Trifecta

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly

A/N:

Chapter 5 (Warning)

"Full House," remarked one of Cat's friends. The enthusiasm was met with groans as the winner pulled all the chips back. Sam was sitting out a few hands and watching from the recliner. It was difficult to pay attention, much less play, with Freddie's phone call on her mind.

"Hey." Sam jerked her head up and smiled at a brunette walking up behind the couch. It was the sister of one of Cat's friends. She looked strangely familiar, but couldn't place where she might have seen her before. "Why aren't you playing with Tori and the rest?"

"Too much on my mind." The girl's lips formed an oval and she walked around to sit on the couch. "Just a friend of mine back in Seattle is going through some hard times, that's all."

"Something you want to talk about?"

"I'd rather not. I don't think he'd want me to anyway." At least not about Mrs. Benson, it wasn't her place. She glanced at the friends and furrowed her brow. "Why aren't you over there playing?" The girl laughed once and shook her head.

"Me? No thanks. I enjoy a good game of poker, but not with my sister's friends. They're a bit, I guess I could say indifferent when it comes to me. They don't like me, I don't like them."

"Oh."

"Doesn't matter though." The girl put her heels up on the table and stretched her lips into a grin. "I'm moving out in a couple of weeks. I finally got my bachelor's and I landed a spot with the LAPD." Sam looked over with a chuckle, amazed to meet someone else interested in that career field.

"Awesome, Freddie's going that route himself. He wants to be a detective, though. Even now he's investigating stuff." The girl rubbed her knees and lifted her eyebrows. "Like that Nora person, insane psycho chick that keeps bothering us." The girl's eyebrows moved inwards and her entire face seemed to sink.

"Nora? Derschlit?"

"Yeah." A sudden shift of tension came over her and she leaned back carefully while studying the growing anxiety and anger in the woman's eyes. "She uh-she's in prison now. Freddie thinks she's involved in a conspiracy, but I don't think so. Considering one of the people he thinks she might be working is one of our-" She faltered for a second, remembering what Freddie told her about Gibby. Her head bowed momentarily and she cleared her throat. "His…friend." She stretched her fingers out and looked up. "So what, do you know her?"

"Me?" The girl laughed nervously and shook her head as her father walked out of his study and into the kitchen. "No, not at all." She looked at the man and flashed an innocent smile. He filled up a glass of water, then returned to his study, and then the girl tensed and lowered her voice. "I know of her, actually. She's dangerous."

"How do you know her?"

"Not important, but you might consider telling your friend not to keep getting involved in investigating her. She's crazy, yes, but she has a tendency to get really out of control-and if he gets too close…"

Her heart stopped and fear shot up, choking her with its invisible grasp. Her memory slipped back to the day they first met Nora, it was at a party the girl convinced them to go to.

At this party was a group of friends that she'd gotten rid of, and among the faces that Sam could recall, this girl was there. Her hand moved up to her chest and she studied the rigid posture the girl was now seated in. "W-What do you know of Nora?"

"Other than she's a spoiled brat who stops at nothing to get what she wants, not much." She was going to maximum security, so she couldn't be much of a threat at all. "She was a dangerous criminal even before you might have met her. There are people who would be loyal to her, people loyal to her parents. So if your friend thinks there's a conspiracy, it may not be with the people that he suspects initially, but he is most likely correct."

"Well, she's not a threat anymore. She's in maximum now."

"You think that'll stop that bitch? Why do you think I'm here instead of Seattle, with my 'family'? There are reasons my sister and her friends don't associate with me, and reasons I don't associate with them."

"Witness protection?"

"I did say Nora stops at nothing. Tell your friend to stop pursuing that investigation, he's risking a lot. Let the police deal with her. Especially if he does stumble on something…"

"I-I'll try, but he won't listen. I've already told him not to investigate it, but he still is."

"Freddie Benson?"

"Yeah…" Sam was not one to be afraid of anything, but the way this girl was talking struck her in a place that was deeper than anything had gone before. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Nora came after them three times now, so PTSD was possible.

She wanted to believe Nora wasn't a threat anymore, that she'd gone to prison. The woman's final words that she'd return weighed heavily on her mind for a few days before she rid them from memory.

Of course, if people truly were loyal to Nora, then she had somebody outside prison that could do her dirty work.

Sam looked to her purse and took a deep breath, pausing as she hovered her hand above it. This wasn't an issue she wanted to stress Freddie out about right now, not with the problem regarding his mother, but it was of utmost importance that he know what this woman was saying. "I'll call him. Let him know."

"If you don't think he'll listen to you, I can try. Technically I'm not supposed to since I am dealing with Witness Protection, but if it keeps your friend from harm, then I'm happy to."

Back in Seattle, Freddie joined Gibby at a restaurant per invitation. "I think we left off on the wrong foot," Gibby started. "I want to say I'm sorry about the way I was talking before."

"It's no big deal," he lied, "I might have wanted to punch you, but it's fine."

"Oh?" Gibby laughed and smacked him on the back, causing him to jerk forward. "Don't worry man, if I ever say something like I did then, feel free to take a shot at me. I know you've got a thing for Sam, so it was rude of me to say what I did."

"Thanks." He rolled his eyes and reached for his water. "Though you're like everyone else, you think nothing's going to happen because I was stupid in the past." Gibby rubbed his neck and looked away without denying Freddie's claim. "I admit it, I played two best friends, but I didn't do it intentionally. I just didn't know what I wanted. I cared for Carly, cared for Sam, cared for a lot of girls and just didn't have anyone to you know…guide me."

"Well when the closest thing to a father figure you have is Spencer, then you've got a problem."

Freddie lifted his drink to his lips and closed his eyes. "Tell me about it." He had nothing against the man, and hadn't seen him since Carly left, but he may not have been the best male role model. Yet, Freddie had emphasized him for a time. Since the girls left, Freddie had a thing for dating a woman and moving on after a week or two, much like Spencer. "Sometimes I think I'm going to end up a crazy bachelor living alone by the time I'm thirty."

Gibby flashed a smirk. "Maybe you will." He chuckled as Gibby bit into a breadstick and yanked it away from his clamped teeth. "One thing you can say is you never cheated on anyone. At least not yet, but the way you are, it's not hard to understand why some girls might be afraid of that."

"At least I won't try to control or abuse them."

"Ah you know I don't hit women." Freddie's eyebrows rose as Gibby looked at him with a straight face. "I kill them." His body tensed and his jaw dropped. Gibby continued to stare at him for a long time, then broke out in laughter. "I'm kidding!" He whistled softly and shook himself, bowing his head as his friend nudged him. "No man, I couldn't hurt a fly."

Freddie chuckled softly, "You are such an ass."

"Tell me something I don't know." Gibby reached under the table and grabbed something from a backpack he'd brought with him. Freddie glanced over curiously and grimaced when he saw the man remove his old makeshift head. "I wanted to show you some cool adjustments that Nevel made, by the way." Freddie choked on his soup and lifted his hand.

"Please don't, I'm still trying to stomach the fact that you and Nevel were hanging out to begin with."

"He's not as bad as he was before."

"Whatever." Freddie took some bread from the basket in the center and glanced at the model head from the corner of his eyes. In place of the eyes were new glass eyes that had red pupils. "What the hell did you do with the eyes?"

"Aren't they cool? It's a change Nevel made. Why don't you take a closer look."

"Ugh." He turned his head fully and studied the eyes, unaffected by the rising sense of discomfort inside him. He pictured the odd device on Mrs. Papperman's neck and the 'shocker' that Nevel claimed to invent. Whatever he did to the model head may not have been so great. "So he changed your doll's eyes to look a little creepier?"

"Well that's not all. If you really look into the eyes, you can see a crystal clear reflection of yourself. Not to mention the red pupils change color."

"Really?" He leaned forward, suddenly mesmerized by the flickering pupils but surprised that they weren't changing. His stomach felt empty and a numbing pain throbbed in his head. "I don't…feel well…" He blinked multiple times and struggled to pull away, but the pupils were too fascinating and beckoned his concentration.

"My eyes are hypnotic, aren't they?" Gibby laughed once and Freddie responded with a dry chuckle. "So Nevel tells me you're still looking into the whole thing with Nora?"

"Yeah…there might be a conspiracy. I just want to find clues."

"You think others are involved with that psycho woman?"

"Maybe." He felt himself beginning to lose consciousness. His hands tensed as a groan left his lips. The numbing sensation in his head turned to fire and burned down his body. "What did Nevel do?"

His concentration was soon broken by a terrible ring. His body jolted back and Gibby frowned as he reached into his pocket for his phone. "That's Sam, I've got to take this." Freddie rose up from his seat and put the phone to his ear. "It's noisy in here, so I'll take this outside."

"Damn."

Freddie rushed outside where it was quiet and pressed himself against the wall, sighing with relief as the peculiar sensation fled him. "Hello? Sam?"

"I'm not Sam," replied an unfamiliar voice. His eyes widened and he glanced over his shoulder into the restaurant. Gibby was now focused on his food. When Freddie moved his hand to his chest, he noticed for the first time a drenching sweat. "But Sam's sitting right here next to me. You're Freddie, right?"

"Y-Yeah. Who are you?"

"Call me K. I'm in the Witness Protection program, Sam told me you've been looking into Nora's case."

"Yeah. What about it?"

"I know her. Or knew her." There was a heavy sigh, followed by a brief pause. Freddie pushed himself from the building and walked down the empty street, overcome by a gut instinct to get away from the place. "You might not remember me, I was one of the girls at that party of hers several years ago. Her parents…killed my parents."

His heart stopped and he started to shake his head at the impossible statement. "What? No they were there the second time she came after us. If they were in prison for murder, then-"

"They have friends, people who could get them out of trouble. Nora wanted something of mine, I wasn't going to give it up, so she had her parents go and convince my parents to give the item up. When they said no, Nora ordered her parents to kill us…I survived because I locked myself in the basement."

Freddie's knees began to buckle and once more his body was overcome with sweat. "So what happened?"

"The cops put me in witness protection and sent me to live with the people I'm with now. The reason being that some friend of theirs told me they were going to kill me once the parents were off. The judge delivered a not-guilty verdict and that was that."

"Okay. What's the point?"

"Nora stops at nothing to get what she wants. If you think there's a conspiracy, if she has people working with her, she does. The closer you get to figuring that out, the more likely she is going to come after you. Stop investigating, it's for the benefit of your own life. Let the police handle it."

"I-I can't. I have to know."

"Why? What good will it do?"

"Because if I find out who is working for her, I can go to the police with that information. Then nobody's going to come after us, no one's going to hurt Sam. No one's going to go after Carly in Italy, though I think she's fairly safe over there."

"If you're worried about Sam's safety, then stop investigating. Nora will use that. Not to mention she already wants to go after both Sam and Carly, from what your friend told me. She'd also like to go after you because you make a third of iCarly. Listen to me and listen well, Benson. Nora is psycho for a reason, she's a crazy bitch and the deeper you get with her the more dangerous it's going to get."

"Look." Freddie scratched his forehead and exhaled sharply. "I appreciate the concern, but I have to make sure she's really not going to be a threat anymore." He heard Sam's voice in the background, telling the woman that he wasn't going to listen. He rolled his eyes and tightened his lips while thinking of a reply. "Her parents are still locked up, so maybe the people that were loyal to them aren't anymore."

The girl sighed and spoke with a calm tone. "Then she would have found new people. Maybe when she escaped the last time." Freddie tensed and mentally searched for how someone as insane as Nora could have found someone loyal to her. "Listen to me and listen well. Even before my parents were murdered, Nora had this way about her at school…she's a manipulative, evil little bitch. She uses people, plays out the things they want most and seduces them with a promise of reaching that goal just to get what she wants. When she's done with that person, she casts them aside."

"So if someone's working with her, you think she's using them?"

"Probably. They're going to finish whatever goal she has, hoping to get whatever they want. If it's revenge, money, hate, greed, love, whatever it is…she's a demon of desire, as I said, promising to grant people the thing they want most so she can rise up herself."

His phone beeped and he pulled it away from his ear. The low battery indicator was flashing. "Shit my phone didn't charge last night. I need to go."

"Wait, just tell us you won't pursue this any further!"

"I have to go, I'm sorry." The phone vibrated and started to shut down. Freddie looked up and stared at the restaurant in the distance. As he looked to the right, he thought he saw somebody in the alleyway next to him. At first glance it resembled Nevel, but thinking back, he assumed it to be a figment of his imagination.

Freddie pulled his father's old brown hat down on his head and continued to walk away from the restaurant. Whatever was awaiting him there, he wanted no part of.

Well Freddie, Gibby almost got your ass. Nope, Freddie's not lettin' the cops deal with this one, though perhaps he ought to, like his father things truly are deeper than he knows. He almost went out by way of his father, but got lucky. A detective's luck.