Need

Kitty undressed and donned her pajamas. She went to the window and began pulling down the shade. A flash of movement caught her eye. For a split second, she thought she saw a streak of white fly past her building. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Then she called out to Rogue and told her she was hitting the sack.

"Night." Called back the other girl. "Don't forget, shoe shopping bright an early." Kitty chuckled. Rogue disliked crowds, but liked post Christmas sales and would make an effort to get to the mall before the masses in order to score some good buys. Kitty was more than willing to cooperate.

In an alley, less than a block from the apartment building, Quicksilver joined his housemate.

"Okay, I just saw Kitty in the window. She's getting ready for bed."

"You were spying on her?" Lance asked. He was a little tipsy, but not yet drunk enough to be unsteady on his fee

"You asked me to, Man." Pietro answered. "Kitty's not my type. Too sweet." He gave a sidelong glance at Lance. The angry young man was shifting from one foot to another. He was losing his nerve. Pietro gave him another little push. "I liked you two, together, you know." He said, casually. "I think she would have come back to you if it weren't for Kurt."

"Nightcrawler? Did he say aything about me to her?"

"I don't think it's so much what he *said* to her...." He left off the sentence, allowing his friend's beer soaked mind to figure it out.

"What did you hear about them?"

"Just that a story was floating around about her rebounding with the freak and then she suddenly moves out on her own." Pietro shrugged. "She said before she wanted her own place where you guys could hang out, right?"

"That explains a lot." Lance said. "I'm not even out of the picture and that ugly, German, freak moves in on her." He paced angrily. "I always knew he had a thing for her. He was always watching us when we were together. Even when he was dating Amanda."

"Just shows the girl has no taste." Pietro smiled. "Let's go show her what happens when you cross the brotherhood." He was excited. He loved trouble. He had been going insane with boredom in this stupid town for months. The X-geeks were keeping their noses clean and it made life uncommonly dull for a man of action like himself. Spurring Lance from melancholy to malice was a pretty easy push. Moving him to violence was just as simple.

They slunk back to the apartment building. Kitty and Rogue's place was on the second floor, on the south corner. Both lights were out. Beneath them was the handyman's office and it remained unoccupied during the evening. Pietro had done a quick scout and discovered that the couple living on the third floor was away for the weekend and on the fourth floor was only one person. Okay, so the body count might include a few civilians, but in the grand scheme of things,who really cared.

Lance stepped forward and placed his fists against the building. Now the bitch would know better than to hurt him.