3 y e a r s a g o.

THE TEAM WAS ALL packed on the first deck at four in the morning. At such an unreasonable time, no one was sleeping. And it wasn't because we didn't wish to either, but because we were concerned about leaving our leader alone with the man that hadn't come back yet.

The Commander paced the room in agitated silence. His breathing was low, eyes flaring menacingly, and his body was stiff. K2 attempted to settle the man down, but of course, he wasn't going to listen.

"Where the fuck does he go every night?" the man exploded all of a sudden. "How come all of his mates are here, but not him?"

K2 watched the side of his face. "You know he has his agency's assignments to complete on top of ours."

"Then we're going to change that."

The front door swung open. All heads turned to the entrance. My eyes widened as a towering figure stood at the doorway.

The man was bruised. Bloody. Panting from shortness of breath. He dropped to his knees just barely reaching the inside of the penthouse, before slowly collapsing to the floor.

We all watched emotionlessly. At least tried to. Anyone who moved would be killed by our leader, and anyone who tried to help the man up would be killed by the man himself.

"X," K2 gritted his teeth, rising quickly up from the couch to support the man. But he stopped in place when the Commander stuck a hand out to halt him.

He walked to the man that just entered and crouched down, placing a hand on his wavy hair and stroking his cheek. The Agent began breathing again and I caught a glimpse of him flinching. As if the touch from our leader burned him like acid.

In a swift second, Asao dropped the bowl he was holding when the Commander's hand wrapped around the man's neck, and jerked his whole body up.

Osias objected from the side. Cody tried prying the fingers away, but our leader pushed him away. I rose from my seat with a dark expression and went to help Cody up, my eyes still on the Commander and what he was going to do next.

The bruised man grunted out in pain, before he cut himself short due to lack of air. But they knew he would be fine. It was the Commander's way of saving his life. In a split second, the other man had strategically trapped his arm around the Commander's arm and twisted it away from his body in anger, despite being drained of energy.

I sighed out in uncertain relief. Agent X was back. Maybe that'd cool down everyone.

Maybe, we could all just go to sleep now.

The Commander was still angry. He tried to grip his hands on the man's shoulder, but stopped when the other man spoke up. Venom dripped out of the Agent's mouth as his grey eyes shot open and cursed the living soul out of the leader.

"не трогай меня," he snarled. "I want nothing to do with you people." (Don't touch me).

The Commander swung his head back in annoyance, a small smile dancing on his lips. "Are you still going on about your situation when it's been three days? Accept it. The government assigned you here. For T6. And let's talk in English or we're going to have a problem."

The Agent managed a disgusted smirk as his eyes flickered. "What are you so agitated for? Get on with your damn, wonderful lives then." He gathered up the bloodied pistol on the ground and stuffed it into his back pocket, limping to the kitchen.

K2's hand rubbed his face as if he was tired of the conversation. "Agent X, you need to sit down. Those wounds are only going to get worse the more you move."

The Agent spun around and shot the director a spiteful glare. "You don't even talk. I blame you for everything. When I snatch that seal from that fucker's hand, I'm going to make all of you pay. So sleep with your eyes open."

"X doesn't want to be here," Cody started, looking bitterly at the Commander. "Why don't you just let him be free? He clearly hates us with his whole being, and I'm afraid he'd kill one of us while we're asleep."

The Commander silenced him. "We don't all get what we want in this life." He then turned to the Agent. "You're in my terrain, so you're under my orders. Go guard the penthouse with the rest of the guards. Some kind of top Agent you are, always beat up and late to his station."

We could see X's muscles stiffening up, then swell as if he was going to explode. But something made him cool down. He took a breath in, opened the cabinet, and ignored the Commander.

I'm glad he did. Because our leader just heavily undermined the man's true abilities. We all knew he was lying. Three days ago, his head was almost shot off. The penthouse was almost thrown to flames, and there was going to be a mass genocide at the headquarter.

The only thing that stopped X was the seal. Had the Commander not pulled it out in time, and had X not seen it just before he was about to pull the trigger, they would all have died three days ago. He was a monster. The man harassed K2's guards, resorted to any means to hurt the team, and with any chance he got, he wanted to leave. If he couldn't, he wanted the leader's head.

The agency that sent him to us had warned us. Had said this man wasn't meant for mere missions, never mind being assigned to a team. Calling him an Agent was an understatement, and an assassin wasn't quite right either. He borderlined a murderer and a psycho, was what his identification file labeled him.

"I think it's time I teach you what consequence means," the Commander frowned as he watched the Agent wrap a gauze around his wounds. The man in the kitchen could care less of what our leader was saying at the moment.

"Agent X, you're under house arrest until I repeal my words."

That only earned a dry laugh from the opposing man. "If that makes you sleep better at night."

"You're not allowed to leave, doesn't that bother you?" the Commander tested.

We all watched him use the scissors to cut the wrappings. "Bother me?" His brows twitched. "When I can use up your electricity and get air conditioning for free instead of standing outside with those mannequins?"

"Are you acting right now?"

"Why fuck me, I am aren't I?" The Agent snapped his head to us and grinned a smile so heartless that it made my insides turn uncomfortably. "You want me to slit your throat so that your team can finally go to sleep? Am I some sort of exotic jungle animal that you all have to stand there and look at?"

Kenya shut her eyes irritably and turned to our leader. "He's back and perfectly sane now. Can you dismiss us, Commander?" The other boys had just finished cleaning up the sharp shards of the bowl that Asao dropped.

K2 stepped in. "Alston, dismiss them. We have a lot to do tomorrow."

I gave our leader a silent look. He gazed at me for a while before he nodded reluctantly and let everyone go upstairs. Asao walked past the Agent and pointed at him. "Don't be a bad boy, okay? Good night."

We all blinked twice as Kenya, Osias, him, and Cody ascended the stairs to their rooms. With just the Commander, me, X, and K2, the air lightened up a bit.

"I don't know why you make it so unbearably hard to breathe whenever you're in a foul mood," my tone shifted to casual as the Commander plopped down on the couch with his head in his hands.

"Are you really blaming me when it's his fault?"

I folded my arms across my chest and gave him a disapproving look. The blonde-haired man met my eyes. "Come to my room tonight," he tilted his head.

My brows lifted. "Again? I went last night. My body still feels sor—"

I choked on my words when I heard a loud noise from the kitchen. The three of us at the living room all snapped our heads to the man sitting far away on the counter, bandaging his arm. He had stuck the scissors end into the wooden counter.

K2's eyes almost jumped out of its sockets. "HOW THE FUCK DID YOU MISS SO BAD? ARE YOU PERHAPS FAR-SIGHTED? DO YOU NEED GLASSES?"

X ignored him. He instead turned to the Commander and me. "Talk about your sex night someplace else."

The other man scoffed amusingly. "Who are you to tell me what I can and can't talk about with my people where I want to?"

"What I don't understand is why that's what you care about instead of denying what he just said," I snapped at him. I turned to the Agent and glared him down. "Can you watch your mouth? I went to carry your stuff to his room for him to look over."

His grey eyes met mine. I hadn't noticed how clear it was. Something told me he wasn't insane. Something told me, he just felt injustice and trapped.

"You still want him here?" I changed the subject as I turned back to the Commander, exhaling rather unsteadily.

He groaned and leaned back on the couch, looking at me. "You deal with him then if you don't want me to hurt him. I'm going to sleep. K2, you and your men watch the main floor."

"Of course."

K2 and I shared a glance as the man rose and walked upstairs.

So he was just going to let me deal with it?

I turned back to X. "Finish bandaging and leave. I don't feel safe with you in the same place as this team, regardless of what he thinks."

X cackled lowly. "Perfect."

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. I find amusement that you simpletons keep me here when your instincts tell you that I'm going to hurt you."

K2 cleared his throat. "Agent, report outside. Now."

"Who should I mess with tonight?" He smiled to himself. "Your one guard in the red seems pretty emotionless. Shall we see if I can break her?"

K2 pulled out his gum and calmly held it towards the man's head. "If you can't keep your hands to yourself, I will make sure you lose your head instead."

"Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite," He flashed us an unfazed glare, flinging the medical kit to the ground when he was done with it so that everything splattered to the ground. He headed out the penthouse without another word.

What really horrified me, however, was the fact that three bullets laid on the counter-top, drenched in blood. It came from inside him.

I peered at K2 just before he left the penthouse too with a concerned look. "How in the world did that man keep talking like that when he was prying this out of his body?"

I recoiled at the mere image and almost threw up looking at the bullets. K2 gave me a grim look. "He's not all that bad. It's been tough for him."

"He's a monster," I let out incredulously, not listening to him. I looked back up at the director. "We have an inhumane murderer in our home. He shouldn't even be standing with all his wounds."

The older man had a look of sympathy on his face. But he only said, "Don't go in the kitchen. I'll clean up the mess when I come back in. I need to make sure he doesn't hurt Fiona."

"Do you think the house arrest even makes sense?" I asked barely above a whisper. "He's going to be inside with us. What was the Commander thinking?"

"He's not thinking," K2 replied bluntly. "He just wants to win against that man. And the most important thing to X is his freedom."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Day 4: X activated the fire alarm while the team was away.

Day 5: X crashed a plane at midnight on purpose.

Day 8: X was detained in a locked room.

Day 12: X spat at Osias.

Day 19: X tripped Cody as he walked outside.

Day 22: X shaved off part of K2's hair.

Day 37: X drenched Kenya's dresses with gasoline and burned the penthouse.

Day 56: X told me I was a bad boy and got dragged away by K2's guards.

Day 60: X went on a mission with the Commander.

Day 66: Risa held a gun at X's head.

Day 70: X is pierced with a silver ring to track his movements.

Day 82: X drugged the team and escaped. The Commander was out at the time and eventually returned with him.

Day 99: X's eyes are a different color.

Day 130: X ate cereal.

Day 148: X trained with the Commander.

Day 171: X laughed.

Day 173: X brought home a dead body.

Day 175: X told a joke.

Day 180: X gave me a lighter and told me to burn the Commander's ass off.

Day 184: X was ordered to sleep on the couch.

Day 200: X spoke Russian again.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

The rest of the team was downstairs finalizing the report for this week's assignment, which was a change from Kenya doing it. Meanwhile, Kenya and I were illegally upstairs in K2's office. And I say illegally because K2 prohibited us from going to his office ever since X's fifth day here.

Kenya bent over the desk and her eyes searched for the jet's keys. "Dammit. He hid it somewhere."

"Inside his underwear drawer?" I shrugged innocently. She wanted to leave the penthouse just for tonight. I was her partner in crime because why not, I was bored.

"Try under the floorboard."

My eyes widened as our heads turned towards the corner of the room. There, sitting sprawled on the ground in a crisscross, was X. Kenya clutched her beating chest and shouted at the man to try to make some noise next time.

He shrugged, scratching his bedhead.

I walked over to him slowly with a scrunched up face. "What the hell are you doing in K2's room?"

He looked up at me. The light shining in from the window emphasized his grey and green eyes. I frowned studying it. It wasn't like that when he first came here. It clearly was only grey. One day when he came back with the Commander from a mission, his eyes were different.

K2 explained that the man developed central heterochromia due to an eye injury. Apparently, it wasn't from a foe, but their own Commander. Their leader used his seal to keep the Agent in place, and finally placed a hit on him when they were away. The rest of the team knew this piece of information because we eavesdropped when K2 confronted the Commander about X's eyes.

X uncrossed his legs and draped both arms lazily over it, yawning. "He locked me up here."

"He?" Kenya cut in.

"The fucker."

My eyes dropped to his hands and I saw the cuffs bounding his wrist together. It didn't seem to faze the man even the slightest, however. I looked back up at his face with a frown. "Really? After six months you still can't respect him?"

X scoffed and laid back down on the ground with a thud.

Kenya, however, had a different question in mind. "How'd you know where the keys were?"

His arms raised lazily in the air. "Metal-detecting watch."

Kenya raised her eyebrows. "So does that mean you have it?"

"Dig it up yourself, sweetheart. Why would I bother myself when my arms are cuffed?"

"Those cuffs don't really seem to be holding you here though," I inched closer suspiciously. "You could break out if you want now that he's downstairs."

X's eyes studied up at me with a weird expression as if me helping him was the dumbest thing he had ever heard. Like he suspected I was trying to trick him to go running back to the leader. "You're fucking right! I could. But to give up this fresh-ass air conditioning?" He thrust his cuffed hands to the ceiling. "No thank you."

"Your sense of humor has changed," my brows twitched. "'I don't know if I should be happy or irritated that you're on par with me now."

Without looking at me, he formed two birds on his fingers and shooed me away with them. When I cursed him out and turned to find Kenya, I found that she had located the specific location based on scratch marks that was left by an unnamed man in the room with them.

She dug up the keys and threw it up in the air with a proud grin. "Atta boy. Let's go, Risa."

I smiled at her spirit and told her to go on first. Said I was going to cover up the irregular patch of flooring that was dug up. She nodded and headed outside, leaving me and the man in the corner to ourselves.

The Agent sighed out painfully loud when he realized that when the door shut closed, the woman he wanted the most to leave was still present. "And why is your ass still here?" He slurred.

"Can you stop cursing for once? You're just like Osias," I snapped.

"Fucking fuckity fuckus," His upper body rose and he sat up to lock eyes with me. "Fuck," he finished with a mocking tone.

I raised my eyebrows. "I know you want to get out of those cuffs."

He quieted down with a threatening stare.

"I can activate it with my seal. If you let me know one thing," I tried. I held my breath. Was this going to work?

He shot me a face that resembled that of the Grinch. "I don't negotiate with people. Last time I checked, you were human."

I rolled my eyes. "I want to know your name. Everyone keeps calling you X, eventually, we have to call you something, right?"

"You act like K2 isn't in the same situation and like you've forgotten you and your whole team have weird-ass names that's not humane either."

... He had a point.

"Aight Bob, I was trying to be civil and do a trade-off, but if that's how you want to spend the next few days in this room being locked up, it's perfectly fine by me—"

"... I'll tell you if you kiss me."

"Huh?" I blurted out, squatting down next to him with a calm stance. "What did you just say?"

He smirked. "I know you heard me, Helen Keller. See? You can't do it. Negotiations are fine with me, I get thousands of those in my lifetime." He chuckled dryly, "But it's when they hear my side of the bargain that they chicken out. You're no different, and I even toned down the favor for you."

I glared at the man with narrowed eyes. "You disgust me."

"It's called business, Sunny," He reached up and tilted my chin towards him with a jerk. "If you're not up to it," he raised his eyebrows with a cold glare, "then don't ask in the first place. People like me walk on the backs of people like you. You act all confident but you're actually shriveled up inside. Word of advice, I can't ride your back unless it's bent. Learned your lesson yet?"

Words of Martin Luther King Jr. And earlier he brought up Helen Keller...

I stared at him with wide eyes, and he noticed. It wasn't like I didn't know he wasn't intelligent, but well— his occupation really didn't make it seem that way.

But if he was an Agent, then I supposed in one way or another, he was intelligent. Not to go off topic or anything, but I just oddly found the man before me ten times more attractive.

So without thinking, without realizing that he wasn't the least interested in the bet he just made earlier, and without realizing that the man had actually inched away from me after noticing my eyes widen, I leaned in swiftly and closed the distance between our lips.

His eyes fluttered close, trying to process what happened since he couldn't do much with his hands cuffed and his ass on the ground. I could see his chest, although still steady, rising and falling at a faster pace as I tilted my head. I needed to pull away, but something about kissing a handsome, murderous psycho intrigued me. Like something I could cross off a bucket list.

Sixteen year olds, am I right.

I heard the cuffs making noise as he shifted. "Risa, stop—" He formed the words against my lips in protest.

... It was the first time he said my name.

What I didn't realize in the moment, however, was that the door to the office had opened right before the confusion took place. Just before my eyes shot open and I tried to back away, a hand reached out and violently grabbed my arm up, ripping me apart from the man on the floor.

I winced and turned my head to see my Commander giving me a look of disbelief. He then tried to pull me out the door, but X grabbed my other arm and pulled me back down. He leaned his head in and his lips parted by my face, just as I observed a punch being sent to his face by the man behind me.

"Stop it," I held back the other man with a cry. "Last time you touched him there it damaged his eyes. Leave him alone."

The Commander let out a quiet scoff as he pulled me closer to him. "How do you know that? Did he tell you?"

"No, he didn't," I glared at him. "Get your hands off of me."

"Are you perhaps... feeling empathic towards him?"

I scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"You kissed him, Risa."

My throat clogged. How it transitioned from a taste of fresh air to feeling like I'm suffocating, I don't know. Meanwhile, X had cracked his lower jaw back in place and resumed draping his arm over his leg, his head tilted down darkly so that no one could make out the expression on his face.

I wished the Commander hadn't seen. I really wished he hadn't.

But we couldn't turn back time.

When I didn't say anything afterwards, he tightened his grip around my arm and jerked me towards the door, angling his head back into the room just to warn the Agent. "Watch your filthy mouth, you fucking psycho. Don't ever touch my team again."

My mind was blank as we left that room. My mind continued being blank as we descended the stairs, and the words that the Commander was throwing at me was going in one ear and out the other. My mind was blank when the others crowded around us to ask about the ruckus on the second floor. My mind was blank when the Commander covered it up and blamed it on something else that the monster upstairs did, not wanting to let the others know exactly what he saw.

My mind was blank... except for one thing.

The one word that he managed to pass on to me just before he was hit.

His name was Pierce.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

I was traumatized today. I had never been more afraid of a person before, until I saw my Commander standing there at the office's door earlier that day. That expression wasn't him at all. Was that what X saw through his unbiased eyes when he first met him?

In the darkness of night, I reached my hand up in front of me blindly and covered my mouth. Right, he told me his name.

Pierce.

But right after envisioning the moment he had told me his name, the Commander's face showed up right afterwards, and I shut my eyes shakily. I fell asleep with a bad feeling in my stomach.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

It was two in the morning. Eyes open in a daze, my body rose out of bed when I saw Asao standing at the door. I tilted my head at him questioningly.

Why was he still awake?

He smiled at me and said we didn't finish our game. Our game of hide-and-seek. I couldn't remember what his faint outline was talking about, so I told him I didn't feeling like playing. But when he hummed a six note tune that I've never heard before, the mood set throughout the penthouse, and reluctantly, I followed.

He laughed and ran to the railings, before he disappeared down a hallway. I reached the railings and looked down. It was pitch-black. The others were sleeping. I turned my head at the six notes being sung again and I picked up my pace.

Something told me the boy wasn't in the hallways. Somehow, it had drifted downstairs, as if he could just pass by me without me seeing... like a ghost.

I descended the stairs. The cold marble floor froze the bottom of my feet as I forced my two legs to move blindly forward. I couldn't tell where the furniture was. Just when I thought I would give up and shout his name, I heard the tune again.

I bumped into the sofa and for a split second, it seemed like I had gained consciousness again as I saw a figure sleeping on the couch. Then fog refilled my eyes and I looked straight forward to see Asao had turned around a dark corner.

But when I blinked, there was no dark corner. Instead, I saw the penthouse's front door. Fearing he was lost, I picked myself up from tripping on the couch and tried to head towards the door, but I felt a hand reach out and stop me. My heart froze.

What realm was I being trapped in this time? What being was here with me?

I yelled seeing the body sit up and move its head. Panicked, tired, and concerned for the boy on our team, I backed away as quickly as I could. Footsteps rang by the stairs at this time. As I turned my head towards it, a clearer figure of the boy I was supposedly chasing came down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.

Asao saw me and his eyes flickered in concern, his mouth parted in question as if he wanted to ask, "Are you okay?"

I was confused. My head hurt. The six notes had stopped. It was dead silent, besides the footsteps that now came in three-folds on the top floor. The darkness and fog suddenly vaporized away as light filled my dead eyes.

I was afraid.

A new image filled my eyes. I saw K2, Kenya, Cody, Osias, and Asao forming a line before me with concern written all over their faces. Everything about that looked intimidating. I turned and suddenly, I saw the Commander standing there next to me with his arms open.

Open arms... that's safe, right?

I blindly submitted to the comfort. The hand stroked my hair and rubbed my back reassuringly, and I felt my breathing slow down.

Not until a voice broke through my trance and shouted, "Hey you, wake up."

That's when I woke up. That's when I saw... the man that had slapped the Agent earlier today ironically trying to comfort me after the backlash the entire day. That's when I saw the Agent grit his teeth from the couch, seated away from the team, shooting the man next to me a suspicious stare.

I backed away like I had touched acid, much like how X had done to the Commander on his third day here. He undoubtedly noticed, and his eyes darkened looking down at me.

"What's going on?" Cody asked, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Why are you up, Risa?"

I turned to him slowly. "I was playing with Asao."

Kenya frowned. "Asao was upstairs sleeping in your room. Why are you down here when he's up there, at two in the morning?"

My eyes narrowed in confusion. "I don't... I don't know."

The Commander finally spoke up. "Everyone, go back to sleep. We're going to my room so I can check up on her."

For the first time ever, the team witnessed the man on the sofa directly object.

"To hell with that," X snarled with a dark expression. "Why does she have to come into your room for you to check up on her? If you're really a team, you should discuss the matters with your teammates, not keep everything a secret for your selfish ass."

The Commander shot him a menacing glare. "Who do you think you're talking to?"

I looked at the Agent with squinted eyes. What was he trying to do? Why was he always picking a fight with the Commander?

"X, calm down," Osias tried to diffuse the tension in the living room. "It's normal for him to check up on her. She's been sleepwalking recently. He knows how to stop it."

"You can't stop sleepwalking," the Agent spat back. "Something causes it. And if your Commander has any decency, he would share it with you."

Our leader narrowed his eyes at him. "What?"

"I don't trust you," X finally deadpanned, his eyes turning serious. "Anyone could see it on the first day. And after six months here, it's even more clear now."

"Your words fall on deaf ears. We're all tired. It's two in the morning. One of our teammates needs help, and yet you're objecting to it. Can you become any more our enemy?" The opposing man countered.

X clenched his fists before a faint smile made its way to his lips. "Ah, you caught me. I'm trying to break you all up, after all." He then looked at me for a moment with a blank look before he laid back down on the couch, disappearing from the team's view.

The bad feeling in the pits of my stomach returned as the team cautiously dispersed back upstairs. I took mental note of the Commander's hand going lower and lower down my back as we walked up the stairs behind the rest.

I was sleepwalking?

And now I'm going to the Commander's room..?

I've only ever gone there to help with the team's matter. It was always late when I did, so I sometimes fell asleep there. When I woke up, he'd have a blanket ready for me to wrap my body in, and when I asked him what happened, he only said that he watched me sleep. That's what he told me every time.

But now that I was fully awake and there was nothing to help with... what was I going to see tonight with my bare eyes?

Or, was a part of me going to be put to sleep once more, and leave me in the dark for what felt like the thousandth time?

.
.
.

"Casey, I'm not feeling well. I think I need to sleep it off. Can I just go back to my roo—"

"No, get in. I need to show that son of a bitch whose woman you are."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Brace yourselves for below...

Explanation (1) "Kiss Of Death" - an action/relationship that leads to ruins or destruction.

Explanation (2) Pierce has central heterochromia, which is when the eyes display a different set of colors along with their original color. Usually, it's a genetic thing. In other cases, injury to the eye (Pierce's case) can cause the change in color. Pierce has grey eyes with an even ring of faint green going around both of his eyes.

Explanation (3) Risa's trigger for dissociative identity disorder is usually when something traumatic happens, and in the chapter, she becomes subconsciously frightened of their past Commander. While transitioning to her other alter at night, the stress built up in her caused her to arouse during an incomplete dissociation, and thus she sleepwalks.

Explanation (4) Their past leader knew of her disorder but didn't tell anyone.

Explanation (5) Asao could speak in the past. He became mute after being traumatized in Palma de Mallorca.

Reveal [1] Their past Commander caused Risa's permanent DID after that night.

Reveal [2] This story takes place concurrently with Agent W. Agent X (Pierce) is from the R.U. He was on a mission with Jamie after she split with Liam's group on the roof of I.O. Academy. In the three years before Jamie's return to the R.U. (where she went on various mission with other agents), it spanned the same three years of Risa's past. When Jamie returned to the R.U. and Kai invaded the R.U., that's when the beginning of this story started.