HER LOWER BACK was itching insanely but she didn't even dare to breathe, much less reach back to relieve herself. They were in the middle of an important assignment and even a single breath could compromise her position. Currently set in yet another deserted warehouse, this mission marked the fourth she had been on with Nathan and hopefully, not the first unsuccessful one.

It had been nearly two weeks since Nathan had bared his heart and spilled his secrets. Even now, it still sickened Devora to her guts whenever she thought about what Nathan had told her. The vile and disgusting threats from Julius Cain had temporarily ceased after that, the situation somewhat solved, but the warning was still ever-present. Between them, there was a form of silent mutual agreement about never bringing up that topic so Devora hadn't asked.

Sometimes, both the past and present could be too bitter and painful to even touch.

They had been training together ever since. Gone were the cold wars and in came a constant routined fight for the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning just before dawn broke. Breakfast at the canteen would be filled with laughter again, occasionally accompanied by the rest of their friends, other times with just the two of them. After that, they would be off to the gym to train, building up their set of skills.

A schedule had been created for efficiency: Monday to Wednesday was on precision, Thursday to Saturday was on strength and stamina, and Sunday was exclusively for combat training. Devora couldn't help but smile in memory of their score. Out of the last two Sundays, Devora's score to Nathan's was twelve to eight. However, she was sure that he had let her win on purpose.

The arena events had yet again been postponed, pushed back to the next month to continue which will from then on run on the old schedule it had in place of once every month. That was because the entire organization had been busy recently, with too many tasks on hand for almost every agent to make time for their internally-sourced entertainment.

That was a relief, though. Fighting in the arena would be having an entire company's eyes and pressure on your shoulders. Devora had wondered how Leah handled it so well as a newcomer and had recovered so quickly from the tragic events.

A distance away, Nathan waved frantically in the dark, his eyes wide as he signaled instructions to Devora. Night had fallen and although that meant that security should not be as tight as day — or at least that was what they were told —, she was proven wrong once more. The entire building was crawling with guards with rifles in their arms and they had to deal with multiple of them on their route in.

After Nathan was done with giving out his silent orders, Devora nodded once before slipping out of the corner they had been hiding behind. She rolled swiftly on the ground, kicking out her legs to trip one of the patrolling guards while keeping herself out of view. This action caught him off guard as he yelped out in shock, falling to the ground just as Devora reached for him. She made sure that his landing wouldn't generate more sound than necessary, hitting a pressure point on his neck to knock him out before placing his unconscious body gently on the ground.

She moved to the next guard after that but soon found out she had to expend more effort. He had come over to check out the noise, not yet noticing his colleague nor Devora until she exposed herself with an attack. She kicked out and the guard dodged just in the nick of time as if he had sensed her killer instincts. However, he couldn't recover that quickly and failed to evade the punch she threw out right after. It clipped him on the nose, sending his hands flying to the bleeding nostrils as he groaned in pain. Straddling his neck with a grin, she quickly brought him down to the floor as well before knocking him out cold, his unconscious body laid there with the first man. A moment of folly was enough to bring that giant of a man down to his knees.

"Nice job," Nathan commented, slowly coming up to her. The gadgets in his hands were buzzing with numbers, working hard to help Nathan crack the code to the vault they were trying to break into.

"Thanks," Devora chirped in delight, not even the least bit out of breath. If it had been a year ago, she would've been wheezing for breath within the first two seconds for sure. Combing her hair out of her face, she nudged Nathan by the shoulder. "Are you done with the passcodes yet? We have to go before more of them come in."

"Use a gun if they do," Nathan murmured under his breath. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, fingers flying rapidly over the keyboard as more and more numbers appeared on the screen.

"You know how I feel about guns." Devora frowned.

Their conversation must have drawn attention to them as it took no more than a minute after for back up to come rushing in. Nathan clicked his tongue in annoyance, the skin on his nose wrinkling as he spared the rushing crowd a quick and brief glance.

"Handle that, please. I'm almost done," Nathan instructed.

"Heh," Devora scoffed, smirking. "My pleasure."

Four men had rushed in, fresh blood for the taking. Once Devora neared the first man, she grabbed him by the shoulder, hoisting herself upon the man's shoulders and seated herself there. While she had been merciful towards the previous two guards, these men were out to kill her. She couldn't risk it. A hand grabbing his jaw and the other grabbing his head, she quickly pulled her hands in opposite directions, snapping his neck faster than he could defend himself.

One down, three to go.

The guards were slow and Devora began to thank the heavens for Candice's intense training. She was in a huge advantage because of these two factors, lady luck favoring her greatly.

As she ran towards the guards, who had brandished out weapons of their own, she pulled out a few small blades she kept. Once they were untucked from her boot, they went flying towards their targets. To what the naked eye could see, these small knives were as fast as bullets, hitting their intended targets accurately. It impaled two guards right in the center of their skulls, a small trail of blood dribbling from the wound as they dropped dead to the ground like flies.

Now, she was down to the last one.

"S-Stop right t-there!" A shaky voice called from behind her.

She turned slowly, hands raised to meet the gaze of the last guard. He was adorable, delightfully innocent despite his line of work. The scrawny boy didn't seem out of his early twenties, a young member of the force with little experience, it seemed like. After all, his hands were quaking. Devora silently wondered to herself how he had even got the job of becoming a guard for a powerful drug lord.

Shaking her head, she reached for her pistol. It was the same ritual-like movements that she had gone through a thousand times in practice and on the field. The safety was clicked off, a finger was poised over the trigger, aimed, and the bullet flew. It met the target where she had intended, knocking the gun out of the rookie guard's hands as he screeched in agony.

The next bullet needn't even be fired. Devora simply walked over before hitting the butt of her gun against his head as he was panicking about his hand, knocking the poor man out cold.

Boots clicking on the ground with each bubbly step she took, Devora bent over to pick up the gun the man had dropped. She clicked her tongue lightly, examining the weapon with a shake of her head.

"Poor fellow," she sighed. "He didn't even get the safety off of this thing."

"Is that why you spared him?" Nathan asked from where he hid, still focused on his task.

"Maybe," Devora answered with a shrug. "I've always had a spot for the weak fawns."

Nathan burst out in laughter, his eyes sparkling. Dramatically hitting the enter button on the keyboard, Nathan stretched his arms over his head, sighing as his joints cracked. The vault doors ahead of them beeped in a melodious tone, signaling that it had been unlocked.

"And I thought you didn't like guns?" Nathan asked mockingly, tucking the gadget into his little bag.

"Meh." She shrugged while examining the stolen gun she had picked up. "They can be handy sometimes."

Without another word, Devora began to run towards the door, easily prying them open since Nathan had already unlocked it. Inside the heavy doors of the vault were carts and carts of goods that led the way to another door at the back of the room, most likely leading towards the guards' superior.

It should be easy from there on out. Maybe, just maybe, Devora might even make it back home in time for her favorite television show.

♕♕♕

"Is that the last of them?" Nathan asked, loading all the boxes of white powder into the helicopter that had arrived to fetch them.

"Seems like it," Devora panted, her chest heaving up and down from the strenuous tasks of today. "Who knew that moving boxes would be harder than the actual mission."

"I did," a new voice piped in, to which Devora smiled brightly at.

Dallas strolled over from the helicopter, his hands tucked away in the pockets of his jeans as a lazy grin hung off of his features. Nathan watched with a scowl on his face as Devora walked over to offer Dallas a warm embrace.

"You missed our show, Dora." Dallas playfully pouted, batting his long eyelashes as Devora rolled her eyes.

She mockingly wiped a tear from her eye, acting as if she were crying before muttering the words "boo hoo" in reply.

At the use of the nickname, Nathan's scowl deepened even further before folding his arms across his chest. He wasn't one to be bitter, usually, yet he could only feel all the anger in the world at that moment. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite understand why.

"How touching," he bitterly muttered under his breath, making sure to purposely bump his shoulder against Dallas's as he made his way towards the helicopter.

It was a standard chopper sent in by the agency but unfortunately, Dallas was piloting it instead of another regular face from their company's crowd. There were two seats in front, both for the pilots, and two seats at the back for the passengers. Nathan quickly slipped into the pilot's seat.

When Dallas and Devora finally made it to the helicopter, Dallas eyed the last pilot seat in contemplation.

"Nate, I was wondering if Devora could sit there. Teach her how to fly a 'copter."

Nathan looked his friend dead in the eye, his expression holding no more than a stony gaze.

"Teach her how to fly when you don't have our mission on the line. I rather not die after what was supposedly a successful mission." With that, he placed the headphones over his head, adjusting the microphone before leaning back into his seat.

From the background, Nathan could vaguely make out Devora's voice, which had suddenly turned angelic.

"It's okay, Dallas," she said. "Maybe next time."

Nathan waited rather impatiently for his two companions to slip into their seats. The very second the doors were shut, Nathan began to navigate the helicopter towards the company, silence drenching the three friends.

Oh, how he couldn't wait to get home.

————

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