Hannah stood looking out of a window at the warehouse lost in thought. It had been months since the blow up at the house between her, Chris, and Scarlett. She hadn't been back there since nor had she returned Chris' phone calls. He even left pleading voicemails wanting to speak to her. She wasn't having any of it. As far as she was concerned, he was a part of the past and she didn't live in the past. Not like she could see her future either or a future period. Due to her extreme anxiety about falling back into the fully exhaustive state that was the crux of M.E., she was still a meth addict without an end in sight. So that meant that she was fully living in the present, in the moment, and that was good enough for right then.

    Chris and Scarlett had argued constantly and their sex life took a beating for it. Didn't stop it altogether but Chris was adamant about using protection and insisted that she stay on the pill. He even went as far as watch her take it every day and check his condoms for holes. His paranoia was starting to annoy Scarlett who was though healed from her little run in with Hannah physically, still had a vivid memory of what she called 'the attack.' What made her even madder was that Chris supported Hannah in the self-defense claim. Chris wanted to break it off but he still was addicted to the sex and had become almost possessive of Scarlett in a sense.

    She would go out to bars again like she used to, to fish for men because the mind fuck Chris was giving her was just too much. She liked easy sex where she was in control but this whole situation had turned that completely on its head and now Chris was following her everywhere. In their next argument that came out:

"Stop following me, Chris! It's bordering on creepy!" She yelled at him one evening.

"Then start answering your phone!" He shouted back.

"Why? I don't answer to you or anyone else for that matter! You don't own me! I'm not your wife! It's not like you ever cared about Hannah that much, right? Where is she this very moment??"

    He slammed out of the backdoor after that one and stood seething in the backyard. What he hated most of all was that she was right. Scarlett was his lover, his mistress, but not his wife. That was Hannah; at least on paper. He had lost Hannah's trust and respect. And he didn't know where she was nor had he followed her when she left last time. It had been all about Scarlett though what Hannah revealed to him about her should have sent him running. If he was truly honest with himself, he'd know that he was scared. Scared of losing; he'd always figured that if he lost one, he'd have the other but not lose both. And here it looked like his greatest fear was about to be realized.

    Just like Scarlett, he wasn't used to giving up control of his life and ultimately he realized that if he didn't leave Scarlett, that she'd leave him. At least with Hannah, there was a history and he'd wait until she was ready to see him again to beg for her forgiveness. He prayed that her impaired judgement wouldn't have her seeking a divorce attorney until he had time apart from Scarlett and to regroup before he could become the husband he knew he could be to her. He went back into the house then and knew by the silence that Scarlett had left him to go back to her own place. He sat there in the dark of his living room all night long, looking at the pictures on the bookcase of him and Hannah. He had made his decision.

    Hannah, in the meantime, was getting all of her meth for free from Randall just as he had promised her. She didn't have to pay him even one penny. He had kept his word. It wasn't like she was so blighted by the drug that that is all she ever thought about. Somehow by the grace of God she was still able to keep her own mindset and not have the pitfalls of serious meth addicts. That didn't however mean that she didn't have cravings for it when her body had spent the drug and she had to inject herself before withdrawals would take hold. She had one nightmare that would occur on occasion that she would wake up screaming from.

    In the nightmare, she would be bedridden again and would watch time pass her by as she got old and was trapped alone in some bedroom too exhausted to scream. No one would even get her a glass of water because she had no one left to come. When the nightmare came to her, she'd be petrified to go back to sleep; sometimes having to inject a little bit more ice into her system to be able to stay awake so that the sun could come up and chase away the night.

    Her relationship with Shanel had started to deteriorate by then because Shanel still had to turn tricks in order to get her fixes and Hannah's were free of charge. Her jealousy would be more pronounced as would be her anger when she was itching for a fix. In order to keep sane, she'd speedball heroin and cocaine together. A few times she would switch out one or the other for LSD. Randall had his hands in all of the narcotic cookie jars so it was like a candy store for druggies and that's how Shanel liked it. If she didn't have money for some of the purer stuff, she could still get her kicks on some LSD. Though one day she shoved Hannah out of the way to get to Randall in order to get her drugs first:

"Wait ya turn!" Randall said to Shanel frowning.

"She can wait. It ain't like she's needin for a fix. What? Is she ya new favorite or somethin?" Shanel responded nastily as Hannah watched her eyes widening. Shanel had never gotten into Randall's face before.

"I don't play favorites."

"Coulda fooled me. Up until she gave ya that doe, she hadda pay like everyone else. Now she gets ice and it's on the house? What's up with that, man?" Shanel was tripping over herself as Randall grabbed her by her flannel shirt and pulled her to him, revealing his dark side for a brief moment; his voice was ice cold.

"Listen ya stupid bitch. I dunno what ya think ya saw. Ya do what I say when I say it and get what ya get when I give it to ya! But stay the hell outta my business, ya got that?"

The 'or else' in his voice was obvious so he didn't have to say it and no one wanted to venture a guess as to what that meant. He then tossed her like a rag doll onto the nearest cot. Randall's face softened as he motioned a scared Hannah forward and gave her the ice she needed. He patted her soothingly on the shoulder and led her toward the third floor that had become her home by then. He helped her tie off and watched carefully as she injected herself. After that, he went back downstairs to sell what he had to the rest to his girls, making sure that Shanel received her dope last. Soon after, she sent a speedball up her arm to keep from screaming maniacally.

That same day on the other side of town, Special Agent Allen Roberts was sitting in his office amidst a pile of paperwork from the Scorpio case. He was staring out of the window. When he looked around he had to chuckle to himself, it looked like he was in Alice in a Wonderland of papers. He was sure that he was the Mad Hatter of this wilderness; at least that's how he felt. The case was on the cusp of being broken wide open. He had planned and executed a lot of raids both real and staged. His other cases had taken a back seat as soon as it was obvious that this one was near the stage of ripeness. Their ballistics expert called it a Thanksgiving turkey in the oven nearing completion; all they needed was the ding and they could dig in.

He had recovered some shell casings and expended rounds and had sent them to trace from a murder victim that was found in a ditch under cement and dirt just outside of Fort Worth. They had needed a special x-ray device just to find the man. But this time, the killer had gotten sloppy. According to an eye witness that would testify on the stand only on the condition that he and his family would get into the witness protection program and be observed at all times, Scorpio himself had carried out this killing. It was very personal for him. Usually, he'd send his goon squad to do it for him but this one, no. There was something very personal about this murder and it showed on the body.

The autopsy revealed that the body was mutilated prior to death before he was shot 18 times, ironically most of the wounds were to this man's lower body, especially in the genitals. Which gave Allen the suggestion that the dead man was a sexual predator or someone wanted them to believe that. In any case, there was a finger print on the casing and that was being run through the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System or IAFIS as he sat there waiting. He was so close to finding out who Scorpio was, he could smell it.

But even with the case on the brink of finally heading to court and the enigmatic Scorpio being revealed, Allen was sitting there thinking of the beautiful woman with brown hair and big brown eyes. Hannah Peters and her hurtful story were lodged in his heart and mind. He wished he knew where she was and if she was alright. Hopefully, she kicked the habit and she and her husband were settled in their house in Plano but as a seasoned agent he knew in his heart of hearts that she was probably somewhere with Randall and Shanel; sticking a needle into her arm with meth just so she could stave her illness away.

As he was wallowing in that negative thought, Ryan came up to him and tossed a small folder onto his desk in front of him. Allen shook himself, looked at Ryan, who had by that time taken a seat on the chair next to him with a satisfied look on his face. Blinking, Allen opened the folder and concentrated hard on the sheets of paper in front of him. He read everything carefully and then turned the page to where the photo was with the name, he'd waited nearly 3 years to get. He stared at the image and the name for a long time, without blinking as a chill went up his spine and his blood ran cold.

Back in the warehouse, Hannah decided to top off on her ice as she wanted to be able to go as long as she could without and after the argument she saw between Randall and Shanel, she refused to go searching for the latter. She wasn't in a confrontational mood. She did however want to find Randall and thank him for that afternoon. She had been outside but went to the third floor and followed the by now very familiar maze to where Randall 'lived'. There were 3 girls on his large bed and he was in between them. He saw Hannah and motioned her forward as he gave each of the girls with him some LSD. He laughed when he saw her looking at an old boom box of his standing near the bed:

"I'm addicted to fucking.....and Mozart. Such beautiful tragedies."

    Hannah didn't know what to say to that except see a strange and almost Freudian slip. The distinct parallel of intensity and giving ones full self-up to forces of creation of pleasure was inherently apparent. And both were regarded as pieces of art of the physical form. Could someone as uneducated as Randall really understand the nature of what he had just said or were these just the ramblings of a man who viewed himself as a leader among sheep? A Charles Manson of sorts.

"Randall, I just wanted to thank you for this afternoon." Hannah said shaking her head to clear it of all of the interesting philosophies that were jostling around in there. She didn't have to explain as Randall knew what she was talking about.

"Don't worry about it, doll face. Everyone got their place. She best know hers."

"Ok."

Hannah nodded and turned to leave as Randall looked at her and motioned her to join him on the bed which Hannah pretended not to notice as she hurried downstairs with a shudder. Randall shrugged and turned on the boom box which started playing Mozart's 'Lacrimosa' and got down to business with his girls. Hannah was downstairs on a cot getting ready for the night--she had decided to sleep on the first floor that night as it was chillier outside--but she failed to see Shanel in the dark corner watching her every move while twitching. She had heard and seen everything.

Slowly, trying not to be heard as she shook while telling the voices in her head to shut up, she walked up to Hannah holding a syringe filled with a clear liquid. The voices were telling her to do it because they were listening to the trifecta of drugs carousing through her system, racing side by side, trying to outdo each other...towards and into the heart....

'Do it.....just do it....'