Underneath It All

Part 6

"There is no misunderstanding Mr. Hunt. You are simply a liar." The man stood and walked around the desk. His gun was trained on Andi, and neither adult dared move a muscle.

"What do you want." Ilsa asked harshly.

The man grinned evily, "You'll find out."

And with that Ilsa and Ethan felt a slight pain in their neck and as and as much as they fought, darkness overtook them.

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Ethan woke with his hands handcuffed to the wall behind him, and his feet tethered as well. A further look at Ilsa found that she was just coming out of whatever they had been given. Andi was nowhere in sight, but Luther was on the other side of Ilsa. Ethan didn't see Benji.

A groan from Ilsa made him turn and try to reach her, but he could only move a foot or two in either direction. 

"You guys ok?" Luther's voice was clear, as if he hadn't been given the drug or had been awake for longer. 

"I'm good," Ethan said, "A little stiff but alright otherwise. Ilsa?"

She just nodded with her eyes closed. The sedative must have hit her harder than it had hit Ethan, because he only had a slight pain in the back of his skull. 

"We have to get out of here," He told the others, but before either of them could respond a door opened.

In walked Andi. 

Now Ethan was a trained agent, and so were the other two, but this was something he had never seen coming. She had been easy to trust, and he had fallen right into the trap. Ethan was well aware that his mouth had fallen open, and he was pretty sure that Luther was in a similar state. 

She kept walking to the table positioned on the far side of the room, right against the wall. She was carrying a briefcase kind of thing and set it down on the table, opening it and pulling out a variety of tools. She was wearing different clothes than the ones she had worn the last time Ethan had seen her; a black and white striped skirt and a yellow shirt. Ethan was at the wrong angle to see what the tools were, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it. 

She walked over to where Ethan was chained and knelt down. Her knees cracked and she reached for Ethan's wrist and placed two fingers on his main arteries. She seemed to be concentrating.

"What the hell?" 

Luther seemed to have snapped out of whatever trance he had been in since Andi had arrived in the room. Ethan just looked up at the girl, now letting go of his wrist and moving to check Ilsa's pulse. She jerked away, kicking Andi in the neck and managing to pin the girl with her foot, slowly applying pressure to her throat. Andi grasped at Ilsa's feet and struggled. Her eyes bulging. 

"Ilsa!" Ethan called to her, "Let her go."

"Why should I?" She asked with a tone Ethan had never heard in her voice before, "She lied to us, got us captured, and god knows what else? You should be happy I've got the chance to kill her."

"She's just a kid," Luther said. Ilsa refused to look at him, but Ethan saw she didn't apply any more pressure. 

"Ilsa."

Ilsa released Andi quickly, as if she was afraid that she didn't release her quickly she wouldn't. Andi got up and pushed herself backwards away from Ilsa, clutching at her throat and gasping for breath. She eventually regained her ability to breath normally and glared at Ilsa, a little fear mixed into her expression. Ethan saw Ilsa shake her head once and blink her eyes a few times in a row.

"Ilsa, you alright?" The concern in his voice was obvious and Ethan knew it, but at that moment he really didn't care.

Andi looked at Ilsa once more with a frown and walked back over to the table. She came back with a syringe full of an odd purple liquid. She crouched down a few feet out of Ilsa's reach.

"You gonna try to kill me again?" Ilsa looked up but didn't say anything. Andi raised an eyebrow and Ilsa gave the smallest jut of her chin. Andi nodded and came closer, pulling aside Ilsa's now down hair and inserting the needle into her neck. She pressed down the plunger slowly and carefully pulled out the needle. Andi stayed crouched down looked into Ilsa's eyes, then checked her pulse. She nodded once, satisfied with whatever she had done, and walked back to the table, setting the now empty needle away from the rest of the items.

Ethan was confused, "What was that?"

"You should be grateful, I just saved her from a very long and painful death." She continued to do something on the table. 

"What are you talking about?" But Andi never had a chance to answer, for at that time the door opened, and a very bruised and bleeding Benji was dragged into the room. Behind him, was Cole Lahakis.

Benji was thrown face first onto the floor, and Ethan heard a small groan from him. The other three agents protested heavily as Benji's head was jerked back sharply. Cole silenced them by a knife carefully playing with Benji's throat. 

"If you would like your friend to live," He told them with a sly smile, "You will tell me where the file is that you stole. Now speak." His accent was heavy, and Ethan thought he could hear some German.

Ethan was confused. The file had been stolen by Andi, not by them. And he had thought the men who took the file from her were Cole's men. Not a separate organization. Cole raised his eyebrows.

"No? Okay then" He stabbed Benji in the shoulder and twisted the knife a few times. Benji managed to hold off screaming when he was stabbed, but as the knife was twisted he let out a cry. Cole then grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head against the table a few times, Andi was perfectly still while staring at the scene in front of her, back against the wall.

Cole dropped Benji (now unconscious) next to Ethan, and he stirred a bit but did not open his eyes. Then Cole dropped himself down and got right into Ethan's face.

"I know that you know something," His voice was a low whisper so that only Ethan could hear, "And if you don't decide to tell me, then I might just have to get a hand on your pretty little girlfriend over there." With that he stood and pulled the door closed behind him. 

In a second Andi was over to Benji with a medical kit. She started to clean the wound above his eyebrow, and he woke up then, hissing in pain. He tried to sit up, but she gently pushed him back down. 

The presence of Andi did not seem to register on Benji for a moment, but he soon made the connection as he saw his other teammates chained to the wall. He didn't say anything though, just allowed himself to be patched up. When Andi was done she stood and walked back over to the table with the medical kit. Ethan watched her movements. Calculated but nervous, swift but lingering. Ethan turned his gaze to each corner of the room, and could just make out a camera in the farthest corner.

They were being watched. 

Ethan debated what to say to her, knowing the life of everyone in the room hung in the balance.

"Why are you doing this?" She turned to look at him. 

"You above anyone should understand Ethan." He had no idea what she meant. And then lower, "Sometimes you don't have a choice."

Ilsa's eyes narrowed. "You always have a choice."

"Some things aren't so black and white Ms. Faust." It could have been a trick of the light, but Ethan swore her gaze flicked from Ilsa to him.