MAIZE

Kishan and Maria had seen the whole thing from the car window, and they were pissed. However, it was not so much about their attempted run-over—thought they weren't happy about that either—as it was at a certain detective. They would have been out to help if someone—namely Alec—hadn't put the child lock in their doors after he had left. How he did that without either of them noticing until they did, Maize had no idea. But nonetheless it had earned him a smack upside the head from the two agents. They had then asked if the two of them were alright—after they had finished laying their frustration to Alec.

Other than the fact that they had nearly died in a crazy car scheme, her ears and vision was still not a hundred percent recovered from the effects of such direct exposure to the flash grenade that had been thrown at them, and she had just found herself laying on West—she was fine.

"Anything we should know?" Kishan asked as soon as they were done going through their brief interaction with the two assassins.

"They told us their boss send his regards," Maize replied with a roll of her eyes. "Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean."

Alec muttered under his breath and threaded a hand through his hair in agitation, "They act like this is some fucking game. Well news flash, I never signed up to play. None of us did."

The driver's side of their vehicle was a wreck from where Alec had used it to smash into the other's tailgate. There was damage done to both the front-left headlight and the rear trunk, as well as noticeably large dent on the side and scratched paint. In addition, their rear window had bullet holes.

Whichever way Cassandra's hired hands planned on getting the car back, she hoped, for their sake, that it came with a good insurance policy. One that covered voluntary ramming into assassin vehicles by impetuous detectives.

At least he had saved their lives—and hadn't managed to crash and kill them in the process.

It was more than she had been able to do.

I couldn't even pull the trigger.

Despite the damage, their tires still had air and their car was more or less still functional. They just wouldn't be driving at night anytime soon.

They got out of there quick afterwards, each agreeing that it was better to completely clear the highway before the cops showed up. She was sure at least one person on the road had to have had the sense to call somebody after seeing their little car-chase scene, and they weren't going to risk sticking around to see if her statistics were right or not.

Only, there had been a slight arrangement.

Regarding the driver.

"Why am I in the backseat now?" Alec questioned for the fourth time, twenty minutes into their drive, his voice glaring pointedly.

Kishan answered from the driver's seat, "Because I, for one, don't feel safe with you behind the wheel anymore."

Alec rolled his eyes. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it?" Maize ended up saying, her voice meeting the two agents as they all voiced the same pointed statement at once.

She didn't have to look back to know he was glaring daggers at each of them. And then the muttering began as Alec began to express his demonstration of colourful vocabulary. "You guys are unappreciative."

"I don't think anyone is commending what you did, it did save us," Maria seemed to be trying to ease the strain. "I think we just feel better if you got a break after something tense like that and let someone else take the drive, just in case—"

"In case you feel like trying an Formula F-1 stunt again," Kishan interrupted pointedly.

Alec glared at them all. "I think the only reason I don't regret saving your lives right now is because it's my job..."

"It's my job too, in case you forgot," Maize reminded him.

"Then you should be on my side," he complained.

"And when has that ever happened?"

Alec opened his mouth, but the closed it for lack of something better to say and muttered a string of curses at her. Either the devil blessed him with a mouth from the depths of hell, or he was just still on edge and didn't have any other way to relieve it. She figured they all tried their best not to hear it.

"So," Kishan cleared his throat, speaking over the detective's incessant ranting, "where are we going exactly? We've gotten out of the radius of the scene we just left behind, but I need something here. No one's said anything and I've just been driving straight this whole time."

"Good, just keep going then," Maize answered boredly.

"O...Kay then," Kishan shot her a briefly questioning look but didn't change course as she instructed.

Maize was merely staring out the window with her head balanced over her propped up elbow against the door. To the others, she was sure she looked disinterested. But she was merely trying to mask her feelings of apprehension from rising to her expression.

There was a shuffle of paper from behind her. Agent Hill was looking down at the folded map that she seemed to have found in one of the back seats—provided for travellers no doubt.

"If we continue down this road, we'll be driving straight into the mountains. There's nothing but forests and trees up there."

Alec spoke up from the back. "This isn't the time to go camping, Maizey," he deadpanned.

She had to bite back a notion of irritation but didn't address his comment. "There's more than just forests and trees in those mountains," she muttered, more to herself if anything.

"Like?" Kishan pressed, encouraging her to hopefully elaborate.

"Like a place to go, for one. A place we wouldn't be able to be tracked to."

"So is this that last resort you were talking about? The one you ever so discretely did not want us to know about for whatever reason?" West prompted with a hint of bitterness.

"Yes."

"You said it was a person right? Who was it you meant?" Agent Hill wondered.

"And who the hell decides to live in the middle of nowhere?" Alec added.

"Someone who wants to," Maize stressed to emphasize. The others remained silent as she addressed Kishan's first question. "There's a place up there—at least, since the last time I was here, and it hasn't been that long. It's owned by someone I worked with before, and their trustworthy enough not to turn us in." She said. And she was satisfied leaving it at that, though she knew she was being horrible vague.

"Will this 'someone' be alright with the four of us coming in and disrupting the quiet life style they seem to live by, if they do indeed live so far away from...excitement," Agent Hill asked, putting it into light words.

Far from excitement? Not since I've known him.

"Don't worry about that. We won't get any trouble for it, they'll agree."

Most-likely.

"And if they don't feel like helping a group of hunted personnel?" he inquired with a touch of sarcasm.

"Then..." Maize thought for a moment. "I'll take care of it."