Special Agent | ✓

Three

(a/n: here's tomorrow's update early because i will be going to milan over the day and will therefore not have any opportunity to update :))

THREE

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"From Paris? What the hell do you mean, the emergency alert came from Paris? You must be bloody insane to think it's plausible. Her assignment's in bloody Shanghai. I sure hope you took basic geography."

Quinn stared blindly at the red-faced co-chief of operations seated across from her.

"Are you listening to me, O'Reilly? This is goddamn treason, and pure bullshit. Special Agent Kent wouldn't go missing like that." He snapped his fingers, saliva spewing from his lips as he started shouting again, " — where the bloody fuck is she?"

"I — " started Quinn, but felt the words choking in her throat before they could surface. Co-chief of operations, one Mr. Havas, was a large ex-military man who made her cower in her chair. He was positively fuming, convinced they ought to toss her into the dungeons at the earliest possible convenience.

Roughly half an hour after she'd reported Kent's emergency alert, Agency drones had showed up and dragged her to the HQ's basement. More precisely, Chief Havas' office. She'd remained in his office, uncomfortably seated in a plastic chair, for almost the entirety of the early morning. Whatever explanations she'd managed to conjure fell on deaf ears.

"Speak, woman, or I'll make you." His eyes turned hard, " — did they offer you something in exchange for outing Kent? Money? Protection? Power?"

"No, I — " Quinn felt small. Very, very small.

Havas had rounded her chair by now, digging harsh hands into her shoulders as he leaned down to hiss straight into her ear.

"You bloody well won't lie to me. I throw you in the Thames, no one would even notice. Now, why did you sell out Kent — and to whom?"

"Hands off O'Reilly, Havas," barked a commanding voice. The door had been violently shoved open, a figure confidently striding inside the cramped office. Her eyes were slits, sharp daggers pointed in Havas' direction. He backed off slightly, hands rising from Quinn's shoulders. The tense muscles eased, a dull pain spearing through her shoulder as a result of his strained grip.

The new voice which had entered the fray was the chief of intelligence (and Quinn's boss), one Chief Adina Tibble. Despite the ungodly morning hour, her hair was pulled into a sleek bun, stylish silver earrings dangling from her ears. Minimal jewelry glinted at her wrists and chest, while the woman herself modeled a shifting grey dress straight out of the Burberry catalogue.

With forceful steps, she crossed the room straight to Quinn. Adina's hands touched O'Reilly's shoulders lightly, a careful squeeze telling her she was in safer hands. Adina Tibble was a force to be reckoned with within the agency, and one any senior officer wouldn't dare cross. She liked to remind her analysts that she took care of her own, and wasn't afraid to go head to head with the chiefs of the agent department.

- which was exactly what was happening at the moment.

Adina especially disliked those who chose to disrespect her employees, and downright loathed those who dared go after her protégees — of whom Quinn was one.

"Need me to call HR down here to make you stop harassing my people?" Tibble raised a brow, to which Havas scowled.

"She won't speak."

"Probably because you're shouting up all the air in the damn room, Jonathan." Adina scoffed, kneading Quinn's shoulders carefully, " — maybe you'd care to repeat what you said, I'm not quite sure Eastern Siberia heard properly."