- Chapter Fifty -

Bells Of Hell

Anything but sweet, one dreamt of a faceless man that crawled spider-like out of a gilded portrait, the other of a lost infant crying helplessly amidst a mountain of pirate gold. Doubloons and jeweled crowns rolled off the haphazard piles, clinking and clacking forever; hazy apparition tinted by fringes of black light and doleful fury, its every movement was shrill and mechanical.

Bare feet of the child stuck in the decayed velvet carpet that had aged down into a tar-like substance to hold her in place, the old man had been snared in the moss-covered rope work netting the ground like a minefield. Neither could move, and the end was imminent. Danger. Danger. Danger.

Unfortunately for the lost dreamers, the ghosts of the past refused to be forgotten so easily - running wasn't a viable option, yet escape was the only answer. Get out! I need to get out of this place!

The truth needed to come out, one way or another.

Waking unceremoniously with a jolt that disturbed his partner as well, Sam had to take a minute to remember where he was and why; the dumb part was that he didn't even have a hangover this time. Shutting his eyes against the feeble rays of a morning in the spring of its life, the man took a deep breath to steady himself and counted to ten before opening them again.

Pulse calming, the historian cast a mild glance around at the familiar setting of a place he knew fairly well. Nutmeg walls, powder blue bedding, and the same tired curtains that were always used. Back facing the warm bottle that had been left out on the nightstand, it trickled back that he was in town for his niece's birthday, that today the team would begin to assemble for the weekend.

Feminine and soft, a warm body twisted against the mattress and wormed closer beneath the covers, no more ready to face the day than he was. Breathing Morse code into his shirt in the struggle to fall back asleep, dainty fingers hitched themselves to the thread as if clutching for some semblance of safety.

Irony not lost on him, the ex-con could have laughed - anyone that came to him for protection must have been royally screwed - but that would have been too much effort. Instead, the thief thoughtfully draped his arm across her silhouette and rubbed small, comforting circles over her shoulder blades with his thumb. It wasn't unlike what he had done for Nathan when they were kids.

Dells... Name almost escaping into the balmy atmosphere, he peered inquisitively at the curled-up ball gluing itself to his person, wondering if this was just another nightmare.

Yesterday had started much the same way, with the major difference being the feathery fortification lodged uncomfortably underneath his spleen. It had been her bright idea to erect the divide for modesty (of course), but judging from what he wasn't feeling wedged partway beneath his spine today, the young woman had learned her lesson. Or had there been another reason behind the disappearance of the wall?

Mouth muffled against his breast, the brunette thought he heard her mutter an apology to her daddy, and honestly it wouldn't have surprised him in the slightest. Dells seemed to be plagued by nothing but bad dreams, however as opposed to talking about it, the pair had just laid there for a time, exactly like they were doing right now. Identical to her mother in this one aspect, the world revolved around that asshole, so it wasn't hard to guess what her problem was.

Still, the last thing Sam wanted to think about first thing in the morning was Rafe.

Comfortable just being, the ex-con savored the sensation of a dewy sunrise baking the top of the blue blankets, even going so far as to allow that waking up to the extra body heat wasn't an unpleasant experience. By no means was that a new revelation - after going for thirteen straight years without, it was just nice to acknowledge the little things. Such as the clean scent of the fresh lien sheets or the lemony disinfectant that the staff used.

Heavenly as the moment was, even though Sam could certainly see the appeal, he just wasn't the type that could sit still for long. So his mind began to wonder. While that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, when the recollection of a baby crying suddenly filled the relative quiet of the room, the man suspected that he was in for it...

Did you tell her yet? Resonating deep, Nathan's words rang in his ears and brought back the image of a skeletal hand grasping up through the coins. Daniella had every right to know what happened to her father, as well as the part he and his little brother had played, but it seemed wrong to break the news when they were still in bed and she had just had a nightmare.

Another hour wouldn't kill anything, and besides, because they had such a big day planned it was probably for the best to hold off. Chloe would probably want what he'd found rolled up in a pair of yoga pants back, and even if Cutter himself was late to the show, Dells might enjoy the chance to meet someone closer to her own age. In fact it was something he should make a note to encourage, just in case she got the wrong idea about last night.

Elena had some people coming in too, but so far as he knew, Chloe and the Cutter clan were the only ones expected today. Visitors aside, there was still the plan to hit up the gym with his little brother, which they'd both really been looking forward to. Technically there was a small break between getting the exercise and putting the weight back on at dinner, but knowing this band of lovable misfits, they'd figure something out to fill the time. Logically that might have been the best time to act though, as the endorphins would naturally help ease the blow, yet it would be a real shame to cheat Cassie out of game night.

Nah, Sam kept pushing the timetable back so that he had more time to think of a good way to tell her, the heavy stuff can wait until this evening.

Ideally the pair could call it a night when it was time to put the rugrat down, alone, so that they could come back here to hash everything out. Provided they were out of there at the first, there might have even been the off chance that she could cry it out that night and still be good for the rest of the weekend. If he was giving her too much credit and she still held it against him by Saturday, well at least by that point there would be other options for accommodations available.

Added bonus to waiting until later to have it out, Dells might take the news better with a few drinks in her...

For the time being, he just wanted to keep it simple and start the day out by getting something in her stomach. Sausage, hash, a side of fruit, and a slice or two of toast should do the trick, just so long as she ate enough to have the protein to burn later. The heiress tried to pass herself off as some type of athletic, so he wanted to see her try to keep up with the big dogs.

Licking his dry lips at the thought of food, the brunette had figured out a long time ago what worked best for him, but he doubted that the girl could eat half of what he'd put on his plate, so he'd call it a victory just seeing her manage something solid and healthy. Or really anything that wasn't a bottomless short stack - anyone could stuff their faces with pancakes, so that was hardly a feat.

Propping himself up on his elbow so he could roll around to reach the phone to order room service (he wished more places still had a landline like this), Daniella held him tighter and shook her head against his chest so that he couldn't move more than a couple of inches, "I want a shower before anyone else sees me."

He didn't have to smell her to know how badly they both stank, but it was right there on a silver platter, so Sam loudly sniffed at her scalp, "Good call. When was the last time you took a shower?"

Catching just the faintest hint of something underneath the sweat that had knotted her spectral locks to the back of her head, he knew exactly when the last time was. Still wide-eyed at the thought of being left alone, despite what could have happened the girl had ordered him to stand sentry at the bathroom door while she bathed, and she then had returned the favor. Rather, she stayed in the bathroom fixing her hair in the fogged-up mirror. She must have brushed it a thousand times before deciding it was presentable; he thought it was fine the first time, when she had simply ran her fingers through it, but what did he know?

Either way the comment had earned a blush. Head still bowed so that he couldn't see her face, the brunette just knew how she'd react so he gave her this round, "Alright, later." Again, he couldn't see what she might have been doing so close to his heart, but he would have been willing to put good money down that she had smiled.

That blind faith was rewarded when the young woman wiggled back enough so that they could actually see one another properly, her lips quirked at both ends. Eyes finally meeting her grin, he wondered if that hadn't been the most teeth he'd seen on the heiress when she wasn't attacking a helpless plate of maple pancakes.

"Thank you."

It seemed to him that there was more to those two little words than her just showing a little appreciation for waiting on breakfast, and because of that he felt a pit form in the middle of his gut. Nathan hadn't been clued in, so he couldn't have known to work harder to try to save Rafe when things had gone sideways on the Fancy, but he had. Sam knew that there was a little girl out there waiting for her father to come back home to her, but it hadn't mattered then. All that mattered had been finding Avery's treasure.

Pitch black hole chipping away at his insides, the longer he looked at Daniella the worse it made him feel. Sam couldn't even try to dispute that he didn't deserve the blissfully ignorant smile on her face or the humble show of gratitude.

"Dells..." Even the thief had no idea what he had been about to say to her, but the candid way she was considering him...

Guileless, stripped down to her purest form, naive, and just generally clueless as to what he was going through, the heiress cocked her head at the man. God help her, the pitiful creature actually trusted him; as if robbing a child of her old man hadn't been enough, he had to go and ruin her for good measure. Considering whose daughter she was, Daniella Adler probably wouldn't have lost it to a good guy anyways, but even in an end-of-the-world scenario, he never should have been the one...

Sam couldn't do it. "Just try to save me some hot water this time, huh?"

He never should have been the one that made her a woman, and yet there she was, laughing as if he'd just told a joke, "Why?" There was more than a little mischief in her eyes when she crawled on top of him to take the long way to the bathroom. "Aren't you coming?"

Pinned there to the bed underneath the heiress, the historian thought he saw a glimmer of that stranger from the beach, the one that was her own person and bore only a vague resemblance to someone that had passed by once. Trapped between her legs, there hadn't been a lot of time to dwell when her hands started to fumble-roam across his pectorals. Or maybe it was her lips grazing against the old ink on his neck that scattered his brain.

Mm, that felt so good, so wrong...

Clearing his throat, Sam knocked her hands away with the internal mantra 'I've never wanted anything less' on repeat in the hope that it might stick. "You go ahead. I have to make a call. Business." He didn't have any ongoing work at the moment, and regardless, he was pretty sure that the girl would buy just about anything he sold her, so the lie bought him the time to think of something better.

"Oh." Confidence shredded to ribbons just like that, her shoulders slumped in defeat and her face fell, "I... I see." Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, Dells acted like she had wanted to say something different, but in the end she believed him too much to even consider that he would be dishonest with her.

"Better take care of that then..." The brunette was pretty sure that he caught her shooting a sideways glance at the nightstand, but she took the hint and crawled off as he'd done more than chastised her, clinging to the blanket for coverage. Totally not getting it, she stalked off in disappointment, hands behind her back. "You'll still be close though, if I need you?"

Wrong as it was to use her condition against her, Sam could have kissed the stars for the hand-delivered answer to his dilemma. "That is my job." It would be wiser if he had kept silent, but her hopes seemed dashed enough, so he nodded as he reached for a cigarette, "But you've got this."

[Later That Morning]

Lobby the obvious place to meet up, Rafael had been scanning the pages of a gossip rag when they found him; not nearly enough guests and staff just milling around to look busy, he couldn't even pretend to be people watching. That five year old that had just gotten busted with their hand in the cookie jar before dinner, Rafael had every appearance of being ashamed. In fact, he was so hard on himself that he had even begun to explain himself, "You have your vices, I have-"

Stopping short when he stood up to greet his companions, he snidely simpered knowingly towards the darkened marks from last night, "Hell's bells, you two look like shit! Was there a leech convention in town that I didn't know about? Seems to me like someone let you keep them on a little too long... It was just your necks, right?" Missing the strained mood between his companions, he rattled off his last joke, "Seriously, if I had known I could have maybe picked up a tip or two! One for Alberto's more exotic clientèle, and the rest for her type."

Never going to be the best of friends, the advanced adventurer expected some kind of nasty comment out of the twerp, however the thief hadn't anticipated the crack to include Dells as well. She wasn't completely immune to Rafael's unique brand of humor, yet as he was keeping up that whole flirty 'I'm-gonna-fuck-you-to-spite-him' vibe, it was rare enough she was targeted. If the kid honestly thought his approach was going to work, he was an imbecile.

"My type?" She questioned.

"There's actually someone in the world that keeps leeches for pets?" Sam had grown up hearing about sewer gators and of all the other rare pets that people obtained through less than legal means but had no way of caring for long-term, however even in the city he had never heard of anyone insane enough to keep leeches. Had people really gotten that crazy over the years?

A noncommittal Rafael shrugged at Sam, opting to answer what he must have deemed to be the easier of the two inquiries first, "It could happen. As for you, Princesa, I mean the ones that love harder; like you they cling to the first caller for dear life, draining life away like a succubus. Your type start out unassuming, but when they get you alone..." He trailed off intentionally.

Set-up obvious in the explorer's opinion, the heiress was hanging on to every word, as if she could actually care, "What?"

Bait taken hook, line, and sinker, Rafael jumped at her, causing the young woman to stumble backwards into the thief. Scandalized so that she didn't have to focus on anything else, such as nothing getting let out that morning, Dells smacked the young man's leather-clad arm with a scowl, "Really!"

"He got you fair and square, love." Drenched in wry amusement, a familiar voice sounded from above. Of course Chloe would be descending the staircase at that moment. "Although I gotta say, he does have a point about the closet cases - you think you're in for a simple shag, and then the next thing you know, you're handcuffed to the kitchen table watching your partner getting pulled off by one of those rotating fans. But enough about me, how are you lot?"

Rafael decided in that moment that he liked Chloe.

Daniella was legitimately broken by the imagery, her chin tilting heavenwards, eyes squinting and mouth trying and failing to remember how to form letters. Once the art of speech came back to her, it was transparent that she wouldn't heal from the trauma, "...Why? Who even does that?! Why a fan? Is that even a real story?!" Realizing who they were dealing with, the ex-con knew Dells had made a wise choice to dismiss the question. "On second thought, don't tell me. I'd really rather not know."

Onyx gaze shifting from the party as a whole to study the younger female, Chloe beamed at the heiress when she realized who was underneath the lighter locks and the hickeys. Berating himself for getting so caught in the moment that his knowledge counted for naught, Sam returned Frazer's subtle smirk with a head shake - this wasn't high school, he didn't have to feel like he had to mark his territory.

"The new hair suits you. The rest," she gestured to Daniella's entire person, "not so much. Here," unwinding the sapphire scarf that had artfully been tied up her wrist for decoration, the older woman fixed it around the girl's neck to hide the worst of it, "Lovely. I'll expect that back when you're done with it."

Fishing through her pockets for her phone once the kerchief was in place, Chloe took a quick snap of the young woman. With Sam standing rather close just behind her. "Took you two long enough." They all knew without saying a word that it would probably end in tears, however the raven-haired thief knew that there was something therapeutic about hurling darts at an ex's face. "A girl can get old waiting around, and's not exactly like time is on your side."

Glad that they weren't reunited through the lens of a camera, Sam shuffled away from the heiress before any more photos could be taken for the scrapbook. "I thought you weren't flying in until this afternoon."

It was Frazer's turn to shrug, unperturbed by his overwhelming joy at seeing her again, "Caught an earlier flight on my broomstick. It was too late to send word ahead, so I figured we'd just surprise everyone."

Oh, boy. "'We'?"

Answering Sam's question in as vague a way possible, she pointed upstairs, where another woman that had only just left her room was grumpily rubbing sleep from her eyes as she descended the stairs. Of course Nadine was with her. That would just thrill Nathan.

The one-time rivals didn't hate one another per say, however that was still a considerable amount of bad blood that even a five year old had been able to pick up on. A start, they tried for Chloe's sake, but neither had ever really been able to say 'sorry' for that whole Avery thing. Personally Sam didn't blame his little brother in the slightest for holding that against the woman.

Due to the high dosage of morphine that had been in her system the last time they met, Daniella glanced around at Nadine curiously. The girl didn't give a hint that she recalled further back to her childhood either. "Whose that?"

Long-time acquaintances with the former private military leader, Chloe and Sam answered the question at approximately the same time, although while she sounded chipper about it, he was much more begrudging. Again, technically he and Nadine were fine with one another now, today was just... Today wasn't great. "Nadine."

Peering at the 'stranger' as if she were a puzzle and not a person (although was there really a difference?), something seemed to ring a bell for the heiress, but she couldn't quite place it. "And Nadine is?"

"Stuck with Chloe." The woman answered like it was an accusation.

Cautiously watching Dells interact with the one person that could blow the lid off and ruin everything, the career criminal felt a twinge of nervousness as understanding lit her eyes. "I know the feeling." Apparently settling on ignoring the chimes in her head and just registering the relationship as 'complicated', the young woman looked pass the brunette and introduced herself, "Daniella."

Blonde tresses no doubt throwing Ross off her game, she eyed the girl wearily as she gave her hand a wooden shake, evidently seeing Rafe as well. Good to know it wasn't just him - to be fair, it was an uncanny resemblance. "You..." Shaking her curls and rubbing her light hazel eyes again, Nadine was in a state of disbelief.

Intervening, Chloe was kind enough to finish her partner's sentence, "Look like you should go with your boy and get us all some coffee. Nadine here isn't exactly what you call a morning person."

Generous amounts of pinks tinting her cheeks with the assumption that they were referring to her so-called protector, even he got uncomfortable at the insinuation. Shuffling his feet and looking at literally anything else but at the heiress, the devil in the orange top didn't miss a beat. However, before things could get really awkward, Rafael swooped in. Wrapping his arm around the top of Daniella's shoulders like it was the 1950's, he steered her off towards the little café next door.

*Throws confetti and glitter everywhere*

Yay, it's been a year! Can you believe it?!

(Technically a year tomorrow, but I might be too busy to post then)

A major thank you once more to anonymous for the reviews, to the follows (who I think keep changing every time I look, but I could be wrong about that), to all of your readers! I know this hasn't exactly pulled in many of you, but I'd still like to thank you anyways!

And on a more somber note, I'm really strongly considering a complete redo of this story. One that I hope will be considerably better, assuming that I actually get to it. The want is strong, especially as I reflect back on this story so far, but I'd really like to finish this first. It's been WAY too long since I finished anything, and I've stayed on a really good roll with this one. So that's my main goal, seeing this through to the end! If I do decide to write another version, I have no idea if I'll wait or if it'll come side-by-side. Right now it's just a dream, so who knows?

So if I do or if I don't, feedback would be divine!

Cheers, and here's hoping that it doesn't take me another year to finish this beast lol