The German was a complete mess.

His hair was loose and was scattered all over his head. His shirt was unbuttoned to his mid stomach, the cufflinks hopelessly splayed out around his hands. One pant leg was rolled up to his knee and he held both his shoes tied together in one hand. His belt was in his other but the clasp was missing. And his neck... oh no. Oh shit. The skin under his chin was peppered in small bruises that twisted down and under his collarbone, flecked with red bite marks. His unfastened shirt collar was stained pinkish with what could only be lipstick.

Adira, James and I stood in complete shock. Out of the corner of my eye I saw James drag handfuls of the bed sheets on either side of him and clutched them tight within his fists.

Before Owen could explain his state or where the hell he'd been all night Adira stood up, marched over to him and grabbed the sleeve of his shirt by his shoulder. She yanked him back towards the open door, almost ripping the once white button-down off his arm. I scrambled off the bed to follow her but James stayed where he was.

Once into the hallway I shut the door behind us since Adira's eyes were verging on white fire.

She let go of Owen's shirt and shoved him backwards, then slapped him straight across the face before he could get even a breath out.

"What the actual fuck is the matter with you?!" She demanded, pushing him backwards again. "How could you do that to James?!" She yelled.

Owen squinted for a moment, before breaking out into a smug and verging on tipsy grin. "Oh Strider?" He chuckled. "Why should he care I had fun last night? The whining bitch said he doesn't want nichts to do with me."

Adira scoffed, then wound up and backhanded him quick as lightning.

"Schlampe!" Owen cradled his cheek.

"Answer me about how you have the absolute audacity to stumble into our room like this!" She yelled again. I looked around hoping none of the neighboring guests were around to hear the chaos we were unraveling. I thought about telling her to calm down but I also valued all ten of my fingers.

Owen huffed moodily in front of us. "James told me to fuck off and that's exactly what I did." He smiled twistedly again. "Literally."

Adira groaned. "You fucking imbecile! Of course he didn't mean that."

The German rolled his eyes, like a moody teenager and not the 26 year-old golden protege of a spy agency. "Well I sure as hell wasn't going to pawn over him anymore and try and figure out the meaning behind his words like he's a frau, so he'll just have to deal," Owen said matter-of-factly. "He said he was done thinking about me, and now I'm done thinking about him."

Adira glared up at the man about a half a foot above her. "Wow. I thought you cared about him, I really did. I thought -hoped- that you would have the common sense to realize that that genius redhead in there?" She jabbed a thumb back at the door. "Is one of a kind. That he is fearless. That he is the strongest person you will ever meet, and that he is kind and genuine beyond belief, even after everything that's happened to him." She paused to swallow and grit her teeth some more, still with her fists right at her side. "James is my friend. He let me stay with him every moment of every day for the past month because I was too terrified to be alone. He never complained once with having been ladled with me. He taught me how to survive a place where nobody wants you."

My heart twisted at her last line. I still delved in guilt at how hard it was for her to re-adjust into society again, after being an experiment, barely a human, for so long, and how I wasn't there to help her.

Adira continued. "And yet he still somehow has passion and spirit despite enduring actual hell, all for you." Her eyes twisted into intense electric blue waves and she fumed up at Owen again. "And you're a complete and utter idiot for letting him go."

Owen stood staring down at her for a moment before somehow finding the nerve to chuckle. The muscles on the exposed parts of his chest rippled as he did. "I didn't 'let him go,'" he said. "It was all Flagg, he--"

"Bullshit!" Adira snapped. "Flagg has poisoned you, can't you see?" She cried.

Owen's sultry stature suddenly started to look very afraid of the murderous blonde fuming below him.

"Somehow he's gotten it into your head that being the best agent ever, that being engineered into the next Director and fostering your stupid fucking pride is more important than keeping the best fucking thing that will ever happen to you!"

Owen dropped his eyes.

"Which is why you don't deserve him," Adira said simply, finally lowering her tone. "You don't deserve to be the one thing that amazing and compassionate boy in there thinks about. You don't deserve to be the one thing he's living for."

And with that she wound up again and slammed her fist into his right eye socket. She glared at him hard, biting her lip and shaking her head at him as he stumbled backwards by the force of her hit. Then she turned and stalked back inside the hotel room.

Owen slumped to the floor as soon as she left, and held his head in his hands between his legs. He looked up at me after a little while.

"Don't look at me, I agree with her," I said. "Getting drunk and sleeping with some girl isn't gonna win James back. Or whatever you're trying to do."

Then I followed Adira back into the hotel room and left Owen hopelessly slumped on the floor in the hallway.

When I came back inside Adira was sitting on James' bed. "Where's your sweatshirt?" She asked.

It took me a moment before my brain got back into functioning mode from marveling at her yelling at a man about seven years and seven inches taller than her.

"Uh..." I stammered for a moment. "Yeah, it's over here." I walked over the other side of the bed she and I had slept on last night and grabbed it off the ground and tossed it to her. "You were sweating a lot during the whole... night terror thing last night, so Cal managed to wrestle you out of it."

She didn't reply, just brought the black fabric up to her nose.

"Does my scent still please you?" I teased.

"Sorry."

"For what?" I moved and sat down facing her.

"For... everything I guess I did last night," she said quietly while she wrung her hands together.

"It wasn't your fault," I said gently. "You didn't mean to sink your nails into me, and scare the shit out of me by screaming 'no' over and over again."

She moved her hands to her face and groaned.

"Hey, hey, I'm joking," I said softly, thinking of a way I could turn this dreadful conversation around. "We did get you to stop eventually."

"How?" She murmured through her cage of hands she had over her face.

"Me."

"Come again?"

"You grabbed my arm," I started, "then within a few minutes of that, you started to come out of it and pass out again. Whenever I moved just the littlest bit you'd start to get worked up again, so eventually I just fell asleep next to you. I didn't know if when you woke up you would be you again, so I just didn't move."

She slowly removed her hands from her face. "So, I clung to you, and then fell asleep."

I shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah." Then I cleared my throat. "Where's James?" I asked.

"Bathroom," she replied, standing up and going over to our backpacks.

I followed her. "Is he...okay?"

She licked her lips and zipped open her bag. "Probably not. He was in there when I came back in." She pulled out different clothes from her backpack.

"You want me to leave?" I eyed the jeans and t-shirt she'd pulled out.

She smiled a little. "Just turn around." I sat down and turned so I was facing the door. I heard her move a little then her hair tickled the back of my neck. "And if you peek, I'll jam your disconnected fingers into your eyeball," she whispered.

I shivered.

She got changed, me keeping my eyes firmly squeezed shut facing the other way, then I put my day clothes on while she went over and studied the pieces of flimsy scribbled on paper we found in that adorned wooden box on the navy vessel yesterday.

Owen came limping back in to the hotel room, slightly steadier on his feet than he was before. He didn't look at Adira or I and just went over to his backpack to rifle through it.

James came out of the bathroom, his shirt off and in his hands.

"Deera can you help pour cold water on me?" He asked, not even glancing at Owen. "Blitz says that's the best cure for a hangover," James explained.

"So is burnt flesh," I added.

"Yeah I'm not quite at that level of desperation," James said while Adira tilted her head at me. The redhead turned to go back into the bathroom and Adira and I followed him. I leaned against the door frame while James stepped into the tub in just his boxer shorts and looked miserable.

"You sure about this?" Adira asked, her hand ready on the silver shower handle.

"Nope, but just do it," James sighed, squeezing his eyes shut.

Adira didn't hesitate and yanked the faucet to the left. Cold water sprouted from the shower head and started to spill all over James.

His red hair went flat and he jumped immediately once the ice cold water hit his bare back. "Oh fuck!" He yelled, swiping a hand across his eyes.

I cracked up from the doorway, and Adira started laughing too.

James flicked some of the water at her face and she gasped then socked him in the shoulder. James pooled water in his hands and dumped it on her head.

"Oh shit!" I laughed as Adira's blonde hair got drenched.

"Strider," she said through gritted teeth while James hugged his chest in laughter. "You are so dead."

"Yeah?" James swept his wet red hair up and off his forehead. "What are you gonna do?" He spread his wet hands out.

Adira smirked and yanked the towels off the rack behind her and flung them under the shower head.

"Bitch!" James tried to pull them out of her hands but they just got more wet.

"Ha!" She yelled at him as she fended off his struggles to save the dry towels. She dropped them to the bottom of the tub where they continued to soak up the ice cold water.

James glared at her, still with the water pouring over him. His kitted eyebrows formed a bank for the water to spill over. "Very funny," he growled over the noise of the water.

I laughed at his sour expression and Adira's wide smile as she snickered at James' soaking miserableness.

"You feeling better?" She asked between giggles.

"Not really." He said, pouting as the water continued to pour over him.

"Well, I feel fantastic." Adira laughed at him some more.

"Same here," I said from the doorway.

"Oh screw you guys," James muttered. He flicked some of the cold water over at me too and it splattered my chest.

I looked down at myself then up at him. "You did not."

"War!" Adira yelled, grabbing one of the dripping towels from the bottom of the tub and throwing it at m.

James snuck his hands under her arms and pulled her into the shower with him.

"James!" She flailed her legs as the redhead lifted her over the lip of the tub.

I ripped the wet towel off my shoulder where it had landed and ran forward towards where James was holding Adira hostage in the shower and soaking her clothes.

"I just put these clothes on, bitchass!" She wriggled out of his grasp and pinned him against one of the tiled walls of the shower.

I got down on my knees on the now wet floor and wrapped the towel around Adira's ankles then gave her a small shove sideways. As she stumbled she managed to grab the bottle of shampoo that was resting in a nook in the tiles. James yanked the shower curtain that had been shoved off to the side off of its railing and threw it over me. Adira squeezed some of the shampoo into her hand and kicked off the wet towel around her legs. James scrambled out the tub while I shook the shower curtain off myself. The two of us stood with our hands in the air, his bare chest dripping wet and my clothed one clotted in damp spots. Adira aimed the puddle of shampoo in her hand at us, still in the bathtub with the cold water running over her.

"Move and I shoot!" She threatened.

"Hey hey hey! Truce?" James raised a shoulder.

Adira narrowed the glare of her ocean blue eyes. "No."

"Come on, I'm awake now!" He protested.

"And you got me wet too!" She said back, raising the hand with the shampoo in it.

I reached over slowly and finally turned the shower off, so Adira stood there, blonde hair flat and dripping down the shirt that was now clinging to her and her stained darker jeans.

"I hate you both," she muttered, shaking the shampoo off her hand and James and I let out a breath.

"What a way to start a morning," I lowered my hands.

Adira wrung her hair out then stepped out of the tub. "It was a thrill," she said dully.

"My headache is mostly gone," James said, also dropping his hands from their surrender position.

"Yeah, but now we have to change again," I said, glancing down at where my knees had soaked up the water that was also all over the bathroom floor.

"Worth it," Adira grinned devilishly at James and I. She walked between us and back into the bedroom area.

Owen had put jeans on but otherwise hadn't moved from going through his backpack. There was a pile of bandages he'd taken out of it and set aside too. He stood up from squatting when the three of us younger agents came out the bathroom completely soaked.

"Do I want to know?" He asked, his blue eyes judgmental.

None of us answered.

James, Adira and I got into dry things, but not before Adira had time to smack my face with her wet hair "accidentally." It still felt weird to see everyone in regular clothes and not the agency's uniforms. Adira with her hair down and light jeans on and not the engulfing black t shirts we were required to wear. James without his yellow level trainer band on and wearing a red shirt that pretty much matched his hair.

Once he'd finished, James walked over to Owen and for a moment I wondered if I'd have to tase him if things got aggressive. Even though he'd totally kicked Hunter's ass, James was nowhere near Owen's fighting ability. Or even size for that matter.

The tall German eyed James carefully, still with his white dress shirt unbuttoned and his neck stained with hickies. "Can I help you?" He asked.

"Take it off," James commanded, flicking his eyes to his shirt and then back up to his.

Owen hesitated. "Excuse me?"

James sighed. "Just take it off."

"Why?"

"Don't give me that look Hoffmann I don't give a shit about you, I give a shit about our mission leader." He glared at him. "Now take your shirt off before that wound gets infected and you turn blue."

Owen did as he said, shedding the button up off his shoulders and then turning a little to his right and lifted his elbow up a bit so James could get a better look at the wound that strickened the area just under his left ribs.

I'd just gotten a small glance when he came back the long way from the Navy vessel yesterday, but now that I got a better look I could really judge its brutality.

It looked just about the same as yesterday in terms of red coloring, just oozing less puss and there was less rawness to the terrible stitches that ran through the middle of the delicate swollen mess.

James wrinkled his freckles together. "Jesus. You're 26 years old, don't you know how to at least bandage something?"

Owen didn't say anything, just did his best to keep his hands away from the wound and his eyes away from the redhead giving him a scolding beneath him.

James tilted his head at the wound and then reached out to touch the skin surrounding the worst of it. The German wriggled away as soon as James' fingers brushed against it.

"Didn't that interfere with last night's festivities?" James asked innocently, dropping his fingers.

"She was careful," Owen sneered back.

James didn't miss a beat. "Yeah I'm sure," he glanced at the fresh red scratches that curled over Owen's broad shoulders and merged with the older cuts and bruises that decorated his back.

"Are you going to do something about it or not, arschloch?"

"Just stay there dirtbag," James muttered. He went back to the bathroom, grabbed a wet cloth and then some white plasters from his own backpack and got to work.

Adira went down to the room Lautaro, Blitz, Cal and Lucky were in to get them up, while James delicately unthreaded the messy stitches and did up new much neater ones. He used the medical tape to stick down a bandage over the wound and then retracted his hands.

Owen immediately snatched a t-shirt from his bag and painfully slid it on.

"Owen," James murmured, watching the German cover up his pale skin.

"What?"

"That's a burn," he pointed out.

"And?"

"Sorry, let me specify. It was a burn. From something very hot and very flat, something used specifically for branding. A burn from a long time ago too, that looks like it's been re-burnt every once in a while because there's older healed scars from the first few times under the new one, all the same size so the same instrument has been used each time. And the most recent time looks to have been maybe a few days ago based on the heat and color. And then in addition to all that, it looks like someone has purposely cut through the recent burn. The cut is completely straight and slices the burn exactly in half. That does not happen accidentally."

I pretended not hear from the table with the blueprint on it.

"So, would you like to explain how the hell something like that happened?" James asked. "Because the only reason I can think of it torture," the 23 year-old said. His soft brown eyes were round at the prospect. He did have first hand experience with the method.

Again Owen stayed quiet.

James then narrowed his eyes. "But then, why would Flagg let his prized pupil get weakened?"

Owen's blue eyes darkened and he shouldered past the younger agent.

James turned to face him. "You're really not gonna answer me? Owen, somebody did that to you. And there's no signs of struggle anywhere else on your body where you might have been restrained, which means you let it happen."

"Drop it Strider," Owen said, turning around to glare at him.

"No." James stepped forward until he was a few inches away. "You let somebody burn you repeatedly, and then you let them cut through the burn. That's fucked up."

"I don't ask how your knee is doing, so you don't get to ask about what happened to me."

"Are you kidding me? My knee is a completely different circumstance, and I sure as hell didn't sit back and let it happen."

"They're really not that different."

"Uh huh. Mine is crippling, while yours is a mysterious mess that you clearly tried to fix on your own but made worse. Practically identical."

"We don't have time for your curiosity Strider—"

"Yeah, 'cause somebody stumbled in from a one night stand at 10 in the morning."

"I thought you didn't care what I did anymore."

"Only when it concerns a mission."

"And since when did you care about following orders?"