This is so long, it's cruel, and I apologize. I had a lot of energy and little to do when I wrote this, evidently.

We found ourselves, forty five minutes later, standing on the helipad outside the compound, climbing aboard the same type of plane I had arrived in, although its interior proved to be more cushy. First of all, there were actual seats.

(Not that I'm bitter.)

"Nice hair," Pete said, flipping it as he sat down next to me.

"I was ambushed."

"They did that to me once, except I was asleep and did not consent."

"Whoa, what did Pete not consent to while asleep that he is discussing with a minor?" Oliver quipped as he slung his lanky flame over the top of my seat.

"Can't you sit behind Pete? You just kind of strike me as the sort of man child that kicks the back of seats for the fun of it." Pete laughed.

"Well, well, well, shorty's got some attitude, huh?"

"She's had attitude the whole time, though. It's just that you finally dislodged your head from your ass."

"Well, let's not be hasty. I like having my head up my ass. It's an enjoyable lifestyle.

Pete snorted. "I imagine that sounded quite a lot better in your head," Pete laughed.

***

Three hours later, we were in front of Pete's brownstone. Minnie and Oliver were just down the block, and Kate and Red were a few doors down. As we climbed out of the cab, Pete went to grab my bag, but I pulled it out. "I got it."

Now, what kind of Englishman would I be if I didn't help a lady carry her bags?"

"I don't know, a feminist one, maybe."

"Does that even qualify as feminism?"

"Whoa, are you questioning my feminine power? I have never felt more objectified in my life."

He smiled. In mocking him, I had clutched my hands to my heart, providing him with the perfect opportunity to swoop in and snatch the backpack, which he swung over his shoulder. "The feminist movement will surely live to fight another day. Fear not."

I followed him into the brownstone, which was surprisingly spacious inside. The door opened into the kitchen, a small black and white tiled monstrosity that branched off to the living rioom on the left. The living room was actually pretty cozy looking, with leather and mismatched fabric furniture, and a surprisingly large number of books. "Wow. You have a lot of books." He glanced over at them from his position bent ovet the refrigerator, rooting around inside.

"Oh, yeah. I guess I have started hoarding them over the years. I blame my uncle. He's the one who got me hooked on Douglas when I was ten or so."

"Wait, Hitchhikers' Guide?"

He nodded. "Oh, God, I love those books," I said. It was true. A battered, yellowing, dog eared copy of A Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy was the only thing I inherited from my parents, aside from the USB stick. There's a little inscription on the front cover in what I assume is my dad's handwriting as it reads:

To Daddy's Little Explorer,

Here's hoping that you will one day travel the world, just like mommy and dad.

Love you,

Daddy.

Yeah, I memorized it, okay? Cut me a break. Wouldn't you? I don't like to think about it too often though. It makes me wish I'd known them. They seem like they would have been cool to grow up with, especially now that I know what they did for a living.

Pete slammed the fridge shut, snapping me out of my reverie. "Okay, I'm officially the epitome of a bachelor. I have literally nothing in my house that's actually edible."

"Seriously?"

He nodded solemnly. "How do you feel about takeout?"

"I feel incredible about takeout."

"Cool. Chinese or pizza?"

"I don't care."

"I don't think you understand how inherently not helpful that is." He met my eyes grimly as he reached into a drawer and flopped a whhole stack of takeout menues, rubber banded together, on the table.

"Oh my God, you have issues."

"Yeah, I can't cook for shit. That's my issue. Keep up, Jamison."

"What?"

"What?"

"Why'd you call me Jamison?"

"Because that's your name?"

"It is?"

"Yeah. I can actually confirm this. I've seen your birth certificate. Wait, you don't know your full name?"

"Honestly, it's a miracle that I even know my first name, considering all Fiona ever bothered to call me was Winchester."

"Whoa. You want to know your middle name?"

"I don't know. Is it bad?"

"Sharol."

"I'm going to pretend that this never happened, and then we are going to light fire to every document that supports this absurdity."

There was a knock on the door.

"Wow," Pete said, checking his watch. "It only took Minnie thirteen minutes to kick Olver out this time. New record."

Pete headed off down the hallway, and I peeked out the window, curious.

Johnny was standing outside.

"Fuck. Pete, don't answer that!"

I was too late.

"Hi, can I help you?"

I worked my way down the hallway cautiously. He already knew I was here. There was no point denying it. Pete was silhouetted against the door. A casual passerby would have thought he was simply leaning against the doorjamb, but all three of us knew that what he was doing was really blocking Johnny from coming in.

It would work, too. Johnny wasn't a big guy, only five eight ot so, by my guess. Pete, on the other hand, was well over six feet, so it was almost comical when Johnny puffed out his chest in a weak imitation of intimidation.

"Yeah, I'm looking for a kid by the name of Jamie Winchester."

"Uh." Pete cast the briefest of glances over his shoulder at me, but it was enough. Johnny's eyes locked on mine. "Jamie!" he boomed, spreading his arms.

"Johnny."

"You, my dear, did a lovely job on that Frankie bloke."

I let my face harden. Became the assassin. Became the nameless person I pretended to be sometimes. "I'd rather not discuss that, Johnny, and you know it."

"Right, sorry. Well, are you ready to go?"

I lifted a single eyebrow coolly. "Go where, Johnny? I've not made any plans."

Pete was looking at me, seemingly a little shocked at my transformation.

"Back to headquarters, obviously. Unless you'd rather stay here with your... What is he, exactly? Boyfriend? Client to your prostitution?"

"Whoa," Pete said, forming a boundary between Johnny and I. "That's not cool, bud. Maybe you ought to move along, huh?"

"Excuse me?"

Remember the casual passerby that wouldn't have noticed Pete's tactics? Yeah, well, I was starting to think Pete might be one, as he had failed to notice the three snipers on neighboring rooftops.

And those were just the ones I could see from inside the house.

"Just leave the kid alone, okay? Step off."

Johnny took a step forward, jabbing Pete in the chest, undeterred by the fact that Pete had at least eight inches on him. "Look, buddy, maybe you oughta learn some respect."

Pete opened his mouth to retort, but I stepped between them swiftly, muttering as I went, "Pete, I've got it. Just go back inside." Pete at least backed off, glowering from inside the house as opposed to right in Johnny's face, but he refused to walk away. Damn. Ididn't want him to see this, but fine. If he was going to be stubborn, I didn't have much of an option.

"Johnny, I'm sorry, I can't anymore."

"Babe, what's the matter? Who is this guy?" I felt Pete do the human equivalent of raising his hackles behind me, but I ignored it.

"I'm so sorry, Johnny. I'm just not in that place right now. It's not you, I swear. I just need to work on me right now."

Johnny nodded, and stroked my face. Pervert, my brain screamed, but I kept it inside, smiling sadly at him.

I could feel Pete's hatred and disgust radiating off of him right behind me.

"Is this goodbye forever?" Johnny asked, pressing his forehead against mine.

Hopefully.

Another sad smile. "I don't know, Johnny. We'll see." He nodded, and much to my chagrin, leaned in and kind of attacked my face. I shuddered, but took it like a woman, doing what I had to do. After a few seconds he pulled away, thank God, the feeling his trout lips always left behind lingered on my lips. "I love you, sweet thing," Johnny said into my hair.

One more smile and you're clear.

"I love you too." I let my voice crack, a single tear slide down my face.

Not bad, Winchester.

He stepped back, and I closed the door softly, before turning as if nothing had happened and walking back through to the kitchen.

"What the hell was that?" Pete barked. "That guy's like, thirty five, at least. Are you seriously in love with him?" He leaned against the counter, head in his hands. "Wait. Please don't tell me that you're one of those teenagers who thinks that Tinder is an appropriate way to find a llife long love."

"Ew, no. I don't believe in love, period. No, I had to seduce him, get to his inner circle, get some power on the black market. No one screws with the boss' mistress, you know? Well, except that one time with his wife. Her nails hurt, man."

"So, just to be clear, you have no romantic interest in him whatsoever?"

"Right. He's a perverted little prick, nd I revile him with every fiber of my being, okay? Now, are we getting takeout or what?"

After he called in our Thai order, Pete turned back to me. "Wait, you don't believe in love?"

"Correct." I picked at a cuticle.

"At all? But you're a teenager. Aren't you guys supposed to be in love with someone different every month?"

"You guys? You were a teenager once, as I take it."

"Yeah, but I was a weirdo. I met the love of my life when I was your age." He fell silent for a moment. "So, What exactly do you believe in then, if not love?"

"What, like God?"

"Yeah, and just relationships and shit. What are your views on the big stuff?"

"Well, to be honest, I like the idea of someone watching out for everyone all the time, but the reasonable part of my brain knows it's completely illogical that there's some omnipresent being up there who actually gives a shit what happens to me, or to you, or to anyone, really."

"What?" Pete spluttered, choking on his soda. "Why is that illogical?"

"Oh, come on. I've never even been to school since- what? Fifth grade- and even I know enough about science to see it's a ridiculous concept."

"So what, no afterlife for you, then?"

"Absolutely not. What would it even be- a new dimension? An alternate reality? A pleasant hallucination?"

"Fair point. And love?"

"Bullshit, be it familial, sexual, or otherwise. I believe that there are people you just decide to trust because you realize, in the moment you first are able to form coherent thoughts, that the idea of spending the entirety of your life with no one is stressful, so you pick someone who would make relatively decent offspring, per our biological nature, and you just hang out with them until you get bored. But the idea of love at first sight and destiny or whatever? Bull. I don't need a predetermined something to decide how my entire life is going to go, right? If I let that happen, I would've, in all fairness, died a long time ago."

I paused as I considered.

"Wait, no, I take it back. I do believe in love, because the ones who believe in it are the ones that ultimately lose in the process of modern day natural selection, because they're too busy rolling with the punches to actually get shit done."

Pete grinned into his soda can. "Natural selection: The emotional edition."

"Okay, Mr Smartass, what about you then? What do you believe in?"

He sighed. "I don't know. There was a time when I would've said that of course I believe in destiny and love at first sight and all that, but that time is dead, in all honesty."

He glanced over at me, sitting on his counter as if I'd been living here for years rather than hours. "I guess they told you, huh?"

I looked down at my hands.

He sighed again. This boy needed some stress relief classes. "Eh, if I were them, I would've told you too. It's not the kind of thing you simply don't know about your flat mate and expect to be a normal pair of roommates."

"Yeah, I guess not."

We were saved from the cripplingly awkward silence by the ringing of the doorbell, and Pete grimaced at me. "Please tell me you're not having an affair with the Thai delivery guy as well." I stared at him, shocked, and he seemed equally surprised at what had just come out of his mouth. "I'm sorry, I-"

And then he started giggling, and so did I.

He managed to compose himself before opening the door to the Thai delivery guy, but then I ruined it by swinging my head around the corner. "Oh my God," I gasped. "Joel, is that you?" Which sent us both back into hysterics, and "Joel" chuckled awkwardly, obviously not sure what to do.

"Sorry," I gasped when I finally gathered myself, and handed him a twenty. "Keep the change." He smiled and shut the door, to his credit only casting one wary glance over his shoulder.

"Oh my God, he thinks we're insane," Pete laughed, and I nodded. "Where'd you get the money, anyway?"

The smile dropped from my face like a cherry sliding through greasy whipped topping as I thought of my knife sliding through Frankie's back. "Nowhere," I said in a manner that was supposed to be light but instead came out flat. "Nowhere important."

He nodded, obviously not believing me but also sensing not to push.

We ate the Thai in Pete's den, and talked. It was weird, getting to know someone without any ulterior motive. The only people I could think of that I had really gotten to know in recent memory were Johnny and Frankie, and I'd been planning to seduce one and planning the death of the other, so neither of them really counted. So I guess Pete was my first real person, if that makes sense.

"Cats or dogs?" he asked, as a really fat black and white cat kind of flung itself onto my lap. Well, no, not flung, as that would imply that some sort of energy was used. I guess it was more of a flop.

"Um, cats? But only because yours looks really vicious." The cat took my mockery well, licking a paw and attempting to roll over.

"Yeah, that's Splat. Named thus due to his tendency to rapidly expand whenever he sits down."

Mmmm, Splat, channeling my thighs, I see.

"I inherited him from my landlady. She fed him way too much, and then she died, so she put in her will that her cat was to be given to me."

"You make it sound as if the obesity of the cat and the death of the elderly woman were intertwined."

"Perhaps they were. Even the most innocent of cats harbors a spot of bloodlust. Speaking of which, where's Bitch?" He turned to the hall. "Butters, you little snot rag, come here." A yellow cat trotted into the room, this one lean and bearing an air of superiority. Pete reached down to pet Butters, who promptly bit his hand. "Ow, what the hell, cat? See, this is why Splat is happy and you're just bitter and old. Splat lets people pet him." Butters made what I can only describe as the feline rendition of an eye roll, and moved over to me. She sniffed at my yoga pants for a few seconds before making up her mind and laying down on top of my feet.

I shot Pete a very smug look, which he returned.

"What?" I asked right as the stupid cat snapped its head around and sunk its teeth into my leg. "Aaargh! What just happened to your demon cat?"

"Well, I have this theory that it was the deceptive spawn of Satan in a past life, and that it was an excellent liar as a result of her profession, which often included seducing people and then ripping them limb from limb as easily as a kid rips the head off of a Barbie. This skill set carried on into this life, where she is reduced to a lowly housecat due to her past self's vanquishing by some manner of Greek hero. She does that to everyone she meets, not just you. She makes them feel all special and loved, and then bites them in the face."

"Wow. Your hate for your cat is so strong that it could almost be a really awkward metaphor from a bad romance movie."

We talked for another hour or so, but by ten o'clock we were both spent. It had been such a long day, I couldn't believe I had met the guy just this morning. He showed me upstairs to a door at the end of the hall. "So, this is the second bedroom, so it's yours. There's a bathroom in the middle of the hall, and I'm on the end if you need anything."

I thanked him and shut the door behind me. The room was nice in a boho college student way, with a fake vintage map of the world tacked up on the wall and fairy lights strung across the headboard of the white blanketed bed.

I was so tired that I didn't even bother washing my face or brushing my teeth, just removed my pants as I crossed the room, and undid my bra with a sigh of relief as I flopped onto the bed. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed the claw foot mirror, and inadvertantly caught a glimpse of the scars blanketing my back. Scowling, I hauled myself out of bed to go and spin the mirror around so that all I could see was the faux wood back. I climbed into bed and slept in a way I usually didn't, with reckless abandon.

***

I regretted it around midnight, though, when I woke up drenched in my own sweat, face streaked with tears. Praying I hadn't made any noise during the dream, I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, trying to stifle the sobs that were being ripped out of my body.

Keep it together, Winchester.

When I didn't hear anyone stir afrter a few minutes, I relaxed slightly, and got up ot of bed, pulling the Hitchhiker's Guide out of my bag and flipping on the bedside lamp and settling in for another long night.

There are reasons for these dark circles under my eyes.