When Taylor Hawkins’ eyes fluttered open, she found herself in a dark room, lying on a cold, hard floor. Her mouth was dry and her hip ached where it pressed into the concrete. She had no sense of how long she had been out, or of what day or time it might be, and the velvety darkness did nothing to help orient her. Hawkins tried to move, only to discover that her arms were tied tightly above her head and her legs were bound at the ankles. Her head ached from the effects of being drugged; her eyes had trouble focusing, her muscles felt weak and her legs and arms trembled uncontrollably. Struggling to pull herself together, despite the throbbing pain in her head, Hawkins turned to look around the room. It was dark, but not completely, through the gloom she could see that she was lying on the cold, grimy floor of a warehouse. Letting her eyes roam over the vast room, she saw that large wooden crates littered the floor, abandoned as if all of the workers had just walked away in the middle of their shifts. She wondered idly if the company had gone bankrupt in the recent economic downturn, because the abandonment appeared to be fairly recent. Moving her wrists a bit, she could see that they were bound to a thick, metal chain that stretched up from a clasp on the floor. Following it up, she could see that the chain ran to the ceiling of the warehouse, where it laced its way through a pulley. A large crate hung from the end of the chain, suspended in the air right above her. It had obviously been abandoned to its precarious perch, doomed to dangle from that chain indefinitely. Hawkins decided that releasing the chain to get her hands free would be a bad idea; free hands wouldn’t help much if it got her crushed by a big wooden cube. That was probably the point. Dismissing that idea, she continued to look around the warehouse for a better plan. As she gazed down past her feet, Hawkins suddenly realized that she was not alone. About 10ft away, she could see a figure tied securely to a metal folding chair in the corner. She couldn’t make out his face in the gloom, but she was fairly certain that she knew who it was,

“Stone, is that you?” her whisper sounded painfully loud in the silent warehouse.

The figure stirred and raised his head,

“Yeah,” he murmured thickly. “I think so.”

A wave of relief washed over her; she had been worried that their abductor might have killed him already.

“What the hell happened?” he asked. “All I know is I felt pinch and then everything went black.”

“We got ambushed. He drugged you first and got me when I turned to see what happened. I let my guard down,” she swore quietly. “I was so focused on the NIA agents behind us that I never saw it coming. Stupid.”

“So, another team of NIA agents got us then?” he asked.

“Well, yes and no. He is an agent, but I don’t think that we are in NIA custody,” Hawkins muttered.

“You don’t think that we’re in custody?” he sounded puzzled.

“No,” Hawkins said slowly, “I mean, look around, the agency has plenty of places to hold prisoners without sticking us in a warehouse. No, this is something else.”

“Something else? But who else would be after… Oh shit,” Stone winced, as he realized what she was implying. “You think it was Darien?”

“I’ll bet that he ordered it, but it wasn’t him personally,” Hawkins replied. “Our attacker must have loaded us into that van and gotten us out that way, past the agents. On the upside, I think we finally found the last missing piece to our puzzle.”

“His partner,” Stone groaned.

“Yeah, that would be my guess. Who else wants us dead? Oh right, I forgot, everyone wants us dead,” Hawkins said darkly. “Damn it! I can’t believe he, of all people, is Parabellum’s partner. I should have known.”

“Wait, you mean you know who this is?”

“Oh, Taylor and I go way back,” they both froze and turned to the voice coming from the doorway. Their abductor strode over and stood between them. “It’s about time that you two came around, I was getting a little tired of waiting.”

“Well, you always were the impatient type, Blake,” Hawkins muttered disdainfully.

“Wait, you’re Harrison Blake?” Stone blurted.

“Oh, aren’t you the clever one, Agent Stone. It’s so flattering that you’ve heard of me,” Blake purred.

Blake strode over and knelt next to Hawkins.

“Do you talk about me often, Taylor?” Blake reached down and stroked her face. “Did our brief partnership have such a lasting effect on you?”

“Don’t touch me,” she pulled away from him as best she could under the circumstances. The chain rattled as she strained against it.

“Still so feisty,” Blake laughed cruelly. “I told him that he’d underestimated you.”

“Oh, did you?” Hawkins knew who he meant, obviously.

“Of course. When you were chosen as his next victim, you have no idea how pleased I was. I was just so excited about getting the chance to work with you again,” he smiled contemptuously down at her. “But then you had to go and ruin everything by forfeiting the game right out of the gate! Of course, I never believed it for a moment; I knew that you were too stubborn to give in that easily. I told Parabellum you would be a problem for us, eventually. And I was right, wasn’t I? Which is good, because you and I, we have unfinished business, don’t we?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Hawkins snorted. “I want nothing to do with you.”

“Come now, you remember. I promised you the last time we met that I would settle our score one day,” Blake reminded her gently, like a teacher correcting a wayward student. “And now Parabellum also has a score to settle with you. He doesn’t like cheaters, Taylor, and you broke the rules of his game.”

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“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hawkins muttered sarcastically. “Did I hurt Darien’s feelings, when I didn’t want to play with him?”

“What did you say?” Blake’s eyes widened.

She was hoping he would confirm her hypothesis for her, and his reaction had done just that.

“Don’t bother playing dumb,” Hawkins rolled her eyes. “Everyone in this room knows who ‘Parabellum’ really is, so why don’t we cut the crap? It’s a stupid name anyway.”

Blake laughed,

“What a clever girl you are,” he stroked her hair almost tenderly, it was revolting. “I knew you were special. James has been doing this for decades, and no one has ever discovered his identity before. You figured it out in a matter of weeks. Well done.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Too bad you won’t ever get to tell anybody.”

“So, you’re going to kill me for your boss, eh?” she asked. “Do his dirty work?”

“My boss? Oh, you misunderstand. Darien and I are partners. Not that you would understand anything about a real partnership. We are equals.”

“Oh, right,” Hawkins snorted derisively. “Just like Darien and all of his other partners were equal?”

“I don’t know what you mean. He’s never had a partner before me,” Blake looked genuinely confused.

“Is that what he told you? That you were special?” Hawkins grinned maliciously. “I guess it’s easier than trying to explain what happened to the others. I did wonder how he managed to gloss over that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You, my old friend, are his 4th partner,” Hawkins replied pleasantly. “The other three, well, they died under somewhat suspicious circumstances. Presumably when they outlived their usefulness.”

“You’re lying.”

“Believe what you like, Blake. But the truth remains, you are living on borrowed time. How long is it until Darien’s end game, huh?” Hawkins saw doubt flicker across his face, then Blake glanced at his watch involuntarily. “That soon, eh? Too bad, because that’s when your time runs out, too,” she laughed, trying to sound more confident than she truly was.

“Bullshit. You can’t bluff me,” Blake snarled.

“Suit yourself,” Hawkins shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

Blake had entirely lost his cool by then, he punched her in the face, hard. Her skull cracked painfully off the concrete floor.

“I think you have forgotten the situation you are in. This is your funeral, Taylor.”

Hawkins spit blood onto the grimy floor. It seemed that the time for chatting had ended. Harrison Blake was here to settle their score, as he’d promised years ago. Working with Darien had given him what he had always wanted, a license to go after her with no consequences and no chance of getting caught. Just another Parabellum murder that no one would ever solve.

“How did Darien find out about us?” Hawkins asked, trying to continue stalling. She needed more time to think of a plan.

“It really isn’t something to concern yourself with,” Blake replied coldly. “In a very short while, it won’t matter anymore.”

Blake rose to his feet and pulled a long hunting knife from his belt. Hawkins flinched; she knew that she was in trouble now. Then he surprised her, he started walking away, towards Stone.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, Agent Stone here is your partner, after all,” Blake smiled, regaining control of the situation. “So, before we get started, I thought you might enjoy watching him die. You prefer to work alone, anyway, don’t you?”

She was out of time. She needed to do something now.

Blake turned to Stone,

“It’s a shame, isn’t it, Agent Stone? I’ll bet you regret casting your lot in with her now, don’t you? Take it from me, she’s ruined every partner she’s ever had. Even tried to take me down, years ago, over a minor misunderstanding. She failed, though, as you can see,” he chuckled. “If you had asked my advice, I would have told you to keep your distance. Now, I’d say live and learn, but in your case…”

Blake shrugged.

“Look, if you’re going to kill me, why don’t you stop blabbering and just get it over with?” Stone scoffed. “Or were you planning to bore me to death?”

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you right away. I am afraid this is going to take a while, and, if I do it right, it is really going to hurt quite a lot.”

Blake spun the knife around in his hand and prepared to make his first cut, but before he could begin, Hawkins let out a sudden peel of laughter, causing Blake to spin around.

“You find something funny?” Blake asked.

“A little bit,” Hawkins chuckled.

Blake left Stone’s side and moved back towards her.

“And what exactly would that be, Agent Hawkins?”

“Well, I mean, I always suspected that you were, you know, a coward. It’s just nice to know for sure.”

“What?” Blake glared at her.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Hawkins taunted. “I mean here you have me, all bound and helpless on the floor, and you still can’t face me? You need to kill him first, to intimidate me? That’s kind of sad. I really messed you up back then, didn’t I?”

“Hawkins,” Stone hissed, trying to warn her to stop taunting the violent man with the knife.

Blake ignored him,

“You think I am scared of you? I am the one in control. I brought you here. I hold your life in my hands.”

She needed to keep his attention on her now, no matter what. She knew that Stone was trying to stop her because he didn’t want her escalating the level of violence, but he was going to kill them both anyways. What harm could a little escalation really do, at this point?

“Oh yeah?” Hawkins raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t you come over here and prove it to me, then?”

Hawkins knew Harrison Blake well enough to be sure that he would not let the taunt pass. Blake drew closer and kicked her in the side, knocking the wind out of her. She had him now, for all the good that did her.

“You want me to show you how helpless you really are? How pathetic I find you?” he snarled.

Hawkins coughed,

“Admit it: I kicked your ass last time, now you won’t even come near me without drugging me and tying me up first. Very tough.”

Blake’s face turned bright red. He knelt down and sliced the ropes binding her.

“I’m not afraid of you. You want to go first? That’s fine by me. And when I’m done with you, I’ll still let you watch while I kill your boyfriend.”

This was a start, but Hawkins knew that she was too weak from the after-effects of the sedative to fight him off this time, even with the ropes off. She had bought a window of opportunity, but if she didn’t hurry, they were both still going to die. In a very unpleasant fashion, most likely.

“Now,” Blake grinned. “Do you remember where we left off?”

Blake knelt down, straddling her waist. He tore her shirt open, his movements explosive, violent. He was angry. She cringed as he put his hands on her, it made her nauseous to have him touch her, but she couldn’t think about that now. She had to stay focused. While he busied himself with her body, Hawkins reached back behind her with her left hand and began to wrap her arm up in the long chain dangling from the ceiling. She moved carefully and slowly to avoid making any sounds that might alert him. Blake was fumbling with the button on her jeans now; finally, he simply ripped it open. Satisfied that her arm was properly secured, Hawkins decided that it was now or never. Reaching back with her right arm, she fumbled blindly for the clasp holding the chain to the floor. She could feel Blake’s hand sliding up along her thigh. She made a mental note to bathe in bleach when this was over. Finally, she found it. Hawkins braced herself; this part was going to be a little bit uncomfortable. Taking a deep breath, she yanked the release on the chain.