I'm back, sorry for the delay. There's no more gore for the time being. Thanks for reading.

Things between Gene and Vicky had improved since that day; there was no more awkwardness or embarrassment between them. It was as if the argument had cleared the air between them. But the thought of what happened to Alfred, and quite possibly what could happen to Gene, brought them to respect each other. During the day things would be the same, Gene would go to work and come home at the same time and Vicky would have to occupy herself with doing housework or some other mundane task while he was out. It had changed during the evenings though. They started spending time in each other's company, whether they were drinking themselves silly or just content to sit in the same room and watch the television.

As today was only Wednesday; this meant that Gene would be going without Vicky to the meeting and he wouldn't be back until the early hours of the morning. He never did this on Monday or Friday, it was only on a Wednesday. There was only one reason for this. He was meeting Alex. She guessed that they would spend hours on end flirting and talking about absolutely nothing, whilst the drink flowed freely. Just like they had done her first time in Luigi's. Then the night would end with Gene driving her back to her flat before coming back here and falling asleep on the sofa.

In the morning, he would never say what they did or talked about. She had asked him once last week, but the amount of abuse and threats that she got from him made her rethink asking him about it again.

However, she couldn't wait for Friday. It was the day that she could see Ste. The last time she went to the meeting, Gene had been with Chris and Ste so she had sat with Shaz all night. She'd responded in all the right places, but she wasn't paying attention at all. She was too busy making sly glances at Ste and sometimes even catching him doing the same to her, which led to blushes and embarrassed giggles.

Vicky was lying on the sofa flicking though the channels on the TV, there was nothing on so she let her mind wonder to what happened earlier today.

She'd surprised Gene; she was bored and beginning to get cabin fever, so she made up some sandwiches and left the house.

She arrived at the garage and nervously waited at the entrance, one of the mechanics had whistled appreciatively at her. She didn't know why, she was wearing her most unflattering clothes she had with her. Gene's head popped around from a car bonnet, and the look of surprise was quickly masked by a look of severe disapproval.

'What are you doing here?' he scowled as he walked towards her, wiping his hands on an old rag.

'You err forgot your lunch.' She said as she handed him the sandwiches, noticing the smudge of oil on his forehead.

He looked around to see if anyone was watching and when he noticed that they had an audience, Gene's face became hard.

'Get off home now then.' He snapped, she desperately wanted to say some horrible sarcastic remark but bit her tongue when she realised what was happening. Instead, she nodded and turned to walk out, looking rejected as she did so.

As she walked out, the whistling man stood next to Gene and watched as she left.

'Christ, she aint half a looker Gene. She single?'

He faced him then, threateningly pushing his face into the other man's.

'Watch what you're saying. That's my daughter you're talking about.' With that, he walked away back to the car, not seeing the man smiling behind his back. However, Vicky saw from where she was hid behind the wall and a shiver swept down her spine before she rushed off back home.