Hello, all! Uploading a few hours early this week because I am all the tired. Work on the sequel to Nightingale Syndrome is progressing slowly but surely! Hopefully It'll be ready to go early next year!

Enjoy the chapter!

"Aren't you supposed to use ice?" I asked as Bentley placed two hot water bottles on either side of my arm and then proceeded to mummify the whole thing.

"Well," he said, reaching for another handful of cloth strips, "Ice reduces swelling by constricting the blood vessels and reducing blood flow to the injury. Heat expands the vessels so the blood can reach the area more freely. Some people say to alternate heat and ice, but most professional athletes say heat-"

"Bentley, I've stopped listening to you."

"I figured as much," he said with a smile, carefully tying off the last strip. "That too tight?"

"I just hope I still have an arm under here somewhere," I answered honestly, poking at the giant wrap of towels. "Is this all really necessary?"

"Well, since your arm isn't actually broken, no. If you want to just tough it out, that's your prerogative, but this way will be much more comfortable."

"Okay, point taken." I said, maneuvering the whole mess into a makeshift sling, "Thanks."

He glanced over at the binocucom station, where we could both clearly see Sly bust his way into Muggshot's casino, "No problem. Now, you want to tell me what happened between you and Sly?"

I grimaced, "Not really? And how do you know that?"

"I've known Sly for the past ten years, if I couldn't pick up that something had happened, I could hardly call myself a decent friend." He tossed me a water bottle and a couple of pain killers, "Spill."

I sighed, leaning back against the side of the van, "I dunno Bentley. Just when I think he might be an okay, decent guy, he throws me up against the van and demands to know why I'm helping you. It's like he's bipolar or something."

"He has his moments," Bentley muttered with a grimace, "How mad was he, exactly?"

"Mad enough that I'm gonna be bruised in the morning. It was weird though. I don't think he was necessarily mad at me, I dunno." I ran a hand through my hair, "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, you were just a really convenient target," the turtle sighed, "Sly has a lot of old anger. It occasionally flares like this. I thought it was getting better, though."

I meant to shrug, but instead found myself saying, "He was worried. He seemed more pissed that he couldn't figure out why I was helping you that anything. Like I might turn you in still."

Bentley slowly nodded to himself, "Yes, that makes sense. If there's something Sly has in spades, it's protective instinct."

I was going to ask what he meant by that when the binocucom station chirped- Cooper was inside Muggshot's casino.

"Would you look at that ugly mug?" Were the first words out of his mouth as soon as Bentley made the connection; a giant effigy of Muggshot's face filled the screen.

"I am," Bentley confirmed, fingers flying across his keyboard, "And I find it infinitely fascinating."

"Huh?" Sly's expression suggested he was wondering if Bentley had had a brain injury.

"My x-ray detection devices reveal that a secret elevator to Muggshot's penthouse is contained within that giant head."

"So how do we get in?"

"Behind this locked wall there's a lever that summons the elevator, but you need all seven keys to open it up."

"I'm on it," Cooper went to kill the connection, but Bentley stopped him.

"By the way, Kaia's arm isn't broken, just bruised."

I gaped at the turtle, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. I knew Cooper couldn't see me from where I was sitting, but why was Bentley taking advantage of that?

There was a heartbeat, then a firm, "Good." and the connection died.

The more Sly thought about it, the more he wanted to stop thinking about it.

The only saving grace in this situation was that he hadn't actually managed to scare Jinx. She'd been surprised for a second, then gave as good as she got, which actually made him fight a smile. As long as she wasn't scared of him, it was fine. Still, he felt he should apologize, but honestly had no idea how.

He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the back-alleys he was traversing even as Bentley commented on them.

What he needed was a distraction.

"Well, well, well, looks who's wandered into my crosshairs... Sly Cooper!"

And what a lovely distraction he'd found. He grinned to himself as he looked up to see Inspector Fox on the opposing rooftop.

Nothing was as an effective a distraction as running for his life from a beautiful woman.

Or, so he thought.

"Wow, Carmelita has terrible aim."

Sly nearly fell off the wire he was balancing on and just barely managed to dodge a shock pistol bolt, "Jinx? What are you doing?"

"Bentley left and I'm bored. Seriously, I have better aim than Carmelita and I'm not legally allowed to carry a firearm."

"And why's that?" The raccoon found himself asking, making a leap just as the platform beneath him was destroyed.

"Long story involving acorns and asphalt, you don't want to know, trust me."

"And the fact that you're, what, twelve?"

"I am fifteen, you nimrod, and you're not older than me enough to make jokes like that."

"Hey, I've got three years on you."

"Congrats. You can vote if, y'know, you wouldn't be arrested on the spot. And you were an American citizen. Wait, are you an American citizen?"

Nope, Jinx definitely wasn't scared of him. Sly grinned as he avoided yet another bolt. He'd have to make a point never to mention to Bentley that he'd been right about Sly maybe getting to where he liked the hybrid. She wasn't so bad once he allowed for the possibility that she might not be evil incarnate.

"How's the arm?" he asked after a second of silence. He was surprised he'd asked, and even more surprised when he realized it was because he didn't want her to stop talking.

"It's okay. I've had worse. Bentley taped some hot water bottles around it."

"Yeah, he does that. I used ice instead once and let's just say Bentley was smug the whole time I had a limp."

"Yeah, is Bentley secretly an evil mastermind?"

"Well," Sly said with a smile as he watched Carmelita float away on an oversized balloon, "not yet."

Something about not being a part of the gang is that when you slip out to get a Slurpee or something, the entire gang is liable to totally move right along with the plan and not wait for you to get back to do something like breaking into a mob boss's penthouse.

"What?!" I screeched, almost dumping my drink everywhere in my haste to scramble up behind Bentley. "Sly is fighting Muggshot!? Like an actual, fair fight? Is he insane?"

"I didn't realize he'd be too strong for Sly's cane!" Bentley retorted, frantically typing, "There has to be some way to stop him!"

Muggshot was not, in fact, too strong for Sly's cane, Sly just wasn't strong enough to use it in the correct way to beat him. His father had fought Muggshot and won.

I wisely decided not to mention this. Mostly because Sly's dad was freakishly strong and I didn't want Cooper deciding he needed to up the ante with weight-training or something.

Someone had to say it, "I suppose running is out of the question?"

Bentley's mouth was a grim line, "They're fenced in."

I leaned down over his shoulder to get a better look at his screen. "What's with those crystals?"

"I think they're decorative and really not my priority right now." Bentley growled, his nose almost pressed against his laptop.

An idea was flickering around the edge of my mind and solidified when I caught sight of gold at the edge of the screen.

"Are those mirrors?"

"Yes, why on Earth-" the turtle's eyes widened, "Oh. Oh!" He instantly flicked on his mic, "Sly-"

Muggshot fired a burst of bullets and Sly's binocucom went dark. There were approximately three seconds of silence.

Then panic reigned.

Murray was convinced Sly and been shot and killed, Bentley was frantically trying to bring the binocucom back online, and I started tugging at the surprisingly tight knots around my arm with my teeth.

It was that last bit that was considered odd, which was understandable under the circumstances.

"What are you doing?" Bentley hissed, clutching white-knuckled at his laptop like it could solve all of his problems if only he pleaded with it enough.

"Hey, I saved his carcass once, what's twice?" I said with a grin and bravado that hopefully covered up my trembling fingers. I knew if I started thinking about it, I'd never actually do it. But one look at the pure, unadulterated hope on Bentley's face when he caught on was enough to make me decide it was worth it.

He started scrambling through his stuff, shoving a plain binocucom in my hands as well as a holster for it before asking Murray for a tire iron.

Sly was busy running for his life, which was really becoming far too much of a theme for all he hadn't even been a career criminal for a whole year yet, when the elevator that brought him up to the penthouse dinged open.

It was so freaking surreal that it threw off his gait and he tripped over his own feet, sending a hail of gunfire that would have caught him in the back sailing harmlessly over his head instead, thank God for small favors.

He was up and running again in under a second, of course. Muggshot had to reload and that was probably what had saved his life several times so far. But Muggshot's backup may have just arrived and he turned to assess his chances of continued living and nearly tripped again.

Running parallel to him on the other side of the fence, one long streak of grey, was Jinx. She made eye contact with him, winked, and came to an abrupt halt behind one of the gold discs around the perimeter of the area.

Sly kept running because Muggshot had reloaded and really seemed to like the idea of turning him into mincemeat, but was hyper aware of exactly where he left the hybrid.

Which was why, when one of the massive crystals behind him lit up, causing both him and Muggshot to turn toward it and prompting him to realize the gold discs were mirrors and Jinx was doing something with them, he didn't even think twice about reaching out with his cane, hooking the edge of the mirror nearest him, and spinning it to face the rest of the room.

It just about blinded him, but it was the wave of heat that made him realize Jinx actually had a plan.

He couldn't help it, he grinned.

Maybe Muggshot could take a few hits from his cane without flinching, but no one's heat tolerance was that good.

He and Kaia ran around the perimeter of the fence, flipping opposing mirrors so Muggshot never knew which one of them to go after. Brawn he had. Brains, not so much.

The gangster's yelp when all the beams of light connected and zapped him was something to savor. Even better, the heat had expanded the metal his guns were made out of to the point that they were effectively ruined.

Muggshot made a break for the elevator upstairs and his spare set of guns and Sly bolted for the opposing lift.

As it activated, he thought he heard Jinx mutter, "Conveniently located second elevator, of course."

Sly had to bite his lip to keep from grinning again. He'd thought he was probably dead when his binocucom caught a stray bullet, but Bentley was a sneaky guy.

And Jinx, well. Apparently there was something to her after all.

My arm was screaming at me but hey, at least I was used to it by now.

After running around and flipping the mirrors back around to avoid turning the entire room into one very ambitious sauna, I stood very still, and watched the flashes of light climb higher and higher toward the ceiling.

Apparently there were more mirrors and crystals up there and Cooper had taken Bentley's idea and run with it. Which was good because I could see no other way he could defeat Muggshot.

And defeat him he did. Also, that villainous monologue thing was apparently catching. It carried down to me clearly because for all Muggshot's faults, his projection was oddly clear.

"-You want alla that stupid picture book? You're gonna have to go down to Haiti and cross paths with Mz. Ruby. And then believe you me- you don't wanna be you!"

The lights went out one by one as Sly headed back down the elevator, finally emerging with several stiff, yellow pages clutched in one hand.

I met him as he stepped off the lift, looking down at the pages and smoothing one corner with a thumb.

"My ancestor, 'Tennessee Kid' Cooper. Perfected the Rail Walk and the Rail Slide." He had a wry smile as he carefully tucked the pages away in his backpack, "So, I'm assuming you heard what Muggshot had to say?"

"Just that last part, but what does that have to do with anything?"

He just stared me down, obviously waiting for me to figure it out, even as a little smirk curled his lips up. When I finally got it, I very calmly made a fist and clonked myself in the forehead.

"Seriously?"

I heard him muffle a laugh before a hand landed heavy on my shoulder. It surprised me and my eyes flew open so I could stare up at him.

There was something soft in his eyes. I wasn't sure what, exactly, but I suddenly felt very small.

"Thanks for the help." That was a smile. And honest-to-God smile, nothing wry or mocking about it at all. Just grateful.

I swallowed and definitely didn't focus on how warm his hand was on my shoulder. He'd been running around a lot, it was probably totally normal, "No problem."

And that was, of course, when we heard the sirens.

Undertaking a rooftop escape with someone in tow what a very new experience that required a surprising amount of manhandling.

The cops were everywhere, so every movement became a mad dash from cover to cover. Normally, this would be exciting and fun, but when he was responsible for making sure Jinx made it from point A to point B, it was suddenly a lot more hair-raising.

Not for her sake, nothing bad would happen to her if they were caught. Maybe she wouldn't let their destination spill, but he wasn't going to risk it either way. Not here, not now, not when everything was for some reason going right.

So he yanked her around by the good hand, which she was clutching like it was the only thing she knew how to do which, given how wide-eyed she was as they tore through the city, probably wasn't too far from the truth.

A helicopter flew over head, shining down floodlights and he yanked her back into the shadow caused by an oversized chimney.

Sly stepped out after it passed, following it with his eyes to make sure it didn't loop back around for another sweep. After being sure, he turned back to Jinx... who wasn't where he left her.

He had a split second to panic before a pebble hit his shoe, directing him to look at the hybrid, who was crouched by the edge of the roof, out of sight of the street, but only just, and waving him over.

Curious, he slid over next to her. All of his attention immediately went to trying not to laugh. Muggshot was being led out in handcuffs and Carmelita was lighting into a poor local cop about how could Sly Cooper possibly have managed to escape. It was glorious.

Smirking and shaking his head, he curled a hand around Jinx's elbow, tugging her away from the edge, "C'mon, let's go."

Kaia grinned and nodded and they went.

"Is this a theme now?" I grumbled, wrestling my hair into a braid. I'd been in a fairly good mood about five seconds earlier. After leaving Mesa City in our collective dust and driving through the night for an unknown amount of hours (I slept through it, okay?) we'd arrived at yet another motel, in California this time. Changing into over-sized pajamas after an awesome shower was very nice and I'd have liked to hold onto the warm feelings rather than being told I was going to be confined to the room again.

As I said, I was sensing a theme.

Sly rolled his eyes from his bed, where he was flipping through his newly acquired pages for probably the sixty-third time, "Hey, we deserve a break."

"I deserve not to spend a week cataloguing the various symptoms of cabin fever!"

He paused, sitting up just enough to look over at me, "That's actually a real thing?"

"Well we'll find out, won't we?"

He shrugged, going back to his pages.

I flicked the rubber band I was going to use for my hair at his head.

"Well, we weren't exactly expecting you to be with us much longer," Bentley explained apologetically. "And in the US it's more likely you'll be recognized."

I sighed, giving up on my hair and flopping back onto my bed to let the last twelve hours catch up to me, "Whatever, but I demand books."

"You can borrow some of my coloring books."

"Thanks, Murray."

It was a bit annoying to be confined to the room for a week, but not nearly so much as I thought it would be. I made a list of books I wanted and they would appear whenever I wasn't looking, like the mysterious book fairy didn't want to be seen or something. As if I wasn't already sure it was Sly since neither Bentley nor Murray could move that quietly.

After a while, I started writing down other stuff on my list, just to see if I would get it.

Book that I hadn't read for five years? Appeared on the corner of the night table.

Soda that I was knew for a fact was not sold west of Texas? Perfectly chilled on a coaster on the desk.

Before I knew it, we were playing a game. I kept writing down things that were harder and harder to find and they kept appearing.

We never talked about it when the gang came back for the night, but from the smirks Sly kept shooting my way, I could tell he thought he was winning.

So I upped my game.

Carnival pretzel? Still warm on the table by the window, with bonus super-sized stuffed puppy.

Old game for an even older version of the GameBoy? Showed up in its original packaging on the windowsill.

This escalated sort of alarmingly fast. Bentley eventually put a stop to it after I started making pterodactyl-like screeching sounds upon finding a bag on my bed after writing down 'Those weird gold stars with actors' names on them'.

So yeah, Sly won, but I had enough spoils from our little game that I could barely fit them all in my duffel bag, so I felt like it evened out in the end.

After a traumatic plane ride (there had been no convenient distraction this time, so I'd had a minor meltdown in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Sly'd had to hold my hand the rest of the way and we agreed to never speak of it ever) and an only slightly less traumatic van ride (which had forced me to just flat out ask Bentley if I could sign a blood-oath or something that I wouldn't reveal the location of their Safehouse so I could escape this ride without being drugged (the answer was 'no')), I woke up on the couch of what I was ninety-five percent sure was a train car to big brown eyes far, far too close to mine.

"Holy God, personal space!"

"Pssh, personal space is for weaklings," Sly rolled his eyes, but nevertheless backed off.

I groaned and ran a hand down my face, "What. What do you want?"

"Weee-eeeellll," he drew the word out an extra syllable, "I've been practicing the Rail Walk and Rail Slide and Bentley mentioned that it's sometimes easier to learn something if you teach it to someone."

I blinked at him, taking an embarrassingly long time to figure out what he was getting at. "Wha- me!?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

He shrugged, long, languid, and just a bit too casual. "You're the only one that can learn it. Neither Bentley nor Murray have an appropriate body type to even try."

There was something more there, clearly. But it was equally clear that I wasn't going to get a look at it, at least not right now.

I groaned, rubbing the heel of my hand against my forehead. "Let me change first."

He grinned and tossed a water bottle at me, which I caught, "See you outside."

After changing into shorts and a tank top, I went outside.

As I'd always thought, we were in the middle of a train yard. I couldn't see anything beyond, though, because we were in a sort of circle of train cars that blocked my vision.

Someone, probably all three of them, actually, had cobbled together what looked like a training course out of wood and old rails. There were curved rails slanted down, straight rails from platform to platform, it looked dangerous.

And, of course, Sly was sitting on one of the rails, loose pages of the Thievius Raccoonus clutched in one hand as he reread them for probably the millionth time. He saw me coming and perked up, putting one hand on the rail to swing down to my level.

"If you expect me to actually walk on those, you have another thing coming," I informed him, staring warily at the rails suspended five feet off the ground.

He snorted, placing the pages he held gently out of the way, "I can't say I'd ever pegged you as one to be afraid of heights."

"I'm not afraid of heights," I crossed my arms and glared, "I'm afraid of falling."

"Well, you don't have to be worried about falling because I'll catch you," Sly said, hopping up on the low end of the rail and offering me a hand, "C'mon."

I frowned, biting at the inside of my mouth before taking his hand, "That's so cheesy I actually can't come up with anything to say to it."

"Good to know that's the way to get the last word," he said with a smirk, lifting me up next to him.

I couldn't respond to that either, because I was too busy trying to find my feet, flashing back to countless gymnastics lessons with balance beams. The train rails were thinner, but it was easier than I'd thought to find that balance again.

He cocked his head to the side as I stepped away experimentally, "Huh, that was fast."

"I took gymnastics as a kid," I replied distractedly, holding my arms carefully at my sides, ready to raise them to correct if I needed to. It was times like this having a prehensile tail really helped.

"Yeah?" Sly prompted after a minute, as though he could sense there was more to the story.

"Yeah," I took a couple of careful steps backwards, "I didn't want to, it was my mom's idea. I'm crazy out of proportion, you can probably tell. My shoulders are too broad, my legs are too short- my coordination was shot all to hell when I was little. My parents were investigated about a million times because I had to go to the hospital so much because I'd be clumsy and hurt myself."

"How did gymnastics help?"

"You have to be really aware of what all the parts of you are doing in gymnastics. My mom took it when she was little, she's a hybrid too, and thought it might help me. Turned out she was right." I finally looked up at him again, "Doesn't mean I'm going to be fast on this thing, though. I hope when you say 'walk', you mean walk."

He smirked, "Nah, the Rail Walk is actually a run or jog most of the time."

"Is your death wish, like, a genetic thing?" I asked as he flipped off the rail and went to go pick up the pages again, "Because that would explain a lot."

He snorted, "This actually explains it pretty well. Have a look, you'll see what I mean."

And then, to my shock and awe, he actually handed me the pages. The pages he'd fought tooth and nail for, that had been passed down through his family for generations, he handed out to me.

Not totally sure this wasn't some kind of test, I took them carefully.

And, to my shock and awe, it actually did explain an awful lot. It explained how to position your feet and where to put your weight and how to shift it, step by step while still retaining momentum, ridiculously complex for an Old West bandit. It actually made perfect sense.

Which is why I wasn't really that surprised when, the first time I tried it, my leg cramped up and sent me into the dirt.

"I will stab you in the face," I said in the vague direction of Sly's laughter. "With a wrench. You think it can't be done, but it can. It takes a little longer, but I can do it."

He landed near-silently next to me, tugging me to my feet, "I have the utmost faith in you. Come on, let's try that again."

"No way. You said you'd catch me and you didn't."

"Come on, what's a couple of bruises between friends?"

"We're friends? When did we become friends? Why wasn't I informed of this?"

"Generally, when one person saves another person's life, friendship is assumed."

"Really? Because most of the reading I do, it usually ends with a life-debt or similar promises of eternal loyalty."

"This isn't Star Wars, I'm not swearing a life-debt to you."

"Good, I don't want you to. You probably have cooties."

Dead. Silence.

"Wait, you know Star Wars?"

Yeah, we didn't get anything done after that. We went back into the train car and Sly hauled out an old laptop and we played KOTOR together. I say 'played', there was a lot of arguing over character gender, light or dark side, whether talking to the minor characters was really worth it, etc...

It was the most fun I'd had in ages.

Okay, so maybe we could be friends.

Things are progressing between our emotionally illiterate friends! I hope you enjoyed, feel free to check out the blog, and I will see you in a couple of weeks!