Ugh, I am so SO sorry this took so very very long to post. You nice readers all deserve an explanation for what took me so long so here it is:

My high school has a policy that seniors who get higher than a B in their classes don't have to take final exams, so at first my time was devoted to school and keeping my head above water. Then graduation rolled around and my time was devoted to visiting family members and prepping for the event. After that I started dealing with college stuff, shopping and papers to be filled and filed...and then I got the news that my first choice university would grant me late admission, so if you thought college itself was a lot of paper work, SWITCHING colleges before the school year even starts leaves you drowning in contracts!

Not to mention that between now and the last update I experienced an anxiety attack, had to bug bomb the whole house, and my best friends ex started stalking her...so needless to say, I've been under a lot of stress.

But everything's back to norm now, and although I've never been known for my updating promptness I'll definitely try hard as I can not to let such a big gap happen with this story again.

And now, on with the chapter!

7. Gypsies Tramps and Thieves

The Fox Cross Pub isn't even genuinely Irish, but it's got one of those harp things on its front sign. It stands out real well too, the only blue building on Elm Street and right at the corner of a busy intersection now. I visited the place a couple months ago, and the only change to it is that the blood's gone from the sidewalk.

That morning last year, the Red Dragon car dropped us off around the corner from the place, and as soon as we all climbed out, Spike sent the driver on his way.

"Why can't he stay here?" I wanted to know. My stomach, already too knotted, tightened again at the sight of the car disappearing over the top of a hill. "Shouldn't there be someone ready to get us out of here if the bad guys shows up?"

"Circle knows what my cars look like," replied Spike shortly.

"That guy'll be a sitting duck if he just waits for us," Faye explained further. "He'll circle the area and come back when we need him." I nodded, and stared up the road to wherever our ride had vanished. I would've liked to have brought one of those Kevlar-wearing guards with us, but of course he would've looked just dandy walking down the street in broad daylight.

"Besides," Faye suddenly added, snapping me out of my thoughts. "I think Spike's decided to be more of an idiot than usual today."

"What?"

"Well in case you haven't noticed, Vivika, Spike's not exactly a team player." The words she said sounded like a personal comment to me, but the way she said it was a flat out announcement. Faye had been walking with her eyes practically closed, but when Spike's shoulders hunched at her words, she smiled as if she could see it.

"In case you've forgotten, wench," Spike replied loudly, so he wouldn't have to actually turn around and face us. "I'm perfectly capable of facing a Syndicate, should one be tracking that loony millionaire of yours. There's no reason to get the boy scouts involved."

"I haven't forgotten anything," Faye murmured. I barely caught it.

Meanwhile Spike had found the front of the pub. He stood outside the doors, staring up at the gaudy Fox Cross sign, which was plastic but painted to look like wood. There was a giant window, but the glass was painted over with a cartoon mural of a fox hunt/wine tasting left over from Summerpalooza '74 when the annual parade went down this street in June.

Spike grimaced at a particular rendering of a basset hound with his paw round the shoulders of a great white horse, both animals smiling and the latter holding up a bunch of grapes. His neck hunched turtle-like into the collar of his jacket and I heard a funny noise emanate from somewhere between his neck and his stomach. "Remind me—why am I doing this?"

"Because I have better places to be than here with you," snapped Faye, moving past him toward the door. "So the sooner Marla gets over this Red Dragons kick, the sooner you can go back to being dead and I can get on with my life."

"You're inferring that I've somehow put your life on pause," Spike pointed out.

"You have!" Faye growled back, pushing the door open.

Spike sprung forward as well, indignantly ordering her not to blame her problems on him or something like that, but the next thing I knew the two of them were stuck: lodged in the door frame, shoulder to shoulder and shouting at each other like a couple of cartoon characters .

"Move it, Faye!"

"Didn't you ever hear of ladies first?"

"Oh, is it that tired excuse again?"

They stumbled simultaneously into the pub, face first, just as my forehead fell into my waiting palm.

The inside of the building was actually not so bad. The bar itself was small, taking up a lot of the right side of the room. Cheap wooden tables took up the remaining space. They looked kinda like picnic tables with half the length, sporting checkered cloths and uncovered, unlit candles.

My companions stomped past these tables and headed right for the bar, Faye shouting out her order before even sitting down: "Something hard and cold," with the implied 'make it snappy, damn it'.

Spike held up a hand as the bartended reached for a bottle. "Make hers a water, and a beer for me."

"Hey, where do you get off changing my order!?" Faye snapped, slamming her hand over the top of the glass set down in front of Spike. "I can drink what I want!"

Spike shrugged. Despite her yelling, he seemed more concerned with the fate of the drink held hostage underneath her steady palm. He shifted quickly, and with one hand he caught her wrist, while retrieving his glass from her clutches with the other. "Remember those pills I gave you?" he asked, taking a couple giant gulps. "No caffeine or alcohol for at least forty-eight hours unless you want some nice convulsions to go with that martini."

"Um, sorry," I popped in, taking the stool on Faye's unoccupied side. "But wasn't Faye already pretty drunk when you gave her those pills?"

"Were you?" he asked archly, smirking just a bit. "And here I thought it was just a concussion—but guess I didn't smell it since we were using God knows what drink to disinfect you."

Faye grabbed his glass and splashed the few sips left of the beer in his face, to which he licked his lips and grinned wider. "Lunkhead! You could've killed me, no wonder I didn't sleep well---and get that away from me!" She swung and missed at the bartender's hand as he attempted to serve her the water Spike ordered. "I want a virgin margarita---with one of those umbrella toothpicks to stick in this idiot's eye!"

I assume they continued fighting after that, but to be honest I tuned them out. I became a little preoccupied trying to squint around the darkish tables, attempting to locate Marla. According to Faye, my boss said she'd show up first, but looking around I saw no signs of her.

I didn't think too much of it until I tried her on the comm. and got no answer---that woman has never turned her phone off as long as I've known her. Just hearing the unending dial tone in the receiver sent my stomach into an awkward shift, giving me an angry sense of foreboding. I turned around and reached as far over the counter as I could, managing to tap the bartender's shoulder with the tips of my fingers.

He looked up at me, and his left hand automatically reached for an empty glass. I decided to speak up before he could serve me something I didn't order.

"Hey hi---last night there was a woman in here: tall, brunette, kinda loud," I lifted my hand up to show my boss's height. "Do you remember her? She was screaming into her phone if that helps..."

The bartender gave me an eye-motion that was somewhere between a squint and a blink of his small, puffy eyes. I began to run through various movies in my brain—ones where the bartenders are all wise thirty-somethings with a hard but sympathetic look about them. This guy...nothing like that. The bartender gave a grunt that seemed to match his sweat-stained white T as he lifted a pudgy hand and pointed up. "She's with Hasbro," he said, and there was no further elaboration.

I followed the direction of his finger, but of course my eyes only found ceiling.

"Are there apartments upstairs?"

"Up. Turn right. Number eight."

"Yeahh..." I gave him a nod as I caught sight of the stairs near the back of the room. "Got it, thank you."

I turned back to Spike and Faye to tell them I was going fishing upstairs. When I looked, I saw Spike sipping his second beer with an overly dramatic blissful expression, and Faye opening and closing her toothpick-umbrella in a threatening kind of way.
I headed for the stairs alone.

As I climbed, the mottled conversations of the room behind me became one, long murmured piece of white noise that I got used to so fast, the hallway at the top of the stairs felt nearly too quiet. When I found number eight, I knocked, but there was no reply. My stomach moved again, and instead of trying again at the door, I pulled out my comm. and dialed Marla. I could hear her phone ringing through the door. Over and over again, eight rings... ten ...fourteen... and still no answer.

I was beginning to get a little freaked, because you see, this would be the part of the movie when the girl opens the door—and someone in the audience yells "Don't go in there!" but she does—and comes face to face with a room full of corpses and the hooded man holding a chainsaw—and the audience gets very smug.

Slapping my forehead, I managed to quiet my imagination long enough to try the doorknob. It opened without a creak. Apparently Marla's voicemail had finally taken the hint and activated, so I didn't even have the obnoxious ringing to comfort me as I forced my feet through the door of a very quiet flat.

The door didn't open into a room, but rather a narrow hallway through which I could see a bit of a sunlit living room at the end. By compulsion, I stepped slowly, trying to be as quiet as I could despite knowing perfectly well one of two things was going on—one being that nobody was home and I could be as loud as I wanted, or two being somebody was in fact home, in which case I should've been calling out apologies for trespassing and assurances that I wasn't an ax murderer.

But I was quiet. Feeling a little stupid, but quiet nonetheless. Even my own breathing sounded too loud, so I held it until I couldn't, and then managed to exhale as slowly as possible. I passed a door and peeked into a white kitchen that would've been spotless save for what can only be described as a cereal explosion—O's everywhere. I had to stop short to avoid slipping on a small puddle of milk just as the hallway ended for the living area, and it was a good thing I did, because just as I halted something large swung downward right through where my face would've been.

I cried out in surprise, falling backwards and landing with an ungraceful rattle that upset my glasses—yet I still recognized the familiar silhouette that was holding...I pushed the frames back up on my nose...yes, it was Marla and she was holding a guitar.

And holding it rather wrong. She must've tried to swing it like a baseball bat, with her grip on the end of the stringed handle, but she put all her weight into pushing one, wide arc. That way, when the instrument rushed down and failed to connect with my head, it sent my boss completely off balance. She twirled uncontrollably in one odd circle before landing on her ass in front of me. The guitar hitting the ground singing broken chords, and the puddle of milk lay between us.

"Vivika?" Marla blinked.

"Are you crazy?!" I shouted, and my cry was soon joined by a panicked exclamation of: "What's going on out here?" Our shoulders hunching simultaneously, Marla and I turned with guilty expressions to face the blonde man standing in the living room, out of breath and wearing only half his pajamas.

I managed a shaky laugh. "You must be Hasbro, um....hi..."

The poor, rattled fellow opened his mouth, but Marla spoke up smoothly. "Sorry baby, I thought she was somebody else," she assured him. She lifted herself to her feet, bending in all the right places, and I noted that she wore nothing but a crazily-buttoned men's blouse over her underwear. "Go back to bed, I'll just talk to her and send her home so we can have us a private—breakfast."

Hasbro settled, but to his credit still seemed a bit put out. Before retreating back to his room, he leaned down fast and snatched his guitar in a possessive grip, sending Marla a look that clearly indicated he expected something good from her in return for swiping his piece.

"He seems...cute," I observed, taking my boss's offered hand and allowing her to pull me to my feet—heels dragging through the milk puddle a little.

"He's dull—especially for a musician," Marla muttered, untangling the edges of her borrowed shirt from the straps of underwear she appeared to have put on backwards.

I spotted her skirt on the floor near the couch, and I headed for it. "I didn't think you went for the dull type." The one thing she takes less seriously than a man who wants to date her, is a man who can't even show her a good time.

"I don't, but when you said I had a Syndicate on my ass...well! What was I supposed to do?" She growled, tossing her shiny hair like a miffed model. She flopped down on the couch, leaned over a bowl on the coffee table, and began shoveling Cheerios into her mouth in agitated movements that spilled even more milk on the floor.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I handed her the skirt, but instead of putting it on she seemed happier to use it as a napkin.

"You said the Dragons were after me, didn't you?"

I nodded in confirmation, the first squirming of guilt and dread heating the skin of my neck as I decided to let her continue her story before I undid my elaborate lie and explained to her the more elaborate truth.

"Well," she spoke with her mouth full and a white moustache, "You said to try and stay indoors—so I thought why not take that a step further, you know? Sooo, I decided there was no reason I even had to leave the building. Know the bar saying 'You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here'?"

I nodded.

"Well that's bull crap if there's a bed in the building. Wasn't hard to find out who in the place was a renter, and what did I get? Barstool entertainment, that's what!" she thrust her spoon forward as a sign of injustice. "A house musician who spent the discussion part of the evening whining bout how he got kicked out of a band called 'Neon Fonzie' for being, quote: 'too dead poet society' with his lyrics."

"Fonzie?"

"Happy Days."

"Huh?"

"The Fonz."

"What are you—"

"Forget it---anyway, I thought I was doing pretty good, ya know? Staying out of sight and all, but either I was being tailed before goin' in the pub, or somebody leaked, either way..." she trailed off there, probably expecting I knew what she was talking about.

I felt my eyes narrow suspiciously, as if my face knew what was coming before the rest of me. "Either way, what?"

"Either way, they found me," Marla clarified. She gave her cereal another confirming nod, and with a breezy wave of her spoon, pointed me toward the window. "See for yourself."

I half got up, stumbled back into the cushion, then sprung to my feet and braced myself against the sill as I separated the blinds with the tips of my fingers. I waited one second...two....three...
My breath released itself with a noise like a car motor.
"There's nothing out there."

"Wait for it," she assured me. "Every couple minutes it comes round. Probably waiting for me to step outside—can't figure out how come nobody's parked and just come in for me."

Sighing, I kept to my post. Part of me wondered what the heck Marla was getting all antsy over, while the other and better part didn't want to find out. The blinds had been closed with an upward slant, and I had to stand up on tit-toe to get the best view of the street below:
Litter, a couple hobos shishkababing some kinda road kill, man arguing with a meter maid in front of his ugly illegally parked zipcraft, Spike's car making a pass, three old guys arguing over a deck of cards...
My fist crawled up to rest against my hip.
"What exactly am I looking for here?"

I heard the rustle of what little clothing she wore as she stood, and with a clang set down her bowl. "Black car," she prompted. She sounded distracted, and even with my back turned I could picture her standing there, staring at the dirty dishes, wondering what to do with them, and why weren't they cleaning themselves? "Expensive looking, but if you look reeeeaaaal close—"

"Just how close?"

"Camera phone. Excellent zoom. Anyway—you can see there's a New Year's dragon for a hood ornament, and some kinda Chinese instead of a license plate number."

"And that means...?" But I already knew what it meant.

"It's the Red Dragon Syndicate!" Marla bellowed, and I thought I heard Hasbro grumble from behind a nearby door. "Duh."

I felt my face get cold. I assume that means I looked pale.

"But don't worry..."

Oh crap. Please don't say--

"I called the Gold Serpent Circle to take care of them."

Fuck.

Once upon a time there was a little wooden puppet. Every time he would lie, his nose would grow—-oops, forgot to mention that this puppet was alive, huh? But I'm guessing you already know who I'm talking about.

Anyway, the puppet. His nose would grow when he lied. Nobody was quite sure why...it may have had something to do with the cricket thing he paled around with not doing his job, or it could've been a byproduct of the spell that made him live, or perhaps it was just a freak accident that the tree he was built from hadn't quite died yet and tried to grow at it's own leisure---you know something? It really doesn't matter.
All you have to know is that every time this tree-kid would lie, his nose would grow, and get bigger and bigger until he told the truth.

Now then, Marla always liked to go off on how it was a metaphor for men and their own "wood", but I prefer to take a less "mentally scarring" approach.
I think the nose thing was a good, simple warning that when you lie, there are consequences. These consequences usually won't come in the form of major plastic surgery, but to each his own punishment.

At any rate, my point with Pinocchio was that every time he lied his nose grew—no matter what lie he told. It was supposed to instill the belief that lying was wrong. Well. I don't know about you, but that's not how I was raised.

Sure my parents started out that way: 'Blah blah George Washington yada yada 'cannot tell a lie' et cetera learn by example, Vivika,' and everything like that. But then, of course, came the inevitable day when my foot met my mouth and I told my older brother that his prom date had beaver teeth right in front of her.

After my brother coaxed her out of the bathroom and into the limousine, my parents sat me down and explained to me that there were good lies and bad lies. White lies, and regular type.
"Sometimes it's okay to lie," they said. I asked how I would know when those times were, to which they replied: "You'll understand when the situation presents itself"—and who, may I ask, talks that way to a four year old? Not that that matters. What does matter, is that my parents were wrong. They said I would know the difference between a good time to lie, and a bad time, but I never learned—I never learned because there is no way to know.

There's no possible way to figure out which lies will float away, and which will circle like a boomerang to smack you in the ass. No telling what's going to be damaged later for a passing fib in the present. No predictable nose-growing—-no way to know the consequences.

The night before I met Marla in her one-nighter's apartment I told her a lie. I told her the wrong name of the Syndicate that was after us, and why? Just because I'd had a long day, and didn't want to deal with a longer explanation. What did that lie get me then? A lopsided, but otherwise decent night sleep.

Where did it get me the next morning? Dragging my boss down the stairs by her wrist, as fast as I could go. She was barely dressed, with her unzipped skirt flapping against her bare thighs and a stolen shirt, wrinkled on her torso. A puffy coat (also stolen from Hasbro) barely concealed the katana. She screamed something—she screamed a lot of things, actually, none of which I can recall.

However loud she screamed, my mind screamed louder. Thoughts traffic jammed in my brain until they tried to escape through my eyes, and I wanted more than anything to cry them free.
I'd messed up.

Oh God, I messed up!

I'd been a good girl through all of the nonsense. I'd stood by while Faye bitched at a mob boss. I let her drag me through graveyards and bars. Before that, I let my boss lead me into a pit of snakes disguised as an oil company. I'd been shot at, knocked unconscious, and threatened by a teenager—all of this with exceptional composure considering the circumstances!
I'd been good. I stood by...I didn't get in the way, I gave them all their space—unless they needed me, and then I was right there! I'd been doing so well, and then...

I lied. Just a motion in the day that rippled into something bigger, and more fatal. We came to meet my boss, to arrange for her to cut ties to the Circle so they couldn't get to Spike, but instead Marla called them right to the doorstep without even realizing what she'd done.

I ran so fast I couldn't stop. My ribs smashed against the bar, and Marla careened—ironically—right into Spike's lap, which knocked his stool to the floor. Faye caught my arms, and I dangled there with my legs limp, hanging from her hands like a monkey as I stared into the red eyes of the Dragon leader who glared back from the ground.

I knew it was all for him. At any moment, the windows of the pub might shatter into a billion pieces, just as the windows of our car had the morning before. Bullets might come whirling in, and they'd be looking for him.
And if just one of those bullets connected, it would all be my fault.

His eyes were so red...

"Okay so let me get this straight..." Faye growled as low as she could while still being audible. "You called the Circle, when?"

"Just before Viv showed up, soo...bout ten minutes ago," Marla chirped distractedly. She was casually walking backwards along the sidewalk in front of the rest of us, giving Spike a once, twice, thrice-over. "Funny," she observed, "I pictured you taller."

We'd exited the bar as fast as we could without looking suspicious, which still almost didn't happen as that dense bartender couldn't seem to grasp the idea of letting us use the back door. Then we turned into the alleyway, and wondered through the back roads, trying to keep to streets that were big enough for the car to still reach us, while covered enough by building roofs to give any Circle ships trouble if they tried to find us from the air.

"All right, ten minutes," continued Faye. "They could definitely be anywhere by now—and speaking of locations, LUNKHEAD WHERE IS YOUR CAR?!"

Spike shrugged. He looked tired, and wore a kind of 'why me' design on his long face. "Faye, I really have no idea," he drawled, although he only sounded half awake and a quarter interested. "So for the love of your stupid ponies, stop asking."

Meanwhile, I was trying to disappear inside Shin's coat; I even took it one step further, and ducked into Spike's shadow as I stumbled along in the little space between his bony elbow and the buildings beside us. So far, everyone was focusing on the present, trying to get to the car before a squad of Syndicate cronies came barreling down the street, guns ablazin like before.

So far nobody had mentioned my mistake, and the suspense made me feel twisted up, chilly and off-center. Who knew what would happen if they got angry at me---I was palling around with some very violent people here, running away from others even more dangerous than present company.
Marla, however, didn't seem to grasp the image—or she didn't care, both are likely. "So..." she clicked her tongue, beginning to eye Spike again. "You're one of the good guys?"

Spike made one of his funny noises as he grimaced down at her. "Believe me lady," he said, looking annoyed. "I'm not a good guy."

"Think I heard that in a movie once," Marla clicked her tongue again. "But great. Thanks, this whole thing isn't confusing at all." She tried to catch my eye, but I pretended I didn't notice. I didn't think that pinch in my stomach would lighten any by attempting to explain the situation. I heard my boss heave a sigh, and I wasn't disappointed as she moved on to another subject.
"So when the car gets here—where are we going?" Marla asked. She was still walking backwards despite how much more difficult it was getting with all the litter in the backstreets.

"Depends on how lucky we are," answered Faye, before putting all of her focus in doing something with the clasp on her gold bracelet.

Spike continued for her. "Base is on the other side of town—I called for backup but with traffic this time of day the best we can hope for is meeting them half way."

"And we might not even be able to head for the hotel if too many Circle guys show up," Faye reminded him. She'd lost that cheeky tone; all of a sudden, Spike and Faye were all business. "What have we got to work with?"

"There's plenty of guns in the car, if we can get to it or it to us before company arrives," said Spike. "Not that it matters if it ends up with you, me and Mike (that was the driver's name, Mike) against a squad--- unless, these girls can fight..." He sent me a humored kind of look that made me positive Shin had told him how I'd acted back at the graveyard.

"But if we can't get to the car, then it's just us with no means of escape and two guns to cover four people," Faye spat. I noticed that she didn't include Vicious's katana with the artillery, so I quickly sent Marla a warning glare before she could mention it. "We're gonna need a place to hide—any suggestions?"

Spike looked around and shrugged. "Climb the fire escape to some apartment building and break into a room, I don't know," he muttered hostilely. "You're the one who's been dodging loan sharks for years, you tell me where to hide."

"This isn't my town, Lunkhead," Faye bit back. "Besides, bill collectors want their money so unless they get really pissed, they don't shoot to kill---but these guys want you dead, Spike!"

The two continued to go back and forth, arranging something definitely at the midpoint between an argument and a battle plan. Whatever strategy they'd gotten close to deciding on, however, was blown to pieces when Marla spoke up.

"Hey you guys," she said, still walking backwards yet focused on something she could see between Faye and Spike's shoulders. "I think somebody's fol---"

Bang.

Just like in the movies.

The shot rang out and she fell backwards, hitting the ground before her voice had even left my ears. For a moment, my mind couldn't work out what happened---and my confusion was made worse when Spike pulled me to the ground and in the process I knocked my temple against the brick wall. During the next few seconds, my mind paralyzed and left me nothing but the ears. I heard the close booms as Faye and Spike shot back at our assailant, the only slightly further claps from the enemy—and then a scream as he, too, fell.

The cloud in my head lifted, and I saw Marla sprawled on the sidewalk with a growing red stain on her side, laying still and, eeriest of all, silent. When I tried to shake my head to clear the image, I found my spine stiff and I realized that even during my brief blackout I'd been staring at this funny little pale thing my fiery boss had become.

I finally got out a very belated, "Oh my God!"

Faye sent me a quizzical glare, but quickly returned to checking Marla, a hand on her neck and wrist. I leaned until I tipped myself onto all fours, and tried to crawl over to help. My hands shook, and although I braced them against the ground, tremors shot up my arms and tried to bend my elbows as I prowled closer.

"Is she d-e..." my throat wouldn't let the word come out.

"She's alive," replied Faye, and the relief was so great it felt as if my muscles had turned to liquid inside me. I was barely able to keep my arms from collapsing and sending my face into my boss's bloody abdomen.

Finally able—and needing-- to take my eyes off Marla, I looked around. The alley we'd been walking down had forked into a few connected alleys, like a garbage and homeless covered maze behind the apartment complexes. Spike had pulled me down into a narrow corridor between two buildings, and judging from the red smear on the asphalt Faye had dragged Marla from out in the semi-open to hide with us.

"That guy wasn't alone," came Spike's voice from above me. He was the only one standing up, his gun at the ready. Our sentinel.

"What do we do?" I asked, managing not to squeak. A whole army of Gold Serpent Circle goons was probably on their way, and Shin wasn't coming to our rescue this time. Not to mention that if Spike's driver had still yet to answer his call, which probably meant that Mike had been captured, killed, or at least kept from the rest of us.

I jammed my head up in a harsh angle and faced Spike. "You can get us out of this, can't you?" I demanded. "You're the Dragon Slayer—you've faced more than this, you have to do something!"

Spike stared down at me with a glare that pierced right through me to land on Faye, to whom he addressed his reply: "Darling, the baby wants you."

"Shove it, Spike," she snapped impatiently, and at the same time grabbed my wrist and slammed my hand on top of a soggy cloth that covered Marla's wound. I felt blood between my fingers and barely stopped myself from gagging on reflex. "Put pressure on it," ordered Faye before standing up next to Spike, her gun already present.

Marla gave a struggling moan, and I felt a sharp split inside me between the part that was happy to hear her voice, and the terror-filled rest of me that feared the pain doused in the sound. Desperate to take my mind off it, I shut my eyes tight and focused on the voices of my other companions.

"How long ago did you call your ship?" Spike was asking. They were both poised with guns a ready at the mouth of the corridor, facing opposite directions and very nearly back-to-back.

"I'd say about four minutes ago—but it's parked in Trimalchio, so it'll take another five or six to get here," replied Faye. "How long do you think we have?"

"That depends. The guy we took down was probably sent to track us. I bet he only shot Hearst because she noticed him. If his buddies heard our gunshots then they could be getting into position to kill us right now, but if he was checking in by phone we might have until his next expected check- in time before the Circle sees he's missing."

"But a Circle team is still close, right?"

"That's definite," confirmed Spike. "My car would be here by now if they weren't. So think you can fit that woman in the Red Tail without killing her?" I didn't like the sound of that question; if Faye's ship might not be able to fit Marla, how was it going to fit the rest of us?

"I think so," Faye answered, a bit hesitant. "But where do I take her, back to the hotel? A hospital sounds too obvious..."

"No," Spike murmured forcefully. "You bring a monocraft into that section of town and you might as well paint a bull's-eye on the building. I even had to park my own ship in a garage that's near here."

"But where then?"

Then came a long pause, which felt dangerous to me. I couldn't help but fear that the two most experienced of our party were in over their heads, and to make matters worse, Marla was breaking out into a heavy sweat and I knew that couldn't be a good sign. I turned to stare at Spike again, opening my mouth to once more demand he pull a slaying and get us out of this mess---but when I looked, I found his eyes already on me.

"Jet," he said. "We'll take her to Jet."

"Why are you looking at me?" I grumbled just as Faye asked, "He's in town?"

"Kid," he said to me, "Did you know that yesterday afternoon your boss put out a hefty bounty on the thugs who shot up her car and forced her secretary into hiding?" I numbly shook my head. Marla must've done it before I'd blamed the whole thing on the Red Dragons.

"Twenty-five million, it was all over the news," Spike elaborated, now facing Faye and wearing a devious kind of grin. "Think the old dog went for it?"

She stared at him for half a second, looking almost shocked, but then her lips curled into a smirk to match her partner's. "He always parks at the Tharsis docks."

Spike looked satisfied. "It's settled then," he said. "We'll have to go two to a ship—can you fly a zipcraft, kid?" Again I shook my head, now entirely lost in the exchange. "Then you're with me, get ready to run."

All at once I found myself being yanked towards the mouth of the alley. "What? Where are we going?" Spike slammed a new clip into his gun and flashed me a sideways smile that made me certain he got kicks off my fear.

"The Bebop."

To Be Continued

More author's notes! Boy I love these things. This chapter has been brought to you by master editor Brigid, the letter K, and the number 3.

Okay, I apologize if this chapter feels like it's lacking something. I know Jet was supposed to be in this chapter, but I planned a whole other scene before he shows up and if I added that scene to this chapter it would just go on too long.

I'd like you to think of this chapter as part one of a joint-combo with the next chapter, which I promise will be up so much sooner than this one was (hopefully by end of July). I'm very excited about the next chappie--- battles in space, awkward homecomings, Jet's cooking, Faye angst, and flying lessons with Spike! O.o...

Oh yeah, and notes on romance. Please stop asking me if Spike and Faye are ever gonna get together because there ARE. I promise! I'd show you all the story outline, and point out exactly where they get together, but that would ruin the ending

And speaking of romance, last chapter, I was told through reviews that I hinted at a Vivika/Shin possible romance. I hadn't planned on that, but rereading ch. 6, I saw that perhaps I did. I don't yet if I'm gonna explore this or not, but I do want to assure you that I wont just make this an All-About-Viv story. I was into a fic that featured an OC, but then the OC took over and the results weren't good, so I know I don't want the same thing to happen with this fic.

In conclusion, a HUGE thanks to all my wonderful readers and reviewers—and to those who email stalked me to tell me to get off my ass and write, power to ya! If you ever want to know how far I'm progressing, or just wanna yell at me, feel free to email me or check my livejournal (see profile). Shout outs to the FayeandSpike livejournal community!

Now that you've suffered through my ramblings, review please! And have a happy fourth day of the seventh month of the year.