When I awoke, the first thing I noticed was that I was in my own bed. That's weird, I thought, beginning to remember something about an alley-

The second thing I noticed was a blazing pain that seared through my head and lungs, cutting off all other thoughts and making the world seem blurry and dim. My whole body tensed with agony, and I shut my eyes tightly to try to block it out. I succeeded somewhat –all those beatings from Captain Hammer had at least taught me how to suppress pain– and I managed to only let out a small groan.

Footsteps came from the other room and Moist appeared, hovering over me anxiously. "You're awake! You've been out for a few hours. How do you feel?"

Considering that I'd just survived two murder attempts, it was a pretty stupid question. But I didn't have the energy for clever quips, so instead I grated out, "Pain meds."

"Yeah, sure, man." Moist disappeared for a few moments and returned with a couple of generic-brand pain pills and a large glass of water.

After I took the medicine, I nodded my thanks and waved Moist away.

"But-" he protested, clearing wanting to tell me something.

"Later," I growled. All I wanted to do was sleep.


A few hours later I woke up again, feeling slightly better. I managed to sit up, and when that didn't cause too much agony, I got out of bed and wobbled unsteadily to the kitchen. Moist was sitting at the table, reading a soggy newspaper. He looked up at me as I came in and attempted a small grin. "Hey. Feeling better?"

I nodded, sliding into one of the chairs across from him. His expression was tense, as though he were trying very, very hard to give me a moment before bursting out with what he wanted to say.

"Go on," I sighed in mild irritation, "before you explode. What?"

"It was the ELE. They're the ones that tried to kill you."

I gave a derisive laugh. "No, really?"

Moist ignored my comment. "It was only one plot. They've got dozens of others, and they're really serious about this..."

One plot. Of course. I could hear Moist in the background, going on and on, but I was only thinking about one thing. It had seemed a little strange, the first murder attempt, so unlike the ELE. Yes, they did kill quite a bit, but not so blatantly, so… stupidly. They had predicted it all: they had known I would see Fake Thomas Jefferson, they had known I would duck, they had known we would hide in the alley and I would send Moist to see if the coast was clear. And they had known that Tie-Die would be able to catch me by surprise. The only thing they hadn't foreseen was the thing that nobody could have predicted: Captain Hammer. I felt like laughing aloud at the sheer irony of it all. And I must have, because Moist stopped talking abruptly and stared at me with a concerned expression.

"You okay…?"

I waved my hand nonchalantly, accompanying the motion with a psh sound. "I'm fine. I'm alive, anyway. But I still don't know one thing- how did I get back here?"

"Oh, I carried you. Well, dragged, anyway. I came back just as you passed out. After the good captain finished beating the crap out of Tie-Die, he just left. And—get this—he turned to me as he was leaving and said, 'My job's done here. Good luck taking care of him.' And he left me to drag you back home. Jerk. It was really hard getting you up those stairs, especially with my, well-" At this point he gestured at his normal soggy self with an ironic smile. "But obviously, I managed."

"Wow," I said, feeling gratitude like I'd never felt before towards my friend and partner in crime. "Thanks."

Surprised, Moist smiled, and then he clapped me on the shoulder amiably. "Hey, what are henchmen for, right?"

It would have been a nice moment, had a hard object not crashed through our second story window, knocked over our coffee maker, and fallen to the ground with a metallic crash.

Feeling more frustrated than surprised, I said, "Something always has to happen during these moments, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, so cliché. And annoying." Moist winced at our coffee maker, which was in pieces on the floor, and I followed his gaze.

"And why did they have to hit that? Could've taken out the toaster- neither one of us likes toast. And the window…" I groaned, thinking of the money we didn't have to fix it.

"Jerks."

For a moment we forgot about the object that had caused the trouble, but then I caught sight of it lying on the floor with an 'oh, right' sort of feeling. When I saw what it was, I scooped it up immediately and ripped the small note off one of the curved sides.

It was a horseshoe.

With a feeling of dread deep in the pit of my stomach and a pounding headache from adrenaline, I read the note aloud. There were just two words:

"She's next."