Chapter 9
Two weeks. The time seemed to have moved wrong, but Shilo wasn't sure if more time should have passed, or less, but the time that had passed didn't really seem right. Since that one strange and confusing night a couple of weeks ago, Shilo and Graverobber had been sharing the mattress, and she would sometimes wake up with his arm around her waist. But that was only when she woke up before he did. Though, considering her continued issues with withdrawal and insomnia, it wasn't all-together that unusual for her to wake up while he slept. She noticed that the nightmares weren't as horrible now that she wasn't alone while she tried to sleep. She wasn't telling him that, of course. She was still confused, still trying to figure out what it all meant, if it meant anything at all.
Yesterday, something had happened, and it wasn't a good happening. Graverobber had some back to the little house with bad news. Really bad news.
"Shilo," he had said when he came through the door. One sharp, abrupt word that got her attention in an instant. Her name in that tone had a power to get her attention, probably more than it would for most people, since she wasn't used to him using her real name. But he had, and there must have been a reason she would quickly learn.
"I'm in the living room," she called back and peered over the top of the couch waiting for him to come through the door.
"There's bad news, Kid," he said, not even all the way through the door when he started speaking. "Amber Sweet's send her goons after you."
Shilo stared at him for a moment processing the information, "You mean the buff guys that don't wear shirts?" she asked, still staring at him over the couch.
She saw the quick grin fade into a somber expression, "Those guys are dead. Rotti's two chicks took over the job, and something tells me the gun happy fiends are a lot more efficient than those two were."
She paled, her brief experience with Rotti Largo's bodyguards had ended with her being kidnapped, manhandled, and gassed, not to mention that they had tased her father. More than once. Mustn't forget that one.
"So…. What? Are they going to be… kidnapping me or something?" she asked. She didn't believe it for an instant, but she was hopeful that a miracle would happen.
Graverobber shook his head unhappily, "Kid, she ordered them to kill you."
Shilo's heart sank; it wasn't her fault that Rotti had put her name on the will, a will that had never been signed. A will that Graverobber had somehow managed to get his hands on and probably had stashed somewhere, as long he hadn't used it for kindling yet.
"Why me," she groaned, falling heavily against the back of the couch. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was pleased with the lack of dust clouding around her face, "I didn't want it anyway."
"You know that, I know that, hell, even Amber knows that," Graverobber said, heading for the door, "but the truth of the matter is: You're a threat. Amber holds grudges. And, for some unknown reason, Rotti chose you over his own three children as his heir."
With that, Graverobber slipped out of the room and the house. He didn't exactly want to leave Shilo alone right now, but he preferred that over someone recognizing her and he had things to take care of.
He had thought that this would happen eventually. He wasn't sure if he thought that this was sooner than expected or if it was later, but he knew that it would happen. There was a reason that Graverobber didn't call her by name, especially in public, and it wasn't simply to raise her hackles or the familiarity of it.
Shilo groaned, now there were people out to kill her. It wasn't bad enough that because of Amber Sweet's father her own was dead; she didn't even know where his body was, she told herself that it was in the family tomb, that she could visit them both if she ever got the chance; she knew she was deluding herself and that he had probably been tossed in a ditch, already occupied by four other corpses. Granted, her mother's corpse wasn't even in that tomb, so it didn't really matter in the long run anyway. She could sort of trace her father drugging her and isolating her from the world on Rotti killing her mother, which was just another thing to add to the list of things that Rotti had done to ruin her life. And now Amber Sweet wanted to kill her for something that Rotti Largo had done. Really, she just didn't see how that made any sense. And she was scared; those women had already found and kidnapped her once, gassing her to do it. She swore they weren't people, more like robots. Gun happy robots.
She wondered how thoroughly they were searching, how long it would take before they raided this house. They would see that it was inhabited, and they would watch the place. Suddenly, she wasn't sure if she should miss the dust, or be glad it wasn't thick enough to leave footprints. Though, they would know that someone had been there either way, but that could be any homeless person holing up in this place. One thing was certain though: she couldn't go home, she couldn't visit her mother's tomb. They would search there first, they would watch those places. She started shaking. She was afraid, and, deeper than the fear, she was angry. Angry at Rotti because it was his fault, and angry at Amber Sweet because she simply wouldn't let go. It wasn't enough for her that she had everything.
She stood at a boarded window, staring through a space in the boards conveniently at eye level; there was another at Graverobber's height, but that one had been strategically placed. Her mind told her that she could hear people talking outside, female voices and boots walking across the porch. But it wasn't really happening; she knew her mind was playing tricks on her. She knew, and she couldn't make it stop. She stood in the window, trembling and hugging herself.
Graverobber, whose boots as he came back to the house were the footsteps Shilo heard, came up behind her, hugging her tightly. She jumped and struggled to get free, and he held her still, murmuring into her hair that everything would work out fine, even though he couldn't be sure of that. He held her like that, murmuring, for almost twenty minutes before the color returned to her face and the tremors stopped and she could finally relax.
The tears hadn't stopped by the time Graverobber let her go and turned her to face him. She tried to hide her tear washed face from him until he used his fingers to lift her chin until she looked at him; she didn't fight him.
"I d-don't want to die," she admitted, voice cracking as she fought against breaking down again. It was good to hear, considering the state she had been in when he had found her after the Opera.
"You'll be fine, we'll find a way to get through this," he told her, wiping the moisture from her face, which left a smear of grime on her face from his unclean finger. He sounded so reassuring for a man hoping for a miracle.
"We know the whole story," Adrien said to her partner as the two waited in an alley across from the Wallace home. It was the most likely place for the young woman to be: she had no one to count on now that her family was all dead. She was completely alone in the world, with no knowledge of how to survive.
"So?" Sierie responded, not taking her eyes off the building. Both guns were holstered, but her hand didn't seem to like that and never strayed too far from them.
"We both know it was all Mr. Largo's fault," Adrien pressed, "the girl didn't want anything to do with GeneCo, we were there. Why should we kill her?"
Sierie's eyes flickered to her behind her dark glasses, "we'd be doing her a favor; she's probably whoring herself to survive by now," she said, her voice cold, "besides, we protect the Head of GeneCo, and that's Amber Sweet. She wants Shilo Wallace dead, we do it. No questions asked."
"No questions asked," Adrien sighed, defeated. And they stalked the Wallace House.
The truth doesn't matter. The orders do.
The middle of the night and Shilo wasn't sleeping. She was alone in the house, Graverobber gone to peddle Zydrate or harvest it, she wasn't sure which. There was no light, and the fire was stoked just in case people wandered by. Luckily it was comfortable enough that she didn't need the fire to keep warm. There were other homeless people in this city, seemed sometimes that there were more people without homes than with them, so Shilo had convinced herself that even if the Henchwomen raided this place, it might be any poor, probably addicted person living there. Even with her in it. Her hair was unrecognizably short, if she didn't wear a wig. And Graverobber had procured her another wig, a shoulder length blonde wave with bangs just long enough to cover her significantly darker eyebrows. He had also procured color contacts for her, and taught her what they were and how to use them. All things considered, she didn't think she had to worry about being recognized. Or, at least, that's how she convinced herself. But she still wasn't sleeping alone in the house.
She didn't like being alone, in the dark, with nothing but the light of her watch to see by. So she was hiding curled in a corner of the couch. She didn't want to get up, paranoia said that if she was going to move, she was going to attract attention to herself and to the little cottage she was hiding in, that was slowly becoming her home. She was pretty sure that it was Graverobber's home already. Would she be allowed to have this become her home, or would Graverobber cast her out after so long?
The idea of being cast out terrified her even more, so she shoved it aside and continued her huddling, waiting for Graverobber to come back home. Yes, home. It was about time she admitted it to herself. It was home. Was it the cottage that was her home, or was it the person that she associated with the cottage that was home? That was a dangerous question, because she was afraid she knew the already knew the answer.
She yawned; she was tired, and she was too scared to sleep while there were people out there trying to kill her and Graverobber wasn't there. Not that that was much safer than being alone. But she felt safer when he was there. So she waited for his return.
He was done peddling Zydrate for the night, he had decided it was too dangerous to try and harvest. He had seen the Henchwomen lurking in an alley. He, obviously, had turned down another alley and promptly disappeared. It was the house; he assumed they were watching the house for activity. He was going to avoid them anyway, until they cornered him for his next payment. Whoever could know that fingerprints were so expensive? They would be hunting him down soon, as long as Amber Sweet didn't make Shilo their only priority, and when they found him, he would be sure to be found alone, like every other month, and they would be none the wiser to his association with Shilo Wallace, and she would be safe.
Hopefully, she would stay safe, no matter what happened.
He went back to the cottage, confident that the Henchwomen were safely tucked away into their alleyway, not about to move until they were certain Shilo didn't live there. Graverobber felt bad if there was someone living in that house. They were probably dragged off to the alley for be questioned and killed.
He slipped inside, his boots thumping loudly on the wooden floor and announcing his presence to anyone inside, which had best only be Shilo, and she had best still be there when he walked into the living room.
"Kid? You awake?" he asked, pausing in the doorway to the dark room to let his eyes adjust to the near complete lack of light in the room.
"Yeah," she mumbled, sounding exhausted and like she had been almost asleep.
"Did I wake you?" he asked, pinpointing where her voice was and walking towards the couch by the fireplace.
"No," she said miserably, letting her head rest heavily on her arm.
Graverobber found her arm, after a fumbled attempt the first time he went for it, and squeezed it reassuringly, "let's go to bed, Shilo."
She let him help her up and in the darkness they found their way to the mattress and lay down, almost tripping on the edge when they finally found it. Graverobber wrapped himself around Shilo and rested her head in his chest. Shilo closed her eyes and was asleep within five minutes. Graverobber was up half an hour longer, rubbing soothing circles in her back and thinking up a plan that might be able to help them both before he was able to fall asleep himself.
The next morning, Shilo woke up with the worst cramp ever. She struggled out of Graverobber's arms, waking him along the way as she almost ran to the bathroom. That time of the month that she really hated being female.
"What's wrong, Kid?" he asked when he finally saw her come back to the living room. She muttered some things under her breath, not meeting his eyes, and the only thing he understood was of it was the word female. It clicked though, and Graverobber nodded.
"What are we doing today?" she asked, plopping herself down on the couch with her hands hung limp between her knees.
"We're going to go shopping," he said calmly, bending over the back of the couch.
"Shopping?"
"You need more clothes," he told her, grinning at the increasingly perplexed look he could see over her shoulder. Confusing her never ceased to amuse him, "if you're going to have a disguise, you can't wander around in these clothes, now can you?"
"No… I suppose you're right, someone might recognize me through my clothes," she agreed and stood up, ready to go back to the thrift store they usually went to when they needed something.
Graverobber steered her directly to the skirts when they got there, "think addict," he told her and walked away.
Shilo stared blankly at the tacks of skirts and tight pants and see-through shirts made of mesh and fishnet. She knew how they dressed. Why was she being told to look for that?
She sighed, she trusted Graverobber, deviant behavior and all, so she started looking for clothing in her size, and even too small, but just be a little.
She found some things, but it was not something she ever wanted to be seen wearing, but Graverobber seemed pleased with her findings of a pair of very short jean shorts, that were torn in places that didn't show inappropriate things and a form fitting tank top with a faded white cross. She grabbed a fishnet shirt, as well as fishnet thigh high tights and two more pairs of thigh highs, one striped and the other solid; turns out the solid pair was actually knee high. Fishnets and tights made everything look more like a Z addict would throw it together, especially if it didn't match. She also grabbed a pair of platform boots that laced up to her mid-thigh with a buckle over the front of the ankle.
Graverobber paid for the new outfit and the cashier said something to Graverobber that Shilo didn't understand, "they've been around," Graverobber merely nodded at the cryptic message and steered Shilo out of the store and dragged her down the nearest alley, pulling her deep enough that it wasn't immediately apparent that there were people there. He did a quick sweep to make sure they were the only people there and pushed Shilo against the wall.
"Change your clothes, Kid," he said, pinning her to the wall with his hips.
"What're you doing?" she asked, trying to pull away but only managing to bruise her back.
"People aren't going to question a hook up in an alley. They might wonder about someone changing clothes and come investigate," Graverobber muttered, "hurry up and change."
Not that that wasn't awkward, and embarrassing, and uncomfortable, but Graverobber didn't help by occasionally rubbing or thrusting against her… 'for good measure' of course. Not awkward in the least to be changing her clothes as Graverobber made a show. She was pretty sure he was doing it more to torment her than anything else, and she was turning a pretty interesting shade of pink in the dim light of the alley.
He leaned in against her, burying his face in her neck to be able to mutter in her ear, "you're not making this any easier, Kid."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, buttoning the shorts, which she had just realized had three buttons and the shortest zipper ever.
In response, he grabbed her hips and pressed her even more firmly against himself and raised his eyebrow in a sardonic expression.
"Oh," was her squeaked response. Graverobber grinned at the response and took half a step back so that she could shimmy into the fishnet shirt and tank top.
He handed her a wig; this one a short pixie cut in an exotic shade of grey with green streaks in the bangs. Shilo didn't question where he kept getting the new wigs.
He leaned against the wall while Shilo put her socks and boots on, "we're going to be telling people that you're my new lay. That way, I get to keep you close to me, and no one knows who you are."
Shilo stared up at him from over her shoulder in disbelief, "your new lay?" she repeated as if she thought she had misheard.
"It's the best thing I can come up with Kid, and the one that people are most likely to believe," he said, heaving out a sigh.
He grabbed her by the forearm when she stood up, rumpled the hair on the wig slightly, and dragged her out of the alley before Shilo could protest that being a Z addict or Graverobber's new lay.
"Where are we going?" she asked, trying to walk as if she knew the answer to that question.
"To showcase you," Graverobber said, "I want people to see you and me together so rumors start. Hopefully it gets to the Henchchicks and they leave us alone."
Shilo nodded. That was the only part of this entire plan and disguise scheme that made any sense at all to her. It didn't mean that she wanted to play the part. Not this part, not this way. Granted, since it might possibly be a matter of life or death, she could pretend to be some sort of drug addicted whore. As long as she didn't become either of those things. Which she didn't intend to do.
"So, we're going to the alley?" Shilo asked.
"Yes," Graverobber responded tersely, "Do me a favor, I know you hate the idea, but act addicted. Act like they do, fawn, do whatever, just play the part."
It took Shilo a moment of contemplative silence, but in the end, she agreed.
"She's not here," Sierie said. They had found and unkempt middle-aged man using the Wallace House as their own. They had taken him down their alley and asked him a plethora of questions that he seemed far more willing to answer after the first broken wrist. None of his answers gave him useful information.
The only useful thing the man said was, "no one's been in this house since the Genetic Opera. Nathan Wallace was killed on the stage and his daughter never came home. She probably killed herself than deal with that shit, I know I would have."
It made sense, but they would have to find the body to be sure. Her body wasn't in the ditch where they dumped the man's.
"The Graverobber helped her escape when we had her in Sanitarium Square, he might know something," Sierie went on.
"We have to find him for his payment anyway, we can question him about it then," Adrien commented from where she was leaning against the wall.
Sierie nodded, "we'll start looking for him tonight."
"We started looking for him last week," Adrien mentioned, "so far we haven't found hide nor hair of him."
Author's Notes:
Again…. I'm sorry that this update took so long. I finished the semester from hell, and have graduated from the school I was in since the last time I updated. Maybe now I'll have more time to write, but I'm not sure about that. I want to thank everyone that's been reading and waiting for so long, and for the reader's that haven't abandoned hope that I wouldn't update again. I know it's a pain to wait for me to update for so long.
This chapter gets racy in places, but I think it's still worthy of keeping its Teen rating, if you disagree, tell me and I'll consider changing it. It's still up in the air whether I'll be changing the rating or not. I hope you all like the new chapter, and I hope it's not a disappointment for you.
And I want to thank everyone who favorited and especially the people that commented my story, it's because of you I continue to write this story.
Disclaimer: It's been a while since I had to admit to myself that I didn't own Repo! The Genetic Opera, or any of the characters…. Or any of the actors and actresses that portray said characters. What I do own is the plot to this puppy and a bunch of Repo! Paraphernalia, but that doesn't count in the least. Sad, I know.