Gina flumped down on a rock, annoyed at her ankle, the snow, and life just in general. She tried to think of a way to get out of their wintry ditch-come-death trap, but didn’t get much further than thoughts about her poor abused car before she got too angry to think coherently.

“Your phone’s ringing,” Danny announced.

“No kidding,” he grumbled. He looked at her wide-eyed. “Well?”

“Right, yeah,” he breathed, gingerly popping into the car long enough to grab her bag.

“Probably Fenny anyway.” She leaned down and rubbed her ankle as Danny answered the phone a bit cautiously.

“It’s for you,” Danny chirped, bounded over to her through the snow like some overexcited puppy, and handed the phone over.

“Hello?”

“Hey Genie.”

“Paul!” she shrieked. “Are you alright? Is Amy there? What’s going on?”

“Yeah, I think I’m okay. Haven’t seen Amy, but she’s got these mutant henchwomen everywhere. I’m in the freezer of some restaurant in a town called McDermott in one of the less comfortable United States, can you believe it?”

“Yes actually, I can, and it’s in Ohio. Why are you in the freezer?”

“They put me in here to hide after I fainted, in case the women that the hick cooks and small Asian chef beat up for me decided to come back,” he mumbled.

“What?” Gina gasped, trying not to smile at the rather wrongly amusing image.

“Never mind, I’m fine now, but Troy’s a little shaken from the stripper, and he got some lentil soup on him.”

“Stripper?” she echoed.

“Diversionary tactic gone wrong, don’t worry, she wanted to get in my pants but I talked about the wallpaper until Troy and I could escape out the window. It’s not important. Are you alright? They haven’t gotten you too, have they?”

“Well, Amy’s got Brad in Sherwood Forest,” she said, shaking off the idea of Troy and a stripper in the same room with Paul complimenting wallpaper, “and Proops in Greg Greg in the Snowies, so we’ve got rescue teams all over the world now.”

“Thematic kidnapping now?” Paul mused.

“Amy’s a sick woman,” she shrugged.

“So how soon can you get here?”

“Oh. Fen’s on her way.”

“Fen,” he repeated dryly. “Fenny Sherwood.”

“Yup.”

“Oh ,this should be fucking great.”

“She was closest?” Gina squeaked into the phone. “I wanted to get there, I did. But we decided Dan and I would hunt out Greg, and Ritza’s on her way to grab Brad, she ran into Beven on the way.”

“And I get Fen.”

“And Troy.”

Paul petted a soup-free patch of Troy’s fur nervously.

“Besides,” she continued, “we haven’t heard from Fen in awhile, which means she should be okay. Dan and I got run off the road by a couple heavies. Car’s fucked, so is my ankle, but we’re doing alright.”

“I’m bleeding, you know,” Danny piped up loudly.

“And Dan’s whinging. Look, call Fen, find out how to get the hell out of there, and then call me back, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” he breathed. “Talk to you soon, then. Love you.”

Danny watched Gina’s face go a slightly deeper, more pleasant shade of red. “You too,” she smiled. “Be careful.”

“You too,” he agreed and clicked off the phone, taking a deep breath of cold air as he tried to get his mind to stop buzzing.

“Fine, be that way,” Fenny huffed at the phone. “I didn’t want to talk to you anyway, Gina, your busy signal is just oh so helpful.” She dropped her shoulders, threw back her head and stared miserably at the sea of stars that suddenly doubled her sense of loss. She wasn’t used to seeing so many stars; in LA the night sky was a dull sort of brown with a few pinpricks of light. It seemed she only ever saw the stars when her life was in danger, being chased by heavies across various pieces of wilderness and country roads.

Squinting her eyes closed, she pulled the napkin from her pocket. After opening her eyes long enough to dial, she squinted them closed again as if hoping that by not seeing things she could make them slightly less real.

“Yeah?”

“Uh,” Fenny managed, then swallowed. It was this or hang around to be disemboweled. “Yeah, hi. Molly?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Um. From the gas station?”

“Oh, perky little brunette?”

“No, panicky goof with the glasses, actually.”

Molly gave a resonant laugh. “Yeah, that’s the one. What’s your name, hon?”

“Fenny. Look, this probably isn’t what it sounds like. My car was stolen and I don’t know who to call or what to do or anything, and I was wondering if you could tell me —”

“Where are you, Fenny?”

“In a ditch off the highway just outside Mansfield, I think.”

“And where you headed?”

“McDermott actually.”

“Looks like we’re both in luck then,” Molly perked. “I can give you a ride and you can give me some company.”

“Fantastic,” Fenny managed, forcing a smile and some false enthusiasm into her voice. She slid further into her ditch, trying vainly not to get too much more muck on herself and trying not to think about Amy or her henchmen pouncing on her from the darkness.

“See you in a few then,” Molly chirped, and her phone clicked off.

“Better be in a few minutes,” Fenny grumbled as she turned off her own phone, “or it could very well be in a few pieces.”

Brad ran in an awkward crouching manner he’d seen in police movies, but he didn’t find the technique particularly effective or as stealthy as action heroes made it out to be. He made it to the car and peeked over the hood in the direction of the cottage. The curtains were pulled closed, but the nearest lights were on, and his blood pressure doubled. Now not only would he have to drive a stick shift with everything on the wrong side of the car through the forest, he’d have to do it quietly if he didn’t want to get shot.

With a tiny shrug to himself, he opened the door, crawled in, and noticed the keys were still in the ignition. Either Claudia was a complete moron or Gemma was setting him up. If the former was true, Brad would have a decent chance to escape, make sure Fenny was alright, and check on the rest of his friends without being permanently damaged in a more than a psychological sense. If the latter was true, he would have a decent chance of being shot in the head. Deciding that the former was a much better way to think, he adjusted his tights, gently started the engine, closed the door as quietly as he could, then floored it and went whizzing into the forest, kicking up dirt and leaves and he tore down the barely-there path.

Brad’s mind was racing, trying to sift too many thoughts into a hierarchy of which to think about first: What happened to Fenny? What about the others? Who else had been kidnapped? Would they be nearby? Would the car explode? Would Snuffles miss him? Could he possibly help his friends while he was dressed like Robin Hood’s merriest of men? Those noises couldn’t possibly be gunshots, could they? Where would he go to get away from Claudia? What did they expect to accomplish by kidnapping them for what felt like the thousandth time? Would Gemma be punished for helping him out? Would there be a phone in the car he could use, or would that be asking too much at this stage? Seriously, that couldn’t be gunshots, right? Was it possible to have an aneurysm from panicking too much? Would that be a better way to die than being shot while wearing tights? What would Fenny think if she found him in tights? What would Bess think if Fenny found him in tights?

He gave up trying to think and decided to just drive until his tires were shot out or he found a place to buy real pants.

Ritza let out another giggle into her glass of bland soda as Beven let out another yawn to try to unpop his ears. “What?” he demanded.

“I still just can’t get over the beard and the glasses,” she snickered.

“Yeah, well you try hiding from Don’s people bent on revenge and we’ll see how stupid you look, huh?” He snatched off his rimless specs and dropped them onto the tray table where he fiddled with them.

“No, you don’t really look stupid,” Ritza shrugged. “Just, different. I kinda like the glasses, makes you look sort of intellectual. I could do without the beard though.”

“I like the beard,” he pouted, rubbing his chin with a thoughtful look.

“I used to date a man with a beard,” she mused, “like kissing a scouring pad. We didn’t go out very long.”

“Never thought of it like that. Maybe I could use a shave.” He continued stroking his beard.

“Jesus, how did you survive as a heavy for so long,” Ritza smirked after a few moments of watching him. “I just can’t believe you thought you were hiding. I wasn’t even looking for you and you stood out like a sore thumb, you and your beard towering over a sea of tiny little Asian men.”

“Should’ve seen it when it was dyed red,” Beven chuckled.

“It’s no wonder you and Brad got along so well,” she sighed.

“I hear you and Brad got along well too,” he pointed out. “And Greg as well.”

“We were drunk. Seems like whenever he’s not drunk he’s whining or pouting like a girl.”

“And Brad?”

“Is an idiot with too many women and not enough normally functioning brain cells to get him through day-to-day life, let alone a crisis, and I just hope when we find him he hasn’t done anything too stupid.”

“What about McDermott?”

“Unhealthily obsessive personality. Between Gina, that mongoose, and sex, I don’t see how there’s room in his brain for anything else. Except when he’s in trouble, then he turns his obsession to getting out of trouble so he can get back to Gina, that mongoose and sex. Hopefully not all at once.”

“Gina?”

“What is this, some weird game or an interrogation or something?”

“Just making conversation, you know ‘em better than me,” Beven shrugged, and Ritza mirrored him as she continued.

“Gina’s stubborn, feisty, and thinks quick on her feet, and I’m sure she’s responsible for keeping most of her friends alive.”

“Fenny?”

“She and I have a history that’s not all that friendly. But basically when she’s not complicating people’s lives or panicking, she makes it through crises on accident.”

“Danny?”

“Bambi, he’s good at being scared but pushing through anyway, tends to whine, but a bright kid.”

“And me?”

“You,” Ritza smirked, “have had cracker crumbs stuck in your beard for the last half of the flight.”

Beven hastily wiped at his facial hair while she giggled at him, both pretending to be interested in the pilot’s announcement that they would be landing in a few minutes.

“Where are we going?” Danny asked as he watched Gina limp up the embankment.

“To the main road. We can’t be too far from Greg Greg, there might be a bus or a taxi or a ski lift or some sherpas or something.”

“Or the people that tried to kill us once before,” Danny grumbled.

“Well I’m not hanging around here for them to finish the job.” She managed to go up a few more steps before hissing through her teeth as she lost her footing and slid back down to where he’d been watching her for the last ten minutes and growing more and more annoyed by her inability to concede defeat.

“Need help?” he asked carefully.

“No, let’s just get out of here. You’ve got the maps and everything, right?”

“Yes. Give me your bag.”

“What, why?”

“Because you’re hurt and you’re never going to make it up that hill or to Greg if you keep up like that. I’ll carry you.”

“Like hell.”

“It’s not good for your ankle to keep walking on it without getting it bandaged up properly, I’ve had enough footy injuries to know.”

“The snow is good for it, it’s keeping the swelling down.”

“It’ll be quicker if you just let me carry you, you stupid control-freak independence-crazed woman,” Danny barked.

“I thought you liked it when I was in control,” Gina countered. “It was my sense of control that’s kept us from dying on many different occasions.”

“Well you can control the situation just as well with your thighs wrapped around my waist.” She glared at him. “No, I mean your, if you’ll just get on my back,” he flustered, “like a piggyback ride, it’ll be quicker and we can get to Greg and then you can take control of everything. I’m not moving an inch until you let me carry you, and you’re not moving either.”

“I hate you,” she huffed. His face was set and she knew he was serious. And, deep down, she knew he was right, she just wasn’t going to say it. “I’m keeping my bag.”

“Fine,” he smiled.

After a couple of false starts and Danny dropping Gina onto her injured ankle once and her slapping him hard across the shoulder for doing so, she tried to relax against his back while he held onto her legs. It was a bit warmer that way, and they did get up the embankment quicker than she’d managed on her own, but she wasted no time telling Danny if he ever brought this up again, she would kill him. Multiple times if necessary.

With a chuckle, he headed up the road towards Greg Greg, trying to ignore the skid marks and the ever thickening snow and the fact he had no idea what they were going to do if and when they actually found Greg.

Greg pouted into the piece of cake Amy had ordered for him. His wife had started baking recently — one of the few benefits to Aunt Jean’s little visits — and he suddenly realized how much he missed her triple layer sponge cake. He and Gina used to eat cake. Chocolate cake, of course. He and Fenny had even had mud pie on an interesting night he tried not to think about anymore. And now he was supposed to be eating strawberry cheesecake with a woman who was a bit overexcited about the idea of killing not only him, but his closest friends as well.

Briefly wondering if there was cake in heaven, Greg decided that, assuming there was a heaven, and assuming there was cake there, if Amy did manage to kill them all off, at least they could have a real kick-ass party. Although chances were he and Paul, at the very least, would end up in hell where the party atmosphere was probably a bit danker, and really not the place for cake. Devils food, maybe.

He decided he’d had enough wine.

Wine always did have a strange effect on him. It seemed to have an even stranger effect on Amy. She’d just gulped down another glass, and clumsily shifted her chair towards his. She dropped a hand heavily onto his thigh and tried to take off his glasses. He slapped her hand away and brushed her hand off his leg like a piece of lint. “Don’t you want to enjoy your last few hours, darling?” she cooed, then narrowed her eyes in what he could only assume, had they both been sober, would have been a menacing manner.

“I’d enjoy my last few hours if they were sometime after 2032 and you were on a separate continent, and I’m definitely not your darling.”

“Are too. Well, you are if I say you are. Remember, I’m the kidnapper,” she giggled, slurring her words and blinking blankly. “Means you hafta do whatever I want. If I tell you to take off your pants and bark like a dog, that’s what you gotta do.”

“Never pictured you the kinky type,” Greg shrugged. “You have the stilettos and the leather mask to go with it?”

“In your dreams,” Amy scoffed.

“No, in my dreams I play rugby with your severed head. That’s partly a desire to get you dead, partly a desire to have made it through a phys ed class in high school without being laughed off the field. And most of my other dreams involve Pam Anderson or the cast of The Wizard of Oz, sometimes both, but that’s a different story altogether.”

“You’re an ugly, mean little man,” she huffed.

“And you just can’t seem to get enough of me, can you kitten?” he smirked. “Admit it, that’s why you keep kidnapping me. You want my body.”

“In small pieces in my rottweiler’s dinner bowl.”

“Oh, so you’re a dog person then. See, communicating isn’t so hard, is it? I’m sure if we just got to know each other, everything would be—pffftgh!” Greg sputtered against the glass of wine as she threw it in his face, blinking away the rivulets running past his eyes and trying to peer through the drops forming on his glasses.

“I’m getting really fucking tired of you and your attitude,” Amy hissed, grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the restaurant towards the waiting elevators, her nails digging into his flesh even through the layers of fabric. “If you don’t give me the respect I deserve, I’ll just blow your goddamned head off now.” The elevator doors closed and she pushed him against the wall, producing a handgun from her purse.

“What, just because you snuck into my house and drugged me and no one’s managed to kill you yet, you think you deserve respect? Get a fucking clue, lady. Better yet, just get fucked,” he hissed, wrenching his arm away with a violent swing of his shoulder that slammed himself into the back of the elevator. “Ow,” he managed as a sharp pain hit him in the back of the head. His last thought as he slumped to the floor was, “Always with the pistolwhipping.”

“Fenny!”

She jumped awake, smacking her head first into the window, then backwards into the stupid plastic thing that held the seat belt. Adjusting her glasses, she looked at the clock in the dashboard and realized she’d dosed off for a few minutes. Molly had declared when she’d stopped the truck and Fenny had crawled inside that she looked exhausted, and prompted her to take a nap. Fenny hadn’t planned to do more than rest her eyes, but her body had obviously worked against her. “Yeah?” she muttered sleepily.

“I’m guessing that’s your cell?”

Fenny blinked at Molly and a tinny electric fugue echoed through the cab of the truck. She leapt for her cell phone, and upon seeing an unfamiliar number, braced herself for the worst, namely Amy, and then answered with a meek, “Hello?”

“Where the hell have you been, Fenella?”

“Uh, Paul?” she managed, a bit startled by the heavy weight suddenly lifting off her. At least he was alive. And in a bad mood, but that was more or less to be expected.

“No, it’s your fairy fucking godmother. I’ve been trying to call you for the last half hour, what have you been doing?”

“Um, over the last half hour? Let’s see, got visited by a couple friends of Amy, got my rental car stolen, fell in a ditch so that said friends wouldn’t notice me, befriended a marginally worrying but generally helpful truck driver, and I’ve been trying to get your wife to answer her damn phone,” Fenny hissed, trying not to be heard by Molly.

“Well she was telling me to call you because you’re supposed to be in Ohio saving my arse.”

“Trying desperately,” Fenny peeped. “So are you alright? We’re heading for McDermott, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m in a hotel being protected from these hulkish women lackeys by a Japanese chef with a wok.”

“Of course you are,” Fenny nodded. “Chick heavies, huh? That’s new.”

“Well they’re only women as far as breasts and birthing hips go, I think. There’s definitely a Y chromosome in there somewhere.”

“Can’t be any worse than some of the freaks we’ve dealt with. Can you stay where you are without getting killed for another, uh, hold on. How far are we?” she asked the Holly. “Another hour or so?” she relayed into the phone.

“Yeah, I hope so. You realize this means I’ll have to converse with the natives.”

“They’re just Ohians, or Ohiettes, or Ohionians? Ohiese? Something like that. Anyway, they’re simple country folk Paul, don’t traumatize them.”

“Too late,” he chirped, “I gave Troy a bath in the dishwater, he tried his hand at water ballet.”

“Tried his paw, you mean.”

“They thought I was concussed and wanted to put me back in the freezer to take a nap.”

“Any sane person would’ve stopped being your friend years ago,” she sighed with a smile, “or would have at least taken away the mongoose. Speaking of the clinically insane, have you heard anything about my husband?” Fenny gave Molly a sideways glance. She seemed to be smiling to herself and trying not to laugh. Conversations with Paul tended to have that effect on strangers. Probably the mongoose bits.

“No, haven’t heard anything except he’s in England and that Ritza and Beven are off to save him.”

“Beven?” Fenny gasped. “That’s great. Isn’t it?”

“I think so. Means Brad’s in good hands and you can worry about getting here before something else bad happens.”

“We’re working on it. Sit tight, we’ll be there soon,” Fenny breathed, “and be civil to the locals. That means no singing, no mongoose tricks, and for god’s sake, no tequila.”

“Yes mum,” he grumbled and ended the call.

“Your friend have a problem?” Molly asked worriedly as Fenny clicked off the phone.

“More than you’d ever believe.”