Martyn's POV

Strolling through the garage, hands in my jean pockets, I peer round a red honda, raised on a platform. "Toby!" I call out, crouching down to see if he was under the car. Sure enough, I see a mess of brown hair attempt to sit up and smack itself on the car, cursing loudly. "God dammit Martyn!" Toby shouts, sliding out of under the car, holding a hand to his head. I just grin, pulling him in for a hug.

"Long time no see, friend" I laugh, ruffling his hair up. He scowls, but his dark brown eyes are alight with excitement. It had been a while since we had been messing around as usual, stealing cars and racing down the highway, laughing and hooting as the police struggle to keep up, red and blue lights flashing and blaring as they wind their way through the cars. We'd never been caught.

I can see my memories reflected in his eyes and he flashes me his boyish grin.

"It has been long. Why haven't you come to see me?" he whines, taking off his oily apron. I glance down at my own clothes, noticing the oil patches now imprinted on my jacket and I raise my eyebrows, but he doesn't see. "Business. Had to keep my head down" I tell him, looking round his garage. We were a team, him and I. He fixed the cars we stole, repainting them if necessary, changing the license plates and erasing them off systems. I, on the other hand, sold them, got the money from them and used it to splash out.

We'd always been a team. We stole the cars together, we rode them together, we helped each other, we shared the money. Even as children, both of us would play with toy cars in the nursery, crashing them into places, chasing them away from toy police cars, hitting other children with them. You could say we were born to do this.

"What you got here?" I ask, glancing back at the red honda. "Oh, that car we stole from the petrol station" he sighs, going back over to it and picking up the now detached license plate. My eyes flash over the number and I smile. "Ah, now I remember. It was the black one wasn't it? Nice paint job" I comment, walking around it. "I know. Will get you a decent amount" he shrugs.

"Both of us" I point out and he flashes me that smile again. I smirk back.

"Something interesting happened last week" Toby says, walking over to the sink to wash his greasy hands. "Oh yeah?" I ask, sitting on a tatty blue chair.

"The Dog Father called round" he told me and I glance up. "You serious?" I frown, staring at him to make sure it wasn't a trick. He nodded grimly. "Asked me if I had a car for sale, a fast one" he continued, grabbing an old rag and drying his hands. "What did you say?" I asked curiously.

"Told him I gave the cars to you to sell when I was done painting them and stuff. I didn't tell him how I got them, but he seemed to know" he sighs, chucking the rag across the room, and sitting beside me. "What then?" I ask, bracing myself. The Dog Father was going to visit me? He had tons of money, I could use a visiter like him.

"He asked the same question. I told him I could get him some. He told me he would pay us loads if we got him a fast one" he smirks. "Really?" I grin. He nods. "We're gonna be rich" I chuckle.

"What does he want with a fast car? Can't he just use his demigod powers?" I muse. Not many people knew about his "demigodness", most people passed it off as a superstition. Those people, I found, were usually the ones that ended up dead.

"Dunno. Asked him that, he just smiled and told me it was his business" Toby replied, running a hand through his hair. "He's a mysterious one, that one" I half smile. "He's just another customer to me" Toby chuckles. "True. Let's go get him a fast one then. hm?" I smile, standing up. "Definitely" he grins back.

Tia's POV

Black. It was black for a while. A dark, void of black that kept swallowing me up every time I tried to see, to smell, to hear. Sometimes, voices would drift into the darkness, and I would strain to hear them, but the blackness would swallow me up, leaving me in a suspended state.

It was hard to think. In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was what a coma felt like, or death. At times, pain would throb in my head, but it disappeared after a short period of time. I knew I was being moved, either unconscious or as a dead corpse.

Whispers finally broke through my prison of darkness, and I fought to hear them. Male voices. Two of them. My head was beginning to throb again, this time harder as I began to wake up. At least I was alive, I thought, but I might not want to be when I wake up.

"Look, we're almost there now" one voice says, a calm voice, definitely a british accent.

"What if he doesn't accept? What do we do then?" the other voice says, louder, higher in pitch, but still recognizably male.

"Put her back where we found her" the other voice sighs. Lewis. That name leapt out of my mind, and so the memories flooded back in. Walking back from the kitchen, sipping coffee, something metal hitting my head, my coffee cup shattering as it hit the floor and my head slammed right into the sharp shards. That was probably why my head was threatening to explode.

I remembered Kim, telling me in the kitchen how Simon and Lewis were going to sell me to the Dog Father. That's probably who's house I was in now, judging by the rich smells of tea, lavender and lily of the valley air freshener. I recognized these smells, and I barely held back a groan. I was going to be tied up and left to listen to Ridge chatting down my earhole for the next few hours. Brilliant.

Judging by my position and by the way I was rocking sideways all the time, Simon was holding me by the arms and Lewis by the legs. Or the other way round. I didn't want them to know I was awake. Being hit by one metal bar was enough. Two would cause me to go into a coma, with Ridgedog as my nurse-this was already a nightmare without him twirling around in a nurse apron.

A loud door opens, and that familiar, god-be-damned voice drifted into my ears like velvet. "Well, well, well. You boys have been busy."

"Your deal, Ridge. This is the price I am willing to pay" Lewis says stiffly, chucking me somewhere, probably the sofa as I bounce on cushions that are soft like a kittens fur. I stay stiff and unmoving-one move would give the game away. I could feel the blade of my knife sheathed at my belt-idiots. Didn't take my weapons off me when they took me. I always hid a knife under my belt. I nearly smirked but managed to contain it and I decided to listen in on the conversation to find out what Ridge was going to do with me.

"You are certainly desperate" Ridge's smug voice says. "You know I am" Lewis replies, sitting down behind my head. Simon sits down where my legs are. Lewis was closer, so I decided he would be the one I would hurt. Simon was too innocent for me, not to mention he didn't want to do this. I could tell by the way he was fidgeting without pause.

"Tell me, why her out of all the things you could of given me?" he muses, and I hear the clink of a cup against a plate.

"You have a soft spot for her. We give you her, you help me get my Lomadia back" Lewis snaps.

"You are fools indeed" he chuckles, his laughter booming round the room like we were in a echoing cave. "How do you mean?" Simon asks. "Well, for one, I could kidnap her whenever I want-I don't need you to do the job for me" he giggles like a girl. That was true. One thing about Ridge was that he wasn't stupid like most of the people around me.

"Plus, I would of taken her in a cleaner, more efficient way instead of hitting her pretty little head and lugging her around like a corpse." he sighs, almost sadly as if he was disappointed.

"We don't care about her" Lewis protests. I knew exactly who I was aiming for. I look through my eyelashes just the slighest. Simon and Lewis were facing away from me. But Ridge was staring right at me, and his smile grew as he met my gaze.

"And secondly," he continued, "she's been awake all this time."

I take that as my chance, and I unsheath my blade, my eyes flashing to Lewis as I slam it into his arm.

He yells loudly, jumping off the sofa. I grab my knife back, pointing it at Simon who does the smart thing and runs to the door, Lewis following in hot pursuit. I sneer at the fleeing duo, accepting the tissue Ridgedog gives me as I wipe my blade clean.

"Hello" he grins, and I nod, rolling the tissue into a ball and throwing it neatly into the waste paper basket at the side of his desk.

"I didn't expect to see you today" he continues, taking a pot off the table. He knew I didn't take tea, so he began to make me a coffee. Now that I thought about it, he knew a lot about me.

"How many sugars? I know you take two and a half, but you look like you're still in shock" he notes, and I meet his gaze. "Damn right I'm in shock. It's not every morning you get smacked in the head with an iron bar. I didn't even have a chance to drink my morning coffee. So yes, three sugars please" I sigh, sitting up and sheathing my blade.

He smiles, and we sit for a while in silence as he pours in the sugar and boiling water and stirs the spoon. Oddly enough, I felt at home here, having a tea party with the world's most dangerous criminal. Ridge had always protected me, so I knew I was safer here than anywhere else.

Well, until he got mad. Then it didn't matter who stood in his way, he would mow them down before they could beg for mercy.

"May I ask how long you've been unconscious?" he says, pouring in the milk. He was so formal, all the time. Even when he was killing someone, he would always say "please" when he was ordering them to shut the hell up and stop screaming like a dying pig.

"I've been sort of conscious for the past ten minutes. The first five I couldn't make anything out. After a while I started to hear them, and I was fully awake by the time I got to this room." I tell him, accepting the cup. His fingers linger a little too while on the handle, so I take it from the bottom, taking it from him.

"For an assassin, you have an awfully bad reaction time" he smirks, sipping his own cup of tea. I sip my coffee, surprised to find it exactly the way I make it, well, with more sugar of course.

"I was made to kill not to defend" I say stiffly, placing the cup on my lap and fiddling with the handle as I avoid his gaze.

"Then again, you've haven't been an assassin for the past few months. Just Duncan's little messenger girl" he chuckles. I look up to glare at him. "I'm not a messenger girl" I spit, contemplating whether or not to pour the cup of coffee on his head-that would wipe the smirk off his face.

"You haven't killed anyone for the past five months. You must be itching to kill someone by now. But all you've been doing is taking messages to and from people. No wonder you've been so cranky. You want to hurt someone." he smiles.

"I'll hurt you if you don't shut up" I snap, my hands trembling a little. So he really had been stalking me.

"Like you could. If you came and worked with me, I'd teach you how to defend yourself" he replies calmly, gulping his tea down. I glower at him. It was a surprisingly interesting offer. It had been pretty boring with Duncan. I was at home all day, browing on the internet, looking at funny cats on YouTube. It wouldn't be that bad to take lessons from him.

But I was loyal to Duncan, and loyal I would be.

"Interesting offer, but I don't work for the enemy" I say stiffly. He smiled at me. "I didn't say for me" he reminds me, placing the cup back on the table and clasping his hands together.

"With you? Like you'd ever trust me" I snort, gulping the rest of my coffee down and slamming it a little too hard on the table. Standing up, I smooth my clothes down, and leave for the door.

"Do you trust me?" he calls after me. I pause, turning round, his eyes glittering with honest curiousity.

"Yes" I reply after a while. "Thanks for the coffee"

He smiles at me as I leave.

Note: :D XD No idea what to put here :[