SHOT in the Back

Karl smiled at the kid, and then glanced over at Andrea. Seeing how she was taking all of this. He was more worried about Max and her,

He then glanced up at the person whom he didn't know, the one who had picted them up.

Max frowned. Basements were dark and scary... but he had to show that he was brave!

"Uh-huh!" The boy nodded, puffing out his chest.

Andrea caught Karl's eye and gave her husband a small smile to reassure him.

"I'm heading out again," Myrrh sighed, running a hand through his hair. "There'll be a hell of an outrage over at HQ. I'll need to break it up and remind them who's in charge." He walked passed Karl and nodded at Carlotta. "My room's off limits, as always, Carlotta."

The girl voiced her understanding, as if they'd rehearsed this. After Myrrh had left, Carlotta caught Karl's gaze. "That's Myrrh Fabloue. Heard of him?"

She began to lead them into the basement floor, turning on lights as she walked. The hardwood stairs eventually gave way to crimson red carpets, but the color of the walls remained constant. The underground floor was only a long hallway, as spotless as the rest of the house. The lights were lined against the bottom of the wall rather than the ceiling. The doors were evenly spaced between each other, painted the same wooden color as the upstairs floor.

"My room's that one," Carlotta said pointing. "And Myrrh's is the second to last one. The one at the very end is Uncle's, though he never comes here. I wouldn't go in that one either."

"No, I never heard of him," Karl answered Carlotta, following after her. Being slow enough to make sure Max could keep up.

"Where's the kitchen, may I ask? We got...well, hit before I could make lunch." Oh, he could now see the landlord calling him, and demanding that they somehow pay for damages.

Doque nodded, running down the stairs and nearly tripped down the stairs when her cell phone rang. She stopped at the landing, answering her phone and sighing as she listened as to what the person on the other end had to say. "I'll be right there," she responded, hanging up and walking back up the stairs to Melena.

"Seems we've got a bit of a problem. There was an explosion or something like that, and I've got to go to work. I guess it wouldn't hurt if you tagged along," she explained briefly, heading back to her apartment to change into her uniform.

Max was enjoying the feeling of carpeting between his toes, before he heard the mention of lunch. "Food!"

"We understand that you're hungry, Maxie." Andrea said, a smile on her face.

Mel made a kind of whimper whine. "B-but food~!" she complained, following Doque back. Now that she thought about it, she was hungry, seeing as she'd slept a good portion of the day.

"Oh, there are two kitchens," Carlotta said. "One is upstairs, the other is down here. We never use them though. The one down here is just passed your rooms, so we can just head there now." They continued down the hallway and when Carlotta reached a pair of doors, she stopped. They were a few doors further down than her own room, but a few doors short of Myrrh's.

"You'll be staying here. These are the only rooms we have that are connected, and I thought you'd want to be close." Then she continued on two doors down; this room only had a doorway, not a door. The kitchen - gleaming black granite countertops, two sinks, two stoves, and a large refrigerator/freezer - could clearly be seen as Carlotta turned on the lights.

As they settled in the kitchen, Carlotta turned to Karl. "Myrrh Fabloue's Dominick de Luca's right hand man. Beside Uncle, he's the face of the de Luca clan. He's in charge of everything... The Fabloue family has been one of our strongest allies, and he's the head of it. Grandfather wanted him to be my fiancee, but..." Carlotta looked down. "Anyway, he's not. Myrrh doesn't really stay here much, and when he appears, it's not for long."

"We can get something on the way," Doque promised. They'd have to walk, since she'd never bothered getting her driver's license and she didn't want to have to deal with the traffic around the site. She opened the door to the apartment, and quickly entered her room and changing into her uniform.

The Doque that came out of the room was much different from the one that went in. Her hair actually looked combed and was pulled up into a neat bun, and her uniform looked quite crisp. Even her fluffy pink slippers had been replaced with black shoes. "Alright, let's go."

Karl was awestruck by the kitchen, and then snapped out of it when Carlotta had started to talk to him. "Fabloue clan? You mean there's more than just the De Luca and Chings in the city?" That got his brain thinking about it, if there were other smaller ones, then they could have struck at them, just to get the two larger ones at war with each other.

Then, they could emerge when the numbers were thinner...and take over...

Or, maybe he was overthinking it.

"Do I need anything?" Mel head tilted. It could be quite dangerous, if there was an attack, cause whoever had done it might be waiting for another ambush. Being a Ching, she might be in danger, so she asked, "do I need my knives or scythe?"

Despite Doque constantly taking them away or hiding them, Mel would somehow always find them or get a new one no matter what her caretaker did. It was the few things she knew to protect herself with and the city was hardly safe.

OOC: Assuming that Doque wouldn't allow her to have them in first place. :L

"Shiny~" Max voiced his opinion of the kitchen. Andrea nodded.

"I doubt it. The house was the residence of some one with de Luca connections, so I'd bet it's just some Ching kids looking for some sort of revenge. Plus you'll be surrounded by capable people with guns. And you shouldn't have knives or a scythe anyway," Doque responded, raising an eyebrow at Mel, though she didn't bother to ask where she'd gotten this batch from.

"Eh, it's not that much of a clan, really. They don't have many members anymore, but they're really rich." Carlotta gestured to the kitchen. "The one upstairs is better than this one; this is only here in case someone bombs the top floor or something. Anyway, there are a lot of mini-clans scattered here and there, but they don't amount to much compared to de Luca and Ching. Ever heard of the Avaretts? They're another clan, although they've managed to stay neutral throughout everything."

She noticed Karl hadn't started cooking yet. "Uh, you can have free reign of the kitchen. We don't really use it."

"Oh...yeah..." Karl rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry, I was distracted...I'll get right on lunch now." He excused himself, and well...just went snooping for what they had in the kitchen.

...

A force of habit really.

"I've heard about them, apparently they descended from one of the three sisters rumored to have been the first heads of the De Luca and Ching families, right?" Andrea replied. She had thought most of the time that was just a legend, but...

In the kitchen, since it was basically just a refuge, he would find only non-perishables and food items that didn't spoil easily.

Carlotta shrugged at Andrea. "Apparently. I don't know much about them. They're loaded, but a lot of their members were killed in a freak attack near the end of the clan wars. But they didn't retaliate. They just reformed their clustered community. Anyway, they don't really matter."

"If you say so," Mel shrugged, glancing over her shoulder, "I guess if I need to I can snatch someone's gun." It's not like she didn't have experience with firearms, but she just liked seeing blood. Was that so bad?

"Hmmm, this really isn't that good," Karl mused to himself once he saw the fact there was only sealed food. "Maybe some noodles...? Guess I'll have to go pick up actual food later..."

He brought out a pot, filled it with water and then put it onto a stove, and then put some packages of noodles into it.

Max followed after Karl, getting on his tip toes to try and reach the countertops.

"Really?" Andrea raised an eyebrow. "Hm, that's odd."

"Sorry about that," Carlotta said. "But like I said, we don't use this place much. Or at all." She looked at Max, who'd been all but abandoned while they talked about adult stuff. "What do you want to eat?"

"Only if you need to," Doque reminded her, sighing as she walked out the door.

"Hey, that's hot up there," Karl said as he picked up the little child to show him whats going on the top. "Lunch'll be soon."

Max face gave a look of amazement as he stared at the bubbling noodles in the pot. "Ooooh, okay."

"I probably will," Mel replied, voice back to mono-tone as she followed her guardian. On the inside she was excited, because there was a chance to see blood. She had the strangest obsession with blood; not like a vampire kind of obsession, but more like she just enjoyed blood itself. Was she weird? Mel didn't know.