I decided to turn around, I wanted to meet my death head on; I was the Phantom of the Opera, or at least I had been, I was not some coward who would be shot in the back.

I whipped around and heard the gun fire; I felt no hurt, maybe he had missed? Looking at him I saw he was indeed pointing a gun straight at me; he was illuminated by the lantern light from the other room; I looked into his eyes; why did he not shoot again?

Then I saw he was looking wide eyed at me, then he fell to his knees, then his stomach and at last I understood; there was a hole in his back which was gushing blood.

Looking up; I saw CJ smirking at me from the hallway; apparently, she had come in and immediately gone into the room with the lantern, just as I was in the window room, then the man had come up the stairs and found me.

"Alright?" She asked me in an amused tone; knowing she had just saved my life seemed to entertain her,

"Fine," I said gruffly, and I suddenly realized I had never replaced my mask; it was staring up at me from where I had dropped it before when I had wanted to scare one of the men into not shooting me. I immediately replaced it.

"You're bleeding," she said, noting my hands which were cut from the glass.

"I'm Fine" I said coldly, and she shrugged. "What have we got here?" she asked

"We are looking for four sacks, I already found two in this room," I indicated the room behind me, "and in these two," I pointed to the second door on the right and the one at the end of the hallway.

"So, downstairs?" CJ said, not waiting for me to respond before turning and heading down the staircase. I followed her.

It took much longer to find the remaining loot; the downstairs had considerably less obvious places where things could be hidden. I found two sacks in a hole in the wall behind a bureau in the living room. CJ found the last two in the wall of the kitchen.

We hurried back upstairs; all I wanted to do was get out of the damn house. We threw the sacks out of the window then dropped down ourselves. The eight foot fall hurt my legs slightly, but I did get a laugh out of watching CJ stumble and fall to the ground when she jumped; apparently falls were not her specialty.

We lugged the sacks back to the cab and climbed in. Dumas was still sitting in the back, and upon our arrival his face brightened considerably.

"I was only going to wait a few more minutes before I was going to leave you two for dead!"

"Oh ye of little faith" I mumbled, sinking down on my seat; I was very tired all of a sudden, I had not realized how hard my heart had been pumping until I saw escape in sight.

"I heard all the gunfire early on; I thought you two were dead,"

"That was our distraction," CJ said simply, and she sounded as tired as I felt. The cab started to pull away.

"Clever,"

"I'm glad you think so,"

Suddenly I remembered something, "One chased you, didn't he?" I looked at CJ,

"Yes, one chased me about three blocks down, but I killed him in the end,"

"What happened?" Dumas asked, sounding more interested than I was,

"He tackled me, but I managed to roll him off and break his neck," She spoke as though it was nothing more difficult that tying a shoe. I had to admit, I was impressed with the girl, she was tough and skilled at the job we were assigned to do.

We reached our house and I went to get out, but CJ did not move; she spoke to Dumas, "Is there any way I could get some water and bandages?"

"Are you hurt already?" Dumas asked, sounding slightly annoyed

"No, but Erik is," It was strange to hear her say my name; I did not think she had even remembered it. However it made me angry that she was asking Dumas for me; as though I was a little boy who needed to be taken care of.

"I don't need anything" I said harshly, stepping toward the cab, however CJ and Dumas ignored me.

"I will have someone bring it to you,"

"I am fine!" I practically yelled; where did they get the idea they could decide for me when I needed medical attention?

"Phann!" Dumas growled, "I am in charge here and I don't want you developing an infection, you are no good to me at anything less than peak physical condition, and if you are no good to me than I will not keep you around, if you catch my meaning," He was threatening to kill me, apparently he like us, but he only liked us when we made him look good. Fair enough.

I turned and walked irritably back to the basement room. I sat heavily down on the end of my bed and crossed my arms.

"What are you? A child?" CJ asked, laughing at my open display of displeasure; which only served to make me more infuriated. I did not look at her.

Tom, the guard from earlier, brought a bucket of water, a cloth, and several bandages, he left them with out a glance at CJ, apparently he had learned his lesson.