Prompt: Dani and Izzy's conversation at the arena after Cassidy left them to go participate in the LEAT games

"Yes, yes, I'm getting yours too," Dani quietly murmured under her breath while standing at the condiment station just inside the stadium. She had just picked up a cheeseburger and hotdog from the nearby concession stand, and now she was dressing them up properly. As well as using an extra cardboard container she'd asked for, one meant for popcorn, to hold a random assortment of lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, and bell peppers she'd grabbed from the nearby condiment table. All things that were actually meant to be used with the burgers and hotdogs, but perfectly serviceable as a separate set of treats for her lizards.

In truth, the lizards hadn't made any noise or done anything else to make Dani respond with that promise. How could they, considering they weren't actually in the bag, but were actually simply accessed through it? Accessed in a way that wasn't active right then. But they could still hear her voice, and Dani liked to talk to them as much as possible, even if she had to make up their side of the conversation. She wanted them to know she was close by, especially after last night.

Once she had everything she wanted, Dani picked up the tray and turned to look at the younger girl standing nearby with a couple bottles of soda. "Right then, guess we should go find our seats, huh? It sounds like the match they've got going on right now is about over, and I don't think we wanna miss any part of whatever they throw Paintball into. He has a way of making things interesting."

Izzy coughed, a small smile playing at the girl's face even as she agreed, "Yeah, he really does."

The two of them walked through the crowded concourse surrounding the actual seating area, making their way to the spot Dani had bought several extra tickets for. They weren't the absolute best seats in the house, mostly because the two of them wanted to remain anonymous. It would be pretty bad if Sterling and Elena spotted them from up in the VIP box and didn't see Cassidy anywhere nearby. The view was still perfectly fine, while being nice and crowded for anonymity.

Once they took their seats, while the last few moments of the previous event were playing out, Dani carefully set the tray of food on the provided stand for it, then put the backpack next to her. Unzipping the thing, she took the container of vegetables and smoothly emptied it into the bag, sending them through to the terrarium where the lizards were. They all knew how to share better than many kindergartners she'd seen, back when she used to play teacher's aid for her mom before… well, before everything happened. Before she didn't have a mom anymore, or a father.

Before the fucking bastard fascist cops decided it'd be a fun idea to take all that away from her.

Shaking away those dark thoughts, memories she really didn't want to think about right then, Dani accepted the soda Izzy was holding out, before gesturing for the girl to take the hot dog. By that point, the previous competitors were being awarded their points, while the rest of the crowd cheered. The way the LEAT games attendance worked, you could buy tickets for just specific events, for a whole day, or for the entire tournament. The tickets themselves were plastic and had a special chip inside that constantly communicated with the arena security system. The system itself kept track of every person in the arena, and let the human security know if it detected anyone who either didn't have a ticket or access badge, or whose ticket had expired.

Needless to say, Dani had gone over the thing with a special tool Blackjack had provided that was meant to check for any actual communication bugs, anything that could eavesdrop or do anything other than report her position to the arena system. Even that much she wasn't very happy about, but a few concessions had to be made if she was going to be in the arena at all.

Still, she wasn't about to actually say anything compromising in this place without taking steps against eavesdroppers, either those of the secret security type, or simply nosy people who were seated nearby. Yes, there were Touched-Tech privacy screens that were supposed to block sounds from your neighbors and vice versa, but like hell would she trust something like that.

Instead, once her lizards had their vegetables and Izzy had her hot dog, Dani took what would appear to be a cell phone from her pocket, typing a command into what would appear to be a completely innocuous text conversation before setting it down in her lap. A moment later, there was a very soft chime, no different than a simple incoming text notification. But this was more important than that. It meant they were safe.

"Okay, we can talk now," she announced casually, watching the field below as the winner of that event did a quick, exuberant victory lap. Her finger tapped the phone. "White Chatter Generator. Anyone further away than these two seats here is just hearing us talk about other LEAT games."

To prove it, she turned to look at the person next to her, voice casual as she nodded toward Izzy. "Hey buddy, check it out, my best friend right here is secretly Radiant in disguise. She pulls it off well, doesn't she? Also, I'm really Gevaudan. Had to work like a bitch to hide my French accent."

For his part, the man simply stared at her for a second before replying, "Yeah, it's great, this is our first time coming to one of these things too! We're hoping Kilobot makes an appearance!"

Giving him a thumbs up, Dani turned back the other way. "See? No one can eavesdrop now."

Instead of jumping straight into anything sensitive, Izzy gave the man past her a brief look as she called over to him. "I bet you didn't know this entire event is actually run by aliens who took over the United States in 1994. They look like big lime green balls of snot with eight tentacles."

The man, in return, gave a cheerful grin. "Don't worry, they'll start the next event soon. They just have to set everything up and explain how the match is gonna work." His hand rose to point. "You see the timer up on the big screen over there? That's how long we have before it's supposed to start."

Izzy thanked the man, giving the screen a curious glance before turning her attention back to Dani. A smile played at the corner of the younger girl's face, before she casually noted, "That's pretty convenient. I guess it helps to have something like that when you're planning your heists."

"Heists," Dani echoed with a light chuckle. "Blackjack would love hearing you call them that. Yeah, it helps when planning heists, especially when you're walking through the, ahh, target at the time. Sometimes you've gotta plan out every move carefully, step by step, you know?" She paused a bit before slyly adding, "Never know when those busybody Minority jerks will show up."

Hesitating with the hot dog raised to her mouth, Izzy squinted at her in silence for a few long seconds before speaking quietly, her voice tinged with curiosity. "You figured that part out?"

"That you're Raindrop?" Dani gave an easy nod. "Cassidy didn't say anything about you, don't worry. But seriously, let's go over it. Word spreads that Raindrop was almost abducted by that piece of shit working for Cuélebre, thanks to one or maybe both of her parental figures. She gets away, but no one's gonna leave the kid with her family after that. Around the same time, a girl named Izzy, who happens to look like she's the same general age and size, gets taken in and eventually adopted by the richest family in town. A family which, by the way, secretly runs the organization that controls all crime in the city, and wasn't at all happy about the Handler thing."

Izzy considered that for a moment before grimacing slightly. "Well, when you put it like that, I guess it's kind of obvious, isn't it?" A wide smile found its way to her face as she leaned forward a bit too eagerly. "Wait, does this mean you're gonna sic your lizards on me so we can wrestle?"

An audible snicker escaped the other girl. "You know, if you want to play with them, all you have to do is ask. They'd love the exercise. I mean, at some point when we're not in the middle of a place like this." Her hand waved, indicating the field below where the next game was already being set up while some fire jugglers put on a show to keep people from getting too restless. "I kinda doubt you're up for ditching out early and going off to play fun lizard-nanny right now."

Izzy shrugged. "Maybe if it was anyone but Paintball." She glanced back to the field as though thinking about it before giving a firm nod. "Yup, if it was just some random people, I'd totally be up for some lizard games. Uh, especially if it meant I could teach them not to try to bite me when you're stealing stuff." That part came pointedly as she gave a sharp look at the bag of lizards.

"Aww," Dani insisted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "They'd never actually hurt you. Not you anyway. They'd just stop you. Drag you away. Hold you down, that sort of thing. Maybe a bruise or two, nothing serious. I mean, what else are they gonna do when you and all your friends insist on trying to spoil our fun?"

With a light snort, Izzy lifted her chin as she retorted, "Maybe if you found a way to have fun that wasn't against the law, we wouldn't have to spoil it all the time. You're a bad influence on them."

"Hey, I am a great influence on them," Dani shot back with an exaggeratedly offended sniff. "If it wasn't for me teaching them what's what, they'd make some bad decisions, like trusting cops."

The younger girl gave a tiny, almost imperceptible wince before speaking carefully, clearly trying not to overstep too much. "It sounds like you had a um, bad experience? That seems personal."

Dani met her gaze evenly, her voice fairly calm yet just barely tinged with enough hardness to make it clear her response wasn't up for any sort of debate. "It is, I did, and no, I'm not gonna talk about it now. Maybe some other time, who knows? But not now. Not here. Not like this."

Biting her lip, Izzy clearly took a moment to consider that before nodding once. "Okay, not now." Making a point of changing the subject, she asked, "Are you sure Twinkletoes isn't mad at me for making him float upside down back at the museum last week? He scared the security guard."

"One, that guy was a jerk and deserved to be scared," Dani informed her. "And two, there's no way he's mad at you. Are you kidding? He had fun. Riddles is always teasing the others about how she can fly and they can't. Twinkletoes hasn't stopped bragging about getting to float since it happened. Now, if it had been Mars Bar you put in the air, that could've been a bit of a problem."

Izzy's head bobbed. "Sure, I remember, you said he really doesn't like heights. That's why I let Syndicate handle him. I mean, try to. He didn't like being locked in that closet very much either."

With a laugh, Dani agreed, "Yeah, he really didn't. Syndy-boy thought he was so smart, turning intangible to trick him into running into that place. But seriously, did he really think even a metal door would keep Mars in there for long?" A tiny snicker came then. "He did make a pretty fun noise when my big boy burst right out behind him though. I just wish we had that bit on camera."

Poking the girl, Izzy chastised, "Hey, don't be mean to Syndicate, we're all just doing our jobs. You're the ones who broke into the museum and tried to steal stuff just for a few quick bucks."

"Oh believe me, it was more than a few," Dani teased. "Even if we did only get away with like, a quarter of what we were going for. I don't suppose you'd be up for telling me how you guys managed to figure out we were there and get over to the place so fast? Amber's being mean about it."

Lifting her chin, the younger girl clarified, "Being mean as in not telling the supervillain thief how we stopped her from super-thieving so much? Nah, I don't think I'll say anything about it either."

"See, now you're being mean too." Making a show of shaking her head in disappointment, Dani lamented, "And here I thought superheroes were all supposed to stand up for people in need."

Choking a bit on her own snicker, Izzy shot back, "Not when that need is to commit more crimes! That's not how it works." She hesitated then, head tilting curiously before she asked, "Uh, not that I'm really sure how it'll work if you end up going to jail. Have you ever thought about that?"

Dani gave the other girl a toothy smile. "Well, obviously I'd expect you, Cassidy, and Amber to come up with a plan to break me out. It's really the least you could do after spending so much effort trying to kill all my fun like a bunch of fuddy duddies." Her eyes shifted one way, then the other as she rolled the words around in her mind. "Heh, that's a fun term. Fuddy Duddy. I might need to remember that if I get another lizard. Though I'm pretty sure I'm at my limit right now with Bumbershoot. And there's no way I'm changing any of their names."

"Yeah, that might just confuse them," Izzy agreed. She was quiet for a few seconds, clearly considering her words. "And maybe it makes us fuddy duddies, but we don't want you or the lizards to get hurt. None of us do. Especially Amber. After, um, you know, what went down with… um, Whamline, I don't think she'd ever be okay if anything really bad happened to you."

Dani regarded her for a long, silent moment before carefully asking, "I guess I should ask how you feel about Amber and me being a thing. She's practically a sister to you too, right?"

"Close, I guess," Izzy murmured, looking slightly pensive as she glanced at the field and considered her response. "I want Amber to be happy. You make her happy, and even if you are a thief, there's a lot worse people out there than you, on uh, on both sides." Her face twisted a little. "I never wanted to join the Minority just to chase bank robbers or anything. I wanted to be a hero so I could help people. And--well, actually I joined because my Mom wanted me to. She thought it would--" Before finishing that thought, the girl cut herself off, not wanting to talk about her mother anymore. Instead, she concluded with, "But helping people is why I stayed."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Dani briefly considered how to respond to that. Part of her wanted to press the girl about how she was doing with the whole mom trying to sell her to a Fell-Gang thing. But then again, if she wasn't going to talk about her painful past, she couldn't really expect someone else to. In the end, she settled on simply replying, "Glad you made your own decision on that. But just so you know, I'm not gonna stop stealing shit from rich old fucks who don't deserve eighteen gold sports cars. No matter how many times you fuddy duddies try to lock my lizards in a closet."

"Sure, that's fair," Izzy decided, a tiny smile playing across her face. "But just so you know, I'm still gonna help the others try to arrest you if we catch you stealing stuff." With a bright grin, Dani declared, "Bring it on, pipsqueak. Me and my buds are ready for you and yours any time, any--" She stopped as the announcer lady started to talk about the rules of the match Paintball was about to participate in. "Okay, maybe not any time and place. Timeout for now?" She offered her hand that way.

Izzy took it, shaking firmly. "Timeout for now," she agreed.

"But just so you know, if you make Amber sad, I'll dump Lake St. Clair on top of you."

*********

Prompt: NON-CANON What if Arleigh survived that explosion?

"You sure you're gonna be okay, miss?" the rideshare driver asked while leaning around from the front seat to look back at Arleigh with a grimace. "You uh, got some people in there to help?"

With a grunt, the girl shook her head, shoving the door open. It took her a moment to extricate herself from the seat, shoving her crutches down firmly onto the cement before sliding out a bit awkwardly, using them for support. "I'm fine," she insisted in a flat voice. "I don't need any help."

It wasn't a very convincing claim, considering what the man was looking at when he gazed out that window at her. Arleigh's left leg was broken, hence the crutches. She couldn't put any weight on it at all. In addition, she'd lost her left eye, though the Touched-Tech cybernetic replacement would eventually help with that. It was in place, and the doctors had told her it would only take a couple more weeks for it to work as well as the old one had. Right now it was still 'adjusting' and the results were less than perfect. Which, from the point of view of anyone looking at it, looked like the eye was randomly flickering back and forth or turning to look in different directions. She basically saw things through a blurry filter unless she closed that eye. But it was better than having no eye on that side at all, at least.

Beyond the broken leg and replaced eye, the left side of Arleigh's body had been heavily burned, and about half her ribs were broken when the explosion went off. She had expected to die, to be honest. She had been ready to die. But somehow, through a miracle, she was still alive. Broken leg and nose, missing eye, devastated ribs, some internal bleeding, a punctured lung, and deep burns across half her body might have felt like a pretty shitty miracle to some, yet like the replacement eye, it was better than the alternative. She could easily have just died.

To be honest, she still wasn't sure why she hadn't. Even now, a couple weeks after everything went down, she'd yet to really come to an understanding of why and how she was still alive. The explosion had been right next to her. She was lying on the ground, half-turned over when it went off. The doctors claimed it had something to do with the explosion going up and over her, as she only caught a glancing blow from it. Somehow being that close yet underneath the primary direction of the main blast helped protect her or… something. Honestly, she thought they were mostly full of shit and were just throwing out some random guess that sounded plausible to try to explain it.

Wincing a bit as she balanced on the crutches, Arleigh waited until she felt steady enough, then carefully started to hobble her way toward the front door. About three awkward steps in, she paused before turning back that way as something came to mind. "Uh, thanks." It sounded awkward and stupid, but she still spat out the unfamiliar word. "Most drivers won't come this far."

It was true, the majority of cabs and rideshares, even buses, wouldn't come all the way into the middle of Sherwood territory. She had expected to have to hobble her way from the entrance to the housing division. But this guy had come all the way to the house, with barely a hesitation.

The driver shrugged. "Yeah, well, I figured if you live here, the gang probably won't mind too much about me bringing you all the way in. Unless you got those injuries by pissing them off, in which case we were screwed. But it seemed like a worthy gamble. You take care, stay off your feet, okay? Oh, uh, here." Glancing into the backseat, he reached that way and grabbed the bag with her pain meds, stepping out to walk around the car so he could hand them to her. He took a moment to carefully hang the bag of medication around the girl's neck so she didn't have to try to carry it.

For a second, Arleigh just stared at him. "Uh, thanks…" She had to take a second to glance at her phone to see the driver's name on the app. "Billy Donahan." While she was at it, Arleigh hit the button to increase his tip and rated him five stars. Why not, at that point? He'd earned it.

Leaving him to go back to his car and head for his next pickup, Arleigh took a breath before starting to awkwardly hobble up to the house. Her crutches clacked repeatedly and noisily against the sidewalk with each motion, while the bag of pill bottles bounced against her chest. As she moved that way, the girl winced a little. Fuck, good thing that guy remembered her pills, considering the last ones from the hospital were already wearing off. Time to take a new dose.

"You're here," a deep, decidedly masculine voice spoke up just then, before she'd even made it halfway up the walk. When the blonde looked down, she saw a very small chipmunk staring up at her from the perfectly-trimmed grass. "You were let out a day early? Why would they do that?"

"I wasn't let out early," Arleigh grunted, starting to hobble to the door again. "This was always supposed to be my discharge date, since three days ago." She glanced over her shoulder to see that the driver had already pulled away. Probably thought he should get the hell out of this place before Sherwood decided he'd overstayed his welcome. If only he knew who he'd dropped off.

Sequoia, speaking through the chipmunk, objected. "Your father and older brother insisted more than once that you would be released from the hospital on Thursday the twenty-fifth of June."

"Wednesday the twenty-fourth," Arleigh corrected, even as she carefully and a bit clumsily used the crutches to push herself up the steps to the porch. "No reason for them to remember that, I guess. They were only told about it eighteen times. Including yesterday, when I said, 'pick me up tomorrow.' But not counting this morning, when I sent six texts they didn't bother to reply to."

The chipmunk Sequoia was controlling followed her right up to the door, standing there while Arleigh awkwardly held the screen door with one of her crutches and punched in her code on the nearby panel to make the actual main door itself unlock and open. Only once she had stepped through did that familiar deep voice reply, "They must have misunderstood the date."

Instead of responding to that immediately, Arleigh simply hobbled on her crutches through the front foyer area, calling out, "I'm home!" Under her breath, the girl muttered a soft, "If anyone cares." At a look from Sequoia's chipmunk, she added, "Anyone besides you, of course, sir."

With a chittering noise, the chipmunk bounded forward, jumping up to a low chair, then to a narrow table lined with pictures right there in the hall. "You needn't be so formal, Arleigh. You never did, but especially now, after what you've been through. We are your family. Be at ease."

Before Arleigh could do more than open her mouth with the slightest scoff, another voice cut in as Micah came through one of the other doorways, the one leading toward the kitchen. "Hey, lemme guess, the doctors got sick of your smell and decided you were healed enough after all?"

"Micah," Sequoia adopted a warning tone. "Your sister had to take a ride from an outsider to get back here. She says you were told repeatedly that this was her release date. What do you say?"

"Was it?" Micah blinked twice. It was clear that he would have said one thing if she was alone, but not in front of the puppeted chipmunk. "Sorry," he replied instead, giving a little shrug. "I guess I heard them wrong. Maybe I was just thinking that tomorrow would be your first full day home or something." With that bare attempt at an excuse, the boy added, "But hey, at least you made it, huh? You look uhh… better than you did in the hospital. Not that that's saying much. Cuz to tell you the truth, sis, you looked like run-over roadkill back there. It was pretty nasty."

"You sure you weren't looking in one of those really polished silver trays they've got?" Arleigh shot back immediately. "Maybe you were just finally seeing yourself clearly for the first time."

The light teasing was met with a glare from her older brother, who opened his mouth as though he was about to snap something back at her, but stopped. His eyes flicked toward the chipmunk before he simply responded with a somewhat tense, "Glad you made it back. Dad wants to talk to you about… what happened. Now you can finally tell him what you were thinking back there."

Leaning on her crutches, Arleigh stared at the floor, lost in thought. The silence carried on for several long seconds before she gave a very quiet, "Yeah, I can tell him what I was thinking."

With that, the girl made her way through the rest of the house to the main stairs, letting the door close behind her to cut off the sound of Micah being chided by Sequoia about trying to be a better brother and how they were all family. She'd heard it all before, both as an observer and as the subject of the reprimand. Sequoia was a tree, he put down roots. His personality was just… he thought the Fosters, Arleigh, her brothers, and her dad were some big, special family for him. His roots were his family, and no matter what happened, you couldn't abandon your roots. They were part of you. You stuck with them, watered them, fertilized them, and grew stronger with them. It was a whole big plant metaphor or whatever. The point was, Sequoia might chide them, might urge them to be better or to get along, but the idea of actually siding against his family would be like a person siding against their own roots. It would be like a person cutting off their own legs. He only truly cared about his family, the way a tree cared about its own roots, no matter how much damage they did to the surrounding area, to other trees, to other people.

It wasn't exactly easy to go up the stairs with her crutches, and for a brief moment Arleigh turned to look back the way she'd come. The thought of asking Micah for help flashed through the girl's mind, before she gave an audible snort at how stupid that would be. Instead, she focused on holding onto the railing with one hand and using both crutches under her other arm, awkwardly taking each step one at a time. Every once in awhile she swayed a bit before catching herself.

It took almost three times as long as it should have for her to make it all the way to the top, but she did finally manage it. Sweating and breathing hard, Arleigh planted both crutches properly and made her way through the hall to her father's office. So eager to sit down was she by that point, that she didn't even think before leaning on one crutch so she could push the door open.

That was a mistake. Her father, Trey, was a stern-looking man with dark hair. He was one of those who hated the very thought of ever aging, so he'd been through plenty of surgeries and other procedures, ensuring that to outsiders, he appeared to be in his early forties when the truth was that he was about a decade older than that. And now the subject of all that plastic surgery turned to Arleigh sharply as the door opened, eyes narrowing as the man hit the mute button on his phone. His voice was sharp. "Did you knock?"

"No, I-- sorry, Dad," Arleigh managed, starting to close the door once more as she withdrew.

"Wait," her father ordered, unmuting the phone to address whoever he was talking to. "Sorry, my daughter's home. I'll call you back in ten minutes." With that, he disconnected and stepped over to her. "You're home early." His hand extended, resting on her shoulder firmly enough to make the girl wince slightly. "How are you feeling?"

"No, I--" Realizing there was even less point to arguing with him about that than there had been to arguing with Micah, Arleigh gave up and simply replied, "I'm okay. They gave me meds, I'm supposed to keep taking them for a month. They ease the pain, keep the burns healing, and speed up all the other… recovery stuff."

"I'm so glad you're safe," her father intoned, leaning in to kiss her forehead briefly before turning to walk back to his chair. "The cover story held?"

"I told them I had an electric lighter and I threw it into the gas tank," Arleigh confirmed. "They bought it. If anyone else saw me use my powers, they didn't say anything. I suppose our Ministry friends probably helped with that. And the rest of it."

"Good," Trey noted. "You put everything in danger, including yourself. I don't know why you'd throw yourself into something like that for no reason. You could have seriously…" He stopped himself. "Well, now isn't the time for that, is it? I'm so glad you're safe." He said it precisely the same way the second time as he had the first time he said those same words only a few moments earlier. He'd practiced saying the words. She'd heard him say almost the same thing to a doctor outside her hospital room weeks ago, that time telling the man, 'I'm so glad she's safe.' There was no emotion behind it at all.

"I didn't know how dangerous they were," Arleigh murmured. "They were attacking kids. I couldn't just let them…" She trailed off, seeing the way her father was staring at her. It wasn't with anger. He just looked… blank. He had no idea why she would stop those people from hurting and probably killing children. He wasn't scoffing at her soft-heartedness, he absolutely did not feel anything about that possibility. It just wasn't there.

In the end, Arleigh promised to be more careful, and apologized for putting the family and gang at risk. Her father patted her shoulder and kissed her forehead again, both as mechanically as ever, then dismissed her. He told her to go to her room and get some sleep.

But although Arleigh did go to her room, she didn't sleep. Instead, she took her next round of meds, then lay there on her bed staring at the ceiling for almost two hours. Her thoughts were… complicated. She listened to the sound of her father leaving his office, calling out for Micah to join him. Then they left the house together, and everything was silent.

Silent, at least, for another ten minutes before the sound of someone much quieter coming in reached her. She listened as the other person walked down the hall, going to another room.

Several minutes passed like that, before Arleigh pushed herself up. She took a moment to sit there on the side of the bed, gathering her strength before rising once more, hobbling out of her room and down the hall, knocking on the door there with the bottom of a crutch. Hearing the call to come in, she did so, stepping into the room.

"Arleigh!" Abandoning the book he was reading, Errol hopped up and started to dash that way, only to stop just short of her. "Um, you're back, I thought you were--"

"--coming home tomorrow, yeah I know," she interrupted. "Come on, I need ice cream. Let's go." When Errol just continued to stare at her as though she'd grown a second head, she snapped, "Unless you don't want ice cream."

He quickly agreed, though his confusion remained. Together, the two of them left his room and carefully made their way downstairs. Errol helped her with the steps. They went to the garage, with Arleigh awkwardly maneuvering herself into the driver's seat of one of the family cars, glad that it was her left leg that was broken rather than the right. Even then, she was going to have to rely heavily on the autodrive thanks to the lingering blurry filter over her vision from the cybernetic eye.

"So… what ice cream place are we going to?" Errol asked once she had pulled out of the driveway.

She didn't answer him, not at first. Arleigh remained silent through the entire drive out of the housing area, the territory claimed by Sherwood. Only once they were out of that subdivision, did she finally respond. "We're not going to get ice cream, Errol. We're leaving. We're getting the fuck out of this city, away from this family, this gang, this fucking--all of it. We're leaving all of it.

"And we're never coming back."

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