Once again, thanks for all the reviews!

How many times have I said that? I'm sure it's getting old but I mean it! I'm grateful that you all take the time to read and review this, so once again, thanks!

So, here we go!

Chapter 13: Missing Something?

I opened my eyes slowly, I was lying on something soft and itchy. The room smelled of cheap cologne and takeout Chinese, the teal wallpaper was cracked at the sides and the windows looked as if they hadn't been cleaned in years. The room spun around as my eyes tried to focus, the room was warm, the clock ticked loudly. It felt as if I had been hit in the head with a sledgehammer, my head pounded, my eyes watered. I groaned, blinking the sweat out of my eyes; where was I?

"Vikki Cummings? My name is Jermaine, I'm a friend of Sarah's?" Said a familiar male voice, in my dazed, drunken state I struggled to figure out who it was. "…Oh, you've never heard of me? Well that's no surprise…yes, I was at dinner with Sarah and Mrs. Peabody…I'm afraid there's a little situation going on down here and I don't think we'll be able to make it back to your apartment until very early in the morning, so she's staying at my place tonight until we can get back, just thought I'd let you know…" he laughed, "no, Vikki, I'm letting her borrow my couch…yes I'm serious…alright, goodnight Vikki." Click.

I groaned and sat up, rubbing my throbbing head. Someone walked over and peered down at me, slowly he came into focus "Jermaine?" I asked drunkenly.

"Hi Sarah" he replied,

"Where are we?"

"At my apartment, you passed out after dinner."

"D-Dahlia?" I asked quietly.

"She's alright; I drove her home." He sat down on the couch across from me. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I just drank ten shots of tequila." I groaned, massaging my throbbing temples.

"Yeah, that's what that type of gas does to you." He handed me a glass of water, I took it, but before I put it to my lips a thought occurred to me.

Gas? I thought, confused, and that was when it hit me; the incident, and then, a second later, he's one of the Riddler's goons! I dropped the glass, it clattered to the floor and spilled, pooling at the foot of the couch.

"That's okay, I'll clean it up," he said, getting up.

"So, it's true." I mumbled, fighting the effects of the gas, "you work for the Riddler."

He sighed and looked at me over his shoulder, "yes Sarah, yes I do."

Once his back was fully turned, I stood up and tried sloppily to run away, but he was much faster and stopped me. "Let go of me!" I snarled, my head throbbing angrily "let go!" He forced me back onto the couch, gripping my wrists tightly so I couldn't struggle as much. "Calm down, calm down!" He pleaded, "Please, you shouldn't run around after prolonged exposure to that stuff, you'll hurt yourself!"

I collapsed back onto the couch, and stared back up at him, genuinely scared about what he might do; I was drugged, and was he was a pretty big guy. "I'm not gonna hurt you, I just want to talk to you." He said calmly.

"That's really reassuring." I moaned,

"I swear!" He said, raising his right hand.

I scoffed, "so you're an honest thug, huh?"

His cheeks turned a bit pink, "I'm not a thug." He corrected me. "I've never hurt anyone; I'm just the bagman. I take the goods, I put them in the car, I get my cut. That's all."

"But you turn a blind eye to his thugs? He robs innocent people, he hurts them, he kidnaps them and he kills them when he has the chance! And you allow it!"

With no warning whatsoever, Jermaine slammed his fists into the table, I jumped. He curled his lips back in restrained fury. "Innocent people?" He snarled, "You think that Daniel Mockridge was innocent?" This silenced me, I recognized the name Mockridge of course, he was Edward Nigma's former boss but that was really all I knew.

"He was the worst kind of scum! He made his millions off of the sweat and tears of his thousands of workers while he sat in a cushy chair eating bonbons! Competitron wasn't much of a videogame company at first; they specialized in lousy arcade shooters, they weren't making any dough. And then comes the brilliant Edward Nigma who creates an immensely popular game which makes Mockridge filthy rich; a fancy penthouse, flashy cars, nightclubs, they're all his." I let out an annoyed huff, this guy sounded like a ventriloquist's dummy, with Edward Nigma as his ventriloquist of course.

"Only one problem." He continued "Competitron is a pretty small company compared to others, and the fact that he's making more in a few hours than the average family makes in six months just isn't enough to satisfy his endless greed, it was never enough, but he can't move Competitron to Gotham and sell his game without paying royalties to its creator, Edward Nigma. So, rather than have to fork over a comparatively small chunk of money in royalties to him, he fires Nigma and gives him no recognition. His name isn't even in the end credits; don't believe me? The game's still sold, take a look! Meanwhile, this ruins Edward Nigma, Mockridge not only fired him but he blackballed him! He can't get a decent job at any company, he's completely broke until inherits a large sum of money from his deceased Grandfather."

I rolled my eyes, "oh, is THAT what he told you!" I scoffed.

Jermaine acted as if I hadn't said anything. "Even though he's comfortable financially after that, he still feels cheated. A few years later Mockridge tries to sell out to Bruce Wayne, of course you know who he is, and he almost succeeds before Nigma sends him a message; 'why do multimillion investment deals break down in the Wasteland?' An allusion to a club that Mockridge owned, he foolishly arrived and the Riddler… took him down a notch, no less than he deserved!"

"He kidnapped him!" I shouted incredulously, "He tried to murder him, that's a lot more than taking him down a notch! And in the end Mockridge still made his billions!"

"But he'll never sleep well again." Said Jermaine, smiling deviously, "the Riddler's the real winner here. If he had died, would it have been a real loss? The world doesn't need any more filthy scumbags like him, we would have been better off without him." He paused, "what about your boss, Roscoe Peabody?"

"Cut the crap-"

"You know all about him! A miserly, smarmy chump! He makes his money off of serial marriage and blackmail while running a small, consignment shop to make his wealth look legitimate! He deserved what he got!"

"So that's how you live with yourself, huh?" I snarled "you twist the facts, you justify them, and eventually you believe them, meanwhile you keep the light in those pretty blue eyes of yours…"

"SHUT UP!" He roared. I knew I had gone too far. He sighed, and took a deep breath, smoothing his mussed hair back into place, "look, I never wanted to be a crook, I didn't have a choice-"

"What do you want with me anyway?" I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"I'm trying to protect you!" He said, grabbing my wrist.

"Protect me?" I laughed harshly, "fine job you've done of that!"

"Oh really?" He seethed, "what about Batman and the police arriving in time to save you? You really think that was an accident?"

I instantly shut my trap. My eyes widened, I racked my brain for a sassy remark to say, but I couldn't think of anything. "That's right," he said with noticeable satisfaction, "I called the police; as soon as I saw the license plate of the cab I knew what had happened, because I was the one who stole that taxi, I remembered the plate number. I excused myself and called the police to inform them of a Riddler kidnapping, Commissioner Gordon must have informed Batman."

"Then who told the Riddler I'd be there?"

"Mr. Browning did, or maybe Nigma heard it through the grapevine, I don't know. But I didn't want you to get hurt, so I did what I did."

I sat there for a long while, dumbstruck. I finally squeaked out, "I don't need your protection-"

"Fine, just let me warn you." He took a deep breath, "it's rare to just dabble in criminality anywhere, especially in Gotham; it's like a slow acting poison. You prick yourself with a thorn, it only has to happen once. You know the plant's poisonous but you feel fine so you think nothing of it. But then it travels all the way up your body until you're consumed by it, it becomes you, and then there's no going back."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…it's hard to cut ties with these people, when you're in it, you're in it for life, you know?"

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to get the hell outta dodge." He replied, "Move, dye your hair, change your name, do whatever it takes, just cut ties with everyone involved and run."

"I didn't mean to meet Nigma again you know."

"I know, I know. Just, please, for the love of God, don't make any more deals with the rogues; you don't know what my life has become since I became a bagman. Of course, you're a tailor, so it's different, but…" he ran his fingers through his hair, "just…don't become anymore involved with them than you already are, okay?"

"Oh, I don't plan too."

"You never do" sighed Jermaine, he stood up, "you can sleep on the couch tonight, I'll drive you back to your apartment first thing tomorrow."

"Jermaine?" I asked as he walked away, he stopped and turned over his shoulder to look at me.

"Why are you trying to protect me?" I asked sleepily,

Jermaine stared at me with a pained look in his eyes, clearly there was a reason, but he didn't want to talk about it. Finally he muttered, "I don't know" before turning away and walking towards a door at the back of the room, as he opened it he turned off the lights. "Sweet dreams." The door shut and after a moment everything grew dark.

I lay awake and stared at the ceiling for hours. My mind wandered, I briefly thought about trying to escape for a moment, before I realized that unless he was a colossal idiot, Jermaine would have locked all of the exits, and, in a stupor induced by drugs and exhaustion, I was in no state to go running around Gotham at night. Before I could decide whether or not to climb out a window and try to escape, nature took over and I was asleep.

…

I was woken up a few hours later to a scream. Strong, thin hands gripped my shoulders and shook me, resulting in me bonking my head on the floor once. My eyes shot open and I saw Vikki staring down at me, terrified. She groaned with relief and hugged me tightly when she saw that I was okay. "Oh my God! I was so worried!" She bawled.

I looked around, I was lying on a dirty, puce carpet in a narrow hallway. To my left and right there were doors with numbers printed on them and triangular light fixtures lined the ceiling. I was lying on the floor outside of my apartment. Talk about driving me home early in the morning. I thought, recalling the remark Jermaine had made before I fell asleep.

"Come on, let's get you inside." She helped me to my feet and escorted me inside the apartment, she lowered me onto the couch and sat down next to me, clutching my hands tightly. "I heard the Riddler robbed the restaurant you were at yesterday, are you okay?"

"Yeah. He got our attention and then filled the place with sleeping gas, no one was hurt, but I did have my wallet lifted."

Vikki did not seemed consoled, "this didn't have anything to do with, you, did it?"

I tried to laugh it off, "no, no, it was just a high class restaurant where lots of high class people ate, pretty good target for a thief. He didn't know I was there." Liar.

"You sure about that?"

I nodded, "I'm sure, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all." Vikki seemed a little relieved by that, but I knew it would be many hours before she was her old self again. I adjusted my position on the couch, "when did he escape anyway?" I asked. She stood and walked over to the kitchen table, picked up the newspaper, and then walked back. She tossed it onto my lap, "recently. I didn't find out about it until this morning. Why didn't you call?"

"I uh…I got kinda…drunk." Well…sort of

Her eyes widened, and an amused light formed in her eyes. All of a sudden, she burst out laughing, she laughed so hard that she clutched her sides and tears leaked from her eyes. "No…" she muttered, her grin stretching to her ears, she let out a huge chortle. "You? Sarah Valens, drunk? And I missed it!"

My ears reddened. I understood perfectly why this would be hard for Vikki to imagine. I couldn't stomach much alcohol at all, one glass of wine was all the alcohol I would drink in one day as I knew from experience that I couldn't hold my liquor. Vikki on the other hand had the alcohol tolerance of a Norse God! I was reminded of one occasion when Vikki met a total stranger at a bar and he challenged her to a beer drinking contest. I didn't remember the exact number of beers she had drank, but I remembered it had been double digits and her discards had filled a trash can. Her opponent eventually gave up, and just to rub it in his face she went back for one more beer. She woke up the next morning with a truly epic hangover.

"Okay, okay cut it out!" I objected as she continued to laugh. She eventually calmed down and looked up at me. I continued, "Well, due to the police presence and my drunkenness Jermaine didn't think that I should try to get home by myself and he didn't know where I lived, so he let me crash at his place."

She raised an eyebrow playfully. "So, what about this guy Jermaine? Are you…involved?"

I could feel my face paling, I quickly disguised it with a loud belly laugh. "Nah, he's closer to Dahlia than me, nothing happened."

"Mmm-hmm" muttered Vikki. She looked me up and down, "you look like the undead; why don't you clean up and I'll get us breakfast?"

"Okay." I said, forcing a smile.

She retrieved her coat and wallet and walked out the door without saying another word. I looked at the door for a long while. I made an executive decision to never tell Vikki anything, about Jermaine Carlyle.

…

Moving day came a few days later. We retrieved our most important possessions, such as clothes, and stuffed them into a few boxes (we didn't own that much that we wanted to take with us), before checking out of our apartment for the last time. Dylan, Vikki's boyfriend, had offered to help us out as he owned a car, he met us right on time the morning of the move and was gone as soon as we were finished.

Apartment 25D, Cottonwood St. Apartments. It was a very uncreative name, and a very bland establishment, but it would serve its purpose. Our apartment was slightly smaller than our old one. The walls were baby blue with navy accents and the floors were entirely covered with plush white carpeting. The kitchen had a two burner chrome stove, a tiny fridge, a microwave, a yellow sink and a minimalist table with two chairs. The living room was just beyond the foyer and had a small red sofa, a white standing lamp, a tall bookshelf with a few yellow-paged tomes on it, and a small television.

Vikki looked around the room, and gave a satisfied nod; it would do. "Come on, let's put this stuff away." She muttered, we decided that I would have the bedroom to the right of the foyer and Vikki would have the one to the left; the opposite arrangement of what we had had at our old apartment. I opened the door to the room. It was as white as a Hollywood hospital. It was small with white walls and floors, it had a double bed with a white bedspread which had been embroidered with lavender flowers. It had one window with thin white curtains which blew around in the evening breeze.

"Huh?" I muttered when I saw the window, I put the boxes on the bed and walked over to the window, slamming it shut. I shook my head, the last tenant must have left it open. I slowly took all of my possessions out of the boxes. I finally began the tedious task of hanging up my clothes, my new room had a walk in closet though, which was nice. I opened the door and turned on the light. When I saw what was in there I gave a small yelp and dropped the bundle of clothes I was carrying.

Sitting in the closet was a sewing machine, along with a few extra needles, some pins, and a pair of fabric scissors. There was a note taped to it. With quivering hands, I pulled it off, it was written in green ink; it had only three words on it.

Sarah,

Missing something?