WE'D BEEN IN the car for less than fifteen minutes before the silence began to pound in my ears. The space between the two of us was so dead that I was afraid my breathing would be considered disruptive in the charged air. "So, um..." I tried to start a conversation, but each time I backed out, unsure of where to even begin. I was in my car, sitting in the passenger seat with a stranger who claimed to know Steve and Sam. It was so ridiculous that I tried not to laugh.

"You know, I thought you'd be a little more talkative," Cara offered up a conversation, though her eyes never left the road. "But I suppose that's why you and Bucky hooked up, huh? You're both quiet."

I blushed as I heard the loosely thrown term "hooked up." We most definitely had not done that, but of course, it wasn't like I'd never thought about it. When things were different, though. When I was under the false impression that everything would stay the same, that no one would find us there. What a fool I'd been, acting like a lovesick teenager with no troubles in the world. What an absolute fool.

"I'm not usually this quiet," I defended myself to the stranger that was slowly becoming something like an acquaintance. "I'm just...thinking."

Cara scrunched her nose up in disgust. "Sounds boring."

"Actually, I don't think I quite understand everything that you told me," I told the driver, who turned out to be just three years younger than me.

"Ask me anything," she shrugged, "I guess we'll have to get to know each other sometime."

I swallowed before inquiring, "So you...you were an Avenger?"

Shrugging again, Cara made a lane change before answering, "I mean, I never really liked being a part of that group, but I guess you could say so."

"Do you have, like, superpowers or something?" The girl looked perfectly normal, but I still peered at her as if she would start glowing if I stared long and hard enough.

She snorted. "No, I'm not that lucky. I'm just wicked with a gun."

"Are you like...what's her name...oh! Are you like Black Widow, then?"

Cara lifted her eyebrows and smiled, as if reflecting on a fond memory. "Oh, she hated me. For the first little bit, at least. I'd tried my hand at pick-pocketing when I first moved out on my own, and she happened to be the lucky winner. Of course, she never lets anyone get away with anything, so she beat me into shape before allowing herself to see that we had a similar set of skills."

I couldn't imagine being hated so strongly by an Avenger, but I supposed that even the Earth's Mightiest Heroes had their misgivings about other people. "Okay. And you said you rescued Bucky before?"

"Uh-huh. He's got a penchant for getting captured, don't you think?" This was the only time she took her eyes off the road in front of her to glance at me with a teasing glint in the brown depths, but she frowned quickly as she saw the deep glare I was giving her. "Okay," she chuckled nervously, "you're not going to think those jokes are funny yet, are you?"

Scowling, I retorted, "Those jokes are never gonna be funny, Cara."

"Sheesh." Reaching out for one of the knobs in the car, she turned on the radio. "It's like a bad rom-com in here."

A few minutes went by in silence again before Cara complained, "Jesus, how far away is this damn hotel? I thought you said it was close by!"

"Close to the headquarters, yeah, but it's not right by the bar!"

We finally spotted the hotel in their sights and Cara pulled into the parking lot. "Okay, you've gotta make this quick, we don't have much time until your agent comes back to the hotel."

I glanced up at her. "How much time?"

She shrugged. "Maybe...five minutes?"

I cursed and clutched the key in my hand as I opened the door of the truck and sped to the front doors, flinging them open. Rushing past the receptionist, I chose to take the stairs(a bad idea, as my room was on the third floor), huffing and puffing all the way up to my room. When I reached the door, I unlocked it and worked faster than I'd ever thought was possible, a thousand thoughts whirling through my mind.

"This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy," I groaned as I grabbed everything I could see off the shiny counters and fancy carpet. This better work, I prayed internally. This better work, or I'm probably going to jail.

Well, that was awfully optimistic, I grumbled.

I hurried back down to the lobby of the hotel, practically flinging the room key at the receptionist. "I need an early checkout," I breathed heavily, exerting more energy than I was used to.

A scoff. "I'd say." A surprised glance to my left revealed Cara, leaning against the desk and smiling kindly at the lady behind it. "She's making a surprise visit to her cousins this weekend, and, can you believe it? She forgot!"

"Okay, Cara. Let's go." I beckoned her with a hand, heading out to the door and waiting impatiently for her to follow. "What are you doing?" I hissed.

My new friend waved a hand dismissively. "No, no, no, I'm just getting to know..." she squinted her eyes at the name tag on the lady's shirt and smiled. "Amelia over here. She's got three kids, did you know that?"

I rolled my eyes. I knew I had the tendency to act like act like a distracted teenager all the time, a characteristic that Bucky had found mildly amusing, but this was new for me. The baby had become the babysitter, it seemed. "No, I didn't," I answered quickly, "and it's all very fascinating, but we need to go." When Cara looked back at me, she saw the clock ticking in my eyes and shook herself out of it.

"Yeah, alright, let's go." She waved at the receptionist in farewell and we jogged to the car.

Just as we got in, started the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot onto a back road, I spotted Agent Wretton's black car making its way into the space they were just in. "Drive," I whispered, afraid he might hear me from his close proximity. "Drive."

"I'm going, I'm going," Cara hummed, sinking her foot on the gas pedal. The darkness offered a shield, but I wasn't sure it would be good enough.

————————————————————

Agent Wretton slammed his hand on the steering wheel before getting out of his car and marching into the hotel. He'd just spent the last hour scouring that wretched bar and every surrounding street. He was a fool for trusting that Reid girl and expecting her to come back to him at eleven o'clock, like they'd planned. Now it was nearing one in the morning when he approached the receptionist and practically spat in her face, "Has anyone come in here in the last two hours?" He was nearly shaking as he held out his badge.

The lady behind the desk, her name tag reading Amelia, was obviously shaken by the exchange. "Uh, yeah. Two women, they came in just a few minutes ago. One of them was asking for an early checkout, said she had to go surprise her cousins with a visit this weekend?"

Wretton scowled. "What was her name? The one that was checking out?" He didn't usually get this riled up when things didn't go his way, but that was just it. Things always went his way.

She looked hesitant to answer him, but he shoved his badge closer to her face, and she quickly typed something into her computer and answered, "Elda Reid."

He cursed and nodded. Figures. "Who was she with?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Who was she with, you said she was with someone."

She shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't know. She was going with her, I just assumed they were family. Or friends."

He shifted uncomfortably, itching to run to his car and take her back into custody. But he had to think rationally, come up with a better plan than attack. "Thank you. If you wouldn't mind showing me the security footage from the last hour?" He took a few steps away from the desk to dial a number into his phone, putting it up to his ear and chewing his lip. All these years in the business, and a kid had gotten away from him.

"Ross," his superior answered.

Wretton tried to stifle the curl of his lips as he heard his boss's voice. "Sir, she's gone." He shook his head. I knew this was going to happen.

"She's what?" Ross, clearly, had thought everything would go exactly to plan.

He inhaled sharply. "Elda Reid has left the premises."

There was a pause, and he could hear a door closing in the background before Ross continued. "Is she on foot? Is she alone? What do you know? Details, Wretton, this isn't your first assignment."

The middle-aged agent had to keep himself from spewing something horrid at Everett Ross, swallowing his pride and answering, "I'm looking into it, sir." He spared one glance to the lady at the desk who was on the phone, evidently with the security officers and asking to see the footage he was in search of. "I just wanted to make you aware of her absence. She may be with someone who's helping her find Barnes. I can't cover all the ground by myself, though."

If I was able to just get in my car and handle this my way, she'd already be back in my hands. But no, he was following protocol.

Ross cleared his throat. "I hear you. I'm sending a team to the hotel right now. I want you to set up a perimeter of the city—"

"The entire city?"

His words were icy as he warned, "You're doubting me, Wretton?" When the agent was quiet, he finished, "Set up a perimeter around the city and find this girl. If she's on foot, she can't have gotten far within the last few hours. If she's in a vehicle, she might be closer to the city's edge. No need to make this a booming operation just yet, Wretton."

He nodded. "Understood."

"If you don't find her, though...we're going to have to break some promises we made to her parents."

"Sir?"

Ross sighed. "If you don't find her, put her name on the news, call out nationwide for help in searching for Elda Reid. She may not like being famous, but she is our white knight. Elda is the key to locating Barnes and this rogue organization. She just doesn't know it yet."

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wow, this one is actually not that bad, i don't think! i hope you guys liked it, thanks for reading!

also, i hope you guys are okay with the length of these chapters, they don't feel that long to me when i'm writing them (1500-2000 words) but maybe they feel different as a reader?

alright, to speed up the pace of this book, i'm changing the updating schedule so i will try to update this book twice a week, on mondays and thursdays. yay, more updates!

august 5, 2019