We traipsed through the corridors. Even with the cold, my feet burned, and the cut on my head grew sore. I had gathered snow for the bump on Scotty's, but the mark turned purple after only ten more minutes of walking. He fumed when he glanced at the reflection in his phone, and whined constantly about his 'good looks fading, only calming down when I suggested it made him look remotely tough – a lie, of course – and soon started posing his face in the camera.

          Finally, we reached a door. Not a sheet of plastic, but an actual door; completely metal and eight feet tall.

          "Thank god," Derek sighed. He ran ahead and pushed, his groans audible from where Scotty and I stood. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his feet skidded along the icy floor.

          He turned over and wielded all the force in his back, moving it only an inch.

          Scotty checked a watch he wasn't wearing.
"Any time today," I said.
"It... won't... budge."
"You know—" I cocked my head. "—if you just, maybe, asked for help, you might benefit."

          He kicked his feet, determined to do it alone, until he fell back into the door, muttering something under his breath.
"What was that?"
"Please can you both help me?"
"It would be our pleasure," Scotty teased.

          It took all three of us heaving and panting to push open the door, letting in the freezing wind of the blizzard outside.

          A figure standing outside shocked us to the core.

          We raised our weapons.

          "Wait!"

          The red coat, the goggles, the climbing axe on his back and the broken rope hooked to his waist.
I blinked. "Tyler."
Derek's eyes widened. "We've been looking for you."
Tyler took off his goggles, visibly confused. "Really?"
"Yes."

          He grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the door.
"Now I can kill you."
"Swat him, Barnes!" Scotty cheered.
I sighed and lazily pointed a silencing finger at Scotty. "Derek."
"He could have killed you, Amber, he—"
"Will pay for it, I'm sure. He's a coward. But hurting him isn't going to do anyone any favours. Including us." Even if my fingers ached while resisting balling them into fists, I had to stop this. For Derek – not Tyler.

          With a disapproving grumble, Derek let go and Tyler's feet met the ground once more.
"Thank you, Agent Knight. Thank you so—"
"Don't thank me before you read your reference. That promotion you wanted? Gone."

          Scotty reached for my sleeve, urging me to look behind us. "Lads. We have a small issue."

          Shadows shifted down the left corridor... and the right.

          Marcus's removal team was catching up to us. The only exit was into the blizzard.

          I gently encouraged Scotty to move. "Go. Now."

          The shots started before we could heave the door shut.
Derek dragged me away. "Leave it. Come on!"

          The land before us stretched into a vast sheet of ice. Bullets sprayed against the surface, barely missing our pounding feet, until it began to crack.

          Bubbles bobbed beneath us, icy waters moaning, waiting to burst from the surface.

           "Mind your step!" I yelled. I stumbled to the left as a shot skimmed my leg, almost slipping.
"Zig-zag running," Scotty panted. "Zig-zag running!"

          They chased after us. I jumped to the side and fired a shot of my own, taking one out. My extra training had proved useful, at least.

          Derek spun to move backwards while he aimed. He shot down one. Two. Tyler took out another, as did Scotty.

          But there were at least a dozen, and their own guns pitied ours.

          My limbs roared, burning even in the sub-zero temperatures as I ran. "How far?" I asked Scotty.
He yanked at his scarf, skin turning red. "Almost a mile."

          We couldn't keep this up. To make it, we had to separate ourselves from those chasing us. Running in random zig-zag lines, ducking and diving away from bullets was not viable – some luck still resided in that strategy. So much that it made me uncomfortable.

          Further ahead, the lake narrowed into a rocky mouth. To the right, ice chipped off into various caverns and cliffs that dug down who-knows-how-far – not the place we wanted to be – but, to the left, Scotty pointed out the direction of the helicopter, named similar to his old prized aircraft.

          We had to use the mouth to cut the hostiles off.

           "Cover me!"

          The three whirred around as I snatched Tyler's climbing axe and took a swing at the floor. It chipped the ice but did not break it.

          Derek, Scotty and even Tyler took up a defensive stance in front of me as I hacked, the former shaking violently. I dug the axe into the ice again. And again. And again, as the others fired on the oncoming hostiles.

          I was too slow. For all my determination, my arms lacked the strength, and my biceps cried in rage.

          "Derek!"

          He knew the order. We swapped positions, ice breaking and shots firing the moment our weapons changed hands. Bullets cut through the approaching crowd, knocking them down like bowling pins. Some were nimbler than others and followed our own pattern of running. Being on Derek's guard kept us remaining still, holding keen eyes to shoot down those ready to shoot.

          Another got so close my bullet pierced the gap between his eyes.

          "Derek!"
A crack and a splash. "Move!"

          We leapt over the water as the hole expanded, catalysing the rest of the ice to break. A chunk crumbled beneath Tyler's landing, but Derek yanked back his hood, pulling him forwards and onto solid ground.

          "Barnes—"
"You die at my hands only, Hops."

          It was motivation, at least.

          We ran. The lake snapped beneath us, but we were swift enough to make it to a more secure path. Behind us, the ice separated in two, creating a gap of frozen water too large for Marcus's entourage to follow us over. They kept shooting, not breaking fire until we jumped down a ledge, then another, and made it down a hill, Tracey's propellers and large hangar now in sight, letting us slow to exhausted walks.

          "There she is," Scotty gasped. "Glad we're out of that mess."

          My shoulders dropped, the tension knitting them together at the first sign of my father's work starting to dissolve. We were safe now. At least from the hostiles. The weather, however, would prove fatal in a short while, and I had no eye protection against the icy bullets that shot through the air.

          Squinting to see through the blizzard, I reached for my pockets to glance at the photograph I stole.

          Near-black hair like the sky of a warm summer's night, gentle eyes of sparkling cobalt, her clothes amassing colour I never dreamed of wearing. Everything about her was so bright. So floral, so joyous and... happy. How fast that must have all changed.

          And her face. I... I'd forgotten her face.

          "Amber." I closed my fist around the paper. Derek's brows lowered, managing to read me even through the biting snow that clawed at our faces. We had to get inside soon. "What's wrong?"
He watched my eyes land on Tyler and Scotty. "Not now."
With a nod of understanding, he planted a warm kiss on my lips, annihilating all bitterness in a single breath. "Alright."

          Marcus's return damaged us all to the core, robbing us of lives, freedom, and stability for well over a year already, but I believed we had grown from it. He knew of it already but, after that, Derek truly understood the complexity of my past, and learned to inspect me as easily as you would a book. He respected my own space, aware he would know how my mind was ticking within due time as I had promised no more secrets between us. I had kept that promise and told him everything I deemed relevant at the time.

          We trusted each other long before I loved him, but now that trust rooted itself so deep we had grown into extensions of each other; an extraordinary and frightening thought to dwell on.

QOTD: Who do you think the woman in the photograph is?