longer. I crept silently from my bed, retrieved a change of clothes from my bag and my sneakers, and left the room. I opened the door quietly and shut it just as softly before heading down the stairs towards one of the training rooms on the third floor. The room was essentially nothing more than a large gym with basic weight training equipment, some punching bags, and endurance and cardio machines.

I changed quickly, stepping out of my pajamas and into a pair of shorts and a sports bra, before heading back into the training room. I threw my hair up into a quick ponytail, stretched quickly, and grabbed some tape to wrap my hands. Then, I stepped up to one of the punching bags. I rolled my shoulders, loosening up my muscles and then I threw a couple of light punches. The hits were soft at first, the force barely moving the heavy bag. As I loosened up, the punches grew harder, stronger. The mindless physical activity was appealing to me in that moment. There was nothing to it. Just steady hits against the bag. With each blow, I envision that I was punching the hell out of whoever was holding my brother captive.

Sweat poured down my face. My breathing was steady but my heart rate fast. I could feel the strain the workout was having on my body, could feel the burn at my side where my wound was, but I couldn't bring myself to stop just yet.

"You're going to tear your stitches if you keep going like that."

I glanced over my shoulder fleetingly and then turned back to the bag. "Lia."

She came to stand beside me, watching as I threw a few punches into the bag. Then, she moved round and held it steady for me. Her brown hair was limp and trussed up, as if she'd been abruptly woken. Her top was wrinkled and her yoga pants sagged low on her hips. "I'm worried about you. I feel as if you're getting ready to take off even though you just got back."

"Is that why you're here? You making sure I don't bolt?" A grunt as I threw another punch.

"No." She met my gaze and then her cheeks reddened slightly. "Well, maybe."

I stopped hitting the bag and stared at her. I wiped sweat from my face and brushed back a few of the stray strands of hair that had come loose from my ponytail. "I'm not going anywhere." Not yet at least.

"But you've thought about leaving." Not a question. Her doe blue eyes didn't leave my face.

I shrugged. Rolled my shoulders. Held onto the bag as Lia moved to send a punch towards it. She hit it once, twice, three times in rapid succession. "My brother is out there somewhere and I'm sitting here in safety," I said to her as she started up another combination. "It's wrong. They're after me. He shouldn't even be a part of any of this."

"You'll get yourself killed," she commented dryly. The breath flew out of her as she threw another punch.

"Thanks for the confidence."

Lia sighed and stood up straighter, dropping her arms to her sides. "Look, just promise me that you'll tell me or Max or Tasha before you decide to head out. You don't have to do this alone. We're with you one-hundred-and-ten percent."

I shook my head. "I can't let you guys throw away your futures for me. You'd be blacklisted. Traitors to the CIA, MI6, maybe even the GCCO. There are too many people right now trying to find me. I can't ask you all to do that for me."

"You'd do it for us."

I said nothing. She was right.

"Look, Mel, I get that you don't want to take anyone else down with you, but if you have any hope of getting your brother back safely, you need backup. And if you don't want us for backup, fine. Get someone else. There are a whole bunch of people who have your back. My parents, the professors, even those CIA agents who came in with you. Just don't go alone or you'll get yourself, and your brother, killed. You're a good operative, one of the best around, I know that. Bloody hell, we all know that. But I don't think even you could take down an entire terrorist organization alone."

I leaned against the bag. "I know that you're right, Lia. It's just...hard. Everything was looking so clear and then I went home and everything in my life has turned to shit. I don't even know where to begin with any of this. My parents are dead, my brother's missing, apparently I have other parents who I know virtually nothing about aside from the fact that they were good operatives, and, to top it all off, Daniel's here."

Lia raised an eyebrow at me. "That's a problem?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

She said nothing, waiting for me to continue as she knew that I would.

"I just thought I'd left all of that in the past. It was gone. I was different and none of that mattered anymore. Not my family or Daniel or anything, really. It was just gone. And now he's here and his parents are CIA agents and I'm not quite sure how to deal with all of this, Lia. I feel like there's this huge weight pressing down on me and I'm about to collapse."

"First things first," she said. "Today, we'll start tracking your brother. As soon as we triangulate his position we'll mobilize a strike team to move in and get home out. And then, once he's safe, we'll deal with everything else. We'll figure out how to get the CIA and MI6 off your back and how to start taking down Scorpion. But all of that will come after we find Wesley. I promise. Okay?"

I nodded. "'Kay."

Lia smiled and pulled me in for a hug. It was short and hard and everything that I needed right then. Her words had given me a boost and I felt reenergized. Somehow, I would get through this. Somehow, everything would be fine again. Wes would go back to his world and I'd go back to mine. He'd be safe and no one would be hunting me down. I'd get the life I'd been dreaming of for the past three years.

I moved out of Lia's arms and smiled a dark, sinister grin. "Let's go find my brother."