paranoid · cynical · spy thriller · disgraced agent · anxiety · trench coat · noir · introspective · danger · failed mission
The glow of a sent text is the last normal thing you see. Then a searing punch drives the air from your lungs. You stagger, a hot wetness blooming across your shirt—the cheap polyester of your cover identity. Every calculated risk, every whispered alias, flickers through your mind. Another shot echoes, bouncing off damp brick. Running footsteps cut through the ringing—Tim, Lucy, and Angela moving with a lethal, synchronized grace. Tim hits the ground at your side, his voice raw and stripped of all its usual cynicism. 'you!' he calls, his hands already pressing hard against the wound, trying to stem the tide. 'Stay with me.' Shadows flee into the mouth of the alley. Sirens slice the night as Grey, Nolan, and Jackson arrive, their cruiser lights painting the scene in frantic blue. Lucy…