CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #1: Welcome back everyone! In spite of the frustrating technical difficulties, so many of you took the time to read and review the last chapter.

CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #2: Thanks to the amazing nevr for helping me with the beta of this story. Thanks for the help Nev!

The Monster You Made Me

A Story by
CharmingCharles2896

Chapter Two
The Man From Burbank

Burbank, California
August 9th, 2023
3:42 AM PDT

In Burbank, there lived a man named Charles Irving Bartowski, his friends and family called him Chuck. This man, who's file read like any other normal, American man, was of particular interest to her employer, Langston Graham. Agent Walker knew what she did for Langston was illegal, his Enforcer Program was a flagrant breach of protocol, but she didn't say anything, complicity by force. All of her work was apparently sanctioned, but she didn't understand how he got some of those sanctions. Langston Graham had her father, somewhere; a dagger to her throat in case she ever thought about rebelling. While Jack Wilson thought his daughter was dead, his daughter was very much alive, even if there wasn't much life for her to live. Seven years as an Enforcer had made Agent Walker do a lot of things. She had oceans of blood on her hands, a seemingly never-ending cavalcade of dead bodies. Langston Graham had taken a depressed, miserable, little girl and turned her into an agent of chaos. While a part of her had always secretly wished for a house and a family, the shadows had become her home, comforting as they were.

Bartowski's file was interesting to Agent Walker, he was a scholarship student to Stanford, graduating magna cum laude. In spite of this man's stellar academic record, he managed a big box electric store in Burbank, California. Only two known romantic partners, one of which he married; Charles Bartowski had lived a relatively lonely life as far as romance was concerned. Both of Bartowski's parents were deceased. His mother, Mary Elizabeth Bartowski, was murdered in two-thousand and two, when Bartowski was a child. Bartowski's father, Stephen James Bartowski, died of a stroke ten years ago, in two-thousand and thirteen. Only Eleanor Faye Woodcomb, a neurologist with two children, and older sister of Charles Bartowski, was left of the greater Bartowski family. No aunts and uncles, no grandparents, just Charles and Eleanor remained to carry the Bartowski legacy forward.

Agent Walker had been trailing Bartowski for almost ten days, tracking his schedule, his habits, who he was as a person. What she saw was a simple man, who lived a simple, happy life. Every morning, Chuck, as seemingly everyone called him, drove his daughter to day care. Before handing the little girl off to Debra Samford, the daycare's manager, Bartowski gave his daughter three kisses, one on each cheek and one on her little forehead. After that, Bartowski drove to Lou's and purchased an Americano and a cream cheese bagel, which he always ate outside of Lou's while leaning against his silver Honda Civic. Every work day, Bartowski worked for exactly eight hours and two minutes before leaving to pick up his daughter from daycare. The two of them hugged for a minimum of five seconds every time he picked her up.

Being a single father, Chuck Bartowski was a man who wore many hats. Bread winner, father, and house cleaner were all roles that Bartowski inhabited. Chuck Bartowski did all of these things well, seeming to be in near constant motion, always with a smile on his face. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Bartowski took his daughter to the park, where the two of them would play on the swings for long minutes, laughing the entire time. The blonde-haired little girl was happy with her life, very happy if Agent Walker's observations were to be believed. Saturday nights were reserved for family dinners with Bartowski's sister, her heart surgeon husband, Devon, and their two children Benjamin and Claira. Interestingly, Morgan Guillermo Grimes, who Bartowski's file said was Bartowski's childhood best friend, also attended the family dinners. As the days had worn on, Agent Walker had seen less and less of a reason for her to be sent after this man. Langston was a vindictive man, cruel to his bones, but that did not explain why she was ordered to terminate a single father who's only crimes seemed to be that he loved his daughter to pieces.

Eventually, Agent Walker had stalled as long as she could. Graham gave her time to observe her targets, time to plan the cleanest way to pull off her mission, but he had a limit to his patience. When the night finally came, Agent Walker's reservations hadn't abated. In actuality, Agent Walker's reservations had only grown worse. Knowing she couldn't stall, nor could she seem to quell her reservations; Agent Walker called her boss in the middle of the night. As the minutes wore on, Agent Walker's attempts to dissuade her employer, to save this man's life, fell on deaf ears. Agent Walker had never asked her boss for anything, she'd hardly ever raised a fuss at all, but tonight was different.

"Director, I am begging you to rescind this order. Chuck Bartowski is one of the good guys; a loving father!" Agent Walker pleaded into the phone.

"Don't let your own daddy issues cloud your judgment, Agent Walker," Graham cracked, grating on her nerves for the hundredth time. "I don't remember you bitching about Sylvester Klein, you didn't even blink over Anya Denkova, nor did you throw a fit about Jahar Nazim. Is it because this one has a little blonde girl?" Agent Walker smothered the growl that was just aching to come out in the face of Graham's blatant antagonization. She closed her eyes and found her calm center, before speaking.

"How is this sanctioned, Sir? Chuck Bartowski is an innocent civilian. Specifically, what do we have on this guy; because his file never mentions any way for him to possess classified materials?" Agent Walker's question was more a plea for a justification than anything else and both of them knew it.

"Bartowski is your target, what is so god damn difficult to understand about that?" Graham roared back at her, Agent Walker yanking the phone away from her ear. After a beat, Agent Walker softened her tone and spoke once again.

"Sir, Bartowski is a single father. Are you seriously ordering me to orphan his four-year-old daughter?" Agent Walker had asked, growing more and more concerned by the minute. Graham said nothing for a long while, every moment making her increasingly nervous.

"You have a point, Agent Walker," Graham said, Agent Walker releasing a breath in relief. "Terminate the daughter first, make it look like a murder-suicide," Graham said into the phone as easy as ordering take out. Agent Walker gasped, unable to silence her honest reaction to his orders.

"I don't think…" she began, unable to make words. In that moment, her mind was in a million places at once; conflicted between what she understood as duty and what she knew was morally right.

"Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do and die, Agent Walker. You have your orders, follow them," Graham said before ending the call. Agent Walker pulled her phone away from her ear and dropped it onto the passenger's seat. This was a disaster; a catastrophic clusterfuck that had sex with FUBAR and named the baby Karma!

It was dark in Burbank, this time of night. Traffic was very sparse, only the night owls still driving around. Her car was parked on the side of the street, Chuck Bartowski's apartment complex just a hundred or so feet to her right. With her black mission gear in place, her balaclava covering her face, and her silenced pistol ready to go, Agent Walker exited her car and made for the complex. The complex was still this time of night, everyone asleep in their beds.

The silent harbinger of death that was Agent Walker closed the distance to Bartowski's apartment in a hurry. Sticking her automatic lockpick into the key slot, the front door gave way in no time. The apartment was shrouded in darkness, prompting her to drop her night vision down over her eyes. The sound of snoring off to her right told Agent Walker where her targets resided. Scanning the living room area, she saw a strange array of children's toys, action figures, and nerd paraphernalia. A large poster on the wall for The Beginning of the End caught her eye. Giant grasshoppers adorned the poster. The title kept ringing in her mind. The beginning of the end, but who's end? Was this the beginning of the end of Chuck Bartowski's life? Was this the beginning of the end of his daughter's life?

Every second Agent Walker spent in this place made her head swim, doubt crashing over her in waves. Her footsteps felt heavy as she crept down the hallway towards her two targets. From her research, the apartment had three bedrooms and one bathroom. Coming upon the first bedroom, she saw an office, a desk with desktop computer prominently displayed in the middle of the room. Agent Walker stepped into the office, seeing the scattershot mess of papers all over. Stacks of folders flanked the desk, both stacks nearly three feet high. On the desk itself a file was spread all over. Looking down at the red folder from an office supplies store, she flipped the folder open and saw the words classified and top secret grabbed on the first piece of paper inside. Agent Walker skimmed the first few pages in the folder, certain phrases and lines jumping out at her.

Covert trafficking of arms
Destabilize leadership of local government
Cooperation with Sunni Jihadists

The more Agent Walker read, the more shocked she became. Operation Red Sun, a late-nineties plan to traffic arms to Afghani Jihadists in order to overthrow members of the Northern Alliance. This plan made no sense from an anti-terrorist perspective; the Northern Alliance fought against the jihadist government of Afghanistan back in those days before and immediately after the terror attacks of September eleventh, two thousand and one. Memories of the twin towers were few and far between for Agent Walker, considering she had just turned three years old at the time.

Agent Walker was barely a year old when Operation Red Sun was put into action, so why did Bartowski have it? As she kept reading, the less any of what she saw made sense. Graham had told her that Bartowski was in possession of sensitive documents, but the documents she could see were only sensitive to those involved in this operation. By the late nineties, radical Islamic terrorism was a serious problem in Afghanistan. With the bombings of the World Trade Center only three years after this dated file, this operation would have been arming the enemy.

At the bottom of the twelfth page, Agent Walker saw a familiar name among the many lines of text… Langston Graham, Operation Commander. Graham had been in charge of an operation to arm America's enemies only years before the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States? Setting down the file, she looked through the other papers and folders on the desk. After a few moments, Agent Walker saw another CIA document. Picking up the classified material, she discovered the first few pages of a CIA personnel file, a very, very old one.

Mary Elizabeth Bartowski (Codenamed Frost)
August 21st, 1965 – March 19th, 2002
Terminated (Suspected involvement in seditious conspiracy, never substantiated.)
Subject terminated by Langston Graham

Graham killed Chuck Bartowski's mother? Agent Walker set the file down and let what she'd just learned, sink in for a moment. Frost was a legendary cautionary tale of a good agent gone bad. To learn that Graham had killed her just months after 9/11 made Agent Walker suspicious. Grabbing the Mary Bartowski file again, she flipped to the end of it. The last document in the file was a note, handwritten and scanned into the digital file. Reading the print out of the note, Agent Walker's eyebrows rose in stunned shock.

Found discrepancies today, Jihadist arms acquisitions spiked in '99, though no explanation exists. Brought my concerns to Graham this afternoon, he did not look surprised by my findings. Tomorrow I will continue digging, we have to beat these people, so that this never happens again.

Signed, Frost
March 17th, 2002

Closing the file once more, the makings of a coverup were all over Chuck's desk. Her boss had trafficked arms to Jihadist groups in Afghanistan and covered it up in the wake of 9/11 to conceal his own culpability. The fact that Bartowski had these files must have been why Graham had sent her after him in the first place. What she'd been ordered to do would look run of the mill to the outside world, but to those in her line of work, it would be a clear warning to all who dared to threaten Langston Graham's hold on power.

While the gravity of what she'd learned began to sink in, another problem occurred to Agent Walker, one that was far more pressing. There was a man and his innocent little daughter in this apartment, two people who now had enormous targets on their backs. If Langston Graham wanted them dead, then he would have them dead. Agent Walker knew she was Langston Graham's favorite Enforcer, but she was not his only Enforcer. Of the ten people that she knew were in his secret Enforcer Program, she was the clear favorite. No singular agent was as much a weapon of precision, as Agent Walker. She'd been turned into a silent killer, one dead body at a time. These days, her body count was up to twenty-one souls. Did she want to add two more innocent lives to that tally?

Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do and die, Agent Walker.

Graham expected his obedient Agent Walker to have no soul, to turn off her emotions, but Sarah Walker said no! This could be an opportunity for Graham's angel of death to finally save a life. The Angel of Death becoming the Angel of Life, what a concept! Agent Walker had been taking lives, bleeding the world dry of all that was good and right. For seven long years, Agent Walker had been making the world hurt, making the world feel all of the pain and hate, and guilt that she had felt every single day of her life. Looking down at the files on the desk, something within her, a presence long buried, spoke out at long last.

"Make the correct decision, Agent Walker, because this moment is your testament to life. The choice you make here, will define you forever." While a part of Sarah knew this was true, the risks involved with opposing Graham were great. Her father, at the mercy of Langston Graham for many years, he could pay the price if she made the choice in this moment. The conflict raged within Sarah for long moments. Setting the files aside, Sarah crept out of the room and down the hallway.

"How do you want to be remembered, Agent Walker? Do you want to be remembered as the cruel, heartless monster that Graham has made you, or do you want to be remembered as a person with a soul, someone worth knowing?" The voice in her head was loud and making good points, but to turn on Graham was unthinkable for Agent Walker. The door that she came upon in that moment had a large, pink heart sticker on it… the daughter's room. Agent Walker reached for the door knob, but something within her told her no. A killer should never disturb such innocence. Reaching into the holster of her silenced pistol, she pulled it out and silently placed it on the floor, by the door. Reaching for the knob once again, Agent Walker silently twisted it and opened the door. The room smelt of innocence, that scent of play and laughter and joy. The view of the room through Sarah's NVG was all green, but she knew the room was bathed in pink. Seeing a nearly blinding light on top of the dresser, Agent Walker knew there was a night light. Pulling the NVG's up out of the way, she saw the little blonde-haired girl sleeping peacefully.

In that moment, as the CIA assassin watched innocence personified, she saw a possible image of herself. A long time ago, this could have been her. The little girl's blonde hair was splayed out around her head like an angelic halo. Looking down at the little girl, Sarah's heart leapt into her throat. Could she really murder this little girl's father? Could Sarah Walker really hurt such an innocent little girl, kill her as ordered? The mental image of her hands around the little girl's throat, her tiny little eyes peering up at Sarah in fear, it was all so real. Sarah backed away from the little girl like she'd been shot.

"I can't," Sarah said quietly, her mind overcome with shame and guilt for even considering such a horrible act. In that moment, the last vestiges of Langston Graham's Enforcer turned to ash within Sarah, consumed by what little good still resided within Sarah's heart.

"Okay, Sarah, what are you going to do? You can't leave them here to die," the real person within Sarah asked insistently. Thinking for a moment, Sarah turned and left the room, silent as a gentle breeze. Picking her pistol up off the floor, Sarah returned it to her holster and made for Chuck's room. Opening the door, Sarah flipped her NVG back into place so she could see. Chuck was asleep on his back, his covers around his waist. The lack of a tee shirt revealed a surprisingly inked up chest. On Chuck's right pectoral was the words…

Remember
3-19-2002
7-26-2013
11-10-2022

On the left pectoral, Sarah saw a fish, eating a line of what looked like computer code, with the words "LEAVE NO TRACES" below it. Seeing Chuck's ink, Sarah understood that just like everyone else, Chuck Bartowski had a past. Looking around the room, Sarah saw a picture of Chuck with a tall, blonde woman. The woman looked to be about Chuck's age, but pregnant. Beside that photo was another one, a wedding photo of Chuck and this woman kissing passionately. Sarah searched her mind for the wife's name, eventually remembering.

Nora Jean Bartowski
Born June 6th, 1997
Died November 10th, 2022 (Inoperable brain cancer)

Chuck had lost a lot of people in his life, mother, father, wife all dead too soon. In that moment, something within Sarah rose up and called out in one powerful voice, not again! No matter the cost, Sarah Walker was saving these people, saving someone for once in her life! This innocent man, a victim of Langston Graham's evil machinations, was not going to be a victim again, not this time. Sarah walked over to the lamp on Chuck's bedside table, closed her eyes so as not to blind herself, and flipped it on, illuminating the room. Pulling her NVGs and balaclava off her head, Sarah looked down at Chuck's sleeping form. Reaching out with her hand, Sarah's gloved hand went over Chuck's mouth. In a flash, Chuck's eyes flew open and a primal scream emanated from his mouth. Sarah's glove smothered the sound of Chuck's fear.

"Relax, you'll wake your daughter," Sarah said softly. "Your name is Charles Irving Bartowski, you have a four-year-old daughter named Molly Eleanor Bartowski. Eleven days ago, I was ordered to terminate you both. I cannot in good conscience allow that to happen. For your safety, I need you both to come with me," Sarah said quickly. Sarah could see Chuck's panicked eyes, searching Sarah's, searching for answers, searching for a way out of this.

"There is no use trying to run from me, Mr. Bartowski. Langston Graham has decided that you are a threat to him. In the eyes of the CIA, your life is now forfeit. I am your only chance at survival. Now, I am going to let go of you, if you scream, or try to hurt me, I'll subdue you and leave you both to die at the hands of the next person Graham sends after you. I promise you, Mr. Bartowski, the next person will not be as merciful as I am." Sarah saw Chuck's features settle down, before he nodded. Sarah removed her hands from his mouth.

"Did you say Langston Graham, the Director of Central Intelligence himself, has ordered my death?" Chuck asked as he sat up onto his elbows and looked at this mystery woman in his bedroom. While Chuck was twenty-seven, the woman standing before him couldn't be older than twenty-five. Her tight, fit frame was evident by her narrow waist, and snuggly fitting, black clothing. This woman looked too young to be a shadowy assassin, but the presence she had in the room said otherwise. This woman was like death personified, the raw power she exuded was unspeakably scary to Chuck.

"Yes, that Langston Graham. If the files on your desk are a clue, my best guess is that you've been looking into the death of your mother. If he sent me after you, then you're a tremendous threat to him," Sarah said honestly.

"And who are you exactly?" Chuck asked, the obvious next question. Sarah's heart lurched in that moment. Who was she? Did she tell him the truth, you did she give him an alias to protect herself? The fact that she was trying to save this man and his daughter told her that she'd likely be spending time with him.

Looking down at her hands, the metaphorical blood dripping from them, onto the floor between her boots. Sarah's words were surprisingly frail given her previous presence in the room. "I've gone by many names over the years, most call me Walker, Sarah Walker." The recognition in Chuck's eyes bothered her.

"Graham's favorite Enforcer," Chuck said, now sitting up. Sarah flinched at the sound of her nickname. Hearing a civilian utter that name was like getting shot in the heart, a truly painful ordeal.

"You know of me?" Sarah asked nervously, unwilling to meet his eye.

"In my search for enough evidence to make Graham pay for what he did, I came across a number of reports referencing you. Your reputation proceeds you, Agent Walker. I don't know whether to feel honored that he sent his best, or terrified by the implication of it."

"Both?" Sarah offered as she extended her hand towards Chuck. "Come with me, Charles Bartowski; come with me if you want to live." Looking up at Sarah, Chuck made a fateful decision, one that would be felt the world over. Taking Sarah's hand, Chuck rose from bed. The two of them knew that time was short, so neither said a word as they sprang into action.

"Sydney Bristow has nothing on this woman!" Chuck mused as he went to his daughter's room to wake her up.

~X~

The house was a flurry of motion as Chuck awoke his daughter, dressed her and got her ready to run. Sarah helped as best she could, but she had no experience packing for a four-year-old. Knowing Graham, Sarah had at most, thirty-six hours to report the completion of her assignment. If Graham gave her as much time as possible, they had a pretty big window to get a head start. The problem was that Graham was rather unpredictable, his decisions varying wildly based on his mood. Would he give her space, knowing how much trouble she'd been having as of late in order not to piss Sarah off? Would Graham push her for news, wanting to know the status of his problem? If Graham did the former, then they'd be right as rain. If Graham's decision was the latter, they were fucked.

Seeing Chuck running down the hall with a pink suitcase in one hand and his sleepy daughter in the other, Sarah spoke. "Remember, no devices that can be tracked; no phones, no computers, nothing connected to the outside world." Sarah collected the suitcase for Molly and placed it by the door to the apartment. Sarah assumed that Chuck had packed a suitcase of clothes and toys for Molly, things for her to do, things she'd need on the journey to come. Having no clue what a little girl needed for a long trip, Sarah was just going to let Chuck make those choices.

Laying Molly down on the couch to continue sleeping, Chuck ran back down the hall, ostensibly to pack and put fresh clothes on. "Hurry, we need to be rolling in five minutes!" Sarah called after Chuck, who just disappeared into his room. Sarah heard frantic packing for long moments, until the sound stopped. Looking at her watch, Sarah was wondering what was taking Chuck so long to pack. With an indignant sigh, Sarah glanced at Molly who was sound asleep, then turned and made for Chuck's bedroom.

"Mr. Bartowski?" Sarah called as she walked down the hallway. Getting no reply, Sarah walked into Chuck's bedroom and saw him in front of the dresser. The glassy look in his eyes, as well as the picture in his right hand told her what was going on.

"Mr. Bartowski?" Sarah called again as she walked closer to him. When Chuck looked up at Sarah, she was not prepared for the raw emotion she saw from him.

"I'm never coming back here, am I?" Chuck asked quietly. Sarah didn't know what to say, comforting people was never her strong suit. Sarah gave Chuck a noncommittal shrug, not sure how else to reply. "I was so blinded by my desire to make him pay, I never even thought of the consequences. I risked my family, my job, my whole life; I risked so much by digging where I wasn't supposed to."

"Listen, Mr. Bartowski," Sarah began softly.

Chuck's voice interrupted her, "Chuck, everyone just calls me Chuck."

Smiling and nodding at Chuck, Sarah began again, "Listen to me, Chuck, I promise that nothing will happen to you or your daughter. They'll have to kill me, before I'll let anything happen to the two of you." Sarah's eyes burned with intensity, the fire of someone completely in control of their situation.

"Do you believe me?" Sarah asked intensely. Chuck hesitated, so she spoke again. "Look me in the eyes and tell me if you believe that I won't let anything happen to you or your daughter." Chuck looked deep into this shadowy assassins' eyes and what he saw was the conviction of someone that was completely sure of their actions. Chuck nodded to Sarah without another word.

"Good, now pack some things and let's get out of here. We have a lot of ground to cover and not enough time to cover it." Sarah said as she made for Chuck's closet. Chuck watched Agent Walker for a few moments, watched her sort through his clothes and pack certain things, putting some things back before grabbing other things. Looking up from her task, Sarah saw the amused look on Chuck's face.

"What?" she asked.

"I was just wondering what you were going to do when it was time to pack my underwear?" Chuck said to the blonde assassin who seemed to look around for a moment, before realization struck her. The slight blush on her cheeks surprised Chuck. Sarah handed Chuck the items she'd grabbed and made for the door.

"Right," Sarah began as she walked back towards the hallway. "I'll let you finish packing. You've got two minutes to pack, before we're getting out of here." Chuck nodded and sprang into action and took over where Sarah had left off.

"While you finish packing, I'm going to get the car seat for your daughter and move it to my car." Chuck just nodded at her words and focused on packing.

~X~

On the road, Sarah was hating the fact that she hadn't taken a moment to change into something more comfortable for a long drive. While her mission gear was skin tight and didn't obstruct her movement, it wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear for extended periods of time. She'd been trying for years to get the idiots at the agency to create something different for her, but they never listened to people like her. Graham liked how she looked in her mission gear, Sarah knew that was the biggest part of it. For years, Sarah had understood that Graham wanted to fuck her, badly. The man was married and had three kids, but it was an open secret that he fucked his other two female Enforcers all the time. If Graham could have bedded Sarah, she knew it would have been a feather in his cap, but she never gave him an opening. Sarah may have been a depressed little girl with daddy issues when he recruited her, but she had self-respect.

Sarah had stopped craving Graham's affirmation and praise years ago; sometime after her first termination assignment. While it had felt good to have his approval in her early years, Sarah saw through his actions, saw them for what they actually were. Graham was a master manipulator, adept at finding a person's weakness and exploiting it for his own gain. Sarah had done as he'd ordered on more than one occasion, because she knew he had her father in some prison somewhere, but he'd never openly leveled the threat. Graham was too smart to do something like that with Sarah Walker. Unlike his nine other Enforcers, Sarah was fully capable of hurting him where it counted and they both knew it. Graham's Enforcers were largely blunt instruments, incapable of handling overly complicated assignments. Sarah Walker was not like the other Enforcers. A meticulous planner, Sarah Walker could handle any assignment, any situation. Graham knew that if he pushed his Enforcer too hard, she'd come after him. Tonight, he'd finally pushed her too far and now she was going to make him pay dearly.

As Chuck saw road signs for Phoenix, he had an idea where they were going. "Why are we driving to Phoenix?" Chuck asked Sarah in a small voice so as not to wake up Molly. Sarah hadn't said much since their moment in his bedroom, so Chuck didn't know what he was expecting.

"I have a cache of equipment and weapons in a storage locker there. These supplies are not on the agency's radar, so they have no knowledge of them. I need more equipment if we're going to do this, not to mention cash," Sarah said honestly as she took the exit that kept them on the I-10 going east.

"What do you think our odds are to realistically succeed?" Chuck asked. Sarah had been dreading that question, though she had known it was coming.

"Graham will come at us with everything once he figures out that I am rogue. He'll likely send the other nine Enforcers after us. The smart play from Graham's perspective would be to send some combination of Clyde Decker, Ty Bennett, and James Keller, his best scalp hunters. Heck, even Fatima Tazi might be up to the task, given her experience and skill-set, such as it is. That being said, I have a feeling Graham might just send a killer named Vincent Smith after us. Smith is cold, nearly unfeeling, a man hyper focused on his assignment. Smith isn't the most tactically aware of all of Graham's Enforcers, so he does have faults. There are others Graham could send, but that's how I see it playing out," Sarah said, glancing at Chuck who looked nervous.

"What are our odds?" Chuck asked again, his voice more nervous this time.

"Survival?" Sarah asked, getting a nod from Chuck. "Fifty, fifty depending on if we can get you and those files in front of someone that I trust to do the right thing." Sarah knew she wasn't doing much to calm Chuck's fears, but she knew it was time to give it to him straight, so he understood the gravity of this situation.

"Who do you trust?" Chuck asked softly.

Looking over at Chuck, Sarah said a single word, "Beckman."

CHARMING'S AUTHORS NOTE #3: Buckle up everyone, because this journey is just getting started. If you are enjoying this story so far, please consider leaving a review, I really love reading all of your thoughts about that's happened and what all of you think is yet to come.

Until Next Time :D