He felt like shit.

That was Sands’ first thought as he came to. He inhaled deeply through his nose, then let the air out slowly, repeating the action a few times to clear his hazy mind. He could still feel the after effects of something, most likely a powerful sedative, running through his bloodstream.

Slowly, he sat up, groaning under his breath when his body protested at the movement. Feeling pain in his side, his hand instinctively went to the wound. His arm felt like it was made out of lead, heavy and sluggish. That didn’t surprise him; what did was that someone had taken the time to patch him up.

But why should he be surprised? It was obvious that Martin had never intended to kill him. Torture was just so much more satisfying.

Sitting upright, he felt the cool floor beneath him, and it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was. The hotel room had had carpet, and its bathroom had had a tiled floor. Running a hand across the ground, he decided that it felt a lot like concrete. He fought to calm his nerves, feeling the beginnings of a panic attack stirring in his gut. Damn, how he wished he could just open his eyes and see where he was.

Taking a painfully deep breath, he struggled to get his feet underneath him, but just couldn’t seem to get his limbs to work properly.

They’d injected him with some heavy duty shit.

He reached out to find something nearby to help him stand, but there wasn’t anything around to support him; at least not within arms’ reach. Just sitting upright was exhausting and painful, and he was soon forced to lie back down.

Where was he? How long had he been here? He had no idea. The room was completely silent, save for his breathing, and a faint hum that was most likely emanating from something electric. He figured that is was probably a light.

He sighed, letting his mind clear. His first impulse was to fight, to use force, to kill every last son-of-a-bitch that had taken part in any of this treachery; and hell, why not anyone in the near vicinity, just for good measure? But that was exactly the problem. It was suddenly clear as day, and he wondered why the hell it had taken him so long to realize what he was doing wrong.

He’d thought that he was thinking, but his mind had been setting him up for another fall. He’d been acting on pure impulse; he wanted revenge and he was going to get it. Instinct and impulse could be a good thing, if used in moderation. He knew that. He’d known that for a long time. But somehow his anger towards everything and everyone had clouded his judgment.

Looking back on it, he knew it hadn’t been the wisest move to go to Mexico with no plan and no backup. Still, he really hadn’t had much of a choice. There was a conspiracy against him, and he was slated to take the fall for someone else’s disloyalty. He wasn’t about to give up without a fight, and he certainly wasn’t going to let the Company cart his ass off to jail, or worse…

But even so, he’d gotten himself caught up in revenge. Revenge on Martin would mean nothing if he fucked himself over in the process. It was time for him to start thinking again - really thinking - instead of acting blindly on instinct. No pun intended.

He needed to stop being the handler. He needed to stop being the assassin. His body couldn’t take anymore. He’d pushed it to its breaking point and it was finally giving in. Even when the last of the drugs in his system wore off, he had the feeling that he’d have a hell of a time standing for any length of time, much less fighting his way out of this place. He’d been shot, stabbed, drugged, suspended, and had his eyes ripped out, all in little more than a month. Really, enough is enough.

If he’d had the energy, he would have smacked himself in the head.

He’d been running from the real problem, and that was his fear of failure. Why he hadn’t recognized it before was beyond him.

Failure in his life. Failure in his marriage. Failure in his job. Failure in his ability to adapt.

But most importantly, failure of his control.

Sands sighed, frustrated with himself. Did it really have to come to this, a second capture, for him to finally start thinking, and confront his fear head-on?

He heard the sound of a door opening not far from where he was lying, and even though it probably should have unnerved him, it didn’t. Not now.

It was sound. Sound gave him information, and he needed all the information that he could get about his surroundings. Now, not only did he know where the door was, but he knew that he was being watched as well. The timing was far too coincidental. A camera in the room, perhaps?

He heard two sets of footsteps enter the room and approach him. The first set went straight to him, while the second stopped several feet short.

Someone grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up to a sitting position.

"Get up, Sands. We need to have ourselves a little chat," Martin said, revealing himself to be the one who was standing a few feet away.

"Who’s this? Your babysitter?" Sands drawled, his words slightly slurred as he fought off the drugs in his system, and the man hefted him up unceremoniously. Although his mind was clear, his body seemed almost detached; limbs numb and refusing to respond as he was pushed down onto a chair that had been there all along just out of his reach.

So Martin had wanted him lucid, but physically weakened. Sands was beginning to understand this man’s style.

‘Wonder who’s duds I’m wearing?’ he thought suddenly, as he realized he wasn’t wearing his own clothes anymore; these were much baggier than the things he'd been wearing before. His own clothes were probably covered in blood. Shit, but he was going to miss that ‘Bomb Squad’ T-shirt.

Martin must have made some sort of gesture for his devoted muscleman to go, because after a moment the man left, closing the door after himself.

Trying his best to shift to a more comfortable position, Sands reached a clumsy hand out in front of him, fingertips quickly coming into contact with the smooth wooden surface of a tabletop. Using the table to prop himself up, he rubbed an index finger along its edge, feeling the lip of the trim.

It was familiar. Small room, cement floor, table, a couple of chairs, faint buzz of a light; he was in a CIA interrogation room. Most likely, he was still in Mexico. So now he was on Martin’s turf.

Still, the known was far better than the unknown, and a familiar place was better than an unfamiliar one.

"You must have a lot of questions running through your mind right now." Sands could hear the sound of a chair scraping across cement, echoing in the near-empty room as he spoke.

"You’d be surprised how few questions I actually have for you," Sands said. He held his head up, but didn’t bother to turn towards Martin. He thought that he was probably facing the door. It was at that moment that he realized he couldn’t feel his sunglasses against his face, and he was surprised that he hadn’t noticed their absence immediately.

‘Well, fuck it. It’s not like he’s seeing anything he hasn’t already seen.’ As a matter of fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the full view of his face could work to his advantage. While not blatantly disturbing to Martin, and in fact probably quite the opposite, the sight could help him wheedle his way into Martin’s subconscious in much the same way a virus entered the human body; undetected, unstoppable, and at its very core, destructive.

"Are you really that far gone?" Martin asked, cracking his knuckles. Sands had been around Martin enough to know that the action was a nervous habit. His very presence had always set Martin on edge, and despite his physically weakened state, that still seemed to be the case.

"Quite the opposite, actually," Sands said, his voice steady with the confidence of understanding his enemy. Martin couldn’t have known that the very fact that Sands knew he was in a Company interrogation room had empowered him. Even if the headquarters was Martin’s turf, this room was his. Despite being a skilled sniper, and his knack for learning foreign languages aside, his true talent had always been messing with the human psyche. Cecelia had learned that the hard way, and Martin was going to learn it to. "I can read you like an open book," Sands drawled.

"You can’t read an open book."

"I beg to differ. Luckily for me, translating you into Braille is a snap."

"You have to be wondering what I’m going to do with you."

"Right now I’ve only got one question for you." Sands smirked. "Can I bum a smoke?"

Martin barked out a dry laugh. "You've got balls. I'll give you that. No. You’re not here to be comfortable. I’m the one in control."

"No, you only think you are," Sands said, as surely as if it were fact. "I’m going to have a bitchin’ time messing with your head."

"It's amazing to me that the Company would keep you around. You’re an obvious sociopath."

Sands finally turned to face Martin, flashing him a feral grin, before answering. "Is that your professional diagnosis? Are you sure I’m a sociopath, and not a psychopath, or antisocial, or narcissistic, or just plain fucked in the head?"

"Same difference," Martin said offhandedly, and Sands could imagine his shoulders shrugging in dismissal.

Sands leaned forward, forearms on the table supporting his weight. "I see that you have no idea what you’re talking about." Sands smirked in an all-knowing sort of way, then mimicked a shrug that he’d seen Martin give on several occasions. "But let’s stretch the suspension of disbelief a bit and pretend that you do know what you’re talking about. Tell me, since your keen ability to diagnose my state of mental health knows no bounds, which subtype of sociopath am I?"

"It’s all the same fucking thing," Martin grumbled, leaning back in his chair.

Sands leaned back in his own chair and crossed his arms, thankful that his body was a little more willing to obey his demands. Martin was so unerringly predictable in his mannerisms that it made imitating him easy. "Am I common, alienated, aggressive, or dissocial?" He paused a moment before heaving an irritated sigh. "Just pick one."

"I don’t care which one you are."

His face a mask of stone, Sands replied, "I do. A small hint: don’t pick common. I could never be that."

"Why ask me? Are you having some sort of identity crisis?" Martin asked, quietly uncrossing his arms and shifting in his chair.

"Do you want me to be having an identity crisis?"

"You can’t play your little head games with me," Martin said, his voice low, but his temper still firmly in check.

"I can play my little head games with anyone. That’s the beauty of them."

"I’ll break you, Sands. You’re here so that I can do just that."

"You’re doing a bang-up job so far. I can feel myself losing brain cells as we speak. Can I have a smoke?"

"I already told you, no," Martin said, and Sands had to give him credit for his patience. Martin knew him well enough to expect this sort of thing, but Sands knew from experience that he could wear down even the most patient man eventually.

"I just wanted to see if you’d changed your mind," Sands said offhandedly.

"And you could have sprouted a new set of eyes to see that, too."

"Cute. Amateurish, but cute."

"Bring her in!" Martin said loudly.

‘Yup, definitely a camera in the room,’ Sands thought to himself, and he had a bad feeling that he knew exactly who ‘she’ was.

"I thought you might act bull-headed because of some half-assed plan of yours. Just thought you’d like to know that she never did get to the dead drop."

"I’m crushed. Whatever am I going to do now?" Sands asked theatrically, landing his arm heavily on his chest in mock fright. "Especially since she was never supposed to go to a dead drop in the first place." He was far from worried about that, at least so far. After all, the whole reason for having more than one person with evidence was in preparation for something like this. Ava was not only the easiest target that he’d set out, she only had copies of the original papers.

"Cut the crap, Sands. I know she had to be dropping something off to someone."

Sands cocked an eyebrow. So they hadn’t even found the envelope he’d given her? Maybe Ava was a bit more experienced than he’d originally given her credit for.

"She was my original chauffeur," Sands offered by way of explanation. He wondered how long he’d been here.

The door opened again and he heard the unsteady click of high heels on concrete, as if Ava had been shoved through the door. He was positive it was her, since there was really no one else it could be.

"Hiya, Sugar," Sands greeted her, never turning his attention away from Martin while she seemed to catch her balance.

She must have got a good look at him then, because she gasped in what sounded like a mixture of horror and shock, delivering Sands his first real ego blow since he’d woken up here. He was probably white as a sheet too, resembling one of those skulls from the Day of the Dead. Wonderful.

"Oh, damn. Did I just let the cat out of the bag?" Martin asked.

"Well, it was meowing quite loudly," Sands said, trying to be as blasé about it as possible.

"Oh my God," Ava whispered, approaching the table slowly. "Who did this to you?"

"I know how much you like to toot your own horn, Martin, so I’ll let you answer that," Sands said. His hand unconsciously tugged at the hair tucked behind his right ear, letting it fall across his face.

Ava’s attention snapped back to Martin. "You did this?" she asked in angry disbelief.

Before Martin could say anything, Sands answered. "Only in spirit. He’s far too squeamish and cowardly to do it himself. He just dreamed it up."

"You’re just bitter because I got away with it," Martin said to Sands.

Sands uncrossed his arms. "Ah, but defeat isn’t bitter if you sprinkle dirty revenge on it."

"Considering I am the one in complete control, and you can barely stand, if you can stand at all, that threat really scares me."

"It should. I never make a threat that I can’t carry out."

"For a supposedly brilliant man, you’re very stupid," Martin stated.

Sands laughed outright at Martin’s comment, and Ava gaped at him as if he were insane.

"Well, the dumber you think I am the better," Sands said, still chuckling. Little did Martin know how true that statement actually was. Sands jabbed a thumb in Ava’s direction. "Why bring my seeing-eye dog into this?"

"Insurance."

Sands cocked a dark eyebrow. "Well, you’d best take out another policy. Your diagnosis was that I’m a sociopath, remember?"

"Was she the one who broke into my office?" Martin demanded.

Sands tilted his head to the side, frowning. "What?"

"Who did you send to search through my files?"

Sands leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. "Got a bit of a mole situation, have you? Nasty, destructive little critters, moles are… oh, but I don’t need to tell you that."

"You’re responsible for it."

"How?" Sands asked in challenge, knowing that Martin couldn’t answer the question. He intended on planting a small seed of doubt in Martin’s mind. With tender love and care, that seed would grow into full-fledged paranoia.

"Was it this woman, or the Mariachi you picked up?"

Although Sands inwardly damned Jackson to hell, he kept up his cocky front. He tapped the bridge of his nose with a fingertip. "You’re sniffing in the wrong direction. What you should be asking me right now is, ‘When is my unseen shadow going to swallow me whole?’ You have a cigarette?"

"Jesus, no! You just don’t give up," Martin said with exasperation, still a bit curious as to just what ‘shadow’ Sands was talking about.

"Something you should have thought of before you fucked me over."

"It was the Mariachi, wasn’t it? You sent him to gather evidence?" Martin pressed on, determined to get an answer.

"Well, that’s a far-out little theory you’ve got there, but you’re overlooking the fact that the Mariachi wouldn’t know how to get into headquarters without being caught."

"I’m not overlooking it. I’m sure you told him."

"I told him the entire layout of headquarters? Even I don’t have the security and layout of the entire complex in my photographic memory." He waited for Martin to say something, but Martin was silent, obviously trying to think of an explanation.

"I think you’ve got a rat living in your walls," Sands added smoothly. "Illius me paenitet, Dux." He paused. "You were a rich kid, weren’t you?"

Sands’ off the wall question snared Ava’s attention, and caught Martin equally off guard.

At Martin’s silence, he knew that he’d guessed right. "I see I nailed that one on the first try," Sands continued. "Should I continue?"

"No. We’re not talking about my damn childhood."

Sands ignored him, a hand lazily tracing patterns on the tabletop. "You were raised by a series of babysitters and maids. Your parents were too busy with their jobs and social lives to show you how much they cared. But don’t worry, I’m sure they loved you, despite the fact that you’re a sick bastard through and through."

"Shut the fuck up, Sands. This has nothing to do with anything."

"You liked to torture small animals as a child, didn’t you? You liked seeing things in pain. You still do."

"And you're saying you didn’t?" Martin asked challengingly.

"Torture small animals? No. I never got any jollies out of torturing something that I knew was inferior. There’s no real challenge in that." Sands tilted his head. "But eventually, torturing and killing your pets got a little dull, didn’t it? You moved on to people, then. Ah yes, much better prey." Sands ran his tongue across the front of his teeth, seeming to study Martin despite the impossibility of it. "You sure love to watch pain… but deep down you’re scared of it. You don’t ever want to experience it yourself. That’s why you never put yourself in danger," Sands leaned forward, his voice dropping low. "You feed on pain, but you fear it at the same time. Pain is what makes your whole world go round," Sands said, making a circle in the air with his hand. "That’s pretty fucked up, if you ask me."

"You got that shit off my 201."

Sands snorted, and sat back in his chair. "Yeah, right under the education section of your 201 it reads: ‘Enjoys pain. Is seriously screwed in the head.’" Sands gave him a look, as if to say, ‘you’re a complete moron’.

"I meant my family stuff. The rest isn’t even close."

"If that’s what you have to tell yourself. Got a cancer stick?"

Martin pounded his fist on the table, causing Ava to jump slightly. Sands had been expecting an outburst any moment, so he hadn’t even flinched. Even when a pack of cigarettes pegged him straight in the forehead, Sands didn’t seem surprised. He immediately bent down and searched for the pack, his fingers finding it without much trouble.

"You have no right to call me a sick bastard!" Martin said, his voice not quite shouting, but warning that he was close to reaching his limit. Dropping his voice lower, Martin added, "I’ve seen your 201 too."

"No, you haven’t," Sands said with certainty, pulling a cigarette out of the pack. "Got a light?"

Sands heard the sound of something hitting the ground several feet away.

"Go fetch."

"Your hospitality leaves something to be desired," Sands informed him. He heard Ava begin to get it for him, but stopped her with an abrupt hand signal. With some effort, he pushed himself up to a standing position. Leaning heavily on the table for support, he grabbed the lighter. By the time he collapsed back in his chair, he was weak and out of breath.

It was amazing what he’d go through for a cigarette.

"The hell I haven’t," Martin said, cracking his knuckles again as he turned the conversation back to the subject of 201 files.

"I see you still haven’t completely perfected the art of lying," Sands said offhandedly, lighting up. His repetitive use of the word see was no accident. Coupled with the visual of his empty sockets, and the fact that Martin couldn’t use the word against him, it was probably becoming rather annoying.

"Better enjoy that cigarette. Where I’m sending you, I don’t think they’ll let you smoke."

Taking a long drag, Sands faked a shudder. "Then that’s just not the place for me."

Martin seemed to come to the conclusion that his current tactic wasn’t working, and switched to a new one. "It’s really hilarious to hear you tell me how sick I am, and how I get off on pain. But you’re just like me. You can’t deny it."

Sands began to tap a rendition of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ on the tabletop with his forefinger, pretending to think about what Martin said. "I deny it," he said at last.

Martin shook his head. "An ex-assassin telling me that he doesn’t enjoy pain? Now I really have heard everything."

"Tu es mon chevre d’amour," Sands said, amusing himself more than anyone else. He could bet that Martin hadn’t heard that. Taking another long drag of his cigarette, he smirked. "You’re surprisingly dense. That’s why your time is almost up. You’d have to take a walk inside my head to figure out what makes me tick, but I don’t think you could handle the trip. I’m a completely different brand of psycho."

"If you don’t enjoy pain, then how do you explain what you did to your wife?"

Ava’s eyebrow rose at the mention of a wife. Sands didn’t seem like the marrying type; yet another surprise. Sands remained his usual unreadable self, continuing to tap out the national anthem as he puffed on his cigarette. Weird man. She decided that he was either brilliant or insane… quite possibly it was a combination of both.

"Have you been able to figure out what type of sociopath I am?" Sands asked suddenly, and the hasty change of topic didn’t go unnoticed.

"What’s the matter? Did I hit a sore spot? Can’t think about your wife?"

Sands inhaled deeply, letting the smoke escape from his lips slowly. Martin wanted to use his weakness against him, and admittedly, Cecelia had been, and always would be, a bit of a weakness. "Your logic is tragically flawed, Martin. You’re obviously trying to make me feel guilty about what happened to my wife, yet earlier you claimed that I was a sociopath. If you believe I’m a sociopath, then why try and make me feel guilty? I’m not capable of it."

"You had a mental breakdown after she went insane. She must have had an effect on you."

"We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you ever?" Sands asked, cigarette bouncing on his lips as he spoke. "Never mind. I’m living with the answer to that one."

Martin smiled at Sands’ admission. "Of course you are. What possessed you to come back here in the first place, anyway? Was it some insane desire for revenge? An attempt to save your career? It’s beyond saving; you’re blind. What use could the CIA possibly have for you now?"

Sands’ tapping ceased, his lips tightening into a thin line. "More use than they’ll have for you," he said dangerously. "I came back because I wanted to watch you fall… figuratively speaking, of course." Flicking the ash off his cigarette, and leaning forward in his chair, he continued. "They will get you, because I have already gotten you. You just don’t know it yet. Sometimes, it pays to be paranoid."

"It didn’t pay for you," Martin pointed out bluntly, refusing to take Sands’ bait.

Sands smiled mirthlessly but otherwise ignored the jibe. "Paranoia, paranoia, everybody’s coming to get you," he said in a sing-song.

"Have you played enough of your games? I think it’s time we talked about what I plan to do with you."

Sands shrugged as he took another puff. "You had to have been expecting this. After all, I have an MS in experimental psychology. If you’d really seen my 201, you’d know that. I never tire of games. It’s what I do."

Ava gave Sands an appraising look. ‘A Master of Science degree? He’s full of surprises.’

Sands tilted his head to the side. "You still can’t quite decide what my motivation is, can you? It’s not that hard to figure out, really. I’d think that it’s written all over me. You must really be blind to that sort of thing."

Ignoring his last comment, Martin shot a glance at Ava. "Ava, get over here," Martin said, motioning her over with an angry jab of his finger.

His eyes told her that it was not a suggestion, and she joined them, coming to stand beside Martin. She knew the value of picking her battles.

Martin grabbed hold of her hand, roughly pulling her over to Sands’ side.

"Need her help?" Sands asked, amusement lacing his voice. To be honest, Martin did know something about interrogation, and wasn’t someone who flew off the handle. He was an extremely patient man, and an experienced officer, who’d probably done his fair share of questioning. But he had one fatal flaw in his style; he couldn’t read people, so he just kept switching tactics until one seemed to work. It probably worked on most people, but then Sands wasn’t most people. They’d been at this for at least half an hour now, and Martin still hadn’t gotten any information out of him, or covered exactly what he planned on doing with him. ‘Maybe I should throw the dog a bone.’ He wanted to stretch Martin to his limit, but he didn’t want the man to actually snap.

Martin grabbed hold of Sands’ jaw and turned his head so that he and Ava were facing each other… or at least, that’s what Sands assumed. ‘Shit.’ Now this tactic he didn’t like at all.

Cigarette dangling from his mouth, Sands grasped Martin’s wrist tightly, wrenching himself from the man’s grip. "Let’s not be rude to the lady," Sands said in a bored tone, and this time he wasn’t sure if it fooled anyone.

"Don’t like to be touched?" Martin asked, like an animal that could smell fear. He forced Ava’s hand to Sands’ cheek. Sands went rigid under her touch, and Ava tried to withdraw, but Martin still held her hand tightly and wouldn’t let her pull away.

Although Sands wasn’t doing much to show it, Ava had the distinct feeling that this physical contact was far more disturbing to Sands than anything else that had been thrown his way so far. The way his whole body stiffened under her touch and his jaw locked was proof of that.

"You were always such a vain man," Martin snickered, forcing Ava’s hand to move up Sands’ face.

Sands forced a smile, taking a long draw. "Why would you think that a caress from a hot woman would bother me?"

Ava felt her face redden for reasons she couldn’t begin to explain.

"She could be ugly as a dog and you wouldn’t know the difference."

Ava's fingers now touching the edge of his right eye socket, he couldn’t help but flinch. Not only were they still extremely sensitive, but the feeling of a finger probing the area was both nauseating and disturbing to him. He inhaled sharply. ‘Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it,’ his mind chanted, knowing that he needed to keep up his stony exterior as long as possible.

Ava again tried to break free of Martin’s grip, but to her surprise, Sands’ hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. His grip right below Martin’s, he held her hand fast and as Martin pushed her farther, Sands’ grip tightened with strength she didn’t think possible for a man so badly hurt and drugged.

But it was clear from his painful grip on her that Sands didn’t want her to pull away, and it was as if he was silently telling her ‘I’ve had worse’. So, fighting her own queasy stomach, she surrendered her hand to Martin. If Sands could withstand the worst of it, she could take the rest. It didn’t stop her from squeezing her eyes shut, however.

Sands swallowed, fighting down the bile that wanted to rise in his throat. When he was sure he had complete control of his voice, he asked, "Do I resemble your therapist, Martin? Because I could swear that I just slipped into one of your therapy sessions."

Martin dropped Ava’s hand and threw up his arms in disgust.

"Like any other therapist, I'm not free," Sands quipped.

Ava immediately began to move her hand away, but Sands wasn’t letting her go, only allowing her to lower her hand from his face. "Don’t move, Sugar," he said, and it was an order, not a request.

"What do you think you’re doing?" Martin asked, and it sounded as if he was ready to call for backup if necessary.

Paying Martin no mind, Sands languidly ran the full length of his hand down Ava's face twice, feeling out her features. It was an odd thing – trying to piece together someone’s face on touch alone. He’d never tried to do it before, and he was surprising himself by doing it now. It was almost like creating a face from a smattering of magazine clippings that had come from thousands of different pictures – choosing an eye here and a nose there and pasting them together in an attempt to construct a complete face. As he traced her features, he couldn’t quite get a grasp on his own mental image of her, and thought that perhaps it was something that took practice to perfect. Even so, he thought that he had a general idea of what she looked like. He didn’t think she was drop dead gorgeous, but he was willing to bet money that she wasn’t a troll, either.

Letting her go, he pushed her hand away from him, dismissing her without a second thought. He smirked and turned his attention to Martin. "If she’s ugly as a dog, then I still have eyes," he drawled coolly.

Shaken by the contact with Sands, Ava took a couple steps back from both men, wrapping her arms around herself in discomfort.

"You’d best smile. Tomorrow will be worse," Sands added, giving Martin a shit-eating grin. Sands moved to take another puff of his burned down cigarette, but Martin snatched it up quickly and stubbed it out on the table.

"I’m glad you’re taking your own advice," Martin growled. "Because I intend to commit you."

"Sending me to the land of magical white jackets, are you?"

"Don’t worry, I’ll send you to the same place you sent your wife. I’m sure it’s nice."

"Oh, it’s choice. They even let you go outside and smell the grass every once in a while. Only the best for my wife." Even though fear crept up his spine, Sands refused to lose control. Amazingly, it wasn’t as hard as it had been a day ago. It helped that he knew Martin was screwed. The fact that Martin didn’t intend to kill him was a very good thing, and gave Tom and Cam time to pass on all his evidence to the proper bigwigs.

"Did you care about her at all?" Martin asked, and it sounded as if he really was curious to hear the answer.

Sands raised an eyebrow before leaning forward, pushing the table away from himself ever so slightly. Ah, so it wasn’t attached to the floor. "You want me to get real? Fine. I fucked with my wife in more ways than one; then I committed her and threw away the key so I could book it to Mexico and play spy," Sands said, his voice icy and devoid of emotion. He knew that he should have said her name, it would have made what he'd said even more cruel, but he just couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, sure that his voice would falter if he did.

Ava involuntarily shivered. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Could Sands have really done all that on purpose? It was obvious he was dangerous… but was he evil? Or was it just another one of his acts? It was pointless for her to try and read him; reading him was like trying to read a blank sheet of paper.

Even Martin seemed to be taken aback by Sands’ admission, and Sands took the opportunity to get to the point. "Why don’t we cut to the chase? You didn’t keep me here to catechize me about my love life, or who broke into your office. You have security cameras and eyes; why don’t you use them both, if you haven’t already." Sands paused. "There’s only one question that you’ve been dying to ask me since you set foot in this room."

"And what’s that?" Martin asked challengingly, sitting back down in the chair across from Sands.

"Do you have the twenty million pesos from the coup d'état, Officer Sands?" Sands said knowingly, hearing the telltale knuckle crack that suggested Martin was irritated. "The answer is, yes. I do."

"So where is it?"

Sands leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. Whatever drug they’d given him had all but worn off now. The detached feeling had been quickly replaced by the pain in his side and the throbbing in his skull. "Well you know, it’s a funny thing. Two million US dollars may not be able to give me back what you took from me, but it will sure make being blind a lot easier to live with. When I think about it, two million bucks isn’t nearly enough, but I’ll take what I can get."

"You’re going to give me that money."

Hook, line and sinker.

Smirking, Sands shook his head. "Not without getting something in return."

"Would you like to be deaf too? Maybe paralyzed? How ‘bout I don’t take any more of your vital senses and we call it even?"

Sands face hardened, knowing that if he went down that road, there would be no coming back for him. One of Sands’ legs kicked up without warning, connecting forcefully with the underside of the table. It had the weight of a fold-up banquet table, and tipped over easily, hitting the floor with a heavy thud that bounced off the walls. It must have hit Martin on the way down like he’d hoped, because Martin let out an angry yelp.

"How generous of you," Sands drawled, before Martin could say anything. He wondered if Martin and Ava were surprised that he’d made no move to escape. But he was no fool. Trying to escape from a high-security CIA headquarters, blind and weaponless, was not a realistic expectation. "But you have to take me with you when you pick up the money."

"The hell I do," Martin protested, standing the table back up.

"If I’m not there, the people I left the money with might have a bit of a problem giving it to you. That might be… painful… for you. So what’s it going to be, Chief?"

Martin didn’t answer right away, probably suspecting that Sands had something planned.

Sands smiled like a cat that had eaten the canary, waiting patiently for Martin’s answer. He already knew what it would be before Martin said it. The man was a greedy bastard. He didn’t need the two million… which really wasn’t all that much when one played in the big leagues like he did. Truthfully, twenty million pesos converted to US currency didn’t even break one million, nine hundred. But Martin wouldn’t agree to go through with this because he wanted the money – no, Martin would go through with it just to take the cash away from Sands.

Like he’d really enjoy a little less than two million while in the loony bin. What was he going to spend it on? Extra padding for his cell?

Every choice Martin made depended on whether or not it would bring pain to someone else. Martin had quite a twisted, vicious temperament that would, in the end, be his demise. Sands intended to make sure his end came sooner, rather than later.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock… you really are running short on time Martin. Those long shadows are going to reach your doorstep soon."

"Fine. But you try anything, Sands, and your hot little tart over there will be the one to suffer, and if you don’t care about her, then I’m sure you care about the use of your legs."