The middle, somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Prologue.

Lydecker never had made an agreement that morning to bring Zane back in from the field unharmed, Jondy's bout of seizures due to Cameron's botched attempt at administering tongue-loosening psychoactive drugs had seen to that. Now her husband was gods only knew where and she was here, with him.

"Are you ok?"

"Fine," she grunted, pointedly staring at the watermark on the concrete wall.

"Look-" her abruptness called forth his defensive anger. "I did all I could to-"

"Shut up."

"You know what? I'm sick of hearing that from you rugrats."

"Yeah?" She turned to glare at him, ignoring his flashing hazel-green eyes and mutinous expression. "I don't particularly care. It's your own fault you're in this mess-"

"I don't think so Princess, you're the one who made the error of judgment. Max trusted me to-"

"Don't kid yourself- Maxie wouldn't trust you to manage a piss up in a brewery- if you'd just-"

"What? Listened to your oh-so-competent advice?"

Her eyes narrowed, their luminous blue cutting through the dusty gloom. "Can you speak Ancient Sumerian?"

"Not that I recall- since I didn't have the privilege of running with a cult during my teenage years-"

"No of course not!" She raged, "- you were just out in the world- you know, working for the man and- oh! Assassinating people-"

"Hey!" His bark of bitter laughter filled the small space with spite. "Don't hold it against me because you regret leaving home-"

"You-have-no-idea-what-they're-capable-of-"

"Well," he sneered cutting her tirade short, "if you're any indication- not-very-much."

"Fuck you Alec," Jondy hissed shoving past him, pushing her way out of the claustrophobic room into the dimly lit hallway of the bunker.

Leaning heavily against the wall, it felt good to slam her closed fist against the rough concrete, to allow a dull throb to inch up her arm while she nursed her wounded pride.

Lydecker was actually going to kill her this time.

When he finally made it to shores of France, Zane felt empty. All around him was ash, barren and lifeless. He could see what would have once been a port, but now the warehouses had been turned into makeshift crematoriums. Smoke billowed about him, burning the bodies of the humans who hadn't survived the enemy's plague.

"Foul isn't it?" Falcon muttered at his side. These days his unit mate was not quite as upbeat as he once had been. They had all thought it would be a quick campaign- an in and out job according to Lydecker.

They had been wrong. Those assumptions had been made before the Bigger Pulse. Now, in its wake everywhere had turned into a shit-storm.

"We've got company." Falcon cautioned. "And they don't look like friendlies."

Zane followed his gaze, seeing movement up ahead. "We gotta get outta here now."

"Uh-uh X5-" said heavily accented a voice in his ear, "you most definitely are not-"

Zane stopped dead in his tracks as he felt the cold barrel of a gun press into the back of his neck.

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