Intermission Eight - Allegra

July 31 ^st, 2021 - Washington, D.C.

Allegra stood on the balcony of her seventh-floor hotel room at the State Plaza Hotel, looking out southward towards the Lincoln Memorial, where the massive crowd had started gathering before dawn, although she couldn't really see them because the Harry S. Truman building was blocking her way. They still had set up plenty of lights and tents, however, as they organized, the plan to start marching on the White House set to begin at 10 a.m.

It would provide the perfect cover for what she and her crew would be doing today.

Allegra DiFontaine was an Italian woman who'd been running global operations for the better part of a decade now, and while one of the tools in her arsenal - her striking beauty - was less useful now than it was before, there was still plenty of work to be had all across the globe. She'd put together a new style of team, one of female agents all imprinted on the same man, also a member of their team, so they could all trust one another without worrying about the double-cross.

Their lives depended on it.

"How's it looking?" she said quietly, her jawbone working as a conductor and a microphone for the earpiece in her left ear. "All stations, report."

"This crowd looks like they're going to make a right mess of it," Jason said from his position over by the Lincoln Memorial. He was the team's male figure, and despite the fact that the others needed him to survive, he refused to let them baby him or make him 'the guy in the van.' He was still out doing what he did best, no matter what some government stoolie told him. Not that he was from the US anyway. On paper, he was still a citizen of the UK, but his time in the SAS felt like it was a lifetime ago, and he'd been a private soldier for much longer than he'd served in Her Majesty's Army. He was ruggedly handsome but in a slightly off-kilter sort of way. Shaved head, lean build, good-looking but slightly forgettable face. He looked like half a dozen different action movie stars rolled into one and then slightly smudged. Everybody always seemed to think they knew him only to quickly realize they didn't. "Nobody's packing, but that doesn't mean they aren't itching for a fight. For loads of these blokes, this is the most men they've been around at once in a couple of years."

"And how do they look?"

"How do they look?" Jason grumbled, shaking his head. "Allegra, they're fucking pissed. What would you expect? The signs are less clever than they used to be and they're getting more direct. The first few protests, at least people were trying to be witty. Now they're just furious that they're going to get locked away in gilded cages. Their signs mostly say shit like, 'Don't tread on me' and 'Willing to die free!' Although I have to admit, I like the one that says, 'My vote is worth more than 3/5ths!' That's at least giggle worthy."

"You know this whole march of theirs is a terrible idea," Helga said. She was the sniper of the team, watching from her vantage point on a rooftop nobody was looking at, and was already looking down the barrel of her rifle. She was former Swedish military, and had been an old friend and colleague of Allegra's, so her joining Allegra's unit had been an easy choice. She was a large woman, at least height wise, not heavy. The Swedish military had thought it impractical to have a sniper so tall, but Helga had never let it stop her from getting her jobs done. She knew how to pick a vantage point where she wouldn't be cramped into a small hole or box. She'd been an easy sale to Jason on who else to add to their Team several months back. "It's practically inviting someone to take a run at wiping out a bunch of men when they're all gathered together in public."

"Of course it is," Jason said. "It's even expressly forbidden by the damn thing they're protesting. They're basically dancing around screaming, 'Hey! Come arrest us!' I think the only reason they aren't getting hit right at the start is they know it'll be bad optics. When things get out of hand, they'll step in."

"Don't you mean 'if' things get out of hand?"

"I said what I said. Using this thing as a cover's going to be tricky, because we don't know when things are going to kick off," Jason said.

"Sure we do," Allegra said. "They'll start marching in about twenty minutes."

"Now how do you know that?"

"It's on their Instagram page," Kelly said, jumping into the conversation. She was their 'van chick.' Every crew needed 'someone in the van' whose job was to manage comms, keep an eye on cameras, disable computer security and just generally play overwatch, to keep the shotcaller, which was Allegra, in the know for everything she needed to keep tabs on. Kelly's parents, an American father and an Indian mother, thought she worked helping develop irrigation systems across the globe, which, she did - on paper. But her real job was to play tech support and counter-intel for Allegra's team, and it was a job she took deadly seriously, lest they end up dead. "And it's in their press release. They're calling it The Million Survivor March."

"In addition to being stupid, they can't count either," Jason snorted, shaking his head. Most of the men looked like they weren't cut out to be frontline protestors.

"Inflated numbers, are they?"

"You've got somewhere between five hundred and a thousand men there, and they maybe have two to three women each in accompaniment. I feel like I'm being generous if I call it five thousand people in total."

"It'll still be enough," Layla said, walking down the street towards their target building. Layla was the final member of their Team, a specialist in infiltration and under-fire exfils, better known as a smash'n'grab thief when things went sideways, and a cat burglar when they didn't. She was a tiny little brunette with her hair in a sporty ponytail, and she often dressed like a sorority girl on her way back from her Pilates class - leggings, sports bras and oversized baggy t-shirts. It was her work attire, but a lot of people didn't recognize it as such, which suited her just fine. "And we're certain this keycard's going to get us in? I understand it came from the client, but you know I despise relying on outside sources for access, especially since we haven't been able to test it."

"Comes part and parcel with the gig," Allegra said over her radio. "But they paid half the fee upfront without blinking an eye, and if it doesn't work, then we walk away and keep the money for a couple of days of sightseeing in D.C."

"Well, I'm approaching the back door now. Jason, you want me to wait for you?"

"Negative, short stack," Jason said, moving away from the crowd, starting to head down the street towards their target building. "Just make sure the door's propped open and I'll be two minutes right behind you, cleaning up your mess."

"I don't make messes," Layla said, waving the security badge in front of the reader plate as the door gave a pleasant little chirp and a green light as the door popped open and offered her access to the building. "I am effortless, graceful, and perfection on angel wings."

"And those four guys I had to beat up for you in Istanbul?"

"That was Allegra's fault."

"How was that my fault?" Allegra asked in an amused tone, tilting her head.

"You told me there weren't going to be any guards." Layla stepped into the area and grabbed a bit of paper, folding it a few times over and jamming it over the latch, so the door closed without latching shut. Then she started to move deeper into the building that still didn't really have very many people in it. Within a couple of hours, the place would be teeming with people, but for the time being, they had the building nearly entirely to themselves.

"No, I told you that you were clear if you stuck the path that I mapped out for you."

"I did stick to your path."

"Except for that arm of yours that reached out to grab those gold doubloons that were clearly not on the path I'd laid out for you."

"They within arm's length of the path, which means they were on the path." Layla moved towards the back of the building, reaching the service elevator that her keycard also granted her access with just another swipe. She shook her face, as if Allegra's entire argument had just fallen apart at her point. "You can't argue with that. That's just logic."

"That's bullshit is what it is," Helga said, shift back onto her back so that she didn't sit too still in one position for too long. "I still can't believe we're doing a gig stateside. Don't we have a policy against that?"

"Not so much a policy as a guideline," Allegra said, "but we're sticking to that a lot less in the new world, since the Americans aren't quite the powerhouse they used to be." Her team didn't stay in one location for too long, but their most recent headquarters had been in Berlin.

"Mmmm," Jason said, closing in on the building. "Still, I don't want to be caught, especially considering when something goes wrong at that march they're going to try and pin it on us."

"They won't even know we've been here, big man," Kelly said into her comms.

"And we aren't going to be anywhere near the march," Helga said. "Not unless things have gone horribly awry. And they aren't going to go awry because Layla's going to be a good girl and stay on schedule and task, isn't she?"

"You're no fun anymore, but yes," Layla sighed like an overly dramatic teenager. "I'm staying on task and on target. I'm on the floor with the vault now." She stepped off the service elevator and into an area that was marked as 'Restricted Area - Health/Safety Hazard Beyond These Doors.' "I'm at the retinal scanner, so I hope you got my eyes into the system, Kelly."

"I still think we should've just taken someone else's eye out and used it to open that door," Helga said with a huff.

"And I told you, girl, they don't work like that," Kelly said, shuddering at Helga's casual theoretical brutality. "And yes, Layla, your retinal scan is in the system as an accepted employee. You'll be fine."

"Okay, I've reached the door of the building," Jason said, as he stepped into his place in the pocket, opening the door, moving inside and pulling it shut once more. "Can you link my terminal into the feed, Kelly?"

"You've got a link to the camera feeds waiting for you, bruiser."

"Cheers."

"Remember, Layla," Allegra said, "once you have our item, don't dawdle. We need to get it and you out of there as quickly as possible."

"This won't take long," Layla replied, stepping past the massive heavy doors that contained the laboratory that was well out of place in the Italian Embassy. The lab was only two interconnected rooms with a sterile seal gate that was currently closed. "Well, maybe slightly longer than expected. How come nobody mentioned a sterile seal gate?"

Allegra stood up with a frown. "Because we weren't told there would be one. Can you get in?" That wasn't on the specs, it wasn't in the plan and it had come as a total surprise, something Allegra hated on the job.

"In? Sure. I can't get back out is the issue," she said, inspecting the chambers, her eyes scanning over all the space. She stopped to look at the in/out logs, which were kept on paper of all things. "It's going to take someone outside of the biolock to let me out. We're lucky somebody's not in here right now. This looks like it's been seeing a lot of use lately. The log's full of entries of people coming and going, all signed in by a doctor, although I can't tell who else they're bringing in with them. They're just listed as 'Subject 6,' 'Subject 7,' and so on." She scanned her fingertip across the paper, reading the entries. "Seems like they've been at this for about two weeks now? What the hell are they testing?"

"None of our business, Layla," Allegra said, looking through her binoculars at the crowd again. "Looks like the march is about to get started. They've packed up their stuff and look like they should be moving in a few minutes."

"The hounds are going to be at the door before you know it," Helga said. "You nearly there, Jason?"

"Elevator's arriving now," Jason said as the doors opened and he moved down the hallway to join up with Layla. Once he'd arrived, Layla grabbed one of the biosuits and climbed into it before stepping into the biolock, getting scrubbed down and decontaminated before setting foot inside of the room where their target was. He pressed the button to seal her in and wait as she moved deeper into the small lab, towards the back of the room, where two heavy, shielded boxes, waited, the one on the left marked 'Finger of Hades' and the other marked 'Love of Persephone.' "We're not being paid to take both things, Layla, so just grab what we're after and let's get out of here." He jumped hard as a shot cracked across the radio line, and he twisted sharply. "Helga? What the fuck was that?"

"That, dear boy, was the water boiling over," the Swedish woman sighed, her scope sight swinging over the crowd to focus in on the disturbance. "Just a flashbang, but it seems a few of the marchers were deciding to go off on a few unauthorized shopping sprees, busting through shop windows and just taking whatever they wanted. So DCPD threw a flashbang at a pocket of them, and you can imagine how well that's going over."

"Just as long as nobody panics," Allegra said.

"We're not far from that, boss," Helga replied, concern lingering in her voice. "Jason's right - this whole thing is a box of fireworks with kids flicking lit matches at it. It's going to go up in flames, soon, and I'm hoping we're going to be taking our exit under the cover the chaos is going to create."

"That is currently the plan," Allegra said, scowling as she looked up, shaking her head. "They've even got a helicopter up in the air over them. Keep your position concealed from them as well."

"One step ahead of you, boss. Nobody'll see me, above or below."

"We may be underestimating the amount of shit that's going to go down here today. So let's hurry it up, shall we?"

"I'm in the airlock now, boss," Layla said. "C'mon, Jason, push me through."

He tapped on the controls and the area sealed tight before running the decontaminant across her heavily suited body. Then the light turned green, and he moved to physically open the door for her. She was carrying a box about a third of the size and shape of a shoe box, dark metal gleaming cold black under the lights. "That it?"

"The Finger, as requested," Layla said with a grin, waving the box around.

"Small little thing, innit?"

"Not everything impressive comes in a giant box, you know..."

"Sure, but we're being paid quite a lot for this thing... do we even know what it's for?"

"Ours is not to ask that question," Allegra said over the comms. "Get box. Bring box. End of discussion."

Layla and Jason turned to open the door, planning on making their way back to the elevator, only to see a mammoth wall of human flesh, a giant bulky woman who looked like she was constructed purely of muscle, a gun in her hand.

Jason was the first to react, his hand snapping out suddenly to kick the gun loose and send it scrambling to the floor. Despite his training, the woman had at least a few inches in height on Jason, and she was built like a football linebacker, and there was still some value in that.

Layla stayed out of the way as Jason and the woman exchanged jabs, each trying to catch the other off-guard, before Jason finally got a strike in that seemed to put the woman on the back foot. Then, with a quick swipe, he knocked her to the floor and pressed his knee on her neck until she blacked out. "I thought you said you'd handled all the guards," Layla teased.

"Well, clearly I missed one," Jason grumbled as he got back to his feet and dusted himself off. "Let's go."

"Hat on the ground? Or just knocked off?" Allegra asked

"She'll have a headache when she wakes up," Jason said, a sound of annoyance at being questioned in his voice. Allegra liked to avoid killing anyone if at all possible, and generally they were good at that sort of thing. "But she will wake up. You said when I joined up with you lot we leave as few hats on the ground as possible, so I'm respecting your request."

"I'm glad to hear it, Jason," Allegra said. "How's outside looking, Helga?"

"Very not good, boss," the sniper relayed. "These dumb ass men and their twitchy bitches are starting to shove cops, and the shouting's getting louder and louder. Feels like any second now, shit could just break off."

"We only need five more minutes," Layla said as she and Jason stepped into the elevator.

"And I'm telling you, that's not up to me," Helga said. "The kids have graduated from flicking matches at the fireworks box to playing roman candle tag. This thing's primed to go off any fucking second. We do not want to be here when it does."

"I don't think that's an option for Layla and Jason any longer," Allegra said. "I'm seeing clouds of smoke coming up from the back, so I'm thinking they deployed tear gas on the back of the crowd, trying to get them to disperse."

"Shit," Helga said, pivoting her rifle to get a better look at the crowd. "Yeah, that ain't happening. They're rushing in every direction, trying to plow their way through the cops at some point." She watched through the scope of her rifle as one man tried to rush a line of female cops in riot armor, and they only shoved him back down into the crowd, falling back, disappearing into a sea of angry bodies, all trying to find an escape route, many of them taking baton strikes to the head. "Christ, this is hard to watch."

"How bad is it?"

"They're getting the shit kicked out of them. What do you think?"

"They aren't shooting bean bag rounds into the crowd, are they?"

"Not yet, but it looks like that's on the table..." Helga could be heard hemming and hawing behind her sniper rifle scope. "Oof. More than likely. Almost inevitable at this point. This isn't a march anymore; it's a riot in progress."

"We should get moving here, Helga," Jason said, scanning the crowd as best as he could, making sure he wasn't leading them into the middle of something he couldn't get them out of. "Our six clear for exit?"

"You're set to move out," Helga said after glancing over in their direction. "The alleyway is clear if you go now, and I do mean now. Past ninety seconds and I can't guarantee anything."

"We're already moving," Layla replied, as she and Jason stepped out of the building and into the alley, turning to head towards the crowd. "We're just going to blend in and disappear among the protestors then make our way back to the hotel."

"Yeah, that's going to be tricky," Helga said. "My advice is hightail it in the other direction."

The crowd had grown dangerous, and the police had started grabbing people from the mass, yanking them past a barricade and clamping them down in plastic twist handcuffs. Smoke had bloomed in the air, and the shouting had grown wild, chanting getting drowned out by someone shouting for the crowd to disperse over loudspeakers.

That was when all hell broke loose.

The smoke, clattering of batons against bare flesh and increasingly claustrophobic walls of cop bodies caused people up front to swell and surge, breaking through the lines like a violent eruption of human flesh, a handful of people sprinting out and running in any which way they could get, as Jason and Layla were trying to push towards the back of the crowd, using it as a cover for their exit, but there were protestors shoving in all directions and movement proved difficult. Large groups of women were attempting to form human bubbles around their men, but there were also singular men who were trying to sprint and flee from the scene, abandoning their women behind them, as they scurried off like cockroaches, desperate to get safe from the skirmishes.

"Jesus, Allegra, are you seeing this?" Helga said over the coms. "They're fucking firing into the crowd! We lost over a billion men, and these fucking pigs think it's fine if a few more get squashed along the way in the name of 'law & order.' I swear, I'm gonna--"

"Stand down," Allegra said, trying to keep her voice ice cold. "What you're going to do is stand down, at least until you see a direct threat to our people."

"But boss--"

"That's an order, Helga," Allegra said. Helga was generally good under fire, but the Swedish woman had a bad history when it came to large-scale crowds. "We knew this shit was coming, and we've always been planning on using it for cover."

"Boss, they're just beating the crap out of folks! Ordinary folks!"

"Let. It. Happen."

"... yes boss."

As Jason and Layla were sprinting towards the back portion of the crowd, someone knocked down one of the lightpole carts, causing it to collapse into the mass of people, loads of shrieks and yells from those getting caught underneath it. "Move!" Jason shouted as they darted in the other direction, trying to get out from the throngs of smooshed together people.

The two of them reached the edge of the cordoned off area and Jason jumped over the waist-high fencing first before helping Layla over the metal bars. Once Layla was on her feet, however, a baton swung at the back of Jason's head, knocking him down to the ground.

"Go!" Jason shouted at his partner as four women surrounded him, starting to batter him beneath them with their batons, the sounds of their sticks colliding with his flesh carrying a sickening wet thunks, the sticks biting into his skin as he tried to deflect them with his arms. "I'll catch up!"

Layla felt the panic of the crowd starting to infect her, and as much as it hurt her, she had to have faith that the cops weren't going to get too out of hand, because if Jason was hurt too far, they would have trouble carting him away. He was the center for all of them, even if he wasn't in charge. And while Allegra was the team's leader, Jason's was the Team's core, the male they were all imprinted on, and they needed him to keep their systems going. She hated to leave him behind, but if she was the one carrying the goods, and if she got stopped, there was every chance the gig would be blown.

So, she did what she'd been told to do.

Layla ran.

The small, slender woman began sprinting towards Allegra's position as quickly as she could and before she knew it, she saw a cop leaping out to hop in front of her, when she heard a crack cut through the air behind her, as shot rung out and the cop collapsed, clutching near her shoulder.

"Helga?" Layla said.

"She's dinged, not down," Helga said, reloading her rifle in case she needed to fire again. She'd put a round through the cop's upper right bicep, but off enough to the side that the damage wouldn't be irreparable. "We said no hats on the ground, and I kept my word. Go! Keep fucking moving! Move move move!"

Layla sprinted and made a clean break out of the park and towards the hotel. "I'm clear, Helga, now get out of there!"

"Negative," Allegra said, unable to see them from her position, buildings obstructing her view. "Hold position and check on Jason. I need a sitrep. Is our man okay?"

"He's beaten up pretty good, but he looks like it wasn't anything too serious. They're hauling him off to the paddywagon right now, and he just flashed me a thumbs up, so I guess he can still hear us, but can't talk. Don't worry, Jason, I'll connect with Kelly and we'll intercept you en route and get you out."

"Already outside your building with the van, Helga," Kelly said.

"Good," Allegra said. "Yes. Move on that now. Make your way to getting Jason loose before they get him anywhere near a fingerprinting, got it?"

"On it, boss." Helga started breaking down her rifle immediately, ready to ditch her nest and make her way towards the paddywagon where she could get Jason loose. The sniper wasn't the best at extractions, but the team had been working together long enough that she knew Jason would help walk her through it if he had to.

Layla walked into the hotel lobby and headed straight for the elevator. "I'm headed to you now, boss. Go on and text the buyer, tell them to meet us in the suite." She sprinted towards the elevator and managed to catch one just starting to go up.

Allegra stepped off the balcony and into the main suite, closing the door behind her, as she texted the buyer, giving them her room number, knowing they would be waiting in the lobby and would be just a minute or so behind Layla.

She turned on the television and turned the volume down, as the reporter was covering the riot at the mall, the woman's voice detailing how a simple protest against the soon-to-be voted upon legislation known as the Enhanced Men's Defense Act, a more in-depth version of the Men's Protection Act passed earlier in the year, had gotten incredibly out of hand. Early estimates were reporting more than fifty men with injuries, and over four hundred women with at least minor to serious wounds.

"The protest had started peacefully enough, but very quickly, the police response seemed to escalate, and while we were unable to see what sparked the violence from our position several hundred yards away, as soon as the first signs of the crowd turning violent were apparent, law enforcement acted quickly, deploying tear gas and firing bean bag rounds into the crowd, in an attempt to get them to disperse," the reporter said. "While there have been no fatalities reported, the optics are not great for an administration already trying to save face from similar protests that have been sparking up around the country for the past few weeks."

Layla opened the door and slipped into the suite, making her way over to the table, taking the box out from her satchel and placing it on top of the expensive wood. "This thing's really worth fifty million dollars, boss? I had a look inside. It looks like an overgrown laser pointer if you ask me."

"I told you not to look inside of the box, Layla," Allegra said, scoldingly, just before a knock came at the door. "It's open."

The door opened and two very small Arabic looking women entered the room, one of them carrying a briefcase handcuffed to her wrist, both in hijabs and abayas. "You have the item?" the one without the suitcase said to Allegra, as Layla moved to the bedroom, flopping down on top of it with all the theatricality of someone half her age.

Allegra placed her hand on top of the box and tapped it. "You have the money?"

The woman carrying the briefcase set it down and hit the two clasps to unlock it, lifting the top open, spinning it to show the bearer bonds contained within. "Let us do this and quickly," the woman in charge said as the woman with her wrist bound unlocked the handcuffs to let it slide off of her.

Allegra pushed the box across the table before grabbing the suitcase, pulling it towards her, wanting to be sure there were bonds all the way down and that it wasn't just one or two on top, as the woman who had the suitcase cuffed to her stood up and walked past her and into the bedroom. "Looks like it's all here," Allegra confirmed before she felt a sharp quick stabbing pain in her neck and felt her arms and legs go limp immediately, the woman from the bedroom laying Allegra's head down on top of the table, while the other woman moved to the door, opening it.

"You can come in, sir," the woman said to someone in the hallway.

Allegra could feel her body starting to shut down, unsure what she'd been injected with. "We... we did your job," she sputtered. "As asked."

A man appearing to be in his late sixties stepped into the room, a soft smile upon his face. "Yes, I'm sure you did, dear," he said to her, "but this is the sort of thing where we cannot simply leave traces of our work behind. It's all going to look like a double-cross, that your partners Jason, Helga and Kelly decided they didn't want to share whatever it was you were being paid to steal our little item here, and they decided to remove you from the equation. Of course, we're already dealing with that end of the equation, and by the time anyone finds you, both you and Layla will be dead, and your partners will already be at the bottom of a building's foundation, buried beneath concrete. Or maybe just stuffed in oil drums and dumped into the ocean." He sniffed a little bit. "I try not to get too caught up in the personal details of such things. I have people who handle that for me. Loose ends need to be tied up."

Allegra was doing her best to slow her heart down, trying to calm herself as much as she could, hoping that this person, whoever he was, didn't know enough about how good the resistance to poisons and toxins some people had ended up with as a result of the Quaranteam serum. She'd had to work very hard on the nights she wanted to get drunk, and hoped that maybe the man would simply leave her in this state, and she might be able to call for help once he was gone.

The man picked up the box with a smile. "This little item wasn't safe in the hands of our Italian friends, anyway. I don't know that it's safe in anyone's hands, really, but it will certainly do the most good in mine. I have to rebuild my financial empire somehow, and while blackmail and extortion is so last century, sometimes we have to rely on the old ways to get us through things." He leaned down and whispered into her ear. "You're lucky your man Jason wasn't here, otherwise I might have tested this on him. No matter. I'll have my test soon enough. Goodbye, madam, and thank you for handling my dirty work."

A woman stepped into the doorway from the hall. "The team to extract you from the country is ready, Mr. Covington," she said to him.

"Excellent. Ta ta," Covington said as he moved out into the hallway.

One woman picked up the box while the other took the suitcase from Allegra and closed it up before bringing it with her, closing the door behind them, leaving Allegra alone in the suite. Slowly dying and almost completely helpless. Almost. She was able to turn her head and saw Layla's body on her back, having clearly also been injected.

"Helga, Kelly, do you copy?" The line remained dead.

'Fuck it, I'll do it myself,' the woman thought.

"Get up," Allegra growled at herself. "Adrenaline in the kit in the bathroom. Get it, inject yourself, inject Layla, get your fucking Team to safety." She wasn't sure she believed the words she was saying, but putting them into the air at least gave her a a little bit of agency and motivation, as she suddenly got a sharp burst of energy and lifted one hand up onto the table.

"Are... are we dead?" Layla's weak voice said from the bedroom.

"Not if I have anything to fucking say about it," Allegra snarled. "Hang in there."

It was an agonizing two minutes to get herself off the chair and into the bathroom, but she realized she couldn't give herself the shot, so she crawled up and onto the bed, shoved up Layla's shirt, even as she looked down at her partner, who was starting to turn blue. With her last bit of strength, Allegra lifted the syringe and jammed it down at Layla's heart, slumping on the plunger.

...

...

...

Layla sat bolt upright with a sudden gasp, her mind snapped back to focus. She was alive, but she didn't have time to even think about that as she moved to flip Allegra over onto her back on the bed, scurrying into the bathroom to grab the second of the five adrenaline shots. She lifted Allegra's shirt before slamming the needle into her chest, injecting her with the liquid, praying she'd been quick enough to keep her friend and teammate alive.

The seconds of no reaction seemed agonizingly long to Layla, but eventually Allegra sat up and gasped for air, laughing and crying all at once.

"What the fuck was that?" Layla said.

"I dunno, but we gotta go get our fucking people to safety, and then I'm going to kill that motherfucker, Covington."

Layla grinned a bit. "Then I got one bit of good news for you, boss." She reached beneath her shirt and from a pocket strapped to the underside of her shirt, she pulled out a small cylindrical metal device that Allegra did have to agree looked like an overgrown laser pointer. "I grabbed the contents of both boxes. That asshole may have the Finger of Hades, but we've got the Love of Persephone, whatever the hell that is, and I bet we can use it to trade for info on how we get this shit-for-brains who dared to fuck with us."

Allegra grinned at her younger partner then leaned forward to kiss her. "I've never been so happy you didn't listen to me in all my life," she said.

In her ear, the comms crackled to life once more, whatever jammer Covington had been using no longer shutting them out. "That you, boss?" Helga said. "Me and Kelly are just getting ready to spring Jason..."

"Watch your six extra hard, Helga. We just got jumped by the clients."

"You okay?"

"No, I'm not," Allegra said as she moved to slump back down in the chair she'd almost died in moments ago. "I'm pissed."