There was a terrible ache in one of my ears. I groaned and opened my eyes; the light hurt my eyes and I had to squint to avoid my eyes hurting alongside my ears. I sat upright, and looked to my side. Joe was sitting next to me on the bed. "Who's in your head, Nancy?"

I shrugged. "Someone was messing with me." I told him. "I don't know, a women?"

He nodded. "You had some kind of break, Nancy. You don't ever break. What happened?"

"I don't know." I repeated. "There was a women's voice, and I saw someone with a gun. Someone was there, I swear someone was there."

He nodded, only slower this time. He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know if this mission is doing you any good, Nancy. Maybe it's getting to your head, making you over stressed and that's why you're acting like this."

I felt slightly insulted. "It's not in my head, Joe." I snapped. "Something is happening! You said it yourself; Jaclyn must be doing something. Anything, maybe she drugged me with some psychedelics. Or..something. Look, I don't know what's going on but I'm not going crazy if that's what you think."

He sighed. "No one was there, there weren't any people with guns and you were imagining the entire scenario."

I clenched my fists and glared at him. I'm not crazy. I saw what I did and I heard voices in my head. They were real and I know they were real. "What are you trying to do?"

"Protect you." He answered without hesitation. "You aren't an agent, you're an investigator. You have great abilities, you can do great things, but you can't handle certain aspects of missions like this. It gets to you; me and Frank had to go through a lot of mental training before we were allowed on the field like this, let alone on a mission of this scale."

"I don't need protection, Joe!" I exclaimed. "You think I need protection. I have this under control."

He bit his lip and sighed. "Look…" He was interrupted by a loud banging from across the house. It sounded like someone kicked the door in. He cursed under his breath and moved slowly to the door. He hardly poked his head out before he jumped back after getting punched. "Ow!"

I jumped up from the bed as someone ran past Joe; someone who had pretty gnarly muscles and an intimidating looking expression. His jaw was set and his eyes were in a partial glare. His lips were cracked and seemed to have a permanent scowl. He grabbed Joe by the arms when he was off guard and threw him into the wall adjacent them.

I ran right in front of the guy and swung my fist as hard as I could at his face. The shock reverberated through my entire arm and into my shoulder, and my knuckles hurt right as it impacted against his check bone. He grunted loudly, and fell straight to the ground. My whole arm hurt now, but I think I knocked his guy out in one blow. I

looked down at my shaking fist and smiled a little. "Not bad." Joe huffed in approval form where he was on the ground.

The guy landed right near him, and he was smiling at the unconscious goon. He got up, and his face became serious once again. "We have to make sure no one else ran in with this guy. Get your bag."

I grabbed my bag from the bedpost and left with him out the bedroom door. It didn't look like anyone else ran into the house with him. "There might be a car in the garage, some keys are probably lying around." I said. He nodded, and we started to walk forward when I was grabbed from behind, an arm around my throat and torso.

I thought I knocked him out! I felt cold metal against my neck, and I grabbed the guy's forearm. I couldn't breath very well and I had a knife to my throat; I'm not really doing too well. He whispered in my ear, "You punch pretty well for a girl."

I then felt a terrible pain in the side of my neck, then warmth running down and cooling at my shirt collar. I tried to keep calm during the ordeal, as he slowly ran his blade across my neck but I made weak cries in pain. He stopped before he could deal fatal damage, and then shoved me away from his torso.

I stumbled away and caught myself on the kitchen counter. I clenched my neck and squeezed my eyes shut. It only took a second before I felt something strange against my blood stained hand. It was hard, and I don't think there's anything like that in my neck.

I shakily felt it with my fingers. It hurt really badly, but it was just barely sticking out of the cut. I took a deep breath and pulled at it, hoping it wasn't actually a part of my body. I hissed in pain as I pulled it out of my skin. It's a microchip of sorts. Oh god. "Joe!" I shouted. "Joe!"

He had already ran back into the kitchen, and looked pretty surprised by my bleeding neck. He looked over to the side and saw the guy I supposedly knocked unconscious. They let at each other at the same moment, and Joe barely missed getting cut by the knife.

Joe ran the guy into the fridge and then slammed him over a counter. He threw keys at me. "Nancy, get into the garage. Now!" I nodded and ran through a small hallway and into a garage.

There were more people in the garage; one red haired women and one bald man. I pocketed the bloody microchip and prepared to fight. The women tried to kick my neck, right where the gash was. I luckily was able to dodge out of the way and I grabbed her ankle. I shoved her back and knocked her off balance.

The bald guy ran over and punched me in the stomach. I grunted and bent over, which gave me the chance to grab my hair in his fists. He yanked me upright and pressed me against the car.

He touched the cut, and I held back making a sound from the pain. Joe ran in just in time, and kicked the girl on the ground right in the jaw. She didn't get back up.

The bald man turned around and faced Joe. I started to move away when he elbowed me in the cheek. I felt more blood gush from the cut due to my sudden movement. I again pressed my hand over the cut and tried to stop it from bleeding nearly as bad.

Joe and the bald guy were fighting head to head, dodging each other movements and getting hit at the same ratio. I fumbled with the car door and got into the drivers seat.

I started up the car and locked all but one door. "Joe! Get in here!" I shouted, hoping he could hear something from inside the car. Joe looked over and the bald guy took advantage of that moment and knocked him over.

He took the guy down with him, and I noticed Joe getting up first. He ran over to the car and jumped into the passenger's side. He was breathing heavily. "Can you drive?" He didn't wait for me respond. "Just get out!"

He pressed a button and the garage door opened up. I backed out of the garage and drove as quickly as I could out into the snowy dirt road. I turned the SUV as quickly as I could manage in the muck to go down the mountain, almost hitting a black car parked in the driveway. "Are you hurt?" I asked Joe, flooring the gas pedal.

"I'm fine." He panted. "You're bleeding." He said. "You okay?"

I nodded. "I'm fine. Just a flesh wound. But I found something in my skin…"

"Nancy…" Joe said. Being completely sure he was going to question my sanity again, I interrupted him.

"No, seriously. My pocket. There's something in my pocket that was in my neck."

He sighed and awkwardly reached inside my pocket. He got a hold of the microchip and just stared at it for a second. "What's this? It was in your neck?" He looked at it closer, and turned it around between his fingers as he examined the strange thing. "This might be what was causing your freaky hallucinations."

"That's what I think." I said. I turned a corner and slammed on the breaks; someone was in the center of the road. I was hardly able to stop before I hit the mass laying on the ground. "Holy shit." I shouted.

Joe placed the chip on the dashboard and got out of the car. "Joe, wait!" I shouted. "They could be chasing us." He didn't listen to me, so I got out of the car, too.

The car was really close to this guy. It's a miracle that I didn't run him over. He had a tattered green jacket and pretty wet, half frozen jeans. He seemed to be bleeding from different areas, too. I noticed blood on his jeans. He had brown hair, and was laying face down, his forehead on top of one arm.

Joe knelt down, and touched the guy's shoulder. He turned him over to get him onto his back, and his eyes widened. "Oh my god." His eyes started welling up with tears. "Frank."