Author's Note: Across the realms of reality separating one fanfic from another, I welcome you all back to the seventeenth chapter of Drifters! Compared to last week's fast paced entry, this chapter, and the next, certainly slow things down a bit. That being said, I hope they remain a fun read! Now onto the review section!

JCINNABAR: Lol not too late at all! And I appreciate all and any review revolving around Charlie's upbeat nature! As well as any review that gives me a great dessert recipe! So from one random person on the internet to another, thank you!

Gamer of Action44D: Even when enraged, Charlie finds a way to stay positive… even if doing so is the equivalent to running five marathons back to back! And get ready, because with the Fat Nugget storyline having looped its way home, the next ones being set up take us over the rollercoaster's edge!

So strap in! For without further adieu, besides my traditional apology revolving around any grammatical mistakes that may pop up along the way, I welcome you back too….

Drifters

A Hazbin Hotel Fanfic

Chapter 17

Cost of Goods Sold

"You really think you'll start broadcasting again?" Stewie squeaked in-tune with the spotless dishes he rubbed clean.

Nester withheld a chuckle, and took that melody as a sign to chow down the last of his lunch. If for nothing else, then to make the mouse look as if he was waiting to bust the table rather than slacking off.

"Vaggie's still against it. But Charlie's actually the one who brought it up, not Velvette."

"So what? She's getting rewarded for good behavior?"

"She did surprise you as much as Roadie and Charlie when she offered to run your ad on the Vee's network for half price." Nester meek laughter managed to leak itself into a coherent sentence. His hands slowly pushed his empty china forward, "And outside of that, she hasn't gotten into an argument with anybody in two weeks, let alone another brawl… At least, not with anybody at the Hotel."

"Pretty sure she had choked that Moxie guy out on the property." Stewie's hand scampered up to grab the porcelain, and raised the platter over his head, "But if the streams are gonna start up again, I won't be the one to point out that technicality. By the way, they are coming back soon right?"

Stewie's tone may have risen to provide Nester a chance to answer, but the rodent's legs scurried away with the dish before the bird could do so.

Although, that probably had less to do with the miniature waiter making a conscious choice to be rude, and more so his body's involuntary determination to avoid pain if his boss's gaze fell upon an empty table.

Having become a regular over the last month and change, Nester knew Roadie pulling Stewie back to work wasn't the same as him pushing the bird away. It just meant the worker was being loaded up with the very extravagant, and very expensive, dessert the restaurant owner had slaved away on.

Nester would say the coyote's attitude towards him was a greater turn around than Velvette's position on the hotel. But in truth, because of Charlie and her vast fortune, Roadie simply went from seeing Nester as the dead end he was found in, to a road to literal riches he could harvest. And given the added customers and revenue the commercial the heiress starred in produced, it was a street the canine wasn't gonna turn off of anytime soon.

Although, if the mountain of pastries Stewie had swaying in his arms collapsed, there just might be a traffic jam backing things up.

"H-here, let me get the door for you-" Nester tried to make use of his job to help the rat out.

"No, I've got-" and like always, the smaller Sinner stubbornly refused, even as his masked grunt clearly came out a strained heave, "Just got to, get the right leverage."

Given the leaning tower of glutton rose higher than its base, said leverage was a back breaking ninety degrees. Yet, defying all the laws of physics that really no longer applied to Nester's frame of reality anyway, the rodent made it through the door. And out onto the sidewalk without spilling a single bun.

"T-thanks Stewie," Nester smiled, which grew strained when the waiter now deemed it was okay to pass the tower onto him. The bird's wings ruffled outward to provide a balance pole to help him navigate the tightrope he'd have to walk home on, "Y-you know, you're always welcomed to come by the Hotel to see the performances live if you want."

The avian shifted his words like he did his hands, making sure he found the right grip.

"I-if you don't want to wait for the streams that is." he finished having found a, if not comfortable then, stable footing to proceed on.

"I know…"

Nester didn't need line of sight to see the rat's hesitation came from the chef back in the restaurant.

"Maybe when Roadie and I finish working out a recipe to bring back our regulars, I'll have the time too."

Luckily, the pastry barrier's double edge came in the form of blocking Nester's frown from sight as well.

"Still losing Sinners?" the bird floated the questions so they wouldn't leave the conversation with the obvious one unsaid.

"Yeah…" he heard the rodent scratch the back of his neck, "Thanks to Charlie, the new native clientele more than make up for the lost revenue. But still, losing half your customers in the span of a couple weeks isn't great."

Nester frowned, at first he had been afraid it was Charlie's heavily Hellborn friendly ad that had turned Sinners from the Canine Cuisine. Yet, given Roadie's restaurant was the only establishment on the street even remotely full, this wasn't an isolated issue.

"Well… hopefully people start making the trip again. I know my journey's certainly worth it."

"Thanks man… if I don't see you online tonight," Stewie tried to force a smile through his farewell. As the brunette adopted his own quivering grin, "then I'll catch you tomorrow."

"Y-you know it." Nester nodded, with the slight movement having triggered the start of his joinery home. As he had to follow his shift in velocity into a turn away.

XxxxxxX

Alastor hated when he had to tip his hat to a rival. And in a rare moment of true rage, that luckily for the workers around him was muted, he had grown beyond infuriated knowing Vox had deserved the gesture twice now.

The first was produced during the TV's, admittedly, manipulatively genius maneuver to pit the Overlords against one another through the use of the dead Angel. And as the Radio Demon sat in the annoyingly intact waiting room of Carmilla Carmine's skyscraper, the second came as he had to also admit confronting the televised Overlord was a lot more fun then patiently waiting for the high heeled mistress of destruction.

But as it stood right now, with his hand cracking the top of his cane rather than its bottom shattering the tiles below, being civil with the weapons dealer should prove beneficial. Although, the mere fact she had agreed to this private chat to begin with was probably evidence he had every, if not right then, easily self justified reason to go in there and demand the hidden answers he needed.

As fun as such a conflict could be between the two, the downsides were cataclysmic. Outside of attacking the CEO being one of the very few things Alastor could think of that could invoke Zestial's wrath, the deer's nighttime activities already risk putting him in conflict with three other Overlords. And he didn't need to ensure himself a hot war with a fourth today.

'Honestly, I blame myself for overlooking the threat he posed.' Alastor's uplifted cheek ticked with the clocks on the wall, 'As stupid as he may be, the man did build his empire by filling the niche I left. He may be nothing more than a shallow imitation, but I was a fool to think a shadow of my cunningness couldn't vex the real thing.'

"Mister Alastor." a spotted hyena, dressed for a ball rather than a desk, with a bronzed caliber bullet as a hair piece, met the radio's smile with her own, "Mistress Carmine is ready to see you now."

The wendigo flashed his teeth, and bowed his greeting into a stand. And wordlessly motioned for the employee to lead the way. Before his quiet mind could run with the thought of Carmine's worker's gaul to address him with such passiveness.

'At least Vox's imbeciles had the decency to be ignorant.' The man's static tuned the frequency of his eyes to a mist, as he was brought into the same meeting room he had all but invaded earlier this month.

And lo and behold, the defender stared out the window at the other end. Phone to her ear, flanked by her two support beams, indifferent to the storm that approached.

'It is a shame none of the other Overlords strive for the same level of hospitality Rosie offers.' Then again, perhaps the reasons had to do with their unwillingness to adopt the free recipes the fanged corpse dutchess provided her visitors.

"Carmilla, so glad you've agreed to chat." he greeted through the hand that cut him off. Only offering out a closed eye grin of sorrow when her head shot him a monotone glare, "Oh, so sorry, please take your time."

The static voice whispered itself upon stretched waves.

Which reverberated around the room long enough, that by the time they faded the weapon CEO had deemed enough had passed for her to speak.

"Why are you here Alastor?"

'To find out why Vox's and your rats are no longer nocturnal." His smile hid the deadpan flare of his nostrils well.

The Radio Demon would say Carmilla's annoyed sigh masked her discontent too, yet if the one person it was meant to trick could see through it, then he had know choice but to deem her attempted cover up a failure.

"What, no pleasantries my dear~" Alastor's hum found itself strangled beneath the ballerina's crossed arms, "Fair enough."

With a twirl of his cane, he strolled to the opposite end of the board table.

"Seeing as you aren't in the mood to coat your meals in sugar, I won't hide the squeeze of lemon I'm adding." his microphone halted, "Why are you letting the others fall for Vox's scheme?"

"How did you know he isn't falling for mine?" The Overlord was quick and calm in her response, a testament to her position. However, the narrow eyes that pierced into Alastor's wandering ones gave away just enough for him to take her question as an answer.

"Because being an arms dealer in a time of conflict means little if you aren't a neutral party." Alastor sang, his challenge deemed a mockery by one of the woman's heiresses'. Luckily, before they could move to command he leave, their mother wisely shot an arm forward to bar their path.

"I am a neutral party, I've made no efforts to isolate myself." Carmilla lowered her hand with her tone, "A fact you should be grateful and aware of."

"Oh I very much am. Unfortunately for you, with everybody else radio silent," he couldn't help but tease, "they'll all have to assume you have secretly allied with their enemy. With that being the case, I suspect we'll see an increase in the number of home grown defense manufacturers. I've hardly ever strayed into the field myself, so forgive me if I misspeak, but that all seems like it would hurt the monopoly status you've slaved so hard to achieve."

Alastor cracked his neck to the side along with his smile. In the following silence, Camilla's gaze hit hard, but lacked the strength to push his head back into place.

Eventually, she had to keep her own steady with a pinch to its center.

"Like you, I too am looking into how Vox and the other Vees managed to come across a dead Angel." Carmilla admitted the obvious, "Like you, I will keep my findings on the subject close to my chest for as long as I see fit."

'Well, the ladder may be true at least.'

Alastor's grin grew off the falter of the two heiresses. Yet much like her pillars of support, his smile was cut short by the mother's next snap.

"And like you, I do this all to prevent a war between the Overlords." The weapons CEO drilled a hole into Alastor's forehead for her words to follow, "You won't tell me why you care to prevent the conflict, anymore then I will tell you why I wish to see it avoided as well. For the sake of our shrouded goals, we must both simply be contempt that we seek the same outcome."

"Seems like the perfect opportunity to share information." Alastor bit back his smirk.

Carmilla provided him a dead panned glare, and let time tick on for a few slow seconds before closing her eyes on a raised hand.

"Very well, tell me why you haven't integrated the Vee staying at your hotel about what she's up to?" the war dog raised an eyebrow. Even as her voice drawled indifferently over a curiosity they both knew would lay unquenched.

Alastor's gum began to bleed.

"… you have made your point quite well." He conceded. Unwillingly to give anything up in his response besides his surrender. The Vees stumbling across Charlie's control over him would be disastrous, an Overlord as capable as Carmilla doing so would be apocalyptic. Better he just take the information he did piece together through the negative film of this brief conversation. Then risk handing her his photo album in the wait for hers to develop.

And as if to reiterate her status as an opponent rather than an enemy, the forked haired Overlord waved her arm towards the door offering him an exit.

"Until next time then." The Radio Demon gracefully took it, but made sure the two sighs in the room were left a trail of breadcrumbs, "But in the spirit of open communication, do know the Hotel remains neutral ground as well."

"How diplomatic of you." Carmilla's monotone voice followed him out the room.

"Velvette certainly thinks so." and he let her furrowed brow close the door behind him.

For if Carmilla didn't want to share a page from her book with him, then he'd make her come to regret setting him up to take a page from Vox's.

And as Alastor turned to enter the elevator, he smiled. Delighted to see the effort it took for the CEO's eyes to remain on his rather than her advisors.

XxxxxxX

"Ssso there I wasss, handsss grasped to the wheel of a ssship ssspiraling towardsss the ground. Vision tunneled, earsss running with the chaosss that had brought in thisss tragedy, and covered in the yoke of my idiotic henchmen, I realized I wasss out of optionsss. All optionsss… except one." Sir Pentious hissed his way into a silent pause. One his hands spread out further as Charlie eyes widened in anticipation for what the inventor had to say next, "To go down with my ssship, and meet my demise like the true gentlemen I am!"

"… and?" Angel's voice drawled out when the snake bent his back in dramatic fashion.

Despite the bored, or perhaps more accurate 'over it', nature of the actor's words, Charlie nodded along with his request. Excited to hear how the tale finished.

"… and… I went down with the ssship and met my demise." the serpent's enthusiasm took a rapid turn in the opposite direction, "Don't recall much of what happened after it ssstruck the ground."

The snake's eyes darted around the circle of people. Each one having raised an eyebrow at his performance. All sans the producer of the show.

"Which was an incredibly noble act!" Charlie's claps echoed loudly against themselves. Having been completely enthralled with the storytelling, "No wonder you shared it with us!"

"… except he was supposed to share something he was proud of." Vaggie's cautious voice slowed Charlie's applause with a heavy hand of realism.

"Isss me meeting my fiery death, all while maintaining the pose and dignity of a man of my ssstatusss, sssomething I ssshouldn't be proud of?" Sir Pentious flicked a tented hand to his chest in offense.

"Considering you were shot down fighting to annex territory that didn't belong to you… No, no I don't think it does." Vaggie rubbed her temples, while Charlie's hands found themselves stuck together. Held in place after having remembered how the epic began.

"Besides," Angel leaned his head back till his feet rose high enough to be pushed off Husk's lap, "I don't think Cherri kicking your ass is a healthy thing to gloat about."

"It'sss not?-" the snake cocked his head. Only to have it spring back into place under a series of blank stares, "I-I mean, how dare you assume that colonist vixen had gotten the best of me!"

"Vixen?" Angel smirked, having seen through the Snake's recovery.

"C-colonist?" Nester frowned, confused on just how old the serpent was, "I thought she was Australian?"

"Isss that not what I sssaid?" Sir Pentious tilted his own quizzical look the Doorman's way, "Or has the crown found a new continent to ssship itsss criminalsss too?"

"… what century are you from?" Husk grunted the question Nester's open mouth wanted to ask.

"The ninetieth." Sir Pentious replied with a shrug, despite the bewildered stares the answer sent his way.

"Holy shit…" Angel whispered.

"I know right!" Charlie's smile began to rise, "He's from the same one as me!"

And suddenly, the audience's confusion shifted to her. Except for the snake's, who reflect her own joy back at her instead.

"Really?!" Sir Pentious grasped his hands together, "A fellow renaissance man…or lassss!"

"You bet, my big quarter millennium's coming up in a couple of decades!" the blonde grinned, her closed eyes unable to see the mouths dropping.

"I don't know what's more shocking." Husk's monotone expression broke through the silence, "That I've been calling a person three times my age kid, or that Pentious' has slithered his way through two centuries worth of Exterminations."

"Ah yesss, my greatest proof of intellect and power. For not even Heaven'sss wrath hasss been able to ssstop the mighty Sssir Pentiousss." the snake bellowed his victory to the sky.

"Now that is something to be proud of!" Charlie resumed her feverish claps.

"How the fuck have you lasted all these years?" Velvette cocked an eyebrow of true curiosity from her lounged position.

"The trick isss to be in total regeneration when the Angelsss come! During my first few yearsss here in Hell, itsss kind citizensss were graciousss enough to turn me into a puddle of mush before every culling!" Sir Pentious decreed, tears in his eyes. As if he was recalling a fond memory, and not a misremembered assault, "Which is why I jump off the clock tower every Extermination just as the hour hand ssstrikesss twelve. By the time it doesss ssso again, I'll be fully reformed and ready for my boutsss with Cherri!"

"…" Charlie's enthusiasm had unfortunately fallen off the cliff with the others by the time Sir Pentious finished his explanation.

"… goddamn." Velvette eventually shifted to an upright position in her seat, "I know we're all supposed to be dumbfounded by his stupidity, but I think he accidentally stumbled his way into brilliance."

Charlie wanted to disagree, more so out of a moral objection to the Extermination that caused Sir Pentious to enact such a solution around it.

"… shit."

From the corner of her eye, the blonde saw Vaggie's bewildered stare put all the others to shame.

"That is fucking clever."

"Vaggie?!" Charlie frowned.

"Sorry, it's just… you know how many Angels probably walked past or through his puddle, not even realizing he was there." The gray hued guard ran a hand through her hair, almost as if she was in disbelief of the obviousness of such a strategy. "Don't let this go to your head, but well played Pentious, that is something to feel good about."

"Do you really mean that?!" the snake puffed his cheeks out like a puppy.

The one eyed guard's reluctance to nod, only proved how much the snake had earned it.

"Well, let's just agree he's done the wrong thing for the right reason." Charlie was less willing to offer up props to Sir Pentious's endorsement of temporary suicide. Especially now that the snake looked just about ready to patent his idea for the next Extermination, "Does anybody else want to share a fact about themselves they're proud of?"

"I could do you one better and show you my award winning performance from last year." Angel's toothy grin shot spears towards Husk. Causing the cat to shield his eyes behind a face palm, "Although, I guess I have been trying to not force my genre onto an audience that can't appreciate its genius."

"Thank God." Vaggie deadpanned.

Angel rolled his eyes before sticking his tongue out at Charlie's partner. Although the heiress supposed she should just be happy the actor didn't bring up a 'V' finger to escalate the situation.

In the back of her mind, she thought of asking Angel to come up with a group appropriate memory to share. But unfortunately, the words remained locked in the back of her throat.

Whilst the furred demon and her have certainly started reading the same book since the Imp incident, Charlie still remained a couple pages ahead of him. And since the whole point was for him to catch up to her chapter on his own, she was still hesitant to prompt him one way or another in group activities.

Which unfortunately left her in the paradoxical spot of not encouraging, or more importantly discouraging, his current suggestion. Luckily for her, the cat that currently had her tongue was under no such restrictions.

"If it saves us from a bad movie and a deranged critic, I'll go." Husk groaned.

"Don't act like you wouldn't love it Husky~" Angel purred.

Charlie's nod toward the bartender offered him a way forward.

"I'm proud of the explosion free streak the downstairs is on." The cat's slit pupils scanned themselves across the room. When they passed over her, Charlie couldn't help but feel Husk wasn't so much sharing something he was proud of, then he was making a threatening observation, "So let's try to keep that going."

"But what if breaking it is something I'd be proud of?" the energy in Niffty's questioned drooped alongside her form. As the prone cyclops nearly melted off the couch in boredom.

"Then say goodbye to your glass shank factory, because I won't let you smash the empty bottles anymore."

"But I still haven't made a knife for every insect I'm going to kill." the red head wined.

Husk crossed his arms, and shrugged indifferently at the ultimatum he presented. Everybody else simply sighed in relief when Niffty's snivel was snorted up into a sadden form of acceptance.

Sure, leveraging one of the cyclops' bad habits over her to ensure she didn't divulge in a worse one wasn't exactly a PSA level prevention method, but it sure could be seen as progress towards one.

And as Charlie's small smile of empathy towards Niffty shifted to a quiet grin as she observed the room, it was a step in the right direction the heiress was more than happy to take.

After all, no more than a month ago, an exchange like that between Husk, Angel, and Niffty would have led to some indoor fireworks. Now all that was left in their wake was quietness. A silence that, despite the boredom it tended to conjure, Charlie had a much easier time presenting and, thanks to Vaggie, adapting her points around.

"Just think of what Husk said as something we can all be proud of." the blonde offered warmly. Not even minding the eye roll the Vee made when Charlie directed the messages her way.

A soft knock on the door briefly grabbed both of theirs and the group's attention. With Nester quickly going to grab it. While Vaggie sighed, already seeming to guess who he would open it for.

"Or at the very least, take solace in knowing Alastor is going through the same destruction withdrawal syndrome."

"It is honestly pretty impressive Pentious' hasn't actually managed to blow up anything other than his room since he's come here." Angel shrugged his shoulders till a pair of arms popped out a pillow for his head, "Not even by accident."

The snake opened his mouth to contradict the statement, before he pointed a finger up to his chin to close it. As if he was probing his own memory, genuinely curious to know if the spider was right or not.

"I'll gladly take credit for that accomplishment. If throwing Carmine weapons into a lake of lava isn't something to be proud of, I don't know what is." Charlie's partner smirked to the creek of the front door.

"May I suggest our return policy."

And immediately the heiress watched the guard's lips twitch into a thin line when no waves of static echoed from the entrance.

Curiosity fueling her head around, Charlie was met with the sight of Nester's confusion reflected in an oversized pair of specs. One that did not gaze down from a tower above him, but rather passed through him on a level plain.

"Perhaps not pride, but if no faults are to be found in the product, I'd imagine a full refund from us would produce a higher level of satisfaction than your method of irreversible disposal."

The organically robotic tone the statement rode upon would have sounded unnatural, or at the very least rude coming from most people. Yet when uttered from a lab coat that appeared to be wearing itself twice, Charlie couldn't help but think the stranger before her looked like the embodiment of their own logical tone. Which her pale blonde hair, tied together by efficiency rather than fashion, sat atop a face completely devoid of pigment, only seemed to emphasize.

And, ironically, given the woman would look human despite the two horns in her head, Charlie assumed the person was Hellborn Royale like her. And since they looked to be about the same age, she actually felt a preemptive level of guilt not being able to recognize her.

Luckily, that feeling didn't last long. When the Vee behind her revealed the answer after taking two shots of adrenaline to the eye.

"What the fuck's a Carmine doing here?" Velvette sounded genuinely confused.

"Pentious!" Vaggie on the other hand stared her frustration towards her assumed answer.

Who immediately launched his arms to the sky to lift up his innocence.

"Don't look at me! I haven't given them a sssingle ha'penny sssince your raid on my room."

Charlie tried to shake off her confusion, and her girlfriend's, by grabbing Vaggie's shoulders and redirecting their sight to the newcomer.

"I can attest, he has placed no recent transaction with us." The woman stated matter of factly, before she filled in the gap the security guard had left. And shifted her analytical gaze into Sir Pentious, "Nor can we accept any more purchases from him till he resumes his weekly debt payments for the previous order."

"… about that. I was planning to resume the payment, but unfortunately the partsss I bought were commandeered before they could be utilized for profit." the serpent awkwardly twiddled his fingers as the woman's eyes narrowed into him like a camera lens.

"Did said profit revolve around illegally modifying our technology for re-sale?"

"No, of course not!" the snake frantically signal with his arms, "It revolved around illegally modifying your technology to gain richesss through the annexation of Angel'sss sssuite!"

"Wait, what?!" Angel's head snapped itself like an owl onto the Snake.

"Good thing people can grow a lot in a few weeks." Charlie forced a chuckle, and while it didn't cool the actor down, it seemed the spider himself had grown enough to not be completely taken over by a three week late rage, "Although I understand his debt grows as well…"

Charlie turned the humor onto her fellow blonde, where it was immediately crushed beneath the world's most indifferent eyelids.

"H-how much does he owe?" Charlie reached into her pocket and grabbed out her checkbook.

"Ten thousand dollars per week, with a two thousand dollar late fee added for each of his missed payments." the pale-faced woman stated with all the grace of a graphing calculator, "Or a quarter of a million dollars if you wished to pay it off in full."

"Y-you thought Angel would have that much in his room?" too close to the source for his ears to have misheard, Nester stuttered out his shock.

"No…" the serpent coiled in on himself, "I-I thought he'd have more."

Charlie didn't particularly like the sound of broken teeth, but she appreciated Angel's clench jaw keeping whatever destructive words he had at bay.

"N-next time, just come to me for money problems." Charlie snatched the pen lifted to her by Vaggie's sight, and quickly wrote out the amount, "I'm happy to solve them…"

The heiress walked up with the check, and hovered her words and pen above the recipient's name.

"Odette, Odette Carmine." The scientist finally provided a name to the stone cold face, "Although, I must ask you write the check out to Carmine Industries."

"Of course." Charlie scribbled out the title, before ripping the paper out to offer it, "I hope this settles things with your family."

"It solves Mister Pentious',"

The snake raised a hand to voice a correction, but it was mowed down by a cross fire of stares from Velvette, Angel, and Vaggie.

"payment. However, I am here for a different purpose."

"Oh, well, how can I help? I'm not really into the whole weapons market," Charlie rubbed the back of her head awkwardly, hoping the Carmine's weren't trying to go through her to form some kind of deal with her dad, "I don't even like to carry the shield I have upstairs because I think it's too violent."

"… you don't like my anniversary present?" Vaggie's voice nearly dropped as low as Sir Pentious' cowering form.

"…I-I like it as an artistic center piece for our room." Charlie tried to explain, and luckily the conversation proved inefficient enough for Odette to interrupt.

"If we can get back to the point at hand."

"R-right. So if not for Sir Pentious or weapons, what are you here for?"

"If it's me, then go tell your mother she has to set up her meetings two weeks in advance like everybody else." Velvette hand wafted her words into the conversation, yet her eyes narrowed in on the pale blonde far more focused than her tone.

"I assure you." In the first show of emotion, Odette's own voice reflected the seriousness the pinkette's posture disguised, "My mother knows how to converse with Vees, but I am not here for you."

The glass speckled blonde tightened her spine before turning to a confused Charlie.

"Rather I am here to test a hypothetical solution to our shared Extermination problem, and thus must request a room." Odette stared ahead, only raising an eyebrow when Charlie's shock had risen to a silent frozen smile, "… assuming there is a vacancy that is."

And such hope cracked the ice in the most spectacular way, as Charlie grasped the corporate ladder for a shake that turned into a one sided embrace.

"You bet there is!"

XxxxxxX

Thank you to all those who have read through the seventeenth chapter of Drifters!

I will try my best to upload a chapter every Friday. But until next week, please feel free to leave a comment! Criticism is always welcomed, so long as there's an attempt for it to be constructive.

As of this moment I am still looking for a beta reader, so to anyone interested please feel free to shoot me a PM.