And again…

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The coffee table must be feeling pretty damn happy right now. I mean, assuming the thing has feelings, it must be proud that it's surface can offer such a useful place for us all. We are, after all, all crowded around it, staring at the little black book that sits in it's center.

I would feel pretty happy if I were getting that much attention, anyway.

"It's a freakin' hit list," Bryan says, interest practically running out of his mouth and down his chin.

... Ew. Scratch that.

"The names that are crossed out might be people he's killed," Spencer offers, flipping slowly through the pages. "But there aren't a lot of them."

"What are all these tally marks and crap?" Mariah asks. Most of the pages are filled with scribbles and notes, occasionally giving way to a name. So far, it looks like this Eli Holden has killed seven people.

"Who knows. Maybe he's a gun for hire." Tala reaches forward and snags the book from Spencer's fingers, flipping through it on his own. As he gets toward the back, he stops and reads carefully before an interesting look takes over his facial features.

"Your name is in here, kid. And it looks like he had quite a hard time finding you."

Kevin's forehead hits my shoulder and he groans. I lean into him a little, somehow feeling as though doing so would alleviate his worry. Mariah snaps her wrist forward and snatches the book for herself, earning a glare from Tala.

"Oh, eat it," she mutters in response to the look, finding the page Tala was on. She's silent for a minute before she looks toward her long-time friend with narrowed eyebrows.

"He's like, obsessed with you," she says. Her tone is one I've never heard before: interested, curious, terrified. Kevin finally takes the book for himself, and now I can see it.

The last five pages - of those that have writing on them - are all about him. The first one has some obscure handwriting that reads 'find his name', 'might be affiliated with BBA' and, creepiest of all, in big lettering that someone put effort in to, 'VIOLET EYES'. The next page is full of scribbled-out notes, and from what I can make of it they're all possible locations. At the bottom is our flat address, circled angrily about four times around.

The rest are all little plots and schemes. The mall is there, illuminated with a blue highlighter; a first for this book, at least. He had scrawled success at the very bottom of the page. Finally, on the last few pages, the plan to challenge Kevin to a fight looks like it was taking its time to unfold, and while Eli waited, it seemed as though all he could think to write was 'violet eyes', again and again. That, and Kevin's name.

Holy balls.

Kevin silently hands the book to Spencer, his eyes staring blankly ahead. There's a long silence before Bryan snags it for his own turn, saying something about how there might be something else. I don't hear him; my entire being is focused on Kevin, who just stares at the table top. I imagine, at this point, that the coffee table is feeling a bit awkward. He was so happy to have that attention, but now that the air has gone stale and the mood has shifted, he doesn't want it any more.

Or she. There are girl coffee tables too, so don't look at me like I'm sexist. I just think our coffee table is a guy.

... I need coffee.

-x-x-x-

"Kak dela?"

Kevin stares at his feet, ignoring me blatantly.

"Na zdarov'e, Kevin."

"Goddamnit Ian, you know I can't speak a lick of Russian so shut your trap and stop trying to piss me off."

"Vy ne mogli by govorit' pomedlennee."

"Ian!"

"Okay, okay," I laugh, rising my hands to show that I mean no further harm, "I'm sorry. You just look so nervous."

He looks at me blankly. "Do I have reason not to be?"

For some reason, I shrug. "No. But I've already told you that you'll be fine."

Silence engulfs us again. From where he is in the window seat, all the light from outside is pouring in over his face, making his eyes sparkle again. Tala and Spencer are speaking quietly to one another in the front seat. I wonder, for a moment, if we should have left Mariah and Bryan alone, but the woman insisted on calling and trying to convince Lee to come. So it was a lost cause to begin with.

"Ian?"

I snap myself back to reality. "Yeah?"

"The other night..." he begins slowly, staring at his knees as if they were truly interesting. "I mean... Lastnight. I tried to ask you, but..."

I lean toward him a bit. "But what?"

His eyes lift upward and lock on to mine, and we hold each other's attention for a long, solid time.

"How do you say 'I love you' in Russian?"

I blink. After a pause, "Ja teb'a l'ubl'u," slips out of my mouth, and he looks away.

"Just wondering."

For a minute I look at him stupidly before my hand lifts toward his shoulder and lands with an odd amount of grace. "Wait, why do you ask?"

"No reason," he whispers, looking toward me for a fraction of a second before he dips his head in and catches my lips in his own.

Then the car stops, and he pulls away and hops out, leaving me stupefied in the back seat.

-x-x-x-

Now, I've been in my share of sketch alleyways. And believe me when I say, some of them smell totally rank. But this? It's like filthy rain water and old fish. Don't tell Kevin that I said (thought?) this, (not that you could,) but it smells a lot like the alleys in Hong Kong the last time I was there.

Now, I'd like to think I'm a fair guy. Sure, I was raised with in an abbey-gone-evil in Russia with Bryan and Tala, but I wouldn't steal candy for a baby, or, say, surround myself with an overly-muscular entourage to make myself look more intimidating. Like this Eli character has done. When we arrived at the specified destination, with Tala trying to keep the neck of his shirt down off his nose so not to look too pompous, (but yeah, the smell was that bad,) we found what looked like a reenactment of Fast and the Furious. Minus the sweet cars and hot girls.

What a terrible movie that would be.

They were all in the middle of something, and hardly gave us more than a glare, before a tall skinny guy – hell, maybe Spencer's height? – stepped out with a broad smile on his face. He was staring directly passed Tala and I at Kevin, who had gotten very quiet on the walk to this icky place.

… I just said icky. Don't theoretically tell Kevin that either.

"Wow, you actually came. Part of me would hoping I would have to keep hunting you."

… Pervert! I oughta-

"You didn't have to smash their apartment," Kevin says quietly. He doesn't look nearly as frightened as he did before. Maybe all that meditation crap he and his team always talked about really works. Assuming he found time to meditate… Hm. Nah, scratch that.

The tall guy shrugs and runs a broad hand through his ridiculous spiky blond hair. I wonder if he realizes that it's not 1995 anymore.

"They were hiding you from me: occupational hazard."

Tala is doing what he's best at; standing and looking at tall-and-blond with all the hate in the world. Eli seems unaffected with his goons coming up behind him.

… Where did Spencer go?

"So we blade, right?" Kevin asks beside me, looking up at him. It's like David and Goliath, but instead of a Jew and a giant, it's a little Chinese kid and… what is he, German? The ideal Aryan child. Bastard.

… Did I ever tell you that I'm Jewish?

"Yeah. Over there," Eli says with a smirk, pointing into the courtyard a few yards away.

It's not the religious thing: my time at the abbey pretty much knocked that out of me. It's the culture; the second my family took me back from the abbey, I was smooshed into a big Jew sandwich with gefilte fish and challah bread and shoved into the oven.

I shake my head, knocking away the blather and trying to clear my head. Coping mechanism or not, getting into tangents like that in a time of need is annoying as fuck.

The big brutes who haven't spoken since we arrived herded us toward a make-shift dish about three feet in diameter. It's sitting atop a piece of plywood about an inch thick, for some reason. The board is maybe… six-by-six? I don't know, I'm bad at measuring.

"So if I win, you'll leave me alone?"

"Yeah, sure," Eli says, flicking his hand back and forth as though he were swatting a fly. He takes his place on the far side of the dish and Kevin stands across from him, closer to where we had just entered from. Haha, bet you didn't see that coming you ass, now we can bolt if we need too.

As I think this, the larger guys surround us and block our exit. Damn it all.

Seriously, where the fuck is Spencer?

"And if I lose?" Kevin asks cautiously. Tala crosses his arms over his chest and studies the board with curious apprehension.

"If you lose to me, Kevin, then you stay here, and your little friends leave."

"What?" Kevin stops mid-reach into his bag for his blade and looks at him in surprise and panic. I blink and look up, realizing that I had been staring at Kevin's ass. Tala holds his ground and doesn't show much response.

"If I beat you at this little game, kid, you're mine."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Four down.