Nolan barely had time to catch a glimpse of the black Ford truck before it crashed into the back of his own car.

"What the—"

"Get down!" Nolan shouted, lowering himself in his seat and punching the gas. They shot forward, releasing themselves from the truck.

Smoke billowed from their tires as they gained speed. Nolan glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw that the truck was hanging back a little.

That's weird...

He faintly saw two heads pop up from the back of the truck bed. They almost looked like they were assembling something...

"No freaking way." Grace gasped.

They were putting together a portable turret.

Grace scrambled to the back seat.

"Hey! What're you—"

"Where's my Bauer Automatic?"

"It's not safe, you need to—" Nolan was cut off by a spray of bullets penetrating his back windshield. He jerked to the side, crashing into two other cars in the opposite lane.

"Grace!"

"You'd better tell me where it is, Clay, or we're both going to look like human colanders!" Grace shouted.

Nolan cursed. "Under the right seat."

Another rain of bullets pelted the car. It was a miracle none of them hit the tires.

"Hold on!" Nolan swerved into a wide alleyway, knocking over two trashcans. He heard Grace load her handgun.

He quickly reached the end of the alley and made a hard turn back onto the main road. He entered traffic and went straight across the road, earning many honks and shouts from other drivers.

He heard two shots go off.

"I—I got one!" Grace squealed, sounding much too excited.

Nolan tried to move in a zigzag pattern, but it was hard as he went through the thick traffic. He shoved his way through the center lane and eventually some of the cars got the message and moved out of the way.

Unfortunately, the police had noticed too.

Sirens blared behind them, but not for long.

Nolan caught a glimpse of the black turret in the back of the truck turning to face the other way.

"No, no, no..." Grace whispered, taking aim through the shattered window. She fired two more shots and killed one of the two remaining men, but wasn't fast enough for the other.

He open fired on the police car and it immediately lost control and crashed into a fire hydrant.

"I only have three bullets left." Grace yelled.

"Save it! Hurry, get back up here and buckle up."

Grace dove back into the passenger seat, small flecks of blood on her face from the broken glass.

"We're going to have to lose them." Nolan said, and then added under his breath, "Without getting killed."

He took a quick breath and yanked the wheel all the way around, causing the car to spin around in a complete 180.

Grace gave a sharp intake of breath.

He faced the truck head-on for a split second before speeding forward and crashing into the corner of it.

They were nearly jerked out of their seat, but Nolan held tightly to the wheel. He threw the gears into reverse and the tires screeched beneath the vehicle as it reeled backwards.

"Turn around! Turn around!" Grace hissed.

Nolan swung the vehicle back around, but the truck was right on his tail.

He saw a sign for a subway station up ahead. He glanced to the side. He wouldn't make it to the other side, the traffic was too thick...

He sped up faster.

"No! Nolan—no! You are not Jason Bourne, you will not survive this!" Grace screamed, bracing herself by holding onto the handle above the window.

They went crashing down the concrete steps to the subway station.

A gunshot went off.

Nolan heard Grace scream.

Pain shot through his forearm.

He lost control of the wheel and rammed straight into a stone pillar. The airbags exploded as the car flipped over itself.

He was lying face down. Grace was slumped over the windshield, lifeless.

Black spots clouded Nolan's vision. He faintly heard the door being ripped from its hinges before he drifted off into unconsciousness.

                                                                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nolan had gotten into a fight once. It'd started when a man named Flapjack shoved him into the kitchen refrigerator. After that it was all a blur. Nolan had woken up in the infirmary twenty four hours later with one heck of a headache.

Now he woke up to darkness. His entire arm was on fire and he could tell one of his ribs were broken, or at least cracked. His breathing was labored and everything hurt. There was a bullet wound on his forearm, but thankfully no bullet.

He was sitting on the floor with his back against a cement wall.

Where am I?

Metal cuffs encircled his wrists, attached to chain that led to the wall.

Strange.

As his eyes adjusted, he could tell he was in a concrete room that had a single barred window on the opposite side.

Grace was next to him, still out cold. Blood had dried along her hairline and a long cut ran across her collarbone.

Nolan sighed and rested his head against the stone behind him. It didn't take long to guess who'd captured them, but how did Colossus know? Egor hadn't seemed worried about Nolan's presence in Kavala, so why had they gone after him and Grace? How long would they leave them there?

His brain hurt too much to think.

The minutes dragged on and Nolan half expected hooded men with machine guns to burst through the door any second. But nothing happened. He tried desperately to relax and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.

He dreamed on and off about things that made no sense until he awoke with a sudden jerk that made pain course through his body.

He exhaled slowly and checked on Grace.

She was awake.

"I can't do this again." She whispered hoarsely. She turned to Nolan, her features hard and extremely sad. "I can't."

"We'll get out." Nolan replied.

"No." Grace stared straight ahead, unmoving. "People don't survive these things three times, much less four. I've never been captured by people who want to kill me specifically, people who have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

"You're not gonna die—"

"Nolan, please." Grace interrupted, her voice catching in her throat. Her chin quivered as tears flooded her eyes. "I can't do this again."

He watched as her face melted into despair and she leaned her head against the wall, silent tears falling from her cheeks.

Nolan didn't know what to do or say. He sat there listening to her quiet sniffles before reaching his cuffed hand over to hers and held it.

"I'm so sorry, Grace." He said. "You don't deserve this."

She glanced down at their hands and shook her head. "You don't either. That's the thing, though. No one does. This all so, so messed up. But..." She hesitated for a brief second before going on, "if one of us dies, promise me something."

"What?"

"Keep going. Colossus has to be stopped even if only one of us is able to do it."

Nolan nodded, even though Grace couldn't see it. "I promise."

And somehow it was more of a promise...it was a pact. Together or apart they would do the impossible or die trying. They would fight for all the innocent lives that were in danger, not because it was the right thing to do, but because it needed to be done.

They fell silent for the next hour or so.

"They'll try to drive us crazy, you know." Grace said, her voice tired.

"We're already a bit insane anyway, aren't we?"

"Maybe you are."

Nolan was happy to see a small smile touch her lips.

They fell back into wordless thought. Nolan's first instinct was to get up and try to escape...but he was too hurt to move. "Maybe they're just going to keep us here forever." Nolan said, more to himself than anything. "But whatever they're doing, it's working." He took a good look around the room. It was sealed tight. "Maybe they'll let us heal up for a while."

Grace examined him closely, especially his bloody arm. "Yeah, we'll starve before that happens." She crisscrossed her legs with a sigh. "But that's how it works sometimes. Solitary confinement until they need you. They'll try to break you down until you're more compliant—it's more effective than violence."

What seemed like hours passed, so slowly Nolan thought he would scream. He closed his eyes tightly. What was wrong with him? He tried to take a deep breath, but couldn't; tried to get comfortable...couldn't. The cuffs on his wrists felt like a ball and chain dragging him to the bottom of the ocean. He couldn't break free...

"Hey."

He opened his eyes, panting. Grace was watching him intently.

"Get a hold of yourself. This is what they want."

Nolan swallowed hard.

Grace cleared her throat and put on a smirk. "Oh, I forgot to mention it, but you're an idiot."

"What? Why?"

"You crashed into a subway station."

"Like I had a choice."

She shrugged. "The cars would've gotten out of the way."

"No they wouldn't have!"

"Well we'd have had a better chance with that than bulldozing into an underground box!"

"Excuse me, but you weren't the one doing the driving!"

"If I was driving, we wouldn't have rammed into a pillar and ultimately be stuck in a terrorist prison."

"If you were driving, we would've gotten pelted by the turret. I mean, pick your poison. We're captured, but we're alive." He squinted at her. "And is that really important right now?"

Her sassy countenance immediately fell and she shrugged again. "Just trying to get your mind off of whatever it was making you go crazy."

"What? And you're not?" Nolan scoffed.

"No."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure."

Grace didn't reply.

How was she being so calm? So confoundingly quiet?

She's probably used to it...she practically gets taken hostage as often as people go shopping.

He sucked in a breath. "This is what they want." He told himself.

"Oh really? Well, I'm glad you finally realized it." Grace muttered, crossing her chained arms.

Nolan glanced at her, feeling a slight pang of guilt. She'd been through a lot. He could handle this. He had to.

The minutes continued to tick by.

Nolan managed to contain himself and even dozed off again.

He guessed they'd been there for twelve hours or so when he saw a shadow pass by the window.

Both Nolan and Grace waited in silence as the sound of metal sliding into metal reached their ears.

The door slid open.

The first person to come through was a woman dressed in desert camouflage, holding a machine gun.

The second was a man with a black beard.

The third was Dimyan Egor.

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Hey everyone! Thank you for reading ^_^ Don't forget I'm open to any suggestions on character/plot/anything else =)

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