I turn around then, dashing up the stairs as quickly as I can, wondering why our escort is nowhere to be found. I hear Marcus's voice over the loudspeaker, telling everyone to seal the perimeter as soon as possible. Heart pounding in my ears once again, I find a side door, but find that it is locked. I lower my eyes, wondering what to do, when I catch sight of a chair beside the opposite wall, and a window just beside the door. Thinking fast, I pick up the chair and promptly smash through the window, shards of glass everywhere, and grab onto the sides of the wall. I hear shouts from all around me, and haul myself out and down the gray cobblestones, and find I hardly know where I am, let alone which way is up. Old-fashioned alarms blare from all sides as I find my way around the correct side of the building, where Harrison's vehicle is concealed in the shade of two large trees.

I barely feel the blood trickling down my face or my arms and, ignoring the holes in the beautiful clothes that Tutu has made, I make a mad dash for the car, tears coursing down my cheeks. I grab ahold of one of the back-door handles, startling Harrison awake and into an upright position, and his eyes lock with mine, waiting for further instructions from me.

"They got Harrison," I manage to get out. "Back to headquarters immediately, Harrison!" I order, assuming control. "Drive! Before it's too late! Get me out of here and back to S.L.E.U.T.H.!" I cry out.

Harrison drives like a madman down the back streets of Paris, easily going over the speed limit in an effort to get me back safely. I bite my lip, forcing myself to keep quiet as we enter the final road, and as Harrison pushes a red button beside his dashboard, and as the street opens up before us. We drive downwards, Harrison pushing the button again, and are surrounded briefly by darkness as Harrison steps on the gas, effectively flooring it, and getting me to the sidewalk. As soon as he's stopped driving, I throw myself from the car, charging towards the sign that reads ELEVATORS, and press the UP button once I reach them. The elevator inevitably dings and I throw myself inside, pressing the MAIN FLOOR LOBBY button and waiting anxiously for it to take me there.

I ignore Holly's aghast expression as I arrive—covered in blood, glass, and tears—and make my way down the corridor and towards the West End Conference Room, hoping against hope that Charlotte and Grant are in there. I throw open the door without ceremony, and Charlotte lets out a shout when she sees me, getting up from her chair and rounding the table, throwing her arms around me, not caring one whit for her black trousers and white blouse. I sob into the latter, not wanting to let her go, and barely flinching at the pain she brings from merely holding me, inadvertently digging the shards of glass deeper and deeper into my skin.

"This is all very touching," Chelsea says, snootily, as she always does, "but we need the necklace."

"Hush, Chelsea," Grant reprimands her. "Jenny is likely exhausted from all her training and needs a rest. Agents and their partners get ample resting time between missions—I've seen to that."

"And where is my son?!" Chelsea demands then, almost as she didn't hear Grant's tone of voice before.

"They took him!" I shout then, pulling away from Charlotte and unclasping the pearl necklace without help.

"Who took who?" Charlotte asks, taking the necklace—each pearl covered in a speck or two of my blood—and hands it off to Grant, who immediately examines it. "Who took him, Jenny? It's all right—you're safe now..."

"Marcus West took Dunham!" I managed to get out between sobs as I found myself shaking all over. "Dunham put on the S.O.J.O.U.R.N. emblem after telling me to get out—he... He told me to run, and I didn't listen..."

Chelsea looks a cross between dismayed and enraged. "What have you done?!" she demands of Grant, looking hard at him. "For all we know, Jenny has staged this whole thing and stashed poor Dunham somewhere and then brought the necklace back herself for glorifying purposes—"

"Shut up!" I shouted then, angered at being blamed for this entire thing. I take out my wire carefully, so as not to damage it, and throw it at Chelsea, and, to the desired effect, it smacks her square in the face. "There's your proof! All of it!"

"What? What is this?" Chelsea demands, grabbing it and looking it over.

"The wire I used to pick up the conversation between Dunham and Marcus," I reply with a rueful smile. "Pretty good, huh?"

"There's glass all over your skin!" Charlotte cries out then. "What in god's name happened to you?"

"Had to jump out a window," I reply. "They were sealing the perimeter... I had to get out of there," I say, lifting an arm and seeing all the blood for the first time. "I can't... Marcus pistol-whipped Dunham... No..." I whispered, my knees buckling as I fall into a dead faint.

I was rushed to the infirmary, where, in my haze, I was quickly introduced to Nurse Petrova Maximus, who would be overseeing my medical needs until Dr. Ivan Montague took over. I vaguely remember being strapped to the gurney, brought up on a rush from the infirmary ward and to the West End Conference Room, where I'd collapsed. Charlotte was shouting orders to Nurse Petrova, and Grant was shouting at Chelsea for provoking me as we charged down the hallway at top speed. Finally, Grant's and Chelsea's voices drowned out, followed by the ding of an elevator, and soon I had the sense that we were drifting downward. I heard Charlotte's voice becoming calmer, and she took my hand as I slowly began to drift off...

I was suddenly gripped by pain, so much so that I was tempted to pull the I.V. from my arm and get out of dodge. I heard a beeping sound to my right, which seemed to accelerate at every given second, as the pain seemed to course through my veins. I felt my heart pounding again, as it had when I had seen Dunham defending me, and just as he'd got pistol-whipped, and as I'd tried to get out of that place. The beeping didn't stop, however, and the pain continued, when suddenly I became aware of several voices around me...

"Doctor, she's losing too much blood..."

"What was her blood type?!"

"AB-Positive!"

"Rare, isn't it? Just like the girls' abilities..."

"Executive Agent Melinsky told us to take good care of her—the best. Upgrade to Priority One immediately..."

"Shouldn't Priority One be trying to find Agent Cooper?"

"Senior Agent Cooper and Executive Agent Melinsky are working on all of that, don't you worry. Come on. Let's finish getting her stitched up..."

"Doctor! Her blood pressure is through the roof!"

"Oxygen levels are decreasing, doctor..."

"We have to get her back to sleep, doctor—"

"Doctor, we're losing her..."

I saw a light before me then—a gray-blue color—shimmering before me. I turned towards it, unsure, wondering what it was calling me for. As I inched closer to it, the beeping stopped in my ears. I suddenly felt freer than I had in a long time—no motherly responsibilities, no spying, no nothing. Just as I inched towards the light again, I suddenly felt a thunderbolt to my chest.

I grunted, and then the beeping resounded in my ears again. This time, however, it was at a much more fluid pace. The pain was nearly gone, and I merely felt as if I was dozing...

"Doctor, we've got her back."

"Blood pressure is normal, doctor."

"Good, good. Let's get her fully back to sleep and stitch this very brave girl up and make her well again."

"Jenny? Jenny?"

"Executive Agent Melinsky, please. I know your older daughter means everything to you but, please—please. Let her sleep some more."

"She does mean everything to me, Ivan. S.L.E.U.T.H. means almost as much to me as she does. Because of that that Jenny needs to wake up. Please, can't you give her something?"

"Charlotte..."

"Please, Ivan. Please. Jenny means everything to me, but only she has the key to getting Dunham back..."

My eyes shoot open at the very mention of his name, and I am immediately sitting up in my hospital bed, causing Ivan's eyes to pop and Charlotte to gasp. "Where is Dunham?!" I demand, my voice rising an octave. "Where is he?!"

"Calm down," Charlotte says immediately, crossing to me and perching on the edge of my borrowed bed.

"Where's Dad? And Georgie?!" I cry out, knowing full well that they couldn't be there, but also that they needed to be told something.

"They're all right, really," Charlotte says, motioning for Ivan to leave us alone and, mercifully, he does. "I told them it was going to be a late night at Eleanor's, and that we would be spending the night."

I raise an eyebrow. "It's your honeymoon."

"Yes, but neither your father or Georgie have ever been to Europe. It's high time they spent some time together."

I sigh and throw myself dramatically back against my pillows, and suddenly gasp at the soreness my body feels. "Ow!" I cry out.

"Careful!" Charlotte admonishes, looking as if she wants to reach out to me, but doesn't want to hurt me further.

"You said Dunham was still missing," I say, turning and peeking at my bedside clock, which reads after six p.m., which sends shockwaves through me. "What's going to happen?!"

Charlotte sighs, knowing that this part of the conversation wouldn't be easy. "We were able to listen to the wire recording you brought back."

"Of Dunham and Marcus West?" I ask Charlotte, and immediately lean forward, apprehension dousing every spoken word.

She nods. "Yes. Unfortunately, a shard of glass that made its way onto your person shattered the implanted GPS device, hidden on your person."

I shake my head, confused. "But I'm here. How can a GPS device possibly help you find Dunham?"

Charlotte sighs. "I'm forgetting how new you are to this," she says quietly. "You see, Jenny, our GPS devices are a bit different than the typical ones you find in high-priced vehicles or rental cars."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, not only do they tell us where an agent is at all times, but there's a chip reader within them. Meaning that we can track where an agent has been, all by date and time. You can take off the cap of the implantation device, and it becomes a flash drive. Then, you can put it into a computer or laptop, key in the date, agent name, location, and division—or best three out of four—and thus find the missing agent's partner by simply inputting the secret mission code."

"How can you find the partner from the original agent's tracking device?" I ask, and proceed to fiddle with my I.V. line into my right arm.

"Well, that's an interesting one," Charlotte replies, leaning forward and taking my hands off the I.V. line. "When you're under—you know, when Daniel did the in-depth examination on you—he implanted you with a tracking device. That device has a serial number on it, half of which is your birthday, the other half your agent number. It is compared to that of the agent who is your partner, so that you and your agent are forever bound this way." She says this next part slowly, almost as if dreading my response.

"Daniel Ling...implanted...me with...a chip?!" I demand, my delivery choppy due to my shock. "Like a dog?!"

Charlotte sighs. "That's—that's one way of looking at it. Yes."

I turn away, my eyes filling with tears. I turn back to Charlotte then, narrowing my eyes at her. "But it wasn't even decided that I could cut it yet!" I sputter. "I had three tasks to accomplish! I only did one!"

Charlotte nods. "I know that."

"Then why?!" I cry out, my voice echoing and cracking against the walls of the infirmary ward. "Why was that done to me?!"

"The literation test is very important," Charlotte replied, her voice firm. "That's what the essay is really about."

I blink. "What?" I ask.

Charlotte straightens. "If you're proven to be illiterate—or, at least, not good at expressing yourself on paper—the tests stop, and you're immediately no longer considered for qualification to be an Agent of S.L.E.U.T.H."

"So, it all boils down to intelligence?" I whisper.

Charlotte nods. "Yes."

"Not... Not honesty?" I ask.

She shakes her head, her mouth forming a bitter line. "No. It's important, but no. We want highly skilled operatives in this line of work, Jenny, which is why I chose you. Combat is, of course, another important element, but you excelled in all three. Intelligence, honesty, and combat; you bested the system, Jenny. The only agent before you to best it was Dunham, and he failed three times."

I lower my eyes. "And how many agents pass the first time?"

"Very few."

I look up at her. "Did you?"

She shakes her head. "No. I passed on my second try."

I nod. "And the Coopers?"

She sighs. "The Coopers have a different method, but Dunham wanted to be tested fair and square."

"Chelsea?" I ask her.

She bites her lip. "After Chelsea, you were the first."

"She passed on her first try?"

"Yes."

I sigh, leaning back carefully against my pillows. "So, my GPS tracking device is shot... So, if we, what, scan my arm or something, it'll lead in to where they're holding Dunham?"

"It should, yes. Although Marcus may know where it is." She smiles ever so slightly as I raise my eyes to hers. "Marcus West was a high-flying agent here at S.L.E.U.T.H. since he was twelve. The programs had to make an exception for him, for he excelled at everything."

"Even the leap from training to full-fledged agent?"

She smiles. "It took him two tries, like me."

I mull over everything in my mind. "So, if Marcus was an agent here, wouldn't he know the approximate location of Dunham's chip?"

Charlotte sighs. "That's always a risk, but agents must submit to a surgery once every year to have their old chip removed and put in a new one. It's mainly for a hardware procedure—the hardware people are always upgrading the system, and our agents in the field need the best of the best. However, it's also for security purposes—if an agent is taken behind enemy lines, they can only stick them and cut them open so many times before they become too weak to talk."

"So, the security procedures are used in that the chip is removed, upgraded, and then installed somewhere else beneath the skin?"

"Exactly," Charlotte replies.

I mull over this new information quickly, my mind going a mile a minute. I could only get away with this intensive questioning for so long—Dunham's life could be literally hanging in a balance. "So, if all you needed was the data on my chip, why didn't you just get it when I was out cold?" I ask.

"Although it's not considered an invasive procedure, we find it's easier to ask for the agent's consent before we go searching beneath their skin, even if it is with a scanning device," Charlotte tells me.

I promptly hold out my arm towards her. "Scan it, if you really have to," I reply, but immediately draw my arm back—I did, after all, have a bargaining chip to play. "You can scan it, but on one condition."

Charlotte nods. "Of course. What?"

"How good of a doctor is Dr. Montague?" I ask.

My stepmother cocks her head to one side. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning that I want out of this bed," I reply, and Charlotte, to her credit, almost immediately looks suspicious at my apparent motives. "Meaning that I want a miracle serum or whatever it is that doctors have the capability to do with modern medicine. Meaning that I can get out of here and help. Meaning that I can help in the rescue of Dunham, as I am his partner, and I know exactly how to go about it."

"You know how to go about it?"

"Precisely," I reply.

She leans back against the foot of the bedframe. "And how do you propose to do a thing like that?"

I smile at her, and manage not to giggle. "Tutu can help," I reply, eager to let her know that I wouldn't be handling everything alone. "I can go in there in a disguise, get Marcus on my side and, when the time is right, take him down and get Dunham back."

"Do you realize how dangerous that could be?" Charlotte cries out. "I can't lose you, Jenny! For one thing, your father would kill me, and for another thing, you're practically my own child! I won't let you!"

"Let her."

I looked up then, and saw Grant in the doorway. "Grant," I say, straightening up in the bad. "Any news?"

Grant sighs. "No—but I think you may have a solution to the whole Dunham being missing fiasco," he replies.

"No. No!" Charlotte cries out. "Don't let her do this, Grant!"

I turn to look at him. "Are you seriously going to let her keep me prisoner here? I am a valuable asset to S.L.E.U.T.H."

"Despite your inexperience, I'm inclined to agree," Grant replies, turning back to Charlotte and spreading my hands. "Marcus wouldn't know her if she bit him on the leg."

"They must have CCTV cameras all over their black market!" she shouts. "He could spot her from a mile away."

I lean back against my pillows again, crossing my arms. "Not if I had a really good disguise," I mutter, petulantly.

"Quite right," Grant replies.

"She's overtired," Charlotte cuts in. "Grant, please..."

Grant sighs, obviously hating to be caught in the middle. "Your vital signs will be checked, and you will have something to eat," he rules. "Then, Ivan will put you to sleep for the night. We will see how you feel in the morning. I suspect you will be all right, providing Ivan's consent."

Charlotte sighs in relief—at least Grant had bought her some time; time to get me to change my mind. "Thank you, Grant," she replies.

Grant nods. "All right, Charlotte," he says, calling to Ivan to check on me as he makes his way out.

I am checked over immediately upon Grant's departure and Ivan finds that my vital signs are good and that I am responding well to the treatment. I am then served a hearty vegetable soup for dinner, which is surprisingly thick and flavored just right with various spices. Charlotte leaves the hospital for the bunks, where agents sleep when they're on the job, and tells me that she will check on me in the morning. I am then given two pills to help me sleep, but manage to conceal them beneath the mattress before Nurse Petrova checks on me; seeing they they're gone, the lights are switched off and I am told to sleep.

I then wait for the hospital lights to go off and for the quiet hours to formally begin, whereupon I do the painstaking work of pulling out my I.V. without screaming aloud of bleeding excessively. I manage to do both and sneak on sock-covered feet out of the infirmary ward, making my way in my hospital gown towards an elevator. I click the correct button and click Tutu's floor, knowing that being careful is something that matters the most at this very moment. I travel to the correct floor and walk out, crossing my fingers that Tutu is working late and that she can help me.

Inching down the hallway, I make my way directly into her studio, and find her perched at her desk watching Project Runway on her laptop. She starts at the sight of me, her eyes wide, but when my eyes implore her, she falls silent. She does, however, purse her lips in impatience, almost as if she wants to know why it is I'm there at such a late hour in the first place. Although, to be fair, one could say the same thing about her.

"I need your help," I say quietly.

She sighs, shoving her celery, carrots, and ranch dressing tray aside before turning back to me. "Talk."

"I have to find Dunham," I say quietly. "I need my chip scanned to figure out where he is and I need a disguise to get in..."

She nods, pulling out a sleek-looking phone from her bag and holding up her hand for me to wait. She then presses a button and waits for a moment before the person on the other end has obviously picked up. "Daniel. Hey. Yes. Upstairs." She looks me over for a minute before calculating something internally. "Give me an hour and a half. Okay. Bye."

"What was that?" I ask as she ends the call.

"I have an hour and thirty minutes to make you a French heiress," she replies, and gets to her feet. "You speak French?" she asks, hauling me back to where the spa area is.

"Yeah—I'm fluent."

"Good, good," she says, grabbing a towel and tossing it to me.

"Now what?" I ask her.

"Now I suspect since you were in the infirmary ward, they will come looking for you," she replies, pressing a hidden panel along the wall. "Nobody knows about this place but Grant, and he'll make sure nobody looks in here," she says as the wall moves to one side. "I call it my private oasis—it's just like the spa, except it's private." She pushes me inside of the sterile environment, that looks nearly as clean as the hospital did downstairs. "Bath or a shower, but pick one quickly," she tells me in a whisper. "Shave and wash everywhere and everything! I'll come back for you in twenty minutes."

The wall closes behind Tutu, and I cross my fingers that she can be trusted completely as I make my way across the room. It was truly just like the spa that I'd been in only the day before yesterday. The bathtubs were immaculate, as were the showers, and I decided to use the latter to save time. I hung my towel up on a chrome peg on the wall outside my chosen shower stall, and retrieved shampoo, conditioner, a bar of soap, and a razor from the attaching closet. I stepped inside and checked the warm water, knowing that I should be quick, despite my dressings on my stitches being waterproof. The shower was big enough, thankfully, to stand away from the direct stream of water while I waited for the soap to sink into my hair, or to shave.

The shower was quick and virtually painless, and I was out of there in seventeen minutes exactly. I wrapped my towel around me and dried off as best I could, then crossed the room and switched my towel for a robe, looking around the room. The time passed quickly, and Tutu soon returned and took the towel from me, throwing it into a hallway laundry basket as we made our way to the salon room. She blow-dried my hair and then lead me over to a sink, where she rubbed product in it and then shook her head.

"What do you think about going blonde?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It's fine, I guess. Why?"

"Because you need to look French," she replies.

I sigh. "And you can turn it back when it's over?"

She nods. "I can do anything."

I return her nod. "All right, then."

"Good," she replies. She then takes me through all the steps of hair bleaching, and talks me through them as they're done. Tutu is very careful not to get any in my eyes, and then she puts curlers in it once 'the paint dries'. I am then lead over to one of the mirrors on the opposite wall, where Tutu explains contouring and then proceeds to do my makeup in such a way that even I'd never even considered possible. She highlights my cheekbones and creates the illusion that my face is an oval instead of a heart; next, she makes my eyelashes lovely black plumes, which resemble a peacocks when it comes to thickness. And finally, she makes my lips bolder and larger, all with a flick of a hand.

"Amazing," I whisper.

She smiles. "I am a true artist," she replies. Tutu soon removes the curlers from my hair, and the blonde waves cascade down my back.

"What color is it?" I ask.

"Bombshell Blonde," Tutu tells me. "Now the nails..." Tutu spends the next half hour telling me how careful she expects me to be on this mission—a doubly secret one—as she paints my fingernails and toenails an attractive red. She blows on them once she's finished, and smiles to herself. "And now we have to get you outfitted for the occasion."

"But how will I ever fit in with these people?" I ask as I am taken back into the showroom.

"Once you're dressed like an heiress and you speak to them, they won't know the difference," she replies. "Allyssandra," she proclaims me to be after gazing upon me for a moment. "Allyssandra Gormley."

"Who?" I demand as she sifts through some dresses.

"Your new name—literally means 'noble-noble'," Tutu said, laughing. She takes out dress after dress, until finally she pulls out something, and I see a tag which reads CHANEL is still attached to it. It is a sleeveless black number, that hugged the waist but flared out from it immediately thereafter, with an oval neckline. "Perfect for Allyssandra," she whispers.

"I..." I whisper, gawking at the simplistic beauty of it.

"Shoes, shoes," she mutters to herself, as if reminding herself of something, before handing over the dress to me and ultimately selecting a pair of black, patent-leather pumps for me to wear. "You'll need matching underwear for this..." She delves into the shelves again, searching until she finds a matching set of a bra and panties, made entirely of black lace. "Perfect, just perfect," she says softly.

"But, Tutu..."

"Right, right, of course—jewelry," she says, tutting to herself. She finds a black onyx necklace and nods to herself as the doors open behind us, and we turn to see Daniel standing there. "Good, you're here," she says. "We need you to scan Jenny's chip to find out where Dunham's location is."

Daniel looks shocked. "They're all up in arms looking for her," he says quietly, almost as if he feared the walls have ears, and it was then that I realized that he had barely glanced at me.

"Looking for who?" Tutu asked.

"Well, for Jenny, of course," Daniel replied. "We none of us can find her anywhere and we're afraid that S.O.J.O.U.R.N. has gotten her, too..."

"Daniel?" I say, breaking the silence.

He turns to me. "Sorry. Have we met?"

I smile at him and give him a little wave. "It's me. It's Jenny."

"No! You're Allyssandra Gormley," Tutu says impatiently, winking at Daniel, who looks shocked at my transformation. "Come on, Daniel—she's going to rescue Dunham and we need the location. Please."

Daniel sighs. "All right—the cover story is, I was never here."

"Fine, fine," Tutu says, beckoning him over. "Present your wrist."

I hold up my left, and Daniel nods, taking out something that looks like a thermometer that they drag across your forehead. I hold still at his command and wait, while he scans my inner wrist. A hologram appears, flashing green light around the room, a red dot blinking furiously within it. "What's that?" I whisper, curious.

"You," Daniel replies. "Red means you're healthy."

I smile at that. "Great." Looking around the graph shown, I see a blue dot several inches away from me. "And what's that?"

"That's Dunham—got to be," Daniel replies with trepidation. "Blue means critical, so you'd better get to him, and fast."

"Where is he?" I ask.

Daniel takes ahold of a knob upon the scanner and turns it, zooming in on the blue dot, which is blinking feebly. "The Crypt of Notre Dame," he says, sickened at the thought of it.

"Change," Tutu orders.

I am promptly shoved behind a screen, and manage to get my dress on, which Tutu's expert hands zip up for me. I step into the shoes, thanking Tutu as she clasps the necklace around my through, and gasp a little as something warm and soft is put upon me. Turning around in the floor-length mirror, I shudder at the notion that I am wearing black mink yet, I must look the part. I hardly knew what I was doing as I left Tutu and Daniel, in my new disguise—and my newly configured ID badge—but that was something to worry about later.

Harrison, who Daniel had tipped off, was waiting for me, and opened the back door of the town car for me, and I thanked him. We drove out of the parking lot and onto the street, making our way directly to Notre Dame Cathedral, my heart thudding in my stomach once more. I waited for Harrison to open the door for me, whereupon I hid my new ID badge and let myself in to a side door of the ancient cathedral, centuries older than I was. I knew exactly what to say if I encountered anyone—and I desperately wished to encounter Marcus West.

I figured out where the S.O.J.O.U.R.N. cronies were hiding, so I put on my most seductive smile and made my way to where they were. I stepped towards the back door—where I initially believed was reserved for a priest—and slowly pushed the door open. "Bonjour messieurs," I said, and they all looked surprised yet delighted to see me. "On m'a dit que vous vouliez des spectacles ce soir."

Marcus stepped forward, to my delight. "J'adore les filles françaises," he said.

"C'est bon parce que j'adore les garçons américains," I said, flawlessly, and I could see the other members of S.O.J.O.U.R.N. nudging one another. "Alors," I say quietly, slowly slipping off my mink coat and hanging it up upon a coat rack just beside me, "devons-nous commencer le divertissement?" I cross over to Marcus, clearly very full of himself, and tug ever so slightly at his necktie. "Vous ressemblez à un grand garçon fort," I tell him, and he continues smiling down at me like a hopeless idiot. "Êtes-vous le premier?"

When he leans down to kiss me, I do not stop him—in fact, I pretend to be encouraging the entire thing. It is when he tells his associates to get lost and when I am left alone with him that my stomach drops ever so slightly. I must not give into him, I tell myself. Yet what will happen if I do not? I let him rake his hands all over me, and I promptly shove him into a chair, taking his tie off him in one fell swoop, and tie it like a blindfold around his eyes. I whisper sweet French nothings in his ear, allowing my hand to drift southward to pleasure him a bit, and he seems to enjoy my toying with him. Simply killing him couldn't be that easy, could it? I knew that I couldn't kill him—even though I knew where Dunham was being kept, I still had to keep Marcus on my side.

Promptly, I take off his tie from around his eyes and promptly tie it around my neck, handing it to him like a leash. "Je suis à vous," I say quietly.

Marcus looks as if he can't believe his luck, and tilts my chin upwards, to get a good look at me. "Quel est ton nom?" he asks.

"Allyssandra," I whisper. "Allyssandra Gormley," I reply.

He smiles, yanking me upwards and smacking me upon my behind. "Notre amusement ne doit jamais s'arrêter," he proclaims, and yanks me full against him then, plastering his lips upon mine.