I know, It's been a while since the last time I updated. This chapter is short, but I give it to you like a teaser of the next chapter that will be online soon. This story is still on my mind, growing, becoming.

The car was abandoned on the limits of the property near to an out of service entrance, familiar between the students and with less supervision. It had taken twenty minutes of jogging throw the forest to reach one of the lateral entrances only for the cleaning staff, the figures of the training fields had seemed like grotesque sculptures in agony at her passing, the shadows of the high threes cradling her in the wood vastness while she ran.

And now waiting like a hunter in the dark, she felt her guts trembled almost like she couldn't do it. All this was so wrong, and now there was no going back. Why was she doing all this? Vengeance? It was so easy to think of excuses: they make me do it, the first one of course. But Clarice despised all forms of lying, including lying to oneself so, why was she ready to destroy everything she had loved? You fall in love with the Bureau, but the Bureau doesn't fall in love with you.

She had fallen in love with the Bureau, but that was long ago. Before the segregation, before the sexism, before Doctor Lecter... But better not to think on that now.

Suddenly one guy of the cleaning crew got out to smoke a cigarette and she stopped questioning herself and set her in motion. Good to know where all the surveillance cameras were and where the staff smoked to not get caught.

She considers the most effective way to knock out the guy, thank God he wasn't too big. She used the surprise factor and approached him from the back, putting her arm around his neck and trying to get her elbow to be as deep around the neck as she can, then she took her other arm and grab her bicep with her hand. Finally, she placed her free hand and put it behind his head and squeezed hard with her wiry arms together to cut off the blood flow to his head. Of course, he struggled but he had no idea what was going on and was put to sleep in seconds.

She tied up the guy, muzzled his mouth and put his uniform on while she left him in a supplies room on the outside of the building. With his card and cart for cover, she was quickly inside, it felt really weird to be in the building this way, as a fugitive, sneaking like a snake, like a criminal: that thought almost took her breath away, it hurt deep in her chest and in her soul.

She couldn't stop the anger flowing through her body helplessly... Rage and sorrow, but no regrets. Every decision she had taken and the path she had chosen to follow was made in the name of justice and rightfulness, to save the lambs. And this place where she was now was the consequence of having had chosen the path to reach justice for her.

Using the stairs she was soon in the basement on the way to her office. While she was walking her footsteps slowed down and stopped at Jack Crawford's office door. "I'm so sorry Jack" she whispered and caressed the door while taking a deep breath, the door was half way open as always and she saw the cigarettes Jack always smoke on the desk and a box of matches. She took it in her hand, staring at them as if it was some kind periapt and put them in her pocket. On the outside of the door, there was a paper with the funeral's hour and place. She memorized it quickly.

She would have wanted more time to say goodbye to her second father in this world but she was on the run and now she needed her pieces of the puzzle. Her footsteps went to the dungeon they gave her as office and she collected the records she got from Barney, the letters Lecter had sent her, some notes of the case file and everything she considered necessary for her quest and put it in a cabin bag she had in a drawer at her desk that she had used to carry things from home to work in the past. Her eyes roamed along her desk and things: her pen, her mug... Signs of an ended life, signs of another person. She didn't feel anger or disappointment, just estrangement.

Something caught her eye, on a table at the corner of the office were some bags that wasn't been there before, the words EVIDENCE set her alarms on: it was her father's bones, the few that remained after all that years and her gun, John Brigham's gun in another bag beside other stuff, obviously confiscated from Muskrat Farm and Chesapeake Bay crime scenes. A flash of that bag on an exquisite table of marble sent chills along her spine and made her blink a few times like she was leaving a nightmare behind, but oh no, the nightmare was here.

She crossed the room and raised it almost with religious reverence feeling the shape of a skull inside, on the back coating with light dust was his hat. His hat, damned! Clarice was trembling with indignation. "You better have a good explanation to this Doctor", she hissed.

Now she needed a distraction; it wasn't really difficult to think of one with all that paper around and a box of matches in her pocket, a short diversion that it will do. The fire alarm on the dungeon was broken for months and she could bet it hadn't been repaired. "Thank you, Jack" she murmured to herself. When the firefighters had arrived she was half way back through the nurse's car with her loot.

At 5 AM the FBI building was an anthill, chaotic waves of agents and cops were coming and going. Of course, the fire hadn't grown outside the dungeon but the smoke detectors had been activated and everything on the Department of Behavioral Science was wet. Everything.
So wet that Ardelia considered to put her raincoat on.

"Mapp!" Pearsall's voice raised above the general noise -Over here -the man gesticulated on his way. He was before a wide desk surrounded by other agents.

She hurried through the human wave swirling around, some dirty looks shot at her from here and there. What was this all about? Like if she had helped Clarice to escape... Wait. Oh, no... They think that.

When she arrived at the desk it was crowded. "Ol'right people, Clarice Starling is now been searched along and across the state for multiple charges, one of them the destruction of this unit and stealing federal property. She's number one priority, we want her alive and she must not leave the country".

"How could she leave with out friends and money?" a female voice raised from a man taking notes.

"We don't know how her state of mind is, alienated at least. She is going after Lecter, if she thinks she had an idea of where he is and if this place is outside the States she will try to leave. Don't underestimate her. She's dangerous in her actual condition".

"She's going to meet him?" another male voice raised, a tall blond at her left. What was the name of the prick? Bowles?

"She's going for revenge" Ardelia's voice raised almost immediately, defensive. They stared each other and the tension filled the air.

"Great. We can set more detailed the profile with both of you. For the rest there's assigned searching places, I recommend go now before Jack's funeral. You are dismissed". Pearsall looked around urging the agents to work. "You two, with me".

Ardelia sighed.

Of course, Clarice knew where the predicaments of her escape could be solved.

She was sitting in the dark, at that end of the night in a comfortable armchair. Without a doubt Dr. Lecter would have appreciated the heavy furniture in the room, it was not her case.

Footsteps were heard on the stairs, the woman in a Bordeaux silk robe turned on the light of the little lamp just to find out Clarice's presence, she gasped at the sight of the ex-special agent who was pointing John Brigham's .45 at her in a quite elegant manner like she was on some old spy movie: cold, distant and quite beautiful. For a moment she understood why Hannibal found her so interesting.

"Hello, Alanna".

Tracklist

& The Doomed - A Perfect Circle

&& She's gone - NIN at the old Roadhouse in Twin Peaks

&&& Weak and Powerless - A Perfect Circle