CHAPTER 4

I CAN'T TAKE IT

That next day at the Chaotix, Shadow was sitting at Tonya's desk eating Teddy Grams while looking a complete wreck.

Espio, Tonya, and Charmy walked towards him.

Espio noticed how shaken up he was, "Shadow, you look like hell."

"Yeah and why are you eating my lunch?" Charmy asked.

Shadow answered in a frightened voice, "Last night...Rouge...was...the man."

Espio gasped, "Good lord. You let her do that to you?"

Shadow placed the box of Teddy Grams down, "I surprised I'm still alive."

Tonya hit her hand with her fist, "Shadow, you have to set her straight. You have to show her who the toughest is. When she comes through that door, you tell her how you really feel about her new change."

Shadow stood from the chair, "You're right, I'll snap her out of it."

Then Rouge came through the door holding her head.

"What's up with you?" Tonya asked.

"I don't know. I just woke up with a major headache", Rouge groaned a bit. "I can't take the pain."

Tonya laughed a little, "Congratulations, you've just experienced your first hangover."

"What's so funny about that!"

Shadow walked up to Rouge, "Rouge, this has to stop. This isn't you. You're not the woman I knew."

"So what?"

"Don't you see? You're only hurting yourself. Look at yourself, you smoke more than me and soon you'll probably drink more too."

"I don't care what you say, I'm not going to be treated like dirt around here anymore and if that don't make things clear then maybe a fight will."

He didn't want to fight her, but he would do anything to bring her to her senses, "Bring it on!"

"Don't make me shove my black boots up your narrow ass!"

"Bitch, you wanna step outside!"

Vector ran up to them and pulled them apart, "That's enough you two! We have better things to do than fight. If we wanna solve this case, we have to work as a team."

Shadow and Rouge turned their backs to each other not saying a word.

Later that night at the Street Punks hideout, a young yellow male squirrel was tied in rope to a chair. He was crying. He was afraid of the weird surroundings around him.

A grey fox appeared behind him holding a pocket knife up to his neck.

The boy cried harder, "I want my mommy."

"And I want my money."

The blade was getting closer to the boy's neck.

While Lance was torturing the boy, he looked over to the red porcupine, "Nice work, Appex. Pretending to be that woman's boyfriend, so we could grab the child without her noticing."

Appex crossed his arms, "I hope I don't have to do that again."

"All we have to do is wait for our money and if she doesn't do what we say, the kid's done for."

Zena looked over at Appex disgusted with him for having sex with a woman he never knew all for Lance's new scheme. She looked at his face when he wasn't looking at her, 'How could you do it?'