Okay, Raquel posted for everyoen to go read my story, but I don't think it's in the board anymore, so I'm just going to post it all, and there's a lot of spelling errors.... cause i didn't bother to correct it, and I didn't know how to spell back then.... :( :

Rose

When I was a child, my mother use to tell me that there were two choices in life, whether to be important, or not to be. I always thought about worlds. About how in the movie Demolition Man there is a very nice modern world in the light, while in the sewers Mexicans, Africans, Puerto Ricans, and white people are living all in a community made out of three things, crime, ghetto, and sex. When I saw this movie I didn’t understand it, but yet again I was nine, I didn’t understand much. And since everything with my mother and my father and… maybe I should explain a lot more.
My name is Rose, Rosalinda Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza, yes I have a long name I know, but yet again most Mexicans do, I am 19 years old, and yes I have already graduated. My mom’s side of the family has this thing with flower names, my grandma’s name is Lily, and my mother’s name is Daisy, while I’m Rose.
My father died in a shooting, my father was a great loving man. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and a cop shot him in the chest five times, you’d think that a man who just walked up the block carelessly with absolutely no weapons was involved in a shooting? No I don’t think so, but that’s not what the judge said when we lost the case. My father died around when I was four years old, my father was white, he had brown hair, dark brown eyes, and he worked in… I never knew what he worked in; well that’s what my parents thought. I saw the papers he would bring home, the type of customers that came up the doorsteps of our home. My father was a drug seller, I knew, because I would read the papers he had, I would look at the junkies that would come up our doorstep. I always told my father, “Daddy what are these people doing here?” And he would answer me by saying, “they’re just here to by some imported candy, it’s very expensive and very rare, now honey go to your room.” I think he did that so the people never saw who I was, in case you know, they wanted to do something to his family or him.
I would go to my room and wait for him to come in and celebrate the money he got. But he didn’t just sell drugs; my father just needed the money he didn’t do it for the hell of it. Of course not, he also had a lawn mowing business, he was also a car dealer.
My mother knew my father was a drug seller, it would have been wrong for my father not to tell her. My mother, well when my father died, she got really depressed and didn’t talk to men a lot. But when I was eleven, my mother decided that we needed more money. So she got a part time job at a bar, she didn’t strip, she didn’t dance, she just passed out drinks. But she got great tips at it. Back in those days my mom thought she was a big shot because she was able to get men at her feet, one even bought her a car. Back in those days I hated her, I couldn’t stand her, she was so mean, and she made me clean the house, well mainly it was always clean, but it got dusty and I had to mop every week. My mom lasted with this jerk a long time, he bought her a car, jewelry, and a bed set a lot of things. But when she broke up with him he went ballistic, well lets just say he followed my mom home and tried to rape her. I don’t know how I did it, but for some reason… but for some reason I just, sort of, I got this incredible strength that I never knew I had.
I rushed towards my mother and I punched the guy in his nose and kicked him in the stomach. We called the police and eventually things were okay. I decided to take martial arts lessons, and I went to every school martial arts lesson I could. It was weird; I would always be with boys learning, never girls there but me. Well the paper always had two offers, cheerleading or martial arts lessons. I learned cheerleading after a while, watching them jump and doing their tricks, I wasn’t bad at it, but then again things weren’t always good. Once I tried a split in a trampoline hmmm things ended pretty harsh.
I don’t think there’s anything else to say, except that I have a daughter, about three years old now, her name is Ivy, Ivy Veronica Salinas Ezpinoza. And she lives with my mother, in Chicago.

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Chapter One

“Ah! I swear I don’t know anything! Just stop!” Screamed Vicky Leon.
“OK stop J,” The woman said.
“Now Vicky, it is my understanding that you do know in fact where Mr. Leon is, after all, he is your brother, and by the looks of it he’s a terrible brother, letting his sister get all hosed down.”
Vicky started to cry, that woman was mad, she was mad. Vicky let a strangled cry come out before she looked up again, the woman was there looking down at her, her long brown hair was in a tight pony-tail, and she was dressed in black leather clothes. She had a long black leather jacket, a black tank top, and she was wearing black leather pants.
Vicky looked at the woman’s eyes. She didn’t look any older than twenty-five, she had strong cheeks, light skin, dark brown eyes sparkled with… what was it? Red sparks? Or Gold? It was hard to tell since she had been staring at the woman’s mirrored glasses. But nevertheless it was both. And she had a pointy small elegant nose, along with small lips. She was beautiful, but so deadly.
Vicky was all wet, her clothes were soaked. She was in a metal room; it was entirely clean except for the water in the ground. There were four men in the room, and the woman. One man was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, he was in black too, a black suit and black polished shoes, the other man on the other side of the room was the same as well. The man with the hose was in a black jumpsuit, and the other man was large, a lot of muscle, and he was standing behind the woman, Vicky suspected that must be the bodyguard.
The woman stepped forward and the sound of her black high-heeled boots echoed the room, she wondered how the woman could walk in those boots when the heel was so thin, but yet the woman walked perfectly.
“Now Vicky are you going to tell me where your loving, caring, brother is? I mean for god’s sakes girl, do you really want another hose down?” The woman said, and Vicky had never heard another voice as colder and heartless as hers.
“I told you all I know, he left to New York, I don’t know otherwise,” Vicky said, and she was telling the truth.
“I believe you, because when I look in your eyes I see the truth, but Vicky, if you could maybe. I don’t know answer some questions I might spare your life, or if you want I can get the hose again and leave you in here with it at full pressure?” The woman said.
“What kind of questions?” Vicky said.
“Oh I see your interested, yes, well I want to know where your brother’s wife is,” The woman said rather than asked.
“She’s in Miami,” She said.
“Really? Hmmm well that’s interesting, anyway I want to know where his son is.”
“Both?” Vicky asked, the woman nodded, “Carlos is in here Chicago, while Jose is in Cicero,” She said.
“Yes well was that hard? You—” The woman stopped talking and reached into her coat pocket and took out a silver sleek cell phone.
“Yes?”
Vicky sat in the ground shivering, she looked at the men around her, the one on the right was wearing dark glasses so she couldn’t see his eyes, and she looked at the other men and saw that the bodyguard didn’t have glasses on. She looked at his eyes and saw nothing but pity and hatred; she looked at the hose man, same thing.
The woman had glasses on too, but they weren’t black, they were mirror glasses, she looked at them and saw herself. She could see her short black hair wet dangling at her sides, and she could see her clothes all wet. Her pants were too soaked forever use of any human, her shirt was ripped and it was no longer useable. Probably the only thing she could use again would be her bra and underwear, but she would never use them, these clothes were memories from now on, like many other garments.
The woman turned back to look at her, she took her glasses off, and Vicky could see that her eyes were cold.
“Vicky, tell me the truth, are you scared of me?”
Vicky looked at the woman, she was of course, but the woman just wanted to throw a show.
“Are you?”
Vicky nodded.
“Let me tell you this Vicky, fear, fear is a genetic gene, it is planted in you from birth, fear connects you with thrill, bravery, fun sometimes. Humans fear what they don’t know, do you fear me? Do you know me? No, so you don’t know what I am going to do next do you? No, of course not, the basic enemy would kill you, but let me tell you this; your information is true. It’s proven and my contacts are already in Miami looking for Cynthia Leon, and they are all over the city, in disguise, looking for Carlos Leon, and in Cicero, looking for Jose Leon as well. But let me tell you this, there is nothing worse than a traitor, but a traitor to it’s own kind. So yes, you’ve proven you are not a liar, humph, you should celebrate. But, a traitor, I loathe you, if I were in your spot I would have rather died than turned on my own army, my own family. So let me tell you this, leave, you can walk out of this building without anybody stopping you, but let me tell you this you will be watched, because I want to see what your brother is going to do when he finds out that you gave his family away.”
Tears ran down Vicki’s face, and she started to shiver. The woman took a step towards her and stopped two feet away from her.
“Leave, I don’t want you in this building,” She said.
“Wait, who are you?” Vicky asked the woman.
The woman turned, she looked down at her, she smiled, and the woman put on another fresh coat of red lipstick.
“Ask no questions and get no lies.”


She stepped out of the room and walked down the metal hallway, she could hear Butler’s footsteps behind her.
“Well that was quite a show,” Butler said to her.
“Yes it was, there is a black truck parked two blocks away from here, which means that Vicky Leon will die the minute she walks into an alley, which I suspect will be in ten minutes.” She said.
“Leon orders?” Butler asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” She said.
“You, afraid?”
“Theoretically speaking. Yes, well, I imagine she must be scared to death to walk out of this building now, if she’s not out of that room in 24 hours kill her.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well now she sort of was valuable though,” She said as she looked at her cell phone.
“Sort of huh?” Butler said.
“Did I stutter?”
“No don’t get mad boss, it’s just, talking to you is fun.”
“Maybe I should fire you I can really take care of myself.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Really and since when do you know me?”
“Since you contracted me?”
“Oh yes, I remember that day.”
The walked down the metal hallway and turned to the right into what could have been the same hallway; she stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to a wall. She pushed the door and the door swung open, she entered it with Butler after her, and the door automatically shut.
She looked around in the room, there were tables in rows with computers on top, and people dressed in black typing in computers, it almost seemed like a chorus.
She looked at the first table and she saw Sarah Jones sitting there typing on her laptop, while Rickia Johnson sat in the table looking to the front of the room with her head in her hands. In the table in front of them there were two men looking at the people in front, one was Jamile Williams and the other one was Mitchell Navarro. On the other side of the room were two tables, the front one was occupied with two males, the first was Jason Lorang, while the one that sat next to him was Juan Rodriguez.
She looked to the board and saw Francisco Hernandez, and Christian Torrez.
“What’s new?” She asked.
“Well we have found out that Leon’s mother died, apparently heart attack last month, while his father died the authorities found the body of an old man Puerto Rican, male, 62, black hair with white sprouting, brown eyes and of course a scar below his cheek.” Paco (Francisco) said.
“I think we should attack tomorrow,” She said as she drew on the board a square.
“What? But it’s not planed, a million things could go wrong,” Christian said.
“Yes, but would Leon be expecting it? Would he expect a billion dollar robbery in his own house tomorrow?” She asked as she turned to look at Chris.
“Well of course not they’d be expecting it next week, and I imagine that they are preparing the house for the attack,” Chris said.
“Exactly, so it be easier for us to attack, anyway I,” She walked over to the desk at the corner, she opened a drawer and took out a folder, “have found a very special paper. This unique paper is from nineteen seventy-six, when Leon thought he needed a safe, a safe to protect what he soon was about to collect. So he went to the downtown safe shop, in Chi-town, and signed his name to a paper, as he bought his safe. So now we know where his money is; a safe, and well I’m thinking that Juan you can crack it right?” She asked.
“Yes, any type I can crack,” Juan said.
“Good, it’s an old—”
“Don’t spoil the surprise please,” he said with a smile, his eyes were already planning she could tell.
“Well I found this scan of the house Leon has currently decided as his home but of course he always leaves the key to the plan behind… idiot man. Anyway where was I? Yes—” she drew on the board several squares, and rectangles, but in one square she drew a mini box in there, and in the middle she drew an X.
“Leon’s home is in New York, Albany, AKA New York City, and well he’s not very bright because he planted his treasure in the middle of the largest city in the US. Which in fact is swarming with CIA, and PD, but I think that’s why he did it so it’d be harder for criminals to track him. Which obviously it’s not.” She said in a sarcastic voice. “Well we are going to dig under, dig under the room, and from that we are going to send Juan and Mitch, and they’ll bring the safe safely down with us. We will dig two miles away from his house, and one mile away we will open it, we will take the money, and put the safe back with fake bills. Clear?” She looked around the room and everybody nodded.
“OK… well here’s the plan, I know Leon has surveillance all over Chi-Town, which I have absolutely no I dead why since he knows he can’t catch us. So in an hour, we hit the dressing room, and we hit the sewers.” She said.
Everybody in the room stood up and walked out of the room.
She looked at Paco and Chris.
“You think we can pull this off?” Chris asked him.
“We’ve done worse, of course we can, I mean, for god’s sake it’s not like we don’t have experience Chris,” She said to him.
“Getting the job done is always a b****,” Chris said.
“Yeah don’t fret Chris, we’ll pull it, and plus think of the millions we’ll have,” Paco said with a hungry look on his face.
“Well Paco I’m not doing this for the money, I’m doing it for the fun of it,” Chris said.
“Amen,” She said to Chris.
They walked out of the room and they went down the metal corridors in different directions. She turned right and walked down the hallway, and turned left, and in the middle of the room she pushed the wall and it opened. She entered it and saw Butler in there, he now didn’t have the light brownish hair he had before, now he had dark hair, with a dark mustache, and he no longer had blue eyes, he had green eyes.
“Nice to see you’ve already changed,” she said as the door closed.
“Yes well you better hurry,” he said.
She walked to the other side of the room, there was a number of wigs on the table, she looked at the red wig, she grabbed her scrunchy and let her hair loose as she pulled. She fixed her hair in a ponytail pose and put on the wig, the wigs long red hair reached down to her waist so she grabbed a hair clipped and pulled it back. She took her jacket and threw it at a couch on the side of the room, she took her pants off and looked around the room, she pushed a wall and it opened, she took out a striped cream colored skirt and put it on.
“You honestly don’t care that I’m here do you? You always just change in front of me,” Butler said.
“Like you don’t,” she said as she looked at the closet, she took out a red striped shirt and took off her black tank top while she put on the red one.
She put on the red wig and looked in the mirror, she was still recognizable, she opened a drawer and took out a box, there were 13 lenses in there, contacts anyway, one was green, black, amber, brown, blue, dark brown, icy blue, golden yellow, and the list went on. She chose the light green ones; she took off the red lipstick and put on lip-gloss.
She turned to look at Butler, he had on striped cream colored pants and a white T-shit, and his striped coat was in his hands.
“Shall we?” Butler said.
“Let’s go,” She said.

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Matt

Back when I was in high school, my best friend told me that you only get one chance in life, and that’s way I liked him, why he was my best friend, because he was wild, he took things as, if you want something, go for it. I wanted to be like him, I thought that if I was more like him I’d get more girls, I’d be more popular, I wouldn’t have to worry about sex, or grades, or sports, or even what to wear because people would want to be like me. I use to go to school and everyday he’d be there, in a group surrounding him, I would go to my locker pack things get my things and then I would go to class. When the bell rang he would come in and sit next to me, he would talk happily and I would listen, it was always that way.
But when I was in my junior year, a lot of things happened. I met a girl, and fell in love, I told my friend about it, he of course, said, go for it. So I did, for once I did something, I was happy he was happy. But I didn’t know what went wrong, my friend met my girlfriend, and then he fell in love with her, I don’t blame him, till this day I’m still in love with her. But, anyway, the point is he moved away, because of her, I don’t know what happened, he talked to my girlfriend, and he left, he moved away to LA. And then she moved away to Chicago, I’m still stuck here miserable, without my love of my life, without my best friend, in New York City, alone.
So you see; maybe I should just have had the lamest crush on her and then left it like that. It all went crazy; I use to think, it’s his fault for telling me to go for it, but then it’s her fault for being so amazingly beautiful. And remember this is my entire department on how things go. So something might seem selfish and rude.

This is how things went downhill

1) For him to tell me to go for it (But then again I wanted to be like him.
2) For her for being so beautiful (Brown long thin weightless hair, brown eyes with gold and red sparks in her eyes, strong cheek bones, thin, big boobs, beautiful)
3) For him falling in love with her
4) For her being so nice to him
5) For him dreaming about her.

But it all went down to one conclusion.
For me falling in love with her, and being so rapt up on her, and telling him, and being so selfish at the way he looked at her eyes and her breast. I should have known.

It was my fault.

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Chapter Three

Rose walked down the corridor, trying not to get shouldered or get caught in a stampede of people, because people were barely coming out from Paris to New York, and the French were never nice when they were in a rush.
She sat in the seat waiting for the second flight from Chicago to New York to come. She saw in the monitor that Chicago had landed already, she walked up there and looked out the windows, and soon in enough she saw Butler coming out of the flight, she turned around and instead she bumped straight into someone.
Rose wasn’t use to falling, and her first instinct was to stand up and push the person that bumped her, but she was in disguise she had to act like a Russian.
“Ow!” She squealed.
“Oh I’m so sorrry, arr you OK?” She looked up to see a man about twenty-four to twenty-six, and he thrilled his R’s a lot.
“Oh no, oh is OK,” She tried to say in her accent.
“Arr you surre you’rre OK?” He asked, he helped her up with his hand, he was very strong.
“Yes, I am sure,” She said, as she stood up.
“Are You Russian?” The man asked her.
“Yes I am, are you?” She asked him.
“äà Âûáåðèòå ïåðåâîä,” He said in Russian, Yes I Am.
“ïðîõëàäà, ÿ ïðèë,“ She said, Cool, I mean.
She looked back out the window and she couldn’t see butler any more.
“Yes well I’m sorrry but I have to go,” She said in Russian.
“Oh yes, well nice to meet you,” he said to her.
She walked off, this was not good, she had lost Butler, now what? She searched her bag for her cell phone… but she didn’t get anything.
She had just been mugged. She turned around and looked for the man, of course he wasn’t there anymore, she looked at the exit door of the airport, someone was over there in the shadows, even though she was wearing color contacts her vision was perfect and in great shape. The shadow moved, she walked as fast as she could.
She opened the glass door and looked around, she could here very clattered footsteps to her left, she walked that way, obviously this mugger didn’t know how to do a job right.
She saw him standing by a payphone, she saw his black hair standing in a huddle by the payphone.
She could hear his words; “Yes um, can I have the—”
He didn’t have the chance to speak because a heel attacked him on the cheek. She watched as rolled two times before he looked up.
“Hello?” She said into the phone.
“Operator?” She heard a confused voice.
“Oh I’m sorry we remember the number,” She said as she hung the phone up.
She turned around and what came she didn’t expect. She got a punch to the head and fell to her knees, she didn’t quite understand who hit her, and because she was pretty sure the man hadn’t been that strong. But when she looked up to her surprise it was the man that had hit her.
“You bitch,” She said as she stood up.
“I wouldn’t be too surre about that sweethearrt,” He said.
“Yeah your right, it’s coming from me,” She said.
She kicked the man in the stomach, and punched him; he fell to the ground. And she could tell he had fainted.
She searched his jacket pockets and found her cell phone in his coat pocket. She pressed re-dial and to her surprise it did in fact say Butler, at exactly the last time she had called him, she put her cell phone in her bag, and looked down at the man, “thank you,” she said. She walked off, she had something to do, and well, if she didn’t hurry a couple of billion dollars were going to be at stake.


He looked at the people inside, so happy, so careless about what was going on in the streets. Matt Salinas looked at the windows of the McDonald’s, he could see everything in there, at least three families out of the fifteen where looking at him like a weirdo. He wasn’t surprised either. He turned and walked down the sidewalk, he was hungry, but he had something to do, a job to do.
Matt heard a cell phone ring and knew it was for him, did he really want to answer? Did he want to pick up the cell phone after he knew who it was? No one, that was the point, another anonymous call giving him orders and Matt Salinas was a man that couldn’t take orders.
“1-37,” he said into the phone.
“Subject trailing down and out of the air port, follow, Leon currently seen in a Expedition Ford in disguise as an Indian, Tom’s orders,” then the line was dead. He looked at the airport across the street, he hated just walking around the streets, but he had to do it. He saw the subject walk out of the air port, just as he was described, except that he seemed… what was the word? Hurt? No he kept walking, wounded, yes wounded, he kept touching his stomach. Matt lowered his Yankees Cap as he followed the man from the other side of the street. He could see he was rushing, and then he turned into an alley. Matt looked out, there were cars coming but from a far, he ran across the street and followed the man. The man was at the other side of the alley by now, and he was standing by the wall, he heard the vibrating of his cell phone. Ring meant update and follow, blue light meant follow, green light meant update, vibrate meant murder.
He walked fast but quietly up the man, he really didn’t want a show, so he just took his gun out and pressed it against the man’s temple, and shot him, of course there were people out but when it’s pressed against the body you can’t really hear much. He held him and dragged him, he sat him down and he sat next to him, he tried to make it look like he had fallen asleep if anybody at all were to pass by and see him. But it was hard with all the blood in his hands.
He counted to three…One…. Two…Three and just as he finished a white truck came, then another one, and they blocked the alley from view. Men came out and took the corpse off him, he saw the other truck open and out came out a thin female, about 5’6, slim, thin, blue eyes, blonde shot hair, and he could see she was pleased. The male was no other than 2-88; everyone in the business had number names.
“I see you’ve done your job well right, in less than five minutes he was down. Perfect,” The female said, she looked at him with a grim look.
“Yes very well 1-37, no hesitation, totally fearless,” 2-88 told him.
“Yes thank you but can you tell me what my next job is,” he said.
“Um yes well, we’ve got a lead, see this man worked for Leon,” The female explained while he lighted a cigarette, “And he was set out to kill someone, we have a lead it’s a female, and we’re thinking it’s Rose.”
“What?” He snapped up, they couldn’t possibly know about her, no one could, could they know about what they did…?
“Well, we’ve seen some signs lately, when someone dies, well a rose is left behind, see we have contacts and someone reported that Victoria Leon –Leon’s sister—died yesterday, it was about 3:00 PM when they found her dead in an alley. Sources say Leon send to kill his own sister. Now when they found the body a rose laid on top of her chest, very neatly done I say. Other corpses have been found with roses on top of their chests, it’s been two years since we’ve been getting this, and well we think it’s some other organization, another community, some agents call it The Deadly Rose. Dramatic but that’s how you explain it really,” 2-88 explained.
“Really? So what’s my lead?” He asked.
“Your lead is this,” He handed Matt a folder.
“And this is?”
“Open it, we have to go,” 2-88 and the Female turned around and stepped into the truck. He opened it, he saw a picture, a picture of a woman, he could tell, a red head, and he couldn’t see any other than that. He saw a redhead walking, but the picture was blurry. He could tell it was a good quality but the picture was blurry…? He looked at the body, long slim legs, and a skinny frame. This reminded him of…. He closed the folder and by the time he looked up he was alone. Again.

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Rose

When I was in my sophomore year, I fell in love, I, I didn’t know what hit me, I fell in love with this boy, this beautiful handsome boy. He had dark—But I mean extremely—dark brown hair, he had chocolate colored eyes, but with the most delicate and slightest touch of kindness in his eyes.
He was tall, muscular, and he was—to my great surprised—quiet, he was almost shy. I had moved to a school, and I met him, I saw him in the hallway and I couldn’t stop staring at him. His tall frame was set back on the lockers talking to another boy, I could say it was love at first sight for both of us.
I always wondered if he even noticed me, but a week later he asked me to be his girlfriend. I was surprised, shocked even, that he had noticed me. I said yes and, after that I could say it was paradise, I loved him and he loved me, and that rest of the world just… flowed away.
We were unseparateble; honestly, I couldn’t see life without him.
And then we decided to get married… because we thought it was the best for us, we thought we were perfect for each other. (I still think so as a matter a fact)
So to put it simple, we did get married, but no one new, except his best friend and his best friend’s sister, which at the time was my best friend. But then… then when I met his best friend, I don’t know, things happened.
Yes I did notice that he had blondish hair with just the right shade of brown, and even red. I did notice the way his blue eyes twinkled near light. But he never meant anything to me, but that’s not how he felt about me, He felt a lot stronger, and well things weren’t good. Things ended pretty badly, his best friend moved away, and then I had to move away. Because I couldn’t stay there, the shame and guilt that crossed me everytime was unbelievable, so I moved away. Without realizing I carried Matt’s child with me.

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Chapter Four

Matt couldn’t focus; he was assigned to look out for a woman, a woman with red hair, and long legs, but where to start? He walked down the sidewalk. There was nothing to do, he was bored, for once in his job he was bored, he wasn’t depressed, lonely, or mad. He was… bored, there was nothing to do, but he was hungry, the first thing that came to his mind was McDonald’s, but Burger King was closer, and that’s what he needed, Burger King, and Burger King reminded him of her…. He smiled; all he had left to go on was memories. He started walking down the street, he didn’t have any cash, and that’s what he needed, he probably had another ten hundred inserted into his Master Card. He walked up to the first ATM machine and deposited ten dollars out of his account.
He walked inside the tiny Burger King, what he needed right now was not pity, (especially self-pity) he needed food, he had to function somehow. He looked at the girl that was in cashier, she was at least three years younger than he was, pretty, but from the look of her she was tired.
“How can I help you?” The girl said in a tired voice.
“Can I have a whopper value meal, and a large coke, to go please,” He said as he took out his ten dollars. The girl pressed the buttons, and he handed her the money, she gave him back six dollars, and as he looked at the six dollars he smiled, that’s why he loved fast food, because it was good, cheap, and her…. He snapped is head up and knew that his face probably looked pale, he always looked pale, and food couldn’t help him.
He stepped aside and waited against the bar for his food to be done, he watched as his food was given to him, he sat on one of the empty tables. He took a bite out of his burger, god it was good, either that or he was really hungry.
As he ate, everything in Matt’s mind slowed, because what Matt saw was not what he expected. He saw a woman, with red hair, and long legs, in a striped skirt, with a red tank top, and a striped coat. The woman seemed ready to leave; he pulled his Yankees hat down, the woman walked to the end of the restaurant.


Rose checked her watch, she was late, she walked down the crowded streets of New York, and the job was taking longer than she expected. At that exact moment she realized five hundred things, but only three really mattered. She heard the door to Burger King close 15 seconds longer when it should’ve only taken ten, there was a white van parked five cars away from her, and her phone was ringing. She first looked behind her by looking at a car mirror. There was someone standing against the Burger King windows, a tall, muscular someone with a Yankees hat on. She looked at the van, it said AA. She knew it stood for Anonymous Assassins, it was a secret organization, the normal never knew and never will, the highly trained are involved but don’t know, and the high assassins know but won’t tell. She of course knew, she knew all about the secretive local organizations, but they don’t know about her… unless the Russian man was a trap, or they in fact did get the Rose hints. But she was pretty sure it was both, she turned into an alley and answered her phone.


Matt moved, the woman had been walking fast, as far as he knew, she was in a hurry, or she knew she was being followed.
He walked a little faster, he looked at a car mirror, but there was no one in the alley, where had she gone? He walked casually in but ended on the floor.


Rose jumped off the emergency fire stairs onto the man, she fell directly as planned, and he was on his back.


Matt knew for sure now that this was the woman he was assigned to, who else could get on a fire escape without making noise than pounce on him in less them one minute? Obviously her, he was impressed, but he only gave her a second before he attacked.


The Man had grabbed her with his feet and now she was between his thighs, she struggled but for a man his size he moved quick, and with strength. The Man stood up and next thing she knew she was the only one on the ground. She was never the one on the ground.
She stood up using her hands for support; she stood up in a fighting stand, but next thing she knew her armor was down, her eyes soften, her skin became tense, her eyes grew wide, and her lips twitched in a way they hadn’t in years.


Matt didn’t know what to make of this girl, this was no woman, and this was the strongest girl he had ever met in his high school years…. This was the love of his life. He recognized her body, the body he had once in his arms, the body he had once touched. And her face, her strong cheeks, the vent that followed down to her small pink lips, the lips he had once locked on his. But her eyes, her eyes were… green? Her once beautiful brown hair was… red?


Rose had fantasized about this day before, had dreamed and dreamed about it, but never had she seen it like this.
Rose recognized his strong, tall, muscular body now, his dark-dark hair, and his chocolate eyes, but they didn’t have the kindness they once owned, it had, long lost ice.
And that Ice scared her, and it scared her so much she turned around and walked down the alley, but when she turned… she ran.



Butler could tell that something changed in her, he knew that he didn’t know any of her secrets, and that she would never talk to him as a brother, (Like he did to her) but Butler knew her more than she ever thought he did.
Butler moved next to her, the building she had rented for the dig was exactly two miles far from Leon’s place, it was perfect, and the speed of the workers was fast and decent enough, but Rose didn’t think it was acceptable.
“Hurry up! Do you think that I have all my life!” She yelled rather than asked.
“Rose! Shut up!” He had never yelled at her, but he had never been in a mission with her in which she was acting like a total bitch.
“What?” Rose walked up to him and looked at his eyes… but something stopped him from responding, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind, he could have an easy comeback. But something had shifted in her eyes, he could no longer see the kind soul he saw once before, no matter how badly she was pissed off, or how sick she had been, he could always see through her… but at that moment, he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see anything.
“What?” She repeated.
“Do you have something to say to me?” Rose said to him.
“No.” He muttered.
“That’s what I thought, Butler, Or I’d rather say Dillon, don’t ever, ever, speak to me like that, because I will personally kill you, point-blank,” She said to him.
He watched her black boots step out of the carpeted room. He had never seen her so agitated.
“Whoa, looks like you got a show down, Dillon,” Paco said next to him.
“Call me by my first name again and I will break your neck,” He said as he turned to Paco. Paco was tall, about 6’3, but Butler was 6’5, and even though Paco was a superb martial arts opponent, and a great handman, he was no match to Butler.
“Look I’ll I’m saying is you sort of did get beat up around the bush there didn’t you?” Paco said.
“No shit sherlock.”
“There’s something wrong, something happened,” Chris said.
“Yeah something did, she never wears black make up, and that’s bad,” Sarah said.
“Forget the make up she never changes close when she gets back from the airport until she unpacks,” Rickia said.
“How do you two know this?” Mitch asked.
“We’re girls, we notice a lot more than you men do,” Sarah said.
“Yeah and well, it doesn’t seem like she had a good time on her way over,” Mitch said grimly.
“Hmmm you know something,” Chris said.
“Of course he knows, he’s in charge of watching us get to our locations safely and without any trouble, that’s way he gets here first to rent the place out, so he can moderate our trip, so…? Spill, what happened?” Paco asked Mitch, and then everybody turned to look at Mitch.
“Well, as well, when she gets off the air port, she’s waiting to see if Butler gets off his flight, since she’s suppose to keep eye on him at all times,” Mitch said while looking at Butler. “And while she was looking out the window, she fell, either that or tripped, or someone pushed her, because she fall back, and a Russian man 24 to 27. Mugged her. Well she went after him like two minutes after that, and of course she kicked his ass and then left, and anyway, like the camera is in the bag, when she left, she put the bag backwards on her arm. So I saw everything going on behind her, and well some guy kept staring at a McDonald’s, and then half an hour later she was walking and the same guy from the McDonald’s appeared, this time in a Burger King. And he followed her out, but then she slowed her pace, and turned into an alley, and when she turned into the alley she climbed on top of a fire escape, obviously she knew he was following her. So she goes, and as predicted he goes into the alley, and she sort of falls,”—“falls?”—“Yes Falls, and they sort of get back up and they just stare at each other, and then she turns around and runs.”
“Hey! We think we’re done!” The six of them snapped their heads to the whole beneath them. New York Country was still hard to get used to.

Rose

I saw him, I saw his face again, I saw his beautiful body again, but the most important thing is, that this is all real.
Matt, a four wonderful letter word.
I’ve seen him again, the love of my life, again, I never thought I would’ve seen him again, for the shame and guilt I carry I hoped sometimes I would’ve never seen him again, but that’s being selfish to myself, and to him.
When I was fifteen and I got pregnant, I had my child at sixteen, Ivy Veronica Salinas, my little girl, my baby, my child, my blood, I don’t know how else to explain it. But the point is that she is also the daughter of Matt Salinas.
When Ivy was born, I knew who the father was, there was no other, I had given my virginity to Matt, and he was my first, my only, and my last. I always knew who her father was, and I always thought, is this how it’s going to be? Is this history repeating itself? I never met my father, and neither has Ivy, and I always thought, not knowing your father is a disgrace, it’s horrible feeling. And I am making my child go through it, I always thought, should I just go back to New York to tell him about her? To tell him that he has a child? Or can’t I just call him and tell him that I am sorry for everything that happened. But I didn’t, I was scared, scared about his reaction, scared that he would reject me. But I never found out, why? Because I never even tried.
I was too coward to pick up the phone, dial his number, and call him. And now, that she’s three years old, I hate it, I hate myself for never telling him. And now that I’ve seen him again, it brings back all the guilt I have all the shame from what happened with Ben, and for Ivy.
Ivy is why Ben moved away, I told him that I thought I was pregnant, I told him that I felt sick, and somehow he knew I was pregnant. And then when he left I left too, because I was ashamed, and I left.
I always pictured this from childhood, grow up, get married, have kids, live happily ever after.
But instead of the tables turning, they fell on me. And I needed a job to support Ivy, and my mother, because she was growing old, and I was just making her do work. So what I did was that after I graduated, I got involved with a friend, his name was Mitch, he was like my brother. And he helped me.
The first real illegal thing we did was robbing a bank. We were desperate for money, so we robbed a bank; it went great, so we robbed some more banks. Then we had enough money to start our own secretive community. But now, we only rob other criminals, no innocent people are ever involved. After a mission, we take months or weeks off work, depending on how big the mission was. And we bring millions home.
That’s how things usually run. And anyway, the point is that after all of this, I think Ivy’s waited for me, she’s waited for me all the time. I get home, she does her very firsts, like when I came home to visit them, she took her first steps, and she said her first word, mami. And it fills me with shame that Matt isn’t there to see her, to see her grow. She’s precious; she’s got his dark hair, and his small ears. She’s perfect, she’s precious. She’s the most important thing to me, but now… I have to show her the man that fathered her, the man that is in fact my husband.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Five

Matt was scared; he had been scared since of what he saw…. A woman with red hair and green eyes that shared a remarkable appearance with the woman that he hadn’t seen in four years, but had dreamed of every second of those four years.
He grabbed his cell phone, he had attempted calling his AA Guidance agent only two times before, when he was going to die, and when he was kept hostage.
And right now it was time to call him. He dialed the number that connected him to AA, and then he pressed his Agent’s number.
“4-11 what’s the news.”
“James?” He said in puzzlement.
“Um? Matt?” James asked stupidly.
“Yes um, I’m wondering can you come down to the subway at Eleventh Street?” He asked.
“Yes right away.” He said, then the line went dead.
James probably thought that he was in some big fight with Black Belt Ninjas surrounding him or something, but of course he wasn’t going to tell the Agency he wasn’t going to tell anyone, he was his Guidance agent he had to keep his secret. Matt leaned back against the wall….
I’m so confused I don’t know what to do and I’ve reached matters to call my AA Guidance Agent, and tell him about my personal problems…. I can’t believe I’m going to do this… Matt closed his eyes; he was so tired…. If only he could see her again, see her face; see if those legs were the same legs that went on for miles… that had once been rapped around him. He wanted to see her again so he could really truly look at her eyes…. They could’ve been lenses, and he was pretty good at noticing whether a person is wearing contacts color contacts… whatever, he was trained to know those things. But he didn’t know, they must’ve been a very high and rich quality or her eyes were green… and that’s when his heart sank and hit rock bottom, that’s when all his hopes faded away.
He heard the brake of a car, and then he heard the slam of a door, and that’s when he turned around to the subway windows… maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he should just say that he followed her and lost her trace, but no… they would know where she’s at, at that very moment lying was not the… they knew were she was! Of course they did, they’re the ones that always give him the leads… they know everything!
“Son are you okay?” Matt snapped his head up to see James, the old man still had it, his blue eyes were sharp, and his body was still in good shape.
“I… I need to know where my subject is at this very moment,” He said as he looked at James, James was the man, he was the most professional of them all, so he spoke as professional as he could.
“I’m sorry son, but the—”
“I was assigned to watch my subject and I am going to proceed in great and fast progress, I need a lead, but I know AA knows everything, where she’s at where she’s staying, everything,” he said.
“Your job is an adventure, not a lazy easy computer follow up process, if you came to tell me that you need to use AA’s best database to catch your subject I shall tell you that I—”
“You don’t know where she’s at! I mean for god’s sake this is no adventure! I’m a hired gun for god’s sake! And one of the bests, if I asked for ability to use the AA database I would be given full charge! I’m not an idiot, for god’s sake, it’s an Anonymous Assassin Agency!” Matt yelled in anger, James grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him down the block into the first alley they could see.
“You do know that you almost told the whole world our secret? Did you realize that you jeopardize our community right now? If it weren’t because you were one of the bests you’d be dead by now. And the Bests wouldn’t have yelled at the streets of New York City the fact that there is a secret Agency in which is trained to plot against others! For god’s sake what are you thinking? And know we don’t have any leads on her, she’s impossible, no where in the suburbs of New York she is staying at.”
“But no, I don’t think you wanted to talk to me about AA’s database,” James went on, “I see it in your eyes boy, for once, I see pure innocence in one of my agents eyes….” James seemed to find it amazing as he said it.
“Look, first of all, we need to talk, second of all, we need privacy,” Matt said in anger and frustration, this is going great… just great, my Guidance seems to know me more than I do myself and seems to be smarter than the average forty-year-old.
“Look come here, let’s go to Starbucks,” James said, but personally Matt was shocked.
“Star. Bucks? Why are we going to Starbucks?” Matt said, because he knew for a fact that the agents only went to real expensive coffee shops like, coffee cream, or daily delight.
“Because, no one will be there, no cameras or bugs,” James said as he pushed him a long.
But James didn’t need to push Matt along because Matt decided to walk on his own. He followed James, and as they walked Matt could understand why James was an expert in his field, once a con-artist, great at it, thief, superb, and now an adviser, he was very professional.
When they walked into Starbucks they ordered two coffees since they couldn’t loiter, and they sat at the back tables.
“So what seems to be the problem?” James asked him as he lit a smoke.
“Well, I… you can’t tell no one about this, this is top secrecy, there is no way you could possibly tell—”
“Boy get on with the point,” James said to him with arrogance in his eyes.
“My subject seems to be my wife.”
James spit out his coffee on too the table, while Matt cleaned his face with a napkin.
“Um, just a news-flash, but liquid food is to be drank into the cup of your mouth sir, in,” Matt said to James in a glance of annoyance.
“Just a misunderstatement but you never married,” Confusion swirled his sharp blue eyes.
“I… it was a secret marriage,” Matt said with a pained glance.
“How old where you? How come no one knows? Do—okay you need to explain yourself,” James announced.
“Okay look, when I was in my junior year, I… I fell in love, with this girl, and we lasted a lot, and we married, very simple,” He said.
“Well why are you seeing her now? I mean, how on earth is she your subject? Of all people? Can you explain maybe what happened after this, I need more goddamn detail!” James said as Matt could see frustration cross his eyes for the second time.
“Okay, after we married, my best friend, fell in love with her, we couldn’t live with ourselves all together, seeing us pass each other in school, seeing how everything was going… well he moved to LA, and she moved to Chicago.” He said, “ And I hadn’t seen her since….”
“Okay, come on,” Matt was dizzy and he couldn’t really hear James… he was just too uncertain of everything to move properly.
He followed James into a black BMW, the man not only had the man shown speed and intelligence, and he was now showing style.
“Okay get in the car,” James said as he unlocked the car.
He slipped into the car and saw that it had a laptop connected to its software along with an emergency phone, TV, DVD, video clip MP3 player, local cable, and a VCR. He was sure that having these things in a car was illegal.
“Okay give me her name,” James said to him.
“Rose Ezpinoza,” Matt said.
He watched as James quick typing entered the name and the laptop led on to illegal personal local profiles access.
The laptop ‘wirred’ for a second or two and the next second it showed three out of three possible matches.
None of the profiles had an image, but it had several profile information and description of the personal.

Three out of three possible matches:

03/30/1996
Educational Record; Rose Ezpinoza:
Grade Point Average: 100%
Math: A, Excellent and/or above average
Science: A, Excellent and/or above average
Foods: A, Excellent and/or above average
Fashions: A, Excellent and/or above average
Tech Lab: A, Excellent and/or above average
Communications: A, Excellent and/or above average
Art: A, Excellent and/or above average
Music: A, Excellent and/or above average
Band: A, Excellent and/or above average
Gifted Classes: A, Excellent and/or above average
IQ: 169


Rose Salinas;
12/31/2000
License Profile-Approvement:
Curves: Excellent
Turns: Excellent
Wheel: Excellent
Tire: Excellent

Grade: Pass



Graduate:
Rose Ezpinoza
Age: 17
Year of: 2001
College offers: Harvard, Yale, Dupri, Waubonsee, etc. bests etc.


“These of course I expect are her certificates, she’s very good at keeping her identity secret,” James said to him.
“No, we found this,” Matt said to James.
“Well yeah, but notice these are all school documents, we have no profile, and like she couldn’t erase any school documents without school authority, and of course they wouldn’t let her she made them look good, so she couldn’t. She’s brilliant,” Matt watched as James eyes searched the page in amazement.
“Uh, this doesn’t help us,” Matt said.


“Well it doesn’t, but I’m going to try different searches, I’ll find some—” James quickly sat up, both Matt and James sat quietly silence as the red, blue, and white lights flashed by, and as the siren song died a little more. James quickly started the car and drove into the alley. And as he expected he saw the ambulance going down the block, he quickly followed the ambulance, the ambulance turned right and when they saw the ambulance stop a block ahead he stopped the car on a block.
James searched the place, he had turned on that street and then on that one, and followed it and had turned on the fifth and from fifth to Jackson… James realized they were almost near the New York country, and when he looked ahead of himself, he saw about two cop cars, then he saw through his rearview mirror five cops coming from behind his car and speeding down the block. He could see a mansion from his car, there was a screaming Mexican man, maybe Italian too, or Boricua and he seemed extremely raged.
“You know what we need?” Matt asked him.
“What?” He asked stupidly.
“A one mile radar system antenna,” Matt said to him.
“Oh I have one look here,” James lifted the cap off his secret box under the radio, he pressed the silvery red button and gave Matt an ear-phone while he took the other. He heard static, he adjusted the line and soon it was perfectly clear apart from the sirens.
“I tell you someone broke into my house! They tried to steal my money, but they didn’t succeed, they made a hole in my study floor! I need clearance! I need fingerprints!”
James listened, he already had a good and a bad feeling about this, which was good, well at least for Matt.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Six

Butler watched in horror as his boss grabbed everything and slaughtered it all over the floor.
“How could we go wrong? Tell me! Someone just explain to me how we could have been wrong in this! Someone just please explain how we went wrong! Someone just please tell me why the workers were able to make this little bit much of noise? Someone! Anyone?” Rose’s face was completely devoid of any kindness, while filled with fury.
“This is the first mission we have failed! HOW IN THE HELL AND WHY DID WE FAIL? I DON’T TAKE FAILURE VERY WELL AS YOU CAN TELL! AND I’M NOT SO COMFORTABLE LETTING YOU ALL KNOW THAT IN SUCH A RUDE AWAKENING!”
Butler for once had absolutely no words; he definitely didn’t want to say anything either. He watched in silence as Rose grabbed the champagne bottle and smashed it to the floor, then she grabbed the Bacardi and locked herself up in the private quarters of the Private Air Plane.
Everyone stayed in silence until five minutes passed; sure to make sure she was clear and out of the room, the chance they had taken before was a mistake.
“Uh… I don’t get it we still got away with the money, what is she still pissed about?” Paco asked.
“I don’t know but it’s REALLY bad,” Christian said.
“Really? I didn’t notice a thing,” Sarah said stupidly.
“News-flash ya’ll in case you haven’t noticed this is the first time we’ve gotten caught red-handed, she’s just a little disappointed,” Rickia said.
“A little? Then I don’t want to see her when she’s REALLY disappointed,” Mitch said with arrogance.
“And plus she shot the man’s arm,” Paco said, “She wouldn’t shoot anyone if it was her life.
“I think this has to do with that guy she fought, she ran, she’s never scared, he didn’t punch her give her bad look, he just, they, just looked at each other. And she ran,” Mitch said.


Daisy Ezpinoza walked down the stairs of her home while she yelled at her granddaughter, “Never ever! Touch that again me oyes!” Daisy yelled at Ivy Salinas.
“Porque no mas lo estabe viendo no lo iba a quebrar!” Ivy yelled at her, Daisy couldn’t’ help but admire the child even within her fury, the child’s skinny legs, and skinny body made her head look even bigger than it already was. She was very smart, and her Spanish grew even more fluent after every conversation.
Daisy was a happy person, she had a mansion to live in, a great granddaughter, a great daughter, but a daughter that was never there. And everytime she looked at her granddaughter she saw her daughter’s eyes, and when she saw her daughter’s eyes on that big head she couldn’t help but smile. Her daughter had a big head as well, all the girls did. And all of them were the brightest of children, but some were very demanding, Ivy was the demanding type, like her mother, everything had to go perfect, or she would get pissed off and yell at everyone.
Her daughter was so perfect that she had her own perfect little girl, just, not at the right time.


Matt looked around him, in all his years of his career, (two) he had never exactly been inside a counselor’s office, or inside the actual AA headquarters. Who knew the quarters where held at Popeyes?
He watched in fascination as he heard the typing of keyboards, the voices of secretaries, and the rings of phones constantly.
James was right next to him, but of course. Through his three-month period of training back two years, men had called him The-One-And-Only-Man-Without-Fear. Matt had always thought in competition since high school, ever since he graduated he felt like he had to prove something to himself. So he joined the AA, yeah great big wow, now he was stuck chasing his possibly Mastermind-of-disguise-crazed-murderer-wife. Hmmm, it was a crazy thought but maybe his relationship with his wife was an abnormal one…?
“Hey Matt the results of the racket over at Leon’s are in!” Matt snapped his head up to see James.
“So… what’s the news?” Matt asked, he wasn’t sure if his knees were shaking from fear of what he was going to find out, or maybe not find out.
“The news is confidential, but since she’s your wife, here you go; Reported two unmaking sense clues, one bullet, and a piece already identified as a baby clothe.”
Matt tried to make the words sink in his head, but it definitely didn’t make sense, a baby cloth and a bullet. What the hell?


James wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, but he was 99% sure that Matt was freaking out. James wanted to tell the boy more but chances were that the boy would go mad.
“So? Shouldn’t we look for more files and documents requiring the type of bullet buying receipts?” James admired the boy at the question, because they had already done that, and many receipts ad come up so they couldn’t mask it. But that was the first thing that had come up to the boy’s mind, he would make a great leader one day.
“Uh we already tried everything, most things coming up in your mind we already tried son, so chances are that we need a lead from an agent anything really.”
“You’re lying.”
“What?” James looked at Matt, Matt was looking at him dead in the eye, and James had never failed to look back.
“This building has hundreds of leads, whether it’s a rat hole or a wide door, this building has a lead.”
James looked at the boy, it was the first time that the AA hadn’t a clue about a subject, and then it dawned on James; it was the first time… this was a true historic moment. Or this subject was just too clever to trail.
“Maybe… you know where we should go?” Matt asked him.
“Where?” James asked stupidly.
“Chi-Town.”

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Chapter Seven

“Mami! Mami!”
“How are you honey?” Rose said as she grabbed her daughter in a bear hug.
“Mami I missed you!” Ivy squealed.
“I missed you too!” Rose said in a wide smile. She put her daughter down and looked around her house. “Where’s your grandma sweety?”
“She’s in the kitchen,” Ivy said to her. Rose barely looked up when she saw her mother walking in the doorway.
“Well look whose back?” Rose’s mother stretched her arms in a hug, and Rose embraced it.
“Nice to see your back,” her mother whispered to her. “And Alive.”
“It feels great too.” Rose whispered back. They let go of each other and her mother picked up the suitcase that Rose had been carrying.
“Ivy here; I never forget to give you a present,” Rose said in a smile, she swung the backpack she had swinging in her shoulder and handed it to IVY.
“You gave me a backpack?” Ivy asked as she held the backpack.
“No,” Rose said between a laugh, “Open the backpack, but you can keep the backpack.”
Ivy opened the backpack and took out a dirty ripped dress.
“Mami what is it?” Rose stared at the dress, she thought fast; what the hell happened to the dress? The workers! She felt a rage of fury boiling up but she quickly came up in a conclusion.
“It’s a dirty, ripped dress,” Rose said.
Ivy looked at the dress, and Ivy’s eyes started filling up with tears, “its so pretty why is it ripped?” Ivy’s hands went through the dress.
“Because a dog tried to eat it, but do you know what this means?” Rose asked Ivy, and Ivy shook her head slowly.
“It means we’re going to have to go shopping for a new dress,” Rose said, Ivy started smiling.
“I wanna go shopping! I wanna go shopping!” Ivy said as she stood up.
“Yes well do you want to go right now?” Rose asked Ivy.
“Yeah!” Ivy said.
“Well let’s go, Ma, we’ll be back,” Rose said as she picked up Ivy’s tiny body.
“Okay but come back by six dinner will be ready,” Her mom said.
“Okay! Bye Grandma!” Ivy said as Rose closed the door.
Rose walked down the driveway and Ivy turned around quickly.
“Whoa! Mami buy another car!” Ivy said as she looked at the 2003 Red Escalade Cadillac parked in the driveway.
“Yes, and guess whose going in the back watching TV?” Rose asked her.
“Me?”
“Yup!” Rose said cheerfully.
Rose took out her keys from her bag and she pressed the button as the car opened. It has control like the Benz too?” Ivy asked her, “Of course, all Mami’s cars do.” Rose said as she sat Ivy in the back seat.
“Look here’s the TV in the back of mommy’s seat okay? This button is to change the channels,” Rose said as Ivy looked at the screen.
“Okay,” Ivy said.
“Okay no put your seat belt on, I don’t have a baby seat and I can get a ticket!” Rose said in false astonishment, Ivy put her hands on top of hr mouth and gasped as if she had said a bad word.
“Okay,” Ivy said through her hand. “Okay.” Rose said.
Rose shut the door and opened the door for her seat. She sat in the Caddy and she turned on the Caddy, she could already hear the cartoons in the back of her seat.
As she backed out of the driveway she looked at her rear view mirror, Ivy was looking at the TV like it was a trance, kids these days she thought.
As Rose drove downtown it soon became packed, and she saw in front of her a white truck, it said in the back; Flowers by Irene, but Rose knew better, she wasn’t stupid. The FBI these days made it so obvious, maybe they wanted it to be obvious, or maybe they were just a regular Flower service…. Not!
For God’s sake they didn’t even have an address or a phone number on the truck, how can they possibly pass as a flower service? And they were suppose to be doing their job, she was behind them wasn’t she? She felt stupid, oh god I feel like a little kid playing cops and robbers.
She smiled past the thought, she had at one point played cops and robbers, but that was when she was able to go to parks without getting the attention of rapists or a mugger.
“Mommy?”
“Yeah honey?” Rose looked at the mirror to see Ivy looking back.
“What is that man doing?” Ivy pointed to a man next to his wife and his two children in the strollers.
“He’s taking care of his kids,” Rose said as she looked back at the traffic and turned right.
“Men don’t have kids,” Ivy said to her.
“Well yeah, well no, the mommy has them but it takes a daddy to make babies.”
“What’s a daddy?” And at that question Rose didn’t even bother to answer, pain was filling up in her heart and tears in her eyes.
“A daddy is a special person ordered from the hospital to take care of kids,” she said.
“Like a baby-sitter?”
“Well not really, see Carmen; your baby-sitter, is a girl so you call her baby-sitter, Daddy’s have to be kissed by moms and hugged too.” Rose said.
“Oh, so we don’t have one right?” Ivy asked.
“Nope, we’re daddy free!” Rose said cheerfully.
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes honey, yes it is.”

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Chapter Eight

Matt liked the Benz the AA let him drive, he liked the whole super flying thing, but he didn’t know what to do, he was stranded in Chicago without a clue.
He looked at the traffic ahead of him, great he thought. He made a stop behind a navy Blazer; he didn’t know what to do. Should he call somebody? No, no one to call, he heard the honking form people behind, the Blazer was going slow. He went behind a Red Cadillac, looking around he saw a truck that said, ‘Flowers by Irene.’ His mind quickly acknowledged the fact that actual FBI Agents were in there moving trying frankly to get a radar off from someone else’s, or maybe they were following a car, or tracking a type of sound.
He immediately heard the buzzing of his cell phone, he snapped it open, “A-1,” he sounded like a robot.
“Drive southwest towards the Tower, stop at 75th’s parking lot.”
The voice belonged to James’ he knew that immediately, he turned right and sped up, traffic was worse in that lane, he went right to next lane leaving the Cadillac behind, he loved Cadillacs, and when he was finally out of this trouble he was going to get one.
When he finally reached the lot he realized something had happened, because in the parking lot there was an entrance towards a indoor parking lot, and when he checked the navigation map on the Benz he knew there wasn’t suppose to be one.
He entered it and on a far corner of the parking lot he saw Popeyes Bans parked there in a huddle, he drove towards the huddle and stepped out of the car, as soon as he stepped out James came out of a van and walked towards him.
“What’s up?” He asked James.
“We’ve found some females, and we think we may have some clues,” James said, and as soon as they entered the huddle his surprise-ment got the better of him. A female about 21 years old sat inside the van, there were heart monitors and radars along with lie detectors all around her.
“Her name is—”
“Rickia Johnson,” Rickia’s head snapped up and looked at him, Matt couldn’t believe it.
“How did you know her name?” James asked.
“She went to school with me, and well surprise I get to see her here,” Matt looked at Rickia, she was still the same from High School, dark brown hair rapped up behind her in a pony tail, dark brown eyes, pretty. He had wanted to ask her out but that was before he met Rose; and the remembrance of Rose cause him a wince of pain.
Rickia’s eyes grew wide and she started speaking something through the tape they had over her mouth, “Don’t take the tape off, we aren’t sure of anything yet, and anything she might tell us could be lies, and confuse us.” As James said this Matt couldn’t help but admire him, he was right, he hadn’t talked to Rickia in years, he didn’t know if anything she said was true he didn’t know how she had changed.
“Whose the other suspect?” Matt asked him.
“Sarah Jones?” James asked.
“Hmmm another old school mate,” Matt said, and he started to wonder, after high school had all his school mates decide to join a league of criminals along with his wife? “Where is she?”
“Oh well, we already have her at Popeyes eating a number two with a large drink,” James said, in code, translation; she’s already in custody at the agency being consulted by two agents and getting searched.
“What type of drink?” Matt asked James.
“Fruit Punch,” Matt quickly translated that, fruit punch, orange or red, and he realized that they had been caught doing something extremely bad, or caught with something bad.
“Why did they go to Popeyes and not KFC?” He asked James.
“They thought that KFC was too expensive, New Yorkers don’t like KFC,” James said to him, and Matt could see that they had been caught coming from New York with a lot of money, Matt couldn’t help but smile. What a coincidence that when Rose went to school with him she happened to have to close friends that had just been caught coming from New York were his subject that mysteriously looks like his wife had just come from and with a large bag of money?
Boy, can they make it any easier, but who exactly is they? Is it Rose, or is it a huge agency? His mind started getting blurry, when he tried to think nothing worked, he had to flow, he had to let it flow.
“Why did Sarah get taken to Popeyes?” Matt asked James.
“Because she had drugs on her plus she was carrying a gun,” James said.
“Oh.”
“And the gun had been used,” James said to him, and Matt quickly looked at him, “So now they’re checking finger prints and if it fits the bullet we found before right?” Matt asked anxiously, ‘boy I’m smart,’ he thought. Then he smiled, he was a crackhead. And then he grinned even more, how long had it been since he had used the word crackhead?
“Can I go to the agency, I mean Popeyes?” Yeah great and now I mess up on the code.
“Yeah they’re going to ask you what you want, you say, ‘a number 7 complete with a large coke.” James told him.
“Yeah I know, laters,” He said.
“Bye, not laters,” James said to him.
“Whatever,” And he got in the car and drove away. ‘Now that I think about it, maybe a number seven wouldn’t be too bad,’ he thought as his stomach growled.

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Chapter Nine


“Mommy I like this dress,” Rose looked at her daughter, she was going around in circles in the store with a dress she was holding.
“No, it’s cheap fabric, as you can see they didn’t even stitch right, and plus, I don’ like yellow.” Rose said to her, she watched as Ivy examined the dress, “But it’s pretty.” Ivy said.
“But it’s cheap, we are not cheap people,” Rose said to Ivy, and then Ivy suddenly said, “Fine then I’m gonna go look at the other dresses.”
“But honey they’re too big you’re barely as tall as my knees!” Rose quickly walked behind Ivy and snatched her little body, “I don’t think you need those kind of dresses.”
“I like that dress!” Ivy pointed to a purple dress that reached to the top of her knees with a coat to match it.
“I like it too,” Rose grabbed the hanger and looked at the dress from the back and the front.
“You sure you want this one?” Rose asked Ivy, “Yeah!”
“Then let’s go,” Rose said.
“Mommy can I have shoes too?” Ivy asked her in a whisper as if she was telling a whisper.
“Sure, Lavender shoes probably,” Rose said as they walked towards the Shoes section.
As she walked she noticed that the guy from the department she was just on was following her, she looked around her. In the benches coming up she saw an old woman about forty, and a guy about twenty to twenty five years old, the guy was reading a book, while the woman had a book in her hand but was looking around her. She looked at the elevator, a man had just come out, about thirty-seven, and he seemed to be walking to the women’s bathroom. What the hell? Did under cover agents of all kinds always had to follow her, even when she was with her daughter.
“Honey how about we just go to Burger King’s instead, are you hungry?” She asked Ivy as she stepped up to the register.
“I’m hungry but I want shoes….” Ivy said to her.
“Honey you remember back when you were eleven months old and I taught you hand signs, not sign language, the hand signs.” Rose said to Ivy as she noticed the man looking at some bras…. She needed to get out fast, but too fast meant obvious, too slow mean too obvious.
“It’s thirty four dollars and ninety nine cents,” The lady at the register told her.
She slid her Master Card in the card slide and pushed the buttons, she tried to concentrate on listening to the sounds and beyond all the talking and the stupid gay music playing on the speakers she could hear a Walkie-Talkie whispering instructions.
“Grab the bag honey,” Rose said to Ivy, she walked into down the hall and looked at one of the mirrors the store was selling. She saw that the old woman was following her, even though she was walking extremely slow.
“Honey do you want to go to the toy store?” Rose asked Ivy, “Yeah!” Rose wasn’t scared, she felt pissed off. Can’t I have at least have one day off? Just one? Whatever happened to self-respect? If she goes in the toy store she’s a spy, no matter what; she’s a spy.
Rose walked into the store, it was fairly crowded, and stacks and stacks of boxes contained with toys in side. “What do you want honey? A Barbie?” She asked Ivy.
“Yeah,” Ivy said quietly. She walked to the Barbie section, and everything turned pink, well, everything was pink. Ivy was looking around the sections, she chose a Barbie that could bend her arms and legs, and when Rose saw the old woman looking at some cars, she immediately grabbed the Barbie and stepped up the register.
As soon as she left she went up the elevator, making sure that the old woman wasn’t behind them, but as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, she saw the old woman coming up the stairs. Ugh, she thought, Any more obvious?
As she walked down the sidewalk and towards the Caddy, she listened as hard as possible, she didn’t hear the door open again, which was a good sign, well it was wasn’t it, that meant that the old lady wasn’t a stalker. She basically dumped Ivy in the Caddy and didn’t even bother to secure her with a seat belt. And to her great horror… when she looked at the rear view mirror she saw the lady. The lady was short, around five foot four, white hair, rugged, blue eyes, and she was wearing an old lady flowery dress, with slippers that you only wear at home. And a grayish baby blue sweater that reached the woman’s knees.
Rose stepped on the gas and reversed, she looked at Ivy in the mirror, she was trying to put on her seat belt, and as soon as she stepped into a Burger King parking lot she got out of the car and secured her.
“Mommy are you mad?” Ivy asked her as she started driving again.
“No honey why?” She said looking around her, and she was so glad the windows were tinted black.
Ivy didn’t speak another word, and Rose couldn’t help but know that Ivy was scared, she had read many books and seen way too many movies not to see the tale tell signs. Ivy kept blinking, she kept looking form one window to another, and she kept holding and un-holding her hands. She said to herself; oh god, how do I loose a trailer if I don’t even know where they’re at, and you don’t want to make it look obvious? She thought.
She turned right into a parking lot, there was a group of Vans in the far end, their logo was Popeyes, and they were blocking the far end with the Vans.
A Benz Mercedes passed in front of her and she followed it, she looked behind her, no trails. And no trails were good; she turned right and drove into a neighborhood that would lead to her house. She looked at the mirror; good no cars behind her so far.
She turned left into a street, then right, and then left again, and then right again and then she went straight, she turned left and her house block was there. She parked in the driveway and quietly slipped out of the truck.
She opened the door to Ivy’s seat and started taking off the seat belt.
“Mommy you were going over the speed limit!” Ivy said to her in a scolding voice.
“Well mommy has to go pee-pee so she had to hurry up, and plus you don’t know how to count so shush your face,” She said as she put her hand on Ivy’s face and shook it all around. Ivy laughed while Rose smiled, “Now go inside and go into your room o you can play with your new Barbie, it’s almost six and you know Abuelita, (Grandma) is going to make you eat first.” Rose said to her as she slammed the door closed.

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Chapter Ten

Rose opened the door and Ivy ran up the stairs, but not very quietly, the house floor was marble and her stomps could be heard in the kitchen
“Mami where you at?” Rose said as she stepped into the kitchen.
“I’m in here,” Her mother’s voice came from the closet in the kitchen, the closet was huge, you could probably have a sleep over of five girls in there totally comfortable.
“Hey honey what’s up?” Her mother said to her as she came out of the closet wiping her hands on her apron.
“Nothing, but I got ten more million,” Rose said to her mother.
Her mother took a glance at her and stepped up to the stove, she grabbed a spoon and took a sip of what she was cooking, she seemed satisfied.
“What’re you cooking?” Rose asked her.
“Posole,” Her mother said stubbornly, and Rose knew she was mad cause Rose was still doing her current job.
“Ma!”
“When are you going to stop this?” Her mother asked her.
“What do you mean when?” Rose asked her mother; that was an insult.
“I mean when are you going to stop risking your life for money, when are you going to come home for good and stay with your daughter?” Her mother turned around and looked at her, Rose examined her mother, she was thin and in shape, she was wearing black pants with a baby blue shirt. And she had her hands crossed on her chest looking at her.
“Ma! This is more than risking my life, it’s a living!” She said to her.
“Don’t yell at me, and this is not a living, it’s almost murder and suicide!” Her mother said to her.
“Mom, I’ve done over thirteen missions! And I come out with hundreds of millions! This is a business!” Rose said to her mother, it was a defense.
“Business my ass, is Mitch still doing it to?” Her mother asked her as she went back to cooking.
“Yes Mitch is doing it too—”
“What I’m I doing?” Rose and her mother snapped their heads to see Mitch at the door.
“I thought you went to LA” Rose asked him.
“Yeah well, the breakdown sort of slowed my hopes down.” Mitch said to her.
“What breakdown?” Rose asked him, and he looked at her over his sunglasses, he was wearing a new navy blue Gucci Suit, complete with a hat, his hair was combed and it looked shiny. He had new sunglasses too, and shiny new shoes. He looked good.
“Oh, well anyways,” Rose grabbed a banana form the fruit basket.
“Why it’s nice to see you Mitch! Ooo and I like your cologne!” Her mother said as she hugged Mitch.
“It’s nice to see you too miss,” Mitch said.
“Mmm hmm,” Rose cleared her throat.
“Anyways yes, and uh some secret agency caught Sarah and Rickia.” Mitch said it so simply. Rose almost choked on her banana.
“What?”
“Sarah and Rickia were suppose to come to my house to turn in some money, they didn’t, and Paco said they got stopped, and he already hacked into some cameras and he saw some, ‘Popeyes’ Vans in a far and of a parking lot were the cameras can’t reach. He saw more than just chicken, he saw agents stepping out and he said that a Mercedes arrived and a man wearing casual clothes stepped out and started talking to an older man, about forty.” Mitch said to her.
Rose immediately took a flashback, she had been there, she had seen it but she hadn’t known.
“And a Cadillac showed up to, he said it went behind the Mercedes but he lost the connection, he didn’t even get to see tale tell signs to see where it was located.
“Mitch look outside the window,” she said to him, and his eyebrows inched in confusion.
“You abducted Sarah and Rickia!” Mitch said to her.
“No! I didn’t do anything, I’m just saying I was there! But I didn’t know! Why didn’t Paco contact me on my cell?” Rose asked Mitch.
“Do I look like Paco?” Mitch asked her.
“No, of course not,” she said in defense.
“Then why are you asking me?” Mitch asked her, and she kept her mouth close, Mitch and Butler where the only ones that could do this to her, snap her.
“Uncle Mitch!” Ivy ran to Mitch with her arms spread in a bear hug.
“Ivy!” Mitch smiled and took Ivy in his arms, he pulled her up with his hands and leapt her in the air.
Ivy laughed and hugged his neck.
“Ivy where have you been?” Mitch asked her.
“I’ve been here!” Ivy said to him.
“No, I came to visit you to ask you out on a date and you weren’t here!” Mitch said.
“I was here!” Ivy said in giggles.
“Yeah well I probably forgot to ring the doorbell,” Mitch said, Rose smiled in spite of herself. He always had the effect to make her smile…. Like Matt.


Matt was surprised when he looked at himself in the mirror; James had accompanied him to, well James had offered.
James was going to a Gucci store to get a new suit and he said that Matt should get one too, Matt had never really worn a suit, not even when he got married to Rose, he had worn baggy clothes, she had worn casual clothes too.
And now he was looking at himself in a mirror, he had to admit it, he liked the way it looked. It was a silver suit with a hat and new Gucci Shoes.
“Let’s go look at the glasses,” James said to him.
“Yeah okay,” Matt said uncertainly, he followed Matt to a whole new room with thousands of glasses.
He looked around and he twirled the glasses rack around. He wanted black glasses, and he was getting a goatee, he hadn’t shaved in ages. He liked it.
“Oh excuse me,” A man with almost the exact same suit except in navy blue said to him.
“Oh, don’t mention it,” Matt stepped to the next rack.
“I was going to get that suit but it was a lot more expensive.” The Man said to him, Matt examined him, he was Mexican, he guessed the same age.
“Where are you going with such an expensive suit?” The Man asked him. Matt quickly thought of many possible answers.
“Work, they pay me to dress like this,” he said.
“Model?”
“Nah, business man,” He said.
“Oh, I get it,” the man laughed with Matt as well.
“You?” He asked the man.
“Well I haven’t but a new suit in months, plus, I sort of like this girl and I’m going to go to her house,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Matt Johnson,” he said as he stuck his hand out.
“Mitch Hernandez,” the man said as they shaked hands.
“Well I have to go, can’t keep her waiting,” Mitch said to him.
“Yes, a woman is a rose,” Matt said to Mitch, then Mitch looked at him through his sunglasses, he seemed surprised, but then Mitch looked at him a little suspicious, then he waved good bye.
James came to him from out of sight and looked at him, “You know if you had blonde hair you’d look like Brad Pitt,” James said to him.
“How about we just go Pay.” Matt said to James.

Matt followed James car, he leaned against his windows and looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes were darkened because of the glasses, he felt, good, no other way to put it, his mother had died at an early age, he hadn’t had any brothers or sisters, his father had left him when he was one year old. And he ended up living with his scrawny old aunt, then she died when he was eighteen so he had nothing to do, he just decided to screw himself up by joining AA. No one had ever taught him what to wear, it sounded ironic, but he had never used a suit, special occasions, e didn’t go, he needed a suit for prom, he didn’t go. He was never prepared. And life just happened to turn him into a look a like Brad Pitt, he never liked Brad Pitt, and suddenly he didn’t feel comfortable.
He laughed, he was complaining about Brad Pitt, he knew he should be complaining about better things.
As he stepped on the brake, he quickly kept his car close to James’, if he was tooo close it was too obvious, if he didn’t stay close at all but gave hints, then it was pointless. The trick to this game was, balance; too much or too less, away. Everything was balance; he knew that from experience already. He knew that from now on he will need disguises, not just hats, it had always worked with hats. But if this subject was truly Rose, than she could probably recognize him, well they hadn’t seen each other in years, unless that was her, and if it was he definitely needed a new disguise. But if it wasn’t he felt so stupid, and so ashamed, just stupid, he felt stupid and angry, because he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything.
He remembered when they were in a party, and one of his friends-his name was Marcus- he was really cool, he knew the best songs, he knew the best beats, he knew everything. And he was there with Rose, then Marcus went to the DJ and put up a song so old, he could’ve sworn his parents probably would’ve been dancing to it in their teen years. But this song was special, it was called the ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ the song was awesome, and then him and Rose started making out. All the other couples did, that was like, the best make-out song ever.
He remembered when he looked at her sweet face, and she had just leaned in and their lips had touched…. All the memories flashing back in his memories, he remembered his hands going through her… He quickly noticed that James car was two cars ahead of him and he was on the wrong lane. He noticed that he had started breathing faster than usual, when looked up he quickly hit the brake. He was about to crash into a truck; he turned right into the next lane, adrenaline swirled in his body as he catched his breath. He felt like his stomach was sick, but he quickly started relaxing. He looked at the mirror, and he opened the window, he needed air.
He couldn’t believe he was almost going to crash, when you think and talk about crashing or near death experiences you always think big wow yeah that was big, and then when you think about it again it’s just so ironic. And you realize things can happen.

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Chapter Eleven

“Maria! Maria!” Matt snapped his head up to the window to see a teenage girl about fourteen in a gold Concord staring at him from the front seat.
“Maria it’s Brad Pitt! Maria!” The girl was constantly squealing and screaming. Matt’s mouth drop. What the hell? This is so wrong, if that girl keeps squealing and screaming I’m going to freak, oh god no, thought Matt as the flashes of what he could tell as a camera, started flashing. The girl was taking pictures! Fury swirled through him, but truly he was feeling another long lost human genetic feeling he hadn’t felt in a while, embarrassment. He knew he was embarrassed, his face swirled to the shade of extreme dark red. He couldn’t believe it, then he thought of what his dad had always said and would’ve told him if he was still there with him. ‘Have Fun,’ Matt groaned, but he’s not here, and if he was I wouldn’t even be here. But never the less he listened to his instinct.
“Maria you see him! You see him!” The girl started to look back but as soon as he turned around the girl seemed to freak out and go shy.
At that moment they reached a stop sign, the girl in the passenger seat suddenly didn’t want to scream anymore Matt observed, but the girl driving looked at him and then at the girl in the passenger seat.
“That’s not Brad Pitt you idiot,” He heard the older girl tell the girl in the passenger seat.
“Yeah it is!”-“Not it’s not he-s got brown hair look you dumbass!”
Matt laughed but at the same time he felt like he had an idea.
Then he heard his cell phone ring.
“Hey,” Then his heart went up a beat. “I mean A-11.” He quickly smiled he was getting use to more phone calls and answering with ‘hey’ or hi or anything like that could mean something terrible to the person to the other line in his business.
“Hmmm 4-77 here what was that all about?” James asked him.
“Oh, girl thought I was Brad Pitt,” He said through a chuckle.
“I’m telling you, it’s a curse,” James said to him, he heard his humor anyway.
“For real, the guy gets everything and on top he still gets a piece of ass from Jennifer Anniston, what kinda bullshit is that?” He said. He heard James laugh, and it was the first time Matt was truly enjoying himself.
“Yes well Jennifer does have the hair,” James said, “Not just everybody can have the privilege to be able to run their hands through that type of hair. And I think she knows that.”
“Yeah well, I still think the guy was lucky,” Matt said.
“No his thing was that he was in the movie Ocean’s Eleven, that’s his break, and speaking of Ocean’s Eleven meet me at Ocean Breeze at 11 o’clock.” James told him.
“Right, you know what I’ve been wanting to do all this time?” He asked him.
“What?”
“I’ve always wanted to play undercover.”

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Chapter Thirteen

James couldn’t believe it; the boy was truly unrecognizable, had Rose ever known this? Was that why she had loved him? No, that seemed cruel. But then again he didn’t know Rose. For all he knew she really did care about making criminal’s life shit and makes them call the cops. And for criminals to call cops, well, isn’t a good thing for their reputation. He couldn’t really think foul of Rose, the way Matt talked about her… it made her sound like an angel. James settles his hands on the table and closed his eyes.
“Hmmm, I don’t like Brad Pitt but the guy does get by, hmm, maybe I’ll get lucky tonight,” Matt said to him. James looked at Matt, with his new hair dyed blonde with brown streaks; he looked exactly like Brad Pitt. Now the boy could do what he wanted. But of course his identity was famous but at least they didn’t know it was him.
“You know what, I just might make a living out of this.” Matt said, but James only listened, he had never really seen the picture of Rose, all he knew was her name. Rose Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza, Rose Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza, Rose Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza, Rose Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza, Rose Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza. He had been looked at his paper over and over and over and over, that’s all he had, he didn’t even know anything else. He looked at the name, there has to be something, anything.
Rose Orenda Salinas Ezpinoza…. Orenda… Orenda meant, Rose that’s what it meant, unless it was Orinda, Orinda meant Short, but Orenda meant Rose…. What, it suddenly started ticking into him… there was something there… there had to be something…. He looked up and saw Matt at the salon register. He was leaning on a map, and Matt was looking for something… the map, Rose… Short, Short Rose. Yeah that’s how it went, Short Rose… And then it dawned in him, Short Rose Avenue.
He quickly looked at Matt.
“Let’s go, we’ve got work to do,” He said to Matt.
“Yeah like what?” James stopped moving, he heard an edge to Matt’s voice, he wasn’t happy.
“Like your wife, let’s go.” He said to Matt again.
“Oh.” Matt walked behind him.
They walked towards Matt’s Mercedes, when James had given the car to Matt, he had made sure that it was intact with everything. DVD, VCR, MP3, Satellite TV and communication. Anything and everything he would need, and James was so happy that he had Navigation in the car.
When they got in the Benz, James quickly turned on the Navigation Map.
“What are you doing?” Matt asked him.
“I want to know where this is located,” He said, then he quickly typed down, ‘Short Rose Avenue,’ the screen went black for two seconds then it showed a map, it was a satellite map. A satellite map, which meant they could get satellite pictures straight in the car. But what should he type, searches took specific to specific to specific details to specific names, addresses, numbers… He didn’t have the address of the house, (if this was actually even a lead) or the phone number, or anything to know if they were looking for a specific location.
“Is this suppose to be a street where Rose’s home is?” Matt asked him, but James could here a smirk hidden well in the boy.
“Yes, it is for your information,” James told him stubbornly.
“And how did you come up with all this huh?” Matt asked him, but now James could sense the boy was pissed off. What had he done? He hadn’t done anything, he had no idea why Matt was pissed off but that wasn’t his problem.
“Uh, anyways, I think I’m going to run searches on her last name, and people with her last names all over the Chicago area—”
“You think you’re so sure,” Matt interrupted him.
“Huh?”
“Well… nothing.”

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Chapter Fourteen

Rose couldn’t believe what she was watching; she was sitting in front of the monitors Paco had been able to cramp into the little office.
She was watching as the men in the black suits had Rickia handcuff and walked her towards a chair. She shuddered, the room was cold, as always, the rooms in the building had always been made out of metal so obviously the whole building was naturally cool. That’s why she always used black clothes in the building.
“This is serious, nothing like this has ever happened before,” Mitch was telling her, but to Rose it was like a drone tone that just went on and on and on. But Rose could sense fear in his tone, because he was right, nothing like this had ever happened before, everything had always gone right, a little miss-hap, it was taken care of, a little glitch, it was gone, everything had always gone right, Mitch and her had always taken care of.
She could hear Mitch’s voice taking, but she ignored it.
“I’m going to my office.”
She stood up and pushed the door and walked out, she wasn’t in exact state to move, think, make decisions, and she didn’t want to, she was tired.
As she pushed the wall she entered her office. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, maybe she was stressed, depressed, or god knows what, she didn’t like it.
Then she snapped her head to see the metal door snap open.
“Hey,” She said to Butler.
“Hey, you okay?” He asked her, and for once she did want his company, she didn’t want him to go away, she wanted him to stay with her, she needed company.
“Yeah, I’m tired,” She said, then she let herself fall backwards on her leather coach; it was cold.
“I don’t know what to do, I think I’m breaking down,” she whispered.
“You’re not breaking down, we’re talking about you aren’t we?” Butler said to her, and she smiled, she was suddenly filled with un-explicable warmth. For once Rose felt like she had her father back.

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Dear Jane,
Damn, my life sucks, you’d expect me to have gotten a better job like my folks but no, I’m still in college, dorm room life isn’t that cool anymore, I expected life to be wild, have girls all over me, but nope, it’s shitty. Anyway, how’s mom and dad doing? Anybody new over there? Also give your friend’s phone number, I wanted to call her, I think her name was Diana. Anyway, I was telling Mikey about you, and he said that he’d like to meet you….
You know I really miss New York, I miss the crowded streets, my old friends, the buzz. Over here in LA it’s all about Gang Banging, if you don’t claim anything you get your ass jumped. That’s why I’m saying that I claim Ambroze, it ain’t that bad, I got jumped twice the past two weeks, the shootings suck, cause they haven’t given us the bullet proofs.
I miss the habit of not having to look around you in case crazed-murder-gang-bangers want to kill me. I also miss mom and dad. And you, yeah I know I sound cheesy and corny but I miss everybody in New York. And did Aunt Camille have her kid yet? It’s weird imagining a new member in the family, and also how’s Uncle Albert? Did he get married yet? Man I have so many questions to ask, and it makes me think that if I hadn’t come down to LA I wouldn’t have to ask them. I feel left out you know? Like I’m the only one not in the family right now.
It sucks.
And the guys sometimes make funny cause I write to you, actually they think that cause they think I’m writing to mom, but even though they’re dumbasses they’re still cool as hell.
Anyways if anything new happens you have to make sure to tell me, your last letter barely said anything!

Anyways,
Laters and Love;
Jonathan

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Matt
James pisses me off, he thinks he knows it all, or maybe I’m just saying this because I don’t like being told what to do, yup that’s me, bad boy nerd.
That’s basically what I was in high school, why stop now?
Oh god why I’m I saying this? I don’t want to say it, I feel like I’m turning back into my terrible self, when I use to try and steal cars, when my mother and my father had barely died…. I miss them as much as I hate to admit it.
My mom died when I was three, with my dad, in a car accident, a crazy drunk and his blown wife hit them…. I miss my mom and my dad, it’s not like it was horrible I didn’t jump to foster home to foster home. I only moved three times, the first was because I was too young and the family couldn’t take care of me, the second they just were bitchy and preppy and in the end they were too lazy. And the last… well the last was cause I was a bad kid, always got in trouble and stuff. Then I finally stayed with my aunt and my uncle. Not like they were good, they died two years ago from cancer, both of them.
I always doubted myself if I was going to live up to maybe over 25 years of age, I still doubt it, and I know one thing. And that’s that I can’t live my stupid life forever, cause it’s stupid, and I’m pretty sure this stupid life is going to end soon, whether I want or not.

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Ivy
My mom left again, that’s not cool. I would expect her to wait at least sixty moons before she left again, but she left fifty-nine moons earlier. I didn’t have a chance to tell her that I learned about the Native Americans with Carmen, my baby-sitter. Carmen is really nice; my grandma was telling me that Carmen was really a teacher. Not a baby-sitter and I read in the dictionary that a teacher is a person who helps you learn new stuff from the world.
She is teaching me how to use computers now, I can write ten words per minute! I wish I could tell my mom this, but no, I get stuck with this stupid diary my grandma gave me.
My grandma talks to me in Spanish, I think she wants to tests me in my Spanish, but of course I know I’m good at it. Because my mom said that when you learn languages when you’re young you don’t get an accent, and an accent is when you sound funny talking a different language and the native people look at you funny.
My grandma had an accident, but now she’s more better, I can tell.
I can talk three languages now, but it’s really hard, I know the words I know everything but when I try to think about saying something, it gets really complicated. I know how to speak, English, Spanish, French, and Russian. English and Spanish were easy, just two letters added in the Spanish alphabet, French wasn’t that hard, but Russian was hard. The letters are different, and also the signs like the dollar sign and stuff like that. I don’t know why my mom is making Carmen teach me all this stuff. It’s not like I need all this languages, and all this computer work. I’ve already done code cracking, and my grandma said I might take self-defense lessons. When my grandma told me that she sounded angry, I guess she didn’t like it or I don’t know. But I’m angry too, my mommy left, she left when she just got back, I haven’t seen Uncle Mitch either, or Uncle Paco. I like Uncle Paco a lot, he plays with me, and he takes me to a lot of places like Disney World, Six Flags Great America, he told me he was going to take me to Universal Studios too! Plus he’s taken me to all kinds of water parks. And his car is really cool; he has an x-box in there. And I play this game called Midnight Club, it’s really funny, the people yell at me when I almost crash them.

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Chapter Fifteen

Rose made sure that she looked fine, she had never been as upset as the day before, and it was because Rose was finally realizing what she had gotten into. She was jeopardizing her family along with everybody involved, she could die, she would never be able to think, see her mom, Ivy, Matt… But Rose was confident, and she wanted to look her best in a time of unsuspected change.
She made sure her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and as she looked at her jewelry, she put on her hoop earrings. She didn’t really want to go out and talk to Mitch, Paco, Chris, everybody… but she couldn’t and wouldn’t show any weakness.
She stepped into the mirror in her office, she was wearing black high heeled boots, with a black tank top, black leather pants, and she made sure not a hair of her head was out of place.
She finally took a step back and stepped out of her room, she turned right and walked, it seemed like the Theory Rose was empty, but there were absolutely more than 50 people crawling in it’s secret rooms.
She could hear her boots steps echoing against the wall. She felt like she was walking towards her death sentence.
She quickly turned right and entered a room. As soon as she stepped in she saw only five people in the room. Paco, Chris, Butler, Mitch, and Juan.
“Hey,” she said as she tried to casually sit in the desk at the corner.
“Hey,” they all muttered back, and the silence drew her out. She lowered her head and pretended like she was looking for a pen. And when she looked back up, she had never felt so shy and ashamed in her life. She had never been afraid to come in front of people and say what she had to say. She wished that Paco would say something stupid, that Chris would say something wise, that Juan would at least stare at the lock in her desk, but they all looked at her, with a look that just questioned her.
“Well?” She said, she looked around them.
“Well what?” Mitch asked her.
“Well that’s what I’m asking you,” she looked at him.
“Well nothing,” Mitch said to her and his voice was suddenly so empty.
“Well I want to know why Paco didn’t contact me as soon as he found out about Sarah and Rickia’s incident,” she said while studying her nails.
“Because you had your cell phone off, your mother said you weren’t home, and you didn’t answer the phone in your Caddy.” Paco said to her.
“OK, I also want to know where Sarah and Rickia are at,” she said. Paco was going to say something but Rose went on, “I want to know why Popeyes’ trucks were parked at the corner of the building keeping everything from view. I want to know who this Agency belongs to, I want to make sure Rickia and Sarah come back safely, I want to make sure my questions get answered.”
She suddenly stood up and grabbed a marker form the board ledge and started writing on the board.
1. Why where Popeyes’ trucks covering everything from view?
2. Whose the agency that captured Sarah and Rickia
3. Will my questions get answered?
“Look at this like an assignment from school, and answer the questions, I don’t care what you do, just make sure these questions are answered, but don’t make a mess out of things.” She said to them, they stared at her.
“Well? Do you understand this, is it sinking in? Do you comprehend what I’m saying?” She yelled at them. All of them muttered a yes or a no, while Mitch and Butler looked at her.
“I don’t care who does what I just want these questions answered.”
Paco and Chris stood up and walked out, they knew what to do, then two seconds after them Juan stepped out. Mitch and Butler stared.
“What?” She asked them.
“Nothing,” Mitch stood up and walked out of the room.
“That went well,” Butler said to her.
“Better,” she said to him.
“Yes well, come with me to practice,” She said to Butler.
“Right.”

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Chapter Sixteen

“Hai!” Rose let the deep grunt come straight from her gut like Butler had told her, and not just a simple ‘hai’ a true genuine grunt.
“Good, now do it again,” Butler told her, and Rose didn’t mind practicing over and over, it was fluid to her blood, it was like the flow of water upon a crack.
“Hai!” She quickly jumped and kicked Butler in his stomach, but of course he was using protection, then she turned around into a back kick. Then she quickly spun into the air and kicked him across the head.
“Shit!” Butler cursed with his face pressed against the ground.
“You better stand up I’m not taking any prisoners,” Rose said to him.
“I’d rather be prisoned then getting tortured,” Butler said as he turned on to his back.
“You’ll get both if you don’t stand up,” Rose said to him, and she was feeling a little icy as she said the words.
“Fine,” Butler said, Rose didn’t know what was coming but she kenw one thing Butler had always said to her, ‘no matter where it’s coming where you’re at, move the opposite.’
Butler spun his legs under her feet as she jumped backwards on her arms and hooked Butler’s head and tossed him on the floor. He quickly grabbed her head with his legs and now they were stuck, but Rose quickly elbowed him in the back of the knee and he let go.
“Ow!” Butler hollwered.
“It was just a twitch it will stop ringing in a matter of minutes,” she said to him with a smirk.
“I never taught you that,” Butler said to her with a face of annoyance and pain.
“Nope, I saw that trick from ‘Miss Congeniality,” Rose said to him with a little glint in her eye.
“You need to stop watching movies,” Butler said to her while his face was still in annoyance and pain.
“It was on TV,” Rose said to him.
“Same thing,” Butler said, and to her great surprise he suddenly flung his arm at her and grabbed her leg and she fell flat on her back, “OW!” Rose squealed, but as it seemed he wasn’t done yet, he slid her across the floor with the swing of his arm. And she quickly paniced as she noticed she was going to crash into the book shelf. And when her legs and bottom of her thighs struck the book shelf, she quickly shilded herself with her arms as the books fell on her, and she was ready for it, she was ready for the blow, she raced her knees and waited, waiting for the book shelf to come towering at her… waiting… where was it?
She opened her eyes and saw Butler’s leg stretched out on top of her holding the book shelf from falling on to her, and she felt suddenly so stupid and embarrased, her knees were up and so were her arms.
“Done yet?” Butler asked her with not a hint, but a smirk on his lips, and she loathed him because he made her look and feel so stupid….
“Not quiet,” she said, and this time, she meant it.

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Chapter Seventeen

Matt looked around him, the walls were complete steel. Or At least he thought, and he felt like James and him were the only ones in the building. There feet echoed upon the steel floor, and he all of a sudden saw a man in black pop out of a corner.
“Nine Eleven! Nice to see you’re here! Nice to see!” The man approached James and shooked his hand. “And you must be One Twelve!” The man had a warm smile on his face, his eyes were blue and sharp, just like James….
“Jamie, get to the point where’s Rod?” James said to the man. And Matt was surprised, James had never authorized someone like that before.
“Oh James you’re never in the spirt, but since you insist,” The man seemed a lot less serious than James, and it dawned on Matt… they’re brothers. Everytiime he realized something he felt so stupid, so stupid because he never knew anything. James didn’t bother to inform him on anything, he never asked James either… maybe it was his own fault for not asking, his grade school teacher always had told them to ask questions because it encorageous others to do the same.
“Oh shit,” They abruptly stopped at the end of one steel hallway with Jaime’s confused face. “What? Don’t tell me you lost your goddamn way back you idiot?” James asked Jaime with such a stern look on his face.
“I’m just joking you dumbass, damn, can’t even take a little horseplay?” Jaime asked him with an annoyed tone.
“No, if I were the boss I’d had you fired!” James whispered as a woman and a man passed by them.
“Yeah, but if you were the boss I wouldn’t treat you like the jackass you are!” Jaime whispered back, and Matt could hear a dangerous edge to his voice.
“So where are we going?” Jaime looked at him surprised that he had spoken, “Uh, this way—”
“Not on my authorities!” All three men snappe their heads to see a woman in a tight leather black skirt and leather black jacket come up to them.
“Uh Jessica how about you go your way, I got this handled,” Jaime said to her.
“Now I don’t think you do,” She said, and she took Matt by the arm and let him to the other end of the hallway.
“We’ll be in SPR!” James yelled down the hallway, and as Matt looked back Jamie and neither James where still there.
“Where are you taking me?” Matt asked the woman.
“To my office,” she said to him.
“Lexus!” Matt was startled by the yelp and startld even more when she pounded on the door.
Then she did a quick three finger tap on the edge of the wall.
“Access; granted.” Matt suddenly heard. Then the wall opened up into twos and he saw a rather more decorated room than the hallway. There was green marble on the floor and a flat screen TV hung on the wall, there was a living room set with a crystal clean coffee table of some sort, the seats where leather all of them. He noticed not only his seats a lot of things in the room were leather—
“Sit down it’s ok,” She interrupted his thoughts.
He looked at her and observed her, like James and Jaime she seemed elder, her hair was in a neat bun, she must’ve been about forty-seven years old. Like Jamie who seemed in his forties.
“Uh, who are you?” He asked, and her blue eyes snapped to him with such speed and focused he couldn’t quite have noticed movement, and just like James and Jaimie… same eyes all of them.
“I see we haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Jessica Young, James Young’s sister along with Jamie’s.” She said to him.
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“What are you going to do with me?” He asked her.
“Well, let’s start out with your history,” Jessica said to him.
“History?”
“How can I say this…? Your sex life you dummy.”

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Chapter Nineteen

“Why in the hell are we doing this again? It’s not like we need the practice,” Butler complained.
“Well in case you haven’t noticed you’ve been a black belt for over twenty-five years, I learned like what? Seven years ago? And I have kicked your ass in all of the matches, I don’t think we need this, I think you need this, it’s just I decided to be nice and decided to help you, plus I wanted to try it.” Rose said to Butler through her mic. They were in one of the buildings secret practicing sequence rooms. She could see butler about thirty feet away from her, he was walking across a straight rope, she had of course already passed the rope. She was sitting quietly, waiting for him to catch up.
She enjoyed practices like this one, she enjoyed being in the lead, she enjoyed the opstacles, she didn’t quite like to wait, but her patience was well dug into her so she watched as Butler made such a racket as he finally stepped off the rope.
“Where are you?” Butler asked her through the mic, but she smied in spite of herself, she had been planning and looking around her surroundings, while Butler had finally decided that she might’ve been on the other side of the opstacle.
“You’ll never know,” She quickly stood up and walked silently, she bend her knees just half an inch, and walked on the balls of her quickly and silently, she put her hands in her pockets and as she walked towards her bait she walked slower. The fox walk was famous in it’s past history, and Rose loved it, she used it always at all times she possibly needed it. She couldn’t help but notice the racket Butler was making, well not entirely, but it was totally uneccessary compare to the way Rose was moving.
She moved quickly and quietly, she stepped on top of the dry leaves completely without any noise or problem, but she could hear Butler’s heavy steps on the other side of the building. “Where are you?” Butler asked her once more.
“You keep looking cause I’m not gonna help you.”
She loved her training shoes. Mocassins, what Indians wear, she had learned the fox walk from a Native American she had once met in Maine, and she had showed her how to do the fox walk as well as how to use a bow.
She loved the training sequence room, it was completely realistic to the real forests and cities and rain forests in the world. The trees were even real. She quickly looked at her bait, the swing was high up upon the air, floating, flying. She wanted to fly too, she wanted to fly and she felt oh so relaxed.
She walked on the leaves without any noise, and quickly stopped for a quick enviorment check. She became aware that Butler’s footsteps were heading west which meant they were heading her way, and the leave crunching was extremely close close as five feet…

“Hai!” Rose let the yell come out straight from her gut as she twirled a back-kick. Butler blocked it, he grabbed her leg but she quickly grabed a tree branch and with her other leg stepped on Butler and squished him to the ground.
“Ow! Shit!” Butler said in agony.
“What you get,” she said in pleasure, she looked at the tree, and looked at the tree opposite. She ran to the tree and jumped on the branches up and up and up, she grabbed a branch with her arms and put her legs around it, she loved hanging from trees upside down, and looking at Butler from forty feet high in the air was great.
“Shit! Aren’t you scared?” Butler yelled at her.
“No, you should try it, it’s great!” She yelled back. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Hell no! Hell no!” Butler repeated once again shaking his head. Rose laughed once again.
She pulled herself back up and stood up on the branch, she looked at the branch on the other side.
She ran on the branch and in midair she screamed, “Hai!” and with her hands grabbed onto the branch. She lifted her legs and grabbed hold to the tree branch, she stood up and climbed the tree, it was such a rather large tree. Straight from Brazil and all.

She then could reach the beautiful swings she loved, she ran upon the highest and only branch, and held on to a swing, then once again another, and another. She finally reached the highest, and she could tough the glass window, she helped herself up and touched the window, it’s sunlight of course bilnded her so she looked down.
“You love that swing don’t ya?” Butler yelled at her rather than asked.
“Yup!” She swung and swung. She had always practiced and practiced until she could get up there. It was her safe place, her favorite place.

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Chapter Twenty

Butler watched Rose and quickly turned around. He didn’t want to disturve her, she was watching a report on the news. She seemed pissed, he didn’t know why, but he listened to what the newscaster was saying.

Reporter: “The attacks are awful, but may I ask do you have any proof if it terrorists? Does this link at all with anything such as 911?”

Officer: “No not at all Sally, this links to nothing of that sort at all we’re not really sure of what we’re dealing with here but—”

Reporter: “Really? Or does this have to do with Gang relating? Or are you lying to me?”

Officer: “Well Sally as you know just two weeks ago we found the body of a young woman in an alley. With her throat slashed, she also had rose pedals upon the wound. We the Chicago PD know most styled on Gangs, and I can tell you this case is not gang banging related—”

Reporter: “What makes you say that?”

Officer: “Well knife using is an unappropriate styl for gangs, the appropriate style has always been guns. And we haven’t seen any gang use a rose as they’re identification symbol. Rose pedals are not a sign.


Rose didn’t bother to push the button on the remote control, she just simply smashed her foot into the screen.
“Don’t worry we’ve got plenty of TVs in the building they don’t cost a thing,” Mitch said to Rose.
Rose looked at Rose and Butler wished he could read minds, because then she looked at him and studied him, her quick eyes focused on his but no sign of recognition was in there. Then she stepped out of the room and slammed the door. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t have anything to do. He looked around the cold steel room. It looked like many others.
“You know you look like an idiot just standing there.” Butler didn’t smile but looked at Mitch.
“Well I really don’t know what to do in a 19-year old girl’s room.” He told Mitch.
“Yes you were always an old bastard without a clue.” Mitch snickered.
“43 isn’t that old, that’s not even mid-forties.” He said as he stood up from the couch.
“Ha! Um right, well I need you to come to the moderating room with me, I think you should see something.” Mitch told him.
“What?”
“Well, I really dono’t want to spoil a shock.”

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Chapter Twenty One

Rose couldn’t really comprehend what was happening to her, she wasn’t responding to anything, she only kept on hiding the training model.
She kicked and kicked the head of the model, then she punched it with her gloves, she backed kick, she kicked, she twirled, she punched… but the model wouldn’t go down….

If only I had my father, my dad, so he could’ve guided me through all the stupid things in life, so hecould’ve told me what I was doing wrong, so he could keep me company…but he can’t cause he’s dead… very simple, dead, no more, I’m never going to talk to him. Once he died I realized I had so many things to tell him, about school about my teachers about the way the kids are…. But I can’t do any of it, because he’s gone, when I was a child it seemed like he was always going to be there… like nothing could go wrong, I never really thought about dying, I only thought about fun, barbies, cars, whatever. But now I realize that once you die, you never come back… you will never be able to think a thing… you will not breathe… you will not live…you’re dead. It’s freaky, it makes me want to crawl into a hole or something.
When my father died I sort’ve realized that he would never touch me, he would never hug me again, he would never talk to me, he would never spend time with me, and I felt that I did not want to die, ever. I wished that I was a tree, and live for generations but then they would cut me down… so really nobody’s safe…. Not even trees….

Rose heard something, she looked up it was terribly blurry, her back was to the ground, it was cold… people were loking down at her, and then she felt being lifted, she felt being sitten back somewhere, she wished she could move, she tried to move…. Then she saw moved her leg and stood up, and she saw a picture frame hanging from a magical floating nail…. It was her, Ivy, and Matt… they were all smiling, looking at her…. Matt had his arms around her… Rose was holding Ivy and Matt hugged them both… then it started raining and it washed the picture away….

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Chapter Twenty-two

“So let me rehearse this, you have not had sex with any other woman other than your one time love Rose Ezpinoza who is now Rose Salinas, and through all of these years you’ve somehow seemed to keep your loyal husband duty? No offense kid, but a guy as good looking as you, and no sex for like four years? What is this a Soap Opera?” Jessica asked him her eyes wide.
“I wish,” He whispered at the sealing.
“You’ve gone through a lot kid.”
“Stop calling me kid,” he said.
“Fine, I’ll call you… teen, anyway,” Jessica laid her notebook done and looked at him, he didn’t like the way she stared at him.
“I’m twenty, not a teen,” He said stubbornly.
“Fne, your session is over, you can leave, James you can come in now,” Jessica said loudly, what session, this wasn’t a session, was it? He thought, and then he heard the words that Jessica had said, lexus! And then he heard the three quick finger tap.
“Done?” James asked him, he seemed to have been waiting.
“Yeah, James take him to Jaime,” Jessica told James.
“How’d you know it was James?” He aske dher, and she looked up from her notebook with curiosity, as if he’d just asked her how old she was or something.
“I… you know I never know, I just, smell him,” She said to him, ok, this lady can smell people, I better change my cologne… he thought.
“Um, Matt?” he turned around to look at James who was looking at him. He quickly stood up without saying goodbye and walked out of the room.




“Why did she want to talk to me? And what the hell, she said my session is over! That wasn’t a session was it? Was it therapy? Did you ask the AA to give me therapy? Is this like my personal shrink? Or are you giving me mental talk?” Matt asked him, James smiled, it was working.
“What? Tell me.” Matt said to him while they waited for the light to turn green, “Don’t just sit there smiling! You look evil! And come on tell me, ar eyou taking me to Jaime like she said?”
“Look Matt, what did she talk to you about? Sex? Girls? Drugs?” He asked Matt.
“Uh, sex,” He mumbled, the boy is embarrased… oh god, he forced himself not to laugh.
“Look, it wasn’t therapy, it was sort of like… like a wake up, see you’ve been working for the AA for what now? Three? Four years? Exactly, you’ve killed about seventy-six assasins through all of those years, not bad for three to four years. But through all that time, you… you’re being kept away from Socialality, you’re like in a trance… asleep, so we get someone to talk to you about something that alarms any guy, sex, drugs, woman, we do that to our female workers as well.” He said to him.
“You are some sick folks you know that?” Matt said to him grinning, he himself couldn’t elp grinning either… “It’s my job.…”
“So how do you know whether I’m awake?” Matt asked him.
“Well, now, you’re responding to many things that cause curiosity to you, all those years of assasinating, you were told what to do, you, as I’ve heard you mention before, are a hired gun. A good one as well. You know what to do, how to follow directions, how to keep yourself in content. So now your responding to correspondents, yo uwant to know things, you’ve asked like three-million questions already!” He said laughing.
“Is this like a joke for you high agents?” Matt asked him, he could tell he was annoyed, but he kept being cheerfully.
“Yeah, I guess, and it will be to you too,” James said to him.
“Why?” Matt asked him.
“Because sometime tomorrow, you’ll be a High Agent too.”

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Chapter Twenty-three

“So…. Who do we have here?” Matt entered the room, thi sroom was different then the other rooms in the building, it was actualy furhinshed, it had carpet, and it had wallpaper.
“Mr. Salinas, twenty years of age, training for three years, born in Albany, New York, New Yorker, foster child, mother Marissa Wenson diseased at age twenty-nine, and father Justin Salinas diseased at age thirty-one.” Matt watched the man in the front of the room read from a blue paper.
“Yeah?” He asked.
“Sit, please,” The man asked, he also pointed to a table in front of him, Matt looked at the men sitting beside him, they were all from different races, he observed the room around him as he walked towards the front of the room and sat on the chair and rested his hands on the table. He had talked to James, James had said that he needed to be serious, a joke laugh, not too much it’s annoying, but not too slow, and don’t laugh by yourself. Talk keep it short not too short not too long not to loud not to quiet. He had also made him dress in a Karate suit, and he was surprised when James had given him the black belt to close it with. And no shoes, just socks.
“You are here because one of the top agent in our Unit has asked us to turn you into an official Agent. As in now, you’re not just being employed, you’re hiring. You will have one out of twelve full authority in this building. As your mentor James Lorang has probably mentioned.” The man to the right of the man in front said. He read the name tags, the man in the front was Agent Braddock, the man to the right of him was Agent Rodriguez, Mexican, obviously by the tan and black bushy mustach. On the other side was Agent Roso, Russian, he thought, he had red bright hair, and a bushy mustach as well, as for his skin it was completelky and totally white.
“To make sure you are sure of the concequences we will hand you this document, which will have your signature e hope at the end of the five minutes we give you to read it—”
“Five?” He mumbled uncertainly.
“Ten then, we will leave you for a moment and when we come back if that paper is signed or not it doesn’t matter because you will have to leave this room.” The Russian man continued.
They all stood up, straightened their papers and walked silently down to the end of the room, into a door he hadn’t seen.
He looked down at the paper and read.

This document is completely illegal in every which way seen, written, or touched, you of course know this. You have been recommended or promoted to this task, this task contains a variety of obstacles. You have three results to this test, death, life, or of course the most likely one complication. Death will happen if you do not go through with this task alive when you come out, life will go on if you comeplete this task, complication will happen if you never complete the task. Many persons have died, some are still in there so don’t be alarmed or bewildered when you see some of them. You have competition still. You know the concequences so if you please then sign this paper and hand it to the Main Adminastrators.


Matt looked at the bottom of the document… but in his mind he was slightly excited, he felt, happy, ready, so without a moment’s notice, he grabbed a pen and turned back to the paper.

Name: Matt Salinas
Signature: Matt Salinas

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Chapter Twenty-four

“So what’s wrong with me? Headahe? Seizure? Shock? Traumatized?” Rose blurted when Dr. Florez stepped into the room.
“Well, I can assure you nothing that tragic,” He laughed.
“Uh, ok, well then?” She asked urgently.
“What’s the hurry? You don’t have anywhere to go now do you?” He asked her with a smile as he looked through his papers.
“Well no…” She said.
“Exactly, you have nowhere to go, and I can bet fifty that as soon as you get checked out you’re going to go run off and exercise, that’s why you were bought to the emergency room Rose, I haven’t seen you in about what now? Two? Three? Three and a half years? I knew your health was excellent and that’s why you haven’t come for a check up—”
“And I was,” She interrupted with a grin.
“Yes, you were,” Dr. Florez admitted, “But today you stressed yourself, you worked out too much, and your body had to shut down, I do say that you probably had some memories wiped from your mind, or probably illusions popped into you. But just brush those off they don’t matter. What does matter though is you, you have to stop working yourself out, you weigh a hundred and sixty-four pounds! That’s exactly four more pounds than me! And why? Because you have too much muscle in you, you’re only nine-teen years old Rose, don’t work yourself out!” He said to her.
“I have to, otherwise—” She stopepd herself, she didn’t want to blurt too much.
“Otherwise what? You won’t look good? Believe me Rose, I’ve had a lot of female patients in your area…” Oh great… the annoying aeronoxea poster girl lecture, “…and they’re fine now, after they realized that…. I bore you don’t I? I try too hard to help you girls—”
“No Doctor, you don’t, believe me I’m not trying to be a poster girl for any type of disease either, it’s just, I don’t want to get fat it’s just that, you remember how fat I was when I was pregant with Ivy! I mean, I don’t ever want to be that big again, I mean, come on, I was bigger than my mom!” She said, and tried to look upset.
“Believe me you look better than ever, but I want you to stay here for the night, I don’t want you under surveilence, just kidding, but I want you to stay the night just for some more exams, so if we’re right and you catch a cold or something, we knew it was expected you know?” He asked and she nodded.
As soon as he stepped out her mother and her daughter stepped in.
“Mommy! I thought were you going to go to work again!” Ivy said to her, today her dark brownish hair was in two pigtails.
“Yeah, I thought so too, but I tripped and I fell really bad, so I had to come to the hospital,” She said to Ivy.
“So how are you feeling Rose? Any better?” Her mother asked her.
“A lot better actually, mom can I talk to you for a moment?” Rose asked her mother, her mom narrowed her eyes and looked at Ivy.
“Hey Ivy go get Carmen she’s down the hall looking at the new born babies,” Her mother said to Ivy.
“Ok!” Ivy said as she stormed out of the room.
“That was actually a lie, she’ll find her way back, she’s not stupid,” her mom laughed, “Anyways, what’s wrong sweety?” Her mother asked her.
“Well, when I blacked out, who brought me here?” Rose asked her mom, her mom settled in the ugly cheap black-color faded leather chair.
“Oh, Mitch and Butler of course, they were really worried, Mitch’s voice was shaking when he gave me the call.” She smiled, it was nice to know that Mitch sometimes acted like an asshole but cared never the less.
“When we came Butler was constantly outside, not letting anyone he did not know into the room except the doctor, he didn’t even let the nurse in until the doctor told him it was okay,” Her mother smiled.
“Where’s Butler now?” She asked.
“Oh, I told hikm to take a rest and go home, about time too,” Her mom said quietly.
“I wished he could’ve stayed, I feel safe around him,” She said.
“Of course you do, he’s been like a father to you, he’s always helped you in every which way, and you’d never let him get out of your grasp since those first two weeks you two became friends,” Her mother said to her.
“Yeah… he’ll never be a father to me mom, but he’ll always be something much closer than a father, my friend.” She said silently.
“He is quite young looking for his age, how old is he? Thirty-nine?” Her mother asked
“Mom he’s forty-three,” Rose said qith a laugh.
“Oh, one year older than me! Who knew?” Her mother said with a chuckle.
“I kenw mom, I knew.”

“So you’re saying you picked this up just yesterday?” Butler asked Mitch as he looked at the small TV.
“Yeah, I didn’t want to show it to Rose by the way she was acting, I mean, she was pissed wasn’t she? And then when we found her in the room, god, I was scared to death.” Mitch said with a worried look.
“I don’t think you were scared, you were like a rat running for his life from a cat, god’s sake you were totally freaky,” Butler said to Mitch while glancing at him.
“Whatever, anyway, as you see, either Vicky Leon has a fucking twin running around, or a clone… but in that case then their could be hundreds…. Anyway either Vicky Leon has a twin or a clone running around, I’d say this is definitely the time to find out why we didn’t know that.” Mitch said to him. Butler couldn’t help but agree, he watched the screen, it was a picture of an alley south of Broadway and Jackson in South Chicago, with Vicky Leon dressed in black clothes, handing a cellphone to a man they could not see, she had obviously stepepd out from her black limo, to hand the cellphone to the man in the window.
“Think this means anything?” Mitch asked him.
“Definitely, positive, duh, of course, yeah, si, definito, whatever language, or way you want to put it, because people don’t just natuarlly come back from the dead.” He said as he stared at the screen.
“What if they never died?”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-five

“So…. Okay, let’s summary the last few days that have happened.” Butler said as he approached the board.
“As we returned from our not so safe flight from robbing all of Leon’s wealth and riches we discover that later that day our fellow members Rickia and Sara have been kidnapped, and apart from that just yesterday our fellow Agent here Mitch discovers from a local traffic camera—which I shall say well done on the hacking—which…. However, tok a couple of snaps, and one of those snaps was a picture of Vicky Leon. Victoria Leon del Castillo was to be dead, as we all knew Rose had practically slaughtered her in the Hose Room.” He finished.
“Are we going to tell Rose?” Juan blurted.
“I don’t think we should, at least not yet.” Paco said from the desk at the corner.
“Yeah, I don’t think so either, I mean she’s in the hospital right now, let her recover.” Christian said.
“Yeah, plus I don’t think it’ll be cool if she comes in right now, I mean remember the flight? She was….Pissed. Seriously, I thought my own mother was the only one that could make me feel like dirt but ovbiously not, Rose hit the spot just right!” Jason said dully.
“Rose has that effect, and believe me, she’s done nothing to you.” Mitch said from the corner, his eyes were lowered and he seemed to be making one of those dramatic entrances when no one notices him and boom he pops out Butler thought.
“So what now? What do we do?” Christian asked.
“I’ve called a few especialists, as a matter of fact they are arriving the airports right now.” Butler said as he looked at the clock.
“Yeah? Who?” Jaosn asked.
“Well, as a matter of fact I’m calling my nieces,” He said.
“Your nieces? Roberta and Fabila?” Mitch asked, his tone was filled with disgust, and Butler didn’t blame him.
“No, My nieces, Raquel, and Hope, why would I call Fabila and Roberta?” Butler rolled his eyes.
“I dunno,” Mitch said, “Anyways, I gotta run tests on some experiments, I won’t be back till tomorrow and my cell will be off so don’t bother,” Mitch walked out with his hands in his pockets.
“Well, with Mitch gone we’re gonna need someone to go pick them up—”
“Pick whom up?” They snapped their heads to look at the door, Mitch was starring at Rose with the door wide open.
“Uh, aren’t you suppose to be at the hospital?” Butler asked.
“Yeah, but Dr. Florez let me out early, and aren’t you suppose to tell me what’s happening when I’m not here before hand?” Rose asked annoyed.
“Yes, but I didn’t know you would be here—”
“Just because I’m not here means your second in command or something, that’s Mitch, don’t forget your rank,” She said to him. He scowled at her, and she somehow seem to soften, she looked at the floor once and scratched off a misplaced hair on her head.
“Whatever, who are you picking up?” She asked still looking at the floor.
“My nieces, Raquel, and Hope.” He said, and her face looked up in an instant, he kenw this was going to be an argument.
“What? For what? It’s not like we need their help!” Rose said in disbelief.
“Oh yes we do, you’re just jealous because they’ve been on rank higher than you on a local unit since ever.” Butler said.
“Yeah, because they’re special, they didn’t have to work their way up! Just because they’re your nieces!” Rose accused. And he smiled.
“I do say I bring the goods home,” He grinned.
“Whatever, do what you want, I’m going to the training room,” She said quietly as she turned.
“No, you’re not,” Mitch said to her strictly, and she turned around with an angry look.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” She said childishly.
“Oh yes I can, why? Because your mom told me that she suspects you’re not going to listen to the doctor and go run off into the training room. She told me to stop you if you did go.” Mitch said with his hands still in his pockets, Rose however crossed her hands.
“Whatever, I don’t have to listen to you!” Rose said and she turned around marching off, but Mitch instantly grabbed the back of her hand, turned her around, and carried her hanging like a potato sack on his shoulder. Butler smiled, he knew the Mitch was pretty strong, stronger than Rose defnitely, and he was just playing anyway, he knew that he would cause her no hamr. As the door closed he smiled as he heared the kicking against the wall and shrieks. And after five seconds they all laughed.

“So? How do you like it here?” Juan asked her. Hope looked at the streets, she had been to L.A., New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Baghrad, Moscow, Guadalajara, mainly all of the major cities in the world but she’d never been to Chicago. She wondered why, she always had known her uncle worked there, her and her sister Raquel traveled on missions the Y (Young) Unit told them to go on. The Y Unit was an underground government, keeping tabs on all of the illegal agencies. It was the highest of the highest type of Illegal Government. And she was in it, she grinned.
“I like it, don’t like the smell though, even in Moscow the air wasn’t that over air poluted,” Her sister Raquel said.
“Yeah, true,” She said, Raquel was her half sister, they had the same father, both their mothers had died, and they were left to be raised by their father, who later died, and they were set to their uncle. But now they were old enough to live separetely from their uncle, but them two, they would never separate, too much of a friendship to break. Raquel was Russian, while Hope was British, thank god to her father’s genes Hope hadn’t inherited her mother’s accent.
“Neither in London, it’s like New York in here,” She said.
“Yeah,” Raquel agreed.
“So how many missions have you two gone on seperately?” Juan asked them.
“Hmmm…” She said.
“Many,” Raquel said.
“Yeah, a lot.”
“Like so many we can’t count.”
“Really?” Juan raised his eyebrows.
“No,” they both said and grinned.
“We’ve only gone on one mission seperately.” She said.
“And that was a combat mission, so as you can see only a two hour separate, not that bad.” Raquel said.
“I think you two are in for a trip.” Paco said to them from the front seat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-six

“Oh come on you can do better than that!” Mitch paused for a moment and put his hands on his knees, trying to breathe in some air. He was in the training room with Rose, she was holding the boxing bag steady for him, he wished she didn’t have to tell hin oh you suck, I can do better comments. He knew that was her, always trying to compete but he never got used to it, him and his old friend always wanted to just, cruise, never compete, let the wind pass by not race with it….
“Man I can do a lot better than you can!” Rose said to him, and that pissed him off.
“Hia!” He let the grunt roll off his lips as he turned around, and let his leg fly and hit the boxing bag, it actually broke. Achievement swirled through him, he didn’t let her see it though, he just looked at her and let a long sigh escape him.
“You’re really good, I’ve actually never ripped a bag,” Rose said to him with wide eyes.
“Cause you’re a girl,” He said, but he closed his eyes, sort of regretting he said it.
“What?” Yeah he immediately felt the feeling of regret.
“I mean, girl’s have never really had the immediate muscle that a man does.” He quickly said.
“And you think you’re a man?” Harsh.
“Whatever, I don’t want to start right now.” He said quietly breathing hard.
“Fine,” She simply said.
God she was beautiful.
Her hair was in a loose ponytail with strands on her face, her ceeks were pink from the cold of the room but at the same time it was sweaty from the vapor that came from the lower rooms and sewers. Her small perfect lips were almost red, and her eyes above all were glittering through all the happening.
He wished Wade could be there… he shook his head and turned around, he hadn’t thought about him in a long time.
He heard Rose shuffle her feet, he didn’t say anything, and he heard her again, but this time she didn’t stop she stepped towaards the backdoor that leed to the lower rooms, and he let her go, she wouldn’t go to any other training rooms, because the employers were over there. She liked the private staff rooms.
He sat down and let his mind swirl and mix and dismix all of his thoughts and memories.
Wade… how he missed him. Wade had been like a brother to him, he fought hard to fight back tears, because Wade was dead. He was dead because of him. Because he never stepped up to help him… he let him down, he watched him die, he had watched him suffer, had watched him go.
Back when he was seventeen he was in… a mafia, it was a mafia wether he’d ever admitted. It was the Lac Mafia. Wade had inherited the Mafia from his uncle, whose wife’s father was Luke Bander, who had created the Mafia. He and Wade had been friends since ever, since kindergarten, Mitch had been in foster homes, jumping and jumping homes to homes. And the state finally declared him a child of the state, which meant he had to work for the state and he would have his own money (they actually preffered a hundred dollars a week allowance) and home. (A one room apartment)
He had met Wade there, until his father finally found him and he was removed form the Children of the State Foundation. But they still went to the same school.
Then Wade’s dad finally died from Cancer, and he was a child of the state again, that or foster homes. Which they both hated.
Then when his uncle’s family died in an airplane, he had inherited the Mafia, since his Uncle had no other brother’s or children, and his wife was an only child, and with her father gone…. It was only Wade left. The Mafia was his, all his….
Mitch saw a sudden flash of guilt on Wade’s face, he remembered that picture from the night... the terrible stormy night when…..
Mitch looked around, made sure no one was in the room, let himself sink to the floor from his metal chair, and let the tears spill.


“Mitch is such a hottie,” Hope said to her, Raquel was sitting in her chair, watching the movie Bad Boys 2, the room that Paco and Juan had given to them was very nice. There was carpet on the floor, no steel walls, and it was warm.
“Yeah I know, I haven’t seen him since that job in Italy,” She said as she tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth.
“I wonder what’s the problem here,” Hope said.
“Oh, probably somebody screwed up,” Raquel said.
“Well duh, but who?” Hope said to her.
“Hello?” They snapped their heads to see their uncle Dill on the door.
“Dilly Dill!” They stood up and greeted their uncle with a huge bear hug.
“Nice to see you two, how have you been?” Their uncle asked.
“Cut the crap we’re here for something?” Hope said to him with a grin.
“Yes you are, but it’s too soon to get into that right now—” Her uncle said to them.
“Hey Butler, have you seen Rose?” She heard a familiar old voice rom behind her uncle, but why were they calling him Butler?
“Yeah, she went to your office Mitch,” Butler said.
“Shit, well then see you—”
“Mitch!” Hope squealed.
“Hope? You’re here already?” Mitch stepped in front of their uncle, he was a lot taller than the last time she had seen him, and he was more built, his arms were bigger, but his body was somehow shaped. He was wearing a loose tank and sweat pants.
“Wow! Haven’t seen you in a long time!” Raquel said and she and Hope hugged him.
“Yeah, busy here,” He said rolling his eyes.
“Yeah well, I gotta go, gotta find Rose,” He said nodding his head.
“How is our little Rose after all these years?” Hope asked.
“Fine,” Mitch said.
“But then why are we here?” Raquel asked.
“Uh….”
“I see you waste no time do you?” Her uncle said to them with a little chuckle.
“Mitch you go right along I’ll get them started,” He said.
“Okay, laters,” Mitch said and turned around.
“Now, let’s get started.”

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Chapter Twenty-seven

“Why don’t you like em?” Mitch asked her.
“Because, they’re snots or something,” Rose said as she threw the tennis ball into the wall and catched it.
“They’re not snots,” Mitch said as he added the bleech into the formula.
“Yeah, they think they’re special or something,” Rose said.
“They are special, but they’re not snots, you know that,” Mitch said to her.
“Whatever,” She catched the ball again and again, she took a quick glance to look at Mitch, he was feeding his hampsters some blue stuff.
“Come on Redbeet, you’ll like it, I’ll demonstrate for you,” Mitch took a gulp form a Blueberry Faygo.
“You’re feeding him dangerous chemicals, you’re drinking Faygo, I don’t think he’s that stupid—” She stopped as she watched the Hampster drink the blue chemicals, “Oh my god you are suchg a nerd you talk to your pets!” She said.
“Yeah well, it works,” Mitch said with a grin.
“What are you doing to it anyway?” She asked.
“Well, see, we haven’t showed you this, but we—we?—saw a traffic tape with Vicky Leon, she’s dead right? Well what I think is that Leon’s already discovered cloning,” Mitch said simply, but she was mad, how come they hadn’t told her this?
“Why haven’t you showed me this tape? What, I’m I just a sign here in your way? Why—”
“That’s why we didn’t want to tell you,” Mitch interupted, and she abruptly stopped.
“Oh, whatever, but we’ve already uncovered cloning,” She said.
“If you mean the US, yeah but remember back in January when some crazy doctor said he cloned his baby daughter? And that it’s in some secret lab? Yeah we think it’s all a bunch of bull, but see the US has been able to clone animals, mostly farm animals. We don’t know why but for them it works, see, I know how to clone animals, all types, well, at least I think, if it works on Redbeet here, then it works on all animals, and I think it might work on Humans, see I already cloned a Monkey, and Monkeys, well rather Gorillas are the closest thing to a Human structure, but since I couldn’t really tame a Gorilla I got a Monkey. And it worked, I just want to see if it works on Redbeet,” He said.
“But Redbeet’s a hampster, how does he prove it works on Humans?” She asked.
“Well, a hampster is a completely different organisim from the Monkey right? Well, then it works on everything, that’s my theory, and if it works on him, it works on humans, because like I said humans are animals too, we’re just slightly different, since we sort’ve made everything in this world. Humans are ignorant, we like to pretend we’re not animals, we’re all animals, we have the same reactions and our own habits like Animals. So if it works on all animals, just remember we’re animals too,” Mitch said to her.
“Damn, how long have you been working on this project?” Rose asked but she never got the answer.
“Hello?” They snapped their heads to look at Butler, and to her greatest dislike, Hope and Raquel were right behind him.
“Why, hi Rose, haven’t seen you in a long time,” Hope said to her, she smiled merely, she didn’t want to, but Butler’s eyes betrayed the trustworthy she ever had in him. He wanted her to be nice, so she would be nice.
“Hi, nice to see you,” She said with a wave.
“Nice to see you too, wow, Mitch, is this all yours? What are you up to?” Raquel said.
“Cloning, still haven’t figuered it out, I have to start from scratch like everyone else.” Mitch said with a shrug.
“I see, I know how to clone birds,” Hope said.
“I know how to clone birds too, I’m working on humans,” Mitch said.
“Ooo, that’s going to be interesting, I can’t wait, who’s going to be your human example?” Raquel asked as she and Hope settled down at the table with them. Rose didn’t trust them, the way they were talking to Mitch… ugh, it made her sick. Stuck ups, she thought, but then a new feeling came to her, could she be jealous? Jealous because they were talking to Mitch the way she never could? Because they were being totally flirtatious with him and she’d never be able to be like that with him? Could she actually be jealous? Because jealousy meant when you didn’t like a person when they had something you don’t, or when a human’s feelings feel betrayed from some other human’s feelings are taking their course…. Could she actually have feelings for Mitch?
“I gotta go,” She said, as she abruptly interrupted them and scooted from the table with a screech from the chair. She was breething hard, she was nervous, why was she acting like this?
“Don’t you dare go to the training room!” Mitch and Butler called after her.


“So how was it?” James asked him.
“Um, okay,” Matt said, he was sitting in James’s brand new car, he wondered howmany cars James did have. He had passed the test, he had done it, he was a top agent.
“You made a record in AA, finished in less than twenty-four hours, that’s a top record, I finished in forty-eight hours, I can’t believe that you actually passed, I had my hopes up kid, I thought maybne a week, but damn, that was super fast!” James said, James was really happy, he could tell.
“Yeah…” Matt didn’t want to ruin James enthusiasm, but in his mission, task whatever, he had seen things he really never wanted to see.
“Look kid, I know you’re a little shaken, by seeing things you didn’t want to in there, like seeing that girl still in there, she’s now twenty-seven you know, she’s been in there forever, if it were up to me, I would let her out, but it was her choice, no one made her. And that old man by the water, I’m sorry you had to see all that, but you made it… just be thankful.” James said to him and gave him a pat on the back.
“Oh and here, this is yours,” James passed him a little silver box that only JcPenney gave out, or Sears for the holidays,
“What is it?” He asked.
“Open it,” James told him, he opened it, it was a credit card, Master Card.
“How much does it have?” He asked.
“Well see the AA, in the spirit of the holiday, decided that sine you broke a record, and you’re now one of the top agents, well, they gave you a little present.” James said to him.
“How much does it have? A hundred thousand?” He asked.
“No, no, no, boy, in this business, you’re going to live, what you have there is a billion dollars, I’d like to see you spend it as fast as you solved your task.”
“A Billion dollars?” He gasped.
“They gave me a million when I passed it, but now they have more money to just give out, so yeah,” James said.
“Wow, this is, a real treat,” Matt said as he looked at the card.
“Yes it is, now, I just wanted to tell you that we have something to do,” James said to him, they were pulling in to the Headquarters on Broadway.
“What’s that?” He asked still looking at his card with awe.
“Well, first thing’s first, a lot of the agents are going to look at you like shit because they don’t like the fact that the council gav eyou a billion dollars,” James said to him as they parked the car.
“Next, you have your first interview.” James said to him.
“Whose interviewing me?” He asked and looked at James.
“Um, Matt, you have it the wrong way,” James said.
“You’re interviewing someone,” James told him. But Matt already knew who.
“Let’s go,” He said.


Rickia looked around the room, it was steel, almost like The Rose but some of the rooms were furnished well and with more color.
“Thanks, how long has she been in there?” She heard a voice and she snapped her head to look at the mirrowed window. She couldn’t see anything, just dark shadows, she saw a man open a file, he was taller than her she could see, she knew she could take him, Rose had taught her enough for combat.
When the door open, she knew she couldn’t take him, she knew she’d never in a billion years be able to take him, he was bigger, he was taller, he was stronger, and… he was Matt.
“Wow, haven’t seen you in a long time,” Matt said to her as he stepped in, he was looking at the folder he had been handed, and sat right across from her.
“Wow, a million dollars, Rickia you had quite a catch there,” He said to her without looking at her, he was reading something from the file.
“Can’t wait to talk to Sarah, and isn’t this Karma? Deja’vu I’d say, a high school reunion,” Matt said to her, this time he was looking at her dead in the eyes.
“What are you doing here Matt? This isn’t your type of thing, your style, now is it?” She asked, she was calm, she wasn’t going to let him get the best of her.
“Ah, you don’t know me then do you? I’ve changed a lot Rickia, ever since I dare say Rose left me, betrayed me, I changed, cold blood is not exactly my style, as you say, but I have to deal with it.” Matt said to her, his voice was cold and his face showed no expression of emotion.
“Rose? Don’t you miss her? You loved her, you married her,” She said to him, she was going to spill everything he probably didn’t want to hear, she knew about him and Rose, Rose had told her and Sarah.
“Ah, I still love her Rickia, I love her like I’d never love anyone, but I can’t have her, as much as I love her I hate her, she betrayed me, she practically slepped with Jonathon in front of me. She lied, she’s a whore,” He said to her, and his words shocked her, she had nothing against him, reminding him of Rose would only make him better at this, at destroying her feelings.
“You don’t know anything, she never slept with Jonathon, you’re just a sad sore loser with no life, anyway now, can you please tell me how you even came to this place?” Rickia aske d him.
“Well let me remind you whose interviewing who here, I am interviewing you, you have the same job as I do, well, I’m much higher in rank but never the less you are just as dirty as me. You know you wish you could get away form your job, have a family, children, live happily ever after, but you can’t.” Matt told her, and his words tortured her, she wished she didn’t have to listen to him, she wished she’d be pissed off rather than sad and destroyed. Like Rose, she would never let him keep her down, she’d be mad, angry, furious, but she’s never show her weakness.
“Whatever,” She had nothing to say.
“Anyway your next question, I came here, I don’t know, one day I found myself watching TV, the next I was taking the life out of somebody. I don’t really know what to tell you, it’s all synister, my life I mean, kind of crazy and insane,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” she said.
“Crazy, but not insane,” He said.
“They’re the same thing,” She said as she crossed her arms and leaned in her chair.
“Ah, that’s the reason you and I differ, you, are blind, you can’t see through, you’re nothing but mere, nothing but filth,” He said to her. And she looked at him, his spiky hair was up, he was wearing a black suit, his eyes were completely contempt, and brown. The same dark brown she remembered.
“Rose will find you, and kill you if you harm me,” She said to him.
“Well, see you’re wrong, I just found out that Rose does have an organization, you just told me, see we weren’t sure, but our little talk proves it,” Matt said to her with a devilish smile.
“What? But you already knew,” She accused.
“No, I never said we knew, but thank you, your information was valuable and we will let Rose know that.” Matt said to her as he stood up.
“I wish you knew,” She said to him.
“Knew what?” He asked her.
“Knew the truth about you and Rose, how much she cares about you,” She said, and Matt no longer looked like a robot, his features softened, the color in his cheeks was showing.
“Really? And that is?” Matt asked her.
“I’d tell, but you wouldn’t believe me,” She said to him with a little smile.
“If you say so, suit yourself,” He turned around and grabbed the knob on the door.
She laughed, she let her laugh carry around the room, then men grabbed her by her arms, but she didn’t stop laughing, she kenw he’d turn around… and just on cue.
“Stop,” he said to the men. And they stopped pushing her.
“You have a lot of nerve you know?” Matt asked her, and his hands were on his pockets, he looked a lot younger.
“Ha! Me? A lot of nerve? I know more about you than you know!” She with a cold laugh.
“Do you, you know nothing,” He said to her.
“Ah, I’d say what I want to but the truth will stink like Ivy,” She said, and he just looked at her.
“I know something huge, a part of you, that you’ll never know,” She continued, letting him freeze in his own confusion.
“Let’s go, take her!” A man older came in through the door, and the men started pushing her again.
“Matt, if you knew, you’d never be able to live without Rose, without your family, you’ll never be able to hate her! That’s your problem! You-mmm!” The last thing she saw was the fist of a woman she’d never seen before.

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Chapter Twenty-eight

“She was probably lying,” James said as he looke at Rickia Johnson on the floor, her dark hair was under her, she was a pretty brown eyes african, but she was probably just another stupid role in his miserable life.
“Hey Matt, go to Sarah she’s in the next room,” He said to Matt.
“Yeah, hopefully it won’t be as dramatic,” Matt said. He took the next folder and looked at it, then he walked out with his eyes looked on the open folder in his hands.
“Jessica, come with me,” James said to his sister.
“Where?” She asked as they walked out of the integorations unit.
“Do you know were Short Rose Avenue is?” He asked her.
“Um, yeah, just by the contryside,” She said, “Near Joliet.”
“Let’s go there.”
James drove fast, he needed to see this street, a couple of weeks before he had discovered that the name Rose Orenda had a meaning, Rose forr Rose, and Orenda for Short. It was a comepltely crazy theory based on something that probably had no luck but it was a try.
“Turn right here,” Jessica said.
He turned on the street and parked his car on the side.
“Put this on,” James handed her a regular shirt and jeans, and he slipped his top off and put on a regular blue shirt.
“What are we doing?” Jessica asked as she put slipped on the jeans and threw her other black pants in the backseats.
“We’re going to take a walk down this street.” He said as he buttoned his jeans.
“And we need to change for this?” Jessica asked him in annoyance as she pulled her neatly done bun into a not so neat pony tail.
“Yeah,” He said to her.
He stepped out of the car, and she did as well and they began to walk down the street.
“So why did we come here?” Jessica asked.
“Because, I have a theory.” He said as he watched some kids play on their driveways.
“And this is based on what?” Jessica asked him.
“It’s based on a crazy theory,” He said to her.
“Well look, no offense, but this jacket you gave me is so last year,” His sister said as she zipped up her black sleek jacket.
“You’re lucky I didn’t make you wear the brown one—” James paused, he wasn’t sure if he was looking right.
“What?” Jessica asked.
“Look at that little girl!” James whispered to her.
“What about her?” Jessica asked.
“Look at her hair! Look at her nose! Look at her face!” He said.
“The one playing in front of that brick house? With that lady sitting on the step reading the book?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah!” He whispered.
“She…” James looked at the girl, her hair was as dark as Matt’s, she had the features Matt had but her eyes were different, it was too far away to see.
“Oh my god look!” Jessica pointed to a car coming, the little girl had dropped her ball and it was rolling down the driveway… into the street, the middle of the street.
“She’s like three years old she can’t run that fast!” Jessica said, her face was totally sad, she looked like she was going to cry. As Jessica said all of this and he studied this, his mind was going over a hundred miles per hour trying to make sense of this, three years old, that’s long enough for Rose to have a kid. That’s a good estimation… he knew something was going on here. But before another second passed Jessica was running down the sidewalk.
He ran after her, at the little girl, then the car started beeping and Jessica grabbed the girl.
“Omigod!” The woman from the steps was standing up walking towards Jessica.
“Omigod are you okay?” The woman said to the little girl.
“Yeah,” The little girl said quietly, she was clutching Jessica with horror on her face.
“Are you okay little girl? What’s your name?” Jessica asked the girl.
“Her name’s Ivy Salinas, I can’t believe this!” Another woman was walking towards them, she was Mexican, she had brown hair and she was probably in her thirties or forties.
“Uh, grandma?” The little girl let go of Jessica and stretched her arms out for her grandma.
“Um…” He was silent, everything was going so fast.
“Hello, I am Daisy Ezpinoza,” The woman stretched her hand out and Jessica shook it.
“I’m Nicole Hanson,” Jessica said to her, “I had a shock when I saw your child in the middle of the street.
“Oh I heard the beep and I saw her in the street, I can’t thank you enough, ooo! Carmen go inside real fast and turn off the stove!” Daisy said, Carmen ran inside immediately, he thought she was probably embarrased.
“Wow, I can’t believe this, this is just too fast,” Daisy said.
“Yeah, are you her mother?” James asked.
“No, my daughter is at work but I’m so glad you were here oh god,” The woman was really pretty, she was Mexican, and she had brown eyes and she was tall, thin, and she had long brown hair.
“Wow, I’m so glad you were here!” Daisy said still hugging her grandaughter.
“Oh, we’re looking for a home and we heard there was a home about somewhere in this area, we don’t know the place well we just moved here to Chicago,” He said.
“Are you two married?” Daisy asked them.
“No, I am Will Hanson and this is my sister, as you know,” He said.
“Oh, well, I don’t know about any free houses but, oh my god it be great if we had you for dinner!” Daisy said to them, Jessica looked at him, her look was hidden under casual curiosity but he saw her questioning him.
“That wouldn’t be necessary,” Jessica said shaking her head but smiling.
“No! I insist, I can’t thank you enough!” Daisy said once again.
“Um, okay, we don’t have naything but an apartment on Wellingson Street with just two rooms, are you sure it’s no trouble?” He said looking at her with a kind face.
“Yes, I mean, no, no trouble at all, come back at six we’ll have something special ready, and you can meet my daughter she’ll be very pleased!” Daisy said, in inside him, there was a tiny yelp that came deep within his heart…. Yes!

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Chapter Twenty-nine

“Mom I can’t go, I mean Hope and Raquel, you know Butler’s nieces came to the ageny to help us and I can’t leave them here!” Her Daughter Rose whispered to her.
“What’s the problem?” She asked her daughter.
“Well, it just doesn’t seem proffesional, leaving them in the ageny alone, on their first day here!” She said to her.
“Well I’ll invite them to dinner too but come on Rose! This man and his sister saved Ivy’s life today don’t you care?” She asked her daughter.
“What? Iot was just a car mom!”
“No buts, you better come to dinner! You know what, I’ll call Mitch and tell him to bring Raquel and Hope, it’s only minutes before they get here!” She said as she looked at the clock,
“It’s only five o’clock mom, I know how to tell time, and minutes? Dinner’s at six so can’t you wait?”
“No, you better get home right now and start dressing up, I don’t want you in the table with your usual sweaty self!” She said.
“What? Sweaty Self? Mom whatever, bye I’ll see you in a bit.” Rose said irritated.
“Fine, you better be here!”


“So, you really think this is a lead?” Jessica asked him as he parked the car in front of the house.
“Of course, the girl looks just like Matt, except for the eyes, which I suspect must be Rose’s, and Daisy’s last name is Ezpinoza, this is no lead, this is it, and you’re asking about the dad,” James said.
“Done, but….”
“But what?” He asked.
“This just doesn’t feel right,” She said to him.
“Whatever, we can’t back out now, let’s go,” HE said firmly.
They stepped out of the car and quietly marched up the steps, they looked around as they knocked on the door.
“Oh, welcome, you must be Will and you’re Nicole!” They looked at a young man, probably in his early twenties, he was smiling warmly and looking tired.
“Yeah, how many people came for dinner?” Jessica asked with a laugh.
“Oh, just special family members, well come on in!” He said to them.
“I’m Mitch,” He said as they stepped in.
“I’m Will, nice to meet you,” He said as he shook his hand. “It’s mighty cold, out there,” He added.
“Yeah—”
“Oh goody you’re here!” Daisy stepped out from a doorway and greeted them.
“Don’t be so welcoming,” A man stepped out from the doorway with a chuckle.
“Hello I’m Dill, you must be Will and Nicole, man she hasn’t stopped blabbing about you since I got here,” He said to them, he was probably his age, and he founded already suspicious that he was his age and fit, like him….
“Oh, shucks,” Jessica said with a smile.
“That’s what I said,” Dill said to her.
“Rose! Rose come here!” Daisy yelled into the other room, and his eyes grew large when he saw Rose step into the room, she had long brown hair, like her mother, shiny milky skin, tall, thin, and her eyes were just like Ivy’s. Except you could really tell the sparkle in them, she had a red mix in the brown.
Matt hadn’t described her enough.
Hewr pressence lit the whole room, her eyes her beauty, the long brown hair, it flew behind her weightlessly.
“Hello,” Nicole said with smile.
“Oh, mom told me all about you, I can’t thank you enough, if you hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t be here in this warm evening, we’d be in the hospital. Thank you so much,” She said to them with a deliteful smile.
“Oh, what else could we do?” Jessica said.
“Dinner’s almost ready, you could join us in the living room,” Daisy said, and they did, they followed her into a neatly furnished room, were two other young females were sitting at with Mitch on the other couch talking to them.
“Hope, Raquel, this is Will and Nicole, Nicole, Will, Hope, Raquel,” Dill said to them, they shook hands briefly before gathering into conversation.
“So, Will your awfully quiet, what do you do for a living?” Rose asked him.
“I’m a salesman, I know the job sucks, slammed a couple of doors into some in my day but, you have to live with a living,” He said.
“Ah, crappy job, wouldn’t like it myself,” She said as she took a sip from her glass of wine.
“What do you do?” He asked as he looked at her, he didn’t look at her with curiosity, he just looked at her like any other person.
“Oh, I’m a lawyer, hate the job, always have to be fair,” She said.
“It’s not always like Law and Order, you have it worse, you don’t get paid well, you have to work over nights, sometimes you have to talk to people you don’t want…” Mitch said.
“You two work together?” Jessica asked.
“Yes, me and Rose, and Mitch do,” Dill said.
“Don’t forget about us! We’re working our way up too!” Hope said.
“Yup, ready for the cash to come rolling!” Raquel said.
“Ah, it’s not that easy, I’d rather have a job not dealing with people, it makes it easier, but not as good pay,” He said to them.
“I see your working days as a salesman has fit you right,” Rose said.
“Oh yes, well no, not really, I worked out in the gym a lot, but that was back when my wife was still here, no I’m getting heavier again,” He said, trying to look gloomy.
“Oh, she’s gone?” Daisy asked.
“Yes, both of our mates are gone… they had an affair,” Jessica said quietly, he looked at the side of the chair, while Jessica looked at the ground.
“I’m teribly sorry,” Dill said to her.
“Oh, it’s okay, he was a bloody bastard anyway,” Jessica murmured.
“Amen to that!” Rose spoke out as she took a sip from her glass of wine once again.
“Your husband is gone too?” Jessica asked, while letting a chuckle.
“Yes, gone with the wind I’d say, the last time I saw him,” Rose said to her.
“But you’re so young…” He said to Rose.
“Yes, young love, always betraile.” She said.
“What are you, in your early twenties?” He asked her.
“Oh no, I’m still nine-teen,” She said.
“Wow, you’re Ivy’s mother right?” Jessica asked.
“Yes, I married young, had a child, broke up, and I got stuck with Ivy, I daresay it’s not like getting stuck with Ivy is a good way to put it. That would mean it’s a bad thing.” Rose said.
“And you support yourself?” Jessica asked, she was looking at Rose in awe, maybe she wasn’t faking it, James thought.
“Well yes, but Mitch helps me,” She said.
“You two are together?” He asked them, and he just noticed that he had his arm around her waist.
“Yeah, I mean, together, not anything official,” Mitch said.
“Excuse me, dinner is ready.” A maid came in.


“They seem innocent enough.” Mitch said to her as he followed her into the kitchen after she was following her mother.
“Yeah, I guess, I never doubted them.” She said to him.
“Yes, but you didn’t want to come to dinner huh?” Her mother said to her.
“Uh…” She said as she leaned against the kitchen cabinet.
“And since when are we together?” Mitch asked her with a sly grin.
“Well I didn’t want them to keep asking me about Ivy’s dad so I just said you and me were together, plus who said you could put your arm around my waist?” She asked him with a smile.
“Oh I don’t know….”
“Hurry up you lovebirds,” Her mother said to them, they stepped outside the kitchen and entered the dining table, others were settling down.
“You have to be kidding me,” Nicole was telling Butler.
“No way, they were playing yesterday at the Roster Center,” Butler was telling her.
“I can’t believe it, those tickets were sold out!” Will said.
“Nu uh, I got it off ticketmaster,” Hope added to the conversation.
“TicketMaster? I’m not much of a computer person?” Will said with a chuckle, and as Mitch grabbed the chair and scooted it back for her to sit, she only had one thought circleing her head… this is gonna be a long time.


“What?” Matt couldn’t believe it, this had to be a lie.
“And apparently Rose is together with that one guy Mitch,” Jessica told him, and everything was drainign from him, all the energy the support he felt, the thoughts he once had.
“Look, it’ s no big deal,” James said to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going?” Matt said.
“Because when we were invited to dinner it was ten to five, you know how long it takes to change during that time?” Jessica said to him.
“Why couldn’t I go?” James brother Jaimie said.
“Because you weren’t there,” Jessica said.
“Oh and great story, they had an affair…” Jaimie said making really ugly sob motions.
“Hey, we had to make them feel sorry for us, so they thought that we were just a trajic poor family!” Jessica said.
“Anyway, what does all of this conclude too?” Matt asked, well yelled really.
“What? You ask, it concludes, that we, have a way in, a way in to what we don’t know.”
“That made no sense,” He said.
“OK, we know something’s up, this guy there, he was big like, huge, his name was Dill, and he was as old as I am and the same size I was! What’s the coincidence of a man being that fit that age?” James asked him defensively.
“OK look, fine, whatever, so is that all?” Matt asked them.
“Well… not exactly,” Jessica said.
“What?”
“Well, see, remember how we even got invited to dinner?”
“Yeah, the little girl kid,” He said rolling his eyes.
“Yeah…. That’s Rose’s child,” Jessica muttered, and earlier, when he felt drained, now he felt completely empty.
“What?”
“Rose has a child, a little girl,” James said, he felt betrayed he couldn’t believe it, she had a child with this… Mitch guy, he felt a feeling he had truly, never felt before, and that was the feeling to murder, he’d always kill a person before but, he’d never felt the pleasure of death.
“We have to find out how long Mitch and her have been together, wait, did Mitch have blonde hair? Blue eyes?” He asked.
“No, he was dark, he had dark hair, he was tanned, probably italian, or spanish.” Jessica said while scratching her head.
“Why?” James asked him.
“That little girl is what? Three? Three and a half years old? Me and Rose ave only been apart four years, she wsa practically cheating on me while we were together!” He said, spitting.
“Or…. Maybe not,” Jaimie said to him, he looked like he had just woken up.
“What?” He blurted, while he felt a twisted jealous feeling.
“That child, has Rose’s eyes, but when I look at her face, you know what I see?” Jessica said to him, looking at him straight in the eye, “You.”


“Damn! Ow! Watch the nails asshole!” Rickia yelled at the guard that had pushed her on the chair.
“What now?” She sputtered looking up at Matt’s face, she expected a cold, serious face, but his face, he looked a lot more younger now, he was sitting right across from her now, but he was sitting with his legs opened, not proffesional, just a guy, his face was completely drained of color, into a soft bage, his lips were pink and small, his eyes were boring holes into the table. She looked around and saw the woman that had punched her before sitting at the corner, fixing her nails. She was really pretty, and tall.
“I need your help Rickia,” He said, he didn’t yell, he didn’t sound like a smart ass, he just said some of the kindest words she’d heard since she had entered this place.
“You think I’m gonna help you? With whatever you need help with anyway?” She asked, softening a little bit, Matt and her had been lab partners in their sophomore year, she knew there was a kind side to him.
“Tell me…. Please…. whose the father… of Rose’s Child?” He took an awful long time to say this, he sounded like he was going to cry, and she knew, that he still loved her, through all those long four years, he still loved her, he’d never stopped loving her.
How did he know about Ivy though? She thought, what could’ve happened? Only two days in that miserable building and they were already at war? What was happening?
“I’ll make you a deal, you let me go, and I’ll tell you some of the things you want to know,” She said to him, her tone was soft but her words were harsh.
He looked over at the blonde woman at the corner, Rickia wasn’t racist or nothing, she was african,she knew her place in life, she knew how to treat people, equal, but she always did have an attitude with blonde chicks.
“Fine, deal,” She said to her without looking.
“Uh… okay, first? What?” She asked.
“What is Rose running?” The woman asked.
“Next.”
“What’s her task?”
“Don’t know, next.”
“How big is it?”
“Big.”
“Big?”
“Huge.”
“Is that right?” She looked up at a man, two men, they were identical, except the other one had a darker shade of blonde.
“Yeah, that’s right,” She said.
“So this… it. It’s huge, what is it?” The other man said.
“I already said I’m not telling.” She said.
“Fine, does the Y-Unit know of it?”
“Yes,” She said.
“Dammit whose Ivy’s father?” Matt suddenly yelled, he was looking at her and his eyes were huge, flaring, flaring with cold misery.
Then one of the men dropped a photo onto the table, and she saw, Rose’s mother Daisy, and she saw the blonde woman at the corner, there, holding Ivy. And one of the twins there as well looking at Daisy… and Ivy was clutching the blonde woman.
She looked at Matt, she was scared, he honestly didn’t know….
“She’s yours.”

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Chapter Thirty

Rickia knew that she couldn’t go back to The Rose, she had told Matt that Ivy was his daughter, Rose would never forgive her for letting that secret out, that was more important to Rose than anything. Ivy. How oculd she had done this? Now she knew how it felt to betray yourself, she ran down fifth avenue, there was no way she could possibly ever face Rose.
All of a sudden she felt herself being taken down, she knew immediately it was somebody Matt probably ordered to kill her.
“Get off me!” She growled, she did a spinning kick but when she looked at her attacker she regretted ever doing any kicks in her life.
“Oh! Mitch! I’m sorry!” She said as she kneeled down to help Mitch.
“Damn, who trained you?” He asked as he looked at the blood that had bleeded from his lips.
“Rose,” She said with a grin, but deep inside her she felt like someone had dumped a brick in her stomach.
“Where have you been? We thought you were kidnapped, well we saw you and Sarah taken into these Popeyes trucks—we’ve been so ansxious—What’s happened? God where where you?” Mitch asked her in a hurried town, his eyes were filled with worry.
“Uh,” She couldn’t talk, the brick on her stomach was too huge for her, she started crying, she wept and put her face on her hands. She could see herself, pathetic, stupid.
“What, what’s going on?” Mitch asked her, and he cradled her in his arms.
“I did it, I blew it, Rose will never—” She kept crying, it was so painful.
“Rose What? What will she never do?” Mitch asked her.
“She’ll never forgive me, she’s going to be mad at me,” She said, and when she looked up she saw noticed that there was a blade sprouting from Mitch’s boot.
“Why? Why will she be mad?” Mitch asked her trying to soothe her.
“Because, I told Matt, I told him about Ivy,” She wept, she couldn’t stop, she didn’t want to live, Rose had been like a sister to her, and she had sold her secret away, she knew that if she had a secret like that Rose would’ve let herself rot in that building just for her.
“Whose Matt?” Mitch asked.
“And that woman, the blonde lady, and the other men, the twins… the blue eyed people, they all know,” She said, she felt like everything was spinning, and she looked at the blade in Mitch’s boot, it was shining she wanted her fingers around it, she wanted to end.
“Blonde lady? What’s going on?” Mitch asked her.
“I’m doomed, Ivy’s in danger, get her out of the city, get her and Daisy away from Chicago as soon as possible,” She managed to say.
“What’s going on Kia?” Mitch asked her looking at her in the eye.
“I just told you, Ivy, Daisy, get them away from here, protect Rose Mitch, you love her, I know you do. You’ve loved her since you laid eyes on her, I know it.” She said wiping her eyes. “You’d do anything for her, and what Rose cares more about is her family, so get Ivy and Daisy away from here, they’re in danger.” She repeated.
“But, but, come with me, come on, we have to go to the Rose,” Mitch said to her.
“No, no, I can’t go,” She shook her head viciously, nodding very fast.
“Why?” Mitch asked her.
“Because I sold Rose out, I sold her Mitch, I sold her—”


Mitch looked at Rickia, she was staring boring holes into his eyes, but when he looked at his hand, blood was all over it, someone has a gun, he thought immediately, the shot had been loud and entered her heart from the back. He looked up skanning the area, the wound was in the middle off her back, which meant that someone was staring straight at them.
And then he saw a man running, he had dark brown hair, and light skin, his eyes were a huge dark brown.
He ran, he dropped Rickia like a book and ran, this wasn’t happening, he thought, not happening not happening. He opened his cellphone and as he ran he dialed Rose’s cellphone number.
“Hello?”
“Rose! Get Ivy and Daisy into an airplane right now, doesn’t matter where! As a matter of fact it does, take them somewhere far from here,” He yelled.
“What?” He heard the screeching of a brake, “Mitch were are you?” Rose asked him.
Bsshhh
“Mitch please tell me that was not a gunshot I just heard!” Rose yelled.
“Do what I say now! If I’m not at the Rose by two hours send Butler to look for me!” He yelled and quickly snapped the phone shut, he ran into an alley, and pressed his back against the dumpster, trying to catch his breathe.
“He went in here I saw him,” A man said.
“Matt, we’re going to look in other parts,” He heard another voice, a woman, it was so familiar.…
He heard the footsteps of a man approaching, and a bolt of lightning struck, and as soon as it appeared, pouring rain fell all over his head.
The footsteps now could be heard over the puddle of water, and then the man approached the front of the Alley, he stood up, and his footsteps made a noise as he stood, and the man turned around. He was no older than he, he observed.
“Hai!” He blocked the kick sent and the next kick, then grabbed hold of his foot and twisted it the other way, he fell into a heep on the floor, he grabbed a wallet found in his coat pocket and opened it, he had a Master Card, which was assigned to Matt Salinas….
“Ah!” He shouted, then he felt his own walet being taken out from it’s holder.
“So, Mitch, you’re the asshole that’s trying to sleep with my wife!” He heard, and he closed his eyes as he felt himself pushed into a wall.
“What?” He blurted.
“You heard,” But Mitch turned around and punched the guy right in the face, then he kicked him in the stomach.
“Wife? Hey I’m not seeing anybody,” He said.
“Really, Rose Orenda Ezpinoza Salinas mean anything to you?” He froze, what? What did this mean, what Kia had said…. She had told Matt, about Ivy, this man was …. No, not possibly, Rose said he was dead.
“What, don’t kid yourself,” He said.
“I wasn’t build in this world to talk,” Matt spitted.
“Neither was I,” He quickly noticed after the first two hits that this guy was good. He was great, he then kicked him in the stomach, and Mitch grabbed his feet and pulled them from the ground, and he did a quick push from his hands and stood up.
“Just like in the movies,” He said.
“Yeah whatever look I don’t know what you know but whatever it is it’s probably false information,” He tried to say as Matt shot three perfect kicks that would’ve hit him if he hadn’t ducked.
“I thought you weren’t build in this world to talk.”


Mitch hit him then, Matt fell back, but quickly forced himself to stand up, this wasn’t working, he knew that Mitch probably didn’t want to fight, but he wanted to destroy him.
He punched him in the face and Mitch punched him back, he then grabbed his hand and with all his force jumped up and kicked him in the jaw. He hadn’t heard a crack.
“Matt!” He looked back to see Jaimie and Jessica.
“You!” Mitch spitted, he was now on his feet, stepping back, looking at Jessica and Jaimie with such hatred.
“You were spies!” Mitch said once more.
“Huh?” Jaimie blurted.
But Mitch ran out from the alley.
“How’d you find him?” Jessica asked him.
“I followed Rickia, I knew she’d want to get hold of anything to warn Rose about her and Sarah, but I saw Mitch find Rickia and I didn’t hear a word he said or she but I killed her so she wouldn’t say more. I chased Mitch in here.” He said.
“Look we just go tnews of another glitch.” Jessica said.
“Glitch?” Matt asked looking at a couple of pictues form the cellphone’s camera.
The photographs were showing letter written by somebody, many letters, the handwritting were typed so he couldn’t make a match.
“Who wrote these? And who were they sent to?” He asked.
“They were being sent to New York, to a house which just burned last night, and if you see it’s all code talk, they were sent by a Johnathon Wiatt.”
“What?” He snapped looking up, Johnathon, no way, this was totally weird.
“Johnathon Wiatt.” Jessica repeated.
“I can’t believe this….” He murttered.
“Know him?” Jaimie asked.
“Yeah, Johnathon Wiatt was my best friend when I wa sin High School the reason me and Rose split up,” He forced himself to speak.
“We need you in AA right now the letters are there for you to see them, they were send to some Jane girl.” Jaimie said.
“Yes his sister, I remember her, we went out in a date once,” He said looking back.
“We need you in the office now though, we’re getting a bunch of spam from a Mafia from Los Angeles.” Jessica said.
“This all makes sense, Johnathon moved to L.A. and he was involved in some criminal activities, I know because news traveled from his sister.” He said.
“All this gang banging stuff is comepletely code, he’s talking to his sister about Mafia work and him saying he got his ass wooped, only means that he lost a lot of money,” He said as he looked at the pictures.
“Well, you might as well look at them for real, cause we’ve got tons being faxed to us form the AA Location in Las Vegas.”

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Chapter Thirty-one

“Rose!”
“Mitch, we’re glad you’re ok!” Hope sprung up from her seat and hugged Mitch, Rose tried to focus on her pants other than them.
“So, what happened?” She asked him.
“We need to talk,” He sputtered.
“What, about?” She asked.
“Did you get Daisy and Ivy out of the city?” He asked her.
“No,” She said dully.
“Agh! Rose when I tell you to do something it’s not for you to just sit here and wonder where I’ve been, we need to talk right now!” He yelled. For the first time she felt scared of him.
“Fine, let’s go to my office,” She said.
“No you know what, it’s ok I can say this here,” He said upbruptly.
“Fine, what?” She asked him getting angry.
“First, look at me, my lip is cut and bleeding, I’m soaking wet, I have a goddamn cellphone that doesn’t work anymore,” He threw his cellphone at the time and she saw that it was smashed and wet.
“And why the hell did you not ever tell me that Matt Salinas is alive!” He yelled.
She froze, she felt her mouth slide open, how on Earth did he know about Matt?
“How do you know about Matt?” She asked defensively.
“Because he just killed Rickia and nearly killed me!” He shouted.
“Look….” She meant to say something but she couldn’t think, she felt like crying, she felt everyone looking at her.
“So, whose Matt?” Hope asked.
“He, is Ivy’s father, who Rose told me was dead, but he’s not, according to the ID I saw he’s rich, and he’s working for Anonymous Assasin,” He said as he threw down Matt’s Wallet.
She grabbed it, she opened it and tears spilled from her eyes as she saw his picture, his Master Card, in the back it had a small inprinted number, it was a ten, she had never seen one, probably nines at least, this meant it was a billion dollars in that small card. And then she looked at another ID, she gasped, his smooth jaw and his beautiful brown eyes were looking back at her, but this Id was an Anonymous Assasin Top Agent Identification.
“How, how did you find him?” She gasped as she looked at more cards.
“Well I found Rickia walking like crazy on the street, and she told me that she had told Matt about Ivy, and that you better get them out of here, far away from here.” Mitch said coldly.
“And Will and Nicole, they’re spies,” Mitch added know finally sitting down on a chair.
She grabbed the phone and dialed Butler’s cellphone number, she knew he was visitting the house and if anything happened he would call her, so she knew that thank god nothing yet had happened.
“Hello?” Butler asked.
“Butler get my mom and Ivy into an airplane right now, don’t ask why just do it,” She said, “And get them far form here I don’t know where and I can’t say where because the phones may be tapped,” She hung up the phone and stood up, she was not going to sit there and do anything, no way, at that moment that was the last thing she needed to do.
“Now where are you going?” Mitch asked her as she stepped out of the room.
“I have to talk to Matt,” She said.
“He wasn’t made in this world to talk, believe me,” Mitch said.
“Look, no offense but I know him more than you do,” She shouted.
“Uh, no, it’s been what, three? Four years?” He asked her.
“Four,” She said.
“Fine four, and a lot’s changed, he’s good at what he does, according to his ID he’s a top Agent, you know what you have to do to get there? You have to sign papers, get into this huge room and do all this crazy stuff to probably find what? A fake Jewel? And he obviously did it, Anonymous Assasin is a very high Agency, I’ve known about them since L.A. And let me tell you this, they’re very protective of themselves and what they have, Matt is the same, he now has a child that he didn’t know about, do you have any idea what that does to a man?” Mitch asked but she interrupted him.
“How would you know?” She asked him defensively.
“Because I had a child Rose! I had one and she died! My daughter, my only daughter died! But I never got to hold her, and it sucks, you know? Because I didn’t know I had a daughter until I found out that the baby had died, my girlfriend and I had broken up, she had started seeing some other guy and got preganant, and that baby was mine! And I knew the feeling of what it was to have a child Rose, you’re not the only one! But I never even saw my kid, except her god damn grave! Matt hasn’t either! He feels really empty right now! I bet you ten grand that right now he feels like someone’s taken out all his insides but dumped a stupid red brick in him, and he will do nothing, to see his child Rose, do you understand that?” He shouted.
“Look Mitch, when I came back from New York! I didn’t know I was preganant, honestly I found out a month later! And there was no way I was going to tell Matt, I didn’t even know where he was! For god’s sake Mitch, I didn’t do this on purpose, because if I knew back then that this was going to happen we probably wouldn’t be here!” Rose shouted.
“What are you doing?” Mitch asked her as she took off her shirt and put on another one.
“I’m still going,” She stated.
“Look, fine, whatever,” Mitch said and he stepped aside.
She put on a red rock and roll wig and a couple of accessories.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere if I were you,” Hope said to her, she looked at the mirror and saw her standing by the door.
“Really?” She asked not really paying attention to the answer.
“You know what? I have a feeling you don’t like me and Raquel, since we got here I mean, you don’t seem to have like been enough nice to us like everyone else,” Hope said.
“Is that what you think?” She asked as she looked at her.
“No, that’s what I know,” Hope said with a grin, she couldn’t help noticing that that was something that she would say.
“Anyways I have to go out, I’m in a crisis,” She said mainly to herself.
“No your not, they are, and plus they were the ones that were looking for you, not the other way around remember?” Hope said.
“Yeah, I know.” She said.
“Anyway I called my friend from the Ageny, she said she could come down and help us,” Hope said.
“We don’t’ really need any help.” She said as she finally turned to look at Hope.
“That’s what people think is a hero, but it’s not Rose, start letting people in, let people help you,” Hope said to her.
“But I don’t need help,” She repeated.
“You need help desperately, you think this place is proof of your greatness? Sure you did it all, but it’s not what you want is it?” Hope asked her, and she looked at Hope straight in the eye and sat right accros her.
“You know you and Raquel, this is what pisses me off about you, you’re so free, you can do what you want without carring, I can’t,” She said.
“Yes you can, just cause you’ve had a kid doesn’t mean anything, she’s being in good hands, she’s being taken care of,” Hope said.
“But that’s not the point, I want to be the one doing that, what I want most in the world is a goddamn family, and I can’t have that because, because I fucked everything up!” She said.
“Only a little,” Hope said to her with a smile. “But you can always fix it.”
“I don’t know how,” She said to Hope.
“That’s why you ask for help,” Hope said to her.

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Chapter Thirty-two

“Damn, you killed our way in Jessica,” James cursed in in the room. Matt, Jaimie, Jessica, James, and Top Agent Jagred (They called him Jag) were sitting in Matt’s new office, Matt liked his office. He made sure there was color in it unlike the other rooms.
“And that kid took your AA ID, and your Master Card, that’s a Major Loss,” Jag said.
“Yeah I know, he didn’t want to fight me, well at least not much,” He said as he looked at the bruise on the side of his face on the mirror that was hanging from the ceiling.
“He’s good at whatever he does or is involved with,” He said mainly to himself.
“What do you th ink Rose will do now?” Jaimie asked him, and he took a while to answer, getting lost in thought.
“I don’t know, when we were dating if anything of the sort happened, or alike like this she’d want to talk to me. She doesn’t like problems, she’s a problem fixer, a perfectionists, she definitely doesn’t like problems, but time’s past on, I don’t know her well anymore.” He put his head on his hand.
“Hmmm, I doubt she’s changed,” James said, looking at the table, “but this Mitch fellow, I doubt they’re together, he seems alert, we want extra precaution around him.”
“James, let me ask you this, hwo did you ever come across Rose?” He asked James and James jerkedly looked up and studied him.
“Um, we had run a barrier hack, and we imediately spotted her on a camera, she was beating up a man we do not recognize but he died anyway, he was probably just looking for money so he could eat. Our guess. And her training, it was top, expert, we knew this was no Agent of ours and we had to investigate, AA is very protective and rank wise.” James added.
“Yes, anyone whose been in touch once or twice even, knows that,” Jag said.
“But what I want to know is how Mitch got involved in this whole situation, he’s no High School friend of mine.” He asked the table.
“Yes we’ve run a search already, and unlike Rose he did not delete his files, he was a child of the state, no parents, lived by working to the state, as in do you chores and you’ll be ok.” James said.
“Oh, so what’s the plan again?” Jaimie asked.


Rose entered the room, the day before Ivy and Daisy had been sent to Moscow, in Russia, with Rose’s Karate Trainer, and had let Carmen move into Rose’s house in New York.
It had been a day since she had received news from Matt, for once in her life, she was unsubtle, she actually tried to look well, she didn’t her if she looked tough mean or anything like before, she let hr emotions shine. As she sat next to Butler on the chair she glanced at Mitch, he was sitting looking at the metal table, the room was metal like the hallways but it actuallyhad some color. He’s eyes were actually lowered his hair was messy but not too much, he was stroking his chin, and he was tapping the table.
She looked at Hope, Hope and her now had an understanding, they were friends, Rose thought of how right she was, she somehow made sense, she had untangled a knot in Rose’s life, but Rose had a feeling it wasn’t going to be the first one. She was now perfectly friendly to Hope and Raquel, and had accepted their offer of calling their friend Kate, to come help. She had been surprised when Kate had arrived, her record showed an expert classification on armory and combat. And when a raggedy disguise coat was going to fall from the rack she had slipped a knife from her heel and flung it with perfect speed and aim at the wall and left it there hanging. Most people called her thirteen because she and her team (which was thirteen members) were ambushed by over twenty enemies and she had killed them all with a shot in the eye in less then twenty seconds.
The first one to speak was Butler, “We have a problem…” He exhaled.
“Yeah a huge problem,” Mitch added.
And for the first time she saw Raquel throw a remark at Mitch, “Don’t make it worse.” And Rose was happy to have Raquel as her friend, Mitch was not going to help her in this mission, because Rose had told him a lie, it was the first and only lie, but Mitch definitely had trusting issues.
“Whatever, this problem is different, this isn’t about a plot to rob somebody, to steal their money, to anything, this problem is someone wants to destroy us,” She finally spoke.
“I wonder why,” Mitch said looking directly at her.
“Shut it Mitch no one needs negative remarks here,” Hope said from opposite him and Rose felt a huge warmth cover her heart.
“Fine,” He said leaning in his chair and crossing his arms.
“They’re going to plan a night to struck,” Kate spoke, they told her that she could attend the meeting only if she didn’t swung knifes at anybody and she had agreed with a laugh and a smile.
“Most likely,” Paco said from the corner.
“Yes, and it’s going to be unsuspected, well to their minds, they want to attack, send someone in here plant a camera leave an ear, anything. You need to leave this building by tomorrow because they’ll probably already planning it, or it’s already planned.” She added.
“Yeah, but don’t forget, you’re thinking in a form that is pure physical work, they are going to do something, other I mean. That includes brainwork, count on that,” Juan said.
“True, but Kate’s right as well, we need to get out of the building as soon as possible, and then discuss about mind torture,” She said to them.
“But how are we going to evacuate without them noticing?” Christian asked.
“I don’t know, also, how did Rickia die?” Rose asked Mitch, she finally looked at him in the eye, he didn’t move only narrowed his eyes onto hers, and she put her chin on her hand, looking at him, her expression was cold, she had never looked at him that way, she could see the shivers on his back, she enjoyed it.
“Matt killed her, shot her in the back,” Mitch said looking back at the gorund.
“Who is Matt anyway?” Jason said. “Heard a lot from him.”
Mitch and Rose were trully the only ones to know, except for Raquel and Hope, but they had only heard Mitch yelling, they didn’t know a lot.
Mitch actually looked up and looked at her, waiting for the answer. And for once she felt brave, she felt like she had no courage but she somehow felt brave. She looked at the table, and then to Jason.
“He, Matt, is my husband,” She said.
“Huh?” Butler blurted from next to him.
“He, is Ivy’s father, I married him long ago, I haven’t sen him in years until that trip to New York to Leon,” She said, she actually felt talkative, she had never spoken about Matt to anybody really, only once to her mother years before.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Butler asked her.
“You really think I would’ve told you that I just actually saw my husband whom I haven’t seen in years?” She said with a smile.
“Sorry, nope, I saw him there, I was kind of scared, and when we came here too weird stuff started happening, also how is that matter of Cynthia Leon coming back to live going?” She asked looking back at Mitch.
“I actually haven’t even researched it yet, still working on cloning,” He said.
“I know how to clone.” Kate said from the other end.
“Humans? Nope don’t know either, trying to figuere it out.” Mitch said without looking up.
“Well duh, I didn’t mean animals, everyone knows how to do that, I may be a trained gun but I’m not stupid.” Kate said.
“What? Humans?” Now Mitch looked up.
“No trees,” Kate said sarcastically.
“Liar, no way,” He said looking at her, “Seriously?”
“Yeah, the only things you need are basic DNA and flesh.” She said.
“Flesh?” Raquel said.
“Yeah, a dead body really, the only thing you have to make sure of is the same sex, there’s obviously a better way but I haven’t figuered it out yet. You put them in two containers, in my case it was the refrigerators of my house, and a dead female body, I cloned myself once, but she was killed the next day by an enemy who was looking for me. She had no idea, otherwise she would’ve nailed him in the eye.” She said simply, almost bored.
“I’ve been cloning dead animals too, I know that part, and I knew that it would work on humans too I knew it.” He said it thinking.
“Well duh,” Kate said once more.
“Well that’s settled, how would….?” Rose had an idea. “But, how about this, we each clone ourselves and then sent our clones home, but meanwhile we go into the sewers and escape through there.”
“How do we go into the sewers?” Kate asked. “Because digging will take days.” She said.
“We don’t need digging. We have escape tunnels that are top security, even our employs don’t know about them.” Jason said.
“How many employs do you have anyway?” Kate asked.
“About a hundred, we’re very limited to who works with us and has access to us, and you can bet that we search our people good.” Christian said.
“What do you exactly do?” Kate asked.
“Well, Mitch and I started this company because we didn’t have a job, and we tried to supply people with the need to work that were able to do this with jobs, I mean you could do a one night trip and come back with thousands. We have exactly a hundred people working for us, and they are divided into ten people, they discuss their own missions and mostly just that. We supply them with what they need, if they need more than a thousand dollars worth of merchandise that costs them, see what they called is not over a million dollars but always close. We get fifteen percent of that money, sort of like waiters, they get fifteen percent of the bill. Because we served them with what they needed. It’s a very simple process. But it goes over a thousand dollars, which usually never does, we get five percent more for each a thousand dollars it costs us.” She said to Kate, Hope, and Raquel.
“Who thought of this?” Raquel asked.
“I did,” She said to them.
“What about the company?” Hope asked.
“I did,” Mitch spoke.
“Anyway, we’ve got our plan ahead, let’s get to it,” Butler said.

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Chapter Thirty-three

“Let’s go people let’s go!” Butler shouted over the noise.
He was trying to get all the people into the tunnel, after one full day of injecting people and taking their DNA out it was terrible.
“Hurry the line!” Christian shouted.
“It’s not easy dammit!” Jason shouted from the inside. They were at the absolute bottom and underground of the building trying to evacuate, they were taking DNA and passing it down to Mitch, Kate, and Hope. Raquel, Rose, and Juan were unpacking dead bodies on to tubs full of water half level.
Jason, and Jamile—who finally got the message and came back from Hawaii—were injecting the DNA into the water, taking temperature, and then finall starting the tanks.
“How many left?” She managed to say as loud as she could.
“Twenty,” Kate said as she looked down the line.
“In an hour and left to twenty? Damn that is fast.” Jason said while aking a tank’s temperature.
“Ok everybody in in!” Butler shouted as the last badge went in.
“Paco you there?” He spoke to his walkie talkie.
“Yeah, so far I’ve got sixty count,” She heard Paco’s voice.
“Good, the last of them are marching down there.” Butler said.
“Ok, laterz,” Paco said.
“How many clones are there yet?” Butler asked them.
“Look for yourself.” Mitch said, and she watched with a couple glances as he looked at them.
“Wow,” She heard him blurt. She couldn’t help but say the same thing, Mitch had been getting up and down from his seat trying to help the new born humans into this land to adjust.
He kept handing them clothes, and they all sat together looking at each other and some even talking.
“That’s the last one!” Raquel said putting her hands on her knees and taking in deep breaths, those dead bodies were fresh but very heavy.
“Yeah…” She said as she leaned against Juan’s back and they sat on the trunk of Juan’s truck.
“Dammit, but, we’ve got twenty DNA left for what? Nothing?” Mitch said.
“Look, they’re not gonna keep count on how many ppl we have, they don’t even know, all they need to see is people walking out of here.” Butler said.
“Yeah, but this is sick, those people are innocent, I can’t believe I even volunteered,” Kate said.
“Yeah, well it’s saving your ass.” Raquel said.
“But it’s true,” Hope said looking at the ground.
“God this is so sad,” Mitch said as he stood up and looked at the tanks.
“Shut up Mitch we don’t need that right now,” Juan said next to her.
“Really, and what the fuck do you wanna do about that huh? It’s saving your skin as well as mine, good thing we even came up with this!” Mitch spat looking at Juan, and Juan looked at him and stood up.
“Look, there could’ve been a better way, just cause we didn’t think of one, but either way you need to chill man,” Juan said looking at Mitch.
“Look! Right now the last goddamn thing wrong we need to happen is for us to start fighting! Damn it, we could die this night!” She yelled, she was so frustrated, but suddenly she was pissed off, she didn’t need to take Mitch’s bullshit that night, Juan was only trying to help, but Mitch’s paranoid self definitely wasn’t helping.
Mitch looked at her and his look was furious, but she knew that her look was probably twice as worse so he looked away, then she started stretching her hands, her fingers, and her neck, everybody looked at her, but then she was relaxed, and she looked around her.
“We need to make this work,” She said, and she turned around and walked over to the clones.
“Hello my fellow Agents!” She said as she walked over to the people in black sitting at the tables, some where females, some were males, blacks, white, tans, they were all different, but they were wearing the same suits. She had made them put on combat uniforms, just like the Y-Unit.
“Hello! I would like each of you to take one of these!” She said as she gave one of the guys a box, full of Y-Unit Ids, they were fake, but they were made by the same company that made the Y-Unit Ids.
“Now, you are part of my ageny, called the Y-Unit, I tell you now, we right now, have managed to dig underground, and go into one of thee, may I repeat myself thee, most criminalized illegal government in the world!” She paused and took another rest, but continued, “And I say, we are going to attack this Agency like they attacked us! You know, you are clones, because your fellow brothers and sisters died, they were thee best of thee best type of Unit that has ever served The Young! And we are glad to have you back!” She clapped and Butler and the rest started clapping and soon the clones did aswell. She even started faking a cry before she continued on, “Now,” Sniff, “I am glad to see you, but you are in for one last mission! Thee best recorded mission in history of the Y-Unit! Now, we are right now in one of the unused rooms of this company, it’s called Project Rose! Now, we are afraid that we are too late, but we may not be! I know this! As long as you serve this mission, you will be free! You go along with this mission! And you'’l be pretty glad to knowthis is your last mission!” She said and many started clapping.
“Now, we must evacuate, we’re sure that our fellow agency the Anonymous Asassin is helping us too! We are unsure but if you see them show your badge, or they will kill you, you’re guns and armor are over here we have supplied you with what you need! Please, help yourselves! And may I say, thank you! For you are thee best of a Unit I have had the pleasure to work with!” She said, they clappped and many started standing up and getting their armor.
“Now, I need to check radar in the building to check were we need to attack please bare with me!” She said, when she turned around everybody was looking at her confused, they had no idea of what she was doing because she hadn’t told them. Only Juan did, she had told Juan because she knew she could trust him, and she wasn’t in the exact mood for Christian’s goody goddy self (she didn’t mind it was just she didn’t want to cause her vein to pop or something in front of him) or Paco’s annoying smart self.
She connected a device in a plug at the corner, she saw electricity but of course no sign of movement, then she pointed her hand to the clones and they stood up and followed her point to the door, then she yelled, “Now!”
As soon as she said it everybody started moving, everybody moved into the room, and everybody on the other side started grabbing their stuff.
“Pack let’s go!” She said, she grabbed her portfolio and closed it, then she followed everyone else into the door, it was a huge door shaped in a circle.
“After you,” Butler said to her, and so she did, she watched and waited for Butler, he pulled the door, it was metal and heavy so he grunted as he did it, then looked at the combination on the side, it was a small little round wheel right on top of the door, he turned it two times then looked at the lock on the left hand of the door, several locks in fact, it could only be opened from the inside, and from the outside, but you had to know how to get in from the outside. What it was was that you went into one of the upper level rooms, and in one of the room’s closet you lifted the bottom with a knife or something thin, and lifted yourself in, then you dropped into a room, almost like a panic room but not quite, then there was a combination, you opened it and then another door would open, you went into that one and you opened that one, and that lock would open the door from the outside.
Butler locked the door with a key, the next he locked with handle, and the final he placed a metal bar over the door.
“Let’s go,” Butler muttered to her, and he started running and she followed after him, it was extremely hard to run with her portfolio but she could not possibly let go of it, it contained information that could not be revealed, and sould’ve probably never have been written but she had been paranoid to her own self.
As she ran the floor began to change quickly, soon it became instead of metal and nice and straight it started getting dirty, and round or uneven. Then they started stepping on the water, and then they reached an open tunnel, it was facing a dead end, there was only a tunnel full of water going the opposite way, but they stepped over the water, and climbed on the other side of thetunnel, where the dead end was, it was actually a way up, so they opened the top which led to a river, she struggled as she lifted herself, and as she lifted her head and smelled the air, she knew that something was going to happen that night.

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Chapter Thirty-four

Matt looked at the building, it was completely silent, but, he could see movement, wild movement, what was happening? “James you see this?” He breathed into his walkie talkie, “Yeah, I don’t know what the hell is happening but I’m not sure whether to go in or not,” James answered back through the ruffling and breathing through the sound.
“Maybe we should leave, I don’t like the feeling of this,” He said as he looked around.
“I know I have the same goddamn feeling James I don’t feel like going in there,” Jaimie’s voice popped into the conversation.
“Yeah, James you sure about this?” Jessica murttered too, sounding more scared than anybody else.
“Yeah, I mean, whoever that is they’ve got to be somebody else who got there first than us right? Rose wouldn’t make it so obvious,” James said, and he thought about it, James was right, Rose wouldn’t stay there, somebody had probably already busted them.

“You’re right that’s why they already left,” He said, he opened the back of the van he was in and everybody else in the van followed, they had tried to cause a break in without bust but obviously not. He stepped out and lifted his helmet off, he walked up the street straight up to the building, it was a big building at least eight or maybe nine stories high. It actually reminded him of AA but it was somehow different.
“Matt you don’t know that you better turn your ass around right now!” James muttered into his mic.
“James. They. Already. Left, whoever is in there they already busted them, or by the looks of it, not,” He said, as he saw a couple of agents come out of the building.
“Hey! AA!” He said he took out his badge and let it slip open and raised his arms as he saw one of the Agents turn to him with their gun raised and pointed straight at him.
“Yes, Anonymous Assasin, Y-Unit,” He said, he sounded fresh, somehow he sounded fresh.
“Who-What-Where-Damn it who are you talking to Matt? What the hell are you doing? And where the hell are you I can’t see you anymore!” James shouted.
“Prs!” He heard and he mouthed it, all of them had winced.
“I’m talking to a John Larcin from the Y-Unit,” He said as he glanced at the ID again.
“Wow…” Matt thought he heard right and then the Agent looked at his ID, and started walking away.
“Wait, where you going?” He asked the Agent.
“They’re looking for Rose too?” James asked into his ear.
“I’ve got to go,” The Agent repeated.
“Uh, ok, but where’s everybody in there?” He asked him quite puzzled.
“There’s nobody in there, Project Rose left before we could reach them,” He said to him.
“Oh, so that’s it?” Matt asked the Agent, feeling quite lost and weirded.
“Yeah, that’s it,” The Agent yelled and walked down the street, he had thrown his guns on the bushes and walked, and then one by one they all started walking, he looked at them with a puzzled look. He didn’t know what to do, “They’re not real!” One of his Agents squealed, he turned to the Agent. It was a female, probably as old as him, or younger since she was looking young and excited.
“What?” He asked her, she looked at him and looked sad.
“That’s Thirteen!” Another of the Agents asked.
“What? Wait, ya’ll gotta fill me in before anybody abruptly interrupts and shocks my mood even more with awe,” He said feeling like he was reading from a book.
“They’re not real, they’ve got marks on their backs see, like someone pushed a cigarette lighter from a car into the back of their necks! They’re clones!” The girl squealed, and he turned around to look, yeah they did have those marks, they were gleaming red, when he turned back to look at the girl however she was looking at the marks and then looked at him and quieted down.
“Thirteen!” The other girl—not as shy—yelled, but they didn’t turn, not one.
“Hey! You! Brunette with the gun!” She yelled, and this time she did turn around, but threw a knife straight at his agent, he looked at it, and as if in slow motion, stretched his hand out and snatched it from the air, it pierced through his index finger and he let his arm fall from the air and let out a small, ‘ouch.’
“OK, stop! We are AA, we mean no harm, we just want to know where the occupants of this building went!” He looked up and saw James and Jaimie along with Jessica coming towards them, Jessica was walking with her arms down but James and Jaimie had their hands up as if to say that they weren’t armed.
“We don’t know, we only know that we were suppose to destroy the people that were in here, but they’re gone, they said that this was our last mission,” Thirteen said.
“Who said this?” James asked.
“Our leader, she said that we were cloned because our brothers and sisters died, and now we’ve been brought back for another chance,” Thirteen said shortly, and turned around.
“You believe this?” Matt asked James looking up, the Agent girl that wasn’t shy was tightning her bandana around his wound and it hurt.
“What else is there to believe? I mean—”
Boooosssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


“I knew that would happen,” He said.
“So you set the alarm?” Weinston asked him.
“No, but when Rose came back from the break she went to her home, she came back with a portfolio, it was black, almost fake looking, it’s not nice because it didn’t need to be nice looking. It was the countdown to a bomb, I’ve used many them in countless occations,” He said, turning on the car and driving slowly away.
“But Jo—I mean sir, why are we doing this AA has nothing against us,” Weinston asked him sounding almost like a three year old.
“Because the man who got the knife through his finger, is the man I most despise, and hate,” He said simply passing while the red light and causing two cars to brake and start yellign at him.
“You mean, that, no way, that man was Matt Salinas?” Weinston asked turning aorund and looking at the sidemirrors expecting a helicopter or something.
“Yes, my once friend but now bitch, yeah that’s him, ey me passas esa pluma?” He said.
“Yeah,” Wenston said as he picked up the pen and handed it to him.
“But, wow, what’s he doing with AA?” Weinston aske dhim now sounding like a dog.
“I don’t know, he’s a Top Agent I know that, billionaire too, I know how fast he passed his test and believe me, AA like's to give out to their employers,” He said as he lit a cigarette and turned right.
“How—” Weinston stopped because his cellphone started ringing, and Weinston kmnew better than to countinue, the scar on the right side of his right eye proved it.
“Hello?” He said as he snapped the phone open.
“What?” He turned, now he was speaking in German, and he didn’t like what he was hearing, he didn’t want to negotiate with the German Facilities but unfortunately somethings cause for desperate moves.
“OK, I’ll see you outside the Field Museum,” He said in the phone still speaking German.
“What do you mean that’s not a safe place it’s a safe place if I say so you fucking understand that?” He yelled into the phone, those Germans, so unpredictable and stupid, Hitler had been a surprised out of the whole little crew.
“Look I don’t need to tell you no more you will do what I say or our deal is off and you can rot you understand?” He yelled, then he closed the cellphone not waiting for an answer, he would’ve rather stayed and yelled at the phone rather than have Weinston ask him questions he’s answered a million times….

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Chapter Thirty-five

“Shit, where could they have gone?” James asked the table, Matt and everyone else were back, sitting in his office, trying to think of what might’ve happened. But of course no one knew and they were still trying to guess.
“How could they have escaped?” Jessica said as she turn ed around on her chair.
“That’s a good question, we would’ve seen obviously so maybe they dug underground.” Jaimie said.
“No, we would’ve seen the mess,” He answered. “Or maybe they didn’t have to dig,” He continued.
“Yeah, that’s true, maybe they had a way already,” James said.
“But, it wouldn’t work, I’ve seen their building structure there’s no way any door in there could’ve led to a sewer compartment, and even if it did it be a dead end,” Jessica said to them.
“Well, there’s nothing left to try and find out anyway,” Agent Rod spoke out. “We have to try and think now of where they would’ve gone.”
Now everybody was quite, “there’s no way telling where they did go,” He spoke out, and everybody nodded.
“But, they obviously were expecting it, they’ve got somebody on their team that definitelty knows what they’re doing.” He said.
“Yeah, but the hard part is finding out who, and how good they are,” Jaimie said.
“Yeah but we also have another problem.” Matt said tapping the table.
“What?” Jessica asked him confused and curious.
“What the hell Johnathon wants,” He said.

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Chapter Thirty-six

Mitch sat sitting across from Kate, he hated this, when he found out they were going to Mexico, he didn’t oppose, he was just mad he didn’t know about it. Butler had made him go in the truck with Kate, they were in a vegetable truck, fruit truck, a truck that stank.
He looked up and saw Kate looking straight at him, she was cutting a what looked like a mango, but yellow, and with pink spots.
“That’s rotten,” He said to her, and she looked down and looked at it, then she looked back at him.
“You’re actually wrong,” Kate said while she studied her, vegetable, fruit?
“What is it?” He asked her, it was an atempt at conversation, but at least it was an atempt.
“It’s called Yag’ruy, it’s a delicate fruit from Kamchatka, you have to handle it well, see these?” She pointed to one of the pink spots and he nodded with his eyebrows raised, “Those pinks spots contain venom, you have to cut around these with a knife,” She said and she did so, she cut the exact outline out, “If you miss and you scrape at least the tiniest spot, it can leak down and the fruit will be wasted, and burn you, see this venom contains acid, since it’s from the national borders of Fiji, and the Marshall Islands, you have a lot of chemical crap over there. And it travels into the roots of these plants, who have been able to resist it’s fire.” She said. “But it’s very nutricious and kept me alive for my mission down in Nuku’Alofa.” She said, and she threw the piece at him, he catched it with one hand. It was completely nice and clean, and when he bit into it, it was surprisingly tasty. Like an apple feels when you bite, but the taste of a pineapple and strawberry mixed.
“Good,” He said as he bit.
“Very, I could live on this stuff,” She said and bit on to her own.
“Why did you volunteer on this mission?” He asked her as he let his delicious craving fruit rest on his hand.
Kate however waited until she had eaten it all, he looked at her patiently, and breathed calmly and relaxed, he wasn’t like that before. He had been hot and sweaty, the fruit had relaxed and cooled him, no wonder all this time Kate had been so comfortable.
“Hmm, I was bored, and I knew that sooner or later some time now the Y-Unit was going to drop me into a lower level if I didn’t take a mission, and Hope called me, and said that I could come, a personal invitation from Rose,” She said to him softly. He realized her voice was small and smooth.
“Oh, wellaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” A huge yawn escaped him, he was now unecesarily tired.
“I’m tired too, the fruit will do anything to get you what you want, you need sleep, as I do,” She said to him and he let the tire ingulf him, he was tired and he needed sleep.
“Con permiso! A que hora vamos a yegar a Guadalajara?” Kate yelled to the front seat, he didn’t understand, but he had a feeling he didn’t need to.
“Como en quarenta oras maxima! La imigracion esta a la mierda estos dias, uste y su amigo van a tener que escondercer avago de la fruta aya! Todos mis clientes lo acen, estan bien fortunados que Rosa me contacto cuando lo iso, sino ustedes no ivan a poder escapar!” The man yelled back.
“Ok, bueno, entonces orita vamos a dormir, profa me avica cuando yegamos ala frontera, imagime si la migra si nos agara! Peor! Vamos a estar dormidos, o y porfa me despierta si algo pasa!” Kate yelled one final time.
“Claro que si mi reina! Uste deve de restar, vamos a manegar mucho, apenas estamos en Oklahoma!” The man yelled back, and after that, he knew he was asleep, because he felt a re-assuring satisfied exhaulation escape him.

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Where are we?” Mitch opened his eyes, he was in the back of a truck with a lot of fruit on top of him, it was cold, and then he remembered, he was in the truck with Kate, and the Yag’ruy had totally re-energized him, but he was still sleepy. He looked to see himself holding Kate in his arms, she was really warm, he couldn’t’ see her since all the fruit had been piled up in front of him and probably fell on them. He wondered why they hadn’t woken up, but he knew that either it had piled up or they were already near the border line to Guadalajara.
And without meaning to or knowing why he did it he put his arm back on top of Kate and held her tight, and rested back on her shoulder. She smelled nice, like fruit, which would make sense, he felt an dincredible urge to kiss her neck, to just hold on to her one moment, and make everything alright, she was asleep, she would never know anyway, so he did, he kissed her on a soft smooth spot and rested himself next to her.
Then without warning she turned to him with her eyes opening, crap, he immediately thought, he felt like laughing just then, he felt like an idiot, but Kate simply looked up at the ceiling and yawned. She sat up on her elbows, but unexpectadly, she looked down at him, he could tell she was still sleepy, her eyes told him, and then she put her hand on his chin, she carresed the smooth of his cheeks and looked down at his lips. She leaned down on him… and rested her head on his shoulder.
Tease, major turn on for him, all of a suden he felt horny, he hadn’t ever felt like that since probably high school, Kate was something different, Rose would never have done that.
He looked at the lines between the wood of the truck, it was cold outside, he saw a cactus outside, they must be somewhere now in Texas. He could see lights from far away, they were in what Texas called a freeway, empty and slow.
He then heard Kate give a light hum, she was back to sleep, he turned to her and studied her. She was wearing her regular blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, her shirt was a tank top but the straps were slightly thicker, he studied her face, she was very beautiful, and then her shirt startted spiking up, and he let his hand touch it. He carresed her and closed his eyes, her long hair was covering his neck, it gave him shudders when she moved it.
She had long brown hair that felt weightless, somehow like Rose’s but Rose’s had always been reddish. Kate had deep brown eyes, she was really skinny, and much more shorter than Rose. He liked Kate, he liked how she looked, her nose was small and straight, her lips were small as well, he closed his eyes and let himself sleep, no use being awake if Kate wasn’t.

“Does Rose love Mitch?” Weiston asked him, and he growled, he had answered all of Weiston’s answers hoping he wouldn’t ask any more.
“No, she loves Matt, don’t you understand that? She can’t hide it, it’s in her eyes,” He snapped, looking at Weiston.
“Oh, well I just have one more question,” Weiston said.
“What?” He said as he turned around and looked at him.
“Why don’t you love her?” Johnathon turned around.
“What?” He asked him confused.
“You said a lot of men loved Rose, weren’t you one?” Weiston said, and he was surprised to know that Weiston had even thought of the question, he was curious to know how much thought he had put into the plan.
“What do you care huh? What’s your plan Weiston?” And as soon as Weiston felt the cold end of the long tube which the gun’s bullet’s would escape from, he started shaking madly.
“I have no plan, none at all, I’m sorry I’ve bothered you during this mission,” Weiston said immediately shaking his head like the idiot he was, he was terrified. He knew that last time Johnathon had shot him in the head, he had said he’d do it again too, so fact was, he was probably going to believe him.
“Now, I need to find out where Rose’s mother and daughter are at, sit, I’ll need a second,” He said as he glanced up at Weiston, he plugged an extension cord into the plug in the wall, and then with his Jack & Find he followed energy surges into the front desk, and he looked at the main entrances, he went into sign ins that had just come in that day, two couples, three singles, and a grandmother and her granduaghter…. Room 475 on the left side on level nine.
“Weiston? Get ready,” He said to him, and he stood up, climbed his bed, and lifted one of the cardboard tiles. “Let’s go,” He murttered, and he lifted himself and climbed into the dark, dusty attic top. “Flashlight,” He said to Weiston, and he tossed one up to him, he turned it on and looked around, if they were on level 8, and on the right side, they’d have to go…. He thought about the building structure, which meant… right. He crawled quietly and held his flashlight on his hand at all times, in case they came by any fans.
He heard Weiston behind him, and soon they were crawling fast, soon they began rolling because there fans on top to keep the air clean in there and it doesn’t get so swamped up. He soon realized they were on the right side of the building, and he looked around for a laundry shoot, and soon enough he found one. He helped Weiston get up first, and then he did, they tried hard to go over the laundry openings fast so no one would see, and then an old fat lady opened the laundry shoot and saw him in there, he looked at her.
“Ah!” The lady squealed.
“Oh shut it,” And he slipped a knife from his boot and sliced her throat.
I think we’re here, shall we climb in through the laundry opening, or the tiles?” Weiston asked him.
“The tiles, I don’t trust these laundry shoots.” He said as they climbed.
They climbed on top and the dust had completely dirtied them.
He looked around the tiles, you could really tell of the structure if you paid close attention to how the tiles were placed.
He saw a rather large bedroom on the end down south, and a smaller but not quite one on the other side. He knew withouyt thinking twice the grandmother was sleeping on the other side.
“Johnathon? Do you hear that?” Weiston asked him, and he listened. He heard voices talking he looked at the tiles, it was extremely dark so it was really hard to see where something was.
“Someone’s talking to Rose’s mother, I can hear her, she’s talking to a man, the girl must be alone in her room.” He said, he had wanted to take both, but one would do just the same.
“Let’s go this way,” He said, and they crawled back to the other end, he lifted the tile, and saw a rather large room for a small girl, and just on cue she appeared. She was coloring, she had pig tails and a brand new purple dress.
A mirror was right in fron of them, and she had dark brown hair, it was almost black, and then he saw the girl’s eyes, they were just like Rose’s.
He grabbed the gun that was tucked on the back of his pants, and insterted a vile, he took aim, and shot the girl in the back, she gasped, but in 5 seconds dropped to the ground.
“Go get her,” He told Weiston.
“Why me?” He said.
“Because you’re lighter and they won’t hear you,” He whispered. And Weiston nodded and let himself easily go intrough the hole, he then grabbed the little girl, and gave her to him, she was surprisingly a little heavier then she looked, she was a pale small girl, but he felt muscle on her…. Rose was training her.
“Let’s go,” He murttered.
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Chapter Thirty-eight

“Where is she?” She asked Johnathon.
“Right here wait you’re ass up Vicky,” He said to her, and Weiston walked in carrying something small, and he let part of the blanket fall off so she ould see, that was her no doubt about it.
“She looks just like Matt,” She said.
“But she’s got Rose’s eyes,” Johnathon said to her.
“Hmmm, Weiston, leave us please,” She said and Weiston bowed and walked out of the room and closed the door softly.
“Victoria Leon, why don’t you like Rose or Matt?” He asked her, she had promised him that she was to tell him her reason’s when he comes back with the girl, and she was no one to break promises.
“Rose tortured me, and she stole Matt from me, Matt rejected me, I hate them both just the same,” She said to him, and he walked up to her, she wondered what he wanted, she already knew his reasons, almost the same as her’s.
He was a very handosme man, he had short blonde hair and a british accent that she couldn’t help but find sexy, and then he had the most bluest eyes she’d ever seen.
He placed his hand on her chin and lifted her head to his eyes.
“I love the way you think,” He said, and stepped back, she wondered what that was all about.
“Well Victoria, I need my rest, traveling all the way to Hawaii is something that I don’t like, or enjoy. Have a good day,” He said, and she looked at him, he walked softly with the echo of his footsteps bouncing from wall to wall, his head was arched from his tall figuere and his hands were in his pockets, he winked at her and left the room, she turned around and looked at the girl, she was sound asleep, she carried her over to her bed, and placed her in the middle. She looked around the room, it was filled with toys, barbies, and it was very colorful, she was too keep Ivy Veronica Salinas happy, happy until she couldn’t ‘happy’ anymore.


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Chapter Thirty-nine

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!” Victoria snapped her head to see Ivy Salinas screaming from the top of her lungs, she quickly ran over and saw Ivy looking at the ceiling, all of a sudden she looked at her, and then around the room.
“What? Where? Where’s Mama Daisy?” Ivy asked her, she looked at Ivy.
“She had to rush back home apparantly she forgot something, Butler called me immediately to take care of you, and he bought you here to my place,” She said to Ivy calmly with a warm smile.
“But, but, where? Where I’m I? Where’s Butler?” Ivy said once again.
“Calm down calm down, are you hungry?” She asked Ivy.
“Mmm hmm,” Ivy said and she nodded her head while she rubbed her eyes violently with her fists.
“Omg!” Ivy squealed in joy as her face lit up as she looked around the room.
“Can I play with the toys?” Ivy said.
“Sure, they’re all yours,” She said as Ivy ran towards a Barbie House on her little feet.
“Ew,” Ivy tossed the Britney Spears doll to the other side of the room, Victoria knew that on regular occations any mother would tell Ivy to go back and pick the doll up, but Victoria was not mad, she was actually amazed at how far Ivy had thrown the doll, Ivy had looked straight at the pink bear at the other side of the room and thrown it just on it’s cotton belly. And the other side of the room was the other side of the room, it was at least as big as any regular living room.
“Well, see whose up?” Johnathon walked in through the door and picked up the doll.
“That, was quite a throw,” He said to Ivy.
Ivy only looked at the man curiously, she seemed to be focusing him, looking at his body movements and studying ever inch of his face at the same time. And she lowered her head down slightly.
“Look Ivy, this is Johnathon,” She said.
“Hi,” Ivy said, children were the easiest to manipulate, she thought.
She saw as Johnathon quickly became very friendly with Ivy and Ivy smiled warmly at him, Johnathon was nothing but a con, a good one, she suspected him ever since she met him. Back two years from then, they met, things happened, and in the end they decided to work together to fight against Rose and Matt.



“So what does that mean?” Butler let a loud sigh escaped him, Daisy was histerical, she kept crying and he couldn’t answer her question.
He had no possible or absolute contact with Rose that would be able to tsend her the message, Rose had trusted him to keep Daisy and Ivy safe, but now Ivy’s gone, gone where, he didn’t know. Someone had kidnapped her, he remembered when they had walked into the room and she wasn’t in there. Daisy h ad searched the closet until every last bit of cloth, dust, or at all anything was in there. She had started to wept, he didn’t know what to do, so what he did was go back to the US. The trip from Hawaii hadn’t been fun, with Daisy crying and crying all the way home. The thought of Ivy dead was not even imaginable, he had always kept his guard on checking and checking that they weren’t being followed, but there had been like twenty other families that had signed in that same day any of them could have been threats.
Now they were in Mexico, waiting for Rose and the other’s to get to the safe house, this time, he had made exactly sure that they hadn’t been followed, he had switched airline tickets with other fellow workers that had been taken to Hawaii as a diversion. He had done anything that could keep them from being followed. So he knew very well that no one had followed.
“Where is she why isn’t she here yet?” Daisy asked him and he could hear her worried tone.
“She’ll be here in about an hour, or, I don’t know, we just have to sit down and wait,” He said. But in his heart he knew that Rose wasn’t going to get there anything soon, he knew the schedule, but he wasn’t prepared to tel Daisy.


“So are you saying that he’s got her hostage?” Matt asked James, and Matt was feeling an emotion he had never felt for anyone else other than Rose, he felt the loss and urgency of someone. He knew that since they had told him about Ivy he couldn’t wait to see her, he wanted to see her up close see if she looked anything like him, he wanted to hear her voice and see what she sounded like. But Johnathon had her, news her broken in a couple of hours before when they had tracked Johnathon to a hotel which they h ad tracked earlier to Daisy Ezpinoza and Ivy Salinas.
“Apparently, yes,” Jaimie said.
“We have to get her, then,” He gulped.
“It’s not as easy as it sounds Matt, Johnathon has been able to do millions of things without our watch, do you think it’s really easy since he’s thrown a bunch of viruses into our computers, killed some of our men already, and ambushed a squat team?” James asked him.
“What if he kills her?” He asked them.
“He won’t, that’s his bait,” Jessica said.
“He’s a sick bastard,” He murttered.
“And well, we have actually no idea were Rose is at the time so chances are Matt, if you want to save your kid, we’re going to have to do it,” Agent Rod said to him, and somehow he was mad at Rose, how could she let Ivy out of her sight? How could she possibly throw her out the window, because that was what she had done, she had thrown her right at the wolfs.
“Can we go in there and get her?” He asked them.
“Negative, we have no idea what kind of palce that is, we didn’t even have it listed in our map for a possible address. We’re definitely not going in there without information on the sculpture, landscape, or at all moderation information.” Rod said again.

“What’s Moderation information?” He asked them.
“It’s to know were his employs are at, like were is the surveilance in the building,” Jessica said.
“It seems to be somewhere around the backdoor, there’s absolutely no surveilance in the front door, because they’re obviously trying to get us to go through there,” James said.
“I doubt that, Johnathon is one to trick, he’s got to traps, and we’re going to fall for it, we’re going to have to sneak in through at window or something.” He said.
“I like the way you think boy,” Rod said to him as he took a sip of water.
“I know Johnathon, he wants to think like us, act like us, speak like us if it takes getting to us,” He said.
“He’s an evil genius.” Jaimie said.
“He wasn’t evil, but he was still a genius,” He said.
“So when are we going to go?” Jessica asked.
“Can we do it tonight?” He asked them.


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Chapter Forty

“We were followed! How could you let this happen?” Victoria yelled at him, he actually was surprised since he had flinched, he always wondered why Victoria had that affect on him. He looked at her, her eyes were lit with fury, and she had finally undyed her blonde hair from brown to blonde again. He remembered when he had met her in LA, her appearance had immediately tranced him, she had long blonde hair, and red lips, and her skin had been glowing with a milky color. He had fallen in love with her, but soon he realized she hadn’t, she had never loved him, she had love for him, but she had never loved him the way he adored her. He could tell in her kisses her hugs, her touch.
“I didn’t know how we were followed, ok? It slipped my mind, I knew they were trying to solve how Rose escaped it didn’t occur to me that they would be focusing on something else,” He said.
“And they traced the virus, you said it was untraceable!” She yelled at him.
“The e-mail was, but the employees send the wrong one,” He said.
“Weinston who send the e-mail?” She asked Weinston who was sitting at the corner.
“Sector Four,” He said.
“Eliminate them,” She said, and Weinston looked at him, and he nodded.
He waited for Weinston to step out of the room, and he walked towards Victoria. He grabbed her hands and kissed them both, her perfume dazzled him, he looked at her lips, it had been such a long time since he had kissed her, and he knew she wouldn’t let him now, so he looked away.
“Do you ever, regret it, Johnathon?” He froze, he didn’t turn to look at her, he knew what it was, he wanted to answer but he couldn’t. Of course he regretted it, he regretted it every second of his life, he wished that if he could turn back time he would’ve never given it away.
He walked away from her, and sat on the bed of the comfortable room. He heard her footsteps and she walked up to him, he didn’t look up at her. His weakness was right in front of her, he would do anything for Victoria, he would die for her, kill for her, which to him was a lot worse than dying. She carresed his arms and let her hands slide under his shirt. He looked up at her, and she kissed him, he wanted to kiss her like before, to know that every kiss was romantic but now it wasn’t romantic, it didn’t feel romantic, it felt like a kiss. It didn’t have any special touch, but he couldn’t do anything about it anymore, that was just the way it was.


“It looks to me like a regular mansion, classy, very classy,” Matt spoke, it was funny, how Johnathon chose his hideouts.
“He’s not working alone,” James said in tot he walkie talkie. Matt was in a white truck that worked for a local roofing business that had allowed them to stay in the truck and spy on Johnathon while they worked on a house across the street.
“Who is he workign for then?” He asked the walkie talkie.
“Well, according to our surveillance we got a picture from a window and we have identified a female as Victoria Leon, who was used by Rose to get information on Victoria’s brother.” James said.
“How exactly did she use her?” He asked.
“Well, according to my readings, she uh, tortured her,” Matt couldn’t believe Rose had sunk so low.
“Here’s a scan of the picture we took,” James faxed him a picture, he didn’t even pick it up.
“That’s a lie, Victoria Leon is not Victoria Leon, I don’t know how the hell she did it, but that is not Victoria Leon, that is Vanessa Lawson,” He said as he looked at the picture, He knew Vanessa from high school she had always wanted to be with him but he never paid interest in her, and as he thought this he had to tell it to James, he wondered why everyone of his school mates had turned out so bad, including himself.
“How the hell can she have a Mexican name and be blonde? Look at it, if she were truly Leon’s sister then how the hell did she get blonde hair? Look at Leon’s parents!” He said.
“Yeah we’ve just been investigating that don’t think that we can’t put two and two together!” James yelled at him.
“Ok, ok, sorry,” He said back into the phone.
“Ok, we need to send someone in there, video tape as much as we can about the landscape, but my research says that they aren’t expecting any visitors so we’re going to have to sneak someone in,” James said.
“Someone? Someone? What the hell are you talking about ‘someone?’ Send me! She’s my daughter in case you haven’t noticed!” He said into the walkie talkie.
“Yeah, yeah, we know that part, but we can’t risk losing you,” James said.
“Can’t risk… pshhh, I can’t risk not being able to ever see, touch, or hold my daughter,” He said.


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Chapter Forty-one

“Victoria, I don’t like being here,” Ivy said to her. And she looked up at Johnathon who was looking at her from afar.
“Why not honey?” She asked Ivy.
“I don’t like it, it’s cold,” Ivy said.
“Cold? Are you sure?” She asked the girl without looking at her, the little girl was little, no doubt, age, size, whatever, but she was smart, she was definitely anything other than stupid, she knew something was going on, Victoria had sensed it.
“I don’t’ know, can I talk to my mom?” Ivy asked.
“Nope, sorry, she didn’t give us a number,” Johnathon said. And Victoria eyed him, and then turned back to her nails, and then, to her surprise, she heard a grunt, not just a regular grunt, a grunt like when you kick someone in the ass and they start moaning. That type of grunt, she glanced at Johnathon, but then glanced again, the little bitch had kicked him in the head.
“Ugh, you little brat,” Johnathon said as he stood up.
“I wanna talk to my mom now!” Ivy said.
“Sorry, but I told you she’s not here,” Johnathon said obviously tyring to keep his cool, or otherwise not blow his cover.
“How come my mom never talked about you?” Ivy said.
“Because she never thought that we were going to meet you,” She said immediately standing up.
“Right, whatever, I want to talk to my grandma then,” Ivy said now crossing her arms.
“Sorry, they didn’t give us any phone numbers,” Victoria said.
“You’re lying!” The little girl actually spitted at her.
“No, I’m not, yhou’ve only been here two days why are you so wild up?” she asked Ivy.
“Because my mom said that I would’ve never gone a day without talking to her,” Ivy said, “And It’s already been a day, she said no matter what she would always talk to me somehow.”
“I don’t know why your mom hasn’t called and it’s none of your concern!” She yelled at Ivy.
“She’s my mom!” Ivy said. And at that moment Johnathon snapped his fingers and Weinston walked over, and took the girl. They heard her kick, and scream, and cry all the way down the elevator.
“I didn’t think she’d snap this fast,” Johnathon said.
“Neither did I, but we’re dealing with Rose here, you can’t help but expect the unexpected can you?” She asked Johnathon but didn’t bother for an answer and excited the silent room.


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Chapter Forty-two

Finally! Butler thought, Rose was here! He had been in the monitoring room watching the cameras, he hadn’t slept for two days, naps here and there, but his source was caffeine and caffeine, Mitch was there with Kate, Rose and Juan, and all of them were walking, he watched as Rose took the key out of her pocket but he pressed the button on the door lock and the door opened. He watched as everyone looked at Rose, she was looking confused, obviously, he then pressed the speaker button.
“Rose it’s me, now get the hell in here you took way too long to get here right now, and you’re late, very late.” He said, and he watched as they all entered in a jumble, he watched through the monitors, she was now running up the stairs of the very old dirty brick building, and soon he heard the door open.
“What happened?” Rose asked, well, yelled really.
“Well, I’m going to cut right down to the chase, when we were going to Hawaii your mother was followed and she’s in one of the lower rooms right now resting however we think know someone kidnapped Ivy,” He said casually, Rose’s face seemed to shade from normal to extremely pale, she almost looked like a white balloon with it’s air escaping.
“What?” She stepped back, he stood up and grabbed her by the shoulders and sat her down.
“Look, right now, we have to find out who kidnapped Ivy, where he’s at, who he works for, wh at do they have against us, and we have to do this real fast, because he doesn’t know where we are.” Butler said.
“Maybe I did wrong, maybe Matt did know what we were doing, Matt’s not stupid, as much as I despise him right now I loved him, I know him, he knows what we were doing he knows everthing he took Ivy!” Rose said all at once.
“We don’t know if it be Matt, it could’ve been anybody else!” Butler said.
“You know what, I’m going to go find out, right now!” Rose said, he grabbed her by the arm but she turned and pushed im, he looked up at her, but she wasn’t even there.


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Chapter Forty-three

Two days later

“We found it!” Agent Rog came into his office, Matt was sitting in his desk talking to James.
“Found what?” Matt said.
“The sculpture for the mansion that Johnathon is in!” Rod said.
“Well?” He asked, he was surprised to hear himself sounding eager.
“There’s absolutely no way in unless you’re authorized,” Rob said letting his happy face down.
“You mean the tunnels, air dents? Nothing?” James asked Rob, and Rob took a seat down, and gave im the scroll.
“Yes, everythingm the air dents, no such things, the only air dents is this big huge one on top, and you know mansions, they have the roofs all spiky and we are not able to run a helicopter or anything because they will know it’s us,” Rob said.
“What do you mean, big air dent?” Matt asked Rob.
“Well, let’s say this, there’s two of the tower spike’s in the roof right? And on the side of those two spikes, there’s a air dent, they share space, there’s no way we can lift it, open it, destroy it, for all we know that’s where Ivy might be,” Rob said.

“Should we sent someone in?” James asked.
“No, it takes months to be able to arrange something like that, I’m saying let’s send someone in, with a bug,” Rob said.
“No, they would be checking that wouldn’t they and whoever it be would have to be around there a lot and very important,” Matt said.
“What do you mean send someone in? A spy? You just said—” James got cut off.
“No, I mean, put a bug on someone, I’m thinking Vanessa, she doesn’t seem so bright,” Rob said.
“No, not Vanessa, she might seem stupid as a Turkey, but she’s a smart as dolphin,” He said, “She’s not stupid, she’ll know when she has a bug on her.”
“Well, then? I’m pretty sure Johnathon is way out of the picture,” Rob said.
“What about me?” They snapped their heads up to see someone come in, Matt had never noticed him before, he was almost as tall as him but shorter, he had black short hair, and light white skin, brown eyes, skinny but he could probably win a fight.
“And you are…?” James asked him.
“Well, to you I’m Peter Penison,” He said, “But to Johnathon, I’m George Weinston.”
“Who are you?” James asked him again, but this time, they didn’t have time, for something extraordinary happened, he watched as the door was kicked down, and in came the most beautiful thing he ever saw.
“Does it really matter who he is?” Rose spoke, she was holding a hand gun straight at his brain.
“Well yeah, duh,” Weinston said, and he acted, he meant to knock off Rose’s gun, but instead he only angered her, he stood up and watched how fast Rose grabbed Weinston, kicked him in the stomach, grabbed him by the neck, and pulled him by his hair, ad watched Weinston fall face first on the ground.
“Don’t, you dare, do that, or any kind of stunt, again!” Rose yelled. James stood up, and so did Rob.
“I want my daughter back,” She stated.
“We don’t have her,” James said.
“You filthy bastards,” She said.
“Why would I kidnap my own kid?” He asked Rose, and her eyes softened as she looked at him.
“I don’t know, you might want to answer that,” Rose asked him.
“We didn’t do it,” Rob said.
“How can I believe you?” Rose said.
“Because we know who did,” He said to her.
“Whom?” She asked him, she was not going to put her guard down.
“Johnathon,” He said. And she let her arm rest on the her side, but she stepped on top of Weinston, George, Peter, Panison whatever his name was and she walked towards him, she walked right between Rob and James, and walked straight to his desk, face to face.
“If you lie to me, I will not hesitate to kill you,” She harshly said to him.
“I think you will,” He said and tapped his finger on the scroll.
“What’s this suppose to be?” He could see her already forming ideas in her brain.
“This is where she’s at,” He said.
“Oh, and I’m going to believe that your Agency actually wants to save her?” Rose aske dhim sounding almost sarcastic.
“She’s my daughter!” He yelled. And Rose froze, he looked down at the scroll, not looking at her face, and he could hear James, and Rob standing up, he could hear their steps, and he looked to see if what-ever-his-name-was, was gone as well. He was.
“So you’re going to save your daughter huh Matt? Please you very know her!” Rose yelled at him.
“Rose I don’t give a damn, you don’t know the feeling of being the only person in the world with absolutely no family, and bam suddenly the news pops out! Hey! I have a kid! A daughter named Ivy, who knew huh?” He yelled back, while walking out of his desk area.
“But still,” Rose said, “I don’t believe you.”
“You know you could’ve comed back, come back to New York, and told me about it, told me I had a kid,” He said ignoring her.
“I would’ve never gone back, you wouldn’t have forgived me!” She yelled.
“Oh and I wonder why!” He yelled back.
“I never cheated on you Matt! I never did! It was all lies! You walked in on me and Johnathon! So what? We were talking! Oh and yeah sure that turned into rumors! But you believed those rumors! You believed the people you don’t even know over me! Your girlfriend! Your goddamn wife! You were suppose to trust me! I loved you! I would’ve never done that!” She yelled back at him.
“I still would’ve wanted to know I had a child!” He yelled at her.
“For all I knew you would’ve taken her away from me!” Rose yelled. “And plus I already had plans!”
“Yeah? What, robbing millionairs, torturing innocents!” He said.
“I never tortured one innocent soul!” She said.
“How can I believe that?” He asked her.
“How can I trust you’re tring to save Ivy?” Rose asked him.
“Because she’s my goddamn daughter!” He yelled.
And then the akward silence kicked in. She then looked down at the paper, and started folding it and tucked it in, in her jacket pocket.
“You’re not leaving this building without that paper.” He stated.
“Watch me.” She said to him.
“Whether you’re my wife or not you’re a mortal enemy to this Agency, you’re not stepping out of this building alive,” He said, and he could see that words sinking into her, “I have know idea how you were actually capable of getting in here either way but you’re definitely not getting out.”


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Chapter Forty-four

Rose quietly walked, she was stiff as a wooden board, she hated what she was doing, but never the less she proceeded, she took her keys out, and opened the door, and she let the door slide wide open, everybody in the building was staring at her. She looked at Butler’s face, he had a worried concerned expression, her mother’s was the same, Mitch’s and Kate’s were curious, while everybody else’s were astonished, she walked into the building, and they looked at her, Mitch opened his mouth and only a small sound came out before he stopped. She heard Matt’s footsteps behind her, and the quiet sound of the door closing.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Mitch asked him, but her mother had gasped, she looked at her mother, her mom was not looking at her, but she was looking at Matt.
“Don’t tell me this is it, this is your crew?” Matt asked her.
“Yeah,” She said harshly, she was not going to show a weakness of any kind to Matt.
“Quite pathetic,” He said, and he took out a smoke, she grabbed his arm, twisted it, but then she felt the cold barrel against her head.
“Don’t tempt me,” He told her.
“No smoking in this building,” She whispered to him.
“If you don’t like it, that’s your problem,” He said to her, and she could feel her skin heating up, she could see Mitch was ready to kill Matt there and then, but Kate had a strong grip on his shoulder. And she let go of his arm with a push, he looked at her and grin.
“He’s here to help, him and AA, they are here to help us get Ivy back.” She said, Mitch’s face hardened.
“So that’s what you do? You go crazy and break into AA, and for what? To make us friends? Sorry, but I thought we were a complete independent alliance,” Mitch said.
“Well, obviously, that’s changed.” She said.
“I see I’m not welcomed here already,” Matt said as he looked at everyone around him. She was about to say something but her mother interrupted her.
“Matt, can I talk to you?” Her mother asked him, she felt her heart beat faster, for all she knew Matt could kill her.
“Mom, are you sure you want—” She started
“Rose, this does not include you, please let me talk to him,” Her mother said, but it wasn’t really a question, her mother didn’t care about what she was going to say.


Matt entered the small room, and he sat down, it was a small building, they were in Mexico. He saw and observed very quickly the first time he had entered the building that there were absolutely no windows, except on high areas.
He looked up at the oldest most familiar face he had ever seen.
“How have you been Matt?” She asked him, and he took a moment to answer the question while he looked around the room, it was like a lounge, coffee maker on a counter, a lot of cabinets, fruit plate on the table he was sitting….
“Horrible,” He said.
“That’s understandable, coffee?” She asked him.
“No thank you,” He said.
“Ho-ho?” She asked him.
“Yes, Please,” He said, and she grinned, opened a cabinet, and tossed the small brownie pack at him while she grabbed her cup of coffee.
He found himself opening the wrapper and as he tasted it, he felt like a little kid.
“How old are you now Matt?” Daisy asked him.
“Twenty,” He said while wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“Wow, four years, doesn’t seem like a long time since I’ve seen you,” Daisy said as she took a sip from her cup.
“Wow, it actually doesn’t,” He said agreeing.
“Matt, what are you going to do when you save Ivy?” She asked him, and he took a moment, she had used the word when, so she believed they were going to save her, but it seemed like a strange question, no one had really asked him.
“Why?” He asked her.
“Because I love that little girl too, it’s remarkable, you know? What fatherhood can do to a man? You don’t even know the girl and you love her like you love life,” Daisy told him, and he just stared at her.
“Matt, do you still love my daughter?” Daisy asked him, and he wasn’t even sure of that question any more, before he had seen Rose, or heard of her, through all those taks he had to do, kill people, be assigned to theft, he was certain of it. In his gut he knew he loved her, he knew he would love her forever. Now that he had talked to her, seen her, touched her, he wasn’t sure he felt that feeling in his gut anymore.
“I’m… not sure,” He said, and he wondered why he was even talking to Daisy about this.
“Let me tell you this Matt, I lived a long live, I’m not going to live any longer, but I lived a normal, well, some-what normal life, I’ve gotten married, had a kid, watched her grow, and I’ve seen one of my grandchildren, she’s a beautiful miracle, she’s only three years old, and she’s a tall three year old big headed girl.” He smiled at that, he had had a big head when he was a kid. “She’s got your dark wavy hair, your nose, nice and straight, your ears even, I see her and I see you, but I look into her eyes and I see Rose. Whether you love Rose or not, whether she’s there or not, she’s going to be in Ivy. Ivy Veronica Salinas, that’s her full name you know? She was born February twenty fourth, 1999.” Daisy said, and took another cup of coffee.
“Matt, you have changed, you aren’t the boy I met back five years ago, you’re not the boy that would come home at twelve o’clock at night and throw rocks at the wrong window. You’re not the boy that would walk my daughter home and bring flowers. You’re now the man that my daughter seems to still love after five years of absent. You could snap my neck in a second,” He looked down at the floor, “You could be armed with a number of weapons right now and I wouldn’t know, you’re mind now works in the type a tiger does. But you’ve recently found out you’re a daddy, and I can believe that the only thing you want to do right now is get hands of Ivy and never let her go.”
“Rose will never be able to imagine or understand your state, neither will I, I can only visualize. But if you’re going to do this, I advise you one thing,” Daisy paused, “Don’t screw up.”

A couple of days later

“This will completely destroy all her memories and deform new ones right?” Victoria asked him.
“Yes,” Johnathon repeated after the third millionth time of telling Victoria, he looked into the window of the operatation room, Ivy was lying there, while the doctor started messing with the little girl’s brain.


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Chapter Forty-five

A week later

“Okay, I’m in,” Matt heard over the headphones.
“Okay, the bomb is going to sound of from the bottom you guys, make sure each and every one of you is strapped.” He heard Rose.
“I’m strapped.” He spoke.
“Strapped.”
“Same here.”
“Here too.”
“Strapped too.”
Then the bomb sounded of in a rush of air and heat, the whole building was destroyed. Hopefully Ivy hadn’t gotten it either.
He didn’t hear anything for a while, but he knew something, even though the people inside the building were probably dead, him and everyone else, were stirring, and he stood up, trying to wipe of some of the dust on his shoulders. He had hidden in the huge dumpster in the back of the building. And he looked at the building. It was still standing tall, but the surface had just been edited with a huge skylight.
He walked around the corner of the building, and saw a window, of course it was broken, he walked a few steps back and paused, then he ran really fast and on last second, he jumped, and put his hands on the window sill, and pushed his body upwards, and he curled into the building.
Then he heard something, crying, screaming, but it wasn’t coming from inside the building, it was coming from the headphones.
“What! What’s wrong?” He yelled into the headphone.
“She’s dead!” He heard Rose, she was moping, and crying.
“What?” He asked again horror struck.
“She’s dead Matt! Dead! No!” He heard her.
“Where are you?” He yelled.
“She’s in sector B four seven!” He heard James. He started running, he wasn’t too far away from sector b four seven, he ran up the fire stained stairs, it was hard, since there was fire here and then, he past by a room, it was flaming.
He ran across the hallway and jumped a huge trashed burning piano, he passed a couple of rooms and jumped a burning chair or sofa here and there, then he ran up the stairs, he was getting tired. His chest was begging for a minute’s time of air, his chest was starting to swell, sprinting up a flight of stairs then running across two hallways was not easy.
The third floor was flaming much more than others, furniture and even humans were going up in flames in some of the rooms. Then as he was running he tried to stop his running, but instead he crashed into a coffee table (which was now black because of the fire) and tried to stand up. He entered the flaming room, and he looked around the room, it was a fantasy room, it was lavender with painted butterflies on the walls. And he saw a four poster small bed, and he saw Rose, she was crying, practically screaming. With Butler next to her holding her shoulders. Rose was cradling a small child, a girl, the girl’s dress was striped pink and white, or what was left on it, her dress was stained with gray of the explosion. The Girl’s head was practically limping of her small body, tears were slowly sliding down Butler’s face, while Rose was crying a river. He looked at the girl, her face was slightly big, but beautiful, her hair was a dark brown and in ponytails, her eyes were the same as Roses…. She had died with her eyes opened….
He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, he didn’t have a family anymore, he heard footsteps behind him, and he turned, and started walking backwards, towards the wall, he let his back sink down onto the ground. And tears slowly started dripping down his cheeks.
And slowly his pain turned into anger, frustration, he felt like he had just been robbed, robbed of a family, like someone had just taken his soul out and let him wander off…. He had never said one word to his daughter, and now he knew he never would.
He put his hands in his face and cried.
He looked up and saw Rose walking towards him, she had the little girl in her arms, and she kneeled in front of him.
“Matt…” She could barely speak between all her crying.
“This—is, Ivy—Salinas—you’re daughter—our daughter,” Rose managed to say, and he hugged her, Rose and him cradled the small child. He cried on Rose’s shoulder, and buried his head in her arm, he knew he would never stop crying.




The End



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I think this story turned out very dramatic and corny, and I never got to write the second part cause poeple didn't show much interest in the story, so yeah. My first and last story.....

Very good! I like it...

hmmm, i think it's very dramatic, but alright.

i love ur story karen espcally cuz im in it hehehehhelol

i love this story karen ur such a talented writer

thanks raquel, lol!

I love this story so much, Karen! :D :lol:

Its really great...love it!