The night was quiet and still as Raya peeked outside her apartment building, her haphazardly packed gym bag full of her essentials slung over her shoulder. Once she was sure no-one was watching her, she dashed to the car and tossed the bag in her trunk, then hopped in her car with haste; she almost felt like she was stealing it.

She took care while driving to her sister's apartment, keeping check on the sides and the rear view for any sight of Bruce. Connection my ass, she thought. His knowledge boiled down to nothing but a good old fashioned case of stalking. Creepy, she thought, shivering. Now that she knew he had been following her, she wasn't going to give him the chance to figure out what she was doing - it would destroy the plan.

For all the precaution she was taking, it was foolish, of course, because he would probably check Lana's house first, if he lost track of her. As long as he didn't see her carrying a packed bag, and she kept him from following her to Mississippi, they should be fine. Raya decided she would dash over to Lana's, get her motivated, and help her pack. In her mind, Lana was probably setting around, moping about how this terrible thing had happened to her, the way she'd done when the jail incident happened. At least they'd held her job for her that time, now she has no job and she's a werewolf. Raya assumed Lana would be a mess.

She did not, however, imagine the kind of mess she would actually walk into at Lana's when she let herself in..

The scent that smacked her in the face when she opened that door was the rancid rot of a hundred demons' vomit. She saw the trail right away, the sick trailed from the hallway leading to the phone hanging on the wall. She followed the puke trail all the way to the bathroom and almost let go herself. It was horrendous! The rotting pieces of half digested-half rotted flesh, the bone shards, all floating in a pool of stomach bile. She couldn't imagine what Lana must have gone through to produce this inhuman amount of hurl.

Swallowing back her disgust, Raya began to look for poor Lana. When she was sure Lana was out, she decided to suck it up and clean the mess. The sooner it was clean, the sooner they could leave. Plus, it smelled like damnit in there. If she didn't clean it up, she would add to the mess, the stench twisting her stomach.

Her new wolf stamina had made the clean up easier as she wasn't getting tired of scrubbing. It also helped to have something to keep her busy so she wouldn't have to think of the way Gary tasted; surprisingly a lot like raw bacon, or the way Bruce had looked in the buff; as though chizzled out of stone by Michelangelo himself and entirely scrumptious.

She started thinking of other ways the stamina of the wolf inside her would come in handy, and her mind created a scenario including Bruce and a few props. She grew annoyed at herself for being the slut-queen again, causing her to scrub harder until that spot on the bathroom floor was almost as sparkly as a Mr. Clean commercial.

By the time the disheveled Lana came in, Raya was finished cleaning the bathroom and hallway, and was hard at work on the carpet in the living room. She paused to give Lana a concerned glare.

"What gives?" she inquired, from her nearly clean area on the floor.

"Nothing." Lana shrugged.

"Don't tell me nothing, I just cleaned up enough puke to fill your bath tub two times over."

"Lets see you eat a human being and see how your tummy feels afterward." Lana spat defensively.

Caught off guard by Lana's words, Raya felt a surge of embarrassment. She had ate a human being. Not without help, and not wholly, but nevertheless the deed was done and part of Gary was now in her digestive tract. She preferred that Lana not know that little fact, it would be easier to just forget it all together.

"Where have you been?" she asked, noticing Lana's rough state and feeling relieved to turn the tables.

"Just...doing some things." Lana replied, shrugging again.

Raya knew what was up. Lana was trying to look innocent about something. She'd reacted the same way the first time their grandpa caught a drunk Lana sneaking in late at night.

"You did something," Raya accused.

"I did not," Lana denied. "I still have some things to get together before we head out."

Lana stomped to her bedroom without another word, leaving a suspicious Raya to finish the carpet while she packed a suitcase.

"You know you don't have to clean that up!" Lana called out to her sister as she kicked off her heels and rubbed her feet one at a time in little circles. They hurt so bad from the tacky ass shoes, but the shoes were pretty. Everything has a price, she thought bitterly. Choclate is delicious, but it's fattening; being in love can be so magical, but it also hurts like hell. That's life. She had no intentions of giving those shoes up anytime soon, especially now, since they have an awesome memory linked to them.

"Well, who do you expect to clean it up? Bob, your ghost?" Raya called back sarcastically.

"Hardy-har-har." Lana replied sounding like a pirate. "What do you mean Bob? Who's Bob?"

Raya giggled. "You remember, your's and Tara's ghost friend, the one you claimed haunted the pizzeria."

"Hah! Oh, yea! Damn, I haven't worked there in eight years! Bob! he was a rascal!" Lana said, reminescing. "I miss Tara."

"Me, too, she was a riot."

"Sucks that she moved to Las Vegas to be a Pink impersonator," Lana said. "I'll be ready in twenty minutes, no longer, I promise."

Lana sauntered over to the full length mirror, undid the zipper on the back of her dress and let the dress shimmy on down to her feet. She stepped out of the red pile of fabric, leaving it empty in the form of a messy circle. She admired herself in the mirror, feeling great and loosened to say the least. Then she turned around to view her back side. Ugh, she thought, grabbing the tiny cheeks she had inherited through genes, squeezing them then bouncing them around a little. " I hate my flat ass." She sneered as she gave one of her cheeks a final swat before making her way to the closet.

Humming an unknown melody, Lana swipped the plastic hangers to the left one at a time, stoping and removing an item about every eighth hanger. Finally she had aquired a full week's worth of clothing, and a little extra just in case she accidentally went wolf and ruined something.

"That should do," she said to herself, twirling around to face the bed, and tossing the items in a pile on her purple satin pillows. Her pillows matched her blanket and the purple lion Robby had won her at the state carnival, but she didn't connect them at that moment, or even glance at the stupid purple lion. Robby was a douche and he was gone.

Her lime green suitcase was right under the bed, just where she'd left it years ago. It was unbelievably dusty; she hadn't used it more than once, and that was when she first moved to New York. She popped the lid and placed the clothes in stacking the hangers tidily on the edge of the bed for when she returned. For some reason, her breakdown and her little escapade had helped her come back to her senses. She didn't feel as off as she had felt about her unfortunate fate, and suddenly cleanliness was a thing of importance to her once again. The extra twelve hundred bucks in her pocket didn't hurt either.

Once packed, she headed out with suitcase in hand, walking into the stinky living room, which now smelled, not just like vomit, but lavender as well. Raya was trying her best to mask the scent.

"You ready?" Lana asked.

Raya looked up. "Hmmmm...you forgetting something sis?' she asked.

"What do you mean? I got my underwear, toothbrush, my-"

"Clothes, you derp!"

Lana could feel her body flush a rose pink when she realized she hadn't got dressed and was actually standing there in her bra and panties. Her grip let loose, freeing the suitcase to thump on the floor.

"Argh!" Lana said, totally embrassed.

"You don't even have shoes on!" Raya called after her sister as she laughed, putting the cleaning supplies away where they belonged.

"Give me two minutes." Lana said on her second journey back into the bedroom.

In two minutes, she was dressed and back in the livingroom, where Raya was waiting to go. She had her keys in her hand, tapping her foot like an old, bossy school teacher.

"Now we got everything right?" Raya asked with wide eyes.

Lana nodded her head in agreement. They locked up and made their way to the parking lot .

"I thought we would take the Impala so we could have more leg room," Raya said.

"Sounds good to me. At least it won't be my gas being used," she joked. "Besides, Sting isn't really a road trip kind of vehicle."

Raya agreed. They'd been lucky to make the move from Mississippi to New York in the stuffy Vette, no way was she up for another trip like that.

The girls got into the car and ventured out into the darkness.

Raya had on her pink rimmed sunglasses, despite the darkness outside. She didn't want Bruce to be able to see which way she was looking if he was following them. That way, he wouldn't know which way to duck out of sight. She kept scanning for any sign of him out of the corners of her eyes, turning her head only slightly every now and again.

Lana observed her sister bitting her pinky nail and fidgeting in the driver's seat.

"You okay?" Lana asked poking Raya with her elbow causing her to swerve to the left.

"Hey, watch it, turd. You want us to wreck?" Raya snapped.

"No, of course not, but I do want you to tell me what's bothering you. You never bite your pinky nail, unless you got stress on the brain."

Raya didnt reply. She was too caught up in watching for Bruce and watching the road at the same time, not to mention the worry about Gary and Bruce's orders floating around in her head.

"You can't tell me nothing's wrong. I know you too well, so spill it." Lana pressed.

"Damn, what are you, a fucking cop? I think I have some doughnuts in the glovebox. Oink,oink." Raya snorted at he, doing her best pig impression.

"No, but if I was I would arrest you for being..." Lana used her fingers to draw an invisible square in the air.

Raya caught the gesture and had to fight back a smile.

"Alright, alright." Raya huffed. "Everything that's going on right now. It's- it's just mad! Craziness!"

Raya turned onto the interstate, and she was pretty sure Bruce wasn't following, so she raised her pink glasses from her face to the top her head, pushing her hair back and letting them set there like a headband.

She turned to lana, glancing back at the road every few seconds.

"We went from living our boring, normal lives to wham, bam, you're fucked in such a short time span that I think my heads still spinning. I feel like Beetlejuice in that one scene, you know? Bruce really creeps me out. He was following me."

Lana shook her head. "What a creep'o!" Then she wondered if he followed her as well, if he somehow saw what she'd done in that hotel room, and her face grew warm. She pressed on and tried to forget. "Is that why you wanted to leave?"

"Well, yeah, some of it. I also just needed to get away. Try to clear my head. I feel like I'm in the eye of a tornado. I just need to think. I need peace, away from the city," Raya said, cocking her head to the left resembling a parakeet.

"I get ya. It's hard to concentrate in the middle of city life," Lana agreed,like the true southerner she was.

Raya nodded.

"Everything will be fine." Lana reassured her, giving Raya's shoulder a soft squeeze.

Raya stared out into the darkness, noticing that her wolf eyes were seeing much more than only what the car's headlights would have allowed her human eyes to see.

"What am I going to do?" Raya questioned herself. Then to Lana she confessed, "Bruce wants me to turn people into wolves. The whole idea is just luda! But if I don't, what will be the consequences? We got sick last time we tried to defy him. Even if I don't get sick, what will he do? I know he's heartless, reckless, and fears nothing. What the hell does he have to be afraid of anyway? He is fear! Damn that man-beast bastard!" She glanced over at Lana to find her fast asleep.

Hell, who could blame her for being tired? She had been wrung out and hung up to dry.

I guess my driving shift won't be over for a while, Raya thought. She didn't care much for driving, but they had to get there somehow.

The gas light came on, causing a tiny ding that broke her concentration.