Ah, the last year of college, I can almost feel myself start to go insane, which is why this chapter is going out at one in the morning. Enjoy!

"Ah..." I hopped out of the van and into the sunshine gratefully. I'd probably be sweating like crazy in about ten minutes, but for now the heat felt great, "I can already breathe easier."

"Yeah, well don't go running around for at least another day," Bentley advised, looking around. We'd remerged in the Old West by the Safehouse, apparently Bentley had programmed it as the default in this time period, "I wonder if Tennessee's nearby."

"Probably, I told him we'd be back to let him know we were okay, so I doubt he'd up and leave."

"Jinx is right," Sly cut in, pointing to a distant cliff, then waving. I squinted in the direction and saw a brown speck take off, "He's on his way."

"Awesome, let's raid the clock tower while he's on his way," I said, starting up the stairs to possibly the nicest Safehouse in memory, except maybe the one in Holland. Man, that was nice.

Everything was where we'd left it, which meant there was quite a mess. Bentley however, made straight for the artifacts by the pile of crates he'd been using as a desk while the van was gone and seemed to relax the second he laid hands on them.

Someone hadn't been looking forward to improvising a way through the timestream...

The door to the Safehouse opened and Tennessee bounded in, grinning, "Howdy! Glad to see y'all made it back alright."

I matched his grin and stepped forward, pulling his bandanna from my pocket and offering it to him with a flourish, "As promised."

"Much obliged, Missy," Tennessee replied, tying the orange fabric around his neck. Then he eyeballed Bentley, "Y'all heading out already?"

"Not quite yet, the time machine got pretty banged up, so I want to take a few hours before we make another jump to be on the safe side," Bentley shifted the artifacts in his arms, "I do want to get it calibrated and run some diagnostics though."

"Yeah, and make sure Kristian and Murray can handle keeping an eye on Grizz."

"I think they got it, Sly. Grizz and Murray were debating the top ten ice skating costumes in the Olympics the whole way here," It was weird, instead of being bitter about being defeated, Grizz had just seemed impressed and as far as Murray was concerned everyone in the world was a friend he hadn't made yet. So they got along disturbingly well and Kristian had been elected to babysit. It was moderately terrifying, but I was just thankful Dimitri was on another continent in another time period and couldn't add his two cents to the conversation.

"Do I wanna even know who Grizz is?" Kid asked, seeming honestly curious.

I contemplated that, waving as Bentley headed back to the van, "Probably not."

"Speaking of criminals, though, what did you wind up doing with Toothpick?"

Tennessee's eyes lit up, "Oh, you'll love this. Seems the 'Sheriff's staff weren't too keen on him. So they were more than happy to take charge of him. Last I heard, he's workin' on the railroad."

Sly brightened in the way only poetic justice can brighten a person, "Is he now?"

"Yup," Tennessee walked over to the paper map that had been left behind at the Safehouse, pointing at a spot just outside of town, "I was checking to make sure he wasn't up to no good earlier. He's 'round here, if you wanna see for yourself."

Bouncing his cane idly, Sly nodded, "I think I'll do that." I wasn't surprised, Sly'd had enough enemies that he liked to see they were out of commission with his own two eyes, "You coming, Jinx?"

I shook my head, "Nah, I'm good. I don't feel like running around in this heat." Besides, I needed to talk to Tennessee about something anyway.

He frowned, "You feeling okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I don't have a fever anymore, you and Bentley checked a million times!"

"Well, that's because you spent last night hallucinating that Ahanu was in the Safehouse and Bentley was Spock. You can understand our concern."

"It's an easy mistake to make!"

"No. No it's not."

Tennessee was grinning like we were the most entertaining thing he'd ever seen. I ran a hand down my face and pointed at the door, "Just go."

"Yes, ma'am," Sly said cheekily. He raised his cane to Tennessee in a sort of salute and left.

When he was out of earshot, I grinned and turned to Kid, "So... I was hoping you could give me more pointers on shooting."

He gave me a look like he was not at all being fooled by my nonchalance, "And why would you wanna know that, Missy?"

I scratched at the back of my neck as I tried to think of how to say what was on my mind.

This Le Paradox guy had it out for Sly, but not just him, his entire family, all the way back to Bob. While Kristian was an annoyance, Le Paradox had gone out of his way to go after every Cooper he could. He was stealing their canes and defaming their greatest achievements and ruining their reputations. Seriously, he had a time machine and he was using it for this. Why?

Neyla had been ambitious and power hungry. Dr. M had been insane and greedy. Le Paradox was thorough and ruthless and had it out for the Coopers.

Which meant he would eventually go after Sly.

And we had to be ready for that when it happened.

"Lately it just seems like... it would be a good idea to be able to have something a little more powerful in my arsenal."

For a second I wasn't sure Tennessee would take that as an answer, but then he just shrugged, "Well heck, I'm not gonna argue about you knowin' how to defend yourself and your friends. I've been usin' my old guns since y'all left, I can teach you with them. Sure you wanna learn?"

I nodded, "Yep. Hope I never have to use it, but I want to learn."

He inclined his head, "Suit yourself."

We went out to an old abandoned house with a bunch of fencing for Tennessee to set up bottles at different distances for target practice.

"Where are you getting all those bottles?"

"I dunno, they're just lyin' around everywhere."

It was pretty straightforward, at first. Just point and shoot.

"I'm still not buyin' that you never shot a gun before I took you out the first time," Tennessee after about half an hour of me shooting bottles.

I shrugged, reloading, "My uncle showed me proper stance and grip once and drilled me until I knew it up, down, and sideways, but I never actually fired a gun."

Kid jumped to his feet, "Alright, but your target ain't always gonna be right in front of you and give you time to aim. Gimme a sec and I'll move the targets around. Keep your eyes closed."

Biting my lip, I complied, hearing Tennessee scurry around a variety of distances from where I stood. After a few minutes, I heard him come back and felt him grab me by the shoulders and turn me away from the bottles.

"Okay, open your eyes." I did, blinking against the bright light as my eyes readjusted, "Now, there's something on your mind ain't there? Somethin' besides whatever made you wanna come shootin'?"

For a second, I just kind of stared at him, "Why are you asking about this, all of a sudden?"

He grinned, running a thumb along the bridge of his hat and looking over my shoulder, "Ma always said, 'one crisis at a time'. It's hard to focus on somethin' if your mind's on somethin' else. You're takin' way longer to aim than you did before."

Stupid Coopers, only being observant when they felt like it. As much as I was trying to avoid thinking about it in the hopes that it would die a fiery death, the way I felt about Sly was just refusing to change and I knew it wouldn't be that long before he noticed something was up. He'd been able to tell at Kaine Island, heck, even Tennessee had figured it out and he barely knew me.

When Sly inevitably called me out... what was I going to say?

It was stupid, we were jumping all over the timeline, that hypothetical situation shouldn't have even been on my list of priorities, but... it was. Because I'd just joined back up with the gang and I'd been happier than I had in a long time and I was going to stick with them for as long as they'd have me. And Sly knew me well enough that he'd be able to tell if I was lying.

So, should I tell him the truth or try to come up with something else? The idea that he felt the same about me was ludicrous, I'd seen in the past that he was very vocal when he liked someone, so anything remotely resembling the truth would almost definitely end badly. He'd be nice about it, I was sure, but it would probably also be horrendously awkward.

Still, what choice did I have?

"I'm going to have to do something soon that I don't want to do, something that's probably going to make me really sad and humiliated."

He thought on that, chewing harshly on his cigarette for a few seconds, "Probably? You gonna give me odds on that?"

Not able to help myself, I grinned and shoved him, "Nothing exact, but low on happiness, high on heartbreak."

When I realized the implications of my word choice, I could have launched myself off the nearby cliff. Tennessee's eyebrows skyrocketed, but he said nothing, bless his feisty soul.

"What about the odds if you didn't do it?"

I played that again in my head and it still didn't make sense the second time around, "What?"

"What would the happiness and heartbreak odds be if you didn't take the chance?"

The desert suddenly felt cold, "Probably... probably even worse." Because even if things were horrendously awkward, they'd eventually get better. It would suck, but I'd get over it. If nothing was ever said, this was going to eat away from me at the inside. Talking about it would bring something like closure.

Kid grinned, and the look in his eyes told me he knew what I wasn't saying, "Sounds like you'll be alright, then. Now, the bottles behind you. Turn and shoot!"

When I processed the instructions, I followed them immediately. Ahanu had always told me while we were sparring that my biggest problem was hesitation and he'd tried so hard to train it out of me. The immediate reaction was probably an aftertaste from my training sessions with him.

A sunbeam glinted off a green bottle in the corner of my eye. I brought the pistol up, planning not for where it was pointing, but for where it would be when I pulled the trigger.

Yeah. I'd be fine.

"I thought you were going to stay in the Safehouse."

Sly was sitting in the clock tower like a parent waiting up after curfew. All he needed was to dramatically turn on a lamp to complete the image, but it was too light outside for that. Eh, too bad.

"Actually, I said I didn't feel like running around in the heat. There was no running involved, so we're good."

Tennessee held up his hands and took a step to the side, in a clear indication of staying out of the conversation. Fortunately Sly just shook his head, "Sure. Bentley says the van is good to go, you ready?"

"You bet!" I snapped off a salute to Tennessee, "Thanks for the help."

He tipped his hat, looking at Sly out of the corner of his eyes before glancing back at me, "You remember what I said, now."

Okay, time to go, "See you around!"

"What did he say?" Sly asked after I practically bolted out of the Safehouse.

"Secrets, Sly. Dastardly secrets." I swung into the van and happily noted that Grizz was unconscious and Kristian was looking particularly satisfied with himself. That would make the trip easier to deal with.

"Next stop," Murray announced from the drivers' seat, "Twenty-first century Paris!"

Leaving the Ice Age was the first time I'd actually time travelled the van way. It was okay, I guess. Like an amusement park ride. I liked using my belt more, though. That felt like flying, even if the landing was rough.

After several weeks hopping between time periods, coming out of the blue Time Vortex with nothing but a screech of tires and seeing the familiar lights of Paris was... strange. Not bad strange, but still weird. In Japan it had been torches, in the Old West it had been lanterns, in the Ice Ages it had been torches again. In Paris, it was neon.

"Okay," Bentley said as we stopped a few blocks from Interpol HQ, "Nothing fancy. Just drop Grizz in the street, knock, and get back here fast."

I eyed Kristian as Sly rolled Grizz out of the van and shut the door behind him. The cougar looked twitchy, but not in a sketchy way. It was more likely he was just fighting his cop instincts to blow the whistle on all of us.

He knew Le Paradox was a problem and stopping us from dealing with him would make things worse. Sure, Interpol would take possession of the time machine, but that would spark massive ethics battles and whole new levels of paperwork before they'd even be able to think about putting together a team to right the inconsistencies in the past. By then, whatever his goal, Le Paradox would most likely have achieved it.

So Kristian had agreed to stay with us so there'd be some kind of police presence, even if it was unofficial and pretty illegal.

This was going to go so well, I could tell already.

"I'm going to keep an eye on things," I told Bentley. Sitting around and waiting, while it was something I had done a lot, was not something I was good at. The turtle nodded, watching Sly's icon on his laptop.

I'd barely made it to the alley by before I heard a series of strange, but familiar noises. It took me a second to place them, the muted 'whump' of floodlights being turned on.

My earpiece crackled to life on the tail end of a pained gasp from Sly, "It's a trap, get out of here, guys!"

I was running toward the glow at the end of the alley before he'd even finished his sentence. The entire street in front of the station was lit up so brightly that my eyes hurt even looking at it and I was in the shadows.

"But, Sly-!"

Sly was crouched by a streetlight, but wasn't climbing it because he was very clearly being blinded. Officers wearing dark glasses were already starting to pour out of the building, which should have been deserted hours ago.

"Go, Bentley, now!"

Something caught at my foot and I nearly wiped out before catching myself. I looked at the medley of cords at my feet and thanked the universe for deciding to make me lucky just this once, "I got this, Bentley. Get out of here while you can."

I heard the van accelerating, taking off, and vanishing even as I grabbed the box the mass of cords was attached to, found the switch and pulled it.

There were about two seconds after the street was plunged into darkness that there was confusion. I endeavored to do as much as possible in those two seconds.

Bolting from the alley, I ducked under Sly's arm, drawing it around my shoulder and taking off again even as the few agents that had managed to show up looked around in confusion and started to grab for their sunglasses.

"Don't just stand there! Get after them!"

Oh hell, Carmelita.

"What are you doing?" Sly hissed, even as he kept pace with me. He had a hand over his eyes, couldn't see a thing. The floodlights would have temporarily blinded anyone, but not only did Sly have naturally good night vision from being a raccoon, but he'd also cultivated it over years of moving primarily in the darkness- it would take him way longer to recover.

Which was probably exactly why Carmelita did things this way.

I ducked into the first alley I saw with a fire escape, putting Sly's hands on the bars instead of answering his question, "Fire escape- go!"

He went and I followed, hyperaware of the approaching officers. We just barely managed to make it to the roof, hiding between a group of air conditioners while we listened to the sounds of searching below us.

"How're your eyes?" I asked as quietly as I could. I could clearly see the tear tracks on his face and he was still rubbing at them.

"Adjusting," he opened his eyes, blinking hard a few times and squinting, "But we need to keep moving."

"You can't go gallivanting over the rooftops right now," I whispered, "That's just as likely to break your neck as do anything productive. Plus, this is personal for the entirety of Interpol, not just Carmelita."

Sly winced, but didn't disagree. Carmelita was furious and had every right to be. She'd been manipulated. She'd pulled strings and vouched for Sly and he'd been faking the whole time. She was probably hideously embarrassed. I could understand her anger, heck, I'd been angry at Sly myself for a really long time, but I never thought she'd use the Cooper gang's propensity for bringing other criminals to justice against them like this.

But even more than Carmelita, Sly had worked at Interpol ever since Kaine Island. This was a matter of pride for everyone who'd interacted with him on a daily basis. He hadn't meant to, but he'd made a lot of enemies.

And he was sitting on a rooftop, half blinded, while I sat nearby and tried desperately to think of a way out of the situation. There were agents everywhere and I could already hear Carmelita calling for them to search the rooftops. We were out of time.

Then I remembered one of the first jobs I'd ever pulled with Sly, in Prague. I'd taken his hat and moved through the shadows to get guards to chase me, thinking I was him so he could sneak up behind them and take them out.

If it had worked once...

I snatched his hat off his head, twisting my braid so I could stuff it up in the hat as I put it on, "I have an idea."

"I don't like the sound of that."

And he wouldn't, if I told him the plan. Even if I got caught, I could probably get out of it. As ever, the authorities didn't really have anything concrete on me. Besides, with one little phone call to Sweden, Ahanu could probably get me out of it.

Sly wouldn't want to be left alone half-blind like he was, and I didn't want to leave him. But it looked like our best option. If I could lead them off and buy him some time for his eyes to adjust, he could get away.

Before he could react, I took his cane and pressed my baton into his hand, so at least he wouldn't be defenseless, "Stay here."

He lunged forward, but I darted out of the way before he could get a hand on me, "Don't-"

"I'll lead them away. You can get to Dimitri and contact Bentley and he can come get you and you can go to England. I'll try to follow later. Stay quiet, stay out of sight."

I was way more familiar with the rooftops of Paris than any one person should be. Sly had taught me how to run across them like he did. I wouldn't be as fast as him without years of practice, but after Charla's training regime and the extra effort I'd been putting into improving my skills, I was still pretty freaking fast and knew exactly how to stay in the shadows.

"There he is!"

"After him!"

I didn't know where I was going, really. I tried to avoid leading them back to either of the Parisian Safehouses, but beyond that I just ran. Taking the easiest paths, I ran long past losing my breath, getting my second wind, and losing that.

But the people chasing me just wouldn't stop.

After a few minutes longer, I headed for the river. It would be a dead giveaway that I wasn't Sly, but I highly doubted my pursuers would follow me if I dove in.

I didn't get a chance to put that plan into action, though.

When I was nearly to the river, something crashed into me from behind and I could barely get my hands up in time to save myself from a broken nose.

Whoever it was who'd tackled me like a linebacker was bigger and stronger than I was and had a really solid grip. There was no way I was getting out of that.

"Inspector Fox," said a really familiar voice into a walky-talky, "It was a decoy, repeat, it was a decoy. Cooper is still at large."

I rolled onto my back, panting and too high on endorphins and adrenaline to really panic in the way this situation deserved.

I grinned at the husky glaring down at me, "Hey, Dad. Nice night, isn't it?"

It wasn't the first time I'd been handcuffed, but it was the first time I'd ridden in the back of a police car.

Well, I say 'ridden', but in actuality it wasn't going anywhere. Dad had put me inside, locked the door and I was just kind of sitting there alone while various police and Interpol officers milled around outside.

And speaking of, why were there so many of them? Didn't Paris need police officers spread out through it instead of just in... wherever it was I'd run to?

My train of thought screeched to a dramatic, painful halt when the door to my left opened and in came Sly. In handcuffs. With a black eye.

"Well," he rolled his shoulders and winced, "That was fun."

I squeaked inarticulately at him while he stared me down, as if wondering why I'd suddenly switched to a form of communication outside a normal person's range of hearing.

"What are you doing here?" I finally managed, "You were supposed to get away!"

The look he gave me then was slightly patronizing, "You know, I was listening when you went off about how sick you were of being left behind."

For a moment I fostered a serious concern that my eyes might actually fall out of my head, "I told you to!"

Sly stretched out his legs as much as he could in the confined space and leaned back against the seat, "And for future reference, I'm going to ignore that particular order in each and every instance unless it's a life or death situation."

"Sly, Carmelita might actually kill you and if she doesn't my dad's going to call next."

"Life or death for you."

I blinked at him, "Are you insane? Did you have a stroke? Or, oh God, you just never grew out of those suicidally reckless tendencies Bentley told me about. You should see someone about those, immediately if not sooner. You are not expendable."

"Neither are you," Sly said, looking smug, "So how about you don't be mad at me for sticking around and I won't be mad at you for running off?"

The safety glass in front of my seat provided a handy place for me to beat my head, "This is so twisted."

He shrugged, rubbing his face on his shoulder to scratch at an itch, "All for one and one for all, right?"

I felt like screaming, but swallowed the urge, "So. What now?"

"Well," he glanced outside, "it doesn't look like it's calming down out there. We might be here a while."

"Oh joy."

There were a few beats of silence before he asked, "Are you okay? Seeing your dad again, I mean."

Glancing out the window and seeing Carmelita and Dad in deep discussion, there was no way I could help the sinking feeling, "I really don't know."

"On a scale of jaywalking to genocide, how angry do you think he is?"

"Serial arson," I answered immediately, and turned just in time to see Sly's wince. Time for a subject change, "Tell me a story."

He gave me a weird look, "What?"

"I'm bored, we're not going anywhere until the others come up with a way to bust us out. Tell me a story."

After a moment of thought, he smiled. It was one of the odd, nostalgic smiles I rarely saw from him, "Do you know about my first heist?"

"Was that the cookies thing at the orphanage?"

Shaking his head, his smile grew wider, "Nah. That was my first heist with Bentley and Murray, but not my first ever."

I squinted at him suspiciously, "When the cookie heist happened you were eight."

When he turned to me, he was all out grinning, "And how do you think I knew how to plan a heist at eight? My dad took me on my first job when I was three."

It felt like this night was the incarnation of perpetual surprise, "Where?"

"A museum in Italy. When this is all over, I'll show you."

My response to that came almost completely without thought, "But first we'll go to a legit Italian restaurant and then get gelato."

The black eye looked even worse when he was grinning, like it definitely shouldn't be there. I was scared to ask about it, "It's a date."

I was so, so screwed.

When they stuck us in separate interrogation rooms, I was on the fence about whether that was a good or bad thing, but was definitively leaning towards bad and not just because I could hear Carmelita shouting four doors down. After all, I had no idea what we needed to be interrogated about. If it was whether we were who they thought we were, there was fingerprinting for that.

Not that they didn't fingerprint us, because they absolutely did.

"You know, the last time I got fingerprinted, they let me wash my hands afterwards," I said, grimacing at the sticky feeling when I pressed the inky pads of two fingers together, "They had this really gritty soap, which was gross, but, holy crap, so effective."

Dad's expression clearly stated that he was unsure where he'd gone wrong in raising me. He dropped a very thin folder on the table, "Will you be serious for a minute?"

"Will you yell at me if I am?"

"I'll probably yell at you anyway," he ground out.

I sighed, turning in my chair to properly face the table and pull the folder toward me. The tab on it said 'Kaia G. Jenks' in red ink and a decidedly feminine hand, "This is a little thin to be my file, isn't it?"

He let out a heavy breath through his nose, "That's why I'm showing it to you."

Quirking an eyebrow at him got me no results, so I cocked my head and flipped open the cover of the file, "'One, if the house you're living in tells you to "GO AWAY", do so immediately. Two, never take a shower with a maniac/spirit/demon/creature in the house. Three-' is this a list of horror movie survival tips?"

"Imagine our surprise when, an hour ago when we went to access your file, it had been replaced with that," he pointed at the folder like it was a lethal toxin he didn't want to risk getting close to, "Even the hard copies. Care to tell me why?"

I was barely paying attention to him, giggling uncontrollably by the time I reached entry twenty, "'As a general rule, don't try to solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.' Can I keep this?"

The file was whipped out of my hands so fast, I was peripherally surprised that I didn't get a papercut. "Quit treating this like a game! This is your life we're talking about!"

At first, I didn't quite get was he was saying or why he was so angry. Of course it was my life, I'd chosen it and it was awesome.

But then it hit me. Dad had really only seen me after I'd been separated from the gang, it was all temporary to him. He didn't realize I'd chosen this, thought I was just playing around like a rebellious teenager hanging with the wrong crowd, that I'd get a reality check one day and finish getting my degree in the states. He thought I was still that seventeen-year-old kid who'd begged him to let her go with him to Cairo.

He still thought I was coming home.

"Dad," I swallowed, at once feeling my heart break a little and being a tiny bit insulted at the same time, "Dad, you do realize that I'm twenty? I'm twenty and I'm smart and I don't make life decisions impulsively, you do realize that, right?"

For a few moments we just stared at each other. Then he dropped the folder on the table, turned on his heel, and left the room, closing the door deliberately, but not slamming it.

I rubbed the corner of the folder between two sticky fingers, but didn't open it. Maybe later, when I felt less... I don't know. It wasn't guilt or regret. I liked the way my life had gone up to that point, even the time when the gang was broken up. I'd met Tate that way and learned a lot under the instruction of Ahanu and Ritsuka.

Oh, and speaking of...

Looking up at the two-way mirror that took up a whole wall, I gave it my best grin, "Hey, I get a phone call, right?"

To be honest, I wasn't totally sure I did. I didn't know what the rules were in Paris or if you were in Interpol custody. But sure enough, the door opened and an officer that looked vaguely familiar handed me a phone, "You have ten minutes."

There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that the phone wasn't being monitored, but that was fine. I wasn't calling a wanted criminal, after all, and I was hardly going to say anything incriminating.

Like most people in the modern era, I usually used my phone's contact list to remember numbers. However, there were a handful of number I knew by heart: Dad's, Uncle John's, Millie's, the entire Cooper gang's, Ahanu and Ritsuka's landline, and one I'd been instructed to only use in a 'I really need a hand' capacity.

I dialed the last number, held the phone to my ear and listened to it ring.

Ahanu picked up after the second ring, despite the fact that it was four in the morning, "Kaia, give me a second," he even sounded awake, geez. I could hear the quiet shuffling of cloth and assumed he'd gone downstairs where he wouldn't inadvertently wake someone up, "Paris area code."

"Yup."

"This phone is registered to an Interpol agent."

"Imagine that."

"You couldn't have done this during business hours?"

"I didn't exactly schedule an appointment."

He actually laughed at that, because Ahanu defied expectation and was made of sunshine, "Okay, talk to Tate for a few minutes, he's been missing you like crazy."

"Oh, don't wake him up just for me," I said hurriedly.

"This isn't for you, it's for me. If he finds out you called and I didn't wake him up to say hi, he'll do that thing with his face, you know the one."

I did, in fact, know the one. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Besides, I wanted to say hi to Tate too.

Half-asleep as he was, Tate probably didn't even realize he was speaking Swedish when he asked when I was coming back. I'd learned a good deal of Swedish over the last year, even if the accent had always been hard for me, and was more than happy to carry on the conversation that way. Besides, it would probably be annoying for the cops listening in to call a translator at four in the morning just to find out that Tate had a new favorite flavor of ice cream.

After reassuring him I still planned to come visit just as soon as I 'got my affairs in order', he handed me back over to Ahanu, who wished me a good night before hanging up.

Three minutes later, the same familiar-looking agent from before came in. He looked flustered as he took the phone and informed me with quite a lot of stuttering that they were really very sorry about the whole arresting me thing and I was free to go.

"What about Sly?" I asked, heading in the direction I was pointed at to collect my personal effects.

"Ah, no, he's still in custody. The, ah, the call was only for you," the officer managed before fleeing.

Standing there in the hallway, I frowned to myself. I wasn't sure why Ahanu had only sprung me, I was pretty sure he had the influence to get us both off the hook. Though I still wasn't sure exactly what it was he did, I knew he had way more clout than any simple translator should have.

But maybe his influence was limited and I was the only one he'd be able to get out? Maybe Sly was too high profile, or it would take more time? Or...

Ahanu didn't do things by halves. It might have been deliberate. But if it was... why?

My things and Sly's were piled in a closet that really ought to have been supervised. I searched my things for bugs, but it didn't look like they'd had an opportunity to plant any, which eased my mind.

It hit me when I rummaged deep into a pocket and pulled out my keys. There were a lot of them, for the gang's house, the Paris Safehouses (both of them), Ahanu and Ritsuka's house, my old truck, my house...

Understanding was sometimes not fun, especially in that instant. I saw myself as an all or nothing kind of person, in most aspects. But I realized I'd been straddling the line between criminal and civilian for a few years now and that seriously needed to change.

After fiddling with my keys and finding a piece of paper, I cobbled together something I hoped would get my point across to my dad. It was really important for him to understand, even if it hurt us both, which it would. I was happy and I thought he'd understood that, but I guess I'd been a little too optimistic.

Slipping out into the hall, I quietly moved through the station until I found my dad's temporary desk. It was easy to identify from the bag I'd bought him when he'd been hired by Interpol. By some cosmic joke, it was in Carmelita's office.

After leaving my message, I went to leave the office, but faint voices made me plaster myself to the inside of the door instead.

It was two officers. I made a mental not to thank Ahanu for being so insistent I learn both French and Swedish, because it allowed me to understand most of what they were saying.

They were transferring Sly. In an hour. To a maximum security prison.

Well... that made things more difficult.

I pulled out my cell phone, took it apart to look for bugs, put it back together after not finding any, and punched in the one number I'd hoped to never have to use, the one in my phone under 'Deep-Six'.

"Oi, chica! Turtle-bro called, what's the info?"

Oh good, he was actually taking this semi-seriously, "Hey Dimitri, feel like doing something that will inevitably make all of our Interpol files contain a lot more swear words?"

"Your sweet words, they reach my heart."

"Awesome, we don't have a lot of time, so this is going to have to be fairly simple..."

We're raising the stakes, yes we are. See you in a couple of weeks!