Toby pulled off to the side of the road after half an hour of racing across town. He walked around to the back of the ambulance and opened the doors. "You guys okay?"

Nolan was sitting on top of a built-in cot near the floor as Grace shuffled around through the medical equipment for bandages.

"Fine." Nolan said.

"If you say that one more time..." Grace muttered.

"Did you get shot?' Toby asked, climbing in.

"The bullet went through the skin, so we don't need to dig it out." Grace explained, grabbing a scalpel from a metal tray. "This isn't going to feel nice." She warned, gently leaning Nolan forward.

Toby watched as she cut away part of his shirt and pressed a stack of gauze pads against his wound with firm pressure. Nolan's features contorted with pain as Grace taped it in place.

"There."

Nolan sat up with a grimace. "Thanks."

They stood around awkwardly for an uncomfortable amount of time. Grace sat on the rubber-padded couch, taking measured breaths.

Nolan didn't know what could be said; Sorry you had to watch your team being tortured and killed, not to mention the total annihilation of the paramedics back there. Do you want to go get some coffee?

"How did they know to come?" Grace asked, breaking the tension.

Nolan thought for a moment. "What'd you call the ambulance with, Toby?"

"My cell phone." He shrugged.

"That explains it." Nolan nodded. "Hackers like that could've easily picked up local radio waves."

Grace twirled the scalpel around in her fingers. "Yeah, but where did they come from? There were only three back in the ice house and there shouldn't have been any more until morning."

He shook his head. "I don't know."

Another awkward silence filled the space between them.

"I'm Toby, by the way." Toby said.

Grace looked up at him with the tiniest of grins. "Hello."

Nolan couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, we need to get this together. We need to find somewhere safe to stay and then get whatever information Grace has on that drive to Howard as soon as possible."

"Does anyone have a cellphone or an earpiece that's working?" Toby asked. "My phone died."

Nolan felt around for his earpiece and found that it had been crushed at some point. "No way to contact anyone." He sighed. "Fantastic."

"We also need a computer to send those files." Grace said, wrapping a strand of black hair around her finger.

"Maybe if you hadn't thrown them out the window..." Nolan muttered, his mind foggy with pain.

She cut her eyes at him sharply. "Those laptops were bugged, thank you very much. But if you really wanted a terrorist's computer, you should've asked them nicely before you killed them."

"Would you rather we hadn't?"

"No, I appreciated it very much, actually. But next time you accuse me of doing something stupid, you try thinking rationally after a week of psychological torture."

"All I was saying is that we could've cleaned up those laptops and used them, that's all."

"And who do you think, out of the three of us, could hack into a hacker's computer and erase all the bugged material? You? Me? Toby? We'd have a better chance at arm wrestling John Cena."

"What? What's that even supposed to mean?"

Toby shook his head with a short laugh. "At least Nolan has someone to argue with other than me."

Nolan sighed and rubbed his face, trying to ignore the pain throbbing in every muscle down to his fingertips. "Okay, fine, I'm sorry. I just...can't think clearly right now."

Grace stood up and began searching the cabinets. "Is this how he usually is?" She mumbled.

Toby nodded. "Yep. In fact, you got lucky. Last time I argued with him he punched me in the face."

"How charming." She pulled out an orange bottle and unscrewed the lid, dumping two tablets in her palm and handing it to Nolan.

"What is it?" He asked cautiously.

"It's probably ibuprofen."

"Probably?"

"Close enough. Just take it—or don't, if you just feel like being in pain all night."

Toby sat down next to Nolan and nudged him. "I like her."

Nolan grumbled something unintelligible and tossed the pills into his mouth. Grace took a seat across from them and exhaled slowly, seemingly collecting her thoughts.

Nolan felt a sudden pang of guilt. She'd just gone through a traumatic event and she was handling things better than he was.

"I know where we can stay." Grace said suddenly.

"Where?" Toby asked.

"I was stationed here in Kavala for a month last year. I stayed in this little inn outside of town; it was actually more of a house. We could go there."

Nolan and Toby exchanged glances.

"Sounds good." Toby said.

~~~~

Pulling into a bed and breakfast in a stolen ambulance was probably not the best idea, but thankfully no one seemed to notice in the late hour. All three of them were crammed into the front seat, Grace looking very uncomfortable in the middle.

"This the place?" Toby asked, observing the stucco building. Orange flower pots blossomed with pink daisies that were still radiant against the darkness. The lights upstairs were off, but a warm yellow glow filtered out from the lobby.

They carefully unloaded from the ambulance, Grace hesitantly going first to the door. She knocked three times and waited.

Nothing.

"Knock harder." Toby whispered.

A few minutes after the second knock, a portly woman in a blue bathrobe answered. Her black hair was tied up in disarray and she looked more than unamused.

"Ti thélete?"

Grace licked her lips nervously. "To ónomá mou eínai Nkréis Émeina edó ton perasméno chróno..."

The woman's face lit up with recognition. "Ah, Chári! Naí!"

Grace smiled with relief. "Do you have some rooms we can rent...just for the night?"

The woman lifted a penciled eyebrow at the two men standing behind her. "They good customers? Won't wreck my house?"

Grace glanced at them, and then back at the woman. "No, no, not at all."

She nodded her approval and let them inside the warm lobby. A fireplace crackled at the far end of the grey wall and cushioned sofas sat on either side of a glass coffee table.

"It's just as beautiful as I remember." Grace said with a forced smile as she gestured towards her two companions. "Toby, Nolan, this is Agnete Raakel."

"Nice to meet you." Nolan said.

Finally they were shown to their rooms. Only two were available, so Nolan had to share with Toby, who immediately flopped onto the bed and fell asleep. He snored like an unoiled chainsaw. Thankfully there were two twin beds, and the room was spotless. It was scarcely decorated, but still somehow managed to feel cozy. The lemon-colored curtains were slightly parted to reveal a view of Kavala, with its shimmering lights and glittering ocean in the distance.

Nolan peeled his shirt away from his skin, pulling some dried blood with it and examined his wound in the mirror. A tiny red dot was beginning to show through the gauze taped over the hole; it would need to be changed soon.

After taking a warm shower, he sat on one of the twin beds and sighed. It was almost 2 AM, but he already knew he wouldn't be going to bed anytime soon. He never dreamed he'd be back doing this again.

Saving the hostages. Killing the bad guys. Dealing with the repercussions afterwards.

He rarely hesitated to pull the trigger, but he always regretted it afterwards; it was something he never got used to.

After a while, he was sick of thinking about it and decided to go downstairs to escape the sounds of Toby's unearthly snoring.

He jogged down the stairs and stopped.

Grace sat on one of the sofas, a mug in her hands.

She was crying.

Oh crap. Abort mission...abort mission...

He took a step backwards to flee, but the wood underneath his foot creaked.

Grace started and immediately looked up at him.

They both froze for a second, staring at each other.

"What're you doing?' She asked slowly, wiping away the tears quickly.

"I was...I was just—you know what, I'm gonna go." Nolan, making it up two steps before she called him back.

"No, it's fine." She placed her mug on the side table and straightened. "I need to talk to you, anyway."

Nolan hesitantly made his way across the room and took a seat across from her. "That's probably a good idea."

"You didn't mean to rescue us, did you?" She asked abruptly.

"What makes you say that?"

Grace gave a small half-smile. "No rescue mission would send a guy in with a Glock 19, zero backup, zero body protection, and a reconnaissance drone to go in before him."

"You saw the drone?"

She shrugged. "I happened to look up. But why did you come if you didn't know we were even there?"

Nolan examined her petite features carefully and could tell she already knew the answer to that question. He felt like he could trust her, but he still wasn't sure. She had yet to show any proof of her position in the CIA and had kept whatever was on that drive a secret so far. "We were tracking the Bolsheviks, specifically Dimyan Egor. We thought we'd uncovered some hackers that were trying to erase classified government files."

"And why were you tracking Egor?"

Nolan could tell by the slight quirk in her dark brow that she knew the answer to that too. "Howard believes he's still alive and forming some sort of underground terrorist attack."

Grace nodded to herself. She opened her palm to reveal the flash drive and fingered it thoughtfully. "I have to get this to him as soon as possible."

Nolan had a sneaking suspicion she wasn't going to tell him what was on that thing anytime soon; or at least until Howard knew.

He wanted to ask what happened while she was in captivity, but thankfully refrained. She probably didn't want to talk about it so soon.

"And I'm also guessing you came from a military background before you joined the CIA?"

"Um..." Nolan hadn't expected this. She didn't know about his past? Or was she hinting that she did? Which one would be worse?

She looked up at him, detecting his hesitation. "I just noticed your tactics were pretty smooth for an attack you hadn't planned on. Don't look so nervous; it was just a question."

Nolan released a breath. "Right. Sorry."

Grace picked up her mug again, suspicion written all over her face, but she refrained from interrogating him further.

"So what about you?" Nolan cringed at his own words as soon as he said them.

Grace shook her head with a quiet laugh. "If you didn't want to sound like a 1920's creeper, you could've chosen a better way to change the subject."

"Yeah..."

She looked down and the drive cradled in her hand. She was quiet for a moment, but the empty space between them didn't feel so awkward this time. It was almost comfortable. "How do you get past something like this?" She asked softly. "I keep seeing it—all of it—replaying in my head. I just—" She stopped herself and shook her head again with a sad smile. "Nevermind. I need to get some rest before I go even crazier. I think there's a public library around Kavala somewhere that we can go to tomorrow and send these files over to Howard." She glanced up at the clock hanging above the fireplace's mantle. "I was going to say we could leave around 6 o'clock, but that's only three hours away."

"Doesn't bother me." Nolan said.

"Okay, then I'll see you guys in the morning."

She promptly collected her now-empty mug and retreated up the stairway to her room.

Nolan sat, listening to the low crackle of the fire that was beginning to dwindle. He hadn't told her about his connection to Egor. Or about his past as a SEAL. Or about him not being an official CIA agent. But she hadn't exactly been open, either.

Was he wrong, though?

Nolan gave a deep sigh. He was beginning to miss prison. No one made him question his morals there and he'd almost forgotten how nice that was.

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