Punch punch, kick, fake left, dodge right, spin and punch.

Repeat.

Carmen had fallen into a steady routine with training, and, despite what Ivy had said last night, she could feel herself growing stronger every day. It felt great to hit something that wouldn't retaliate, for once.

"Hey, Carm?

"What is it, Zack?" She asked, continuing to assault the punching bag.

"Player pulled up something on the hard drive the could explain the camera a little better, if you're interested."

"I'll be right out, thanks." Carmen pulled a towel off of a shelf and scrubbed her face, delighting in the way it scraped over her skin. She passed the bag on her way to the door, and stopped. Tiny rips covered one side of the battered red leather, allowing grains of sand to slip to the floor.

Satisfaction rose in Carmen. She was already a much better fighter than she had been three weeks ago, and her ribs had finally healed. Now all she wanted was to find her mother, and the chance to show Tigress how much it hurt to be thrown into a chain link fence. And then wrestled into the dirt. After barely healing from hypothermia.

Carmen suddenly twisted on her heel and round-house kicked the bag, sending it spinning on its chain.

"Whoah." Zack's eyes widened a bit. "And that is why I don't get on your bad side, Carm." He laughed a bit nervously. "What wicked emotion spurred on that?"

"Anger, resolve, and determination to get my revenge. Eventually." Right hand on her waist, Carmen popped a hip and flung the towel over her shoulder. "Now. Let's go see what Player managed to dig up this time."

"This is huge, Red." Player was pacing in his room, back and forth across the laptops screen. "The camera in that piece of painting frame was just a tiny part of a seemingly giant plan. VILE has gotten smarter since your last encounter with them, and they've come up with a way to bait."

"They're also after my head," She muttered, listening to her friends explination. Not really catching on to his point, Carmen asked, "How are they baiting me, Player?"

He sat and placed his hands on the desk, his 13-year-old expression dead serious. "The camera that you found is just one of many. Intel on the hard drive indicates that VILE had been placing ones just like it it in other paintings, all over the world. And I mean EVERYWHERE. Theres a city in South America with three historical museums, and the combined total of cameras located in that city is well over 1,000. Millions in each country, almost."

"What are you getting at?"

Player sighed and rubbed his eyes. "There is no possible way that VILE could have placed a camera in more than three-fourths of the worlds paintings in just a little over three weeks."

Carmen stood to clear her head a bit, her hands tapping her legs nervously. "That means that VILE has been doing this for... years now." She muttered, eyes narrowing. "Without letting anything slip until now. And its almost like-" She turned to Ivy and Zack. "Its like they waited until now to say anything."

The Bostonians looked to each other from where they sat on the couch, eyebrows raised.

"What if the Vermeer's had cameras in them?" Carmen continued, her mind racing. "VILE could've staged it all and allowed me to get away, thinking that I had won. But it was just so that they could've had more spies around the globe."

She screwed her eyes shut. Did I willingly give them the advantage?

welp apparently this ones super short, too.

sorry (laughs nervously) please don't hunt me down.

Let me know what you think so far! I know its not a whole lot to go off of, but I'll try to publish almost every day, at least.

Bye!

Have a Sandiegotastic day!

ha ha sorry I know I'm terrible

shoot me.

Also if you guys could point any spelling or grammar errors out to me, (also punctuation) that would be great.

kk im leaving now