She slipped out of the house silently, not a noise was made as the most beautiful woman of all time climbed the railing along her balcony and dropped the 60 feet to the ground below. This feat was accomplished as elegantly as it was possible to with such a task. She ran to the house where her one true love was sleeping. No, not sleeping, a man like him couldn't, but meditating. She smiled. Never would she have thought, during her years of abuse from her parents, that she would ever be in love like this. It was just a crush, something a school girl would have. But inside she knew that it was more than that. She was in love, and with the greatest detective of all time, who she had been brought up to hate... But China Sorrows was a changed woman, and she had learnt from those mistakes.

Behind her a twig snapped. She whipped around, eyes wide and alert, but it was only a squirrel. How could she be scared of a squirrel? But she wasn't scared of the squirrel, or even where she was. This was not a rough neighbourhood, after all. She was scared of the man that she knew couldn't be here, but she was still very cautious indeed. If he knew that she spent her nights creeping around, watching her old husband and longing for him, who knows what he would do? Serpine was an unpredictable man, and this fate would be even worse than the last.

She slid a pin from out of her hair, and as she did so the small lock of hair it had been holding in place fell forward. Raven curls, perfect as ever.

Click, click, click... And open! The great woman laughed at herself. China Sorrows, reduced to this... Picking the lock on the door of her one true love. Her love, who still couldn't see beneath her mask, no matter how hard she tried to make the mask fall down. Some detective, but she loved him all the same. The sadness spread across her face, as she remembered for the thousandth time, that he could never love her back. If only she could go back to the good old days, when she loved who she wanted, when they enjoyed her love, they lived for her love, and some even died for it.

But Skullduggery was different. He could no more love China than he could a filthy rat in the drains. And that was all she was to him, after Serpine had told the lie... The lie that made him forget all about her and him, the fantastic couple that they were, and made him hate her, more than he could ever hate anyone, and made the great detective be outsmarted, bringing death to the brave soldier and cunning detective.

She weeped rivers inside, yearning for the man he used to be, the man who, in her heart, still lived. She wiped the single tear off her cheek, breathed in and out until her breathing slowed, and continued with her night as if nothing had ever happened. The mask was back in place.