3

5

lily

We arrived at our boss's office.

“You alright, boss?”

“I was wondering when you two would show up,” he remarked, folding his arms, his eyes darting upwards, as he watched us both walk into the room.

He put his paperwork to the side, taking steps closer to us.

“You're late.”

Me and Zayn began scratching our arms awkwardly, knowing that we didn't have an excuse for not being punctual.

We were secret agents...

We always had to be available whenever it was required of us.

“Sorry, we lost track of time,” Zayn apologized quickly, running his hands through his hair stressfully.

Boss shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to waste any more time.

“It better not happen again,” he muttered briefly, before cutting to the chase. “Anyway, there's been some mass murders in Manhattan lately. I'll need you two to investigate these, and do what you can to find out who was behind them.”

“Fuck,” Zayn heaved. “Is there a pattern between them?”

“It's fucking brutal,” Rafael admitted exhaustedly, tapping down against the whiteboard to indicate his case notes. “It seems that a serial killer is on the loose. He kidnaps the girls, rapes them and then tortures them to death.”

I jolted backwards, mortified at this revelation.

“What a bastard,” Zayn gritted through clenched teeth, balling his hands into fists, his veins pulsating their way to the surface of his skin alarmingly as his blood began to boil.

“Yeah, so as you can see, we need to get to the bottom of this and arrest this prick fast.”

I bolted out of the room, with tears streaming down my face, not wanting to hear anymore.

Not wanting to hear things that would bring back the trauma that I'd tried so hard to shut away.

My own experiences...

And I was always reminded of them whenever shit like this happened, no matter how hard I tried to shut it away.

6

zayn

As I watched Lily bolt out of the room, I could feel my heart shatter into millions of tiny pieces.

Knowing how hard this must have been for her to hear...

Especially after the nightmare she'd had this morning.

It killed me that no matter how hard I tried, I knew that there would be nothing I would be able to do to make her feel better.

All I could do was be there for her...

But I knew that wasn't enough to erase all of the bad shit that had happened to her in the past before she met me.

Before she had me in her life.

“What's wrong with Lily?” Rafael asked, jolting backwards, stunned at the fact that Lily had ran out of the room.

I drew out a deep breath that I didn't know I was holding, my chest heaving upwards and downwards.

“Rape is a really sensitive topic for her, Boss,” I swallowed. “It hits really close to home.”

I trailed off my sentence, knowing that it wasn't my place to tell the boss Lily's story.

It was something that she needed to do herself.

“Please don't make her do this case, it'll kill her,” I found myself saying, trembling. “She'll drive herself mad.”

Rafael stared at me for a long moment with a confused expression on his face, wondering what could possibly have happened to Lily, and how she could have hidden something so important from him that he hadn't been able to find in a background search.

Lily had been through so much in her life...

And she'd made it out stronger.

“I see,” he said finally, giving me a sympathetic nod. “I understand that it might be difficult for her...”

I could sense a but coming.

“But you two are my best agents, I can't have you both backing out whenever you see something that upsets you,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You knew what the job entailed when you took it up. You have to have thick skin, you have to be able to withstand all the shit that we see on a daily basis. You can't let it get to you, it's just the circle of fucking life.”

He trailed off his sentence, folding his arms sternly.

“We're the FBI, we have lives to save, people are depending on us.”

I drew out a deep breath.

Rafael was insensitive as fuck...

But he was right.

Me and Lily knew what we signed up for when we took the job.

It was too late to back out now.