The Reynolds/Bradshaw Connection

Overlord Laharl

Chapter 1: Shared Secrets

A/N: Opening lyrics belong to “I Could Not Ask For More” by Edwin McCain, and the closing lyrics come from Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again (On My Own).”

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Lying here with you,
Listening to the rain,
Smiling just to see,
The smile upon your face,
These are the moments,
I thank God that I’m alive,
These are the moments,
I’ll remember all my life,
I found all I’ve waited for,
And I could not ask for more.
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Lucy’s POV

A single canvas, on which a plethora of vibrant colors combined to form a beautiful landscape. Water rolled in the ocean as the sun shone down on the dock where two women sat side by side, arms around each other.

A perfect picture, one which I was actually living here in Barcelona. The beautiful artist lay peacefully in bed, a hint of a smile on her face. As I glanced over, I decided not to wake her. How could I have been so lucky? I mean, what had I done to deserve this good fortune? I had thought I loved the unlawful life, but even when I was the Lucy Diamond, on top of the criminal world, I never dreamed that I’d be as happy as she made me (especially at the same time that those Australians and their attitudes still existed).

I felt a hand on my hip and thought for the thousandth time just how right I felt with Amy Bradshaw. “Hey babe,” I said, turning my head to give the blonde a quick kiss.

“It’s not even 6, Lucy. What’re you doing not in bed?”

“Just admiring a perfect picture,” I replied as Amy pressed closer to me, holding me with her arms around my shoulders.

“Oh, this one? Yeah, I really like it too. A couple days ago the inspiration just hit me, and you know, I think it’s pretty good, reminds me of us.” She paused a bit, seemingly looking over the painting as well. “Wait a minute. Lucy, this was supposed to be a surprise for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked. Of course, I knew just as well as she did that tomorrow was our anniversary; last year to the day, it was the day that I had captured her, the beginning of her seven “horrible days in captivity.”

“Lucy, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what tomorrow is.” She was actually getting a bit riled up.

“Okay, yes, I know, it’s our anniversary. I didn’t know if you’d count it as tomorrow though. At Endgame, it didn’t sound as though you had much fun.” I looked back at her and smiled.

“Lucy, you know I didn’t mean anything I said up there, Petrie and Max, they practically forced me into saying it.”

“I know, but still, I thought you might start counting at Endgame.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind having two anniversary presents a year.” I could live with that, two special days so close to each other. I could just imagine some of the activities we could be doing. As if she could read my mind, she started nibbling on my ear.

“I know I certainly wouldn’t mind getting two of these perfect pictures as presents so close together.”

“Well…I know another perfect picture I’d like to create with you.” She could drive me crazy, and she knew it. With her trailing kisses up and down my neck, I was like putty in her hands.

“That other picture wouldn’t have anything to do with the object behind us?” I mockingly asked, motioning towards our bed.

“Oh, it has EVERYTHING to do with that.”

“Good, in that case, I’ll let the artist go to work.” I said as she led me towards the bed by the hand.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Sometimes, she could make some very enticing offers.

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Amy’s POV

If this was heaven, then the woman lying next to me on the bed was an angel. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that this beautiful woman used to be Lucy Diamond, my “archnemesis.” This woman, who didn’t even believe in taking lives, was portrayed to be such a monster by D.E.B.S. headquarters that it was humorous to even think about it. On the same note, however, sometimes, she could make the fact that she used to be my enemy infuriatingly obvious. Still, through all the good and bad times we have had so far together, I would always be her Amy and she would always be my Lucy.

When I made the decision of a lifetime that night at Endgame, I never could have imagined things would work out the way they had. I learned through Janet and Scud that for her actions that night in standing up to Max, Janet had earned her striped and shortly thereafter, Max, Janet, and Dominique had all earned their badges and become official D.E.B.S. Somehow, they had also accomplished the impossible. They had cleared Lucy and my names.

Ms. Petrie has a lot of power, as I have discovered. When she speaks, every national agency and several international agencies listen. She had many discussions with Max, Janet and Dominique about Lucy Diamond before the D.E.B.S. had convinced her of her final decision. Max’s logic was simple, but powerful. Max argued that by our relationship, I would prevent Lucy from continuing her criminal ways. She also argued that there would be an impractical waste of federal money wasted if the government did decide to pursue us. Convinced by Max’s argument, Petrie herself convinced the president to grant us a full pardon.

Of course, this also meant that I was indebted to the D.E.B.S. It had been a long time since our pardon, and I had not had to fulfill my obligation. So, while part of me was surprised, I was not at all shocked when I played the messages on my voicemail and heard Max’s voice.

“Amy, this is Max. I need to speak to you, I’m sure you know why. Call me on a secure line in private. You know the D.E.B.S. headquarters number, my extension is 629.”

Lucy currently was sleeping, so I went out to our balcony. Despite the fact that we were not in any danger whatsoever, Lucy insisted on having Scud get us a couple untraceable cell phones. I dialed D.E.B.S. headquarters and the extension, noticing as I did so that the extension spelled out the word “M-A-X.” Why in the world would the make extensions so obvious. It’s almost as if they were begging villains to call Max’s extension. After two rings Max picked up.

“Hello, this is Max.” It felt good to hear her voice again. Even though she had been the one most intent on capturing Lucy and I, she was the reason we got away. That was a fact I would never forget.

“Hi Max, it’s Amy.”

“Amy, I need you to listen.” That was Max, no pleasantries, always straight to business. It irked me a little, but I learned to accept it a long time ago. “Remember that favor you owe me? I’m going to need to call that in now.”

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Lucy’s POV

Wow, that girl could really tire me out. Most of the time I was more tired after sex with her than I ever was after stealing priceless jewelry from high security vaults in my heyday in my other life. Amy could get me more exhilarated than crime ever could. If I ever even had a doubt that we were meant to be together, I would just remind myself that this girl had made me give up everything else I loved in this world, and I would do so again in an instant for her. Unfortunately these feelings were the reason why not being able to tell her what was on my mind was weighing on my conscience.

Yesterday, I had gotten a call from Pink Thunder, my former gang. Pink Thunder was really a criminal parallel to the D.E.B.S., it was a crime syndicate headed by males, although all the field agents were females. When I was in this group, I discovered my sexual-orientation, and frankly with all the beautiful women in that gang wearing tight clothing, it was a wonder that not many agents ended up lesbians. Anyway, they had called me yesterday as I was working renting boats to tourists down by the docks. They were calling in a long overdue favor.

You see, Pink Thunder isn’t just the criminal D.E.B.S., we also had a little obsession with the movie “The Godfather.” The head of our organization, and the bane of Ms. Petrie’s, was called Dr. Corleone. His actual name was just as humorous, Dr. Head, seeing as how he headed the organization, but I digress. Corleone took the same kind of “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” attitude that Marlon Brando’s character had in the movies. In other words, we had to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse if we wanted any favors. In my case, after my father died, I had made a deal where, if Corleone could pull a few strings and put the Schaeffer family behind bars and end our families’ blood feud, he could call in three favors at any time after I took over the Reynolds Crime Syndicate.

Corleone had called in that first favor in Reykjavik. To this day, no one outside of Scud, myself and Corleone knew that the Ice Diamond, the symbol and pride an joy of Iceland had been replaced by a fake. Regardless of the fact that it was one of Scud’s best fakes, it should not have been able to fool a trained jeweler. Still, to tell you the truth, there probably weren’t enough people in Iceland to have anyone who really cared that it had been stolen.

Then yesterday, Corleone called out of the blue and told me to look in today’s Barcelona Times for the message that would be delivered in the usual Pink Thunder fashion. Amy was out on the balcony, looking amazing in the white satin robe I had bought her when we first arrived in Barcelona, so now was my chance. I hated keeping this from her, but I feared her reaction if she knew that I would be involved in a criminal activity.

Opening up to the auto ads, I spotted what I was looking for. Pink sports car with lightning/thunder paint job the description stated. Sometimes, seeing things like this, I wonder if the title Criminal Mastermind is actually a misnomer. Knowing the typical Pink Thunder code system, I started underlining various letters of each of the words.

If the word began with any of the first twelve letters of the alphabet, from A to L, you would divide the number of letters in the word by two, three, four, or five depending on what it was divisible by and underline the letter in the index specified from the left. If the word started with the letter M, you would divide the number of letters in half and if the number of letters was odd, you would take the left-most middle number, if the word started with N, one would follow M’s steps taking the right-most middle number. Finally, if the word started with the last twelve letters, from O to Z, one would repeat the steps for the first twelve letters but start counting from the right to find the letter the index specified. For each number, the index would be given by the first number in the sequence.

In the end I was left with the message “Meet at Port Suérvo at 1300 hours. Come alone.”

Looks like I had a job to do.

I looked out to the balcony, saw Amy on the phone and her Amy a smile that belied my gut feeling. She smiled and waved back. Sometimes, I really don’t deserve my good fortune.

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Amy’s POV

So I had a mission to do with the D.E.B.S., I really didn’t like keeping things from Lucy, but I had sworn to her that I was done with all the D.E.B.S. missions for good. I didn’t want her to know about this. Max also had a way of making people feel guilty that made me question whether telling Lucy or not was the right decision.

I looked inside the glass door that our house had from the bedroom to the balcony. Lucy looked stunning with nothing but the bed sheets covering her, she was reading the newspaper. Sometimes, I think we have a psychic connection and can feel each others moods. This instance reinforced that notion, as she looked up and gave me a reassuring smile. I smiled back and waved at her, even though the thought of keeping this from her was killing me inside.

“Alright Max, just repeat the basics. We’ll go over the plans once you get to Barcelona.”

“A crime syndicate just arrived in Barcelona, we believe they’re planning to break into the Picasso Museum and steal priceless paintings.”

“So what’s this syndicate called again?” I asked, I was only half listening before. That Lucy, she really could tire me out.

“Were you even listening before?” Max asked, “The group we’re after calls themselves the Pink Thunder.”

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I don't know where I'm going
but I sure know where I've been,
hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
And I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time
but here I go again, here I go again.
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Chapter 2: Old Friends

A/N: Opening lyrics belong to Hoobastank’s The Reason. End lyrics belong to Journey’s Somethin’ to Hide

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I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be,
A reason to start over new.
And that reason is you.
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Amy’s POV

Remember when I said that Lucy sometimes made it infuriatingly obvious that she used to be my archenemy? Right now, she just happened to be going through one of those snits.

“How can you expect me to help you out with everything? You just told me today that your friends were coming over. You know, I have a life too. I can’t just stay here all day.” She continued her incessant ranting that had started early in the morning. Max had decided that giving me less than a day’s notice that the D.E.B.S. were coming over to start the Pink Thunder mission was a good idea. Obviously, she didn’t know Lucy well enough.

Lucy was still going on. It had all started at seven this morning. The place was an utter mess and the D.E.B.S. would be here at noon. Seeing as most of the clutter was Lucy’s, I thought it was only fair to at least ask her to help me clean it up. Apparently, that wasn’t an option in Lucy’s mind. It didn’t help that she thought this was all just a casual visit. I still hadn’t found a way to let her know that I was going to be a D.E.B.S. agent one more time. So right now, we found ourselves in a standoff, Lucy standing on the left side of our bed, while I occupied the right.

Eventually, I had had enough of Lucy’s ramblings, “All I’m saying Lucy is that I’d like a little help. I’m not even asking you to cook or anything. If you could just straighten up your things, I’d really appreciate it.” I was hoping to get through to her through a little compromise. Her face brightened a bit, and I could tell she was close to relenting.

“Okay, I’ll help with a few things. But I’m not cleaning to the point where they’re going to think no one lives here.” Lucy walked over to my side of the room. Taking her position between the wall, and myself she playfully pushed me so I was sitting on the bed. Seductively, she bent over me and whispered in my ear, “Don’t think I’m doing this for free. Tonight I’d better be rewarded.” She started trailing kisses along my neck. By instinct I tilted my head back. God, she knew me better than I knew myself. I turned my head to kiss her and, much to my chagrin, she pulled away. “Save it for tonight. We have work to do.”

She set to work on tidying up the house as I made my way downstairs. Lucy knew what she was doing when she gave back all her stolen paraphernalia. She had more than enough money from her father’s life of crime, stored in overseas bank accounts, that, from a monetary view, it wasn’t entirely difficult to give up her own life of crime. She used that money to buy a spacious three-story house along the cliffs of Costa Brava, a province in the northern part of Barcelona. The most striking aspect of the house was the scenery. Instantly, I knew why such renowned artists as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí claimed to have gleaned inspiration from this very sight; I myself had painted these cliffs multiple times for the Metáfora School of Art, a very selective and exclusive art college in Barcelona that I was privileged enough to attend. The spaciousness of our house, normally the only detraction, was going to come in handy, as three of the four guest rooms would be occupied while the D.E.B.S. stayed at our house.

I made my way to the kitchen and went over the checklist of items I would need in my mind. If the D.E.B.S. were going to stay at our house, I definitely wanted them to try some of the great local cuisine that I had been subjected to. Our next-door neighbor, Damián works as a chef at a local diner. He had treated Lucy and I to meals on several occasions, and helped me to find great recipes for Spanish cuisine that catered to vegetarians.

Once in the kitchen, I opened the cabinet and was pleasantly surprised to see a full stock of items. Just yesterday we had been low on many items. I had asked Lucy if she could find time to go shopping before stopping home last night. Normally requests like that happen to fall on deaf ears when it comes to Lucy. The fact that she actually listened to me and fulfilled what she had often deemed to be a menial task for her brought a smile to my face. I gathered the tomatoes, baguettes, olive oil and the other ingredients that went into making the Gazpacho recipe Damián had taught me. Gazpacho was essentially a tomato stew, combining various vegetables and bread in a tomato broth. I hoped this would also help bring Lucy back to good spirits; it was one of the only vegetarian recipes that Lucy actually liked.

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Lucy’s POV

****A couple hours later****

The doorbell rang at twelve noon exactly, demonstrating the absolute rigidity I had come to expect from Max. As far as Amy had ever told me, in Max’s entire D.E.B.S. career, she had only ever bent the rules once, the time she aided our escape from Endgame. With the sweet aroma of Amy’s cooking in the air, and the masterful chef behind me, I opened the door. The three D.E.B.S. walked in behind Max, and I couldn’t help but notice that they had guns in their holsters. Why they would bring guns along for vacation was beyond me, but how could I question? These girls also fought crime in six-inch skirts, so I’ve discovered it was best not to ask about their little quirks. I was about to close the door when I saw a familiar figure walking towards the house, attempting to balance five suitcases at the same time. I walked out to the curb to greet the closest person I had to a brother.

“Scud! How are you?” I asked.

“Actually, I’d be a lot better if Janet hadn’t packed two suitcases full of only sweaters,” Scud replied, “Would you mind taking a couple of the girls’ suitcases?”

“Sure.” I bent and took two of the overly packed, bulging suitcases. “So, how are things with Janet?”

"Well they don't suck, she's really great. Once you get over the fact that you’re working for the good guys rather than the bad guys, the job ain’t really that different either. Except now I'm working for a whole group of bossy women instead of one.” I made a mock scowl at that last comment, “How’s your girl?”

“She’s amazing. You really should see some of her paintings. This house and scenery has really inspired her.”

“I can see that,” Scud nodded with a grin, “now you know why I always told you to hold onto your dad’s money.”

“Yes Scud, you are the god of advice.” I rolled my eyes. Humoring him wasn’t the worst thing one could do.

“Yes sir, as well as the god of chess, Parcheesi, checkers, and bingo.” Scud replied with a straight face. A glint in his eye betrayed his expression, however, and broadcast hiss joke. “So, this job you were told me about, what’s going on?”

“Scud, you have to promise not to tell Amy, or Janet.”

“Not a good idea, but yes m’am.” Scud held up his hand as if to say ‘scout’s honor’.

“Alright, you’re not going to like this, but please don’t freak out.” I requested.

Scud took a couple of deep breaths and suddenly blurted out, “Oh my god, what the hell are we going to do?”

I put on the biggest smile I could muster; he wouldn’t like this. “Well you remember Pink Thunder…”

Scud cut me off, “No, Lucy, no, not them. I thought we were turning over a new leaf! What about Amy, you don’t actually think she’d let you do this? Are you insane?!”

“No she wouldn't, and that’s why she won’t know,” sometimes Scud’s quasi-parenting could get on my nerves, “and I don’t want to do this any more than you do, but I owe Corleone a favor.”

“You mean the nut job who thinks he’s Brando?”

“Yes, the same. We’ve got to meet him tonight.”

“Luce, I really don’t want to do this.” Scud pleaded.

“You’re my right hand man, you have to be there.”

“You owe me for this one.”

“Yes I do.”

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Amy’s POV

After lunch, Lucy, Scud, the D.E.B.S. and I sat in our living room, catching up with each other.

“So after we found the drugs…” Max started, but was interrupted by Janet.

“In his sweater; it was way too bulgy and I was like ‘Hey, that guy must have something in there,’ and Max was like ‘It could be fat,’ and I said…”

“We traced them to a drug cartel in Peru that had been giving the U.S. government fits. Anyway, we busted them and were commended by the president for the biggest drug bust in history.” Max concluded her story. Obviously, not much had changed since I left the D.E.B.S.

“By ze way, Amy, zis is a nice ‘ouse. Ze zenery is breathtaking,” Dominique spoke up.

“Thank you, Dominique.” I looked over at Lucy and smiled, “Lucy actually picked out the house with the scenery in mind. So many artists have been inspired by this area, she thought it could inspire me.”

“That is SO sweet!” said Janet, the hopeless romantic, as she gave Scud a glare.

“Hey, speaking of me, Scud and I are going to go outside, take a ride around town.” Lucy said, getting up from the love seat we were sharing.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Lucy said you guys needed groceries, and I volunteered to help out.” Scud responded as I saw Lucy elbow him out of the corner of my eye.

“But Lucy, didn’t you just get the groceries? The fridge and the cupboards were stocked.” I asked again, skeptical of the answer Scud had just given.

“Uh, yeah. I don’t know where Scud got that one from,” she responded as a nervous laugh escaped her mouth, “I’m just showing Scud some of the local scenery.”

“Ooh, could I come too?” asked an eager Janet.

“NO!” Scud said, perhaps a bit too emphatically for the situation. “I mean, Lucy and I need to discuss something, so it’ll just be me and her.” Something was striking me as strange about the situation right now.

“Bye guys, see you later.” Lucy called as she and Scud crossed the room and left in a hurry.

“Do you think we should see what’s going on?” I asked, “Something’s not right here.”

“Oh let it go, besides, it’s better for us. We have some work to do, and it’s better she’s not in the house. What she doesn’t know won’t kill her” Max replied as she handed me a portfolio that contained a collection of pictures, papers and one folder.

I ignored Max’s previous comment as I took out a picture of a middle-aged man. He was bald, and had a few scars scattered around his face. He looked intimidating, albeit not in a physical way.

“Alright, this is the case file we have on Pink Thunder. The first picture is of the man known as Dr. Corleone, the head of Pink Thunder. No agent has ever seen him out in the field; therefore we are under the belief that he is not active in the field. He is a criminal genius, and chances are he is more of an organizer than anything else. Whatever you do, though, do not underestimate him, if you do, that will most likely be your last mistake. The next picture you have depicts the two muscles of the group, known only by their codenames, Tiny and Smalls.”

I took a look at this picture, which showed two female body builders. Apparently, villains have a penchant for nicknaming themselves with adjectives opposing what the truth is, and this was no different. These women must have been at least six feet. The only other person in the photo, a man at a cashier these two were holding up only came to their shoulders.

“Finally, the next photo you will see is of the deadliest field agent in the group, Chastity Red.”

This picture displayed an amazingly beautiful, tall read-headed woman. She looked strong and lithe, almost like a feral cat. She had piercing eyes that reminded me instantly of Lucy. It was quite clear that this woman could probably rival Lucy in pure intimidation when she wanted to.

“Amy, I’d also like you to remove the folder. Inside you will find a report and picture of a former member of Pink Thunder. I’m sure you will find this one very interesting.”

I opened the envelope and froze. Staring back at me was the dark hair, tanned skin, piercing eye, and square jaw that I knew all too well…it was my Lucy.

“Lucy Reynolds. Otherwise known as Lucy Diamond. Before she went solo in the crime business, your girlfriend was the most feared member of Pink Thunder. Also, I’d like you to take a look at the fifth paragraph, third sentence of Lucy’s old report.”

I did as instructed and was stunned at what I read.

Lucy Reynolds is believed to be the domestic partner of fellow Pink Thunder member Chastity Red.

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Lucy’s POV

That night, I lay in bed, restless. I had met with Corleone earlier in the day, and had found out the plan. In three days, we were to infiltrate the Picasso Museum and take several of Picasso’s more valuable paintings from the walls. I had promised Amy that I had given up my life of crime, and it broke my heart that I was going to have to break that promise. What hurt even more was the fact that I had to keep it from Amy.

I felt Amy twisting and turning in the bed as well. “Everything alright?” I asked.

“Oh…yeah, everything’s fine Lucy,” she answered slightly hesitantly. She paused for a while, and turning to face her, I could see that something was clearly bothering her. “Lucy, if something was going on with you, you would let me know, right?”

“Of course,” I replied. It was a lie, but it was the only answer I could give.

“From now on, we won’t hold any secrets from each other, agreed? Anything significant that happens, we’ll let each other know about. Okay?”

“Yes. Amy, is there something you’re trying to tell me?”

“Well…the D.E.B.S. aren’t here for vacation. I kind of owe them a bit of a favor for the pardon they got us, and well…there’s this crime group in town, it’s your old gang, Pink Thunder.”

“How do you know I was in Pink Thunder?” I asked, alertly, I needed to know how much more Amy knew.

“Max showed me your picture and your old dossier file from when you were involved with them. Anyway, they’re asking me to help them out with this case to make up the favor.”

I wanted to grab her and admit the truth that we’d be working against each other. I wanted to blurt out the fact that I was doing the same thing for Pink Thunder, but foolishly, knowing that Amy would disapprove, I kept silent. I realized that by my silence, if she discovered my involvement that it would kill her, but I was not prepared to deal with the consequences of telling her now.

“Luce, Max also showed me a picture of your ex, Chastity. Max said she was in town with Pink Thunder.” She looked worried, but she didn’t say what I knew she was thinking.

“Amy, you don’t have to worry about Chastity. There’s no one I’d rather be with than you.”

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Please come talk to me
Tell me what's on your mind
You say there's nothin' wrong
I know…
You've got somethin' to hide
That you're not telling me
You got somethin' to hide
And I know
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Chapter 3: The Drift

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Lifehouse’s You and Me; end lyrics are from Meatloaf’s The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

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There's something about you now
I can't quite figure out
Everything she does is beautiful
Everything she does is right
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Amy’s POV

Last night, Lucy and I had a very productive talk, I thought, at least until I woke up this morning. Something was still striking me as odd about Lucy and Scud from yesterday, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Add to that situation the fact that Lucy’s ex was quite possibly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I was definitely not in a good mood.

Lucy was still in bed as I walked outside to collect the morning paper. To my surprise, Max and Dominique were already up, smoking in the brisk morning air. Max held a newspaper with what looked like highlighted markings in her hands, and she and Dominique seemed to be having a pretty intense conversation, oblivious to the point that the door had just opened and that I was standing in the doorway.

“I told you she was up to no good! We even get her out of all the shit she was in, and she betrays us like this?” Max said, betrayal and anger obvious in her voice.

“Max, you ‘ave no idea what she iz really up to. You like to read zings into ozer zings zat aren’t really zere.” Dominique countered.

The conversation was beginning to intrigue me, and I needed to know what the hell was going on that would make Max react like this (not that much doesn’t make Max react homicidally, but she seemed especially pissed off right now). “Hey, what’re you guys talking about?” I asked.

“This,” quipped Max as she threw the paper to me unexpectedly. I managed to catch most of it, ads and other sections still slipping out as I tried to control it. I flipped over the newspaper to yesterday’s Automobile Ads section that was already open and looked at the highlighted ad I had noticed earlier. Pink sports car with lightning/thunder paint job was the description of the car in the ad in question. “Read the highlighted letters to yourself,” Max instructed, “and then tell me what you think about your girlfriend.”

I did as instructed, noting that the encoding system seemed very similar to the one Lucy had used while writing to me during our time apart before Endgame. No one apart from Lucy and I, besides possibly Scud knew about our correspondences during that time period. After I had figured out where each word began and ended, I read aloud “Meet at Port Suérvo at 1300 hours. Come alone…” I contemplated this for a second. The implications were enormous, if this was what it appeared to be. “Max, first, why would you think that Lucy did all the highlighting here?”

“We found it in your trashcan. None of the three of us or Scud did it, so unless you’re not telling us something about you,” her eyes narrowed, “then your girlfriend’s at fault here.”

“My girlfriend has a name, Max. I suggest you call her by that. And besides that, doesn’t this seem a bit obvious to be what it could be? I think we need to ask her.”

“You go ahead and do that. If I even so much find out that she’s said one word to anyone in Pink Thunder, you can count yourself single, got it?” I glared at Max. She was my best friend, but she could make me more infuriated than anyone. She had a true Napoleonic Complex where she attempted to control everyone and everything, probably making up for the fact that she had self-admittedly had been abused by her parents. She could never budge on something she believed in, and at the moment I was being just as stubborn.

I stepped closer to her so that we were about nose to nose. “And if you do that, the D.E.B.S. will have to find themselves a new leader,” I retaliated. Max raised her fist, and being the borderline psychotic personality that she is, would have proceeded to punch me if a jubilant Janet had not come skipping outside at that moment.

“Hey guys! I just figured out what the ad meant! Lucy met someone yesterday who wants to sell her a Pink sports car! Scud says it’s Amy’s anniversary present!”

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Lucy’s POV

“Lucy, we gots a big problem here.” Scud said as he handed me a cup of coffee. He had just woken me up, telling me that he had something he really needed to talk about.

“Scud, how early is it?” I asked.

“Time for you to get up. It’s eight, but I need you to hear me…and actually listen, not just do a nod to make me think you’re listening.”

“It’s too early. I’m going back to bed.” I said groggily. My conversation with Amy last night had caused me insomnia. I hadn’t ended up actually falling asleep until after three in the morning.

“Though it’s not too early for you to screw up, obviously. The D.E.B.S. found the newspaper with the message.”

I bolted up and sat straight on the bed. Shit! For all I knew my cover was blown. I would be in the doghouse forever with Amy, especially considering that today was our anniversary…Shit again! Today was our anniversary, and I had forgotten to call in our reservation at Amy’s favorite restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, which had good vegetarian dining for Amy, and was rated the twenty-first best restaurant in the world, which definitely made it worth the short car ride from Barcelona to Girona.

“Okay, Scud, first things first…pass me the phone.”

“Did you hear me? D.E.B.S., newspaper, message, Pink Thunder.” Scud said exasperatedly. I did not reply and simply stared at him. “Fine, here’s the phone.”

I dialed El Celler de Can Roca’s number, and soon a receptionist picked up.

“Hola, El Celler de Can Roca” Hello El Celler de Can Roca, the receptionist greeted. Luckily, I had been studying up in my Spanish since Amy and I arrived in Barcelona, and I felt fairly confident that I could hold a conversation.

“Hola, quisiera poner una reservación para esta noche.” Hello, I'd like to place a reservation for tonight, I replied.

“Apesadumbrados, somos llenos. ¿Podemos programar una reservación para la man¢ana para usted?” Sorry, we're full. Can we schedule a reservation tomorrow? Somehow, I just knew that was the response I would get. This was one hell of a start to my day.

“No, gracias, tienen un buen día.” No, thank you have a nice day. I hung up the phone and turned to Scud.

“Scud, now that tonight’s ruined, what do you suggest we do about the newspaper? What do the D.E.B.S. suspect?” A smile crossed his face at that last question. If there’s one tell Scud possesses, it’s the fact that when he smiles, you know whatever he’s got planned is something devious.

“I kinda told Janet that they stumbled across your plan for Amy’s anniversary present.”

“What?” I asked incredulously.

“The ad was in the auto ads section, with a description of a pink sports car with…”

“I know,” I cut him off, “and you think I should give this as an anniversary present to Amy? Scud, you obviously don’t know women well, that’s not a romantic present to give a girl.”

“Sorry, but you don’t really have the reputation of a Casanova yourself. Besides, Janet thinks it’s something typical of me, and we all know who you always need advice from,” he paused dramatically and cleared his throat, “you always need advice from the God of Advice.” He bowed and a smile cracked on his face. “I called up a local car dealer, and they’re prepared to do a quick paint job on a Pink VW and sell it to you for $25,000. Just borrow from your dad’s stash.”

“Scud, that’s gotta be one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard. And somehow, it’s also one of the most brilliant.”

“Thank you, thank you. No autographs please. Oh, and what’s the name of your restaurant? I’ll hack the reservation in for you, just bump some loser out. You and Amy enjoy yourselves, leave me and Janet here.”

---------------------

Amy’s POV

**************That Night**************

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only was Janet right, but this had to be one of the cutest things Lucy had ever done for me. Currently we only had one car, so she would drive me to school while she drove to the docks for work. Sometimes it was a hassle, but I had learned to live with it. Lucy had made me promise to cover my eyes until she said it was okay. She had then led me down the stairs and outside by the shoulder. When she told me that it was alright to look, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Parked in the driveway was a pink sports car with a yellow, blue and white lightning decal.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the paint job was all about, and to tell you the truth, it was downright hideous, but the gesture was amazing. I walked over to Lucy, who was standing in front of the car.

“Well, what do ya’ think?” She asked. I didn’t respond verbally. Instead, I cupped her head with my hands, gazed into her deep, dark eyes and put on the best smile I could. This woman knew me in ways that astounded me. I had mentioned a want for another car once or twice, but she had given me absolutely no indication of this present.

I slowly moved closer to the mouth that I had explored every inch of. Normally, when you know something through and through, it gets old, tired, but this never did. As her lips met mine, I felt the same electricity that had been present at our first kiss at the bank vault exactly a year ago. We kissed deeply, tongues exploring every cavern in each other’s mouths, as if each one was a new discovery. Eventually, as hard as it was, I pulled away.

“You, Lucy Diamond, are the most amazing girlfriend anyone could ever ask for.” I let her know.

“Yeah, I know, you’ve told me before.” She said nonchalantly, as a sinister grin formed on her face. “Now, let’s get going or we’re going to be late!”

“Late? Where are we going?” I knew we were going out for dinner, but she had told me the reservation was for six, there was only one place Lucy would drive an hour to, but I needed her confirmation. If it was the restaurant I thought it would be, she deserved something more than the now seemingly inadequate bouquet of black roses that I had given her.

“Oh, it’s a surprise, but I know you’ll love it.”

“Luce, are we going to El Celler de Can Roca. I really want to know.” Okay, maybe I could be a bit overeager, but I couldn’t see where else we could possibly be going.

“No comment, next question. Just wait until we get there.”

************About an hour later************

I must admit, a car ride with Lucy was never dull. She had this crazy perfect lip-syncing thing that she did when any of her favorite songs came on that just cracked me up. Currently, she was lip-syncing to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The song was at the part where Freddy Mercury and backup singers sing the “Galileo” call and response. Lip-syncing to each voice, she had a different face for each person’s response. It was simply to die for.

“Lucy, we’re here, you’re parked. Can we get out of the car now?” She turned to me and shook her head as her lips went along to Freddy Mercury’s strains of “Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me…”. It was practically six, and the song was too long to continue listening too, so I opened the door and started walking towards the restaurant. My suspicions had turned out to be correct. Lucy had planned the perfect night at the perfect restaurant, and she deserved something extra-special tonight.

She joined me with a mock pout on her face. “What’d you do that for, I was listening to that?” She jokingly complained, simultaneously snaking an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s enjoy the night.”

We walked into the restaurant and a loud argument greeted us. Apparently a redheaded customer was having a problem with the Maitre’D.

“What do you mean my name’s not on the reservation list? I made these reservations three days ago!” The woman angrily interrogated.

I looked at Lucy, she was blushing and wore a knowing smile. I punched her arm lightly as I whispered “Lucy!”

“Have a look if you must, there is no reservation for a Christine Redsburg.”

“Well then, you won’t ever see me, or anyone I know here ever again!” The woman replied, as she stormed and turned around. As she headed out the door I got a good look at her and my jaw dropped. Red hair, stunning eyes, square jaw…it couldn’t be.

“Lucy?! What are you doing here?” asked the woman incredulously.

“Chastity Red,” Lucy said menecingly, “What draws you out of your rat hole?”

“No need for harshness Lucy. Long time, no see. And I’m sure I’m here for the same reason you are.” Chastity said with a smugness one would expect from a master of crime.

“I don’t know what reason you’re talking about, but I don’t want to be involved with anything that you’re involved with.” Lucy replied.

“I never said you wanted to, just that you were. Ta-ta.” Chastity walked out of the restaurant. I looked over at Lucy, and instantly knew that our night had just been ruined.

“Lucy,” I started.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Reservation for Diamond,” Lucy told the Maitre’D as she walked over to the table.

“Ah, yes, Ms. Diamond, right this way.” He led us to a highly decorated table. The antique, formal look of the place, which usually helped to set the mood today, cast a mocking glare as the old had been introduced to the new.

We sat down and were silent for an extended period of time, talking only to order our wine and meals.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I sat in the restaurant, thinking about Chastity. Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no respect for her anymore, but if I had to be truthful to myself, I was curt with her more because seeing her reminded me of how beautiful she was and, for a time, how good I thought we had it. I had let Chastity ruin the perfect evening, much as I had let her ruin two years of my life. I knew that the silence between Amy and I was not fair to her, especially on our anniversary, but the atmosphere had been utterly ruined. Eventually I did talk, though it was about the only thing on my mind.

“Amy, have I ever told you why I wanted to sink Australia?” I asked, confident that I had not.

“All I know is that you told me you did it every time you thought you’d been dumped.”

“True, but that’s not the reason. See, on a night much like this, Chastity broke up with me. It was our second anniversary, and I must have waited in the restaurant for an hour and a half. I was scared out of my mind that something had happened to her. Then, out of nowhere, this guy shows up and sits down at my table. ‘G’day mate,’ he said, ‘‘Ere, this is from Chastity, if you’re Lucy Diamond, she says this is for you. G’day.’ You know what it was? It was a freakin’ Dear John letter, except it said Dear Lucy, of course, but she broke up with me on our anniversary. Since that day, I’ve never forgotten about that guy and his STUPID Australian accent.” I was getting too worked up about this. Maybe Chastity hadn’t ruined today, maybe I was responsible.

“Okay, Lucy, can we please talk about something else.” Amy sighed, dejectedly. It broke my heart to see her this way, but there was nothing I could do right now.

The rest of the dinner was tense, neither of us speaking much to the other. This was definitely not the night that I had imagined that it would have been.

**************Later that night, back at the house**************

“So Luce, how’d everything go? Getting some tonight, huh?” Scud asked jokingly. Normally I’d have elbowed him or have done something of that nature, but it just wasn’t in me right now.

“Don’t want to talk about it, Scud. I ran into Chastity, enough said.”

“Man, and I did all that work. This is how you thank me, you couldn’t have tried to make the evening work still?” Scud was actually a bit perturbed, very unusual for him. I had to admit that he had put a lot of time and effort into tonight.

“Couldn’t you have tried to make sure that the reservation we hacked into wasn’t Chastity’s?”

“What?” Scud asked, obviously, he never even took that possibility into consideration.

“Let’s see, the first name started with the letter C, the last name started with Red-, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that could be another identity!”

“Well sorry I’m not perfect, neither are you! I’m sure Amy would agree with me on that one. Maybe you should go see her, if she still wants to talk with you.”

I did what he suggested, and went up to Amy and my room. I felt like apologizing, but I wasn’t really in the mood for much else. Opening the door, I saw Amy in a seductive, black teddy that I’d never seen before. Normally this would have sent my heart racing, but not today.

“Hey you,” Amy said beckoningly, “I know tonight didn’t go great, but it’s still salvageable. Why don’t you come over here?”

I did what she asked, not for the reason she wanted me to, though. I sat down on the bed, and Amy crawled behind me. I felt the warm sensation of her lips on my neck, trailing her way onto my chin. Once again, this normally would have driven me wild, but I just wasn’t in the mood. I pulled away from her, and could almost feel her face drop. She didn’t warrant this, and I didn’t know why I was putting her through this, she definitely deserved better.

“Lucy, this really isn’t like you. You’ve been acting all distant recently. Tell me the truth, is this about Chastity?” She asked.

I nodded my head. It was all I could do, anything that would have come out of my mouth would have been a lie.

---------------------
I never knew so many bad times
Could follow me so mercilessly
It's almost surreal
All the pain that I feel
The future ain't what it used to be
---------------------

Chapter 4: Pink Thunder

Opening lyrics come from Journey’s Who’s Crying Now; end lyrics are from Styx’s Show Me the Way

---------------------
It's been a mystery
And still they try to see
Why somethin' good can hurt so bad
Caught on a one-way street,
The taste of bittersweet
Love will survive somehow, some way
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I wasn’t able to get much sleep that night, once again. I lay in bed, scenarios that had never occurred running themselves over and over again in my mind. I wanted to admit that my feelings for Chastity were long gone, I mean, we didn’t part on the greatest terms, so to speak. Still, when I saw her again, I felt something – it wasn’t the soothing feeling of utter love and belonging that I felt with Amy, but there was something. I lay for hours trying to straighten out things in my head when it hit me what I still felt for Chastity – lust.

Chastity and I had never been in love, but from the moment I set eyes on her the first time we met, I had this deep infatuation for her, the same that she had for me. The relationship we went through was purely based on a physical attraction. Amy and I were built on more of a soul connection, she knew who I really was and loved me, as did I know and love her. There just wasn’t that kind of intimacy between Chastity and me. Although I had fooled myself into thinking I loved Chastity, I did not know what true love was until I bumped into the girl who made everything in my life suddenly seem inadequate if I didn’t have her.

Then, when I ran into Chastity at the restaurant, I was reminded of that lust that I had experienced during our relationship. It was wrong to Amy, I kept reminding myself, and I made a resolve that I would never do anything to hurt her. At five in the morning, I finally brought myself to shut my heavy eyes that had practically been deprived of sleep two nights in a row, which explains my irate mood when the phone rang at 5:15.

“Who is this?” I asked, not wanting to talk to anyone at all.

“Issss that anyvay to trreat forrmerr bossss?” Corleone asked. He had a very distinct Eastern European accent, having lived back and forth between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union for thirty-seven years until the Velvet Revolution forced him to abandon his home country. He also had a mix of a hiss and a lisp due to a scar he obtained earlier in life.

“What do you want?” I asked with the venom clear in my voice.

“Jusst forrr you to come to varehouse I indicated in lasst meeting.” There was a discreet warehouse bearing no logos or signs about a mile from the port where we had met; Corleone had showed me the place as he described the plan to me.

“When?”

“Leaf now, and ve’ll meet vhenever you get herrre.”

Just then, Amy lifted her head and rubbed the caked tears from her eyes. She must have been awaking from a deep sleep. Well, at least one of us got a good night’s sleep.

“Who’s that?” she asked me.

“Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.” I quickly apologized to Corleone, who knew very well what that meant, as I hung up the phone. I turned to Amy, “Go back to bed,” I moved to her side of the bed, bent down and gave her a quick kiss.

“Looks like someone’s feeling better.” She said as a smile formed upon her face. They say that smiles are contagious, and Amy was living proof of that. Just the way that the perfect dimples formed on her cheek as the sides of her mouth turned up at exactly the right angles always found a way to put a smile on my face as well. She closed her eyes as I watched her fall asleep almost instantly.

After I was sure she was asleep, I walked around the bed to my nightstand, and pulled out a notebook and a pen, and set to work writing Amy a note explaining where I was, or more specifically, where I wasn’t.

Amy,
I got a call from a big group who wants to rent a couple of our small cruise boats. This is a big sale, so I really should be there to make sure everything goes smoothly.

As for last night, I’m really sorry…I got a chance to think about everything last night, and I was incredibly foolish. If you’re concerned about Chastity and me, then don’t worry. I love you, I never loved Chastity; I know that and can only hope you know that.

Please let me make up for last night. I promise you won’t regret it

Yours Always and Forever,
Lucy

I left the note on her nightstand and called the offices at my boat rental facility, one of my employees, Pablo, picked up.

“Hola, Diamond Boats,” Pablo greeted

“Pablo, it’s Lucy.”

“Oh, hey Lucy, what’s up?”

“Just make sure everyone knows that I won’t be at the docks tonight, I’ve got something to do. Leave a note for Jorge; I’m putting him in charge today…oh, and let him know, if Amy or anyone calls about me, I’m there completing a big sale”

“Wait, boss, but what if they come over?”

“Just tell him to do it.”

“Right boss, will do. Adiós.”

I walked over to my dresser and pulled on a black blouse and a pair of black slacks, my usual crime attire. Then, trying out my stealth skills I had possessed in my former life as a diamond thief, I attempted to make it down the stairs when I felt a gun pressed to the back of my temple. I made a mental note to brush up on those skills if I was to be successful in the upcoming heist. As I turned around, I realized that I should have been able to guess who it was behind me.

The face that belonged to the arms holding the gun bore a menacing frown, her eyebrows furrowed. It was the same face that had attempted to stop Amy and me before letting us escape at Endgame.

“What are you doing Diamond?” Max asked authoritatively. She was still in her sleeping clothes, a pair of black sweatpants and a blood-red sweatshirt.

“I got a call from the docks, we’re about to make a big sale, and I was trying not to wake anyone up.”

“Well, it’s too late for that; I’ve been up since three. Just keep in mind that I didn’t get that pardon for you. If you cross the line, I will kill you, I don’t care what Amy says, I will shoot you.”

“Nice to know you care Max. Go back upstairs”

“I’m keeping my eye on you Diamond.”

“Once again, nice to know.”

Once I was downstairs, I made my way to the living room where Scud and Janet slept in our pullout bed on the sofa, Scud’s arms around Janet. Amy and I had offered them a bigger room, but typical of Scud, he had to get the room with the computers and TV. I almost felt bad for Janet. I carefully bent down and removed Scud’s arm, and shook Scud vigorously until he awoke.

Scud was a very heavy sleeper, so it always took him a while to get his bearings. That wasn’t the case today, as he turned and rolled off the bed, landing with a thud on the ground. Immediately, he was awake and holding his back, that fall was enough to wake even the heaviest sleeper. I was waiting for Max to come down, but that never happened. She was the oddest person I had ever met. She would come down at the slightest noise I made, but she was conspicuously absent when Scud’s fall shook the house. Even Janet remained asleep, she must have been as heavy a sleeper as Scud.

“Damn, Lucy, what the hell?” Scud asked, still half-asleep.

“Come on, we gotta go.”

“Where?”

“Corleone, where else?”

“What do I tell Janet?”

“Just tell her I’m showing you around the docks. Let’s go.”

“Fine,” Scud replied as he quickly got dressed into a blue button down shirt and a pair of jeans. He bent down over the sleeping Janet and planted a kiss on her cheek. “I don’t mean to hurt you honey,” he whispered in her ear.

“Scud, I’m leaving!” I called as I made my way out the door and walked to my car.

“I’m coming, hold on!”

Scud joined me in the car and I turned the key, released the parking break and started backing out of the driveway. “We’re meeting Corleone and probably the gang at the warehouse.”

“Now I know why you quit, Lucy. These hours are unbearable,” Scud said. He was right, one of the reasons I had decided to get out of the group was to actually get some sleep. Five in the morning was actually a bit late for Pink Thunder, and we would often stay on a job until around twelve, so we really never got a good night’s sleep. When I set off on my own, I made the hours, which meant I could sleep in until ten most mornings.

We drove to the warehouse near Port Suérvo, and pulled up in the parking lot.

“Alright, if anyone asks, Amy and Janet are just flings to us. We can’t have Corleone and Pink Thunder doubting us. Got it?”

“Why? You’re not actually part of the group. Lucy, you’re just doing them a favor.”

“Just do it.” Scud was a genius, but sometimes he didn’t get the art of subterfuge.

The warehouse was totally gray, absolutely no color scheme, and looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. The exterior was crumbling and decrepit, but if I knew anything about Pink Thunder, the interior would be totally different. Walking to the entrance with Scud slinking along behind me, I opened the door and saw that my suspicions had been spot on.

Decorating the room were various cubicles and high tech stationeries. There must have been a couple million dollars worth of computers, monitors, and other various pieces of technology in the warehouse. Corleone was on the far end of the warehouse opposite the door, dressed like always in an entirely black suit – black suit jacket, black slacks, black button down shirt, black tie. He smiled and motioned for us to come to him. Walking through the path made in the middle of the warehouse between the cubicles, two sets of eyes caught mine.

“Tiny, Smalls! It’s been a while,” I greeted. Tiny and Smalls were always the goons on our operations. If pure intellect did not work and our careful plans broke down, they would always be the ones to bail us out. They were not necessarily intellectually gifted, but if you knew what was best for you, you would never tell them such. They were average looking as far as beauty went, but when you saw their muscular stature, you knew it was in your best interest to keep them happy. Their hair was tied back in ponytails, and they were both wearing black trench coats.

“‘Aillo Lucy,” they greeted in unison. They were identical Russian twins, and still bore their heavy Russian accent. They always seemed to be thinking each others thoughts, which I always chalked up to the connection that twins are said to possess. “How are you today?”

“Good as always, you guys?”

“Ve like bearrr,” Tiny replied. They had this fascination with bears that stemmed from Russia, I guess, and they were always comparing things to bears, whether or not it made any sense.

Scud just looked at me. “Like bear?” he whispered. “These guys sure are odd.” I had met Scud after returning to the United States, so he had never been involved in Pink Thunder. The only person in the group he actually knew was Chastity, as we had continued to date for a short time after I left the group. He stopped and looked at the computers in an empty cubicle and looked up at me, his face reminiscent of a begging dog.

“Just go.” I said, and off he went, gleefully sitting down at the computer.

Tiny and Smalls were formerly Soviet weightlifters and wrestlers, who were born to a poor family and never really made much of a legitimate name for themselves to better their situation. Eventually, failing to make enough money to support themselves and their family in the Soviet Union, they resorted to crime to make ends meet. When Corleone came to Russia, he noticed their knack for crime and physical prowess and quickly made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Soon they were doing his bidding and formed the muscle that Corleone never possessed.

I looked around for Chastity. Not finding her anywhere, I finished my walk to Corleone and found Chastity sitting at a cubicle just right of Corleone. She had her hair down, and for a moment I thought about just how beautiful she looked with her flowing red hair until I forced myself to stop. She was wearing a red tank top with black slacks.

“Chastity,” I spit a greeting.

“Lucy, ‘ow charming,” she said, slipping back into her native French accent.

Chastity Red was not her real name. Her given name was Charitine LeFleur, which in French could be interpreted to “The Virgin Flower,” which was everything Chastity was not. She was descended from the LeFleur crime family, the most feared crime group in France. The LeFleurs were essentially the French equivalent of the Reynolds family, save that they are into drug dealing and weapons distribution. In the end, Chastity was ostracized from her family for being too vicious, a feat many would have thought impossible. When the Soviet Union began to crumble, she traveled to Russia, hoping to make a profit from the suffering. In Russia, she met Corleone, and due to her past, was quickly invited to join the gang. Chastity was a master of dialogue, she could speak English with a native accent if she wanted to, and she could fit in as a native anywhere.

“So what’s up Corleone?” I asked

“Heist goesssh oop tomorrrow, ant ve neet to dvrraw oop plansss.” He replied.

“Tomorrow?!” I asked incredulously. I was a bit suspicious, this would have to be a simple security system, or else he was setting us up. I didn’t work last minute jobs; I always made sure that my plans were perfect to the ‘T’. “Well, where are the specs on the museum?”

“Chassstity hasss them, talk to her.” Just now, I remembered how that Slovak accent used to really grind on my last nerves.

I walked to the cubicle Chastity was stationed at and pulled up a chair. “So what’re the specs?” I asked, a bit of resignation in my voice. If I was going to work with Chastity on this assignment, we would have to be civil to each other.

“Ah, talking a bit nicer, are we? You know, ah missed you, Luce. No one’s made eet as enjoyable as you…”

“Stop it Chastity, it’s not going to work, I have someone I love. Besides, we’re here to work and not reminisce,” I replied.

“Oh, I vorgot. Lucy Diamond’s gone zoft…who could ‘ave imagined? How’s ze D.E.B. by ze way?”

“I haven’t gone soft, and she’s better than you.” I know, I know. I told Scud that Amy and Janet were just passing trends, but this was Chastity. I had to lay down the fact that I was taken and wanted nothing to do with her flirting.

“Ah, she could never be better than me. But let’s get back to business, shall we?” She took a pause as she pulled up the report on the Picasso Museum’s security. “Ze museum has fairly old security. I’m sure you’ve outsmarted zomezing like zis at least a ‘undred timez. There’s a combing laser field on the ground, and ze paintingz all are hung on weight zensitive pins, if ze collective weight zey support iz not correct, zen ze alarm system will trigger.” She gave me a small printout of the blueprints of the building.

“Good, I think I can figure something out,” I said, turning to Corleone.

“Spaseebo. I vill give you fifteen minutes. Vork something out then rrreporrrt back here.”

“Scud!” I called. I waited about a minute before I saw Scud walking down the aisle towards me.

“Luce, this better be good! I was about to beat my best personal time at Minesweeper,” that was Scud for you, the perpetual teenager.

“Yeah, it’s good. Need you to help me work out these plans.”

“Sure, take me off of Minesweeper to do something you could do yourself,” He grinned. “Now what’s your thought process so far?”

As Scud and I went over the plans, making preparations, I reflected on my time back with Pink Thunder. Corleone had found and befriended my father in America, and convinced him that my involvement in Pink Thunder would help me when it was my turn to take over the Reynolds Crime Syndicate. My father was a closet Socialist, so I guess that is where the foundation of the mutual respect was formed.

Corleone was a high-ranking member of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. He had been “elected” Premier of Czechoslovakia when the Velvet Revolutions occurred, overthrowing the Communist government in Czechoslovakia and several other communist satellite states. Although the Velvet Revolution was generally a bloodless revolution, as Corleone was giving a speech to his fellow members of the CCP, the meeting was stormed by an angry mob. The mob viciously attacked many members of the Communist Party, and Corleone was badly injured, sustaining many wounds, including a deep gash that completely split the right side of his lip and ran to just under his right eye. When the new government took over in Czechoslovakia, bitter and disillusioned, Corleone traveled to Russia.

Despising those who capitalized on the riches capitalism offered, he made a resolve to even out the money to those who suffered from what he saw as the evils of capitalism. Corleone formed the idea to have women do his dirty work seeing that they were inconspicuous enough in the crime world. He recruited the strongest, most beautiful, smartest, and deadliest women. His theory was right; these women were able to get into places and find out things that men couldn’t, and all by using their powers of…persuasion. He called this group of women, Pink Thunder. The word Pink represented the color of femininity; Thunder representing a sonic shock wave. In many ways, that is what these women were – a shock wave – they were a propagating disturbance that you never saw, but only heard about after it was over.

Soon, Corleone had the manpower (or womanpower, if you will) he was looking for and he moved in on America. Sporting a dream team of villainous characters from European nations, Pink Thunder soon rose to the top of the crime world. Quickly after their celebrity status was obtained, Corleone and Pink Thunder began to adopt an almost Communist approach of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and distributing the money to the poor through charities. Eventually though, he became corrupted, and kept the money for personal gain, at which point he met Robert Reynolds, my father, one of the most renowned diamond/jewelry thieves at the time.

After Scud and I had finished our part of the preparation, Corleone showed us to a rectangular, wooden table. Corleone occupied the head seat, while Tiny and Smalls were already seated on the right side of the table. Chastity was on the left side with two empty seats beside her. She beckoned to me to sit next to her and I shot Scud a look.

“Got ya’” he whispered as he sat down in the seat directly next to Chastity.

“Sssso vat iss plan you vorked up?” Corleone asked.

“Alright, Scud’s printed out a copy for each of you to keep and hold onto,” I then realized that I wasn’t sure whether or not Tiny and Smalls could read. They had been learning to read when I was in the group and I wasn’t sure whether they had continued learning. “Tiny, Smalls, can you guys read?”

“Like bear!” Tiny replied. Scud was right when he said they were strange. All of their responses that began or ended with ‘like bear’ always seemed to be positive, so I took that as a confirmation that they could in fact read.

“Alright, so here are the basics of the plan. Chastity, did you print out a copy of the blueprints?”

“Oui,” she replied as she lay out on the table a printout of the museum’s blueprints.

“Scud and I found the manual override that they use to replace or remove paintings, however only one of us will be able to get there. It’s past the combing laser field,” I pointed out the location on the printout. “It’s too risky for more than one of us to attempt to navigate there, so I will do the honors, unless anyone objects.” I paused and to my surprise no one spoke, not even Chastity. “So I will stealthily avoid the beams…”

“Like bear?” Smalls interrupted. I turned my head and stared at them, like bear for reading, while weird I could live with, but I had never heard of a bear being stealthy.

“Bears are stealthy?” A blush formed on both Tiny and Smalls faces, and they did not respond.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I’ll stealthily avoid the beams…like bear…” I glanced over at the beaming twins. “And I will use Scud’s password hacking device to shut down the security system.” Scud was a technical genius and had created a device that could hack into most systems and through a program that was too complicated for me, discover the correct password for whatever it was needed for. “Then, it will be like clockwork removing the paintings, it should all go smoothly.”

It should all go smoothly, I hope…

---------------------

Amy’s POV

I sat on the couch in our living room, just waiting for Lucy to come home. It was already ten at night. Lucy had been out for as long as I’d been awake, a little over thirteen hours, if not longer. I had called the docks, and found out that contrary to the note that she had left, Lucy had called out of work today. I had talked to Jorge, who had no clue about the big sale Lucy had written about either. So, needless to say I was extremely worried about Lucy.

While I had been fretting and nervous all day, the D.E.B.S. had been doing some questioning about Pink Thunder and the heist. They had wanted to be able to do some surveillance, but had not been able to find Pink Thunder’s meeting place. I had suggested to them that, knowing Lucy, it was probably some indiscreet warehouse somewhere, but they had found absolutely nothing. Perhaps it was too indiscreet for even the D.E.B.S. So with Lucy, Scud, and the D.E.B.S. out, I was alone at the house. I had never really wanted a pet before, but I decided to ask Lucy about getting a dog sometime soon.

I heard the door and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Jumping off the couch and practically running to the kitchen where the door was, I was dismayed to find the D.E.B.S. at the door and not Lucy.

“So, what’s up guys, what did you find?” I asked.

“Well, they’ve got a local working for them, and the heist is scheduled for tomorrow. Amy, we’ve got something we need to talk to you about.” Max replied

I braced myself for the worst. “What?”

“The local working for them, we don’t know her name, but we’ve found out it’s a woman. Look…Lucy’s not at the docks, she’s lied to you, you’ve bumped into Chastity, they had that weird conversation you told us about…how much do you trust Lucy?” Max asked.

“I trust her with all my heart.” I replied, which wasn’t exactly accurate. I was getting the feeling that there was something going on with Lucy that she wasn’t telling me…but it couldn’t be this…could it?

“Ah, you can’t let ze ‘eart decide zese zings, Amy…” Dominique pointed out.

“Yeah, ‘cause then, if you’re wrong, it could get broken…Not that I’m saying you’re wrong Amy, but if you are…” input Janet.

“All we’re saying Amy is keep a lookout on Lucy. Don’t trust her too much, or she might betray that trust. Remember, as much as you love her, Diamond is still an ex-member of the Ten Most Wanted List. It’s not beyond doubt that she may be aiding her friends here…just keep an open mind, Amy.” Max said.

I wanted to discredit everything that they’d said, I wanted to tell myself that they just had a personal grudge against Lucy, but I knew that wasn’t the case, well, besides Max.

“Just keep an eye out Amy, I’d hate to see you get burned.” Max and the others went to their respective beds. Janet sat on the couch and turned on the TV to HBO, Charlie’s Angels 2 was playing.

I was about to walk to the living room to join her as the door opened and Lucy and Scud walked in, obviously very tired.

“Where have you been?” I asked angrily.

“Geez, what’s gotten into you?” asked Lucy, “Scud and I were down at the docks, didn’t you read my note?”

“I read your note, but Jorge says you called out and left him in charge.” At this news, Lucy’s facial expression changed to one that I registered as a mixture between confusion and annoyance.

She let out a forced giggle. “Umm…you see…Scud and I were…”

“Actually, Lucy was giving me a free tour with one of the boats, and she kinda got lost.” Scud laughed, punching Lucy, “You would think she’d know her way around by know…Anyway, we got dinner afterwards, and that’s why we were out so long…” Scud explained.

“SCUD!!!” exclaimed a joyous Janet, who flung herself at Scud, wrapping her arms around Scud and resting her head in his chest. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too babe…I’ll have to take you with me on the next tour.”

“You better…or else,”

“Or else what?”

“Just…or else,” she replied as she led Scud back to the living room by the hand.

“Charlie’s Angels, cool! Lucy Liu’s so hot!” I heard Scud exclaim right before a loud thud as Janet punched him strongly in the arm.

I turned to Lucy, “You know just as well as I do that that was crap. What did you guys really do?”

Lucy hung her head. “I, I can’t really say…I wish I could, but I can’t…”

“You’re not doing anything with Pink Thunder, right? The D.E.B.S. say that a local is working with them, and they think that it’s you. I want an honest answer.”

Lucy paused for a moment, as if she was mulling it over, “…No, I’m not working with Pink Thunder. You can trust me.”

At that moment, I wish I could have trusted her, but that silence, that pause gave me more than enough reason to doubt her. “Lucy, I wish I could,” I said as I went upstairs.

It was going to be a long night.

---------------------
Every night I say a prayer,
In the hope that there's a heaven
And every day I'm more confused
As the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and legends I knew as a child
Have fallen to idols of clay
And I feel this empty place inside
So afraid that I've lost my faith
---------------------

Chapter 5: Preparations

A/N: Opening lyrics come from 3 Doors Down’s Away From the Sun; end lyrics come from Nickelback’s remake of Elton John’s Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)

---------------------
'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines the life away from me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Piercing light glared down at me, distorted through the glass window. Normally the sun greeted me pleasantly; today it seemed to be mocking me. I looked around the strange room and realized that this was not the way I wanted it to be. Last night was one of the worst nights in my life since Amy and I ran off together. Amy had been so hurt, I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as her…I was afraid that I’d hurt her more.

I absolutely hated seeing her this way, and the worst thing of all was to know that it was entirely my fault. Sitting up on the edge of the bed in the only guest room not occupied by the DEBS, I buried my head in my hands, ignoring the dull ache in my back from sleeping in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place. Lucy Diamond never cried, but I wanted to now, I was screwing my life up, and for what? If I had ignored Corleone and decided not to fulfill my end of the bargain, would everything still be like normal? Could I have ignored Corleone and suffered no consequences? My head was a mess. I was so entirely confused, and things didn’t get any clearer when my mind suddenly drifted off to Chastity. Chastity…

I wanted to admit that I no longer had any feelings for her whatsoever. That’s what I’d been telling myself all along, but doing that would only be lying to myself. My brain and heart were pulling me in one direction, and my body and senses were pulling me in another. I knew deep down in my mind and heart that Amy was the one person who knew me intimately, who loved me with all she possessed. Still, my body, yearning for the pleasure that I had recently been deprived of since Amy and I began squabbling thought differently. Chastity was the quick fix, Chastity could make me feel better instantly, and although that was entirely wrong to Amy, part of me thought it was the right thing to do.

For the first time in my life, give or take my two years in Reykjavik, I honestly didn’t know what to do, and it scared me. It scared me to think that I may be losing Amy. It scared me to think that I was betraying her trust. It scared me to think about the possibility of being caught. It scared me that through all of this I was still thinking about Chastity.

I looked over at the left wall, where my alarm clock would normally be and was dismayed to find another reminder of my predicament. At the moment, everything that I did instinctually in the morning that circumstances prevented just served as a reminder that I was in a tunnel – a tunnel whose paths led different ways, one to the surface and one further down. The problem was that I wasn’t sure which path led which way…nor was I entirely sure which path I wanted to take.

I rose out of the bed, and for the first time realized that I had fallen asleep in my “work” clothes. These past few days must have taken a lot out of me; I hadn’t gone to bed without changing since Chastity left me. I left the room and walked down the stairs to the second floor where my room was, part of me hoping that Amy was there, the other hoping she wasn’t.

Reaching the room, I found the door closed. I reached out and grabbed onto the doorknob and froze. Was Amy in the room? If she was, what would I say? What could I say to her? Making a conscious effort, I twisted the doorknob and was both dismayed and relieved to find the room vacant. I walked to my dresser and searched for my black leather pants and black tie-up blouse that I frequently wore on missions in my previous life.

From outside, I heard a noise that sounded like a car engine. I walked to the window in our room that overlooked the driveway and brushed back the flower printed silk curtains. Amy’s car, the pink Volkswagen was pulling out of the driveway. From a distance, it looked like there were passengers in the car, which hopefully meant a D.E.B.S.-free day…unless they knew…

---------------------

Amy’s POV

So, today was the day. Today was the day when all of this would be over with, no more DEBS, no more second-guessing Lucy. I really didn’t know what to believe anymore. Max had made it seem completely believable to me that Lucy could be involved with Pink Thunder. With all my heart and soul I didn’t want to believe it, I wanted to believe in Lucy and believe that she was clean, but I didn’t know what to believe, nor did I know what to say to anyone.

It had been entirely depressing waking up without Lucy’s beautiful face next to me, her flowing hair spilling off of her pillow onto mine. It had been a night far worse than I had imagined without her, although I wasn’t even sure if I completely wanted her there.

Even if Lucy was not involved with Pink Thunder, she had betrayed my trust. The thing that hurt the most had been finding out that she did not trust me, even after I bared myself to her, telling her about my involvement with the D.E.B.S. I wanted to believe that she had completely changed, that she could be open to someone, anyone. I wanted to believe that she loved me enough to keep no secrets from me, but that hadn’t been reality.

At the moment, I wasn’t sure of which part of my perception of Lucy was reality and which part was just a whimsical fantasy. Did she really love me? If she did, why did just thinking about Chastity keep her up all night? She told me she loved me, yet I had seen how she looked at Chastity. She may have been spiteful in tone and conversation, but her eyes betrayed her.

Could I blame her? I was nothing compared to Chastity…heck, Helen of Troy, the woman who launched a thousand ships was nothing compared to Chastity’s beauty. Did I even stand a chance? What if Lucy left me? What if I lost Lucy and the D.E.B.S.?

These were all questions swirling around in my head, and I had no answers for any of these questions. Earlier in the morning, Max, Janet and Dominique had approached me and had basically ordered me to drive them to the airport. I knew something was awry.

“Amy, we’re leaving. You’re in charge of the Pink Thunder case now,” Max broke the awkward silence in the car.

I took my eyes off of the road and looked incredulously behind me where Max was sitting in the back seat next to Dominique; Janet sat next to me in the passenger seat. “What…Max, you can’t be serious! I’m not a D.E.B. really anymore!” I protested.

“Put your eyes back on the road, I’d hate for you to get us all killed,” Max could be a real jerk sometimes, but she usually meant well. “Janet, Dom and I were called back to the States.”

“What?! Why?”

“Well…you see, we heard there’s going to be an assassination att…” Janet began before Max interrupted her mid-sentence.

“It’s top secret.” Max replied.

“But, Max, Amy’s…”

“ZIP!” Max’s hand moved across her mouth, imitating a zipper. “Amy’s our friend, but even she knows she’s not a D.E.B. anymore. This is confidential info.”

“Ah, what zey are trying to zey iz zat we ‘ave been reassigned, Aimee,” explained Dominique.

“Ok, but what do you expect me to do about Pink Thunder? I’m just one person?” I asked.

“You won’t be alone. You’ll be seeing us off and then picking up a group of Junior D.E.B.S.,” after this, Max leaned forward, “I expect you won’t screw up Alpha-Beta-Gamma like you did the last time, Bradshaw.”

“I didn’t really screw up last time…”

“You led us right into a trap, Amy!”

“Max, Lucy kind of wanted to trap Amy, and Amy kind of wanted to be caught, so I don’t think she really screwed up,” Janet said. Janet had always been the one person I could count on to have my back, and I always appreciated that.

“Yeah, well, who asked you, anyway?” Max asked. At this, Janet’s face contorted. For years she had taken abuse from Max, perhaps now it was time for Max to take a dose of her own medicine.

“Who do you think you are? Like really? Do you think you’re the only D.E.B. here? We’re all official D.E.B.S. now, well, except for Amy, and I, like, think that you need to get a grip. It’s not always you against the world.” I put my foot on the brake and the car skidded to a halt. Luckily, we were on a back street and there weren’t any cars around.

Dominique and I just stared at Janet. Janet had always had a bit of sassiness about her, especially with her nonstop “perfect whore” quipping after Lucy and I had first met. Still, Janet had never been one to challenge authority. Max had always been on her case, oft times she was a bit too harsh, but Janet had always taken it. Maybe Scud was rubbing off on her.

The rest of the car ride was fairly uneventful, Max and Janet each keeping to their respective corners, preventing a bigger fight from breaking out. Finally, we reached the airport and not a second after I put the parking brake on did Max’s door swing open. She stormed out of the door and stood by the trunk, tapping her foot, impatiently waiting for me to pop the trunk. Just as I was doing so, the passenger door popped open.

“Max!” Janet pleaded, “You’re still my friend, but you know, you’re not the nicest. That was my point. You’re still cool. I mean, I’d follow you into battle any day.”

At this Max hung her head. “I know,” she said, “I’m not mad at you, or Amy. I’m mad at myself. I mean the best, I really do, but sometimes, sometimes I just become my father, you know. You guys mean the world to me, and sometimes I’m harsher on you than I should be.”

“Maxie,” said Janet, walking over to Max, and holding out her arms. Max turned and accepted the hug, burying her head in Janet’s shoulder as she sobbed for a minute. Dominique and I just sat in the car, bewildered, this was the most Max had opened up to us since we had known her.

I opened the door and went to the trunk, unloading the suitcases. By the time I had finished unloading the last suitcase, which had not been possible to fully zip up due to the sheer volume of sweaters in it, Max had her wits about her again and looked as normal as she ever did.

“Max,” I said to her, “you will never be your father. What he did, that was inexcusable. But,” I looked at her with a sheepish grin, “you could be a bit more polite.”

“Bah!” Max laughed and played along, “Politeness is for the weak. Inside team! Formation ‘Let’s Get the Hell Back to the USA!’”

Good ole’ Max.


---------------------

Lucy’s POV

“What do you mean?! You planned this rush job and now we’ll ‘ave to pay ze consequences if everything doesn’t go to plan!”

“Patience, Patience, dearrrr girrrl. Thisss isss all going to go accorrrding to plan.”

“Sometimes, sometimes I think you’ve lost eet.”

Scud and I had barely walked into the warehouse when we overheard a couple of heated voices. Corleone sat on his control chair, his makeshift throne as a clearly pissed Chastity stood on the other side of his desk.

“Ah, ve have company, dearrr,” Corleone said to Chastity as he beckoned Scud and I over. “Ve now have differencesss overrr tonight. One thing I know for sure – neverrr do a job on an empty stomach. Lucy, Charitine, I have ssset up rrressserrrvationsss forrr you two forrr lunch at nice rrressstaurrrant. Go to chaufferrr outssside to drive you.”

Corleone obviously knew we were fighting. He did everything for a reason, and the only possible reason I saw here was that for this mission to be successful he could not be worrying about the two of us bickering and ruining it.

I looked over to Scud, and without hesitation, without waiting for any begging, I whispered, “Just go.” Once again, off he went, sitting down at a computer, probably starting a game of Minesweeper.

Looking over at a smiling Chastity, feeling her as she took my hand and mouthed goodbye to Corleone, I really wished he had thought that we could be professional in working with each other, I didn’t want this temptation. Actually, let me rephrase that, I didn’t need this temptation; I actually wasn’t completely convinced that I didn’t want it.

**************At the Restaurant**************

Corleone had set lunch up at a local diner named La Cocina de Barcelona. This place felt more like a romantic tourist trap than an actual Barcelona restaurant. The dim lights and slow music helped add to the romantic atmosphere, and I couldn’t help but think thoughts I knew were wrong as Chastity ate and discussed the mission. Chastity had insisted on ordering clams for herself, which I had warned her about…no need risking getting sick the day of a mission, but she assured me she had a tough stomach. A simple quesadilla was enough for me. As we talked, Chastity slipped back into her American accent in an attempt to better fit in with the surroundings.

“Lucy, you know, sometimes Corleone really gets on my nerves.”

“I could tell, seemed like you guys were pretty upset with each other back at the warehouse.”

“No more than usual, but let me tell you something – he’s losing it. Recently, he’s been leaving things slightly sloppy, you know, leaving potential evidence, not entirely cleaning up after Pink Thunder, and now the rush job…
“Come on, Lucy, it’s not like he’s young anymore. He may be a genius, but he’s close to collecting social security. I think someone needs to step in and take control of Pink Thunder, and soon, before we all get caught.”

“Like who? Who could possibly be better than Corleone?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that Chastity had even brought this up. Corleone was the criminal genius of the century. No one even came close enough to have the ability to compare to him in pure intellect.

“I can think of someone.” She said somewhat nonchalantly, but blatantly enough that I knew whom she was talking about and implying.

“Chastity, I won’t. I’m happy…” I lied. I mean, I was happy, for the most part, just…just not right now.

“No you’re not, Lucy. You can’t fool me, I read people for a living. Trouble in paradise, huh? D.E.B. not as good as you thought?”

“No, no, she’s better than I ever thought she would be, I guess I’m just not up to the same bar.”

“Oh, if I know you, you’ve already been up there. If she’s upset at you, it’s not your fault. Why don’t you come with me? I could show you a good time…you’re not too good for me…”

To tell the truth, I actually took a second and thought about her offer. It was wrong…but it was right too…maybe…possibly? I didn’t know really, but she made me think. Still, my brain prevented my body from acting on impulse, stopped my body from seeking the pleasure that that it wanted so much from Chastity. The pleasure that I felt Amy was denying me, and, to be truthful, the pleasure from Amy that I was rejecting.

Please, God, I prayed, please just let this all be over soon. Let me be able to hold Amy, let me survive tonight. I don’t want to think about what I’m capable of if Amy and I don’t make up our differences tonight.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

So the D.E.B.S. were on their way back to the states. I still didn’t know what exactly they were doing, but I guessed that it had to be pretty big, considering Janet had mentioned something about an assassination attempt, and considering the fact that they had left me in charge of a group of fresh-faced junior D.E.B.S., a group that I was now standing in front of back at the house.

When I had stepped in the house, I had been slightly distraught about it being empty. Lucy hadn’t exactly left a note, but then again, neither had I when I left. For the first time, I started to wonder if Lucy and I were truly drifting apart, and I was scared. Deep down I hoped we weren’t too far apart to reconcile, but I knew I had something else I had to set my mind to.

“Alright,” I looked down the girls in a row, trying to remember their names, “Danielle, Jean, Megan, Annie, tell me, what have you been told about this mission?”

“We’ve been briefed on the members of Pink Thunder, Tiny, Smalls, Chastity, and Corleone, and we’ve been told that they plan to infiltrate the Picasso Museum,” replied Danielle, who apparently was the leader of the group. She was wearing a leather jacket and had on leather biker pants, in a way she reminded me of Max, she was definitely someone you didn’t want to mess with.

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve been told,” said Megan as Annie took out a cigarette, lit it and started to smoke. “O…M…G,” Megan began, stressing each letter of the common Internet abbreviation, “you’re inside someone’s house, do you really have to smoke.” Annie ignored her plea.

“Alright, so now we play the waiting game, Max said to wait for her to call and let us know when to stake out the museum, so Danielle…” The shrill ring of the telephone interrupted me.

I walked over to the wall of my kitchen, where my phone was hanging and even though I did not recognize the Caller ID, I answered it.

“Hello?”

“‘Allo, eess this the D.E.B.S. hetquarters?” asked the voice. The husky voice bore a very strong German accent.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Eet eess not important. Ah haf some information that you vill fint fery useful, I do belief.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“The art museum heist…it happenss at zeven tonight.” The phone clicked dead.

“Alright, change of plans,” I told the junior D.E.B.S. as I glanced over at the clock. We had an hour and a half to plan. “We have a lead. The heist is going to go on at seven tonight.”

Tonight, good, let’s get this over with

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Seven tonight, then this would be all over with. I called in the warehouse to round up all the usual suspects. I knew Corleone wouldn’t be joining us in the field, he never did. Besides, with his frail frame, Corleone really wouldn’t do us much good out in the field anyway.

In a few minutes, Scud, Tiny and Smalls were all around, but I did not see Chastity anywhere. In fact, I hadn’t seen Chastity much since the restaurant. “Tiny, Smalls, Scud, do any of you know where Chastity is?”

“Yah,” replied Tiny, “she ate clams forrr lunch, she sick…”

“Yah,” continued Smalls, “she sick like bear.”

Damn, not only was this going to be a rush job, this was going to be a rush job that I’d have to pull off without one of the best agents in Pink Thunder. Maybe doing this without Chastity wasn’t going to be as helpful as I had thought when I wished she wouldn’t come.

Well, at least the temptation would be out of the evening. There was little over an hour left before seven, we would have to get moving soon.

Let’s do this.

---------------------
Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in
---------------------

Chapter 6: Breaking In and Breaking Up

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Linkin Park’s Don’t Stay; and as a special treat, we have two end lyrics - coming from Daughtry’s Feels Like Tonight and Ben Fold’s Bruised respectively. Feels Like Tonight is from Lucy’s POV and Bruised comes from Amy’s.

---------------------
Sometimes I feel like I trusted you too well
Sometimes I just feel like screaming at myself
Sometimes I’m in disbelief I didn’t know
Somehow I need to be alone
---------------------

Amy’s POV

Driving to the museum with the junior D.E.B.S., my mind was a total mess. What if I went there and Max turned out to be right? What if Lucy had fooled me? I finally had to admit to myself that it was a distinct possibility, one for which I would need to work out the consequences. Lucy meant the world to me, but, if she was involved with Pink Thunder…if she lied to me, did I mean the world to her?

We arrived at the museum late, 7:15 to be precise, but in my mind, it was all too early. To tell the truth, I really did not want to have to deal with the possible outcomes of tonight. Just a week ago, everything in my life had seemed perfect, now it all seemed disheveled. I stayed in the car for a moment, my head leaning up against the headrest. Slowly but surely, I felt the narrowing gaze of Danielle fall upon me.

“Well?” she asked.

“What?”

“Well, what are we doing here? Are we going in, or are you just going to let them take the paintings?”

I really, really did not want anyone else knowing about Lucy if she really was involved, so I made a quick decision, one that I hoped I wouldn’t soon have reason to regret. “Alright, you four just lay low here in the car. Do any of you drive?” I assumed they did, as they all stared at me with a look as if to bore holes through my head. “Alright, then one of you circle the block a couple times. I’m going to make sure that the call wasn’t a prank and all this isn’t all a set-up.”

“Amy, do ya’ really think this is such a good idea? What if it’s a trap?” asked Jean. I hadn’t heard her speak a lot, but when she had, she had this concern about her that reminded me of a younger version of myself. In fact, these four girls really reminded me of my old squad, back when we were all freshmen together. Oh, how I yearned for those days right now, back when all I really was worried about was how my hair looked.

“I’m the superior officer on this mission. I’m going in. End of story. If I’m in the museum longer than fifteen minutes, Danielle, I want you to come in.” I opened the driver’s side door and Danielle slid over to the wheel. I turned in the direction of the museum and nearly froze; I still wasn’t exactly sure whether or not I really wanted to do this. Forcing my mind to move my feet, I walked across the street, up the steps to the Picasso Museum and reached out to the doorknob, which was still unlocked. I forced down a swallow…it was now or never.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Tiny, Smalls and I had no problem getting into the museum. For the museum holding many works of one of the world’s most recognized painters in history, their security, like the D.E.B.S. headquarters’, was really for shit. I hadn’t even needed my lock picking kit, all I needed was one simple bobby pin, my grandfather would have been proud. We quickly made our way through the lobby and past the display of Picasso’s sculptures. We weren’t after the sculptures; sculptures were usually bolted to the ground in museums, which made them time-consuming, and their size made them impractical to sneak off. Finally, we found what we were looking for, the control center where all the truly valuable paintings were hung.

The museum held priceless treasures, such as Picasso’s timeless classic painting of the Spanish Civil War, Guernica. Just standing in this place brought back the adrenaline rush I used to experience when I knew that I was about to swipe something that most people cared about – those were the kinds of crimes that could build up your reputation.

I pulled off my backpack, reached in and pulled out Scud’s “laser beam exposer,” as he called it. Basically, it was just an aerosol can that contained gas that hovered in the air, exposing lasers for an elongated period of time. I pressed the button on the top of the can and as the faintly visible aerosol-guided gas sprayed out of the can, the laser beams slowly came into focus. They were sweeping across the floor horizontally, it would be tricky to navigate, but I could do it. Putting my bag back on my back, I looked behind me at Tiny and Smalls.

“Okay, boss, now is time. Go sneak like bearrr,” Tiny told me. I stepped carefully over the first beam. Currently the beams were moving to my right, as long as I paid attention, I would be able to sidestep them. I jumped quickly; placing my feet around the beams I navigated my way to the only safe spot in the room, the central controls. On a cursory glance I saw a wireless receiver. The guards must use a special remote control to activate and deactivate the alarm systems, having one of those would have made navigating the room much easier.

I took off my bag again, unzipped it and found Scud’s password hacking piece of hardware. It almost looked like a handheld game system, but it could hack into the wireless receiver at close distances and find the correct password. I set about calibrating the device in the fashion Scud had shown me and was soon rewarded with a double beep as the alarm was deactivated.

“Alright, let’s do some looting guys.”

I took a step toward Guernica when I heard a voice. My heart jumped in my chest, the voice sounded so familiar…and it should have been. My worst nightmares had come true. I turned and looked at the agent standing in the doorway, and I could almost feel my heart prematurely break; I knew what would be in store for me tonight.

From the entrance to the museum, I heard one pained word, “Lucy?!”
---------------------

Amy’s POV

I wanted to believe that I was seeing things. I wanted to believe that the Diet Coke I had ordered earlier tonight had been spiked with some sort of hallucinogen, but I knew differently. Standing before me, dressed in all black, about to steal one of the world’s most cherished paintings was the one person I thought loved me, the only person I loved.

“Lucy?!” I half-asked, half-choked. I couldn’t speak anymore. I had not wanted to believe Max, I so wanted to believe that I was in the midst of a nightmare, but I had to come to grips with reality. For longer than I would have cared, I just stood there, my body paralyzed as my girlfriend, the master criminal that she apparently still was ran for it.

“Run!” exclaimed one of the two Russians who, if I could remember was either codenamed Tiny or Smalls. I had seen their picture on file, but I never could have pictured their height or their muscular stature. They looked as if they could smash me in two if they had to

“Run like bear!” The other exclaimed. Maybe I didn’t have to worry about them breaking any bones. They didn’t seem to be too intelligent as they frantically ran around the room. A second later that notion was reinforced as they slammed into each other, knocking each other down and seemingly out cold.

I heard footsteps running behind me. Had it already been fifteen minutes?

“Amy, you said to come in after…” Danielle started, before she noticed the two weightlifters sprawled on the floor, “damn, Amy, what happened here?”

“Ah…I…um…I found them trying to steal the paintings and I…um apprehended them,” even being the perfect liar, I really didn’t think I was doing such a good job right now.

“Wow, Max always said we should trust you with our lives. Looks like she knows what she’s talking about. Good job. Let’s wrap this up so my team and I can go home.”

Home…I didn’t even want to think about what would happen there…

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I stood just outside the back entrance, my life totally destroyed as far as I knew. I had just wanted to finish this job and get back to Amy. Now not only would I have to report to Corleone that the mission was a failure, I would have to face the music and hope that I had at least a semblance of a chance of reconciling things with the person who I hoped still loved me.

I should never have gotten involved with Corleone. I owed him two favors, but what could he have done if I had refused? He could have killed me, I guess, but that would be different than the consequence of losing Amy for good, the consequence that I faced right now. Of course, he also could have gone after Amy, in which case I had made the right decision…right?

I started down the back alley, walking toward my car. Once I arrived at my destination I opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat. I rested my head on the steering wheel and for the first time since I was a little girl I felt the unfamiliar feel of tears trailing down my face. I had messed up everything. Could I start again? Would Amy let me?

The emotion I was showing surprised even me. When I attended my father’s funeral, right before I quit Pink Thunder, I had been upset, but no tears came. When my estranged mother had died four years before that, I barely felt moved. Now, though, as my life crumbled before me, I finally let myself show emotion, some time for it.

I waited for about a half hour, reflecting on everything Amy and I had been through together. It just didn’t seem right to end it this way, but I guess it was poetic justice that I, the initiator of the relationship would probably also be the one to put the nail in the coffin.

After I was sure Amy was most likely gone, I turned the key in the ignition and started back to the house. Through the entire car ride home I tried to think of how to best attempt to mend the situation. The only thing I came up with was two words. Don’t yell…don’t yell, Lucy.

I pulled up in the driveway fifteen minutes later, parked and started the walk of shame into the house. Walking up to the door, I opened it to see Amy waiting there for me.

“Lucy! What was that back there…please tell me I just didn’t understand…please tell me you weren’t helping Pink Thunder,” she pleaded. For a second, I thought about obliging and lying to her, but I thought better of it. That would only serve to make things worse than they already were.

“Amy, I wish I could. Really, I’d give anything to be able to tell you truthfully that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I just can’t,” I admitted. A pugnacious look formed on Amy’s face, this was what I was waiting for - the inevitable blowup.

“God Lucy! I trusted you! I…I told you that I was working for the D.E.B.S. All you had to do was say, ‘Amy, I’m working for Pink Thunder,’ but you couldn’t!”

“Amy, jeez, it wasn’t that easy!” I shouted. Apparently, I hadn’t been listening to my own advice.

“What do you mean, it wasn’t that easy? I asked you a bunch of times if anything was wrong and all I got was ‘don’t worry, honey!’ Do you even trust me, or am I just a fling to you?”

“Amy, you are definitely not a fling to me. You mean more to me than anyone else possibly could.”

“If I did then you would trust me, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t go behind my back and betray me!”

“God, Amy, I already told you, it wasn’t that easy! It’s easy for you to tell me that you were going back to the D.E.B.S., at least they’re the good guys! How would you react if I had said ‘Hey Ames, I’m going back to the life of crime because I owe Corleone a favor or two?’”

“I would have accepted it…”

“No you wouldn’t have…don’t cut me that bullshit!” I interrupted.

“Oh, are you calling me a liar Lucy Diamond? Because right now, that would be the wrong thing to do. If anyone’s a liar you are!”

“I’m not calling you a liar, I know you’re a liar. You yourself said that Phipps told you that you were the perfect liar right? So then what if I am calling you a liar?” I asked indignantly.

“Then I’d have to tell you to leave!”

No, no, don’t do it, my brain pleaded. Unfortunately, I don’t always listen to my brain when I get into a heated argument. “Fine, then I will leave. If you don’t accept the truth then I’m gone!”

Did I really do that? I wondered, hoping that my mouth had not just betrayed me. As I looked at the shocked and hurt expression on my Amy’s face, I knew that I had just made one of the stupidest comments of my life.

I had no choice whatsoever than to carry out on my words, though, as much as I hated to. I stormed up the stairs and turned to face Amy’s and my room, where I hit the door with all my force, the door swinging wildly and slamming into the wall, probably leaving a sizeable dent. I threw open the closet door, grabbed my suitcase and pulled, causing everything above the suitcase in the closet to fall down in an avalanche.

If this was it, then this was it. I went to my dresser and started loading up my suitcase, secretly hoping that Amy would burst into the room at any second and stop me from making the biggest mistake I’d ever make.

---------------------
You, you got me thinking it'll be alright.
You, you told me, "Come and take a look inside."
You believed me, in every single lie.
But I, I failed you this time.
---------------------

---------------------

Amy’s POV

She couldn’t have just said what I thought she had. Were we actually breaking up? We couldn’t be finished. Did I push her over the edge? Should I have been less harsh to her? Already I was more confused than I had been when I had been waiting for Lucy to come home.

On one hand, I was extremely angry with her. I had invested all my love and my life into her, and she had betrayed me. I had bared my soul and thought she had accepted it. When it was the most difficult I had told her the truth about working for the D.E.B.S. and she hadn’t trusted me enough to entrust me with the secret that she was back working with her old gang. In fact I had asked her, and she had flat out lied to me. I was as hurt as I was angry.

On the other hand, though, she was probably right. Rejoining the D.E.B.S. was a little different than rejoining the life of crime. Maybe she had a point in claiming that I would have reacted harshly if she had told me the truth. Still, I told myself that if she had told me about it and told me that there was absolutely no other alternative that I could have handled it a bit better than I did by experiencing her betrayal as I had.

As I sat on the couch contemplating the state of our relationship, Lucy came down the stairs carrying a large suitcase. It looked as if she was actually going to carry out her words. It looked as though we were over.

“Lucy,” I had to ask the question, suppressing tears, “are we over?”

She sighed and hung her head. “Amy, I really don’t know the answer to that question. I really don’t want it to be over, but I know I can’t stay here tonight. I guess it depends on how you feel.”

Just then, I heard footsteps going down the stairs and for a second I panicked, not knowing who could possibly be here. Soon, however, my fears were assuaged as Scud appeared in the staircase.

“Hey, girls, is this a bad time for me to ask something?”

“YES!” I shouted, while Lucy simultaneously shouted no. I turned my head and looked at her, “What do you mean this isn’t a bad time?! This is an extremely bad time! We’re not done here!”

“Yes we are, we’re done here…I’m leaving Amy.”

With that, she walked to the door, still open from after our big fight, stepped into the night and closed the door. Just like that, Lucy Diamond was gone, maybe for good.

I guess it depends on how you feel, her words stuck with me. Those words that could either be perceived as comforting or disturbing depending on my thoughts. The only problem was that at the current time, I really wasn’t sure how I felt.

Scratch that, I knew how I felt, not about her comment, but about things in general. I felt betrayed, I felt hurt, and I felt broken-hearted. I had invested my love, had invested myself in her, and I had watched as she metaphorically shredded it to pieces.

I fell over on the couch, found a pillow to bury my head in and let the tears flow.

---------------------
Oh no
Your love just leaves you bruised
If you want to know
You find something to lose…
Oh no
Did love just leave you screwed
You got to go slow
Cause love just leaves you bruised…
Who will make the first last mistake?
---------------------

Chapter 7: Temptation Returns

A/N: Opening lyrics come via a reader request (Kklips) from Pat Benatar’s We Belong; end lyrics belong to U2’s Vertigo. Other lyrics used in the chapter are noted by author and song title. All lyrics used are not meant to violate copyright laws at all and are not used for profit in any way.

---------------------
Don't want to leave you really
I've invested too much time
To give you up that easy
To the doubts that complicate your mind
---------------------

Amy’s POV

I must have laid on the sofa for only a couple minutes before the full extent of the loss of Lucy hit me. I had given up everything in my life for her, and losing her for good therefore would be losing everything else. Still, I faced a couple obstacles preventing me from reconciling with Lucy, at least right now. Lucy had lied to me; she had lied to me with a straight face, and I had accepted it as the truth. How then could I legitimately believe an apology from her? How could I tell that she was sincere and not merely putting on the same façade she wore lying to me all those times before?

Another obstacle I faced was deciding whether or not I actually wanted to reconcile. Lucy had taken everything I had given her and thrown it all away. She had betrayed me, and it hurt, it stung worse than any physical pain I had ever experienced. I just didn’t know anymore, I didn’t know if she loved me. Was it even an option to reconcile with a person that I loved if they didn’t reciprocate those feelings?

I forced myself to sit upright on the sofa, wiping away tears with the back of my hand. The only place in the room I could bear to look was at the floor, and I just stared there for some time, not knowing what should be my next move. Suddenly, I felt someone near me and I saw a hand appear under my head bearing a tissue.

“Thanks Scud,” I said, turning my head to look at him.

“You okay, Amy?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Yeah I’m…no, Scud, I’m not really…” I replied, hanging my head once again.

“Amy, you know, she loves you, probably more than she loves herself. You mean the world to her,” I raised my head and looked at him with a skeptical look. “Really, Amy, you do.”

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you’re like her brother. If she did, she wouldn’t have lied to me.”

“She lied to you because she loves you, and didn’t want you to get hurt. I told her it was a bad idea, but she made the wrong decision. But, Amy, her heart was in the right place.”

“How do you know that, Scud? Lucy lies without a tell, she’s probably a better liar than I am.”

“Amy, trust me, when you’ve been around Lucy as long as I have, you figure out her tells. She does have some, but you have to look closely.”

“Well, I mean sometimes she’d hesitate, and I didn’t always believe her then…but I did in the end.”

“And why do you think that is?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“I don’t know, why?”

“Because you wanted to. And that’s good, because at least you’re open.”

“Open to what?” I asked, not knowing where he was going with this.

“Well, you’re open to love, unlike Lucy sometimes. See, Amy, with Lucy, love is harder than crime, or war, or lying. You’re different, loving comes easier to you than to Lucy. She’ll be back,” he placed a hand on my back and patted me gently.

“Scud…” I asked.

“Yeah?”

“Scud, what would Lucy do if she were in my situation?”

“She’d try to blow up Australia,” he said straight-faced. I looked at him and he wasn’t kidding, but I did remember Lucy saying that whenever she was dumped she used to try that.

“Scud, you know I’d never do that,” I let out a bit of a laugh, “so what would Lucy do after that?”

“Well, I guess she’d take my advice.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, first we find her…she’s gotta be at a hotel, or an inn, right? So we find out where she is, sneak in, infiltrate the hotel’s database to find out her room number, crack the code to gain access to the room and then…”

I could see why Lucy had trouble with love, Scud’s advice was a bit too complicated than it had to be. “And then what, Scud?” I humored him.

“And then you go into the hotel room and tell you love her.”

I looked at him with a cynical look. “Scud…you call that a plan?”

“Yeah, what do you think would be better?”

“Why don’t I just wait for tonight and call her in the morning?” I asked.

“Well, that’d work too,” he grinned, “but it isn’t nearly as much fun.”

“Alright Scud, I’m going up to bed. When are you going back to the states to be back with Janet?”

“When I’m sure you and Lucy won’t kill each other. Goodnight,” he called as I rose off of the sofa and started to climb the stairs.

“Good night, Scud…and Scud,” he looked at me, “thanks for making me feel better.”

“Hey, no thanks needed. That’s my job.”

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Driving in my car, I was headed in the direction of the nicest hotel close to our house. All through the car ride, I was second-guessing myself, wondering how I could have possibly screwed up as badly as I did. Amy meant the world to me and I had thrown that all away. Hopefully she could forgive me, but even I had to admit that I probably wasn’t worthy of that forgiveness.

After about fifteen minutes of driving along the left hand side of the road (which had taken some getting used to when we first moved to Europe, as had driving on the right side of the car) only seeing the occasional passing car, a giant hotel complex greeted me with a tall white sign displaying the name of this particular five-star hotel, El Hotel Nacional Español de Barcelona. Pulling into the parking lot, I parked my car and walked into the hotel’s lobby, rolling my suitcase along with me. The receptionist was a good-looking woman, who looked young enough to be a college student. She had light brown hair tied back behind her head in a ponytail and was wearing the hotel’s uniform, a white button down shirt, with black pants and a red patterned vest. The hotel catered to ambassadors, tourists and foreigners in general, so the common language in the hotel was English.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

I looked down at her nametag. Just as luck would have it, she shared the same name as the person I was trying to forget about at the current time, “Yes, Amy. Are there any vacant rooms?”

Receptionist Amy typed furiously on the keyboard and clicked the mouse a couple times before looking back up. “Actually, you’re in luck, we’ve got at least one opening in each price range, would you like a suite, a duplex room, or a room with a single bed?”

I thought for a second, there was a strict criteria I needed for my room, “Do the rooms with the single beds still have TV’s that get HBO?”

“HBO and HBO Español,” she replied.

“Alright, I’ll take a single-bed room.” See, I wasn’t extremely picky. I just needed my free movies. Hopefully tonight they’d have on something like The Notebook, something really romantic and light-hearted to take my mind off of my situation for a couple hours. Maybe then tomorrow morning I’d go down to the hotel spa for some pampering, take a little swim in the pool, and/or work out a little bit in the hotel gym. The possibilities were endless.

“You will be charged two-hundred and twelve Euros per night for the room at check-out. How long will you be staying with us?” the receptionist asked.

“Um, I think one night will be long enough,” I replied.

“Alright here is your key. You are in room 209. Thank you, and enjoy your stay,” the receptionist said as she handed me a card about the size of a credit card with a magnetic strip that would send out the code to unlock my specific room. I used to love these kinds of locks, they were actually easier to “pick” than tumblers if you knew how and had the equipment.

I rolled my suitcase to the elevator and pressed the up button. I guess that moment would have been a really good moment to remember that hotel elevators were one of my biggest pet peeves, because what happened next would set the stage for the future. As I waited impatiently for the elevator, going on five minutes a familiar figure sauntered up next to me.

“Lucy?!”, asked a familiar voice, one that I would have recognized anywhere. That sultry voice, combined with those good looks of hers, were only a couple things that I would never forget about Chastity…

**************About Five Years Ago**************

Ugh. I seriously wanted to denounce my father. Just about a month ago he had told me that I would be taking a break from the family crime syndicate to join this all-girl gang whose director he was good friends with. I mean, I knew Dr. Head, or Dr. Corleone as he liked to be called by the gang, but I wasn’t sure about this whole thing.

My father had told me that this would help me as I tried to take over the family business, which I still didn’t know if I wanted to do. My father’s shoes would be difficult to fill, and I wasn’t sure I was mentally up to the task. I mean, my father was one of the most renowned cat burglars in recent history, he was also a renowned jewel thief, and I didn’t know if I could ever reach that status. Unfortunately, he was also pegged as a killer, even though as far as I knew he had never killed anyone. So much for the “intelligence” community, sometimes I’ve thought that the CIA should actually be the CUIA, the Central Un-Intelligence Community.

I found myself boarding a jet bound for Germany, traveling with several notorious criminals and Dr. Corleone himself. As I boarded the plane, I saw Corleone playing chess against a dark-haired male. Without looking, I knew Corleone was winning – he was a master chess player, always thinking at least five moves ahead of anyone else, which was the reason he was so good at crime. Then, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye that took my breath away. Actually, maybe I should say that I caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye. She was a gorgeous redhead with an amazing…wait; this was a girl I was talking about…how could I be thinking this about a girl? I wondered. I mean, I had never really been attracted to boys, but I thought it was just a phrase I was going through. I mean, I was sure that one day I’d find the right guy for me and instantaneously I’d know that he was the person I would spend the rest of my life with. Maybe I was a sucker for love, but I believed in love at first sight. I thoroughly believed that it was possible to see someone’s soul the first time you met them.

Was it possible that the reason I hadn’t been attracted to boys wasn’t just because I’d never met the right one? I mean, I had thought that some girls were really good looking, but I thought every girl had thoughts like that…what if I actually was attracted to girls instead of guys? I had heard about girls like that, they were called lesbians, and they were always the ones getting killed in the movies. What if I was a lesbian?

I finally made up my mind, and walking over to the redheaded beauty I looked at her until she looked at me, “Um…is that seat taken?” I asked, motioning to the seat beside her, next to the window.

“No, but I can slide over too, if you’d like,” she responded, a smile on her face. Wow, I never knew a smile could look so good on a girl…stop it Lucy, I tried to force these thoughts out of my mind, but they just wouldn’t go away. “I’m Charitine by the way, but everyone calls me Chastity,” she said, extending her hand as she slid over. I sat down in the seat that she had just vacated.

“I’m Lucy. Nice to meet you,” I responded, grasping her hand and shaking it, all the while thinking how nice her hand felt in mine.

**************Back at the hotel**************

“Chastity,” I sighed. If there was one person I really did not want to see at the current time, it was her. This wasn’t because I was still mad at her or because I still hated her. No, the reason I really did not want to see her was because at this point in time I really did not want my body to do the thinking for my mind. If that happened, there was only one place for this to go.

“Lucy, you don’t seem very happy to see me. Trouble in paradise?” she said using her American accent. I stared at her for a second. If she got the situation from my dejection, even after the way that I was treating her recently, then her omniscience was truly odd. Then again, she was a master criminal, and she clearly would need keen powers of observation if she wanted to survive. Maybe that was how she knew.

“Yeah, you know we were busted today at the museum?”

“Yeah, I heard Tiny and Smalls were arrested, you should have heard Corleone rant about it. I told that old bastard that it was a rush job, but would he listen to me? No!” she said. At that moment, I knew I should ask her about the clams, she obviously felt better, but I kept silent for an unknown reason. “Do you need help up to your room?”

“No, I’ve got it covered,” I responded.

“Well, after you’re settled, would you want to get a drink or two? There’s a nice little bar in the hotel. They’ve got a band playing today and they’re pretty good. I just came from the show. They’re into a lot of older music, they were playing some Beatles, Who, and Zeppelin, but if you like that stuff, they’re really good.”

“I don’t know, Amy and I just had a fight…” I responded.

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun.”

I knew I shouldn’t, I really knew it was a bad idea, but I decided to accept her offer anyway. “Sure, just let me put my stuff in my room and I’ll be right down.”

“Cool, I’ll get us a table,” Chastity said as she flashed me a smile.

Body, stop thinking…brain, please take over.

**************Five years ago, in Berlin, Germany**************

As all the members of Pink Thunder and I got off the plane, I watched the group that I would soon be an official operative of, and couldn’t help but change my mind. Maybe this actually was going to be a good period of my life, especially if that meant spending more time with Chastity. I couldn’t quite categorize what I felt, but I knew I felt something. I hoped to spend a lot of time with her.

Corleone was the last to get off the plane, and as he did he called out to me, as I was only a few steps ahead of him. “Lucy…”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Ssstop it with ‘Doctorrr,’ you’rrre in grrroup now, you’rrre family. Family callsss me Corrrleone.”

“Alright sir…sorry, Corleone,” I corrected myself.

“I’d like to introduce you to grrroup. Everrryone, come here,” he called to the rest of the group, who were gathered around the limo that would probably escort us to headquarters. “Lucy, thisss isss not everrryone in Pink Thunder, but this is the sssquad you have been assigned to. Thessse two are Tiny and Sssmalls,” he pointed out the two extremely tall, heavily muscled women I had seen on the plane.

“Nice to meet you,” I said shaking one of their hands.

“Yah, eet ees pleasurrre,” said one of the twins.

“And Lucy, thisss isss yourrr rrroommate, Charitine LeFleur, of the LeFleurs,” I had heard the name before. They were the leading crime family in Western Europe, based in France. From what I had heard, they were like the mafia, except more ruthless. They had compared themselves to my family as far as pure aptitude for crime. Of course, my father hated the comparisons due the LeFleurs’ nasty habit of ‘ridding’ themselves of their enemies. “Ve call herrr Chassstity, Lucy.”

I extended a hand, greeting her for a second time. “We’ve met,” I told Corleone, “but I didn’t know she was a LeFleur.”

“Eh, it’s not important,” said Chastity, slipping into a French accent that I totally was not expecting.

“Wait, on the plane you talked with an English accent,” I said, wondering what she was up to. I retracted my hand, suspicious of Chastity, I guess that showed my inexperience when Corleone gave the explanation.

“Lucy, Chassstity isss a massster of dialogue,” Corleone said. That made sense to me, I guess she blended in to her situations to make people more comfortable.

I extended my hand yet again and this time Chastity took it and shook. “It’s a pleazure,” she said, still in a French accent. At the time, I couldn’t stop thinking how amazing that sentence sounded with her accent.

**************Back at the hotel, in Lucy’s room**************

I put down my suitcase and unpacked my essentials, placing my toothbrush, hairbrush, soap and shampoo in the bathroom. I walked back to my bed and lay down, just trying to get my head on the right track. Chastity was bad news, I knew that, but my body didn’t. Maybe I’m a bit of a nymphomaniac, but I hadn’t had any release for a while, and my desire for pleasure was really starting to take over. It clouded my senses when I was around Chastity, which was why part of me really did not want to go back down to the bar, but that part had seemed to be taking a hiatus after my run-in with Amy.

As I said, I hate hotel elevators. There are usually so many people in hotels that are riding in an elevator that the elevators take an excruciatingly long amount of time to come. Since I was only on the second floor, two floors above the lobby, I decided to take the stairs. As I descended, I kept thinking to myself not to take this too far. This meeting would only be about sharing a drink with an old friend in my misery…except I knew what Chastity wanted.

Chastity was never one to actually settle anywhere, she knew what she wanted and usually got it. She would do anything to get what she wanted, including feigning love. I never really loved Chastity, at least not like I loved Amy, but when we were together I had thought that I did. I had thought she had loved me, but apparently, according to her note, she got bored with the relationship, and just decided to break it off.

So now, here I was, once again, playing a part in Chastity’s game to live for the moment and indulge in the senses. I just hoped I wouldn’t fall prey to her like I had the last time.

I finished my descent of the stairs, opened the fire door and stepped into the lobby. In the window of the bar I saw the band that was playing tonight; one of the members was on the drums, another on bass guitar, and another on an acoustic-electric guitar. Walking towards the door of the bar, I spotted Chastity through the window. She had apparently changed clothing since our encounter in the lobby. Instead of the unrevealing outfit I had seen her in earlier, she was wearing a button-down silk blouse, which was unbuttoned enough to show off a black silk bra. I gulped and walked into the restaurant to sit next to Chastity.

“Hey babe,” she said.

“Hey,” I said, while simultaneously making a conscious effort not to look at the appealing outfit she was wearing. “Um, you look nice tonight.”

“Thanks, you like? It’s something I wore especially for you.”

This forced another gulp as I heard my confirmation of her plans. Well, if I just resisted, I could stop anything that may happen, right? The only hard part would be pulling back because my body really was finding it difficult to resist. “Um, yeah, it’s a really nice blouse, Chastity.”

“I thought you’d like it. Want a drink?”

“Sure…what’re you having?”

“I’m going to have a 7&7. What about you?”

“Get me a Black Russian on the rocks.”

As she got up to head to the bar, I got a chance to listen to the band. They were actually pretty good, and they had a nice retro sound to them, with the acoustic-electric guitar they were using. They were playing Uncle Kracker’s song Follow Me. I must say that I really didn’t like the song to begin with, but the fact that it was about having an affair with someone really made me hate the song right now. Meanwhile, my brain and my body continued their tug of war about love versus pleasure. Soon Chastity came back with the drinks.

“One 7&7 for me, one Black Russian for you,” she said, placing her glass near her and handing me my glass filled with the black poison that was a mixture of vodka and Kahlúa. I could hold my liquor, but these were strong. My brain figured that this would be my only drink tonight, but knowing how my brain was faring in arguments recently, I’d have to say that I doubted it would be. “Going for the strong stuff today, Lucy? What’s happened that’s that bad?”

“It’s Amy…Chastity, I don’t know, I think we’ve broken up,” as I said those words, I swear that I could see a quick, faint glimpse of a smile on her face. Then again, maybe I was being paranoid, I had good reason to be.

“Oh, don’t worry about her, she never deserved you anyway. You need someone who knows what they want, someone who does anything they want. You don’t need a goody-two-shoes being on your case all the time. You need someone…”

I cut her off. “Someone like you? I don’t think so, Chastity. You remember the first time that happened…” I said. I knew I sure did.

**************About four years ago, Berlin, Germany**************

Come on, it’ll be fun, those were the last words Chastity had said before dragging me out to this club. Sure we had talked in the car, but those were the words that stuck in my mind as I surveyed the club, which was full of same-sex couples. Everywhere you looked, there were guys flirting with and making out with guys and girls hooking up with girls. She had taken me to a gay club…

“Chastity?! What is this place?” I asked. Well, that wasn’t really the question, I knew what this place was, but I didn’t really know why we were here.

“This is one of my favorite places to come,” she responded. “Lucy, I’m a lesbian.” I paused and I must have looked at her like a chicken with its head cut off because she quickly came back with another comment. “Lucy…you must have been able to figure it out by now, right?” she asked, laughing maybe a bit mockingly.

“How? How could I have figured it out?” I asked. I mean, she had never taken any girls up to our room…well, then again, she never had taken any boys up there either.

“Lucy, how many pictures of girls do I have in my room?”

“You mean your sisters?” I assumed that was who they were. She had told me that she had three sisters, and there were a bunch of pictures featuring the same three girls in our room. Granted, they looked nothing like Chastity really, but maybe I was naïve.

“Lucy, those aren’t sisters. They’re my ex-girlfriends.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down. “But why are you taking me here?”

“Well, I noticed you don’t put any posters of guys up in your room, you have no pictures of ex-boyfriends…”

“Yeah, well maybe I just haven’t met Mr. Right!” I quipped, although I wasn’t sure why. I actually felt kind of comfortable here, but that in itself was discomforting to me. “It doesn’t mean I’m a…” I leaned in close to whisper, “it doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian.”

“Lucy, do you find guys attractive?” she asked. It was a valid question.

“Um…not really…but they’re not bad looking,” I responded.

“And what do you think about girls?”

“Well, they’re nicer to look at,” I responded, blushing. “Chastity, I’m not a lesbian!”

“Lucy, it’s alright to admit you like women, it’s not a crime,” she said. True, it wasn’t a crime, but she hadn’t been raised in my family. My father, despite being a crook, was a religious jewel thief, and not in the sense that he stole religiously, he was a total Pat Robertson-subscribing member of the Christian Right. If Chastity was right, and I thought she may be, that I was a lesbian, I didn’t even want to think about my father’s reaction to that.

“Chastity…I can’t be here…maybe you’re right, but I just don’t know,” I said, entirely confused. I had no idea what I wanted. I found Chastity to be an extremely attractive woman, but did that mean that I was a complete lesbian? And what if my dad found out? I’d no longer be the heir to the Reynolds Crime Syndicate; my father would renounce me as his heir apparent.

“Alright, let’s go,” she said, dejectedly, looking me in the eye. Man, was she a good manipulator I thought as she made she feel incredibly guilty.

“I guess I could stay,” I responded as a grin grew on her face.

“Good, I thought you would.”

**************Back at the hotel, in the bar**************

“So anyway, I was thinking about how much more effective Pink Thunder could be if it had the right leader,” Chastity said. I had been toning her out, listening to the band as they played Jet’s hit song Shine On. Listening to the lyrics, I was reminded of the domestic situation I was in right now with Amy.

Please don't cry
You know I'm leaving here tonight
Before I go I want you to know that there will always be a light

And if the moon had to runaway
And all the stars didn't wanna play
Don't waste the sun on a rainy day
The wind will soon blow it all away

So many times I planned
To be much more than who I am
And if I let you down I will follow you 'round until you understand

That if the moon had to runaway
And all the stars didn't wanna play
Don't waste the sun on a rainy day
The wind will soon blow it all away

When the days all feel the same
Don't feel the cold or wind or rain
Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
And I will shine on, for everyone

So please don't cry
Although I leave you here this night
Where I go how far I don't know
But I will always be your light

That if the moon had to runaway
And all the stars didn't wanna play
Don't waste the sun on a rainy day
The wind will soon blow it all away

When the days all seem the same
Don't feel the cold or wind or rain
Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
I will shine on, for everyone
Shine on, for everyone
When the stars all look the same
Don't feel the cold or wind or rain
Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
I will shine on, for everyone
Shine on, for everyone

Just listening to the heartbroken lyrics of the song was enough to show me just how heartbroken I was about losing Amy. The part that struck me the hardest were the lyrics that went “So many times I planned to be much more than who I am, and if I let you down I will follow you 'round until you understand.” Maybe that was the path I should take. I definitely should hold onto her as long as I could. Hopefully she’d understand how much it had hurt me to lie to her. Still, as much as I wanted to call Amy and tell her that I should have trusted her enough to tell her, I was still mad at her. I was the one at fault, and I couldn’t tell the woman I loved that I was sorry. I was pathetic.

“Lucy?, Lucy?!, Are you even listening?” Chastity asked.

I had heard something about Corleone, and her comment that someone more competent would make a better leader, but I had tuned out the rest. “Huh?” I asked.

“Never mind. It’s lost on you, anyway.”

“What’s that about?”

“Well, you wouldn’t listen to me anyway. You haven’t been very respectful of me since I’ve been back. I thought we had cleared all of that up in Reykjavik, when I found you there.”

“Yeah,” I said, hanging my head. “I’m not really that mad at you anymore about breaking up, but…” I trailed off. I couldn’t bring myself to admit the real reason. I couldn’t tell her that I had been acting like a jerk because I was afraid that I still had feelings for her.

“I think I know why…and Lucy, it’s alright, I still have feelings for you too,” oh shit…I sometimes felt like she could read my mind, and at this point in time, that was definitely not what I had wanted.

“It’s not…” I trailed off. I wanted to tell her that it simply wasn’t true. I wanted to tell her that she had it all wrong, that I had no feelings for her anymore, but lying had gotten me into a lot of trouble, and I wasn’t feeling like lying again. That and I realized as I finished my Black Russian that I was feeling the effects of the alcohol a bit.

“Yes it is Lucy, I know that’s the reason. Your voice may argue otherwise, but your eyes give you away. I read people for a living, Lucy. Want another drink?”

“Yeah, get me a mojito?”

“Sure thing,” she said as she left the table. I folded my arms on the table and rested my head on them. What was I doing here? I thought I had learned my lesson a long time ago.

**************About four years ago, Paris, France**************

It was supposed to be a simple mission. The mission had been to infiltrate the Louvre and clean up as much as we could carry. Still bearing the honorary position of “the new girl,” I was the getaway driver. I wasn’t supposed to set foot in the Louvre at all. Well, at least that was the plan.

It was this mission that reminded me what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men, as Tiny and Smalls came running back to the car. “What happened guys?” I asked.

“Move like vind!” Tiny shouted. I had been about to ask where Chastity was, until I realized that Tiny had actually used a simile that did not involve the word ‘bear.’

“Wow, Tiny…” I started, but was interrupted by Smalls.

“You mean, move like bearrr.”

“Oh, yah,” replied Tiny.

“Guys, where’s Chastity?” I asked.

“She still in building. Alarm go off and she still inside,” Smalls explained. At that point, I knew I had to go into the building, not necessarily to prove myself, but to save Chastity. I flung open the door and ran to the Louvre entrance, which was still unlocked.

I ran into the lobby and found Chastity. A security guard stood behind her, holding a gun that he was pressing into the back of her head. He glared at me. “So,” he said to Chastity, “this one of your friends? She come to rob the place with you?”

“What if she is?” Chastity answered.

“Well, the cops will have some extra work to do then.”

“Chastity,” I said, “are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she winked and looked down at my belt. She knew I wasn’t into killing, and because of that, whereas other agents carried a .45 caliber handgun, I carried a tranquilizer gun, which I felt for and quickly drew, firing before the security guard even had a chance. I had learned how to quickly fire from Chastity.

With the guard down, Chastity ran over to me and put an arm around me. “Thank you, Lucy,” she said as she hugged me. The hug felt amazing. As I was becoming more and more involved in the group, I had begun to accept who I was; no longer was I a little touchy about the subject.

I didn’t even have a problem when she twirled me around so that I faced her and kissed me. It was electric. I had never really had a kiss like this before. Many nights I had found myself wondering how Chastity would feel to hold, to kiss, but nothing could have prepared me for that moment.

With that kiss, with that mind-numbingly good feeling, I realized that I had found myself. I wasn’t straight, nor did I like men…as much as I had not wanted to admit it before…I was a lesbian, and I was hers.

**************Back in the bar**************

That night was one of the best nights of my life. Although everything else about the relationship turned out horribly, that night I had made the biggest decision and discovery I had ever made. After we got back to headquarters, Chastity and I fell into bed together instantly. It was the first time I had ever been intimate with anyone, and I let her take my virginity. As Chastity brought me the mojito I had ordered, I realized that maybe that was the reason I felt such a strong connection to her. Perhaps I felt compelled towards her because she deflowered me. I was reminded of the Cat Stevens song – The First Cut is the Deepest, and realized for the first time how true those lyrics were.

“So,” Chastity began, “let’s get back to how you want me.”

Oh, God, not this subject again, I thought to myself. “Chastity, I…don’t…want…you,” I said, thoroughly unconvincing. If I couldn’t even manage to convince myself, how could I manage to convince Chastity?

“That’s alright,” Chastity said, putting a hand on mine, “as I said, I want you too.” She started to lean in for a kiss.

Shit! I had a split second decision to make, and it was one my body and mind were wrestling over, the same decision they’d been wrestling over from the time I saw Chastity in the restaurant. It was a tug-of-war, a struggle between pleasure and love. It was a battle won by pleasure as I leaned into Chastity and kissed the lips that I had known so well. Her mouth opened, and her tongue sought entrance into my mouth. Once again, my brain sent signals to my mouth to stop what I was doing and not to go any further; these signals must have been interrupted by my body’s yearning, however, as I obliged and granted the entrance her tongue sought.

Stop it! This is wrong…this is SO wrong. Finally, something my brain was telling me got through, and I broke the kiss, jumping up from the table. “Um…Chastity, I really need to go to the bathroom,” I said, leaving my drink and my bag, and walking away as quickly as I could, receiving stares from eager males as I made my way to the bathroom.

I opened the door, entered a stall and just sat on the toilet seating, trying to think, trying to clear my mind. Not only was I being used right now, I was being unfaithful to the only girl who I truly loved, the girl I had given up everything to be with…the girl who I’d give everything up for all over again if I had to. And what was I giving her up for - a quick fix? It was wrong to Amy, and it was wrong for me, I realized. Listening from the bathroom, the band started a new song, this time that sparked memories of Chastity; this time, they were playing Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name.

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
Darling you give love a bad name

An angel's smile is what you sell
You promise me heaven, then put me through hell
Chains of love got a hold on me
When passion's a prison, you can't break free

You're a loaded gun
There's nowhere to run
No one can save me
The damage is done

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give love a bad name
I play my part and you play your game
You give love a bad name
You give love a bad name

Paint your smile on your lips
Blood red nails on your fingertips
A school boy's dream, you act so shy
Your very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye

You're a loaded gun
There's nowhere to run
No one can save me
The damage is done

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give love a bad name
I play my part and you play your game
You give love a bad name
You give love a bad name

For about a year, Chastity and I continued our relationship, all the while I thought that we were in love. True, looking back, I was a bit naïve, and I guess I was a prisoner of the physical passion that we shared, but it turned out to be all a game for her where she was the master and I the player. Of course, none of this became even slightly clear to me until I had decided to quit Pink Thunder, after my father’s death and the imprisonment of the Schaeffers.

**************Three Years Ago, Berlin**************

I was packing my bags and leaving the group today, my father had died, and I had made a deal with Corleone to get the Schaeffers out of the way; there was only one piece of business left unresolved. I really wanted Chastity to come along with me. I was convinced that I was in love with her, and, even though she often seemed distant, I was convinced that she was in love with me. At the time, I was sitting on our bed and looking up at my girlfriend.

“Chastity…you know I have to leave Pink Thunder, it’s always been the plan to take over the family syndicate after my father’s death, and now’s the time.” I looked at her, trying to express the feelings I was deluding myself with, “Please come with me, it would mean the world having you with me, we could rule the crime world together.”

“Lucy…no I won’t. Do you think I want to leave here? I’m in line to replace Corleone the same way you’re replacing your father. Why would I leave?”

I was struck by her answer. “Well, I thought you would leave because you love me.”

“Lucy, I care about you, but no. If I do this, I won’t be the head, I’ll be the lackey, and I don’t want to be the lackey for the rest of time.

“Chastity, you won’t ever be my lackey,” I tried to explain. “We’d be partners here. You and I both would be in charge of the Reynolds Crime Syndicate.”

“No we wouldn’t, you’d still be the real head of the organization. And you’ve got one thing right – I’ll never be your lackey. If anything, I would be in charge of Pink Thunder and you’d be my lackey!”

“Chastity, why the hell are you acting this way?” I asked, surprised at the confidence I had gained in the short period of our relationship.

“I’m acting this way because I’ll never be happy being subservient, and if you want me to be subservient, I’ll never be happy with you!”

“Damn it, Chastity! Are you even listening to me? I said you wouldn’t be subservient; we’d be partners!”

“I don’t want to be partners either. I’m not going, and that’s it.”

“Chastity…” I sighed. As I left the room, I had no idea that would be one of the last straws of our relationship.

**************Back in the bar**************

The band had started to play a new song, and once again, it seemed to have a lot to do with my life. I wondered whether they were reading my mind, or what…or, maybe it was just me…maybe I was just reading too much into the lyrics, and they kept reminding me how screwed I was right now. The song they were playing now was Meatloaf’s classic Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.

I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad

The song was extremely poignant for my old relationship with Chastity. I may have thought that there was love in the relationship, but at that time, I didn’t know what true love was, and soon after the fight we had about her coming with me to be partners, I found out her true feelings for me…

**************Three Years Ago, Los Angeles, California**************

Chastity and I had continued to see each other sporadically whenever she had the chance to visit the states. She still refused to leave Pink Thunder and come with me to control the Reynolds Crime Syndicate, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to see her.

Now, exactly a year after the Louvre mission on that fateful Tuesday night, it was our anniversary. Once again, I planned to ask her to stay in the states, and she had hinted that she was getting closer to actually staying the last time I had seen her. Perhaps on as special an occasion as this she might say yes. At least that was what I had thought.

I had gotten us reservations for a very nice restaurant, Les Deux Amores, and had told her about the date, but it was an hour and a half into the evening and she still hadn’t shown. At this point I was past the point of worrying about her and was close to panicking. I didn’t know if she was stuck in traffic, had gotten into an accident, or had been apprehended. The one thing I didn’t count on was that she could even possibly be blowing me off.

A man wearing an Australian brimmed hat walked into the restaurant, and, to my surprise, he sat next to me. “G’day mate!” he said, with maybe a little too much enthusiasm. “Ma name’s Hunter. Ya Miss Lucy, mate?”

“Yeah?” I responded, a little apprehensively…who was this guy?

“Ah, soorry mate, but Chastity’s not comin’. Shai sent me. ‘Ere, this’s for ya,” he handed me an envelop closed by and bearing the LeFleur seal on the back. “G’day!”

Those Australians, they really got on my nerve, but I really didn’t have any problems with them, I just didn’t like their attitudes. I opened the letter, a little upset at his saying that Chastity wasn’t coming, why wouldn’t she?

Dear Lucy,

I think we’ve gotten a little too involved here. You see, I’m not really a person to get attached. I’ve never loved someone in my life, and even though you think you love me, I know you really don’t. You’re just too attached to me to see this right now and I need to end it.

I get bored easily in relationships and I’m at that point now with you and once I get bored, I act, and that’s what I’m doing now.

We’re over Lucy.

Love,
Chastity

PS - Can I have my gun back?

Forget that comment I made about not hating Australians…I hated them alright. Australia was toast

**************Back in the bar**************

What was with this band??? Every song they played reminded me of myself. Now they were playing one of Simon and Garfunkel’s most classic songs, I Am A Rock. They played it more like a rock song than the acoustic folksy song it was, which I definitely didn’t like – you don’t mess with classics that way. Anyway, I guess I had never realized the real meaning of this song before I heard the lyrics this time, when the meaning hit me.

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow

I am a rock
I am an island

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need for friendship
Friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock
I am an island

Don't talk of love
Well, I've heard the word before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber
Of feelings that have died
If I'd never loved,
I never would have cried

I am a rock
I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me

I am a rock
I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

I had always thought the point of the song was that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were saying that they didn’t actually need anyone, but now I saw the song in an entirely new light. They weren’t saying that they were rocks and islands; they were making a point that they acted that way and found out that they weren’t.

Then it struck me – that’s the way I was acting with Amy. Like the song, I had built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none could penetrate, and that was wrong. I shouldn’t have done that. I thought that I had been shielded in my armor, and that as long as I hid in my room, safe within my womb, that if I touched no one, no one would touch me either. The problem was, that notion was dead wrong. Amy had touched me, and I had apparently touched her, and we were feeling the mutual pain of the betrayal of that connection. I had thought that I was a rock, that I was an island, but I felt pain, I had cried. I wasn’t really an island. I had decided to call Amy, let her know that I wanted to work things out, and go back to the bar and call the night off with Chastity. Yes, that was what I would do.

It was a simple idea, but apparently one that was very hard to put into practice, I found, once I had walked back to the table and sat down. I mean, I still had a full mojito to drink; I couldn’t leave that, could I? So I drank a few sips of the mojito, tasting the lime and mint mixture that I loved so much, all the while trying to avoid eye contact with Chastity. Unfortunately, maybe that had been the wrong decision, as the ground my brain had gained in the battle against my body, the gain that love had made against desire was dissipating…

---------------------

Amy’s POV

I was in my bed, still thinking about how to best reconcile things with Lucy, when I heard the beeping noise my cell phone emits whenever I get a text message. Looking at the phone number from whose phone the text message was sent, I saw that it was Lucy.

Amy Im sorry. Im @ El Hotel Nacional Espanol de Barcelona in rm 209. Pleez come.

“Scud!” I called to Scud, who was sleeping in the guest room across the room.

“Uhhh…huh?” he sounded like he had been asleep.

“Scud, come here!”

“Ah geez! I was having the best dream.” Scud complained as he walked into my room, rubbing his red eyes. “Can’t a guy get any sleep around here?”

“Scud, Lucy just sent me a text message.”

“She did? What’d it say?”

“It said to meet her at this hotel she was staying at - El Hotel Nacional Español de Barcelona. I’m still kind of emotional, so if you don’t mind, could you drive me?”

“Yeah, sure…just let me wake up fully and get dressed,” he said as he disappeared back into the hall and his room.

A couple minutes later we were in the car, headed down to meet Lucy at the hotel.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

The alcohol must have been really working on me, although normally I could hold my alcohol like a three hundred pound weightlifter. Usually, I could out-drink Tiny or Smalls, but today it seemed like I was having trouble holding my alcohol at all. I was actually talking with Chastity, although I really wasn’t sure what it was about, all I could think about was how good she was looking right now.

Not long after I finished my mojito, she leaned in for another kiss, and I obliged, my tongue seeking entrance to Chastity’s mouth. She broke the kiss and kissed me around my chin and neck before I pushed her away.

“Chastity, people are staring!” I admonished. It was true, well, mostly it was guys, who were drooling at the thought of these two “hot” girls hooking up.

“Why don’t we go up to your room?” Chastity asked.

If I was thinking, I knew the right thing to say would have been No! Absolutely not! I had just made the decision to work things out with Amy, but I was having trouble thinking, though, at least comprehensible thoughts. I couldn’t even try to think anything in a complete thought process. The only thing I could think about was how good she would make me feel, and how I needed this. My mind slid into the background in the fight against my body, and love had succumbed to passion as I took her hand and led her out of the bar.

---------------------
Hello, Hello
I'm at a place called Vertigo
It's everything I wish I didn't know
Except you give me something
I can feel, feel
---------------------

Chapter 8: Heartbreak

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Snow Patrol’s Hands Open; end lyrics belong to Coldplay’s Fix You

---------------------
Why would I sabotage
The best thing that I have?
Well, it makes it easier to know
Exactly what I want with my
Hands open and my eyes open
I just keep hoping that your heart opens
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I led Chastity out of the bar, holding hands. I really didn’t know what I was doing; it was as if my body was acting on impulse. Somehow my body had completely overtaken my mind, and it was doing all the thinking for me right now. My brain, on alert, was trying to scream out, but it couldn’t find the words; my mind couldn’t form the thoughts to duel with my body. For the time being, I was the aggressor, seeing as I was practically dragging her to the elevator in the corridor leading out of the lobby.

“Wow, Lucy, hold your horses…” said Chastity as she giggled. “I promise that rushing won’t make it any better.” She put her other hand on my arm and ran it seductively up and down my arm. It felt so good; it felt as though I might melt into her touch, yet my mind kept trying to push the panic button and stop my body. It wasn’t working.

I didn’t say anything while waiting for the elevator, which should have indicated that I wasn’t quite myself. Even while I was committing criminal acts, I’d always had a penchant for conversation. In fact, Amy had often said that the only thing she didn’t like about me was the fact that I wouldn’t ever shut up.

Finally the light around the up button on the wall between the elevators went off, and the beeping indicating the arrival of the elevator sounded. The next thing I knew, Chastity had me pressed up hard against the back of the vacant elevator. The odd thing was that I didn’t even remember getting on the elevator, and here I was with Chastity’s hands up my shirt. She kissed and took teasing bites at my neck as I just stood there. Now it seemed very much like she was a predator and I her prey. Still, I couldn’t deny a certain fire between my loins, and while my brain still thought it was wrong, my body wouldn’t allow a word in edgewise.

Finally I was able to think a coherent thought, but it wasn’t really about what was happening in that elevator. I couldn’t help but wonder how much I’d really had to drink. Two drinks wouldn’t do that to me, but if I had more, but didn’t realize it, maybe that would explain everything. Well, everything besides why I was destroying everything Amy meant to me by being in an elevator with a girl who was kissing my neck and sliding a hand down my pants. I squirmed, trying to indicate that I was not comfortable with that.

“No, Chastity,” I tried to muster the conviction.

“Don’t fight it, Lucy. You and I both know you want this,” she replied, and it was true, to an extent. My body desperately wanted this, but my mind knew the difference between eternity and one night. I think that by now, unfortunately it was clear which side had won the battle. The victor proved its point by stopping the struggle and letting Chastity finish sliding her hand into my pants. Then the elevator stopped on the second floor, which was actually the third floor, which had made me wonder about the odd choice in floor numbers.

Chastity’s hands withdrew from beneath my clothing as we stepped out of the elevator. She waved to and older man who was walking down the right side of the hallway completely oblivious to the events that had just gone on in the elevator.

218, 216 the numbers outside the rooms read, although they seemed more like little blurs to me for the most part. I looked on the other side of the hallway, trying to remember where my room was; 213, 211, I saw as we approached my room, 209.

“Where’s the key?” Chastity asked. I pulled out my purse and found the keycard in one of the credit card slots. I wrestled it out of the bag and handed it to Chastity, who unlocked the door and motioned for me to go first. I obliged her and walked into my room, where I walked to the bed and sat down. Chastity soon followed, and I guess neither of us really noticed the fact that part of the doors lock had been out of place, preventing the door from shutting fully.

Chastity put a hand on either of my shoulder and pushed me down, lying down on top of me. Her mouth hungrily met mine and we shared a loveless kiss. See, with Chastity, sex was never an act of love, but rather, it was an act of pleasure. Some people get high to achieve happiness and pleasure, others play instruments or sing; Chastity did something else entirely. What Chastity did could not really be termed as making love, or even as sex. No, for lack of a better word, Chastity fucked 1.

Although there was no love present in the kiss, passion was present, as we both attempted to seemingly devour the other. My tongue pressed against her lips, seeking entrance, which was soon granted eagerly by Chastity. Our tongues intertwined and battled each other for room, until Chastity broke the kiss and started trailing kisses down my neck while her hands reached for the ends of my shirt. Lifting her mouth from my skin, she pulled upwards on my shirt as I lifted my arms and soon found myself half-naked. As Chastity removed my bra her head came down on my breasts.

This is entirely wrong, my brain thought. That thought happened to be the last one before my mind totally gave in to my body, as passion and pleasure overtook me completely.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

In the car, sitting next to Scud, I kept running over what I could and what I should say to Lucy. The truth was that I was still a little mad at her, but I loved her too much to break up over that. One squabble, as significant as this one was, could not break up the relationship between Lucy and me, because what that relationship was…is special. It would take something even more significant than that to break the relationship up.

“Scud, if you and Janet had this fight instead of Lucy and me, and you were trying to make up with her, what would you say?” I asked.

“Well, first, I guess I’d apologize,” he began.

“Scud! What do I have to apologize for? What did I do wrong? It was Lucy who lied to me!”

“Maybe it’s a bit different for me, see Amy, the man is always wrong in any argument, whether or not he’s actually wrong. It’s the way things are.” Scud took his eyes off the road for a second and looked at me, grinning. “Actually, Amy, if Lucy’s going to apologize, you should too. Whether or not you did anything wrong to begin with, you both had the fight, so you both apologize.”

He had a point there. It was me, after all, who had suggested that she leave. I couldn’t forget our argument, and now that I thought about it, maybe I was a little culpable.

“God, Amy, I already told you, it wasn’t that easy! It’s easy for you to tell me that you were going back to the D.E.B.S., at least they’re the good guys! How would you react if I had said ‘Hey Ames, I’m going back to the life of crime because I owe Corleone a favor or two?’”

“I would have accepted it…”

“No you wouldn’t have…don’t cut me that bullshit!”

“Oh, are you calling me a liar Lucy Diamond, because right now, that would be the wrong thing to do. If anyone’s a liar you are!”

“And what if I am calling you a liar?”

“Then I’d have to tell you to leave!”

The fight kept haunting me. If I could redo the entire fight, I would; my intention had never been to push away the person who meant more to me than anything else in the world.

“And Amy, once you apologize, just play it by ear,” Scud advised. Maybe I was wrong about him, he might actually be halfway decent at advice.

“Alright, here we are, El Hotel Nacional Español de Barcelona. Good thing I saw this when Lucy and I were driving around. Want me to stick around…or are you planning on staying the night?” Scud asked with a huge, wicked, grin on his face.

“Maybe I’ll stay the night,” I played along, “but I’ll call you if that’s the case.”

“Sure thing, I’ll just be out here,” he said, turning the radio volume louder.

I hopped out of the car as Scud drove around the parking lot, looking for a place to park. I walked up to the glass revolving door and started to push on the door only to find that I looked incredibly stupid pushing an automatic revolving door.

“Can I help you miss?” asked the receptionist, who apparently bore the same name as me according to her nametag.

“Yes, I’m here to see a friend, she’s staying in 209.”

“Two floors up, take the elevator and make a right.”

“Thank you,” I replied as I started to walk to the elevator, which was about thirty yards away in a corridor. As I passed by, I saw a band playing on a platform in the bar. I wished that I could go see them perform; I’ve always loved bar performances. I thought that if Lucy wanted to, maybe we could see the band after we’d made up. Finally arriving at the elevator, I pressed the up button and soon an elevator arrived. Stepping into the elevator, I pressed the second floor button, preparing myself for the apology.

Soon, the elevator had reached the second floor, and with a beep the elevator opened. I took a right, just as Receptionist Amy had told me, and I started counting down the rooms to 209. About the time that I had reached room 211, I started hearing moans and laughing coming from a room down the hallway. Both voices sounded feminine, but although they seemed to be coming from Lucy’s room, I couldn’t possibly have fathomed that was actually the reality.

As I reached Lucy’s room, the moaning seemed to be louder than ever, and it was clear that it was coming from this room. Praying to God that Lucy was watching a porn movie or HBO late at night, I pulled open the door that I noticed was ajar. What I saw would scar me for the rest of my life, no matter the excuse Lucy presented.

On the bed in the room, Chastity lay on the bed, completely naked. Kneeling before her, her head between Chastity’s legs was Lucy. Her head turned my way and I could see a brief flicker of recognition form on her face before she went back to her prize.

I was completely and utterly crushed. My heart had been snapped not in two, but it had been totally shattered. What Lucy had done this time was inexcusable. I had no idea how she could have so quickly turned from wanting to reconcile things to this, to cheating on me with her ex.

I closed the door and just stood outside, shocked beyond words. My body couldn’t even respond to my nerves impulses, I was physically in a state of shock. The thing that hurt the most was not that she cheated on me, although that stung as if someone had taken a jackhammer to my head. No, what hurt me the most was how she saw me. She saw me, and she didn’t even stop what she was doing.

Did she love me at all? I wondered, or was I just the eye of the storm that was Hurricane Chastity? Was she only with me at all because she couldn’t be with Chastity? I didn’t really know the answer to that, but I could assume that as the case with what I had just witnessed. As I stood there, not able to move, I felt a wetness running down my cheeks. I was crying tears born from the utter state of heartbrokenness.

I sobbed, tears flowing in streams down my face as I ran down the hall as fast as I could, garnering a curious look from an old man who was wandering the halls. I flung open the fire exit and ran down the flight of stairs, running past everyone, past the band in the bar, past Receptionist Amy as I ran out the manual push/pull door to the pink sports car Scud had parked right outside the hotel. I ran to the side of the car, which I could not bear to look at, and flung the door open, sitting down.

“Amy, is there something wrong?” Scud asked, a genuine look of concern on his face.

“Just go!” I shouted.

“What happened with Lucy?”

“I said, JUST GO!”

“Oh my God, something bad happened,” he said as he threw the car into reverse and quickly drove out of the parking lot. “What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied as I reached for a pen and pad that had been stored in the glove compartment.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

In the middle of the night, my head between Chastity’s legs, in the middle of my body’s desire to taste Chastity’s essence, I could have sworn that the door opened. I turned my head to the door and I could have sworn I saw Amy.

Shit! My head thought for the umpteenth time in the past four days. Still, my body didn’t respond, returning to its titillating task.

“Who was that?” Chastity asked, clearly enjoying herself.

“No one,” I answered, my brain’s reaction clearly not registering with my body and my inebriation.

---------------------

Receptionist Amy’s POV

I watched as the blonde lady walked up to the desk, just as I had been told she would.

“Can I help you miss?” I asked her as she looked at my nametag.

“Yes, I’m here to see a friend, she’s staying in 209.”

“Two floors up, take the elevator and make a right,” I instructed.

“Thank you,” the blonde replied and headed off.

I sat behind the desk and waited, waiting for the signal that would let me know when to make my next move. About five minutes later, I saw the same blonde that had previously been at my desk run pass me in tears. Seeing this, I picked up the phone and dialed the number that had been given to me. The phone rung a couple of times and the voice belonging to the person I encountered a few days ago answered.

“You told me to keep an eye out for a blonde girl leaving the hotel in tears. I think I just saw her.” I told the person. I listened to the praise that came from them; I didn’t know whether it was for me or whether it was self-congratulatory; it was androgynous in this sense.

“Well then, when can I expect the money?” I asked. The hotel didn’t pay much at all, so when a chance to make a big sum of extra money on the side came up, I had jumped. My contact told me that one thousand dollars would be transferred directly to my account very soon. With the conversation ending I looked to the door that the blonde had fled out of and took a second to reflect on the easiest grand I had ever made.

I must have zoned out for a second, because out of nowhere I heard the nighttime managers voice from beside me. “Lauren, why the hell are you wearing a nametag that says Amy?” I looked at my manager. He always struck me as being stuck in the wrong job. Even in our hotel uniform, he still managed to look physically threatening at 6’5” with his muscular stature. I’ve always thought he could have made more money as a bodyguard or a bouncer.

I took a gulp and removed the fake nametag. I had been given this by the person orchestrating my thousand dollar deal, and I had been instructed to wear it. I placed it down under the desk and grabbed my real nametag, the one that read Lauren. “Sorry sir, must have grabbed someone else’s” I replied.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I woke up in a strange bed, and felt a body nestled next to me. I didn’t remember Amy coming to the hotel room, although I did remember making up my mind to call her. Strangely, I didn’t remember much of the previous night. Wrapping my arm around the person next to me, I panicked.

This person was not Amy. She didn’t feel right, although she felt familiar. Feeling more of her, I realized why she felt familiar. Throwing the sheets off of myself, I clearly saw the other person and realized how screwed I was. Naked and lying snugly in bed was Chastity. Worse yet, I was naked. I remembered talking with her in the bar, and I remembered kissing her. I even remembered going to the bathroom and making a resolve to tell her that I didn’t want anything more, but I couldn’t remember anything after that.

I was entirely disgusted; I was disgusted with the situation, I was disgusted with Chastity and most of all, I was disgusted with myself. How could I have done this? How could I have, especially after I had made up my mind to call Amy and reconcile things? It all felt so unreal, like someone had been pulling the strings on my life and I had just let them cut a couple of the more important ones.

I had to call Amy, I remembered. Maybe I should leave out the part that I woke up next to my ex, I thought. I went to the nightstand where my bag lay, and I undid the zipper. My cell phone was not in its usual spot, in the phone pocket of the bag. I plunged my hand into the depths of the bag, beneath the other items in my purse and found the phone. It must have fallen out last night, I realized. Dialing Amy’s number, I received a strange message, one that I had never experienced before, but had heard of.

“I’m sorry” the prerecorded voice said. “Amy Bradshaw,” continued Amy’s voice, “has you blocked from contacting her.” I couldn’t listen any farther. If Amy had blocked me, then she must be extremely mad about what had happened last night. I decided to try the house phone later.

I walked over to the bed and violently shook Chastity. “Wake up...WAKE UP!” I shouted.

“Uh…what?” Chastity asked, just starting to wake up.

“What the HELL happened last night?” I asked, with enough venom in my voice to put down a horse.

“You really don’t remember, do you?” Chastity asked mockingly in her natural French accent. “You wanted it as much as I did.”

No I didn’t, I told myself, but I suspected that she might have been right. I may have wanted the sensations, but not with her. I didn’t want her at all, but I knew my body had wanted pleasure. No, I hadn’t wanted it as much as her, I had needed it. Still, how could I have let myself settle for her? She had broken my heart before, and I knew that she was probably incapable of feeling love.

Of course, I suspected what happened to me last night. Somehow I had gotten drunk enough to actually sleep with the one person who disgusted me more than anything else in the world at the current time. “Get dressed, and get out of my room. I should have known better than to trust you.”

“Ah, was I not good enough for Ze Lucy Diamond?” she asked, “Zat’s not what you said last night, when you were moaning on ze bed.”

‘I may have been moaning, but it wasn’t me you were screwing on the bed,’ I wanted to say. Chastity was right, she wasn’t good enough for me; she never had been. I had lied to myself when I thought she had been good enough, I had thought I had known true love, but I hadn’t met Amy yet.

“GET OUT!” I screamed.

Chastity quickly got dressed in a robe and gathered her clothes. “Ze zanks I get,” she huffed as she walked to the door, finding it already open and slammed the door behind her.

Sitting on the bed, I started thinking about the situation that I had now put myself in. I swore that I would be truthful to Amy now, but I couldn’t really tell her this, could I? I took a few minutes to clear my mind, and reminded myself that if I loved Amy, I would have to be truthful with her. Unless…unless she already knew, which would explain why she had blocked me from contacting her.

Just then, it hit me. Why had the door been open? What had happened to keep the door open, and who, if anyone had seen anything through that open door? My only hope was that no one connected to Amy had seen anything, or else I was a dead woman.

I sat on the bed and buried my head in my hands. What could I possibly say to Amy? What could even possibly begin to explain what had gone on last night? Just saying that I had blacked out and made a terrible mistake would not suffice, but in this situation, what would?

I realized that if she had blocked me from her cell phone, she probably didn’t want to see me, but I knew I had to tell her and explain my actions, even if it was rejected. She didn’t deserve this, any of it. Amy didn’t deserve the lying, and she definitely didn’t deserve me cheating on her. More than that, I didn’t deserve her; she had never strayed from her faithfulness, and yet I had been the one to completely betray her. Still, I needed to see her, and I needed to see if I had screwed things up so badly that they were irreparable.

In a flash, I packed my bags, changed and hurried downstairs, stopping at the receptionist’s desk and paying via a credit card. I hurried out to my car and sped home, at a couple parts where there wasn’t much traffic at all, I exceeded speeds of 100 MPH. All the way home, I couldn’t help but wonder how I had screwed up as badly as I had. I’d been drunk before, but I’d never done anything as stupid as I did last night.

I arrived at our house and was relieved to find the pink sports car I had gotten her as an anniversary present still in the driveway. At least she hadn’t left.

I parked my car in the driveway and started my walk of shame. Sauntering up to the front door, where, finding the door locked, I rang the doorbell. I waited a couple of seconds before I could hear the locks turning. “Amy…” I called out. To my surprise, Scud was the one to answer the door, but he bore an uncharacteristic grim look on his face, and he carried a piece of paper in his hand.

“Lucy, I think you need to read this,” he said, handing me the paper, which was folded in quarters. I unfolded the letter and started to read. I could tell it was from Amy by the handwriting.

Lucy,

Some things just can’t be repaired. I think you know that I went to your hotel room last night, and I know you know what I saw. I guess what haunts me the most is the fact that you looked at me and just ignored at me. What I mean to you, I guess I’ll never know, unfortunately.

Do you know how it feels to find out that the person you’ve given up everything for, the one person you love unconditionally doesn’t return the feeling? I don’t know if my heart can ever recover from that knowledge. Lucy, I’ll never find anyone like you, and that’s what breaks my heart. If Chastity means more to you than I do, I don’t know what to do.

I’m gone, Lucy, don’t bother trying to find me. I just want to forget.

Amy

“Lucy, you really screwed up this time,” Scud said, reaching in his pocket. “She wanted you to have these.” He placed a set of car keys in my hand; they were the keys to the pink sports car I had given her as an anniversary present.

I couldn’t say anything; Scud had said everything for me. I entered our house…my house, I guess it wasn’t really Amy’s anymore, and sat down on the couch. I buried my head in my hands, and for the second time in two days, Lucy Diamond, the badass master criminal, cried. This time, it was a deep, sorrowful sob. It was as if I were crying the depths of my soul out through my eyes. I had lost everything.

---------------------
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
---------------------

=============================================
Footnote – 1 - Chastity fits one of the original meanings of the word, which is why this word was used. One of the theories on the etymology of the word “fuck” is that in the Medieval ages, kings would bestow writs to those who had done services, allowing them to bed a damsel of their choice. The writs were called Fornification Under Command of the King, thus F.U.C.K., which soon lost its status as an acronym. There was no love at all behind it back then, it was simply a privilege granted for a favor.
=============================================

Chapter 9: The Road To Redemption

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Black Sabbath’s Solitude; end lyrics belong to Coldplay’s What If

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My name, it means nothing
My fortune is less
My future is shrouded in dark loneliness
Sunshine is far away, clouds linger on
Everything I possessed, now they are gone
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I sat on the couch, my life completely destroyed. Everything I held dear had been completely ripped apart at the seams, and it was all Chastity’s fault. Well, that’s what I wanted to believe, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind reminded me that I had been the one to sleep with her. Even if I didn’t remember any of it, or had been completely hammered, I still had perpetrated the act. There were so many emotions streaming through my mind, and I didn’t know which one was the most prominent. All mixed together were my renewed hatred of Chastity, my deep sorrow felt by my loss, and even self-loathing.

Scud shut the door and walked inside. He had been standing in the doorway, just looking at me sympathetically since I had started my wallowing. He walked over to my position on the couch and sat next to me, putting one arm around my shoulder and the other around my front, holding me in a tight hug as I threw my arms around him.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he tried to convince me, rocking back and forth. The cadence and tone of his voice betrayed him though, and broadcasted the fact that even he didn’t think everything was alright.

“No it’s not, Scud. Everything’s gone…Amy’s gone…what have I done?” I asked, my voice choppy and shaky between sobs. Scud released the hug and put a hand to either side of my head, bringing my gaze to meet his.

“Lucy, do you still love her?”

“More than anything.”

“Than we gots ta get her back,” he replied.

“How, Scud?”

“Well, you could start off by blowing off some steam and attempting to sink Australia. I think the circumstances would fit your normal modus operandi,” Scud suggested mockingly. I looked up at him, and despite my overwhelming sense of loss, a little hint of laughter escaped my lips. “But seriously, I’ve got a plan, but I’m still thinking here, I’ll let you know in a bit.”

“Scud, this better not be another ‘tell her that you love her’ plan,” I said as I looked at him, a slight blush coming to his face. “Scud, no, not doing it. I can come up with a better plan. I mean, we don’t even know where she is.”

“Just kidding with you, you’ll like this one when I tell ya’,” he replied. I had to admit, Scud was sometimes a good strategist, but not usually when it came to love. As he put it himself, ‘war is easy, love is hard.’

The sound of a phone interrupted my train of thought, and I jumped, hoping that it was Amy. I ran over to the phone and picked it up. “Hello, Amy?” I asked, hopeful.

“No, it’s not Amy. Lucy, put Scud on,” I was a bit disappointed to hear Janet’s voice come out of the phone. She sounded extremely perturbed about something, and I couldn’t help but think just how whipped Scud was.

---------------------

Scud’s POV

Lucy passed me the phone with a look of amusement that I found foreboding as she told me Janet was on the other end.

“Hey, hon, what’s up?” I asked, as Lucy mouthed the word ‘whipped’. I stuck my tongue out at her. I most definitely was not whipped…although I was virtually at Janet’s beck and call. Alright, maybe I was whipped, but I was in love; it was worth it.

“What’s up? I think you know what’s up!” Janet responded.

“Actually, I don’t have a clue,”

“How about your tours you took with Lucy…were you really doing sightseeing?”

“Yes I was,” I replied. The only way that statement could possibly cause me any trouble would have been if she actually knew about….

“So Pink Thunder’s headquarters is suddenly a big landmark in Barcelona?” Janet asked angrily.

Shit! She knew!

“Ummm,” was all I could say.

“Yeah, I know all about your little heisty stuff, Amy told…shoot…I mean, I found out somehow.”

“Janet, Lucy practically forced me to do it. Besides, she’s like my sister…I had to do it. And Amy’s there with you guys?” Lucy, upon hearing this, turned an eager head towards me. She seemed excited to at least know where Amy was and that she was safe.

“I will not comment on the location of any former DEBS,” Janet replied, “and I don’t care if Lucy gagged and tied you, even if that may be cute.” At this, Janet giggled a bit and I rolled my eyes, “Seriously, though, Scud, I’m mad at you. I don’t really want to see you when you get back here…I think.”

“Fine, well then I want my sweater back.”

“No – you got it for me, it’s cashmere, and I like it. I’m keeping it.”

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

During the course of my eavesdropping on Scud’s conversation, my interest was spiked by the mention of Amy’s whereabouts. I had considered that she might be with the D.E.B.S., but I needed to know for sure. Hanging up the phone, Scud wore a dejected look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked

“Janet found out about Pink Thunder, so now Janet’s being Janet,” he replied.

“Girlfriend troubles, huh?”

“Yeah, we’re really a great duo with the ladies,” he replied, smiling sarcastically. “Lucy, what do I do now?” Scud asked. I mockingly feigned a state of shock.

“The ‘God of Advice’ is turning to me? Wow, I’m honored.” The statement earned me a soft punch in the arm. “Ok, ok. You love her, right?”

“You know the answer to that Lucy.”

“Well…” I thought, formulating a devious plan, “then let’s go to the jewelry store.”

“What?!” Scud asked.

“Well, we gots ta get her an engagement ring. You’ll be proposing soon,” I replied, a bit mockingly.

“Marriage?” Scud asked incredulously. For a couple seconds he looked to be making up his mind on the issue, until he finally conceded, “Fine, but if I buy Janet a ring, you’ve gotta buy Amy something.”

“Deal,” I replied. Once I had gotten past the point of grief, I had realized action was the only next logical step. “Lets get ‘em back, Scud,” I said, motioning to Scud to come out to the car with me. He took the hint and soon, with me behind the wheel, we were on the way to Joyeros Reales, the Spanish equivalent of Tiffany’s.

All in all, the car ride was pretty silent, both of us doing a lot of self-reflecting. The only real conversation we had took place just a few minutes from the jewelers. “So Lucy,” Scud started, turning his head to the right to look at me, “what are you planning on buying Amy?”

“I haven’t thought about it yet. Even with the new gay marriage laws here, I’m not sure it’s the right time to ask her to marry me, so no ring. Any suggestions?”

“Well, Janet’s never been opposed to a necklace or a bracelet,” Scud suggested, which turned on a metaphorical light bulb.

“Ooh, what about a diamond bracelet, or something like it?” I asked.

“Cliché, with your name, but I find it strangely compelling. I like it,” Scud responded.

“Good, then a diamond bracelet it is,” I stated as I pulled into the parking lot. “By the way, do you Janet’s ring size?”

Scud looked at me in a way that could only be described as looking like a deer in headlights. “If I say no, what can we do?”

“I don’t know. Looks like you’re screwed Scud.”

“What about you? You’re about Janet’s size.”

“No I’m not. Janet’s hands are a bit stubbier than mine,” I replied. Scud was a dead man. There was no way he’d be able to get a ring with a good fit without knowing Janet’s finger size.

“Um…good point,” Scud said, looking at my hand, “but how can you tell? They don’t look that much different.”

“Men,” I sighed in mock exasperation. “They’re always focusing on the upper half of the body and nothing else.”

“Geez, Lucy, that’s not true!” Scud protested, with a devilish grin on his face. “Legs are also very important.” At this, I sighed, as much as Scud was like a brother, he was still a man. He still served to remind me why that gender did not interest me at all. “Anyways, Luce, how’re we gonna find a good fit?”

I thought for a bit, and watching a young lady pass by our car through my rear-view mirror, I got an idea. I opened the car door and quickly got out. “Excuse me!” I yelled, calling out to the lady. She turned her head, and I continued, “My friend here was wondering if he could look at your hands,” I explained, gesturing to an oblivious Scud who was just getting out of the car.

The girl wore this perplexed look. A look I could completely understand. I mean, if two strangers on the street wanted to look at my hands, I’d probably wonder what drugs they were taking. “Umm…sure?” the girl, a petite brunette with native Spanish looks and long legs, responded. She walked into the parking lot to the car and held out her hands.

“Too small,” I told Scud. “Thanks, anyway…” I stalled a bit, waiting for a name in an attempt be personable.

“Maria,” the girl informed, with a native Spanish accent.

“Thanks, Maria.” Maria turned around and quickly went back about her business. “Alright Scud, let’s check out a couple more people.”

“This’s retarded,” Scud replied, something that I always took as silent approval when dealing with Scud. We walked a couple feet to the sidewalk and leaned up against the store. “Lucy, how about that one?” Scud asked, gesturing to a girl with long raven black locks and an attractive face. She looked about Janet’s size at least height wise, but there was a big problem.

“Scud, her hands look anorexic, they’re all small,” it was mean, but it was the truth. While she was decently sized as far as weight goes, it looked like she was missing any bulk whatsoever in her hands.

“Alright, fine,” Scud said, exasperation growing in his voice, “how about that girl?” This time, Scud had found a nice looking blonde who actually reminded me a lot of Janet. Looking at her hands, though, revealed that she was another no.

“Scud, her fingers are shorter than Janet’s.”

“What does length have to do with width?” Scud asked.

“Just trust me. Oh, Scud, how about that girl?” I asked. I enjoyed watching the contortions of Scud's face as a hideously obese woman came walking down the street.

“Lucy!” Scud admonished, “It looks like you've still got that mean streak going.”

“Okay, seriously, now that girl has hands just like Janet’s,” I said, pointing to a woman who looked like she was definitely a native Spaniard. She was walking down the street towards us from our right.

“Ok, she fits the bill.”

“Hey, could we look at your hands?” I asked, calling out to the woman.

As she walked by us, I thought she was ignoring us until she turned her head, looked at us and said, “Look at this,” as she flipped up her middle finger.

“Thanks!” I sarcastically yelled back at her. “Jerkoff” I muttered under my breath.

“Man, no one has any respect anymore,” Scud whispered as he bent over to put his mouth near my ear. “I think it’s time we end this. I think your hands should do for the time being, I’ll just go two sizes bigger.”

“Fine, Scud. Just don’t blame me when she tries to put it on and finds out that it doesn’t fit her. If you want to do it your way, though, I’m a five. Give Janet either a five and a half or a six. It should fit.” I said, as Scud and I started walking to the entrance to the jewelry store. Arriving at the entrance, I opened the glass door, and entered a place of beauty.

Gold and silver were everywhere, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds all glistened in various locations throughout the store. Each glass-encased shelf held hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of extremely expensive and beautiful rings, watches, bracelets and necklaces. If I were more feminine than I actually was, you know, like a sappy, cry at soap-operas type person, this place would have been my ultimate fantasy. As it was, it was mightily impressive. The criminal side of me was enthralled.

“Scud, are you thinking the same thing as me?” I asked.

“That this place would be a great place to rob, you know, if we were still in the family business – yes.”

We walked up to the counter and to the jeweler, a middle aged, balding Hispanic man with a crown of black hair around his head, and not much other hair. “Hola,” he greeted.

“Hola,” I returned the greeting

“¿Puedo ayudarle?” Can I help you? the jeweler, Miguel, according to his nametag, asked.

“Sí, mi amigo aquí está buscando un anillo de contrato.” Yes, my friend here is looking for an engagement ring.

“Bueno, bueno. ¿Qué gama de precio?” Good. What price range?

Scud and I had forgotten to talk about the price range, I realized. I had no clue how much he had on him. I guess I’d have to spring for the bill. I was just about to ask the jeweler to show us whatever he had when Scud interrupted.

“¿Donde Estas?”

“¿Qué?” asked Miguel.

“What?” I echoed to Scud.

“Sorry, that’s the only Spanish I know, I just thought I’d throw it out there,” Scud responded.

“Scud, just stay out of this, I can handle it,” I instructed.

“Fine. Do what you will. I still get to OK the ring though, right?”

“Sure, Scud.” I turned back to Miguel. “Puedo ir hasta €5.000.” I can go up to €5,000. Seeing as each euro was approximately worth $1.31, €5,000 was worth about $6,600, so Scud would owe me big time after this.

“¡Bueno! En ese caso, tengo un anillo hermoso de Lucida con las piedras laterales trilliant para €4.092.52.” Good! In that case, I have a beautiful Lucida ring with trilliant side stones for €4,092.52, Miguel said as he walked to the left side of the jeweler’s case and picked up a box. He walked back over to us and opened the box.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked Scud.

Scud turned, looking at me incredulously and gasped, “Lucy Diamond, ‘The Queen of Diamonds’,” he emphasized my new title by raising his hands in the air and forming the quotes with a bend of his fingers, “is turning to me? Wow, I’m honored.” Obviously, he was mocking my former show of my knowledge of jewelry.

“Well, it is your ring,” I cuttingly whispered.

“Lucy Diamond?” the jeweler asked taken aback. Scud and I turned to look at him and the look on his face could only be described as a mixture of shock and terror.

“Sí?” I replied questionly, looking at Miguel. He looked a little uneasy.

“¿Usted está comprando el anillo, correcto?” You are purchasing the ring, correct? Miguel asked. Clearly, my old reputation had preceded me. Miguel looked at me as if I were casing the store and was scheming and planning a heist while talking to him.

“Yes! Of course I’m purchasing it!” Taking his comment as a personal affront, I slipped back into English. I was about to add a comment in Spanish expressing my insult until Scud nudged me and reminded me that I was still known as a jewel thief, and I was in a jewelry store. Therefore, the question was actually a logical one. “Sí, estoy utilizando el Euro,” Yes, I’m using money, I stated more calmly turning to look at Miguel and seeing a huge smile form on his face.

“En ese caso,” Well in that case, Miguel said as he closed the box and put it away, “Tengo algo más para una mujer de su reputación.” I have something else for a woman of your reputation. Miguel sat another black box on the table and opened it.

For an instant, my breath totally left my lungs. The ring was amazingly beautiful. I’d stolen priceless jewelry before, but never had I seen a ring like this. Set in a sleek platinum band stood a brilliant emerald-cut diamond that was tapered on both sides with diamond baguettes. The colors reflected off the ring were radiant and dazzling in their spectrum. This ring would be perfect for Amy I thought, but Scud was the one proposing, so I decided to let him have it.

“Scud, we’ve found your ring!” I announced.

Scud just stood in place, mesmerized by the ring. I shook him a bit and he snapped out of his incognizant state. “Huh, what?”

“I said, we’ve found your ring.”

“Lucy, I can’t afford that – you’re the one with all the money here.”

“Exactly. I’m paying.”

“Really?” Scud asked. I nodded my head, and he hugged me.

“For being an ex-villain, you’re really not that bad Lucy Diamond,” Scud said as he squeezed me.

“Geez, Scud, not too tight,” I said with a wide smile. I turned back to Miguel. “Lo tomaremos.” We’ll take it, I said, reaching for my bag, getting my wallet out, grabbing my credit card and handing it to Miguel.

“¿Qué tamaño usted desea esto adentro?” What size do you want this in?

“Él tomará seises.” He’ll take a six.

“¿Habrá cualquier cosa?” Will there be anything else? Miguel asked.

Wow, I had almost forgotten about getting Amy a bracelet. I couldn’t believe I had done that. Some girlfriend I was. If I didn’t get her anything, I could probably kiss any chance I had of reconciliation goodbye.

“¿Cuál es su mejor pulsera del diamante?” What’s your best diamond bracelet?

“Amperio hora, la mejor pulsera del diamante”, Ah, the best diamond bracelet, he said as he disappeared into the back. Upon returning, he held in his hand another black box, longer than the ring’s. He laid a cloth on the counter, opened the box and placed the bracelet on it. I ran my hand the length of the Voile bar bracelet as it sparkled. It was absolutely stunning...it was perfect

“¿Cuánto?” How much? I asked

“€10,987.26,” Miguel responded. It was close to $14,500, doing the math quickly in my head. It was a little more than I had anticipated spending, but I had the money and therefore the card limit to buy both items. Plus, $14,500 was only a pittance of the priceless fee I’d pay just to see Amy one more time.

“Tomaré eso también.” I’ll take that too, I said.

“¡Bueno!” Miguel exclaimed, as he slid my card through the machine. Thank you Dad, I thought. Miguel handed me back the card and Scud and I exited the store.

“So, what now? Get the airplane tickets for tomorrow?” Scud asked.

“No, we’ve still got one more stop to make,” I replied.

“What?”

“Well, what would an apology to Janet be without a new sweater? You do know her sweater size, right?”

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

“Yes, we had a flight arrive here with your daughter’s name on the manifest yesterday, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

“Thank you. I’ve been so worried about her, she hasn’t been calling, and I didn’t know where she was.”

“Well, I hope you find her and work out your differences. I hate to see family fight.”

“Thank you, and God bless you.”

“Have a good day.”

So it was working. I had to make sure that everything was still going according to my plan, so I called the L.A. Airport to find out whether Amy Bradshaw had actually followed the course that I had suspected she would. For my plan to work, Lucy and Amy would have to be broken up. I needed Lucy for the plan, and the sex was a bonus. That had been just the catalyst I had needed to spring further events into action.

Soon I would be the master of my own destiny. Soon I wouldn’t need anyone else, although I would have Lucy there beside me. The plan was working.

Now it was time for the next step.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Scud was alternately nodding off and reawakening as he slumped down in the felt back of the airport’s chair as we waited for our flight. Flying first-class, we would be one of the first people to board. I may no longer have been a criminal mastermind with an unlimited class flow, but the abundant money that I still had from my father’s Swedish account allowed me to splurge and indulge every once in a while, and one thing is for sure – Lucy Diamond would never ride coach.

The flight, delayed an hour and a half because of a thunderstorm and “inclement weather” in Los Angeles was already grating on my nerves. I just hoped that I could hold onto my sanity long enough in this flight that would take a total of just about seventeen hours, with a layover in Newark, New Jersey. I mean, who lives in Newark. New Jersey’s smaller than Belgium, for goodness sake. Of course, the plane rides are taking seventeen hours, which means they would cross six time zones, so it would actually feel as though it had taken eight hours and I would feel as though I had lost nine hours. Talk about jet lag. I was praying that there would be a bar on the jet, because I needed alcohol for the $10,000 total I had spent on this flight. It was about 5:15 in the morning now, and the jet was scheduled to come at any minute. I noticed Scuds head turn in the direction of the clock every couple seconds.

“Clock-watcher,” I teased. “Do you do this at work? No wonder no one likes us still.”

“No, I’ve got Janet there at work, at least she takes my mind off of time deadlines.”

I put on an artificial look of hurt. “You mean the famous Lucy Diamond isn’t good enough to keep your mind off the clock?”

Scud just laughed. “You’re cool, but you’re no Janet. Janet’s a genius with computers, Janet’s beautiful, Janet’s…” I interrupted him.

“I was right – Janet’s got you whipped, loverboy.”

“If she does, it’s worth it.”

“Oh yeah, you’re quite manly Scud,” I joked. Maybe there was something to be said for that kind of a relationship. Amy and I just had one a little different. No one was whipped; we were mutual partners in everything – which, I guess, was the reason why betrayal of her trust had hurt her so much. We had shared everything, and when I didn’t share the truth, it broke that mutual trust, and suddenly it appeared one-sided as far as the confidence went. That was something I vowed to fix if I could ever regain my Amy.

“Continental Airlines Flight 170, now boarding first class,” a voice over the airport’s loudspeaker informed. Scud and I grabbed our two suitcases, which wouldn’t have been that full, except for Scud’s insistence to carry all his computer equipment wherever he went.

We boarded the plane and everything went smoothly as we stuffed our bags into the overhead compartment, Scud grabbing his computer, and took off within a half hour. The first class area was full, and did indeed have a bar. I intended to get a beer as soon as possible. Sitting behind us was an older couple, gray hair indicating their age; they looked to be American tourists. Scattered throughout the seats, people either generally looked like American tourists returning home or soon-to-be Spanish tourists heading to America.

“So,” Scud began, “what’s your plan to reconcile things with Amy?”

“Well, I was thinking about taking your lead actually. Just basically pour out my emotions, let her know that I love her more than anyone could ever love another human being. That kinda thing.”

“Wow, actually taking advice from me for a change, are you?” Scud asked mockingly.

“Yes, when there are girlfriend problems, I know who to turn to, even if you’re wrong half the time,” I replied.

We settled back down in the plane, and started to drift to sleep, when we heard a voice from behind us.

“Excuse me,” the old gentleman behind me said, trying to get my attention.

“Sir, are you talking to me?” I asked, trying to be polite.

“Yes, young lady, my wife and I overheard you and your friend talking about problems with his girlfriend. Maybe we can help. I think we have a lot of experience with that.” His wife laughed at that comment, but I didn’t find it that humorous.

“I’ll bet he does have a lot of experience,” Scud whispered mockingly in my ear.

“Be nice Scud, we may have to put up with this for another eight hours, if we’re lucky,” I whispered back.

“Anyway, when I was younger, I had a bit of trouble with a young lady. I did something to hurt her feelings, I can’t quite remember what it was…” apparently his wife remembered what he didn’t as she interrupted him.

“He was looking at all the other women's legs,” she said snidely.

“I never slept with any of them, though, honey. Anyway, I was quite the romantic back in my day, and I decided that to win that woman back, I’d write her romantic poems.”

“Oh, he was quite the poet back in his day,” remarked his wife, dreamily.

“I don’t think Amy’s one for poetry,” Scud said.

“Well, you could always try sending her flowers. I love when my boyfriend sends me flowers” the stewardess said. I hadn’t even noticed her there. “Would you like soda, a beer, or water?”

“Wow, who else is going to get involved in this?” Scud asked.

“I’ll take a beer,” I said. “If we want something from the bar, can we get it, or do we have to ask you?”

“You’re supposed to ask me or another flight attendant, but most people don’t.”

“I’ll take a Dr. Pepper,” Scud requested.

“Wow, going with the strong stuff are we?” I jested with him.

“Shut up.”

“Anyway, what do you think about the flowers?” the stewardess, Julia, asked.

“Not a bad idea,” remarked a Spaniard sitting in front of us.

“Yes,” said another one sitting on the other side of the plane.

“What, is everyone here focused on our conversation?” I asked, exasperated.

Almost in unison, the plane’s passengers answered “Yes.”

A younger boy, maybe in his teens, looked at Scud. He had a baseball cap on sideways, and looked like a city-bred American citizen.

“Yo, man, you havin’ girlfriend issues? Why don’t you slap that bitch around?” Everyone on the plane gasped and grumbled at the boy’s suggestion.

“No, don’t think she’d like that,” Scud said dryly.

All of a sudden the first class section erupted with suggestions of how Scud could win back “his” girlfriend. Funny thing is, we had been talking about Amy, not Janet. I heard little snippets of each suggestion. “Flowers sound good,” I heard, “How about a stuffed animal?” was another suggestion.

Finally, Scud stood up, and said, in a harsh, exasperated manner. “She’s not MY girlfriend! Amy is LUCY’S…,” he motioned down to me, “girlfriend; LUCY…,” he motioned to me again, “is sitting right next to me. Tell her all your suggestions!”

I shrank down in my seat, trying to make myself invisible as all talking ceased and every single pair of eyes turned on me. There was a shared silence on the plane, everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing - Is she a lesbian? In a couple of minutes, after everyone had gotten over the shock and disbelief, their thoughts were confirmed as I heard the word “lesbian,” in a hushed whisper move throughout the cabin. Still, to my dismay, the barrage of questions and suggestions started again.

“So, what’s it like? Y’know, lesbianism. Is it as good as they say it is?” A passenger asked.

I heard another passenger behind me, a younger male from the sound of it, mutter “Why are all the good looking girls lesbians?”

It was going to be a long flight.

*****16 hrs, a layover, and many alcoholic beverages later*****

After another of the worst nights of my life, Scud and I had gotten off the airplane relieved that the nightmare was over, but terrified of the flight back. There was a car rental place right outside the airport, so we quickly headed towards it to pick up our car we had already reserved before leaving Spain. Business owners were smart, they really knew how to capitalize on location and cash in on people. Anyway, we had rented a black VW Beetle. Scud had always wanted to drive one, because, as he said, it’s so uniquely shaped. He was driving, so I decided to get it just to keep him happy.

We were on our way to the D.E.B.S. headquarters, and I was still working out possible dialogues for the talk with Amy in my mind. Finally, I decided that I’d start out basically telling her that although in no way was I suicidal, there was no point in life if I couldn’t share it with her. Yes, that was a good place to start.

We were near the suburban D.E.B.S. house. Apparently they had not changed location or their shitty security, according to Scud, since Amy and I had escaped. Scud took his eyes off the road a second and looked at me. “Ready to face the music. You’re going into hell, but remember, I’ll be there right beside you.”

“Thanks Scud, but I think I can handle it. Glad you’ll be there with me though.”

“Aw. Don’t go getting all sentimental on me, Lucy Diamond. It’s scary, not like you at all.”

Scud always had a way to lighten the mood, I thought, emitting a laugh. “Ah, I’ve got a soft side too Scud, besides being an ex-badass master criminal.”

“That you do,” he said, parking on the curb outside the white house that sheltered the three D.E.B.S. who used to be part of Amy’s squad. “We’re here, let’s start the walk of shame.”

Scud and I got out of the car, patting ourselves to make sure we had our respective jewelry on us. I felt the familiar hardness of the box as I patted my pocket – I had it.

Cutting a hole in the forcefield with my pocket laser, as I had done twice before, and walking up to the door, I hesitated a second before knocking. How would she react once she saw me? I just hoped she’d entertain me for at least a second. Finally, I knocked on the door. No one answered for a couple seconds, although I thought I saw something move in the eyehole. Finally, just as I turned around the doorknob turned, and I heard the tumbler unlock inside.

“Amy!” I exclaimed as I rotated back to face the door.

It wasn’t Amy. Facing the door again, I was greeted with a gun to my forehead.

--------------------
What if you should decide
That you don't want me there by your side
That you don't want me there in your life
What if I got it wrong
And no poet or song
Could put right what I got wrong
Or make you feel I belong
---------------------

Chapter 10A: Of Guns, Jewelry, and Insects from Spain - Part One

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Linkin Park’s Easier To Run; end lyrics belong to Coldplay’s Till Kingdom Come

---------------------
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
If I could take all the shame to the grave I would
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I forced down a gulp, I was standing directly in the line of fire of a military-issued gun, that was equipped with a silencer. If I even tried anything funny, I’d be dead before I had a chance to turn the tide. I looked up at the aggressor, and realized that I didn’t have a chance anyway. I’d be dead within the minute anyway, most likely.

“Diamond,” she snarled.

I’d never forget the promise she made to me on the night she finally accepted the veracity of the love between Amy and myself, and if I knew anything about her, neither did she.

If you break her heart, I will hunt you down and kill you.

Seeing the circumstances Amy and I were in right now, I had no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Max would hold true to that promise.

“What did I tell you back in Barcelona, Diamond?” Max asked menacingly. Each time she said my name, she injected it with such venom that it was difficult to tell what was worse, her stone cold glare, or the pure hatred in her voice. “I didn’t get you two that fucking pardon so that you could go and screw the next girl that comes around. I told you that if you broke her heart I would kill you. Did you think I was joking?” She glared at me, almost as if expecting an answer to the rhetorical question she had just asked. “Max Brewer does not joke about stuff like that. I don’t care if you still love Amy, or whatever other bullshit might come out of your mouth. She doesn’t want to see you anyway. Diamond, I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time.”

I just stared at her, and my face melted. I had no hatred for this girl, she was only helping a friend, and after what I had done to Amy…well, “Go ahead. Pull the trigger,” I said.

“What?” Scud asked, shock registering on his face. “Lucy, you can’t be serious!”

“I am, Scud,” I said to him over my shoulder, “I deserve it.”

“You are joking, though, right?” Max asked, with a strange look that could almost be described as hurt. Apparently, Max was not all too keen about killing if her prey wasn’t scared of her.

“No, I’m not.” I said, “Look, what I did to Amy…God, I can never forgive myself. I don’t even know why I did it, or what crossed my mind. I pushed her away…I pushed away the only person who’s ever meant more to me than myself.” I began to admit, emotions just taking over.

“Lucy,” Max said a little sympathetically letting out a sigh and putting down her gun, “come inside. Let’s talk about this.” She stepped away from the door and Scud and I walked into the D.E.B.S.’ house. I sat down on the couch next to the video display that doubled as a framed picture, displaying only three D.E.B.S. Scud came in and sat on the chair directly next to me, and Max remained standing. I didn’t see Janet, Dominique, or Amy; perhaps they weren’t there.

“Max, I don’t know what I can do. I’ve lost her, and I never meant to hurt her…”

“Well you did do a damn good job of that,” Max quipped.

“I know, and believe me, it breaks my heart more. I don’t even know how it happened. I mean, one second I was in the bar at a hotel, and the next thing I remember, I’m in bed with my ex.” I paused for a few seconds. I knew it wouldn’t really mean much to Max, but still I tried to get her to believe the truth. “If I could take everything back, turn back time, I would. I don’t know if I could have avoided my obligation to Corleone, he can bend anyone’s will, and the things he’s capable of…I had to hold up my end of the bargain. But, as far as Chastity, I didn’t want to do it. Max, you’ve got to believe me, there’s no one in the world I love more than Amy. And if she really doesn’t want to see me, like you said, well, I’d rather die than live without her.”

“You don’t have to do that,” a familiar voice said from behind the wall. As the figure of my one true love appeared in the doorway, I turned to mush, and my crying became a sob begging for forgiveness.

“Amy…I…didn’t want to…you know that…I love you,” the words came out mumbled and incomprehensible between sobs.

Amy walked around the room and sat next to me on the couch, reaching for my hands and clasping them with her own as Dominique and Janet descended the stairs. Scud waved to Janet, a smile on his face, and she promptly folded her arms and looked towards the wall. Soon all the DEBS were around. Amy and I really needed a private conversation, but there wasn’t much of a chance for that with everyone in the room.

“Lucy,” Amy began, looking me in the eye, “I love you too, and I know you know that.” I nodded, words not forming. “But Lucy, you hurt me. You really hurt me. I don’t know if I can get over that. I mean, it doesn’t really matter that you didn’t want to have sex with her…it matters that you did.”

“I know,” I said, hanging my head. “There’s no excuse for it, but if I had been conscious, I would have stopped it. It never would’ve gotten to the point it did.

“Maybe, Lucy…but you were in another world that night. I’m sorry for reacting the way I did after finding out that you were in Pink Thunder, but I don’t know if I can forgive what you did.”

“Amy,” Scud said, “what if Lucy was drunk, or really didn’t know what she was doing, like she said?”

“Scud, thanks for everything, but I was wrong, even though I didn’t know what was going on.”

“But you two look so cute together!” Janet added. “You’re like the perfect couple.”

“Yeah…perfect,” I said.

“Thanks, Janet, but not needed right now.”

“You two really need to zettle zis. Mattares of ze ‘eart need to be zolved,” Dominique added her thoughts.

“No, what we need is some privacy,” I said. “I appreciate you all giving suggestions, but we need to talk in private.”

“Go out the doorway and make a left. Then Amy knows where the den is, lock the door and you should have privacy in there.”

“Thanks a lot Max,” Amy said as she stood up and wrapped her arms around Max. Max, for all her aggressiveness, wasn’t all that bad. She was to Amy what Scud was to me, a sibling who wasn’t actually related by blood. Maybe I could learn to like Max, I thought as Amy led me to the room where Max had suggested.

“Amy,” Max called, “just don’t make the same mistake twice.” Unless I was taking that the wrong way, Max was pretty much telling her not to make up with me.

Maybe I was wrong; maybe I wouldn’t ever learn to like Max

---------------------

Scud’s POV

Lucy and Amy moved their conversation into the other room to get some privacy, and then I saw my chance to make things right with Janet. Unfortunately, I would have rather done that in private without two other D.E.B.S. butting into our business. I cleared my throat.

“Ahem…girls, we’ve got another relationship problem here,” I pointed at Janet and then quickly turned my finger back to me, then back at Janet. I repeated this motion a couple times. “Any chance we could get any privacy?”

“No.” Max said bluntly. If I had learned one thing since taking up residence with the D.E.B.S. it was this – you never mess with Max. Well, not unless your name was Lucy Diamond, she had balls…well, actually she didn’t, I did, but…you know. Anyway if you weren’t able to recklessly gamble, you just had to swallow and suck it up.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Janet, for the sake of not repeating the heartfelt apology we just heard from the other D.E.B. ‘slash’ villain couple, let’s just say that I second everything about not wanting to hurt you. Believe me, if I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t have. But Lucy…well, she’s been like a sister to me for around five years now. You know that, and you also know that I love you. You’re higher in priority than her, but she’s right up there too.

“Still,” I continued my planned monologue, “if there’s one person in this world who I would jump off a bridge for. If there was one person who I would sacrifice anything for, it’s you.” I bent down on my knee, and, knowing what was coming, Janet’s face lit up. “And Janet, I know this may not truly make it up to you, but would you make me the happiest man in history?” I reached in the pocket of my leather jacket, only to find that the ring and its box weren’t there. Saying that I was embarrassed would have been an understatement. I was petrified – petrified that I had lost the ring, and worse yet, petrified that I had lost thousands of Lucy’s money. The ring had been in my pocket in the car, and the only person I had stood next to was…Janet.

“Looking for something?” Janet grinned foolishly at me, tossing a black felt-covered box up in the air. “I’ve still got it,” she said, handing me back the box.

“Yes you do…just don’t do that again,” I responded, standing up and taking the box back from her. Janet never ceased to amaze me. I guess it was fitting – if she was going to accept my apology for dabbling in my old life, I couldn’t be angry at her for reverting to her old ways either. “Anyway, now that I can do this properly,” I got back down on my knee, “Janet, will you marry me?” I asked, opening the box and showing her the diamond ring I (or Lucy) had bought.

“Oh…my…God…” Janet gasped with the same reaction to the ring that I had experienced. “Did you pick that out Scud?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Scud…I don’t know…” she said deliberately, seemingly making up her mind.

“I got you a sweater,” I blurted, “it’s cashmere, just like you like. It’s out in the car.”

“YES! I’ll marry you Scud!” Janet exclaimed joyfully, as she let me slide the ring onto her finger. It seemed to fit, although I had just a little trouble putting it on her. I made a mental note to thank Lucy – I should’ve been the one to think of buying the sweater – it had been a sure-fire shortcut.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Max. “That’s it? No argument? Janet, he lied to you.”

“Yeah, so? I love cashmere,” I looked at her with my lower lip protruding and my eyebrow furrowed, as if to ask Is that the only thing you love? “and Scud.”

“Janet, he’s still a criminal! He fooled us for a while, but then he and Lucy got right back on the horse. You think they’ll ever change?! You’re deluding yourself.”

“You know what Max?” Janet started, turning to Max and putting both hands on her hips…oh boy, I loved Janet in a mood. “At the airport, I thought things had changed…I thought you were going to be a little bit nicer and more considerate to everyone. I guess I was wrong. You’re still a snob. You know, you want every relationship around here to fail because you’ve never had a meaningful relationship. Every boy you go out with is a one-day deal. They’re never good enough for you, and you know why? It’s because you’re still not over your relationship issues with your father. Maybe you can never let yourself be open to love, but you can let other people. Can’t you?”

“But…” Max began, but quickly became silent again, acknowledging defeat. “Yeah, well don’t come crying back to me when he does this again,” she added after a few seconds.

“I promise, from now on, I’m playing it straight,” I said, standing once again, placing an arm around Janet and holding her close to me.

“Yeah, right. Once a criminal, always a criminal,” Max muttered.

“Just leave it,” Janet said to me.

About a half hour later, Lucy finally entered the room again, sans Amy.

“So…how’d it go?” Janet asked.

“Don’t want to talk about it,” Lucy replied hastily, all the while shooting me a look that told me something that no one else caught onto. Something had gone right. She stopped and stood in the room.

“So, you leaving for Spain again?” I asked.

“Yeah, would you and Janet care to join me?” Lucy asked. “Oh, and Janet, congrats, by the way. Scud’s a great guy,” she said, noticing the engagement ring on her finger.

“Yes he is,” Janet said lovingly, looking up at me. I squeezed her closer and kissed the top of her head.

“Geez, you two are going to make me sick,” Lucy said. “So, how about Barcelona?”

“Lucy, let us get settled back together first. I promise, we’ll visit very soon,” I said.

“Great. Can’t wait, it’ll be lonely there all by myself,” she said. “Anyway, Scud, want to grab your stuff out of the car? I’m going to go return it and get a ticket for the next flight from hell.”

“Sure,” I laughed, following her out to the car.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

When my section was called, I boarded the plane’s first class section and found my seat. Without Scud, this probably would be worse of a flight than the first one, if that were possible. At times like this, I really wished that I still had Amy around with me. After a few minutes, a large, balding, middle-aged man bearing a Caesar-like crown of hair sat next to me, his shirt marked with multiple food and condiment stains, and he still had pieces of food in his beard.

Maybe I should fly coach next time, I thought as I picked up the phone located on the headrest directly in front of me. I reached into my wallet, picked out my credit card and swiped it through the slot in the machine. I dialed a number that I knew by heart. One ring…two rings…three rings…I was starting to be afraid that she wouldn’t pick up. Finally in the middle of the fourth ring, she answered.

I smiled as I heard her voice. “Hi yourself.” I returned her greeting. “Have I ever told you how great it is to hear your voice? Anyway, when are you coming back to Barcelona?” I asked, listening to her answer, as I quickly and regretfully took at a look at the grotesque man sitting next to me picking his teeth. You have got to be kidding me.

“Good, I’ll be waiting for you.” I turned my full attention back to the phone call. “I know I’ve already apologized a lot, but I’m sorry again.” I chuckled slightly at the playful chastising I was getting for once again apologizing.

“Fine, I’m sorry for saying I’m sorry too many times,” I laughed. “Hurry back, we have some checking up to do, and some ass to kick.” Satisfied with her response and with the fact that she was coming back, I could end the call with a smile.

“Bye Amy.”

My smile soon faded as the sloppy man next to me turned his double-chinned head to look at me

“So, who’s Amy?”

Not again!

---------------------

Scud’s POV

Later that night, I was in the bathroom next to Janet’s room in the house, when I heard her call to me.

“Scud! Scud!”

“What’s wrong?” I called back.

“The ring, it’s stuck; I can’t get it off. How did you pick a size?”

I kept silent...

“You didn’t grab someone off the street did you?”

Again, I kept silent - in this case, that was the only reasonable course of action.

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For you I’ve waited all these years
For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my day, my day is done
And say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
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Chapter 10B: Of Guns, Jewelry, and Insects from Spain – Part Two

A/N: Opening lyrics come from David Gray’s Gutters Full of Rain; end lyrics belong to Daughtry’s Used To

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I was seeking to possess
Now another girl's caress
Is on your flesh
The bitterness is tasted
There's nobody in your chair
No hand to touch my hair
The sun even the air seems wasted
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Amy’s POV

Walking down the stairs in the D.E.B.S. house, I heard a knock on the door. Both hoping and dreading that it was Lucy, I turned to Max, who was already at the door. She nodded her head, probably knowing what I was thinking.

“Amy, it’s her, let me handle it,” Max said, smiling at me. I hated to see what letting her handle it would entail, but I decided to do just that. Still, monitoring the situation couldn’t hurt, especially not if Max was in one of her psychotic moods. “I think it would be better if you weren’t in the room.”

That last statement practically gave away Max’s intent; this was not going to be an exchange of pleasantries between Max and Lucy. Max drew her gun. “Max! No, don’t do that!” I exclaimed. Max held up the gun, opened up the chamber and showed me that it was empty.

“Just gonna scare her, Amy. She broke our agreement.”

“Just don’t do anything you end up regretting,” I said. And please don’t end up doing anything that I’ll end up regretting letting you do.

I left the room and hid behind the wall as Max unlocked the door and opened it. I peeked around the edge of the wall and could see Max hold the gun out to Lucy’s head. She sure had a way of handling things; no wonder anyone who met her considered her borderline psychotic.

“Diamond,” she growled, venom clear in her voice. “What did I tell you back in Barcelona, Diamond? I didn’t get you two that fucking pardon so that you could go and screw the next girl that comes around. I told you that if you broke her heart I would kill you. Did you think I was joking?” If I didn’t know that she the gun was unloaded, I would actually believe her. She was definitely doing a good acting job. “Max Brewer does not joke about stuff like that. I don’t care if you still love Amy, or whatever other bullshit might come out of your mouth. She doesn’t want to see you anyway. Diamond, I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time.” Max’s statements weren’t necessarily true – part of me did want to see Lucy.

“Go ahead. Pull the trigger,” Lucy said dejectedly. My jaw dropped open; that was not the reaction I had expected at all. Was she really hurting as much as I was?

“What? Lucy, you can’t be serious!” exclaimed a male voice, one that I recognized as Scud’s.

“I am, Scud, I deserve it.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought Lucy deserved a lot of things. I mean, what she did was practically unforgivable, but death? She didn’t deserve to die. Hopefully, she wasn’t suicidal or anything. What had I done?

“You are joking, though, right?” Max asked.

“No, I’m not. Look, what I did to Amy…God, I can never forgive myself. I don’t even know why I did it, or what crossed my mind. I pushed her away…I pushed away the only person who’s ever meant more to me than myself.”

“Lucy, come inside. Let’s talk about this.” Max stepped away from the door and I quickly hid back behind the wall. I was intrigued by this turn of events. Maybe Lucy was actually sorry…but how could I forgive her?

“Max, I don’t know what I can do. I’ve lost her, and I never meant to hurt her…”

“Well you did do a damn good job of that.”

“I know, and believe me, it breaks my heart more. I don’t even know how it happened. I mean, one second I was in the bar at a hotel, and the next thing I remember, I’m in bed with my ex. If I could take everything back, turn back time, I would. I don’t know if I could have avoided my obligation to Corleone, he can bend anyone’s will, and the things he’s capable of…I had to hold up my end of the bargain. But, as far as Chastity, I didn’t want to do it. There’s no one in the world I love more than Amy. If she really doesn’t want to see me, like you said, well, I’d rather die than live without her.” My heart melted. Lucy still loved me. My Lucy still loved me, but could I just go back with her, knowing what happened? She cheated on me! How could she possibly do that if she really felt this way? My mind kept going in circles. So many things were running through it. I decided that I needed to at least talk things over with Lucy.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said walking out from the doorway. She didn’t have to kill herself. I did want to see her, no matter what Max said.

“Amy…I…didn’t want to…you know that…I love you,” Lucy mumbled, apparently trying to find the words. Just looking at her, I knew that she meant every word that she said. Her expression conveyed heartbroken loss, and love now unrequited. Gazing into her soul, something that I had found I could always do with Lucy, I found that she was still mine…but was I still hers?

Walking across the room and sitting next to Lucy, I held Lucy’s hands as Dominique and Janet descended down the stairs.

“Lucy,” I said, making eye contact with her, “I love you too, and I know you know that.” I meant it. Even if I could never learn to forgive her, a part of my heart was still devoted to her. That part was just black, rotten, and decaying right now. I continued, “But Lucy, you hurt me. You really hurt me. I don’t know if I can get over that. I mean, it doesn’t really matter that you didn’t want to have sex with her…it matters that you did.”

“I know,” Lucy said, not able to look me in the eye. “There’s no excuse for it, but if I had been conscious, I would have stopped it. It never would’ve gotten to the point it did.”

“Maybe, Lucy…but you were in another world that night. I’m sorry for reacting the way I did after finding out that you were in Pink Thunder, but I don’t know if I can forgive what you did.”

“Amy,” Scud said to me, “what if Lucy was drunk, or really didn’t know what she was doing, like she said?”

“Scud, thanks for everything, but I was wrong, even though I didn’t know what was going on.”

“But you two look so cute together!” Janet attempted to help out. “You’re like the perfect couple.”

“Yeah…perfect,” Lucy said. I suppressed a giggle, Lucy was right – perfect couples don’t do this to each other. Even mad at her, I loved her sense of humor, which always seemed to be amplified when ever she was in a mood.

“Thanks, Janet, but not needed right now.” I said.

“You two really need to zettle zis. Mattares of ze ‘eart need to be zolved,” Dominique, the resident doctor of love suggested.

“No, what we need is some privacy,” Lucy said. “I appreciate you all giving suggestions, but we need to talk in private.”

“Go out the doorway and make a left. Then Amy knows where the den is, lock the door and you should have privacy in there,” Max suggested, motioning to the room.

“Thanks a lot Max,” I said, getting up off the couch and hugging Max. Psychotic or not, she was the sister I never had.

“Amy,” Max called, “just don’t make the same mistake twice.” I hoped she was kidding, I hoped she really wanted me to do what made me happiest, but you could never tell with Max.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Once we were in the room, I broke down in tears. Around Amy, I could be myself, but I would never let anyone else besides Amy and Scud see me in this type of emotional state. Now that we were alone, and feeling the unfamiliar wetness that only recently had become familiar running down my face, I expressed everything I had wanted to say to Amy. To hell with planned speeches, they were doing me no good.

“Amy, I know you probably can never forgive me. I can never forgive me, but I hope maybe we can work our way through this. Chastity, she means nothing to me. You…you mean everything. Why I let Chastity take advantage of me, and why I played into her game, I don’t know. I didn’t plan on it, and I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t do it. That’s not an excuse, I know, and it’s still no reason for you to forgive me, but if it’s possible…” I rambled on; words and emotions flowing out of my mouth much as the tears flowed down my face, until Amy interrupted me.

“Lucy, like I said – I love you, and nothing could take that away from me. Deep down inside of me, a part of me will always be devoted to you, and even if that place is vacant, it will always be reserved for you,” Amy said. Her eloquence was touching, and I wish that I had thought of the whole ‘vacancy in my heart’ speech, the words she was speaking echoed my own thoughts. “But even if my heart heals, it won’t heal overnight. The place reserved for you is empty right now, and I can’t just run off to Barcelona just because you ask me too.”

I expected this answer, and, well…how could I not after what I had done to her? I deserved that answer. “I understand Amy, and I know this problem isn’t just going to right itself overnight. I love you, Amy Bradshaw, and even if you decide not to come back to me, I want you to know that I’ll never give up on trying to make it up to you.

“Good, I’m glad you understand,” she said, all the hurt she felt showing on her face.

Amy walked over to a table with a document on it, I could clearly see that it had Pink Thunder Case typed on it. “What’s that,” I asked, motioning with my head towards the document.

“These are the transcripts of the police interrogation of Tiny and Smalls. Since the D.E.B.S. were the arresting officials in the case against Pink Thunder, they sent us a copy. I haven’t looked through it yet.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” I asked. I was curious to see if I was mentioned during this interrogation. Then again, if I were, Max would’ve probably arrested me on sight and only then would have held that gun to my head.

“Sure, no problem,” she said, handing the folder to me. I took it and began briefly skimming through it. Nothing really caught my eye; most of the questions were things that I had already known. The police asked questions about the museum heist, and of course, there were the like bear quotes the twins were known for scattered around in there. Interesting – I had never known the twins’ names. Apparently, T. and S. were their actual initials, Tiny’s real name was Tatiyana and Small’s actual name was Svetlana. Suddenly, one thing caught my interest – it was the twin’s answer to the question Where was Chastity Red during the heist? that caught my eye.

Tatiyana: Well, she got sick.

Svetlana: Yah…sick like bear.

Officer McGarrigle: So you mean to tell me that before the heist, Chastity got sick?

Tatiyana: Yah, and we go through her drawer to find medicine to make her feel better but all we found was little bottle.

Svetlana: Bottle said Cantha…Cantadi…Cathidiri…

Officer McGarrigle: Cantharidin?

Tatiyana: Yah, that it.

Officer McGarrigle: Do you know why Charitine would have this?

Svetlana: Don’t know why she have it, but drug make people horny.

Tatiyana: Yah! Horny like bear…

Cantharidin…the BITCH…Cantharidin was known on the street as ‘Spanish Fly’. It was a highly potent and potentially lethal aphrodisiac. It was used as a date-rape drug occasionally, but even a drop could kill someone. The only bonus for people using it was that instead of having sex with an unconscious body, they were having sex with an awake, but drugged partner. The question was how she could’ve done it…

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

It had all been so easy. I had no idea that Lucy would show up at the same hotel where Corleone had lodged all of us, but once she did, she made my plan that much easier.

**************At the bar, that fateful night**************

I brought Lucy’s mojito back to the table and sat across from her. She seemed to be making up her mind about just what she was doing here. I guess my last comment had stirred her just the way I had wanted it to. I decided to continue that conversation, then, “So, let’s get back to how you want me.”

“Chastity, I…don’t…want…you,” Lucy said, thoroughly unconvincing. Her mouth was saying no, but her face, her eyes, and her body were all saying yes. “That’s alright,” I said, placing my hand strategically on Lucy’s. I could feel her tense up. “As I said, I want you too.” Then I made my move, leaning in for the kiss.

At first Lucy seemed to be caught in a state between wanting to feel pleasure and wanting to stay faithful to her damn D.E.B. Lucy must have really been in love with that girl, she was really putting a hindrance on my plan. Finally, though, Lucy made the decision I wanted her to, leaning in and returning the kiss. Lucy was always good kisser, I had to admit, as I slipped my tongue into her mouth and tried to convey a passion that I didn’t feel. I wanted Lucy to feel good – if I could pull that off, I thought that I may not have had to go to the extra means that I had brought just in case. In any case, whether I succeeded in making her feel good, she pulled away from the kiss, as if suddenly realizing what she had been doing.

“Um…Chastity, I really need to go to the bathroom,” Lucy said, hastily leaving drink and bag on the table as she made a beeline to the door.

Ah, well, time for Plan B, I thought as I reached into my bag and grabbed the vial of Cantharidin I had stashed in there. I brought it out and reached for Lucy’s mojito, bringing it to me and discreetly putting a few drops in Lucy’s drink. Now I just had to sit back, let the drug work, enjoy myself, and watch my plan work. I love it when a plan comes together.

Actually, maybe I did have one thing left to do…

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Lucy’s POV

“Oh my god! Amy! Look at this!” I exclaimed. The Cantharidin explained why my head had lost the battle and explained why the disconnection had existed between my body and my brain. It also explained why I had no memory of the night before. Although Cantharidin would not make someone unconscious, it could, in fact, cause black spots in memories. Amy was still standing next to me, so I brought the paper a little closer to her body and pointed with my finger to the comment about the Cantharidin.

“Amy, do you know what Cantharidin is?” I asked excitedly.

“Not really, what?”

“Ever heard of Spanish Fly?”

“…Yes…” Amy began hesitantly. Her face registered the implications here, “No way…she drugged you?” she asked.

“Seems like the case. Blackout, check, horniness out of character, check – it would make sense.”

“Yes it would, although, horniness is most certainly not out of character with you. Still, it wouldn’t take away the hurt,” Amy said. Shit, I thought that this would make everything better, but, knowing Amy, it would take a lot of effort to get rid of the hurt she felt. Plus, being truthful to myself, I had to admit that, even without the Cantharidin, I had been aroused by Chastity. “Lucy, even with the drugs, you still lied to me and you slept with Chastity. It’s going to take a lot more for me to trust you again.”

A thought popped into my head, a question that I had been wondering since I got that letter. “Amy, how did you know where I was? I mean, I never told you where I was. How did you know which hotel to go to, and what room?”

“You sent me a text message, remember?” No, I didn’t remember, I had no recollection of sending her a text message at all. “You gave me the name of the hotel, your room number, everything.”

“No, I didn’t,” I held, baffled. A look of skepticism broke on Amy’s face. I couldn’t blame her; she really didn’t have any reason to believe me. I brought out my cell phone, flipped up the top and scrolled through my sent messages, and sure enough, there was the message - Amy Im sorry. Im @ El Hotel Nacional Espanol de Barcelona in rm 209. Pleez come. Funny, I didn’t write that, and the only other person who could have done so that night was…

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Chastity’s POV

As I walked up to the entrance to Pink Thunder headquarters, I continued to reflect on how simple the whole plan had been. Perhaps I was better than Corleone in intellect and the ability to pull a plan together. He was the master manipulator, but I couldn’t believe that any of his plans had actually come together this easily.

Once I had been able to ensure Lucy’s infidelity, I had to make sure that I had the ‘loving couple’ split up. If Lucy and the D.E.B. were not broken up, she would definitely never come over to my side. Now that they were, she could be convinced to revert back to her past rather easily; it would be like taking candy from a baby.

**************Back at the bar**************

Assuring Lucy’s betrayal had been a piece of cake. The tricky part would be ensuring that the D.E.B. caught her in the act. Looking at the table, I quickly found my solution. In Lucy’s haste, she not only had forgotten her drink, but she had left her bag on the table. I reached across the table, grasped the bag and brought it to me, careful to lift it over the drinks on the table. Unzipping the bag and peering inside, I silently thanked the manufacturers for installing a cell phone pouch, they were making my job even easier than it already was. I slid the phone out, and hiding it under the table, typed out my message, and found the name ‘Amy’ under the programmed numbers. Remembering that Amy was the D.E.B., I sent the message to Amy.

I sent her the name of the hotel and Lucy’s room number. It was extremely easy to extract that information from the receptionist. She was so easily bought. Sending the text to Amy detailing exactly where Lucy’s room was, and knowing the inevitable consequence of the drug, the next step would be finding a way to keep the door open for Amy. If Amy had visual proof of Lucy’s infidelity, there was no way she’d stay around; cheating’s such a taboo for goody-two-shoes like that.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Damn it! Chastity had set me up! Why, though? Was she after something? Did she think that I would actually get back with her? She was sadly mistaken if she thought that I would simply jump right back into a relationship with her after what she had done to me. How did she know which room I was staying in, anyway? My head was reeling; like a tidal wave, the rush of revelation overwhelmed me. “Amy – it’s Chastity. I was going to call you in the morning…somehow she must have sent you the text message too.”

“You’re just going to blame everything on Chastity now? Like she has some big master plan? Why can’t you just take responsibility for this?” Amy asked, inexplicably annoyed. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you. Nothing is ever your fault, you’re full of shit!”

“Amy, I don’t shorten my words when I text message you. I always spell everything out, don’t I?” It was true, I had that quirk, I couldn’t stand chat-speak, or whatever they called it. Chat-speak was just for impatient people, and while planning a well-thought-out robbery or a heist, or any illegal activity; the one thing you learned never to be was impatient.

“No.” She said hesitantly, I could see a hint of realization register on her face. “So you really think Chastity sent me the message? Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know…I really don’t. Amy, how did you know what time the heist was at the museum?” Suddenly, it had struck me – Chastity, despite being incapacitated with stomach problems that night, was drinking and flirting, and seemed perfectly fine at the hotel that same night. Something was up.

“We got a call from an informant. We really didn’t know anything about her, besides that she had a German accent.”

My eyes opened wide, it was Chastity. I couldn’t prove it, but it had to be. She had set us up there, too. She planned this all, but what for?

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Chastity’s POV

I entered the warehouse, where I knew Corleone still was. He had been in this place since we arrived in Barcelona three weeks ago. He must have had bedding somewhere, but he kept track of this place; no one unwanted would go in here, or Corleone knew just how to deal with them. At the moment, he was sitting behind his desk at the other end of the building with a chess board sitting in front of him. He bore a smug look on his face. God! I hated that scar!

As I walked towards him, he looked up at me and, seemingly knowing what I was there for, taunted, “Chassstity, I’ve been expecting you.”

Sure you have…just like you expected me to ruin your little heist, asshole. I thought to myself, smirking without conveying it on my face. Corleone was supposed to be a master criminal and yet it had only taken one thing to spoil his lousy plan.

**************The hotel, before the heist**************

It was time to put plans into actions. Corleone’s rush job had to end. He was losing it, and I wouldn’t let him run Pink Thunder into the ground. Someone had to do something, and that someone would be me.

I picked up the phone, and called the number I had stolen right from under Corleone’s eyes. He hadn’t even noticed when I switched the folder containing the information for the Picasso heist with the one containing his contacts’ information. That day, I had found Lucy’s phone number, copied it down, and switched the folders back without Corleone catching on.

Knowing that Lucy’s girlfriend was at least connected to the D.E.B.S., I picked up the phone in my hotel room and dialed the number. I decided to disguise my voice. They wouldn’t know me by voice anyway, but just to be safe, I put on a German accent.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end greeted hesitantly.

“‘Allo, eess this the D.E.B.S. hetquarters?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Eet eess not important. Ah haf some information that you vill fint fery useful, I do belief.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“The art museum heist…it happenss at zeven tonight,” I informed her and then promptly hung up. I didn’t want to give anyone an opportunity to trace the call, even if it was unlikely that anyone was doing so.

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Lucy’s POV

“Amy, Chastity can switch accents on the fly. I’d bet that was she was the one who called you. But what the hell is she after?” I wondered aloud, looking away for a few seconds, and then a thought came to me. I looked into Amy’s eyes, “I need to figure out what Chastity is up to. So it looks like I’m going to have some checking up to do, retrace steps, that kinda stuff. I could really use some help,” I hoped I didn’t sound desperate, but I really wanted her to move back to Barcelona, and I figured this was as a good a way as anything else.

“I don’t know Lucy…” Amy said, biting her lip with indecision and turning her eyes to the ground. She stayed like that for a second or two, all the while leaving me in suspense. I knew that, drugged or not, I had hurt her, and I knew that it would take a while for her to learn to trust me again. I don’t think I was expecting her to actually say yes; it was more of a plea than a question. Then suddenly she brought her head back up and looked at me. She had come to a decision. “Yes, I’ll move back to Barcelona,” she informed me. I may have looked foolish as my entire face suddenly lit up, but I didn’t care at the time. It wasn’t over. “I’ll help you find out everything you can about what’s happened and how Chastity fits in to everything, but don’t think that means that we’re back together or anything. I love you Lucy, but drugged or not, you broke my heart. I care enough about you to not abandon us, and try to fix it, but it’s not going to happen with a snap of my fingers. It’s going to take time…I guess what I’m asking you, Luce, is how long are you willing to wait for me?”

I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to wrap my arms around her and celebrate. She was coming home. Instead, honoring her wishes, I placed a hand on either side of her head. “Amy, I would wait forever for you.” Amy broke into a smile, and we both simultaneously leaned our foreheads into one another, basking in the fact that we were not through. The connection between Lucy Reynolds and Amy Bradshaw – the Reynolds/Bradshaw Connection could not be conquered so easily.

“Amy, I got you something – something to say I’m sorry,” I said, reaching in the pocket of my black slacks and withdrew the black box that contained the bracelet I had bought for Amy. I couldn’t help but think how great that bracelet would look on her, even as she was only casually dressed in jeans and a short-sleeve V-neck t-shirt. I handed her the box, which she eagerly. As she lifted the top of the box and gazed upon the Voile bar bracelet, her eyes registered wonderment and shock.

“Lucy…it’s…beautiful. How much was it?”

“That doesn’t matter. So, you like it?” I asked, a smile forming on my face. Lucy, you done good.

“Like it? I love it! It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever given me,” she said as she walked towards me and grabbed me in a hug. The hug, as much as I enjoyed it, was torture. She was pressed tightly against my body and anything other than holding her would have been a problem, so hold her I did. I held her tight to my body, swaying back and forth. Still, as much torture as the hug was, if this was all that I could have from Amy, I would treasure it. Even if it took her a lifetime to trust me again, I knew that deep down, we still belonged to each other.

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Amy’s POV

Later that night, I was sitting in my room, pondering the revelations that had occurred in the day. Something was up, Lucy wasn’t lying, I could tell this time. What could Chastity possible be doing though? That would be the question we were going to have to figure out the answer to, I guessed, and thankfully we would be doing that together.

We had decided that it was best not to let Max know immediately about my moving back in with Lucy. Knowing her, she would stop that action the moment she knew about it, so the best course of action would be to fool her into thinking that we had not worked anything out. Then I would leave soon afterwards, without Max knowing, although I would leave her a note informing her of my decision. I didn’t want her to think that I’d been kidnapped…we all knew what had happened the last time she had thought that. My cell phone buzzed in my pocket, and I checked the caller ID the cell phone service provided. ‘Unknown’, I had a feeling that this was the call I had been expecting.

I flipped open the phone and greeted, “Hi Lucy,”

“Hi yourself,” she responded. “Have I ever told you how great it is to hear your voice? Anyway, when are you coming back to Barcelona?”

“I made flight plans for tomorrow, so I’ll be there in a day or two.”

“Good, I’ll be waiting for you. I know I’ve already apologized a lot, but I’m sorry again.”

“Geez Lucy, stop apologizing!” I playfully reprimanded.

“Fine, I’m sorry for saying I’m sorry too many times,” she laughed. “Hurry back, we have some checking up to do, and some ass to kick. Bye Amy.”

“Bye Lucy,” I said as she hung up the phone. “I love you,” I continued, knowing full well she couldn’t hear me. Still, I knew that somehow she had heard those words as I spoke them.

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Chastity’s POV

Walking over to Corleone, who had shifted focus to his chess board, I stopped in front of his desk and reached into my jacket pocket, feeling my gun, as well as another instrument of butchery that I reserved for my more…special kills. “I’ll bet you were expecting me, jackass,” I sneered.

“To vat pleasurrre do I owe visit to?” Corleone asked rather smugly, looking up from his chess board. For a man who used to be able to manipulate and bend anyone to his will, he sure had lost it. When I had first met him, he was the most amazing specimen of intellect I had ever met. I’m sure his considerable chess skills also contributed to his ability to always stay ahead of his pursuers, but they had waned throughout the years. Oh, how the mighty had fallen! Throughout the course of the last month or two, I had witnessed the decaying of his genius, and I would not let his newfound sloppiness run Pink Thunder into the ground. As he gave out this last rush job I decided that the king needed to be dethroned.

“Consider this the coup de grâce,” I explained, “a mercy killing. You’re running us straight into ze ground, and I, for one will not stand for it. What ze fuck was zis rush job all about?”

“Charrritine,” he began. I’ve always hated it whenever he used my real name. “believe me ven I sssay that this vas not rrrush job.”

“How ze ‘ell can you zay zat?! You gave us two days to map everyzing out and execute ze goddamn plans.” Still, Corleone just smiled that haunting, omniscient smile.

“It vas not rrrush job,” he said. I had just about had enough of this. It was time for me to claim my rightful place; time for me to accelerate the evolution of Pink Thunder. It was time for me to climb to power. I drew my machete from my leather jacket, and while recognition registered on Corleone’s face, his smugness didn’t change. What the hell is wrong with you, you sick fuck? “Do not do vat you arrre planning, Charrritine, you hold a life in yourrr hands.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” I yelled, pent-up frustration bubbling up to the surface. “You’re going to die, but you’re going to die slowly, you zick fuck. I’m going to let you bleed to death. You’re going to beg for me to cut your jugular by ze time I’m done with you.”

“Charrritine, your plan vill not vork. I know vat you’ve been planning, and I’m sssurrre you haven’t thought it through. Vat happensss if you vere wrong about Lucy and her girrrlfrrriend, and they do get back together? Any good plan needsss to have all posssibilitiesss checked out. Obviously, you arrre not cut out forrr this busssiness after all,” Corleone informed, still infuriatingly calm. Good, so he’s still got a bit of talent left in him. Too bad it’s dying along with the rest of him today. Unfortunately, however, he was right, SHIT, what if that did happen? I’d have to think about that later and just focus on business now.

“I’m not cut out for this? I’M NOT FUCKING CUT OUT!” I screamed, “I’M ABOUT TO KILL YOU AND YOU TELL ME THAT I’M NOT CUT OUT?!” That was it, no more banter. It was time for him to die. I slammed my machete into his shoulder, and still Corleone had no reaction. Blood was drawn, and I was sure he felt it, but that damn scar, and that damn face remained unwaivered, he just sat there, he sat there and smiled at me. Climbing over the desk, scattering chess pieces, papers, and folders, and knocking over a lamp, I hacked the blade into him, over and over again. Not even counting the number of times, but Corleone didn’t scream once. He just looked at me while his smile remained, even as he began to drift into unconsciousness. Seeing him still conscious, I watched his hooded eyes blinking slowly at me. Knowing that he would eventually bleed to death, I tied him up and carried his ass outside to my car. As I carried him I heard a noise escape him. From the sound of it I thought maybe the bastard was starting to realize his life was over, but upon further listening I could hear that he was laughing. It was a deep, guttural, maniacal laugh, one that still haunted me as I slammed the trunk shut. Now I just had to deposit the body and let him die out in the wilderness.

---------------------

Somewhere, on a screen, a red dot flashed on and off again. And then the sound of a voice, “Chastity’s done it.”

--------------------
We used to have this figured out;
We used to breathe without a doubt.
When nights were clear, you were the first star that I'd see.
We used to have this under control.
We never thought - we used to know.
At least there's you, and at least there's me.
Can we get this back?
Can we get this back to how it used to be?
---------------------

Chapter 11: Mending Fences

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Foo Fighters’ Up In Arms; end lyrics belong to Keane’s We Might As Well Be Strangers

---------------------
Together now I don't know how this love could end
My lonely heart, it falls apart again for you to mend
I was the one who left you
Always coming back I cannot forget you girl
Now I am up in arms again
---------------------

Chastity’s POV

Stopping my car and parking it at the edge of the forest, I got out, quickly scanned the area for any witnesses or cops, and walked to the trunk. I opened it and reveled in the smell. Corleone was still alive, but his blood saturated the walls and the bottom of the trunk. The smell of blood was always a sign of victory to me, and I had, along the years, taken quite a liking to it.

I picked up the body of my former boss, a body that was getting weaker every second, and grabbed a sheet that I had stored in my car to support him and ensure that no blood would end up on the road. I shut the trunk and walked to the left of my car and into the forest. Passing trees, bushes, and other various shrubberies, I must have walked about a quarter of a mile before I found a suitable trench to lay him in. It was just big enough to conceal him from the immediate eyesight of anyone wandering through. I deposited his body in the trench, making sure that I took his wallet before doing so. Walking back to my car, I wished that I could return to the scene of the crime and bask in the stench that would signify his rotting death in a couple days. Once back to my car I walked to the right side, opened the door, got in and released the parking brake.

Driving on the empty country roads in this area of Barcelona, my mind wandered to thinking about just how much power I had now inherited. Now all I needed to do was mend fences with my father, and I would be the most powerful woman in the crime world, I thought with an insidious smile. Just about a mile from the place where I dumped Corleone, I passed the only vehicle on the road, a nondescript, white van vastly exceeding the speed limit. Damn fool, I thought, at least try not to kill anyone…

---------------------

Amy’s POV

On the plane back to Spain, a hundred different thoughts were getting all tangled in my brain. First, even though Lucy may have been drugged, it didn’t change the fact that she had slept with Chastity, and the hurt that I still experienced from that was an ever-present feeling, it wouldn’t simply go away. The hurt and the agony I experienced that night kept gnawing away at my heart, at my soul, and although the revelation that Lucy was drugged had alleviated a bit of that pain, a significant portion of my soul had already been devoured.

Then there was the most important of them all, the thought, which among all, always appeared front and center. It was the question of whether I really wanted Lucy back. It certainly was a possibility, but she had damaged me emotionally. She had lied, she had stripped me of the trust I had in her, and she had killed something inside of me. I was going back to Barcelona not necessarily to get back together, but to decide whether I wanted to get back together. From what Lucy had said, I had plenty of time to make that decision.

The other problem that presented itself tore me in two. Part of me realized that I needed my space, which was one of the reasons that I ran off to America. I needed to think about things, deliberate, and come to a conclusion by myself. At the same time, however, seeing Lucy, I realized that for me to make my decision, I needed her around, which was the deciding factor in moving back to Barcelona.

Lucy had meant everything to me. She was my reason for waking up each morning, the reason every time a smile came to my face, and the reason I said a prayer of thanksgiving each night. Lucy had been my light, my world; she was mine, and I was hers. Then, suddenly I wasn’t hers anymore, or at least that was how it had seemed. Suddenly, she was so distant, she started lying and making excuses. Even as I considered the notion that maybe she was lying to protect me, I couldn’t help but question whether she was trying to protect me, or trying to protect herself with the lies. Was it my fault for the untruthfulness that had existed in the relationship? I had been truthful always with Lucy, but how would I have reacted if she’d been truthful with me? I wasn’t quite sure; she may have been right with her assessment that I would have overreacted.

Then again, it was Lucy who had been untruthful, and I wouldn’t be having these thoughts if she hadn’t lied in the first place. She had been the one to spark the entire problem, and therefore this was all her fault, wasn’t it? Well, perhaps that judgment was a bit too harsh. I was sure that I wasn’t blameless. Plus, it would take an even effort to work this out of the muck.

All in all, I was utterly confused. Working things out was going to take some time and effort, but I was prepared to attempt to do so. I just hoped that Lucy truly realized that we weren’t still a couple, at least for the time being. The next couple of days would be interesting, to say the least. Checking up on Chastity, attempting to make up with Lucy, this was going to be one hell of a week.

Passengers, please turn off all electrical devices, return to your seats and buckle your seatbelts. We will be descending shortly. Thank you for riding Continental Airlines.

I glanced around the coach area, where my seat was located. I had talked to a couple of people on the plane, and they had been incredibly pleasant and easy to talk to about baseball. I must admit, I was a fan of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Baseball was the only sport I was interested in, and I liked the Angels mostly because their name was utterly confusing. They hailed from both Los Angeles and Anaheim at the same time…how was that possible? Anyway, I couldn’t figure out what Lucy was talking about. This had been one of the best plane rides I’d ever been on.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Waiting at the airport for Amy’s flight to arrive, I was wondering how to deal with the dilemma I had created for myself. I had pushed Amy away once before, and there was no way I would do that again. No, this time, I would be there for Amy, at all times. If she felt badly, I’d cheer her up, if she felt happy, I’d share it with her, if she felt angry, I’d help her cool down. Slowly, I was realizing that if I had pushed her away by not being around, then I’d have to rectify that situation.

How was I to start though? I had never been in this situation. It had been either dump or be dumped in my relationships before, and I had never had any regrets. I’d never have to deal with a problem as pervasive as this. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue on how I was to regain her trust. Perhaps being romantic would be a big start. Moonlight waltzes, walks by the beach, you know, the whole shebang.

Then, if and when I had my problems straightened out with Amy, how was I to deal with Chastity? She had tried to take away everything that had ever meant anything to me, and for that I could never forgive her. What was she up to, though? I couldn’t possibly believe that she had worked together this whole elaborate scheme just to return to a romantic relationship with me. That wasn’t like Chastity at all. Chastity was manipulative, not on a Corleone level, but she used people to get what she wanted. Somehow, I knew that all this was tied into something much bigger, but I had absolutely no clue what that could be.

As I was sitting on the airport’s bench, my phone played my ring tone, one of my favorite songs, A Little Respect, by Erasure. It was Amy.

“Hi Amy,” I greeted.

“Hi Lucy, we’re here. Meet me at Gate 14, I just have to grab my luggage, and then I’m good to go.”

“Sure thing, walking there now. It’s good to have you back in Barcelona.”

“It feels good to be back, too. I’ll be waiting for you,” Amy said, and then hung up.

I was at Gate 12 now, and I was facing gate 10 and 8, so I turned around and headed towards Gate 14. By the time I got there, Amy was already walking back with her luggage. I opened my arms and hugged her. “Amy, I know you’re tired of hearing this, but I can’t say this enough. I’m sorry for everything.”

“I know, I know,” Amy repeated as she returned the hug. We stood there, looking like two old friends for a couple minutes, neither one of us wanting to let go of the other. Finally, the embrace ended, and I let go of the hug, keeping one arm around the small of her back.

“Let’s get you home,” I said, taking one of her two suitcases as she offered it. We walked out of the airport to our car, the pink car that I had gotten her as an anniversary gift. I thought it was a nice touch. I popped open the trunk with my wireless car-controller thingy and put the suitcase I carried into the trunk. Then I took Amy’s and flung that one into the trunk as well. Closing the trunk, I stayed at the back of the car. “Do you want to drive, or should I?” I asked.

“You can drive,” Amy said, nonchalantly. No point in arguing. I didn’t mind, and at this point, everything she asked for she would get if it made her happy. I walked around the right side of the car and got in the drivers seat as she sat in the passenger’s seat to the left. I thought I had gotten used to European cars, but being back in the states had reacquainted me with the driver’s seat on the left of the car…the Europeans were just odd, with their driver’s seats on the right, and their metric system.

The drive home was extremely quiet. I wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind, and Amy looked deeply lost in thought anyway. With a great deal of sad reminiscence, I remembered the days when no one could shut us up. The days when Amy Bradshaw and I were inseparable, two parts of the same whole. Now we were two completely different parts. I hoped we could rectify that, and soon.

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

Back in my hotel room, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. Looking at the caller ID, it was the airport’s phone, the one that I had programmed into my phone. I pressed the button to answer the call.

“Hello, June? Any news?” I asked. June, the same woman I had been in contact with before, as Mrs. Bradshaw, had promised to tell me if Amy came back to Spain. I had contacted her about that after dealing with Corleone. His prophetic words kept haunting me. What if Lucy and Amy were actually to renew their relationship?

“Yes Mrs. Bradshaw. A plane left L.A. this morning at around 10 AM. Your daughter should be back in Spain by now.”

“Thank you, June. I know you’re not supposed to be doing this, but I’m so grateful,” I feigned emotion, fully engrossed in my part as Mrs. Bradshaw.

“Don’t worry about it. As I said, I can’t stand to see family fight. Whatever I can do to help you I will, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

“Thank you, I mean it. Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

“Just don’t say anything to my bosses,” June whispered, barely audible on the phone.

“Thank you, and goodbye.”

“Goodbye Mrs. Bradshaw.”

Damn, Corleone had been right after all, even in death he persisted in annoying me. There was only one reason Amy could be back in Barcelona. She and Lucy must have gotten back together. That was the only possible explanation. Looked like there would potentially have to be two more casualties. Well, only if Lucy wouldn’t listen to my offer, and if that wasn’t the case, there would only have to be one casualty.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Throughout the course of the night, Amy and I had attempted to talk on a wide range of topics, but every conversation we tried to strike up just was not working. I would bring up something and she would mumble half a response and that would be it, or vice versa. I guess the reason that really stung was because of our penchant for conversations that we used to have, no one could ever shut us up. It was depressing to look at where we were right now; it was like we were strangers.

It was getting late, and I was lying on the couch while Amy was sitting on the loveseat as we watched TV, well I mostly watched her. We’d decided to watch a movie and Amy had picked Moulin Rouge; the movie wasn’t exactly my first choice, but whatever Amy wanted, Amy got, right? Even something as simple as this brought back some stinging memories. Before the crashing of our relationship, we were inseparable. We would sit together on the couch, in each other’s arms, occasionally sharing a bowl of popcorn. Usually we spent more time just watching each other rather than what was on the TV. Often we’d miss a vital part of a show and wouldn’t even care about it because we had each other, well that and TIVO. What ever happened to that? I wondered, even as I knew the answer – I had really screwed up.

“Amy, have you ever realized how good looking Nicole Kidman is?” I tried to jumpstart a conversation, but as I said the words, I was already kicking myself in the head – starting a conversation about another woman was probably not that good of an idea right now.

“Yeah, she’s hot,” mumbled Amy. “Hmm…” I saw her turn her head to look at me, “you seem to have a thing for redheads now days.” Then she turned her attention back to the TV. I furrowed my brows and inwardly thought, with annoyance, how unnecessary her comment had been. We were getting nowhere so I decided to call it a night. With any luck, tomorrow would bring better results.

“I’m going upstairs,” I said as I stood and stretched. I walked over to Amy and leaned over, Amy ducked her head as if she was trying to see the TV and I was in her way. “Goodnight Amy,” I said as I kissed her on the top of the head. I wanted to kiss her lips, it had been our normal routine for so long, but now it wasn’t even an option anymore. I felt lost, and confused, and it all stung as everything we normally did was now off-limit. There wasn’t one singular item that was the same as it used to be. Everything now had changed. I walked up the stairs, entered my room and got undressed to take a quick shower.

Grabbing a towel and hanging it on the rack outside the shower, I hopped in and turned the water on cold, it was exactly what I needed right now. I didn’t want to take a hot shower at all, it would have reminded me too much of the showers Amy and I used to take together. In many ways the coldness of the water mirrored our relationship, I realized, as I stood there with the water chilling my skin, that what was once hot, had now grown cold.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

I had been in Barcelona for a couple days, and nothing between Lucy and I seemed to be progressing. In fact, it seemed to be deteriorating. Maybe I hadn’t made it entirely clear that I had needed my space, because she didn’t seem entirely too keen to give it to me. Instead, Lucy had been all over me, virtually not leaving my side. It was starting to get old fast.

Even with Lucy hanging on so tight, conversation between us was increasingly sparse. Once we could talk about the graphite in a pencil and have an engaging and exciting conversation. We couldn’t possibly run out of things to say to each other. Now, however, we were having trouble thinking of anything at all to talk about. There was one topic, however, that was constantly brought up, almost to the point of exhaustion – Chastity.

In fact, we were in the car heading towards the hotel that Lucy had stayed at. This was not a place that I really looked forward to seeing too much. There were too many bad memories there, even though I had only been to the hotel once.

Pulling up in the parking lot, we got out of the car and headed towards El Hotel Nacional Español de Barcelona’s doors. I don’t know what Lucy expected to find here. I didn’t know what she thought she could prove simply by going to the hotel, and if I still weren’t trying to mend what was beginning to seem like a hopeless situation I wouldn’t have been there with her.

Walking up to the hotel side-by-side, I felt Lucy attempt to hold my hand. Part of me wanted to hold hers as well, if only out of habit. When we were truly a couple, we would hold hands everywhere we went. Now, it just didn’t seem appropriate as I retracted my hand from Lucy’s. I looked over at her, and thought that I could see a pained expression for just a second before it vanished. I hoped that I wasn’t hurting her. The one thing I didn’t want to do was hurt her as she had hurt me.

We entered the building and saw a familiar face at the desk reading a book. “Hi Amy,” I said. The receptionist didn’t even look up. She just kept going about her business. Lucy and I walked up to the front desk. “Amy,” I tried to get her attention. Still she didn’t respond.

Lucy snapped her fingers rather rudely, I thought, above Amy’s head, and suddenly she snapped to attention. “Huh, what? Can I help you?” Amy asked.

“Do you know why she wasn’t responding to her name, Amy?” Lucy turned to me and asked.

“No, why?”

“Look at the nametag,” Lucy said, as the receptionist looked flabbergasted. I glanced down at it, her nametag didn’t say Amy, it now read Lauren. “So what’s your real name?” Lucy asked, turning her attention back to the receptionist.

“Umm…Lauren,” the receptionist said through a nervous, forced, half-laugh.

“Then why the hell were you wearing a nametag that said Amy about a week ago?” Lucy asked, clearly pissed off.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, and I’m only going to ask nicely once. You give me an answer I don’t like, and you’ll have to deal with the consequences,” Lucy said menacingly. I rolled my eyes. Sure, this seemed fishy, but Lucy was being just as psychotic as Max, and in a public place no less!

“I told you…” Lauren began, but was interrupted as Lucy’s hands snared out and quickly grabbed Lauren’s vest’s lapel. Lucy pulled Lauren to her, almost choking the poor girl, until their faces were literally an inch from each other’s.

“Now listen here. Either you tell me what you’re doing, or…”

“Lucy!” I interrupted her, whispering. The manager was walking down the hall, and was just about in the line of sight to see the spectacle Lucy was making of herself. We would be thrown out of the hotel before we could get any answers at all.

Without missing a beat, Lucy shifted her hands to the collar of Lauren’s button down shirt, as if straightening it out.. The manager, now able to see Lauren and Lucy stopped in his tracks. “Lauren, is there a problem here?”

“No sir,” Lauren said, abashedly. “These are a couple of my friends. Lucy here is just straightening my collar for me. That’s all.” I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself; Lucy was just too good at this.

“Alright. Call me if anything happens,” the manager said, “and don’t do TOO much socializing, you’re still on the clock.”

“Not a problem, sir,” Lauren replied as the manager began to walk away. As soon as Lucy could tell that the manager would not see her, she resumed her threatening hold on Lauren.

“So, how do you know my name?” Lucy asked.

“She said it,” Lauren said, gasping for air. “You’re choking me. You want answers, let me go.”

“No,” Lucy disagreed.

“Let her go, Lucy,” I said, and reluctantly Lucy let go, leaving a panting Lauren falling back to her seat.

“Okay, all I know was that I was asked to call a woman when this girl here,” she pointed at me, “entered the building and then when she left crying.”

“What did this woman sound like?” Lucy asked.

“She had a French accent,” replied Lauren. Okay, maybe Lucy was right. Perhaps Chastity was planning the whole event. I mean, yes, it was odd that anyone with a French accent besides her would have asked Lauren to spot me coming. Also, who would have known a reaction to an event that no one knew would happen. I made a mental note to apologize to Lucy.

“Thanks for your help,” Lucy said, still threateningly, “if you hear back from this person, let me know at this number.” Lucy wrote down our house phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Lauren. “If I find that you do one more thing for this person and you don’t tell us. So help me God…”

“I’ll call you,” Lauren promised.

“Good,” Lucy said, turning to me. “I think we’ve learned everything we will here. Let’s hit the road.”

“Okay, Lucy,” I responded as Lucy walked towards the door. I turned to Lauren. “Sorry about that, she can be a bit rough sometimes,” I apologized as I followed Lucy to the door.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

The morning after we went to the hotel, I woke up to Amy’s excited voice.

“Oh my God, Lucy, this is SO beautiful!” Amy exclaimed from the guest room. The night before, I had bought the perfect roses and set them on the dresser in that room. Perfect roses for my perfect woman. I could tell that we were starting to drift off even further, and I had to put an end to that.

“I’m glad you like them!” I called, walking into Amy’s room. “I’ve got a little something romantic planned for tonight, so I thought I’d start off the day by getting you some flowers. Look, I know it seems that we’re still headed in different directions, but I want to change that. Whatever directions you choose to go in, I want to be there right beside you. I’ll be here for you, always,” I promised. “Amy, I love you, and even if it takes forever for us to figure this out, I’ll always be here. I don’t know about you, but I for one know that nothing could ever possibly be as meaningful as what we had, and what we could have again.”

“Lucy,” Amy said, a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “I feel the same way. No one’s ever made me feel the way you do. I want to work things out with you so badly that it’s killing me. But there’s still that little piece of me that’s missing, and if I can’t give all of you to me, I can’t give you any. It’s not fair to you.”

At those words my insides warmed. I wanted to give myself to Amy too, and I wanted all of her. As I kept telling myself, there was no length of time that I wouldn’t wait for her. If I had to wait a year, I would, five years, okay, forever, well…yes, but…let’s hope it was sooner rather than later.

The rest of the day we sat and talked, just like we used to before all of this mess. We talked about anything and everything. Once again, we could have talked about a doorknob and turned it into an interesting conversation. On a personal level, the roses really must have sparked a big turnaround. At around four we started getting ready for dinner. I was cooking…this would be interesting.

I set the table with a nice, new red tablecloth, three candlesticks, one taller than the other two that flanked it, and flower petals were scattered. I wanted to create a truly romantic atmosphere for the night. I had instructed Amy not to come downstairs until I was ready, so I had about an hour to do everything. I took a glance over at the prize food I had bought late yesterday evening. This is going to be interesting, I thought, as I looked at the live lobsters crawling around inside the mesh bag.

Now, I’m not a good cook, by any stretch of the imagination, but I figured that I should be able to cook the little buggers. I mean, it was just dropping them into boiling water, right? Well, no sooner than I made my attempt to drop the first lobster into the pot did I get my answer. I figured that I shouldn’t drop the rubber band holding the claw together into the water, so I pulled off the rubber band, and in the process nearly lost a finger as the free claw started thrashing wildly.

I don’t consider myself a sadistic person, really, but hearing the lobster seemingly scream and watching it stop its thrashing after I dropped it in the water brought a joy to me that I just could not contain. “Yes! Take that!” I exclaimed, smiling maniacally. Lucy, you’ve gone off the deep end. It’s just a lobster, calm down, I told myself.

The rest of the preparations went smoothly. I made sure not to remove the other rubber bands from the claws. Cooking the asparagus and overcooking the spinach-artichoke dip that was Amy’s favorite, I finished my preparations and set the table with the Ciabatta bread, the appetizers and the lobster. I lit the candles and said a prayer before calling upstairs to Amy.

As Amy responded and came downstairs, her jaw dropped open. “Oh…my…Lucy Reynolds, you made all of this?” Amy asked, walking over to the table.

“Yes, I did, like it?” I asked, pulling out a chair for her.

“Like it? What kind of a question is that? Just look at the table, candles, flower petals, you really went all out, didn’t you?” Amy laughed, “And you even knew that I would eat lobster! This is amazing! Thank you.”

Ah, the benefits of my memory. Being in the crime business, one needed a good memory along with good reflexes to kick in whenever something unexpected occurred. So, even though I had only seen Amy order shrimp once, I knew that she would eat seafood. She wasn’t a complete vegan, she did eat some shellfish.

The dinner went incredibly smoothly, with only one criticism by Amy about the overcooked, chewy spinach and artichoke dip, which I graciously accepted. Otherwise, I was shocked…I had actually cooked a decent meal. The meal was incredibly romantic, and the candles had really set the mood. I felt, for the first time since Amy came back to Barcelona, that we actually had a good shot at repairing this thing.

After dinner Amy and I sat on the couch, talking things over. “Lucy, that was one of the best meals of my life. Thank you,” she said, putting her hand over mine.

“Amy, I made that dinner for you to prove that…well…” the words were so easy, but at the moment, I was a bit aroused, with her hand on mine. I definitely was leading her.

“That…you…still…”Amy continued as she leaned her head closer to mine. I did the same, and braced for the glorious impact. This would be the moment I was waiting for - the moment where all the wrong that I’d done her would be absolved. I closed my eyes, and waited…and waited…and waited. I opened my eyes. Amy was sitting glumly in her chair and had her eyes turned downwards, looking at the floor.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well…I don’t know…I’m still not sure…” Amy replied truthfully. “That whole dinner was done to get me back in your bed, wasn’t it?”

“No! Not at all!” I retorted angrily, furrowing my brow “The thought never crossed my mind. I was doing something nice for you, I thought you’d like it!”

“I do like it, Lucy, a lot…”

“Yeah, but it was all because I wanted to sleep with you, am I right?” I asked mockingly, as I stormed upstairs, the romantic mood killed.

So much for progress, it seemed like we were back to square one. Sure, the thought had crossed my mind, but that was not the reason at all for the dinner. I loved this girl, but she could be so stubborn sometimes. I had absolutely no clue how to rectify things if she kept thinking that every attempt I made was made so that I could bed her. It was as if she didn’t know me anymore. Perhaps the relationship was doomed to fail, after all.

--------------------
I don't know your face no more
Or feel your touch that I adore
I don't know your face no more
It's just a place I'm looking for
We might as well be strangers in another town
We might as well be living in a different world

I don't know your thoughts these days
We're strangers in an empty space
I don't understand your heart
It's easier to be apart
---------------------

Chapter 12: Fixing a Hole (Where the Rain Gets In)

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Coldplay’s X&Y; end lyrics belong to David Gray’s This Year’s Love

---------------------
I'm diving off the deep end
You become my best friend
I want to love you but I don't know if I can
I know something is broken
And I'm trying to fix it
Trying to repair it
Any way I can
---------------------

Amy’s POV

As Lucy stormed angrily up the stairs, I knew that I had made a huge mistake. How could I have been so stupid to actually push Lucy away? She had been so thoughtful in making dinner, and I couldn’t deny the romantic quality the dinner had on me. So why then had I put her down so badly? Even I could tell that she wasn’t necessarily trying to just have sex. What Lucy had wanted was to rekindle the flame we once had. The connection between us was what she really wanted to fix, and I had ruined it.

Yes, at the time, when the kiss was about to occur, the first thoughts that had flashed through my brain had been that Lucy was trying to do this intentionally, I couldn’t deny it. Still, no sooner did those words leave my mouth than I regretted them. She had been so hurt, and I would understand if she just wanted to give up now. I had been the one who had agreed to move back to Barcelona, and yet I really was the one who was acting distant. I owed Lucy an apology.

I stood up from the couch, walked up the stairs and went to what used to be our room, the one Lucy was occupying. I attempted to turn the doorknob, but found it locked. Oh no, what if that had been the last straw? I anxiously thought. I clenched my fist, raised it, and it hovered in front of the door for a second, as I had brief second thoughts. Brushing those thoughts aside, I knocked on the door.

“Go away,” Lucy commanded from inside the room. From her voice, it was obvious that she was indeed hurt.

“Lucy, I want to talk. I was a jerk, and I shouldn’t have said that,” I said, words coming faster than my mouth could speak. “Lucy…could we please talk?”

I waited for a few seconds, and no response came from Lucy. It looked as if I had ruined my chance, and foolishly at that. I was about to walk back to my room shamefully, and just as I turned my back, I heard the doorknob turn and the door open. In the doorway stood Lucy, red marks that were not too familiar to me showing underneath her eyes. She had been crying.

“Well, you want to talk?” Lucy asked, a bit annoyed. I couldn’t blame her, if someone had said to me what I had said to her…well, I wouldn’t have been pleasant with them either.

“Yes, I do,” I said, turning back around, “what I said downstairs, it was totally out of line. I know what you were trying to do, and sleeping with me was not a major reason for the dinner.”

There was a slight pause before Lucy sluggishly replied, “Apology accepted, but it’s not just that. Amy, do you actually want to be here, or are you just doing this for me? Ever since you got here, you seem to just not be here.”

“I know, Lucy, and I haven’t been here,” I admitted. “I don’t know why I’ve been acting this way. But you’re right - I am here just because of you. I’m here because I love you, and I want us to love each other again. I told you that it was going to take time, and you realized that. You’ve been working your hardest to fix the situation, but I haven’t been holding up my end of the bargain. To fix things between us, we’re going to have to work as equal partners.”

“Agreed,” was the only response Lucy gave.

“So, basically, what I’m asking, Lucy, is this. I want to work on this relationship, I want to devote the effort now to doing that, but it’s still going to take time. I know I’ve asked the question before, but will you wait for me?” I asked, looking up at her. The hardness in her face quickly vanished, and I knew that I was going to get the answer I desperately wanted.

“Amy, do think my answer would really change from last time? I’m willing to wait an eternity for you.”

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

As I sat in Corleone’s vacated chair, surrounded by his blood and its glorious smell, I couldn’t help but be a bit nervous reflecting on everything that was going on. The bastard was dead, but yet, the way he reacted, it was if he had expected me to do this. It was as if he was actually enjoying it as I stabbed him over and over again. The man had been a genius, but he had truly gone insane. Once he had been a friend, and a mentor, but the time had come for the pupil to inherit the master’s kingdom, and if I had to kill to expedite that process, I most certainly would.

Then there was the whole damn situation with Lucy and Amy. Corleone’s words kept bothering me on this topic as well. Apparently, he had known what I was trying to do, and he was right…I didn’t have this completely thought out. If Lucy was back with Amy, which would have been the only reason Amy would have come back from the United States, then it spelled disaster. If Lucy did not choose to rule the world with me, she would have to die, as would Amy, but it would be a potentially lethal fight.

I certainly wasn’t ready to give up everything that I had just gained, or would be gaining after the short phone call I had just had with my father. He was a very smart man. Even hating him for disowning me, I had to admit that much. He saw an opportunity when it presented itself, and my ascension to head of Pink Thunder and its crew of European “all-star” criminals was quite enticing to him. If creating a joint union between Pink Thunder and the LeFleur family had to mean making amends with me, then he would do it. Unfortunately for him, I was smarter than him, and not as forgiving.

The power I would gain with that move would all be for naught, however, if I couldn’t solve this little problem that presented itself. I knew Lucy, and although I wanted to believe that she would agree to be my partner, I couldn’t see her doing it willingly if she was back to fucking the D.E.B. Good thing I could easily persuade her then using one simple tactic.

The D.E.B. would be dead within the week.

“Are you ready, meine dame?” a voice asked behind me. I spun the chair around to face the front of my desk, and the camera that was stationed about fifteen feet in front of the desk. Behind the camera, my new assistant with benefits, the blond haired, blue eyed Heidi waited. Heidi had been an assassin for the Stasi in East Germany, working only a few years before the wall had fallen. After the Soviet Union relinquished control of East Germany, and the Stasi went into hiding, she had continued operating for them discreetly. In bed, she was no Lucy, but she held her own.

“Oui, I am ready,” I replied. The lights flanking the camera sparked to life, temporarily blinding me, and a blacklight above me turned on, as well, highlighting the blood on the table. The camera soon began to roll, and with it, the live feed would be shown to all Pink Thunder headquarters around the world. Now the world would know that Chastity Red…excuse me… Charitine LeFleur was on top of the crime world.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

For a few days now Amy and I had started to actually work on things, and I was really pleased with the state of the relationship. For the first time in about a week, I had the feeling that the connection, the bind that kept us with each other was returning slowly but surely. It was like a rush of blood, the feeling was exhilarating. It was as if something that was dead had been resurrected from the grave.

So far, it had been the little things that had changed, but those little things were just the start. Finally, Amy and I had been able to have conversations again. We hadn’t quite gotten to the point where we had used to be, but at least we weren’t blowing each other off or screaming at each other whenever we tried to talk. Also, while Amy still didn’t seem quite comfortable holding hands like we used to, she was retracting her hand slower and slower each time. Once she actually had held hands for a bit before suddenly realizing what she was doing, which, I guess for her subconscious was a good sign.

Amy and I were also getting back to life as we used to have it as well. Amy had no longer been sitting in a completely different chair when we were watching television. Occasionally I would be tempted to execute the “yawn” move, but I didn’t want to rush things, one step at a time was good enough for now. We had also finally worked together at something, even if it was only making dinner a couple nights. All in all, everything seemed headed in the right direction.

I was lounging on the couch, just watching a bit of TV absentmindedly, not really paying much attention to the show; I was lost in thought. Even through my contemplations, I was brought back to reality by the sounds of footsteps walking down the stairs. I sat up straight on the couch and Amy walked over next to me and sat down on the couch as well.

“Lucy, the past few days have been great,” Amy began, but as she bit her lip and squinted a bit, I knew something was on her mind and bothering her. “Something’s been going through my mind, and I can’t shake it.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

“Well…Chastity was your ex-girlfriend, right?”

“Yes, you already know that Amy,” I responded, potentially too harshly than was called for. It was a redundant question that she already knew the answer for.

“And you say that even though you slept with her, you have no feelings whatsoever for her?” Amy asked, still a bit tentatively. It was as if she thought she was treading on unsafe territory here.

“Right…I told you that before,” I replied. I had no idea where this was going.

“Well, do you not have any feelings for her anymore because you slept with her?” Amy asked, and my jaw hit the floor. I was astounded. It was as if she was grasping at straws here to break up what we had gotten going. Amy, as if realizing what her mouth had just said, quickly stammered, “I just mean, you must have had some feelings for her, right? I mean, she was your ex.”

“Amy, what the hell?” I asked defiantly. “Yes, maybe I had feelings for her, but they don’t even rival the feelings that I have for you.”

“But Lucy, if you weren’t drugged, would you still have done anything with her?”

It was the moment of truth. As much as I wanted to lie and tell Amy that the kiss had never occurred, I had made a resolve to be truthful to her. Facing this situation, I regretted making that decision. Conjuring up all the calmness I could muster, I told her the truth, “Amy…yes…I wouldn’t have slept with her if I knew what I was doing, but I need to tell you the truth. That night, before I was drugged, I think, I did kiss her. But I realized that it was wrong, and I broke it, and cleared my head and I was going to leave her at the bar.”

Amy’s face morphed into a frown, as I had expected. Despite the fact that I had thought better of it, it was the action itself that Amy was going to have to reconcile with. “So, Lucy, you’re telling me then, that I’m basically right, that you have no feelings for her anymore because the kiss got them all out of your system.” Amy was right, to an extent, I hated to admit, and from the pained expression on her face, it didn’t really feel good to be right.

“Yes, and no, Amy – I did have feelings for Chastity, but I didn’t have the connection that you and I have, the one that binds our souls. Chastity and I don’t have that thing that makes you and me us, and not just you and me,” I bared myself to her. She needed to know that what we had was special. I may have had something a long time ago with Chastity, but it had all been a lie. I knew no greater truth than what Amy and I felt, but I don’t know if she felt the same way.

“What is your problem?” Amy asked angrily, shocking me. I had just shown her a truthful side of me and she had just rejected it and brushed it aside. “You think you can just admit that you had feelings for Chastity, and suddenly that’s better because you have more for me?”

“Amy…”

“Don’t say a word!” Amy shouted, interrupting me. Throughout this discussion I had been trying to stay calm, but it was fairly obvious to me now that Amy just didn’t want to solve anything. She’d rather keep blaming me for everything and not do any work.

“Damn it, Amy. I’m tired of this! One day you say you want to work equally to make things better and then the next you’re accusing me of this?! Make up your mind…do you want to fix things, or not?”

She hesitated before saying, “I want to fix things,” but the hesitant moment told me everything I need to know.

“I’m out of here, Amy…have the damn house. I don’t know if I’m coming back,” I told her frustrated that all my efforts had just gone down the drain. I stormed out of the room, reaching in my pocket and palming my keys. I opened the front door, walked out and slammed it shut behind me. I needed to drown my sorrows.

I hopped in my car and headed to my favorite local bar, Maremagnum’s Blue Margarita bar. All through the car ride I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not this was actually my fault. I mean, I had been the one to start the entire situation, but Amy was the one who refused to work it out. If she was perpetually going to be this way, was there any point in putting in any more effort?

Arriving at the bar, I parked at the curb outside, got out of my car, entered the bar and sat down at one of the vacant stools. The bartender, a young woman, probably around Amy and my age, with gorgeous Latina looks, made her way over to my position. The bar usually catered to tourists, so the common language in the place was English, which was why it was my favorite bar.

“Hey, can I get you anything?” the bartender asked. I hadn’t seen her before, she was probably new. She spoke without a Spanish accent, so perhaps, despite her looks, she wasn’t actually a native.

“Sure, I’ll take a rum and coke,” I responded. Surveying the people in the bar at midday, it seemed that, with a few exceptions, these were all probably the regular stragglers. On the stool closest to me sat an older man, whose hair – what little he had left of it – was gray. He was dressed in a tattered suede coat and smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. The group on the opposite side of the bar from me looked like they might have been Spain’s charter of Hell’s Angels. Despite the heat, most were wearing leather jackets, and those whose arms could be seen had tattoos running up and down their skin.

My mind would not leave Amy as I sat there, waiting for my drink, and I guess my face showed my thoughts because as the bartender came back with my drink, she asked, “Is everything alright? You look down on your luck.”

“Ah, girlfriend problems,” I replied. At this point, I didn’t care who knew that I was gay, it didn’t really matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore if Amy wouldn’t have me back.

“Dammit, yer one a them,” the disheveled man next to me slurred, “too many a them withose new laws.”

“One of them?!” I asked defiantly roused, taking his words as a slur against lesbians.

“Don’t mind him,” the bartender said, “Charlie hates everyone. He’s a second generation American-Italian, apparently, but he hates Italians and Americans too. All in all, he’s just miserable.”

“‘Ey now, I’m…ah don’t hate everyone…like the beautifulll laaydies, evven if they’re not inta guys,” he said, giving me a good lookdown.

“Don’t worry, he also makes moves on every lady who comes in here. By the way, I’m Lena,” she introduced herself as she stretched out her arm, hand open and inviting.

“I’m Lucy,” I replied, grabbing her hand and shaking.

“So, what’s the problem?” Lena asked.

“Well, my girlfriend and I got in this huge fight and we’re trying to fix things, but it doesn’t seem as though she really wants to fix things,” I sighed, picking up my rum and coke and beginning the process of easing my troubles with a good liquid friend. Lena walked away from my end of the table as a new customer sat down on the side of the bar perpendicular to my end.

“Do ya llove ‘er?” Charlie asked, still with the drunken slur.

“Yes, more than anyone in the world,” I replied. I don’t know why I was being so honest and open today, but it just didn’t feel good to keep things inside right now; maybe I just needed to release frustration.

“Eh love’s fer foolss...doesn’t exist…” I ignored that comment. “Anyyyway, Sweep ‘er offer feet, that’d work,” Charlie recommended. For a racist, bigoted drunk man in tattered clothes, he seemed to somehow be astute.

Lena walked back over to me and upon hearing Charles asked, “Is he bothering you?”

“No, just giving me some advice,” I responded. Actually the advice hadn’t been bad. In fact, if I could think of a way to sweep Amy off her feet, perhaps that could actually work.

“Don’t mind Charlie, his entire life is in shambles, and he drinks so much that he often sleeps on the street without realizing it. His wife left him and he thinks he can give others advice about love.”

“Speakin’ o’ drinkin’,” Charlie said, emitting a loud burp and sloppily slurping up the remainder of his beer, spilling some of the amber-colored beverage on himself, “get me anotha beeah.”

“Charlie, I told you. No more. You’re drunk,” Lena reprimanded. I was impressed, bartenders weren’t supposed to give alcohol to people who were obviously drunk, but I’d never seen anyone actually follow that law.

“Ah, can’tcha make a exception?” Charlie asked.

“No, wait an hour,” Lena said, “you can burn off one of your beers in an hour, and maybe you can actually get back to your apartment tonight.”

“Ahright.”

“So anyway,” Lena began, turning her attentions away from Charlie and to me, “what you want to do is probably what he told you. You’ve got to sweep this girl off her feet.”

“How’d you know what he said?”

“He tells that to everyone he gives advice to. His problem is that he can say that, but he can’t tell you how to do it. That’s where I come in,” Lena said, smiling. “Some things to consider, some things that could work and usually do – flowers, music, strolls on the beaches, dinners at romantic restaurants, that sort of stuff,” Lena listed, bending each finger on her right hand back in succession with her palm as she counted off each idea.

Those weren’t bad ideas, really. In fact, it might be time I dusted off my acoustic guitar. I had gone way too long without ever playing that guitar for Amy.

“Hey now, y’know, yer two woul’ make a good couple,” Charlie piped in. I just rolled my eyes.

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

Waiting on the grass at El Mas de Sant Llei, a private estate in Barcelona which often rented out for various celebrations, weddings, and other events, I was growing impatient with my father’s lack of promptness. He was supposed to arrive a half hour earlier, and I had been waiting at the estate’s helicopter landing pad for the full thirty minutes. Luckily, the estate’s owner was a friend of my father, so I was granted full access to the premises at all times.

Suddenly, I heard the faint whir of helicopter blades in the distance. I turned my eyes to the skies and saw a small object, steadily growing, that I knew was my father’s helicopter. The loud noise of the motor grew louder and louder as Claude LeFleur, my father, lowered to the ground. The motor was cut and the blades started to die down, turning slower and slower with each rotation as the door opened and my father stepped out.

“Charitine, mon dieu, vous vous êtes développé dans une belle femme depuis que je vous ai pour la dernière fois vu,” Charitine, my God, you’ve grown into a beautiful woman since I last saw you, he said as he walked over to me and wrapped me in an involuntary and unreciprocated hug. That was my father for you, a ruthless bastard who only cared about power. Without power, I had been too ruthless and vicious for the family, but, now that I was in power, I was speaking his language.

“Oui, Claude,” I had decided a long time ago not to call him father, at least not out loud. He was my biological father, but he wasn’t my father. In my mind, I was still an outcast from the family, not welcome in it, and therefore, this was strictly a business meeting. Still, a part of me yearned for his acceptance, but I brushed that thought from my mind. “Je vous vois ne pas avoir abandonné votre affection," I see you have not lost your affectionate ways, I spat.

“Aucun besoin de rudesse, Charitine. Vous avez su les règles pendant le vol, et vous les avez cassées. Je ne vous avais explicitement dit aucun meurtre; Je vous ai dit que qu'il était dans-et-dehors charge, et soudainement nous a eu un massacre sur nos mains.” No need for harshness, Charitine. You knew the rules during the robbery, and you still broke them. I had explicitly told you no murders; I told you that it was an in-and-out job, and suddenly we had a bloodbath on our hands.

“Ils m'ont attrapé, que diable étais-je a supposé pour faire?” They caught me, what the hell was I going to do? I explained, like I had many other times. Still, Claude LeFleur insisted that I had done wrong. I had left the baby alive at least; I had only killed the other four members of the family. Since Claude was the patriarch of the family, he was always right, so I had been cast out of the family, something I would never forget.

“Quoi qu'il en soit, je suis fier de vous, ma fille. Nous sommes famille, non?” Anyway, I’m proud of you, my daughter. We are family, aren't we? Claude asked. He could make me so aggravated at times, especially his habit of trying to sweet talk people in French. He always relied on his accent for charm – too bad for him that I was impervious.

“Oui, Claude, je suis lié à un morceau d'excrément comme toi. Merci pour me rappeler.” Yes, Charles, I am related to a scum ball like you. Thanks for reminding me, I retorted.

“J'ignorerai ce commentaire pendant le temps, Charitine. Vous avez dit que vous voudriez revenir à la famille, non?” I will ignore that comment for the time, Charitine. You said that you would like to come back to the family? Claude asked.

“Oui, et alors nous pouvons combiner nos forces. Faites l'unité de crime la plus puissante en Europe, ou même dans le monde. Avec les femmes du Pink Thunder et vos hommes, nous serions pratiquement imparables.” Yes, and then we can combine our forces. Make the most powerful crime unit in Europe, or even in the world. With Pink Thunder’s women and your men, we would be virtually unstoppable, I reasoned with him.

“Oui, nous serions renommés. Combien il a coûté. Vous vous attendez au paiement, naturellement.” Yes, we’d be renowned. How much would it cost. You expect payment, of course.

“Ah, mon père,” alright, there was at least one circumstance where I would acknowledge him as my father. If I could do anything to manipulate someone, I would, “tous qu'il coûterait devraient être écrits dans la testament.” My father, all it would cost would be to be written back in the will.

“Mais oui,” Claude said brightly, a false smile on his face. “Of course,” he repeated in English

All I would need to do would be to sign the papers. After that, I would have another name to add to my list of casualties. The LeFleur family would be under my control before anyone knew what was going on.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

I woke up and stretched my arms wearily, just yearning to feel the stretch’s effects on my arms. Reaching out, I felt the warmness of a body next to me. Turning my body and my head I could see Lucy, turned to the side. It looked as if she was asleep, so I rose out of bed and walked over to the dresser. I grabbed my jeans and started to put them on, as I turned back to the bed and was horrified by the sight that I saw.

In Lucy’s arms on the other side of the bed, was Chastity. Her mouth was pressed to Lucy’s hungrily, devouring her. Lucy turned her head and smiled an evil, devious smile at me as Chastity grabbed something on the bed, rose to her knees and pointed the object, a gun at my abdomen. She pulled the trigger, and I felt fear pulse through my veins as the bullet flew through the air. It was only inches away from my body…surely I would die.

I woke in a sweat, eyes forced closed as they harshly adjusted to the light. The dream that had been haunting me for days remained. It seemed so real each time I experienced it, and it always had the same effect on me. Every night I would come closer to my impending death before being wrenched away at the last minute to reality. If I kept having the dream, and it ever got to the point where the bullet pierced me, I didn’t know what would happen. They say that if you die in your dreams, then you die in real life. I didn’t even want to think about it.

Perhaps the dream was one of the roadblocks I had put in the middle of our reconciliation, and it wasn’t fair. True, the dream was scarily vivid and haunting, but to react wrongly to Lucy in real life because of a dream…well that wasn’t fair to her. I had definitely been too harsh on her with the comments about Chastity. Of course Lucy did not really love Chastity. I knew that. It was just…she had admitted that she had feelings. I hoped that I had not pushed her away for good with that comment. As far as I knew, she had not come home last night. I had waited until 4:00 AM painfully waiting for her, and yet, she didn’t show up at the door. Ugh, this whole thing was just too confusing.

Opening my eyes, and finally able to see without pain a new object caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I turned my head to be able to look at it clearly, and, in surprise, thinking it could possibly be an illusion, I blinked and rubbed my eyes. On my dresser stood, or more appropriately, sat a giant stuffed animal bunny. I rolled out of bed and walked over to the dresser, staring at the rabbit. It was a cute thing, white for the most part, with green rings circling the black beads that served as eyes. It had a little pink nose and pink was the color of the ear’s inner lobes as well. The rabbit sat on all fours, just as a normal rabbit would. The thing was large, maybe two feet tall. Next to the rabbit was a card in a black envelope. I picked up the envelope and extracted the card, which bore a picture of a tuxedo.

Amy,

I’m sorry. As I said, I love you, not Chastity. Let me prove it to you.

Get dressed for tonight, formal attire only. I’ll meet you downstairs at 4:30.

Yours lovingly,
Lucy

I turned my attention back to the rabbit. It was so entirely quirky, but I loved it. Lucy knew me in and out. I would have been happy with a bear, but bears were commonplace. Bunnies, giant, white stuffed bunnies…now that was thoughtful and creative.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I had the day planned out for Amy and I, or at least the entire night. I was attempting to make this night magical, one of the best Amy and I had ever shared. I wouldn’t say that this was going to be my last attempt, or that it was an attempt in desperation. No, it was more like my following the advice Charlie had lay out – sweep Amy off her feet. Perhaps this wouldn’t work; perhaps I was indeed listening to the inane ramblings of an old drunkard who gave advice that he himself couldn’t follow, evidenced by his poor state. I thought it was worth a shot.

I picked up the phone in the motel room I was staying in – I had not wanted Amy to see me, nor did I want her to know much at all about tonight. I dialed the number for Can Majó, the restaurant at which I had made reservations.

“¿Hola, Can Majó, puedo ayudarle?” Hello, Can Roca, can I help you? A male voice picking up the phone asked.

“Sí, tengo una pregunta. ¿Podría hablar con un encargado?” Yes, I have a question. Can I speak with a manager?

“Sí, déjeme apenas ponerle en el asimiento por un segundo. Le transferirán a través a nuestro encargado.” Yes, let me just put you on hold for a second. You will be transferred through to our manager, the man said as the connection was cut and soon an orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was playing on the phone. It was only about thirty seconds before the manager picked up the phone.

“¿Hola, cómo puedo ayudarle?” Hello, how can I help you? another male voice asked.

“¿Usted habla Inglés?” Do you speak English? I asked. I really preferred not to talk in Spanish all that much. I was practically fluent, but English was still my language of preference.

“Sí,” the manager said, before chuckling a bit, “sorry, I meant yes.”

“I have something I want to ask you about tonight. It’s something that I’m sure you don’t really get all the time, but it’s a special request.”

“What would you like?”

I explained to him my request, and luckily they had what I was looking for, and they agreed to let me do what I want to do. My plan would go down at 5:30 PM, in the middle of the dinner. I was pleased, everything should work out.

“Thank you,” I said to the manager.

“My pleasure, Madame. Have a good day, and we’ll see you at the restaurant at five tonight.”

“Have a good day,” I said, hanging up the phone.

Now all I had to do was to keep practicing.

---------------------

At 4:30, just as I had promised, I opened the door and entered the house. Amy still wasn’t downstairs, so I sat down on the couch. Can Majó was a black-tie restaurant, so I was dressed in a black button-down blouse with frills on the collar, brown dress slacks, and black high heels. “I’ll be ready in a second, Lucy!” Amy called from upstairs. After waiting about ten minutes, Amy came down the stairs. Her beauty, which I had spent months admiring before, struck me as never before. She was wearing her hair down, had on diamond earrings, and was wearing a beautiful dark blue satin gown that hugged her curves brilliantly. Glancing at her wrists, I grinned as I noticed that she was wearing the diamond bracelet I had bought her.

“I’m sorry…” Amy started, before I interrupted her.

“No need, you were right about the fact that I had feelings for Chastity, but I hope you know that I was telling the truth about my feelings for you. Anyway, don’t worry about anything. Just enjoy yourself tonight.”

“Where are we going?” Amy asked excitedly.

“It’s a surprise, you’ll see when you get there,” I said, the grin growing even wider. I loved leaving Amy in suspense. I was already getting a good feeling about the evening. If things continued like this, it just might work.

We walked out to the car and started the half-hour drive. Amy wasn’t saying anything, nor were we really having a conversation, but this time that was alright. Glancing at her occasionally, I could tell that her silence was not because she was upset – she was excited, I realized happily. For the first time in a long time, she seemed happy. Hopefully I could keep her this way.

On the highway I pulled into the left lane to get off at the Barceloneta Beach exit. As soon as Amy saw the sign for the exit, she turned her head to me as realization dawned on her. “Lucy, we’re not going to…” she trailed off, her face lighting up.

“Yes, we are,” I responded, a smirk on my face, “I know you love Can Majó.”

Arriving in Barceloneta, it was only about a five minute drive from the exit to the restaurant. Amy and I stepped out of the car and walked into the restaurant. The staff was all dressed in button down white shirts with black slacks, except for the maitre d’, a woman who wore a red vest. I walked over to her as Amy waited in the lounge area and gave my name, “Reservations for Reynolds,” then, leaning in my head to the woman, I said, “tell your manager, John, that Lucy Reynolds is here.”

“Very well, Madame. Right this way, please.” she said, and I beckoned for Amy to follow. I waited for Amy to catch up to me.

“What was that all about?” Amy asked.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” I replied, garnering a skeptical look. “Really, it’s not important.”

The dinner went smoothly; I ordered crab, while Amy ordered a shrimp salad, a rarity for her. We had pleasant conversation, but my mind really wasn’t on the dinner itself. Instead, my mind was focusing on the event that would occur at 5:30. I wasn’t really worried, I just hoped I remembered everything.

“I hear there’s supposed to be a live singer tonight,” I said, motioning to the stage, where a piano and a microphone stand were set up. “I don’t know how good they’re going to be, but apparently he’s a classical singer.”

“Hopefully he’ll do an Andrea Bocelli song…I LOVE him. Prayer with Celine Dion was one of the greatest songs ever,” Amy replied. I glanced at my watch. Showtime, I thought, as my watch read 5:29, and John, the manager who I had spoken with earlier in the day came up on stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re all enjoying your dinners at Can Majó. Tonight we have Jon Cantor to sing for you, he’s a classical singer who’s toured France, Belgium, and Germany, and is now touring Spain. First, though, we have a special performer for you all. Lucy Reynolds,” he announced.

Amy turned her head and dropped her jaw literally. She was shocked. I just turned, smiled at her, stood up, and walked up to the stage. I went offstage for a second to fetch my acoustic guitar I had stashed there when I had visited the restaurant earlier in the day. I pulled a stool onstage and sat down. The restaurant’s resident pianist entered, bowed, and sat down at the piano. I lowered the microphone to my level and introduced myself.

“Hello, I’m Lucy Reynolds. I have a song I’d like to perform for everyone in the audience. You may know it, and you may not. It’s a song by Coldplay, 'Til Kingdom Come. I dedicate this to Amy, the love of my life,” I motioned out to Amy. At that moment, seeing Amy’s face, I didn’t care who knew about us; I wanted to shout it from the mountains.

I turned my head to the piano player and nodded. I positioned my fingers along the guitar’s frets in the C chord. The piano player played a loud chord and it was a go as I started strumming.

Steal my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time,
My time has come
Let me in
Unlock the door
I never felt this way before

And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummer begins to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know which way I’ve come

Hold my head inside your hands
I need someone who understands
I need someone, someone who hears
For you I’ve waited all these years
For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my day, my day is done
And say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me

So far, so good, I thought, as I kept strumming and changing my fingerings during the instrumental break. I had chosen this song specifically for Amy, and I was lucky that I had a good lower register to sing this in. I took a look at Amy, getting ready to begin to sing again, and a huge smile was on her face, a tear running down her cheek.

In your tears and in your blood
In your fire and in your flood
I hear you laugh, I heard you sing
And I wouldn’t change a single thing

And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummers begin to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know what I’ve become

For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my days, my days are gone
Say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
Just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me

I finished the song, and amid claps and cheers from the audience returned to Amy in our booth. Once at the table, sitting next to her, she threw her arms around me in a hug. “Wow,” was all she said before releasing me. As the next singer got ready, I called for the waitress and paid for our dinner.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Amy, who just nodded. We left the restaurant, and I thanked the manager on the way out for the opportunity. He told me they were happy to be of service and that I could pick up my guitar tomorrow. Amy and I walked down behind the restaurant, where one of the entrances to the public beach was. Stepping onto the sand, I was surprised when I felt Amy’s hand against mine. Quickly gaining my composure, I grabbed the hand she was offering and held it, our arms intertwining as we walked.

“Wow…” Amy repeated, turning her head to look at me with an enormous smile, “why didn’t you ever tell me that you were a musician?”

“Well, back in high school I used to play in a band. Our guitarist actually made it pretty big in a band, and Scud tried to set me up with their drummer, but she talked too loud and wasn’t you,” I rambled. “I guess thought, that once I met you, you became the most important thing in my life and I didn't have time for stuff like that anymore.”

“Well, you should keep playing, you’re really good,” Amy said, swinging her arm a bit, which in turn swung mine. “You should play for me more.”

“I guess I’ll have to,” I replied, just looking at her, and admiring the beautiful face that looked back at me. I turned my face upward, and got lost in the majesty of the sky. “Wow,” I said, gesturing upwards at the full moon, “the moon...it's beautiful.”

The moon, in all its glory shined back down on the beach, illuminating the waves. The stars were covered by a veil of clouds, enhancing the moon’s radiance. It was a beautiful sight, and I was glad that I was sharing it with the only person that I really wanted to share it with.

“It is beautiful,” Amy said with wonderment.

“So are you,” I responded. I couldn’t help it, she really did look gorgeous. Her face lit bright red in a blush.

“You look great too,” she responded, and for the first time since I had been contacted by Corleone I felt truly happy. Nothing could ruin this feeling, I thought. “I can’t believe that you did all of this for me.”

“I’d do all of it again, and more for you, Amy.” I said, stopping in the sand and turning to her. “I love you with all my being. You complete me in a way that no one else can. The emptiness that existed in my soul has been replaced by you.”

Amy said nothing, but her eyes said everything. The love that had once been in her eyes shone brightly once again and she squeezed my hand.

I was about to lean in to attempt a kiss when the heavens suddenly opened up and it started raining, the raindrops slowly gaining in speed and quantity. Amy laughed as she and I ran to our car, and, even though the rain had the chance of ruining our clothing, I think we were having too much fun to care.

Thank you, God. I thought as I raced back to the car. My mind must have been stuck on symbols, with the cold shower today, and now the rain. I couldn’t help thinking that the rain was washing away the dirt on our relationship and giving us a new start.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

It had been the perfect night, and my resolve was slowly melting. If Lucy would go to all this trouble, taking me to Can Majó, and everything, there was little chance that I could keep resisting. The fact that she could play the guitar blew my mind. You would have thought that, as my girlfriend, she would have played the guitar for me sometime within the last year. The song she sang, well…what could I say. The song's lyrics in that beautiful voice she had hidden from me, had broken me down. The lyrics were perfect in the way they fit our situation, and, if that was how Lucy felt, then I didn’t really know whether I wanted to hold out any longer. I knew I had made my final decision on whether to work things out, though. That answer was a resounding ‘yes!’ The walk on the beach had made everything clear.

At the moment, Lucy and I were sitting on the sofa, idly talking about everything and anything. In the middle of the conversation, Lucy turned her head to the stereo system in the back of the room and said, “Well, I feel like dancing,” she rose from the couch and extended an arm. “May I have this dance, Amy Bradshaw?”

I couldn’t resist, I took her hand. “Of course, Lucy,” I said. Lucy grabbed the CD player’s remote off our end table with her other hand and hit play. I put my arms around Lucy’s neck, and she put her arms around my waist as we danced slowly in a circle to the romantic sounds of Edwin McCain’s I’ll Be.

The strands in your eyes
That color them wonderful
Stop me and steal my breath
Like emeralds from mountains
Thrust towards the sky
Never revealing their depth

And tell me, that we belong together
Dress it up,
With the trappings of love
I’ll be captivated
I’ll hang from your lips
Instead of the gallows of heartache that hangs from above

And I’ll be your crying shoulder
I’ll be love's suicide
And I'll be better when I’m older
I’ll be, the greatest fan of your life

Rain falls, angry on the tin roof
As we lie awake in our bed
And you’re my survival
You’re my living proof
My love is alive
And not dead

And tell me, that we belong together
Dress it up
With the trappings of love
I’ll be captivated
I’ll hang from your lips
Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above

And I’ll be your crying shoulder,
I’ll be love's suicide,
And I’ll be better when I’m older,
I’ll be the greatest fan of your life

I've dropped out,
I’ve burned out,
I’ve fought my way back from the dead,
I’ve turned in, I’ve turned on
Remember the things that you, you said

And I'll be your crying shoulder,
I'll be love's suicide,
And I’ll be better when I’m older,
I’ll be the greatest fan of your life

As the singer repeated the chorus one last time, Lucy leaned into me and whispered into my ear, “I’ll be your crying shoulder, I’ll be love’s suicide and I’ll be better when I’m older, I’ll be the greatest fan of your life.” Just hearing those words brought a tear to my eye, my resolve completely melted. As Lucy pulled her head away, she must have seen the tear, as she asked worriedly, “Amy, what’s wrong? Did I do anything wrong?”

I didn’t say anything; instead I leaned into her, kissing her fully on the lips. Her mouth desperately met mine, as our mouths reacquainted themselves, making up for lost time. She tightened her embrace, pulling me closer to her. Entering her mouth, my tongue caressed hers tenderly. She took her mouth off of mine and started tracing kisses down my neck. “Lucy Diamond, you complete me too,” I said, tilting my head backwards as Lucy continued to kiss my throat.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

If I had ever had a single shared doubt with Amy about whether I loved Chastity, those thoughts were dismissed as I returned my mouth to Amy’s willing and waiting lips. Love poured and flowed through the connection that we still shared, but this time, the connection seemed stronger. Kissing Chastity in the bar had not felt even a tenth of this. This was passion…this was love.

Amy slipped an arm away from my neck and moved it lower, cupping my breast through the dress’ fabric. Breaking the kiss, I held my head a few inches from her. “Amy, are you sure?” I asked apprehensively. I did not want her rushing into anything she truly did not want to do. I wanted this to be pure, unbridled love that we shared. Anything else would have been the death knell.

She smiled, and I knew the answer. “Lucy, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” she said. Instantly, the distance between our mouths evaporated as our mouths met yet again. Awkwardly walking while kissing, we ascended the stairs with just a bit of trouble and I pressed Amy into the door to our bedroom. Amy broke the kiss, which left us out of breath, gasping for air from the powerful effects. “Lucy, I love you,” Amy managed to say before the magnetism between our lips kicked back into gear. Clothes were shed as we still stood against the door. Our hands started a new exploration of each other’s bodies. Even as I knew every curve of her body, as she mine, the franticness of our hands suggested that we were feeling each other for the first time. We were so wrapped up in each other that we barely made it to the bed.

---------------------

About an hour later, Amy and I were curled up together in the bed, sheets everywhere. This night had been everything I hoped it would be and more. We were no longer Amy and Lucy – we were no longer two souls, we were one once more. I gently caressed Amy’s naked form with my hand, and as I rolled my hand down her arm, I held her hand in mine, intertwining our fingers. “Amy, thank you,” I said, kissing her neck.

“What are you thanking me for?” Amy asked, “You were the one who refused to give up. If it wasn’t for you…well…I’d hate to think where I’d be.”

“Amy, don’t even think that way. If I were in your position, I’d have done the same thing. Plus, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If it took forever to wait for you, I’d still wait.”

Amy didn’t need to say anything; the connection we shared let me know the love emanating from her. “Lucy, there were times in there that I was starting to worry though. I was such a jerk,” Amy said emotionally. She sounded as if she were about to cry, whether from joy or not I was not sure.

“No you weren’t,” I consoled her, “you were being Amy Bradshaw, and there is no one in this world that I love more than her.” Amy turned her head upwards and we shared another tender kiss. “Goodnight Amy.”

“Goodnight Lucy,” she said, turning her head back away from me. I put an arm around her, claiming her as my own, as we both drifted off to sleep.

--------------------
Turning circles when time again
It cuts like a knife oh now
If you love me got to know for sure
’Cause it takes something more this time
Than sweet, sweet lies
Before I open up my arms and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
And when you kiss me on that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet
---------------------

Chapter 13: Loss

A/N: Opening lyrics come from Meat Loaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That); end lyrics belong to Coldplay’s Fix You

---------------------
I would do anything for love
I'd run right into hell and back
I would do anything for love
I'll never lie to you and that’s a fact
But I'll never forget the way you feel right now
Oh no, no way
And I would do anything for love
But I won’t do that, No I won’t do that
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Waking up that morning, for the first time in ages, I felt content. Next to me on the bed was an angel, and I must have been in heaven…there was no other explanation. She was awake; her eyes were open and she was staring at me. I returned the stare – it was just too good to be true. Pinching myself and feeling the pressure, I realized this was reality…I had regained the only person who made my life worth anything. There were times when I thought that I had lost her, but here she was, the perfect score, facing me in all of her nakedness, just inches from my body.

I reached out my hand and brushed aside a few stray strands of silky, golden hair from Amy’s face. No words needed to be said – we knew each other’s thoughts. As I retracted my hand, Amy brought her head forward and kissed my knuckles, a silent message conveyed. Staring into the eyes that held me captive, I inched forward in the bed and curled my arm around Amy’s body, bringing us together for a slow, sensual kiss. Before the kiss grew and my mind turned blank, the only thought running through it was the question of how I had managed to survive without waking up to this. This was magical, this was pure…this was love. I would do anything for Amy Bradshaw; if she said ‘jump,’ I’d ask ‘how high.’

Leaving her lips, I slowly trailed kisses downward, slightly biting and teasing the area around Amy’s neck, the only sound elicited was a cry of ecstasy in which Amy exclaimed my name. Otherwise we knew each other’s thoughts intimately, the connection was back intact. Working my way from Amy’s throat back up to her mouth we locked in another passionate kiss. Not only was saliva shared in that kiss, we shared our souls. Amy Bradshaw was a part of Lucy Reynolds, just as much as I was a part of her.

Rising slowly, and reluctantly drawing my mouth away from Amy’s, I placed a knee on either side of her thighs, straddling her. I bent down until I was inches away from her mouth, preparing for another soulful kiss when the phone rang.

“Shit! What a way to ruin a moment!” I exclaimed at the phone, furrowing my brow and frowning as a frustrated look was drawn on my face. Amy giggled, and finding it extremely cute, I couldn’t help myself as my face lightened into a sadistic smile, “Oh, you think it’s funny, do you…just you wait.”

I rolled off Amy and the bed as I picked up the black wireless phone without looking at the Caller ID. “Diamond here…this better be good.”

“Oh, I assure you that it is, Diamond,” sneered the unmistakable voice of Ms. Petrie. “Can you be of some use and put Andy on the phone?”

For a second I wondered who Andy was, until I remembered something Amy had once said. Miguel at the docks had called her by the wrong name, and she responded with something akin to ‘You’re as bad as Ms. Petrie.’ I walked back to the bed and handed the phone to Amy. “Who is it?” Amy whispered.

“Your old boss – she wants to talk to you,” I replied, in a sibilant whisper. A slight look of shock registered on Amy’s face as her eyebrows lifted slightly and she raised the phone to her ear.

“Hello Ms. Petrie,” Amy said tentatively, her voice wavering slightly. Realizing that I could only hear one side of the conversation, I walked to our guest room and picked up its phone, which shared the same line.

“Annie, we have a job for you. We received reports from a mole within Pink Thunder’s Lithuania branch that Alfonso Kavalek, also known by the aliases Dr. Corleone and Dr. Head, has been usurped by his second-in-command, Charitine LeFleur, alias Chastity Red.” Oh my God! That was her plan! I realized. She needed me out of the way, because she knew that my family’s obligation to Corleone would have forced me to stop her…the bitch! “We have a Search and Rescue team down in Barcelona now, but they have not been able to recover Kavelek’s body. We know that you have…connections, and we would like you to survey the area and any known Pink Thunder buildings, see if anything possibly turns up.”

Amy hesitated for a second before answering, “I don’t know, Ms. Petrie.”

“Addie, don’t forget who gave you that pardon. You’re free because of us,” Petrie reminded Amy in an authoritative voice. I hated that woman; she was just as manipulative as Corleone or Chastity, the only difference was that she worked for the “good guys.”

“Alright, Ms. Petrie, we’ll check it out,” Amy sighed, resignation in her voice.

“Good, Ally, we’re expecting good results out of you.”

“Wait, Ms. Petrie, why didn’t you just beam in here?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your lesbian fling, would I?”

“How’d you know?” Amy asked with amazement.

“I know everything, Amy.” Ah, you finally got her name right for once, dipshit, I thought callously as Petrie hung up the phone.

“Lucy!” Amy called from the other room. “Luuuuucy!” Amy called again, her voice louder this time. I walked out of our guest room and into the hallway to find Amy waiting for me. She looked at me quizzically for a second. “Lucy? Why were you…” suddenly her features expanded as she drew her eyebrows up and her eyelids opened wide as realization dawned. “Lucy…you didn’t.”

I didn’t answer out loud, but the smirk I gave, lifting the right half of my mouth, gave my actions away. Amy rolled her eyes, but, to her credit, she didn’t chastise. “Alfonso Kavelek, huh…strange…I always thought Head was his real last name. Guess he never showed his full deck of cards.”

“Who really does?” Amy asked. It was a valid point. “Anyway, I think we should check out Pink Thunder’s Barcelona headquarters…that is, if you don’t mind,” Amy added on cagily.

“Amy, of course I’ll show you. Plus, it’s probably for both of our benefits as well. Something tells me that if this is true, Chastity hasn’t finished her pursuit of power.”

Amy and I returned to our room and got dressed, making sure to remember our guns before heading out to the car. Upon arriving in Barcelona about a year ago, Amy and I had purchased matching Glock 23 shotguns. I had found that I liked it better than the Beretta 92 I had previously carried, so the Glock had taken over as my weapon of choice. I especially liked the polymer framing typical of Glock guns; it was lighter and more practical than the metal receiver of the Beretta 92. After packing our heat, we hit the road headed towards Pink Thunder headquarters and presumably Chastity.

Once on the road, a notion buried itself in my mind, it was more disbelief than thought. There was no way that the Corleone that I knew would have not known about Chastity. People thought many different things about Corleone, Alfonso Kavelek, or whatever other aliases he possessed, but the one universal observation was of the man’s striking genius. Corleone just had a mind for crime; his superior intellect was unrivaled. I had never met anyone quite as brilliant as he was. Corleone more than likely could have easily matched wits with the like of Albert Einstein and won. Where Albert Einstein’s genius failed him was at simplicity – often in the grocery store, he would bafflingly have to ask the individual price on an item marked three for five dollars, or anything in that vein – Corleone’s genius was all-encompassing. There was no way that Corleone, in all his wisdom, could not have seen it coming. Knowing Corleone, he would had known about it and he would have taken care of it…he wouldn’t have willingly given his life.

I was still mulling over the question as we pulled into the deserted parking lot of the dreary warehouse headquarters of Pink Thunder. On the outside, nothing looked out of the ordinary. There were no guards patrolling, no one around. Hopefully on the inside, it would be the same – the worst-case scenario would be if the reports were true. I, along with anyone else, would be forced to shudder at the thought of Chastity taking over the organization. As criminally maniacal as Corleone was, at least he had ideals. Chastity was not only as ruthless as they come, but she was ruthlessly selfish – a lethal combination.

Turning my head to the left and staring into the deep, expressive pools that were the eyes I loved so much, I told her the only thing that came to my mind, “Amy…whatever happens in there…stay safe.”

I watched intently as the corners of Amy’s mouth lifted into a playful smile. “I will if you will,” she teased, leaning her head in for a quick kiss. I would have loved to continue that kiss, but it wasn’t the time or the place for that. Amy and I exited the car and started a trepid walk to the warehouse doors, which surprisingly, were unlocked.

Pushing open the doors, my fears were relieved for a split second. Everything in the warehouse seemed to be in order – the cubicles and computers were as I had remembered them. Snapping me out of my calm state, Amy’s hand grabbed my shoulder, exuding fear as it did so. She pointed to the desk at the far end of the warehouse, the desk at which had sat one of the world’s greatest minds. It was a sheer and utter disaster zone.

Cautiously making our way to the desk, Amy nearly tripped over a stray bishop on the ground. Corleone’s desk was in shambles, and blood was everywhere. The lamp that had been on his desk was overturned, papers and folders strewn everywhere, and an overturned chess board lay on the ground.

“Zo…‘ere you are,” a voice stated, reverberating throughout the walls of the warehouse. Swiftly turning around, I saw the speaker’s silhouette in the open doorway. I didn’t need to see the details of the individual; that voice belonged to Chastity. She was wearing a blue turtleneck sweater that seemed a bit too bulgy. “I must zay, I’ve been expecting you.”

“Chastity…” I began shakily, my voice betraying me. “What…what have you done?”

“I did what I should ‘ave done years ago. Ze fool was losing eet, Lucy. Ze man needed to die.”

I turned my head to Amy, who seemed to be in a state of shock, horrified by her surroundings. “I can’t believe you did this…why?” I asked.

“I told you, ze fool was not fit to rule any longer. Eet was my duty to dispose of ze trash and take my position as head of ze organization,” Chastity said, walking towards Amy and me.

“You’re crazy!”

“No, I am not crazy, Lucy. Just doing my job.”

“So drugging me, splitting Amy and I up, and killing Corleone was your job? You’ve got to be kidding me?” I asked incredulously

“Kidding with you? You really do not know me well, Lucy. For too damn long, I ‘ave been in the shadows of zat man, and for too long, he ‘as taken credit for my success. For years, I did his jobs, and never once did I fail him. But was I ever treated like I was his successor? NO! Ze asshole praised everyone, and zen he puts zose damn idiots on my team. He puts incompetent pigs on my team, zen you leave, and I am stuck with zem! For years, I ‘ave wanted to kill him, but ‘aven’t, because keeping him alive and calling the shots made me look better, but now…now he’s lost eet, and I came down like lightning.”

“I was right, you are crazy,” I reiterated.

“If you insist, mon amour,” Chastity said. “Now, I have a simple proposal for you, Lucy. Join me, together, you and I can rule ze criminal world.”

“Um…didn’t I ask you that a long time ago myself, Chastity? You’re getting the same answer you gave me – no.”

“Join me, and the D.E.B. lives,” snarled Chastity.

“She said no!” Amy shouted, springing to my defense. “Besides, I doubt you can take both of us.”

“So be eet,” Chastity said. Her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth lifted as she flashed an insidious, crooked smile. “Who said anything about both of you?”

Her arm made a quick movement, and heard something akin to a shot from a gun. Then my world went dark.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

“Who said anything about the both of you?” Chastity asked. With reflexes to rival a cat’s she reached into her jacket withdrew a black gun and fired off a shot. The loud noise was like no gun I had heard before, it sounded more like a rush of air and gas than the noise given off by the typical handgun. The quickness of Chastity’s attack had caught us off balance, and next to me I saw Lucy collapse as she let out grunting noises. My eyes opened wide. “LUCY!”

“Don’t worry, eet ees only a little bit of barbiturate. She ees only unconscious,” Chastity explained. A cursory glance at Lucy revealed her words to be true. A small syringe was sticking out of Lucy’s abdomen. “What I will do to you, zough, ees much worse. She will wake in a few minutes to find you dead.” The clatter of the tranquilizer gun on the floor caught my attention, and was my only warning as I ducked and narrowly avoided a screaming bullet. I took a quick glance around the warehouse, my situation would only allow a minimal search. Finding my destination, I ran over to the nearest cubicle in a crouched position. As I was running, two more shots missed their mark.

I crouched under the desk of the cubicle nearest the wall. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew Chastity was still out there, and judging by the footsteps she was approaching me fast.

“What’s wrong, little D.E.B. doesn’t want to play?” Chastity mockingly sang. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

I palmed my Glock and inched forward, ready to come out from the cubicle and surprise Chastity. Another sound of a shot pierced the stale air, quickly followed by the sound of shattering glass and plastic before a deadening clank as the bullet lodged itself and created a dent in the desk right above me. Chastity’s action had the desired effect as I reflexively rolled out from behind the cubicle back into plain sight. Before she could fire, I pulled the trigger on my gun and fired a sloppy shot that completely missed her.

“Ah, a bit tougher than I thought, but zat will just make eet more gratifying when I kill you,” Chastity stated, as I jumped onto my feet and started running down the warehouse, a few bullets flying by as I ran. Halfway down the warehouse I found a rectangular column that was wide enough to hide behind. Running to it and pressing my back squarely against the pillar, I quickly caught my breath before pivoting and firing a shot at Chastity, who quickly dove under the nearest cubicle, avoiding the bullet. Unfortunately, I only had four more bullets. Lucy and I never loaded our guns to the fullest capacity. We had hoped never to need them, and I had no ammo on me.

A flash of color and Chastity popped back up from the cubicle, firing a round that caused my instinctive reflexes to fire another pointless shot. Damn it…only three more. A metallic ping rang out after that shot, as I clearly hit something. Turning my head in the direction, I saw a small refrigerator to the right of Corleone’s desk swing open, the airtight seal destroyed. Inside were multiple bags of blood. It looked like someone may have recently have taken some, as a small area on the top shelf was empty. Tearing my attention away from the blood, I pivoted back behind the column as I waited for another opportunity. If I couldn’t get a clear shot before I fired my next three shots, I was dead. Another shot rang out, followed shortly by the sound of cracking dry wall as Chastity’s shot lodged in the column. Swiftly I pivoted again on my right foot to face Corleone’s desk and the cubicle sheltering Chastity. I fired a rapid shot as Chastity ducked back down. The bullet must have at least grazed her as a cry of pain pierced the air and reverberated around the walls. I put my back square against the pillar again and waited for her next move, which didn’t come. The room was deathly silent; the only noise audible was the beating of my heart in my chest.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a fierce, almost warlike cry pierced the room as Chastity jumped out from her hiding place and, with a crazed fire in her eyes charged forward with a long machete raised high in her hand. I stepped out fully from the pillar, aimed a careful shot and pulled the trigger, hitting Chastity’s exposed chest.

Chastity was thrown backwards, stumbled and fell. A groan escaped her lips and I walked forward to her body to investigate. When I was about two steps from her body, Chastity swung herself back on her feet and swung the machete over her head, straight down at me in a blind rage. Surprised, but agile enough to evade the swing, I sidestepped to the right of the blade and managed to get Chastity off balance. Taking advantage of the situation, I stepped to Chastity’s side, slipped my left arm under her left arm and put my right arm on the outside of her arm. Pulling with my left forearm and pushing with my right, the crack of breaking bones broke the silence in the room. Holding onto Chastity’s arm, I noticed for the first time the Kevlar vest she was wearing. A tear ran down her face as she felt the pain from her limp left arm and dropped the knife.

Exerting enough pressure on the arm to keep Chastity in pain, I attempted to fully catch my breath. Abruptly, Chastity raised her leg and kicked it out to the side, hitting me square in the solar plexus. I attempted to breath, but found it impossible to do so. Even though I had had the wind knocked out of me before, the panic-inducing effects remained, and I doubled over. Chastity took the opportunity to move and bent down to the floor, executing an action that I wasn’t paying attention to.

Regaining my ability to breathe, I bent back up, in time to see Chastity’s arm snake out towards me. I attempted to block or parry her strike, but it was in vain as I felt a sharp pain and pressure right below my right breast. Daring to turn my head down, I gasped in agony as I felt the wetness trickle down my stomach and saw the six-inch blade sticking out of my chest. I entered a state of shock, barely able to move or breathe. Removing the blade, Chastity must have struck three or four more times while my shock rendered me completely helpless. My knees buckled and my vision turned blurry as I fell to the ground, a few feet from Lucy’s body, feeling my life drain away.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

I regained consciousness just in time to see Amy fall. My mind and reflexes still extremely slow, my horror was brushed aside for a second as I reached for my Glock and fired a groggy shot at Chastity. The shot completely missed her but had the intended effect of surprising her.

“Eet’s not over, Diamond,” Chastity spat as she ran over to the exit-only side door, threw it open and disappeared into the light of the sun.

That was when my mind fully registered the body lying next to me. My vision was still extremely blurry as I blindly groped for Amy’s body. Finding it, the first thing I felt was a wetness familiar to me; a wetness that made my throat constrict, my mouth dry and my heart race a thousand beats per minute as I lifted the hand to my face and recognized the dark redness of blood.

Quick as a flash, I ripped out my cell phone from my pants pocket and called 112, the Barcelona equivalent of 911.

Trying to express to the operator the disaster in front of me turned out to be extremely more complicated than I thought. Words were just escaping me, and I couldn’t answer the woman when she asked about the emergency. “Amy…stabbed…ohmygod the blood!” were the only words I managed to say. At that moment, I was extremely grateful for the GPS device installed in the newer phones. I was in no condition to be able to describe my location.

Following the instructions and leaving my phone connected, I placed it on the floor and flung myself over Amy, wrapping my arms around her as I sobbed, emotions completely taking over me. If this was fate, it was the cold, cruel, twisted kind. I had just gotten Amy back, and now she was being wrenched away from me. As I rocked back and forth, holding a seriously wounded, bleeding Amy tight to my breast, hysteria soon set in with my sobs and I was completely disoriented by the time the sirens of the ambulance could be heard in the distance.

---------------------

EMS Staff Member Perez’s POV

The ambulance arrived at the location indicated by the GPS device in the cell phone, from which the call was made. With a rushed order, I, along with the rest of my crew exited the ambulance, retrieved the stretcher from the back and ran into the decrepit warehouse.

Once in the building, we ran to the two figures on the floor, both covered with blood. The brunette had her gun raised, clearly in a state of hysteria and dementia. I cautiously approached the severely wounded blonde she was holding tight to her. The gun was then pointed in my direction.

“Don’t you touch her…don’t take her away from me!” the brunette screamed, understandably crazed.

“Ma’am, we need to get her to the hospital right away, she’s going to need a blood transfusion.”

“I SAID, don’t you touch her…I don’t want to lose her,” she sobbed.

I turned my head to Miguel Olivia, my second-in-command in the squad, and gave him a silent, understood order. He walked over to the brunette, placed a hand on the small of her back and placed a hand on the brunette’s arm. The gun willingly came down as she turned and sobbed into Olivia’s shoulders.

Seizing the opportunity, we rapidly lifted the blonde onto the stretcher and wheeled her out to the ambulance. Just looking at her, I realized that we needed to rush our way to the hospital. If we didn’t, the girl didn’t have even a small chance of surviving.

As my crew hastily wheeled the blonde to the ambulance, a haunting, despaired wail reverberated throughout the warehouse. “Aaaaammmmyyy!”

---------------------
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
---------------------

Chapter 14: Revenge

A/N: Opening lyrics come from The Dave Matthews Band’s The Space Between; end lyrics belong to Patti Smith’s Revenge

---------------------
The space between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The space between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep us safe from the pain
But will I hold you again?
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

“Ma’am, I’m going to shut the door now. Let me know if you need anything,” said the nurse, Joy, shutting the door to the hospital room behind her as she exited the room.

Amy was staying at the hospital at the American Embassy, where she had been transferred from the Hospital of Barcelona. It had been almost four days since Chastity had mutilated her, and from what I’d been told, she had not been conscious yet. For the first two days, it had pained me greatly not to be able to see her. I myself had been admitted to the hospital for the panic/anxiety attack and hysteria from which I had suffered. Upon entering back into a rational state, the first question I had asked was about Amy. Was she alright?

After she was rushed to the hospital, the medical staff had taken a sample of the blood and, determining that Amy was O-, had been forced to subject her to a blood transfusion. I was told that for about two days after the transfusion she was still in critical condition, but around the same time that I was released, she had been moved to one of the inpatients’ rooms. Her body had accepted the blood.

The only problem was that she was still unconscious. She was diagnosed with a score of fifteen in the Glasgow Coma Scale, which meant that the coma was right between moderate and severe. That, along with the fact that she hadn’t even opened her eyes was extremely disconcerting to me.

I sat down in the chair between Amy’s bed and the window, and took Amy’s hand, clasping it in between my two. Even though I knew her unconscious body would not be able to hear my words and confessions, I just needed to talk to her.

“Amy, I love you, you know that. In a couple days we’re just going to walk out the door and be done with the whole hospital.” I paused, trying to avoid my true feelings, just as they bubbled to the surface, “God, Amy, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t gotten involved with Corleone or Chastity you wouldn’t be here. We’d still be off somewhere pretending like we never used to be spies or villains, or any of it,” at this point, my emotions escalated, and tears flowed freely from my eyes. “God, Amy…don’t do this to me. I can’t live without you. Without you, I’m nothing. I love you, and I just got you back. Please don’t let me lose you now. Please, Amy, just…”

My heart-to-heart with the unconscious body of the only person I loved more than life itself was interrupted by three loud knocks on the door. I looked up at the rectangular piece of glass in the middle of the door to see Scud’s face, a pained, sympathetic smile on his face. Behind him, Janet walked around, pacing, visually unnerved. As soon as I had my wits back with me, I had called and asked them to come down. That they had dropped everything and come meant a lot to me, and I’m sure it would have meant just as much to Amy. I beckoned them in with my hand, and they opened the door.

“Hey Luce,” Scud said, a slight hint of sorrow in his voice. “How is she?”

“She’s alive…” I trailed off; I couldn’t stand to say much else.

“What were you thinking Lucy?” Janet asked accusatorily. “If you’d never involved Amy in this stupid problem with your ex-girlfriend, she’d still be here.”

“Janet, she’s not dead. But you’re right…I shouldn’t have ever gotten her involved …” I cast my eyes downward and guiltily stared at the floor.

“Lucy…I’m sorry, that was mean,” Janet admitting, walking over to me and laying a hand on my shoulder, “It’s not your fault, it’s your psycho bitch of an ex-girlfriend’s,” Her hand fell to the small of my back and she enveloped me in a tight bear hug. With the exception of Amy and Scud, I really wasn’t one for physical contact, but it just felt so good to be able to hang onto someone, to share in mutual feelings. I wrapped my arms around Janet.

“Janet…I don’t know…if she’s going to be okay…I’m so worried,” I managed to get out, emotions taking hold again and choking the words.

“Ssh, it’ll be alright,” Janet assured me, patting a hand on my back.

“Hey, I’m still here!” Scud said, jokingly, as he walked over and joined in what was now a three-way hug. For a time, we just stood like that, arms around each other, just basking in the solace and shelter from pain that it provided.

“Luce, Amy’s going to be alright. I know it,” Scud said as we broke the hug and the door opened. I turned to the entrance to see a doctor standing in the doorway.

“Lucinda Reynolds,” the doctor said, glancing down at the clipboard he held. I looked up and he met my eyes. “You are the companion of Miss Bradshaw here, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“I just wanted to let you know that we ran the tests on Miss Bradshaw and her body has officially accepted the blood. There’s no telling when she’ll wake up, but we’ve downgraded her GCS to twelve. She was showing signs of improving, and, because of that, we do not believe that her coma is as bad as was once thought.” The tenseness that I had been feeling was relieved just a bit by that news, and the darkness in my face lightened a bit. The doctor smiled, “If you need anything else, just let me know…” The seriousness faded from his voice, as he offered up one little comforting piece of information, “she’ll be fine.”

She may be fine, I thought, my fears assuaged a bit, but Chastity won’t be. I’m going to make her pay…she won’t know what’s coming to her.

“Thanks, doc,” I said as he exited the room. He didn’t close the door fully, and I could hear him ask one of the other doctors whether another doctor at the hospital was still missing. I’d heard about it too, apparently he had been reported as a missing person about a week or so ago.

I turned back to Scud and Janet. “So, how’d things go at headquarters, any problems with the ice queen?”

“You mean Max?” Janet asked.

“The one and only.”

“She was pissed at Amy for leaving without telling her,” Scud said, “but no, she kinda encouraged us to come. I think even she’s worried about Amy.”

“She’s still an über-bitch, though,” Janet added, visibly annoyed at Max, “she’s still treating me like crap about my decision to marry my muffin here.” At the mention of the pet name, I shot Scud a look of friendly ridicule and an evil, mocking grin as I chuckled to myself. Scud’s cheeks rouged as he put a hand on Janet’s shoulder.

“So…anything we can do to help with the Chastity situation?” Scud asked.

“Actually…any chance you two could gather info and see what she’s been up to?”

“Sure, we’ll just need a key to the house…I’m assuming you’re staying here,” said Scud.

“Yeah, I’ll be here. I’m going to keep an eye on Amy.” I tossed the key to Scud, who put an arm around Janet as they started to walk out of the room. He bent down to her ear and, from the limited lip-reading skills I possessed, asked her politely not to use pet names in public anymore.

“Hey, Scud, Janet…” I called after them. They turned around. “…thanks for coming. It means a lot to me.”

“Not a problem…after all, it’ll give us a chance to bond,” Janet said, a sweet smile on her face.

---------------------

About fifteen minutes after Scud and Janet left and I had drifted off to sleep, I was awakened by a sharp and sudden cry. Reflexively, I jolted out of both my state of sleep and my seat, and prepared to confront whoever was in the room.

That was when I saw Amy sitting upright in the hospital bed, eyes open, sweat covering her brow, and a frenzied, panicked look in her eyes.

“…Amy?” I asked softly. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I was hoping it wasn’t just a dream.

“Lucy? Where am I?” she asked, looking at me. I rose from my seat as tears started their accelerated descent, flowing from her eyes. “Oh my God…Lucy!”

I walked to the bed and flung my arms joyously around Amy, eliciting a cry of pain.

“Owww…Lucy, I’m glad to see you too, but I hurt all over. What happened?” I obeyed her wishes reluctantly, withdrawing my arms. I didn’t want to hurt her, but at the same time, I just wanted to feel her in my arms.

“You don’t remember?”

“No, not really, last thing I remember was getting some phone call from Petrie at the house.”

“From what I can tell, Chastity cut you pretty bad, apparently you and her got into some major firefight, too, judging from the state of the area. The police have barricaded the area off after they found the bloody desk, and all the stolen computer equipment.”

“Huh? Chastity? Firefight? What the hell are you talking about?” Amy asked agitatedly. The doctors had told me she may be like this for a bit, it was one of the steps of recovering, diagnosed with the Rancho Los Amigos Scale – basically she’d be going through stages of agitation/aggression, confusion, and such, which should improve rapidly. At least, I hoped so – Amy could be extremely annoying when she was agitated.

“Never mind,” I said. “At least you’re back.”

“What do you mean, never mind? I want to know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Fine…the mission Ms. Petrie gave us – it was to check out Pink Thunder headquarters. Looks like Chastity was expecting us though. She kinda ambushed us.”

“Oh, geez…oh…I think I remember now…she shot a tranq at you, right?”

I smiled, the doctors were right, she was recovering quite nicely and quickly. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Oh, God, Lucy…I thought I was going to die,” Amy said, glumly, her face morphing into a depressing frown.

So did I, I thought solemnly. “Well, I’m just glad you’re back.”

“So am I.”

“You know everything I said the other day, about not being able to live without you?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, this kinda drove that home. Amy, if you had died, I don’t know what I would do…you’re everything to me. I love you more than I love myself. I…” I attempted to continue with my little soliloquy, but was interrupted by the shrill ring of the hospital’s phone. Damn it! The phone always seemed to ring at the wrong moment.

I picked up the phone, “Hello?”

“It’s Scud…umm…Lucy, there’s a problem.”

My eyes grew wide in agitation. “What problem?”

“Well, it looks like someone broke in. Everything’s all disheveled, the door was unlocked, sofa knocked over, that kinda stuff.”

“Shit. Anything missing?”

“How the hell would I know? Not that I can tell, but you’re the one who lives here.”

“Scud, there’s always the chance that it was Chastity, check for bugs or anything, make sure the phone’s not tapped.”

“Already done, we found a bug, and there’s no tap on the phone. Unless there’s another bug somewhere, you should be fine.”

I glanced at Amy, who was looking at me with an inquisitive stare. I mouthed the word ‘trouble’ to her, but she didn’t seem to comprehend.

“Thanks for letting me know, Scud. I’ll check things up. Hey, let Janet know that Amy’s awake.”

“Really? That’s GREAT!” Scud shouted, sounding a bit like Tony the Tiger. “Hey Jan! Amy’s awake!” He shouted, a bit muffled to the phone.

“She wants me to ask if she can talk to Amy.”

“Let me ask her,” I said, turning to Amy. “You feel like talking to Janet?”

“Sure, put her on. If I said no, I’d hear about it for years,” Amy laughed. Good, she was out of that mood she had been in.

“Yeah, let me just give the phone to Amy, it’ll only be a sec.”

“YAY!” Janet’s voice came out of the phone.

“Honey, put the phone down, you can pick it up down here.”

“Hang up the phone, muffin. This is some girl talk we’re about to do here.”

Scud sighed. “Fine…See you Lucy.”

I couldn’t help but smile. If this was their pre-marital life, their marriage would certainly be a fun adventure.

I handed the phone to Amy, who proceeded to have a lengthy, energetic talk with Janet. I stood by the window, looking out at the darkening sky, both thanking my lucky stars that Amy was fine, and cursing Chastity, especially if she had broken in the house.

---------------------

After a few more days at the hospital, the doctors monitoring Amy’s behavior, Amy was deemed ready for release. She would have to come back in a few days so the doctors could remove the stitches from her abdomen, but otherwise, she was good to go. I was just as excited to go home as Amy – I hadn’t been home since the incident with Chastity, and I hadn’t left Amy’s side much, either. They had advised her not to engage in any physical activities. I just hoped that she could follow that order. Chastity may not have been planning on giving her that option.

Scud drove the car around to the front of the hospital, and Amy and I got in the back seat.

“Good to see you again, Amy,” Scud said. “Good to see you awake, I mean,” he quickly corrected himself.

“It’s good to see you too, Scud.”

“So Jan and I’ve been working on getting that armory you talked about ready, Lucy. If Chastity’s after us, we’ve gotta be the first to strike, I think you two have learned your lessons.”

Amy nodded her head in agreement.

“Ooh, and I’ve got some gadgets and stuff that I want you to try out, Luce. Eugene – D.E.B.S.’ CIA liaison and I cooked them up a while ago at Jamison.”

“Sure, no thing,” I said nonchalantly. I had no use for gadgets, and I certainly didn’t need them, but Scud always had an affinity for James Bond, and I figured that it wasn’t necessarily horrible to indulge his fetish.

Having deprived myself of sleep over the last four or five days, I drifted off in the car during the fifteen minute ride, my head lolling to the side onto Amy’s shoulder.

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

So, Scud had found the bug…no big deal. It was just a distraction anyway. He’d never find the real bugs…not until it was too late anyway.

Shortly before I killed Corleone, he had invented what were, potentially the smallest microphones/bugs in history. Literally the size of a flea, they were virtually undetectable. Of course, if someone was looking for taps, they may have been able to find it, but that’s where the good, old-fashioned smokescreen worked. Put one or two larger bugs in a house, and they’d never notice the smaller ones.

Sometimes, I amazed myself with my brilliance.

With the alerts I had put on my records in various government computers, utilizing Heidi’s brilliant hacking skills. I had been notified via e-mail of the viewing of my phone records and such. I was sure that it was Scud or his D.E.B., and I was sure that they knew by now about my reinstatement into the LeFleurs…not that it would help them immensely. They were still going to die within a few days.

Scud had suggested that they needed to make the first strike. I wouldn’t let them have that luxury. All I needed now was my own little militia. I would know ahead of time about anything the four were planning, so a little preemptive strike would work wonders…as would initializing Corleone’s little death traps to the warehouse.

The warehouse had been easily regained…the police were so easily swayed by a flash of green and yellow, (€100 and €200 bills, respectively). Now, if Heidi could only hack into the security of Corleone’s last masterpiece, we could virtually assure that the D.E.B.S., Lucy, and Amy never made it out alive.

“‘Ow’s eet coming?” I asked Heidi.

“Just one more thing…there,” she said, triumphantly banging a key on her keyboard a bit harder than needed, and suddenly various lights in the room lit up. A monotonous feminine voice broadcast the message, “Security functions now online and operational.”

I sauntered seductively over behind Corleone’s desk where Heidi was sitting. She had a good seven years on me, but didn’t look it. Walking over to her, I threw my arms around her neck and locked lips, giving her a lustful but loveless kiss. I so do love a nice female body.

“Zat’s my girl,” I said.

Now she could get her reward.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

After we had gotten home, Scud had excitedly led us down to our basement, where he had set up a soundproof room for tests, I would guess. He grabbed a leather suitcase off the floor and placed it on a table he had set up. Inside were various normal objects, and a few oddballs, including something that looked like a duck…anyway, the objects may have looked like normal household objects, but if I knew Scud, they were anything but normal.

Scud picked up a silver fountain pen and brought it over to Amy and me. “Behold,” he began, a bit theatrically, “the electronic interference pen. One of your father’s favorites, Lucy,” he handed me the pen. After he handed me the pen, he brought out a normal handheld camera. “Go ahead, twist the top, Lucy. You know, you’ve used it before, but I bet Amy’s never seen it.”

I twisted the top and waited for the camera’s feedback to drop out and become static.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, an ominous ticking sound emanated from the pen. “Uh…Scud?” I asked cautiously. He wasn’t paying attention and was busy explaining the functionality of it to Amy. “SCUD! IT’S NOT WORKING!”

He turned the camera around, which I guess was when he heard the ticking. “SHIT! Throw that thing, Lucy…NOW!”

I followed his orders and not long after it impacted the floor about twenty yards from us, the pen exploded, causing a tiny crater in the floor.

“Okay, so that was our grenade pen…damnit Gene, changing everything on me. The man’s a genius, but extremely disorganized…At least there’s more where that came from…as you can see though, they’re not extremely powerful, but they’ll injure anyone within close vicinity. Anyway,” he picked up another pen and handed it again to me. “THIS one should be the right one.” Amy turned her head and looked at me skeptically.

“Scud, you didn’t color code them?” Amy asked.

“No…never thought I’d need to use them again. Eugene and I were just watching some Bond films, and we were thinking how cool the gadgets were, and well, we tried to make ‘em.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Alright, so Scud, are you positive that this is the right one?”

“Umm…try it out?” he laughed nervously, which I took as a ‘no.’

Apprehensively, I twisted the top slowly, waiting for either the screen to go to static or the ticking noise. Thankfully, it seemed Scud had actually grabbed the correct pen this time, as a pleased smile appeared on his face and he turned the camera back around for Amy to see.

“Ah…here it goes. Anyway, Amy, as I was saying, the pen lets off high-pitched beeps as interference that’ll disable most security systems, cameras and everything. My father invented it for Lucy’s father.”

“Lucy never told me your dad worked for hers,” Amy said, with an annoyed tone, giving me a playful glare.

“Oh, yeah, it’s been the family business since I was a boy. Lucy’s grandfather, Jonathan saved my grandpa’s life, and then my dad worked for Robert, and I grew up alongside Lucy, so I naturally just started working with her. Anyway, that’s a story for another day. Moving on, next gadget,” he pulled out a Glock 23, the same model as the gun Amy and I currently used. He handed me the gun. “Press the button on the side there.”

Sure enough, there was a button on the side of the gun that did not come standard with most Glocks that I was familiar with. I pressed it, and a chamber at the bottom of the gun opened and a curved ramp opened.

Scud smiled like a proud father. “You put a smoke pellet in there and BAM! You make your escape. Nifty, ain’t it? Okay, now the watch.”

I put the pen and the gun down on the table next to Scud’s suitcase and took the watch that he handed me. Scud lifted a compartment in his suitcase and retrieved a sheet of glass; he placed it on the table. “So, aim the right side of the watch at the glass and pull out the time-setting thing.”

I did as instructed and was genuinely impressed when a red laser beam shot out of the watch and started to slice through the glass.

“Heat-emitting-laser-beam-equipped watch. If you pull the knob out further, the quartz shifts and amplifies the beam, enabling it to cut through most metals. Oh, and it tells the time too – it’s analog, but sets itself according to the atomic clock. Cool, huh?”

“Definitely,” Amy agreed.

Scud went on to show us various other gadgets, most pointless, like the glasses that fired tranquilizer darts from the side that also came equipped with heat and night vision. That one would have been useful, if either of us wore glasses…unfortunately, wearing glasses would be a dead giveaway in this case. The only other useful gadgets he showed us were a ring that, when the outer shell was turned, had the capability to shatter glass, a rebreather with fifteen minutes worth of oxygen, and nose plugs that doubled as makeshift gas masks.

Finally, seeing the oddest object in the suitcase, I couldn’t help but ask, “Scud, what the heck is that duck?”

“Oh, that…” he laughed, a bit embarrassed, “It’s a snorkel with a fake duck on top. When you’re underwater, it looks like a normal duck just going across water.”

“Scud, we’re not going underwater, what’s the point?”

“Well, Gene and I were watching Goldfinger and we thought it was cool, so…”

“No, don’t want to hear it. I’m going back up…Amy?”

“Yeah, I’m going too, thanks Scud.”

“Wait, so you guys don’t want to hear about the crocodile-shaped two-man submarine?”

Amy and I simply ignored him.

---------------------

Over the last few days, Amy and I had found nothing out of place or stolen. We had deduced that the point of the break-in had been to plant the two bugs that Scud and Janet had found. Nothing compelled us to look elsewhere for the bugs. We trusted those two…perhaps too much.

Back up on the ground floor with Janet, we were discussing the plan. We were to strike Chastity, and strike hard. Scud and Janet had discovered phone records between Claude LeFleur and Chastity, so we were under the assumption that she had been accepted back into the family. That would potentially cause a problem, but we would have to be ready for that possibility.

Thankfully Scud and Janet had been able to get a good supply of guns and ammunition as part of a limited armory. In addition to the Glocks and gadgets, Scud had also been able to get two Uzis from an anonymous source, according to Scud, and we had a decent number of grenades.

“So we do it tomorrow?” Amy asked.

I turned to Amy. “I don’t know if it’s smart for you to go too,” I admitted, concerned.

“No. If you’re going, I’m going. I won’t risk losing you,” she stated bluntly. It was times like this when she reminded me why I loved her. Scud and Janet just looked at each other, sharing the same pact without words.

“I don’t want you stretching yourself too far though,” I told Amy.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

So we do it tomorrow? Amy’s voice asked through the bug in the house. So that was their plan. It wouldn’t work. No chance they would catch me off guard. I had called my father and borrowed ten employees of the LeFleur family. Ten of the toughest guards we had to offer. In addition to the twenty Pink Thunder pawns I had, I doubted four people could legitimately take out thirty, especially if I pounded their ego by sending the goons in waves. It was brilliant.

“So,” I started, giving those thirty agents, as well as Heidi, the counter-plan. “Tomorrow we will trap them. First, we let ze warehouse do eets best to kill ze rodents. If zey happen to get through the warehouse alive, zen eet’s time to do our work.

“I know many of you do not eizair know me, or whether it’s familial or political, you do not care for me. But I do know zat you all hate Lucy Diamond even more zan you hate me. Don’t do this for me. Do zis for revenge.

“Tomorrow we strike. We will show them no mercy. We move in four waves, like ze four ‘orsemen of ze Apocalypse – Pestilence, War, Famine, and finally, my favorite, Death.”

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

The night before the strike, I lay in bed, with Amy’s warm body next to me. I was upset with Scud’s idea to attack and surprise Chastity so soon, but I understood why. We may not have had much time before she attacked us instead, and we needed to have the upper hand, rather than acting in retaliation.

I was just extremely worried about Amy. It was around one o’clock in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep. Amy, however, was asleep, but visibly having a nightmare. “NO! NO, LUCY!” Amy suddenly screamed, starting to hyperventilate a bit.

Fretting over her even more, I shook her, and quickly wakened her. “Amy, Amy, I’m here, you were having a bad dream.”

“Oh, God, Lucy, I’m just worried about tomorrow. I dreamed that you…I dreamed horrible things.”

“Amy, I won’t let anything happen to you, and you know I’ll protect myself at all costs.”

“Yeah, but I’m worried, that’s all.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said, leaving the last two words – I hope – off just as a thought. I readjusted myself, lay a protective arm around Amy and kissed her tenderly. “Let’s get some sleep.”

All the while, I was hoping this wouldn’t be the last sleep we ever had.

---------------------
Thought you were some perfect read-out
Some digital delay had obscured
And phased my view of the wicked hand you played
Ah, the sands and hands of time have run out, you better face it
This thing's run amok, this luck
I do know how to replace it with revenge
Oh, sweet revenge
---------------------

Chapter 15: The Four Horsemen

A/N: Opening lyrics come from U2’s Sunday, Bloody Sunday; end lyrics belong to The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony

---------------------
And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

The morning of the impending action, there was a silent, intense severity shared between Amy, Scud, Janet, and myself. Not much—besides food and coffee—passed our lips during breakfast. No words were needed; we all knew the odds we faced, and we were ready.

Our only hopes centered around the fact that we were hoping to surprise Chastity, but even then, she had an entire criminal outfit at her disposal, while we had four people, albeit four highly-trained people. If we couldn’t spring the ambush, we had a minimal chance of making it out of that warehouse alive.

Still, even against the odds, this was something that needed to be done, not just for Amy and my sakes, but for the sake of the world. Chastity was crazy, criminally insane, and psychotic—pick a word to describe evil or insanity, and she’d fit the bill. There was no telling what horrors she was capable of unleashing upon the world if she was left unchecked. This was a necessary risk.

Amy and I were upstairs in our room, changing into our “business attire” that Scud had so generously provided: lightweight, spider-silk body armor. I must admit that I had been skeptical at first—I mean, think about it: wearing a vest made out of the material that made up spider webs did not seem like an idea conducive to survival. Only when Scud showed me the vest’s imperviousness when a bullet fired from a gun failed to penetrate it had I believed it. Who knew that the spider webs you could so easily knock down with your hands could stop a bullet? Nature’s simply amazing sometimes.

Anyway, Scud had then gone on a half-hour sleep-inducing lecture about how strong spider-silk was. Apparently, its tensile strength was about the same as high-grade steel and its ratio of tensile strength to density was about five times better than steel—whatever that meant. Nexia, a Canadian bio-technology company, had been given a grant to manufacture these suits for the DEBS and various other military agencies. These were just four prototypes, but they were serviceable.

Amy was pulling on her black slacks when, whether it was induced by the gravity of the situation, or the fact that death may have been looming over my head, it just struck me once again how beautiful she was. I walked around the bed to Amy, who stopped pulling her pants on, stood up, and slung two arms over my shoulders. Our heads inched forward and our lips met, sharing an intimate, tender kiss. Sometimes physical expressions outweighed verbal, and this was one of those times. My lips parted and my tongue came forward, brushing against Amy’s lips. Her lips didn’t part, though.

Reluctantly, Amy broke the kiss. Bringing our heads apart, she stared into my eyes, allowing me to see into the depths of her soul through the pools in her eyes. “Lucy…I know these have been a rough couple of weeks, but if something happens to either one of us, I want you to know that I love you. I always have and I always will. Never will there be anyone who could possibly replace what you are to me. Married couples sometimes introduce the other as their ‘better half,’ whether it’s true or not. But with you…with me, it’s true—you are my other, better half, and if I lose you, I’ll never be complete again.”

Amy’s eyes gleamed with heartbreak, and she cutely bit her lip, one of her actions I absolutely adored. I moved my forehead into hers gently and looked at her with a loving gaze. “Amy, don’t say stuff like that. You’ll never lose me,” I paused. “I love you, too.”

“I know.”

And that was when I knew I couldn’t let Amy go through with the plan.

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

Wait…this is it? I looked around at the “Four Horsemen” defense system that Corleone had designed and laid plans out for. It was a joke…at least for Corleone. That man could once outsmart a fox, now he was designing junk like this. With a name like “Four Horsemen,” and the allusion to Revelations, you’d think this would be the end all, be all of security systems. Seriously, with names like Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death, were locusts, killer insects, and devices that emitted brainwave modifications to artificially inseminate someone with the feeling of starvation really too much to ask for?

Granted, parts of it were a good idea, but the totality was not fearsome, nor would it be enough to prevent Lucy Diamond from getting through it. Lucy was good…in many things, and she was more than the match for this idiotic trap system. I needed more.

At my side, Heidi could seemingly sense a problem and put what she meant to be a calming hand on my shoulder. I shook it off. “Is there a problem boss?”

“Lucy’s too good for this. What the hell was Corleone thinking when he designed this piece of shit? Lucy’s trained; she’s going to get through this…”

“Damn it, Chast, must everything be about Lucy this, Lucy that? I swear, you care more about her than you do me!”

Even though there could have been a bit of validity there, I laughed it off. “The only thing I care about Lucy Diamond is her death. I will kill her.”

I took the opportunity to prove that I cared more about Heidi than Lucy by engaging her in a torrid kiss. Still, it was always better with Lucy.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

“So could you go over the plan again, Scud?” I asked. Amy, Janet, Scud and I were all huddled in the living room, outlining the plan and making every last-minute adjustment that we needed to. Amy, Janet and I all had glasses full of various liquids: I had a Dr. Pepper, Amy had an orange juice, and Janet had Coke Zero, which, as she had pointed out, would not make her as fat as Dr. Pepper would make me; it had less calories.

“So basically, we drive to the warehouse, secure the perimeter, and make sure no one’s around outside first. Then we go inside…” Scud paused, collecting his thoughts.

My impatience was weighing on me, however, and Scud’s pausing grated on my nerves. “AND…”

“And then we storm the place.”

“What?!” cried Amy incredulously.

I tried my best not to do a spit-take. “Exactly my thoughts,” I echoed, shooting a glare at Scud. We probably shouldn’t have left the planning to Scud. When had he ever come up with a one-hundred percent foolproof plan? In fact, many of his plans were pretty childish.

“Well, I happen to think that my teddy bear has a GREAT idea,” Janet gushed as Scud cringed at the ‘teddy bear’ reference. “It’s not like you two are coming up with any ideas. Who died and made you two Siskel and Ebert?”

Amy and I exchanged looks of exasperation before looking back at Scud. “Alright, we’ll go with your plans, on one condition: Amy stays here.” Amy whipped her head around to look at me, betrayal obvious on her face. I turned to her, “Amy, I love you. I know you want to go, but you’re not recovered yet. The doctors told you not to engage in physical activity, and you’re not going to risk yourself,” Amy shook her head in protestation, and attempted to say something before I cut her off. “You said you don’t know what would happen if you lost me…well, that got me thinking, and I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. Like it or not, the best thing for you to do is to stay here.”

“But…” Amy trailed off.

I smiled and answered her, “I’ll be careful. These two here will make sure nothing happens to me, right guys?” Janet and Scud nodded their heads like the good bobblehead dolls I wanted them to be. “I’ll come back here and we’ll be together, living our lives like this never happened in a couple days, I swear.”

I walked over to Amy, drew her into a sweet embrace and kissed her lightly. “Alright,” Amy said, resignation clear in her voice but a smile on her face, “if you swear.”

“I do.” Amy and I brought our faces together once again in a more aggressive, passionate kiss.

“Jesus Christ! Enough with the PDA’s! There’s only so much mushy stuff someone can take!” Janet exclaimed exasperatedly. “I love Scud, but you don’t see me doing that with him all the time! Get a room…actually, don’t, because if you did, we’d be late here.”

All three other sets of eyes focused on Janet. “What?” she asked as if she hadn’t gone off on that tirade only a moment earlier.

I turned my attention back to the beautiful blonde in my arms. “I guess I have to let you go now,” I said, a bit disappointed, as Scud and Janet beckoned for me to wrap it up and get going.

“I’ll be thinking of you,” Amy cooed, giving me one last peck on the lips.

“You two make me sick.”

---------------------

Chastity’s POV

I listened to the lovesick monologue Lucy was delivering, and my stomach turned. Love was for fools, and fools did not make good spies or criminals. I had learned from experience that the best way to gain the upper hand was to use love against an opponent—which explains why the idea I had been waiting for suddenly switched on the light bulb in my mind.

“I’ve got it!” I exclaimed, startling Heidi who was standing a short distance away from me.

“What do you have?”

“The idea I need. I’m going to rally the men, and you can take it from there. I’m going to need to slip out and take care of some unfinished business.”

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Scud, Janet and I set off in the car headed towards the warehouse, and possibly our graves. The graveness shared in the morning continued here, as everyone knew the odds we could be facing, and mentally prepared themselves for those odds.

During the drive, the clouds set ominously in the sky, casting a dark, foreboding shadow over the ground. Just as we arrived in the general area of the warehouse the skies opened up, suddenly pouring rain down without warning. Unfortunately, since we couldn’t very well park in too close a proximity to the warehouse, we still had a good half mile to walk.

By the time we had reached the building, we were soaked to the bone and the sky showed no signs of letting up. At times like these, my fashion sense really comes in handy—we were all wearing black, and try as he might, Scud was having trouble glancing through an oblivious Janet’s shirt. Now, if she had been wearing the white DEBS uniform, well… Although, I must admit, if Amy was in that schoolgirl uniform out in the rain, it would have been a sight to behold.

Outside the back of the warehouse, we huddled together; heads leaned in close to each other. “So Scud, I’m going to go around the left side of the building, you and Janet take the right side. If everything goes correctly and no one’s there, we’ll meet back at the doors. Got it?”

“Yeah. You got your two-way on?”

“Yep,” I answered, putting a finger on the earpiece. “See you guys in a bit.” I turned and I was off. Running in a bowed position, I turned the corner and slowed down; I was a lion stalking nonexistent prey. By the time I reached the front entrance, I had not seen anyone, and a part of me was a bit disappointed. Scud and Janet had not reached the entrance of the building yet, though. “You two alright?” I asked.

- Yeah, Janet was distracted for a bit by something –
– I was not –
– But no one’s out here, you find anyone? -

“No. Either it’s going to be a surprise like we planned, or they’re all inside, waiting for us.”

I guess we’ll have to find out the hard way, Scud said as he and Janet came into view. I waited for them to meet me at the door. Putting our backs to the wall, we exhaled deeply as I put up three fingers successively before turning and kicking down the door.

Once inside, my surroundings shocked me. Either this was the wrong place or someone had done some work here. I stared around at the maze-like plastic makeshift walls. The walls looked like what you might find in a high school gym, and I had no idea where they had come from. A sense of fear and dread came over me as we walked around, noticing the lack of any cubicles and the ever-present maze. Someone was waiting here, someone was planning, and I’d bet even odds that it was Chastity. This just screamed trap.

We continued walking, and we turned down a corridor. About five steps into the corridor, a mechanical whirring sound broke the tense silence and behind us a metal door quickly protruded and blocked our way. I guess it could get worse.

I took one step forward and a menacing hiss seemed to come from the walls themselves. It was an unnerving sound, and although it sounded familiar, I couldn’t place my finger on it.

“What is that?” Janet asked, frightened.

Much to my chagrin, my fears turned out to be valid as an opaque, dense cloud began to form ahead of us.

---------------------

Amy’s POV

I couldn’t help being a little annoyed with Lucy. I know why she had made me stay back, but I desperately wanted to be there with her. Nerves played on my emotions as I sat back from the action, alone in the house. In an attempt to calm my nerves, I poured myself a Kahlúa and Cream. I then sat back in the living room and finished off the drink in about five minutes.

I stood, feeling a little woozy as I did so—the medication I was on had said not to drink, but I figured that one drink wouldn’t hurt. Walking through the dining room to get back to the kitchen, the glass slipped out of my hand and shattered on the tiled floor. Agitated with myself, I walked to the pantry, put on a pair of rubber gloves, grabbed a brush and a pan, and returned to the glass. I deftly swept up the glass, feeling less out of it as I did so. I was about to throw out the glass shards when I noticed one that I had not picked up under the table. As I dove under the table to get it, I noticed something strange on the underside of the table. At first glance it looked like an insect, so I smacked it and winced in pain as an electrical shock coursed through my body.

The crushed bug came away in my hand, and looking at the smashed mechanical pieces, I realized just what it was. My face paled and fear flew through me. Lucy and the others had just walked into a trap. Chastity would know everything, if the feeling that told me this was hers was correct.

I jumped up from under the table, running to the door, frantic to jump in my car and drive to the warehouse as the sound of shattering glass from the living room startled me. I ran into the living room and found an ever-growing cloud of gas being emitted from a small smoke bomb that must have been tossed through the window. Without thinking, I unbolted the front door and ran outside. Just as I cleared the door, a strong, feminine hand grabbed my arm. I turned to my aggressor and saw just enough of my captor to recognize her as she jabbed a needle into my neck. I barely had time to think before I passed out, but I was able to manage one coherent thought: Why was Chastity here?

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

“Quick, put in the nose plugs!” Scud instructed hastily. I reached into my small pack in which I was storing Scud’s contraptions and drew out the small gas masks. Janet and I followed directions and Scud put his in as well. I had never really thought that we would need Scud’s gadgets, but we’d have to rely on these for just a bit.

“Don’t even think about opening your mouths, though,” I said, authoritatively. “The gas is lethal and tinted with LSD. Make sure your sleeves are down too. In fact, cover up as much as you can. The LSD is absorbed by the skin.” I drew up the neck of the black turtleneck I was wearing, Janet tightened her sweater around her neck, and Scud rolled down his sleeves.

Once sufficiently bundled up the three of us began to bolt towards the other side of the corridor, eager to get out of this gas. Just as we reached the corner, the next part of the maze, the corridor perpendicular to the one we were just in, began to spray the gas as well.

Just as I was thinking that things could not get worse, three women in white suits with gas masks and automatic pistols began to walk down the pathway towards us. A shot reverberated around the walls, missing all of us, and we grabbed our guns, unlocked the safety and attempted to aim through the thick fog that covered the room.

I let loose a wild shot, unable to aim in the least due to the heavy fog of gas around me. I couldn’t see the women anymore, but by the sound of the bullet colliding with metal, I figured I may have hit something.

“Damn it!” a woman shouted, followed by the sound of the thud of metal landing on the ground. She must have been forced to take off her gas mask. Well, that’s one down, I thought preemptively. Sure enough, after a few seconds spent trying to find positions, the room was filled with petrified screams.

“Oh, my GOD! The bugs, they’re all over me! Someone get them off! Someone!” the woman frantically screamed. Pestilence, I should have guessed—Corleone always had an affinity for the book of Revelations, which was funny for a Communist who didn’t believe in religions.

Another shot echoed in the room and the screaming stopped. Euthanasia was never pleasant, but I guess it had been a better death for her than the slow and painful death the gas would have provided.

Suddenly, the gas turned itself off, and as the fog cleared, I shot towards the first shapes I saw, as did Janet and Scud, judging by the two shots that rang out next to me. The remaining two females fell without getting a shot off, staining the floor with pools of their own blood.

“Come on!” I sibilantly hissed. Scud, Janet and I ran through the remaining corridor and took the left turn at the end of the hall. I was quickly losing sense of direction and had no idea where the hell I was in this death trap.

Attempting to think like Corleone, I reckoned the next trap would be centered around the next horseman of the apocalypse, which, if I remembered what little I actually knew about the Bible, would be War. Shit. War did not sound like a good proposition right now.

Something caught my eye while the three of us were running down the corridor, and I slowed down, holding an extended hand outwards as a signal to Scud and Janet. “Hold on.”

“What’s wrong?” Scud looked at me quizzically.

I withdrew a handful of diamonds from my pocket, where I always kept them on any sort of mission, and rolled them down the hall. Sure enough, various traps set off, a tranquilizer dart firing from a wall, a highly concentrated laser beam firing off just a bit beyond that, and finally a bullet fired seemingly from the wall itself at the end of the corridor.

“Yikes!” exclaimed Janet, wide-eyed. “What’re we going to do here?”

“Ssh,” I hissed. There were sounds coming down the corridor towards us, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the sound was that of running footsteps. I just needed to hear a little bit more to make sure.

“Don’t shush me! Why do you think you’re in charge here?”

“Because I am. Now shut up! Don’t you hear that?”

Janet followed orders this time, albeit with a visibly annoyed look on her face, which faded and gave way to a look of recognition. “Yeah, footsteps, they’re right around the corner.”

I turned around and snuck back behind the corner, motioning for Scud and Janet to follow me. Chances were good that Chastity’s thugs had heard the detonation of the traps and thus expected to find the three of us dead, if not injured. That fact could therefore be used to our advantage.

Just as Janet and Scud turned the corner, four women, recognizable audibly, walked down the corridor. I dared to sneak a peek at the women all dressed in red to find them huddled around the diamonds in wonderment. “Scud, give me the smoke pellet from your gun,” I whispered, turning to Scud. He obliged, pressing the button on his gun to extract the little ball, which he handed to me. I stepped out into the hall with the three goons and threw the pellet in their direction. Quickly thereafter, I used the distraction to extract one of Scud’s exploding pens from my bag, which I hurled in the same area.

Wary of the imminent explosion, I hurriedly took refuge with Scud and Janet behind the adjacent wall. About a second later, the explosion shook the warehouse, and Janet winced as blood flew by, splattering against and staining the wall opposite to the one we were standing behind.

“Hurry,” I told Janet and Scud as I turned the corner and ran towards the end of that corridor. Staying to the outer wall trying to avoid the crater that had surely formed in the floor, I added, “And watch your step.”

Quick—what was after War? I thought, trying to remember my Bible. I had never been entirely religious, even though my mother had taken me to Lutheran churches in my youth. Reaching the end of the corridor, the sight ahead unnerved me and its blackness reminded me of the third horseman: Famine. How Corleone could pull off a trap for Famine was beyond me, but, knowing him, it was all too possible.

“What is that?” Scud asked, apparently wondering the same thing I was.

“No idea,” I replied truthfully. “Guess we’ll just have to find out. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, though.”

Cautiously, Scud, Janet, and I walked towards the enclosed black abyss, as it appeared to us. Just as we cleared the entrance, a glass barrier zoomed up, blocking the exit, only adding to the ominous feeling I was experiencing. Scud and Janet suddenly began bolting to the exit on the other side, obviously sharing in the doomed feeling. Not wanting to wait to see what Corleone had planned for us, I followed them, running as fast as I could. Just as we had almost reached the light on the other side of the tunnel, another glass door flew up, trapping us in. I had no doubt this time that situations could get worse, and true to that belief, a foreboding sound began to reverberate around the room, sounding almost like the sound of a vacuum cleaner, that same kind of sucking sound.

That’s when I realized what was meant by the third horseman here.

“Scud, Janet!” I yelled, my voice already waning in volume. “Put in the rebreathers! Famine’s not about the food! He’s starving us of oxygen!”

---------------------

Heidi’s POV

Third defense system—Famine engaged, rang out the monotonous, mechanical voice of the computer.

They were more resourceful than I had given them credit for. I hadn’t expected them to even get past the gas, but now they were on the third horseman. Maybe Chastity had been right about this Lucy Diamond character. She did seem to be quite the adversary. No chance she’d be able to survive the final horseman though. An ambush of quite that magnitude could not be overcome by three people, no matter how trained they were.

I turned to the twenty-three remaining men and women and, being the leader in Chastity’s absence gave them the orders. They were to attack on sight, mercilessly. That was, of course, if the intruders got through Famine.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

Janet, Scud and I quickly put in the mechanical rebreathers, devices that would provide us with oxygen for just about fifteen minutes. Still, they wouldn’t do us any good if we couldn’t get out of this hellhole by that time.

Scud turned the ring on his finger, hoping that the glass-shattering capabilities would work on the door. The door shook, and for a second, I actually thought that it might work. That was, until we realized, as the glass broke and the wall stayed more or less in one piece, that it was shatterproof Plexiglas. Corleone had really thought this all out. Despair and resignation seemed to break out among us as we began to wonder if this would be our grave.

Suddenly, an idea struck me. Not wanting to chance the effects of opening my mouth in an area practically devoid of oxygen, I tapped Scud on the shoulder and pointed to the watches on our wrists. The look of panic and horror that had been present on Scud’s face morphed to a proud look of near-triumph as he drew a box in the air and I nodded, understanding his gesture. He relayed the message to Janet, and we gathered around the glass, aimed our watches, and pulled out the dial to the maximum distance they would go. Three laser beams shot from the watches and hit the glass, melting the glass. Scud stood in the middle between Janet and I, and he aimed his watch at the top of the glass wall, burning a horizontal line in the wall slowly and methodically while Janet and I worked on the two vertical lines connection Scud’s line to the floor.

In about five minutes, the outline of a rectangle had formed in the glass. I stepped up to the wall and gave the glass a kick, losing my balance and nearly falling as the glass toppled to the ground.

Ears popped as air suddenly rushed back into the room, and we removed the rebreathers, able to breath again on our own. The maze ended abruptly, and the rest of the warehouse stood in front of us, with Corleone’s bloody desk still standing as a reminder of the builder of this deathtrap. That wasn’t what caught our collective attentions though. Rather, it was the mass gathering of goons that held our captive attentions. We all drew our Glocks and fired at the goons in green as they surrounded and formed a circle around us. A few fell from the repeated shots, but many did not, their Kevlar vests protecting them. One blonde woman stepped out of the group and stood in front of us. In her hand she held a metal block with a red button protruding from it.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. We can’t have you firing at these guards,” she admonished with a slight German accent as she pressed the button and our guns flew towards an electromagnet above us. So this is it…the final horseman: Death.

“Where’s Chastity?” I demanded.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the woman taunted, “especially when she’s got your little playmate.”

My eyes widened with fear as the meaning of her statement was not lost on me. Chastity had Amy. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of here, but I would do anything to get Amy back.

“Alright, Pink Thunder, LeFleurs, draw your weapons, and fire on my count,” the woman commanded, and all around us, the clicks of drawn weapons sounded. Soon we had around twenty or so guns pointed at us. We looked frantically around at one another, but without weapons of our own, we were screwed. “One…two...” She never reached three as an explosion shook the walls around us and smoke poured in from the exit door. All eyes turned towards the newly-formed hole in the wall and an improbable grin formed in my face. I never thought I’d be so glad to see Max Brewer.

“Max?” I asked, “How’d you know?” The answer hit me like a truck, and I turned to Janet, who smiled back at me with a sheepish grin.

“I called her yesterday. Figured we could use the help.”

“Get out of here, Diamond, we’ve got it from here. From aerial surveillance, we found Chastity’s car parked outside the Sagrada Cathedral.” Max was wearing a black combat outfit, and with her stood Dominique and four younger girls. “Danielle, take your squad and let’s take these bitches out! Formation Alpha Chi Omega.”* The circle broke as the goons rushed towards the DEBS and I took my cue to run with them and out the hole unnoticed as they focused on their new adversaries.

Without thought and ignoring both the pounding rain and the sounds of the battle that raged behind me, I ran the half mile to my car and got in, single-mindedly focused on one thing.

Chastity’s messed with the wrong girl. I’m coming Amy, and Chastity’s dead.

---------------------

La Sagadra Familia was one of the most brilliant structures both in Barcelona and in all of Spain. It was also the subject of one of the longest construction periods in the world, having begun construction under the famous Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí in the late 1800’s. It was still incomplete, but that fact only stood to heighten the magnificence of the structure. With eighteen high-rising spires, various sculptures, and three grand façades, the cathedral served both as a magnificent piece of art and architechture as well as a place of worship.

Now, it would be used for the final showdown with Chastity. She would pay dearly if she harmed one hair on Amy’s head.

I reached the cathedral, and, like I had the first time I had viewed the awesome structure, took in the breathtaking height of the building. Knowing Chastity, she would be on the roof of the structure, which immediately gave her an advantage. By the time I had reached the top via the stairs (there was no elevator), she would already have me tired. I was definitely going to have to form a counter-plan, I realized, as I exited my car, and ran through the rain into the cathedral. Once inside, I began my long ascent of the stairs, just trying to think of something…anything that would allow me to get Amy and me out of here in one piece.

---------------------
Sorry for the interuption, but here are the two pieces of music. Once again, I recommend both, but Williams' piece tends to fit this just a little better than Holst's masterpiece.

Duel of the Fates (Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace) - Williams
Mars (from The Planets) – Holst

---------------------


Fifteen minutes later, with labored breath, I ran up the final set of stairs to the flat ceiling surrounded by the multiple steeples. There, in the middle of the area stood Chastity, gun drawn and triumph on her face, to her right, tied in ropes, sat Amy. As I stepped out onto the roof, I was once again pelted with the pouring rain, the water soaking through my skin.

“Lucy, something told me you’d find your way here,” Chastity taunted. “As you can see, your girlfriend was eager to make my acquaintance again, so I’ll give you one more chance. Join me, or your DEB here gets it.” Chastity motioned with her gun towards her prisoner. I tore my eyes away from Chastity only for a second and made eye contact with Amy. I winked, in an attempt to silently convey that I had a plan.

If Chastity had two weaknesses, it was her overconfidence and her inability to improvise, and that was what I had decided to prey on as I ran towards her, rage gleaming in my eyes. Halfway to my destination, Chastity brought the gun away from Amy and fixed it on me, instead. Just as she pulled the trigger, I dropped into a baseball-type slide and stuck my leg out, tripping Chastity, and knocking the gun from her hand to just a couple feet from Amy. Before she was able to recover I aimed the watch and the laser at Amy’s ropes. Even in the pouring rain, the laser cut through the ropes and in a few seconds, she was free.

Amy shook off the ropes and, just as Chastity stood up, her nose bloody, and searched for her gun, reached out and snagged the gun. With one deft move she emptied the clip. That's my girl.

“How’re you doing?” I asked Amy.

“Not so good,” she replied, visibly wincing from the pain that stemmed from her recent surgery. “Do you have your gun?”

I knew I forgot something! My gun was still in the warehouse, attached to the magnet and I hadn’t thought of bringing another one. “No, I guess we’re going to have to settle this old-school then. No weapons.”

Chastity wiped blood away from her mouth. “You two really think you can handle me? I murdered the greatest criminal in the last twenty years and you think you can kill me?” she laughed mockingly.

Amy and I didn’t answer her, letting our actions do the talking as we dropped down into our martial arts stances. I had been taught various martial arts styles during childhood because my father had wanted to ensure that I could protect myself. During training with Amy, Kenpo, the Americanized style of Kung-Fu, had really surpassed any other style, mainly because Amy was the most proficient at that style. Amy and I stood, knees bent, our right legs a step behind our lefts, arms bent and fists up in guard in front of our faces. The rain continued to pour, and water was dripping off our faces, making it difficult to see too far in front of us.

“Alright, I guess you’ll both have to learn the hard way,” Chastity dropped down into a similar stance. If I remembered right, Chastity was a big advocate of Judo, and we had to be wary, Judo was a style with very few weaknesses if executed correctly.

Amy and I began an almost rhythmic circling around Chastity, waiting for someone to make the first move. The first rule they teach you about fighting two people is to always keep both of them in front of you, so then the opposite would have to be true if you were fighting with a partner against someone, right?

Eventually, with Chastity pivoting every now and then, I decided to make the first move, stepping forward and jabbing with my left hand, which I followed up with a right-handed punch. Chastity parried the jab with her right hand and turned her body to the side, avoiding the punch. That was when I noticed her left arm, which was staying motionless beside her body. Remembering hearing Amy mention breaking the arm, I recognized it now as Chastity’s biggest weakness.

With an uncanny ability to seemingly read my thoughts, Chastity countered, “Nice battle scar huh? Your bitch gave it to me, and she’ll pay for it. I CAN still beat you with one hand, though.”

She took the initiative to fire a back kick into Amy’s sternum, knocking her off-balance. Before I had time to fully react, Chastity snaked out her right arm to Amy’s stomach and swept Amy’s legs with her leg, knocking Amy onto the concrete. The back of Amy’s head slammed hard against the floor, and as I watched in horror, she lay on the ground, motionless, but breathing.

“Amy!” I called out, hoping she could hear me. “AMY!”

“Don’t worry, Lucy, you won’t need her after I’m done with you. Once I’m finished, your girlfriend will be joining you in hell.”

“Not if I can help it,” I replied, and began to fire a flurry of strikes at Chastity. Punches, roundhouse kicks, arcing crescent kicks and backhands flew, and were brushed or parried aside. Damn, this girl could fight without the use of her arm? She’s playing with me…I know it.

Out of desperation, I grabbed hold of Chastity’s shoulders, attempting to grapple with her. She returned the favor, and soon her hands were upon my shoulders. I pushed with all my might, contorting my face with the effort. Looking at Chastity, the same look of hatred and lunacy that was present earlier was still there. She was just toying with me. Suddenly, she pivoted to her right and pushed hard against my neck with her right arm, using her hip to knock me off balance and throw me to the ground—the Tsuri Goshi throw.

Before I could even think about getting up and onto my feet Chastity pounced on top of me, pinning my arms down with her knees. As the rain continued its torrid descent she began a no-holds barred assault on my face, slapping me with the back of her hand to start. She punched my face into the concrete a few times, busting my lip and making me feel a bit woozy and light-headed. This would be the end.

She grabbed my head by the hair, and pulled up my head into the air. I spat into her face and she slammed my head down onto the concrete.

“Sorry to do this, but I never fight fair,” Chastity said, reaching into a sheath around her waist and pulling out a long machete. She grabbed hold of my forehead and forcibly turned my head sideways against the ground, exposing my neck and jugular vein, above which she held the knife. “It’s such a shame to kill you. We could have ruled the world together.”

My vision was beginning to get blurry, and I lay on the verge of consciousness. I shut my eyes tight, waiting for the sting of metal tearing through my skin. To my surprise, the sound of a gunshot pierced the air, I felt wet blood and tissue splatter onto my face, and Chastity’s pressure on me suddenly decreased. Daring to open my eyes for a second, I saw a sight that confounded me. Who had pulled the trigger? Chastity lay on the ground, still half on top of me, a hole in the side of her head.

Smelling the fresh carnage, my stomach turned, and I threw up, heaving to the side, vomit seeping through my hair as I passed out, fading into blackness.

---------------------
Well I never pray
But tonight I'm on my knees, yeah
I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now
But the airways are clean and there's nobody singing to me now
---------------------

Chapter 16: Loose Ends

A/N: The opening lyrics come from Keane’s Crystal Ball while the end lyrics belong to Simon and Garfunkel’s Kathy’s Song; in-text lyrics come from Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, and Coldplay’s Till Kingdom Come

---------------------
Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball
Save us all, tell me life is beautiful
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Oh, crystal ball, hear my song
I'm fading out, everything I know is wrong
So put me where I belong
---------------------

Lucy’s POV

“Diamond…wake up! Diamond!” a voice shouted above me. I wearily opened my eyes and shook off the crust that came with unconsciousness. Above my head, two figures came into view, blurry at first, but became more and more distinguishable as I regained my wits.

“Max? Scud?” I tried to lift my head and immediately regretted it as the pain shot through it with an astounding intensity. Scud said something, but truthfully, I wasn’t listening. The memories were all too vivid of last night—Chastity slamming my head into the stone, a bullet ripping through her head, Amy’s head smashing into the hard stone of the floor…Amy.

“Where’s Amy? How is she?” I frantically asked. Scud smiled and motioned over across the roof of the cathedral where Amy sat, leaning against one of the tall spires, her head wrapped all around with bandages.

“She hit her head hard, and needed our medics to stitch up the gash in the back of her head, and she’ll have a pretty bad concussion for about a month or so, but she’s going to be alright, Diamond,” Max said. I fully expected her to add on a little quip like ‘no thanks to you,’ but it never came. Instead she smiled.

“I’m glad you’re okay. Listen, I know you and I don’t get along great, but as long as Amy loves you and you love her, I really don’t have that much of a problem with you. I’m not suggesting that you and I should become great friends or anything, but for the vested interest in the shared link we have, I won’t mind laying down the hostility.”

“Neither would I,” I replied. I never would have expected this from big, tough Max…perhaps she had a soft side after all.

“Just remember, you hurt her, I’m going to hunt you down.”

“Deal.”

I attempted to stand up from my seated position, anchoring myself with a hand and promptly fell back down with the first attempt. In resignation, I rested my head in my hands and was alarmed when I felt a foreign object in the back of my head. “What the hell?” I asked, rubbing the area with my hand and finding a few more objects with a similar feel.

“Staples. The medics had to staple the back of your head shut. You had a pretty nasty cut,” Scud explained.

“Lucy! You’re awake!” exclaimed a joyous Janet, who ran over and flung her arms around me. “I’m so glad you two are okay.” Suddenly, she let go and pinched her nose tightly shut. “Geez, you reek! Take a bath!” I smiled…same old Janet.

More voices sounded around me, but I was still physically exhausted and I toned them out. My mind set at ease, knowing everything was right, at least for the time being, I let my mind drift off into sleep.

---------------------

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own
We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

The sun sent playful streaks of red, orange, and blue across the sky as it slowly sank below the horizon. Sunsets in Barcelona never ceased to amaze me, and sharing them with Amy never grew old. Leaning against the car, I wrapped my arms around the lithe body resting against me. Together we took in the beautiful landscape the beach and sunset provided and reflected on the events of the past week.

About a week after the events concerning Chastity, Amy and I were back to strength, at least partially. For most of the week, we had been hurting immensely and were so drained that we could barely get out of bed. Scud and Janet had brought one of our spare beds into Amy and my room—a tight fit—and had placed Amy and me in separate beds. The entire week, we shared in each other’s company and, for the first time in a long time, we were happy.

Janet and Scud had apparently taken a short sabbatical from the DEBS organization and were considering moving up to Barcelona for good, perhaps transferring to Spain’s US Embassy or to Spain’s branch of the International DEBS program. For the week, though, they had not been spies. Instead, they’d been waiting on us hand and foot. Generally, Amy and I were kind and helpful to them, but the urge to annoy Scud was just so tempting, and we succumbed a couple times.

Eventually, Amy and I felt well enough to move around inside the house. We started off small, doing menial things like getting up from bed to fetch a glass of water, or dinner, or something, and we worked our strength up from there.

Finally, Amy and I had reached the point where, although not perfect, we were physically capable of living our lives normally again. The pain of the concussions remained, but those buggers always seemed to stick around for a long time.

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel
Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

I leaned into Amy, my lips against her ear. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered. Tacitly, she turned her head around, gazed into my eyes, her eyes full of passion and love, and our lips met. The kiss conveyed fire, passion, and the promise of a brighter tomorrow. As long as I could share the future with Amy, I knew that it would be a better future. It had to be.

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see
I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Slowly, shooting a seductive look at me, Amy broke the kiss and walked towards the beach and ocean. “Last one to the ocean pays for dinner!” Amy playfully yelled as she suddenly bolted towards the waves, giggling along the way.

---------------------

“So, you have anything in mind?” Scud asked as we sat in the pizza shop in the local mall. Later that night Janet and Scud had an official engagement dinner planned, and all our closest friends would be there. Janet’s parents had not been invited, something that interested me, but, figuring that was a private matter, I kept inquisitions to myself. Still, something told me that there was a reason there, which perhaps explained her inclination towards petty theft, but that would have to be a story for another day.

Janet had decided to go shopping for a dress for the evening and, for insurance that nothing would magically vanish from the store, Amy had joined her in the shopping spree. That was alright by me, I had my own shopping agenda for the day.

“Yeah,” I answered Scud, “I was thinking something elegant, but nothing that’ll stand out too much.”

“Any idea what style?”

“Not yet, but I guess we’ll have to find the best one there. Worked out fine the last time we were there.” It seemed like ages ago since Scud and I had been to the store in question, it seemed like so much time had passed since then, and yet it hadn’t actually been that long. I was sure the owner of the shop would remember us, though.

“Scud, are you sure about this? I mean, this dinner is your time with Janet, I wouldn’t want to…”

Scud cut me off with a wave of his hand. “The dinner is the PERFECT time. Janet and I are so happy for you, we want you to do this here.”

“Thanks Scud,” I responded before changing the subject, “Are you getting a suit here? You didn’t pack one, I mean, right?”

“No, and yes…or yes, and no. Yes, I need to get a suit here, and no, I didn’t pack one. I’m thinking a purple tux…” he kept going, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

“A purple tux? Scud, where do you think you’re going? You’re not a pimp, I don’t think they’d welcome you down at the brothel.” I scoffed at his idea, stifling a laugh. “Gino will fix you up with something. He’s got everything, but you should probably go classic, yet sophisticated. If you want to go tux, I’d suggest the black, Bond-esque tux.” I grinned sadistically at him. I knew I could play on his Bond obsession, and sure enough, he nodded his approval.

“What would I do without you?”

“Fail,” I stated bluntly, letting out a laugh to indicate that I was half-joking. He glared at me, which I expected, so I flashed him my million-dollar smile and a smirk broke out on his face.

“Not funny,” he said, his smirk betraying the fact that he had found humor in it. “Anyway, we’re officially staying in Barcelona. Ms. Petrie officially transferred Janet to the DEBS office in Spain’s US Embassy.”

“That’s great!” I smiled, standing up, picking up the tray the food had come on and making my way over to the trashcan. “Now let’s go see Gino and then we’ll see Miguel.”

---------------------

Amy’s POV

The room was an utter mess. Sure, Lucy and I had had to spend about a week in this room, but did Lucy really need to leave this in such a wreck? Empty glasses were everywhere, some on wood without coasters, which would surely leave rings. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and a stream of ants was slowly marching over to a plate full of crumbs on her nightstand. Quite simply, the place was a pigsty.

The door opened downstairs, signaling Lucy and Scud’s return to the house. They sure had been out longer than I could have expected. Janet was always pretty picky when it came to clothes, and in the sweater section of the store, the urge had hit her several times, if you know what I mean. All in all, I had really expected Lucy to have been home before us.

“Hey, hon!” Lucy called from downstairs. I practically ran to the staircase, eager to greet her, but making a mental note to remember to chastise her for her messiness afterwards.

Lucy gently placed down the bags she was holding to the left of the door and slowly sauntered up the staircase.

“I missed you,” she said, wrapping her arms around me when she reached me and drawing me in for a quick kiss. I was drawn into her, lost in her intoxicating aura, and I almost forgot that note in the back of my brain.

Shaking back to reality, I clasped Lucy’s hand. “Follow me,” I said, playfully, yet reprimanding enough to let her know I was at least half serious.

Lucy and I walked into the bedroom, where Lucy immediately lay down on the bed. “You know, I was thinking the same thing,” she said in her best seductive voice, flashing me the smile that always failed to keep my heart solid.

As much as I was tempted to join her and enjoy nothing but her, bask in the actions and forget the world, I surprisingly found myself able to resist. “Lucy…as much as I’d like to, that’s not it.”

“Then what?” Lucy asked, quite annoyed. Her eyebrows furrowed and her smile twisted and contorted into a frown. “It’s been more than a week, Amy! I know that it was almost physically impossible for a while, but now what’s the reason? You know, there were times when I was lying in that bed, looking at you that I couldn’t think of anything else but taking you in my arms.”

God! How does she hold this much power over me? “Lucy, stop it!” I ordered harshly, although part of the statement was an order to me to stop getting sidetracked by Lucy. “I’d really appreciate it if you could clean the room up.” I motioned around to the room’s disarray.

“I will. Jesus Christ! What’s wrong with you? You’re holding sex and now you’re being anal with me?!” Oh no, I didn’t like where this was headed, emotions escalating on both sides. If only I could prevent myself from saying something I might…

“What’s wrong with me? Are you serious?!” I nearly shouted, bringing the conversation into an area I had been attempting to avoid since we had rekindled the relationship. “Look at this! It’s filthy! How the heck can you live like this?”

“Fine. I’m cleaning it up,” Lucy said curtly, letting me know that it wasn’t fine. “And to think,” she mumbled under her breath, followed by another line that I couldn’t quite make out. Without looking at me, she crossly grabbed the items in the room, snatching them up a little too hard and fast, before she stormed out of the room.

Nice going…great way of refraining from saying something you might forget! I scolded myself. Passion did have its disadvantages.

---------------------

Lucy’s POV

What’s with her? I repeated the rhetorical question silently as I threw out the items Amy had brought into question. On a glance, she was right, they were filthy, especially the plate with the ants (I had nearly jumped out of my pants when I felt the little buggers crawling up my arms). I absolutely loathe insects.

I slammed the garbage can shut and proceeded to walk out of the kitchen and right into Scud. “Umph!”

“Geez, what’s got you all shitty?” Scud asked.

“Amy—she hates me,” I said, truthfully not believing a word of it.

“No, she doesn’t. What happened in those short minutes from you two groping each other like mad to now?”

“I don’t know, Scud. Nothing, really—it was really just all bullshit.”

“You know, Lucy, it’s always darkest before the light,” Scud sagely stated. I shot him a mock glare—he’s the henchman, I’m supposed to be the smart one here. Scud laughed, seeing through the charade. “Just keep trying. Remember—killing your psycho of an ex-girlfriend is easy, but love…love is hard.”

“Not to you and Janet. You two are so into each other.”

“A lot goes on that you don’t know, Lucy. Love’s not easy for anyone. Well, maybe Casanova and Bill Clinton, but not for most people.”

I gave him my heartfelt gratitude, placing my hand on his shoulder. “Thanks Scud. What would I do without you?”

“Fail,” he said, face lifting into an evil smile as he mirrored my earlier statement.

I took my hand off his shoulder, bunched it up into a fist and playfully reconnected the fist with the shoulder.

---------------------

“Ready yet?” I called upstairs to Amy. If she made me wait any longer for her we would be late to the engagement dinner, which, by Amy and my recommendations based on the food and…other things, was being held at Can Majó. We had barely over a half hour before the dinner started, and it took a half hour to get there. Scud and Janet had left about an hour ago, making last minute arrangements and on a mission to give to John, Can Majó’s manager.

“Alright, I’m ready. Close your eyes.” I followed commands, waiting for Amy to tell me to open my eyes and preparing to be amazed once more by her beauty. After a few agonizing seconds of anticipation that seemed more like hours, she gave the signal, “You can open your eyes.”

I was struck speechless. “What do you think?” Amy asked.

“I think…I think you look…I mean…wow.” I couldn’t form a sentence right now, I was simply awestruck. She laughed, and I admired the way the dress followed her curves flawlessly as her body moved.

She was wearing the brilliant blue gown she had worn our last time at Can Majó. Perfect.

Standing still, continuing to admire, I suddenly felt underdressed. I was in a black ballroom gown, one that came down at a V across my neck, showing ample cleavage, but not too much as to appear slutty. It was a flattering dress, but not perfect…not like hers.

“Lucy. We have to go. We’re going to be late,” Amy reminded me, taking my hand and leading me out the door. “You look great too, by the way.”

We quickly got in the car and sped off, maintaining a speed about fifteen miles per hour above the speed limit.

“Amy, about earlier today…I’m sorry. I overreacted. I don’t know what got into me.”

“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that,” Amy returned the apology. My father had once given me a piece of advice about relationships that I found was the utter truth. He had said, “Lucy, the perfect couple isn’t the one that never argues. The perfect couple is the one that, after any argument, no matter how bad, can end the day with an apology.” A sage man, he was.

“I love you, Amy Bradshaw,” I said, placing my hand over the gear shift.

“I love you too, Miss Reynolds,” she returned, placing her hand on top of mine and turning quickly to flash a smile. The world was perfect.

---------------------

The dinner had gone great so far, even if Amy and I had only made it with a minute left to spare. Even with everyone at the table—Max, Janet, Dominique, Scud, Amy and me—there was absolutely no hostility. In fact, after our little talk back at the cathedral, Max and I had been getting along classically. Amy had turned to me, surprised at that fact quite a few times, and looked pleased that Max and I had seemingly put away our problems with each other.

Of course, everyone had enjoyed the food. As was Can Majó’s style, the food was impeccable. We had pretty much all finished our entrees, Amy being the exception as she finished the last couple bites of her salad. The server opened the door to the private room we had rented and collected our used plates and utensils. As she came to Scud, he protested the collection of his spoon. The server exited the room and quickly entered with a tray of champagne-filled glasses. I knew what was coming next.

A repetitive shrilling banging noise echoed across the room as the server exited and Scud hit his champagne glass with his spoon. He began to deliver his preplanned speech as he rose out of his chair. “Thanks for coming, you guys. It means a lot to Janet and me that you all could make it. The only thing that could make this night better would be if Janet’s parents could come, or if mine were still alive…and could be here tonight.” At the reference to his parents, Scud choked up. Scud’s father had been my father’s henchman and had been caught in cross-fire…it was a long story. “Anyway, you are all the best friends a guy could have. Thank you all.” As Scud sat down, we all lifted our glasses and gave each other the usual ‘cheer,’ clanging the glasses with each individual before drinking a bit of the sparkling alcoholic liquid.

I stood up next, and hesitated for a second. I ground each of my palms in my hands and I glanced at Scud, who winked back, attempting to give me some confidence. Why the hell is this scaring me so much?

“Okay, so first things first, my congratulations to the happy couple.” I moved the glass out in front of me, and another round of glass-clanking took place. “You two really are the perfect couple. I must admit, though, when we all first met each other—Scud, Amy, Janet, and me—at the bar, I really didn’t think that you two would make that great of a couple.” As I continued my speech, Max turned to Janet and gave her a confused and semi-annoyed glare. “But now, I realize that you two were made for each other. Scud, you are Janet’s perfect complement and I only wish that Amy and I can have what you two share.”

Glasses threatened to move again, before Scud’s face broke into a wide grin, and he interrupted the process. “On that note!”

I couldn’t help but laugh…good ole’ Scud. Here goes nothing. “Yes, on that note,” I turned my attention from Scud and Janet to the beautiful blonde beside me. “I have one of the world’s most beautiful women as my girlfriend. I love her to death, and I know she loves me.” Amy looked up, meeting my eyes, a smile lighting up her face brighter than the sky. “The week or so that I lived without her were some of the most telling times of my life. During that time, I realized that there was absolutely no way that I could live without her. Doing so would make me incomplete. I care more about this woman than I care about myself.

“So…what I’m trying to say Amy,” I continued, segueing into a more personal, intimate conversation. For some reason, nerves were killing me. I already kind of knew the answer to the question, but it still sent butterflies fluttering down in my stomach. “What I’m trying to say is this…” I took a breath in an attempt to assuage the nerves. I knelt down on one knee and reached under my seat, picking up a black box as the speakers began to play a familiar tune.

Steal my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time,
My time has come
Let me in
Unlock the door
I never felt this way before

Amy’s face melted into pure, shocked ecstasy, her mouth open wide in the shape of a smile.

“YES!” she shouted prematurely.

“I haven’t asked the question yet,” I smiled, fears relieved. “Will you marry me?”

“YES!” Amy shouted for the second time. I stood up and embraced her in a quick, tight hug before placing the ring on her finger, a brilliant solitaire diamond ring, encircled by a band of pure gold. “I love it, Lucy.”

Our lips met almost instantly as a round of applause broke out from the table, as well as a distinctly audible “AWWWW” from Janet.

Now everything was perfect.

For you I’d wait till kingdom come
Until my day, my day is done
And say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me

---------------------

Back at the house, later that night, Amy and I lay side by side on the bed, just gazing into each other’s eyes. I extended a hand and cupped Amy’s cheek. “I love you so much,” I whispered softly but sincerely.

“Oh, Lucy, I love you just as much. I’m honored to be your fiancée.”

“You’re honored? I’m just glad you said yes. Believe it or not, even though I thought you’d say yes, there were a couple times when I just wasn’t sure.”

“There was only one answer I could ever give to you,” Amy said, inching closer to me and wrapping her arms around me. With my hand on her cheek, I stroked her face affectionately before bringing my mouth to hers. The passion that followed was indescribable, like nothing before. Every intimate moment with Amy reinforced the fact that she was, in fact, the only one there had ever been for me.

My hand slid under her shirt and moved up, cupping a handful of cleavage. She followed suit, hands roaming over my stomach as well. We were definitely at least close to being ready. I began moving my hands lower.

Then the phone rang.

“FUCK! Every damn time!” I exclaimed, infuriated at the bad timing. “If this is Petrie, I’m just going to hang up.”

I reached over to the phone, picked it up and brought it to my ear. “Lucy Reynolds—this had better be good!”

The voice that responded back wasn’t Petrie’s. No, it was a voice that made the blood run terrified from my face as I positively paled.

“Yesss, thisss isss good, Reynolds. You ssstill owe me that thirrrd favorrr.”

It was the voice of a dead man.

---------------------
And so you see, I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you
---------------------

Epilogue

A/N: Opening lyrics come from You Know My Name by Chris Cornell; end lyrics belong to It’s the End of the World (As We Know It) by REM

---------------------
Arm yourself because no one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
And I will replace you
You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you
It longs to kill you
Are you willing to die?
The coldness burns through my veins
You know my name
---------------------

It was a dank and dreary day down in the prison in Barcelona. The two guards sat around a table, playing Texas Hold’em in their office, all the while trying to block out the frantic and inane screams and utterances of the prisoners from behind the hinged door that served as their barricade.

“HA, gotcha! Straight! The pot’s mine!” exclaimed one of the guards, a younger, gruff-looking man. The man extended his arms around the chips on the table and pulled them towards him.

“Wait, where’s the straight? You don’t have it, so my two-pair wins!” the other guard argued as he flipped over his cards.

“The Ace in the community starts it off.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t have a straight that goes Ace-two-three-four-five!”

“HA! You stupid, not like bear!” shouted one of the prisoners mockingly. She bore a strong Russian accent and was a physically daunting woman, taller than the majority of men and extremely muscle-bound.

“Yah! You stupid!” joined another prisoner from the same cell.

They were the targets.

A woman crawled along the air ducts overhead, taking in the action as the guards yelled their retorts to the women. She was on a mission and nothing would stop her. No, that was wrong—nothing could stop her, she thought.

The woman continued crawling through the ducts until she reached a grate that she could effectively lower herself through. Looking down through the grate, it appeared that she was right above the guards’ office, but they were nowhere to be found.

Voices rang out below and behind her.

“You two, shut up!” shouted one of the guards. Muffled voices followed, and, with the guards distracted, she realized that there was no better time than the present to make her move.

She slowly swung up the grate, careful not to make a noise or draw attention. Once the grate was up, she lowered herself through the hole in the ducts. The sounds of the argument were getting louder and clearer.

“You think you strong like bear, but you not!”

Once down on the floor, the woman conducted a cursory survey of her whereabouts. She had made nary a noise coming down, and the guards were still preoccupied, their backs turned to the hallway, facing her targets. The cards lay haphazardly on the table. This is what happens when you foolishly gamble, jackasses.

Her targets, the two large Russian women, were in the first cell outside the guards’ office, making her plan all too easy. The woman turned her head, checking on her surroundings, making sure she would go unstopped, and suddenly she was off running, through the doors. She stopped right behind the guards, who turned at the noise, grabbing for their guns. They never had the chance to draw. The woman deftly collected a head in each hand and forcefully thrust them into the bars of the door, knocking the men out cold.

“Tiny? Smalls?” the woman, speaking in a French accent, addressed the two women.

“Da—Who you?” responded one of the women in acknowledgement. The woman was indistinguishable from her companion.


“I’m your savior.”

---------------------

A man sat in a brand new black leather chair, peering out above his desk on a warehouse that was in the process of being renovated. Before him on the desk lay a chess board from which he would extract a black piece every so often and move it to a spot which required no thought to determine. The man played against an invisible opponent, although he graciously moved the pieces for this unnamed challenger. There was no way the man could lose, however, for he was a machine when it came to chess—never had he found an equal.

The man, not having to focus on the moves his chess pieces would make, always enjoyed to contemplate on various themes as he would play. This night the man, in between moves, deliberated on the meaning of one particular word: Loyalty. The word meant a lot to the man sitting black leather chair, as the man needed loyalty on a daily basis. If he didn’t get loyalty, well, those disloyal had to pay the consequence. That was the only way to run a global crime network, and Corleone knew that.

It was the topic of loyalty that had forced Corleone’s hand to put into action one of the most ambitious and daring plans the genius had ever conceived—the death of Charitine LeFleur.

Charitine, a few weeks prior to arriving in Barcelona, had shown Corleone the beginnings of a revolt, she had shown her disloyalty. She had let emotions control her and had become completely indignant, completely useless to him. As soon as the disloyalty had coursed through her veins, Corleone knew that it was time to play the game.

Sure, playing chess with inanimate pieces of wood on a chessboard was a means of amusement, but Corleone felt no challenge coming from it. Playing chess with humans, on the other hand, held the ultimate challenge, and Corleone was the ultimate challenger.

Human chess was an intricate game of deception and deceit, and none excelled better than Corleone. Humans, with their intelligence, and free will were seemingly unpredictable, but Corleone knew better. Corleone knew how to play the game.

Scientists and computer programmers would want you to believe that the human mind is an object of randomness, and that the decisions it makes cannot be determined accurately one-hundred percent of the time. They would like you to believe that true artificial intelligence was impossible.

They would be wrong.

Corleone knew better—the human mind is a factor of many things, but randomness played little to no factor. He had found that the mind was prominently controlled by past events, current events, and the effects of one’s surroundings, among other affecting circumstances.

In the end, it all boiled down to Sigmund Freud. The id, ego, and the super-ego were the three predominant factors in every decision; the key was controlling them. Of course, the ego was the easiest to manipulate, being, in a nutshell, the part of the brain that made the conscious decisions. It was the part of the human mind that was the most affected by an altered reality, and it was this fact that made it the easiest to mold.

Of course, the ego was directly affected by the balance between the id and the super-ego, and that was where the fun began for Corleone. Striking the balance and manipulating each subconscious entity was where the challenge always lay. The super-ego, the symbolic father-figure of the brain, the moral portion always was striving to limit the id, the part of the brain that existed only for pleasure, the part that yearned for the sensory. These were significantly harder to manipulate than the ego, but, providing the right circumstances, one could pull it off, and Corleone frequently did.

By controlling a person’s ego, id and super ego in a controlled environment, Corleone found it not only possible to influence a person’s actions, but to completely determine a person’s actions before they themselves determined it.

Say, for example, Charitine’s decision to mutiny—Corleone had merely planted the seeds and provided the necessary route for her decisions. He had controlled her like a master puppeteer controlling a marionette and she had fallen straight into his trap.

The problem with Charitine was that she let emotions guide her, something Corleone had learned to avoid. Emotions complicated things, and Corleone had no use for them anymore. Yes, once he too had let emotions control him, but they had torn him asunder and cast him to the ground. He knew firsthand the damage they could do, but, alas, that was a story for another day.

When Corleone had discovered, through his vast wealth of contacts, that his former protégé, Lucy Reynolds, had moved to Barcelona he found the perfect circumstance to facilitate and manipulate his prey. Lucy was the irresistible jewel in Charitine’s eye, the prize that she wanted, yet, like a masochistic, forbade herself from. He alone knew the reason she had broken up with Lucy, and it had not been Lucy’s attachment to Charitine. In fact, it had been quite the opposite.

After her father had shunned her from the family, Corleone had always noticed an aversion to emotion on Charitine’s part. Charitine, perhaps as a response to her father, felt the need to maintain apathy for and a complete detachment from everything. So, when her id had started to desire Lucy Reynolds, her super-ego’s defense mechanisms had kicked into gear, and she had realized that she needed to break it. This had not surprised Corleone. Rather, what surprised Corleone was that her super-ego had been ignored for as long as it was.

So, in Lucy’s presence in Spain, Corleone found the needed catalyst for the deposal of the waste that was Charitine. When he had told Lucy that he had needed the second favor from her, she never would have guessed what it was, nor would he have ever told her what the true favor was. She was still under the impression that the second favor had been the heist at the art museum, and she was dead wrong. The second favor had been to assist Corleone in the murder of her ex-girlfriend.

The art heist had never been a real plan; instead, it was just a part of the much larger plan. It had been a rush job on purpose, although all things considered, as part of the larger plan, it certainly was not a rush job. As a perceived rush job, however, it served as the channel to ensure that the portion of Charitine’s id that had wanted to revolt and usurp Corleone had won out over the super-ego that had warned against it. Thereby, Corleone took an event that he knew would happen eventually and put it on his terms rather than hers—it was easier to control that way.

Corleone had spent decades studying people, and from those long, arduous years had ascertained a method of diagnosing and dissecting a person’s mind just by observing their actions. He had known the effects being near Lucy would have on Charitine. He had known the temptation Charitine had faced with Lucy, and he had certainly known that she would formulate her plan to rule the criminal world with Lucy by her side. Charitine, by nature, was a creature of ambition, and that ambition had been her downfall. Her over-ambitiousness had blinded her, and in the moment of her ultimate triumph, the moment she had been able to eliminate the thought that haunted her super-ego, he had used that ambitiousness to end her life.

As for his “resurrection,” Corleone had planned that out to the tee. Knowing that he had pushed her over the edge to her breaking point, Corleone had taken every precaution he could have possibly imagined to ensure that he would not perish.

Days before the incident, Corleone had begun taking multiple painkillers, and had barely moved from the chair. He had been effectively numb, and that only played into his hands, as he knew that, not feeling the pain, his sick smile would haunt Charitine until her untimely death. Oh, the blood had been real, that was not staged, but it was planned. For months he had been taking blood and storing it in a small refrigerator he kept in his makeshift office, and it had served the purpose he knew it would.

Months earlier, in the first steps of the plan, Corleone had implanted a small GPS device under the skin in his arm. This device had allowed his newest protégé, the woman who had made Charitine disposable, to track him and quickly find him after Charitine had deposited his body in the woods.

His protégé had arrived in the nick of time in the white van she drove for this occasion and, upon finding him, quickly strapped him into the medical cot she had stolen from the hospital. Inside the van, the doctor she had kidnapped days before Charitine’s coup set about performing a crude blood transfusion at gunpoint. It had not been sophisticated, but it had worked.

Corleone had spent the next few weeks in bed, recovering in the secret location only he and his newest protégé had known about. Even though he was out of commission, the events he had set in motion continued to go on without him.

To play the game of human chess, one constantly had to rely on the power of human connections. Mother to daughter, father to son, lover to lover, and enemy to enemy, they all had different connections, and if you knew how to exploit them, they could be used to the player’s advantage.

In this case, from careful observation, Corleone had felt the need to use the connection he had sensed between Lucy Reynolds and her girlfriend, Amy Bradshaw, a connection he cared to refer to as the Reynolds/Bradshaw Connection. From observation, he had sensed that it was nearly indestructible, and therefore, could withstand the onslaught Charitine’s blow would have dealt. Once the connection had mended, it was only a matter of time before they realized the monster that Charitine was and dealt with her themselves.

The Four Horsemen Defense System was a joke, a crude system Corleone had thrown together knowing full well what it would be used for. He had meant for Lucy and company to be able to penetrate the system, and had kept an eye tracking Charitine, suspecting that her id would win out and that she would make a move to draw Lucy to her. He had proved correct in both cases.

Lucy had refused once again, as he fully expected, and, being out of practice, had lost in her fight against Charitine. Luckily…no, thankfully (Corleone had never believed in luck) Corleone had already expected such an outcome and had…insurance in that case. That insurance policy had dealt with the problem of Charitine and insured that she would not be coming back any time soon.

The game of human chess, Corleone thought, is more enjoyable when no one knows you’re playing. He picked up a white piece, and, sensing the thoughts of his invisible rival, moved the pawn to the G-5 square. Surveying the board, he leaned back in the leather chair and took in his surroundings. Behind him stood his most loyal employees, his new protégé, a woman with flowing brown hair and a tanned complexion to rival Lucy Reynolds’, as well as the two idiot savants, Tiny and Smalls, who only knew violence–they were the future…he was the future. He moved his black queen directly diagonal to his challenger’s king, putting them in check.

The world would not know what was about to hit it.

Gingerly, he extended a frail finger towards the white king, and in one fluid motion toppled it, the piece rolling off the board. “Checkmate.”

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It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine.
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