"Carter, why are you being so mean to her today? She did nothing to you Tuesday, last night, or today, that you should be this mad at her," Lee realized.
"I've got my reasons for being strict with her, Lee, you don't see me pulling a belt on her, or whooping her till she can't walk. But that kid gets on my damn nerves all the time, she drives me crazy," Carter replied.
"Carter, she did nothing to you that you would not have done to her," Lee told him.
"Exactly why I'm mad at her, because I didn't get a chance to do anything to her, now, clean this mess up, and comb your tongue, and don't let me catch her in the washing machine again," Carter screamed.
"Stop screaming at me!" Lee yelled.
"I'm not screaming!" Carter walked away.
A short while later, Thorn came back in the room.
"Well, are you through playing cowboys and Indians or what?" Thorn asked.
"That does it, go to bed!" Carter yelled.
"Only if you do too!" Thorn said.
"Carter, it's the only way," Lee said.
"Allright, allright, but you better not try anything in the middle of the night," Carter told her.
"Deal."
The next morning, Lee came out of his room looking mad.
"Why're you so steamed, Lee?" Carter asked.
"Because, last night, you slept like an offspring, I stayed up half the night with Thorn watching 'American Gladiators'," Lee explained, "she decided to try everything she saw on me. And furthermore, everything, was going fine, until the joust."
"The joust? What the hell's a joust?" Carter asked.
"Joust is----when two people stand on pedestals and try to throw each other off by using poles," Lee said.
"Well then we don't have a problem, we don't have pedestals," Carter laughed.
"That may be true, but we do have a fire escape," Lee said.
"You mean Thorn threw you out onto the fire escape?"
"Not on it, Carter, down it, she pushed me down the steps, and I started rolling, and you know we're twenty stories up," Lee explained.
"Oof, so you rolled down 40,000 steps?" Carter asked.
"Not exactly, I came to a short stop when the fire escape broke. So, I jump onto window, I ask lady if I can come in, she slaps me with wet towel and call me 'Peeping Tom'. I know no Peeping Tom. So, I jump over to next window, I ask I can come in, lady throws bucket of water on me. Then I jump over to the next window, I ask if I can come in, lady puts kitty kat out for the night.
"So, I jump over to building ledge, and climb up rain gutter until rain gutter break, then I climb up building wall by pulling out bricks. Which is why you now have nice draft and view, in the east wing of the building," Lee explained.
"Well hello, Lee, how're you today?" Thorn asked.
"Thorn, remind me never to joust with you again," Lee told her.
"If you insist, spoil sport," she replied.
"Thorn."
"Okay, Carter, now that you know what I did with your little Asian friend, I'm ready for ya, go ahead and start yelling, I'm waiting," Thorn said, holding her shoe as if ready to throw it.
"Now look, Thorn, Lee told about what you did last night, how you threw him down the fire escape and he went from window to window to ledge, up the broken rain gutter, and pulled down the bricks. Nice going back there."
"Run that by me again?" Thorn threw down her shoe.
"I have been trying to get back at Lee for so many things in the past few months you would not believe! And you---------clear out of the blue, come and do a thing like this, it's brilliant!" Carter laughed.
"Does this mean you don't hate me?" Thorn asked.
"Hate you?" Carter asked, "I love you!"
Carter picked Thorn up off her feet and gave her a real wet kiss on the cheek.
"Patooey! The last time I got a kiss like that was when I ran into a lovesick jaguar," Thorn spitted.
"Carter, Hojun wants us to meet him again, and bring Thorn along too," Lee said.
So, Carter, Lee, and Thorn went out to Carter's car, hopped in and took off.
"I don't get it, why'd Hojun have to move his hideaway to somewhere else?" Carter asked.
"That way, if Leaboo found them out, they could continue their research without having their equipment blown up," Thorn explained.
"
Yeah, and that's also a good way to avoid getting your brains blown out of your head as well," Carter added. Out of the blue, a car going the other way on the street nearly collided with them, Carter stuck his head out and yelled, "watch it punk bitch before I run you over!"
"Carter, slow down or we'll get run over!" Thorn yelled.
Carter parked the car and got out to head to the hideaway, Lee stopped in the middle of the street on top of a manhole cover.
"There it is," Lee pointed.
"We're going to the sewer?" Carter asked.
"Not exactly," Thorn lifted the manhole cover and started to climb down, Lee and Carter followed.
As soon as they reached the bottom of the ladder, bright blue lights lit the path to Hojun.
"What's the report on Leaboo?" Thorn asked.
"So far, we have not been able to catch him, furthermore to make things worse, no one has seen him since yesterday, we fear he might be closer than we think, but we are not sure," Hojun explained.
Lee watched the expression on Hojun's face, he knew something was up, which did not involve Thorn being there.
"Thorn, go wait in the next room, we'll catch up in a minute," Lee told her.
After Thorn left, Hojun had a word with Carter and Lee.
"Keep an eye on her until we get this thing blown over, don't let her out of your sight. Leaboo's up to something, I know because when he plots something, he lays low for a while. So obviously he's working on something, otherwise we wouldn't have been this fortunate to go through a day without an injury," Hojun explained.
"Do not worry, we'll keep an eye on her," Lee returned.
"There's only one thing I wanna know," Carter brought up.
"What's that?" Hojun asked.
"How come she's blue if she's sun burnt?" Carter returned.
"Follow me, I will show you," Hojun said.
Hojun led them into another room, it was filled with a bunch of odd looking items.
"So what's all this?" Carter asked.
Carter and Lee turned to face a wall and saw an old film dated a few years back.
"What's this?"
"This is the reason as to why Thorn appears the way she does to you," Hojun answered.
On the screen, in the film, Leaboo came after Thorn and her father, Professor Strong. Leaboo choked the professor and threw him down thirty feet against the hard metal floor of the laboratory he was working in, killing him instantly. Then he went after Thorn, chasing her around the laboratory, she put up an extreme fight.
"So this is the deal? Moby Dick killed her father and tried to kill her?" Carter asked.
"She was eight years old at the time, she knew what he was up to and tried to escape," Hojun said.
They watched as Leaboo shoved Thorn off the fourth floor and into a vat of lye.
"What's this?" Lee asked.
"That toxic contains many deadly chemicals, she survived somehow. But because of the many after effects they contain, it left a mark on her, scarring her for life. Every time she gets burnt, the area turns bright blue, so he could find her to track her down and kill her. And now, today, he has tried again, the man sitting in the passenger side of Leaboo's car was his half brother Spark. Somehow, Thorn managed to figure out how to do away with him, Leaboo hired him as a hit man to kill all three of you. But obviously she caught on faster than to be expected," Hojun explained.
"Anything else we should know about this Leaboo guy other than he's hazardous and an idiot?" Carter asked.
"Yes, look out, he and his men carry a red toxic. It contains a rare acid, it will effect anything, but it will only eat away at human skin. So far this is no known way to make it harmless or minimize its effects, when the time came, Leaboo used it for his choice weapon on Thorn. But she managed to escape from him before it could hit, now, however, he will try again unless you stop him," Hojun said.
"So I get it now, this whole thing's just a big game to Moby Dick," Carter realized.
"Very good, now you understand your mission," Hojun said.
"Yeah, I understand, I also understand I got some explaining to do, come on Lee, let's get Thorn and scram," Carter said.
"We will return if anything else comes up," Lee said.
"Come on Lee, I want to beat the rats to the top," Carter called.
"You're crazy, there haven't been any rats down here for twelve years," Thorn said.
After climbing up back onto the ground, night had already appeared, the sky was dark blue, the towns were full of bright lights off buildings, and traffic was busy everywhere.
"I've been doing some thinking, if Leaboo knew where we all were at the same time, we'd probably be sitting ducks just waiting to be shot," Thorn said.
"That makes sense, so what you're saying is that two of us should go one way, and the other one of us should go in a different direction, and we'll all meet back at the apartment," Carter thought.
"For once you're actually using your brain," Thorn laughed, "which is why I did a little hot-wiring."
So, Carter and Thorn headed back one way and Lee headed the other way. Carter looked at Thorn from the rear view mirror, looking like she did the day she arrived, miserable.
"I'm sorry, Thorn."
"About what?"
"Everything."
"I don't understand," she replied.
"I'm talking about everything I've been doing in the last two days, it was your first time here and all I did was treat you like shit."
"My grandmother treats garbage better than that," she said.
"Well look, Thorn, sometimes, when people get frustrated, they explode at kids at times and don't even realize it," Carter started.
"Well why in the hell are you being so nasty to me? I never did anything that bad," Thorn said.
"You wanna know why?"
"Yeah."
"A ratty teenager killed my father," Carter said.
"No."
"Yeah, and back then, to both of us, teenagers were allright, but one day, my daddy was catching a fifteen-year-old punk speeding, pulled him over to give him a ticket. The punk shot him then and there, clear dead and in broad daylight, no one came to get the kid, so he ran free for a long time, if I had a chance to get even with that punk, I'd," Carter said.
"Man, no wonder you're steamed, now I know why you hate me, if a kid killed my father, I'd be hating me too," Thorn sighed.
"I don't hate you, Thorn," Carter replied.
"Oh yes you do, all those times you yelled in my eardrums like that," Thorn responded, slapping Carter in the back of the head.
"Oof, well look, I'm sorry for yelling at you even though you never did anything," Carter said.
"Apology accepted, it's the first one I've gotten in three years," Thorn replied.
"You know, Thorn? I think this could be a beautiful thing in disguise," Carter thought.
"Pretty good disguise, if you ask me," she said.
Carter looked in the mirror again and saw a car tailing behind them, it couldn't have been Lee, and the driver was closing in pretty fast, so---------------------Leaboo!
"Shit, Thorn, duck down," he said.
"What?"
"Duck down, someone's tailing in," he said.
Thorn flattened herself down in the back of the car as the driver closed in, the driver was closing in on the side. He pulled out a handgun and aimed at Carter's head, but without taking his eyes off the road, Carter pulled out one of his guns and fired the man in the hand.
"Now that's gonna be nasty tomorrow morning," Thorn said.
Not long after losing the hitman, Carter parked the car in the residents' parking lot. They managed to get home with their lives in tact, now hopefully they could say the same for Lee.
"I've got my reasons for being strict with her, Lee, you don't see me pulling a belt on her, or whooping her till she can't walk. But that kid gets on my damn nerves all the time, she drives me crazy," Carter replied.
"Carter, she did nothing to you that you would not have done to her," Lee told him.
"Exactly why I'm mad at her, because I didn't get a chance to do anything to her, now, clean this mess up, and comb your tongue, and don't let me catch her in the washing machine again," Carter screamed.
"Stop screaming at me!" Lee yelled.
"I'm not screaming!" Carter walked away.
A short while later, Thorn came back in the room.
"Well, are you through playing cowboys and Indians or what?" Thorn asked.
"That does it, go to bed!" Carter yelled.
"Only if you do too!" Thorn said.
"Carter, it's the only way," Lee said.
"Allright, allright, but you better not try anything in the middle of the night," Carter told her.
"Deal."
The next morning, Lee came out of his room looking mad.
"Why're you so steamed, Lee?" Carter asked.
"Because, last night, you slept like an offspring, I stayed up half the night with Thorn watching 'American Gladiators'," Lee explained, "she decided to try everything she saw on me. And furthermore, everything, was going fine, until the joust."
"The joust? What the hell's a joust?" Carter asked.
"Joust is----when two people stand on pedestals and try to throw each other off by using poles," Lee said.
"Well then we don't have a problem, we don't have pedestals," Carter laughed.
"That may be true, but we do have a fire escape," Lee said.
"You mean Thorn threw you out onto the fire escape?"
"Not on it, Carter, down it, she pushed me down the steps, and I started rolling, and you know we're twenty stories up," Lee explained.
"Oof, so you rolled down 40,000 steps?" Carter asked.
"Not exactly, I came to a short stop when the fire escape broke. So, I jump onto window, I ask lady if I can come in, she slaps me with wet towel and call me 'Peeping Tom'. I know no Peeping Tom. So, I jump over to next window, I ask I can come in, lady throws bucket of water on me. Then I jump over to the next window, I ask if I can come in, lady puts kitty kat out for the night.
"So, I jump over to building ledge, and climb up rain gutter until rain gutter break, then I climb up building wall by pulling out bricks. Which is why you now have nice draft and view, in the east wing of the building," Lee explained.
"Well hello, Lee, how're you today?" Thorn asked.
"Thorn, remind me never to joust with you again," Lee told her.
"If you insist, spoil sport," she replied.
"Thorn."
"Okay, Carter, now that you know what I did with your little Asian friend, I'm ready for ya, go ahead and start yelling, I'm waiting," Thorn said, holding her shoe as if ready to throw it.
"Now look, Thorn, Lee told about what you did last night, how you threw him down the fire escape and he went from window to window to ledge, up the broken rain gutter, and pulled down the bricks. Nice going back there."
"Run that by me again?" Thorn threw down her shoe.
"I have been trying to get back at Lee for so many things in the past few months you would not believe! And you---------clear out of the blue, come and do a thing like this, it's brilliant!" Carter laughed.
"Does this mean you don't hate me?" Thorn asked.
"Hate you?" Carter asked, "I love you!"
Carter picked Thorn up off her feet and gave her a real wet kiss on the cheek.
"Patooey! The last time I got a kiss like that was when I ran into a lovesick jaguar," Thorn spitted.
"Carter, Hojun wants us to meet him again, and bring Thorn along too," Lee said.
So, Carter, Lee, and Thorn went out to Carter's car, hopped in and took off.
"I don't get it, why'd Hojun have to move his hideaway to somewhere else?" Carter asked.
"That way, if Leaboo found them out, they could continue their research without having their equipment blown up," Thorn explained.
"
Yeah, and that's also a good way to avoid getting your brains blown out of your head as well," Carter added. Out of the blue, a car going the other way on the street nearly collided with them, Carter stuck his head out and yelled, "watch it punk bitch before I run you over!"
"Carter, slow down or we'll get run over!" Thorn yelled.
Carter parked the car and got out to head to the hideaway, Lee stopped in the middle of the street on top of a manhole cover.
"There it is," Lee pointed.
"We're going to the sewer?" Carter asked.
"Not exactly," Thorn lifted the manhole cover and started to climb down, Lee and Carter followed.
As soon as they reached the bottom of the ladder, bright blue lights lit the path to Hojun.
"What's the report on Leaboo?" Thorn asked.
"So far, we have not been able to catch him, furthermore to make things worse, no one has seen him since yesterday, we fear he might be closer than we think, but we are not sure," Hojun explained.
Lee watched the expression on Hojun's face, he knew something was up, which did not involve Thorn being there.
"Thorn, go wait in the next room, we'll catch up in a minute," Lee told her.
After Thorn left, Hojun had a word with Carter and Lee.
"Keep an eye on her until we get this thing blown over, don't let her out of your sight. Leaboo's up to something, I know because when he plots something, he lays low for a while. So obviously he's working on something, otherwise we wouldn't have been this fortunate to go through a day without an injury," Hojun explained.
"Do not worry, we'll keep an eye on her," Lee returned.
"There's only one thing I wanna know," Carter brought up.
"What's that?" Hojun asked.
"How come she's blue if she's sun burnt?" Carter returned.
"Follow me, I will show you," Hojun said.
Hojun led them into another room, it was filled with a bunch of odd looking items.
"So what's all this?" Carter asked.
Carter and Lee turned to face a wall and saw an old film dated a few years back.
"What's this?"
"This is the reason as to why Thorn appears the way she does to you," Hojun answered.
On the screen, in the film, Leaboo came after Thorn and her father, Professor Strong. Leaboo choked the professor and threw him down thirty feet against the hard metal floor of the laboratory he was working in, killing him instantly. Then he went after Thorn, chasing her around the laboratory, she put up an extreme fight.
"So this is the deal? Moby Dick killed her father and tried to kill her?" Carter asked.
"She was eight years old at the time, she knew what he was up to and tried to escape," Hojun said.
They watched as Leaboo shoved Thorn off the fourth floor and into a vat of lye.
"What's this?" Lee asked.
"That toxic contains many deadly chemicals, she survived somehow. But because of the many after effects they contain, it left a mark on her, scarring her for life. Every time she gets burnt, the area turns bright blue, so he could find her to track her down and kill her. And now, today, he has tried again, the man sitting in the passenger side of Leaboo's car was his half brother Spark. Somehow, Thorn managed to figure out how to do away with him, Leaboo hired him as a hit man to kill all three of you. But obviously she caught on faster than to be expected," Hojun explained.
"Anything else we should know about this Leaboo guy other than he's hazardous and an idiot?" Carter asked.
"Yes, look out, he and his men carry a red toxic. It contains a rare acid, it will effect anything, but it will only eat away at human skin. So far this is no known way to make it harmless or minimize its effects, when the time came, Leaboo used it for his choice weapon on Thorn. But she managed to escape from him before it could hit, now, however, he will try again unless you stop him," Hojun said.
"So I get it now, this whole thing's just a big game to Moby Dick," Carter realized.
"Very good, now you understand your mission," Hojun said.
"Yeah, I understand, I also understand I got some explaining to do, come on Lee, let's get Thorn and scram," Carter said.
"We will return if anything else comes up," Lee said.
"Come on Lee, I want to beat the rats to the top," Carter called.
"You're crazy, there haven't been any rats down here for twelve years," Thorn said.
After climbing up back onto the ground, night had already appeared, the sky was dark blue, the towns were full of bright lights off buildings, and traffic was busy everywhere.
"I've been doing some thinking, if Leaboo knew where we all were at the same time, we'd probably be sitting ducks just waiting to be shot," Thorn said.
"That makes sense, so what you're saying is that two of us should go one way, and the other one of us should go in a different direction, and we'll all meet back at the apartment," Carter thought.
"For once you're actually using your brain," Thorn laughed, "which is why I did a little hot-wiring."
So, Carter and Thorn headed back one way and Lee headed the other way. Carter looked at Thorn from the rear view mirror, looking like she did the day she arrived, miserable.
"I'm sorry, Thorn."
"About what?"
"Everything."
"I don't understand," she replied.
"I'm talking about everything I've been doing in the last two days, it was your first time here and all I did was treat you like shit."
"My grandmother treats garbage better than that," she said.
"Well look, Thorn, sometimes, when people get frustrated, they explode at kids at times and don't even realize it," Carter started.
"Well why in the hell are you being so nasty to me? I never did anything that bad," Thorn said.
"You wanna know why?"
"Yeah."
"A ratty teenager killed my father," Carter said.
"No."
"Yeah, and back then, to both of us, teenagers were allright, but one day, my daddy was catching a fifteen-year-old punk speeding, pulled him over to give him a ticket. The punk shot him then and there, clear dead and in broad daylight, no one came to get the kid, so he ran free for a long time, if I had a chance to get even with that punk, I'd," Carter said.
"Man, no wonder you're steamed, now I know why you hate me, if a kid killed my father, I'd be hating me too," Thorn sighed.
"I don't hate you, Thorn," Carter replied.
"Oh yes you do, all those times you yelled in my eardrums like that," Thorn responded, slapping Carter in the back of the head.
"Oof, well look, I'm sorry for yelling at you even though you never did anything," Carter said.
"Apology accepted, it's the first one I've gotten in three years," Thorn replied.
"You know, Thorn? I think this could be a beautiful thing in disguise," Carter thought.
"Pretty good disguise, if you ask me," she said.
Carter looked in the mirror again and saw a car tailing behind them, it couldn't have been Lee, and the driver was closing in pretty fast, so---------------------Leaboo!
"Shit, Thorn, duck down," he said.
"What?"
"Duck down, someone's tailing in," he said.
Thorn flattened herself down in the back of the car as the driver closed in, the driver was closing in on the side. He pulled out a handgun and aimed at Carter's head, but without taking his eyes off the road, Carter pulled out one of his guns and fired the man in the hand.
"Now that's gonna be nasty tomorrow morning," Thorn said.
Not long after losing the hitman, Carter parked the car in the residents' parking lot. They managed to get home with their lives in tact, now hopefully they could say the same for Lee.