Operation Bosco: A Call to Arms, IV

It was always strange.

The feeling of it.

Waking up.

Since Haven had been revived following the mishap on the gauntlet, it was always a bit of a jolt, first thing, as her eyes peeked open and she was greeted to a new day. There were some difficulties in adjusting, right at the start, to the feeling. Her chest would get heavy and the breaths she drew in always seemed to burn, just a bit, as the scarring over her stomach itched.

For as bad as the nights were though, the mornings made it worth it.

She'd never really taken a break. Before. Had always been on, constantly. From the day her parents let her start snagging the fliers off the job board, she'd either spent her days completing them or training to be able to do so. Days were meant for toiling and nights were meant for getting fucked up in her father's guildhall. Her mind was focused on very few things and everything felt simple. Easy. Broken down.

Get stronger and reward yourself along the way.

But when she was revived, things were different. She couldn't take jobs right off the bat, she was too weak to train in the first few weeks, and her father no longer held a guildhall for her to act out in, with not too veiled hopes of gathering his attention.

Everything was different.

Locke had to go back out, on jobs, and even once she was up to training, she had no one but her boyfriend's father or Ajax to do it with. Navi was gone, Locke now had friends, real friends that he wanted to spend time with, if he wasn't out, and it was jarring.

All of it.

Her family was there, but she was trying to ease back into those relationships and they were dealing with their own trauma, what with her coming back to life and her father disappearing in the middle of the night.

She'd spend days, both with or without Locke, at a bit of a loss as to how to get back to where she was. Or, honestly, how to be sure she'd never return to it. There was a call for the long stretches of solitude and peaceful atmosphere she was rewarded with, but at the same time, it felt far more like a punishment.

She was a woman of action. Strong action. Constantly falling in and out of dangerous scenarios in order to prove her worth. Those few months of either taking no jobs or taking one and needing a be recovery period was hard on her.

Very hard.

"I never want to be like this again," she told Locke, more than once, and he only snickered, smiling even, in the beginning when he was still just amazed to see her alive and breathing, with him once more. "Don't nothing. Sitting around. Waiting."

"It'll be different in Bosco," he assured her and it was still a dream to them then, not fully realized or understood, what it would mean.

What any of it would mean.

She spent months getting stronger and him proving himself to the guild master, just to find their power and prowess useless. He'd spent the majority of their time away on guard duty, back on base or across the border, while her true powers had been suppressed and her new, fancy one she was so pleased to wield had only come into play once.

And for what?

So she could find herself folding clothes in a sweatshop, hoping to win the approval of women that saw her as little more than a kid. A fucking, stupid kid whose current placement in life did more to depress them than, perhaps, their current surroundings. Reminded them of their first time. Times. In new places, adjusting to the new regulation and lack of freedom they were presented.

There was a resignation, back in Ewings, but it wasn't buried nearly as deeply as it was the majority of the women she was currently housed with. The majority of them were too old, had been under too long, and she was made known of this the second she tried to broach the topic with any of them.

It was a headbanging kind of realization, the ones she had every single day and night, as she tried to assimilate herself with these women. She lacked the nerves or fears she had, on Ewing's manor, but they were instead replaced with frustrating jitters of wanting to do something, to start something, but not quite being able.

She didn't connect well with other people. She never had. But it was now a major part of the job and, though she wished that both Locke and Shae were able to carry the heavy load in this, she knew that her position in the hoped revolution was very important.

One of the things that she'd learned recently from the short months she'd spent back home actually came during that down time she hated. And from Marin, her lame younger sister, of all fucking people. Marin possessed the potential for all the power in the world, but balked in her formative years, and instead had to build other skills.

She wasn't great at it either, after all. Connecting to other people. And maybe that was Haven's fault, at least somewhat, but whatever it was, Marin found ways to overcome it. Where Haven thought to prove herself physically and violently, Marin managed her natural awkward disposition in another way.

With her natural abilities repressed, she found herself accessing social skills in other ways. She learned things about people, rather easily. She served them beers and fed them filling food until they felt comfortable enough to express things to her. Whether this was intentional or not, it allowed her to easily transverse any other personal relationships she was forced to have with others. They felt naturally inclined to consider her something. Not exactly a friend and maybe not a confidant, but at least someone that, even when sober and starving, they could count on to be there for them.

The best part of this arrangement was that Marin hardly had to offer anything difficult up to others; she merely had to provide the expected level of care. This wasn't exactly an imparted benefit on Haven through word of mouth, but rather observation. She watched her mostly quiet and reserved sister in the guildhall many times following her resurrection, and it was a very alternate experience from how Marin was once treated around the place.

By doing her work, she found an avenue that otherwise wouldn't be easily presented to her.

Haven wanted to be like that. With her job. To do her job and make friends along the way. It used to be that way, anyways, when she was just a regular mage, running around helping others. She fell in and out of relationships in her time away from Fairy Tail, nothing serious, but her prowess had always spoken when she was unable. Helped her fall in with the people she needed in the moment who required her powers just as heavily.

But now she didn't need them. Didn't have them. Couldn't use them. It felt better, honestly, than it had back at Ewings place, now able to at least use her transformation magic, but it still ached a bit, as it always would, whenever she couldn't draw electricity through her veins at will.

It was depressing.

Just how things had felt, when last year's long, hot summer had faded into the darkness of a new season. But now she was trapped in the dull shadows of a hotbox sweatshop, equally as shut-in and alone, but just for different reasons.

Sulking wasn't productive though. Nor was her natural inclinations towards anger and brash attitudes. Shae and Locke were both out of their element and struggling to find ground, but she was given the easiest job of all; she couldn't fuck it up.

She just had to gain the trust of a bunch of old women.

Marin did it with the older men in the bar, plying them full of beer and liquor and listening to their problems. Finally, for once drawing true inspiration from her sister, Haven found that getting frustrated with her position wasn't going to get her anyways; she just had to do her job and keep her head down.

So she tried it.

Haven had always been kind of afraid of it. Silence. Left to her own devices. To think. After her ventures into the afterlife's eternity, she found mostly that she'd never not be afraid of the concept. Silence was just too much for her to handle.

But without even Shae now, it was what her days were mostly filled with. And as she focused, tried hard to get the folding and sorting all down, box breaking and box opening, but fuck.

Fuck.

It was just hard.

But she seemed to be endearing herself more, this way. Or at least she thought. There was a woman, anyways, of the few that were on folding and packing duty, that seemed to not look on her as harshly as she once had.

She was a...hearty woman, Haven thought. Homely, maybe, was the word. She kept her messy brown hair clipped back and out of her face for the most part, but sometimes a strand would fall from its containment and she was mutter curses just loud enough for the typical blonde to catch. A dark, rough patch laid over the older woman's eye and she cursed about it at times too, wiggling a finger beneath the fabric to deal with an itch.

She went by Bea, the woman did, and she was a glimpse into the world Haven was merely visiting.

It started just like that. Not so harsh looks and, eventually, her grumbling at Haven to take a seat, beside her and two of the other women, during lunch break, down in the grass.

There wasn't much to talk about. They probably didn't really have much in common, removed from their current position, but they were trapped, all of them, with the magical marker denoting them as less than, and if they only had one thing to speak on, then it made sense that they eventually would.

"You wanna ask about it," Bea remarked one day in that gruff she had. They'd had a few conversations by this point, short and to the point. Grumbles over the food, the work, maybe on a too cool summer evening, about the pond water. But this time, as they sat together in the warm grass, sun bearing down on them as they scarfed down their lunch, it seemed different. The tone. The intention. "All the new people do."

Haven knew what she was talking about, of course, but even for as socially inept as she typically was, even she knew that she was heading down the entirely wrong path. Quickly shaking her head, she had to swallowed the hardened sliver of bread and warm meat of some sort that they'd been served before saying, "N-No, I haven't. I-"

"Things were different," Bea told her simply and this, at least, hadn't been the first time she'd heard such at hing. "Around here. Before."

Haven paused, not wishing to ward off the potential for further conversations, but also being reverent of letting this once slip through her grasps.

"Before?" she asked softly.

"Before," the older woman went on, "the current master. The young one. The son." She almost sneered, maybe, shaking her head as she insisted, "He's not nearly the...man his father was."

"Did he...did he take your-"

"Plucked it right out." She made a popping noise with her mouth that made a woman sitting nearby visibly appear revolted. Bea only reached up, almost absently, to sneak a finger beneath the flap, scratching with a sigh. "Punishments were stiffer. The work harder. What we were dealin'… But I was so young then. Your age, maybe younger. Things were just...different."

"That's fucked," Haven remarked, but Bea only shrugged.

"I've seen yours." Then she made that face again, that sneer, the finger slipping back out from beneath the patch so that she could gently tap the pad against the course fabric. "Well, as well as I can see somethin'-"

"What do you mean?"

"Your scars. On your stomach." Bea raised an eyebrow. "Told ya mine."

Which meant she wanted Haven to tell hers. It was probably the entire reason she'd brought up the conversation in the first place.

It was with a bit of a sigh that Haven thought about it. All of it. She had a lot of scars, of course, and wore them well, but the most important…

The fact it was even visible was her own fault, honestly. Her transformation wasn't that draining, but she needed it to be perfectly even, refilled and never taking away too much. Leaving her scars where they were, hidden beneath her clothing, was an easy concession. And the visible ones only added to her credibility. But they all stripped together, each night, and even though the moonlight didn't illuminate much, all light only revealed the most inconvenient. Or at least it always had for Haven.

"I got cut open," she admitted, softly, and though it wasn't the full truth, as she looked away and reflected, she told just enough of it that her pain was not only convincing, but real. "Died. A-Almost, I mean. I almost died. Someone was able to use magic to save me."

"All that miracle," Bea sighed with a click of her tongue and a shake of her head, "only to land you here."

"Only," Haven agreed, "to land me here."

Things only seemed to look up from there. It was difficult, of course, to be too optimistic for the future when you were dealing in such a dank reality, but Haven did feel good about herself. Bea seemed to like her well enough, maybe, and though the other women all seemed to be distant, it was nice to have something of an in.

She felt comfortable in it, at least somewhat, and was very ready to shove it in the often doubting Locke's face one day when she disappeared off into the shed, equally anticipating her boyfriend as she was the soda pop he'd bring.

Which was why, as he slipped in empty handed, she had a bit of a glare.

"Nothing?" she questioned. "I literally have nothing to look forward to and you still manage to disappoint-"

"Haven." He rushed the short distance to stand before her, his goofy gaze rather harsh that day. Clouded. Concerned. Reaching out, he grasped her cheeks in his hands, forcing her to stare up at him, linking their gaze. "Something's happened. Or is happening. I don't-"

"Is it Shae?" She shoved him off, tossing up an arm and, originally intending it to crackle with the heat of electricity, she instead found herself merely flexing. "We'll fuck 'em up, Locke. We'll-"

"No, Have, it's…" He only frowned at her. "It's you."

Deflating some, Haven returned the gaze though hers was accompanied by a raised brow as she questioned, "What do you mean?"

He wasn't quite sure, honestly.

The concern came from Shae herself.

Locke had the benefit (misfortune?) of being one of the guards sent up to the penthouse, not for their irregular defiling of select hostages, but rather to rouse Monty from where he was shirking on his duties. It had been with a bit of a huff that Wick chose him, finding the young man eating with some of the other guards in the dining room, and as he and Locke bounded up the stairs, his only offered explanation was, "You talk sense to him, Hux. I've already fucking told him, he has to be on his toes, now that Alwood is actually here, but he doesn't listen to me. But maybe he will you. He likes you."

But he didn't like Wick.

No one liked Wick.

He was a cold man, older than the other guards and from the old breed, Anderson had sneered to Locke once behind the man's back. He kept to himself and mostly seemed to find his time spent trying to get Monty to do anything other than drink and hide in his arcade or penthouse.

It was a difficult task.

But recently, the Master had taken quite the liking to Hux and, while that was annoying to some of the other guards, Wick saw this as a new, unexplored advantage. Guys listened to their friends, after all, and if the new guard could, at the very least, supply an easy way to control the Master, then, well, his presence was worth it.

Up in the penthouse though, as Wick moved through the living area, unconcerned mostly with the women that hung around, and instead headed to bang on Monty's bedroom door, Locke uneasily glanced around at the women seemed equally as uneasy to see him. He almost raised his hand to wave at their very pointed avoided glanced, but he didn't have a chance as someone came rushing over to him.

Shae had spent the past few days sitting by the door, mostly. She avoided Monty when she could, but felt it very important that she get to Locke, as soon as possible. Being locked away in the penthouse, this felt completely impossible as the man, she knew, would avoid the place like a plague. Still, there really wasn't anything to do, at all, other than slowly go insane in the place and though she knew she was meant to be gaining trusts of the women around her, she found herself far more worried over something else.

She'd gotten up. Right before he came in. To find what had been left for them to eat in the kitchen. There was more, here, than down in the sweatshop, but most of the women, especially those who'd been there long, seemed to survive mostly on their pills and alcohol.

But Locke came in, while she was doing that, and at first, the sight of Wick stalking through the apartment wasn't a welcome one to the woman and she hung back. But as he was barking for Monty, Shae saw the man she was actually looking for and, not knowing exactly when she'd be given another opportunity, she ran right for him.

It was awkward, the next few motions, as she hesitated and Locke tensed, at the feeling of someone approaching him in such a manner, but then there was the awkwardness of all the women staring and one of them had to say something, but it had to be here, because she was the one who had something to say, and while he was too shocked for much more than his silence, Shae knew she need to get the information to him as subtly as possible and, well, given their implied relations by that point, she figured it wasn't too out of the realms what she did next.

Somehow, it was even more awkward.

Locke pulled back, when he realized what she was doing and it was like pressing her lips against nothing, mostly his chin, honestly, as she leaned up, but not enough to account for how hard he was trying to evade.

Pulling away herself, just slightly, she whispered, "Haven's in trouble."

Locke blinked with a questioning, "What?"

"Take this." And her arms had been wrapped around his neck, but one of her balled up fists opened then and a folded slip of paper tickled the back of his neck as it tumbled down beneath the collar of his tucked in shirt and came to rest around his hip line, right where his too tight cut off passage. Shae's eyes were wild as she insisted to the man, "You have to do something."

It was on instinct, almost, the way he nodded at her solemn tone, but again, the seconds in this encounter were stifled by another immediately following it.

Wick had been coming out of the bedroom then, chewing out an inebriated Monty while he was at it, but this stopped suddenly when he saw what was taking place. Shae still had an arm wrapped around Locke's neck and he was still too dazed to do much about it. The sight, for some reason, caused Wick to shout at them, but his gaze was quickly somewhere else.

"Enough," he'd growled, the older man had, and all the women, who hadn't really relaxed the entire time, seemed even more uneased by the action. With a deep growl, he was stalking right back across the room then to grab Shae roughly by the arm and toss her to the side. "You will not-"

"Hey!" Locke bucked right up as Shae, fighting against all instinct she knew, forced herself to only fall away and not bite back at the man.

"Shut your fucking mouth." And Wick turned to Locke once more, raising his hand and striking him, sharply right above his left ear. Having been raised on such things, if anything the feeling made the hardy mage almost nostalgic. If only the hit wasn't so weak with no true iron behind it. As Locke blinked away the feeling, his direct superior only glared darkly into his red eyes. With a shake of his head, Wick insisted, "You will never do that again. Do you understand? You are on duty. And in front of her?"

"In front of who?" Locke griped as he resisted the urge to rub at his ear. "What are you talking about?"

But Wick just huffed then, turning on his heel and walking over to where some of the women were coward, wincing as he came close, but there was only one that he seemed interested in. Locke had seen her before and, though she hadn't stood out to him before, he recognized her as one of the women that worked in the kitchen. Not marked. Hired help. She was the youngest one of them, a teenager, and Locke had mostly steered clear of the kitchen help, not quite sure how they fit into liberation.

He grabbed her though, Wick did, hissing something about how she shouldn't be up here, right now, and she was wide eyed, the teenager was, nodding her head and being drug from the penthouse while everyone else stood stock still and eerily silent.

As the teen and Wick disappeared out the door, a beat would come to pass before Monty, the only one capable of breaking the tension laughed, drunkenly, shaking his head as he continued on then.

"C'mon, Hux," he slurred as he came to weakly slug the man in the shoulder. Grinning, his glassy eyes found Locke's as he remarked, "Gotta finish work, huh?"

"Yeah," Locke agreed with a nod and, though he did glance at Shae, he turned to follow after the Master.

Monty stumbled down the stairs with Locke's help and, with some more assistance, the mage managed to shove the guy into his office where, following, he was certain to close the door behind them.

"Wick's just freaked," Monty explained, going to fall into his chair. "That I don't, uh, seem presentable to my uncle."

"Your uncle?"

"Alwood." He sniffled though, at the man's name, Monty did. Raking a hand across his face, he groaned some as he said, "Man look's out for me."

But he couldn't even think about that sort of thing, in that moment, Locke couldn't. Instead, he only paced a bit, around the small office, while Monty continued to rub at his face trying to wake himself up.

"Can I ask you something?" Locke finally asked and Monty waved his hand a bit.

"Sit down and do it," he grumbled a bit. "Giving me a headache."

Hesitating, Locke glanced at the door before going to sink into one of the plush chairs that set before the desk. Softly, he asked, "Who was that? That girl?"

"I dunno," Monty replied as he rubbed a palm roughly into one eye, the stinking eventually causing him to gasp and drop his hand. Then, dryly, he replied, "You're the one fuckin' her."

"What? No, I meant… The one that Wick drug out of there," he explained. "The young one. Who-"

"That's Wick's fuckin' daughter."

"He's what?"

Monty snorted then, sneering some as he sat back in his chair and focused on the ceiling for a moment. "I's a kid when it all happened. It was under my dad that it all happened. That fucker. Left me all this shit to deal with. And fuck Wick too. Asshole. Thinks he so good. So great. Knocked the woman up. Down in The Factory. Judges me. He does the same fucking thing. Did. Whatever."

Locke shifted, a question on his tongue, but doing so caused the slip of paper down the back of his shirt to scratch against his back and, suddenly, he couldn't give a shit about Wick.

"Hey, man, are you going to be alright?" Jumping up, Locke forgot for a moment that he actually, sort of, had a job to do and straightened at the remembrance. As he looked over Monty, he added, "If I take off?"

Monty ran a hand for once through his hair, causing it to become even more disheveled. Shaking his head, he said, "Gotta, uh, sober up. Before Alwood comes around."

Locke found it unlikely that this would be accomplished, but he had his own problems to worry about. Not only did he imagine Wick would be on his ass, should he run into the man again, but he needed to get that slip of paper and read it over as soon as possible.

His room was empty, thankfully, when he arrived at it. On occasion, the other guys would be lingering around to talk or try and goad him into going into town with him. They all got their checks every two weeks and, now with a sizable accumulation of cicles, the offer seemed like it should have been more enticing to him than he was displaying to the others.

But he didn't want to leave the property. Not with Haven around. If he told her about it, she'd goad him into going out with the other guards, get to know them better, study them, learn something useful to the cause, but fuck that. He wasn't leaving her alone on the property.

It was hard enough knowing she was so close and yet barred off from him the majority of the time.

His chest was pounding, as it had since what had popped off upstairs, but alone now, closed off in his tiny bedroom, his heart felt like it was trying to rip from his chest. Ripping off his shirt, he probably looked a fool as he spun around in a tight circle, trying to find where the slip of paper had fluttered off to, freed now.

It wasn't much. As he found the white slip sticking out against his dark hardwood floor, his fingers trembled some and he was both disappointed and terrified by just how short in length Shae's note was.

She had to be straight to the point, of course, and there wasn't much there for him to glance over, but still, he found himself collapsing onto the edge of his bed as his eyes traced over the short writing.

Alwood's taking Haven back with him.

Stop her from going.

I've heard bad things about him.

She's not safe.

The note didn't tell him much. And though he tried to get what he could out of the guys he had patrol with the next morning, because of the former, he didn't have much to offer Haven that day, as he stared with heavy concern at what, truly, was a strange woman, but exuded all the warmth (or lack there of) that his girlfriend did.

He'd spent the majority of his life trying to protect her. And others. It was in his nature, since he was a boy. He liked for all the people he cared about to be as safe as possible. This was a difficult task, growing up as a mage, but he always saw after his friends. Haven especially.

His whole point in coming to this place was for that exact reason. He dreamed of more, he wanted more, but deep down, it was the only thing that really mattered.

"Alwood is going to take the women that weren't picked. Including you," he told her simply. "But I'm not going to let him."

Haven stood there for a moment, after his words, losing her tension and fear for Shae and, at least somewhat, gaining some for herself.

"Alwood," she repeated his name softly then, frowning, "knows Ewing."

"What?"

"I told you. That's where I know him from." Turning from the man, she could only blink in the darkness, her desire for static, not to draw, but to expel, pooling in the pit of her stomach. "What if Ewing told him about me? And he came here to get me?"

"Haven, I don't think-"

"He knew me, Locke." She shook her head some. "From the last time. When I was there. The first time. He knew exactly who I was. He's connected and shit and is after me now, I bet, and-"

"If you need me to get you out of here-"

"What?"

Locke looked quite serious when she glanced over her shoulder at him. Softly, he said, "I'll sneak you out. Whatever. That's why I came. If you or Shae run into trouble-"

"I'm not in trouble."

"What do you mean? You think some rich fucking sicko is out to get you."

"Are you kidding? Fuck him. He's after me? Ewing's after me?" She turned quickly then, bouncing on her feet, seemingly amped. "Fuck him. He doesn't know what he's messing with."

"Haven-"

"I'll kill him. I'll kill them all."

"You're not-"

"I'll fucking kill them, Locke." She threw up a fist again, still with no electricity behind him, but as the blow connected to Locke's chest, he had to suck in a breath. Twisting her fist, she pressed harder into him, but didn't stumble forwards, instead only hanging her head, arm taut and rigid as she breathed heavily down at their feet. Bravado deflated, she only whispered, "I'll fucking kill him, Locke."

"You won't have to." He balled his own fist, but it was only to crash it down on the top of her head, sighing some as he took in her new look. When she raised her eyes, they were dark and not her own, but the heaving of her chest alternated perfectly with his own as he tugged her to him. "I fucking will."

Haven rested there for a moment, indulging maybe, if just for a moment. Shoving him off after a beat, she only whispered, "You can't kill shit. Fucking worthless."

"If you had killed Ewing back at his place," Locke retorted with a frown, "then we wouldn't even be having to deal with this shit."

"You're an asshole."

"You're," he replied, "in trouble. You get that, right? This isn't a joke. You can't go back with Alwood. And if he's intent on taking you, then it's probably best if we start figuring a way to get you out-"

"No way."

"Haven-"

"Give me time," she insisted. "We can't fuck this up. Shae upstairs, I'm down here, you're a guard… This is too perfect to not be the plan. How it's meant to be."

"I'm not going to let you-"

"I'm not going with him. I won't."

"Then-"

"I don't fucking know, okay?" Shaking her head, she asked instead, "How do you even know they're taking me? Have you spoken to him? Alwood? Or did your little friend the master-"

"Shae told me." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "She, uh, passed me a note."

"How does she know?"

"Haven, I don't fucking know." It was his turn to be annoyed. "How do you not know? If she does? I thought you told me you were making friends."

"Friend. I'm making a friend."

"Haven-"

"I'll ask her about it." Haven seemed to snap out of her funk, if only for a moment, as she snapped her fingers together. "I'll ask her to tell me everything she can about Alwood and if she knows why he'd even want me, what for and all that, right? She'll tell me. We talked, you know? Seriously talked. About-"

"You're not going," Locke told her simply. "With Alwood. If I have to drag you out of here kicking and screaming-"

"Calm down. Idiot." Haven held her head higher. "I didn't want to go with him either. I'm not going to. Especially not if he's tangled with Ewing. That's not why we came. We came to get access to tunnels or some shit, right? So I'm going to fucking get us that." Then she conceded a bit, "We're going to fucking get those. I'm going to talk to Bea and you're going to actually be fucking useful and we'll figure out how to avoid Alwood all together. When does he leave?"

"I don't know. I-"

"Useless." She shoved him this time, but it was playfully, maybe, and Locke pushed her back, maybe too hard, but he was kind of tired of being smacked that day. Still, when she sighed, he gave one back, only nodding his head when she ordered, "Find out. Okay?"

It felt weird, when she turned her head up to press her lips to his, and Locke laughed some into the kiss, which got him shoved again, but he only shook his head.

"Doesn't feel right," he told her. "Here. With...this you."

She snorted, shoving passed him then, "if you could make yourself taller-"

"I'm going to find out when he's leaving," he insisted. "And if we haven't figured a way to make sure he's not taking you with him-"

"You worry too much, Locke." And she clipped his name the way that he liked. Poised to head right out of the shed, she only reminded, "Do what I told you and everything will be alright."

She was agitated though, Haven was, when they departed. Jumpy. She shivered in the pond that evening even though it was rather sticky out and the feeling typically comforted her. Without Shae there to speak with, the past few days she'd spent her time in the pond staring off into the darkness alone, but now she found herself glancing around at the other women, watching them, perhaps a bit awkwardly, but she couldn't help it.

If Alwood was going to take the other women...then why hadn't anyone told her about it? Tipped her off?

It wasn't as if the day went much better for Shae, however.

If the hierarchy was fractured down in The Factory, than its penthouse counterpart didn't fair much better. The women downstairs were closed off and frequently hard to read, but upstairs, everyone seemed to be a mixture of strung out, hoping for a way to end their current predicament, while also being aware that the only true end to it would only lead to further turmoil.

For as much animosity as they all held for the guards and Monty, perhaps closer to some's chests than others, there seemed to also be a bit of fear over falling out of favor. It was important to be important to at least one of the men that violated them. It meant staying upstairs and not dealing with whatever laid beyond the upstairs.

Nothing good laid beyond the upstairs.

Shae didn't have a lot of interest in Haven, perhaps none at all, but the idea of her facing whatever they were all naturally fearful of…

She couldn't let that happen.

So she'd thrown herself at Locke to make sure that he got the message. That he understood.

Haven, under no circumstance, could be taken by Alwood.

In doing so, however, she'd opened herself up to be easily disliked and distrusted by the others around. She was one of the new three and, already, had been taken a shine to by one of the guards. Enough so that she was willingly throwing herself at him, no invitation.

"It's the smart thing to do," Lize remarked that day as Shae laid in one of the beds, softly breathing as she faced the wall and the other woman sat on the opposite bed, close to the nearby open window, smoking with little abandon. "Getting close to him. That new one. What's his name?" When Shae didn't answer, she only only snorted and said, "Doesn't belong here. Won't stick around long at all. Or he will. It's weird; when you come in, so unprepared and weak, you either buckle or lash out. Neither would be such a good thing for you though, huh?"

Shae had spent the past few hours with snide comments and odd looks, but so far, even including the two women that she'd been brought upstairs with, she found Lize to be the most at ease with her. The woman seemed to have a confidence the others didn't, a resolve.

She knew how bad it had been, elsewhere. Alluded to it. And Shae didn't blame her for these sentiments. The others that had come to base from Ewing's manor told of worse locations than his, even, and while she'd escaped during her original time under before truly experiencing the worst of it, the horror stories were real enough. Experiencing them or not.

And perhaps just as frightening, the idea of something was. If not more so. To think about, to dread, to comprehend and yet not fully realize the reality of what was to come.

"It's intimidating, I guess," Lize sighed some, around her smoke. "When you first get up here. It feels like all the roles have already been assigned, but… Men like shiny things. New things. I guess we do too. But… It's just different. Everything here's so fucking different."

Turning, Shae took in a breath, watching the other women smoke for a moment as she gathered her thoughts before remarking, "Maybe I have a plan."

"Yeah?" Lize seemed to snort. "Do you think we all don't? I had a plan. Second I was in here. This stupid apartment. Get Monty all hot for me. So hot for me that I'll get to stay here. Is that your plan for that guard? Here's to it then. It'll all fuck us both in the ass soon enough."

"Maybe I got a better plan than that," Shae kept up.

"Involving that guard?"

"Involving a lot more than the stupid guard."

Lize sighed then, her eyes finally meeting Shae's as she questioned, "What kinda plan would this be? Exactly?"

"Maybe," Shae said, "the kind that involves layers."

"Layers?"

"Yeah," Shae agreed with a nod. "The kinda that involve coming here on purpose. To make a change."

"You come here on purpose you're a fucking idiot," the other woman assured her. "Sucking off some guard in hopes of not getting a swollen eye isn't a plan and isn't going to change shit." When Shae's gaze remained, again, Lize had to sigh, going to rub out her cigarette on the windowsill ashtray while taking a peak out at the darkness lying beyond. "Maybe I did have a real plan. That first time. Not here. The other places I was. A few plans. I was fourteen, the first time I was snatch up. And I was red hot, constantly, thinking about how to lash out and kill these stupid fucking people. I could feel my magic then, still, just bubbling under the surface and I just thought, if I could find a way around the block, around this damn mark, then… But years passed and now-"

"There's no way around it," Shae spoke again, finally, shifting to sit up. "Unless you know the magic to remove it. Or have a magic that isn't naturally blocked by it."

"Then how the fuck does your plan work?" Lize asked. "Without magic?"

Shaking her head, Shae told her, "I'm not a mage."

"Then fucking what?" Leaving the now collapsed butt in the ashtray, she turned to fully face Shae. "You don't even have any muscle behind what you're talking about doing?"

"You don't have to be a mage to get something accomplished." Shae leveled her gaze. "And maybe I do have one, anyways. That can bypass the mark."

"What do you-"

"I know someone, downstairs, with the other women," Shae divulged with a nod of her head. "She's rallying their support."

"Those old bitches?"

"They hold some power."

"What power? Huh?" Lize seemed done with her then, turning on her heel to walk back out of the room. "None of us have power. Not even the people who are supposed to."

Shae lazed around in bed for the beginning of the evening, waiting for Monty to inevitably find his way back in, steal away one of the other women, and then cause the slow dispersing of the others. He was too drunk for much when he stumbled in that night and most everyone was thankful when he passed out rather early.

Most others seemed to take the same route and the apartment cooled off rather soon. And, as the other women found themselves falling into their own beds, Shae emerged to find something to eat. Anything. Find a drink. An actual drink, like water.

Then the waiting started.

Everything got fucked, because of her outburst with Locke, fine, but it was already screwed up. The timing. Everyone's. All because of Alwood and his assistant's arrival. Including the schedule of the teenage girl that came around to clean up.

So she'd been up. Early in the day. Hoping to be in and out without being much of a bother to any of the women or the Master. But then Locke came in and Shae launched herself at him and that one guard, Shae had only seem him a few times, snatched the teen up and ran her out.

And not before knocking into her either.

Shae wouldn't be quick to forget about that.

It was she was sinking into one of the couches though, hunched over and replaying the day's actions that she heard the door to the apartment begin to rattle, a lock being slipped and unlocked.

Then there she was. The meek teenager that had been drug out of the place only hours before. She took one step into the apartment, shutting the door carefully behind herself, before noting the presence still lingering around. At first, as they always did when she stumbled upon someone, they fell to the ground, a deep breath taken and held. At her realization that it was Shae, however, something seemed different and she instead released the held breath as she approached the older woman.

It wasn't as if they'd spoken much. Truly not at all. Shae discovered her that first night and they'd seen one another, the few since, and that was all. And she'd informed the woman, that first night, that they weren't meant to speak with one another.

So there was still a bit of hesitance, as the young teen approached, a wringing of her hands as she squared up to address Shae.

"I wanted," she whispered softly, "to apologize. About before. My father… He shouldn't have struck you."

Shae had tensed up at first, uncertain about who might come into the door and didn't find herself relaxing at the approach of the teen. Instead, she only shifted some on the couch, eyeing her a bit before asking, "That guard is your father? The mean one?"

"He's not mean." The teen frowned. "He's just...intense."

"The intense," Shae gave in easily enough, "guard is your father?"

"The one who struck you, yes." Nodding down at her feet, the teen sighed some as she remarked, "He thinks that I'm still a little kid and that I don't know...what happens up here and… Sometimes he just treats me like a baby sometimes and-"

"Why does he bring you here, then?"

"W-What?"

"If he doesn't want you to be involved in all of this,"she questioned, "then when does he have you up here? Cleaning and stuff?"

She lifted her eyes then, eyes shining a bit as she frowned, replying simply, "Because I have to."

Shae frowned some as well, asking, "Why?"

"I… I should clean. And we shouldn't speak."

"Because," Shae offered, "you're not marked."

"Right."

"But...you have to be here? Cleaning up after us?"

"Please, just… I have to finish. What my father interrupted before."

Nodding, Shae shifted back on the couch, fixing her eyes on a specific point again and seeming to drift away. Her gaze wasn't as clouded as most that the teen saw, from the penthouse women, but it was close enough that, after a few of those deep, held breaths, she was able to get back to her main tasks at hand, filtering her jitters into her work.

The next morning, Haven wasn't quite able to do the same.

It wasn't unusual for her to find some reason to feel betrayed with others (she constantly seemed to view any action not perfectly in line with her own to be an act of treason), but fuck, she felt like she was just being fed to the damn wolves.

How could everyone seem to know what her fate was without properly warning her?

"Who's Alwood?"

She asked that over lunch that day. It was cloudy out, maybe a little damp, but there wasn't enough moisture for mud. At most their pants got a bit wet as they sat down for their meals of cold meat and stale bread. It was with her new, current friend that she found herself seated beside once more.

Bea choked there, for a moment, at the man's name, frowning some as Haven only stared at her with her cool eyes.

"Who told you about him?" the older woman asked and Haven only shrugged.

"Not you," Haven retorted and she only sighed some in response, taking the words on the chin.

"Why should I have? To worry you? On your final days here?" Bea shook her head. "For what reason? To worry you about something you can't control? No. Fuck it. If you're going there, it'dda been better for you to not worry about the inevitable."

Sour, but still somewhat reflective, Haven stare down at her lunch in silence for a few moments before saying, "But who is he? And why should I be so freaked out about him?"

"I've never been," Bea was quick to reply then, "but the things I've heard… He's not like here. We have a job, we work. Don't fuck around, you're safe. That's all there is to it. But there… You're not...working. Or at least not creating something. To sell."

"I was somewhere else. Before here." And Haven wasn't sure why she said it, swallowing some as she remarked, "I was at the Ewing manor."

"Ewing?"

"It was the first place I went," Haven admitted with a bit of a shrug. "Months ago. I, uh, didn't fit in there though and he shipped me out."

"You have shit luck, kid."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't know?" She whistled then, Bea did, a finger sneaking beneath the patch to itch at her eye socket as she considered the poor fate of the young woman before her. "It was only a few months ago that there was an..." And she paused once more, though this time was to glance around at the other women strewn about. Softer then, she remarked, "They had an uprising there. At the Ewing manor."

Haven blinked and she knew that she should be feigning some surprise, some sadness, disappointment, over not having been lucky enough to experience it herself, but instead a slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she questioned, "An uprising?"

"Ewings were out at the time, from what I heard," the older woman offered with a shrug. "Weren't hurt or nothing. But a bunch of the people escaped. Not quite sure how."

"How'd you hear about it?" Haven asked and, again, she got a shrug.

"People talk," Bea remarked simply. "But...I heard it from Wanda."

"Wanda," Haven repeated softly with a nod and glanced over at the woman in question.

Wanda was one of the main three. The leaders, it seemed, of The Factory women. Wanda, Gyu, and another just called T. They sat together, spoke together, and seemed to never rightly even give Haven a second glance, which was a damn shame, because it was really harping on her chance of infiltrating them.

But as she whispered one of their names then, her typically blue eyes falling over to where the three sat, together, talking softly, Haven felt a slight shiver creep up her spine.

"They know a lot," she remarked then to Bea who, seemingly uncomfortable, only gave a slow nod.

"Been here long enough," she replied.

"Think they'll tell me about Alwood?"

"W-What?" Bea frowned then, finger slipping back out from under neath the patch as she held it up instead, shaking it in a way Haven wasn't unaccustomed to, as her own mother had done something quite similar for the majority of her life. "You cannot approach them. If they want you, they would approach you."

"Who cares what they want?" Haven retorted. "If they're the reason I'm going to Alwood-"

"What makes you say that?"

And she gave the other woman a heavy gaze then.

"I'm not stupid," Haven said with a frown. "They're the ones who picked, aren't they? Who got to go upstairs? Who had to stay down here? And the women who stay down here get drug off to this Alwood's place, right?"

"It's not that simple."

"But it is."

"It wasn't a slight to you." She even shook her head then, down at her food, Bea did, before remarking, "It's just how things are."

"And how are things?" Haven retorted. "At Alwood's place? Because from what I hear-"

"Don't," she only insisted, "approach them. Leave them be. And when it's your time to go-"

"Tell me," Haven insisted. "If… If I'm marching into something worse than this, if I have no choice than to go, then I want to know what it's like. What's waiting there. You shouldn't get to decide for me, whether I know or not. How's that fair?"

"Did they mark you? Bring you across the boarder? Buy and sell you?"

"No, but-"

"We all do what we have to do." The time for lunch was coming to a close and, as the three women were getting to their feet, most others were doing the same. Bea, as she shoved up, let out of a bit of a groan that was quickly followed by a short huff. Still, her eyes were on Haven, watching the girl father her own trash before remarking, "I'll tell you though. About Alwood. If you truly want to know."

While Haven was rushing off to gather this information, however, Locke was searching out a person to gather some of his own. With Monty indisposed (or, honestly, hungover), his options were rather limited and the two or three guys he did feel at least somewhat friendly with weren't in much shape to divulge anything about Alwood.

He came around sometimes, checked in on things, took some of the young women, and disappeared for a few months again. Nothing much of interest. None of them were honestly from Bosco; they were like him, from another land with different practices.

"It's a learning experience," Anderson had offered him over breakfast that morning, when Locke mentioned how Wick had exploded at him. "Things are here are so...strange, I guess. But once you get used to them, you can't imagine them any other way."

And he seemed like a nice guy. Anderson did. He smiled with all his teeth and had a jaunty way of walking. He talked sometimes, when they were sharing a meal, about his mother back home and his little sister, and how he was going to get some leave, eventually, to go see them. To check in on them. It'd been nearly half a year since he last had and Locke felt a weak spot in his stomach, when he thought of his parents and Lily, waiting back at home for him.

But thoughts crept in, checking Locke on his own feelings, when he was comparing the other guards to himself. Because Anderson did seem like a good guy and he spoke as if he were, but when Locke was sneaking out of the penthouse that night, was Anderson not one of the ones tangled up with the bruised body of a marked? Captive? Slave woman?

It made his stomach hurt at times, it did Locke's, because this wasn't the way he was raised to think. To consider. You took a job, learned who the bad person was, took them out or reformed them, and never considered the variables. Their lives. Their personal affects and what might push them to their current objective.

There was right or wrong. Black and white. And while he knew that wasn't untrue here, that Anderson and the other guards, that Monty himself, were all absolutely in the wrong, sometimes…

Sometimes…

"Uh, excuse me? Do you think I can speak with you for a minute?"

Locke found himself knocking at an open door during his afternoon break, staring into Monty's usual office. But it wasn't the man he was looking for, no, as he knew he was still sleeping off his bender upstairs, much to the annoyance of the agitated Wick. Rather, for most of the day Alwood had been in there, going over some things with Wick it sounded like, as well as requiring a communication lacrima brought into him at one point.

Now, however, the man had requested to be taken into town by Wick and one of the older guards, hoping to have a drink with them.

Though Locke couldn't imagine willingly having a drink with Wick, it did take the air of seriousness out of the place a bit and, though the outdoor guys were still doing their rounds, there was a sense of ease placed upon those stuck inside that gloomy day.

Locke found himself braving a true source in regards to Alwood; his pretty assistant from before.

And Locke felt confident enough in his relationship (and the fact that, you know, the other woman was fucking one of the slave traders, just about) to admit that the other woman was pretty. There. After toiling with this admission, solely to himself the night before, he was now ready to face her again, a few days later, and hopefully not get as flustered as he had the day he ran into her.

Locke had...a problem when it came to women. He always had. His father told him, when he was younger, that he was just naturally goofy around them because it was his way of drawing their favor. His way, his father claimed, was a quiet one, much more rooted in a mysterious type of allure. But Locke, after spending the majority of his formative years around girls, just wasn't able to cultivate such a persona for himself.

So he was dorky and kind of unwittingly sweet to most women he encountered. It worked for him. Fit his natural style. And he couldn't quite help it, the way his face flushed as the woman in question, in that moment, nodded him into the room.

She was very busy, shifting through a stack of papers, but consented to speaking with him with the only caveat being, "Shut the door behind you."

Doing so, Locke took a careful glance over the woman, clearing his throat some before asking, "What are you doing?"

"Is that what you came to ask?" But before he could answer, she sighed some, reaching up to adjust her glasses though she only continued to stand over the desk, looking over a specific document. "Your master, Monty, has not followed the proper procedure that my own left for him to adhere to, in the past few months, in regard to a few...assets. He's much more interested in wasting his hours with the women he's rewarded himself with instead."

This felt like a rather blunt, while true, assessment of the man that had been danced around by the others that served the young master and Locke found himself taken a bit aback, honestly. But she had a wry look about her then, the woman did, her gaze beckoning him forwards.

"I don't expect you to agree with that assessment, of course," she assured the man with a slight grin. "Surely, it's my master that is in the wrong, no? Giving such difficult tasks to such a young man?"

"I… I'm a guard." Locke even shook his head. "I don't really have much a say in any of that, or an opinion, do I?"

"Maybe not," she agreed with a hum, "but I think you're question should hinder more on whether you should or not."

Locke gazed into her eyes for a moment, taking note of the slight glint in them before saying, "Can I ask you about him? Your master?"

"You're a guard. Of quite a high ranking member of the Bosco families." She nodded some. "It's your job, I think, to at least be a bit inquisitive. I was about you."

"Really?"

"Really." Again, she nodded. "Ask, then. About Master Alwood."

"Right." Locke coughed some, down at his feet, before raising his gaze to match hers. "what is it that you guys trade in?"

"Trade in?"

"That's what the houses do? Right?" He felt quite silly for asking, but knew it was the only way to truly understand. "I'm not from here and-"

"I know."

"You know?"

"I," she assured him, "know."

"Then can you explain it to me?" he asked.

Sighing some, she straightened from her position bent over the desk and instead focused in on him fully. She adjusted her glasses once more before questioning, "Do you know about the top families in Bosco? The rich and powerful?" At the shake of his head, she gave him a sympathetic smile. "They're a bit hard to remember, but surely you know at least about the one that you're in right now, yes?"

"W-Well-"

"You are currently contracted under Harval manor," she told him with a confident nod. "The Harval's have been in control of this portion of the Kingdom since the reign of King Bogler. Legend has it, the original Master Harval fought in the war between all of the continents, under the allegiance of Seven- but traded in his loyalty to their kingdom for this one, slaying Seven's king and royal family in their sleep. He and his men changed the tide for Bosco and in repaying that debt, King Bogler gifted them this land; with soil too hard for much farming and access to the waters too distant."

"Wait," Locke frowned. "Why-"

"They killed their last king," she said simply. "So why would he reward them, knowing what could inevitably happen again? Still, a deal is a deal and he gave them this land to do with what they wished, never thinking they'd do much at all; but the Harval's were hardly. And they knew that there had to be something they could do with this land; so they built tunnels, leading all over the Kingdom, and found ways to deal in a local root to the region. And, when they were cracked down upon, they used their tunnels to export it out of the country as well. Lasted over a century. It was only recently that it was disrupted under the current reign of the Kingdom and the family, hardy as they are, had to find a way to reinvent themselves, as you are seeing the complications of, currently."

But Locke found he didn't care much for Monty's family background. Instead, still keeping the woman's gaze, he asked, "What about Alwood?"

She let out a bit of a soft sigh as she assured the man, "The Alwoods, as one of the most respected and feared families in the Kingdom and beyond, have always found themselves most profitable when they focus on buying and selling the one thing that will never find itself falling out of favor. No matter how kingdoms such as yours right to do so."

"W-What?" He frowned at her. "How do you know where I'm from?"

"Fiore? It was simple enough," she assured him. "I just asked Wick. From there, I was able to further dig into it. Our countries have a rather...sordid history and as a buff of it, I find myself in a bit of the know when it comes to these things. I denoted the hint of a marking, just beneath the sleeve of your shirt. Working my way through guild emblems and then some contacts I have in Fiore, it wasn't hard to discover your true identity. But your purpose for being here, Mr. Redfox, is far more intriguing to me."

He felt sick. He'd felt sick, the entire time he'd been abroad, but Locke couldn't help it then as his hand came up to clutch at the opposite, upper arm, gripping the fabric hiding the majority of his fairy emblem tightly.

"What the fuck?" He couldn't help it. He even glared at her. "Why were you looking into me?"

"Why were you hiding your identity?"

"Like I have to fucking tell you anything."

"You could always just inform your superior guard-"

"I… It's complicated." Locke shook his head, having to think quickly and, for once, Haven's near constant placement at the forefront of his mind. "My father's a top mage. In my guild. Back home. And I...I had to get away from that. I needed to. To find my own way. I knew someone in another guild, one near the coast, who said that he'd done contract work out here and he could set me up. But my father's so well-known that I just thought… If I could just come up with another identity..."

Their gazes were still locked then and he dared her, Locke did, to look away, to rebuke what he'd said, but the woman only seemed to sight after a few beats with a roll of her eyes.

"For all the time I spend studying them," she offered simply, "I'll never quite understand the male ego."

"Then you won't tell him? Wick? About-"

"About what? That some young guy from another country goes by a different name in his one of origin? I imagine most who pass through here do."

"Yeah, but-"

"My job," she told him then, "is to protect Mr. Alwood. At all costs. Your threat level has been assessed and, fortunately for you, Mr. Redfox, it's hardly even measurable."

He frowned then, but it was different and, slowly, losing his tension, Locke questioned, "Then why did you spend so much time looking into me?"

"What do you me?"

"You won't be here much longer," he pointed out. "Will you?"

"Well," she clicked her tongue, "at week's end we are scheduled to head back home for a short spell."

"Then what difference do I make?" he asked.

Finally, he did get her to break, maybe, just a bit. Looking off, she hummed some for a moment before assuring the man, "Purely business."

"Was it?"

"What was it that you wanted from me, again, Hux?" It felt purposeful, when she went back to his assumed name. Looking back down at her papers, she assured him, "I am very busy."

Locke released a held breath before saying, "You were going to tell me about the families."

"Was I?"

"Alwood, at least."

"Why? Already bored of your job here? Making sure old women get their garments sewed properly?" She rolled her eyes down at a document. "You wouldn't have the stomach for Alwood's place."

He just stood there though, watching her for a moment, as if willing her eyes to meet his once more and, when unable to force them into doing so, he had to conceded, "I, uh, guess I found out what I needed to."

This didn't mean that the man wasn't wracked with nerves, however, the rest of that day and bleeding into the next. However, he did have some information to divulge to Haven the next afternoon, when after counting the hours, he was able to get back to the woman.

He arrived earlier than her and was a bit jumpy when she slipped into the shed.

"Something happened," was his only greeting. "That woman I told you about before, Alwood's assistant?"

"Fuck her, did you?"

"Haven-"

"My information takes precedence," she retorted simply and how silly of him was it to pretend otherwise? Locke bit back complaints, however, as she said, "Bea told me about Alwood. And fuck yeah, I'm going there."

Because he had new complaints.

"Haven," he started, but she only shook her head.

"You and Shae are breaking ground here," she reasoned. "And I'm not. At all."

"Pretty big admission." Locke shook his head. "But I'm sure you're just saying that because-"

"This place is chump change."

"Of course."

"Alwood is the epicenter of sex slavery distribution."

"Say that again with a straight face."

It was her turn to glare, that light in her eyes disappearing as she complained, "This is serious, Locke."

"Then be serious, Haven."

"I am."

"You were just crying to me two days ago-"

"I didn't cry." Then she thought to revise. "I don't cry."

"-about how terrified you are," he kept up, "that Alwood and Ewing might be conspiring to capture you and now you're all gung-ho about going?"

"No," she retorted with a clicking of her tongue. "I'm making the best of a shit situation."

"The fuck you are." He stepped up to her, closer to her in the already tight space, and glared down into her eyes. "You're fucking a failing at getting shit done here and think that you're going to just knock it out of the park, huh? In an ever tougher to crack place? You're fucking delusional. You always have been. And we all just let you get away with-"

"Are you even going to listen to me? Or be mad for no reason?"

"I'm not mad. At you. I'm mad at myself for letting you even come here in the first-"

"Alwood's not after me because Ewing sicced him on me."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I mean, I can never be a hundred percent certain."

"Haven-"

"But," she insisted then as she crossed her arms over her chest stiffly, "I do understand now, a bit more, how the girls are divvied up."

Locke didn't find he quite cared but, thoroughly exasperated, he had no choice than to listen to his girlfriend's explanation.

"Alwood and Monty's father go way back," Haven offered with a shrug of her shoulders. "Or they did, I guess. Monty's father was the youngest of four boys in the family and not meant to inherit the manor, so his parents sent him away when he was still just a kid, along with the other two non-eldest boys, as well as a sister, to live with some of the other top families in the Kingdom. The family was in financial straits and they were meant to endear themselves the places they were sent, in order to gain favor that their family was falling out of.

"But when Monty's father was still a boy, they had that last Great War, and the oldest brother was drafted and died. Which meant the estate should have gone to the next in line, but Alwood, who was coming into his own estate at the time, had an idea; he could make a financial deal with Monty's grandfather to insure that the boy he'd grew up with came into power at the same time as him and, together, they could maintain these two portions of Bosco together and possibly even overtake some of the lesser families. They ended up extending their reach beyond their original land holds and keeping Monty's family from falling under after they had to change trades."

"That's great, Haven," Locke finally cut in with a frown. "But what the fuck does that have to do with-"

"It wasn't that long ago, Locke, that they absorbed the lesser families, stealing the land away from their original holders." Haven shrugged some. "Bea told me that, when she was growing up, she worked for one of the families during the separations. And it didn't go over well. The lesser families are very deeply entrenched to the higher ones and there's still resentment, to this day, towards their current higher houses."

"What," he finally griped, "are you saying?"

"That it can work," she told him with a bit of a glee, maybe, in her voice. "What Astra originally wanted. She wanted to sow distrusts for the system, right? In the current citizens? But then we told her that it had to be through the silent that this happened, and it does, I know it does, but…if we could get some of the lesser families to turn on the higher-"

"You're," he told her bluntly, "not going to be able to do that, Haven, as a fucking sex slave."

"Who says I'm going to be one?"

"Probably Alwood, when he fucking drags you out of here."

"He's dragging," she reminded simply, "this me out of here. Right? This dark haired woman. But if I transform into someone else, sneak back across the boarder, have Astra remove my mark, come back over the way that you did, get a job at Alwood's place-"

"How many leaps did you have to make for this to even logically fit together in your mind?"

"I'm trying," she griped to him, "to make the best of a bad situation, okay? Because he's going to take me and...and..."

"What did that Bea woman tell you about Alwood's place?" Locke questioned then. "Haven?"

She was the one to take a step back from him for once, sighing some before remarking, "It's nothing good. Not like here or Ewing's place. It literally is just a holding pen, for women and some men, until one of the higher ranks picks you. It's supposed to be a place for better adjusted and prepared silent, more valuable."

"Then why were you chosen?" he questioned. "What about you makes them think that's a good fit?"

"Maybe," she retorted, "I look seasoned."

"I thought you said you were taking this seriously?"

"I am." Stifling a bit, she took another step away from him, turning now as she said, "Honestly, I think that it all has to do with those three women. The ones that I told you were the head of all the other women in The Factory. Bea told me that Alwood takes experienced women, but I don't really believe that. I think he might, from other areas, but here, he just takes Monty's leftovers as a favor. Think about it; we're not needed, are we? Me and Shae and the other women that were brought on? Not in The Factory. It operates fine without us. Monty buys young women for him and the guards then, when they're done with them, instead of wasting his time trying to sell them, he just has his father's old friend pick them up and sell them. He bought us in bulk and can't be bothered with properly filtering what comes in and out, but knows Alwood will just take care of it for him."

He'd considered her words carefully and, after a moment of thought, he said, "I'm still not letting him take you."

"Locke-"

"You knew full fucking well, Haven, that there is no way that I would agree to you allowing yourself to be taken to an other location, potentially sold even further away from us, all in hopes that you somehow manage to escape, make it back to Astra, get her to agree to your plan of then getting into Alwood's manor as a worker, to then overthrow it from the inside, something you weren't able to do here, at Harval manor, which she currently needs for its vast tunnel system."

She frowned. "Well, when you say it like that, it sounds fucking stupid."

"It sounded fucking stupid when you said it!"

"Don't yell at me, Locke, alright? These past few days-"

"Oh, you think they've been great for me? That any of this has been great for me?"

"Playing guard? And in an arcade? While getting drunk with your friend the rapist piece of shit? Can't be that hard."

He tensed then, sour, and when he recovered a step towards her, Haven returned it in kind.

"You fucking know what, Haven?" he growled and she was closer to him now, in height, which was fucked, because it was all fucked, it always had bee.

"What?" she retorted with just as much venom and Locke faltered first, this time, how it should be, as instead of glaring down some more or putting her in his place, his head fell to his own and rested against hers.

Taking in a deep breath, Locke whispered, "I don't think I can keep doing this."

Haven lost some of her annoyance, but it was only to find some more. This kind, however, was a softer annoyance and, as she shifted away from him, it was to let his head fall to her shoulder instead. As he let a ragged breath out onto her shoulder, the woman only tentatively reached an arm up and out to wrap around his shoulders.

"You're stronger than this," she told him softly and he agreed, maybe, but still only shook his head a bit.

"I can't," he told her simply, "look out for you here. Or Shae. And it's fucking with my head because-"

"We don't need you to."

"It's why I'm here."

"You're here," she told him softly, "because really fucked up people have spent centuries enslaving other people. You're here because innocent people are being abused and since we were kids, you've always sworn to take up for the lowest among us. You're doing this because it's the fucking right thing to do, Locke, not because it's the easiest."

He'd closed his eyes there, for a moment, but blinked them open suddenly as he recalled to the woman, "She knows my name."

"Who does?"

"Alwood's assistant."

"So?"

"No, Have." And he lifted his head. "My real name. She called me Redfox."

"What?"

Nodding, he said, "She fucking tracked me or something. Saw a bit of my guild marking and-"

"Are we boned?" Haven questioned. "Fuck, Locke, why didn't you tell me this to begin with?"

And he took a moment, another one, because holy shit did he need it before, with a shake of his head remarking, "Have no idea. Stupid me." Still, with a sigh, he admitted, "But I don't think we are. She seemed to just be kind of...negging me, I think."

"Whating you?"

"Like...purposely bothering me, to try and get under my skin."

"Flirting with you," Haven decided and he only shrugged some. Groaning loudly, she turned from him and slammed a fist into another. "Damn it. You're fucking compromised."

"And you're," he added, "getting shipped out at the end of the week. She told me Alwood and her are heading out then. I imagine that's when he takes the women with him."

"Then we really are boned."

They shared a look, not a glare, and with it both seemed to collapse at the same moment, sinking to their lowest together, Haven falling with her back against a wall and Locke only sitting beside her, chewing at his lips.

"What was our original goal?" she asked suddenly, but it only got a shrug out of the man. This made her reach over and shove at him before saying, "What was our goal?"

"To get access to the tunnels, damn," he complained with a frown her way. "What's your point?"

"How do we do that?"

"Haven-"

"We have to get Monty and the guards out," she told him simply, "and escape with as many of the silent that will come with us. And if we somehow managed to take the manor-"

"There's no way we could hold it."

"Fine," she conceded. "We don't hold the manor and we flee into the tunnels. That's the plan, right? And there is no walking this one back. Bea knew about the Ewing uprising. That means that the information is getting out at least somewhat; people are escaping. And that can't be ignored."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that we're not boned yet," she insisted. "If we can get them off the manor, all of them, before the week's end, and get all of the women to come with us, into the tunnel system-"

"How, Haven? Huh? How do we pull this off before-"

"I don't fucking know, Locke," she retorted with a glare. "But I know that I don't give up. That I never give when it's worth so fucking much."

"Yeah, and that got you killed before."

"Greed," she replied, "got me killed before. Selfishness got me killed before. This isn't either of those. If I want this, it's because I want better for other people. To protect the people that I came here to free. I'm not running, not yet; and I know that you're not either."

He took in a breath, a long one, and let it out just as slow. Haven, in return, only watched this with a soft gaze and, when he nodded along with her command, she only reached out to tap his cheek.

"I can see why she spent all that time tracking down your secret identity," she offered as he only stared. "You look so cute now, with your little haircut and everything-"

"Don't mock me," he warned, but she only shook her head.

"Everyone likes you, Locke," she assured him. "They always have. You're special that way."

Her hand fell from his cheek and Locke reached out with his own, just barely gracing his thumb over her cheek when they felt it. Heard it. From outside the shed. The sound of swift movement and neither had much time to react before the door to the shed was being slammed open.

"Well," came the thick voice of one of the guards, "what do we have here, huh?"

Locke shoved up, nearly tripping over his own feet as he momentarily felt like a caught teen again, having to blush and explain how, exactly, a situation wasn't so bad to his parents. Haven, however, stayed where she was momentarily, far more fearful than the man. While the optics might cause him, as a guard, some discomfort, the situation could quickly turn rather sticky for her, especially if she was intent with not revealing her hidden abilities. Balling her fists, she grit her teeth and focused on a specific point in the shed, refusing to allow her eyes to graze any of the other men's.

"It's not," Locke insisted as his mind caught up to him, "what you think. I was just-"

"Pretty obvious what you were doin', man," came a sorta snicker from one of the other guys. There were three of them, crowded around the doorway to the shed and Haven pegged each of them, from what Locke had told her about his coworkers.

She was staring at Anderson, a young wiry guy who'd just made that wisecrack with a bit of nervous laughter and, behind him, it looked like the other guy Locke's age, Halbert, hung back with equal unease. But it was one of the older guys, but not the cold, reserved Wick. No. Instead it was a dark headed man with a gnarly scar that crossed from his right cheekbone down to his jawline.

Crigin was like Wick, or so Locke thought. Had been around forever and seemed more incline to the old ways of how things were run. However, unlike Wick, he'd taken part that night with the other guards in the penthouse debauchery. He didn't seem to like most of the young guards nor the young master, but most of all, he absolutely hated Locke.

Mainly, from what the guy could tell, because he was the newest meat, but his budding relationship with the boss was doing little to help things.

"Wanda know you're out here, little girl?" Crigin questioned, but Haven refused to answer him. She couldn't. Because if she opened her mouth, she'd surely do herself in. How could she not? It was an intense battle just not to add an affliction of her own to his scarred flesh. His eyes traced Haven and she felt filthy, just about exactly how she'd felt with Ewing. Her silence though only seemed to anger the man and he growled, "Answer me."

He seemed to realize his own importance then, Locke did. He protected his girlfriend from fantastical monsters and evildoers out to steal her life; she took care of protecting her own honor. She always had. But with her behind him, at his feet now, Locke felt a strange sensation well up inside of him and he imagined that Haven would hate it if she knew. The way that it went beyond just mages then, partners, having one another's backs.

As he watched Crigin openly ogle his girlfriend, Locke could have killed him, right on the spot. Not for any prior, obvious, miss deeds, but purely for the one of causing such discomfort and implying such awful thoughts towards someone Locke loved.

"Leave her alone." Still, Locke was well aware of the situation brewing before them and only hoped to defuse it. Taking a step towards the other guards, he insisted, "We were just-"

"You think that you can just get away with anything you want, huh?" Crigin snorted so deeply that it sounded like it hurt. "Because you hang around that little shitstain Monty?"

"C-C'mon, Crigin." Anderson took a step back, nearly running into Halbert. "We should really just leave them-"

"It's a goddamn rule," Crigin kept up, "that you don't fuck around with The Factory women."

"Who the fuck would want to?" Anderson continued to try, hoping a mood lightning joke would break the palpable feeling that hung around. Then he glanced at Haven and offered, "I mean, usually."

"You don't get to come around here, boy," Crigin told Locke then, "and fuck with the order of things. This bitch belongs to The Factory and, soon enough, Master Alwood. You wanna get tangled in all that? Huh? Can't keep your dick in your pants long enough to even learn the rules around here, huh?"

But then, as everyone only seemed to hold their breaths and anticipate the worst, something new seemed to cross the older man's mind for the first time and he took a further step into the shed, the glinting in his eye somehow different now.

"You were gonna fuck her? Boy?" He nodded down at Haven, Crigin did, a dark smirk playing at his dry lips as he added, "Then do it."

For all the bravado and joking up in the penthouse that three men before Locke had done only a few days prior, each seemed to lack any such joy in that moment. Even Crigin, for as into the suffering he was evoking as the man was, even he wasn't deriving true joy from the moment. Rather, he was quite blatantly reveling in the chaos.

Locke bowed his head then, breathing ragged as he checked himself, as he had to, in that moment, keep it together, but the moment seemed too long for Crigin and, while the other two still hung back, he moved to take another step.

"Fuck it," the older man remarked as he seemed done toying with Locke and instead focused his gaze in on Haven once more. "I'll do it."

And his arm shot out, Locke's did, but it was reinforced now as metal plating coated it and he caught caught Crigin in the gut. He hadn't punched him, but rather stopped him short, blocking his easy passage to the woman. Locke couldn't look at her now, he didn't want to. Seeing Haven hamstrung, defenseless, even if it was by her own volition, wouldn't do much for his psyche at the moment.

"You think you're the only one," Crigin whispered harshly as, after sucking in a breath, he took a step back and tensed a fist himself, the soft glow of a magic circle appearing beneath his open palm, "that knows a bit of magic, boy?"

"I'm not," Locke told him simply, "your boy."

Haven was ready, at any moment, to spring to life herself. The fact she wasn't at the moment made her sick to her stomach as, rather than fear of the moment, she was instead entrenched in this resentment over their placements. Their actions. Locke guarding over her wasn't wholly out of place, but it came from a place of weakness for her now and she so rarely felt the latent sexism involved in her avenue of employment. Sure, maybe some viewed her actions on the occasion as unladylike or unbecoming, but overall, her personality no better fit a man than it did a woman. As far as general acceptance and appearances went.

But it existed, here, in Bosco, in ways that it was absent in Fiore. Especially in the silent.

If the roles were reversed and it was Locke lying there, on the floor, she'd...she'd…

"You're going to fight," Anderson questioned then, voice deeper it seemed and tone heavier, "over a fucking marked? Honestly?" Then, when this didn't seem to get the men to back away from one another, he added, "What if Wick sees?"

Locke honestly didn't give a fuck in that moment, but Crigin had enough cognitive functions to realize it wouldn't exactly go his way, whether he accurately pinned the majority of the problems off on the new guy or not.

As he dropped his arm though, Crigin only sneered some, deciding not to give in exactly, but change his approach.

"Someone should fucking hear about this," he decided and his next few words did bring Haven's gaze, finally, onto the man. "Wanda. Gyu. That fuckin' other one. Bet they'll have a lotta things to say to you, little girl."

She was getting to her feet then, Haven was, but Locke grabbed her arm the second she stood, holding her in place while Halbert took off with Crigin and Anderson just shook his head at Locke.

"You should go, Hux," Anderson suggested softly, glancing between the man and woman. "Crigin's a fucking creep, but… He's right. We're not supposed to mess with the women in The Factory. You know that. You were told that. Even if it doesn't feel the same because… You should go speak to Wick, before Crigin gets back to him. Or worse; one of the three women."

He didn't want to, Locke didn't, and even though they didn't speak, it was rather obvious to Haven. Leaving her alone in that moment didn't feel like an option, but she knew it was the only one, really. The situation would only be escalated further by them sticking together and, as Anderson's attention was taken by the commotion of Crigin's impending return with one of the women, Haven shook her arm free of her boyfriend's grip and instead shoved gently at his arm.

Looking down at her, Locke was quick to give her a shake of the head, some resistance, but her eyes, whether their typically captivating hue or not, were enough to get him to follow orders. He knew he was too amped, a liability, and though he wanted to be certain of her safety, the immediate, indefensible actions seemed to have washed over them and she could take care of herself.

If the worst of it came.

He didn't imagine, now slightly removed from the tension, that it would.

Anderson let the man leave, though he kept Haven boxed in the shed, and it took a lot out of Locke, as he heard Crigin behind him, to continue on, eyes straight ahead, while he crossed the lawn.

"-fucking wonderin' where he's been gettin' off to," he heard Crigin explain to one of the three women Haven had mentioned, the leaders in The Factory, as he led herstraight to the shed, "and when Halbert here told me about how he saw the two of them enterin' this shed, well, I thought it'd only be right, informin' you and all."

Locke kept on, because he had to, because something had only just occurred to him and though he knew that getting out in front of what was ahead, in regards to Wick, might play better, there was someone else that he thought could most benefit him in that moment.

Monty was in the arcade, because of course he was, and the guard on duty only rolled his eyes a bit, when Locke requested entry. Being granted it, Locke had to take a moment to place the other guy. He was at one of the arcade cabinets, but rather being hunched over it, he was off to the side of the glowing machine, back pressed against its cool surface, as he smoked.

"Uh, hey, man, can I-"

"Ask me something?"

"Yeah, actually."

He came to stand at the guy's side, but when Monty made no move to get up, Locke only sighed some as he sank down to his level.

"Get on Wick's bad side?" Monty questioned, but Locke only shook his head before relenting some.

"Not yet," he offered and the other guy snorted, but it was with a grin.

"He's been a guard," Monty told Locke, "since before I was a born. My mother, she didn't like him much, but my father did. Or at least thought that he was a tough guy to have around. Rose through the ranks and all that. But my mother… We used to have a signal, you know? Between the two of us? When he was going to be coming down a hallway or whatever shit." And he mimed some sort of gesture with his fingers, snickering some as with his other hand he brought his cigarette back up to his lips. Before taking a puff, he remarked, "What'd you do? Hux?"

"Nothing bad. I don't think. I just… There's this girl. A woman." He looked off. "In the… In The Factory. And-"

"Yeah." He shook his head. "Wick's not gonna be happy."

"I don't care about that," he assured the other man. "I just… She's going to go away, right? With Alwood? At the end of the week?"

"Guess so, yeah."

"I can't… I know it's only been a few weeks, but I really-"

"Fall for everyone you fuck? Fucking lecher."

"It's not like that."

"I can't fucking section all the women off for you, you know," Monty griped with a roll of his eye. "They breed you guys different, I guess. Back where you're from."

""It's just about respecting them," he insisted with a blush. "The women."

"Buy her back," Monty suggested. "Save up and I can get you a good deal, with my uncle, and-"

"Respect, man."

"They lie." He said this in a rather firm way, Monty did, as he looked Locke in the eyes for the first time. "You know? I thought I was in love too, the first time I-"

"It's not," Locke continued to insist, "like that."

"You sure?"

"I have, uh, someone, you know? Back home?" He returned the man's gaze, hoping for as much honesty to be reflected in his eyes as he could manage to fake. "I just need someone while I'm here."

"Two someones," Monty remarked and Locke sighed in response.

"Please?" he asked then. "I… I won't ever ask you for anything else."

"Think you're the first one to use that line?" Monty took another puff before getting to his feet. "But I do owe you, I guess. You helped me figure that level out, huh? You wanna keep this woman around? Fine. I'm fucking master. They do what I want here. Fuck Wick."

"Yeah," Locke agreed even though, at that moment, he couldn't even be sure what the man himself knew of the situation, much less thought. "Fuck Wick."

But unfortunately for Locke, his direct superior wasn't exactly the person most affected by the situation.

Monty was right in that he could do what he wanted, but when he approached Alwood that evening with a withdrawal in the amount of women he was offering up, the much older man only cautioned in a way his father might have what it would mean, to back out of an arrangement, so far into it.

"As your dear uncle," Alwood assured him that evening in the study as his assistant fluttered about and Monty tried hard to seem as sober as possible, "of course, I would forgive you for such a thing, but to make it a habit-"

"Master," his assistant butted in with a glance over. "Might I suggest something?" At her own's nod, she smiled warmly in Monty's direction as she said, "You have many toys, young master. If you wish to keep more than your fair share, perhaps it only right that you see to trade in another one. It would only be proper."

Alwood hummed some, from where he sat behind Monty's desk, as if he belonged. "Only proper."

So maybe the women weren't quite on their game, the past few days, as the round of women meant to be shipped out were already set. Alwood was there and, barring any major screw up, no one quite expected what would come out of Monty's mouth that evening, when he finally arrived back into the penthouse.

They all called out to him, even Shae, as they were meant to, in those overly perky and interested voices that were a strain, at times, between all that was shoved down into their systems. And while he wasn't particularly looking forward to giving anything of his up, he also had only just formed a bond with Hux, an actual one, he felt, and friendships were a give and take.

"Lize," he remarked as his eyes fell over where she was, seated on a couch beside Shae. At the sound of his voice, she'd sat to attention, holding down any bile at the thoughts of the impending night that would be coming her way, between her and the man, but it wasn't with lusty eyes that he stared out at her. Rather the bored and disinterested that she'd hoped for so long to avoid. "Head down to The Factory."