The rain beat down on the roof of the red Sentinel as Pepe and Felicia made their way back to Little Havana from Downtown Vice City. The majority of the ride was uneventful, perhaps even relaxing, until the highway they traveled down bordered Haitian territory. Felicia sat rigidly in her seat, clutching the small bag lying in her lap and swallowing down the lump of anxiety that formed in her throat. She glanced at the sidewalks bordering either side of the road, both sides dotted with the bright blue Haitian colors.

Suddenly, midway through Little Haiti's section of the highway, the car slowed and began to turn down one of the side streets entering the heart of Little Haiti.

"Pepe, oh my God, what are you doing?" Felicia squeaked, eyes as wide as saucers and mouth gaping. Pepe sighed and barely glanced at his sister.

"Hermana, calm down. This way is quicker." Felicia's heart raced so fast she thought it might just stop altogether but she sat back as calmly as possible and gazed out the window, fearing an argument with her brother would draw dangerous attention to them. Her eyes shifted nervously over the Little Haiti streets, between the small, colorful houses littering them and the inconspicuous people that walked them. They were, Felicia noticed, surprisingly devoid of blue and white clad men, the Haitian soldiers. Her stomach tightened. This seemed unusual, seeing as how Cuban soldiers strode the streets at almost all times.

Then she settled her gaze on the tiny village at the very heart of the town--a small collection of huts woven together with spindly dirt paths and dotted with palm trees. It was a cozy place for the undercover Haitian leader--or manipulator, she should say--to nestle herself.

Just as they passed the quaint village something caught her eye--something light blue and familiar. She could almost swear it was the Hawaiian print shirt that sauntered into her father's Café several times a week. She turned to her brother.

"Pepe, is that..." she began, but stopped. Pepe glanced out over the surrounding area as a reaction but didn't see anything out of the ordinary -- not that he knew what might be out of the ordinary in Little Haiti.

"What?"

Felicia shook her head. "Never mind."

For the rest of the ride they sat in silence, trying not to look suspicious when the dark people of the area looked their way. Felicia's tummy finally relaxed when she recognized Little Havana… then tightened so hard she jerked. There were guns going off all around their apartment building, getting louder the closer they came--and there they were coming from the Haitian side. If either side saw them they would be in extreme danger, and to top it all off the Haitians outnumbered the Cubans by a landslide. It had to have been planned. Felicia and Pepe looked at each other.

"Oh shit, Pepe…"

Felicia jumped as a tall, dark man bent down next to her window.

"Ah, you deh big moufed Cuban's pretty little princess, ain't yeh?" he said thickly through the glass. Though Felicia's heart was almost pounding out of her chest and she tasted vomit at the back of her throat she merely looked at him with wide eyes. Another man came around to the other side of the car, glaring hatefully at Pepe.

"Get out da car, foo's," he demanded, yanking at the car handle. Felicia swallowed back another bit of vomit and looked desperately to her brother.

"Pepe," she whispered. The man yanked at the car door again. "Oh my God, Pepe." Her voice trembled. Pepe Stared at her, the wheels in his eyes spinning. He didn't know what to do. She started to shake and turned in her seat. "Pepe, what do we--"

"GET OUT DA CAR!" They were getting impatient, banging on the glass and kicking at the door. "Get out da car, yeh Cuban pieces o'shit. Get out or we gonna come in!" Pepe turned to her but before he could even speak the glass shattered with a deafening crash and Felicia felt a strong hand grab at her chest.

"Open da door, bitch," he hissed in her ear. His hot breath on her cheek made her feel sick. She reached for the handle and pulled at it but the door wouldn't open. Her throat trembled as she fought to hold back dry sobs; she pulled harder until she was yanking and tearing at it and it still didn't open. The Haitian laughed and popped the lock. "Now get out."

She pulled at the handle one more time; the sound of the door popping open made her stomach lurch. She fought the urge to try to hit him with it and throw him off, there was no way she'd get away with it, and no way she'd be able to fight off anyone who might be backing him up. He took her arm and dragged her out of the car and over to another man, dressed in all dark blue with a white cap topping his head. He was taller even than the man that held Felicia's arm, and he had to be at least six feet. The tall man grinned sinisterly and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Now now, what da daughter of da Cuban leader doin' in our territory?" he cooed, his accent not quite as thick as the other two. When no response was forthcoming, he grinned a little wider. "My men, dey say dey see you out der', ridin' 'round in ya big red car tryin'a act like nuttin' out da ordinary. Ya fools." Just then three cars pulled up and Cubans poured out, four and five in a car, and surrounded the Haitians that dominated the border. Felicia was just as horrified to see them as she was relieved.

Before the Haitians could even raise their weapons the Cubans opened fire. The two Haitian men holding Felicia and Pepe jumped out of the way and Pepe grabbed Felicia by the arm, pulling her behind the nearest building and out of the way of gunfire. He reached behind his back, pulled out a pistol and handed it to Felicia. She stared at it.

"Here, take this. If any of these Haitian pricks come near you, cap 'em." Felicia looked from the gun to her brother and back to the gun, paralyzed by fear. He shoved the gun into her hand and closed her fingers around it. She tried to pull away, shaking her head and making tears spill onto her cheeks, but he held her there, her fingers wrapped tight around cold metal. "Don't argue with me hermana, please? Just do it. Take it."

Before she could react, before she could protest and hand it back to him or even ask a question he'd run around the back of the building and out of sight. She reflexively clutched the gun, clinging to it, and stared at it through the blur of tears that were falling like raindrops from her eyes. She hated to cry but nothing else seemed right to do, nothing else worked.

Gunfire exploded next to the building near where she stood. She jumped and flung her back against the wall, clasped one hand over her mouth and the other on the handle of the pistol. She could hear footsteps. She looked around frantically, blinking until the tears dissipated, and slipped her finger over the trigger and her thumb over the hammer. Her hand was shaking--her whole body was shaking.

Then he appeared, another dark man dressed in bright blue. He stumbled behind the building to take cover, stooped down and leaned over, looking around the corner. Felicia held the gun out at arms length, her hands still shaking, and backed up along the wall.

He didn't seem to notice her until he heard the click of the hammer and jumped up. A wide, white grin stood out on his dark face and his eyes sparkled with malice as his lifted his gun. Without thinking Felicia opened her mouth and squeezed the trigger until she heard thunder. Through the haze of fear and adrenaline she saw him fall, the deep, dark blue spot on the front of his shirt spreading and spilling red over the hand that clutched it.

In a split second he lifted his gun and Felicia distantly heard another gunshot; blood spattered all over her, on her face and in her mouth. She fell against the building and opened her mouth wider to scream but no sound would come. Her legs gave out and she slid down the wall, the rough stucco painfully scraping her back all the way. She didn't know where the shot came from, whether it was from her gun or his, but she knew she saw blood and her body felt completely numb except for the pain on her back.

The next thing she knew Pepe was upon her but all she was aware of was the warmth of his body and his voice rumbling in the distance. She felt cold and weak but the slow realization dawned on her that it wasn't she who'd taken the bullet, her back hurt and her brother felt warm but she felt no other pain. She looked over herself, she wasn't bleeding. She looked at the Haitian man laying a few yards away; his body was oddly contorted and his forehead was partially blown open, exposing flesh and bone and blood pouring everywhere, his dark eyes were vacant and fixed, pointed at the wall beside her head.

She couldn't hold back anymore, she couldn't take it anymore. Her body convulsed and vomit dribbled down her chin and she sobbed and clung desperately to the warm body hovering over her. She couldn't move otherwise.

Eventually the gunfire slowed and ceased. Felicia could hear footsteps coming but didn't have it in her to panic anymore, she just held onto Pepe tighter. Then she heard a familiar accent.

"Ay man, she ok?" She felt Pepe nod and her body start to rise. She looked over his shoulder to find the speaker and met a pair of concerned brown eyes. Fresh tears clouded her vision and she buried her face in her brother's neck.

"Can you stand, hermana?" he whispered.

"I don't know," she mumbled. "Please, take me home. Just take me home."

--

"Hermana, please, calm down." Pepe sat on the couch watching his sister pace in front of him. "You didn't kill him, I did. It was my gun, you know?"

"No," she hissed. "You don't understand. You killed him because of me. You killed him because I missed, but if I wasn't so… so… if I was…"

"You didn't miss, Felicia, you hit him. You hit him in the stomach, right in the guts, you hit him. You didn't have time to kill him."

"BUT IF I HAD! You just don't understand," she sank into the chair adjacent to the couch and buried her face in her hands, "you just don't understand." Pepe went to her and wrapped his arms around her, winced when he felt sobs shaking her.

"I do understand, mi amor, I do understand. It's not so easy for me either, you know?" He stroked her hair. "He would have killed you, hermana. I rather he die than my baby sister, you understand?" She sobbed harder.

"But Pepe, I killed… I killed somebody. I shot him… I tasted his blood, Pepe, I… I…"

"Oh Felicia, mi hermana, please don't cry. Please, I… it's my fault. It's all my fault, you know? I never shoulda… I never shoulda taken you there. I shoulda known better."

Felicia pulled away and looked at him when she heard his voice crack. He looked almost as tired and wary as she felt and the sight of tears glistening his red-brimmed eyes made her feel queasy. She swallowed back a fresh wave of tears and took a deep, sighing breath. Pepe cleared his throat.

"You know, Pop called."

"Yeah," she said quietly. He'd wanted them to come in that day but when Pepe told him how hard she was taking things he relented. She'd heard her brother's end of the conversation while she was in the bathroom. To be honest there was a part of her that hoped he would have them come anyway. No matter how angry she got at him he was her father first and foremost and his presence was more of a comfort than she'd like to admit; even so, her brother was an immense comfort himself.

"You hungry?" Felicia shot him a look. "Oh. Ok then."

As Pepe was in the kitchen scrounging around for food in the barren shelves and ice box another image flashed in her mind, the image of the blue Hawaiian print shirt in the little village.

"Hey Pepe?" she called into the kitchen. She heard him grunt a response. "When we were passing the village, you know, in Little Haiti…" Her brother emerged from the kitchen wearing a look she'd rather never see again. Felicia almost recoiled. "Um…"

"What is it, Felicia?"

"Well, I thought," she paused, debating whether or not she should even bring it up, what problems might arise if she did. "Did you… I thought I might've seen Tommy." Pepe's demeanor changed. He watched her intensely now. "I mean, it was raining and we went by pretty fast. I just thought I saw a glimpse of his shirt--"

"Eh, it was probably just some fucking Haitian scumbag. I think it would be easy to mistake their shithead rags for Hawaiian print." Felicia nodded absently and chewed the inside of her cheek.

"Yeah. Yeah, probably." Pepe popped a grape in his mouth.

"I'll keep an eye out," he mumbled to pacify her. "I'm sure is nothing."

--

That night Felicia didn't even bother to try to get any sleep. Pepe had gone to bed shortly after he ate and as she sat up watching nonsense on T.V. and listening to patrolling Cubans chattering in the street she decided she wouldn't let herself cry over this anymore. She hated crying, and she hated herself when she cried. Today was the day that Felicia had irreparably stepped into the territory she fought for years to stay out of. The whole ordeal scared her more than anything, and the idea of a life taken in exchange for her own--

No, I'm not going to torture myself over it anymore. I'm not going to think about it, dream about it, or acknowledge it at all. It's just a bad dream that never really happened.

Felicia turned off the television, laid down and drew her legs up under her. Sleep danced at the edges of her mind but would come in, wouldn't take over. She drifted in and out of sleepless consciousness until daybreak, when the apartment darkened so that the only light was the dim, flickering streetlight below. She shifted and turned, stretched out and curled up and when sleep finally came to her Pepe was standing over her shaking her.

"Felicia… Felicia, hermana… speak to me," he called. Felicia slowly opened her eyes and a snort of laughter burst from her lips. His hair was going in one hundred different directions, his cheeks were pink, his eyes were wide and glazed over and he looked like he just swallowed a hairy lemon. "Felicia, you ok?"

When he realized she was laughing and not having fits of seizure he stood straight up and crossed his arms, glaring angrily down at her. "What's funny? I thought you were hurt. I worry for you and you laugh at me." Felicia laughed harder and clutched her sides. Eventually Pepe's face morphed until he was grinning, then chuckling and then laughter bubbled right through him.

"Oh, brother, you should have seen yourself," she squeezed between giggles. They laughed until their sides ached and Felicia almost rolled off the couch. The phone ringing in the next room shocked them both to their senses. They shared a look as Pepe went to it. Hardly a minute later he came back into the room, his face dripping anxiety.

"It was Pop. He say he wants us at the café now."

Felicia's stomach twisted into knots again. I can't believe I don't have an ulcer. She changed quickly, skipping her morning shower, and went down the fire escape in the back with Pepe. As soon as her foot hit the sandy dirt of the lot she became almost sick with recollection. The entire street had been wiped clean and the bodies taken God knows where, probably to their respective territories for their families to bury. It looked like nothing at all had happened. The car was even parked in its usual spot next to the building, and even it appeared to have been cleaned. Felicia sighed heavily. What did she expect?

In almost no time at all they were pulling up at the café. Felicia got out of the car and stared at it from across the street, nerves tugging and pulling on her emotions. She could make out her father's round figure sitting at the bar talking with her Poppa.

"Well, I guess we go in now." Pepe put his hand on her back and gently nudged her to walk with him. She felt herself moving, walking with her brother, though there was no conscious effort involved.

Pepe stepped through the door first, standing before her protectively, but their father's glare burned right past him and into her eyes. She too stepped into the café and stood next to her brother. She could see he was beyond mad, angrier than she'd seen him in years. This wasn't the time to shy away.

He sat on his stool looking silently between them. A minute passed and nothing was said; another minute passed and still he said nothing. Finally he took a deep breath and hardened his features.

"Why you do it? Why you put yourselves in danger like that, huh? You know, you could have got killed, and you get my Cuban men, your brothers, killed. For what! You, you tell me, for what?" He stood from his stool and pointed a finger in both of their faces, one after the other. Pepe put his head down and Felicia wrapped her arms around her stomach. Their father looked at each of them and waited. "Huh?"

"Pop... it was me. I took Felicia that way; she warned me... it was me. I'm sorry." Umberto turned to Pepe and glared at him. He didn't respond, just shook his head and pointed to a cab waiting outside the café.

"We get you a new car, the Haitian pricks know this one. Just be careful." He glared at Pepe angrily even as they walked out the door. When they were safely in the cab he sat down at the bar and shook his head. "Why? Why they do this to me? You mean... you mean it not enough to lose one; I have to lose all three? Why, Papi?" The old man shook his head and let out a sympathetic grunt.

"Do not worry, my son. They be okay."

A/N: So. It's been awhile. I can't even begin to go over the reasons why it's taken me almost three years to update this--technically longer seeing as this isn't really an update but a rewrite. However, I never lost interest in this story, I just lost my computer and thus all my notes and the part of Chapter Seven I'd already written. I rewrote this hoping to get back into the flow of the story and have already restarted Ch7. I might need help though. I don't have Vice City anymore and can't afford to buy it right now. I remember these missions for the most part and have found a copy of the game script and a couple good walkthroughs, but I'm sure there's still things I'll need. Any, any, any help would be very much appreciated, and I hope to get the new chapter up within the week. XD