In an empty neighborhood of Las Vegas, the new cult or gang came together inside a broken down house. Only a few light from the dead street lit up the area. A group of twenty-one individuals stood together surrounding another that was trying to be part of the group but who had gotten caught by the cops in one of the missions he was given. Seventeen year old Ralph Lickcross knew it was over. His forehead was covered in sweats, his brown eyes in panic as he saw the serious faces of the others. They all wore a black robe, the hood up so their faces were covered. He had failed to retrieve the child for sacrifice but in reality he had called the cops and they had pretended that they were arresting him. He was their informant and now he knew he was going to die.

"You failed," a deep male voice said, his voice echoing in the room. It was the leader. Ralph panicked and his eyes scanned the rest. He noticed movement behind the leader and saw the hood slightly pushed back to see a young woman with anger, anger not directed at him but the leader who stood with him inside the circle of people. Her right side was twitching and her eyes locked with his turning into sympathy. He saw her quickly sign that she was sorry and then her head dropped to her chest.

"I'm sorry," Ralph said. "I'm sorry master." The leader chuckled as he moved closer to Ralph. Ralph stood still even though he wanted to back up a step but he couldn't show fear, he wanted to die with some dignity.

"Master, you say?" the leader asked. "I heard you call me a lunatic when you talked to the cops." Ralph wanted the ground to take him and he wondered what was taking the cops so long to get there.

"Wh..what?" Ralph asked trying to look confused but not doing so well.

"Don't play stupid!" the leader growled out from underneath his hood angrily. Ralph this time did take a step back in fear. The leader laughed evilly. His arm came up and Ralph saw a gun pointed at him.

"No," a female voice said. The leader turned to face the voice and watched as his followers walked away from the person who had spoken.

"What did you say?" the leader questioned, a warning in his voice.

"Master, let me do it," the female said and Ralph saw it was the one who had signed sorry to him. The female pulled out a tube and then a gun. It was a silencer and she was screwing it on top of the gun. "I will do it in the back of the house. If he talked to the cops they surely would be coming this way, right?"

"Yes," the leader said, impressed. "But I want his bloody shirt as evidence and a finger."

"Yes master," the female said as she bowed. The leader looked at everybody else as they waited for instructions.

"Let's get out of here," the leader ordered and out the door he went with the others following, leaving Ralph and the female. She walked to him and he noticed she was shorter than him.

"Back, now," she barked at him. Ralph nodded and he walked through the back door inside the dead yard. "Give me your shirt." Ralph took off his shirt and watched as she placed rocks inside of it as she laid it on the ground. She placed the gun inside her robe and took out a knife.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Saving your life," she mumbled out. "Probable screwing myself in the process but no worries mate, now I need your hand."

"Why?" he asked.

"He knows what you said to the cops, means he works for them," she told him. "He might take the shirt to the DNA lab to make sure it is yours." She cut his hand and let the drops land on his shirt on the ground. "In those bushes there is a case I hid. Bring it here." Ralph nodded and grabbed the case, wincing as he put pressure on his hand. The woman opened the case and took out bandages, a bag, and a needle with a tube to take out blood.

"I guess you need more of my blood now," Ralph commented.

"Yep," the woman answered. She bandaged up his hand first and then prepped him quickly. It was seconds later he was sitting down with his blood flowing from his vein into the bag. The woman had taken out a small jar that had a pig in it and she cleaned the area of grass. "The cops aren't here yet because he has then on a goose chase right now."

"How do you know this?" Ralph asked.

"None of your business yet but you are staying with me after this," the woman told him. She then put lots of gasoline on the dead piglet and lit it in flames.

"Bag is full," Ralph told her. The woman finally pushed her hood away from her face and she looked to be his age. She was Hispanic origin, her black hair tied up in a ponytail with her bangs facing all directions. She sealed his wound and took his bag, putting it underneath the blood stained shirt. She took her gun out and aimed. The bullet lodged into the rock and blood splattered all over his shirt. He felt sick thinking that could have been him minutes or hours ago. She grabbed the flattened bullet from the inside of the shirt and dropped it into the flames.

"Your finger," she said.

"What?" Ralph asked.

"He wants your finger," she told him. She went to her case to pull out a cigar cutter. "I am sorry but I have to stay in the group and this is the only way." She pulled out a belt, handing it to him. "Put this between your teeth." She grabbed a smaller kit with medical sewing materials.

When the cops came an hour later they saw the last of the smoke, blood on the ground and nothing more. A man walked in, chubby with a brown suit.

"Get the CSI team in here, tell them it is another murder from that new cult," he ordered the cops.

"Doing it now Captain Brass," the cop at his side said as he started to speak into the walkie.

The leader waited in the main meeting house and stopped his pacing as the female came back. She took a bag out from underneath her robe, tossing it at him. Inside was a bloody shirt with a bullet hole and an index finger.

"You have done well for being new here," he said. The woman tried not kill him where he stood but she needed the information on the rest of the members. "You make me proud."

"Your appraisal is moving master," the young woman said from inside her robe.

"Go, I will call on you," the leader ordered. The young woman bowed and left the room. Outside she walked a block to her car and took off her robe angrily, throwing it to the back seat. When she got to her apartment she went to the guest room to check on the teenager. He was pale and she slowly went to his side, wiping off the sweat. She woke him up.

"Come on, you need Advil again," she said. The teenaged boy nodded and swallowed the pills.

"You are very motherly," the boy said.

"Really?" the young woman asked. The boy nodded his head. "Well, I wouldn't know much about being motherly, I had barely gotten adopted two and half years ago."

"How old are you?" Ralph asked.

"Twenty," the young woman answered. He was shocked.

"Wow, you looked a lot younger," he told her.

"Thanks, get that all the time," she said.

"Where are your parents?" he asked.

"Looking at bugs and having a great time together," she answered. "My mom is pregnant and making my dad go crazy." The boy laughed and then fell asleep as the young woman watched over him, the TV blaring at the side.