Ivy had started to dream about white walls. She saw them all time. The doctor hadn't taken her outside again, after the incident and she had been sitting in her room for five days straight. She needed some fresh air. Even walking down the hall would be nice compared to this. This was hell. It just wasn't quite as fiery and red as she had expected. It was white walls and a white roof and white sheets on a white bed. Oh and how could she forget the squashy white floors, the white door and the white air vent that seemed to be doing a pretty crappy job of making the room colder.

The aforementioned door opened and admitted a man dressed in long white coat. He wasn't her usual doctor, but she didn't really care. They changed it up every so often, she thought so that they could find someone she would open up to. Likely. He did look a lot younger than her past doctor, who was in his late forties at least with messy dirty blonde hair and the palest skin Ivy had ever seen. This one was a young, African American with dark brown hair hidden under a cap. He didn't look much like any doctor Ivy had seen before.

"How old are you?" Ivy asked before she could stop herself. She didn't want to seem interested in him, but she really didn't believe this man could have finished any degree.

"Um... I don't have to tell you that" he snapped looking slightly worried.

"Okay. Sorry I was just asking" she muttered, pulling a face.

"How about we go for a walk" he gave a fake smile and Ivy frowned at him bemusedly.

"I don't think I'm allowed to go outside anymore" she shrugged, not standing up.

"Well I think you can"

"No, really" she didn't want to go anywhere with this guy. He was annoying, and a bit strange to put it nicely.

"Oh for fuck's sake" he muttered, not looking at her and Ivy raised her eyebrows trying not to laugh.

"Sorry what was that?" she smirked.

"Nothing" he said quickly, rolling his eyes, "nothing, just come on okay"?

"Okay" she shrugged standing up and following him out the door. They walked down the corridor and outside, and Ivy didn't miss the strange looks that people were giving them. It was probably because her 'doctor' looked about twenty years younger than everyone else in the place.

"So... Um, Irene, no wait, I know this" he seemed to think hard for awhile, "Nope, I got nothing, what was your name again"? Ivy snickered.

"Ivy" she supplied with a smile.

"Right, right... I knew that, you know" he said derisively. Ivy shrugged. Sure he did. "So, um, what exactly did you do"?

"One of my multiple personalities killed a boy and ate him. It wasn't me of course" she smiled sweetly.

"What the f-" he stopped himself, jumping away from her before he saw her laughing. He glared her and she smirked back. "Real funny" he told her and added quietly "not crazy my ass".

"Sorry what?" she asked, puzzled.

"Nothing" he said quickly. Ivy raised an eyebrow. Who was the crazy one again?

"Can we sit?" she asked, indicating one of the empty benches. He shook his head.

"Nope. We have to go over there. You need to see a specialist" he pointed to a small white building.

"Okay" Ivy shrugged. He was the doctor, even if he was weird. He sighed in relief and walked her quickly over the building. The sign on the door read 'tool shed'. Ivy frowned.

"Hold on a second, there's no-" she was pushed roughly into the building and shrieked before her mouth was covered by a hand. She bit the person roughly and let out a louder scream as she heard the door slam behind her.

"She bit me" a man's voice yelled and Ivy rolled over to see three people standing in the dark room. One of them was the 'doctor' who apparently was not a doctor at all. Another, who was small and looked mexican, was shaking his hand and glaring at Ivy, who glared right back at him. The third was a girl in a nurses uniform, but Ivy could guess that she wasn't a nurse. She had stunning long curly red hair and reminded Ivy slightly of a fox, mostly because she looked like she was about to attack someone any second.

"Yeah well, try to talking to the girl for a whole five minutes. Oh you should do it 6, you look like a doctor. This is some serious bull-"

"Shut up both of you" the girl snapped, "6, go back to the car". The doctor muttered grudgingly, before ducking out of a small door at the back of the shed.

"And you" the girl began pointing at Ivy, "If you don't shut the hell up and stop screaming, I'm going to leave you here. How would you like living in a tool shed"?

"She bit me" the guy said again.

"I don't give a shit" the girl replied, "Take her to the car and wait for me to get back. I have to go to her room first". Then she turned back to Ivy. Why the hell were they taking her to a car? Were they going to kidnap her?

"We're going to get you out of here. But first, I need you to do something for me" she held up a tape recorder, "Say something into this, like 'Go away'". Ivy frowned and shook her head stubbornly. She wasn't going to help her would be kidnappers.

"Oh for god's sake, just do it already girl" she groaned, "We're trying to help you. You're making it difficult. Don't think I won't hit you just 'cause you're a girl". That was slightly pointless. Ivy never thought that this girl wouldn't hit her. She thought they were going to kill her. She pressed her lips firmly together. The girl groaned again and pursed her lips, clearly trying not to say anything.

"I'm too bloody important for this" she muttered finally, ", go get her clothes". The man scurried off out the same door that the doctor had gone out of and Ivy opened her eyes wide when she realised that she was now alone in a dark room with someone who was going to kill her.

"Okay, one last time. Will you please, please, just do what I asked you?" she sighed exasperatedly. Ivy scowled at her, thinking it over. Why would she even want her to say 'go away' into a tape recorder? That was the strangest thing she had ever heard. But then again, it couldn't hurt, could it?

"Go away?" Ivy said into the tape recorder. The girl sighed.

"A bit more enthusiastically"

"Go away"

"Better. Now say 'I don't want to talk to you'" the girl gave a small smile.

"I don't want to talk to you"

"Perfect" she said, and then looked around worriedly. "Where is he?" she muttered, and with that, the boy from before came back in, carrying a pile of clothes.

"Put these on" he told her chucking them to her and turning around. The girl whispered something to him while Ivy pulled on the jeans and t-shirt, and then hurried out the door, taking the tape and a bunch of pillows with her.

"Are you done?" asked the guy impatiently. Ivy scowled and nodded. Then she realised that he couldn't see her.

"Yeah" she said and he turned around to glare at her, "Come on then. We've got a way to go".

'What are you talking about, the gate's just down there" she told him. He shook his head exasperatedly.

"You think a mental patient can just walk out the front gate? The security on this place is tighter than it looks" he said, opening the door and ushering her outside. He looked at the white clothes she had left lying on the floor and frowned. He picked them up and took them with him.

She looked around her as was half dragged along a dirt path that ran from behind the shed to a forest at the back of the institution. By the time they got out of the trees, Ivy and the guy were both panting and the white van that sat on the road waiting for them had the doors open.

"Get in" the guy said, shoving her into the back and jumping in after her. Ivy sat up and dusted herself off, regaining her breath. The guy let out a relieved breath. Ivy looked around confused.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" she questioned. Who were these guys? And who was the girl? And why the hell was she in the back of truck when this morning she woke up in an psych ward?

"We're trying to save you" the 'doctor' sitting in the front seat said, "But you're not making it easy" he added with a frown, as he started the car up.

"Why?"

"Because we got told to" the other guy sitting next to her in the back told her exasperatedly.

"Who are you anyway?" she asked and the door opened and the girl climbed in. She didn't have the pillows or the tape anymore.

"Go" she told the driver and he drove off down the road. Then she turned around and looked at Ivy.

"I think I can answer that" she said with a smirk, "We, my dear, are The Spades. At your service".

"You're lying" she breathed.

"'Fraid not" the driver said, "Heard of us then have you"? She shrugged. She wasn't about to talk about Ace with them. Or Jack. Oh god. What about Jack? What if she told them what happened and they killed her? An eye for an eye and all that. They'd be so into the, she knew they would. Oh god, she was going to die. They'd probably tie her up and whack her with sticks, like they did on the Italian movie about soccer.

"Of course she's heard of us you idiot" the girl snapped, "why else would he have told us to get her?"

"I was just asking" he said holding up a hand in a calming gesture, "Chill 9".

"Yeah whatever" she said, crossing her arms and turning back around in her seat. Ivy was still in shock. She was sitting in a van with The Spades. Never in a million years did she expect that she would be here. But then, she never thought she would get sent to a mental asylum. Or that she would get arrested and sent to a juvenile detention camp. But somehow, both of those things had happened, so maybe she should work on being more adaptable.

"So... you were just kidding about that whole, schizophrenic thing... Right?" the driver asked her sounding slightly nervous. "You haven't actually eaten someone have you?"

The guy next to her burst out laughing and the girl smirked. "You're the dumbest person I've ever met, no wonder they kicked you out of all those schools" the guy said and the driver gave him the finger.

"Are you saying because I'm black it means I must be stupid? I knew you were racist" the driver said, shaking his head sadly.

"Oh, I'm a racist? I'm a racist? You're the one who says Latino people can't have blonde hair" he replied, rubbing his stubbly hair self-consciously. The girl sighed and buried her head in her hands, muttering something to herself. The driver rolled his eyes.

"That's because they can't dumbass. When's the last time you saw a Mexican or a Spanish person, or an Argentinean person with blonde hair?"

"My dad had blonde hair"

"Was your Dad Latino?"

"You're fucking racist man, just stop talking to me"

"Ohhhh, that burns man, where did you-"

"Nah! Shut up"

"You-"

"Racist!"

"Fu-"

"If both of you don't shut up, I'm gonna smash both of your faces in, break your kneecaps and stab you in the elbow" the girl yelled and they both stopped talking. Ivy grinned. She was going to stab them in the elbow? That was a new one.

They drove in silence for the next few hours, until the highway became an actual place and the van slowed down. It was just getting dark when the van drove down a long road in what seemed like a warehouse district. Empty looking warehouses and containers bordered the road, and most of the street lights weren't working. The one's that did flickered eerily. Tall buildings rose in the distance, and Ivy realised they were in a city. She didn't know which one. They made enough turns that Ivy was well and truly lost and then they pulled up, outside an old, enormous creepy looking house. Ivy would've bet money that it was haunted, if there weren't lights on in some of the windows. It was at least three or four storeys high, made of wood and looked on the verge of falling down. The driver pushed a button in the van and a ramshackle wooden garage next to the house opened up. The inside didn't exactly fit with what she had expected it to look like. The bright red walls were so clean they practically shone, there were at least four cars already parked in it, and the walls were arranged with neat shelves on which sat tools and car parts as well as various other things which Ivy couldn't identify. Sparks were flying out from under one of the cars; a shiny black four wheel drive, as someone toyed around with whatever it was that was underneath the car. Ivy's mouth fell open. They had to be joking. Houses didn't look like that one did, and have cars and garages like this. This was insane.

The legs sticking out from under the car soon became a whole body as the person pulled themselves out from underneath the truck and wiped their hands on a pair of dirty overalls. The van pulled into an empty spot and stopped. The girl climbed out first followed by the driver. The girl who had emerged from underneath the car nodded to them and spat on the ground. Ivy jumped out after the other man, and was hit by the smell of petrol.

"Is this her?" the new girl, who had gorgeous milk chocolate coloured skin and large blue eyes looked at Ivy with a hint of curiosity colouring her features. The first girl, who was pretty as well now that Ivy looked at her, but not in the striking way of the other girl, nodded.

"This is Ivy" she said gesturing to her in a theatrical sort of way. The other nodded decisively and looked her up and down calculatingly.

"Come with me" she said brusquely after a few seconds, "I'll take you to your room". Ivy nodded and followed after her obediently. There was something about this girl that made you not want to disagree with her. She led her into the house through a door in the back of the garage. Ivy was even more shocked than when they saw the cars in the garage. The walls of the house were a perfect shade of cream, with down lights illuminating the long hallway and the charcoal coloured carpet. There were no photos on the wall. In fact the hall way was rather bare, except for a thin glass cabinet, which on closer inspection, Ivy discovered, was full of slightly charred old pieces of paper.

"I'm Queen" the girl told her as they left the hallway and passed through a dining room with the biggest table Ivy had ever seen and a chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. "The small, Mexican guy, that's 2, the other guy's 6 and the girl's 9".

"Oh" Ivy said, feeling extremely small and insignificant in this mansion. There really was no other word for it. It was enormous. She wondered why the outside was so dirty and disgusting when the inside of the house looked like this, but she didn't ask, in case she offended the girl, Queen. They were out of the dining room now, and were at the far side of the house from the garage. This room didn't really have a lot in it, except for a flight of stairs.

"You're room's up here" Queen said, walking up a flight of stairs with bright red carpet covering them and a golden hand rail. They looked like stairs from out of some old-time musical, the way they curved around both sides of the room and merged together in the middle to come down in the centre of the room. This felt like a dream. She felt like Annie when she was sent to the rich guy's house. She couldn't remember his name, but it didn't really matter. She couldn't remember a whole lot right now, she was too shocked. The walls of this room were probably the most amazing thing she had seen in the house so far. There was no wall paper, or paint on the walls, instead they were covered by a giant montage of cards. Spades more specifically. They covered every inch of the wall, making it quite evident who the house belonged to.

Queen was frowning at her when Ivy stopped looking at the cards.

"When you're done staring, maybe we can go up" She smirked and Ivy felt herself come very close to blushing.

"So, who lives here?" Ivy ventured when they started walking again. Queen shrugged.

"Everyone"

"Everyone, like all of you?" Ivy asked.

"Yeah. That everyone" Queen replied with a hint of exasperation in her voice.

"But aren't there like, a lot of you?" Ivy wondered where all of them were. If there were thirteen people living here, shouldn't it be a bit louder?

"Yeah, there's, like, a lot of us. The others are out" Queen replied, rolling her eyes. Ivy felt like a complete idiot when she talked to this girl. She had never met anoyone who could make her feel so stupid for saying the word 'like' before.

Queen came to a dark wooden door on the second floor and opened it up. The walls of the room were a light shade of blue and the carpet was navy. A huge window took up almost all of the wall opposite the door. There was a double bed and a few bookcases around the walls. But only one of them actually had books on it. The other two were something a little different. They had different types of swords and knives set up on them, like a display. There were army knives, samurai swords, some strange dagger like things with dragons painted on them, and a whole bunch of other which she was pretty sure were for stabbing people. She was quite certain this room wasn't set up specifically for her.

"I'll leave you alone. You probably want some sleep" Queen said in a business-like tone. Ivy was pretty sure Queen didn't like her very much.

"Thanks Queen" Ivy said with a hopeful smile. Queen looked at her for a few seconds and returned the smile less enthusiastically.

"It was nice to meet you Ivy" Queen said after awhile, and it was surprisingly believable. Believable enough that Ivy wasn't sure whether she was saying it because she felt like she had to or because she actually meant it. Either way, she had just met the first civil person in this house, and she was pretty grateful.

But there was one thing that she couldn't get off her mind as she lay awake in bed worn out, even though she had done nothing all day. Why was she here? Was Ace back from Green Lake and trying to help her out? Or was he still there and he told them to do this? Or did they find out about Jack and now they wanted revenge? What if her being here wasn't as nice a thing as she had assumed? Maybe they brought her here so it was easier to get to her. Her heartbeat sped up as she considered this option. Suddenly those knives sitting around her room didn't seem quite so innocent anymore.

...

Oh my god. I feel like such an idiot. Seriously. Beautiful seclusion, THANK YOU so much for telling me. Yes, I did know that there isn't a one in a deck of cards, but I totally forgot. You know when you just get into the whole flow of things and totally forget stuff. So I just went back tried to write him out. But it made it too hard, because the only one who he really fits with is 3, who's real big, so he should be in all the missions and that and the smart guy's never in the missions, so I just kept him. but thank you for telling me so I can tell everyone else that;

I know there's no 1 in a deck of cards. LOL. But we'll just keep him there and pretend like there is. Maybe Ivy can say something and I'll come up with some reason why there's a one of Spades. But thank you Beautiful seclusion, man you've been helpful lately! (I'm really sorry that you didn't like 9's personality... I feel really bad, I wanted everyone to like their characters. It's just that I was like she's a body guard so she probably shouldn't be very nice. But I guess I could edit that a little bit you know. If you want. Do you want me to do that? Cos I can haha).

But for everyone else, I'm glad you like the characters and Miss-Paparella, I'll definitely take your advice and phase them in. I hope four wasnt too much to start with. Sorry if it was.

And thank you all for reviewing I've got more than 100!! Yay! Greatly appreciated. Anyone else, who's never reviewed before and feels a need to now, just becase you love me... go ahead. I'm not stopping you ;) oh and just by the way, I'm not tryna get all stalkerish, but are there really people from NZ reading my story? If there are and you want to, then you can totally review lol. But I mean you don't have to. There might not even be anyone, it might just be me reading chapters when I think I'm logged in but I'm not. Anyway that's all.

cheers

xx

Bee

ps. Okay, I probably sound like the biggest dick ever right now. But i'm gonna say it anyway.

You know when people are writing summaries and it says shit like 'oc' and 'mary- whatever'. What the hell does that mean? I get soooooo confused. I sound really dumb now and all of you guys are probably gonna be like oh my god, what a loser, but I don't really care so can someone tell me? please? Thanks xx

That really is all now;)