Phoenix Fire (Book 2 in the Winter's Series)

Chapter Fourteen: Reminiscence

"I was assigned to you for a high profile assassination. Usually I could do these kind of missions on my own, but this one was different because SHIELD was involved. I talked to you over an earpiece and you seemed to have a mission you were already on because you were short and gruff with me." I recant watching him carefully for any signs of recognition.

"Go on." He says prompting me to continue.

"I was in route to Las Vegas when I was struck down by a bolt of lightning. Because of the shock my body was under I fell from the sky and crashed in the desert. It was a military controlled zone code named "The Kill Zone." Supposedly if you were caught up in the radar range you were shot down or if you trespassed you were shot; however, I was only shortly detained. I pretended to be a skydiver who landed and had gotten lost. While it seemed to work for a short time, a man in spandex kept questioning me. He could see through my lies and I have a feeling he knew then that I was a HYDRA agent. I was in coms with you at the time, I was trying to let you know that I had crashed and was in a small situation."

"It sounds familiar but I can't quite pin it down." He says as he concentrates on chasing the memory.

"I knew that they wouldn't let me go so I fought my way out of the situation and flew into Las Vegas. You grabbed me and pulled me into an alley. You told me there were SHIELD agents in the hotel we were to stay at. I had informed you that I had met two in the desert but if I didn't talk and changed my appearance a little that they wouldn't recognize me. Do you remember that?"

"Not really but something tells me that it happened. "

"You led me into the hotel and got our key. In our room you helped pull the bullet out and you got me shoes for the party that night. You helped zip up my dress, you were kind. You said that when you were away from HYDRA for some time you mellow out. We met someone named Tony in the elevator on the way to the party but we didn't get off with him. We rode the elevator back up and down again. You said you didn't think you could forget the ghost of someone you killed. And I, of course, made some witty remark."

"I think, I do remember that. You wore a black halter dress and you wore contacts for your eyes. We danced at the party, and then you danced with someone else while I stole away the target. I took her to the room upstairs and I was about to kill her when she stopped me. I can't remember anything after that."

"Yeah I did wear the black dress. It was highly uncomfortable, but I digress. Our target had a chip embedded in her skin that would send out classified files if her heart stopped. So, we took it out of her and put it in me so that she couldn't release more information about HYDRA. However I had to stay behind because of the built in tracker. I thought I was going to die that night."

"I called Jesse, because I read in your file that he was a contact of your that specialized in encrypted data and technological advancements. He came and deactivated the chip but also relocated where the signal would ping for the GPS tracker. We got you out of there and you called in the hit."

"We went back to the hotel to pack up and head out but our room was ransacked by SHIELD agents."

"You told me to exit through the window and hold on to the windowsill. You flew us away from there and dropped me off. You winked at me..."

"You went to Siberia and I went to Chicago. I was labeled a traitor and tortured. I was sentenced to die because when I fell into the kill zone, the shield agents alerted the target we were hunting and she fed them locations of our bases."

"I had no idea."

"SHIELD bombed the base and I ran but was caught by Steve and Natasha. I was taken to SHIELD HQ and you were sent after me."