Double Hits:

Simone’s Notes:

Courtship, traditionally the wooing of a female by a male, includes activities such as dating (dinner and a movie, a picnic, or general "hanging out"), along with other forms of activity, such as meeting online (also known as virtual dating), chatting on-line, sending text messages or picture messages, conversing over the phone, writing each other letters, and sending each other flowers, songs, and gifts.

So many things can cause a snowball effect. They may be small and insignificant at the time. But in every case, they end up leading to bigger and more noticeable things. Pretty soon, one is left with a huge snow storm on their hands. Well, today was one of those snowball effect days. Darius was in his house alone. He was making himself some dark tea. The man hadn’t slept well in days. He was haunted by nightmares of Izzie taking him hostage for raping her eight years ago. It all wouldn’t leave him alone. Being seduced into the woods, tied down to a chair, having a gun stuck to his face, being left alone all night, being dragged near a creek, and almost killed. The events were on a constant replay in his head. Lennon tried many times to block them out of his head but to no avail. That Hell night for him just wouldn’t go away. This wasn’t the first time either. It was all on a continuous loop in his head. The whole experience was a bad dream he couldn’t wake up from. Darius shut his eyes again when he remembered the rifle to his face. “No!” he thought again. “Stop! I’m so sorry Isobel!!! Please let me live! I don’t want to die!” Lennon was close to losing it again when the phone rang. The sergeant slowly looked up. He didn’t want to answer the phone at all. He began hearing Izzie’s angry voice in his ears again. “YOU RAPED ME!!!!” she screamed. Darius began to tremble all over. He quickly rushed to the phone and yanked the chord out of it to stop the ringing. Lennon stood there in silence afterwards. “I’m all alone again!” he thought in misery. The sergeant sank to his knees sick defeat. That night was *really* getting to him!

At Central Headquarters, Mustang looked at Selena’s address again. It had been two weeks since she had given it to him. The general had been planning to go over to her house for days now. But sadly, no day seemed right to do so. But tonight seemed perfect to pay her a little “visit.” However, that would not be so! “What you got there, general?” Roy heard someone ask from behind him. The brigadier general quickly looked up to see Hughes standing over him smiling. He looked ready to shower him with more pictures of his darling daughter, Elisha. The general just shook his head. “Don’t do that!” he said quickly. “Oh!” Maes said flatly. His pal smiled again. “It’s an address from a lady friend!” Mustang answered proudly. Hughes was happy for him. “Ooo!!!” he called out. “Let me see! Let me see!” The brigadier general handed him the paper. The lt. col. looked at it happily. But then, his face dropped into a somber mood. Mustang noticed the change. “What’s the problem Hughes?” he asked. The lt. col. didn’t answer. He took the paper and hurried down the hall. Slightly worried, Mustang rose from his chair and hurried after his pal.

“Guys!” Hughes yelled out to his comrades in a hurry. David, Ian, Daniel, and Brandon all looked up. “What is it Maes?” Price asked. The lt. col. set the paper down in front of them. The other four crowded around the table. Mustang caught up and peeked over his shoulder. “Look familiar?” Hughes asked at last. The other men looked hard at the writing. Then, something caught Floyd’s attention. He rushed over to the evidence board and grabbed down a picture of one of the victims’ chest and slammed it down next to the address. Shock all hit them hard! The writing on the victim’s chest and on the writing on the paper was a perfect match! Ian and Mustang looked slightly worried. Hughes turned to his old friend. “Roy,” he said in a serious tone. “Who gave you this address? This is really important to our case! Tell us the truth!” The brigadier general became nervous at first. “Selena,” he replied uneasily. “Hold on now!” Ian cut in. The other men all looked up. Fisher tried not to look too worried. “We can’t just jump and pin the blame on one woman just because of her writing,” he explained. “There are other women with similar hand-writing!”

“He’s right you know!” a voice called behind them. The men all looked to see Tawny. She looked like a school teacher today in a red dress suit that showed off her dancer-like legs and black pumps. Her hair was neatly pulled back today. The woman actually looked like she had a bath today and didn’t smell like any liquor or drugs. Mustang still looked at her crossly. “Where have you been?” Daniel asked. “Oh,” Tawny answered. “Just fulfilling the fantasy of a colonel by playing a teacher and he was my naughty student whom I was teaching ‘discipline’ to.” They all stared at her disturbed. “Anyway,” the hooker went on. “Not all ladies of the night are dumb. Some are pretty-well educated.” Mustang glared at her coldly. “And what are you?” he snapped at her. Tawny smiled sweetly at him. “Street wise and didn’t finish college!” she replied proudly. The brigadier general didn’t seem to believe her on that one. “Right!” Ian cut in. “We must have all of the whores in the city send in a sample of their hand-writing!” “But how do we do that?” David asked skeptical. Tawny called her throat. They all turned to her. The whore smiled at them. “Leave that one to me, boys!” she called. “I can speak with them!” Roy glared at her sharply. “Oh really?” he questioned. “What makes you think they’ll listen to you?” Tawny kept smiling at him. “Oh trust me,” she replied gracefully. “I know how to speak their language!”

Time passed slowly for Darius. He hadn’t been to work in days. Izzie’s wrath was all he could think of. Sure, he was trained to fight and kill. But what about a woman with a painful grudge that you started? It just wouldn’t leave him! Then, the phone rang again. The sergeant leapt around in fear. He stood staring at the phone for a long while. It rang hard. The man just walked over to the couch and hid under the sheets. This is what he did all day for the past five days. He couldn’t let his comrades see him like this. They’d think of him as weak and annoying. No! He couldn’t have that! But avoiding people would only make things even worse!

Darius wasn’t the only one who seemed disturbed. Alessa seemed troubled as well. She never played with the other children. She just sat alone near the back wall and never talked to anyone at all. The other children would try to play with her but she just quietly refused and saw by herself again. The girl didn’t even talk to anyone at all. Hunter seemed to be concerned about her. So, he decided to care for the kids on Monday afternoon. When they asked why, the boy said, “I only want to observe something for a day.” He kept his eyes on the little girl. So far, everything seemed normal. She didn’t play or talk to anyone. Everyone didn’t try to include her today. Alessa was coloring at the moment. She seemed to be hard at work. Curious, Hunter decided to see what she was drawing. So far, it looked like many small drawings circled around one big figure in the center of the paper on a pitch black background. They all seemed to be pretty dark. The only visible colors were brown and red in the picture. “Hey there, Alessa!” Hunter called out innocently. The girl paused for a moment. Then, she slowly looked up. The Irish boy stood over her smiling.

“Hi there,” he said again. “What are you drawing?” Alessa didn’t answer him. She just set down her crayons and showed him. Hunter took the drawing and looked at it. His face dropped into worry. The drawing had many little red stars in it. There was too much activity to stay focused in one place. The colors seemed to blend into each other too much to stay focused. One image caught his eye. It looked like a huge dragon-like demon. It had razor sharp teeth and long claws. The monster’s great wings were black as night. The most striking thing about this monster was it had Jez’s face. Slight alarm covered Hunter. This was not normal for a ten-year-old to be drawing! “Alessa,” he spoke up. “Who or what is this?” The little girl stared at him. She seemed to be whispering something. “Hm?” the boy asked as he leaned in closer to hear what she was saying. “Ramiel!” she whispered aloud. Hunter’s eyes grew big in shock. Why did she call Jez Ramiel? What was going on in her life to make her draw something like this? There was only one way to find out. “I need to talk to Addi about this Saturday!” Hunter thought to himself. “This is not normal for a ten year girl!” Oh buddy! The boy had only seen the tip of the iceberg of the Bailey family’s dark problems.