Mako's Message: Hey everybody! So, I've been working on this chapter, and I thought I was making pretty good progress, but I noticed just how long It's been since the last update. Now, I don't want to sacrafice quality but I also don't want to keep you waiting, so I cut it in half. This should, i hope, build a little more excitement while letting me take more care with the climax.

Hope you enjoy!


We went to stake out the place the other night, and we saw nothing.

Well, not NOTHING nothing. We saw a lot of people go in and out. There were a bunch of people sitting around talking in every room we could see. It kinda looked like a frat house or something...except without all the douche-baggery you'd expect. The only things that stood out as kinda weird was the fact that I didn't see a single person watch any television, use a computer, or...anything you might expect people to do. And that we were watching thm past 2am and I don't think we saw anyone go to sleep.

So of course that just makes it worse. Because there was nothing obviously suspicious we had no reason to go in. I still wanted to, but Dave kept telling me we couldn't. It was kinda like those little angel and devil conversations, except it was literally happening.

I just wanted to go in there and tear the place apart because I knew they were hiding SOMETHING and it was driving me nuts not knowing what the fuck was going on in there!

But Dave kept pointing out that we had no reason to go in. They were just people. Nobody had made any complaints. There was nothing criminal going on. They were just being people. Maybe a little odd, but nothing that justified us knocking on their door let alone kicking it in.

I was so frustrated that when I got home I ended up hitting the bag in the gym until I passed out.

I didn't wake up until Dave came looking for the next morning. He suggested we take the day off from training, but I said there was no fucking way. We'd already spent most of the night sitting and watching those bastards, and we were going to be doing it again today so I wasn't going to sit idle any more than I had to.

I did want to go earlier though. I thought maybe we'd see something new or different.

And we did. Kinda. We saw nothing. At all. For hours.

We didn't see any movement until about seven. And then people started getting up, and I was even later before anyone went in or came out. And then it was still just people sitting around and talking and doing whatever. And after a couple more hours of that I was ready to rip people apart.

I mean, there was SOMETHING going on in there, we just couldn't see it. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew it HAD to be happening in the basement and if I was right about that then we could camp there for our entire lives and not see anything.

So I decided to just go over and knock on their fucking door.

Dave tried to stop me, saying we couldn't just barge in there, that we needed to wait and watch.

I told him I wasn't going to "barge in", I was just going to get them to let me inside.

I pounded on a the door and someone came an opened it after a few seconds. Bastard looked right over me at first. Then he looked down at me and his eyes got all huge, but instead of slamming the door shut and screaming for everybody to run for their lives like I expected... he opened the door wider and said, "Hit Girl!? Wha-What brings you here?"

So I said, "He got some tweets about screams from this building."

He blinked and then said, "Screams? No, no screams. Not that I've heard, and certainly not from in here."

I said, "Do you mind if we come in and have a look?"

He said, "Yes. No! I mean, come right in." and he stepped aside and gestured for us to come inside.

The place actually looked pretty empty, but I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. I mean, I knew there weren't going to be loads of people in here, but there was less furniture as well. Guess the buffet table wasn't permanent.

So he let us look around the first floor a bit, but before we could get to the kitchen in the back, he asked, "Do you need to see the upstairs?"

Dave said, "We'd like to finish checking this floor first," but I'd gone into the next room before he finished the sentence.

The kitchen was cleaner than it was the last time I saw. Surprisingly so. I mean, you'd think with all the people in this building there'd be something sitting on the counters or in the sink.

I pointed to the elevator and said, "I want to see what's down there."

And the guy said, "Oh, that's the just basement, we use it for storage and laundry. But it's dark and dirty, there's spiders, and a water pipe broke the other night, you don't want to go down there."

In my head I was screaming "LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR!" but I just said, "Actually I do."

And he said, "Oh, well, uh... I guess I'll have someone go down and, uh, make sure the water is...drained. Would you like to see the upstairs in the meantime?"

I was about to say I didn't care about some water, when Dave jumped in and said, "Yes, please."

So the guy said, "Right this way then," and gestured back towards the front.

When we started up the stairs, Dave said, "We really appreciate you being so accommodating. We take these sorts of call very seriously."

And the guy is like, "Oh, no problem at all."

The second floor was just a bunch of bedrooms. There was a common area, but it wasn't much. The third floor was the same.

When we went back down I said, "Now the basement."

His eyes flicked around, and I saw a guy give a little nod, and he said, "Okay, if you really want to."

We went back to the kitchen and he walked us down to the elevator and hit the call button. We heard the motor start and then it clunked and went silent. The guy pressed the button again, but nothing happened. He pressed it a few more times and still nothing. He looked at us, smiled and shrugged, "I guess the flooding shorted it out."

I was seriously ready to punch this guy's smile out the back of his head, when Dave said, "It's alright. We don't need to see the basement. Everything seems in order here." I whipped around to glare at him but he just kept talking, "C'mon Hit Girl, I think we've spent enough time here."

And I REALLY wanted to argue with him about it, but there was something in the way he was looking at me that made me think I should just go with it. And arguing with him about it in front of people wouldn't have looked good. So as soon as we were away from the building I grabbed and spun him around said, "What the fuck?! We were right there! We could have made him take us down there!"

He said, "Yeah I know, but we didn't need him to."

I said, "Of course we did! He was lying through his goddamn teeth! We have to get down there!"

"Yeah, we do! But we don't need him taking us down there! Going down there could be really dangerous, and it's not like we'd have a lot of exits to choose from if something went bad. If we're going to go down there we need to do it without them knowing about it."

I smirked and said, "So, what? You want to sneak in?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow. During the day, when everyone is asleep."

I really should be getting some sleep, but I'm too excited about getting a chance to crack some skulls.