Lvi. HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER

Emma's body sprawls out across my bed. I check her pulse as it beats, steadily, and her chest rises slowly. The tranquilizing solution should have worn out by now. I lost five rounds of rock paper scissors against the rest of the team, meaning Emma would be in my room indefinitely.

Ace rolled his eyes when I won. Both of us knew that I'd be taking over his room, and he'd be sleeping on the couch.

I sit at my desk, drumming my fingers against my new replaced computer. Not gonna lie—I was trying to reactivate my old Webkinz account out of curiosity. You'd think that hacking into Webkinz would be easier than the Pentagon, but not by much.

Emma rubs her eyes, yawns, and stretches. Shit. She was not supposed to wake up on my watch.

Her blue eyes take in her surroundings. Her gaze flickers to me immediately, freezing, and she sinks back into my bed. I freeze as well; what was I supposed to say?

"Where—where am I?" Emma stammers. "What did you do to me? Are you going to hurt me?"

"You're in New York, Emma," I smile while closing my computer. "My name is Agent Octavia Snow—I'm with the CIA. You'll be safe here."

"Why the freaking-heck did you kidnap me from Dubrovnik?" She whispers. "I'm just a scientist. What's going on?"

"Ok first, it's fucking-hell, you're an adult," I smirk. "And I'm sorry, but it was for your own protection. There's a very dangerous person trying to kidnap you."

Emma deadpans me. "So you decided to kidnap me instead."

I bite my lip. "Look, I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I was kidnapped by the CIA months ago too."

She raises an eyebrow. "Why were you kidnapped? Were you in danger too?"

I run a hand through my hair. "Um... sure."

"No offense, but how do I know you're with the CIA? You don't look very athletic."

I roll my eyes. "If I wanted to hurt you, you wouldn't be in my room. I got a ten out of ten on my agent test. Trust me, I can keep you safe. You should come meet the rest of the team."

Emma gets up from my bed as I lead her into the living room, where Ace and Chase are playing Mario Kart on the television in sweatpants. I clear my throat. Two heads whip around to see us.

"Oh, Emma, I see you've woken up," Ace states. "I'm Ace Blackwell. I'm sorry again for tranquilizing you."

"I'm Chase." Chase shakes Emma's hand. A light pink comes over Emma's cheeks when she takes his hand. A small smirk tugs on my lips. Me too girl.

We lead her to the debriefing room. Emma seemed pretty excited, and with a wonder, she examines all the technology around our penthouse. Ace calls the Director and the rest of the team together—Thirteen's potential deal still needed to be addressed.

The Director greets Emma with a handshake. The, he asks for Emma to exit the room and allows her to explore the penthouse. My fingernails dig into the table. Ace, instead of sitting at his usual table, sits in the chair right beside me. Skye is unable to hide a smirk when she catches my eye. I spin around. There's no doubt she'd be asking me about Ace soon.

"So. Emma. We're not going to turn her over right?" I state.

The Director places his trusty clipboard down. "We can't seriously weigh one life over countless others."

"I'm with Octavia," Chase says. "We can't trust him."

"I agree with the Director. We have to think about utilitarianism: the greater good," Skye sighs.

"Rookie's right," Xavier crosses his arms, "We can't make that decision for anyone else."

"Thirteen is dangerous. At Interpol, we believe in doing the best for the most people. If we can put a stop to him... the cost of one person... might be the best," Daniel swallows. He slightly shifts away from Xavier.

The unenunciated vote was now three to three. Ace was the only one who hadn't said his opinion. His eyes are glancing at the floor. We all turn to him, waiting for him to voice his vote.

"I know the CIA believes in making sacrifices," Ace states. "But Thirteen is untrustworthy. We should try to imprison him... or even try to kill him before we even consider Emma's fate."

The Director clasps his hands together. "Alright. It looks like we're going to try to arrest him. If this doesn't work though, we have to turn her over."

My jaw tenses. "It will."

Daniel raises an eyebrow. "What do you propose? Thirteen seems to know every aspect of our move before we do. How do we ensure that he's captured?"

I step to the front of the briefing room with an expo marker. Gears were turning in my mind. I'd spent enough time with Thirteen to know that while he was patient in his planning, he was not patient when it came to his Queen. Everytime he talked about her, he took out his anger on the object or person closest to him.

"Thirteen has become irrational in his search for his Queen. We utilize that," I assert.

Xavier lets out a low whistle in the silence. "That's edgy. I like it."

"Put a cheesecake in it," Daniel states.

"That's reckless," Skye challenges, "He will take Emma right there and then."

"We use a decoy," I state. "He doesn't know what she looks like except maybe some general descriptions. We find an agent that has similar features and just say it's her. He only expects Ace and I to be there. We'll need to be in a location with a high rise and eyes through windows for snipping," I state.

"The diner during your agent tests. That place is right by a black corner for easier escape, has a high rise half a block away, and is transparent with windows," Ace suggests.

My throat becomes dry. How cruel: that was also the first place that I saw Thirteen.

"Good call," Chase affirms. "Though that place has civilians. And I agree that Thirteen will definitely try to trick us and take her there."

"I'm counting on it. Skye will pretend to be angry at our decision and take the decoy Queen hostage to drive him up to the roof. We set up cameras tonight around the diner tonight. Chase and a dozen agents stand guard on the rooftop to trap him on stand by," I continue. "Xavier and three agents will take the opposite high rise to snipe the shit out of Thirteen if necessary."

Ace smirks at me. "Aye aye, Captain. I'm also really looking forward to beating up Katrina."

A grin appears on Daniel's face. "I'll run controls through the cameras. We actually have a chance of imprisoning him."

The Director writes up some notes. "I'll contact Thirteen. Get some sleep. Be ready tomorrow."

~

The night sky drapes over the skyscrapers. Instead of sleeping in a comfortable bed, you know what am I doing at two in the morning? Engaging in breaking-and-entering at a small diner. Casual. I feel slightly bad that this place will almost definitely be destroyed tomorrow.

"Can you hurry up?" I whisper to Ace.

He stops picking at the lock, turns to me, and stares at me with annoyance. Then, he slaps the bobby pin into my hand. "You give it a try. And try to say something intelligent next time to surprise me."

I bristle. "You're the reason why Victorious got cancelled."

Ace smiles with amusement at my anger. "Well you're the reason why the Avatar the Last Airbender movie aired."

"You did not just go there, Banana Bread."

"Still slow huh, Cupcake. Almost as slow as when you try to run a mile."

"I'll show you, you useless pregnant anemone stuffed-animal. Take that back—"

"—Let me rephrase that. You couldn't even finish a mile," Ace says with acidity. "And what are you gonna show me? How to take the world's fattest nap?"

I'm flabbergasted. "First of all, I'm still a better hacker. And secondly, I could take the fattest nap if I wanted to."

"I believe you. By the way, good job today," he says while finally picking the lock. "You did a good job taking initiative. Although, I definitely could have done better."

I can feel a blush come over my cheeks in the complete darkness. "Aw... Are you just insecure that your girlfriend might take your role as team leader?"

Ace turns to face me. His frame towers over mine, and there's a cocky smirk imprinted over his face. "Did you just call yourself my girlfriend?"

My face turns hot. "No I just accidently said that—it slipped out. I meant it figuratively. You're a literal garage-sale-armchair and I don't like armchairs so—"

Ace rolls his eyes. Before I could finish, he takes my waist into his body and kisses me. When he breaks away from me with the smirk still plastered onto his face, he says, "Well you kissed me like you have a fetish for armchairs."

"You're the absolute worst."

"Your fault for choosing to date me."

I roll my eyes. "Let's just attach these cameras and get ready for tomorrow. I've been meaning to ask."

The moon catches the glint of Banana Bread's eyes as they flicker to me. I'm sure he already knows what I'm going to ask, but I still don't know how to continue. I stammer out, "When the time comes, will you be able to hurt someone from your past?"

He puts his chin on the top of my head. "All I care about is that Ian hurt you." 

Octavia: "Like if you have a fetish for armchairs?"

Chase: "What the hell?"

Ace [smirking]: "I fucking knew it."