Disclaimer: I don't own the Stephanie Plum series.

AN: This is the sequel to my story Not Quite Right. I hope you like it. I will try to update once a week, but sometimes RL gets a little crazy. Let me know what you think.

Relatively Speaking

By

Kole

Chapter 1

My name was Kole Peirce. I go by Stephanie Plum now. I woke up in the body of my favorite character, Stephanie Plum, a little over two months ago. I changed some things, but while doing so this life, Stephanie's life, has become mine. I don't know if I can ever go back to being me, but I know I don't want to. My life isn't perfect, but I love it. I love the new friends I have, the new family (even if they are a little crazy and annoying at times) that I now think of as my own, and the new job.

I'm a Bond Enforcement Agent, working for my cousin Vincent Plum, and I catch bad guys who are failure to appear. I'm not the best BEA in the world, but I am better than then real Stephanie, due to the fact that I am more trained than her.

An incredibly hot guy with the street name Ranger is the best. His real name is Ricardo Carlos Manoso and he is the guy I am completely in love with. He is also the guy I told all about my little body switch and all the little details about. I was so nervous about telling him, but he listened and accepted that I was telling the truth and not crazy. He had left my apartment and left me heartbroken, before returning moments later. He told me he needed to think, then he left. I gave him time to think. I didn't bother him and a week later he showed up at my door. He wanted me to tell him everything and I did.

I explained what I knew to him and he asked questions. After a few days of me explaining things as best I could and him asking question after question, he was back to acting like he had before I told him everything. He had explained that he had known something was up and he had told me all the things he noticed. He had even noticed things I didn't realize were different, like how I acted more confident and didn't moan as much when I ate. Yes, I still moaned just not as much. I think it might be Stephanie's taste buds because everything just tastes so much more amazing than before.

Okay I lied, I didn't tell him every little detail. I left out the part about me being totally and completely in love with him. He had agreed to be my friend, to talk to me, to spend time with me and he has, but I think that might be all I'll ever get.

Ranger knows me as much as anyone. He's one of my best friends and when he started calling me 'Babe' again I was so happy I almost cried (he had stopped for awhile while he thought through everything), but I didn't know how he felt about me so I was keeping my feelings to myself. Although he had been acting strange before I told about me, with light, loving kisses and letting his blank mask off. I didn't know what to make of it but he had stopped doing it since he found out everything. Not that I blame him. But I do miss it, even if it was weird.

I also don't plan on just letting it go. I'm going to give him some time to get used to the new me, and it is a new me pretty much. I changed my hair, clothes, and car from the old Steph, which also had a lot to do with the fact that I actually make a good amount of money whereas Steph didn't really. I'm going to give him some time and then I'm going to confront him about it. I want to know why he did those things and acted that way.

The other person who knows all about me is my sometimes partner and my other best friend, Lula. Lula is a former hooker who was hired to do the filing for the bail bonds office but spends a lot of her day trailing after me. She confronted me about my secret first and I told her everything, as well. She accepted it and me and I couldn't ask for a better friend. She's hilarious and understanding and just overall an amazing person. At the moment, Lula and I were standing in the parking lot of a deli-mart on Hamilton Avenue. We were about a half mile from the office and we were leaning against Lula's Firebird, trying to make a lunch choice. We were debating nachos at the deli-mart against a sub at Giovichinni's.

I was struck with déjà vu, this all seemed so familiar. I couldn't place why, so I shrugged it off.

"Hey," I said to Lula. "I'm thinking about joining a gym or maybe asking Ranger if he would be willing to help me get more training. What do you think?"

"I don't see why you would need to. You already look all thin and you be kick-ass already."

"Yeah, I lost a little weight but I need to work on my muscle strength and I can do enough to not get rolled in garbage or killed, but I'd like to be a little better and maybe learn some other skills."

"Okay, I could see that, but what 'other skills'" Lula asked, putting quotes on 'other skills'.

"I don't know, whatever he wants to teach me."

"Hunh. I think you just wanna spend time with Batman." Lula said, smiling widely at me. I rolled my eyes but didn't deny it.

"Damn girl, I wish I got to be with Batman as much as you." she continued. "I don't know what's so much better about you anyway, I mean he be lookin at you different now. It aint the same as before. It's like you started runnin and carryin your gun and all of a sudden he started seein ya different."

I raised my eyebrows at this. I hadn't noticed Ranger looking at me different, but then again he usually has his blank face on when I look at him lately.

"I'm just as badass as you. I might not be as tiny as you, White Girl but I always got a gun. I got a gun now. Just in case."

And Lula pulled a 40-caliber Glock out of her purse.

"I don't mind using it either. I'm good with a gun. I got an eye for it. Watch me hit that bottle next to the bike."

Someone had leaned a fancy red mountain bike against the big plate glass window in the front of the deli-mart. There was a quart bottle next to the bike. The bottle had a rag stuffed into it. Bells were going off in my head, now. I looked around then back at the bike, I knew this was important but I couldn't for the life of me remember why.

"No," I said. "No shooting!"

Too late. Lula squeezed off a shot, missed the bottle, and destroyed the bike's rear tire.

"Oops," Lula said, doing a grimace and immediately returning the gun to her purse.

A moment later, a guy ran out of the store. He was wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit and a red devil mask. He had a small backpack slung over one shoulder and he had a gun in his right hand. His skin tone was darker than mine but lighter than Lula's. He grabbed the bottle off the ground, lit the rag with a flick of his Bic, and threw the bottle into the store. He turned to get onto the bike and realized his tire was blown to smithereens.

"Fuck," the guy said. "FUCK!"

Fuck was right. I had stopped dead in my tracks and was staring at the kid in the red devil mask. I now knew why everything seemed so familiar, why I had felt like something was going on. This was exactly how book ten started. The scariest book, in my opinion. I really was not looking forward to the Junkman or the Slayers.

"I didn't do it," Lula said. "Wasn't me. Someone came along and shot up your tire. You must not be popular."

There was a lot of shouting inside the store, the guy in the devil mask turned to flee, and Victor, the Pakistani day manager, rushed out the door. I was aware of what was going on, but I couldn't move. I could feel the fear vibrating through my body. I'm sure I was pale and sweating by this point.

"I am done! Do you hear me?" Victor yelled. "This is the fourth robbery this month and I won't stand for any more."

"You are dog excrement!" he shouted at the guy in the mask. "Dog excrement."

Lula had her hand back in her purse.

"Hold on. I got a gun!" she said. "Where the hell is it? Why can't you ever find the damn gun when you need it?"

Victor threw the still lit but clearly unbroken bottle at the guy in the devil mask, hitting him in the back of the head. The bottle bounced off the devil's head and smashed against Lula's driver's side door. The devil staggered, and instinctively pulled the mask off. Maybe he couldn't breathe, or maybe he went to feel for blood, or maybe he just wasn't thinking. Whatever the reason, the mask was only off for a second, before being yanked back over the guy's head. He turned and looked directly at me, and then he ran across the street and disappeared into the alley between two buildings.

I knew I shouldn't of been looking at him, I should of looked at the ground the second I realized what was going on but I couldn't. I couldn't even move. The bottle instantly ignited when it hit Lula's car, and flames raced along the side and the undercarriage of the Firebird. This shocked me out of my fear and I could finally breathe again. I took a deep steadying breath and calmed tried to calm myself down. It worked. Sort of.

"Holy shit, my car!" Lula yelled, looking up from her purse.

"I'll pay for it." I said to Lula, pulling her back away from the flames and trying to calm her down.

It wouldn't help if we were both freaking out. Although I have to admit, I was a little happy I let Lula drive today. I really like my new car and don't want it to die. The happiness was brief. I couldn't believe it. It would seem that I was now going to have to try and survive through book ten.