Warning: this chapter contains mentions and discussion of an emotionally/financially abusive relationship. If this might be triggering for you, please proceed with caution.

"Okay, Marlena, tell me everything you know about this Hunter guy, starting with the first time your sister mentioned his name. Don't leave anything out; sometimes the tiniest details are the most important."

A little less than an hour had passed since Bella had persuaded Bo and Dyson to let Marlena tell them her story (not that it had taken much convincing; as soon as Bo heard that there was a human in need of her assistance, she immediately sprang into action), and now they were sitting in the living room of the small apartment Marlena shared with her sister, with her and Bo facing each other across the coffee table while Bella and Dyson had taken seats off to either side.

Taking the opportunity to give the place a once-over while Marlena recounted everything she could remember about her sister's latest misadventure, Bella concluded that while it was definitely not the home of an affluent family, it was clean, neat, and comfortable; Marlena had clearly done her best to provide a stable environment for her sister after they lost their parents, though judging by what she'd already let slip in the heat of the moment and what she was now telling Bo, it seemed her efforts were severely underappreciated. This only made Bella sympathize with Bo's new client more, since she knew how difficult it could be to keep things running on a limited budget without getting much help from the other person in the household – though at least Renée was merely disorganized rather than actively going out of her way to cause trouble – and by the time they left, she was eager to hear how Bo planned to tackle the case.

"Well, normally my first step would be to ask if Dyson or Hale could get any inside info from the cop shop," Bo began with a rueful glance at her boyfriend, who she figured wouldn't be able to do much this far outside his jurisdiction, but he surprised her.

"My friends have a couple of contacts in the city's police department; I can reach out to them, see if they've ever heard the name Hunter Damascus before."

"That'd be great. Bella and I'll go back to the club first thing tomorrow-"

"We will?" Bella interrupted, turning a wide-eyed stare on her sister. "You want me to go with you?"

"Sure," Bo replied with a slight frown. "Are you saying you don't want to? You're the one who brought me this case, and you seemed pretty fired up about helping Marlena find Sarah a minute ago."

"Of course I want her sister found, but jumping in when I saw those jerks ganging up on her was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction – I only did it because there was nobody else around. Now that you and Dyson are on the case, though, won't I just get in your way? I mean, I'm not a detective."

"Technically, neither am I – I'm just good at snooping around and asking questions. You're pretty observant, aren't you?" Bo demanded.

"Well, I like to think so, but-"

"And you can use your touch to pry answers out of people who don't want to give them up, can't you?"

"I guess," Bella said helplessly, "but-"

"Then you basically have all the same skills I started out with. The only thing I've got that you don't is practice," Bo said firmly, "and the only way to get that is to go out there and do it."

Bella wasn't completely certain that she wanted to practice being a fae detective, mainly because she was convinced she would be terrible at it, but seeing that arguing with Bo was futile, she wisely kept her doubts to herself.

###

They stayed with Dyson's friends that night – thanks to the elders' efforts in keeping the story of the unaligned succubus from spreading beyond Toronto, most fae in Seattle had no idea who Bo was, so when Dyson introduced her as his girlfriend, his friends assumed she must be Light like him and therefore had no qualms about welcoming her into their home, while Bella wasn't expected to have chosen a side yet since she hadn't come of age – then returned to the club the following morning. Of course, no one was there at that hour except the staff who were hard at work cleaning up after last night's carousing, and their old pal Rocky.

"What're you two doing back here at this hour?" he wondered, blinking in surprise at the sight of them. "Place is dead right now."

"I can see that. We're just hoping somebody who works here can tell us where to find a guy who apparently hangs out in this part of town a lot. Does the name Hunter Damascus ring any bells?"

Rocky's face darkened, which was not the response Bo's winning smile usually got. "Yeah, I know him – little shit was always coming in here with his gang of punk-ass psychos, stirring up trouble till they finally got themselves blacklisted from the club last month. You want my advice, you stay the hell away from him."

Bo and Bella exchanged glances; they had worked out a cover story in which Bo would say they were looking for Hunter because they'd been told he was the guy to see if you wanted to have a good time, but now it looked like that might not be the best approach after all.

"We'd love to," Bo said as she turned back to Rocky with an expression of grim determination, abandoning her thrill-seeking party girl façade, "but he's caused some trouble for a friend of ours too, so we really need to find him. Can you help us or not?"

Rocky searched her eyes as if gauging the sincerity of her intentions, then shrugged. "Yeah, I can tell you where he lives, or at least where he lived last time I saw him. Hopefully his girlfriend's gotten wise and kicked his ass to the curb by now." He gave them an address, and the sisters walked out with a feeling of immense satisfaction.

"So that's how it's done, huh?" Bella remarked, gazing at Bo with a slightly awestruck look. "You make it seem so easy."

"That one actually was fairly easy," Bo replied modestly, though she couldn't help feeling rather flattered by Bella's admiration. "Usually I have to turn on the charm to get information; it was just a lucky break that Rocky's got Hunter's number and wasn't interested in covering for him."

Just then, they rounded a corner onto the street where they'd left Bo's car and found Dyson waiting for them. "I talked to a couple of fae cops," he informed them without preamble. "Turns out our guy's been on their radar for years as a low-level troublemaker, but… Let's just say that not all fae who're assigned to work in human law enforcement see their jobs the same way Hale and I do."

"What does that mean?" Bella asked, frowning in confusion at his almost apologetic tone.

Bo, on the other hand, seemed to understand exactly what he meant, and her face twisted with disgust. "He means that as long as this asshole doesn't do anything big enough to draw too much attention and only targets humans, they don't care about stopping him."

"I'm sorry to say she's right," Dyson confirmed with obvious regret. "My partner and I always tried to protect humans as best we could, but there are too many others who only see it as their job to cover up fae activity, even if it means letting bad guys walk."

"That's another reason I didn't want to pick a side," Bo said with an emphatic nod. "Aside from how the Ash and the Morrigan were both perfectly happy to watch me die in a trial by combat that I was barely given five minutes to prep for, both sides have a seriously skewed view of humans. The Dark kills them for fun, and the Light at least think you should only kill them when you need to feed and be as humane about it as you can, but they're still okay with killing. The Cullens deciding to be vegetarians is way above and beyond what even most Light Fae would do."

Seeing that Bella and Dyson both appeared sobered by her tirade, and the latter even looked slightly ashamed, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and added, "Don't worry, babe, I know you're not like that. It's not like you have anything to do with setting the official Light Fae policy, right? Now come on, we've got a scumbag's hopefully less scummy girlfriend to interrogate."

###

Fortunately, they discovered after talking to her for just a few minutes that Hunter's girlfriend, Asha, wasn't scummy at all. In fact, it appeared that her biggest flaw was that she'd had the poor judgment to fall for someone like Hunter, and even though she readily admitted that he got into more trouble than she was entirely comfortable with, she insisted he had never done anything bad enough to justify leaving him. She also confided that it would be extremely difficult for her to leave even if she wanted to since he had a habit of taking every cent she earned, though she didn't seem to recognize this for the financial abuse that it was.

Despite her protestations of his innocence, she did (with a little extra persuasion from Bo) eventually tell them where he worked, at a warehouse in the same district as the nightclub, but closer to the docks. "Whatever you think he's done, you're wrong," she called after them as they left. "Once you talk to him, you'll see he's not such a bad guy…not really."

There's a ringing character endorsement, Bo thought, rolling her eyes, but she said nothing. Until Asha was ready to see the truth about Hunter for herself, no words from Bo were going to make a difference.

Their next stop was a deli, where they got lunch in order to fuel themselves for the upcoming confrontation. As they ate, Bella said, "You know, I feel bad for Asha. She genuinely doesn't seem to have a clue that her boyfriend's running around abducting human girls, or even to understand that he's mistreating her too."

"I've met plenty of people like her on the job," Dyson replied. "No matter how much you want to help them, you can't until they accept that they need it."

Bo nodded sadly, then pushed away the empty wrapping of her sandwich. "He's right – that's why we should focus on the people we can help, like Sarah. Come on, let's go check out that warehouse."

Bella and Dyson both stood up when she did, but the wolf made no move to follow her outside. "I can't go with you, Bo. The club was neutral territory where fae from both sides can mingle freely, like the Dal, but Hunter's warehouse is in the Dark part of town, and I'm not a cop here."

"Meaning you can't use the excuse of maintaining your cover in the human world to get in," Bo concluded with a frustrated sigh. "Crap. Well, thanks for doing what you could. We'll see you later."

So she and Bella went to the warehouse – an ominously rundown, forbidding sort of place – alone. "If Dyson were here, I'd have us split up so we could scope out both sides at once…"

"I'll take the other side," Bella offered. When Bo gave her a look of surprise, she shrugged and said, "I may not be a professional detective or have a wolf's sense of smell, but I can still look around and tell you what I find."

"And you don't mind going by yourself?" As Bella shook her head, Bo said, "You're incredible, you know that? The way you fought off those thugs who were harassing Marlena last night, and volunteering to do recon on your own now – you're a lot braver than you think you are."

Bella shook her head again, blushing faintly. "Like I told you last night, when I saw Marlena, I didn't have time to get scared; I just jumped in without thinking, and now… Well, it's not like there are armed guards patrolling the place. If there were, I'd probably be running away as fast as I can in these stiff new boots and leather pants." Then she hurried off around the side of the warehouse, before Bo had a chance to compliment her further for doing what seemed to her like the bare minimum. Even if Bo was only doing it to bolster her confidence, the fact that she didn't feel like she'd truly earned such accolades made them feel hollow.

Rounding the corner, she found herself facing a long wall with a row of metal roll-up doors of the kind typically used for moving large shipments of cargo, which made sense considering that the docks were only a short distance away. Looks like an ideal setup for smuggling illicit merchandise…but what about people? If most fae think it's okay to own humans, does that mean they're a hot black market item in the fae world, like exotic pets?

Her stomach churned at the thought, and the sick feeling in her gut only intensified when she heard movement behind her and whirled around to see four fae emerging from a partially raised cargo door and fanning out to surround her, led by one of the guys she'd encountered last night, the one who had fled after she knocked out his serpentlike companion.

"Well, well, look who it is," he said with a nasty little chuckle. "Told you I'd catch you later, bitch."

"You're a lot braver now that you've got these three backing you up," Bella remarked, facing him head on while using her peripheral vision to keep an eye on the others as they tried to creep up behind her. "I don't see the reptile you were with last night, though. Is he okay?"

"Blake says you gave him the hangover from hell, but he'll be all right. Better than you'll be once he gets hold of you, anyway."

"Is that his name? Blake the Snake?" she asked, unable to suppress a snort of laughter. "How fitting."

Her amusement greatly annoyed the other fae. "Bitch, I'm gonna cut you up in so many little pieces-!"

"Let's put a pin in that," one of the others interrupted. He was leaning toward her, sniffing the air with a thoughtfully appraising expression on his face. "We still need a fifth girl."

" Her? Are you sure?"

"She ain't human," another guy chimed in.

"Our client never said they had to be human," the sniffer retorted impatiently. "It shouldn't matter as long as she meets the other criteria."

"Fine," the first one agreed with the air of someone eager to be done with a job that had become more complicated than expected. "Grab her."

As they lunged at her from all directions, Bella ducked out from between the first two, causing them to smash into each other instead. When she straightened up, however, she found herself face to face with the sniffer, who seized her right arm and spun her around, wrenching her arm painfully behind her back and applying enough leverage to prevent her from twisting to face him again, thus ensuring that she couldn't access his mouth in order to draw out his chi.

Of course, he couldn't stop her from stomping on his feet and kicking him in the shins, but even though her flurry of attacks obviously hurt him, he managed to hang on until the one who'd given the order to capture her, Blake the Snake's friend, reached them and his meaty fist collided with the side of Bella's head. Starbursts of brilliantly colored light exploded in front of her eyes, and then everything went black.

###

When she came to, the first thing she noticed was a throbbing ache that seemed to originate above her left ear and radiate outward, like the web of cracks that spread from the point of impact when a rock struck a pane of glass. This can't be good.

The second thing she noticed was that she was sitting on a metal chair with her hands tied to its frame. This is definitely not good!

Fighting back a surge of panic, Bella opened her eyes just enough to peer through her lashes and looked around as much as she could without raising her head, hoping the thick curtain of her hair would obscure her face enough to keep her captors from realizing she was awake. As far as she could tell, however, none of them were present; the only other people she saw in the small, windowless room she was in were four girls, all of whom were tied up just like her. And I'm the fifth…but for what?

Disturbing as the potential answers to that question were, her heart still gave a hard thump of relief when she saw that Bo wasn't among her fellow captives. If they hadn't gotten her sister, that meant Bo was still out there, hopefully working out a plan to free her and the other girls.

"Psst, new girl! You awake?"

Bella's eyes darted toward the source of the whispered inquiry, and her heart jolted again when she saw that the speaker was a younger girl with the same dishwater-blonde hair and green eyes as Marlena, which meant she had to be… "Sarah?" she whispered back, sitting up straight and shaking her hair out of her face.

The girl blinked at her, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "How do you know my name?"

"Your sister sent me to bring you home."

"She did? Even after all the trouble I've caused her?" Sarah blinked again rapidly, and even sniffled a bit before getting a grip on herself. "So you're here to save me, huh? How's that working out?"

"Well, I found you, so I'd say that so far phase one of the plan is going pretty well."

"And phase two involves us getting out of here, right?" Sarah asked, sounding hopeful and skeptical all at once. "You do have a phase two, don't you?"

"Will you two shut up?" another girl hissed. "There's no getting out of here. These freaks are gonna sell us to some psycho cult leader type, and we're all gonna die – or worse."

"Psycho cult leader?" Bella repeated, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise and alarm. "Is that the client they mentioned when they caught me?"

"Sounds like it," Sarah grimly confirmed.

"And what about these criteria we all had to fit? Does anyone know what that's about?"

"I think it has to do with how we're all…you know…virgins," a third girl answered timidly, whispering the last word like it was a dirty secret.

"But they didn't, like, check or anything," Sarah added. "When Hunter brought me here, there was this weird, creepy guy who said he could tell just by smelling me. It was freaky."

"Yeah, I met him too. Well, I'm sure Marlena will be glad to hear that there's one kind of trouble you haven't gotten into," Bella said while thinking wryly, Guess I should've gone all the way with Edward when I had the chance, or taken Phil up on his offer last night… But no, I'm glad I didn't do that even if it would've protected me from…whatever's supposed to happen to us. Out loud, she asked, "So does anyone have any idea what this cult guy wants with five virgins? He's not planning to make us all marry him, is he?"

"Nope, nothing like that," Sarah assured her. "From what we've heard, it sounds like he just wants to sacrifice us to whatever wacko gods he worships in exchange for protection from some apocalypse that's supposedly coming up soon."

"Great. Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not waiting around to get sacrificed." Nor was she going to wait passively for Bo to rescue her; after all, her sister might have evaded capture, but she was still badly outnumbered. I have to help her – or if I can't do that, the least I can do is not be a liability.

With a lot of twisting and straining against her bonds, Bella was eventually able to maneuver her right leg into a position where her fingers were just able to snag the top of her knee-high boot…and from there, to work their way inside to where she'd hidden her new dagger. Luckily, it hadn't occurred to her captors to check her boots for concealed weapons. While the other girls watched with interest – except the one who had seemingly given up all hope of escaping – she carefully turned it around so the blade was pointing up and, silently praying that the handicapping clumsiness that had mostly disappeared after her fae genes kicked in and she embraced her proper diet wouldn't decide to make a sudden resurgence at the worst possible moment, began sawing at the strip of plastic securing her right wrist to the chair's metal frame.

It was slow going what with the awkward position and limited range of motion, but at last the zip tie broke. With her right hand free, Bella made short work of the one binding her left hand, then quickly cut the other four girls loose.

"Great, we're not tied to our chairs anymore. Too bad we're still locked in this room," the pessimistic one said glumly.

"I have an idea," the shy one, the one who'd informed Bella that they were all there due to their virginal status, offered. "What if we fake a medical emergency? I mean, if we're supposed to be used in some ritual sacrifice, they'll want to keep us alive until then, won't they?"

"Great idea," Sarah told her, then immediately started banging her chair on the floor, as if she was thrashing around while still tied to it. "Hey, we need help in here! I think she's having a seizure – she's not breathing! Help!"

While Sarah screamed, Bella positioned herself behind the door, where it would hide her when it opened – assuming it did. Sure enough, they soon heard the sound of running footsteps outside, and the door was flung open as the guy who had led the charge to capture Bella skidded into the room. He stopped short when he saw the four human girls standing there, free, with his newest prisoner nowhere in sight, an almost comical expression of bewilderment on his face, but he didn't have long to puzzle over the situation before Bella jumped him from behind.

Knowing that time was of the essence and she couldn't afford to let him have even a second to raise an alarm, she didn't try anything fancy, just grabbed his arm and jerked him around to face her; then, bringing her other hand up to hold his head in place (and block the humans' view of what she was doing), she commenced draining his chi. When she felt him going limp, she feigned a headbutt for her audience's benefit before letting him drop to the floor, noting with some satisfaction that the headache from where he'd punched her was now gone. Then she turned back to the girls, wondering vaguely why none of them had made a break for the open door, only to find them staring at her with something that looked discomfortingly like awe.

"Wow," Sarah said faintly, her voice muted by shock. "I guess my sister did send the right person after me."

Bella shrugged, her shoulders twitching as if to throw off their admiration like an ill-fitting garment. "Let's just get out of here, okay? I'll go first; we'll have to move fast, and most importantly, be quiet-"

At that moment, pandemonium erupted in the main area outside their little room, a cacophony of shouts and the thud of blows landing that could only mean one thing: Bo had gotten into the warehouse, and Hunter and his gang didn't know what had hit them.

A huge grin spread over Bella's face, and she said happily, "On second thought, forget stealth. Everything's going to be fine now."

###

By the time Bella reached the other end of the warehouse where Bo had made her entrance, most of Hunter's gang were already on the ground, either clutching their heads, ribs, or wherever else Bo had landed blows or splayed out in a senseless tangle of limbs, and Bo was holding a knife to the throat of a greasy-haired, heavily tattooed fae who Bella guessed must be Hunter himself.

"Tell me where my sister is," she snarled in his ear, "or I start enlarging your facial piercings!"

"Bo, I'm right here! I'm fine!"

Bo's head snapped up when Bella called her name, and a palpable sense of relief washed over her. "Bella! Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm all right," Bella repeated, "and so are Sarah and these other girls he kidnapped."

"See, your sister's fine," Hunter said in a slightly strained voice due to the way Bo had his head pulled back in order to bare his throat to her blade, "so you can let me go now."

"What, so you can go abduct more girls? I don't think so!" Bo growled, yanking on his hair and pressing her knife more tightly against his skin.

Amazingly, Hunter just laughed. "So what're you gonna do, kill me? See, I don't think you will; you didn't even ice any of my crew when you were fighting them four on one, and if you really wanted to slash my throat, you'd have done it already. I've met plenty of stone-cold killers in my day, and I can tell that's not you."

Bo let out a wordless exclamation of helpless fury, but just then the wail of sirens blared from the street outside, and a moment later several police officers burst in.

"What the hell, man?" Hunter hissed as the lead detective approached him with a pair of handcuffs and told Bo he would take it from there. "Those girls were just runaways or street kids nobody would miss – exactly the type we're supposed to feed on. What else are they good for?"

"Our official policy may be not to interfere with reasonable predation," the detective replied with grim satisfaction, "but selling humans to a wanted criminal is a bridge too far – yeah, we know all about your recent business dealings, and trust me, your client's going to get a nasty surprise when he comes to pick up those girls tonight – and so is stealing from your girlfriend. I bet you thought you were clever, taking her grandma's ring and convincing her she'd lost it, but you shouldn't have left the pawnshop receipt lying around, genius. You're under arrest for kidnapping, human trafficking, grand larceny, and generally being a walking sack of crap."

"Not sure being a walking sack of crap is actually a crime," Bo commented as she and Bella led the girls out of the warehouse, "although it should be."

Then they stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, and any further conversation was preempted by Marlena shouting her sister's name as she rushed to embrace Sarah. A flood of tears from both humans ensued as Marlena anxiously inspected Sarah for injuries and Sarah alternated between apologizing for her recent behavior and promising to do better. At last, when Marlena was satisfied that her little sister really wasn't hurt, just hungry and badly in need of a shower and fresh clothes, she looked over at Bo and Bella – still clutching Sarah like she would never let go of her again – and said softly, "Thank you… Thank you both so much. I know we haven't discussed your fee yet, and I don't have much…"

"Don't even worry about that," Bo said at once, waving her hand dismissively. "We were happy to help – right, Bella?"

"Of course. You two take care of yourselves."

Bo put her arm around Bella's shoulders, and the younger girl let herself be steered away, only stopping when Marlena called after her, "Hey, Bella? You were wrong before, about what you said when I asked what you were doing on that street where we first met. You are a nice girl."

"Oh…well. I mean, thanks. I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time. Good luck, Marlena, Sarah."

"She's right, you know," Bo said as they resumed walking, "although 'nice' doesn't really come close to covering it. Bella, you were amazing! The way you kept your cool and freed yourself and the girls-"

"After getting myself caught in the first place. And when I cut myself loose from the chair they zip-tied me to, I was honestly just hoping I wouldn't drop my knife, and I was only able to get us out of the room they had us in by chi-sucking the guy Sarah tricked into opening the door until he passed out; I didn't fight five of them at once with my bare hands like you did. If I learned anything today, it's that I've still got a long way to go before I'm anywhere near your level."

"You did great for your first case, though," Bo insisted, her arm tightening around Bella and pulling her closer. "Still think you don't have what it takes to be a fae investigator?"

"I just wish I knew who tipped the cops off," Bella said, changing the subject in hopes of staving off any more undeserved (at least in her opinion) praise. "From what the fae detective said about Hunter stealing from his girlfriend, it sounds like she must've turned him in, but I thought she was way too blindly devoted to him to do that. I wonder what could've caused her to have such a drastic change of heart."

"I think I have an idea." Bo was looking ahead now, and Bella followed her gaze to where Dyson stood on the outer edge of the crime scene, beyond the ring of police cars surrounding the building. "You went back and worked your magic on Asha, didn't you?" she asked as they closed the distance between them. To Bella, she explained, "Dyson has a special knack for getting statements out of reluctant female witnesses; it's kind of legendary at his home base in Toronto."

"I couldn't just sit around and do nothing," he confirmed with an unapologetic nod. "I convinced her that if she really was absolutely certain Hunter wasn't mixed up in anything too bad, then it wouldn't hurt to take a look at his personal papers. When she found evidence that he'd sold an expensive ring her grandmother gave her and made her believe she lost it, that was it. She dug through everything he had for more proof of illegal activities and when I introduced her to the fae working at the station, she gave them everything that even looked slightly suspicious."

He paused, then added carefully, "You know, Bo… I won't deny that my 'legendary' success at getting women to cooperate with my investigations involved a certain amount of flirting in the past, but I want you to know I didn't do that today; the last thing Asha needed after years of Hunter manipulating her was another guy getting in her head…but even if it wouldn't have been unfair to her, I still wouldn't have done it. I'll never do it again if it bothers you. You're not mad, are you?"

She gazed into his eyes, reading the sincerity in them; as great an asset as his ability to charm the opposite sex had been in his line of work, she could see that he wouldn't hesitate to quit using that advantage rather than risk compromising his relationship with her…but was it really fair of her to ask him to? Sure, it bugged her sometimes when other women were too forward in expressing their appreciation of her boyfriend's attractiveness, but deep down she knew that she had nothing to worry about, that she was the only one he wanted. Besides, when he needed information in order to save innocent people and bring criminals to justice, she couldn't fault him for using every means at his disposal to get it, especially when his talent for persuasion had just saved her butt – even though she couldn't deny that she was glad he'd pulled it off without getting flirtatious.

"Not as long as you only use your powers for good," she said at last. "Just try to keep the seduction to a minimum from now on, okay? Don't forget that your lone wolf days are over." She emphasized this point by taking hold of his leather vest and pulling him in until their noses almost touched, their smiling mouths mere inches apart.

"I'm okay with that."

Bella looked away as their lips met; she didn't begrudge them a moment of celebratory intimacy after what had just happened, but watching it made her miss Edward so much it was like a stabbing pain in her gut, as opposed to the dull ache she'd grown accustomed to. Luckily, the happy couple contented themselves with a relatively brief kiss, and when it was over Bo apologized for getting carried away and rubbing her romantic bliss in Bella's face.

"It's fine; I don't feel like you're rubbing anything in my face," Bella assured her, and even managed a strained smile that she hoped looked more convincing than it felt. Unfortunately, judging by Bo's still-remorseful expression, she wasn't sure it had worked. Deciding a diversion was in order, she said, "Let's just get out of here, do something fun before I have to go home and get ready for school on Monday, maybe go to a museum or something like that – you know, the kind of fun I can actually tell Charlie about when he asks what we did."

###

When she returned home on Sunday night, Bella was pleasantly surprised to find that Charlie had gotten takeout from the local diner in order to give her a break from cooking – and sure enough, as they sat down to eat it, he asked how her weekend went.

"Shopping?" he repeated incredulously when she told him how it had started off, gaping at her in astonishment. "Bo actually talked you into going shopping? I mean, it looks great on you," he said with an admiring glance at the green leather jacket she had put on over one of her baggy old t-shirts, figuring it would be best to introduce Charlie to her new look in stages, "but still, I thought you hated buying clothes."

"Well, it's not my favorite thing to do, but Bo made me see that it wouldn't kill me to pay a little more attention to what I'm wearing. I mean, she always looks amazing, and she doesn't need to spend hours in front of a mirror every day to do it."

"Right…well…" Charlie cleared his throat uncomfortably; while he thought Bo was a great role model for Bella in almost every respect, he'd seen enough of her personal style by now to hope fervently that Bella would refrain from emulating her sister in that one area. He didn't mind if she wore leather jackets now and then, though. Even as a dad and a cop, he had to admit that Bo had some very cool coats.

Hoping to steer the conversation away from such worrisome topics as Bo's wardrobe and the possibility of Bella starting to dress like her, he asked, "So what else did you do? I hope you didn't let her drag you through the mall all weekend."

"No, we didn't spend the whole weekend shopping. We also went to an art museum and a couple of bookstores, and we met some friends of Dyson's that live in Seattle," Bella reported, trying to ignore the guilty squirming sensation in her stomach. After all, she told herself, she wasn't really lying to Charlie – everything she'd told him was true, it was just that she had omitted a fairly large chunk of the story.

"Of course you'd find your way to a bookstore. Every vacation we took together, you always had to look for new books in each place we visited," Charlie reminisced with a fond smile. "You collected them the way other tourists collect souvenirs. So that's it, huh?"

"Pretty much," Bella lied, her stomach clenching so hard that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to finish her veggie burger. "All in all, it was a pretty uneventful weekend."

Next scene: every pair of pants Bella owns spontaneously combusts thanks to the whopper she just told. I have to admit I was tempted to end this at the point where Bella got captured for the cliffhanger, but that would've made for an unsatisfyingly short chapter, so I decided to cover the whole weekend instead and get in another Charlie scene.

In other news, I'm pretty sure we're more than halfway through this story now. I'll keep you posted on how many more chapters to expect once the exact number firms up in my head.