PROLOGUE

SIX YEARS AGO     

     Everett Dawson stood outside the abandoned house at a quarter till midnight, the freezing air stinging her face and whipping at her hair.  But despite the cold, her palms were still slick with sweat that just kept reappearing no matter how many times she wiped them.  Cisco Martinez should have arrived ten minutes ago, but Everett expected him to be late.  It was a small, single-story house in the middle of Russia.  It wasn't exactly easy to locate.

     But if Everett knew what to expect, then why was her heart going this fast?  Why wasn't she calm and collected?  This was not how Everett had been trained to think.  She focused all her energy on hardening her stormy gray eyes, on removing all traces of fear from her face.  There would be time for that later.

     After another five minutes of waiting, a small BMW pulled up on the side of the poorly paved road.  Cisco Martinez slid out of the car, and Everett forced a smile onto her lips.  She didn't doubt that it looked convincing.  She knew it did.

     "Officer Martinez!"  She exclaimed, sticking out her hand to him once he was close enough.  Everett pretended not to notice the large, black rifle swinging from his right hip.  "So nice of you to agree to meet me."

     "You can drop the act, Ms. Lin," he said, resigned.  Everett felt a surge of relief.  The police still didn't know her real name.  This would simplify things.

     "Ah, well," she shrugged, pulling the old, wood door open for him.  It nearly swung off its hinges.  "Ladies first."

     He chose to ignore the slight against his basic, almost primitive masculinity and stepped inside the old house.  The entryway had a certain sadness that lingered around it, no matter how bright it was outside.  The disappointing lack of sun at twelve in the morning didn't do the small, monotonous space any favors.  Martinez looked around, unimpressed, as Everett followed him into the mudroom.  "I have a feeling this may take a while.  Do you have a place to sit?"  He asked once she was inside, looking her up and down.  Sizing her up.  

     Everett knew she didn't look like much.  Short blonde hair, thin arms, and barely hitting five feet tall.  But she didn't break eye contact with him as he looked at her.  So what if she wasn't strong?  She had always preferred guns to brute force, anyway.

     "I do," She told Martinez and led him into a dejected-looking dining room.  It looked even gloomier than the entryway, with peeling black paint covering the walls and white linoleum flooring.  No wonder nobody lived there.  There was also a small, green table in the center of the room, surrounded by five red chairs.  It looked like a goddamn Christmas holiday special.  But Martinez didn't seem to notice or care.  He just kicked out a chair and sat down heavily.  "Sit down, Ms. Lin."

     Everett perched herself on the edge of the table.  The police officer across from her sat in silence for a moment, then said, "Please hand over all of your weapons, Ms. Lin."

     Everett nonchalantly pulled a knife out of the side pocket of her simple white dress and gave it to him.  Martinez raised a bushy, dark eyebrow at her.  "Is that really all?"

     She reached back into the same pocket and closed her fingers around a grenade, then extended it towards him.

     Cisco Martinez flinched so badly he nearly fell out of his chair.  "Mierda, mujer- why the hell are you carrying a grenade around?  Are you crazy?  What the f-"

     Everett sat there patiently, fighting to keep the smile off of her face.  The grenade had been dead for years.  A child could use it as a baseball if it wanted to.  And sure, Everett had a mission to accomplish while Officer Marinez was in the vicinity.  That didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun with him first, though.

     After a few seconds of sputtering, Martinez set it down tentatively on the counter between them.  "That stays there, Lin.  Are we clear?"

     "Absolutely," She reassured him.  He cleared his throat.

     "Enough games.  Why did you send the police your location?  You've eluded capture for months, and out of the blue, we get a message telling us exactly where you are and who to send?"

     "An accident," She told him, looking at her nails in a bored sort of way.  "There was another twenty-seven-year-old Cisco Jose Lopez Martinez in Russia I wanted to see."  Everett met his eyes, which were a dark shade of amber.  "It's because I wanted to meet you, douche."

     "And why is that?"  He snapped.  Martinez hated being treated like a fool.  Everett knew that.  And that was why she intended to make him feel as dumb as possible.

     Everett had her own reasons for inviting him there, but none that she intended to share with him.  Either way, unless Martinez was the most oblivious person on the planet, her reason would become apparent in... roughly eleven seconds.  

     "You know what? I don't care.  I've had enough," He said after she was silent for a moment.  "Delilah Lin, you are officially under arrest.  You have the right to remain silent-"

     That was when all hell broke loose.

     There was a shattering of glass in the corner of the room, where a slight Russian girl wearing a freakish gas mask had purposefully shattered a green vial on the ground.  Everett had anticipated that Kira Razova would attempt to assassinate her that night, and she was ready for the lethal dosage of poison that had come leaking out of the destroyed jar.  Everett kicked Martinez in the chest, causing him to stumble away from the table, then proceeded to reach underneath and yank down a gas mask she had stapled to the bottom earlier that week.  After strapping it hastily over her face, Everett reached out and grabbed Martinez's arm.  The look of confusion quickly turned to terror when he realized what she was about to do.  

     Only a few seconds after Razova had smashed the bottle, a silver throwing knife came from the opposite side of the room.  It was set to hit Everett directly between the eyes, but she pulled Martinez in front of her, effectively using him as a human shield.  Her forehead was level with the bottom of his shoulder blades, so the knife hit him just to the left of his heart.  A disappointing result, but at least Everett now had an exceptional knife.  Martinez screamed and sputtered at the same time as she reached around, yanked the knife out of his chest, and drove it into the nape of his neck.  Everett lifted her eyes just in time to see Kira Razova, the Russian girl with the poison, fleeing the scene, and craned her neck the other way in an attempt to spot her well-aimed assailant.  

     The person she saw was a tall young woman, her hand still outstretched from the knife she had lodged into Cisco Martinez's chest.  Her eyes, which Everett could see over the gas mask she had on, were a cold, foggy blue, and they didn't widen in surprise like Everett had expected them to when she failed to hit her target.  Instead, the woman gave her a cool, frosty glare and reached for her next knife, which was strapped inside of her long black coat.  

     Cisco Martinez was on the floor, and he didn't seem to be going anywhere.  Everett felt a brief rush of satisfaction that evaporated when the young woman pulled her knife out of the sewn-in pocket, and she dropped to the ground just in time.  The knife missed her head by less than an inch, and Everett didn't stop to take a breath.  She pulled the jaded but sturdy dagger out of the top of Martinez's back, and he groaned and stopped moving.

     Everett had never liked knives.  She was more of a, "Shoot them while their backs are turned!" type of person.  But this one would do perfectly.  Fingering the metal hilt in her hand, Everett slowly stood up to face her adversary.   

     The woman still had a knife, but she seemed warier, more cautious now that Everett had one in her left hand.  The woman walked up to her, stopping once she was a good five meters away or so, and to Everett's surprise, she spoke.

     "I've called off the police," The woman said.  Her voice was clear and careful, with only a slight edge of resentment.  More than Everett herself could have managed.

     "Nice of you," She said through gritted teeth.  The woman would not stop causing trouble.  The police were supposed to come, and Everett was supposed to slip away, unnoticed, as the cops and the two assassins killed each other off.  Ah, well.  At least there was no one there to revive Cisco Martinez.

     "It's good to finally meet you, Everett," The woman continued.  Everett stopped dead.  

     "It's Delilah Lin," She growled, and the woman laughed.

     "Oh, so we're using our fake names?  Sure, Delilah.  I'm Tally Prentiss, in that case.  By the way, I've never been to New York.  What's it like there?"

     Everett backed up into the table and sent her knife scattering across the chipped green wood, instead reaching for the grenade.  It was the woman's turn to freeze.

     "Stay back, or I will explode both of our asses.  You know I will."  Her voice betrayed her.  It shook.

     Everett backed up even further until her back hit the wall.  The woman didn't even dare to breathe.

     She fumbled for the doorknob, letting out a slight sigh when it turned without sticking as it so often did.  "See you around," she called back to the woman, "Eureus."

Oh ok, so click edit doc and click on about at the top then click on share doc. It will say Page-specific sharing. Click Public then at the top, there is a link. Copy that then posts it. u have to make sure that the doc is public