#etml

As he ran towards the spot where he had left her, his feet began to grow damp with the blood that was spreading out from the fallen, stained pink sand sticking to his skin. Suddenly, piercing pain shot through his shoulder and chest, spreading down through his abdomen and arm to the tips of his fingers. He screamed in pain and collapsed to his knees in the sand, blood dripping down his bare chest from the wound in his shoulder. Still, his thoughts focused on Milah, and he pushed through the pain, standing and continuing to run, trying desperately to find her.

At last, he caught a glimpse of long black curls down by the hotel's pool, and he sprinted toward her, vaguely aware that we was running towards the shooters. It didn't matter, as long as he was with Milah. He was feet away, so close to her, when he saw her body lurch forward with the impact of being hit, and a guttural cry was ripped from his chest as he watched her fall into the pool. Killian pushed his body harder to reach her, to pull her from the water that was already turning pink with her blood. He was almost there when pain seared through him again, this time knocking him down as his thigh was shredded by a bullet. He tried, but he couldn't stand, so he crawled, half dragging his leg behind him, to get closer to the pool. Another shot and another bullet found its target, this time burying itself in his hip. He was reduced to trying to army crawl his way, leaving a smearing trail of red behind him, but he was rapidly losing strength, and he felt his mind beginning to cloud as unconsciousness threatened.

"Milah," Killian croaked, tears pouring down his face. He was going to die, he was certain of it, and either Milah would follow him, or she would be left behind, and he knew all too well the pain of that.

"Vasha zhena?" a burly looking man with a rifle sneered from above Killian, and he turned his head enough to see the man leering at Milah. "Ona krasivaya."

He ran a hand over himself in a way that made Killian want to vomit and bash his head in, or maybe castrate him, all at once. With a chuckle, he knelt down and grabbed Killian's hair, roughly tugging his head up so he had a clear view of Milah, while he aimed his gun and shot right through Milah's forehead.

Killian let out a choked sob and one arm reached out toward Milah, and he barely even registered the pain as another bullet tore through his hand. The monster still holding him laughed and released Killian roughly, taking a step toward the edge of the pool. Killian watched as he pulled a phone from his pocket, and aimed it toward Milah's body.

"For to remember her tonight," the man said with a twisted smile, and Killian heard the camera click and closed his eyes. "Do svidaniya," he sneered, aiming his heavy boots at Killian's side and kicking him hard into the pool as he walked away.

"One hundred forty-one hours, if I had to guess," Killian answered, cracking the knuckles in his fingers.

"Forty-two, actually," the woman corrected, but a raised eyebrow indicated that she was more than a little impressed. She paused as if waiting for him to offer an explanation, but he did nothing of the sort, instead continuing to stare at her defiantly. "My name," she continued, "is Regina Mills, I am the Deputy Director for Operations, which means that –"

"You're in charge of all the spies," Killian finished, and he thought he might have seen the corners of her mouth twitch upward.

"We don't have spies, Mr. Jones, this isn't the Cold War," she sneered, and Killian rolled his eyes.

"Right, agents, operatives, whatever it is you call them now."

"My job is to manage the collection and analysis of intelligence," Ms. Mills continued, undeterred.

"Must not be doing a very good job if you needed to follow my lead into Donetsk," Killian spat, clenching his fists.

"Or, we managed to do a great job, since we were able to locate a nobody in Seattle and track him all the way to a warehouse in Ukraine," she countered.

"I did all the work for you," Killian challenged, bristling for a fight.

"Mr. Jones, I know the world sucks, and your parents were murdered when you were eight, and your brother was killed in action, and your fiancée was shot in the head by terrorists, so you think that god hates you and all you have to live for is revenge. I get it."

"No, you don't," Killian mumbled, anger boiling inside of him and he felt his temperature rising.

"Trust me, I do, but that doesn't mean you get to go around –"

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA!" Killian screamed, his arms straining against his handcuffs, muscles bulging under his t-shirt. "SHE WAS EVERYTHING TO ME, EVERYTHING! I HAD NOTHING EXCEPT HER AND THAT MONSTER…"

"I DO KNOW!" Ms. Mills yelled back, standing and slamming her hands down on the metal table. "My husband was tortured, in front of me, and my uterus was removed with my baby inside while I watched, and nothing, nothing, will every compare to that, so don't you talk about loss to me," she hissed, her black eyes narrowing, and for the first time, Killian genuinely felt intimidated by the woman in front of him, with power and barely-controlled rage radiating from her.

"I'm –"

"I went on my own revenge warpath, and listen to me when I tell you that it is a mistake," she continued. "What was your plan? After you killed the man who murdered Milah, what were you going to do next?"

Killian said nothing, because he didn't have an answer. He had never really considered that far, and if he was honest with himself it was because he never expected to get that far before he died.

"Oh I see, you're the die trying kind?" she smirked, cold and cruel. "You always expected to be killed trying to achieve your goal, so there was no plan for what happens next. Genius, really, you are. But hey, at least you knew your stupid ass was probably going to be killed."

Killian looked down at his hands, cuffed in his lap, knuckles bruised, and was surprised to find that he felt shame prickling in his gut.

"I think you might be a good fit for one of our operations," Ms. Mills stated, after taking a deep breath.

"No," Killian huffed, not wanting to hear her sales pitch about becoming a better man or patriotic duty or whatever she was planning to say.

"It's black ops, codenamed Paladin, and the purpose of it is to identify and neutralize active terrorists who pose a threat to national security," she continued as though she hadn't heard him.

"No," he repeated more firmly, his eyes firmly focused on his hands.

"Mr. Jones, it is high time you got over yourself, and started channeling your rage, hatred, and survivor's guilt into something that is useful for the rest of society," Ms. Mills stated, her hand on her hip as she tossed a stack of papers from inside his file down in front of him. "Either you get on board or you spend the next fifty years in solitary confinement, I don't really care which."

Killian’s flight landed in Ukraine and he tapped his feet impatiently, checking his watch. He felt like a ball of energy, or perhaps a ball of tension, as he waited for his rental car and drove to Donetsk. Only the thought of Milah, the image of her blood seeping out into the pool, kept his mind focused on the task at hand. He arrived at The Pushkin a few hours before his meeting was scheduled, so he walked around the city for a little while, noting the chaos that seemed to envelope it. Killian knew the city was a warzone, it was part of his preparation, but there was something different about seeing a warzone with your own eyes. It made the hollowness from his brother’s loss ache painfully, imagining Liam’s last moments spent fearfully in a place like this.

At last noon arrived, and Killian made sure he was sitting at a visible table, his back to the wall so no one could sneak up on him, and he surreptitiously sipped a glass of water that had been placed in front of him. It tasted unpleasantly of copper and it reminded him of the way blood tasted on his lips, and he hoped it wasn’t a premonition of the way his day was going to go.

Precisely nine minutes past noon, his waiter slipped a note onto the table with another address, and Killian ducked out of the restaurant, careful to remain inconspicuous. He made his way to the new address – a seemingly abandoned building that looked as though it had taken a shelling. He kept his eyes peeled as he picked his way through the rubble, looking for any sign of an ambush. Inside the building were too large, brawny men flanking a doorway, and Killian approached them slowly, trying to make it clear that he was on their side. Their hands tightened on the rifles they clutched, but the lackey on the left nodded to Killian as he passed between them. He sensed movement behind him, but before he could react, he felt the butt of the lackey’s rifle connect with the base of his skull, and he dropped to the ground, his vision going black.

Killian came to somewhere deep within the bowels of the building, his arms and legs strapped to a chair in the middle of the room, and he almost laughed at the idea that this would bind him. As if he hadn’t practiced escaping this kind of restraint a hundred times before. A door behind him opened, and Killian heard several sets of footsteps approaching his position, and he waited, not sure whether to expect words or a blow. The scraping of a chair against the floor told Killian that at least one of his new companions had pulled up a chair behind him, but still nothing happened, and they continued to sit in silence.

“Gde Zloto?” Killian demanded, his impatience getting the better of him as the silence persisted. “Where’s Zloto?”

“Do you think ve vould really bring spy like you to Zloto?” a deep voice challenged in its thick Russian accent, laughing heartily, and Killian’s eyes closed briefly as he processed his situation.

“I’m not a spy,” Killian hissed, his fingers tightening around the arms of his chair.

“Naturally,” the voice answered, and Killian got the sense that it’s owner was leaning back in his chair, entirely at ease with the situation. “Tell me, rat, what do you vant from us?”

“Chaos,” Killian supplied, and without warning, the butt of another rifle crashed into his temple, making his ears ring and his head throb painfully, but Killian breathed in through his nose and blocked it out.

“Try again. Truth this time.”

“I want only chaos,” Killian persisted, and he was met with a growl of aggravation.

He prepared himself for another blow, but instead his ears were met with a cacophony of sound as the room ignited with gunfire and shattering glass. Killian looked up, ignoring the shards of glass that were flying, leaving small scrapes against his skin, and saw for the first time that there was a hole in the ceiling that had been crudely covered with a glass pane. Men dressed in black special ops gear were plunging through the hole made by the shattered pane, their rifles belching bullets that found their targets in the brutes standing behind Killian.

“NO!” he snarled, struggling free of his bonds and rushing at one of the soldiers in front of him, tackling him to the ground.

To his credit, Killian put up a better fight than most people this strike team encountered, but he was still woefully overmatched. It took only a few minutes before he found himself pinned, face down on the gritty floor, his arms twisted behind him and a knee pressed painfully into his sciatic nerve.

“Alright cowboy, time to go home, you’re in some deep shit,” the soldier on top of Killian grunted, manhandling him as he tugged Killian to his feet.

“I prefer dashing rapscallion,” Killian spat, his blue eyes like icicles trying to pierce the soldier’s armour.