Two days. It had already been two days of her playing the role of Graverobber's favored whore. She didn't want to admit how simple it seemed or how easy it was to play the part. They got around her being shot up with Zydrate by telling people that her Z was given in a more private setting. That got people talking, which was technically what they wanted, but Shilo still didn't like playing this part. There was so much that could go wrong. She swallowed it; no one knew it was her, so it wouldn't sully anyone's opinion of her. Not that they had any good opinions of her in the first place. One of the addicts had asked where she was yesterday, granted, they had called her a bratty child, but they had asked about her. Graverobber's answer was painfully nonchalant as he replied that he had grown tired of playing children's games. Which didn't answer anyone's question, but the addicts were too far gone by that point to realize the difference, and they took from the vague response what they wanted to hear from it.

Graverobber tugged her out of the alley after half an hour showboating and administering Zydrate to fawning addicts, some making it more obvious that they would like a private session or two, tossing jealous glances at Shilo occasionally. The grin he left with told the others that he was about to get personal with his client, and that brought Shilo a little more negative attention than she would have liked, but she cling to him, grinning lasciviously all the way out of the alley.

The grin faded somewhat once they were out of the alley, but they weren't far enough away to be able to drop the charade completely. One thing Shilo was learning about wigs was that if they were of poor quality, like this grey and green one, they itched and she wanted nothing more than to take the thing off and never put it back on. But she couldn't do that until they were back at the cottage.

Graverobber turned them into another alley that acted both as cover and as a shortcut back to where they lived. They stopped short, Graverobber immediately tense. Shilo looked up, terrified of whatever it was that could make Graverobber tense up so quickly, and even worse when she saw what was actually standing there. But, terror wasn't unusual if you walked into an alley and almost straight into the barrel of a gun.

"Looks like this one's occupied," Shilo said, trying to sound something, anything, that wasn't pure terror. She sounded breathy, and that could work, even though it was the sound of fear as she stood there, face to shotgun, with the two women that were hunting her.

Graverobber held her close by the waist, looking possessive, but Shilo just found it soothing.

"Stay here," he told her as he stepped away, his touch lingering as he approached the Henchwomen. He took out three vials of Zydrate and handed it to them without a word.

He started to back away, a cocky grin in place, but Sierie brought out her handgun and sighted it between his eyes. He didn't look overly surprised, but he stopped moving and he could hear Shilo gasp behind him and cover her mouth with her hands, nails painted to hide any grave dirt that might have gotten stuck thoroughly enough that they didn't want to come clean. Sierie gestured him to the wall, he did what she wanted and watched her approach him with wary eyes. She thrust the gun under his chin.

"Hey, I paid you, what's the deal? You want next month's payment too?" he asked, sounding both incredulous and cocky, not particularly bothered by the gun in his chin.

"Where is Shilo Wallace?" she demanded, pressing the gun more firmly into him.

"Who?" Graverobber asked, raising an eyebrow as if the name were unfamiliar to him, his voice sounding genuinely confused, as if he had no idea who they might be talking about.

"You helped her escape Sanitarium Square the day of the Opera, we saw you weaving through people with her," Adrien supplied.

"That kid? Never saw her again after that," Graverobber said dismissively, "most people say she killed herself after the Opera. Haven't found the body to harvest it though, so I think she may have just left the city."

Sierie narrowed her eyes behind the sunglasses, not believing a word of what the Graverobber was trying to sell her. There was nothing she could do about it though, "if there's a corpse to be found in this city, you'll find it," she told him.

"Like I said, I think that she just left the city. What's she got here that would make her stay? Not a family, that's for sure," Graverobber shrugged, stepping away, "now, if you don't mind, I have plans."

Graverobber grabbed Shilo around the shoulders, grinning deviously at the Henchwomen.

"Don't talk yet," he muttered under his breath after swinging them around to leave the alley again.

"What was that?" was the best thing Shilo could come up with that would sound like something Graverobber's pet whore would come up with.

"Payment," he said shortly.

"Payment for what?"

"My fingerprints."

Fingerprints? Surgery… Graverobber owed GeneCo a debt for fingerprints. And he was paying them off in illegal Zydrate. Shilo's mind started spinning out of control. They still hunted him for harvesting the Zydrate that he paid them in. Maybe that was how Amber was getting her fix now. She was in the alley less and less often now.

But what if… what if they offered him freedom from his debt in exchange for her, what would he do? What would he do?

When they got back to the cottage, the first thing Shilo did was pull off the wig and toss it on a rack like a coat. Next she took off her shoes and curled up in the corner of the couch looking slightly glassy eyed.

Graverobber pulled her into his arms and lay down on the other side of the couch.

"They have no idea," he reassured her, stroking her hair soothingly.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked in a small voice, not looking at him, "It's like I don't even know you."

"Well, you don't really know me, you only know the last few months of who I am and who I might be becoming," he started off with, "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to scare you. Besides, I'd rather people not know that I'm in debt to GeneCo and paying them in an illegal substance, and I'm sure that they'd rather keep it that way too," the Cheshire grin was there again.

"But… what if they clear your debt if you can tell them something that will help them find me?" she asked.

Graverobber lifted her chin to look at him, "I know nothing about you; I think you've either left the city or I haven't found your body to harvest yet. And by this point, if I do find it, it wouldn't be recognizable, left out to the elements, or wherever it might have been dumped," he told her, no trace of a grin on his unusually serious face.

Shilo managed a weak smile and lay her head back on his chest. He kept petting her hair, hoping that the Henchwomen would leave them alone. At least until next month. And hopefully next time Shilo wouldn't be so terrifyingly close.

"What about the woman?" Sierie asked Adrien, trusting that the other woman had been paying attention to the general area than she had been while questioning the Graverobber.

"Looked like one of the usual addicted whores that's hanging off of him ready to make a payment," Adrien replied with a slight shrug, "She didn't do anything to make me think she would be anything else."

"I want to watch them," Sierie said.

"Of course you do," Adrien said, "I just don't think that there's anything to find there. You saw the look on his face. He doesn't know."

Sierie shot her a glare that could wither roses. Adrien simply shrugged it off, used to her more abrasive counterpart.

"He knows something," Sierie said stubbornly.

"Sier, he can't possibly know everything, and sometimes it just feels like you think of him as a one stop shop for all of our problems," Adrien claimed nonchalantly. Adrien knew that her nonchalance would bug Sierie, but Adrien was against the assignment to begin with and didn't want to find the poor girl.

"I say we get some poor sod to play witness. Have him tell Miss Sweet they saw the Wallace girl leaving the city. Claim she hasn't been seen yet," it seemed like a decently solid plan in Adrien's mind at least.

Sierie did not share the sentiment. Next thing Adrien knew, there was a pistol in her face.

"No, we aren't going against GeneCo," Sierie vehemently claimed.

"We'd be going against Miss Sweet, not GeneCo. Now get the gun out of my face."

"Miss Sweet is GeneCo now. You'd do well to remember that," Sierie lowered her gun, but the anger was still there.

Sierie had more to lose. Sierie's entire family was indebted to GeneCo, so Sierie had sold her soul to pay the debt. Adrien only had to worry about her brother. So Adrien wasn't as worried about going against the will of Miss Sweet. She was still devoted to GeneCo. But Adrien didn't like how Amber Sweet worked things. Adrien wholly believed that it was wrong to hunt Shilo Wallace without provocation.

They were lying on the mattress. It was late at night, perfect for harvesting Zydrate, but Graverobber had decided against it after the day they'd had.

Graverobber's arm was around Shilo's waist, hugging her to him. Neither was sleeping, but both were pretending not to notice. They took the peaceful, quiet time to think, simply let their minds wander at their own pleasure.

Shilo was milling about the day and what had happened. She had come face to face with the Henchwomen today, her worst nightmare had pretty much come true and she had lived through it. Graverobber had been the one facing the barrel of the gun, and that was a thought that Shilo found more disturbing than she would have thought. Not that Shilo valued his life over hers, but so many things could have gone wrong because he had stood there and allowed a gun be shoved into his throat to keep her safe. And Graverobber hadn't betrayed her. She found herself realizing that being betrayed wasn't even the scariest scenario. Losing Graverobber was. For more reasons than she could wrap her exhausted mind around. But what would she do without him? She hoped that it never came to that.

Behind her, Graverobber was trying to let the day go. It was his way to live life in the moment, and he was usually pretty good at living life one breath at a time, but he couldn't get his memory to let go of the look on Shilo's face when she learned that he paid GeneCo monthly, which meant that he saw the Henchwomen monthly. She felt betrayed; he could see it in her eyes, and he could understand it. Graverobber wasn't really the hopeless romantic type that would claim to die to save another person, but he would do everything he could to keep her safe. He knew that, he just didn't think that Shilo did.

Eventually, he fell asleep with his mind a frothing sea of chaos.

A/N:

I finally got around to another chapter. I hope that you're still here and reading and enjoying, even though I'm so slow to update most of the time, and I apologize for that. Really I do. I'm glad for all of the reviews that I get, they're really the only reason I keep going half the time. I enjoy this story so much, the first one in a very long time, and this one has the longest run that's every actually made it to be read by others.

I apologize that this chapter is so short though. Also, rating change pending. We'll see what happens in the next chapter. This chapter is safe enough though.

Anyway, I should probably do another disclaimer, since it's been a while:

I do not own Repo! The Genetic Opera, nor do I own any of the characters or the original plot. I own this plot, and some memorabilia, and a lot of awesome Repo! related memories, but that's about it.

Now that that's done. Let's see if I can break a personal record of late and see how soon I can get another chapter up.

As always, read and review~