.

I jump off the seat, and grab the stethoscope from around Jace’s shoulders “Can I borrow this?” his mouth is still hanging open at my rash actions, so I take that as a yes and with force whip the stethoscope so it hits Lauren around the face as she finally gets to her feet, and I knew that must have stung like a bitch.

I turn back to Jace “Grab something that causes damage, were going to have company in about 2 minutes.” I order him, and finally everything falls into place in his head and he gets into action. He rushes over to the draws and wheels out a plastic container that holds a bunch of hospital tools, like the essentials which are scissors and small knives.

I must have taken too long making sure Jace gets the idea of what’s going on, because before I know it something hits me around the head and I realise Lauren had fully recovered, and judging by the force of her punch she is pissed.

I stumble forward and hit against the draws, catching sight of a metal tray which I'm guessing is used to hold equipment. I grab the tray and turn, swinging my arm and hitting her in the face with the tray, pretty much making a face print in it with the force I used. I quickly punch her in the face with my right hand, then with my left to cover both sides of her face. I boot her in the stomach as she stumbles back. I grab her by the hair, planting her face into my knee repeatedly until the blood is pouring from her nose. She clips me in the stomach and I let her go as she backs away slightly.

“I fucking knew it was you!” Lauren exclaims out of breath. I smirk slightly at this, as I realise she is breathless and I could probably go for a couple more hours “As soon as I saw you, I knew it was you!”

“I’m flattered.” I respond swinging my fist at her again, this time she dodges it and she dodges my next few hits while I dodge hers. The distance is between us again as she steps to the other side of the chair so there is a barrier between us.

“You don’t remember me do you?” she sneers.

“Should I?”

She smirks “I know you Faith, we went to school together. I knew you weren’t dead!”

I stop in my tracks as she says my name. She knows who I am? That has just eliminated the slither of chance she had of getting out of this room alive.

“I can’t say I remember you, but then again you were probably too busy entertaining the football team in the janitor’s closet so I probably never saw you around.” I smile, and she grits her teeth.

“Oh that’s rich coming from Jace Dixons bit on the side!” she yells, pointing at Jace who was currently in the corner of the room looking from left to right as if to say ‘who me?’

“Everyone knew about you two you know? The desperate Faith Mitchell and her plea to cling onto her one love Jace even at the cost of being a sordid affair, it breaks your heart doesn’t it?” She smirks as she says it, the sarcasm and cruelness’ of her voice dripping from every word.

I flinch slightly at her words, as the memories of how pathetic I was flash back to me. I notice Jace’s eyes darken slightly from fury and his jaw clench at the blast from the past.

“As much as I would love to play high school reunion, how about you tell me who the other dealing nurse is?” I change the subject, not wanting to discuss mine and Jace’s past with the woman who is the target.

Her smirk widens as it appears she knows something we don’t “Oh I can’t wait to see your reaction when you find out.”

“You don’t have to wait, just tell me.” I snap, getting extremely impatient.

She pretends to think for a minute, and then shakes her head “Naa, I think it will be more fun for you to find the other nurse on your own.”

I clench my fists “I know this is a shot in the dark, but you wouldn’t happen to want to share the name of the drug lord with me?” She furs her eyebrows at me like I am crazy “Thought not.” I mumble.

By this point the door swings open and in comes another nurse, her face furious and you could tell she is ready to hit someone.

I look at Lauren “This is the other dealer?”

“No, this is just my back up.” She grins “The other dealer is someone more...familiar.”

Her smartass tone was beginning to piss me off, especially because I knew she was holding back information. Fair enough I was about to kill her, but sharing really is caring.

The other nurse slams the door behind her. As I glance at her I can’t see that she is armed, which means this will be a lot easier. She doesn’t look that harmful, she’s smaller than me. As if someone up there wanted to prove me wrong, as soon as I think this she turns to Jace and pushes him with force against the wall behind him.

Okay, maybe she is a little harmful...

“You take the pint sized dwarf; I’ll take the blast from the past over here.” I tell Jace while pointing at Lauren. He looks at me with eyes wide as he takes in what I said.

“You want me to take her on?” He repeats in disbelief pointing at the nurse in front of him “I can’t Faith, she’s a girl! I can’t hit a girl!”

I roll my eyes, and obviously I’m not the only one pissed off at his sexism. The short nurse steps towards him and sends a nasty right hook straight to his cheek as if proving she is anything but a fragile girl. Jace turns his head, rubbing his cheek as the pain shoots through his face.

“I am not hitting a girl, I don’t hit girls.” He explains to her, as if reasoning.

She narrows her eyes and sends another punch to his other cheek. I can see Jace’s face tense up as the anger is starting to build in him, his patience running dangerously low.

“Seriously, my mother taught me never to hit a girl.” He explains again, only this time his voice is low and furious as he tried to hold on to his patience.

The nurse smiles at him slightly, then as quick as a flash punches his other cheek once again. This time as Jace recovers from the punch and leans his head back up to look at her, all patience and reasoning is gone. His eyes are red from fury.

“Then again, my mother never met a bitch like you who obviously needs to be put in her place.” he announces, before swinging his fist and punching the girl so hard in the face it knocks her off her feet and I swear from the force of it she may have a broken jaw.

My eyes widen in shock, and again I’m impressed by him for about the millionth time today. Not going to lie, his anger and violent outburst was a little bit of a turn on. You can tell I’ve been an agent too long if seeing a man be violent actually gets me hot.

I realise that Jace is going to be fine taking on the short nurse, and I turn my attention back to Lauren who was looking at Jace with eyes wide at the fierceness of his punch.

“Your turn.” I dive forward, jumping onto the seat in between us and as I jump off to her side I plant my boot in her face, knocking her off guard considering she was still too busy staring at Jace and the nurse. I pick her up by the hair; planting her face on the metal behind the seat a few times, then yanking it back and crunching her nose with my fist.

“Lovely catching up with you Lauren.” I wrap the stethoscope that I had managed to keep hold of this entire time around her neck and choke the life out of her. As I do, I notice the short nurse get back to her feet and even though she was dazed, attempted to punch Jace again but he was surprisingly agile and ducked her punch, sending one of his own into her face again which knocked the girl unconscious. Lauren stopped breathing, and I loosened the grip on the stethoscope and she slumped lifelessly to the ground.

I look over to Jace as he stands over the unconscious nurse.

“What will your mother say?” I humour, shaking my head mockingly.

He looks up at me, the amusement rising in his face “Mamma said knock her out.” He jokes, and I burst out laughing.

“Outta my way Chris Brown, I need to finish this one off.” I chuckle; slightly pushing him out of the way as I browse the counters for something I could use to gank her. I couldn’t use the stethoscope again, that would just be unoriginal.

I smile as I spot the plastic container with the sharp objects in it, and pull out a tiny metal instrument, holding it to my face while I examine it.

“If I’m Chris Brown does that make you my Cinderella-ella-ella-eh?” he asks teasingly, and again I find myself laughing.

“You really are abusing the song references right now.” I inform him, and he shrugs with a smile. Suddenly, the now lifeless Lauren’s words come flashing through my head again and all humour slips away from me. His face falls as he spots the change in my expression. “But no Jace, it doesn’t. Since we’re talking in song references, then you would describe me as your ‘dirty little secret’ not ‘Cinderella-ella-eh’.” My tone is now cold, and there is no hint of a joke in my voice “That role will be filled by the splendid Gina. How is she these days?” I ask sharply, my voice icy.

He clenches his jaw at my sudden coldness and spite “Faith what Lauren said-”

“Was true.” I cut him off. He slips his hands into the overcoat, looking up at the ceiling while shaking his head slightly.

“There’s a lot that you don’t know.” His voice is rough, and his face looks pained “As much as we’ve been trying to avoid talking about this it needs to be sorted.”

“Maybe later.” I brush him off “Right now I have a pint sized nurse to kill.”

And with that I turn my back to him, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply now that he can’t see me. I can feel his presence behind me, but I ignore it and grab the nurse’s hair lifting her up and placing the sharp metal tool against her skin. Even though I was fully aware of his tense body stood mere feet away from me, the unresolved issues between us hanging there and needing to be talked about, I continue with the mission.

Because that’s what I’ve been taught. The only thing that matters is the mission.



.