Lissy stepped back stage, her chest heaving. Her cheeks were flushed, sweat poured from her brow, and she was smiling. There is nothing in the world like preforming, she imagined not even the glow was more addictive. She could live off the energy and applause alone. Mary, her personal assistant handed her a towel and a bottled water.
"how do you do it?" the older woman exclaimed. Lissy just shrugged. this was the high but she knew the low was coming. Waiting for her in her dressing room was a beautiful vase filled with decadent long stemmed roses...she knew who had sent them before she checked the card.

~*Why do people give each other flowers to celebrate various important occasions, they're killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? "Sweetheart, let's make up. Have this deceased squirrel." ~ your Graverobber

Mary picked something up off the dressing table. "someone is spoiling you!" she gasped holding out a box of sinful decadent chocolates. "this box of chocolate cost more than I make in a week."
Lissy looked at the box for a moment before turning back to Terrance's card. "you can have them." she said absent absentmindedly.
"i couldn't!"
"I'm never going to eat them... I have like five other boxes in my room. Please, take the chocolate, you can have the rest of the day off. Go enjoy yourself." Lissy told her sliding out of the ridiculously embellished gown she had been wearing on stage. Mary clutched the box the her chest, thanked Lissy and left the room.
Then came the lowest of the low. Alone in her dressing room while the crowed whooped and cheered on their way to glamorous after parties. Terrance would be standing at the exit with the extravagant Shilo at his side, wishing the uppermost citizens in the city a good night.
Together Terrance and Shilo would go to one of those parties. Maybe at the mayors house, or perhaps Shilo would invite them all to lobby of GENco for drinking and dancing. Of course Lissy knew she was always invited to join them...only to be coerced into singing for everyone's entertainment. She would rather sit alone in her room.
Not tonight, she slipped on a pair of comfy pants, flip flops, and a hooded shirt. Lissy wanted to go out, but not to the playground of the rich and famous. She moved swiftly down darkened back hallways and out the back door, careful not to be seen.
The sun had not gone completely down, the street lamps had not been lit. the thick polluted air of the city assaulted her lungs. She wasn't far enough yet. Just outside the city limits lay a cemetery where she knew she could be alone. These graves were so old the Grave robbers didn't bother with them anymore, so the GENcops didn't patrol. Not that they were any threat to her, she was friends with Shilo.
Shady Glenn, her new privet sanctuary!
…. …. …. …. …. …. ….

True to form, after the astounding performance Lissy gave, Shilo and Terrance were standing at the exit of the opera house dressed in their eveningwear, saying goodnight to almost every single one of their elegantly dressed guests. His now-faded dyed hair has neatly pulled back and he was decked out in a 1920s black-and-white pinstripe suit that Shilo and Lissy had tailored especially for him. Anyone who knew Shilo's family could've mistaken her for her mother or godmother as she was dressed in a crushed velvet black strapless evening gown that puddle to the floor, and it was completed with a pair of matching gloves to her elbows and patent leather three-inch heels. She kept her hair down, but some of it was braided with small white flowers woven into the braids.

"Miss Shilo! Mr. Terrance! I'd like to thank you both, as well as the extravagant Lissy, for a spectacular show tonight." The mayor of Sanitarium Island, along with his beautiful wife and three children, were once again members of the audience tonight and as always, congratulated them on the performance put on by the best opera singer since Blind Mag. Shilo and Terrance both bowed at his compliments, but they both knew it was all because of Lissy and her beautiful voice.

"Thank you very much for coming, Mr. Mayor," Shilo responded, shaking his and his wife's hand, and smiling at their kids. "We're always glad to see you here and are glad that you enjoyed yourselves." Terrance then shook his hand and said,

"We're hoping that you'll be present at the GeneCo lobby after we're through cleaning up here tonight. Drinks served all night, along with a buffet." At the sound of free food and alcohol, many of the other patrons were chatting excitedly about how the Largos would never do something like this and all the talk was making Shilo blush modestly. Her partner gave her a nudge in the arm and smiled at her. He always thought she was cute when she was embarrassed. That was when Lissy crossed his mind. "Excuse me, but I'll be back out in a moment."

With a nod from Shilo and the mayor's family, he made his way to the backstage area to the dressing rooms. Taking a deep breath and composing himself, he knocked on Lissy's room with the star on the door, but there was no answer.

"Lissy?" he called as he turned the knob, which was unlocked and that was unusual because she always locked the door when she was finished in here. "Lissy?" he called again, but saw that she wasn't there. He didn't think anything of it and closed the door to go look for her in her rooms upstairs. There was always the possibility that she had retired for the night. As he walked through the darkened hallway to the stairs, he almost tripped over something lying across the floor and he bent down to see what it was. Using a lighter, he lit up the object and his jaw almost dropped out of his skull. It was Mary, Lissy's personal assistance, and he knew from his graverobbing years that she was already dead. What astonished him more was that she had an open box of chocolates, the same box of chocolates that he'd given to Lissy, and one of them had a bite taken out of it, but all the others were whole, despite that they were now sprawled on the floor.

Forcing down the lump that had formed in his throat, he checked Mary's pulse and when he found none, he quickly called Shilo through the earpiece communicators that they always wore during the shows in case they needed to take care of something discreetly.

"Hey Kid?" Shilo was still talking to their guests when she heard his voice in her ear and it sounded urgent.

"Excuse me for a moment please." She walked a few feet away so that no one else would hear.

"What's up Graves?"

"We've got a problem here. You better come backstage now," and he cut the link before she could ask him more. Putting her business face back on, she told her guests to proceed to GeneCo where she and Terrance would meet them at a little later, but to enjoy themselves while they were taking care of some unexpected business. As their patrons exited the building, she sprinted as fast as she could to where her partner was and was shell shocked at what she saw. She had seen dead bodies before, but not one this fresh.

"What the hell happened?" she asked Terrance, who was examining the chocolate with the bite taken out of it. She could tell his mind was racing when he picked up the box and something fell out of it onto the corpse's back.

"What's this?" He picked it up and saw that it was a folded piece of paper with one sentence written on it.

"What does it say?" Shilo asked him and he handed it to her with a confused expression. She read it aloud, "Isn't it the pits?" She turned it over but it was blank. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know, but whoever wrote it also did something to this candy and it was more than likely meant for Lissy."

*The Washington Post