Rhyme sat on one of the tables in WildKat, swinging her feet slowly back and forth as Mr. Hanekoma took care of a customer. WildKat was a lot busier than it used to be, she noticed, and she wondered when people had finally noticed there was a pretty sweet café down on Cat Street worth going to. Usually it was dead, and that was why it was like the second hang out for the gang back in the day. Now she just met up with Beat there after work.

"Hey, little skulls," Mr. H said, nodding to her. She stopped swinging her legs and looked at him as he handed change back to a brunette lady who took it graciously and walked to the door, coffee in hand. "Do you want anything? You've been sitting there for awhile."

This was true. Rhyme had been waiting for around half an hour for Beat to show up, and she was debating calling him. But she figured he had been held up somewhere along the line, so she didn't fret. However, she realized it wasn't really polite to just be sitting on the table when she kind of… was loitering.

She hopped off and nodded, walking to the counter and smiling at him. "Um, yes, actually," she said tapping her thumbs against the countertop. "Can you make me a French Vanilla cappuccino, Mr. H?"

"You know it." He grinned and turned toward the coffee machine, and Rhyme turned slowly around. Her eyes fell on the dreadfully old and rather beaten up juke box that was sitting all alone in the corner. She glanced at Mr. Hanekoma, wondering if he was aware that it was kind of ugly and bulky compared to the rest of the shop, and it really didn't fit in well at all. She remembered that he had gotten it at a yard sale somewhere, and it didn't even work. But it'd been there for at least six years.

"Hey," she said slowly, "Mr. H, why do you keep that thing around?"

"Huh?" The man turned around, and she looked at him, leaning her back against the counter. She pointed to the juke box, and he blinked from behind his sunglasses. He then barked a laugh, a short, sharp one that startled Rhyme, and she stared at him blankly for a long moment. "Oh, man, the juke? I love it, that's why!"

"Really?" She cocked her head back, her fringe falling out of her eyes, and her eyebrows furrowing. "Why?"

"I have to have a reason for loving a piece of crappy history?"

"Well, no." Rhyme bit the inside of her cheek and turned around to face him, shrugging. "It's just that… I don't know, it's just really odd, you know? To waste space on a juke box that doesn't work."

"Ha!" He barked again, and Rhyme jumped back. "Oh, man, I forgot! You haven't been here in forever. Here." He stopped fiddling with the coffee maker and reached into his tip cup, tossing a shiny coin at her. She caught it, rolling it in her palm for a moment before she glanced back up at him.

"Oh, wow!" she gasped, jumping forward and grinning up at him. "You got it to work?"

"Oh hell yes, I did, bitty skulls!" He gave her a hard pat on the head, which felt more like a smack. "And it's a marvelous piece of shit, I'm telling you."

"I won't doubt it again," she snickered, spinning on her heel and rushing to the corner, weaving around tables and ignoring the odd stares she was getting from the two teenagers sitting by the window. She reached the juke box, which was as old and worn up close as she remembered. The paint was chipped around the rim, and the bright red color was incredibly faded. There were nicked all along the exterior, and prominent scratches were visible. It was pretty ugly.

Rhyme rolled the coin and her palm again, peering into the little glass to stare at the yellowed and slightly torn pages of songs within the juke. She was vaguely familiar with some of them, but others were lost on her knowledge of pre-new millennium music. She felt really young all of a sudden, and she scolded herself for not being more educated on the songs of the previous generation. She ended up picking one song that was probably American from the blatant English title. It was called 'Knock Three Times', and it was by two people she had never heard of.

She went to slide the coin into the little slot, but as she inserted it, she let go to fast, and it went rolling onto the floor. She yelped, and bent to pick it up, but it was rolling as she nudged it with her foot, and it went skidding under the juke. She hissed softly to herself as she bent onto her knees, hoping that the coin hadn't gone too far into the abyss that was the underside of the juke. She bent her head low, the scent of the floor wafting into her nose, and she wrinkled it. Bleach, unsurprisingly. At least she knew it was clean. Rhyme blinked into the darkness, and smiled to herself as she spotted the coin close to the light. She reached forward to scoop it up, but her fingers brushed against something else. She blinked slowly, her fingers tightening around it as she pulled it from underneath the juke and stared at it for a moment.

It was covered in dust bunnies, but it was quite obvious what it was. It was tiny, and black, like a long shiny bug. There was a band of gray around it, and Rhyme had to assume it had once been white. It was pretty much what she thought it was, though she was surprised to find it under the juke. Who'd drop something like this?

She considered tossing it back under. She had no use for someone else's USB drive, of course. But she was incredibly curious, and her curiosity always did get the better of her. She turned it over slowly in her palm, and her eyes widened.

Scrawled across the front of the USB drive, on a piece of duct tape that wound all the way around the device, was a small printed message in a curly, familiar script.

Manhattan, New York

June 6th- June 12th

2010

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at it, feeling a little bit of nausea creep into her stomach at the thought of this thing being Joshua's. But it couldn't be. He wasn't so careless as to leave it lying underneath the stupid juke box. But… she knew it was his handwriting. It was too swirly and perfect to be anyone else's. And then there was the date! The summer five years ago. It couldn't be a coincidence that it just happened to be that year, the year everything went wrong.

"Hey, kid." Rhyme jumped to her feet, sticking the flash drive into her pocket as she used her other hand to brush her hair back from her face. Mr. Hanekoma was staring at her, worry evident in his eyes. His sunglasses were pushed down to the tip of his nose to emphasize this. "You okay? You seem kind of… ah, I don't know, depressed? Dazed?"

"I'm fine," she blurted, her eyes widening a little. He extended his arm, coffee in hand, and she took it graciously. "Sorry, Mr. H. I've just been… um, really confused lately."

"Not to worry," he said, clapping her on the shoulder. "I just don't want you to get too messed up, kay? You're basically the only sane person I know right now, and hell if I screw that up."

"Beat's pretty sane," Rhyme pointed out, taking a tentative sip of her coffee. She winced and set it down on the table beside her, her tongue searing.

"Skulls? Nah, he's more like… crazy-sane. Kid, I'm serious, I don't know how you wound up with such a bunch of misfits. You are blessed with suck, dare I say."

"Jeez," she said with a laugh. "It's not that bad!"

Mr. Hanekoma smiled at her and shook his head, turning around and walking toward the counter. She blinked after him, her mind slowly straying back to the USB drive. She would have to check it. She had to, or else it'd eat her up inside knowing that there was information on there, from Joshua, about that year. Maybe it could give her a clue on why the boy did what he did, or, maybe, it would do nothing but confuse her. It was worth a shot though.

Mr. Hanekoma leaned against the counter and watched her as she sat down, on a chair this time, and began to drink her coffee in silence. She was staring up at the ceiling, in a sudden daze, and it was obvious she was completely off earth now, her mind roaming the clouds and dreaming up something odd and complex.

Soon the door burst open, and the bell chimed, and Mr. H smiled to himself as Beat shouted at the top of his lungs, "YO, RHYME, DID YA GET MY TEXT?"

And Rhyme, jolted from her reverie, looked up suddenly, mildly confused and full of shock. "What?" she gasped, rising slowly to her feet.

Beat ran up to her, his face split into a wide grin, and jumped up and down, grabbing her hands. "I totally did i', Rhyme! I go' the job! I GOT THE JOB!"

"Are you serious?" she gasped, her own face growing into a grin. "Oh my gosh. Oh my god, Beat, that's amazing!"

"Yeah, man!" He ruffled her hair and squeezed her tightly, his laugh booming through the café. "I can finally buy a second bed!"

"Oh, good," Rhyme said with a short laugh. "That's a relief."

"Yeah, you still get the bedroom, though."

"Beat…"

"I sen' you like… like twenty messages, or somethin' though, Rhyme, didn' you get 'em?"

"What?" She reached into her pocket, the one not occupied by the USB drive, and she came up with nothing but the money she had brought with her to work that morning. Her eyes widened.

"Cazzo stai scherzando?" she hissed under her breath.


Good lord, Fanfiction HATES ME WHEN I EDIT SHIT. WHAT THE FUCK.

Enjoy the gratuitous Italian, babes. If you don't know what that means, I'm sure you've already looked it up. I already knew what cazzo meant, so the rest was pretty much cake. Actually, no, I didn't know how to spell cazzo, so I had to look it up. I only knew how to pronounce it. =P It's what I get from living in a house with an Italian father who thinks that we won't pick up what words mean after a while of him saying them.

Okay, that's it, enjoy the chapter.