"As we all know, thanks to the efforts of Amber Sweet, Shilo, the daughter of Nathan Wallace, one of Rotti Largo's close friends, has been able to live in her family home tax free. Whether the events of today will change that remains to be seen."

She'd watched herself on the news for hours. Nothing else was playing on any of the channels, and she shut off the TV, going to the window and peeking out cautiously. Flashes in the dark. Reporters clamored outside like chatty ants, a veritable swarm. She was effectively stuck in the house. Again. She shut the curtains in annoyance, missing her privacy. She wanted to make a change, like Dad told her to, but that meant she was losing her anonymity, her peace and quiet.

At least the bugs were still the same. Her friends: the odd, trapped, and spindly creatures she related to so well. She went to her desk and looked at each container with a fond smile. Seeing them stirred memories... Daddy bringing bugs home buzzing in jars, watching with unease as she took away their oxygen and carefully arranged their bodies with tiny pins. Now she understood why. He feared her morbid hobby meant she'd inherited his zeal for delivering pain and death with a careful hand.

Gross. She collected bugs, not organs.

It had taken her a long time to get used to her new reality. The opera had changed everything. She learned her own house, room by room - including her dad's sick playroom. She'd touched each instrument with cold reflection, saw how the tiles were permanently darkened a rusty red. It would have been impossible to reconcile the monster, the man who sliced and snipped, the man who made her sick, with the father if not for the fact that his love for her was all around her, everywhere she turned in that empty house.

If Mom was more obviously haunting the halls with her aloof smile, Dad was there in the hidden details. The care he'd put into making the home a comforting, soft place for her. She pored over photographs of them together, Daddy with his arm around a somber little girl, went into his room and looked through his journals, letters to patients, pieces of his old life. He wasn't a good person, but she couldn't hate him. He was her father. He'd failed her, but at least he'd tried.

So many nights were spent crying, wondering why she ever wanted to go outside, why she ever longed to be free. She'd never cried much, and suddenly she was overwhelmed with the weight of all the tragedy in the world, forcing tears. Her life, her dad's.

It wasn't all darkness. For instance, she had cupcakes in the oven right now. For all the press knew, that's what she'd been doing at GeneCo: borrowing a cup of sugar. Why not?

She laid back on the bed with a laugh, touching the pale blue curtains that had replaced the plastic sheets. Without the meds to dull her senses, touching was a treat. She ran her hands down the front of her shirt, relishing the feel of the fabric. It was silky and cool pinched between her fingers, but stuck uncomfortably to her skin- an impulse buy that she couldn't bring herself to throw out. She moved her hands through the sheets, the new, plush comforter.

A loud banging noise from downstairs made her sit up with a guilty start (why? she wasn't doing anything) and jump down off her bed, rushing downstairs, her hand skimming along the banister. There was something pounding on the fireplace, which was shut. She bit her lip and shifted her balance from foot to foot in indecision. Who knew about the crypt entrance?

No one.

"Mom?" she said, half joking.

"Not really," a deep and familiar voice grumbled. Her belly did what she could only describe as a quivery flop, and she couldn't make herself respond.

He showed up now? He'd taken her at her word to leave her alone, and she'd... okay, she'd missed him. She'd started to count on his odd appearances to throw her routines off balance. Of course he'd show up now, with the middle of the night coming soon, being disruptive and invasive. And harmless.

He was harmless, she told herself. She unlatched the fireplace, and he'd apparently been pushing on it harder than either of them expected, because he stumbled forward a few steps, bumped into her, and crashed down heavily on her legs. She flailed, which did nothing to stop her from falling. Her back hit the floor and... there was Graverobber, who had caught himself by his hands, which were at Shilo's sides. He was leaning over her, head over her chest, and once he'd oriented himself, he grinned devilishly at her.

"Well, isn't this cozy?" he said.

She looked into his eyes solemnly. "Help me up," she said quietly.

His expression lost that teasing cast, and he got to his feet, offering a hand. She ignored the dirt and grasped it. He hauled her to her feet easily.

"Hey, kid," he greeted amiably. She smiled and surprised them both by suddenly throwing her arms around his midsection in a hug. He put an arm around her, and she could've sworn she felt him smiling down at her. "Nice to see you, too."

Yeah, she'd definitely missed him. She pulled back, and he immediately dropped his arm to his side. "You, uh, kind of scared me," she said. That had to be fear that she felt, increasing exponentially when he'd dropped onto her waist, that shaky feeling that made her feel light-headed and weird... Right?

"That's, uh, kind of the point," he said.

The timer went off. He followed her into the kitchen, watching amusedly as she first tried to grab the tray of cupcakes out of the oven with her bare hands, belatedly reminding her that she shouldn't. She'd only burned her fingertips, luckily. She used a big glove that she couldn't imagine either of her parents using to again open the oven door and pull out the tray, setting it in the fridge to cool. The cupcakes were puffy, perfect domes, and a rich chocolate. Her eyes lit up at the thought of gobbling up the whole tray. Graverobber could have one and that was it, the rest were hers.

When she took the glove off, she found that her fingertips were bright pink and sore.

"Run them under water," the tall man advised. She looked at him suspiciously and he raised his eyebrows.

It actually helped, the cold numbing and soothing the raw skin. She shut off the water and dried her hands on her pants, turned to face him. He looked like he was trying hard to refrain from saying something. "What?"

He relented with a sigh. "Do you want me to kiss it better?"

"... Yeah, okay." She held out one hand, which he took delicately by the wrist, bringing it up to his mouth. He brushed his lips across the knuckles, his bright blue eyes never breaking from her doleful stare.

She hadn't noticed before... she'd been in shock, or maybe it was the meds dulling her senses, but he was really sexy. She'd known it, obviously, but she hadn't felt it. She took her hand back a little too quickly and hoped he hadn't noticed.

"You seem to have a reporter infestation," he said casually.

"Yeah. Oh, that's why you used the other entrance!" she realized. He nodded, and she griped, "I'm stuck in the house."

He grinned and her brow furrowed. He knew something she didn't, something he found really obvious. "You could pop out the way I came in. I could take you somewhere else to sleep."

It wasn't possible that she'd be able to sleep with all the bright lights and noises of the media outside her gate. She agreed. "Stay here," she warned him. "I'm going to my room for a few things."

"No, I'm sure there's nothing of interest to me in your bedroom," he teased. She giggled and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag.

In her room, she quickly threw a nightie and a stuffed bear into her bag. Toothbrush from the bathroom. She glanced at herself in the mirror and adjusted her wig, made sure it was secure on her scalp.

"That took a while," he complained when she finally appeared at the foot of the stairs. He was poised to leave, one foot in the house and one foot on the passageway.

"It did not!" He smirked. Oh, he'd been kidding. "Where are we going?"

Instead of answering, he grabbed her hand and ran into the dark tunnel.