Chapter 3- …Into the fire

It was slightly after 4 in the morning when a well rested Bentley woke up. This would be much too early for most, but he was feeling well rested and full of energy, so he sat up in bed and cracked open his laptop. The opalescent glow of the screen cast odd shadows about his face and room, illuminating the otherwise dark living quarters. He pulled up his browser with a few deft clicks and typed thiefnet into the browser bar at the top of the screen. The fan of the small laptop kicked in, slightly startling the freshly woken turtle. The screen was then filled with large grey letters; THIEFNET was displayed proudly at the top of the site. Clicking on a drop down menu on the side, he signed in and checked to see if any of the loot from their most recent job had sold yet. One item, a small golden locket containing a picture of the daughter of a local crime boss, had sold for 400 dollars. Smiling slightly, he clicked the button that said 'collect' and transferred the funds into an overseas back account. "Four hundred and TWENTY dollars," he said to himself, smiling. Sly didn't think the locket would sell, and had bet Bentley 20 dollars that no one would be interested in it.

A loud noise from downstairs caused him to jump. With a look of concern on his face, he hastily shut the lid of his laptop and threw open a drawer next to his bed. Fumbling around inside, he grabbed his crossbow, fitted it with a dart, and then holstered it. Spinning himself around in his bed, he pushed his legs over the side, and slid down into his waiting wheelchair. Buckling himself quickly in, he slowly wheeled himself over to the door, cracked it slightly, and then peeked out. Seeing nothing, he opened it fully and then made his way to the stairs. Pressing a button on the side of the armrest, 2 metal rods extended from the sides of the wheels and they positioned themselves on the first set of steps, slowly and silently walking him down.

When he reached the bottom of the flight, he drew his crossbow and leaned out from around the door frame, looking into the spacious main kitchen of the apartment complex. Seeing nothing, he continued to slowly wheel himself to the foyer. When he got there, a loud bang came from the entryway, sending a cloud of dust from the door frame.

"W-who is it! I'm armed!" he said, shaking, but trying to steady his aim with the crossbow.

"It's Sly! Open the door!" Came the response from the other side. His voice sounded raspy, but it was unmistakably Sly Cooper. Bentley wheeled quickly over and undid the latch, throwing open the door.

Singed, limping, and soaked to the bone, the raccoon thief stumbled hurriedly in. "Quick, go clear off the table in the kitchen. I have someone who needs a bit of attention, here." He gestured to the limp body of Carmelita in his arms who, as if on cue, groaned softly.

The little green turtle gave him a look of confusion, but then noticed what Sly was gesturing at. His eyes grew wide. "Is that…"

"Yes, it's Carmelita. Now quickly, she has a pretty bad burn on her leg and a gash on the top of her head. I'll explain later, but we have to help her."

Nodding dumbly, Bentley went quickly back into the kitchen he passed through moments before and cleared the table with a few hasty swipes of his arms. Limping in shortly after, Sly carefully placed Carmelita onto the cool granite top with a long sigh of pain from having to bend over.

"What happened, Sly? What's with the burns, and the water, and the THAT!" He threw his arms out, gesturing wildly to Carmelita. "I've come to expect some crazy things from you over the years, but THIS is just not what I expected to happen at 4 in the morning."

Sly chuckled softly, and then the pain it caused him made him draw in a sharp breath. "Yeah, well, I just thought I'd spice things up a bit, you know? Thought I'd take a stroll through a burning building, and then go for a little swim with lovely Ms Fox over here. Enough chit chat, I'll explain later. Do you think you can do anything to help that burn?"

Bentley had grabbed a first aid kit from a cabinet on the far side of the kitchen, and had begun wrapping gauze around the gash on the top of Carmelita's head. "Here Sly, lift up her head so I can fasten this in the back. Obliging without hesitation, the raccoon carefully placed his hands behind her head and lifted. Bentley offered back a quick thanks as he pinned the wrap in the back with a safety pin. "The gash seems to be taken care of for now, so let's take a look at that burn." Moving down the table, he leaned over to get a closer look.

The majority of her pants, and her fur, on her left leg had been scorched away, leaving a badly burnt hide on her thigh. Bentley leaned in and touched it, causing her to groan softly.

"How did this happen?" he asked, still focusing intently on the injured area.

"A charred ceiling beam broke loose and fell on her, giving her the gash and the burn."

Bentley nodded slowly, and then turned to his partner. "I have a bottle of ammonia in the storage closet in the back; I'll be right back with it. This would be a lot easier if she was awake."

"Don't you think she will freak out when she realizes where she is?"

"No doubt about it, Sly." With that said, Bentley spun around in his chair and began wheeling himself into a room adjacent the kitchen, leaving Sly alone with the unconscious Carmelita. With a grunt of pain, he reached down and pulled one of the larger pieces of glass from his side, and then placed the shimmering red fragment on the counter behind him. Grabbing the roll of gauze that Bentley had placed on the table, he unwound a length of it and then began to wrap his midriff, saying to himself that he'd get the shards of glass and wood out later. Tying it in a neat knot, he leaned down to inspect Carmelita. His face contorted into a grimace when he got a close look at the burn.

The skin around the edge of it was beginning to flake off, while the center of it was scorched to a crisp with blood leaking through the cracks. Certainly not a pretty sight. Sly opened a nearby drawer and took out a pair of scissors, and began to cut away a bit of the fur around the edge of the injury so that it would be easier to deal with. The metal instruments snipped and clacked in short, controlled segments as Sly tried to take off only what was necessary. As soon as his task was completed, he placed the slightly blood flecked scissors in the sink nearest him as Bentley walked back in with a vial of the potent ammonia in his hands. "You ready to deal with her?" he asked as he wheeled himself to the edge of the table.

Sly gave a little smile. "I'm always ready to deal with the lovely Ms Fox, though I've got to admit, this time is going to be interesting."

Bentley nodded in agreement, and then splashed a little bit of the pungent liquid on a washcloth and brought it underneath her nose. She wrinkled her nose a bit, and then her eyes fluttered slightly as they slowly opened. She tried to lift her head, but let out a groan as she let it fall back to the table.

"What's going on," she asked, still hazy. Sly reached down and smoothed a bit of hair that the gauze wrap was causing to stick up.

"You took a pretty good knock to the noggin," he replied softly. "And you have a nasty burn on your left thigh, but we're going to take care of you, don't worry."

Carmelita opened her eyes a little bit more. "What do you mean? Who's going to take care of me?" She looked Sly directly in the face, and then her ears went back flat against her head. "Should have expected…" she grumbled. "And my leg is just fine, thank you." She tried to stand up, but collapsed back onto the table, hissing in pain. Sly, with a look of genuine concern on his face, leaned down and placed his hand on top of hers, but she withdrew it quickly.

"Doesn't look fine to me," said Sly, looking back to Bentley.

"Umm… I'm going to have to side with Sly on this one, umm, inspector."

Carmelita looked at Bentley, who was obviously nervous at her being fully awake now. "Great, the whole gang's here," she said sarcastically, throwing her arms into the air.

"Not quite," came a squeaky voice from behind her. In the doorway that lead into the kitchen stood Penelope in purple pajamas. Yawning, she made her way over to join Sly and Bentley. "I heard a lot of commotion down here, so I decided to investigate. What the heck's going on here?"

Sly looked at Bentley, and then back to her. "We'll explain later, but could you come over here and lend a hand? This wound needs to be disinfected, and it would help to have someone else to, well, help."

Bentley turned to her. "Penelope, could you please get the anesthetic from the first aid kit over there? It should be the little needle with the blue cap on it."

Carmelita looked up at him, eyes wide. "Needle? Oh no, you people aren't sticking me with anything." She hadn't ever told anyone, but she had had a deep fear of needles ever since she was 5 years old. She felt her heart rate quicken at the mention of it.

Sly could see that something wasn't right, so he took her hand in his own. "Don't worry, it's just a little something to lessen the pain around the burn, it's no big deal." He sensed that she wasn't worried so much about what was in the needle rather than the needle itself, so he tried his best to comfort her. "Here, look at me."

Reluctantly, she turned her head towards him. "What is it?" she grumbled lowly. Taking advantage of her distraction, Bentley quickly accepted the needle from Penelope, uncapped it, and inserted it at the top of Carmelita's thigh. Depressing the plunger, he quickly removed the intrusive object, and put the cap back on.

Wincing, she gave all of them a look of distaste. "Dirty trick."

"A dirty trick that did the trick," quipped Sly. "In a few minutes, you won't even be able to feel it anymore."

Carmelita snorted, "Right." Still laying down on the table with her leg burning even more from the sting of the needle, she crossed her arms, a scowl on her face. "I'm going to have all of you arrested for kidnapping," she said. "You could have just taken me to an ambulance that was on the scene, but nooo, you had to take me back to your lair."

"Lair?" said sly, a look of mock hurt on his face. "This is hardly what I would call a lair. Quite comfy if you ask me." He turned back to his mouse friend, leaving Carmelita to pout and plot in peace. "Penelope, go see if the fire has hit the news yet. It's still a bit on the early side," he said, checking his watch. "But the news day should have started about 20 minutes ago."

"On it," came her reply as she started to make her way into the waiting room turned living room.

Sly let out a long groan as soon as she was gone. "Ughh, my back is killing me. Hey Bent, could you take a look at it and pick out a few of the bits of glass?"

The turtle nodded. "Alright, Sly. Go ahead and take that bandage off so I can get a better look."

Obliging, and ignoring a string of muttered curses coming from the table next to him, he began to slowly unwrap the bandage.

20 minutes later

Gingerly touching his rebandaged midriff, he thanked Bentley and then made his way to Carmelita. She was still muttering darkly when he arrived. "What happened over at headquarters?" he asked. "The way you hit me over the head, it seemed like you were waiting for something to jump out and attack you." Reaching up, he softly patted the top of his head, checking the rather large bump that had sprouted up.

"I don't really know whether to believe what I saw," she muttered. Sly gave her a quizzical look.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said, ringtail. It was like some bad movie in there." Her face was still hard, but Sly saw what he thought was a touch of fear in her eyes.

Carmelita knew what happened, but she was trying to rid her mind of the horrifying images that the memories presented. Besides, she wasn't in the best of moods thanks to Sly taking her back to his safe house.

Sly looked her in the eyes. "There is something you aren't telling me. What is it?"

Carmelita sighed, giving in. "It was a lion and a leopard, but they weren't like any that I had seen before." She closed her eyes, remembering the horrifying scene with more detail than she would have wanted. "They broke in through a second story window only a few offices away from mine. The leopard had a sword, and he used it to cut down everyone that ran into him. He was unstoppable." She gently rubbed a spot on her right hand. "He managed to nick my hand, but I was able to make it back to my office and barricade myself in. The lion, oh god, I don't even know if I should call him a lion. His face was horribly burnt and scarred, and his eyes seemed to radiate with a fire of their own. He used a device mounted on his wrists to set the fire, burning both building and people…" She trailed off, unable to continue. Sly had a look of horror on his face.

"Who could have done this?" he asked.

"I don't know, but I'll make sure they pay for what they have done. I watched my friends get cut to pieces…"

Sly furrowed his brow, not knowing what to do. Seeing Carmelita shiver slightly, he realized that she must be cold. She was soaking wet and only wearing half a pair of pants, after all.

"You look cold," he said. "I'll be right back, I'm going to go get you something to change into."

"If you could just get me a towel or something, that would be just fine," she said grumpily. "I'm not going to wear any of your clothes."

"They wouldn't be my clothes," replied Sly. "My ancestor Thadeus Winslow Cooper has quite the wardrobe, and it just so happened to be one of the things I inherited. He has a few of his wife's outfits in there, would you be ok with one of those?"

Carmelita thought hard. She was freezing cold, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how thankful she was for him offering. "Fine," she finally said. "But make it quick, I'm freezing over here."

"I'll be back before you know it," said a smiling Sly. His back was still paining him slightly, as the painkillers hadn't quite kicked in, but he moved surprisingly fast out of the kitchen and over to the stairs. Climbing them quickly, he made his way to the third floor and into the room that he called his own. Flicking on the light switch, he saw that his bed was still a mess from him getting up only an hour ago. Ignoring it, he made his way over to a walk in closet on the wall opposite his bead. Unclasping the latch on the door, he walked inside and began to fiddle with the lock of an old, ornately carved wardrobe with the initials TWC carved into the lower left of it. "Thanks, old man. Looks like I finally have a use for this," he whispered to himself. Not wanting to bother with finding the key, he picked the lock with a few quick movements and then opened the door. A small moth flitted out of the top, and then disappeared from sight. Fumbling around inside of the wardrobe, he found a small little chest that had the initials SAC embossed on the top. Undoing the lid, he found a pair of brown women's dress slacks and a grey blouse. Quickly closing up the wardrobe and exiting the closet, he passed by the bathroom and grabbed 2 towels from a rack nearest the door. Mounting the stairs again, he descended back to the first floor and into the kitchen. "Here you go," he said, placing the clothes and towel onto the table that Carmelita was now sitting up on.

"Thanks," she muttered, and then began toweling herself off.

"I'm going to give you a bit of privacy so that you can get changed into those," Said Sly. "I'll be in the living room, so call me when you are done so that we can keep talking about what happened at Interpol."

"I already told you what happened," she said. "And I would appreciate it if I could just get a bit of rest. I already know that you won't let me leave until you are absolutely certain I am ok, so I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

"How do I know you won't try and sneak off?"

"Cooper, with the way my leg is, I would barely be able to make it out the door." She hated being stuck here, but she really didn't have a choice in the matter.

Sly nodded his agreement, and then turned, walking out the door of the kitchen with a slight limp.

As soon as she saw that he was gone, Carmelita undid the button on her jeans and slipped them off. Other than having a bit of trouble working around the bandage on her leg, they came off easily. Ridding herself of her jacket and undoing the zipper on her halter top, she slipped her arms out of them. Grabbing the towel next to her on the table, she began to finish toweling herself off. The towel made a wet squelch as it landed on the ground in a heap. Carefully picking up the shirt that Sly had left her, she took a moment to admire it. She had no idea who it used to belong to, or how old it was, but no doubt about It the previous owner had a sense of style. Slipping her head and arms into it, she pulled it down and smoothed out the edges. It was made of a smooth fabric that she didn't quite recognize; it was too soft to be cotton, but not smooth enough to be silk. She wasn't a big fan of the keyhole neckline, as it showed a bit too much of her chest for her to feel comfortable, but it would have to do. Unfolding the pair of slacks next, she began to slowly work them up her legs. The bandage wasn't as much trouble this time, as the soft, aged fabric of the pants glided easily over it. Standing up for the first time since she got to the safe house, she hooked the button in the front and then smoothed down the pleats on both sides. Her fur was still slightly wet in places, making the pants stick, but it wasn't unmanageable. She walked slowly over to the ovens and inspected herself in the reflection of the shiny surface. Not too bad, she thought to herself with a smile. Her hair was a mess, but she would deal with it later. With much effort, she made her way to the door to the kitchen, and then started to make her way to the living room.

Sly walked in to see a confused looking Penelope, the shifting light of the TV illuminating the room.

"Uhh… Sly? The news says that Carmelita was the one that set the fire," she said, confused.

"What?"

"You heard me right. Here, look." She nodded towards the TV. Sly looked at it, surprised at what he saw.

On the TV, a business like ferret was sitting behind a desk giving the 'details' of what happened. In the corner of the screen was a picture of Carmelita, with a 'crimestoppers hotline' phone number underneath it. "Turn it up," said sly. Penelope took the remote and aimed it at the TV, pressing the volume button a few times.

"Former Inspector Carmelita Fox is believed to be responsible for setting the blaze that overtook Interpol Headquarters of Paris. The fire claimed the lives of 13 officers, and caused millions of dollars worth in damages to Interpol Headquarters and surrounding buildings. If you have any information that may lead to the capture of this dangerous criminal, call the hotline in the corner of your screen. If you see her, we advise that you do not approach, as she is considered mentally unstable and dangerous."

"Can you believe it?" Said Penelope.

Sly glared at the news anchor on the screen. "Nope. This makes me glad that I brought her here, though. If I had taken her to an ambulance, she would have been arrested on the spot."

"What about being arrested?" came Carmelita's voice from the side of the room. "What's going on?"

Sly looked at Penelope, and then back to Carmelita, a look on his face that Carmelita couldn't quite place.

AN

A bit on the slow side, but an interesting development, no? Who could have blamed Carmelita for the fire? We'll all just have to wait to find out, now wont we! A few of my keener readers may notice that this story is categorized as Romance/Adventure. Where is the romance, you ask? Well, it's coming up. At least I think so, next chapter is gonna be a bit like this one was, where I just let the ideas flow as the come along. Wish me luck! This chapter is dedicated to Alan, my first ever review! Woo!