Alrighty, let's do this!

... Honestly, you'd think I'd have more to say, but other than something along the lines of maniacal laughter and choking on my gum, I'm coming up blank.

On with the chapter!

I raised an eyebrow, "More French people?"

When they had said "get out of the country" they meant it, but only in the most technical terms. We were now in Monaco, completely surrounded by France and French was still the native language. A language I didn't speak.

Why me?

Cooper tossed me a smile over his shoulder, "Bentley wanted to try out his new card-counting formula in one of the casinos. We could always use a bit of legitimately obtained money."

I rolled my eyes exaggeratedly as he handed me a key card and we headed for the hotel elevator, Bentley and Murray had gone to get food and whatever else they needed for a few days in a hotel, "Yes, Cooper. Gambling is very legitimate."

The hotel was decorated in a red and gold color scheme and was fairly high class. I caught myself staring at the large outdoor pool as Cooper and I passed a window displaying it.

When we finally reached our rooms on the fifth floor (I got my own again. Confused, but not complaining), I immediately called dibs on the one that overlooked the pool. The water was a deep aqua color, surrounded by the local flora, it was a nice view that I intended to appreciate.

I poked my head through the adjoining door that connected my room to the others' and saw the raccoon putting Bentley's bag on the couch with a look of deep satisfaction, "Hey,Cooper? Does this hotel have a laundry service?"

He nodded, "Mhmm, I was just going to take some of our stuff down there, if you have something you need washed, there's a bag in your closet. I'll take it down." He headed to the closet in their room, apparently to fetch his own laundry bag.

I shrugged, locating the bag where he'd said it'd be, "Just a couple of things. I packed for a day or two in Egypt, not a week-long trek across Europe." He looked contemplative when I handed him my mostly-empty bag, but I didn't think too long on it as I'd caught a glimpse of the massive shower in the bathroom, "I'm going to take a shower."

I have a bad habit of taking the longest showers; I'm pretty sure I was in there for forty-five minutes.

When I got out, I opened the bathroom door to find something dangling precariously on the handle. I took it off to find that it was a paper shopping bag, with the name of a store emblazoned in French on the front.

Confused, I closed the bathroom door and set the bag on the sink counter, opening it up. It contained another pair of jeans, two T-shirts, and a one-piece bathing suit.

I held each new piece of clothing up to myself in the mirror, surprised to find that they looked like they'd fit, if be a bit big or long, in the case of the jeans.

Still wearing my old clothes I took the bag and went to peek through the adjoining door to the guys' room. "Umm…"

Sly, who was the closest to the door, saw me and accurately interpreted my confusion. He grinned, "Thought you could use more than just two outfits."

I wasn't sure what to do with that, feeling my face heat as I turned back to my room, "Uh- I'm gonna go swimming."

I closed the door and heard a muffled, "Didn't she just take a shower?"

I changed into my bathing suit quickly, becoming more excited at the prospect of swimming. I was very much a water person. When I was little I spent about 85% of the summer in the local swimming pool.

I grabbed a towel and headed downstairs. Once I managed to find a door leading to the outside, I cannon-balled into the pool, drenching a few sunbathers who immediately stood and left without a word. This was entirely on purpose on my part; I'd always found the presence of sunbathers to be awkward.

"Now you scared off the only thing I had to look at," Sly complained, perching himself on the edge of a recently vacated lawn chair, wearing only swim trunks and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.

I wondered how he had gotten there so fast, but realized he was probably three times faster than me even in my wildest dreams. I flattened my ears against my head and sank into the pool until only my eyes were above the water, glaring.

"Aw, don't be that way," He glanced over at me and tilted his head, "Your disguise is coming off."

"Eh?" I looked down at myself to see he was telling the truth. It looked as though dust were melting off my fur into the water. "Victory!" I'd hated that thing. I dove deeper into the pool completely submerging myself once again.

When I surfaced Sly was looking at me with a strange expression. "How can you stand it?"

I tilted my head, "Stand what?"

"All that water."

I rolled my eyes, floating onto my back, "Says the thief that does pirouettes on telephone cables to get around."

He flashed his trademark grin, "That's different. Water is a force of nature."

"So is electricity. Bzzt!"

He rolled his eyes and leaned back on his lawn chair. An evil idea slowly came to light in my mind.

"Cooper?"

"Mm?"

"Am I sensing a bit of… hydrophobia?"

"… No."

Sure. I waited a few moments, then slunk over near him and flung my arm forward, sending droplets of water all over him.

To my disappointment, he didn't scream like a girl or anything. He just flinched so violently he fell off his chair and onto the sun-baked sidewalk.

I cackled and slunk deeper into the water in the face of his glare. "I was right! I bet you don't even know how to swim!"

Cooper stuck his nose in the air as he stood, brushing off his trunks (wait, why did he have those if he didn't swim?) and trying to gather the shards of his dignity, "I don't need to know how to swim, thank you very much!"

I blew raspberries at him from under the water. "Yeah, right! What if you fall in the water during a heist?"

He shuddered, "That won't happen."

"Come on, if you ask real nice I'll teach you!"

"No."

"Kinda nice?"

"No."

"Marginally nice?"

"No."

"Cooper, get your fuzzy butt in the water."

"No."

I growled, "I dare you!"

He twitched, trying to keep his composure. Haha, always the way to get into a guy's head, challenge him. Finally, he said, "You're on."

I grinned, and gestured to the steps, "Come on in."

He hesitated.

"Or we could start in the kiddie pool." I deadpanned, glancing over to said pool, which was only two feet deep at best.

He seemed relieved, "Yes, please."

I swam over to a ladder and pulled myself out of the pool while he shrugged off his shirt and laid it on the lawn chair. I jumped into the kid's pool, splashing a bit before lying down and pulling myself through the water with just my arms, it was warmer than standing.

Sly stood at the steps and hesitated again.

"For the love of all that is pure and holy… it doesn't even come up to your knees!"

He glared at me, stuck a foot in the water, and then made to turn away, "Well, I think that's enough for today!"

I grabbed his foot and pulled. He yelped and had to hop into the water or fall backward and crack his head open. I got him to the middle of the pool and let go. Immediately he latched onto me, all his fur standing on end like he'd gotten a static shock.

I rolled my eyes, "Let go you pansy, you're in two feet of water!"

Our "lessons" continued like this until Murray came to get us for dinner. Unfortunately he thought the pool (I had just barely managed to convince Sly to get in the shallow end of the big pool) looked like fun and… cannon-balled into it.

The resulting tidal wave washed Sly and I out of the pool and once the water ebbed away I shook my head to clear any stray water droplets from my face and opened my eyes… to see Sly looking back at me, mischief written all over his face.

I then realized that I was lying on top of him, my hands on his chest as I propped myself up. I felt blood rush to my face, so much that I was sure my fur had turned pink.

I squeaked (which I will deny to my dying breath) and started to scramble to my feet, but arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back down. Warm breath tickled my ear.

"Leaving so soon?"

I elbowed him in the gut, noting his grunt as I knocked the wind out of him with satisfaction. I lurched to my feet and hid behind Murray, who was just emerging from the pool, "That was just creepy, Cooper! Cruel and unusual payback!"

"Yeah, no kidding." He wheezed, still lying on his back, slowly curling into a fetal position with his hands wrapped around his stomach.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

After a hot meal ordered from room service, I took my second shower of the day.

Having changed into a new outfit, I took a towel and went into the guys' room, drying my hair as I did, "What are you planning to do now?" I asked as I entered, noticing that they were all dressed for a night on the town.

Bentley was the one who answered, "I'm going to go try out my formula on the casinos downstairs."

"Wanna come?" Sly asked, smirking.

I glared, bristling, "No thanks. I'll just stay here, plotting your ultimate demise." I fluffed my hair as I talked, to make it dry faster.

Cooper shrugged, "Suit yourself."

Soon he and the others were gone. I tried to amuse myself in the hotel rooms, but upon discovering that the TV was in French, I seriously contemplated throwing myself off the balcony.

I soon resorted to snooping through the guys' stuff. I was extremely careful, putting everything back the exact place I found it. The only stuff I found of Murray's was a bunch of coloring books and some half-eaten crayons. Bentley's stuff bored me, a bunch of dismantled hard drives and a few books on theoretical physics.

Cooper's stuff, however, provided me with much-needed amusement.

I found his pad of personalized stationary, which he wrote all of his calling cards on, his hat (which seriously needed a wash), and the red little pouch he strapped to his leg, which contained a ton of lock picks.

Bored again, I was about to go back into my room when I caught sight of the corner of some kind of book poking out from under one of Sly's shirts. My ears pricked up. What did we have here?

I gently and carefully extracted the book and stared at the cover. It looked like it had been to hell and back. The cover was well-worn leather with miniscule tears and even a few burns smattered across it. The pages were uneven with each other, looking to have been torn out a few times then placed back in.

"The 'Thievius Raccoonus'?" I muttered to myself. The title was embossed boldly on the leather, the Cooper emblem branded underneath it.

Curious, I opened to the first page.

I hadn't even noticed how long I'd sat there until I heard the distinguishable sound of Murray climbing the stairs.

Feeling like a kid sneaking snacks who hears the garage door open, I hurriedly replaced the book and lightly stepped to my room, turning out the lights and sliding under the covers, just as I heard the deadbolt to the next room open with a clunk.

Sly slowly opened the adjoining door to check on their impromptu guest. The top of her fluffy black hair could be seen, but the rest of her was buried beneath the comforters, which rose and fell in time to her slow, even breaths.

Satisfied and somewhat suspicious, he closed the door and turned to Bentley, who was tapping away at a laptop, Murray had somehow managed to already fall asleep, "Bentley, is she really a threat? She hasn't done anything yet."

Bentley paused for a moment, then went back to his assault on the keyboard, "Don't underestimate her, Sly. I've got a bad feeling about that hybrid."

"What do you mean?" the raccoon asked, leaning on the back of his friend's chair.

The turtle pulled up a document on his computer, "She seems to be a little more than she appears. I hacked into her school's computer system to read the assessments from her teachers, just to see if we had anything to worry about. The teachers either seemed to think she had a learning disorder, or that she was brilliant, just lazy. She also has quite a disciplinary record, stretching back to elementary. She was always implied to be involved in incidents, but there was never any proof."

"Translation, please." Sly asked.

Bentley sighed, "We have opposite ways of thinking, Sly. I'm logical, this girl isn't. She has keen manipulative and lying abilities that are almost as natural as breathing to her. And according to her math teacher, her favorite thing seems to be finding confusing and superfluous ways to do things."

Thieving gears were turning in Sly's head, "Too bad she's got a cop for a dad; those traits could be useful in an operative."

Bentley glared, "Don't even think about it Sly; we'll have enough problems if she decides to give us hell without you trying to convert her."

"Ah, but think of the possibilities," Sly started to say, then he shut up at the look Bentley was giving him.

The turtle rolled his eyes, "We're in trouble."

The next two days passed quickly; I snuck in to read the Thievius Raccoonus every night.

That book explained everything Sly was able to do. It explained it so well that I thought I might even be able to try it myself, but I was too much of a coward to follow through. Running on power lines? Not my cup of tea.

It was on the third night we were in Monaco that I woke up in the middle of the night because my air conditioner had clicked off, the sudden silence registering in my subconscious.

I got up to turn it back on when I heard hushed whispers coming from the next room. Carefully, I crept over to the door and lay down on the carpet, putting my ear to the crack at the bottom of the doorway. Small snatches of their conversation drifted to me when I stilled my breathing.

"… sure, Bentley?"

"Positive, Sly. The Clockwerk Wings are in India, owned by a spice dealer named Rajan. He's so successful that he's trying to pass himself off as royalty. He's crowned himself 'Lord of the Hills' and is going to display the wings at a ball in his newly purchased 'ancestral' palace."

"Can we be on our way to India by tomorrow morning?"

"Definitely."

"What about Kaia?"

"Murray, Rajan is a spice dealer and a member of the Klaww gang. He's ruthless. Even if she wasn't planning to turn us in to the police, I'd say we leave her here."

"But if we just ditch her I'd kind of feel like scum."

"Don't worry, Sly. We can leave quietly in the morning, while she's still sleeping and call in an anonymous tip to the local Interpol agency. They should be there to get her by the time she wakes up."

I jerked back, bonking my knee on the baseboard of the wall.

That- that was just-!

Wait- what was I so mad about? I didn't care. I didn't want them to care either. Caring equaled Stockholm Syndrome, which I didn't have.

Right?

Right.

I went to listen again, but there was silence in the next room. I strained to hear something, anything, and then my door swung open, hitting my head.

I yelped in surprise and pain, scooting back, and rubbing the impact site. I looked up and saw Sly glaring down at me, his usually cheerful face annoyed.

I gave my best impression of his trademarked grin, "Sooo… India then?"

Cooper wasn't happy with me.

That was the vibe I was getting, anyway. The fact that he wasn't talking to me and the glares he kept giving me were pretty good indicators.

Even when we had pit stops, he refused to let me out of his sight. He walked me to the restroom and waited outside, glaring at the door.

I sighed as I washed my hands. This was getting ridiculous. My newest disguise had turned my fur bluish-black, I kinda liked it.

I shut off the water and flipped my hands back and forth before going to the wall dryer. While I was thus occupied, two women came into the bathroom, chatting to each other.

They were speaking English.

I smiled slightly to myself. I walked up to them, my hand behind my back, the picture of a lost, dejected tourist, and looked at the most naïve appearing one.

Sgt. Jenks sighed and hung up his gun holster as he walked back into his house after his meeting with the director of Interpol.

They had barely missed Cooper in Paris and there was still no sign of his daughter.

This was all his fault… he never should have taken her to Egypt.

He rubbed his forehead; he needed sleep. He took his cell phone out of his back pocket and turned it on. Hmm… one message from a number he didn't recognize. Who would be calling him?

He input his voicemail code and put his phone up to his ear to listen.

"Hey, Dad! It's Kaia! Just wanted to call and let you know I wasn't dead yet and had a great time in Monaco. The gang and I are headed to India now to go to Rajan's ball. Anyways, I should go now, the nice tourist I borrowed this phone from probably wants it back. I love you!"

He stared blankly at his phone for a moment, then pressed speed dial four.

"This is Sgt. Jenks from the FBI. Patch me through to the director, my daughter just made contact and I know where Cooper is going next."

Dun-dun-DUUUUN!

Okay, not really. C'mon, if I was relying on that to be a legitimate plot twist, I'd be a pretty bad writer, huh?

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this latest installment of Stockholm Syndrome! As always, I look forward to any reviews and if you read and enjoy and don't review, you are responsible for a little part of my soul dying.

What can I say, I crave attention.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed and God Bless!