"Amira--"

Languishing somewhere between a deep sleep and mild consciousness, Amira heard his gentle baritone voice call her name- the way he would when he was still her security guard. 

But...that wasn't right. Spencer was- well, it must have been a dream. Rolling over to her right side and tugging her pillow until she found a cool spot, Amira settled in and drifted.

"You left us to die."

"Where did you go?"

"Coward."

Now, Amira's eyes flew open. Lying in the bed, as still as a stone, she listened. It was soft at first- almost undetectable. Once she heard it, though, it filled her mind. The sickening static that never left, and sounded like a chaotic white noise behind the chorus of ghostly voices from her past. 

"Amira--" 

There was Spencer again. Amira shook her head and roughly dragged her fingers through her hair.

"You're not there- none of you are there."

"You could have saved us, Amira."

The pleading voice was Meadow, and it chilled Amira to the bone. Frantically, she reached over and pulled out the drawer of her bedside table for the bottle of Midazolam- but she'd stopped keeping it around more than a year ago. Amira got out of bed and walked as quietly as she could to the bathroom, so as not to wake and worry Joe.

"limadha tarakat almajmueatu?" 

Tussy's voice was hollow and echoed loudly in her mind, though Amira would have sworn he was standing right behind her as she turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face. Still, she heard all the voices of her friends- and the realization that she was slipping made her shake. Gripping the edge of the sink, she clenched her eyes shut.

"'Ana asf!"

Her voice waivered as she looked up into the mirror. 

"Run" 

The word was a command. Twenty other shadowy voices echoed the command, and Amira suddenly felt like every wall in the house was beginning to close around her. With her heart pounding against the wall of her chest, she made her way into her closet, and a few minutes later emerged in familiar black clothes, black boots, and a long gray coat with a hood. She disappeared from the bedroom without a sound. Leaving the house via the back door, she didn't even look at the guards- and they had no idea of what to make of the sight as the lady of the house walked to the edge of the drive, paused for a moment, and then took off at a dead run into the woods.

7:38 p.m.
Colfax Cleaning Supply, Inc.

"Yo, Detroit- you gonna call or are you bullshittin' us with that cocky fuckin' grin?"

The man in the untucked purple silk dress shirt with rolled sleeves held a pair of queens and three of a kind- but his unbothered slouch over his chair and feet kicked up on a paste board box gave off an air of perfect confidence.

Frank Delfeir- known on the street only as "Delaware"- was the kind of man that you saw and immediately knew he was a sleazeball. Despite the expensive (if overly flashy) clothes and hundreds of dollars worth of jewelry he wore all the time, nothing about him said "classy." No, Delaware was a Grade-D dirtbag, and his game was hard drugs. He pushed coke and heroin, and had a knack for keeping an iron-clad grip on the territories he worked. He especially hated when someone threatened his profits- say, for example, one of those Italian mob guy's do-gooder wife trying to keep him out of business on Lindley Place. It had been a damn shame that bullet didn't finish her off, but it had done the job. "Taught her a who she's fucking with," he had bragged to his underlings. Lindley Place would be back under his control, he had a plan.

Taking a moment to look in the eye of every man at the table, making sure they saw his unnerving, gold-toothed grin, Delaware took the half-smoked cigar from his mouth and laid it in the ash tray to his right.

"Call." He said, pushing a stack of chips towards the center.

Two men immediately groaned and dropped their cards on the table.

"Goddammit," said one, "I'm out. All I've got is two pair."

The other scoffed and lit a cigarette. "I'm not even going to tell you what I had."

"Looks like I've got a full house."

All five men froze momentarily as a different voice came from somewhere- echoing from the shadowed shelves of cleaning fluids. They then looked at each other, as if to confirm that each had heard it, too.

Amira appeared behind Delaware, without her gray coat this time, and the black blade of a karambit already pressing into the flesh of his neck before he could react.

"But I only want...the joker."

"Shoot her, you fucking idiots!" Delaware yelled, trying to struggle but quickly finding that any movement would result in a slash.

The other four scrambled to their feet, looking for their guns, which gave Amira time to launch one of the stiletto blades straight ahead. It embedded itself directly into one man's throat. He stiffened with a wide-eyed look on his face, and began to gurgle as he sank to the floor.
Amira already had another in her hand by the time the other three managed to stare in shock at her. With a smile, she held up the small silver blade, ready to throw again.

"Hell no-" one said, and all three pushed each other out of the way running madly for the exit.

Delaware was still trying to move, likely trying to reach his own gun, but had already acquired several thin cuts on his neck that were starting to bleed. Amira replaced the stiletto and immediately found the man's gun and removed it from his waistband, tossing it away.

"Who the fuck are you?" Delaware demanded.

"I am Amira Ligambi; and you're about to draw your last breath."

Delaware did, indeed, take a breath to speak, but in that split second, Amira pulled her second karambit up, burying the claw-like point directly into the base of the man's skull. All function ceased, and the lanky body simply sat up, perfectly still, until Amira roughly pulled the blade out. Frank Delfeir's body tipped forward, and then landed face-first into a pile of poker chips.

Amira watched, satisfied, for a moment or two as the man began to exsanguinate. Wiping off her blade of blood and gray matter, she tucked them back into their sheathes and took a stiletto out. With this, she began walking along the half dozen rows of cleaning supplies, stabbing a hole into each bottle or box along the way. It didn't take long before the smell was nearly overwhelming, but Amira simply returned to Delaware's body and found his cigar lighter. Walking to the door, she flicked it open, sparking a flame, then tossed the lighter back into the room as she walked out into the dark evening.

Wearing the hood of her long, gray coat now as she walked up the empty sidewalk about a quarter of a mile away, Amia smiled as the sound of an explosion boomed in the distance.

"For you, Willie." she said to no one but the night air and the ceaseless voices in her mind.

The Seraphinium- Basement
9:00 a.m. the following day

Jokingly called "the dungeon" by the staff, the basement of the Seraphinium is a place that no one goes unless they are made to; and in that case they most certainly don't want to. A handful of misbehaving Johns had seen the dungeon after blatantly disobeying the rules of Amira's establishment, and they paid for their behavior in ways that would make Amira's insurance agent drop her immediately. No one had a key but Amira, and no one knew of the place other than she and maybe three other people. The room held only a few items; a heavy, roughly constructed table roughly seven feet long by three feet wide, two folding chairs, a wooden board about the size of a shipping pallet screwed to the brick wall, and a large, wooden post of rough timber sunk into the cement floor. In the center of the floor was a drain with an iron grate, about five inches around. On one wall was a spigot, and a hose coiled neatly beside it.

With no windows and the basement being half sunk into the ground anyway, there was no telling what time of day or night it was. Not that it mattered. Amira hadn't slept more than an hour or two at a time in the last 72 hours. The damn voices wouldn't let her. The basement was dark and cool, which helped with the sweating. Her skin felt like it was on fire nearly all the time, and her coat lay in a heap on the floor with the black button-up blouse and her boots. She sat on the table with her knees drawn up under her chin and pulled the tip of one of her throwing knives along the grain of the table, trying to tune out the words repeating in her mind. Tendrils of her unkempt dark hair were wet and held to the side of her head. Sometimes she felt like she was going to simply burn up, and others she felt as if she were going to freeze. In brief, lucid moments, she told herself it was all in her mind and none of it was real. The rest of the time she paced the length of the room, back and forth, going over and over how everything she'd done up to this point had led her to the punishment she was going through now-- and maybe one more kill would end it. One more spill of blood by her hand would bring them all back.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office
 

Harland Powers closed the file and dropped it on the Sheriff's desk with a blank look on his face.

"It's got to be her. The M.O. is just too similar. You've got the right kind of victims, all done with similar kinds of knives, and not a damned trace of evidence."

Sheriff Conway shook his head, arms crossed and slouched in his seat.

"So you're telling me no evidence is evidence? Harland, that's ridiculous. I can't pin something like this on the wife of Joe Ligambi without something damn near a color picture of her at the scene. I mean, come on, the woman just opened a movie studio, not to mention she's got her security company to run and her little pet project on Lindley Place that she's always yelling about to city council. Why would she ruin all of that?"

"Sheriff, you are presuming that Amira Ligambi is a normal business woman and forgetting that she is- and always has been- a criminal. All of this philanthropy and business that she's doing is a front to keep the nastier work in the shadows. Likely she's covering for her husband who is even more slippery than she is, if you can believe that. They both have so many layers of protection around them, it's infuriating. But listen, I've been studying the cases from four years ago, and I've got-"

The Sheriff straightened up, putting his hands on the desk and scowling.

"Cold cases, you mean? You've been studying cold cases? Harland, look, I appreciate you being willing to help, but this is starting to sound like more of a vendetta than an investigation. Now, you show me some hard evidence that this is linked to Amira Ligambi and I'll have the boys bring her in- no question. But right now, it looks like you've got a lot of good stories put together and not much more."

Grumbling, Harland Powers left the L.A. County Sheriff's office with his briefcase and hailed a cab. Climbing in, he asked the driver to take him to the Seraphinium Escort Service. 

A warm, late afternoon rain was soaking LA County north to south. It had been four days now since Amira left her house. In the days since, she'd murdered two men, blown up a building, and spent three sleepless nights and days unseen in the basement of the Seraphinium; or running in the dark, anywhere she could to try and get away from the accusing voices tearing her mind apart. So many dead- so many she loved, gone- but no blood left to spill. No way to pay for her betrayal- no way to atone for leaving.

"You could have helped."

"If only you'd have been there."

"Why did you leave?"

"They would all be alive now."

"You could have saved them."

Amira's heavy, black boots splashed through shallow puddles that had collected in the woods of the familiar suburban neighborhood. She still had every stone and path committed to memory, even all these years later. She could have run blindfolded if she had to, and still arrived at the place she was headed. He would know what to do. He always had the answers. He was the reason she had come as far as she had. She just needed Tyki Mikk.

The three-story, sprawling estate where The Firm headquarters had been situated was bulldozed over two years ago. Amira had been to the site since then; but in her current state of delusion, the house was still there. Tyki was seated behind his desk in his third-floor office, gazing out the huge picture window, carefully planning the next move he would make for the empire he was building. And so, Amira kept running. She ran for miles without stopping, and only when she broke through the tree line on the edge of the empty property did she slow to walk. Despite the pouring rain, Amira walked toward the huge house that she saw in her mind's eye. She could already feel the warmth of the fire burning in the dining room fireplace where a few of the men would be sitting around, having a drink. 

A soft roll of thunder echoed in the distance, and Amira looked back for a moment. There was a crack of lightning that made her jump, and she looked back toward the house. Silhouetted against the exterior, she saw a figure- tall and standing as motionless as a statue. Squinting, she took steps further, but couldn't make out who it was. As she drew closer, the figure seemed taller than a man would be; and wearing something on it's head. Maybe a hat? A...hat! Amira's mind flooded with images of Tyki Mikk- from the first time she met him the day she scrambled frightfully into the floor of his car, and over so many days and years that she worked by his side; and in each she saw that trademark hat. It had to be Tyki, waiting there in the darkness for her. Now, she broke into a run again. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt a thousand memories welling up as warm tears in her eyes as she ran into...something as solid as steel. The figure was as hard and cold as a sentinel in the darkness. Peering up, Amira spoke through her rain-soaked mess of hair.

"Wh-who are you?"

How long had it been? How long had he waited, sat beside this empty throne? This place existed outside, in a space hidden away from the normal prying eyes. A place that was sacred and thus, never saw any visitors. Alone, he had sat for what felt like years now, loyal and ensuring its protection. Yet...somehow..an intruder had now pierced through the veil and found their way into the sanctum.

With a swift turn, he looked at the lady. Casting his eyes over her form, his instincts were immediately drawn to the blades she kept so neatly tucked into her waist band. She had known murder. He could tell that she had been someone who traveled through many dark places, in search of, something. The question was, how had she found this place? There was only one answer that flooded his mind, she must have been close, to 'him'.

"My name is Igris. I keep watch over this place. A location which you, have now trespassed on."

Still unsure of her intentions, he began to reach down for his blade, to ready it in the event that her reasons were deemed to be, unworthy.

His eyes remained focused on her and it was at that point that he felt her emotions speak to him, something which he had not encountered before. What, who, was she?

"Identify yourself and make clear your intentions." His cold words glided through the air, almost cracking the gentle breeze around them.

"Speak. Then judgement, will be made."

Confused, but also now sharply focused in a dreamlike lucidity, Amira stood upright before the figure that dwarfed her by more than two feet. She set her eyes where she thought his might be, and answered as clearly as she could.

"I am Amira, cursed in this life to watch death visited upon everyone I have cared for. I mean no threat. I have come to see Tyki Mikk. I need his counsel- he will understand. He will know what I should do to clean all this blood from my hands."

The thunder sounded closer now, and as the wind picked up, Amira could both feel and see the breeze; a bone-chilling cold that seemed to blur everything in her vision in the moments it passed. It was gone just as soon as it came, but left her with a hard shiver down her spine. Something wasn't right. She couldn't remember this. Why was he here? Where was Tyki? 

"Foolish woman, why would he see you? You abandoned them."

"He left you to care for them, and you left."

The voices were loud in her mind, shrieking over the sound of the rain and the storm. Amira clenched her hands at the sides of her head.

"No...please. He will understand." she shouted back at the demons, though shouting into empty darkness.

​​​

Garrett stood in the center of the dark, shuttered away "dungeon" beneath the Seraphinium. It was clear she'd been there, and judging by the crumpled blanket on the floor beside the table, probably for more than one night.

"This is bad." He said aloud, looking around as a crack of thunder sounded while no trace of lightning could be seen. If Amira had spent long periods of time in here in a state of delerium, darkness would only serve to make it worse. The girls upstairs hadn't seen her. Every place of business had been checked and double checked. They'd even visited her favorite places to eat and shop; nothing. No, she'd been here- but where was she now? Every familiar place they could think of had been searched; unless she was just running loose through the woods like she had at--

Garrett's head snapped up. The Firm. No one has thought to check the property where the manor had been, and in her first battle with the delerium she had spent countless hours and days in the thick woods around that property. Grabbing his coat and hat, he hurried for his car as the early autumn sky fell around him.

---------

Detective Powers finished the last of his coffee that had gone cold in the paper cup well over twenty minutes ago. He tossed the cup into the back of his sedan and continued scribbling notes on a legal pad precariously balanced on his knee. The rain was so loud beating against the windows and body of the car that he almost didn't hear the uniform knock on his window. Harland cranked down the glass a few inches. The young officer, soaked clean to the skin, shouted inside.

"Sir, we just got a sig that that Dr. Mitchell was heading out of town, going west."

"Any idea where?"

"No sir, but the spotter saw him leave that escort club. Said he was moving fast."

Powers' brain immediately kicked into gear. West of the Seraphinium going out of town was the neighborhood where Dayan's old boss had his HQ. Could be interesting. And from where he was sitting, Powers had a good ten minute lead on Mitchell. He cracked the window back up, turned over the engine, and sped off towards the freeway entrance.

The image of the scarlet red knight faded, as did the house. Another crack of thunder startled Amira as she watched them disappear from her sight. Not again. She had been so close; he had been only steps away. Her answer- her end to this torture had only been through the door and up the stairs; but they weren't. Only now she felt the rain pelting down on her. Anger gathered in her mind like the dark gray storm clouds overhead. Damn the voices. They would never cease and nothing would ever end this punishment. Nothing, that is, but death; but Amira was out of people to kill. 

"There's only one way now...."

"Cursed."

"More will die, and you will watch"

"There's only one way now...."

The voices were so loud, piercing through her mind and only heightening the rage. With her heart pounding loud enough to be heard over the rolling thunder, Amira reached down and ran her fingers along the smooth steel of one of the stiletto blades. There was only one way, now. One way to silence the voices. One way to assure that no one else she loved would meet a horrible end because of her curse. Not Joe, not Garrett, not Franco, not Billy. She could keep them safe. 

She drew the blade slowly from its sheath, slowed her breathing and closed here eyes.

Getting out of the sedan, all Harland Powers could see was a slender, dark figure in the middle of an empty lot. He quietly closed the door to his car, watching. The figure seemed to be hardly moving. He began to take slow steps closer, the wet grass masking any sounds his footsteps might have made. The closer he came, the more certain he became that the figure was Amira Ligambi. She was barely wearing anything; just some kind of denim work pants and a shirt, some black boots- not even a rain coat. Her hair was down and plastered to her face and shoulders by the rain. What the hell was she doing out here? Maybe the file was right- maybe she was crazy as shit; but she certainly didn't appear to be armed. 

"Better safe than sorry," he thought to himself, and pulled back his raincoat to reach for his gun.

"Who's car is...?"

Garrett stopped his car about ten feet from the other, squinting through the rain on his windshield as the wiper blades wildly swung back and forth. All he could make out was that the car was white and the license plate had a shield on it.

"Fuck."

Reaching over to the passenger seat, Garrett grabbed a canvas bag and slung it across his chest and tore out of the Jag. His vision was blurred by the pouring rain as he ran, but he was able to make out just enough to see the figure of the stranger pull back his coat in a very a way that clearly suggested he had a gun.

"NO!"

"Amira Ligambi, you're under arrest for tresspa-"

Detective Harland Powers didn't have a chance to finish the sentence. In the dark and the blur of the rain, he didn't even see her turn around all the way before something that felt like a freight train slammed into his chest, sending him flying back onto the muddy ground. Gasping for air that wasn't making it into his lungs, he saw a woman land atop him straddled over his chest. It felt like his ribs were going to be crushed from either side, but he couldn't scream as the air had been knocked out of him. 

"You sent the red knight away. I was THIS close to finding Tyki Mikk again. You fucking bastard- I almost found him."

Amira's voice hissed with so much vitriol that she could have been mistaken for a serpent. Powers was still gasping, just starting to be able to draw a breath, but insanely confused- not sure of what he was hearing. He started trying to fight, but that was to no avail. Amira sank the blade into the man's chest just as Garrett Mitchell launched himself into her, rolling the two of them off. 

"Amira, it's me, Garrett. Listen to me. You're going to be ok, but you're sick again. Do not listen to whatever they're telling you. I'm going to take you home."

Awkwardly holding an arm across his employer, keeping her dazed form on the ground, he opened the bag and fumbled around until he found a prepared syringe, which he quickly stabbed into her shoulder. The sedative worked within seconds, and Amira went slack in moments. Garrett exhaled heavily and rolled off her, then crawled to Harland Powers. The officer was alive, but not in good shape. Amira's blade was stuck between his ribs, and bleeding steadily. His breath and pulse were both rapid, and he didn't seem very responsive. 

"Goddamnit. Why didn't I bring someone with me?" he muttered to himself, pushing himself off the ground and running off to get his car.

Billy made his way into Azra and up to the top floor as quickly as he could. He had little to no information from anyone, with one exception.

Vinny had called him in a near panic, which was saying something. There was a reason he was Amira's deputy in this place. He had a head for this kind of thing, and could keep calm under pressur. If he was worried, something big must have been going on.

When Billy walked into the room, he knew why Vinny had panicked.

Amira lay on a couch in the middle of the room, Garrett was sitting in an armchair very close by. Most of his attention was on Amira, but Billy couldn't help but notice there was an empy glass on the table beside him. Amira waasn't the one drinking, not in whatever state she was in right now.

The first thing Billy did was step over to the curtains and draw them all closed, including the ones that led back to the rest of the building.

"Well, seems like someone found her at least. Who was it? Someone is getting a nice payday out of that, so I need to make a phone call or two about that as soon as I can."

He turned to Garret and cocked his head. "How about you doc, you in a fit state to watch over her like you are? You seem, less put together than normal." He reached out and tapped at the side of the empty glass to indicate what exactly he was talking about.

"I can take over if you tell me what to look for. Lord knows how long you been sitting here." He dragged another armchair over, then he grabbed the phone from the desk, and dragged that over too, placing it on the table between the two chairs before taking his seat.

"So, tell me what I gotta know, and you take a break yeah?"

The way Garrett dragged his hands down his face stretched his eyelids a bit. Rough was a kind word for how he looked at this point. Bedraggled, soaked, exhausted- not to mention his suit was beyond repair. But he was quieter than usual. He looked at his watch as Billy sat down, then glanced at the door. Too tired for formalities, he started the story.

"Jonesy should be here soon- he's a friend and colleague of mine, and the only MD I trust to check her out. She's been at least four days probably without a thing to eat and likely next to no sleep. From what I saw she was in the basement at the Seraphinium a good bit of that time. No one would have thought to look there because only about three people even know about that room. Hell even I didn't think about it until it came down to searching everywhere. But I found her tonight- on the property where her former boss's headquarters and home had stood. She was deep in a state of delirium, Billy."

Garrett reached for the glass beside him, but realized it was empty and sighed, slumping back in the chair.

"Unfortunately, a Detective named Harland Powers had found her first, and made the grave mistake of sneaking up on her. He's down in the infirmary now. I haven't removed the knife she buried in his chest because it's keeping him from bleeding out right now."

The Doctor of Psychology looked up at Billy.

"If that man lives, Amira is cooked. But if he dies, she goes down for murdering an officer of the law."

Just then the door to the office opened and a man about Garrett's age breezes inside wearing a tuxedo and rain coat.

"Jonesy, thanks for coming, man. We'll take this outside."

Garrett glanced to Billy and nodded for the door.

Billy stood back up and made his way out into the hallway. He didn't fully come to a stop either, and slowly started making his way toward the elevator.

"Let me ask you a few things."

He started to both make and check off a mental list in his head.

"I know you've been through a lot, but finish this up with me and you can go home and relax as soon as she's awake. I promise." He reached around and patted Garrett on the shoulder.

"Now. this detective. Was he driving a personal car, or a police car? Where was it parked? Did you leave it there, or move it?" As he asked, he was slowly moving toward the elevator. Billy knew this side of life, not well, but he knew it. If it was between a detective, and Amira Ligambi, well the detective knew what he was getting into when he joined that side of the law. Sometimes it got you killed, and the city would pay handsomly for his disappearance too. His family would be well taken care of, with or without the city's help.

"Was anyone else around by the way? Anyone I should know about? And you know this address of hers? You can write it down for me right?"

Things needed to happen fast if he was going to be able to tell Joe that Amira was fine. Right now she wasn't, and if he didn't do his job, she wasn't going to be either.

The two men reached the elevator door, and Billy pushed the down button to call for the elevator. Garrett looked back over his shoulder, almost wondering how they had gotten to standing where they were.

"Don't worry doc, you can stay here if you want, not a problem. I just forgot something in my car, I gotta run down and grab it. You think about those questions I asked you though alright? I'll need some answers to get Amira help that you aren't equipped to give her."

With that the elevator signaled it's arrival. The ding of the bell sounding almost as loud as a blast in the quiet of Azra. He took a step in, and hit the button for the floor with the infirmary.

The thought had been in his mind since he'd heaved the gasping figure of Harland Powers into the back seat of his Jaguar XK; and it was still silently spinning there in the forefront. So, as he looked at Billy Mastrosimone- a young man who seemed to have the utmost calm and command of his surroundings and his senses in this kind of situation- Garrett made a decision he never imagined himself making. He crossed the threshold of the elevator. Amira was in good hands for now; his focus was about to make a detour. 

As the doors shut, Garrett started recalling the answers to Billy's questions.

"It had to be a department car- there was a shield on the license plate. The car was white- and I left it at the house, but I left nothing of his at the property and I made sure there was no blood left on the ground. Besides, it was at the height of the storm, anything left would be washed away. Amira had all her blades beside the one still sticking out of Powers. No one else was there, and there aren't any other houses close enough to have seen anything. Mr. Mikk's property was quite a compound. It was bulldozed months ago to make way for development that never came to fruition. I have no idea how Amira got there- her car wasn't there, or her motorcycle. It's possible she ran- that's what she did before when she was in this state. If she was searching for something familiar- that's what led me to look there, and when I found her. I was just minutes too late to stop Powers from approaching her."

Billy nodded, both at the information, and at the man standing next to him.

"You're not a stupid man doc, we both know that. When this elevator doesn't go all the way to the ground floor, you can stay on it if you want. I won't say a word."

He took out a small notepad and jotted down two names to remind himself who to call later.

"So you tell me doc. How much information do you want about next steps? I can tell you everything. I can tell you nothing, or I can land somewhere in the middle." He glanced at the doctor in the polished reflection of the metal elevator and then turned to face the man properly.

"Of course, if I tell you everything, you know you'll need to stay close from now on. Closer than you've been comfortable doing the past couple years. No more of this doctor for everyone. You'd be under her wing. You'd be dedicating your whole life to her from now on Doc. I know you get it, but I gotta give you the warning anyway."

He shrugged.

"Either way, I can tell you one thing, you did good tonight. Now you just gotta tell me if you're all in, or if you want out here."

For a few moments, the Doctor may have become the patient- though he wouldn't admit it. He'd had too much time to think between the drive back to Azra and Billy arriving to the office.

"When I signed on the dotted line to find out what was 'wrong with' Amira nearly four years ago, I was a haughty, selfish man child with a fancy  degree looking for a case to write a book about to make me famous. I figured my parent's money could get me out of any kind of trouble I could get into. I had studied criminals, but hadn't done a damn thing with my life."

The elevator doors opened, and Garrett walked out on pace with Billy.

"Then I found myself at Amira's lake house spending three sleepless days detoxing her from librium. The day she woke up lucid and aware of her surroundings and who was with her is a day I'll never forget. Seeing Spencer and Franco's reaction to having their friend back...changed me. I think then I knew I wasn't going anywhere."

He chuckled softly.

"The insanity I've been through with her- with her and Spence- god I couldn't have imagined that. But now, with what we've both lost and the kind of life she leads- Billy I don't think I could leave her if I wanted to. Call it a trauma bond if you want, but I've got a job to do. Franco guards her body, I'm guarding her mind. This incident with the charcoal was a wild card. I didn't think people even used that anymore and so I never thought to tell her not to use it. She'll be fine, just like before, and I'll make sure she stays that way to the best of my ability."

They turned a corner and came to a window that was partly shaded by a curtain. In a dim light, one could see a muddy dress shoe and pant leg on a steel table. Garrett's eyes focused there.

"So, yes, I'm all in; and if you don't mind, I would like to personally assure that Amira cannot be pinned for this man's murder."

Billy gave the man a gruff nod and a pat on the back.

"One piece of advice? Don't think about it too much." He looked toward the table then back to the doctor. "You got a plan, or do you want to borrow this?" He pulled his colt from a shoulder holster and offered it to Garrett, but the other man shook his head.

"Right, in that case, you've got a plan and I can back you up. But for now, while you get yourself in the right mindset to do what you gotta do, let me tell you a couple things."

He leaned against the wall and ticked off his list on his fingers.

"I'm going to call my buddy Clyde and he's going to go hotwire the detective's car and drive it to his house." He nodded toward the muddy shoe, "That means, we'll need his wallet when it's done."

A second finger went up. "I'm going to also call Roger, he's a dog-catcher. I'm going to tell him that there's a stray that just bit someone at the address you give me for where you found Amria."

He lifted a third finger. "And then I'm going to set up a shell company to pay the family of the detective for as long as they live. Knowing the ciy, they'll claw back every bit of his pension that they can, and those folks will get screwed in the end. No reason for an accident to hurt innocent people."

He stood up off the wall, and continues his explination. "That will take care of the evidence, as in the cops car. The scene, what with a guy in muddy boots trampling around looking for a dog that ain't there. And of course, the family won't ask to look into it too far when they are making more that twice as much money as they were when the guy was alive. For all anyone knows, he just left one day. But nobody is going to look into it if the family doesn't bother to ask."

He looked toward Garrett and the room the detective was in. "So, you ready?"

Garrett nodded, having only heard about half of what Billy had said. He had his work to do, Garrett had his. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he wondered if this is how these men always felt when it was time to do this kind of job. Anticipation and nausea, focus and wild thoughts, internally shaking but a steady hand on the outside. 

It was a second syringe that had come from his bag. He'd been looking for Amira prepared for several scenarios; including any where she may have been severely injured. Thankfully that wasn't the case and he hadn't needed to use this one- on her. Billy opened the door to the smallish room. Harland Powers was laying on the steel exam table looking pale from exhaustion and the blood he'd lost at the scene. There was dried blood on his shirt around where Amira's stiletto was still sticking up between his pecs. Hearing the footsteps on the smooth concrete floor, he forced his eyes open and squinted, then tried to start speaking. 

Shaking his head, Garrett put a hand over the man's mouth and pushed the needle deep into his neck, moving the plunger steadily down. Detective Powers jumped at the stick, his eyes wide with panic- but then they seemed to freeze there. His body stiffened and appeared to seize a few times, and Garrett took his hands away. It didn't take long. A few labored breaths, a few gurgling attempts at breaths that only produced a pink froth from his mouth, and within a minute or so, Harland Powers was dead. 

Placing the syringe on the empty tray beside the bed, Garrett took a step back and stood motionless for a few beats, then picked up his head and looked at Billy. His voice was closer to it's normal cadence, though still fairly tired.

"So, you have calls to make. I'll check on Amira and meet you back upstairs then?"

Billy watched the man on the table as he spasmed, and the simply stopped.

"Doc, you're going to have to teach me how that shit works, cause that's the easiest I've ever seen someone go down."

He nodded toward the question Garrett asked though and started out of the room, taking the knife of Amira's with him.

"She's not getting this back until she comes asking for it. You can tell her as much when she's better too."

With that, he stepped out of the room and toward the elevator again, ready to make some calls.

"I'll meet you up there in a few minutes, nothing else for me to do tonight really. I'm going to call Joe though and let him know what's what and that she's safe again. I'll take the brunt of whatever anger he's got and remind him of who found her for us."

Billy knew all too well that Joe's temper could mean an end for anyone, including himself. And it wasn't particular to Joe either, anyone that can make the world move with a whisper tended to lash out when they were so quicly reminded that they were not, in fact, invincible.

He stepped into the elevator and looked to Garrett then.

"How about you? You need anything? I know you're probably still reeling from everything, but I also bet you haven't eaten yet today. You should do that. Better to eat and then hork it up than not eat at all. The hard part is over." He took a breath and let the silence take them a second before the elevator stopped and he stepped out.

"You need anything Garrett," Billy had taken that moment to use the other man's name. He hadn't done it often, but in this moment he needed to be reminded that people, Billy in particular, wasn't expecting him to be anything other than a man, "My office is right there." He gestured toward the office he'd be using so the other man knew where he would be.

With a single, grateful nod, Garrett relaxed a little and propped against the back wall of the elevator.

"Thank you; but believe me when I tell you that I'd take an angry Joe Ligambi over a timid Tyki Mikk any day."

He smiled wryly, a memory fleetingly passing through his mind. When the doors opened on Billy's floor, Garret followed his gesture to see the office.

"Right. I'll see what's happening up there. Franco is probably there by now and mad with worry."

The doors shut again and the elevator began its ascent again. Garrett actively worked to keep the events of the last 20 minutes away from his mind, focusing instead on things like another drink, or maybe something to eat, or wondering how Viridia was doing- wherever she was.

*Ding*

Just as he'd guessed, Franco was pacing the lobby outside Amira's office; his arms tightly folded against his chest. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the elevator opened, but broke the repeated stride as soon as he saw Garrett and hustled over. 

"Fucking hell, Garrett, there you are. No one has told me nothing, man. Joey just said you'd found her, then that Billy went flying out like his ass was on fire. What the fuck happened? Is she ok?"

Garrett reached out- up, rather- and put both hands on Franco's shoulders and looked him squarely in the eyes.

"Franco, she's fine. When I found her, she had just taken down a police detective that outweighed her by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. She's alright."

When Franco relaxed a bit and took a breath, Garrett patted him on one shoulder and stepped back, and they sat down in opposite chairs not too far from the still-closed door of Amira's office. Rubbing his eyes, Garrett started recounting the story again.

"It was all a really unfortunate mishap. Evidently, Amira hadn't been feeling well, and one of the girls at the Seraphinium gave her charcoal tablets to help settle her stomach. Well, charcoal counteracts the effects of nearly every medication out there. So, for three days, Amira was taking her medication as usual, but taking something else that was effectively canceling it out."

Franco nodded slowly, getting the idea.

"Shit, so she got off the meds and it pushed her back to the- what's it called- from before?"

"Delirium. Yes, and she was far gone when I found her. She was back at Tyki Mikk's house. Well, where the house was. I have no idea what she was doing there, but some idiot detective had followed her there and tried to sneak up on her."

The older man's eyebrows climbed his forehead.

"That...couldn't have gone well."

Garrett shook his head.

"It did not. I'll explain all that later. But, like I said, physically Amira is alright. She's exhausted and I would imagine she hasn't had any meaningful sleep in the last four days, or anything to eat for that matter. So once we get her back on her Thorazine and get her strength back up, she'll be just fine."

The door to Amira's office opened and Jonesy walked out, pulling his tuxedo jacket back on.

"They'll be fine." he corrected his friend, with a hint of a grin on his face.

Garrett and Franco had both gotten to their feet when the door opened, and by the time they were standing near the door, both looked somewhat confused. Jonesy looped his rain coat over his arm.

"She needs to get food into her quickly, and water quicker than that to combat malnourishment and dehydration. Then she needs to get set up with a good obstetrician as soon as possible. But, she's got no injuries that I can find. Let her sleep a while, then get some food in her. I'm going back to the Mayor's reception."

Jonesy gave his old friend a pretty solid thwack on the back that nearly knocked him off his feet and headed for the elevator.

Franco and Garrett didn't say anything for several long moments, both staring blankly at different places on the plush carpet, until Franco cracked into a short but clearly delighted laugh.

"Well, how about that?"