Sounds in the night make her jump, make the skin between her shoulder blades crawl as if expecting a knife or a bullet. She can't help that though and, the truth of the matter is, that the fear has faded since that first night, fleeing the Opera in a limo bought and paid for by dead Rotti Largo. Those moments of confusion allowing her to slip away without so very much trouble at all, before things started to fall back into place and the Largo children started putting things back together again.

Shilo's fingers curl in the fabric of her sheets and for a moment she thinks that she'd best just stay where she it. Somehow, after everything, a part of her still clings to the dream that in her bedroom she was safe. Funny how the room that was her cage not so very long ago has become something of a sanctuary. She doesn't though, doesn't stay where she is and wait to see what happens. Shilo can't afford that.

She is still expecting the GeneCops to come sweeping through her home, her father's home, to get rid of her. It's only been weeks and it could still happen. Sometimes she thinks that she's waiting for it to, waiting for the bite of lead and then... what? Nothing? Her parents? Dearly departed mother and loving father reunited and waiting for their precious girl?

Shilo pushes the thoughts away and drags herself from her bed, stockinged feet silent on the floorboards as she creeps to the door and out into the hall. She spent the better part of her life learning this house, learning how to move through it quiet as a mouse so that she could sneak around her father and to do it now comes almost second nature. She's at the top of the stairs, crouched near the banister with the cool metal of one of her father's scalpels in her hand. There is nothing there, no looming figure in the doorway, no teams of GeneCops tying up loose ends for the Largos. Just the ghosts of the past and milky moonlight spilling through the windows to cast misshapen puddles on the wood.

She is about to rise, toss down the scalpel in disgust - mostly at herself for jumping at shadows these days and for being so damn paranoid since, well, since dad - and a hand closes over her shoulder. Her scream spills up off her lips before she has the thought to do it, a snarling, angry sound that surprises even her and she spins away. Her arm slashes out, the scalpel a silver arch in the moonlight even as her heel slips on the top step and she feels her weight go out from under her. There is a moment of awful, gutless weightlessness and then hands on her arms, dragging her back to solid footing.

And laughter.

That damned, infuriating laugh of his even though he's bleeding where the little blade caught his chest. When he laughs his lips pull back and he bares his teeth. Shilo thinks that it looks more like a grimace then a smile but she'll never tell him that, certainly not with her heart still hammering in her chest from her near fall and his hands iron tight around her upper arms. For a moment she thinks that he has forgotten he is holding her at all. His laughter falls away, too slowly for Shilo's tastes and then, belatedly, so do his hands, falling open at his sides. His eyes are still bright with it though and it makes her jaw tight, presses her lips together in a thin like. She does not like that Graverobber finds her so amusing. His fingers find the cut, high near his collar bone, and he hisses as he rubs at it, fingers coming away dark with his blood. It's berry red like his lipstick tonight, almost too dark to be believed.

"You shouldn't startle me," Shilo sounds petulant even to herself and it's not really an apology even if she is sorry that she cut him. Or at least mostly sorry, and as more than a half concocted after thought. Sometimes she thinks that he'd deserve it if the GeneCops finally caught up with him, if he startled the wrong person. If he hadn't gone screaming in the grave yard that night all of this might have been avoided, she might have been safe. She might have been with her dad.

"You should have seen your face," whenever he speaks it is as if he is talking to a rapt audience and not just a seventeen year old girl who's spent too much time in a big empty house. He's the same as he ever is and she's not quite figured out how he makes sure that his multi-toned hair is always, always just one day away from being too greasy. He claps his hands together in what she assumes is intended to be delight and spreads them, as if taking in the full scope of her home in the gesture, "but then, you don't get out much do you?"

He's been coming by every few days since her father's death, since the opera. As if he has the right to it. Shilo hasn't figured out why exactly though every time she asks him what he's doing he gives her a different plausible answer. The first time he was looking for a place to lick his wounds - a busted lip, a black eye, a few cracked ribs - and she let him. After all, her father was fresh dead and familiar, anything familiar was comforting. The last time she asked it was to see if her father didn't have any Zydrate lying around going to waist and the time before that it had been to check on her, see if she wasn't dead yet.

"Come on, kid, best patch me up," he pushes up away from the banister he's leaning against and breezes past her down the stairs. He hesitates though, there on the top step beside her and Shilo can swear that he's bent, curled his broad shoulders in and ... did he just sniff her? His knuckles bump against her hip in what she thinks he means as a friendly gesture he's gone, half jigging, half falling down the stairs. He doesn't bother to wait for her when he heads for the kitchen. He always takes the liberty of making himself at home.

"What are you doing?" Shilo never exactly says that he can't, or that he should go. She just knows that he ought to. Graverobber is rummaging through the refridgerator as if he's expecting there to be something to eat. There isn't. Shilo's stomach is empty, achingly hollow and has been for the last twenty four hours. There are credits, plenty of them, left to her like the house was but she can't be bothered to go shopping. She hasn't left her house in weeks and she thinks that Graverobber knows it.

A part of her likes to think that it's why he keeps coming back, that he's concerned for her or as close to it as he gets.

"It wont please him," he looks up from digging through her empty fridge, condiments and soured milk are hardly appetizing, even to him. He fixes a heavy gaze on her over his shoulder, if only for a moment and turns back to shut the fridge, to riffle through bare cupboards although he does it as a cursory thing. They both know that there's nothing there. Shilo bristles though, because she knows that he's talking about her father and he doesn't have the right to, he doesn't know anything about what her dad would have wanted. As usual, as expected, it hardly stops him from carrying right on, "you staying locked away in here isn't going to bring him back."

"Shut up," her voice is sharp, sharper than either of them expected, she thinks and she pushes away from the door she was leaning against. Graverobber turns, his coat following after him in a theatrical swirl and he arches an eyebrow, his lips parting in something like surprise and she takes another step forward, her voice rising, "you shut up about him! You don't know nothing about him!"

"Weren't you supposed to change the world for him?" he drawls it, drawing the words out lazily as he strolls towards her. His long stride eats the distance between them until he is standing just before her and leans closer. He is so much bigger than she is, not just in height but in general and she's sure that he realizes it too, "pretty hard to do cooped up in the homestead."

The crack of skin on skin is echoingly loud in the otherwise empty - empty as a tomb, she thinks to herself - house and his head turns with it. Her palm stings and she can feel the tingle of it even as she drops her hand, steps back in horror at what she's done.

Or rather, she almost steps back, she gets halfway there, hands coming up to cover her mouth before his hands find her arms again. She's noticing a trend here. He holds her still, keeps her where she is, close to him and not quite touching. When he turns to look back at her he rolls his head, like a beast, his hair sliding forward over his shoulders and he manages to look up at her through lidded eyes despite being head and shoulders taller than she is. His chest rises and falls with heavy breath and his lips are parted. When his tongue darts out to moisten his lips, drawing a slick sheen over them she can't help but watch it.

Her heart is hammering in her throat, hands pressed over her mouth and his fingers flex on her arms. His hands are large, heavy and inescapable. Shilo almost struggles in his grip, almost tries to pull away but there is something about the strength of his hands that says she will not be able to. He leans forward and she can smell his breath, stale coffee and beer. He curses when he pulls away and he has the foulest mouth she's ever heard but it's over before it starts and he's gone. The front door bangs hollowly behind him and there is a ringing in her ears; there are things left unsaid lingering in the air.

The next time he comes to see her - sixteen hours later, not that she's counting - he brings groceries.