Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 15:18:56 -0800
From: RC in Sacramento <sacwriter@hotmail.com>
Subject: Becka, Chptr 26

This is a work of fiction from a first time author. It depicts acts of sex
and sexuality between two teenage females. If such content disturbs you, or
you are under 18, get out and stay out. As always, this story can only be
reproduced by consent of the author.

Becka the Beast
by SacWriter

Chapter 26***

	Trojan Secure Storage was a nondescript brick building in an even more
nondescript part of town, hard to find and easily overlooked. The manager
was an irritable little man in his sixties, who complained loudly about
being got out in the middle of the night. But a baleful glare from Agent
MacGregor silenced him, and a quick check of the business records confirmed
that a fifteen by twenty storage unit had indeed been leased to a Marie
Jackson. No, he didn't know anything about the people who used the unit, had
never even seen them. If you had a passkey you didn't have to go past the
front desk, and he hadn't even been working here six years ago.
Ralph's key and Becka's signature got the group up to the appropriate unit
on the second floor, and a pair of bolt cutters got them through the three
padlocks there as well. As the big doors were pulled open, everyone pushed
forward to see what was behind them.
	It looked like the back of somebody's garage.
	There were stacks and stacks of brown cardboard boxes, all of it covered in
dust and several of them falling apart. Some of the boxes were open, and
displayed contents that varied from clothes and magazines, to kitchen
utensils and children's toys. A hand painted flower pot sat on the floor
with a red and white striped umbrella sticking out of it, next to a battered
old bookcase filled mostly with old paperback romance novels. The pile of
junk and old boxes reached up to head height, and from the looks of it
continued all the way to the back of the storage unit, without an inch to
spare. Of the hidden shipment of drugs, there appeared no sign.
	"Jeez, what is all this stuff?" Phil asked, of no one in particular.
	"Camouflage," MacGregor answered absently, as he pulled on a pair of latex
gloves. He nodded at the floor in front of a six foot wardrobe box. "See
those marks in the dust? That box is their doorway. The real goodies are
going to be behind all of this junk. Okay, stand back now, no civilians
allowed past this line."
	MacGregor used his now gloved hands to grab the wardrobe box and lift it up
and out of the unit, the ease with which he did it indicating that the box
was empty. The federal agent carefully handed the large box to another agent
with gloved hands, and then turned back to look inside of the hidden space.
When he finally turned back, the triumphant grin on his face told the whole
story.
	MacGregor gestured at another agent who was carrying a camera, and stepped
back so that the woman could enter. Pretty soon the light from the camera
flash could be seen strobing periodically over the tops of the piled boxes.
Two men with blue windbreakers with `LAPD' written in big white letters
across the back arrived with two furniture moving dollies, and were directed
to stand to the side until the crime lab team was done. Detective Caruso
received a call on his cell phone and quickly left, saying he had to go
arrange the security outside in the parking lot. More agents and LAPD
officers arrived to take his place, and pretty soon the double wide hallways
of Trojan Security Storage were overflowing with blue uniforms and cheap
suits.
	Gia was fairly dancing in frustration, her curiosity eating away at her.
Several times she tried to get closer, to see around the corner into the
hidden recesses of the storage unit. Each time she was politely but firmly
rebuffed. It seemed that the balance of power had shifted, the Cameron
family no longer had anything that the police wanted, and therefore no more
leverage.
	Gia finally admitted defeat and had just started to head towards where her
father and Benny Hudson stood in quiet conversation, when she stopped,
startled. She had suddenly become aware of a feeling that had been impinging
on the back of her mind for some time, a feeling that something was wrong. A
feeling of distress. Becka...?
	Gia spun around, instantly locating the other girl through the crowd,
somehow knowing where she was without knowing how. She found her across the
hallway against the back wall, her arms crossed and clutching at herself,
the blood drained from her face leaving her a pasty white. Her muscles were
tensed so tight that she was trembling, and Gia knew without having to ask
that the older girl was within an inch of coming apart.
	In an instant she was at her side, taking her by the arm. The touch of the
skin underneath her hand was cold and clammy, and her gaze remained focused,
fixed on the opening to Ralph's storage unit. Gia had to speak her name
twice before she acknowledged her. Finally, after some prompting,  Becka
licked her lips and then nodded across the hallway.
	"Gia, that's...that's my Mom's stuff."
	"What..?" Gia started to say, confused. For a moment she had thought Becka
was referring to the drugs, but then the light came on.
	"Your Mom's stuff--Becka, do you mean all of that junk belonged to your
mother? The stuff that Ralph told you he had burned?"
	Becka nodded, trembling. "Yeah. I always thought he'd lied. That's my Mom's
clothes, and those are my old toys. And there... that's our picture album."
	She followed the other girl's eyes, and quickly located the album on the
shelf of books, surrounded on both sides by the worn paperback novels. There
it was, a blue leather binder, just as she had once described it to her. The
book containing Becka's life before Ralph Danning.
	"You knew this was here, didn't you?" she asked. Becka shook her head.
	"No. Not for sure. But Ralph took it all away about a week after he made me
sign the lease for this place, so I always wondered.
	"Gia, they won't let me have it! All of my Mom's pictures. I asked them,
but they won't even let me see it."
	"Baby, you just have to be patient. They don't want your Mom's stuff, it's
not like it's evidence or anything. Sooner or later they'll let you have it
all."
	"But that could take weeks! And, and...Gia, it's right over there now!"
	The last sentence was said in such a tone of misery and longing that it
squeezed Gia's heart. It was all too easy for her to sympathize with what
Becka was going through, and she knew she had to find some way to get her
that book. But how? She needed help, from somebody the police would listen
to, someone they would bend the rules for.
	Her father? Benny Hudson? No, probably not, especially after the way Benny
had already raked them over the coals. Detective Caruso was nowhere to be
seen, and Agent MacGregor would probably confiscate it just to get back at
them after the way they had gotten him to sign over Becka's property. And
her brothers were outside someplace, the cops hadn't even let them come up
here, said that they were `unessential personnel'. For a moment she had the
illogical urge to find them and have them force the police to give them that
book, but sanity quickly dispelled that idea. None of them could help her,
so that left who...?
	Agent Dobbs.
	Gia found her standing to the side of all the activity, calmly dictating
her report into a compact tape recorder. Gia approached her, and quickly
explained the problem, trying to put as much urgency into her request as she
could. The lady fed listened to her sympathetically for awhile, but then
shook her head.
	"I'm sorry, Gia, but there's nothing I can do. Agent MacGregor has declared
this site a crime scene, and that means nothing leaves here without his
permission. If it is her mother's property, and if it isn't evidence in a
crime, your friend can petition the court for it after the trial."
	"But that's just cruel! Look, you don't understand. It was only a month
after she died that Ralph got rid of all of her Mon's things. Becka came
home from school one day, and every trace of her mother was just gone. She
hasn't even seen her face in over six years! So now you're saying that she
has to wait months and months, maybe even years, just to see that picture
album."
Gia's stepped closer and her voice dropped, as she opened up her heart to
the older woman, who had seemed not to have one of her own. "Would you be
able to wait?" she asked, softly.

	Danielle Dobbs looked across the room to where Becka Jackson stood, looking
lost and forlorn, and just the opposite of the street tough kid who had
stared down her and MacGregor for over two hours. But that was the operative
word here, wasn't it? She and Gia Cameron were both of them just kids,
little girls who had gone through hell and back, but still just kids. And
kids hurt, more so than adults with there armor of experience and cynicism
ever could. And Danielle knew that the answer to Gia's question was that no,
she wouldn't have been able to wait, either.
	Danielle turned around without a word and strode over to the bookshelf,
where she pulled out the blue album. She opened the album and quickly
glanced through it, making sure that all it contained was old photos, and
nothing that could be linked to the current case. With nothing more than a
subtle glance out of the corners of her eyes to make sure no one was
watching, she strode over to Gia and handed her the oversized book. Then
without a word or a backwards glance she turned around, and faded into the
crowd of her fellow police.

	Gia glanced from the album in her hand, and then to the place in the crowd
were Dobbs had disappeared. She pondered for awhile, about the kind of woman
who could risk her career out of simple compassion, and still act like an
ice queen while doing it. Then Gia turned away, taking her treasure with
her.
			* * *
	Becka saw Gia approaching her, and also saw what she held clutched to her
chest with both hands. Air hissed through her teeth as she drew in a breath
and held it, mixed with the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. Her
anxiety had been suddenly replaced by a paralyzing fear.
Why was she feeling this way? She had been so anxious, so filled with the
raw need to get her hands on this last existing record of her childhood, and
now she was afraid to even touch it.
	Her mother was in there! Her father, who she didn't even remember, but who
had also cherished her. She had first seen his face on a copy of an old
driver's license, recognized some of her own features in that visage, known
right away that he was a part of her. This was nonsense, why was she so
afraid to open the book, to see the people who had given her life and loved
her?
But she already knew the answer. She was afraid that she wouldn't recognize
them, would see only the faces of strangers in the faded snapshots. That she
would forever lose the fragile sense of connection that she still had with
her parents.
	Gia still held the album out to her, and slowly Becka took it. It was
dusty, and the old blue leather had dried and cracked, but there was no
doubt in her mind that it was the same one from her past. With trembling
hands she slowly opened the cover and looked at the first picture there,
wondering desperately if she would know the faces inside or not.
	The first picture was an 8x10 portrait of a young woman, of the kind found
in a high school yearbook. She had long brown hair and green eyes, and an
innocent smile that changed a plain face and made it beautiful. The woman
seemed familiar, but so young! Only a girl, really, no older than Becka
herself. Could this possibly be her mother?
	Becka stared at the picture with an artist's eye, adding the ravages of
time, illness, and drug addiction. In her mind she thinned the hair and made
it lank and lusterless, and then added wrinkles and bags to the eyes. She
tightened the skin across the cheeks and took away it's healthy glow,
replacing it with a hospital room's pallor. Finally she removed the
innocence and the hope,  but left in the unconditional love, and immediately
recognized the face that stared back at her.
	Her legs had turned to rubber, but Becka barely noticed it as she slid down
the wall and sat on the floor. Tears blurred her eyes and flowed down her
face, but she didn't need to see to know that Gia had dropped to the ground
by her side.
	"Look, Gia. That's my Mom," she said, in the voice of a little girl looking
at a miracle.
			* * *
	Phil found them like that a half hour later, sitting in an out of the way
corner of the hallway and intently pouring over the picture album,
exclaiming over one photo after another. They looked up in surprise when he
squatted down in front of them, but then grinned in delight as they
explained about the book and eagerly showed him it's contents. As he shifted
over to get a better view, he felt a warm glow of wonder to see his
daughters so happy and excited. After the day they had both had they should
have been exhausted, emotionally drained at the very least. But he knew
youth has it's own priorities, and an old fart like him could only hang on
and try to keep up.
	"See, these are all pictures of my Mom and Dad—my other Dad," Becka was
saying, eagerly pointing to the snapshots preserved behind a film of
plastic. Beneath each photo was a handwritten caption with a date, and the
subject of each was always one or both of the same two people, Becka's
parents. Hugh & Liz at Tony's B-day, Saturday at Stanley Park, Liz & Mattie
at the market, Hugh building a snowman. Phil recognized the style
immediately, he had a couple albums of his own with him and Lupe, slices out
of the lives of two people in love.
	"And Dad, look... look at this one," Becka continued, turning to the very
last page in the album. There was only one picture on that page, set in the
very center. Hue and Elizabeth Jackson, posed in front of a big rig truck
with his arm around her shoulder, smiling at the camera. In her arms was a
child, a toddler with curly blonde hair and her fathers' vivid blue eyes.
She wore a red jumper and blue sneakers, and had one chubby little fist
stuck in her mouth. Unlike the other pictures there was no informative
caption below the photo, just a date, scrawled in a shaky hand.
	"Two days before he dies," Becka said softly, touching the man's image
lightly with one finger tip. She was smiling sadly, and Phil just nodded,
knowing better than to interrupt this moment with words.
	"Dad, check this out," Gia finally said, taking the album and flipping
through the pages. She stopped to point triumphantly at one of the picture.
"Look, see that sticker in the window of that car? That's a red maple leaf.
And here, see these signs in the background of this picture? That's French.
Dad, I think all these pictures were taken in Canada. I think Becka's Mom
was Canadian! I bet that's why we never found out anything about her, why we
couldn't even find their marriage certificate. I bet they got married in
Canada and moved here before Becka was born."
	"Huh. I'll bet you're right, Hon. It sure explains a lot. When we get home
maybe you can do a web search, see if we can find out what city these were
taken in. Look at some of the names here; Stanley Park, Jericho Beach,
Granville Island. It shouldn't be too hard to track this place down."
	"Don't bother. It's Vancouver."
	Three sets of eyes snapped up at the sound of Agent MacGregor's voice. None
of them had noticed the tall fed approaching, and all felt his presence as
an intrusion. Phil rose to his feet in one fluid motion, while his daughters
scrambled to theirs a moment later. He felt Becka move behind him, and
figured she was trying to hide the album behind his bulk. Phil wasn't sure
why she would want to conceal her own property from the lawman, and before
he could ask the question became moot.
	"Miss Jackson, may I see that album, please?" MacGregor asked, looking
straight at Becka and holding out his hand.

	Becka sighed, and handed it over. It felt like she was giving away a piece
of her own body, but she knew she could live with it now. They couldn't take
away what she had already seen, or erase the sure knowledge that her parents
had really existed, had loved each other and loved her, too. She could be
patient now, and wait to get that piece of her past back.
	"Yeah, this is Vancouver, alright. I spent two weeks there once, working a
case with the RCMP," MacGregor was saying, as he leafed through the album.
"There's the steam clock, and that's the craft market on Granville Island.
Are these your parents?"
	Becka nodded, reluctantly.
	"This was my Mom's stuff. Ralph told me he'd burned it all."
	"Well, it looks like Ralph Danning lied about a lot of things. I know you
must be glad to see all this stuff, but this is still a crime scene. You
shouldn't have removed that album without permission."
	Becka shrugged noncommittally, but otherwise kept silent. She wanted to
keep the album so badly she ached, but she wasn't about to turn in Agent
Dobbs. Gia had taught her a lot about loyalty, this past month.
	But MacGregor surprised her by handing back the album. "Well, no harm done.
Just be sure to ask next time, alright? By the way, do you intend to try and
find your mother's family?"
	"Um, I, I don't know," Becka stammered, taken by surprise. He had given the
album back!
	MacGregor fished a card from out of his gray suit. "Well, if you do and you
need any help. We're not supposed to use agency resources for personal use,
but we do owe you, and I think we can stretch the point. Whatever you decide
on it, good luck to you."
	The tall fed turned around and walked away, and three sets of astonished
eyes followed him. This had really been a day full of surprises!

	Phil shook his head, and then took his daughters by the elbows and led them
out of the building and away from all the craziness. "C'mon, you two. You've
had a hell of a day. And tomorrow's going to be another one. Let's pick up
your brothers and head home."
	Gia stifled a yawn, proving the truth of Phil's words.
	"You're right, Dad, we are beat. All I want is a hot bath and a soft bed."
On the other side of him his newest daughter grunted a sound that he took
for agreement. He led them to the freight elevator and got on, just as
another LAPD detective got off with a wheelbarrow. On the way down, Gia
finally asked the question that he knew she would.
	"Dad? What did you mean, tomorrow's going to be another one? What do we
have to do?"
	Another glimpse of the Mayan in his blood peeked out, as Phil answered his
daughter grimly.
	"Tomorrow, Hon, we take out the trash.
			* * *
That night Gia had her first nightmare. She was back in the school parking
lot, wrapped in that blanket, being dragged backwards towards the van. But
instead of two pairs of hands on her body there were a dozen. Clutching,
groping, smothering her. Terror and helplessness danced through her mind,
stripping her of her humanity, turning her into a screaming little thing
that kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller...
	She woke up drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, her whole body
shaking with reaction. But she didn't scream because Becka was there,
holding her, speaking words of comfort and reassurance in her ear. Stroking
her hair and stilling her tremors long after she had drifted into dreamless
sleep, and a new dawn was silvering the air.
			* * *
	"Man, I just can't believe this!" Gia said, for the third time in the last
forty five minutes. Becka looked at her sister from the corner of her eye,
and sighed. Gia wasn't very good at waiting.
	"Okay, I give up," Becka asked, patiently. "So what is it that you can't
believe?"
	"That the police never thought of looking for that bunch of losers here!"
Gia replied, as she shook her head in disgust. "They've had warrants out on
these guys for two weeks now, and in all that time not a single cop ever
thought to check out Ralph's place!"
Once again the two girls were hiding in the small copse of trees overlooking
the back yard of Becka's old home, and just like on that first day four
weeks ago, they could hear the sounds of the big screen TV coming from the
open back window. They had been hiding there watching for almost an hour,
and other than the occasional raucous laughter drifting across the yard not
a damned thing had happened to dispel their vigil. It was no wonder that Gia
had been fidgeting for most of that hour, or that she was about ready to
climb the walls now.
	"Hell, Gia," Becka said, still trying to be the voice of reason, a role she
had very little experience playing. "Ralph's in jail. You can't blame the
cops for not thinking about this place."
	"You thought about it!"
	"Yeah, but I've known these guys all of my life. Like I know that if
somebody goes to jail or has to leave town in a hurry, everybody else will
use their home as a crash pad. They'll break in if they have too, eat
everything in sight, and then leave the place totally trashed. These guys
are the biggest moochers on the west coast. The cops wouldn't know that."
	"Yeah, well, they still should have figured it out," the other girl
muttered, glaring darkly at the back of the old bungalow. Becka rolled her
eyes in exasperation. Patience obviously wasn't going to work on her little
sister. She thought about it for awhile, and then grinned as an idea started
to form.
	"Hey, Babe. Do you remember the first time I brought you here? Remember
what we did that day?"

Gia glanced at her, looking puzzled at first. But then slowly she began to
smile. "What, you mean when I first kissed you?"
	"No, I mean when you practically jumped my bones! You were all over me that
day, girlfriend."
	"Hey, I didn't hear you complaining! Besides, weren't you the one who made
the first move on me?"
	"Ha! You wish. I was the one saying you should go home, you were the one
who put the moves on me."
	Gia was grinning now, as she willingly joined in Becka's game. She knew
exactly were this was going, and why her lover had initiated the play. Gia
was aware that she had been acting like a pain in the ass, but she hadn't
been able to help it. She marveled now at how amazing it was, to have
somebody who knew her like this, knew her moods and what it took to snap her
out of them. The past month had been a scary, exhausting ride on a runaway
train, but when she thought about having Becka in her life now, she felt
only lucky to have been on it.
	"Well, maybe you're right," she said dismissively, pretending it wasn't
important. "Frankly, I don't really remember it that well."
	"Oh, really? Well then, let me refresh your memory!"
	With an evil leer Becka started to crawl towards her, like a cat stalking
an eager canary.
	"First off, you grabbed me by the shoulders like this," she said, putting
actions to her words. "And then you pushed me down, and got on top of me
like this!"
	Gia suddenly found herself flat on the ground with the older girl lying on
top of her, the exact reverse of their positions of a month ago. She had
Becka's breasts pressing against hers, felt her lover's body move as she
breathed, in and out. The banter stopped, the mood shifting from playful fun
to full blown desire. Gia smelled the familiar scent of the other girl's
hair, the slight musk of her skin, mixed with the salt of sweat from the
warm morning. She let her hands move to her lover's back, stroking her,
feeling the long muscles bunch as the bigger girl slowly lowered her lips to
hers. Gia rose up to meet them...
	"You guys do remember, that I'm sitting right here."

	The kiss was suddenly aborted, as both girls broke apart in smothered
laughter. Becka rolled off of her lover and lay beside her, the two of them
now grinning at the annoyed figure of Bobby, who sat with his back pointedly
turned away from his sisters. It still tickled them how even their
ultra-cool brother would squirm whenever he saw them being `affectionate'.
To see the muy macho Cameron men turned into embarrassed little boys with
just a few caresses and kisses was turning into a big kick for the two
teens, and they exploited it shamelessly.
	"Keep it up, you two. Have your fun. But keep it quiet too, or those losers
over there are going to hear. And then this whole day will be for nothing."
	"Sorry, `Berto," Gia said, contritely. "We don't mean to be goofing around,
we know this is serious business."
	"Yeah, Bobby, we're just getting nervous. It's all this waiting, you know?"
	"Yeah, and how much longer will we have to wait, anyway? Has he called?"
	Bobby held up his cell phone. "Like I said, I've been sitting right here.
Have you seen me use this? Relax, as soon as Uncle Mike and the twins get
here, Dad will let us know."
	"Yeah, and then the fun starts," Gia said, in a voice that was both grim
and slightly savage at the same time. Her brother nodded in agreement. It
was obvious that they were both looking forward to the coming
`housecleaning'.

It had been their father's idea, which he had proposed to the whole family
the night before when they had gotten home. They had gathered in the living
room of the Cameron house, a somber gathering of a family that had been put
through hell one too many times, and were growing damned sick of the
feeling. When Phil had called them together, they had all understood that
this was a council of war.
	"Okay, this is where we stand. The cops let us down, in fact they screwed
up bad. Danny Caruso is still on my shit list. They didn't want to scare
those big shot drug dealers from Seattle, so they only did a half-assed job
of looking for the guys who molested Becka. Which ended up with two of those
bastards trying to kidnap Gia, and do who knows what to her."
	"I know what they would have done," Becka had said softly, her face turned
away, unable to meet anybody's eyes. The whole room had fallen silent, and
Gia had reached out to touch her arm in reassurance. The younger girl
thought she knew what her lover was thinking, but for once she was wrong.
	After awhile Phil continued, trying to pretend that the awkward moment had
never happened.
	"Alright, so Danning and those two low lives from today are in jail, and
the Gallego brothers are going to be as soon as they show up for that
arraignment Wednesday. But that still leaves the guys that haven't been
caught, two scumbags who might try another go at the girls at any time.
We're not going to let that happen, and we sure as hell aren't going to
trust the police again.
	"Becka says that she knows where these two guys are, at her old house where
George and I got our hands on Danning. So tomorrow we're going down there
and bring those bastards in ourselves."
	The news was greeted with enthusiasm by both George and Johnny, and with a
cool approval by Bobby. Gia only nodded silently, but the way her jaw was
set showed that she hadn't forgotten what had happened to her that
afternoon. The only person who wasn't pleased by their father's plan was
Becka.
	"Dad, you don't understand, there won't be just two of them! In that crowd
when word gets around about a free place to crash, guys start coming out
from under the rocks. There could be a dozen people in that house, Dad, and
they won't be happy when you come busting in. Please, it's too dangerous, I
don't want you getting hurt. Not for me."
	But her family would have none of it, they were still determined to bring
in Mikey Pintauro and Clapper Gustav. The only concession Phil would make
was to get extra help from his brother Miguel and their twin cousins, Hector
and Tomas. The compromise did make Becka feel better, but she still couldn't
help but worry for the safety of her new father and brothers, who she had
grown to love so much.

	So now here they sat under the copse of trees behind their target, waiting
for the arrival of three men Becka didn't even know, her Uncle and cousins.
The plan was simple, when the two Cameron patriarchs and their four sons
finally got together, they would rush the door of the bungalow and simply
break their way in. They would go in hard and fast, overwhelming all
opposition before it had a chance to get organized, with a combination of
surprise and raw power. Bobby was stationed behind the house, both to
protect his sisters and to stop any escapees who managed to make it to the
back door. No one seemed to doubt the quiet young man's ability to handle
both jobs.

	After their teasing, Bobby had moved over to the far side of the little
copse of trees, where he now sat and watched the old bungalow, his back
turned pointedly away from his two sisters. Becka watched the handsome young
man, knowing that he wasn't really angry at them. He was just playing a
part, just as she and Gia had been playing when they were trying to make him
uncomfortable. It was all just a game and, she realized, a major part of
this thing called `family'. The security to be able to joke and tease and
pull these little stunts on each other, knowing without a doubt that you
would be forgiven, and that the love would still be there undiminished. It
was a warm, comforting thing to know, and all the more treasured by the girl
for never having known it before.
	God, please, don't let any of them get hurt today.
	She looked over at Gia, who sat leaning against a tree next to her own, her
eyes fixed on something far away. There was a slightly haunted look to the
younger girl, which told her more than words what she was thinking about. It
wasn't hard, she had held her last night while she shivered and cried. She
reached out now and tapped her on her knee.
	"You're thinking about that nightmare last night, aren't you?' she asked,
softly. Gia looked at her and winced. She took a deep breath and let it out
before nodding.
	"Was it really bad?"
	"Well, it wasn't good. But it would have been a lot worse if you weren't
there. Thanks."
	Becka nodded, but didn't think the comment called for an answer. After all,
where else would she be? Gia reached out and took her hand, and for awhile
there was no need for words.
	"So how are you feeling now?" she finally asked, and her lover's answer
startled her.
	"Like a complete and total idiot."

	"What...?" Becka tried to say, and Gia sighed as she sat up and turned to
face the other girl.
	"Becka, I am so sorry. I was just so damned... arrogant. I thought I
understood what you had been through, that I actually could understand it. I
met Ralph and I read up on abuse, and I thought that made me some sort of
expert on your life. But then yesterday I got a five minute slice of what
you've been going through for six years, and now I see that I don't know a
damned thing.
	"Sometimes I'd get so frustrated when you wouldn't come home with me,
because you were too freaked out by Daddy and the boys. I couldn't
understand why you wouldn't believe me when I said they would never hurt
you, and I'd actually get mad at you for not being able to trust them. But
now, now I can't understand how you were able to survive that at all. To
live with it, every day for so many years, I just don't know how you did it.
I know that I wouldn't have been able to do it, I would have broken inside
and maybe killed myself if I had to live like that.
	"Becka, I think you're the absolute bravest person I've ever known. And I'm
so sorry that I didn't see that from the very start."

	Becka didn't know what to say, or how to respond to her sister's words. So
when Gia slipped into her arms she didn't say anything, she just held her,
and buried her tears in her soft black hair. They stayed like that for a
long time, until the soft chiirp of a cell phone intruded.
	They broke apart in time to see Bobby rising to his feet, slipping the cell
into the back pocket of his jeans. "Heads up," he said. "It's showtime."
	The first crash echoed across the backyard like a gunshot.

(continued)