Instead of driving to our destination, or flying, or going by some incredibly unconventional mean (since I got back I found out Bentley was trying to build a teleporter), we took the train from France to Italy. The boys, of course, could afford the best which meant buying out an entire passenger car just for us. We each could have had our own cabin but we chose to all stay together. I'd never ridden a train before. The scenery that could be seen from the window was beautiful and breathtaking. I secretly promised myself that I would be taking trains more often from now on.
"..ya… Maya" Sly's hand touched my shoulder and I jumped, finally breaking out of my trance. He chuckled. "You've been staring out that window for almost an hour now. You're missing the war meeting."
"Sorry" I said as I turned my body back towards him and Bentley.
Sly smiled at me and turned back to Bentley. "So explain again what the plan is for Maya's sake."
"Well, it's not much of a plan" Bentley said. "We're going to have to get our hands on some blueprints of the important buildings in the city when get there. For one, we'll need something on the police station. It's most likely that if Murray is anywhere, he's there. He is a known criminal so there's a chance that he's been arrested and taken in by the police. While Sly and I are checking out the police headquarters, I want you to go talk to the locals, Maya."
"What for?" I asked.
"Information" he said. "I need you to gather information on important buildings in the area and upcoming events. We need to know where to avoid in order to keep away from Octavio. We don't want to cause any trouble if we can avoid it. You're not only a woman, but it's not widely known who you are or that you've joined our gang, so this kind of reconnaissance is perfect for you."
"By locals, then, I take it you mean mobsters" I said.
"Exactly" he replied. "They'll be far less suspicious of someone like you. It will get suspicious if you start asking about Murray, though, so leave the investigation of him up to us."
"So I'll act as a tourist interested in the sights and activities and maybe secretly interested in the opera that used to be around here" I said. "That way I'll get more information out of the mobsters."
"What makes you think they don't hate tourists and that they won't kill you just to get you to shut up and stop bothering them?" Sly asked.
"They're men, right?" I asked. I knew I was assuming a lot.
"Sure, but what does that have to do with anything?" Sly asked.
All I did was smirk at him. For a flirt he could be really clueless at times. I was about to give him a hint about it when he suddenly said "Hey…" but he was cut off by Bentley's next comment.
"It's getting dark out" Bentley said.
"So it is" I said distractedly as I turned my head to look out the window.
"We should try to get some sleep before we get to Venice" Bentley continued.
"That's a good idea" I said, realizing that just him bringing it up made me so much more tired than I had been before that moment. I then looked around the small passenger cabin we were in and realized that it was awfully small for three people and then I thought that it didn't make sense for all three of us to stay in the same cabin when we had the whole car. "Are we done here?" I asked Bentley.
"We've talked about everything I have to talk about" he said.
"Good" I said as I stood up, bent on going to get my own cabin.
"Hey, where are you going?" Sly asked as he grabbed my arm.
"To find a place to sleep" I answered nonchalantly.
"I'm coming with you" he said.
"There's plenty of room for each of us to have our own space" I replied, not really getting the hint. I honestly wasn't thinking very hard about anything other than sleep.
"Come here" Sly said as he pulled me back to him.
"Sly?!" I exclaimed as I fell back into his lap. He locked his arms around my waist and held me there.
"Do you really want your own space?" he whispered huskily in my ear.
My brain became frazzled and I couldn't think of an answer to his question. I sat there with my mouth hanging open until a squeeze to my midsection brought me back to my senses, which probably wasn't what he wanted but is what happened.
"I'm thinking about sleep, Sly" I finally responded, turning to look at his face. "If you would like to join me, that's totally up to you."
"Don't you want me to join you?" he asked, looking a bit disappointed and hurt. It occurred to me that I hadn't been thinking as part of a couple because it had been a long time since we'd been together as a couple.
"Sure" I softly answered and I put a hand on his face. "Sorry."
"It's fine" he said with a soft smile on his face. We stared at each other for what seemed like forever before he stood up without warning, lifting me up with him as well. A squeak of terror escaped me at the sudden motion and I clung to his shoulders. "See you in the morning Bentley" Sly said as he slid open the door to the compartment with me still in hand. After stepping out into the hallway and heading up to the front of the car, he placed me back on my feet.
"I'm sorry, Sly," I said with a frown as he opened the door to his chosen cabin. "It's just been so long since I had to think as part of a group or a couple."
"It's really fine" he said as he led me into the room. Part of me was waiting to see a whole dinner set up in that room, like the last date that he and I had been on where he surprised me. I couldn't really say that it was disappointing that there was nothing there, but at the same time it was a little disappointing. It didn't look any different than the last compartment we'd been in. I sat down on one of the benches and watched as Sly opened an overhead compartment.
"What are you doing?" I asked him as he pulled on a large bag in the compartment.
"Put your feet up on the bench, you'll see" he said with a smile. It took him a couple more seconds but he finally got the bag in the compartment open and a bunch of pillows and a particularly comfortable blanket fell out of it. He paused to look at what had fallen and then continued to pull out cushions and more pillows from the compartment. I watched, transfixed by what he was doing, as he finally got it all out and began to arrange it in the space between the two benches. Before I knew it, he had made what looked like the coziest little pillow nest I had ever seen and he laid the blanket over it. "You've got sleep on your mind, right?" he asked.
"Yeah" I answered as I watched him lay down.
"Well, get down here" he said as he offered an arm. Lured down by the comfort that I saw in that pillow nest, I happily joined Sly and my perceptions of it had been right. I imagined this is what it would be like to sleep on a cloud. My whole body relaxed and I didn't even stop to wonder where he could have found all these fantastically soft pillows. I curled up next to him and laid my head on his chest. All I could think about was how I just wanted to snuggle up to him and sleep here forever. "Hey" Sly whispered in my ear.
"Hmm?" I replied.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked as I looked up at him.
"You're just distant" he said.
"Yeah, I know" I replied. "It's not that I'm trying to be, it's just weird to be interacting with people again. I spent all that time away as a renunciant with my master. Of course it's going to be hard to adjust back to interaction. Sorry if I'm worrying you."
"It's fine. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't change your mind about being part of the gang while you were out there in the world" he said.
"I would never" I replied with a smile. "No matter where I go I'll always come home."
"That's good to hear" he said and it sounded like he was truly reassured of my commitment not just to him but to the gang. I knew that it probably still stung that Murray left so suddenly and that I chose to do the same not long after he had. It had to be hard on the group. I was sure that they felt as if their world fell apart.
"Just don't forget that I left my training to come back here" I told him.
"You're right" he said. "Do you think Murray will do the same?"
"You know I can't speak for him, but I know that he probably feels the same way that I did. I bet he misses his friends, even if what he's doing is important, and his loyalty to you is something that you should never question" I said. "Now, let's stop worrying about things we can't control right now and get some sleep. There's not a lot we'll be doing if we're not well rested."
"True" Sly replied and then I felt him lift my face up by my chin. He looked into my tired eyes and smiled. "I'm glad you came back."
Warmth filled me at those words and there wasn't even a thought of resistance as he kissed me softly. I surrendered to sleep shortly after that.
I found myself in a dark damp room with the sound of dripping water in the background. No matter where I looked, there was no sign of where I was.
"What?" I asked myself. There was the sound of footsteps behind me and when I turned around there was an illuminated scene of Sly in a room full of lasers, though none of them were in a grid like you would find in security. They didn't seem to have a purpose.
"I'm sorry, Maya" he said and he turned his back on me and began to walk away.
"Wait, Sly" I said as I tried to follow him but he disappeared into a hole of darkness that appeared in the scene before me.
"What's going on?" I asked as I stopped.
"Where's Sly?" Bentley's voice asked from behind me. "Is he…?"
When I turned, there was no one there. Now I was standing at the base of a huge mountain. At the top of it was a shining light of some kind. It began to approach me as I stared at it. After a moment I realized that it wasn't coming to me but I was going to it. I had started to fly up toward the light without even thinking about it. When I finally set back down on the ground in front of it, I could see that it was a vault door. The door was decorated with the shape of a raccoon face across the entire width and breadth of it. In the middle of that face, there was a huge dial which had nothing on it but the shape of a cane.
My hand suddenly felt heavy and I looked down to see that in my grasp was the Cooper cane. I lifted it up, holding it next to the shape on the vault in my field of vision and realized that the two things were identical. So the cane was the key to the vault? I held it up and pressed it into the space shaped specifically for it. At first nothing happened and I thought that perhaps I was wrong. I pulled the cane back out and let my arm fall to my side. Everything was silent for a moment but then suddenly the dial on the door spun and then the outside of it followed before the bars connected to the dial disconnected and dropped down, allowing the door to open. The door swung open of its own accord and a bright light came from inside for just a moment.
When the light died down, there was darkness inside of the vault, but it felt as if it was drawing me in. I submitted to its call, walking in slowly. Again I felt a change in my hand and looked down to see that the cane had disappeared. Apparently the only reason I needed it was to open that door. Behind me the door shut and I was again left in total darkness. Instead of standing still this time I kept walking, feeling as if there was some reason I was here. Eventually there was another light that began to appear in the distance before me and it steadily grew closer as I continued forward. Before I knew it, the darkness opened up into a cave and I walked through that cave to a lit room on the other side of it. It wasn't possible that I had walked into that room, as I was standing in the center of it now, and it was a platform that looked to be suspended by lasers of the same kind that I'd seen before.
I paused to turn back the way I had come and saw that there was a raccoon face shaped entrance to the room, but the only way to where I was from it was a long jump or death by laser. The only conclusion that I could come to was that I had walked straight from the darkness and been placed in the center of this room.
"Did any of it mean anything to him?" asked a very familiar voice behind me. I turned to see a raccoon there. He didn't sound exactly like Sly but he sounded very similar and he had white fur where a raccoon should be grey. His build was strong and he was tall and he turned to look at me with his brown eyes. I felt like I should know him. As the rest of his body turned with him, I saw the Cooper cane in his right hand. "It's hard to think that he walked away from all of this."
"Sly?" I asked. I wanted to know who he was talking about and I didn't know why but I thought it was Sly. As I tried to approach him, there was a gust of wind and he turned into mist and disappeared. "Come back" I called to the wind, reaching as if my grabbing just a bit of that mist would bring him back to me.
"He never really was the type for commitment" another voice called behind me again and I turned to see that stupid fox-faced woman. "And you didn't have the power to change him anyway."
"Shut up!" I growled and I lunged at her, only to have her disappear from between my claws. I looked down at my hands in surprise. If I had only been a bit faster I would have had her.
"You could have had all the power in the world, but you threw it away" my father's voice finally came from behind me. I turned to face him. He was Rajan the drug lord again. "You threw it all away for that man. You destroyed your own gang… your family!"
"No! I saved you!" I cried.
"You have no home to return to" he continued.
"I have Sly and his gang now!" I replied.
"Do you?" all of their voices replied at once and I looked around to see that now I was surrounded by them. I spun in place once to look at all of them before my vision settled back on Sly, who was now standing where my father had just been.
"Denying it won't change anything" he said.
Before I could ask what he meant, they all disappeared and so did the floor. I was falling into a black abyss and I felt terror rush through me. A scream left my lips and for some reason my body started to shake violently.
"Maya! Maya!" I could hear Sly's voice but I couldn't see him.
"Help me!" I called out to him.
"Maya, wake up!" I heard him shout and a sharp sting on my face suddenly woke me from my dream. It was like falling into reality, and for a moment I was very confused. I looked around, trying to figure out what had happened but the only thing that really registered in my mind was a very worried looking Sly in front of me, holding my shoulders and the still-present sting in my cheek.
"What happened?" I finally asked.
"I think you were dreaming" Sly replied as he placed a hand on my cheek. "Does it hurt?"
I didn't quite understand until I realized what that sting must have been earlier. "No, it doesn't hurt anymore." I replied.
"Good. I couldn't figure out how else to get you out of whatever nightmare you were having so I just slapped you" he said.
"That's fine. Did I wake you?" I asked.
"No" he replied. "Actually I woke up about a half an hour ago. We're almost there and it's already daylight but you were sleeping so soundly I didn't want to wake you."
"Oh" I said as I looked up and the light coming in the window could have only been daylight.
"Feel like getting ready?" he asked.
"Yeah" I replied, still feeling a bit shaken and out of it.
"Good" he said with a smile and he slid open the door to our compartment. I figured he was going to check on Bentley as I slipped into a new change of clothes. During my time away from India I'd fallen out of the traditional attire and now went for a V-neck, black, belly t-shirt and black yoga pants. All I had with me at the moment was a pair of black ballet flats. The rest of my shoes were mixed in with our luggage so I just wore what I had.
The door slid open again and there was Sly. He held out my pair of white Binocucom from forever ago. I took them like they were some kind of relic that would break easily if I were to handle them too harshly. He also held out a small earpiece for me. I put it in my ear as if it were second nature. My job here would be to stay away from the boys while they were busy so of course I'd need an inconspicuous way to keep in touch.
"We'll call a taxi from the station to take us to our hideout" Sly explained. "Bentley found an old unused property that was up for sale for cheap because the owners couldn't get rid of it."
"Okay" I said.
"I'm glad you're back" he said. "What happened to the traditional clothes, though?"
"Oh, that's right" I said, remembering something slightly off topic. I reached for my bag and went in the front of it to pull out the tail ring Sly had gotten for me so long ago. It looked out of place on this outfit but I wanted to wear it again. I slid it on my tail and then brought it in front of me to inspect it for any damage from travel. It looked like the day he had gotten it for me. He didn't say anything, he just smiled instead.
"Things are almost back to normal" Sly said.
"Right" I said with a smile. "Now, let's go get Murray."
"It's time for our gang to be complete again" Sly replied as he looked at his cane clutched in his right hand.
A voice came over the train's intercom letting us know that we were arriving in Venice. Sly and I looked at each other and nodded. We started to gather up the things we'd unpacked and get them ready to go. For the first time since I returned I felt like a real member of the gang again and it was time to get serious and get our friend back.