Home is not a Place

53• Home is Not a Place

TONY

When Jerome informs the team of Vanessa's awaited mental health assessment, I'm not the only one excited. In fact, the whole team seems psyched about putting her in the hot seat for once.

This is going to be fun.

We invited her to our apartment, and she's ten minutes late. Ajax and Felix are sifting through a file that Jerome gave us, and Drake and Ethan are sitting on the couch, chatting about the mission we had today.

The mission went amazing today, so we're all buzzed.

The mission was to find and take a flash drive that had incriminating evidence of an agent in the terrorism department. The CIA wanted it because they were being blackmailed and because they wanted to find out which of their agents has dirt.

Ajax took a bit to figure out where the flash drive ended up, but came to a conclusion and directed us toward the house of one of our own agents. It's a real mess for the CIA, but we weren't involved on solving the problem--only getting it.

The plan was simple. Ajax, Vanessa, and I were to remain in the vehicle while Felix, Drake, and Ethan infiltrated the CIA agent's house.

That's exactly how it went. Ajax cut the cameras, Felix unlocked the doors, and Drake made sure nothing went wrong under Ethan's lead.

We only had one problem, and it happened when Ethan walked into the master bedroom.

There was a damned dog.

"Freeze." He stopped in place, causing the others to halt as well. "Ajax, are you seeing this?"

Ajax pulled up the video camera in the house and cursed out loud. "Oh, shit. Shoot it."

"What?" Vanessa screeched, lurching toward Ajax's mic. "No, no. Don't shoot."

The dog was a huge German Sheppard, and as we discussed this, he pulled back his lips and growled at Ethan.

"Ajax, why didn't you see the fucking dog?" Ethan breathed.

"He must've been under the covers or in the darkness." Ajax cracked his knuckles beside us, his hazel eyes narrowing. "Sorry, man. Do you have a plan of attack?"

All of our minds were running with ideas, and nobody spoke theirs aloud. The only person who took action was Vanessa. She snatched up my burrito, which I protested about very loudly, and she exited the van, sprinting toward the building.

Out of the van doors, I watched her enter the building, not taking the time to shut the door behind her. I cursed and told Ajax to take the wheel if there was an emergency, and then I jumped out of the van and into the night.

I raced toward the building, reaching it quickly from where we parked alongside the street. I shut the door behind me and decided to see what Vanessa's brilliant plan was.

I explored the house, ending up at the master bedroom. I peered inside, finding Vanessa in front of the dog, resting on her knees. She was handing over the burrito to the dog, cooing to it like it was her child.

I stood watching in bewilderment as the dog moved to her and started chewing on the burrito. The dog even let her pet it, and she did softly.

Ethan took advantage of her plan and glided over to the nightstand. He began shuffling through it, looking for the flash drive. Felix and Drake slowly followed his lead and sifted through the other pieces of furniture in the room cautiously.

"Found it." Drake told all of them after ten minutes of looking. I didn't pay attention to their search, honestly. My eyes were trained on Vanessa and the dog.