Ok, I'm currently getting ready for my school's annual field trip to Disneyland (at 4am...it's a long story) and after said trip I'm going down to my beach house, which unfortunately has the worst internet connection known to mankind, so this obviously had to go up before I left. Some people were so close to the mystery person (one even said the correct name, but then said another person!), so I'm going to stop being an evil author (well…at least a little) because you find out the identity of the person this chapter! So read on!

All in all, I think I got about three hours of sleep that night.

Seriously, that's how guilty I felt. It was already late by the time I'd left the Fruity Music Bar, and when I got back to the apartment, only Layla and Musa were there, in the middle of watching The Uninvited (a DVD we had gotten a la Stella). Layla invited me to join, but I turned her down, saying that I was beat (technically not a lie). Musa didn't even speak. So I gave up and went to bed…well, technically I didn't. I just tossed and turned most of the night. I finally got to sleep around two and gave up at five am. So yeah, about three hours. Thank god for coffee, right? But if I had known what would happen that day……I would have never gotten out of bed.

Chapter 10: Yellow Roses

"Ok," Stella said in her usual cheerful voice at breakfast, absently tossing an orange into the air and catching it, "What's on the agenda today?"

"Well," Flora stirred some creamer into her coffee, "I've got my gardening class today…"

"Great day for it," Musa smirked. The sky did have a thin layer of clouds on it, in fact, it was supposed to rain later today.

"And I'm working on the sound system at the Fruity Music Bar," Tecna added, "Roxy told me it's malfunctioning. Sky tried fixing it yesterday, but it didn't work."

I tried not to cringe at Sky's name. "I'm helping Vanessa in her flower shop in Gardenia today for some extra cash, but I'll be back in the city by five."

"Perfect," Stella grinned. It was a true mystery how she could be so preppy on half a cup of decaf, "Then tonight, it's us and the new disco downtown. Plus the boys. And Ophir," she wiggled her eyebrows, causing us to all burst out laughing and Layla to blush. "Very funny Stella. Just drop it."

"Yeah, Ophir's a good guy," Musa added, "He showed me and Layla this awesome tecno remix I'm thinking of using on my demo CD."

"I didn't know Ophir was into music remixing," I said, "What else does he do?"

Musa gave me a pointed look, "He works at that Italian restaurant on the avenue next to Central Park. Remember, Roxy and Sky – excuse me, Roxy covered there when you and Sky were on your date." Musa look changed into a cool smile; she was loving this, "How did that ever go, anyway? You guys see Roxy?"

I matched her look. "We ran into each other – literally, she knocked my chair over. And the date was fine."

"And the others? Long beach, the other lunch dates, the ice skating?"

"It wasn't ice skating, it was just walking. And it was fine, thanks."

The rest of the girls watched us a bit nervously. "Um…are you guys ok?" Flora finally asked.

"Great," I said before standing, "Hey I've got to get going, Vanessa's waiting for me. I'll see you guys tonight."

"So you can be in Rockefeller Center doing something you said you weren't," Musa muttered.

"Musa are you ok?" Tecna gave her a look, then gave me one, then turned back to Musa, "What's going on with you two?"

Musa gave me silent 'Should I tell them' look. I merely shrugged as I pulled my tan trench coat. "I don't really see the big deal of it," I said to her out loud. "I don't have anything to hide. See you guys later."

As I walked out of the kitchen, I made out Stella asking, "Ok, what's the deal?"

Musa sighed. "Well…yesterday…"

I picked up my pace and basically tried not to run to the door. Here we go again.

Diana

"Why me?"

"Chica, please," Daphne said as she grabbed her bag, "it's not like I'm asking you to swim the Panama Canal; I just want you to call Bloom and tell her to call me. Think of it as passing the message on."

"Yeah, but why can't you call her?"

Daphne rolled her eyes and pointed to the blue 'Cali Surf Shop' tee she was wearing. "Kind of got work."

"So call her after."

"Di!" she said in that pleading voice I always hated. She gave me this puppy dog look, and I knew I couldn't say no. "Please please, please."

I gave a frustrated sigh. "I hate you, your aware of that, right?"

Daphne grinned. "You rule girl, thank you!"

"Yeah, but just don't-" but Daphne was already out the door. "Why am I such a good person?" I muttered, going to find my phone in my tornado of a room.

Bloom

"Ok, that's half a dozen yellow roses…$5.99," I said to the women, handing her the flowers. I personally didn't get why the place had had a steady flow of customers today, considering the weather had gone from bad to worse.

"Nice price," she muttered more to herself as she handed me the money. "You may as well keep the change, a penny won't do me any good."

"Hey, I just sell them, I don't make the prices." I smiled.

She smiled back, but there was a certain fake quality to it, "Of course. Thanks again for the roses." With that, she turned around and walked outside, running down the street to avoid the rain. A few seconds later, Vanessa came in from the back room, carrying a long cardboard box. She lifted a long, thing looking silver flower pot out of it that went up to my knee. The thing was obviously heavier than it looked because she set it down on the ground a few seconds later with a grunt before she turned her gaze to me, "Thanks for the help today sweetie. I owe you for this."

"No problem Va – er, Mom. Glad to help."

Vanessa gave me a knowing smile. "You know you don't have to call me that."

"Yeah," I said a little sheepishly, "Force of habit."

She nodded, "I've got to go pick up some invoices from the bank, will you be ok here by yourself?"

"I'm twenty-one –twenty-two in December– I'll be fine."

Vanessa grinned and gave me a hug. "I know. You've gotten so old in such a short time. You and Daphne both…" she pushed my shoulders back and gave me a slightly sad smile. "Miriam would be very proud of you girls."

I felt a familiar pang in my chest as I smiled back. "Thanks Vanessa. You need me to start on anything while you're gone?"

"Actually," she said, turning and grabbing her car keys, "If you could put that silver pot on the tall shelf over there," she pointed to the empty shelf to my right about five feet in the air, "And fill it with a bouquet of whatever flowers you like."

"Alright. Have fun."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll try. Oh, and before you head back, Mike wants you to stop by the house. Some of your credit card re-activations got sent to us by mistake."

"No problem." Getting robbed seemed like a millennium ago, instead of just a few weeks. It was amazing how easily the term 'New York minute' applied to my life lately. Vanessa left the store, and I plugged my iPod into the sound system, replacing the boring radio music with the new All Time Low album. "Maybe it's not my weekend, but it's gonna be my year," I sung softly as I grabbed the pot. Vanessa was right, this thing was heavy. I got it across the shop before setting it down so my arms wouldn't fall off. "What do they make these things out of?" I muttered under my breath.

"It's called clay." I jumped about a mile in the air. I hadn't even heard the door open. The voice chuckled. "Scare you, Princess?"

"Maybe." I said, letting the slight adrenaline die down in my blood. "Why are you always so quiet, Baltor?"

He shrugged. "Why are you always so loud?"

"Touché," I gave him a small grin. "You looked soaked."

"Yeah, and that's called rain. You know, that stuff falling from the sky?" He smirked back at me, taking a fistful of his navy blue jacket and squeezing it between his fingers. A few drops fell to the floor.

"I've heard of it. Didn't think you missed me so much you'd come all the way out here."

"Don't flatter yourself," Baltor insisted sarcastically, "It was either this or contemplate the meaning of life." He ran a hand over the silver pot. "You want a hand lifting this thing?"

"Don't bother it's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible darling," he said in a fake tone. My cheeks reddened a little at 'darling', even though I knew he had meant it half-heartedly. And as if that weren't enough, Baltor easily lifted the thing onto the shelf. "What did I tell you?"

"Yeah yeah," I muttered, going over to the flower display to pick some out.

"You're in a fantastic mood today."

"You would be too if you were in my shoes."

"Friend drama?" Baltor asked.

I turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. "How did you know that?"

He gave me a small smirk. "What else do you complain about besides that and me?"

"Point. Maybe you're the reason I'm having a horrible day."

"Now why do I doubt that?" I kept my eyebrow up as I grabbed a bouquet of some random flower. I gave Baltor a onceover as he stared out the window to the darkened streets. Something about him seemed off…I couldn't tell. It seemed like there was a bit more bitterness in the sarcastic comments instead of humor. He seemed to care less about what he said to me. I went back across the room and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey," I apparently snapped him out of it and he turned to me, "Are you ok?"

"Never better."

"Seriously. What's up? You're never out of it. That's my job, remember?"

"And that's exactly my problem."

"Me?"

"My job," he corrected, leaning back against the wall. "I'm just under more stress lately."

"Sounds like fun. Anything I can do?"

He shook his head, as if there was some joke I wasn't getting. "Let me get back to you on that."

"Um…ok?" I reached up and put the flowers – which I now saw were yellow roses, in the vase. When I looked back, I found Baltor staring at me intensely. But before I could get a word out asking what he had been smoking before he got here, he stepped forward and came so close he was literally a foot and a half in front of me. "You know what," he said, putting one hand out and resting it on the shelf just behind me. He leaned his head forward, and I could feel his breath on my face, "I think you can help me."

"Wh-what?" I managed to say. It was a miracle I was even standing.

Baltor rolled his eyes slightly. "Rewind about fifteen seconds. My job. I think you can help me with the stress."

"Oh?" I recognized that look in his eyes, a look Sky had given me less than twenty hours ago. "And how do I do that?"

He smirked at me and said – barley above a whisper. "Distract me." And then he kissed me.

The best way to describe what happened next was that Baltor sent about ten thousand volts of electricity through me. That's how amazing it felt. Even when Sky had kissed me and tried to make it as great as possible, it still lacked…well, everything. Baltor's kiss however, was slow and passionate: hence the whole ten thousand volts things. I got another thing then: the idea of Sky kissing me had made me nervous. The idea (and now fact) that Baltor was kissing me made my knees weak.

Automatically, I reached out and grabbed two fistfuls of his jacket in a desperate attempt to keep myself standing. Baltor took his arm and wrapped it around my waist, pressing me against him while the other was on the shelf, keeping him from falling on top of me (something that I probably would have been ok with). My shirt rose up a little, and I felt Baltor run his hand down my bare skin. Another shock went through me, causing me to hold on tighter. I felt him carefully nibble on my bottom lip, asking me to deepen the kiss. I let him without a second thought. All I could do was hold on, hoping that my oxygen would last me as long as possible.

Everything happened at once.

I made out the little ding which signaled the door opened, and I heard a voice (actually, the voice of the woman who had been in here only minutes ago), "I was wondering if I could get a few more of these –" she cut of. At the same time, Baltor took his hand off my waist. I thought he was going to stop kissing me, but his lips stayed on mine. The woman snickered lightly. "My my, am I interrupting something?" That's when Baltor took his lips away from mine. "I'm sorry Bloom." He whispered to me.

I was going to speak when I caught what sounded like hard clay scraping across wood. I heard what sounded like a distant crash (even though I knew it was close), and felt a sharp pain on the back of my head.

Everything went black.

Baltor

I barley managed to catch Bloom in my arms as she fell to the floor. I turned to the owner of the voice – a person I almost didn't recognize. "What happened to you?" I asked, looking at the lilac suit she was wearing and her hair in a tight bun. "You just get out of traffic court, D?"

Darcy gave me a smirk and with a single movement, reached up and undid her hair. Her brown locks fell to the middle of her back. "None of your business." She said to me.

"So it was traffic court? Another 'attorney replacement' who only takes pay up front then mysteriously disappears, huh?"

"One forgotten detail." She reached into her pocket and took out some folded bills. "Cash only. Eight hundred dollars."

"Nice."

She nodded before shifting her gaze to the unconscious redhead in my arms. "So this is the famous Bloom? She doesn't look like your type."

"Oh and you know me so well. I'm guessing in your mind my type is a girl about your height, same hair, same eye color, always wears purple…what am I leaving out?"

Darcy ignored the comment, reaching down and picking up a piece of silver pottery. She ran her thumb over it as she spoke, "Nice idea, though. I'd never think to distract her with a little lip action and then knock her out with a vase."

I shrugged and stood up to my full height. One of my arms keeping Bloom's upper body pressed against mine, while the other was at her knee holts. "I have my moments. But a better one would be hearing you have a car. I'd say we have about five minutes before Vanessa gets back."

"What about your car?" Darcy asked, taking off her jacket. She glanced over at Bloom's cell phone laying on the countertop, and grabbed it.

"Roofs jammed again. If I took it out in this weather it'd end up as a swimming pool." As if to empathize my point, lightning flashed outside, followed by bang on thunder.

Darcy gave a small nod, turning her jacket inside out and putting it back on. "Mine's out back, come on." The fancy jacket now resembled a grey hoodie. As she walked out to the street, Darcy looked like any other person as she pushed the hood up, covering her face. She was smart, I gave her that. "The street's empty," she called, her hand keeping the door open. "Come on, let's get you girlfriend out of here before Valarie or whoever shows up. I'm going to disconnect her phone."

Not even bothering to waste my breath in correcting her, I followed. Darcy had taken her hand off the door, and I barley managed to slip though – I had to jerk my leg free. Darcy was true to her word, the streets were empty. I turned to my left and headed to the alley. The rain was heavier, and besides me, a few drops fell onto Bloom's face. She stirred a little, and to my surprise, subconsciously put her arms around my neck. A small wave of guilt washed over me as I looked down at her.

No. I needed to focus. Darcy was right, the entire point of this was freedom; Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago wherever we wanted to go. It was at our fingertips if this went off without a hitch.

I found him trying to suck her lips off…She didn't look like she wasn't enjoying it… Said something like, 'What I'm doing isn't a big deal, you know what's best for me.' Go figure…

I kept repeating Riven's words over and over in my head until I caught a taste of salty blood from biting my tongue so hard. Those words were my drive to keep walking in the rain down the alley, to keep me from doing something to Darcy and letting Bloom go, and making up some excuse about how I accidently knocked the pot off the shelf. And at the thought of the magnificent Sky's reaction to all of this, I felt a smirk cross my face. This is what was supposed to happen.

But yet, through the anger fueling me, I still shifted my arm slightly and pushed Bloom's head into the crook of my neck, protecting her from the rain.

Diana

"I'm getting to old for this…" I muttered, pushing myself out from under my bed, cell phone in hand. It had taken me fifteen minutes to find the thing. I scrolled through the contacts, found Bloom number, and dialed. It rang three times before cutting off in the middle of the fourth ring, sending me to voicemail. Being the highly trained cell phone addict I am, I knew she had ignored my call. I was not giving up that easily, especially after looking under my bed (on the bright side though, I found that purse I lost in July). I hung up and redialed. It rang once, twice, three times…. "Hey it's Bloom, I-"

Slightly frustrated now, I hung up again and redialed. This time it was just one ring then voicemail. I sighed as I heard the beep. "Bloom girl, I just want to pass on a message from your sister. I'm really sorry for waking you up at three am, ok? I'm trying one more time, and if you don't pick up, I'm going to be kind of mad. Fair warning."

I dialed, but I heard an automated voice, "The phone you are dialing is currently off. Please try again later." What? It was on a second ago. I again dialed, and then got a weirder message. "The number you are trying to call is out of service. Please contact the AT&T hotline for more information. If you would like to connect, press 1..."

This didn't make sense. I pressed 1, and it started ringing. When I got through, I explained my problem to the woman. "Hmm…well, if a number is out of service, the phone's been shut off."

"Define shut off."

"The phone's account has been deleted. It like your dialing a number of a phone that hasn't been purchased yet. Your friend must have gotten a new number."

"Can you look it up from there so I can get it?"

"I think I can help you out." I immediately liked this woman. "What's your friend's name?"

"Bloom, Bloom Holloway."

"All right, Holloway…let's see…" I could hear computer keys clacking, and an interested sigh. "I'm sorry," she said, "But our records show that the phone account of your friend was terminated almost eight months ago."

"Eight months? It was ringing five minutes ago!"

"Sorry, that's what the data says."

"Well, maybe it's wrong."

She laughed, "Young lady, you'd have to be a very skilled hacker to be able to change our information that fast."

Well, I guess Darcy is a skilled hacker! Ok, so Darcy is the mystery character (Remy, you were so close!), and she's a tad jealous of Bloom if you haven't noticed (You can't have a Winx Club story unless one of the Trix is in love with Baltor ;-)). So as I leave this chapter, I beg you to review, because I'm so interested to see what everyone thinks about it. And remember the basic fanfiction equation;

my story + reviews = faster updates!

Caio, everyone!