We walked into the house, and right away Emma jumped into Sean's Arm's.

"Baby what are you doing here! Are you ok? Did Aston do anything do hurt you? I was so worried all day."

Sean held her close, and smoothed her hair, "I'm fine Emma, don't worry about me. Clare's the one we should be worrying about right now."

Emma pulled away and turned her head to face me, "What happened? Where is Zig?"

Bianca stood up from the couch, "And Eli, where is he Sean?" Her tone was serious, with urgency dripping off her words.

Sean walked over to the kitchen table, and pulled a chair from it, and brought it into the living room. He sat down asking us to do the same, the four of us obeyed and sat on the couch in front of him. "First off, Eli and Zig are at school, they are fine." Bianca looked relieved. "Guy's things are going to get dangerous from here on out, I need you to all understand that before we go forward. Aston is a prick, but he's crafty, and has a lot of people backing him. The difference between him, and us, is we are a family. I hate when we are referred to as a gang, that's why I frequently try use the word family. We are people who sell drugs to support ourselves, I understand that, and sometimes we do illegal things, and It's just a bad cycle of violence, but don't we always try our hardest to avoid that?" Bianca, and Vince both nodded. "You know when Vince killed that guy a year ago, we all banded together in a way I had never seen before, It was beautiful to me. Why did we do that though? Did anyone of us feel good that someone was dead, for nothing? No, but we knew Vince didn't mean to kill him, and we knew that if he was caught he'd be sent away for a long time, we protected him like family. Blood, skin color, none of that matter's here, and I'm proud of you all for always staying by me, even when times get rough. Clare, Is in trouble now. Eli attacked Aston for disrespecting her, and us as a family, things got ugly and she knocked him out." I noticed Bianca frowning, and I felt bad, I wanted to reassure her that Eli was defending all of us, not just me, but I didn't want to interrupt Sean. "She also hit him in the private area, so when he wakes up he's going to be really pissed, but she did it to stop things from going further, I'm proud of her. So what I'm asking is that you all be open to my plan to help her, she is our sister."

Emma stood up putting her hands on her hips, "Well, that was inspiring Sean, I'm totally motivated babe, what's the plan?"

Sean smiled, "Well sit back down, and I'll tell you." Emma sat back down, and Bianca and Vince nodded their heads for Sean to go on. Just as Sean was about to speak the door opened, it was Zig and Eli.

Zig tilted his head in confusion while shutting the door, "What's going on, what did we miss?"

Bianca replied in a neutral tone, "Oh Sean is just trying to promote family unity so that we all feel motivated to help Lil C."

Eli and Zig pulled up chairs, and Eli looked at Sean, "He doesn't need to promote anything, we know we're family. No matter what" Sean smiled, and the whole thing was confusing me, they really did love each other, all of them, so much. You could see it written all over their faces, they were bonded so strongly, they were willing to protect me at any cost, just because. It was getting harder to look at them like monsters, the wire under my sweater became heavy, and I felt a sense of guilt. I blinked rapidly trying to snap out of it, Vince shot Alex, they were monsters, they were, weren't they? Sean began speaking again, breaking my concentration.

Clare we are going to burn your house down right now" My eyes widened. "Before you say anything let me finish. The purpose of that, is your safety, I want you under this roof not over there by yourself."

"Ok, but why do we have to burn the house down?"

"We're going to make it look intentional, the cop's will assume it was gang related, so they'll be all over it. Firefighters and police officers will be out here all night, Aston wont do anything to us while the police are next door, that only buys us one safe night though. Tomorrow, you're going to have to betray us, for pretend. Aston was taken by you, he isn't taken by girls normally, or really ever. We all know him well, he used to live here with us. I know, surprising, but true, anyways I could tell, he was attracted."

Eli stood up interrupting Sean, "Can you get to the point this isn't adding up."

"Eli calm down, I'm almost there. I want Clare to convince him she is betraying us, that she is sorry for her behavior, and that she is attracted to him as well. She's going to feed him false information on all of us, hopefully she can gain his trust enough to find out where he stays, once we find that out, Clare no longer has to fake anything. We'll take care of him, for good."

I stood up on impulse and shouted, "We're going to murder him!"

They all stared at me like I was crazy, and I sat back down in embarrassment. Sean stood up, "Listen it's going to be hard Clare, to pretend you have feelings for the enemy, but if you don't do this, he will, and I mean will, kill you. Even as early as tonight, him and his gang will come in here, guns blazing, and kill you." The more he said kill, the more logical his planned seemed.

"Ok Sean, ok."

Eli calmly stood up, and put his chair back in the kitchen, Sean looked at him confused, "Where are you going Eli?"

Eli scratched his head, "Sean, we aren't doing this. This isn't the plan, Clare isn't doing that."

Bianca scoffed, "She just said she was Eli, what the fuck is your problem?"

Eli ignored her, "Sean I just don't think it's safe for her, Aston is a bad dude, you know that."

"Eli, you've always trusted me, trust me now, it's going to work out." Eli, looked away, but didn't argue. "Bianca, you specialize in fire, would you mind doing the honors?"

Bianca smiled, "I'd love too."

I collected my belongings from the house, and moved them into Vince and Eli's room. It made me nervous having my things in there with them, I had a box full of equipment from the agency, but it was labeled "Clare's Clothes'" so I didn't see a reason for them to open it. Bianca burned down my shitty shack, and just as Sean said the police were there all night, even after they had finished questioning me. They were patrolling the streets until five in the morning, I know that because even with them there I couldn't sleep. FBI agent or not, there was really someone who wanted me dead.