When the Water's Dried

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Before she knew it, Luna was now riding in the Bad Guys' car. While she didn't know exactly where she was being taken, she knew it had to be wherever they lived. Throughout the ride, she stared absentmindedly out the window, gazing at the various skyscrapers that passed by her, not saying a single word.

Out of all the things she expected today, meeting with one of the members face-to-face definitely wasn't one of them. The fact that he defended her from her nastiest bullies and then asked her if she was alright puzzled her even more. Maybe they weren't as bad as the world made them out to be...or not.

While Wolf was focused on the road, Snake stared at her with a menacing glare in his eyes. However, Luna was completely unfazed by this. Besides not being afraid of them, her mind was elsewhere. How did it come to this?

The car suddenly went through a short, pipelike tunnel, and a few minutes later, the three of them arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned building.

"Here we are," Wolf said. "Hopefully this goes well."

***

The building had a few floors, and the Bad Guys resided on the top one. The Eastern brown snake would not stop glaring at Luna, even on the elevator ride up. At this point, she didn't need to ask him to know that he didn't like her. Jeez, what's his deal?

The elevator doors opened, and in front of Luna was the biggest, loot-filled room she had ever seen. The lair was stacked with all kinds of things, ranging from bags containing thousands of dollars cash and gold bars, to a few 80's arcade machines and priceless jewelry and art. She had to admit, this place looked like a paradise compared to her apartment. In fact, it was much better than being at the hellhole her school was.

"We're home!" Wolf called out.

"Oh good! You're back!" a voice answered. The other three Bad Guys, Shark, Piranha, and Webs, were on the couch, watching a TV show about a young man with a mysterious notebook that would bring death upon someone if he wrote their name in it.

"We were wondering, you guys came back pretty soon," Webs noted as she paused the show. "Why is that?" There was suspicion in her face.

"Well..." Wolf trailed off. How was he going to explain that he brought in a stranger without telling anyone else first?

"THIS is why," Snake responded, pointing his tail tip at Luna.

The three of them turned their heads around and fell silent, and gave Wolf a look that said "we need to talk right now."

Wolf knew this wasn't going to go as smoothly as he had hoped. Fortunately, he had a temporary solution. "Here, follow me," he said to Luna. Knowing he wanted to diffuse the awkwardness, Luna followed him, enduring stares from the others. Not that she wasn't used to it. Wolf led her to what was a decent-sized empty room.

"Could you please wait here?" Wolf asked. "I need to go talk to them."

"Sure," Luna smiled understandingly.

She closed the door as Wolf left, but leaned her ear against it so that she could listen in on their conversation. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really hope I can stay here.

***

Wolf made his way back over to his friends, trying to prepare himself for the argument he was going to have with them. This was not how today was supposed to go. Once he and Snake returned to the lair, the five of them were going to do a run-through of tonight's heist, which was now apparently canceled. And now, he had to convince them to let a random stranger live with them. With his best friend already not being fond of her, he knew it wasn't going to be easy.

"Wolf, why did you bring that girl here?" Webs asked. "And why didn't you take her bag?"

"Because she asked me to," he bluntly replied. "I don't know why, but...something must be going on."

"Wait, she looks familiar to me," Shark mentioned. "Isn't she that girl that doesn't run from us?"

"Hey, she does!" Piranha agreed. "I couldn't sense any fear coming from that chica!"

Wolf's eyes widened at this. That's why she looked familiar to him, besides being at the diner. Whenever he was on a heist with the others, he would sometimes notice someone just carrying on about their day, not paying any mind to what was going on. That person was always a girl dressed in dark clothing. Why was she not afraid?

"But that's not a reason why she'd want to come here," Webs noted. "What happened, exactly?"

Hoping it would help the rest of the Bad Guys understand, Wolf explained everything that happened. He even told them he and Snake first saw the girl at the diner. When he was finished, all of them, with the exception of Snake, had sympathetic looks on their faces.

"Wow...I never imagined that was it," Webs said sadly. "Maybe we should take some more time to get to know her. Besides, I've never seen someone with a great taste in style."

"Webs is right. Plus, she seems pretty comfortable being here," Shark added.

"Yeah, sure, go ahead and let the weird girl stay," Snake muttered.

"Oh come on, Mr. Grumpypants, lighten up," Wolf teased, earning a growl from Snake.

"Well, if everyone else is alright with it, then so am I!" Piranha joined in.

"Great," Wolf said. "I'll go let her know."

***

As Luna listened to their conversation, a faint smile tugged at her lips. Excluding Snake, she was happy that the rest of the gang was willing to take her in. Not that there was anyone else, anyway. She had no one. No one. No one. No one.

No! Stop! Don't think about it! Don't think ab–

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a knock on the door.

"Hey, it's me," Wolf said. "They said they want to meet you."

Luna stood up and opened the door. Wasting no time, she followed him over to the others where they were waiting for her.

"Okay, let's get this over with," Snake groaned as he rolled his eyes.

"We've heard about what happened earlier," Webs spoke up, ignoring her cold-blooded friend. "So, what's your name?"

"It's Luna," the dark haired girl replied shyly. "Anyway, I want to thank all of you for letting me stay."

"No problem!" Shark smiled. "Besides, all of us would like to get to know you better."

"Not me! Speak for yourself, you big tuna!" Snake hissed as he slithered over to the kitchen.

"Don't pay any mind, chica," Piranha assured her. "He's always like this."

"You don't need to tell me twice," Luna said flatly. He would warm up to her...hopefully.

Wolf smiled sheepishly. "Hey, sorry about the empty room, Luna. If you want, you can share a room with Snake until we get yours fully furnished."

This was followed by a loud "HELL NO!" coming from the kitchen.

"Joking, dude!" Wolf called back, causing Luna to giggle. He smiled; it was the first time he saw her laugh.

Snake slithered up to them, holding what was a push pop with his tail tip.

"Just so you know, these are off limits," he snarled, jeering his tail at Luna, causing her to flinch a little. He smirked at this and slithered away.

"Don't worry," Wolf reassured her. "Snake is very possessive of his push pops and HATES it when someone else wants one. Believe me, Shark's been trying to get one for a few years now. There was this one time when he stole a box of them on his own, yet Snake took all of them for himself. As long as you don't take a push pop, Mr. Grumpypants isn't going to hurt you."

"Makes me wonder how you guys can stand him," Luna replied with a slight smirk.

"Well, we are family," Wolf pointed out. "We're the Bad Guys. And today, that includes you."