"You're talking like you know me," Ethan stated. "But I've never seen you in my life. Not in a briefing, not on a surveillance reel. So how is it that you're looking at me like you've known me for years?"
I ran my hands through my hair, although there's a bandage there, he must have put. Right, his team is dead, mostly right at the moment. "So the NOC list is real, too?"
"How do you know about that? That is a classified, deep-cover file. Information that exists only in the highest levels of the IMF and the CIA," he said, searching my eyes, as if to catch me in a lie. "You're not a witness. You're not a bystander."
He then grabbed my shoulders, but not to the point of bruising them, and demanded, "Who told you about the NOC list? Is that why you were there? To collect? To see if the job was finished?"
I try and reach out to calm him down, but he isn't cooling down.
"Everyone I trust is dead. My mentor is dead. And now a girl who literally falls out of thin air starts talking about the one thing I'm being framed for stealing. Give me a reason not to hand you over to the authorities right now. Give me a name."
My eyes were bulging out of my head. "You mean... Jim Phelps was your mentor? And what was her name.... Clare Phelps... and you need to calm down."
Letting my shoulders go, he then said, "How do you know their names?"
**
"Tell me my name," he challenged, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Tell me something about me that isn't in a file. If you know so much... tell me how this ends."
I racked my brain for the ending that always shocked me. "You almost get obliterated by a helicopter, and Max gets arrested. The blade is like... just inches from your neck. And you are Ethan Hunt."
He repeats what I kinda said at the end and then asks, "Max...you know about Max?"
"Spoiler alert: Max is a woman, by the way."
"If Max is a woman... and if I survive a helicopter crash... then you know who the mole is." He stepped closer to me. "You know who killed Jack. You know who blew up that car with Sarah inside. You know who really killed Jim."
Well, I stepped back. He has that dangerous look in his eyes–a glint so dark it would explode us right here.
"Tell me," he whispered. "If you know the ending... tell me who I'm actually fighting. Because right now, I'm hunting a shadow, and I think the shadow might be winning."
But I already told him too much. The story is now changing, and I am terrified of what that would mean for all of us.