she possibly be involved in that was classified?

The woman extended a hand towards her for a handshake. "I'm Agent Mosely. But you can call me Tsia." When Alex accepted the handshake, Tsia seemed surprised by how cold her skin was, but she hid it well.

Alex had about a million questions swirling around her head and, before she could voice any of them, Tsia seemed to read her mind and preemptively began answering them.

"You haven't done anything wrong, Ms. Miller. You're going into Witness Protection at the request of one of our agents, out of concern for your safety in regards to your ex-husband."

Frowning, Alex began puzzling out that statement in her mind. Because the only person who really knew that James was any kind of a threat was Emily. And, while Emily hadn't mentioned anything about being an Interpol agent, she also hadn't said a lot about what she'd done for work before she'd opened her book shop...so, she supposed, anything could be possible.

Tsia, as if sensing that Alex was arriving at the eventual conclusion that Emily was the one who had requested her protection, passed Alex the tablet sitting on the table in front of her. "I think this should help answer any questions you may have..."

As Alex took the tablet, the screen flickered to life as FaceTime started up. Emily answered the call, her expression somewhere between guilty and devastated. "Alex..." she said breathlessly, "I'm so sorry..."

"Em, what's going on?" she asked. She'd planned on being angry that Emily had kept such an enormous secret from her, but in the face of Emily's obvious utter despair, she couldn't seem to muster any anger.

"I'm being recalled to Interpol," Emily said, using jargon that was obviously scripted for her. "I can't tell you why, but I can tell you that I don't have much of a choice in this matter... If I did, I certainly wouldn't be saying goodbye to you over FaceTime." She gave a small humourless laugh. "God, Alex...I'm going to miss you. I don't know how I'm going to survive without you."

Alex, though, still had questions... "How long are you going to be gone? Are you in danger? Am I? And what about..."

Emily shook her head sadly. "I don't know. I don't have any answers for you. But I've made sure that you'll have the best people protecting you. That was the only way I would agree to leave you..."

That was when it truly seemed to hit Alex that she was really leaving. That she might never see Emily again. "Em..." she choked out, "I don't want to do this. I don't want you to go."

"I know," she whispered, "I don't want to either."

Alex choked on a sob, struggling to maintain her composure in front of Agent Mosely.

"It's going to be okay," Emily tried to reassure her, though it was unclear whether she herself truly believed those words. "I'll be back before you've even had time to miss me and then we'll go back to DC and get settled or, hell, we'll go anywhere. Anywhere you want. We'll make a new life for ourselves. Whatever life you want to have."

Shaking her head, Alex murmured, "Don't make me a promise you can't keep..."

Emily gave a small little laugh, this one slightly more mirthful than the last. "You seem to be forgetting something... I'm stubborn. And when I make a promise to you, I'm far too stubborn to ever break it."

Alex smiled faintly because she did know that to be true. "Promise?" she asked.

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

Alex winced at those words, the idea of death settling heavy in the pit of her stomach.

Emily too seemed uneasy by her word choice. "Forget I said that," she quickly back-pedaled. "Just...don't forget that I love you, okay?"

"Okay," she rasped, unable to forget the flippant use of the word die.