MAIZE

Her voice was low as she spoke quietly, looking down at the place on his chest as she couldn't find the strength to raise her eyes any higher.

"You wanted the truth, Detective." Her voice shook as she said, "There you have it." All of it. The truth of her sins. The shadows of her past. The reason and fault that they were in their current situation. She had been hiding it for so long, trying not to remember, hoping one day she might forget completely.

But the past did not forget, and as it would have it, it did not forgive either.

She refused to look at Alec's face for fear of what she might see there—horror? Disappointment? Perhaps that would have been better, easier. She knew how to deal with emotions like those, she knew how to take it.

He pulled her closer and rested his jaw over the top of her head and she froze helplessly with wide eyes of shock.

"You're the strongest person I've ever met Maize..." Alec whispered into her hair, his chest rising and falling under the palm of her hand with every calm breath that seemed to soothe her as well. "And I mean that from the depths of my heart."

She couldn't move, she could hardly breathe. "Weren't you listening?" she questioned raggedly, her voice coming out as a near laugh but without a trance of anything but remorse. "This is my fault. He's after me because...he wants revenge for what I did to him." And everything he believes I took from him.

Alec then pulled back just enough to stare down at her with a hard glare in his eyes. "This is his fault," he stated firmly. "You didn't ask for what happened to you, and you didn't ask him to come after you—let alone like this. None of this is your fault. None of it."

"You're wrong..." she whispered meekly into his chest, unable to comprehend how he could still stand to look at her. Then she repeated the word louder as she pushed herself away. "You're wrong. Fucking hell Alec—I almost got you killed! Hill too, and Ryder!"

"So? We're all still alive aren't we? Last I checked, I'm standing right here."

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head violently. "That's not the point Alec!" she exclaimed frustratedly.

"Then I don't see your point," he stated briskly, now chin tipped down to glare at her.

She clenched her fists. The asshole. Couldn't he see he had a false vision of her and everything she was? "Dammit, I'm not a strong person, West!" She said firmly, "And quite frankly—I've never been a good one either."

"Well I'm telling you; you are!" Alec was gaining a hint of anger in his voice—and she invited it, she wanted his anger.

"And I'm telling you; I'm not."

"Goddammit Maize—" He exclaimed as the last of his patience flew out the window. Good. She wanted this—needed this. His anger was what she deserved wasn't it?

"What the hell do you think you can say to change my mind?" She questioned, anything to keep their pointless arguing as her heartbeat raced for many mixed reasons. The snap of his glaring eyes to her only intensified the rush of adrenaline sparking in her blood.

One heartbeat he said nothing. Then with a flashing look of utter defiance, he cupped her face and drew her in to him in a movement too sudden to even comprehend. He silenced her indefinitely; the feel of his mouth was on her own was hot, urgent, radiating with desirable heat—and she found herself responding with just as much fire. It wasn't frantic; only shared for an instant, but god, there had been so much in that kiss. So much said, so much left unsaid, all at once as it felt her insides were lighting up. Without ever really realizing, how long had she been craving this? Him. Even if she didn't know, his answer seemed clear enough.

They drew back slowly and breathless, though they left very little space between them as they stood, gazing at one another with a flurry of complex thoughts and emotions.

"Sorry..." he said finally as one corner of his mouth twitched up into a soft smirk, "but it was the only thing I could think of to get you to shut up."

She sighed. "Congratulations," she huffed, without any traces of true bitterness as she closed her eyes. "It worked."

His light chuckle was soothing. The emotions she had been feeling after bringing up the past had far from disappeared, but suddenly they seemed further away, like they had been, now that she had focused back on the thing right in front of her.

He laughed quietly and tipped back enough so that she could meet his eyes. His look was still soft but flickered with an unwavering seriousness now that she had calmed. "Listen," he murmured, "we'll catch him, alright. Whatever happens next, whatever else we have to deal with, we'll do it together, because whether you're still denying it or not..." he smirked half teasingly. "We make one hell of a team."

Later, or rather, even later that night, Maize had said goodnight to Alec and told him she would be going back to her room.

Which was a half-truth.

She would be going back to her room for rest, soon, but there was something she needed to do first and that involved making a little detour around the bend to the back alley parking strip devoid of cars—save for one.

She walked up to the recognized vehicle, right to the back seat window, and rapped sharply on the glass. A moment later there was the sound of movement slightly muffled mutterings of displeasure as there was a clock and the car door suddenly swung open—narrowly smacking into Maize, had she not jumped back to avoid it in time.

A disbelieving and rather unamused-looking Ryder stepped out, eyes lidded with sleep and arms stretching back in a half yawn of awakening. Through the open car door, she saw the mass hunk of fur laying across the folded-down trunk and wagging his tail at her.

"You could have just gotten a room with us in the motel you know," she said to Ryder as he finished stretching out his expectedly bunched limbs from sleeping in the back of his car.

Ryder huffed and shrugged his shoulders as he tightened his hair. "They said no pets in the motel—whatever that means."

"I'm guessing Kota," she answered, which was not a smart idea as it set Ryder off immediately agitated.

"He's not a pet!" he stated factually. He had never been, not to Ryder, and she knew that. But obviously, he couldn't expect others to.

"You could have still gotten a room," she said.

"In that disrespectful establishment?" he huffed as he crossed his arms with a sideways glare to the back of the building. "No thanks." So dramatic.

"Well you'll just have to forgive their shortsightedness for not sharing the same views as you."

He sent her a flat look in response, looking her up and down. "Did you wake me up just to be annoying or did you want something?"

"If I asked you to do something stupid for me, would you?" she asked suddenly.

"Of course—wait, that depends on how stupid we're talking..." he trailed off suspiciously. Maize stared at him with a deadpanned look until he shrugged and waved his hand dismissively at her expression. "Yeah you're right it doesn't matter. So what do you need?"

She didn't hesitate. "Something back from the RCMP."

"You want me to steal something?" Ryder didn't sound so surprised by the idea than he was confused. He arched an eyebrow before quickly frowning again with his steel eyes narrowed and arms crossed accusingly. "Why can't you just do it yourself?"

She sighed. "In case you haven't noticed, Alec has a knack for stopping me in the process of committing illegal activity," she said, not spitefully, but her tone definitely implicated enough hints of the complications it presented her. Because what she was proposing was far from legal.

"I suppose that's what you get hanging around with law enforcement," Ryder muttered with a roll of his eyes. In response Maize crossed her arms, mirroring his standoffish manner, and stared him down with a glinting look of half impatience and half rueful amusement.

"I'm presenting you with an opportunity to steal from the two agents who wouldn't pay for a place that allows a room for your dog—are you in or not?"

The corner of his mouth seemed to involuntarily quirk upwards at her bluntness. They both knew how hard it was to cause some trouble for some cops when she put it as straightforward as that.

"Fine, I'll bite. What is it you want exactly?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "Their badges? Credit card numbers? You can't possibly want their gear—that shit's crap. Compared to what I've got anyway..."

"One of the phones they took off the gang members," she told him, glad he was on board. "I saw them put them all in bags and in the truck of one of the agent's vehicles. I need Kishan's."

Ryder stilled ever so slightly. "His? Why?"

Maize didn't answer. But in a way, that was answer enough.

"Maize," Ryder groaned as he ran a hand through his ruffled hair and studied her through more alert eyes. "You better not be thinking about doing something you'll regret," he said lowly.

He had no idea.

"Never," she replied evenly. But there was no smirk to accompany it.

For several moments it felt as though they only stared at one another, neither looking away as the intensity racked up in the air around them.

He finally gave in and sighed, "Fine. Give me by the end of tomorrow and you'll have it."

"Thank you—" she started but he was quick to cut her off.

"Listen...just know I didn't come to save your asses for nothing." He eyed her with his steely gaze. "You understand what I mean by that?"

She nodded.

He continued to study her, before finally he released a breath and relaxed his stance ever so slightly. Closure.

Maize turned away but stopped herself, there was one more thing she needed to make sure of. "Ryder..."

He had been about to get back in his car when he turned.

"What?"

"Alec doesn't find out about this."

* *

A lot went by in the following several hours.

More record questioning to the note-takers, a dozen more gathered witness recounts, the two agents keeping their eyes on them. But Maize knew when she saw Ryder leaned up against a car on the street, waiting at the brink of noon while Alec had still been distracted speaking with Johnson and Monroe, he had gotten done what she wanted sooner than she thought.

True to her trust, and his word, he slipped his hand into his coat pocket as she subtly made her way towards him, as if just to speak casually, and indiscriminately slipped to bagged cell phone into her hand.

"You better be smart with that," he muttered as his dark steely eyes followed it slipping into the inside pocket of her jacket.

We can only hope at this point.

She knew what she was doing was foolish. Simply the fact that she had had to wait until nightfall to sneak away was enough confirmation on the matter.

It was to make sure certain people did not notice she had disappeared. Agents Johnson and Monroe seemed adamant on keeping an eye on the two of them, whether out of courtesy and concern, or maybe for a more suspicious reason--perhaps directed at her. But either way, it had been an unspoken agreement that she, Alec, and Ryder as well, stay within their watch until their mission matters had been taken care of. Whenever that would end up being, she couldn't wait. This couldn't wait.

Even now, she knew she only had a short window of opportunity that was quickly running thin. She had no way of knowing how far or what Azeal had managed to accomplish getting together in the short time since the raid, and the last thing she wanted to do was give him any more time to rally in forces from elsewhere or begin manipulating the ropes for a new plan. Because she knew better than to know this was the end of his so-called vengeance.

He had waited too long, done too much, to simply have his plan fail. No, she knew him better than that. Or she had.

The Azeal she had known would have never wanted to hurt her.

But maybe both of their old selves had burned away in that fire—even if both of them had physically survived.

That thought had her hesitating off the side road of the empty gas station she had driven her way to.

Ryder's motorbike—borrowed, kindly, from his super garage—was her post as she leaned her back sideways against the seat. At least Ryder had what she would call taste when it came to his vehicles. The bike was not unlike the prized beauty she left back in New York. He had no idea she had made a stop at his house before coming here, and if she was lucky, he wouldn't find out until after she had gotten back. But she also didn't count on it. The bike hadn't been the only thing she had taken—borrowed—after all.

Her jacket was weighed down by an assortment of objects lining the pockets. There were double sheaths armed with handled daggers strapped to each of her thighs. She was lucky it was dark out, otherwise, she was sure someone would have called the cops on the strange women dressed in black and wearing knife sheaths as casually as a scarf on a windy day.

The last thing was the now unbagged cell phone, resting heavily in her palm with more weight than it physically held. Kishan had kept it hidden from them the whole time, she knew, because she had gotten the password off the evidence package and looked through it to find that the deleted call history—pulled up by RCMP analysts prior to it falling in her hands—to an unmarked number dated back to before their mission had begun.

Maize knew who it was. She doubted the analysts had gotten the time to shift through the call history enough to mark it yet, but she knew; from the dates the calls were made to that one specific number. The number had never been saved, that was clear, but she was without a doubt that Kishan had it committed to memory every time he had found himself with enough time alone to make his report.

His story—the one he had given them when they first met—was that his mission had failed because he was a bad double agent. That had most likely not been his first lie, but it was a lie nonetheless. In her mind, Kishan was a lot of things now—but a bad double agent was not one of them.

As had been painfully proven.

Once again she was reminded; so many lies built off of old ones.

She had to fix this. Fix it or end it. Whatever she had to do.

Without another moment of hesitance, she dialled the number on the screen.

I know you're there, Maize thought. She waited as the dial rang, silently growing agitated. Answer the damn phone.

"Well isn't this a surprise."

Azeal's voice answered, and Maize felt chills run down her spine as she could practically feel the malevolent smirk in his voice. He knew it was her even before she had to say anything. That alone was enough to momentarily unnerve her as the flashbacks of what had happened barely 48 hours ago resurfaced.

Had he been waiting for her? Or was he simply trying to manipulate her thoughts?

Shit.

"What do I owe this pleasure?" His tone did not carry as much amusement as his words implied. He wasn't pleased. His gang had been busted, the men arrested, and she, Alec and agent Hill had escaped. No, he was definitely far from happy.

Perhaps that was what made her so sure he might hear her out long enough to get her message through.

No going back now.

Maize was never one to turn back anyway.

She exhaled a deep breath and said before she could hold herself back, "How would you like to make a deal?"