To think that she could have avoided all of this if she had just said 'no thanks' one more time. That was all, just two simple, every day words that had had the power to change her future drastically. If she hadn't been a twit in the past she could be laying in a warm bath with suds and foam up to her neck, scented candles along the bathtub rim, and gentle, folk Japanese music playing from her CD player across the tiled bathroom floor.
But no. She was trapped in a dingy basement god only knows where in clothing she'd been wearing for three days (with no shower, mind you), and a priceless jewel that somehow managed to find its way onto her wrist. Oh, and by the way, the lock was broken—as in fused together. Rotting luck, that's what she had.
Pushing herself up, Kagome used a wooden crate besides her to hold some of the weight off of her left ankle which had been sprained a few days ago. She had been giving it rest for the past two days, but now she was going to start working on it so it didn't become stiff. After all, she never knew when the storm door might open and give her a chance to bolt, and Higurashi Kagome always looked for an opportunity to improve her situation.
Although lying in a warm bath couldn't really be improved upon that much. Maybe if she had some cherries…
"No, stop about the cherries. Jeez, it's only making me hungrier," she groaned to herself, her voice slightly hoarse from the lack of water. Her captors had yet to make any contact with her, but they were smart and resourceful, leaving her in a small warehouse that contained cereal and dried foods that could be eaten without preparation. The liquid was sparse though, she had only found about five or six water bottles, and that was three days ago. Kagome only had four of them left, and every sip—like the one she was now taking—made her worry only grow. The human body could live without eating for a few days, taking nutrients and energy from excess body fat, but it couldn't live longer than a day or two without water…
The first tentative step on her left ankle made her wince as the pain spiked up her leg, making her lean back on her good leg to give the ankle a rest. This was going to take a while, and unbeknownst to the young woman, the small security camera in the upper left corner of the makeshift prison recorded her every move.
If someone were to track the signal, they might find it travelling down the wires on the side of the building which was actually in the middle of a large, empty lot that looked as if it had once been used for a small airline. The black cords then snaked their way along the black asphalt towards the old security tower and up into a computer that was too current to be one of the original models. A pair of golden eyes stared at the screen, watching the small woman begin to make her journey around the perimeter of boxes before flicking down to check the time on the recording and comparing it with his silver, glinting watch.
"That's her." He said, his voice crisp and blank. "Bring her in. If I have to cut her hand off to get that jewel so be it."
"Cut it off, boss?" one of the men behind him looked up with slight apprehension. "Can't we just cut the brace…" his voice trailed off into a wisp of nothing when Boss's eyes narrowed ever so slightly on his smaller frame. "Never mind." He whispered.
"I'll deal with her alone." Boss said, eyes back on the screen and glinting when he saw Kagome stumble and fall halfway around the room, massaging her ankle. He could see her mouth moving and submitted his own ideas as to what kind of curses she could be using right then. "Bring her to my office. The jewel will be in the Master's hands by evening, assure him of it and leave me be." The tone of his voice left no room for error or reasoning, and so the grunt bowed lowly and disappeared from the room, leaving the man alone.
"I found you, Kagome."
Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed again, lost in the screen that separated him from his find.