Text to Grey:
Text to Grey: <3

Text to Roach: u lnly r jst brd prty thng?

Text to Grey: Must I always have ulterior motives?
Text to Grey: Oh that's right. Yes. I do.

Text to Roach: jst brd thn?
Text to Roach: 4 1ce nt n dgr r fr 4 lf. we shld blw smthng up

Text to Grey: What do they say about idle hands. Both know I got enough problems with devils.
Text to Grey: We should. I haven't done that in a while... For shame.
Text to Grey: There's something else tho.

Text to Roach: lk yr pmp hnd, kp ur bm gme strng. sup?

Text to Grey: My pimp hand is already ready, yo.
Text to Grey: Know this gon sound dumb. But I think someone is following me.
Text to Grey: Nola shiz. Sway?

Text to Roach: Wasn't me.
Text to Roach: But with that ass, who could blame me?
Text to Roach: Answer the door.
...and a buzz.

She stares hard at the intercom speaker from across the room then looks back to her phone. She exhales and unfolds herself from the couch to traipse over to the door and peer through spy hole before hitting the buzzer. "I just ordered Chinese, too" crackles her voice out into the street.

"Seen me comin'?" He's got his worn out motorcycle jacket on, for all that the night is warm and there's no sign of his bike around. Up the stairs and he's in through the waiting, open door. He grins, that crooked little thing, and bumps her with his hip as he slides by.

Ashen brows crook as she follows after him with her eyes and a grin and nudges the door shut with the hip he didn't bump. She's in that robe that looks like fresh ink against the white of her skin and the starkness of art that travels her body. Her hair is up in that chaotic bun that she wore when they fought at the Annex, her face is as serious as ever once the grin shuffles off the stage. "You waiting downstairs for me or something?" She asks, finally moving from the door to stand by the couch and the coffee table. "I'm glad you came, yo. I feel like I'm on my last marbles" Her index and middle float up beside her temple and roll forward in the universal signal for coo-coo and she bites down on her lip. "Really though. What you doing here?"

Roach doesn't ask it with any measure of snark. There's a genuine curiosity on her face. She steps off to the kitchen to flick on the light and grab him a glass of something hard.

"I was in the area." He shrugs. He must have been, right...? Insomnia or something. He can't quite recall what he was doing before his phone buzzed with her text, but it hadn't been a moment between responding and turning the corner to find himself on her street. He grins a thanks as she comes back with the glass, and presumably one for herself. He's not usually one to drink alone. Speaking of things better done in company, he's got a butt lit up for her when she returns. Little nic to calm the nerves.

The hand that accepts the cigarette is shaking, so that she drops the smoke and its already singing the off-grey carpet as she bends to fetch it and offer him a look that says "see.. I'm losing it" and she slides it into her mouth and takes a deep inhale. The whiskey is neat, top shelf and about as many fingers as he usually slides into her.

"Can't sleep huh?" She sidles past him to drop onto the couch and goes between sips and smokes as she curls up and levels her eyes on his. Intent and alert; like a spooked thing. Her movements jerky and tight. "So uh.. thanks for coming up, gangster. I could use some company. I wish I knew where to start. I also don't wanna... you knows, burden you. Know your deck is full of jokers too."

"What are friends for?" He shrugs, then shrugs out of his jacket and drops it carelessly on the floor next to her couch. Underneath the leather is just a plain black tee, nothing fancy or memorable except for the way it outlines the flat planes of his chest. Not a body builder's sculpt, just rangy muscle and bone and scar tissue from a rough life of getting the shit kicked out of him until he was fast and tough and clever enough to do some kicking of his own. He settles in at the opposite end of the couch, cushion between them, whiskey cupped in both hands and resting on his knees. There's a deliberate slowness to his movements, like he's dealing with an animal out of its element and he's careful not to get bit. "Talk to me, Roachie. What's goin' on?"

"Grey...." it's like her voice is tinged with desperation and it's a good thing, she thinks, that the pillow is there and that her hands are busy, because sex made a wonderful diversion and distraction, but that's not why she texted him and she knows it.

"I haven't told you anything about myself. Likes, ever. And, I don't wanna put a lot of my shiz on your back. But I'm scared. I... I admit that."

She took a swig and placed the glass back on her knee; legs folded beneath her. "Anyways, this fella, Menace, he was like, my partner in crime so to speak.. we ran together for Jimmie, the guy who sent me to Rhydin to begin with. So's Jimmie winds up dead. Menace gets in touch and wants to help me out of my contract...."

"To cut it short, Menace has been actin' shady. He keeps asking me to come back to Nola but he knows I can't... it's way too dangerous to base myself there with the fall out from Jimmie and my contract being lose. Menace says he wanted to find out who had my contract so... he kidnapped this scary fuck who was kind of... stalking me back in the Crez, to use him as bait.. was gonna trade that guy for me, at an auction. Except, well, Robbie, the guy I was seeing, he swung his bat harder and the ball went higher.... and well, Robbie got my contract."

"I gots a call the other night that the guy that they kidnapped as bait, Gerry, the stalker freak? He's *missing* -- last time I saw that ****, he was in Menace's trunk. Trussed up like Christmas ham. Next up, the feds were at the door of my old place back in Queens asking about him." She takes a long drag and shakes her head several times.

"Your ex-boyfriend has the contract for your soul." There's more he wants to say - 'We all get scared, darlin'. It's part of what makes us human,' for a start. But he's bein' calm and supportive and understandin', at least up until she drops that bombshell. He runs a hand through his hair, and then takes a slug from the whiskey. "Okay. Um. Guess I can cancel those inquiries, then..." He chews at his lower lip. "Okay, somethin' changed while you were in Nawlins. Robbie gotcha soul, but ya boy - Menace?" Street thug name, the kind they gave themselves when they had delusions of bein' the next kingpin. Except when other people gave it to them, because it was fuckin' accurate. "Somethin' else has twisted his tail." He looks at the whiskey, thinking aloud. He pauses. "You an' Menace worked for Jimmie? Jimmie owned your soul?" Is there a connection there?

"Course, yo." She responds with a thrust of her chin in agreement and that kitten bite of her lower lip which said she was connecting dots just as he. There's no comment about Robert and her being bound, because like gum, she's still chewing at it. "But what's got me twisted up more than Menace and his sudden silence 'wards me is Gerry. Likes, where is he? And, I just got this feeling, Grey, likes, I'm being watched... I can just feel it. That or I'm being paranoid as all fuck." Another swig, her eyes trace his features in the anaemic light of her lounge. "You know when shiz just feels wrong? That's how it feels. Like..like something is about to go bam." Her thin shoulders close back towards the pillows behind her and that cherry on the end of her smoke glows bright as she takes another deep inhale. She exhales overhead as she absently ashes the cigarette over a heavy, 70's glass, heart shaped tray just within reach.

"Yeah. Yeah, I get that, too." Had he felt someone watching him lately? The way he could always tell when Eibhlin was around? Felt someone thinking nasty, twisted thoughts regarding his guts and a lawn rake? Maybe. He'd put it off at the time as being fallout from that dust up with the Gnomiya, or maybe the Chechens, but... He leans over and nudges the ashtray over to her with his longer reach, sips his whiskey. The question is still lurking in the back of his mind, unasked but still present. Who owns Menace's soul?

"You think this nut job, Gerry - he got loose? Or..." Maybe 'got' wasn't the word. Maybe it's 'set.' Not enough info. He hates playing poker when he doesn't even know how many cards are in the deck...

"I feels like something is up there. With that. They took him in the trunk to New Orleans to try and trade him off. But that never happened. I realise, I'm telling you all this and it don't make much sense. It's out of control. All of it. And now the goddamned feds are involved. I mean..." her hand begins shaking over the tray as he guides it closer and she gives him a look of thanks. She hears that her breaths are coming faster; nerves are fraying further. "You know, I really don't know which way shiz gonna swing, this is premier league kinda effed up, yo."

"I uh.. I wanted to ask if likes... you might help me out, if I needed it?"

"Feds only matter if you're on Earth," he points out mildly. "No extradition from Rhydin." If course, then ya gotta worry about bounty hunters and extraordinary rendition squads. But he's not about to mention them, not right now. Comforting. Understanding. "Don't be silly, Roach, of course I will." He doesn't even hesitate, and he says it almost absently. Yes, baby girl, the sky is blue.

Okay. Get that hamster spinnin', Grey. Two parts to every plan, action and reaction. You're on the defense, that means react. He looks around at her apartment and frowns. "This place really is a shithole." Drywall, cheap plaster. Effing cardboard. He could take it six different ways.

"That spark bug thing you do. What's its range? How hot can you get?" He wiggles his fingers at her.

Dark, hazel eyes, mascara and liner smudged at the edges of her gaze, peer around. Yeah, it was a shithole. She cracks a grin at his commentary and nods along with his estimation. Time to move. She takes another drag and stubs the cigarette and sits back. "Hot as I like, yo. There isn't no limit. I'm still working on the lasting time, but getting hot, you and I both know, I don't got no problem with that." To ease the tension a little she fires off an overdone wink and chuckles. Another swig. "What you getting at, babe?"

He bites his lower lip, buttoning up the comment he wants to make. Business first. Pleasure later. "Countin' assets. They decide to stop watchin' and start grabbin', I want 'em to get a fistful of thorns." He gnaws on his lip again. "Prolly no good. Takes too long to kill someone by burning, and they're likely to take the building wit' 'em when they go. Place looks like a firetrap." He sets his drink down on the table and gets up, needing to pace, to move. It's a poor substitute for actual action, but if there's one thing he's learned from practicing parkour in the West End it's that people who leap without looking wind straddling one of those spiked fences. "You know how to use a gun?"

"Nope." The question startles her a little. "I got the fire, I never figured it was necessary." He paces and her eyes follow him again; back and forth, back and forth. She takes a breath. "Maybe, I could stage something. Likes, set this joint on fire and run. You think so?" It's a stupid proposal, but the chips were against her.

"Ya hate ya neighbours that much, then?"

Roach drains her glass and places it on the coffee table. "Don't think anyone would miss em. Or this hellhole."

He snorts at that.

Slight smile, there. "I dunno... I dunno man, I dunno what to be thinking."

She looks down at her chipped nail-polish and the slight marks at the tops of her fingers from old burns. "Would you teach me?"

"Yeah, well brainstormin's good. Get all the options on the table. Fake ya death and run, that's a thought. Where the frakk do ya run to, though? Usually people are running time Rhydin from somewhere else..."

"Okay, maybe, I void the whole set fire to an entire building. I could always run to Queens for a while but.. I think I'd rather face this shit than my ma. She's an effing monster." Pause. "One thing is for sure... this place here, this apartment, is compromised. Had an uninvited guest here earlier too. Not bad, truth be told, but not good neither. Gots to find somewhere else.

"I mean, hell. You're already in the West End, that's where... everyone goes... to hide..." The penny drops. West End. No scry zone. Can't use listening devices, can't use spells. Where SIGINT fails, HUMINT fills the gap... He looks at the front window, gauging the thickness of the drapes, how a telescopic lens - no tech needed to use, just to produce - could pierce the gaps. "Yeah, doll," he says absently. "I can teach ya to shoot." He throws his mind over the layout of the street, the buildings facing hers. Would they be ballsy enough to put a watcher right across? Best view, but too obvious. Katty corner, then. No more than one story higher than her place, or the sight lines would be wrong.

"If the place was on fire, what would you grab first? What couldn't you live without?"

"My dildo?" She offers up, only half joking. "Yo, I make away with my life... that is enough." There's a sinking stone feeling to the way she addresses him, rising off of the couch.

"I could leave this place in a minute if I had to." She edges around the table and moves towards the other coffee table, just off from the tv set, for her pack of smoke and fingers two smokes free. The cigarettes are lit one at a time, courtesy of the jet of blue smoke on the tip of her thumb that she ignites as casual as the way she is with her body, and holds one out to him. Smoke rises in the air between them. It's not the cigarette; it's called frisson.

He reaches out and takes it from her, tugging his phone out of a cargo pocket. He dials the number from memory. "Ochistka missii . YA poluchil kvartiru dlya vas, chtoby opustoshit' . YA khochu, chtoby sidet' na nem v Uest-Ende , poka ya ne skazhu. Vy poymat' kogo-nibud' kovyryat'sya tam, doli ikh na ulitse dlya voskhoda solntsa."

His voice crisp, like a sergeant ordering his men to storm a bunker, knowing they won't all make it back.

Drawing hard on the coffin nail, she watches him with her intently focused eyes. No questions, not yet.

He shoves the phone into his pocket and grabs his jacket, tosses it over his shoulder - and then, aggressively, moves close to her. Running his hands down her sides, cupping her close to him... he plucks the cig from between his lips and grazes his teeth from her shoulder up to her neck. His voice is barely audible, his lips hardly moving as he kisses her. "We're going to your bedroom, pretty thing."

Her eyes cling to the ceiling in surprise (and she's still got those questions!) and hesitance to succumb to abandon. Nerves on high; worry circles like ravens in her head but his kisses are the sniper shots that shoot them from the sky. Roach melts against him like she's made of only breaths and sighs and moans, and where he's concerned, it's what she's most often reduced to. A hand in his hair, a hand to the belt of her robe with a tug and the inky silk ripples free from her frame. Naked but for a thong imprinted with marijuana leaves. There's no argument.

Steps backwards to her room and the purple quilted futon, past the iridescent curtains that fall from the doorway, and inside that space heavily fragranced with her smell; patchouli, an edge of smoke and the burn-off from dragon's blood incense from a few nights back. In the dark, she begins working her fingers at the black of his shirt because she needs his skin. She needs him. "Harder than ever." Her request said around another bite of her neck. The hand that was in his hair is now reaching past the waistband of his pants.

"We've got about fifteen minutes before some very large Russian gentlemen kick down your door and carry everything out of here." Loose those pants may be, but there's absolutely no denying the effect her touch, her movements, her smell have on him. "If I told you out there to get dressed, we were leaving, Menace and his boys would be here in ten." A gasped intake of breath. "Chert! I'm pretty sure all we need is about five - maybe six - but blyad, I hate rushing. Especially with you, seksual'naya."

She halts in her explorations. "What? Where are they taking it all?" Then, she continues, change in tactic - their sex wasn't typically hasty and she didn't want to rush it either, so; pulling down his pants just enough as she gets down to her knees, "then, we don't have to rush, baby. I got you, and we got time for this." and she takes him into her mouth and grabs his ass with both hands and begins getting to work. Just. Like. That.

"Oh, gods." His eyes nearly roll up into the back of his head as she starts, but he remains aware of himself enough to reach back and snag his pistol before her pulling his pants down jars his weapon loose and causes an unintentional discharge. "Oh, blyad, Roach-" his free hand tangles in that messy bun, messing it up a bit more. "Oh fu- uh, a lock up- a place I keep sh- things here in the End. I'll, mmm, I'll get a brujah to check it out and-" Oh. He stops talking.

She's got a terrible mouth but it's capable of wonderful things. When she's done, and he's left gasping for air and calling her things in the mother tongue, she licks her mouth greedily and reels back, butt onto her heels and looks up the length of him in the darkness. "Think of that as my thank you." She's a punk rock Marilyn in that voice and broken jazz croon. She stands and, after what feels much too long a lapse in time, kisses his mouth. She's not had the pleasure of it since the weekend of The Meteors gig and afterwards, where they had retired to hers for hours of enjoyment and some Call of Duty in between sessions. Roach tastes of his release, of whiskey and fear. It's a potent mixture. The kiss is startling hungry; like she's missed him or something. "You da best."

"You," he says, his voice a fierce growl. "If you don't get some clothes on, I'm draggin' you outta here in those panties and my jacket. And the panties might not last to the safe house." His words say one kind of action, his hands say another - one on her hip tugging her close, the other cupping a breast with dexterous fingers tweaking and manipulating. It takes an almost tangible effort to turn her loose, like a miser letting go of a gold bar. "Gods damn it, lyubovnik, when we're done runnin' I'm gonna make sure you can't walk for a week."

Moments later, they're cleaned up and his pants are fastened, his jacket is on, and reluctantly, she's dressed; indigo, flared jeans that sit low enough that tattoos peek, a black tank and those trusty black and white converse and they are facing one another like soldiers counting down the seconds until the first grenade. Favored purse over shoulder loaded with the vital basics (nun-chucks, two daggers, wallet, cell, condoms.) As if it's the last time, they suddenly step closer in unison and share another lusty kiss; his hands cupping her face and her hands on his ass, when, exactly as foretold, on the fifteenth minute, five very broad, tall Russian males burst in the door like it a'int no thang; the chain popped from its socket and the hinges askew.

Appearing behind them in the cloud of dust and shattered wood, the delivery man; wide eyed holding the bag of chinese takeaway. He gulps and announces in a shrill voice under his cap..

"Wontons and chow mein...?"

((Adapted from live play with thanks and props to The Grey Market))

The night after...

Mellow, morning light shines into the windows of a brownstone, roughly three blocks from the Docks district. Past the venetian blinds, the glare reflects black lashes across Roach's sleeping face as she frowns in dream and starts awake, alert. This wasn't her futon, this wasn't her room. Sitting bolt upright, she looked around in a haze, a momentary loss of equilibrium. The room was half in dark still but Grey had gone. Left was only his scent on her sheets and the dull but insistent aches throughout her body that told the tale of how the rest of the night before had been spent. He had never betrayed his word but the panties had indeed made it to the secret address before being done away with. Promises, promises.

Wait..And, what was that? Evidently, he had left her something else too.

A single box awaited her. White with red stripes like candy. A fat, shiny red ribbon tied in a bow on the top.

She made a face as she rubbed at her eyes and continued to stare across the room from her bed at it before kicking and tearing aside the sheets and leaping off the bed to walk over and pick it up. Only, she can't. The package was deceptive; it weighed more than she had expected. Bending over a little, she tenderly unwound the bow and peeled back the lid to look within. Three objects greeted her.

One Glock.
One Revolver.
One karambit knife.

And a note.

"Keep at least two of these with you at all times."

Roach spent a moment staring at the assortment in fascination and surprise before taking out each separately for inspection. Trailing her fingers across their shape and becoming familiar with their unique weight. The knife in particular made her grin but the Glock kept dragging her eye. It meant business.

"Damn, gangster..." whispered as she stood there touched and still feeling surprised, returning each weapon to their tray in the box and replacing the lid.

Then, she crept to her door with a glance back at the box and began her first explorations of the four story safe house, wondering if any of the men who were her removalist's and guards lingered and what they were up to. But she moved in a daze. The weaponry carried a different weight than the mere physical. Each impressed on her further how dire her situation had become. The many anomalies, coincidences, disturbing factors and mysteries. And use for force. Fire could be fickle, after all.

When she returned to her room, it was to collect her phone and shoot a text to Grey.

The following transpires...

Text to Grey: Thank you for the haul. I think I should be able to work out how to use the claw thingy. I might even hold up a bank today!
Text to Grey: Jokes!

Text to Roach:You got the note? Read the note.
Text to Roach: I'm serious.
Text to Roach: Two at all times.
Text to Roach: I'm gonna check.
Text to Roach: There will be spankings.

She smirked and sent off a reply. Around her, various boxes needing to be unpacked until once again it would be safe for her to make a home somewhere real. Somewhere that didn't require observation and panic. Roach sighed and began to attend to them, she just wasn't hungry yet. But she kept returning to the striped box. Staring at the lethal confections within.

Play the game, she thought to herself.

But the game had changed. In more ways than she liked, in more ways than she knew.

There was no sign of the girl at dinner. And not much activity coming from her room or the lounge where she watched television or played her Calling Duties (?!)...or whatever it was, game.

Vitaly excused himself from the table to walk up the flights of stairs to check on her. He tried the door; it was locked. Plucking the house skeleton key from within his sleeve, he executed it within the lock and stirred the door wide gently. Light spread across the floor of the darkened room like a taboo thing; so bright against the very empty shadows of Roach's room it almost seemed criminal.

"Miss Lee?" He called out as he set foot within and hit the switch by the door. There was no sign of her. Wind tugged at the thin, patterned curtain at her barred window and the leaves of the few daisies he had bought with a cheap vase the day before to give her some semblance of home. He was sure the last thing the girl might fancy was flowers, but...

He sighed as he placed his hands on his waist, pushing back the edges of his suit jacket as he did so. He swore beneath his breath and opted to check the cupboard, however ridiculous it was. He was greeted by a motley row of hung attire, ranging from plain tees to band tees to fishnet shirts and pleated, studded skirts and jackets, dresses with polka dots and some with spikes, and all of which, gave off a scent, like her; the same one from those stores that sold incense and atrocious, screaming music and cases filled with studs that made parts of his body sting even to look at them. Beneath her clothes was only a long black duffle and a white box with red stripes with a red bow beside it. No surreptitious blondes to be found.

"Grey, you romantic..." he murmured, not prying further, as he stepped back and shut the doors. He looked across to the bed. The boxes were dismantled and lay in a heap. Beside them, a small pile of porcelain clowns and the rather disconcertingly furious bunny rabbit. He chuckled and reached out with his long fingers and brought it to his face, turning it around in his hand. He sneezed. The thing had bits of dust clinging to its ears and had faded in patches. For some reason, a great wave of sadness struck him as he looked at it. Vitaly placed it back down across her pillow, tucking its body just under her blue quilt and straightening out its ears. "Cranky bunny for cranky girl."

He took up the flattened boxes under one arm and then moved for the door with a glance to the curtain and the leaves of the daisies. It was then he noticed what he had missed on his initial survey. Stuck to the modest desk, just by the vase, a post it.

out, back later.
grey gave me toys, so don't crap yourself vee. i can handle myself.

A poorly drawn gun and knife was illustrated below in blue pen. Vitaly bunched up the note to make his way downstairs and to his meal, but on his way paused to check the rear door that led to the other side of the garden. It was ajar, a pleasant breeze rocking it and shivering the red ivy that climbed part of the kitchen's rear wall outside. He meant to do away with the cardboard beneath his arm and into one of the roller bins, when, across the way, he spied one; it had been pressed against the back gate as leverage to access the alley on the other side of it. He disposed of the boxes and rolled the bin back across the courtyard.

"Who left the door unlocked?" He asked as he stepped back inside and locked the door behind him.

"I did", called Sergei, "Sorry Vitaly! Had a smoke earlier, bro."

Vitaly locked the door and sighed returning to the kitchen.

"Why bro?"

The other three men turned to look up from their meals at Vitaly along with Sergei.

Vitaly smoothed a hand down his tie and sat down to take up his knife and fork. "I said, lock the door after smoke. The cat has gotten out." He shook his head and carved a portion from his lamb cutlet. The table was silent for a several minutes bar the music of cutlery and plates.

"Sorry, bro. I thought I did." Sergei eventually spoke up, touching a napkin to the corners of his mouth.

"You pick her up then."

"But bro, she could be anywhere."

Vitaly straightened his neck and gave Sergei a baleful stare.

"Then drive everywhere."

"Right now bro?"

"No, later. She's out; might as well let her..play" he fluttered his elegant fingers in the air off of his knife. "Later."

Sergei drove around for two hours trying to find her later that night. When he did, she was crouched outside Java Hell on the kerb by a stack of crates. Her head was on her arms which were on her knees, a cigarette threaded between her fingers, nearly dead.

"Miss Lee", he sung out, leaning out the window. "Yo, Miss. Time to go."

She took a moment before lifting her head, wiping at her face. It was streaked in black mascara. She forced a smile and tossed the cigarette aside. It rolled to a stop and went out. The Russian sat back in the car, deliberated with hands tapping against the wheel, before opening the door and walking over to crouch before her. He offered a wide, fair hand her way and helped her to her feet. He could smell the alcohol on her as he led her by hand to the van, helped her inside patiently. "It is alright." It was all he could think to say. He gazed at her without knowing what more he could do.

Roach looked over to him out on the pavement as he shut the door. "We go home now, Miss Lee."

She nodded as he circled back around the car and got into the driver's seat. Then almost immediately, a sniffle, and she burst into tears again, rocking back and forth as she held her hands, bunched up into the sleeves of her hooded, black cardigan, to the sides of her face as she shook her head side to side.

Sergei sent a text and started the engine and took off. The drive to the brownstone was silent except for her wracking sobs along the way.

Outside the safe house, Vitaly was awaiting their arrival. He opened the passenger door immediately and reached in to pick Roach off of the seat and haul her over his shoulder, where she slumped; exhausted with emotion and liquor. He stroked her head with a deeply concerned expression and carried her inside while Sergei took a look over the street and two of the other men surrounded Vitaly and the girl until they were inside the hall.

"All will be okay", he whispered to her as he climbed the stairs. "Sway?"

There was a choked, salt-watered response from over his shoulder.

"Sway."

Five thirty AM on the dot.

Tires wheezed to a stop outside the four story brownstone and out slunk a panda-eyed girl in next to nothing; a black tank top that exposed her mid-section and the ink that just peeked over the seam of ratty, distressed black cut off shorts and converse sneakers. Her hair was especially wild; less its usual artful chaos and more exactly what it was... hair from a night of abandon in the sheets of a new lover, hair from leaving a room that wasn't hers.

She looked both ways up and down the street before pacing across it and coming up short. In the shadows, just beyond the security gate, waited Vitaly. He was smoking and watching her approach in one of his suits, shoes shined and his hair neatly combed. Roach watched as he opened the gate. In the over-still dawn the sound of the steel grating made her cringe, as did the look on his face. "Yo Vee."

He walked to the lip of the top step and looked into the sky; an arm behind his back and one out in front of him, in gesture to the street, his cigarette sending smoke signals in the air. He took a deep breath and smiled. "Fresh morning. Birds singing.." The smile disappeared. "You know, statistically, most murder occur at dawn or dusk..."

He said the words so bitingly that she felt a chill pass down her spine. But, he continued.

"Most break and enter occur at midnight, maybe two am." He rocked a hand side to side. "Kidnappings.. it depends. Afternoon; two or three. Or dawn, when tired eyes." Another puff, he stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged. "Know once man in see-eye-dee. He tell. I never forget."

Roach stuck her tongue into a tooth and worked the enamel with the stud that was through it as she glared at him.

"Okay, I get it. I'm an idiot. Now, I would like to go's to bed. I'm tired." She grumbled.

Vitaly looked down at her, like a statue; he was implacable, stern. His hand was still behind his back, his other out before him; he held the cigarette between the pads of his forefinger and thumb like teaspoon. The way Frank Sinatra used to hold his cigars in old photos.

"You up all night, in splendor of passion." He looked at her then, taking the cigarette to his mouth for a dry puff. "You not up all night practicing with knife or gun. Or talking strategy, with me."

"Eff me? That isn't your business."

"It isn't?"

"Nope. Where I go, when I'm not here, isn't your business. Okay? Got it?"

They locked eyes for a long, long beat before Vitaly shook his head and took another of those dry, puffing inhales from the cigarette. "I do got. But it is my business. You are my business."

"Looks, we can talk about whatever, when I wake up. I need to get to sleep."

And she marched up the stairs... and into his hand. He pressed at her sternum in a smooth motion, his strength not belied by his approximate age in her mind nor his build. Roach looked at him with one of her withering stares. "Yo, I am not gonna talk to you right now."

Her head jerking back, her face and voice shadowed with stubborn belligerence. Vitaly grabbed her by the bicep and with another smooth motion tugged her towards him so that she stood on his shoes as he looked down into her pierced face. She could smell his aftershave, the chamomile on his breath from the tea he always had with his breakfast. Her eyes wide; his benevolence towards her had found its edge.

"You are most arrogant, imprudent, insolent, wilfully ignorant dyehvooshkah I have encountered in my life." He shook her arm, to rattle the significance of this moment into her. He had observed her intelligence, seen she was clever, that her behaviour was to a purpose, so, he also knew she could comprehend how imperative it was that she listen to him. And, that she open up.

"I also know you are not imbecile. Risk-taker; yes. Rapacious with boy; yes. But not dolbo." With the hand that held the smoke, he very, very lightly tapped her temple with its signet-ringed pinky finger.

"You will tell all is happening, immediately. I did not ask other morning when sad. I ask now. You tell." The tension in Vitaly's voice and grip brooked no further argument.

He woke up to the smell of something burning, and his first thought was panic. Get the kids, wake Moira, where’s the frigging cat? They’d planned for this, done drills. Why wasn’t the smoke alarm going off, open the window and throw out the emergency ladder, dial 911 on the cell phone. He rolled to shake his wife awake, slammed into the wall. That was when he remembered that he wasn’t home anymore, wasn’t in the comfortable house in the suburbs that twenty years on the force had bought him. Moira was holding down the fort, watching over the three kids, on her own while he was off following leads.

Ah, crap, he thought. I knew this place looked like a firetrap, sonofabitch. He kicked at the sheets tangled around his legs, reached for the things he’d left on the nightstand. He’d looked the apartment over pretty thoroughly before he’d taken it, figured out where the exits were in an emergency. Even gone out and bought a fire extinguisher and some detectors, smoke and carbon monoxide, since the place hadn’t come with them. The zoning laws in this city were positively medieval, just like the police department…

His hand slapped empty wood instead of his wallet or his piece, and he finally recognized the smell of the smoke. Not wood or fuel. Tobacco.

He sat upright in the bed, and a brilliant white light hit him like an open handed slap. “Uh, uh, uh,” someone said on the other side of it. “Gently, now. Let’s keep the sudden moves to a minimum, shall we?” His mind, already going a mile a minute, clicked on the voice. Young, trace of a city accent. Somewhere between Boston Southie and Chicago Westie, with the slightest trace of a Southern drawl. West End. This friggin’ city… He raised his hands, slowly, and the light in his face vanished again. After a second, the lamp at his desk clicked on. The man was sitting in the room’s only chair, the teetering, creaking relic the landlord had obtained secondhand from a soulless office somewhere that had sucked away the life and spirit not only of its occupants, but of everything else that had ever sat too long under those fluorescent lights. He matched the voice. Young, lean, dressed in a work shirt and cargo pants. Unlaced steel toes on the feet crossed in front of him. Cigarette in his mouth and a gun in his hand.

“Detective Jim Lanzecki, I presume,” the man in the chair said. “You’re a little outta your jurisdiction, detective.” Accent in the middle of the word, making it into a slur. Petty. “Heard ya been askin’ questions. Got some of my own.”

Jim swallowed once, twice. “I ordered the nonsmoking room.”

There’s a flash of a crooked smile from behind the cherry ember. “Can’t always get whatcha want.”

“I’m guessin’ you’re the boyfriend,” he said at last. “Grey.” He watched the other man’s jaw work, and wondered if he’d already screwed this up, bought himself a bullet.

“Might be I was,” Grey said at last. “But nowadays, you’re lookin’ for boyfriends, I think you’re lookin’ for somethin’ a little more tall, dark, and undead. I’m just a man with an interest. An’ might be, I’m also a man with some answers. So let’s talk, you an’ I…”

The knocking at the door startled him out of what must have been a world class reverie, jerking him upright from where he was leaning on the counter in the kitchenette. From the stacks of ingredients he nearly knocked over - sugar, cocoa, butter, cream - he must have been making something. Damned if he could remember what. The knocking was persistent, a steady thump, thump, thump like the caller had been told to go on as long as it took to get a response. Rubbing his eyes, Grey went to answer it.

For a second, he thought Ivan Samonov was somehow up and walking in record time, looking for a little payback. Same massive wall of tracksuit, same close cropped hair and piggish eyes. His arm is behind him, pulling his pistol, before he recognizes Nikolai Zaitsyev and converts the motion into an exaggerated stretch and yawn. Maybe it was convincing. Nikolai wasn’t diving for cover, so he was either fooled or stupid.

“Zdrasvuitye, Grey,” he said.

“Privyet, Nikolai. ‘Sup?” He started to lean on the doorjamb, then perked up. “Is this word from Vit? Menace back in town yet?”

“Nyet, nyet. One of your contacts from Earthworld sent a box to the house, thought you would be there. Said you were looking for background info.” The big Russian cocked a thumb over his shoulder, where a file box was sitting on the steps behind him. It looked heavy.

“Mitch came through, huh? Good deal.” Grey squinted at it. “You, uh, you need a hand getting it in here?”

“Nyet, Grey, spasibo. I have it.” He hefted it up, and Grey held the door for him to put it on the cable spool that served as a table. The glance around the room was disparaging, and the sidelong look back at him puzzled. You live here? Like this? Grey raised an eyebrow, inviting comment, but Nikolai didn’t rise to the bait. “There’s, um, there’s something else. Your girl- uh, Roach. She kinda got into it with Mishka.”

“With who?” He paused, and then the penny dropped. “Wait, Mish- what was she even doin’ there?”

“Well, Sergei told her he’d take her to see her brother, and…”

“Are we runnin’ a safehouse, or a friggin’ bus station? Blyad, Nik, what the hell?” Grey ran his hands through his hair. “Alright, tell me what happened.”

Nikolai did.

“Well… frakk me.” Grey leaned back. He glanced guiltily at his phone, and the little flashing indicator that said he had messages. “Guess I should prolly check my voice mail. I gotta say I didn’t see that comin’.”

Nikolai stared at him. “Well, bro, you know when your girlfriend finds out you’re tappin’ some other chick on the side…”

“She’s not my- yanno, forget it. Whatever.” Grey sighed and opened the box. The pile of folders within stared back at him. “Jesus God Almighty, I asked for the friggin’ highlights.”

The Russian shrugged. “Courier say, these are highlights, bro.”

“Great.” Grey shook his head. “What else can- forget I said that. Thanks, Nik. Tell Mishka- frakk it. Don’t tell her anythin’. I’ll buy her a new phone, somethin’ with all the bells and whistles.” He saw the bigger man out, closed and locked the door behind him. “Guess now I don’t have to worry about remembering her number, huh?” He asked the basement apartment. “Frakk.”

He settled down at his table and pulled out the folders. Menace.Gerry. Elizabeth. “I don’t get it, yanno? She tells me, to my face, she’s gonna smoke and frakk me out of her system. Havin’ a pretty good go of it too, word I hear. Guess vampires really do do it better, am I right?” The folders bulged at the seams, threatening to spring free of the rubber bands holding them in place. Polaroids and typewritten forms hang out, kept in place as much by habit as by anything restraining or organizing them. “So what the hell, I let myself get picked up and see where things go, and suddenly I’m the bad guy? How does that even work?”

His phone made a rattling sound, like bone dice in a clay cup. “I do not know. Bitches be cray?”

“I know, right?” He agreed, then paused. “Don’t call her that. It’s demeaning.”

His phone made that sound again. “Did you not once attempt to stick it in her-”

He pointed his finger at it. “That was a miscommunication!” Another moment’s pause, and then the slightest tug of a grin at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, everything worked out all right in the end.”

His phone made a buzzing sound, like on a quiz show. “Pun penalty.”

“Heh,” he agreed, looking back down at the files. “Where do I even start with these…” He stared for a second, and then looked up sharply. “Did I just have a conversation with my phone?”

There was no response.

“I’m losin’ it,” he muttered, and jerked the ashtray Marcus had left on his doorstep over a bit closer. A snap of the Zippo and a cloud of smoke later, he felt marginally more prepared to tackle the stack. “Okay, Elizabeth Lee. Let’s get to know you a bit better.”

Hours later, and his cigarette has gone still where it rests. His phone buzzes, yet another text. He ignores it, as he has the last several. He turns the page, green eyes gone as cold as the ash in the dish.

Miggs peeked out of his window box sentry post and noted the time. 1800, on the tick. He?d been waiting around all week for these jagoffs, and only now do they finally show. At least the old lady had been keepin? up with her flowers and herbs, so it wasn?t like he was starvin? out here. Just bored as shiz.

But here it was, a beat up old sedan and the three jackwagons he?s been waitin? for. He makes a note of their car?s description - no license plate, not like ya needed one in the West End - and it must have been spell converted, judging from that nasty rumble, and the fact that it was running while the magic was up. He waited for them to depart again, then made the call.

The telestone was a necessity in this line of work, ?cause nobody had yet made an actual working cell phone for someone the size of an old-school G.I. Joe doll. (He?d cut the last person who?d made the Barbie reference at him.) Miggs wasn?t sure how it worked - he was a spy-eye, not a magician - but it linked up with the cell networks and made it possible for him to communicate with the humies without havin? to fly over the ass end of beyond to get to them. Stupid tall buggers and their freakin? cars? Still, he wasn?t expectin? to see them pull up in a 1975 Plymouth Fury, not that anyone?s been keepin? the damn thing up. Cryin? shame, that. Miggs ducked low, crouching under the rosemary to keep to the shadows and avoid any reflections. The odds of any of them seein? him from across the street, in the flower box, even with his binoculars tucked up to his eyes, were so freakin? unlikely he wouldn?t bet on ?em in a million years - but this was goddamn Rhydin, and stranger things happened. Besides, he was a professional.

The call went to voice mail, about like he was expectin?. That was one of the downsides of the damned stones; they only worked when the magic was up, which in the West End usually meant the tech was down. ?Yo, jerkface, if you?re there pick up. Pick up, pick up? okay, fine, it?s Snapdragon. Your boys you wanted me to watch for just checked up on their watcher. Three of them, the big guy you wanted me to keep an eye on and two flunkies. You better watch your butt, these guys don?t look like they?re playin? around.

?And hey, you better come through with that payment. I want a full kilo, I?m gettin? it checked this time. Pretty sure that last one was light, and I don?t play that shiz, you feel me? I?ve been out here all week, you better believe you?re gettin? your money?s worth. Prick.?

He swiped the stone to hang up and tucked it back in the pouch on his belt, feeling his mouth starting to drool. Damned if he knew where Grey got it from, but that cocky sonofabitch always had the best chocolate.

"Heard from Demon yet, Roachie?"

Roach grunted and pushed off of the bottom stair that led down into the basement where she had been playing firestarter with a few rows of spare parts dummies, picked up from vacant lots and dumpsters across West End to become blank-faced fighting aids. Faces she intended to sharpie into various expressions at some point.

Vitaly had appeared at exactly seven pm at the door at the top of the stairs with a cigarette and a saucer and cup in his other hand.

"Nope." She turned to look up the flight and shrugged, then, "you don't miss your minutes, do you Vee?"

"Hmm?"

"'fore the devil knows yer dead. Never miss no beat."

"Timing is everything, Malen'koye plamya."

"Say what?"

He moved down the stairs in his usual equanimity and only met her eyes again when he was opposite to her on level ground. He sniffed the kerosine-laden air. "I say; timing is everything, little flame."

Roach shook her head and smiled with closed lips, just a little. "Why's that?" She folded her arms and leaned back into her shoes, thrusting her chin for him to continue.

He blew on his tea and lifted it from its saucer, he cigarette throwing a smooth stream of smoke as he did so. He took the time to let it drift on his palate before swallowing and placing the delicate china back down on its saucer. "Method. If you do thing in good time, better later. Structure. You know?"

"Nope. I have zero idea what you be getting at right now, homes."

"Not idea?"

"Nope. Cuz I am doing all I can do, right now. Capiche?"

Vitaly had to laugh a little at her machismo and shook his head; a slight, quick gesture as he walked towards the weathered bureau that had been pulled over to the side and held a number of various items, from pens to shot glasses to vagrant bullets. He placed his tea cup on the ledge and then returned to her. "You need structure, for life. For train. When you do thing, Roachie, as important as how."

The girl's arms fell down from her front to land on her hips as she straightened her spine and nodded. She glanced over to the singed faces of the dummies in the front row and then looked back to the elder. "Okay, so's, how this relate to ... well, wherever you're going with this, man? I'm trying to do.. the whole, method to madness shiz, sway? I'm practicing down here every day, getting early nights..."

"Yes. Now. But you not before. You do this now. Every day. No deviating. Tomorrow, next day.."

Roach shrugged again. "That's the idea."

"But", he looked to the dummies. "Only little bit." He held an arm out and flexed his index and thumb to display little bit. "You not much hurt dummies."

"Man, I'm working on it."

Vitaly shook his head. "Nyet, not hard enough. How you do is important but when even more."

"Yeah, yo, we just covered that part didn't we?" She sauntered on over to one of the dummies that was flat on the ground and righted it on its spring. It swayed back and forth a few times and she settled it by bracing both arms against its side. "I know how, Vee. It's just that I haven't been doing it for a wh--"

"When you do before. You say to me, big boom. When?"

"Uh, well's, when I was hunting demon scum for Jimmie." She sauntered back on over and rose a hand into her dreads, tugging on a rope. "I mean, I was out there all the time doing it so's, the fingers were itching. But it's been --" she released the strand and it fell back to sway across her features before being swiped behind an ear. "A while."

"Okay. We move back."

"Huh.." she began walking backwards, as though he were about to demonstrate something.

"No no. We go back, to Jimmie. You hunt scum. You do it for job. You compelled to do."

"Yeah, was getting paid. I was in the zone back then. You know? Trying to make a good impression, desperate to sustain the sitch."

"Okay. Compelled by... " he unfurled a hand and tapped each finger tips as he went, "Money, home, good impression. Yes? And now, you hiding and scared from Menace. Fear not compelling."

Roach expelled a sigh and looked down to her sneakers. The pooling of the slouchy jeans across their top. The scuff marks on her toes. Her fingers red at their tips.

"I know but.. it's kind of hard not to feel that way. Even in here. With you guys and bars and brick." She shook her head and placed a hand against her forehead. "We're dealing with brimstone."

"Oh!" Vitaly exclaimed, his brows arching as he walked back over to take up his teacup. "Mishka. I saw with Grey."

"Whaaaaaat?"

"Yes. Down street." He made kissy faces.

He looked back at her and shrugged. "Just sayin'" in a voice to emulate the way she would deliver the line. Her face had gone cold and empty.

"Come again, yo? You saw what?"

"Mmmm, maybe, hour ago? I drive by." He took a sip.

"That asshole!" And she strode towards the row of dummies and stopped two feet away to lean out, extend her arm and palm facing down, splay her fingers and aim a ten inch fireball in the direction of the foremost dummy. It hurled in a quickly rotating ball and upon meeting the plastic face, consumed it in a fury. Plastic melted, giving off an acrid, overpowering stench that filled the room. Roach wasn't done though. She was on top of the mannequin slamming kicks into its side and punches. Vitaly pulled her back and off the dummy (which surely held Grey or Mishka's features in the girl's wicked mind's eye) and spun her around to face him.

"Devushka!!!" His face was open with surprise and with something that bordered on smug. "You feel angry when I say this?"

Roach was huffin' 'n puffin', her shoulders rising and falling stiffly, her eyes hard with hurt.

"Devushka, when you angry, you give structure."

She hadn't been looking at him; once he'd dragged her off the inanimate object and spun her around she had stared into some distance that told, undoubtedly, portrayed various violent fantasies involving the Samonov's face being beaten into -- then..

He was laughing.

"You made that up, didn't you?"

She spat it, as it dawned on her, as he went on to explain. She shook him off and caught her breath. "You motherfra--"

"Hey!" Raising his voice he shook a finger at her. "Nyet. You need anger, not fear. Remember; no mysh, you monster."

Relief was a cool sensation that ran down her back and gathered to warm in her belly. The horror of his example still rattling around her, like shock. Every single hair on her body had raised with her hackles. The thought of him with that Russian mole made her feel physically sick. The feeling hit her with such savagery that the recoil on her was like a gun. Her body vibrating. Vitaly frowned deeply and stepped closer to place a hand on her shoulder, his other still balancing his tea. "Calm down. Is okay."

She looked apologetic as she exhaled a shaken breath and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Well, yo, you're onto something." A peek up with a smile that looked like she was still .. dealing.

He smiled at her, softly. "You really love boy don't you?"

"Yeah." There was no hesitance; was the sky blue? "I love him, Vitaly." And finding that she rather liked saying it, she grinned stupidly and said it again. "I love him."

He let go of her arm and took a sip of his tea.

"Then keep structure. Stay angry. This not forever. You have to be all you can, in now." He tapped her temple. "Stay focus."

"I will, Vee."

They shared a fist bump and he walked back up the stairs and opened and closed the door quietly. She stared after him for a long time. Then she turned and faced the dummies, smirked and righted 'Mishka' on her coiled, metallic stand. "Yeah bitch. You got it coming."

Riled, she walked back to her mark (a chalk line across the concrete floor), brushed her clammy palms against her jeans and got ready for the next round.

"Frye's the name. Gerrald Frye."

Rick Miles: Fifty four, divorced, and a hell of a sneak-a-bout, and currently Grey's informant, slid a polaroid and a folder of notes face down along the counter, while hunching over his coffee which rattled over the saucer as he placed it back down, spilling liquid to run down the sides. In the shot, Frye was standing on a street corner wearing a ragged, outdated suit suit with unkempt hair watching a funeral procession led by a marching band. His hair fell in heavy ringlets down to just below his ears and his shoes looked second hand. Rick made a racket with that coffee, inadvertently, all the more jarring for the quiet of the midnight hour in a mostly empty diner. Besides the two of them, there was only a middle-aged man with a buzz-cut, ankh earring and a denim jacket covered in anarchist patches a few booths over and a pair of werewolf teens sharing a spider from the same glass and striped straws. The contrabass of the coffee machine, the dissonant sounds of cutlery and plates, the maudlin hum of some country track emanating from the lone jukebox in the corner.

"He's your garden variety pervert, creep, misanthrope. He worked a few of the revival tents in rural Louisiana about twelve years back and slowly made his way into the Quarter, and looks like that was a few years before the girl got into town.. he was working at outreach centres for disadvantaged youths etc. Soup kitchens. Somewhere around here..." and he produced from his jacket pocket another few old photos which were marked with '2006' on the back, "That he met your girl." He dragged a nail under the year. "Seems she went by her birth name for only a little, so digging up stuff has been a bit hard, piecing together the time line. Monikers always throw a case. Someone becomes someone else and you got yourself a whole new life you're looking into. New contacts, new work, that's how these things go. But, after the digging I did do, seems like only the name changed and not much else. Roach is how she was known from oh-six onwards, there abouts."

The polaroid was bleached at the edges from exposure but the girl at the centre of it was clear. Crouched on stone steps somewhere in the Vieux Carre, she held a brown-bagged beer in one hand and a cigarette the other. She was several pounds less than she was now, and her hair was grown-out dishwater blonde; the dreads back then feral and having the appearance of something overgrown. Her pants were covered in safety pins and holes and patches, her boots held no laces and her eyes appeared dull, vacant, destroyed. A lost soul on the streets of a nearly sunk city.

"That's the Lizzie that we're dealin' with. That's the one that Frye befriended. I don't know what you know, Grey, but there's any number of ways he could have known her." He took another awkward sip from the stained cup, shifting on his stool in the jacket that a little too small from him; too much take out for too many months had him bursting, less than figuratively, at the seams. "Kid was doing coke, dealing and doing, okay? She was doing peepshows, skin shots, the clubs. Not for very long but, she was doing that shiz. No mention anywhere from anyone nor no record of her staying at any of the half-way joints or church run affairs."

He produced another photo. This one was taken from a newspaper in 2007 and showed her in a group shot outside a very modest big top.

"She went to Florida. Worked the circuit for a bit with this circus before coming back. Again, your priest got around but given what I'm seeing, what people be saying, he knew her from Orleans street-side, not beyond the swamp. Maybe he bought off her outta pity couple times, maybe he bought her lunch, but the guy was reported for harassment towards some other club girls. No mention of Lee but that's another possibility too."

Rick exhaled and shook his head as he placed his chubby-fingered hands over the pictures and slid them further over so Grey could take them. "Sad, these stories. No es-es-enn, no family, or a family that fell to pieces, any number of hideous incidences these kids fall into. I know you asked me to look into just the priest, but Grey, this woman", he prodded at one of the polaroids; her in a blue sequinned stage bikini straddling a black chair in cherry-neon lighting, "she got herself in some deep shiz. Not just with this loony toons old time relijun prick. These other people she was running with.. they were bad people. Not to mention her home life back in New York, if any of the stuff Nikolai fixed you up with went back that far."

He frowned and wiped at his moustache, which was surprisingly full and bereft of any hint of age. He turned on his stool to look at Grey and removed his spectacles, rubbing at his kind, brown eyes, and with the glasses he gesticulated at certain words. "I know you want to help her, but, I'm tellin' you now, kid, before it gets too far; this is deep water. This is the kind of situation that like the Mississippi, got a fierce undertow. You get too far down, you might not come up. It's.. it's admirable, that you want to help, you want to prevent something more from happening. But some people are trouble, even if they don't mean it. Her life is something in a psych 101 course book. It screams run, Grey. Don't be so misguided with yer dick or your heart that you can't get out of something just because you want in her pants. She's a stray cat and she's only looking for milk, and if you can't give it to her she'll find it off somebody else."

He replaced his spectacles with an expression of regret and looked towards the door for an instant. "I'm happy to have helped with the info and the photos and I'll keep doing some digging around on the pervert. But I don't want to get my name out there with this. My partner back in Chicago knew I was helping someone related to the Vory v Zakone he'd kill me. Really. Or, admit me to Bedlam at frakking once."

He tossed some crumpled bills on the counter and slid down to the stool with a pat to Grey's back.

"You're in your prime. Getting wound up with a woman at your age is .. not wise. Getting roped into this world she's in, is mortally dangerous. You'll do what you want, I know that bud, but from me to you", he stuck a fat finger into his own chest before jabbing towards Grey, "I'd cut and leave now. Let the Russians do what the can do but get out. Like I am. Done."

He stared at Grey for an uncomfortable several seconds. Like a hang-nail of a thought kept him from leaving right away. Another chesty exhale, as if every fleck of oxygen inside his rotund form was being pushed out. He wheezed. "If you decide, to keep chuggin', all's I'm saying is there's not going to be any kind of pretty scenery along this route for a while, if you follow. Maybe, one day, you's can get someplace where the water's warm and blue and there ain't no clouds, but for the foreseeable future, kid, you got to decide whether you're okay with hell.. or high water." Rick then turned and waddled out past the swinging door with its circle window and to his car in the lot.

"Another pot, sweetness?" The waitress, a buxom older woman with dyed platinum curls leaned on the counter. "You know, what he said was right. I overheard." She pointed a red nail at the door and Rick, reversing out of his spot with a loud whine of the gears and a back wheel.

"I wasted too many of my best years helpin' sons of bitches who couldn't shake trouble if they tried, and I found, mostly, they didn't." She reached out to grab his cheek and give it a squeeze while pouring another cup anyway. "Don't be an idiot, honey." She gave him an off-kilter, crimson smile and leaned away to attend to the older punk in the booth.

"Well played, bro."

"Spasibo, yu mudak."

Sergei and Nikolai put down the last of their cards and laughed as they reached for their lighters and drained their drinks. Two bottles of Stolly in and feeling that buzz.

"So, bro, she any good?" Sergei had been sitting on the question for a few days, wanting to ask but waiting for the right time. Vitaly had ordered for a minimal rotation on the house with deciding to focus more on strategy over protection, being that the house was its own form of it and Grey's more frequent visitations, being that he had seemingly decided on being a lover over just a friend.

But Vitaly had still made his regular visits which meant that need for himself and Nikolai had been minimal, except for the occasional street scour, drop-in to check on Roach and drives to Broom Street for observance and report. Sergei as such, hadn't seen his friend in a few days and when he had, it had been in Vitaly's presence, which made asking his question about their client impossible.

Nikolai smirked and went to answer when his lighter took to life. A flare of flame that startled him into dropping the bic onto the table. That little, dancing petal of fire catching the very corner of the Queen of Hearts and quickly devouring it before biting onto the next card with in a burst of light and heat; rampant, needful.

"Frakk. Shiz. Bro. Sergei --" but Sergei already was tossing soda from the bottle across the hungry fire. Doused and dead it hissed and dissipated leaving the two to look at one another with frantic, confused shakes of the head.. when the kettle began to boil and blue flames stood to attention on the stove. The microwave followed, beginning to hum and turn.

"Chto khoroshiy gospodin!!"

"Nikolai, go up bro. Check girl."

Nikolai was already in the hall and racing for the stairs and up them. Sergei flustered about the appliances, hitting buttons, pulling plugs. The stove refused to cease but the microwave at least had stopped its steady buzz as soon as he had pulled the cord from its socket. He looked over to the lighters and ran over to grab them and throw them into the sink. He wiped at his face and then moved to the table, again, to reach for his phone, when the security gate went and in walked the man he had intended to call.

Vitaly wore only an unbuttoned, pressed, dark grey shirt, with black trousers, a smart, black belt and his wingtips. He dabbed at his thick brow with a burgundy handkerchief and exhaled. "Hot night."

"Vit, about to call you bro."

Vitaly did not move to be alarmed but instead folded the handkerchief into the back pocket of his trousers and looked down the hall. "What is?" He brought his calm, gunmetal-blue eyes to the man with a raise of a brow and a hand through his hair.

"Kitchen went poltergeist, bro."

Vitaly frowned and immediately peered into the kitchen, leaning into the frame. "You check girl?"

"Nik's up there now, Vit."

The two stalked the hall and up the stairs to venture to the girl's room. "Not good." Vitaly climbed the stairs with a glance to the youth. "Have phone close."

When he woke up this morning, he wasn't expecting today to be the day he got shot.

Back up; he hadn't really expected much of anything, waking up this morning. He wasn't even sure he'd gone to sleep, although all the evidence suggested it. The last thing he remembered clearly was poring over the files again, looking for the missing jigsaw piece. Menace had delusions of grandeur, wanted to run the scene back in the Crez. He thought he could use Roach for that, the weird ways her powers were shaping and changing; but he hadn't come up with the idea on his own. Someone was holding the man's leash, jerking him to their tune. Man thought he was the Player, but he was getting Played. Grey could almost see them, almost taste their stench - brimstone and salt, someone with more connections Down Below than they let on. Almost, but not quite. It was driving him nuts.

And yet, somehow, he'd woken up in bed. Half suffocating in his sleeping bag, stripped down to his shorts, no knowledge of anything between smoking and staring at the file and starting awake from what must have been a doozy of a nightmare, way he was sweating and his heart was racing. When had he called it a night? When had he dumped his coffee mug in the sink, taken a shower, brushed his teeth and stripped down to his skivvies? Had he fallen straight to sleep, or lain there interminably, as he so often seemed to do these days? No clue. No idea at all.

So he'd gotten up, and walked down to Java Hell for a cuppa and some banter with Alex. Nothing like a little sarcasm and cynicism to get your day off right.

It was walking back that he heard the shot, coming right in time with an explosion of heat and agony through his gut. He folded and fell sideways into a convenient alcove, barely aware of the second shot ringing off the bricks above him. Woulda gotten him in the head if he hadn't gone down, blown his fool brains right out. Frakk inna hat. He didn't have to look to know it was bad; it hurt about as much as anything he could remember, and some little voice in the back of his mind told him it hurt just as much as the stuff he couldn't remember, too. Gut wounds always did.

Guess it was a good thing I didn't have any beignets this morning, he thought. Not much in my stomach to poison the rest of me. Not much, but enough. He was crazy aware of everything now, the smell of blood and **** and the garbage pile he'd thrown himself into. The sudden silence of the West End street as people took cover, not willing to get involved in what, for all they knew, was a righteous shoot. Not their business. Not their problem. Deal with this, Grey. Ain'tchoo the guy what does stuff?

He felt himself growing colder - not just shock, but business mode settling in. Deal with the issues, break the problem down into manageable bits and tackle them one by one. Step one; he was dying. Stop that. The hitter used a gun and there was no fairy sparkle on Grey's skin, raising his hairs like he was standin' next to a high voltage power generator, so the magic was down. Good thing he covered his bases. It took him a moment to dig the can out of his cargo pocket because his fingers had gone numb, but he managed it. Little thing, not much bigger than a butane bottle for refilling a lighter; he had to check, see the red cross on it, to make sure he had the right one. He popped the cap and shoved the nozzle into the hole in his side, trying hard not to let the squishy feeling bother him, and triggered it. Nearly instant relief as the drugs kicked in - the protein foam was battlefield medicine from a place far away and far ahead, combining all sorts of nifty effects in one. Anesthetic. Nearly instant clotting. Antibiotic. Should keep his blood and guts inside where they belonged at least long enough for him to see a witch doctor, get himself back into proper order.

Another bullet whined off the bricks, way too close. There was hardly any shelter in this alcove, and he must have wriggled enough for the prick with the gun to decide it was worth taking another shot. That told him he was dealing with an amateur; professional woulda been smart enough to shoot and scoot, gotten the hell outta there. He could deal with this. He cast his mind back, picturing the layout of the street, the way the bullet had hit him. That gave him a rough idea of where he was lookin'; rooftop just down the way. Short little thing, four stories. Might as well be a mile away, condition he was in, but you did what you could with what you had.

He pulled his pistol, rubbed the charms for no real reason since the tech was up but it was habit at this point, and emptied the magazine around the corner. There was a scream; he hoped it was his guy. A twist of the wrist helped the empty out, and he slapped a fresh one in its place as he forced himself upright. His hand was red to the wrist from trying to stop up the bullet hole, and he felt a faint frisson of worry that he might have gotten blood into the magazine well. Stuck everything up when that happened. Messy. Messy.

He pushed himself around the corner, gun up. There was a flash of movement on that rooftop, right about where he'd figured, and he fired as he ran - no real hopes for hitting the guy, not with a pistol at this distance and not on the move, but every little bit that helped keep this mook's head down and now aiming his rifle at Grey was a net benefit. The gun went dry, seventeen rounds in seventeen steps, but he was hitting the street entrance of the tenement like a battering ram and it went down under his shoulder like paper. His side was numb, which beat screaming agony, but it was starting to spread to his legs. Not good if he wanted to keep moving. Frakk. He dropped the mag and dug another one out of his pocket, little counter in the back of his head reminding him that he hadn't exactly gone to the coffee shop dressed for war this morning. That he was carrying two spares in the first place was a reminder of how paranoid he'd been lately, what with all the heavy shiz flying around.

Not paranoid enough, obviously.

Rooftop entrance. He took a breath, steadying himself. Legs hurt. Side numb. Vision kinda greying out. Pistol shaking. He couldn't really remember the intervening flights, which meant he was in worse shape than he thought, or the drugs were kicking in pretty hard. Finish this up. Call for an evac. Heal up and come back swinging. He hit the door and dove through, feeling more than hearing the shot as it whined through where his chest would have been, if he were dumb enough to just run out there. As it was, flashes of heat radiating out from his gut reminded him that the foam wasn't magic; it had its limits, and rolling around like a monkey was dangerously testing them.

He didn't recognize the hitter. He kinda thought he would; one of Menace's boys from the files, Vince or Eustace. Maybe even the priest himself, Gerry. No, this guy must have been local; skinny, dirty, looked like a street rat from down the Dockside way. Shabby clothes too big for a bony frame, patchy face grown old before its time. The rifle was big and old, the scope on top a narrow tube. The rat was working the bolt on the side and screaming something as Grey leveled his gun on his head and-

Click.

The bolt went home and the rat fired from the hip; at this distance, there was no way he'd miss.

Click.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then silver light flared in Grey's hand as his knife sprang open, the pistol dropping unheeded to the rooftop gravel. The rat lunged forward, twisting the rifle around to grab it by the barrel and swing it like a club. They were about of a height, and normally Grey would have had it all over this guy in physical condition and technique. Normally, of course, he wasn't suffering from a gunshot wound. He managed to get an arm in between the club and his head before he got his skull smashed open, his blade slashing wildly at whatever bits of his enemy he could reach. The rat yelped, swung again, this time into the wounded side. Grey went down, and through a red haze he was only barely aware of the assassin swinging the gun up, above his head, ready for the swing that would put the lights out once and for all.

There was thunder, a cloud of red mist, the stink of sulphur and charcoal. The rat went backwards like a falling tree, out of Grey's vision. He lay there, trying to figure out how he was still alive, staring up at brilliant blue August skies. Then they were filled by a silhouette, a man standing over him with a revolver in his hand. The hammer went back with a click.

"Hello, Grey."

"Detective Lanzecki," he managed through dry lips. "Thought you were on a bus back home."

"Missed it. Had some things in town left to do. What did you do with my stuff?"

"Mailed 'em back to your wife." Despite himself, he grinned. He'd been planning on beating the detective within an inch of his life when he'd finished the interview in that dingy little hotel room, but after going through the guy's wallet and finding pictures of his family he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. Big ol' softy, Grey. Instead, he'd taken his money, badge, and service piece and mailed them all to the address on the driver's license, left a one-way bus ticket home and the detective handcuffed to the bed. A friendly gesture, by West End standards. Right now, he wasn't sure if it had saved his life, or was gonna get him a bullet in the head.

"Lose the knife and I'll get you to a doctor," Lanzecki said. Despite himself, Grey felt a frisson of relief run through him. Looked more like the former.

"Need a priest if ya do that. Magic's back up. My left pocket - I've got somethin' that'll help. You gonna shoot me if I reach for it?"

"Guess we're probably past that by now," Lanzecki said. There was another click as he lowered the hammer on the revolver, stepping out of Grey's sight - presumably checking on the man he'd shot. Grey rummaged, couldn't find the bloodstone he was searching for. Frakkin' magic, never there when you needed it... Lanzecki came back into view. "Doesn't look like the bleeding's too bad. Lemme take a look."

He bent down over Grey, tore his shirt open before he could more than yelp in protest. "Ah, hell, kid. You got a million dollar wound here, musta nicked a rib and ricocheted. Prolly won't even scar."

What the frakk are you talking about? Grey wondered. It was through and through, prolly left a hole in my back the size of your fist... if I hadn't gotten the foam in, I'd be dead already. But raising his head, suddenly throbbing like the rat had managed to land that club hit, he could see Lanzecki was right. Just a graze, tracing his side with a line of crimson. Not the puckered hole too close to his liver that he remembered...

"Yeah, just lucky, I guess."

"Wondered how you could move like that with a gunshot wound." Lanzecki let the shirt fall back. "We should stick a plaster on it so it doesn't get infected, but I'd say that's about as good as you can hope for in the situation. Looks like you got him a couple times, too, he's got some holes in him woulda stopped him sooner or later."

"Prolly not before he beat my favorite head in, though. Guess I owe you one." Grey sat up, wincing as the headache throbbed and pulsed like a living thing. "We should get outta here. Never a good idea to hang around next to carrion too long in the West End." He looked at the detective's revolver and raised an eyebrow. "Where the hell'd you get that antique?" A cowboy gun, about as simple as you could get and still have more than one shot. Lanzecki looked embarrassed.

"It was my grandfather's. I heard some stories about this place, thought maybe it would bring me luck when I visited. Had it tucked away under my boxers in the dresser, guess you didn't look hard enough."

"Lucky me," Grey muttered. He winced as Lanzecki gave him a hand up, the pain in his head overpowering the sting from his side. Tender, sure, but... no agony. No dying. "You should prolly call your wife, man."

"Huh?" Lanzecki looked at him.

"Well, how's she gonna react when she gets ya wallet and ya badge in the mail? C'mon, let's get outta here. I got some phone calls to make, too."

"Where hell you been, Miss?"

Roach slammed the door and prowled down the dark hall way only to back step at the call her way from the kitchen. Sergei and Nikolai were sitting around scattered cards, a pile of dead cigarettes and beer bottles. She set foot into the kitchen and folded her arms leaning with her back to the doorframe.

"Out."

Sergei shook his head and laughed into his bottle while Nikolai lifted his big, bulbous brows and waved her over. "Come sit, beer?"

"Nope. Looks, I gotta get to bed.." and she went to turn but Nikolai was up and crossing the kitchen. He grabbed her arm and held it. "You out with other man, you frakking around again, Miss?" He leaned in as if to smell her and she shoved him away.

"Frakk off, a**hole."

He laughed and rocked back into the motion of her hands against his chest but maintained hold of her arm. He drew her closer with it.

"Huh? You sleeping around again?"

"Frakk off!"

She brought her other hand back with a sharp bend of her elbow and launched forward to lob into Nikolai's jaw. The connection came with a hard smack of fist and flesh and sent the bigger man back for a moment, cursing in Russian, while Sergei jumped to his feet and ran over to get between them and dissuade anything from going further.

Roach was all taut little breaths by the door, grabbing her fist which had flared with pain and red marks. "I told you to frakk off." She spun and took off down the hall... only to run straight into Vitaly coming from the lounge. Nikolai yelled after her as Sergei hauled him back. "Hey hey, bro. Off it, come on. Have a drink.."

"Devushka, what is?" Elegant hands caught her and even in the dark the alarm on her face was portraying a feral glow of anger. He drew her carefully, unlike Nikolai had, against him and around so that he steered her shoulders towards the lounge.

"It's fine, christ. I just want to get to my damn room."

Vitaly leaned back to peer down the hall and ordered the men to hush as he closed the door to the space and walked over to sit down beside her in the bare light of the single, burning globe coming from a lamp on a side table where an atlas stood still, unturned, time undone.

"What happened?"

"He asked me if I was out late cuz I was getting my rocks off with someone else." She spat the words and rubbed at her face. "I wasn't doing nothing, okay, if that's what you're about to ask me, Vee. I'm not -- "

The elder nodded sombrely and reached out to place one hand on her knee and the other her shoulder. "What happened out?"

She looked at him side-long and made a sigh. "I gots into it with this total butt of a guy I got into it once before. No idea what his name is but... funny enough, he's the guy that broke my shnozz the night I met Grey."

He nodded that she go on.

"We gets into it, okay? He and I just... " smacked her palms together, "we don't get along. Things got hairy and a guy I know... Luc, he kind stepped in so there was no taking things further, yeah? And then he ..."

"He what?"

"Luc and I was sleeping together, while Grey and I was, you know, sorting ourselves out. What... what we was going to be. And he tried.. getting in my" and she gestured to herself, "way..and I left. Bad night."

"Roachie, you don't have time, mental or physical, to devote this. You need to be here." The hand that held her shoulder sternly rose up to her temple where his pinky tapped it very, very lightly. "Here. Not out with fightings. And why you see other boy?"

"I don't, Vee!" She protested, her face anguished. "I texted him and said we can't hang. And, we can't. But he was there tonight and I was hanging with other peeps. You know, it's kind of a small town when it wants to be." She shrugged and looked down at her knees. "I'm focused, Vee. I am, man."

"You be careful. Fight draw eye. Crowd. Maybe people you not want. And boy, this other one", he looked angry for a moment, as if in distaste, and waved a hand free from her leg. "Careful him too. Mmm?"

Roach nodded. "I know."

"No, you know, you not go near. Not worth it. You love Grey, you no walk other side. Remember", he pointed at her converse. "He need to know where you are."

Exasperated, she got to her feet and clutched the strap of her bag. "I told you, I am not goings to risk this. I am in love with that kid." Her face went quiet and pained. "I wouldn't throw that to the dogs, yo."

Then she moved to the door, took the stairs all the way up to her room, locked the door behind her, dumped her bag and threw on her stereo - one of the only article of belongings that hadn't been re-routed to one of Grey's many lock ups.

The black disco-drone of Anasazi's 'Horror at the Mass' filled her room as she undressed in jerky, annoyed motions and then wandered into the bathroom to run a bath and chill the heck out.

Despite her frustration with the night, Luc's attempts at seduction had gotten her worked up. Not to mention the demon heat that courses through her body, vying to exclaim in her behaviour, beyond that merciful indifference like a drug, urging itself alive. And as she sunk down past the waters, once the tub was full, she took fingertips to the petals between her legs and pleasured herself.

Head back to the slope of the tiles as she widened her legs and allowed herself release. Tension instantly draining from her muscles, the tautness of her jaw.

Lost in herself, candles lit of their own volition and steam curdled in the air. Fogging the mirror. Except for the four letters that seemingly divine themselves upon the glass. As if by spectre's hand.

H-E-L-L.

"God frakking damnit."

She's skidding so hard as she reaches the other side there's almost smoke coming off her converse. She peers over the edge and her heart sinks. There's no fire escape. At once, she turns to see Vincent coming off the one that is on the other side and running at her. He's got a gun aimed her way.

"You're frakked, Lizzie. No more running."

She narrowed her eyes as she lowered her chin, turning it into her neck as she felt a wealth of anger and frustration and, oddly, a powerful relief well in her. Like this was the end, and maybe, just maybe, this was it. How long had she been in this situation now? Ten years of chaos and then four months of this.

And it hits her like a freight train. She'd been on one, with those crust punks, on her last leg into Louisiana. Seen how fast they could get in the middle of the dead night. It hit her with velocity.

It's taken me all this time to find out what I need

It hit her the way Mishka's bruise had. The way her mother's ordering her from the house had. The way Robert's contempt had. The way Jimmie's threats had. The way her own face in the mirror once had, for too long. Much too long.

Roach made a fist with her free hand as she lifted her own gun.

"Stop it Vince. Yo, I was one of you. You going to listen to that idiot? He can't run shiz. He isn't no Jimmie. You know this."

Vincent continued stalking towards her. His pistol unwavering.

"Vince. I don't want to hurt you. We was thick, once."

He continued coming. She just couldn't bring herself to fire the gun.

"Vince."

Menace was stepping onto the rooftop.

His gun raised.

"No...."

Vincent nodded and smirked. "Come home, Lizzie. It's over. It's done. No running now."

"No..." she repeated, tucking the gun down her back in the same motion she'd watched Grey make with practiced care.

Menace, all piano-key teeth and long-legged strides was upon Vince, standing just to his side. He was clapping his big, plank hands together in dry smacks. "Hey hey, baby girl. Like Vince says." He placed a hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "Home time. You miss it, said as much when you visited with that weird guy. Robert? And, from what I hear, man might want to come back too. So, how's about making it easier on everyone and coming home. Come on, Hellion. You ain't ever gonna have a life here. You belong in the Crez. You make it something else, kid."

"No. I am not frakking coming with you. I'm out. I'm done. You guys think your blood? You guys got nothing but mud between you. You're dogs. All of you. Soon as eat one another as help. It's over, for me, with you, with that frakking city. I'm here now."

The derision on her tone made her voice dirty with it. Grainy. Her eyes darkening more as she asserted herself and lifted her hands into the air, fingers out. "Now seriously, motherfrakkers. Get."

Gerry hit the roof and came strolling along.

"Oh frakk off." As she saw the pervert.

It's taken me all this time to find out what I need

"Hey, hey, kid. Stop it... calm--" Menace, arms out, read to head her way.

From her left hand a small, rapidly spinning fireball. It streamed in a bolt across the roof towards Gerry while her right hand splayed and she groaned in anger, and palm up she moved her hand from left to right in the air, and from it, came many small sparks, dancing into some assembly of a shape, forming a thin lattice-work of fire between herself and the men; it curved around her forming a wall of flame. Another look back off the ledge as she wavered in her stance.

"Hellion, no point. You got no where to run from here. Come home."

Menace talked at her, in rolling tones. "Quit this shiz. We'll help you. We know what you're about. We'll set you up..."

Her hands still out; Gerry ducking from the ball to seize up behind the men, but like the other two, unable to reach her for the controlled furnace she surrounded herself with.

"No. But what in shiz did you call me back there?"

"You don't know, do you?"

And then, then it all went haywire. Between random as frakk Bush lyrics, her racing heart and the hounds of the past baying for her blood, something switched. Something clicked.

Vitaly's words about finding her anger briefly clouded her thoughts when she gasped and began kicking her legs. Her vision blurred so much it hurt and she felt herself convulse. The three men watched her, their eyes lifting in horror and fascination, except Menace, who stared at her in a rage that bordered on awe.

She was floating off the edge of the roof, several feet in the air and getting higher.

The world went black.

There were muted shouts. A squeal of distant car tires and someone calling her name over and over and over. The sharp pop of a gun shot.

Then there was nothing. Then there was silence.

"Tell me what happened."

"Miss Lee, you need time. Rest."

"I'm fine, yo."

Sergei turned around to look at her with a flippant shrug and a shake of the head. "You think so, because you out late at night, you getting high again, you think so because you don't stop to feel anything."

"I'm fine." She took a moment to pin him with her eyes, her head drawn back with a lift of an ashen brow. "Coping mechanisms. I party, I go out late at night, I drink a little more, I get high... so frakking what? It's how I deal, okay?"

Sergei nodded and looked down at the table where he placed his palm and tapped an extended forefinger. "You are escape artist. Yeah? You know, like Houdini."

Roach rolled her eyes and leaned into the table to exhale from her cigarette then reach for her black coffee. "Okay. And your point is?"

He wheezed with laughter and ashed his smoke, pulling out his next card.

"What?"

"You don't get. See, I don't want to tell all thing because it won't sink in. You blocked up. With all the drink and the puffing and the --"

"Okay, is your name freaking Sergei, or Vitaly, eh? Huh? You're tripping."

She waved her smoke at him and then squashed it into the tray, drawing a leg up to fold it beneath her bottom on the chair. "Look, all I want to know, and what I damn have a reserve on knowing, is what happened on the rooftop. I need.. I need to know, man. I need that information." She laid down her next card.

The man held his arms up in the air and then tossed all the rest of his cards down on the table when he saw she'd won.

"You floating. Menace told his boys no to shoot, someone shoot. Gerry, or Vincent. You okay. You come back down; easy, easy. Slow. Vit and I grab you and put you into van and then hold off the big one in the car."

"Eustace. The Samoan?"

"Yes. Him. Hold off. Menace and the other two scram. No run. Not see. They wait somewhere maybe. But we take you away for a while."

"Away?"

"Another house. Other Zakone; Vit friend. We lose sedan, take you there."

"And how long until I wokes up?"

"Not until that afternoon. Then you... "

"Then I..?"

"The screaming."

It was a blur to her still. She sighed and sat back against the chair and took a sip from the mug. "That kind of clears it up." Bringing the cup to her chest as she regarded the window, but with an absence of real attention. Her mind elsewhere.

"Hey so's... you guys. The lot of you. You move pills around?"

Sergei nearly coughed his tea back out as he sat up straight and placed his tea down.

"You mean drug?"

"Yeah. I mean drug." She responded flatly, a little smart assy. "I sell that shiz. I am wanting to get out of what I am doing; be a little more self suff. But, maybe, we can do some dealing. We're in the same industry, homes."

"Nyet. Miss Lee, we not do this."

"Right. So like, you can frakk your client like Nikolai, you can play poker with her, get drunk with her, but you can't network? Since when did gangs or monsters ever have rules that they didn't bend. I call baloney, here and now. I got in's, you got contacts, you got, yourselves, a whole network out there.." indicating with her arm in an arc, "I got someone who wants to run with. I got some contacts too. I got a way that things can be moved. Like Grey. Maybe, not as good but give a girl a chance. I'm a cunning little bitch, Sergei, when I got to be. And I got to be, and getting to be is kind of necessity in West End, in this life I'm living. There is no otherside to it."

The man shook his head. "Vit, he say no. I can't. Nikolai? He a cakksucker. He no example for how we do things."

He cleared his throat.

"You not hear of Zakone back home, on Earth?"

"Nope. But I want in. We all know one another a little too well, we're all running the same ball in the same field. Let's shake it up."

"Vit, Miss Lee. He won't."

"He's not here now. Okay? I want in. I got something to bring to the table. Wells, if I'm going to get deep witchu you here, I'll get real low. I got someone to bring to the table."

"Girl you sell for?"

"Her too. But not what I'm thinking."

He lifted a brow and rubbed at his chin. "Pills, you say?"

"I said pills. Damn right, son. Pills. And I got a friend who is going to help me move it out across the city. Going to double our clients, if we can, and split the profit; we'll still both be ahead."

"Offworld or local pill?"

"Right now, it's local shiz. But it's goooooood quality. I don't touch it, but Kate is trustworthy on this and I don't got no clients sending me hate mail, yo."

"I'll think about it. What friend? Grey know friend?"

"Nope. But he will."

He nodded, that she continue.

"Name's Slug. They'll take care of anyone who skints. Anyone who don't got the money to walk. And run what I do already; but, likes I said, need some more buyers."

The man shook his head of black, bushy hair and rubbed at his brow like the situation hurt to contemplate. "I will discuss with... with Grey, with Nikolai. Maybe, other house. Might be a pool."

"Don't want no pool, Sergei." Warning in her tone. It's own brief winter. "I want a vacuum on this. I want trustworthy resources. I don't want too many fingers in too many pies."

"Look, Miss Lee, I will see what I can do. Can we trust you?"

"You can trust me, when it comes to doing a job. I need the dough, yo. I am not going to risk shiz with you, especially not because my boy is involved. Okay?"

He pushed his chair back and got up to carry his mug to the sink.

"First, I think, you need deal with your head. The stuff with your friend."

He's not my friend. "Robert? Yeah. I knows."

He passed by her giving her a pat on he shoulder. "We will talk. I think first." He walked a few steps then retraced back to peek around the frame. "One thing. No more with the Cash. If I hear Ring of Fire one more time I am going to stab out my eyes."

She waved him off and nodded with a coarse chuckle, lowering her mug, now lukewarm anyway. "Don't you mean ears?"

"No; that without saying. I'd cut them frakk off."

"I'd sell out tickets to that show." She said over an inked shoulder, appreciating his use of Grey and hers charming expletive.

Roach then looked to her phone and punched out a text with a faint grin. A minute later, a message was fired off across the electronic ocean to a phone in New Haven.

Text to Slug: Yo. Got that pretty costume ready yet?

I focus on the pain.

The only thing that's real.

Sergei shook his head and pried apart the venetian blinds with two fingers as he stared out into the parking lot. They had already been there an hour and he was ready to go. Roach sat by the portable CD player she had brought in a week back with a bunch of discs that the elder had enjoyed, most of them ending in 'Cash'.

"Ring-a-ding-ling."

"Sergio, don't likes it, frankly, feck off. Vee and I listened to him."

The man stepped away from the window and shoved his hands into his pocket.

"This song depressing."

"Yeahs, it's called Hurt, yo."

She laughed a little into a sigh and looked down.

My empire of dirt.

I will let you down.

I will make you hurt.

"Grey say he come?"

"Wouldn't know."

"What?"

He faced her and he saw the tears in her eyes that she sniffed back and rubbed away with the heel of her hand.

"Roachie? What is?"

Everyone I know goes away in the end.

And you could have it all.

"We're over, Sergio."

"Since when?"

"Since this week."

"Der'mo!"

Roach stared at the prone man. Intubated. Threaded like a rag doll to machines. "Yeah. Shiz is the word."

"What happened? You just..."

"I fecked up, yo. Okay?"

Her face was cold, pure winter, as it settled on his face.

What have I become

My sweetest friend?

"Der'mo!"

She put her head into her hands and raked her hands back through her hair then got up and hit 'skip' until she came to the unconscious man's favorite, The Man Comes Around.

"You going to tell me what happened, Roachie?"

"Nope." Reaching for her purse thrown over the back of one of the chairs.

"Visiting hours are now over, I'll have to ask yo--" A nurse set foot into the room.

"We was leaving." Roach pushed past and out the ward into the hall, sneakers squealing against the rubbery floor as she paced. Down the way she saw it like a phantom - lean, dark haired, hoodie, jeans, a distinctive walk. She frowns, quickens her steps. Is it him?

Sergei is after her. Trying to keep up. "Miss Lee, back this way, elevator.."

"Wait.."

She turns the corner and the boy, if it was him, is nowhere in sight. Roach turns around on the spot, the cadence of her heart all out of whack, it's fifths and minors. "Feck."

Her company catches up, grabs her hand. "Come on, you losing it." He begins walking her away, but she's leaning back to peer down the corridor and then she hears her name. Her heart gets racing again at the male voice, her mind warping it to sound the way she wishes it did, when her mind catches up to her eyes as she turns to face forward and sees Finch.

"Oh, you are kidding me. You are fe-- yo, Doc, whassup?"

"Hey Roach, what are you doing here?" The therapist gave Sergei a warm, easy smile and then looked back at her with a rise of a brow.

"Friend's in 'ere. Not doing too good, so's we came to visit."

"I'm sorry to hear."

Sergio gave her a glare and took off for the elevators in a sudden bout of rigid movement and loud words.

"Sloocha!" He smacked a wall as he went by, startling a couple of nurses at his outburst.

"Is everything okay?" Finch narrowed his eyes and looked from the livid man and back to her. "What's... going on?"

"You idiot, girl!" The russian jabbed a finger at Finch and then at her and then dragged it across his throat before flipping her the bird and jumping in the lift.

"What ... oi... oi!" She made it to the doors just as they shut. Finch behind her; quizzical, concerned, confused. Her hands beat at the shut doors. "Oi. Oi!"

"...Roach?"

She dropped her arms and stepped back.

"He was my rides home."

"What got into him?" He placed a hand on her shoulder, just lightly, and directed her around to face him.

"My boyfriend and I... it's over." She couldn't meet his eyes, instead she stared at his loafers. "That guy is a friend of ours. Thinks he assumes you and I...."

Finch nodded and sighed and then pressed the shoulder of hers he held.

"I've got to drop off some files but how about we get a coffee and then I'll drop you wherever you need to go. Off the record."

Roach felt all the air leave her body as she gave a resigned smile and looked up at him. "Uh.. I dunno, Doc. I gots a lot on my mind and I.. I kinda just want to roll on out."

He loosened his navy blue tie a little and looked around them a moment. "Give me five. Sorrow shared, sorrow halved. Just wait right here."

He was gone before she could answer. Her eyes stared at the elevator doors desperately. She walked over and thumped the button then paused when the boy in the hoodie, whom she had taken for Grey, rocked up leading a tanned brunette and they were both giggling. He gave her a wink as they waited nearby. "These places, right? Make ya wanna leave here and find somethin' to smile about."

Roach just stared at him, looked at the girl, then shook her head. 'Yeah..."

The bell went and in they got; hand in hand and smiling at one another. The impulse to follow was pronounced, but joining the lovebirds to the bottom floor would sour her stomach further, so she waved them off. "Uh.. waiting for someone. All good, you go." A tiny smile.

The guy gave her one in turn, with a lift of a brow. A hand holding the sliding door. "Sure?"

God, the resemblance. Or maybe she was only seeing what she wanted to see, projecting her pain. Her heart shattered in a few more places and she had to tear her eyes away. "Yeahs, go."

The bell went again, the doors shut and she breathed in and out real slow.

"Ready?"

Finch strolled on up with a smile.

I will make you hurt.

"Suppose, Doc." The bell chimed and the doors opened on an empty lift and in they stepped. Her heart sinking with every level on that descent below as she stared up at the fluorescent lights until her retina's stung, bundling her hands into her pockets.

I will let you down.

I will make you hurt.

The doors opened and they stepped out of the doors and walked towards the coffee shop. The couple were there at the counter ahead of them ordering. Roach slowed her steps. "Doc, mind if we get a coffee elsewhere?"

He nodded and gestured to the exit and out they went.