"Maze!" Ella said, and moved around the bar. She began to give the demon a hug, but found herself immobilized by a refraining hand.

"Not even if you change first."

Ella looked down at her somewhat soaked shirt. "Right. Cool."

"What are you doing out of Hell? You know, home?" Chloe asked.

"Just catching my breath. Anyway, I haven't seen a sunset in millennia," she shrugged.

"You found a way out. Like Eve," Linda deduced, and her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head. "It's harder with a soul, isn't it?"

"Do you take payment to not analyze?"

"No. But," Linda added, when she had clearly pissed off the demon, "I do take counsel."

"Well, it's a good thing I showed up. Someone's got to be the designated driver."

"Uh, that would have been the taxi driver," Linda paused, nodding and remembering Maze was sort of clingy due to abandonment issues. "But it's a good thing you're here nonetheless."

"Aw, man, I'm so happy," Ella said, and tried again for a hug. This time she found herself refrained by something a little sharper than a hand; a curved demon dagger pressed, very lightly, against her throat. She could hardly feel it, but it caused quite a panic.

"See, this," Maze whispered, "Is gonna be in my Hell loop."

"Okay, you, out," the bartender said pithily.

Maze smiled, quickly withdrawing her dagger with a metallic ringing sound. Instead of leaving right away, as one more normal would do, she turned around and grabbed a bottle off the shelf first. "Parting gift," she called, as she headed for the exit.

"Uh," Linda began with her usual grace, "Neither of you mind if I follow her, right?"

"No, go ahead."

"Ya gotta do what ya gotta do," Ella added, and sat down again beside Chloe as Linda rushed off. "You know, I'm starting to think Maze just doesn't like hugs!"

Chloe, in the middle of going into her purse, looked at her with a humorous frown. "Noooo. Really?"

"But that's silly. Who doesn't like hugs? They're safe, and warm―"

"How much for the bottle she stole?" Chloe asked, and gave the bartender the amount required to cover it.

"And soft, and...warm," Ella semi-drunkenly rambled, "Like a blanket. Who doesn't like a blanket?"

"Yeah, mhm. They're safe and warm―like a hug."

"Exactly. I knew you'd get it, Decker."

Chloe nodded, rolling her eyes at the bartender. "Well, come on, Lopez―wow, I cannot pull that off," she interrupted herself. Shaking her head, she stood up and pulled Ella against herself in a sideways hug, making her laugh as they walked towards the exit like they were competing in a three-legged race. "Got to find our designated demon. Driver."

They didn't have to go far; Maze and Linda were standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the parking lot.

"No!" Maze said, with her usual combination of confidence and snappiness, as Ella and Chloe approached them. "I didn't escape! Just wanted to see some color for a change. You know what it feels like to see blue all the time? It feels blue."

"So everything's...okay?"

"Yeah!" she said, and as if only to contradict her statement, her phone made noise. She read her message and rolled her eyes, accidentally muttering something better left unsaid: "Damn Eve."

"What?" Ella asked.

Maze looked up, forcing a smile that she obviously didn't feel like giving. "Hellephone. It's got a supernatural connection."

"Really? Can you video chat?" Chloe asked.

"No, no―can we go back to 'Damn Eve'?" Linda asked. "I thought everything was okay."

Maze sighed, putting her phone back into her tight leather pants (some things never changed―though Ella at least hoped Maze had). "It's fine," she said, sounding entrenched in denial. "So Ellen... Linda tells me you're a cop?"

"Yeah. Well, a cop in training. A rookie. Sort of."

"So you finally got bored of all that geeky science stuff," Maze chuckled. "I knew it was only a matter of time."

"Actually one of the head honchos screwed up, probably didn't sleep right, or... Whatevs," she shrugged.

"Oh. Sorry," she said, really sounding like she was just saying it to say it.

"Hey, man, geeks are awesome, okay? Geeks don't 'evolve'... We are evolution. So thank you, for the biggest compliment of my life."

Maze was either annoyed or nauseated by her comment. She motioned then to her car. "Am I designated-driving you somewhere or not?"

And that was how the girls wound up at Lux. They came to stand by the entrance in the downstairs lobby, looking at all the floor space and all the empty seats. No lights, no music. Just a sad, strange, empty silence.

"This was a bad idea," Chloe muttered.

"No way," Maze said. "Linda, you were spot-on. Don't listen to Debbie Downer Decker. We just have to make sure this friends-only party bumps hard."

"Well, since there's no wedding to sabotage," Linda began, "Should we get strippers?"

"I think Ellen had the same idea," the demon noted.

Chloe leaned a little, looking at Ella's phone. "Oh, balls," she complained.

"That-that didn't sound appreciative," Linda muttered to Maze.

Maze snatched Ella's phone out of her hands, causing her to yelp a "Hey!" of protest. She looked at the phone and rolled her eyes. "Police Codes Explained," she read aloud, and began swiping through the history. "Police Protocol. Defusing Bombs And Other Situations. First Look At The Rook Book?"

"It's supposed to really help, okay?"

"Help you to do what? Become the most boring person ever? You're supposed to be on sabbatical."

"It's not sabbatical!" Ella said, and grabbed her phone back. "I'm a newbie."

"What does this even come out of?" Linda asked. "Vacation days you don't have yet?"

"Actually until everything's resolved, I was kind of trespassing a little bit, so... I'm not, like, hurting job performance. Hell, they might thank me for staying away," she said, attempting a half-hearted laugh.

"That's sad," Chloe noted.

"Ah, no biggie. It's for the best. Way I see it, me being there now is like... Pbbbbt," she interrupted herself, "Linda being there. So of course they sent me home, right? Cops aren't going to give a gun to the first idiot who walks through the door without a permit. Which reminds me, I should apply for a permit. Where do I even start with that?" she rambled quietly.

"You don't have one?" Chloe asked. "You've shot guns before."

"I'm...drunk, I'll say all kinds of nonsense."

"Come on!" Maze interrupted, brushing between them. "Enough chitchatting. Let's put on something with bass."

"But where do we land on the strippers?" Linda asked, rushing after her.

"Their legs," the demon answered. "Forward or backward, that's up to you."

Ella slid into the nearest seat, at one of the booths, and kept doing research centered around her new employment (almost, anyway). Chloe stood where she was, watching Maze and Linda getting the small party started for a moment before she slid into the booth next to her friend. "Ella," she said, and the little scientist looked at her. "Would you like to know what I went through as a cop?"

Watching them from the stage, Maze sighed and said, "Great, now they're both boring. I'm going to have to hire people to have a party."

"You've never had a job that excited you before?"

"Yeah, bounty-hunting." Maze gave her a "Duh" face.

"But that's it?"

"What... Like you get your rocks off listening to people bitch and moan about something they can actually do something about?"

"I...get my rocks off," Linda quoted with difficulty, "By having people walk into my office and thank me for my help. I like making a difference in people's lives!"

"Or," the demon said, "You just like profiting off people's pain."

"What?" Linda breathed.

"Oh, please." Maze shook her head at her. "Don't pretend that you don't make money from extorting their horrible truths... And use that money to buy yourself nice things. Therapists, man―your kind would make fabulous torturers down in Hell."

Linda sat for a moment, a tight ball of emotions; finally she had to ask. "Is that what you've thought of me all this time? I mean, wh... When you were sitting on my couch?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then why did you continue to see me? For years, and years, on end?"

"I was trying to be more...human. None of you are really strong, so you find ways to use your weaknesses to your advantage."

"Differences. We use our differences to our advantage."

"Potato, potahto. Anyway. Thought if I could learn to do that, I'd always have the upper hand. Then people would want to be me, and... Who would abandon someone they wanted to turn into? Just makes no sense."

"And then you moved to Hell."

"Because people are so uninspired! So few of them actually try to change. So the damn things kept ghosting me anyway. Luckily most of them were doing me a favor," she grumbled.

"Things?"

Maze glanced at her, calm, cool, and collect, like nothing she had said was hurtful.

Linda thought for a moment. "Well, we are very different, Maze. I'm not a torturer. I actually am very happy with my work."

"Doesn't seem like it. God, even Lucifer's eyes would light up when he was talking about the LAPD. Yours, just..." She made a noise then, like she was blowing out a candle. "Dark."

"Well, when I take a break, like now, it just...feels like Lucifer is doing my work for me." She shrugged primly.

"And that doesn't get your rocks off?" the demon asked. "If you didn't want a legacy, why did you have children?"

"Chil...dren?" Ella asked, and Maze and Linda looked beside themselves to see her gawking in disbelief. "Ho-ly...bananas."

"I'm fine."

"I'm not! I thought you were all done keeping secrets from me."

"That was the last one, I promise."

Ella looked at her, suddenly realizing, "Your son's an angel. He has wings. Right? He can fly."

"Uh, it, mmm," came the graceful answer. "Yeah..."

Ella now looked at Chloe, in reluctant dread. "And her?"

Chloe's eyebrows went up as she realized how much there was still kept hidden from her. "Yeah. But Ella, wait, that doesn't mean we," Her rationalizations ran out breathlessly as Ella walked swiftly from Lux, leaving the party before it had begun.

Leaving a party. Departying, she mused grimly, as she angrily let herself out onto the street. She got out her phone and called the one number that she felt wouldn't lead to bitter disappointment. "Dallas, hey. It's Ella. Wanna get together tonight?"

And the rest, as they say, is history. Unfortunately for Ella, it was kinda, sorta plastered history that she didn't know when she woke up. Her most recent memory was seeing Dallas sleeping beside her and rolling over to put an arm around his wonderful naked bod. But when she woke up, she was alone... Luckily not even Azrael was hanging around. Boy, that would have been awkward. Honestly, she wasn't sure she ever wanted to see her again...and she leaned towards no. Having blown off some steam (and some other things), Ella was content to stay at home all day getting down and dirty (poor choice of words), reading as much of the Rook Book as she could take in, and then going to bed alone.

She got to page 445 of 712, and hoped it would be good enough for Chen at least. She showered and went to bed, with 398 more pages of knowledge in her head than last time. When she woke up on Friday morning, she felt kind of proud.

Even if she had begun sleeping with someone she barely knew and pulling away from those who did. But whatever. They shouldn't have kept her in the dark like Azrael. Now, they were reaping what they'd been sowing.

"Okay. Uniform, then wallet. Uniform, then wallet," she said, as she stood at her locker. "Uniform―"

"If you need a mantra to remind yourself on how to get dressed," an unfamiliar voice startled her, "Then you will never survive."

Ella turned, smiling at the pretty woman who sorta resembled Maze. Sorta. "I'm not...stupid. Just trying to avoid a past mistake."

"Since you made that mistake, you're stupid."

Ella had noticed that the more experienced an officer was, the further their locker was from the door. Hers was right beside it, Chen's was somewhere near the middle, Bradford's was snuggled right up under the window. This hotshot walked all the way to Bradford's locker, opening the adjacent one facing his.

"So you're Officer Chen's Boot."

"Ella. Lopez," she said, feeling absolutely no desire to hug this woman. And when she pulled on her uniform and Ella saw the Harper nametag, that was when she knew she had great instincts, and shouldn't ever doubt them. Of course this bitch had a back seat, that was logical.

"Not for long. Your name will be whichever one I give you."

Harper closed her locker door with a resounding bang and walked past Ella with unrelenting RBF. Ella waited until she was gone and then shook her head, exclaiming to herself, "What a bitch-a-roonie-doonie!"

Her voice echoed in the locker room, and even more disturbing, she heard a noise behind the lockers facing her own. Humiliated and kind of terrified, she pressed her lips together and rushed from the locker room, hoping Her Royal Heinous would be under a different sergeant's command, and she would hardly ever see her. Of course, Lady Luck was a bitch, too; there she was, seated right behind Ella's chair.

"Great," she muttered, and rushed into the room, sincerely wishing she could drag her feet.

Sergeant Grey was in the middle of talking, and at her arrival, he interrupted himself to lecture her. Groan. "Officer Lopez, and I do use the term lightly―when you are checking in or out, when it's two days or two minutes, when you are off-duty or having a family crisis, you are expected to sign. Do you copy?"

"Yes, sir. I won't be negligent again."

"See that you're not. No other rookie has ever been so careless. That was last night," the stuffy sergeant continued, and Ella barely had time to realize he was continuing the speech before he said, well, even more. "Given his absence, I think we can consider Mr. Garcia a suspect."

Ella's alarmed eyes went to Bradford, standing stoically beside Grey, hands clasped at the waist. He looked...actually, he looked concerned for the girl. What kind of game was he playing?

"Today I want every one of you tracking him down," Grey added. "Our more experienced officers will be driving alone in ghost cars to cover more ground. Do you copy?"

A chorus of "Yes, sir" swept throughout the room.

"Good. Be safe out there."

Ella hesitated only for a moment, listening to the scrapes and rustles of everybody pushing back his or her seat and leaving the room; then she surged to her feet and turned around to find her T.O. in the crowd. Her nearness surprised her; she stood with her arms crossed and a look of quiet disapproval on her face. "Hey, Off-Officer Chen," Ella stammered, pushing in her chair with a horrid, grating squeak. Her body language was totally unnerving, like she and Bradford had Freaky Fridayed. Well, the day was appropriate, and she tried not to take the chill running down her spine seriously. "I-I'm ready to go, are you ready?"

"No. You completely ghosted me," Chen told her. "You didn't notify me you were taking time off, you tell Sergeant Grey... You didn't even tell the D.O.!" she exclaimed, with a frustrated hand motion. "Now he thinks you need structure, so... Meet your new training officer."

There was no one standing with Chen, so Ella turned around...and found herself looking into Nyla Harper's smile of death. She turned quickly back around to face Chen. "I'm sorry. I can do better. I swear."

"You don't get it. A rookie is a reflection of their T.O. After you vanished on me, everybody started calling me soft. They've been picking on me for two days, my fiancé called me a sucker, I... Somebody sent a letter to my house." Chen shook her head. "He was right about you."

Ella opened her mouth to apologize and offer to defend her, but Chen turned and left hastily, appearing genuinely broken.

"Well, you just came in like a wrecking ball, didn't you? Ooh," Harper added, as Ella sighed. "That just got added to my list of names."

"What happened with the Garcias?" was all Ella could say.

"The girl is missing, and conveniently, so is the dad. Hey, Bradford?"

"Yo."

"What do you think of the nickname Record?"

"Record?" he scoffed, and suddenly sobered, thinking of her criminal history. "Why?"

"Because she broke Nolan's record of being the world's oldest rookie."

Standing still, Bradford seemed to lose balance. He gawked at her. "You're older than Nolan? Shit, I thought you were in your 20s."

Finally, something amazing happening in this place. She grinned at him, overwhelmed with appreciation. "Thank you, Sergeant!"

He had really intended it as an insult, what with her goofy shirt and her irresponsibility... But he had seen how crushed she was for Maddie. He remembered how she had rushed to help somebody about to explode into bits. And he knew the kind of treatment she would get from Harper. So he bit down on the instinct to enlighten her of his insult and walked away before he could assure her of how very little hope there was and stick the final nail in her coffin.

"No, not Record. Repeat, perhaps. This is going to take some thought!" Harper said, as she headed for the exit.

"Or you could just call me Ella."

"Oh, no, hell, no. That would not be fun. I'm also considering Handout, because you quite simply do not belong here, and it was kind of handed to you anyway, on a silver freaking platter."

"And, what, you'll call me this all the time?"

"Oh, no, not all the time. No. Only when I am telling you what you're doing wrong and talking about you behind your back. The rest of the time, girl, you'll be dead to me," Harper assured her.

"Well, some people...might say this is not a game."

That got Harper's attention. She turned, looking at the girl who had moments before been telling herself how to change. "Are you on any pills, Handout?"

Ella was stammering for a response when Harper turned dismissively away, speaking to the D.O. "9072625," she said pithily, and the D.O. left to get the gear. "Maybe Leftovers. Relapse."

"Suddenly Boot doesn't sound so bad."

"It's normal. Normal is boring."

"And yet you didn't choose to become a hippotherapist."

Hah! The look of confusion on her face was totally worth the risk of being called Sloppy Seconds. "Uh, anyway. The way you bounce between T.O.'s, if I call you Boot, how would you know I'm talking to you? So, my hands are tied. I have to cull the weak member from the herd; it's a professional obligation now."

"Whatever."

Harper inspected her. Huh... Bradford had been right, she decided. There was no fire. Not here. Perhaps if her life was at risk...