I stared up at her, unsure of what to say. I felt like I should be glad to see her but at this moment I was very much afraid of the fiery red head standing in my hallway. "Nice to see you again." I replied in a strained whisper. I could at least try to be pleasant since she wasn't feeling up to it. The angry expression on her face didn't soften upon hearing my greetings.

Her poisonous green eyes looked vicious in the dark. Lighting flashed again and I braced myself for the thunder that followed. She wasn't fazed by it at all. "Ok, we can talk. I don't suppose we could start out by talking about you breaking into my home and attacking me?" I asked, trying to remain calm. We had been friends when we parted ways. What had happened? Why did I have this strange feeling that I was being hunted? For the first time since she had growled my name and demanded conversation, Rai Lightning spoke.

"We could start with why you lured me to Chumleys that night." She spit the words in my face. I examined her face carefully. "Now listen, I don't know where you got that idea, but I didn't lure you there. I didn't lure anybody there. No one goes to Chumleys but me. That's the honest truth." As painful as it was, I never looked away from her life threatening eyes.

Where the hell had she gotten the idea that I led her there? And why did she look so frightening? She was starting to look as pale and terrifying as the Ornias Brothers themselves. From her blood shot eyes to the way she slurred some of her words, I could tell something was very wrong.

She was watching me very carefully to find the lie. When she didn't find it, she jerked the knife out of the wall and threw it to the floor. "No..." She breathed. "No, no, no, no, no... It was you. It had to be you. You led me there. You set Karson up. You made him go crazy and then you stole my powers and it was ALL you!" She was starting to shout and I prayed my wife was as heavy a sleeper as she always claimed she was.

"Hey, agent lightning, calm down. Just breathe, sweet heart. You're losing your head." Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. She was quite the emotional roller coaster all on her own. "There, there. Breath. Just like that. Now tell me what's going on. What's happened?" I said as I placed an awkward, reassuring hand on her shoulder. She didn't reply so I took it upon myself to be the detective here.

"You think someone led you to Chumleys and set you and the Ornias brothers up?" I asked, putting together the facts from her accusations. Rai struggled to steady her breathing but gave me a shaky nod of her head. Bingo. "Ok, why would someone want to set you up? Do you know someone who would want to do that?" I asked. She shook her head and hugged herself tighter to keep the tears and sobs from rolling out.

"So then... the brothers, is there someone who maybe set them up? What am I saying, of course there is. But who would be gutsy enough to use the Bureau to do it?" I thought about it momentarily. There was someone I knew who always had an ear to the ground. He owed me a favor. We could start there.

Rai continued to shake and my mind wandered to the tea that was still sitting in the kitchen. "Rai, sweet heart, can I pour you some tea and we can figure this out together?" I asked, hoping she would comply. She didn't look like she wanted to move. What else had she said earlier? Her powers?

"You lost your powers. Is that what this is about?" She looked awful. I could understand that she wanted that power back but she was running herself into the ground.

"We've got to get you some help." I muttered. That earned a response very quickly. She shook her head fiercely and finally spoke again. "No, I can't. No one else can know. I have to get it back. I'm going to get it back. I won't make it if I don't." Well, they didn't sound good.

"What do you mean you won't make it?" She was really starting to scare me again. Her eyes met mine and I could see that she was also afraid. "It started with nightmares. For a long time I could hardly sleep. But now, I can't sleep at all. I haven't slept in almost a week, Caleb. I'm exhausted but nothing I try works. I physically cannot sleep and I'm losing my mind. It's like someone pulled my plug and I'm literally dying with no way to recharge. My body won't even let sleep recharge me. So I can't stop until I get it back. It won't let me stop." She was shaking as she explained her disastrous dilemma.

This was not good. I could see how desperate she was for answers. We needed to find them quick. The only question was, how?

"Does the BPRD know where you are right now?" I asked quickly. Rai shook her head, looking pathetic. "I left without any word. I knew I might be doing something that went against that Bureaus vision and morals. I didn't want to drag them down with me if I had to get really desperate." She explained. She couldn't give up hope now but I could see the determination was deflating.

"Ok, well... I might know someone who knows something." I said, standing and heading in the direction of my room for some real clothes. "Sounds really specific." I heard her grumble. "Painfully dying, and yet she still has that energy to utilize sarcasm." I replied.

It really was painful to watch her pull herself to her feet. "What is this 'someone' going to tell us?" She asked, supporting herself with the wall. "With a bit of luck, he might just be able to tell us who got revenge on the Ornias Brothers."

Rai's fire slowly rekindled. She headed out the front door and I was stupid enough to follow. I mentally noted that I needed to find out how Rai had broken into my home. I'd worry about it later, just like I would worry later about my wife's reaction when she woke up and found the note I had left for her. She was going to kill me for this one.

Grimy, grungy streets always seemed to be the headquarters of someone grimy and grungy. Such was the case with the lizard skinned man that Caleb brought me to see. After day 4 of no sleep, you start seeing things a little funny. There was definitely haziness to everything I looked at. But that blurry filter in my eyes couldn't make the hideous creature I was seeing from across the street look any better. Luckily the smell was probably going to make me go blind before I got close enough to see too much detail.

"You've got a nasty attitude when you're this tired." Caleb mentioned as he stepped down off the curb and headed across the street. I kept my assigned post as look out. "Sorry, did I say all of that out loud?" I muttered. Oh well, not the end of the world. Hopefully.

Caleb and the lizard man had a short conversation and a few other "thugs" showed up as lizard man's personal assistants. Caleb didn't look too worried, although, this whole scene looked like it was from a bad mobster movie. I wondered if the phrase "sleeping with the fishes" had been mentioned yet. It was only fair that they used all the clichés. Where was the fun in setting this all up if they weren't going to go by the book?

My mind was keeping busy while my fingers tapped and my feet shuffled. "C'mon, c'mon…" I muttered. I glanced up and down the street for no reason other than complete inpatients.

A squeak from Caleb's direction had me jumping back into vigilant agent mode. From across the street, I could see Caleb being lifted off his feet by one of the bigger goons. Sleeping with the fishes time. No thank you.

"Tell me what I want to know and I might let you keep this arm!" Even without her powers. Rai was bloody terrifying. One of Lenard's partners was unconscious at my feet and the other was trying to untangle himself from the wreck of the chain-linked fence Rai helped send him through. Poor Lenard was now under Rai's boot. She pressed 'said boot' firmly down on his back and was pulling his arm back in a very painful and unnatural direction.

Lenard was wailing in pain as Rai pulled a little harder. He shouted a bit of profanity and Rai moved her boot from his back to his head, pushing his face into the grimy concrete. "Speak words I like." She said, her threat still very active. When Lenard didn't reply Rai placed both feet on his back and gave a good jerk to his arm. It wasn't enough to dislocate it yet but she was well on her way. "ALRIGHT!" The gang member finally cried. Rai let go of his arm but continued to stand on him. I could barely hear Lenard as he mumbled something really quickly. Rai was coming undone at the seams. I really hoped she wasn't going to kill him. I continued to watch the street nervously, wondering when someone was going to come investigate the sound of this interrogation.

Lenard groaned as Rai lowered into a squat while still standing in the middle of his back. Her hand gripped his hair and she pulled roughly. "Repeat." Was all she said but it was enough to make me flinch. Her eyes were on fire. "Fine, fine! The Ornias brothers… got into a beef with a trespasser. He's been lurking around… and some say his trying to lay down territory here… in the city. The Boys didn't like that. They roughed him up and when he tried to get 'em back… old man ghostie from the circus got involved. Word is, with the uncle out of the picture, this trespasser made his move and the boys are gone."

Lenard had told me that it was too dangerous to talk about the Ornias brothers when I had asked him. When I had pressed for ANY information about them, he threatened me and Rai had to step in. What made talking about the brother's so dangerous if everyone knew they were missing? The only explanation: the trespasser had everyone getting nervous.

"I want the trespasser's name." Rai demanded. "Hell no, I'm not going to die just so you…" His face was smashed into the concrete and pulled back up again in one fluid motion. "His name." She asked again. "Lady, I'm telling you, I can't…" His head went down again.

"He'll end up unconscious if you keep that up." I said, wincing at the sight of Lenard's battered face. Lenard moaned in response. Rai released his hair and finally stepped off of the reptilian's back. Lenard remained on the ground, limp and quiet. Rai circled around to stand in front of his head and bent down again. Lenard's hair in hand, Rai lifted his head to look him eye to eye. He was still conscious.

"He took something from me. I'm going to get it back. Give. Me. A. Name." Lenard's yellow eyes roamed over the agents face. He was scared of her. I think he was weighing his options. Who was he more afraid of: Rai or the trespasser? I knew my answer to that question.

"Garrison…They just call him Garrison." He wheezed out. Rai nodded her head approvingly. "Where do I find him?" She asked.

I gulped. If this guy was enough to put the Ornias brothers on edge, he meant business. Maybe the Bureau needed to be involved in this…

"Lon...longwood…" Lenard stuttered. He squeezed his eyes shut as though he thought she might hit him. Instead, she dropped him. "I think your friend needs help." She said, gesturing to the man still stuck in the chain link fence he had hurled himself into.

Lenard showed no sign of moving anytime soon. I muttered an apology and followed after Rai as she marched her way down the street.

"Alright, now we call the Bureau, correct?" I asked as I caught up to her. Rai didn't respond. "Um, hello? Agent Lightning? Aren't we going to call for help so we can stop this presumably powerful individual?"

There was a long stretch of silence. What was she thinking? Was she thinking?

"Caleb." She finally said. She stopped suddenly and I scrambled to not run into her. "Yes?" I asked, slightly puzzled. "Go home." She finished, giving me a hard look and then stepping right back into that determined march. I was frozen for only a second at most. "What? Are you serious?" I asked, racing after her. I knew where she was going. She couldn't lie to me and expect me to believe she wasn't going after Garrison. She was almost out of steam. She could drop at any moment. On top of all of that, she didn't have any supernatural powers to defend herself. The only reason she fared well against Lenard and his friends was because they were a bunch of halfwit thugs.

"You need help. You need your friends. If this guy is scaring everybody and his name is getting out there, Hellboy's the one to call." For the second time tonight, I nearly ran right into Rai as she froze again. "Caleb…" Her voice sounded funny. What was going through that crazy head of hers? Exhaustion can do funny things to the brain…

"Sorry…" The last word I heard and then suddenly...

…

…

I woke up. My nose hurt. My eye stung. Rai was gone. I was sitting behind a dumpster. It was cold.

"Damn it."

Don't expect too much from me. I try my best... R/R