Hello dearest readers! I'm so sorry I haven't updated in an eternity-I had no idea my summer would be so busy!

Chapter 3- Nighty-night

After thanking Mr. DiNozzo and hurrying across the parking lot, I cautiously entered the convenience store, careful to keep my face angled away from the two security cameras. At the checkout counter there were several road atlases for the DC metropolitan area, and a stack of travel maps. I grabbed a travel map and glanced around the small store, something I did out of habit. There was one other person, filling a big plastic cup with soda. I had ten dollars, a few could go towards something to eat-I'd never gotten my food at the restaurant, what with Marines getting kidnapped and all.

A sack of shelled peanuts caught my attention, and I snatched them off the shelf, and walked back to the counter, giving the soda guy a wide berth. Trusting people is not my forte, okay? It's not hard to guess why; going to that Olive Garden with a total stranger was really out of character for me.

"That all?" A bored-looking, unshaven cashier asked, stifling a yawn as I placed my map and peanuts on the counter. His breath smelled like onions and pickles-not a good combination. I nodded, keeping my head down. He reached for the merchandise and rang me up.

"That's going to be six-seventy-five." He said. I handed him the money, grabbed my new belongings and exited the store. Tony DiNozzo was gone, thankfully. I would do it if I absolutely had to, but I wanted to avoid stealing cars at this point. He wouldn't have bought my story if I hadn't sped off to see my dying sister.

I needed to get back to the Marine's apartment, but not going backwards the way I'd come. The erasers may have still been hanging out at the Olive Garden.

I checked my map, and quickly decided on an alternate route, circling back to Stapley's apartment, which was across the street form in internet café. It was approximately 11:30, so the doors were unlocked, all the lobby lights still on. On the right side was a chestnut counter, with a twenty-something-looking man behind it. The wall behind him was sectioned off into little cubbies, each labeled with a number. Some had envelopes and papers in them, others were empty. I walked over to the mail counter and cleared my throat. The man looked up from a book he'd been reading, an expression of annoyance on his face. After a split second it disappeared, and he stood up straight.

"Yes, may I help you?" He asked, flashing what he thought must have been a dazzling smile.

"Yes, can you tell me which apartment is Glenn Stapley's?" I asked, flashing a smile of my own. I didn't think he'd tell me, but it was worth a shot. His smile faltered.

"No," His goofy grin returned, "But I can tell you mine." He said, leaning across the counter, resting on one arm.

"Um, no thanks. Can you give this message to him?" I said, not missing a beat. I grabbed a pen and the pad of paper on the counter and quickly wrote down some random numbers to look like a phone number. I held it out to the man.

"Yeah," He said, the smile gone for good. I was waiting for him to turn and put it in a cubby, but he didn't move.

For a guy with a ridiculous smile, he was smart. I turned and walked away, angling toward the doors. I watched the counter-guy in the big window across from him. It reflected everything in the room almost perfectly. The man turned around and inserted my paper into a cubby labeled 10C. I continued out the front doors and turned left. Another breeze had picked up, but not as strong as before. It was only raining lightly now, I could hear the relaxing patter of it on the rooftops and side walk. After circling around the building several times I decided how to best break in. I couldn't go back through the lobby, and I didn't want to destroy the superintendent's door. I certainly could, if I wished. Along with all the bird bonuses, I had heightened strength, speed, and stamina. Who needs to pick locks when you can just break the lock in half? However, I didn't want to leave to much evidence of my presence here, so I decided I would just break through the window. The Marine's apartment was on the third floor, I knew that much, but I didn't know which window was his. I remembered noticing a buzzer outside the door. Luckily, the apartment building was thin; from outside the front doors I could see the walls of the adjacent buildings. I hoped that the buzzer had a visual notification as well as an audio one. After the rain, the walls of the neighboring buildings were slick and wet. If the buzzer unit was in view of the window, I might be able to see the reflected blinking of a light or something. It was a long shot, but I only had so many options to work with. I hurried around to the front and found the buzzer, carful not to let the mail guy see me. I didn't want to cause any suspicions, especially because law enforcement was sure to get involved at some point, and it would slow me down if I had to run from them too. I figured I had a few days before they caught up.

I pressed a little black button and a list of apartment numbers materialized on a small screen. After selecting 10C I held down the button and scanned the closest buildings for any flashing lights. I held the button down for a while, but didn't see anything. I was about to give up and think up a plan B when a diluted, bluish glow caught on the wet, right-side wall. I memorized exactly where the spot appeared and hurried around the building. Once I located the appropriate window, I glanced around. No one in sight. There was an ancient-looking fire escape above me, and it led right to the window I needed. I jumped and hoisted myself up the ladder to the first platform. I took a couple steps and stopped as the old, wet metal clanked and rattled. Stepping as lightly as possible, I made my way up several flights of stairs until I reached the correct level. I crept to the window, peered in, and groaned. Inside the apartment, a rather rotund woman was spread out on a couch watching TV. That had been the light I saw on the wall. Feeling about as smart as a paperclip, I backed away from the window and leaned against the outside rail of the fire escape, it groaned a bit, bit held my full, 90 lb. weight. Being light as a feather had its perks, I suppose. Get it? Light as a feather? You know, 'cause I'm a- forget it.

I racked my brain for another idea, considering forgetting the apartment and look for leads elsewhere, when I glanced at the darkened window across from me. My bird-eyes had no trouble picking out the outlines of a dresser, mirror, and bed, with a white military cap sitting on top. I stepped closer to the window, distinguishing the same globe symbol on the cap that I noticed on the Marine's uniform.

What were the chances of another Marine living in the same apartment building, on the same floor, off a naval base? Very slim. I liked those odds.

I padded over to the window and placed my hand flat on the glass, fingers spread. Being a human/avian hybrid, I'm not the most normal person to walk the streets of Washington, that being said, there are some of us (mutants) who possess…extra abilities. No doubt you've noticed. Mine is pretty cool, even if I do say so myself. Basically, I can raise or lower my body temperature at will, without any ill effects on myself. Additionally, by having physical contact with something, I can change the temperature of that too. Here is the cool part, I'm not changing the temperature by transferring heat, (which is how it normally works), I can just make it change. So it works faster because I don't have to transfer heat, that said, it would still take time to make a drastic change. I have to take into account the size of something too. The bigger the object, the longer it takes for the whole thing to reach the desired temperature. I don't know the limits as far as the temperature range, but it's pretty darn big.

So it comes in pretty handy when you want to break into an apartment without breaking a window.

I kept my hand against the glass and focused on the window. As the temperature climbed, I kept still. After a minute or so, the glass became softer. I pressed my hand in harder. After about ten minutes, I'd melted a large piece of the bottom-left corner of the glass just enough so that I could manipulate it. It glowed bright yellow in the dark, yet the glass didn't burn my hands. Somehow, I've neverburned by the things I've heated.

There's a catch, once I stop maintaining the temperature, the glass will drop back to its original temperature. Moving quickly, I maneuvered the sheet of glass out of the window frame, and then carefully folded it back. I hurriedly crawled through the opening and silently landed on the worn carpeting below. Turning back toward the window, I reached out and grabbed the corner and pulled it back down. I could feel it glass stiffening as it cooled. If I didn't hurry it would splinter. After deftly jamming the edges back into the frame and smoothing out any creases, I pressed my hand against it again and returned the glass to its former temperature. Other than a little warping in the corner, there was no sign the glass had been half-melted, bent, bent back, then cooled, all in a fifteen minute process.

Reluctant to turn on lights, I explored the Marine's home in the darkness. Several letters addressed to Glenn Stapley on the kitchen counter confirmed I had the right apartment. I searched the apartment top to bottom, looking for any details I could find about the Marine's life. I was carful not to touch anything unless necessary. I may have been raised in a science lab, but I wasn't an idiot. I knew how fingerprints worked. Doubtless, the police would sweep for prints when they responded to a missing persons call. There was no way my prints were in any databases, except maybe the school's, and I wanted to keep it that way.

In the living room, a laptop rested on a light-colored, wood desk. I crossed over to it and sat down in the office chair in front. Pulling my sleeves up over my hands, I opened and powered up the computer. Thankfully, I didn't need a password to gain entry, and was soon searching the web history and all of the recently edited documents. As I was closing the window for a take-out restaurant, I heard approaching footsteps in the outside corridor. They stopped outside the door, and I heard a key in the lock. I quickly powered down the computer, and vaulted out of the chair just as the door inched open. I slid into an especially dark shadow near the entrance to the kitchen. I could see a medium built young man, several years younger than the Marine, but with the same extremely light hair emerge from the doorway. While his back was turned, I quickly reached out and steadied the turning office chair, then snapped back into my hiding spot. He closed the door and set a duffle bag on the floor, tossing a set of keys onto a small table in the entryway. He slumped into the kitchen, passing within inches of me. I held my breath and tried to make my heart stop pounding so loud.

I glanced at the microwave above the stove. The glowing green display indicated that it was twelve-forty-two. The man removed something from around his neck and set it on the counter. The ID read "Mark Stapley". So they were brothers sharing an apartment. Mark exited the kitchen and disappeared down a small hallway, into one of the bedrooms. He came back moment later, looking confused.

"Glenn?" He asked. "Hey, Glenn, you home?" He called softly.

I wanted to shout at him that Glenn was not home, and was probably stuffed in the back of some van or something, because of me. But I just stood stock-still in my corner, eternally grateful that my jacket was black. Mark crossed the kitchen to the far wall, where a wall-mounted, wireless phone stood. He picked up the hand set and rapidly punched seven of the glowing buttons with his thumb. 919-4100. I mentally cataloged the number away. He pressed the phone to his ear, turning in a small circle in the middle of the white linoleum floor. I heard the line connect after four rings and a recording of the Marine's voice. Mark hung up without leaving a message and slapped the phone back into it's station.

"He must've let it die again." I heard Mark mutter to himself as he grabbed a pencil and a random sheet of paper off the small kitchen table and wrote something on it. He left it there, walked back to the door, grabbed his bag, ID, and keys and left. I stayed in my shadow for a couple minutes after he was gone to be sure he wouldn't come back for something he'd forgotten. After five minutes of silence and a perfectly still apartment, I felt myself starting to doze off. Not good. I shook myself awake and moved into the kitchen, stopping at the table. The hand-written note was almost illegible, but I was able to make most of it out.

Hey, it's 12:55, not sure where you are bro.

Anyway, I've gone to Matt's for the night, he wants to have a Call of Duty tournament or something, says you're invited if you feel up to it.

Mark

P.S. Your phone is like a brain cell, it's useless when dead.

It seemed the apartment was mine for the night. Yes. There were three things I needed right then. Food, sleep, and…a shower.

Hmmm, a shower. I mused as I yanked open the refrigerator doorand scanned the contents. Oooh, lunch meat, a rare delicacy for the half-starved avian hybrids of the world. After gorging myself on the entire package of deli-shaved ham, my peanuts from the gas station, four apples, and a box of granola bars, I locked the front door again, and found the bathroom. It was a small, white room, and very clean. My grungy, dirty clothes looked pathetic lying there on the gleaming countertop. I spent fifteen minutes marveling at the wonder of hot water and soap. I carefully preened my wings, picking loose feathers and fluff out until they were neat and gleaming. It felt amazing to stretch my wings out, loosening my powerful back muscles. I could have stayed in there forever, but I didn't want to leave Mark, and hopefully Glenn with a huge water bill at the end of the month.

Now that I was blissfully clean, I didn't want to put my filthy clothes back on, so wrapped in a towel, I found a gray Marines T-shirt in the closet of the master bedroom. The back said, "Pain is weakness leaving the body."

Ain't that the truth. I thought sullenly.

I ran a bath and soaked my clothes in it, scrubbing them as clean as possible, then hanging them to dry on the curtain rod overnight.

It would have felt weird to the sleep in the bed, so I grabbed a blanket and pillow and made a nest on the sofa in the living room. It's kind of a joke between me, myself, and I, I call wherever I end up sleeping a nest. The soft cushions felt heavenly as I plummeted into a deep sleep.

Outside in the cool night, a non-descript white van with no back widows sat in front of an internet café. Inside three men sat, well two of them sat, the third lay on the floor, bound at the wrists and ankles, a gag in his mouth. He was unconscious at the moment, thankfully. He had a nasty bump on his head that would have been quite painful had he been awake.

"Are you sure? If we involve the authorities, it'll only make it harder to catch her." One of the incredibly good-looking men said.

"Think about it," The other replied, "It'll slow her down too, and make our job a bit easier."

"Whatever you say." The first said dismissively as his comrade lifted a cell phone to his ear.

"Yes, police?" He said when the line connected. "I'd like to report a missing person. Yes I'll hold."

Several miles away, minutes later, in the NCIS building in Washington DC, a red light on Special Agent Gibb's answering machine blinked to life.