I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but hey let's just go with it🤷🏼‍♀️ Plus there aren't many chapters left. Anyway thank you for all the votes and comments I appreciate it 💕

London 1998

Clara sat with her legs swinging back and forth in the chair located outside the head office of MI5. She couldn't really believe what was happening, she had been part of a hand-picked group of people to go on what was being called a necessary undercover mission. The mission would mark her first and she was eager to please, otherwise, she wouldn't be chosen to do anymore.

Looking around, Clara scanned those who sat next to her along the row of seats. They all appeared to be just as nervous as her, some even looked more excited than she did. Not a single one did she recognise, which made her even more nervous, she was hoping she'd know at least one person, maybe an agent she'd trained with or had been trained by. Clara counted ten of them in total, the most people she'd ever known to be chosen for a single mission.

Clara's head shot up at the sound of the door across from the row being opened. I woman stood at the entrance, she appeared to be in her late twenties if not very early thirties. She had no expression on her face as she scanned the row of agents up and down, her eyes landed on Clara and stayed there for slightly longer than the others, before finally opening her mouth to speak.

''There are too many of you to talk to at once. So the first five on this side if you would please come in,'' her voice was soft but authoritative e as gestured to the right side, which was the side Clara was on.

All five of the agents stood up with Clara being one of them. Then in sync again they all stepped forward into a line, Clara was the last on in the line, meaning she was the last to step over the threshold and into the room. It also meant that she had to close the door behind her. She hated the way it squeaked and creaked as she shut it, cringing before turning around to take the last remaining seat left in the room.

''I am Miranda Jenson, you will refer to me as Ma'am or Miss Jenson,'' Miranda wandered over to the big window that covered one side of her office. Her back was turned and her hands clasped behind her back as she stared out at the Thames.

''Now, this mission you are all about to go on will either make something of you,'' she turned around and looked at all the agents, but Clara noticed her gaze once more focus on her form. Miranda then took a short pause before finishing her small introduction, ''or break you, making you worth nothing.''

Clara was sure everybody in the room at that moment gulped collectively. The sentence had made her even more nervous about what was to come or what wasn't, depending on how you looked at the situation. This mission could either give her the career she wanted or take it away with a snap of the fingers.

''Now, I want each of you to look at the folders I am about to give you. You will read them and confine every detail to memory. One piece of forgotten information could compromise a year-long mission, not that this one will last that long though,'' Miranda explained as she produced a stack of five identical folders from one of her desk draws and passed them along the row of agents.

Each of them had the word Top Secret stamped across them in big red letters. Clara flipped hers open to read the name of the mission and brief:

Hive
You will infiltrate a secret criminal organisation that had managed to manifest itself in one of the London offices. Below is a list of your fellow agents with what their role in the mission is, as well as you're own.

Clara scanned the list of names before coming to her own, which was near the bottom since they had been placed in last name alphabetical order.

Clara Taylors: undercover office assistant- a separate file will be given to you.

Seconds after reading the words, Miranda stood in front of her again, with another file in her hand. Clara took it from her, laying the other on her lap she opened her new one. She didn't have a new name, which she thought she would have, but maybe because was a young agent it didn't matter.

°°°

''What's this got to do with anything?'' Marshall cut Clara off, looking at her with a bord expression.

''Giving you a little bit of background, but since you're bored I'll skip ahead,'' Clara shot back giving a quick summary of events, where she spent three months undercover until the boss fired her.

''Wait so then how did you manage to get back in, you know finish the mission and all?'' Marshall asked, not sure he was following, although perhaps it was his fault for asking her to skip over the in-depth details.

''Miranda told me to go back and make a fuss, while some other agents snuck in around the back and basically trap them in the building,'' Clara started.

''But something went wrong?'' Marshall guessed.

''Yeah, um the back up hadn't arrived, so I went in alone,'' she confessed, ''that was the worst decision I had ever made.''

°°°

"You have no backup, are you sure you want to do this?'' the voice was crackling and distorted in the earpiece, that didn't stop Clara from hearing exactly what had been said.

''I have to this may be my only chance,'' the voice asked her again, proceeding to tell her the dangers she had already heard millions of times before.

Clara didn't listen and ignored them, sliding her stolen ID card across the locked glass door. It opened with a satisfying beep allowing her to enter. Not one person in the room looked up from their work behind the numerous glass desk with state of the art computers placed on top of them. Her heeled shoes made a loud clacking sound with each step she took along the tiled flooring.

''Miss Taylors, what a pleasant surprise,'' the man at the very end of the room, stood behind his own glass desk, which was much bigger than the rest, with a high backed leather chair sat empty as he stood at the front of the desk her hand behind his back as he faced Clara.

''Is it though,'' she remarked taking in the brand etched on the side of his neck.

''Perhaps, you know I didn't fire you because you messed up the order. I'm not that cruel you know,'' the man smiled, his silver-plated tooth standing out against the yellowish tinge that dusted the rest of his teeth.

''You knew I was an agent,'' she stuttered, glancing wearily at the armed men that stood behind him.

''Oh yes sweetheart. They really have met a new low, sending a child to do a job far more sophisticated than the person they had sent. Although I admire your courage at coming back, unfortunately, you won't be coming back here again, or anywhere,'' before she could react strong arms wrapped around her and a hand held her head to the side, ''see you on the other side,'' the pain from the needle caused a scream to bubble up in Clara's throat, but it didn't leave her lips because she was already unconscious.

°°°

''I don't know where they took me, but it was dark and when I woke up my wrists were chained together and I felt as if I hadn't eaten in days,'' Marshall watched as Clara started to choke on her words. He realised then that what she was telling him was the reason why the three words she told him not to say triggered something in her.

''You don't have to finish, I think I get it,'' he moved to lay his hand on her arm.

''If it was for Jasper, I... he would have pulled that trigger on the gun and my brains would be all over the walls of an underground bunker, not here beside you in this plan. Jasper broke into the room and I honestly thought that when the gunshot went off that I was going to fall, but it was the person behind me who did,'' Clara had now turned to bury her face into his neck, a lone tear falling down her cheek.

''Hey you're fine,'' Marshall whispered to her, but in truth were they really. They were stuck on a plane heading for New York and about the face the same people that nearly killed Clara all those years ago and according to her they still wanted her taken out.

''Marshall after this I... I don't wanna be an agent anymore,'' Clara stuttered out, lifting her head from his neck.

''What will you do then?'' He asked.

''Stay your assistant.''