Disclaimer: I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. I don't feel the need to say it again. So make up your own and pretend that's what it says here.


Chapter 8: DO NOT ENTER

Anastasia
oOo

Location: Four Horsemen's Mansion, Crows Landing, Florida, USA
City Population: 248
Current time: 6:13 am, Eastern
Current date: July 10, 2013
Current alias: None

I woke up the next morning and I was curled up in Jack's arms.

RED LIGHT! RED LIGHT!

I relaxed, though, as I recalled what all had happened. I told him about the dream I'd had, and he hadn't run screaming. It occurred to me then, that he was actually here. He wasn't upstairs in his room, and I remembered falling asleep like this, and I realized it wasn't a dream.

Mental. Slap.

The blanket fell from around my shoulders as I stood, stretching and noting that Jack didn't stir. And I wasn't wearing my jacket. And he was a street kid, as accustomed to seeing in the dark New York City alleyways as I was. Of course he'd have seen the tattoos last night-they were kind of hard to miss.

Double. Mental. Slap.

The scent of mangoes hit me like a shock wave. For the second time that morning, I had a little inner panic attack (RED LIGHT! RED LIGHT!) but remembered that he was with The Eye now, and that the monitors would have recognized him and allowed him entry without notifying me.

My jacket was on the floor next to me, I noticed, and I bent to pick it up, regretting ever taking it off. Of course Jack would have questions (I was frankly surprised he hadn't asked me last night), but I'd avoid those as long as possible.

"Morning, Black," I sang, doing my best to forget about Jack and practically skipping my way into the kitchen and flipping the light switch.

I heard him sigh and saw him melt out of the various shadows the single light over the stove cast across the floor. "Damn, I wanted to scare you!"

"Different shampoo. And, FYI, the stuff that you impounded into my head for sixteen years didn't just fly out the other side when I left. Kind of… hard to forget. You're not gonna scare me while you smell like mangoes for miles."

He smiled at me sheepishly. "Never could fool you, huh?"

I simply smirked and tracked his movements to the island in the center of the kitchen before turning to pull a hard-boiled egg from the refrigerator. I cracked the top with my thumb, running it along underneath the hard skin and letting it fall to the floor, still in a single piece. That's one trick he didn't teach you.

I turned my gaze to him, saying; "Pick it up, Black."

I'd learned all about his magic-Mr. Telepathic over here with his mind reading and moving objects this way and that whenever he pleased. But, like us all, he had his limitations and consequences of practicing his art. Mine were the tattoos whenever I made my little illustrations; Daniel had a twenty-four hour bought of paranoia after a major trick or a show; Henley had chocolate cravings. I wasn't entirely sure if this was the extent that hers went too, but it was the closest I could come up with. I didn't know about Black's yet, but I sure as hell intended to find out.

Weaknesses are everything.

With a dramatic flourish he lifted his fingers into the air and snapped, one after the other (it reminded me of a salsa dancer), and the egg shell was gone. I heard the lid on the trash can snap shut on it's rusty hinges only a second later.

"I'd only be lying to say I wasn't impressed," I told him, wondering why I'd even made the compliment. I finished the egg and went to wash my hands in the sink, his eyes following just as mine had. "Cut to the chase. Why are you here?"

The cold water had been running over my hands long enough to sting with numbness unnecessarily before he even had begun to utter a sound.

"The mission." My breath caught in my throat, because I honestly hadn't expected this. I'd maybe even forgot about it a little. "The Eye wants everything done within the month. It's your job to come up with a plan, as long as it's safe, foolproof and nobody gets hurt."

I finally turned around. "It's The Caste, Black. You and I both know that whatever this job is, somebody's going to suffer," I snapped.

He shot me a disapproving frown. "You already know that, Anastasia, but they don't. So you can figure it out on your own how to comply with your orders if your that smart." More quietly, he added, "Enough so to figure out the mission before you should have known."

"Yeah, you caught me, Black." I sighed. "But what's done is done." I trailed off, biting my lip and looking at my bare feet. His words came back to me, however and my head snapped back up. "I don't take orders from anyone anymore. I was over with that five years ago. I do things when I want, how I want and… Whatever. You get my point."

He slid down off the counter and come towards me and my eyes had suddenly decided they very much liked the pattern on the floor. The tips of his dress shoes touched my toes and an arm went around my waist and he was pulling my chin and his eyes were too damn green.

"You said you would only do this job for Dylan when I told you about it. But maybe now you've got other people in mind?" I tilted my head slightly, frowning. "Like Wilder and McKinney, maybe even Atlas. Or… were you think about all those people you killed before? You know, sometimes, I like to think that maybe you were thinking, just a little bit, a tiny pinch, about me."

Whoa-ho-kay! I had never heard him speak with so much sincerity before. His face was too close to mine, closer than I liked many people's faces to be, and RED LIGHT! RED LIGHT! was jumping around in my brain like a four-year-old on espresso.

"Black..." he froze, his lips just centimeters away from mine. "... we've been over this, Black. You know I don't..."

There were footsteps from the living room and Black was leaping away from me and it would have been funny if I wasn't so confused and well, I guess Jack was awake. Wait a second. Had Black and I just had a moment? OK, this day was officially weird with a capitol 'W'.

Jack waltzed (I hated to think that he might be like that every morning) his way into the kitchen, stopping dead when he saw Black, eyes glancing between me and him and the knife set.

"Who the hell are you?" he questioned, a very comical look on his face. Ah, yes, they'd never met and I couldn't remember if I was always this slow in the mornings (my brain might disagree and say that it was working too fast for anything else in my body to keep up. Is that why I was shaking?), but then again, I hadn't been earlier. (Ugh, hormones.)

"Introductions later, he's a friend. Aquaiend. Acquaintance. Sort of." I sighed, Black was chuckling, my brain was having trouble keeping my fist from shoving down his throat. "Can you rise and shine the others?"

He took a last look at the knife set again, and then his sigh (probably unintentionally) mimicked mine and he was walking up the stairs to their rooms, grumbling the whole way about how early it was and how Henley was probably going to slap him.

"I have a first name, you know," Black whispered softly.

I turned around in surprise. "I know."

"Then why don't you use it? I've always called you Staci."

"Against protocol, yes, I'm well aware. If I were going to call you anything other than your last name, it would be 'Junior'."

He seemed to take this as an acceptable answer, though he still looked a little hurt. Why? I would never know.

He opened his mouth to say something more to me, and I knew that look all too well. Oh, good grief, he wanted to talk to me about... feelings. We had talked about this before, and I thought I had been pretty clear that I would never like him that way, but Black was not one to give up easily. Most of the time. Luckily, I was saved. More or less.

"ANASTASIA RHODES, WHEN I COME DOWNSTAIRS, YOU ARE SO GOING TO GET IT!"

I was leaning against the counter by the time her pounding feet had made her way downstairs and I couldn't see her through the tears in my eyes from laughing, but I could only imagine that she must have looked like the Devil's spawn.

"How can you think this is funny, huh? Is this some sick joke?" She must have finally noticed Black. "Oh, Good Lord, here's another man in a suit! Let's just call the FBI and tell 'em our exact location, why don't we? 'Hey, we're here, anytime you want to come and arrest us!' This is NOT funny, Anastasia! It is six o'clock in the freaking morning and you brought a suit in here!"

I still hadn't finished laughing (I was in that stage where you can't breath anymore and it hurts to try to continue) when the other three had descended the stairs not-so-gracefully.

"Who's screaming?"

"Why is so early?"

"Who's he?"

"Oh, will you all just SHUT UP!"

I heaved myself from the counter, only to collapse onto Black again when I saw the state of the Four Horsemen. They looked like they had all been put through the drying machine then trampled over by a heard of cows. With the exception of Jack, of course, who was laughing right along with me, although he looked a little roughed up, too. Probably from trying to wake up his companions.

"Are y'all always this funny looking in the morning, eh?" I managed when my lungs could get air.

"I'll second that. Anybody feeling particularly diva-ish right now, because I've got to send this to Dylan!" Black said.

They all turned to stare at him, seeing as how he was holding me up, I wasn't offering up explanations and they didn't know him.

I finally succeeded in wiping tears from my eyes and slinging one arm over Black's shoulder, his going around my waist. Considering everything, I should have found this awkward, but the comfort was nice, as was the support as I was still trying to breath. I barley caught the look in both Jack's and Daniel's eyes, widening and then narrowing in quick succession. Jealousy?

"This is Black—a last name, that is." I felt Black stiffen at the comment. "Black, this is everyone. You already know them, of course."

"The famous Four Horsemen! Pleasure is all mine, gentleman and lady," Black said, bowing his head to each of them.

Merritt, always the first to speak, eyed him head to toe and his fingers went to his head, his face soon smiling. "Anastasia's trainer," he stated, and I couldn't tell whether them impression was mocking or genuine. "You taught her well." I was gonna guess he meant it, then. "And dare I ask how you two are... status-wise?"

He gestured to our stance, but the sparkle in his eyes spoke the truth-just Merritt being Merritt, trying to get some sort of reaction. It wasn't about to work, as he should have known for the hundredth time. I dug my fingernails into Black's shoulder, warning him not to say anything.

"He's a good friend, and I owe him one or two times for saving my ass. But you already knew that, Merritt?" It came out more of a question than I had intended.

He smirked at me. "Damn hard girl to fluster."

Henley was the next to recover. She flattened her hair some, though a few loops still stuck out near the back where she'd pulled it into the messiest bun I'd ever seen. "Alriiiiight…" She always stretched out her 'i's when she said that word, and she said it a lot. "If you're not here for Anastasia, then why?"

I retreated to a stool on the far side of the island, my elbows on the marble counter top and my face in my hands, studying the rock slab.

Black looked over at me before speaking, obviously a little uncomfortable with facing the four alone as the slight quiver in his words showed. "To tell you about your mission. I'd call Dylan, tell him to get his ass down here quick."

oOo

Before I knew it, there were more people in the house than I was sure I felt comfortable with, and everybody seated around the kitchen tables, eyes trained on me, I was sure I had one of those deer-in-the-headlights expressions (though I like to think I was doing a good job of keeping it down under a mask).

Black and I at one end; Merritt was at the other; Henley and Daniel to my left; Dylan and Alma to my right. Alma was very nice to me despite everything I wasn't sure she'd been told about me. I figured that it was Dylan's doing, otherwise she probably would have me arrested and had me in custody of somebody by now. She wouldn't be here long, away from France, she'd told me (I didn't really get the impression that Dylan was good at this long-distance relationship), but she was happy to meet me. We had a long conversation in French, because of course I knew how to speak fluently in at least six different languages besides my own-Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and obviously French.

Black and Dylan had agreed upon some unspoken competition between themselves to determine who knew more about the subject at hand-I wasn't sure whether this was The Caste or the mission at the moment. Alma knew a lot too, apparently, piping up to interrupt the bickering and informing us that The Caste had set up a base in France, just after I'd left.

There were bases in six parts of the United States, two in China, one in Mexico, one in Russia, one somewhere in the Middle East, one in Australia and, apparently, now one in France. I only knew of those, but a lot can change in five years, and obviously none of the morons accompanying me would know any more than I did.

"Anastasia, can you remember what HQ looks like?" Black asked, his voice slowly calming as he turned from Dylan to me. "He won't have changed the basics, though I imagine the codes are different since you escaped and they."

I nodded, closing my eyes and trying to imagine it, though I don't think I would ever not be able to. I put a hand on the table, and soon it became a full-scale set of blueprints for The Caste's Headquarters. The ink would be wrapping in a thick band twisting and warping around my upper arm, closer to my shoulder.

"Great job, Anastasia," Dylan whispered, putting a hand right where the tattoo was forming. It was obvious he felt it when his face squirmed in a mixture of emotions, his eyes locked on the spot where my jacket covered it and his touch left my arm almost immediately, hovering above the fabric.

I pretended not to notice. "There are too many entrances and too many exits to even count, but he's changed them by now."

Alma interrupted me. "Who do you mean 'he'?" She asked in an accent that was growing on me by the second.

I glanced up at her, locking eyes. "You don't want to know."

"I actually think I do."

In a flurry of frustration, I smacked Dylan's hand away from where it still rested and pulled down the color of my jacket, only a little bit of black and navy blue design showing there. The most prominent thing, the one I wanted them to look at, was a scar the length of my hand and the width of a pencil, bubbling up from the darkened skin on my neck. I snapped the collar back into place and lifted my foot onto the edge of the table, tilting it just so you could see where wrinkled skin collapsed in on itself around the edges of burn marks all around the edges and the bottoms of my feet.

"No. You really don't."

Black already knew all about them-he had tended to them after I'd received them and many more as punishment. He was the one who continued soon after I'd brought my foot back down, effectively dragging the attention back to himself, and for once, Dylan didn't try to jump in.

"There's a permanent one down an alleyway seven blocks east of Brooklyn Bridge. It's guarded by what looks like a homeless man, but he's set up right on top of the entryway, one of the informants and a spy that could kill you with a pair of headphones.

I threw myself back into the conversation, trailing my finger along the paper map that Dylan had so graciously thought to produce from God know where. "Nobody but the spies with diving training use this one, the one alongside Holland Tunnel, because it's too hard to get to elseways and too many ways to be spotted by the public unless you've come in from a distance."

"There's another one in the piping on the roof of Penn Wine and Spirits," Black said, finding it and it's corresponding entrance on my blueprints that were fast becoming painful to keep-the ink was getting blacker, and would soon begin cutting into my skin. "It's by Penn Station. You can get to if you take the ladder in the back room. The owner's one of them, and he'll take you back to get you to the entrance."

"If you don't mind my sayin' so, what's the point in knowing the entrances we can't very well use?" Jack questioned.

Black sent him a death glare and looked ready to strangle the kid, but I pulled on my earlobe twice, signaling him to stand down.

"Because if you need to get out and you find yourself in one of these places, then you'll be able to orient yourself and get out sooner," I answered for him.

Black nodded curtly, then proceeded to tell them about the other places that won't have changed locations but the codes will, but these barley even scratched the surface of the sheer amount of both entrances and potential problems. Every member used a different entrance, and there were more than enough of them so that nobody had to share.

I told them so. "Mine is in the back of what looks like an old, run-down gas station. Anybdoy could use any one door, though, because Security knows everyone, and you can scan your Band to get in... if it hasn't been discontinued."

"She's right. The only way that you can stop a discontinuation is to turn off your Band with the Band Code, like Anastasia did when she escaped, but by doing so would set off so many alerts that the head honcho himself would be coming after you in a matter of seconds." Black said.

We continued on like this for some time, talking about ways in and ways out until Merritt was finally smart enough to ask an essential question.

"If we can't get in from any one of the entrances that you've told us about, then how are we going to get in?"

Black turned to me (it was my plan, after all) and I smirked.

"Sewage."

Every last person in the room stared at me like I was insane. They soon were voicing their disdain, as well.

"Are you insane?" Probably.

"You want us to get into the Headquarters through the sewage?" Didn't I just say that?

"Why?"

"Ah, see, someone's finally asking the right questions! Mr. Wilder, ten points for Gryffindor." He smiled at my reference, like he always did when I made one. "I got to thinking one night."

"That's usually bad news," Black said, rolling his eyes.

"At the time it was, but now it's good news for us. Anyways, I figured that all the crap had to go somewhere when it went down a sink or wherever from HQ, so I went up to Newton Creek Wastewater Treatment. It was closest, after all." Black gave me a look (Really?). "Okay fine. There may have been some blueprint steal-age in there somewhere. It was too easy to sneak in, really, with all my training, so I went down below to where all the sewage came in.

"I found a newer tunnel where everything was coming from, and a little farther ways away, there was an older one that had been marked with a lot of 'DO NOT ENTER' signs and such. But I went in anyways, because I knew it was just an old tunnel that had gone out of use when they built the new one that functioned better.

"It was still a little wet for the first few feet, but it was dry once you got into it. Of course it still stank, but that was besides the point. There were two paths down either side of the tunnel, and the center gap was at least twenty feet deep. I think the sidewalks were probably for inspectors and what-not. Whatever you wish to call them.

"The tunnel branched split farther down, except it was just the sidewalk, but it dead-ended with a brick wall and a ladder mounted on the side, one that went right into the Haunted Bathroom, as we called it. All the sinks had exploded once, and then the plumbing never worked again after that, so nobody used it anymore."

"So that's how we're going to get into The Caste? Won't the security cameras notice us?" Henley asked, sounding disgusted.

I leaned towards her. "Ah, but you see, I was a genius little girl and turned off the cameras in there so that I could use the bathroom as my secret entrance and exit without them knowing. Unless, of course, they were tracking me, which they almost never did. I earned enough respect and trust to grant me that. That tunnel goes to all sorts of places in the city, and you can come up in all sorts of bathrooms, so I could get practically anywhere I wanted to!"

It took a minute for this all to sink in, and I certainly wasn't expecting them to all burst out laughing. I soon joined in, just for the hell of it, because it felt good to be laughing with people, not just on your own. It's like therapy in and of itself.

We should do this more often, I thought vaguely, letting the blueprints fade away, holding my stinging arm as I chuckled. Dylan will have to take care of it after the mission-if I'm not killed, I'll be out of this state and off the grid again before you can wave goodbye.