The Legacy
Bulgerian Underground
by toni walker

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When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ethan was able to concentrate better on his surroundings. He peered around looking for an advantage, yet still trying to maintain the body language of a prisoner under sedation. Two hours ago he had figured out their little game and was only now becoming more level-headed.

To maintain his incoherent demeanor, Ethan mumbled and thrashed on the bed. To his captors, he appeared to be babbling. But in reality, he was anything but irrational. His sharp gaze sliced the night like a laser site. Two somber pin points scanning the room in methodical sections. He knew there was a weakness somewhere. All he had to do was find it, and take advantage of it.

For months he'd suspected something was going on with Octavia Kassoff. He wasn't like the men she usually went for. He had money, but not the kind of money she was use to. He had looks but not the movie star glitz. So Octavia falling head over heels for him had been a stretch from the beginning.

She stumbled into the bar that night then into his bed faster than he expected. Ethan wasn't falling for her act so easily. He had been trained by the best, his father. He had been trained to observe and that's exactly what he had done. He observed Octavia, usually when she didn't know he was there. He didn't have the further distraction of Michela to divert him, so he poured all his time and concentration into discovering Octavia Kassoff's secret. It wasn't so much her actions that made him suspect she was up to something. It was the things she didn't say. The things she didn't reveal that made him curious.

Ethan, along with the other senior Legacy agents, had heard rumors of an underground project called Paris. It's title had been whispered through Legacy halls for years. It was the type of rumor that popped up every so often making you wonder if it was real or just a bunch of office gossip to talk about at the water cooler.

The red flag on his inner radar had gone up yesterday. A simple mission. Too simple for an experienced operative like himself. Then when he'd seen Octavia, that had clinched it. It wasn't hard to see through her disguise. She'd used the old woman cover once before. That had been her first mistake. Gia had made the second one herself. Gia was the one who made him wear Boswell's new, experimental bullet proof vest. The question was, why? She wanted to make sure he came home alive. His mortality had never concerned her before. Why now? Why today? Could it have something to do with the rumored Paris project?

If he had to hazard a guess, Ethan suspected his captors were both Octavia and Gia. It all fit. When he'd been watching Octavia she'd met many times with Gia. That alone should have tipped him off. But at the time he only thought it was about Legacy business. Now he had to wonder if it was something more. Gia was unlike any operative he'd ever encountered before. She was cold, calculating, almost inhuman at times. Plus, she liked to do all her own dirty work. Enjoyed it even.

Ethan repositioned the thin see through filter he'd placed on his mouth two hours earlier. Its only objective was to purify the harmful gas he'd been inhaling. It too was another of Boswell's inventions. He had quite a few nifty gadgets in his utility belt thanks to Boswell. When he wore the strange belt around Faith, she called him Batman or the Dark Knight. And he had to agree the belt did seem rather cartoonish, but whatever worked, worked no matter how unusual it appeared.

He had suspected mercury poisoning soon after he'd entered the small room at the back of the monastery. He could see the light bulb smoking above his head and came to the only logical conclusion. At least, the only logical conclusion a spy with his experience could come to.

The other thing that made him suspect Gia was involved was the very bad elevator music that was being piped into his room. It nearly had caused him to go insane but thanks to Boswell and his life saving devices, Ethan had made it through yet another trial via Gia. The music was definitely tuned to a station he could live without. A station of nothing but Michela Forsythe reruns. God help him.

He tried to block out her endless screeching and thrashed on the bed some more holding his hands to his ears.

Whomever his captor was, they knew him very well. Well enough to know Michela was his one weakness, next to his family. As much as he hated Michela for being involved in his father's death some latent part of him still loved her. Still longed for her to be with him. Seeing her today brought the message home loud and clear. She could still affect him even without touching him. And that was something he wondered would ever change.

Rolling onto his side, Ethan turned away from the two-way mirror on the far wall. Systematicly, he dislocated his thumbs and released his hands from their bonds. He grimaced and his forehead beaded with sweat, but he didn't cry out in agony. He knew he had to restrain his emotions. He had to make them take him farther underground. And in Bulgaria, who knew how far that would be. Maybe even as far as the Paris project itself. Whoever was behind the project was linked to his father's death. His father had been working on discovering exactly what the project was before he died. Franklin Fairchild didn't know that his son had accidentally discovered the secret mission he'd assigned himself to. All he could do now was bring those bastards down -- in the name of revenge if nothing else.

Then it came, the way it always did when she sensed Ethan was in trouble -- a vision. She could see Ethan's body lying on a rumpled bed. He wasn't dead but he was only lying there comatose. Her view changed and the light overhead nearly blinded her. An unusual sensation for a vision. Something around the light was fogging the air obscuring her vision. So she couldn't see Ethan nearly as clearly as before, but she did see a blonde woman standing over him. This woman was nearly six feet tall wearing some sort of tight black cat suit. Her face, albeit beautiful, was marred with anger making her appear very ugly.

The blonde woman spoke using a blended Russian/American accent. She was clearly angry at Ethan. Somehow the two must know one another, Michela thought as the vision continued.

"You have to pay," the woman mouthed softly but her meaning was apparent. She hated the man who lie before her.

"*I* have to pay," Ethan joked. Even in the midst of danger, Ethan always managed to find the humor in a situation. He was very much like his brother, Kevin in that way. Then there were other times when he found no humor at all. Those times would all relate to her, Michela knew.

"I have to pay?" he asked again. "Shouldn't that be *my* line? You're the one who kidnapped me, remember?"

The woman let out a howling moan and lunged for Ethan's throat. As she watched, the woman strangled Ethan while at the same time putting weight on his injured shoulder making sure he couldn't fight back. He somehow managed to free himself and landed a punch that connected with the woman's jaw sending her reeling across the room. He massaged his shoulder as he sat up on the bed.

"Stop trying to convince me you're going to kill me," he said plainly. "We both know you won't."

"What makes you so certain," the blonde asked finally standing using the wall as support.

"Because when you shoot someone you aim to kill. I've never known you to miss. You could have killed me today. Yet, you didn't. What I want to know is, why, and what it has to do with this Paris project my father was working on?"

"For a man who pretends not to pay attention, you know the facts very well."

"It's one of my many talents." Ethan smiled but there was no sparkle behind it. Only mistrust and wariness.

"Ah, humor. It's something you Americans seem to cherish. When we're through with you, you won't think it's so humorous. Funny, you won't think at all." The blonde woman laughed and pulled a tranquilizer gun from her belt. She shot an arrow at Ethan and as soon as it impaced his thigh, he toppled, flopping on the bed like a dead fish.

"Sweet dreams, my pet. Fore the next time we meet, we'll be evenly matched -- in mind and spirit."

Suddenly the vision was ripped away from Michela's grasp. "NO!" she cried. "I have to learn more! It isn't enough."

Michela found herself leaning against the hard oak door. Her face and shirt was drenched in sweat and her heart nearly pounded itself out of her chest. Damned visions. They were never enough. She did grasp one thing from her mindful journey. Ethan was in danger.

She turned to the door and used its strength to help herself from the hard wood floor. Turning the old antique knob, she found exactly what she expected on the other side. Nothing.

"Damn it!" she muttered then looked down on Kevin's sleeping form. "I have to find him. I'm not going to let this happen again. I've already lost his love. I'm not going to lose him as well." With that as her battle cry she stormed into the room searching for any possible clue.

Faith knew the timer on the bomb was set for twenty minutes, but she didn't reveal this fact to her new troublesome friends. It would only make them panic and now was not the time for that. Calmly, she led the way back to the front of the monastery. When they arrived at one particular intersection, they found it was now blocked by debris and rubble. Not one of them heard another bomb go off or any sort of loud kaboom, so how this came about was a mystery to them all. They had no time to unpuzzle this strange oddity. They had to find Kevin, Ethan and Michela. And they had to do it fast. before they all were small greasy spots under tons of holy rubble.

Scarlett, Phoenix and Faith split up to search for the "grown-up" contingent of their party. They had to be warned of the electronic device they'd discovered in the bowels of the monastery. Scarlett had agreed with slight hesitation to come in one direction while Faith and Phoenix took the other. They split up so that one of them might find Faith's brothers and warn them.

For a short while, Scarlett wondered why Phoenix trailed after Faith instead of sticking with her. She knew the answer before asking the question. Even though Phoenix acted like a childish boy in front of Faith, he secretly liked her spirit. Scarlett couldn't comprehend what it was that drew him to Faith but that was the male species for you. He had not confided in her about his affection for Faith, but Scarlett knew it to be true. It was one of those "twin things" that always happened to them. He thought it and she picked up on it. She was more sensitive to his thought processes than he was of hers. Maybe it was because she was female and the women of the world picked up sensations of the romantic variety well.

It was a long while before Scarlett weaved her way through the dark tunnels into an open area. She had turned so many corners and walked down so many hallways she could have been walking in circles and not known it. The room she eventually found herself in was well lit and vaguely familiar. Maybe it was the vaulted ceiling that gave her a feeling of deja vu. She didn't know why. Everything just seemed familiar.

To her left was a stone archway and as she passed through it she promptly tripped over some thing lying on the ground. The obstacle sent her sprawling across the floor. The barrier tripping her up was the sleeping form of none other than Kevin Fairchild. Within two seconds she found herself nose to nose with the handsome spy whose brother had gotten her into this mess in the first place. From this unique perspective, she found him quite breathtaking. Scarlett came to the conclusion that the sleeping man before her was as dreamy as any Hollywood movie star. She understood now that when she'd met Kevin earlier she hadn't had adequate time take in his full masculine presence. The effect was dizzying. She had to admit, he was definitely handsome.

"Wow," she muttered as she stared into Kevin's angular face. The one word exclamation sprang forth from her lips as if by a will of its own. Suddenly her attention was drawn to the location of her hand. She discovered it firmly planted on Kevin's stomach. Scarlett started to snatch her hand away from the firm wall of his muscle but in her nervousness he lost her balance and found her hand now splayed on his chest. Kevin didn't seem to sense the sudden impact of her hand. She watched as his chest moved up and down in a silent rhythm. The effect had scarlet mesmerized. She had never been so attracted to a boy before. Technically, Kevin wasn't a boy, far from it. He was one hundred percent man.

Kevin stirred slightly and rolled onto his side trapping Scarlett in his strong, muscular arms. She felt panicked yet was immensely enjoying the giddy sensation of being close to this dangerous spy. Kevin squeezed her more tightly to his chest as he stretched in sleep. Scarlett gulped. She processed the idea of staying in this position all night and for the first time since she could remember, the thought wasn't repulsive.

Scarlett closed her eyes and tried to quiet her pounding heart. It was hammering so hard in her chest she was sure it would wake the man lying next to her. Luckily, so far, it hadn't. If anything, he was responding to the warm body in his embrace. Scarlett felt for sure that an experienced man like Kevin must, even in sleep, comfort the woman he is with. She received an answer to her unspoken query when Kevin moved his hand onto her stomach and began trailing kisses up her neck. She realized Kevin didn't know what he was doing, but that thought hadn't quite been adopted by her own body's involuntary reactions which were now responding to his affection.

Glancing down the hallway, Scarlett hoped... prayed that Faith and Phoenix would not choose that particular moment to suddenly stumble upon them in this precarious situation. She didn't know how she would explain herself to Phoenix much less to Kevin himself. 'Yeah, sorry,' she'd say. 'I fell over you and you decided to hug and kiss me and I was just lying there taking it.'

"Yeah," she thought. "That's a real convincing argument." Scarlett knew she had to stop the madness but discovered this newfound bliss was far too intoxicating to interrupt.

Footsteps echoed through the chamber coming from the other side of the archway. Scarlett felt a sense of panic rush into her chest. She couldn't let anyone find her like this. She really wanted to stay, but Scarlett forced herself to break free of Kevin's embrace. Quietly, she scurried to a nearby hiding place and watched with interest as the huge oak door behind Kevin opened. Out stepped one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen in her life. If she remembered right, this was Ethan girlfriend. And if that assumption was correct, what was she doing here with Ethan's brother?

Michela Forsythe descended to her knees and shook Kevin's sleeping form lightly. She had to tell him about Ethan's disappearance. If Ethan was gone, they all needed to escape the monastery and they needed to do it quickly. Time was of the essence. She shook Kevin again, and he responded by gathering her into his arms and kissing her. Michela pushed on his chest until he opened his eyes staring at her in disbelief.

"What's going on?" he asked, surprised to find Ethan's girlfriend in his embrace.

"Very good question, hot shot. Who were you thinking of just now? Must have been a pretty vivid dream."

Kevin pressed a hand to his temple as if forcing the memory back into his brain. He then shook his head prompting complete coherence to invade his mind.

"Who was she?" Michela asked innocently. "Must have been one of those hard bodies you always date. Or was it Arley?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous." Kevin watched as Michela threw him a sharp glance. "But I know better."

Kevin smiled, yet remained silent. How could he tell her he was dreaming of her? Over and over he'd promised himself to leave well enough alone. She was in love with Ethan. Somehow he couldn't banish her from his thoughts so easily. Women like Michela only came along once in a lifetime.

He'd been lost the first day his father had introduced the two of them at a Legacy luncheon. She and Ethan made a charming couple, but Kevin couldn't help but want her for himself. He tried to distract himself by starting up a relationship with Dec's sister, Arley but nothing could cast Michela Forsythe from his mind.

That night, after the luncheon, he and Arley had called it quits. She knew he was only using her. She wasn't stupid. But at the time, they both needed distracting from their lives. The two of them had never truly been serious about one another, and now that he'd met Michela, other women seemed to pale in comparison.

It had been months since Ethan and Michela's nasty break up. Kevin hadn't wanted to rush her into a rebound relationship by revealing his feelings too soon. If he was good at anything, he was an expert at waiting. For now he'd hold her at arms length. But soon, very soon, he would make Michela Forsythe forget his brother, Ethan, ever existed.

"So who was it?" Michela said again, breaking his inner contemplation. "Arley?"

"No," he said truthfully. With a sly smile he added, "Actually, it was you..."

Michela laughed and pushed herself into a standing position. "Yeah, right," she responded. "You're just so damn funny. If you didn't want me to know, you could have told me to stick it."

"My darling. I'd never tell you to stick it."

"Not to my face, anyway." Michela smiled and helped Kevin to his feet "Right now we have bigger problems than your mysterious dream lover. Ethan's missing."

Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Faith and Phoenix appeared in front of them. They were out of breath and sporting particularly grim faces. Faith gasped a few ragged breaths before blurting out, "That isn't our only problem. This place is wired to blow and the timer is counting down as we speak."

"Great, just great!" Michela threw her hands into the air. "Do we have time to defuse it?

"My thinking is, no. We past at least four different timers on our way here," Phoenix said, his breathing now under control.

"We have to get out of here right now. Phoenix, where's your sister?" As Kevin spoke her name, Scarlett pretended to have just stumbled upon the group. "Okay, nice timing, let's go."

As the group advanced forward the first explosion shook the monastery. Faith grabbed the twin's hands and pulled with all her might. "Now would be a good time to... RUN!"

A second explosion ripped through the chamber followed by a third and fourth. Rubble flew at them in all directions like tiny missiles. They all tried to escape but the only exit was blocked by the fifth and final blast. It sent the three teens hurling backwards. Their last memory before oblivion was the ceiling caving in.