"Can you hear that?" she whispered, even she could hear the terror in her voice. She was huddled in the pitch darkness of a closet, straining to hear any sound that wasn't her own frantic breathing and the racing heartbeat that belonged to the Graverobber, holding her closely enough that her ear was pressed against his chest.

There. That was definitely the sound of steady footsteps on the floorboards. Careful footsteps, but footsteps that were sure of themselves, lacking fear or nervousness. She clung more tightly to Graverobber, who tightened his grip on her shoulder. The footsteps stopped dangerously close to their hiding place.

She held her breath; if she didn't breathe, they wouldn't open the door and find them amongst the clothes, huddled together like frightened animals before the predator pounced.

The doorknob rattled; Shilo started breathing again, short, ragged gasps that didn't provide nearly enough to her hungry lungs and made her feel faint. The door swung open with a soft creak, her vision was filled with the barrel of a shotgun. But the gun wasn't pointed at her, not yet at least.

Graverobber tightened his hold on her as the trigger was pulled and the bullet blasted into his face, essentially beheading him. His blood was everywhere; it caked in a thick, hot, rapidly congealing mess on the left side of her face and down her shoulders and shirt. His body jerked with the impact, taking Shilo with it and she hit her head against the back wall.

She was trembling so badly it was easily visible to her killers. Her tears mingled swiftly with the blood on her cheeks , and the cold sweat soaking any dry piece of clothing that was still on her within moments. She couldn't breathe, despite the ragged gasps that came with hyperventilation. But, despite all of this, she was mostly silent, sheer terror and a grim knowledge of what was coming muting her.

She was hyper-aware. She could hear the steady dripping of blood onto the floor from the coats she huddled in and the occasional flop of something thicker. She didn't want to look over at what was left of the Graverobber, his arm now slack around her, but a morbid curiosity, and frantic denial overtook her, and she turned her head, mouth open in a horrified shriek that was stolen from her throat before it could even come into being.

The entire top of his head was gone, only a very small part of his brain was still there, framed by his bottom jaw. The bottom jaw was broken, shattered, mangled, unrecognizable. The body was slumped against her, and a twitch, probably from shock, caused the body to slump sideways, the mangled pieces touching her cheek. Something touched her, something too thick, too spongy, and wet.

She couldn't help it; she leaned forward and was furiously sick. She expelled the contents of her stomach until there was nothing but thick, rancid-smelling white bile pooled in front of her and soaking her toes. Graverobber's still-warm corpse fell backward with a heavy thunk. There was an audible difference between the fall of a living body from the fall that of a dead one. She vomited once more the thick white bile from her system; the bile was starting to become thicker, darker, soiling the heeled leather boots of the pair of murders, who didn't even twitch. And then, finally, still trying to spit the hotly sour taste of stomach acid from her mouth, looked up at her killers.

Less than a minute had passed. Shilo closed her eyes, trembling violently, willing herself not to feel the burning metal against her chest. The Henchwomen were as cold as the barrel of the gun was hot.

And she pulled the trigger.

Her own screams woke her. Her violent thrashing had her entire body in a fire of overexerted muscles. And an urgent, low, masculine voice that seemed afraid to startle her.

"Kid! Kid! Wake up Shilo, it's just a dream."

Just a dream. He was alive. Just a dream. Both of them, still alive.

"But it felt so real," she whispered, vocal chords only able to produce a croak.

Graverobber cradled her, rocking back and forth to soothe the trembling and calm her rapid breathing and explosive heartbeat, all the while murmuring that it was just a dream. This time.

"I don't want to be afraid anymore," she murmured after a long while. Graverobber didn't say anything, just cradled her head against his chest and petted her sweat soaked hair.

Neither of them slept for the rest of the night and the light of dawn silently crept into their unwilling eyes. The intrusion was a sweet salvation for Shilo. She had stopped shaking some time ago, no more than two hours, and now, with the light, she could see that they really were alone in the cottage.

When she sat up, Graverobber followed suit. Shilo went to take a bath, filling the tub and a bucket with steaming hot water. She washed her hair in the bucket before stripping and climbing into the tub, lips pursed to avoid ingesting the unhealthy water. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and fully submerged in the water for nearly a full minute before resurfacing.

Graverobber was standing in the doorway when she opened her eyes. She gasped, just high enough above the water's surface that she didn't inhale it, and covered herself as best she could with her hands and the free-floating washcloth. What she did wanted to do was hide her face, now bright red with embarrassment.

Graverobber chuckled and she glared at him as fiercely as she could muster. Never had he interrupted her bath before.

"What do you want?" she demanded in a stammer.

"Just to make sure you're alright, Kid. Many suicides happen during bath time, and I worry about you. Any death you give yourself, it would be far worse than anything the Henchwomen could do to you," he replied, closing the door and Shilo could hear the footfalls of his heavy boots down the hall.

Yes, she had thought about suicide. But she had never even considered to actually go through with it! But he could tell, and he had come to check on her, just in case.

"He's lying!" came the shriek of GeneCo's new owner as Adrien and Sierie stood in front of her, giving their latest report involving having questioned the Graverobber about the whereabouts of Shilo Wallace. Her reaction had been less than pleasant.

"We can only tell you what the Graverobber told us, Ms. Sweet," Adrien stated evenly. She was annoyed at Amber Sweet's outburst, but kept her face safely neutral. She and Sierie both knew that this meant that they would have to go and hunt down the elusive Graverobber again and question him more thoroughly.

"Well he's lying. Graverobber had Shilo Wallace with him when he was administering Zydrate to the ZSN a few days after the Opera. I saw her myself," Amber said, adamant about the truth of her memory.

"We'll have to go and remind him, then," Sierie said, fingers trailing lightly at the butt of the pistol safely tucked away in its holster at her thigh.

"This time, make sure he remembers correctly," Ms. Sweet told them smugly.

The Henchwomen took that as a dismissal and turned to leave, moving in the perfect synchrony one can only obtain through years of practice.

"You don't want to do this," Sierie noted once they were out of the building and once again on the hunt for Shilo Wallace.

"Of course I don't, and you already know I think Ms. Sweet's hunt is ridiculous. We're supposed to protect her from things that would harm her, not from a person that was unwillingly tossed into the fray that Mr. Largo created," Adrien said, her voice was kept even with difficulty, though she very nearly had an outburst as Amber had.

"It's beginning to wear on me, as well," Sierie admitted, surprising the both of them before she hastily added, "But that doesn't mean that we're going to give up. We're going to find the Graverobber, and we're going to get the truth out of him about Shilo Wallace."

Adrien's heart sank, she had begun to hope that, with that comment Sierie would begin to… to what? Adrien didn't even know. All she knew was that she didn't want to hunt down and kill Shilo Wallace. She was certain the girl was alive, and she was certain the Graverobber had something to do with it. And she would rather keep it that way. If only Sierie was willing to go against GeneCo. And risk her own life and the lives of her entire family in doing so. Right; not for someone she didn't know.

Adrien sighed, "Let's go then."

A/N:

Wow... for such a long wait, this post is really short, and really... well, I'm not happy with it, let's just say that. I'm really sorry about the wait, this chapter has been 'done' for a while, but I didn't like it so much that I didn't want to post it without something... more. In the end, that didn't happen, so here we are. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Also, because of this chapter, I'm increasing the rating to Mature, and if you can't figure out why, well, that's just silly.

Hopefully you'll read and review, and I'll hopefully not take so long next time.

As we all know, I do not own REPO! The Genetic Opera, though, if one of the owners did read this story, it would make my life, especially if they liked it. A girl can dream, right?