I was not the type of morning person to wake up cheerful with a smile on my face and a spring in my step, but one that dragged themselves up at the crack of dawn and downed a dangerous volume of caffeine to maximise productivity. At home, I would wake at seven, go for a run then shower and dress to catch the 8:30 train with Scotty to make it into the office for nine.

            My routine was different today. I woke not too long after six, late-autumn's snoozing sun not yet peaking above horizon's blanket, opening my eyes with surprising alertness, my limbs restless. I tried sleeping again but it was no use. The sheets had become scratchy and rough, the pillow flat and the quilt heavy and hot, despite the biting chill in the room. I had to prepare for the journey back to London. My mind could think of nothing else.

            I let Barnes sleep for a few more hours, keeping the curtains shut as I grabbed a quick shower and dressed myself in the clothes from the day before, leaving my jacket to put on as we left the building. To freshen up I used the facilities provided, washing my face with soap and brushing my teeth then hair. I tipped my head upside down and combed my hair into a high ponytail. It wasn't pretty. My face was speckled with scratches from the crash, my eyes bloodshot with grief; shoulder red and burnt.

            I pulled up my sleeve to cover the wound. It was not my job to look pretty, anyway. At least not now.

            I tried contacting the agency once more but had the same amount of luck as I did the night before: none whatsoever. I wondered if Alistair had seen Scotty's tracker go offline and had recorded the incident already. They would need questions answering, of course, and that responsibility fell to me. My throat went dry.

            A distraction was needed; a moment of peace before Barnes woke up and work officially started for the day. I opened an app on my phone to read but noticed the charge was only at sixty percent. It was a risk to lose all hopes of contacting the agency for an hour of entertainment. I sacrificed that joy and instead stared at the ceiling, sitting down in the chair next to the vanity.

***

Barnes woke not long before nine, whining and rubbing his eyes. When they opened, they narrowed in my direction.
"I thought last night was nothing more than a nightmare."
I sighed. "Just get up. We're going downstairs."
"Downstairs?"
I jumped to my feet. "Yes."
He frowned. "To do what?"
I shrugged. "Eat."
Barnes almost laughed. "So the robot actually eats, does she?"
I checked the signal on my phone again – still nothing. "It may astonish you, Barnes, but your average human being needs food to survive."
"But you're not just an average human being are you, Knight?"
I shook my head, "Just get dressed."

            With a tired groan, he staggered to the bathroom. He was reluctant but at least he was willing to do as he was told. After five minutes, he emerged, hair still wet from the shower as he donned the same clothes from yesterday. I saw it again; the look on his face as he urged me to leave Stacey, abandoning Scotty.

              I picked up my jacket and held open the door for Barnes to leave with me. He glanced at my back pocket and I scowled.
"Have you tried ringing the almighty Alistair yet?"
Oh.My phone was sticking out of my back pocket. That was what he was looking at. I nodded but kept my lips sealed.
"Agent?"
I nodded again.

            Barnes heaved a sigh as we approached the lobby, making our way towards the wooden archway we neglected to explore the night before. He saluted the spectacle-wearing receptionist as we passed by. She turned away, pretending we did not exist.

            I didn't blame her.

            "Do you think she hates us?" Barnes grinned, eyes bright with humour. I shook my head and Barnes tutted. "You're frustrating, you know that?"

            I hated that I took it as a compliment. He didn't deserve my entertainment.

            The dining room was packed to the brim. I never noticed how many people had checked into the same hotel – Barnes and I had arrived fairly late – but now I could see the extent of it. Countless families, loved-up couple and groups of friends eating, laughing and chatting together without any visible issue. I loved my job, but envied the mundane scene before me. Envied their carefree attitude and sense of security. Very few of the people in front of me faced the fears of losing their lives, mind, or partner with every shift at work. I'd been employed in the agency for seven years. During that time, those fears had diminished to no more than a dormant, flickering flame. After losing Scotty...

            They came back. Those fears flared up again in the pit of my gut. We grew so reliant on each other, taking on every job like we were invincible. I hadn't felt that fear for years. Not since... since...

            A smiling waitress, much friendlier than the front desk staff, escorted us to a table. She handed the two of us paper menus as we sat down, her lingering stare landing on Barnes as she walked away.

            Barnes shot me a smug grin. I lifted the menu to cover my face.

            "Knight." He pushed down the paper, eager to see my deadpan expression. I lifted it back up.

            He sung my name. "Knight." He lowered the menu again. My eyes rolled.

            "If you can't get Alistair to pick us up soon, we're going to be travelling together for a while. Why don't we get to know each other a little?"
He smiled so softly, so innocently that I couldn't help but feel slightly nauseous.
I lowered my voice. "I have handcuffs, a gun, and a taser in my pocket and I will happily use them if needed."
Barnes swung back in his chair, grinning as he rested them behind his head. "Woah! I didn't mean it like that!"

            How I would have loved to flip the table on his smirking face. When he saw my reaction, his face fell.

            "Look, I'm s—"
"Save it. I just need to get you back to London then my job is finished. I better get a damn easy mission after this."

            I leaned forward and rubbed my temples, stress building up, throbbing like a hammer bashing against my skull.

            Barnes tapped the table quietly. His words fell like from his tongue. "I really am sorry about your friend. It isn't easy losing someone you'd call family."

            My shoulders loosened up, eyes meeting his for a brief moment of weakness before reality dragged me by the hair.

            A manipulator. He'd say anything to get me to trust him.

            I tore my eyes away and did not look at him until our breakfast arrived.

            Barnes had the savoury option of eggs benedict, while I opted for a sweeter plate: wafer-thin crepes topped with strawberries and bananas and folded over a swipe of hazelnut spread. Barnes opened his mouth to comment on the stack of sugar, but a glare was all it took to get him to fill it with food instead.

***

The meal was silent and the both of us finished our plates, setting off straight out the doors after checking out. We trudged through the woods, boots squelching and sticking to the ground. The rain from last night had passed, leaving nothing more than a blue but cloud-dusted sky, but moisture still stuck in the dirt. The air was thick, filled with the stench of damp and decaying foliage and animal droppings. I scrunched up my nose, hoping for the temperature to drop again as it did throughout the night. Shivering was preferable to putting up with that awful smell.

            Barnes, now bound by the handcuffs once more, said, "Are you going to tell me where we're going?"
I stepped over a fallen log, hand against a tree to steady myself. "Nearest train station."
"Which is... where?"
I had no idea. "That's classified."
He snorted. "Is that uptight agent-talk for 'I have no idea?'"
"It's fed-up 'agent talk' for 'mind your own business.'"
"Oh. You want to talk about minding your own business? Why don't you take off these handcuffs so we can discuss personal space?"

            Rolling my eyes, I pushed on, the quiet clinking of Barnes's handcuffs irritating my ears. While checking out, I had overheard a couple talking about a train station not far from the hotel. I considered asking for a lift there, as they were already going to the same place, but decided against it, fearing Barnes would use the advantage to get away. They mentioned it being only twenty minutes away anyway. We could manage that.

***

Barnes wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. "How much further?"
It had been far longer than twenty minutes. In my eagerness to return to London, I had clearly misinterpreted the 'twenty minutes' as a walk rather than a drive.
"I'm not sure," I admitted. I checked my phone again – still no signal.
"I thought you said twenty minutes. Not twenty hours."
That was an exaggeration. We had been walking for two hours, at most. "I was wrong," I replied.
He scuffled to a stop. I sighed. Here we go. "Wait. Did I just hear you correctly? Because I just heard you admitting to doing something wrong."

            I pressed on without a word, coming to a halt as Barnes sped up and leapt in front of me.
"You must have heard wrong." I sidestepped but he mirrored the action, blocking the way. "Barnes!" I snapped.
"No, no, no!" He grinned. "I am not letting this go. Agent Amber Knight just admitted to making an actual mistake. Golden!"
He was playing. Boredom had settled in and he would use any opportunity for some entertainment. Maybe I did as well. "The only mistake I made was not shooting you on sight." I tried stepping around him again with no luck.
"I'm hurt." Barnes pouted, pressing a hand to his heart. "You wound me, Agent. You took that metaphorical dagger of yours and plunged it right here." He pounded his chest with a dramatic flourish. He looked a fool, but the corners of my lips tugged upward.

            "I saw that!" He pointed with both his bound hands. "I saw that smile!"
"What? I didn't smile."
"Don't you deny it." Barnes lowered his hands but his wicked grin only grew. "I saw that. You almost smiled."

            A blush crept up on my cheeks. I looked away, trying to push passed him to hide it but he saw. My face only grew warmer when his mouth gaped open, realisation written across his face.
"You're... you're blushing!"
"I am not." I most certainly was. And it only got worse by the second.
"My day is made. My day is officially made."

            Trying to convince him otherwise would have been a waste of energy. Masking my blush with a scowl, I walked by him, shoulder-checking him as a warning.

            I glanced at my phone again: three bars of signal. It was enough.

            "What are you doing?" Barnes asked as I lifted the phone to my ear.
"Ordering a pizza," I replied. "Want one?"
"Pepperoni, thanks." I raised my brows in surprise. A good choice, if a common one.

            It was Gabby that spoke on the phone. "Amber! Thank god. The tracker on your helicopter vanished off the radar, and when I heard there was a crash in the area you were last seen, I—"
"Gabby, is Alistair there?" I regretted the tone I had used to cut her off, but we were in urgent need of a rescue. There was no time to answer her questions when I was wandering blindly without orders and the signal hung on by merely a thread.
She went still for a moment, a nervous noise escaping her throat. "Yes. Of course. I'll patch him through."

            The signal jutted.
"Knight," said Alistair. "It is good to hear from you. We did not gather word from the crash until early this morning."

His words were a punch to the gut. The trackers had likely not even been checked yet. "I'm okay," I assured. "But there has been some difficultyin watching over Barnes."

            Barnes snapped to attention from behind me and listened in.

            "So the package survived, then?" Alistair assumed.
"Yes," I replied.
"Can you tell me where you are?"
I looked around: twenty-foot pines for as far as the eye could see. "The woods."
Alistair sighed. "I have Gabby tracking you as we speak. It will be but a moment."

            I could imagine it; Gabby's painted nails frantically swiping across the keyboard in search of our tracking app.

            "Ah." Alistair paused. "You are quite far east. You have a long way to travel until you get to the coast."
"The coast?"
"The security within airports is tight," he explained. "We have no contacts to help us smuggle him that way, but I do have a favour to call in at the docks. I can secure you both safe passage with no questions asked as long as you make it there on time."
That wasn't what I was asking. I did not doubt Alistair's plan to ship us overseas – my main concern was to why there was no other transport prepared to pick us up and cut our travel time to no more than a few hours. "Forgive me sir, but why can no-one pick us up? I thought retrieving Barnes was of severe urgency."
"Our transports are occupied as of late. The situation back in London has evolved quicker than expected and I have no aircraft to spare."
Not good enough. "Dragging this arrogant prick across an ocean is hardly an efficient way to—"
"Those are your orders Agent Knight, and you will obey them." His voice had me heeled. I bit my lip.
"Sorry sir."

            Barnes rolled his eyes.

            "All is forgiven, Agent. I have Gabby booking you three tickets to take you to the coast from the nearest train station. It is a few miles north from where you are positioned."
Three tickets. Three people. We were a man down.
"Two," I choked.
A pause for thought. "Two tickets?"
I reeled in my emotions with a single breath. "Scotty... Agent Williams didn't make it out before the crash." He remained silent, waiting for me to continue. "A couple of hostiles attacked during a storm. I presumed they were after Barnes. We needed a distraction to keep them from tailing us on the ground and Scotty, he—" I swallowed. "—he volunteered to steer the helicopter. He went down saving us."

            Barnes met my burning blue eyes as I shot him a glance over the shoulder. His face softened in sympathy but I accepted none of it, turning back to face the trees.

            "Amber," said Alistair, warming up his tone, "I am so sorry. I know he was more than just a pilot to you."
Far more. "Thank you."
"This should not have happened. No agents should have been harmed on this mission."
I frowned. "Sir?"
"I will do all I can to gain you safe travel back to England. Just remember that the agency's position back home is not the best at the moment."
"I will."
"And remember who caused this," he warned. "Remember who they were after. Use that anger to bring Barnes back swiftly but keep your distance from him. Don't forget who he is."
"Don't worry." I frowned at the rogue agent. He was looking away. "I won't forget it."
"Safe travels, agent. I hope you return home to us soon."
A sigh. "So do I."
"Now hand the phone to Barnes. I need a word."
A strange order, but an order nonetheless. "Of course."

            I held out the phone. Barnes frowned then let out a deep, bothered sigh, clutching the phone with both hands. It would have been a comical sight if not for the situation at hand.

            "Morning, Director."

            His smugness died with every word Alistair said. My own curiosity made me lean in closer to hear what was spoken but I caught none of it. Walking beside Barnes to overhear the conversation would have been viewed in a bad light. All I had was the image of his permanent smirk and playful eyes morphing into something much darker.

            He bit down on his cheek as he listened, every contortion of his face sharpening in a vicious scowl as his true colours showed themselves to the world. A manipulator, a traitor. His features twisted into that which he was described as, and what I had failed to see until now.

            "I swear to god if you have done anything—!"

            I fell back on my heel, holding my face still. The words had fired like a gun, cracking through the air around us. An agent was a weapon; when they went rogue, they were without a hand to wield them. Alistair once told me you could spot a rogue agent years in advance to them turning. They were reckless, impulsive and had no regard for orders. Scotty and I were once criticised for taking risks, but we followed orders nonetheless. We completed our missions with strong will and a fearless attitude, but not once had we put others at risk or broken the code we represented. Barnes had done exactly that. Perhaps all that separated us was that Barnes's actions surpassed the orders he was given.

            He took in every word until his face relaxed. I never imagined wishing the old Barnes back, but I did.
"Okay," he forced out. "Then I suppose I'll see you soon."

            Barnes ended the call and held out the phone without a word. I took it silently and waited for the online train tickets and a navigation point to come through. Finally, after wandering around aimlessly, we had a solid plan, albeit a risky one if we were intercepted again.

            Alistair had not cared to elaborate on the hostile situation. He seemed ticked off that we were attacked, but it hardly came as a surprise to him. I imagined this to be another chapter of Barnes's story I would be given when I returned him to the agency.

            With a nod, Barnes followed, his head low and shoulders hunched tightly. If not for my own curiosity, I would have kept quiet.

            "What did Alistair say?" I asked.
"Nothing." A vacant expression etched onto his sad face.

            I convinced myself that Alistair would have told me what the conversation entailed if I truly needed to know it. Agents were given the bare minimum of context before engaging in a mission – I was lucky enough to have Alistair's trust, given our history, but other agents had completed jobs knowing less than I did. I had faith in Alistair and, if this mission was to succeed, I needed to maintain it.

            If agents started losing faith in their Director, the whole system would burn and collapse into nothing but an illusion of authority.

            Then hell would break loose.