Purple Curtains

        "I grew up in a city," the man said.
I looked at the man across the room quizzically."Most of us did."
He smiled there in his small dark corner. His hands were bound behind his back with cuffs flickering a strange blue light. He was dangerous. The guards and their higher-ups didn't waste Mythane on most of the prisoners down here in the gloom. He was tall with red hair and far too happy for someone in his situation. I looked down at the stones. They were dull and gray unlike the vividly colorful individual across the room. He had pink boots.
"Do you like stories?"
I looked up and nodded slightly, unsure of exactly where this was leading.
"I do too. Can you get that spoon for me?"
"What?"
He leaned forward, "Can you get me that spoon?"
I glanced at the spoon that lay on the ground to my left.
I was deeply confused. I would soon learn that confusion was not a temporary condition as I had previously believed. That was the kind of effect that he had on me.
"Do you have a name that I might inquire of?"
I placed the spoon in his smooth hands. His eyes were blue.
"Yes, do you?"
"Certainly," he said.
We waited.
"I'm Tereese," I finally said.
"Hello Tereese, I'm the infamous Nix." He reminded me of a proud child playing a game trying to make the adults guess what he had been up to.

The next day the guards came. They came for me. As I was led from my cell, one asked the other who exactly I was. Whatever hope I might have had of freedom was crushed in those moments as the other said, "I don't know, a thief or something. Street scum."
I didn't respond. I didn't say a word, and I have a feeling that he knew that.
Nix looked at me kindly when I was placed back in the cell. I think he pitied me.
"So they plan on starving me?" He sounded amused.
I hadn't thought of that. It hadn't occurred to me that they would or could be so cruel. For some reason I've always had this deep dark desire to trust our leaders and regulators completely, even when they're locking me away in a cell. At least I didn't have to steal in order to survive. Prisoners were kept isolated for the most part. Another reason why I had always felt safer here rather than on the outside where the real monsters walked.
"I could try to sneak some food back for you," I offered.
"Don't bother, I'll live just to spite the bastards without anyone's help. Besides, I couldn't ask a child to steal on my behalf."
"I'm not a child. I'm a thief."
"Ah."
"Ah? Is that all?"
He smiled. "You're a child."
"I'm sixteen."
His smile widened. "Child."
"So what did you do exactly?" I asked.
He laughed. "I'm a cannibal."
I didn't take him seriously.
He twirled the spoon in his hand behind his back, he played with it quite a lot. My theory was that it helped him to think.
"You know, it was curtains that got me caught," Nix said.
"Curtains?" I asked.
"Curtains. Purple curtains. They were perfect, I looked at them from different angles, examined them under an array of lights. They had lace at the bottom, but I could deal with that. I don't think I knew love till I met those curtains. I was a cannibal and she was lacy, but I knew we could work through it."
"Okay..."
"Her name's Megan."
"How exactly?"
"Hmm?"
"How did purple curtains lead to your capture?"
"I became enamored, fixated, obsessed by their beauty." For some reason that made a lot of sense when it came to Nix. The night before I had fallen asleep to him mumbling to himself in strange fractured sentences as he stared at what was an apparently captivating stone in the wall.
"I can't imagine you being a very successful criminal," I said, feeling the edges of my mouth pulling upwards.
"You'd be surprised," he replied, smiling back at me.
Smiling back at me.
It was odd. This happiness.

"What was your life like, Tereese?" He asked me once.
My sense of time during the week when I knew Nix is all a jumble. Days flew from my grip, and hours passed like entire years. Life when I knew Nix was extremely confusing.
"What was my life like when?" I asked.
"When? In the past of course."
"Things weren't easy," I said. Thinking about the past made my chest hurt. I wrapped my arms around myself as I sat in my corner.
"Is it ever?"
I let his words fall into silence, and I felt him looking at me from across the room, waiting. Finally he sighed. "You're no fun, Tereese."
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize."
He leaned his head back and rubbed it against the wall. Nix had a very itchy scalp.
"I don't expect you to understand," I said.
"People never do, at least in my own experiences. Why'd you eat the man? He ate large quantities of high quality animals from the eastern region..."
"Cannibalism isn't funny," tiring of all the cannibal jokes.
"I never said it was." He sounded irritated. He was really working at that itch. "A little help perhaps?"
I stood up and walked across the room to him. He was a great deal taller than me. He leaned against the wall and slid downwards. He smiled mockingly at me. I scratched at his head, I felt ridiculous. I looked down at his bound hands. The metal had rubbed at his wrists, a thin thread of blood had run down and dried on his right hand. I looked at his mocking smile, his childish face, I wondered if he felt the pain, if he completely acknowledged reality or if this was all just a game to him.
"You're an idiot," I said as I pulled my hand away from his head.
"Hmm, yes, I am."
"I'm surprised that you'd admit that."
"And why's that?"
"You seem a bit prideful."
"Maybe I am." He threw the spoon from one hand to another as he stood up, raising one shoulder then the other. He looked down at me tiredly. "You'd  be surprised about how useful admitting certain things are. The skilled liars have an amazing talent, they don't even have to lie at all."
"I hate that. When people don't give me straight answers."
"Hmm?"
"Well isn't that what you were saying?"
"Was I?"
I sat down and he looked outward past the bars that were the doorway out of our small cell, out of our small existence in that world so separate from our own. I wondered where he went when he was quiet. What passed through his mind. Perhaps it was purple curtains.

His head lay on the floor. His eyes followed the bug that made its slow journey across the stones.
"What are you doing?"
"Considering eating it."
"That would be disgusting."
"I think I've eaten worse, but I'm not quite sure. Besides it wouldn't be very filling, might leave a bad taste in my mouth, and what is more it would say that I have fallen to eating insects."
"Good reasons not to eat the bug and completely disgust me."
His eyes narrowed. "This from the woman that's not been starved for the last four days."
"Well at least they're giving you water. It could be worse."
"They plan to execute me soon. Might be tomorrow." He smiled.
"That doesn't sound like a reason to be happy."
"What do you think they're planning? A public hanging? A private hanging? Poisoning? Maybe they want to cut my head off..."
"Please don't talk like that," I said.
"It's unavoidable," Nix replied.
"What happened to the game?" I cried.
"The game." He lifted his head from the floor just barely. "Who said I was giving up the game? I was simply saying that it's unavoidable that they are planning... Are you worried?"
"I don't see how I couldn't be."
"You shouldn't. I'm quite capable."
"You were just saying you wanted to eat a bug."
"And?"
"You get distracted by curtains. These are not the events that occur in capable people's lives!"
"Then what is your solution."
"Find some reason."
"A sidekick."
"I didn't say that."
"Would you like to be my sidekick?"
"I want peace."
"Hmm." I never knew how to respond to that.

Amazing things happen every day. They just don't typically happen to me. It was the day the guards came for Nix, the end of the week I knew him.
He sat, back to the wall, across the room from me. Two guards came in. Two remained outside the cell. One guard took his left arm, the other his right. He was quiet but smiling. The guards were nervous. They had a good reason to be, and therefore they were reckless.
The barred door closed. I moved in the darkness of the cell to see Nix's back. He turned his head. "Hey Tereese. Remember."
Remember?
I looked back at the spot where he had sat just a moment before. The blue crystal rest on the ground. He had somehow pried it loose from the cuffs.
"ACK!"
I went to the door and looked through the bars.
Nix rubbed at his wrists before turning and waving at me. The guards lay on the floor. "Hey Tereese!" He shouted.
I smiled back at him.
"Take care," he said, seeming to falter for a moment as he turned his back to me once again. Then he left, and I stood alone.


She was short and lightly freckled head to toe. She had gentle green eyes and wavy brown hair but there was something about the woman of twenty that held power, that made her a formidable opponent. The man that sat across from her smiled slightly, "Tell me, Tereese; is it true that you were a thief?"
"I was a longtime borrower from quite suddenly met acquaintances. That's what I was, Kave," She said sternly.
He laughed. "You, my dear, are a twister of words."
"Yes, well, I was once told to be careful with words. They're unbelievably difficult creatures to master."
"But is it true?" Kave asked. As he tapped lightly at his cup, he smiled.
She smiled back. "You know it's true, Kave, I don't see why you insist on going through these questions all the time."
"I have to make sure you practice, now don't I? Can't have you running my business into the ground because you scare them away." He took a sip of his tea.
"And when in the last year have I scared a business associate away?"
"You used to be very bad about it."
She looked out the window and seemed to retreat inward a bit as she sipped carefully at her tea.
Kave watched her. She had improved amazingly in the last four years, but he couldn't take all the credit for that. In fact he could barely take any. He looked around the large apartment. It held only the essentials, and it was rather bleak, rather dark and depressing, too much like a prison. He would've suggested a good designer if he hadn't known how poorly she would react to the idea of allowing a stranger some sort of power in her household. Gaining Tereese's trust had been quite the ordeal, and Kave thought very carefully of his words and actions around her not wanting to fall out of her good favor.
"I don't like thinking about the past. Honestly I don't remember most of my childhood, I wiped out those dreadful memories long ago. The present is quite a lovely place, sitting here, drinking tea with you. It's something I would have thought of as a dream when I was younger."
He smiled. "It's nice to know that I might be allowed a part in your dreams."

"You have a visitor, sir."
Kave took off his coat and gloves. A chill was on its way through, but there was a warmth inside that the cold couldn't touch these days. "Do I now?" he asked, amused by his butler's somber face.
"He's in your study sir."
He looked at Dain. The butler was tense. Kave felt the inner joy slowly dispersing. "Who is it? City guards? Did they find Greg's operation? I should have known something was up when that idiot didn't report yesterday. Or is it the Baron's daughter or some other unlikable person?"
They moved towards the study. "I'll be right outside the door sir."
"Dain, who is it?"
"Master Nix."
"Oh, benevolent Strider," he cursed as he opened the door.
"Hello Kave."
"You have the most miraculous timing," Kave said. "Dain get me something to drink, something hard."
The butler left.
"Well, don't you sound irritated. Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Four years isn't long enough."
Nix laughed. Kave sat down and studied the individual opposite him, he was as tall and lanky as ever. His hair was longer now of course, and he had a scar on his hand, that was new, so was the jacket, he didn't recall that from their last meeting and he was sure he'd remember something so... purple, but four years had passed, it was inevitable that Nix would have added something to his well-worn collection of clothes. "I like the jacket."
"I went through a lot of trouble to get it," Nix replied. Practically all his clothes had stories behind them, Kave didn't feel like hearing the particular story of the lacy jacket.
"So what do you want?"   
"Oh, just passing through, thought I'd stop by, look into how certain things are..." He folded his hands in his lap and smiled mischievously.
Kave moved around in his seat uncomfortably. The scene of the nervous Kave and the relaxed cat-like Nix was practically a mirror image of their discussions four years ago.
Dain walked in and the two men sat in silence as the butler gave Kave his drink and then walked out, closing the door definitely, imprisoning Kave with Nix.
"How is Tereese?"
"She's fine. Strong. A good businesswoman."
"Happy?"
"Yes."
Nix looked at him tilting his head to the side with a smile. "That's good."
"It is."
"How's the business, Kave?"
"It's running perfectly, practically."
"Practically?" Nix asked.
"Practically," Kave said. He gulped down his drink.

Greg Bardon sat in the Crimson Sword and observed the tall blond woman with the large brown eyes and sharp nose, he watched as she strode toward the bar slowly. He looked back to the door. Kave Gleen walked in.
"Sting," he cursed.
Kave was an average looking man with a shrewd mind. He ran his business efficiently. Everything was clean, well normally. Kave Gleen and Greg Bardon had only argued about one thing in the past, and that was Tereese. Tereese had been random, Greg had decided that Kave had not been in his right mind when he took a sudden interest in a poor thief who Greg believed would never amount to anything. He had been wrong of course, not that Greg would ever admit that.
Recently Greg's relationship with the rich and powerful can-do-no-wrong Kave Gleen had taken a turn for the worse. Greg wanted to take his business in a new direction, make it more accessible, integrate it with the prosperous business run by Tereese. Kave could make that happen, but he refused. Kave Gleen was not going to get Tereese involved in his own little criminal empire. But it wasn't only that, Greg wasn't clean enough for Kave Gleen. He wasn't good enough. Greg was nothing but dirt. And he didn't like that.
Greg saw Kave glance at the tall blond before focusing in on him and moving in for the kill, or rather the lecture. Greg didn't think Kave Gleen was capable of killing.

"I need you to get your act together," Kave said.
Greg Bardon ignored him and looked at the blond.
Kave's eyes narrowed, "Bardon, if you don't get your act together then I'll find someone else in the slums who will. There's plenty out there who are younger, sharper, and stronger than you."
"You wouldn't dare."
It was so simple, that hateful look in Greg's eyes, the roughness of his voice. Kave was not in the mood for Greg Bardon's simpleness.
"Are you going to listen to me, Bardon, or are you going to be a stubborn fool?"
Greg circled his finger around the glass. "Kave, you can't do what I do. You don't touch my business, I won't take talk from someone who has spent their entire life in golden apartments. You don't know the streets. You can't touch the streets. They're too dirty for you, far too messy for a rich boy. Besides you don't have the men's alliance, I do. When I leave this business I'll be retiring for myself, not pushed out by the likes of you. Now if you'll excuse me I have a blond to introduce myself to."
Kave sighed as Greg Bardon walked away. It would seem that he would be making use of Nix's services after all.

Tereese woke up in a panic. She looked around her room nervously, holding the blankets close. Her heart raced and she waited. Nothing came though, nothing came out of the shadows for her, there were no strange hands, no twisted faces. Everything was at peace. Everything was quiet. She breathed in, then out, and let her hands slowly release their death grip on the blankets. It had been another nightmare. Just a dream.
She slowly got out of the bed and felt her way to her bedroom door. She opened it slowly and peeked into the large living room, she had left a few candles lit, she always did. The light danced around the cold room. She saw no monsters in here either and she let her fears float to the back of her mind. She was so afraid. It was embarrassing really, how much of a child she was.
She walked around the room just touching things, making sure everything was real. She finally walked to the window. The moon lit the dark streets in an almost eerie blue glow. She closed her eyes. She could still see it, the flickering light of the blue crystal. She opened her eyes and turned. Soon her eyes closed once more.

"Miss Tereese!"
She turned, surprised, she wasn't used to people calling her name out in the middle of the crowded city streets, it was just one of those things that didn't really happen to Tereese. She was even more surprised as she saw the tall blond woman who approached her quickly. She was forceful, intimidating, Tereese suddenly felt very small.
"Hello there, I'm Miss La. I'd like to ask you some questions," the tall blond woman said.
Tereese wondered for a moment if this was Kave's doing, but quickly dismissed the idea. "Hello..."
"Miss Tereese." Miss La's face softened as she looked down at the childish young woman. "Would you maybe join me for lunch?"
"For lunch?"
"Or more so a brunch I guess..."
"I..."
"You see, I have a lot of questions for you."
"Okay, then, of course," Tereese looked up at the sky as if searching for some sort of answer.
They could take care at the office without her for awhile. She might as well see what this Miss La wanted.

"Miss Tereese, were you ever at any point in prison?"
Tereese was taken aback by Miss La's first question. She was so straightforward. "Uh, yes, I did pay a little visit in prison..."
"Huh." Miss La scribbled something down in her notebook. It was all quite disconcerting for Tereese.
"Might I ask what this is all about?"
She ignored Tereese's question. "And were you at any point imprisoned with a person called Nix?"
"Called Nix?"
"Well of course it wasn't a real name..."
"No one called anyone anything when I was in prison. It was all very... quiet."
Miss La's eyes narrowed. "I don't like people playing with me Miss Tereese."
"And I don't like answering odd questions from people who I've just met."
The two women looked at one another.

   Greg Bardon had disappeared on the day of the big deal, and no one knew what to do, but Kave Gleen was very quick with presenting his replacement. Kave Gleen however was not in a good mood, not until Dain announced that Tereese was there. She strode angrily through the door.
"Something wrong?"
She threw herself down in to one of the chairs. "I met the most horrible woman on the street today. She asked some questions, about my past, and so on. And guess what I learned?"
"Talk a little slower. What did you learn?"
"She's a bounty hunter or a mercenary or something of that despicable kind!"
Kave paled. "What was she asking you about?" He asked.
She looked at her hands. "About someone who I knew back when I was in prison..."
"Who?"
Tereese looked at him. "You remember, you came to my rescue after the embarrassment that the prison guard took when he escaped."
"Nix." His voice jumped.
"Is something wrong, Kave?"
"Nothing, I'm just... I'm just feeling a bit ill Tereese. Tell me more about this woman."
"Her name was Miss La, probably an alias. She was tall, like a giant of some sort, and blond."
She sounded repulsed by the woman's very features.
"Strider," Kave said, staring out the window. "I believe I spoke to her last night."
"Well, that's fine isn't it? I mean you don't know anything about Nix except what I've told you."
He gazed out the window.
"Do you?" She asked.
It was silent, and Tereese suddenly felt a sense of dread creeping up on her.
"Kave, what do you know about Nix?"
He frowned, his brow furrowed. "Tereese, I need you to listen very carefully to everything I'm about to say and try not to judge a man who has grown so much in the last four years and tried to keep you safe."
"Kave?"
He looked sadly at her. "Four years ago, I went to the prison to help a girl. Why? Blackmail and well sentimentality. The day before a man had paid me a visit. He was infamous, considered a demon by some. Known best for his crimes against humanity. A cannibal and killer. He stood before the fireplace in this very study and smiled at me as he explained exactly what he knew about my business and what he was capable of doing to me, or more importantly, to my reputation. But he didn't need to do that. I already knew. I had known Nix from long before that. The only thing that he had to do was find me, I owed him. I still do, I guess. Or maybe it's the other way around now, I don't quite know."
Tereese's head was turned away. Her eyes bore into the fire. Thinking of how she'd been left in that cell, how she had believed that happiness had abandoned her, and how she had healed. Now it was fresh. Now it was new.
"He told me about you, Tereese. He explained what would be happening very soon, and how I needed to make myself a part of it. He said you wanted nothing more than peace, and he made it quite clear that that was what I was to ensure. And so I did. But Tereese I do care for you, I care deeply."
"Is that all?" Her hands were shaking. "Is that all, Kave?"
He looked out the window. Nix looked back, his blue eyes piercing through the glass. Kave closed his eyes. "Yes," he lied.
She was panicking. "I need to..."
"Go home? I'll take you."
"I just don't know," she whispered, "I don't know."

"Did you have to tell her?" Nix asked as Kave walked through the front door.
"How?"
"I know everything, I can read lips you see. Also Dain told me. He's a very nosy butler," Nix said waving his finger back and forth.
"She had to find out sooner or later. Besides there's some woman after you. She's contacted Tereese and me already. I think you should leave."
"You think this woman will find something out about you that you won't like? Hmm, or is it that you want me far away from Tereese and you perhaps? Don't worry about it, Kave, I already know about her. How do you think my hand got scarred?"
"She's dangerous."
"Extremely."
"Meaning you might not want to stay in my house if she has already contacted me?"
"I'm smarter than Miss La. You won't be getting me out of here so easily."
Kave sat down on the staircase. "So what do we do?"
"It's a game Kave, a game I plan on winning."
"You're still a child, aren't you?"
Nix smiled. "Why don't you tell me?"
Kave smiled back, "The only difference is that we mistook the early signs of your insanity as an overactive imagination. Now it's quite clear that you're insane."
"Thank you."
Nix sat down next to Kave on the staircase and took a spoon from an inner pocket of his odd purple jacket. He threw the spoon from one hand to the other, and together Kave and Nix sat smiling and thinking just like in the old days.

"Hmm?" Tereese looked up at the portly gentleman who stood before her desk. Several of the employees stood beside the doorway trying to collect gossip or to observe their boss in general. Most of their hobbies seemed to include observing, or rather stalking. What could Tereese say? Some of them just got really caught up in their job.
The portly gentleman barked something about buildings and something about unenthusiastic behavior. So his business was complaints, well then. Tereese rose and walked past the man and out the door. "I'll be taking the rest of the day off."
The portly gentleman practically turned red as he followed her out the door, barking something rude and stupid. Tereese  stopped as she saw the blond woman, Miss La, across the street.
"And furthermore!" He huffed.
She turned. "Does this look like the face of a woman who wants to deal with you? No, it isn't. If you have any complaints about the way I run my business, then I kindly request that you write them all down and then shred them! Thank you."

"What a wonderful display of quality customer service," Miss La said, clapping her hands.
"Miss La, I suggest you leave me alone. I don't know anything about his current whereabouts. In fact I'd suggest you just forget this little mission of yours entirely. It's hopeless."
"Is that what you think?" Miss La asked smiling, "Because I believe I know exactly how to do it."
"Really? Care to explain?"
"Not at all. You see it involves taking you hostage. I believe he keeps a close eye on you, and if he's close by, then he'll show up."
"You plan on kidnapping me?"
"Kidnapping you, or you could simply volunteer to aid me in the capture of a dangerous criminal. Your choice."
"You're insane."
"Really?" Her blue eyes flashed. "You're just another piece in the game."
Miss La moved towards her. Tereese noticed that she was in an alley, the windows in her office building faced the other direction, and that Miss La was probably stronger and faster than her. Running still sounded pretty good right about now and Tereese turned, tripped over a pile of bottles, and failed miserably. Tereese had never had good luck.

            "Sting," Kave cursed, his palm flying to his forehead.
"Sting?" Nix asked amused by Kave's use of the word he normally saw as so dirty.
"Sting, sting, sting!"
"Want to tell me what's wrong?"
"Miss La has Tereese."
"Hell."
"Yeah."
The two men were unusually calm.
"Have you ever dealt with a kidnapping before?" Kave asked Nix hopefully.
"I don't kidnap people Kave, I kill them. Have you?"
"No, it's not really my line of business... kidnapping."
"There a note?"
"Yeah."
"Did she give it to you?"
"Not directly," Kave said.
Nix waited impatiently.
"It was attached to a body that was delivered, not intently, to one of my gangs in the slums. It kind of just appeared in the middle of a crowd. The body that is, made quite a stir. My guess is that she knew you'd hear about it somehow and check it out, because that's what you do, right?"
"It's part of my hunting process..." Nix said uncomfortably.
"Hunting process?"
"I look into murders, do a little research, find the killer, and such, it's part of the game."
"I hate your games... This means that she knows well."
"She's been studying me it would seem."
"Sounds like stalking to me, but you do the same thing now don't you?"
Nix sighed. "What did the note say? How did your men get it before the guards? And why?"
"My men are very efficient. Besides the note had Miss La's name scrawled on it, it was stabbed into the man's chest. My men took it because I released a sort of notice about anything having to do about her."
"She probably already knows about that."
"Yes, um, well, the note says that she has Tereese and she wants you. She says she'll leave it to you to find her."
"A hunting game then?"
Kave's frown deepened, "This is a little more than a game, Nix."
"I know."
"Do you? Do you really?"

What do you do when you've been kidnapped by a deranged woman trying to capture a not-so-but-kind-of-equally-deranged cannibal who might just get himself killed?
Tereese had no idea. But then again, who said Nix would come? She wondered if he would even care to save her. She knew Kave would, but she know longer knew if she really knew Kave... Did Kave know more about Nix? Maybe Miss La wasn't completely delusional. Maybe Nix was really in the city. Maybe Kave knew. Her mind was racing. This was bad. This was extremely bad.
Miss La paced around the basement of the Crimson Sword, Tereese could hear the music above but no one could hear her, she knew this because Miss La had allowed her to scream just as loud as possible for help, a sickening smile on her lovely face. She turned suddenly and looked at Tereese, touching the gun on her hip.
"I made it myself," Miss La said, "Would you like to know how it works?"
Tereese had decided that Miss La liked to explain things, she had been doing quite a lot of explaining to Tereese in the collection of hours since she had been kidnapped by the tall blond. Tereese no longer responded to the woman, her words just seemed to fuel Miss La's purpose, her insanity.
"You see you insert a Mythane crystal. They're a little difficult to get a hold of these days for regular people, but I'm not a regular person you see," She laughed.
Tereese's hands were bound with rope, but surely she could find a way to break rope bindings if Nix could escape from Mythane enhanced metal handcuffs.
"When I fire the gun a bolt of pure energy comes out, expanding as it exits. It leaves quite the nasty hole in people. It's lots of fun."
She glared at Miss La whose shoulders slumped and face fell in false sadness, "What, no girl heart-to-heart bonding time? But we were getting along so well earlier."
A bottle fell. Tereese closed her eyes instinctively. She remembered her humiliating fall yesterday. It had become even more embarrassing after Miss La had explained how she had stacked them there knowing what the end result would be. Tereese hated Miss La with an absolute passion.
"It would seem we have a rather large rat loose in the basement," Miss La said smiling.
"No rat, just me."
Tereese's heart sank as she saw Kave come out of the darkness with his hands up. "I was wondering if you might be kind enough to let my friend go."
"Sting, how did you find your way here?"
"I'm a regular at the Crimson Sword. Besides I got your letter."
"You're not Nix."
"Nix isn't here. He left last night. You just missed him. Now if you'll just let Tereese and me go, then we can forget this ever happened."
"Kave!" Tereese yelled.
"Tereese," Kave said.
Something didn't feel right,and Miss La trusted her instincts, but currently she was trying to figure out just what it could be. She turned as the knife flew at her from the shadows. Her eyes narrowed as he stepped from the shadows, humming.
"Oh benevolent Strider," Kave cursed as he darted towards Tereese.
Miss La reached for her gun, Tereese screamed, and Nix ran directly into the tall blond. The gun fell to the side. Everything happened quickly as Miss La drew a knife and Nix rolled to the side narrowly avoiding her mad stabbing.
Nix stood up smiling. Miss La grinned back, swaying back and forth.
"Been awhile since we've faced one another, I always seem to just miss you, I arrive just as you vanish, but now I've got you.."
Nix took a step back. "Don't you know that it's rude to kidnap people, La?"
"Eating people isn't the best table manners either, Nix," Miss La replied.
Kave loosed the rope, but only a little.
"Hurry up!"
"I'm doing my best Tereese. Sting, I should have brought another knife, but no, Nix doesn't carry weapons on him, and he needed my knife... What kind of killer is he? He doesn't even carry a knife on him!" Kave was speaking loud and fast. She could barely keep up with Kave's ranting as she looked from him to Nix, who let out a pained sort of yelp as Miss La cut the back of his leg. He let go of her hair and stumbled backward.
Tereese felt the ropes slide free. She saw Miss La gain her legs and walk towards Nix.
"You're losing your touch, that's going to cost you," she heard Miss La smiling say.

Miss La fell, her scream filling the air as the energy burst through her chest. She was dead before she hit the floor. Or more so Nix, who was drenched in the blood of Miss La. The corpse lay on Nix, her knife embedded in his scarred hand. Nix closed his eyes, it was not a beautiful thing.
He laughed weakly. "She always did go for the hand," he said, pulling the knife from his flesh.
Tereese lowered the gun. She was shaking. Kave walked up to her taking the gun from her hand and repeatedly telling her to look away, but she couldn't.
She couldn't look away.

Kave didn't know how he had managed to get the wounded Nix and traumatized Tereese out of the Crimson Sword's basement and to his own house unseen, but he had done it somehow. And now Dain and a trustworthy doctor were busily working away. Kave sat in his study drinking tea. He couldn't believe how calm he was, how easy it was. He wondered if he was in shock. But now everything would be fine, everyone would be safe. He was ready to make sure of that. He closed his eyes. He wouldn't let Tereese and his cousin get into any further trouble, well, not for awhile at least.
"Sir?" Dain stood at the door, "Miss Tereese and Master Adri...Nix are resting."
"Good. Dain, it is time to prepare for a trip," Kave said.
"A trip sir?"
"Yes, I think it'd be best if we got away for awhile. I recently acquired that estate in Encori, didn't I?"
"Yes sir."
"Well then, I think it's time to move East. Oh and Dain."
"Yes sir?"
"Make sure to wash Adrian's jacket."
"That horrible gaudy purple thing sir?"
Kave smiled. He was exhausted. "Yes Dain."
The butler left and Kave closed his eyes. It was time to find some peace.