"Babe."

"Come on Babe open your eyes."

I can't. I think to myself. They're so heavy.

"Open your eyes, come on, I need to see those eyes."

I struggled but I finally got them open. "Ranger?" I asked, still a little fuzzy on what had happened.

"Babe, what happened? Are you okay? Where's your back up?" Too many questions, I could hardly keep my eyes open let alone think coherently.

"Lula?" I asked hoping to answer one of his questions.

"She called Tank and then took off after he got here, she didn't want to be here when the cops showed up."

"She was my back up."

"Babe…"

I was still in Sylvester's trailer, I was now in the living room, but the pictures of his bloody body still stuck in my head.

"Sylvester?"

"He's dead babe, come on I'm gonna take you to the hospital to get you checked out."

That's when I remembered the man. The one who tried to kill me. I sat up and started looking around hoping he wasn't still there.

"Babe relax, don't move so fast you could have a concussion."

"But the man..." Was all that I could get out into an understandable thought.

"What man?"

"The one who hit me."

"Babe, what are you talking about?"

"When I got here Sylvester was already dead. I turned around and there was this man. He was built almost like one of your guys. He kept hitting and beating me."

"Babe wait…you mean it wasn't Sylvester who did this to you?"

"Weren't you listening?" Now I was getting angry. He wasn't even listening to a word I said. "We have to find him." I attempted to get up. But an attempt was all that happened.

"Babe relax, your safe, I'm going to take you back to Rangeman."

At this point exhaustion hit me again, I let him help me into his car, as soon as I felt the leather seat under me I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning with Ranger sitting next to me on the bed staring.

"You could have woken me."

"I could have."

I sat up and made my way to the bathroom. I wanted to scream when I saw myself in the mirror. I looked like the bride of Frankenstein. I took a quick shower and threw on Ranger's robe. I walked out into the living room fully expecting Ranger to be downstairs. But once again I was wrong.

"Babe, Bobby needs to look at your bruises and cuts to make sure their not infected. He was a medic while we were in the Rangers, he knows what he is doing." I looked down at my robe and then to Bobby, whose face was starting to redden.

"Steph, if you don't feel comfortable with me doing it I can always take you to the hospital and they …"

"No hospitals." I said. Bobby looked down at the robe I was wearing then said. "You can change, but make sure its something that I can see most of your bruises."

I hurried back into Ranger's room and threw on a sports bra and shorts. I walked back out into the living room and stood in front of Bobby not sure of what to do.

"You can just stay there," he said to me. He did his survey of me, the whole time Ranger and I didn't take our eyes off of each other. "She seems in working order, just a little ruffed up." Bobby said.

I ran back into Ranger's room and threw on one of my shirts that were still there from the time that I stayed here. I ran out of the room and grabbed the keys off the counter. "Well I guess that's means that I can go back to work." I was almost to the door when Ranger grabbed my arm.

"Babe."

"What I'm in working order, the doc said so, I can go catch bad guys. Sorry but I got to make rent."

"The guy that did this to you is still out there, you can't go running around…"

"Ranger, I can't just sit here either."

"I can't see you get hurt again."

"I can take care of myself."

"How about this, if you're that worried about rent, you give up your apartment and live at Rangeman."

"How about, I get to be involved in this investigation."

"Fine, if you give up your apartment and come here and live and work, I will keep you up to date and let you help bring this guy in."

"But I want to keep my apartment."

"Babe its either this or you go to a safe house."

"But what about after this is all over?"

"I never said you had to leave after this." He said

I was more than a little excited when he said this. But I tried to play it cool. "Fine."

"Deal?"

"Deal."

I was down at my desk doing searches, for what seemed like forever. I looked at my watch, only two hours had gone by. I had done as much research as I could on my skip Monty Sylvester. I couldn't find any one that fit the description of the guy who attacked me. I decided it was time to get some answers.