Fenny was mumbling under her breath at everyone, from the young boy who’d kicked her seat the entire plane trip over, to Amy and her idiotic penchant for kidnapping people, to her parents for being selfish enough to bring her into the world. It had been a relatively quick flight from Burbank to Cleveland, considering the last few trips she’d made in airplanes had involved flying over oceans, and this was just to the middle of the country. She was beginning to think that maybe traveling was just never a good idea for her, and she should never have agreed to leave her apartment in the first place.

But she had left her apartment and she was supposed to be helping Paul, laughable as it might seem, so she weaved her way between vacationing families — who vacationed in Cleveland anyway? — and angry businessmen on phones to grab what little luggage she had, and then stalked off to the nearest car rental place. After twenty minutes in line, she made it to the counter, dropped her luggage to the floor, slipped her driver’s license and credit card on the counter and declared, “I need a car, I don’t care what it is so long as it moves and doesn’t explode. Oh, and a map that’ll get me to McDermott.”

“McDermott,” the young man scoffed, taking his time organizing paperwork. “That’s right clear across the state almost. Would’ve been better off flying into Columbus. Cincinnati maybe.”

“Yeah, thanks for the critique on my navigational skills, can I just have my car?”

“It’ll take you a good four hours to drive there from here, and it’s awful late.”

“It hardly matters now, this was the first plane to Ohio from LA, I’m not going to wait around for god knows how long for a plane to Cincinnati.”

“You’ll have to have extra insurance if you want to drive all the way to Cincinnati.”

“I don’t care how much the damn car costs,” Fenny growled, squinting her eyes closed in an effort not to throttle the man. “Just get me my car and my map and I’ll be able to handle things.”

“What’s got you all worked up, huh?” he asked. Fenny wasn’t sure if he was being patronizing or hospitable, but she didn’t like it either way.

“Well for fear if I tell you that I actually have to save a friend of mine from a manic kidnapper bent on bloody revenge, you’ll call the cops on me, let’s just say I work for an organ transport company and I’ve got to get a kidney to rural Ohio and if you don’t hurry up it might be yours.”

“No need to get snippy about it,” he grumbled and pushed the papers forward for her to sign, which she did quickly. Watching her hand scrawl out a barely legible ‘Fenella Sherwood’ caused another wave of panic to wash over her, wondering how Brad was doing.

“Thanks so much,” she mumbled, suddenly drained, and took the keys from the young man who peered at her suspiciously.

“Red Camry in row C,” he declared, waving in the general direction of the lot. “Next.”

With her luggage, map, keys and a tenuous grip on her sanity, she found the car, slipped into it, pulled out her phone, dialed the familiar number and dropped her head heavily onto the steering wheel.

Danny tapped his fingertips on his knees in time to the rather bland pop song on the radio. He and Gina hadn’t had much to say to each other as they trundled towards Greg Greg, the map they’d acquired sitting, folded poorly, in his lap as they each frowned at the passing scenery.

At the beginning of their journey, Gina had explained about Paul running off to Melbourne because he liked the idea of being a father even though he wasn’t going to be one anytime too soon as far as she was concerned, and also what little she knew about Brad and his newfound nurse. But the conversation had died fifty miles ago, neither really fond of the idea of chatting about the possibility of them ending up buried in shallow graves, which Gina was already more familiar with than she would have wanted. So they’d driven in silence with only the mediocre radio station to prevent them from falling too far into their thoughts.

Gina’s phone rang and Danny jumped, not having expected anything to break the silence.

“It’s in my bag,” Gina breathed, “probably Fen, would you answer it?”

After a moment of fumbling he pulled out the phone, pleased to see Fenny’s phone number emblazoned across the screen and not some threatening message from Amy saying she’d started hacking off the guys’ limbs. “Hi Fen,” he said eagerly, “how’s it going?”

“Dan? Hi,” she flustered, obviously not expecting him. “Well, I’ve found out why there’s no speccy, clumsy artists employed by Charlie Townshend.”

“Townshend? Was that his name?” he asked, suddenly curious.

“I thought so, like Pete from the Who.”

“I never noticed.”

“You were too busy looking at the stupid Angels bounce around in slow motion to look at wall placards,” she said with a hint of a smile in her voice.

“I think you’d make a great Angel,” he mused.

“Dan,” Gina huffed. “Find out what’s going on.”

“Right,” he agreed, trying to sound focused. “What’s going on?” he repeated down the line.

“I’m in a parking lot in Cleveland, Ohio, which is like 200 miles away from fucking McDermott,” she whined.

“Could you not put ‘fucking’ and ‘McDermott’ together like that, I don’t want the mental imagery. Ow!”

“What, what’s wrong?” Fenny gasped.

“Gina hit me, she’s supposed to be driving.”

“You’re driving?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’re halfway to Greg Greg to rescue Proops, and Ritza’s on her way to Sherwood Forest.”

“Right. So things are going well?”

“Well we haven’t been killed yet or even narrowly avoided being killed, which is going well for us.”

“Things have been going almost too well,” Gina mused.

“Don’t even start with ‘Think it could be a trap’ reasoning, because I don’t need the stress and I don’t want to think that they’re after me too,” Danny hissed.

“I’m sure things will be fine,” Fenny said, trying to believe it herself. “I should probably get driving if I’m going to make it there in one piece. It’s, well I don’t know exactly what time it is because I don’t know what time zone Ohio is actually in, but it’s really late, so the traffic shouldn’t be bad. I’ll call when I get somewhere or something exciting happens, alright?”

“Yeah, same here,” Danny agreed.

“Be careful, both of you,” Fenny urged.

“You too, Fen. We’ll let you know if we hear from Ritza.”

“Thanks. Bye,” she breathed, and clicked off her phone.

“So what’s with Fen?” Gina asked as Danny dropped her phone back into her bag.

“She’s in Ohio and she has to drive to McDermott.”

Gina nodded and continued down the lonely expanse of highway. “Look Dan, I’m really sorry about everything that happened, I can understand why you were angry with Paul and while I don’t actually approve of you trying to pummel him, I’m sure he’s done worse while drunk.”

“No, I’m really sorry about that, I shouldn’t have hit him, and if we all get together alive, I’ll do anything he wants me to to make it up to him.”

“I wouldn’t say anything if I were you,” she smiled. “Can you imagine what that twisted mind would come up with for revenge?”

“Can’t be any worse than sending us to the den of vicious kidnappers and grumpy Greg, can it?”

The door slammed closed behind Paul, the bright lights and cigarette smoke a shocking change from the cool, clear night outside, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, the first thing he spotted was a bar, which he headed for gratefully, weaving through tables, chairs and scowling men who were obviously not pleased to have a small, unshaven man interrupting their view of the topless dancers Paul was trying valiantly not to notice.

“What can I get you?” a quiet, very American voice asked just loud enough to be heard over the strains of what he could only assume was really bad country music, but he couldn’t be certain because the sound system was so terrible.

“Oh, um,” Paul murmured, “just a beer, thanks.” Something to calm his nerves.

“Sure thing sugar,” the barmaid winked. Paul cast a few fretful glances over his shoulder at the door, hoping that he hadn’t been followed. He turned back to the bar at the sound of a glass plonking down on it, and he took a grateful drink. Scowling at it a bit, he gulped down a bit more. The weak beer confirmed all of his suspicions. He had to be in the United States. And not even a good part of it, either.

“Fuck,” he hissed, turning back over his shoulder. His attention was drawn to the stage where a woman in a postman’s uniform was doing strange things with a vibrating parcel, while two women in nothing but a g-string each seemed to be having epileptic fits at either end of the stage, and he quickly turned back to his drink.

“What’s wrong?” the barmaid smirked. “You look nervous.”

“Why would I be nervous,” he snarled. “I’ve seen naked women do seriously weird shit before. Things that would make you blush I’d bet.”

“What’s so exciting about the door then? Afraid the little lady will find you here?”

“Actually I’d be quite relieved if my wife found me,” he declared, eyes wide with sincerity. “It’s the freaky bull moose of a woman who wants to snap my spinal column I’m worried about.”

The barmaid cocked her head. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“Australia. Can I have another beer, please?” It occurred to him he probably didn’t have the money to actually pay for his drinks, but he’d deal with that when the time came. Another fretful glance towards the door.

The woman leaned over the bar towards him. “Look, you’re cute, you’re a tourist, and you’re making me nervous with this door thing. Let me set you up in one of the private rooms in the back with one of our best girls, huh?” She winked at him and his skin crawled. He opened his mouth to refuse, but decided that maybe a private room would be better to hide at than the bar with his back to the door just waiting to get shot at or sliced open.

“Um, well, I—” he floundered.

She picked up a phone where she murmured a few words, then made her way around the bar and held her hand out to him. He cautiously took it and she led him past postal lady, now naked and writhing on the floor, down a dismal little hall and into a quiet little room outfitted with a daybed and a small chest of drawers, and a leggy redhead in a skimpy green dress.

The door closed behind him and he swallowed.

“Hi,” the redhead said, standing up and wandering over to him. “I’m Tina.”

“And I am so in over my head,” Paul breathed.

Greg lay on the hotel bed pulling a long, continuous thread from the hem of a sheet, occasionally stopping to burn the end away with his lighter. The boredom was getting to him, and now that the nausea from the drugs had passed, he was getting hungry. No one had come to pester him since he’d received his cigarettes, and he was getting ready to create a scene.

“Hello psycho bitch?” he yelled towards the next room. “I’m cold and I’m hungry and I don’t fucking want to be here, so you better do something or I’m gonna go stark raving mad and jump out the window and hang out with the bloody kangaroos!”

No reply, no movement, no nothing. He glanced around the room for something to throw. Even the lamps were attached to the walls. With a shrug he grabbed the ashtray, dumped its contents in the wastepaper bin and threw the heavy glass object at the wall. A thud reverberated through the wall and the ashtray rolled a bit across the floor, all of which gave Greg a great deal more pleasure than it warranted.

But still no reply. “How does Fenny handle the whole being kidnapped thing so often,” he grumbled to himself. “This is only my second time and I already want to claw through the floorboards with my fingernails to get out.”

He flopped back down in bed and reached for another cigarette before remembering the ashtray was on the floor across the room, and he really didn’t care enough to get up and retrieve it. So he turned back towards the snowy view out the window, waiting for other marsupials to wander by that he could hate. “God forsaken country with their snow and their kidnappers and their hicks and their freaky animal life and their—shit!” he shrieked, noticing the wisps of smoke rising from the wastepaper basket. “Damn it!” He jumped up to do something – he wasn’t sure what, but he was certain something should be done. His first instinct was to drag the now steadily flaming trash can into the bathroom to douse it with water, but the plastic was melting and the flames were growing by the second. “Well fuck you too,” he hissed, dashing into the bathroom where all he found of any use was a small plastic cup wrapped in cellophane. Hastily filling it with water from the sink, he dashed back into the other room and poured it into the bin where it sizzled a bit but seemed to have no real effect.

“I get kidnapped and dragged across the god damn planet,” he hissed, making another dash to the bathroom, “and I die by setting my fucking hotel room on fire, how the hell—”

His tirade was interrupted halfway around the bed as the door opened and another, slightly smaller heavy dashed in with an ice bucket which she promptly used to douse the fire. A hiss of steam and the flames were out, the basket slowly folding in on itself as the melting plastic cooled.

Greg wandered up and poured his pathetic cup of water into what was left of the mess. “So there,” he sneered.

“What the hell were you doing?” the heavy snapped, reminding him a bit of his mother as she held one hand on her hip and gestured to the wastepaper basket with the now empty bucket.

“I thought torching the place would be better than having to deal with Amy and her freak show army of heavies,” he snapped. “When do I get something to eat?”

“When I decide you do. Now behave yourself,” she hissed.

“Yes ma’am,” he grumbled. She turned and skulked out of the room, and Greg gave her the finger. With a sigh, he sat back on the bed and resumed his slow destruction of the sheets. At least it was warmer, anyway.

The now familiar tune of “I Was Made for Loving You” filled the car again, and Danny reached into Gina’s bag to retrieve her phone. “Probably Ritza,” she announced.

“That or Fen’s had a breakdown,” Danny smiled as he answered. “Hello?”

“Hey, how’s your poker game these days?”

“What was that?” Danny gasped, glaring at the dashboard. “B-Beven?”

“Got it in one,” the familiar British voice chirped.

“What the—how the hell?”

“What’s going on?” Gina demanded. Danny shushed her.

“Ritz and I ran into each other in the airport bar here in Japan.”

“Japan?” Danny echoed.

“Her layover to England to save Sherwood.”

“What about Beven? What’s happening?” Gina tried again.

“Beven and Ritza met up in Japan, he’s gonna help her with Brad.”

“Thank Christ for that,” she breathed.

“What are you guys doing in Japan?”

“I was headed to pick up my kid who’s been staying with his grandparents,” Beven explained, “but we decided I’d join the rescue force.”

“How come you get the ex-mafia chick and I just have the short angry blonde?” Danny pouted. “Ow, would you stop hitting me?”

“Stop being an idiot and I might,” Gina countered.

“Ow!”

“Play nicely, children,” Beven chuckled.

“She started it,” Danny whined.

“Dickhead,” she laughed.

“So what’s going on on your end?” Danny asked.

“Plane should be leaving for the UK in a few minutes. Ritz is dealing with the tickets, asked me to call you, said it’d give you a fright.”

“Yeah,” Danny chuckled, “that it did.”

“How are you and Gina going?” Beven asked.

“So far it’s just been a few hours of driving in increasingly mountainous terrain and colder weather, smooth going, really. Gina reckons it could be a trap.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Beven shrugged.

“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” Danny grumbled.

“How’s Fenny doing with trying to find Paul?”

“Last we heard she was driving across Ohio to find him. Unfortunately I think we’ve run out of good guys for her to run into to help her out.”

“She’ll do fine on her own,” Beven assured him. “It’s not like any of us are lacking practice.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Danny laughed nervously.

“Right, well I should be off, don’t want to miss our flight. We’ll talk to you guys as soon as anything happens, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Danny breathed. “Good luck.”

“You too, mate,” Beven perked, and ended the call.

“Of all the times to run into friendly ex-heavies,” Gina mused.

“Can we call that a sign of good luck?” Danny asked hopefully.

“You sound like Fen. But most of her signs and omens come true, so yes, let’s call it a very good omen.”

“You know,” Brad mused as Gemma flicked off her bodice, “the last time a kidnapper showed me her naked breasts it didn’t exactly go well. Whole handcuffing me to the bed thing. Which you’ve done already. So never mind, what’ve I got to lose but my sanity. Just don’t pull out any whipped cream, ‘cause I’m so over that. God, Lilly would kill me if she knew what was going on,” he groaned.

“Which of your women is Lilly?” Gemma asked.

“She’s my daughter actually, and she thinks I’m an ass for making her stepmother miserable, and she tells me so on a regular basis. Fuck, I was supposed to be picking her up, oh I am so dead, her mother has got to be going through the roof, and my girlfriend’s gonna be pissed. If you’re going to kill me, can you do it soon before I have to deal with the bevy of angry women?”

She paused a moment. “Just how many women are you involved with?”

“I dunno, too many, even my dog is a girl and I think she knows what a dick I am. So you can see why another naked woman on my hands really isn’t going to help me out any,” Brad sighed.

“I thought you wanted to even the score,” Gemma pouted, and moved to pull her dress over her head. Brad gasped and turned his back to her, and seconds later a mass of light linen fell on his head. “I thought you were going to tell me your story.”

“Not much to tell,” he shrugged, pulling the dress off his head and wringing it in his hands, trying to think or plot or scheme, and a second skirt fell next to his feet. “A few years ago my girlfriend and I broke up, I got another woman pregnant, we had a daughter, girlfriend and I got back together, got married, she’s cheated on me several times with this Aussie guy, I sorta left her and got together with my current girlfriend.” A pair of silk panties joined the pile and Brad clenched the dress tighter in his hands as he took a deep breath and hoped this worked. “And now they’re all pissed and I have to deal with being kidnapped and hope that you don’t mind me breaking tradition and hitting a girl.”

He abruptly turned and swung at her with his left hand, squinting his eyes closed as his fist connected with the side of her face. “Ow,” he grumbled as she fell face down onto the forest floor with a dull moan into the scattered leaves and went limp. “Sorry, I didn’t really want to,” he mumbled as he wrenched one arm out from under her, “but you didn’t leave me much choice.” He tied her hands together behind her back with the dress then promptly retrieved the gun she’d placed on the ground, and the pouch that had hung from her belt, which contained a cell phone and a decent sized wad of English currency. With a shrug he helped himself to a fair amount of cash, in case he managed to find a taxi or a train or anything to get him as far away as possible.

Standing up and looking around, he clutched his hand, which he was sure was permanently damaged, to his chest and debated between going back the way they’d come so he could find some real clothes or going deeper into the woods to just get away. The idea of making it to civilization in green tights convinced him to head back to the horrid little inn or hotel or whatever it was they’d left, and after tucking the gun securely into the waistband of his tights under his tunic, he took off at a run towards the village, hoping to blend in with the crowd long enough to formulate a more substantial plan than running away like a girl.

Halfway down the path, a burly arm reached out of nowhere, grabbing him by the neck. Coughing back a squeak of surprise which promptly turned into a gasp of terror and more choking and harsher squeezing of his windpipe by a very large, very angry heavy, Brad saw a familiar figure emerge from cover of the trees. Why were things never as easy as he hoped they were?

He waved a free hand and barely managed to choke out, “Hi Claudia.”