Chapter 1-Oliver
Run.
He is coming. Run.
Her legs burned, her side ached, her lungs threatened collapse, but she had to keep moving. Her arms felt so heavy and her wrist throbbed, it was probably broken. She clenched her fists, or at least attempted to, her pinky and ring finger on the right were also most likely broken. Blood dripped from her finger tips, but it was not her blood. She flicked it away, wincing from the pain that shot up her arm with the movement. But she had to get it off. She had to rid herself of any trace of him.
Sick fuck.
She could still feel his hands on her, pulling, tearing, invading. Her footing faltered on the uneven ground and she grabbed the nearest tree. The rough bark grated against the already tender flesh of her exposed torso, but she barely noticed. Instead, she listened, trying to hear anything other than her own ragged breath and frantic heartbeat. The pounding so loud it threatened to make her eardrums burst. Her head swiveled frantically in an attempt to get her bearings. It was so dark, the dull surfaces of the thick wood around her absorbed what light made it down from the night sky. Where could she run to? She had to get somewhere.
There. To her right. She could see the light from the lamps on the foot path that looped around the length of the park. She knew this path! It was the jogging path in Egota no mori park. She was so close to school!
If she could just make it to the light of the path she would be safe. Someone would see her. He wouldn't try to get her in the light.
She would never leave the light again.
Sucking in as much air as she could, she took off for the light. So close. So —.
Tripping over the edge of the defined path, she sprawled face down across the gravel. The stones bit into her skin, but she didn't care. She was in the light. The Light! Its soft electrical buzz was the sweetest sound she had ever heard.
Crunch. The buzzing brilliance was overpowered by the sound of her own heartbeat once again. Maybe she had imagined it. Or maybe she had moved her own foot in the gravel. Every muscle in her body went taut. Her breath caught in a clenched throat. Crunch.
"No," she whispered, her voice hoarse and rasping. "No, no, no." But she had made it, she had made it to the light. Someone, someone would see her. He wouldn't get her here. He couldn't—
Her head jerked to the left as something took her roughly by the hair. With her neck tilted up she could see familiar black boots and green khaki pants. She felt sick.
"Tsk Tsk." She cringed at the sound of his voice. "Where do you think you were you going? We weren't done honey. You and I have lots more fun to have."
No, she had made it!
Someone would come. Someone would.
"Someone." She begged the light.
"You're right," he agreed. His hand stopped its slow inspection under her already-tattered skirt.
"Someone could interrupt us here. We should head back home where we could have some more privacy."
The grip on her hair tightened and he began dragging her back towards the darkness. Not the darkness! She needed to stay in the light! The light! It jolted through her and she could move again. Her hand grasped at his on her head, lessening the pain just enough that she could begin to think.
She had run, but he had caught her. She had scratched the living hell out of his face and had at least temporarily blinded him in the left eye and he had still found her. But she wouldn't give up, how could she give up now?
She lay there as he dragged her back retracing the ground she had just fought so hard to achieve. The light was getting further and further away. Soon he would have her back in the darkness. It had been so hard to get out. She would not spend another day in that dark place! NO!
She reached her hand out and grabbed at his nearest boot. He stumbled slightly as his tread met with the uneven surface of her hand instead of the ground. He tried to kick it away and she cried out, but as he began his trudging steps again she flailed her legs out and arched her back as she began to scream. Anything to loosen the grip he had on her hair. Anything to get away from him and back to the light.
He threw her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her, silencing her. Leaves stuck to the mud that caked her face and body.
"Scream like that again, I slit your throat. You hear me? You are beginning to try my patience. First you scratch up my pretty face, then you go out for an unscheduled walk in the park, and now little gnat you are getting in my way."
She didn't respond, though she couldn't imagine he expected her to.
He had let go of her, she could run again. This time she would escape for sure.
"Now get up and get going, Class Rep. I'm tired of carrying your ass back." She shuddered at the use of her school title. It was amazing how quickly she could go from reveling in the designation to hating it. Suddenly, it clicked.
He knew she was class rep. He knew her. His voice it had seemed so familiar. He knew her, and now, now she knew him.
"Why are you doing this, Kawamura-san?"
"What did you say?" His voice a heady mix of anger and hate with a smooth layer of fear underneath.
"You can't keep me here, Jurou."
Perhaps letting him know she knew who he was had been a mistake. She lay on the ground, unmoving. Her muscles coiled and ready. This time she would wait until he leaned over her and she would bite his throat out. This time—
She screamed as a sharp pain shot up from the back of her left ankle. Her head shot around her shoulder, looking down the length of her prone form. Something felt wrongly loose. Something that was supposed to be taut. She attempted to move her foot, but it was impossible. From the pain if not more.
"Interesting things, Achilles tendons." She looked up to see his bloody mangled face. No longer covered by the white cloth mask he had worn. The same mask she had turned red beneath her finger nails.
The shadows were once again attempting to swallow them up, but what small light there was reflected in his eyes. Eyes that she had seen stare out the window from the back of their classroom since the start of the year. Eyes, she had more than once caught turned in her direction. Eyes that now held a fever. Why, Kawamura-san?
"Thickest tendon in the body, incredibly strong, and yet with just a little cut—"He gave the small knife in his hand a quick flick and she saw it flash as some of her blood flew off the tip, exposing more of the shiny blade. "Now, are you going to behave or do I have to make it a matching pair?"
She didn't reply. Her own eyes glazed. She was enraptured by that small spark of light in his hand.
I just have to get to the light. If I get to the light I'll be safe.
He stepped closer, grabbing what remained of her skirt and mumbling to himself.
"Why did you say that class rep, why did you have to go and say that?" His arm shook while he spoke. "Now look what you did."
But she didn't see. Her eyes tracked the after burn of his knife as he spoke. The light.
With a force that briefly lifted her from the ground, he tore the tattered garment from her waist. He held the knife near her face, but it was just too far for her to reach it. As if to mesmerize her with its brilliance.
"I had plans class rep, you would have seen, you would have understood. Now it's too late.
His hand was back on her now. Groping at her exposed flesh, sliding with ease where before it had rasped like sandpaper.
"Now we have to be together out here in the dirt. You would have understood. If you had only given it time." After a moment she realized the slippery sticky trail his hand was leaving was her own blood. Lubricating the path to her own defilement.
She had a fleeting thought that she should feel something because of that, but all she could see was the light in his hand. So close. Just there. She had to get to the light.
He leaned back a bit, his hand leaving her to fumble with his pants. This movement caused the light to bounce off the swaying blade in front of her. Too busy with freeing himself, he didn't notice as her eyes followed those six inches of molten light.
The light!
She propelled her head forward. She had to get to the light!
At the last moment he saw her movement and his wrist twisted forward in shock. The sound was wet and hard. Instantly she knew, she had found it for real this time.
The light!
She had reached the light! She could feel its warmth trickling down her neck, falling over her chest, and finally spreading down across her torso. It brushed aside the night's chill, washed away the sticky remnants of his touch. The light poured out of her, covering her, protecting her. She choked on her own happiness, tears threatening to spill everywhere. Her tormentor screamed, and scrambled back from her.
"Look, Kawamura-san." She tried to ask him if he could see the light that poured out of her, could he feel it? It was so warm, so comforting. Her words were jumbled in her own ears submerged in the sound of the light.
Enraptured, she lay back and watched as the light broke into a million pieces above her, its radiance taking on an emerald hue.
"Shit, shit, shit-" she heard a voice cry out from miles away.
Her vision shifted, closer to the congregation of lights that called out to her, waiting for her to join them. She paused in her passage, had she been alone before this? She felt compelled to look behind her afore she continued to her fellow points of light.
There, lost in the darkness, was a young man, his tee shirt and pants stained and caked with dark mud and leaves. He reminded her of someone. Someone from school?
Beneath him, white snakes thrashed and then stilled. Peering over his shoulder, she found that they were not actually snakes, but the very white limbs of some sort of strange creature with red, navy, and brown colorings. A moment more and she recognized that the creature used to be a young girl in a high school uniform. The brown handle of a knife protruded from her throat, blocking the flow of the fountain that provided her with her lovely red coloring.
A thought—she felt sorrow for the creature.
But it passed. The lights, the lights were waiting for her.
With a gasp, Oliver pulled himself back from the vision. That had been close, he had lingered too long. He forced himself to breath deep and slow. Oliver waited, face pressed against the now warm desktop. He waited as the reality of the vision continued to fade.
Years of using his psychometry had taught him that the best thing to do after a vision was to wait. Any major effects on his person began to fade almost immediately. At times there were physical reminders of the bodily harm that he experienced, but any lasting effects were purely superficial. A few bruises perhaps. But so long as he waited, the pain and potentially dangerous elements of any injury would fade.
He sat up slowly, and nothing felt too amiss. Save for the Post-It notes that were currently trying to make their home on the right side of his face. Good, his body was transitioning back to reality at an acceptable pace. He placed the small silver bracelet he had held to channel the vison back into its clear plastic bag on the desk.
A quick knock and Lin was in the room as Oliver began removing the offending documents.
"Noll…" Lin said.
Oliver raised a hand, halting the expected lecture as he removed a yellow sticky note from above his right eye.
"Before you start, I am fine. Really." Oliver's voice was raw as if he had had a severe cold over the last few days. He cleared his throat, attempting to clear away the remnant of the vision. Putting the paper on his desk he began jotting down quick notes about the vision. "You know if I don't use small bursts of it at my choosing, it will just build up and could accidentally trigger with anything I touch." He cleared his throat again. "This is the safest method."
"You should have told me what your were going to do, so I could be here. Just in case."
"You are here now." Oliver held out the completed note and the bag with the bracelet to Lin.
Lin didn't look pleased, but he didn't argue either. Oliver continued before Lin could voice a complaint on his logic.
"Have Yasuhara contact the Takenouchi family. She died in Egota no mori park. I believe the perpetrator was a boy in her class named Kawamura. He was keeping her in a house near the park. She scratched his face quiet badly. There should be healing scars."
Oliver waited, still holding the bag. After a moment Lin took it, his judgmental gaze shifting to the small silver mass, " Where is she now?"
"I am not sure what he did with the body posthumous. But I believe this should give even the incompetent Japanese police enough information to move forward. Also remind them we appreciated their respecting our wishes to remain anonymous in this investigation."
Lin nodded, and Oliver turned his attention back to the other notes on his desk.
"Just be careful, Noll." Lin said, and Oliver stopped writing. "Gene isn't here anymore to help you control it."
Oliver's fist clenched around his pen.
"I am well aware of the fact that my brother is no longer with us, Lin. As I recall I was the one who made everyone else aware." Oliver didn't look up, his voice was low and even colder than usual, the pen creaked in his fingers. "It is precisely because he is no longer here that I must determine a method of control that does not rely on him. It's been over two years and I still get weakened from simple exercises. Pathetic." Oliver spat the end.
Remembering he was not alone Oliver stopped and stared at his chaperone, daring him to call him out for the outburst. Lin looked like he had more he wanted to say, but his concerns over his charge's physical or emotional state were forestalled when an all too familiar scream tore through the SPR office.
Oliver's attention moved to the door of the office.
"That was Mai." He said, raising from his chair. Urgency clouded his brain, rushing in as the sound died down. He took a step towards the door, his left leg collapsing beneath him, sending him to the floor with a faint cry of surprise.
Lin moved to his side, looking over the troublesome limb.
Oliver reached for the back of his ankle. Of course, he was a fool, heshould have waited longer before standing. The wound to the Achilles had been severe.
"It's just a residual effect of the vision," he told his Lin, angry at both himself for rushing to move about so soon after a vision and the older man who still insisted on patting down his leg.
"Don't, just let it be, Lin. Lin!" Oliver jerked his leg towards his torso and used the desk to pull himself up from the floor. He took a moment to try to regain his composure after that outburst. In the after effects of that vision his aversion to touching had only heightened. Taking a breath, he could feel the unnecessary panic that had overwhelmed him subsiding. He was hobbling, but he made it across the room and with each step his leg felt stronger underneath him. Leaning against the doorframe, he scanned the common area of the office.
Yasuhara was on the couch, grappling with something below him and out of view. Another step forward confirmed Oliver's fear. Mai was beneath Yasuhara, struggling under his weight and his grip on her wrists. Oliver's stomach dropped, and he flew the last few feet to Yasuhara. His left ankle was screaming but went ignored.
"Yasuhara, don't touch her!" Oliver shouted, knocking the shocked older boy to the floor between the couch and coffee table. A glass of water on the coffee table wobbled precariously from Yasuhara's impact. The heavy sound of the glass and the sloshing of the liquid pulled Oliver back from his outburst. The reaction had been visceral. As if he had been pulled across the space.
His fingers curled into fists and he froze. Recoiling from the lingering desire to punch Yasuhara in the face. It was another remnant of the vision, this overwhelming anger. He forced his fingers open opting instead to tightly clench the back of the couch as he tried to force it away.
Yasuhara looked up at his employer, trying to process what exactly had just happened.
"I wasn't…, she started screaming and flailing. I thought she might hurt herself. I was trying to wake her up." His voice dropped. "The dream sounds bad boss, it sounds real bad."
Oliver could see the concern for Mai written all over Yasuhara's face. He knew, he had always known, that Yasuhara had only been trying to help their colleague. He took a moment to admonish himself once again for allowing the emotions of the vision to have overwhelmed him so completely. He had the strong urge to beat a hasty retreat back into his office. Perhaps if he left now, they could establish an unspoken agreement to never speak of this moment again.
Another small cry from Mai reminded Oliver that there was more to worry over than his damaged ego. A glance in her direction confirmed that Yasuhara's statement, not that he had doubted him. Mai still seemed to struggle against some sort of invisible attacker.
Yasuhara leaned over her and Oliver's protective instincts flared without his permission again, his right hand shooting out to the other boy's shoulder and pushing him back with a shake of his head.
"She is most likely having a vision." Oliver said. "It would be best not to force her out of it. Speaking to her and gently attempting to draw her attention back to reality would be the better course of action. Try not to touch her, it could be dangerous for both of you—"
"Why?" Mai's delirious muttering cut Oliver off. "Why are you…"
Oliver forgot his instructions. What had she—?
"Can't keep me here," Mai mumbled. Her voice soft, but defiant, below them.
Oh no. She shouldn't be having that vision. They weren't on a case, there was no reason for her to see that…
Was it his fault? His stomach dropped with the thought. They had shared a vision on the Michinori case and before that on the Urado case the dream she had described had been similar to the vision he had endured. After Oliver had learned of Gene's involvement in Mai's dreams he had thought that Gene had simply lead her to the most pertinent information. But it had been Gene who had done that. Not him.
"Light." Mai's voice grew more desperate. Oliver felt that irrational panic building again. Another remnant of the vision; his body was reacting to the stimuli from the incident he himself had just experienced.
He reached down over the back of the couch and shook Mai's shoulders vigorously. "Mai, wake up, right this instant!"
"Big Boss, I wouldn't call that gentle." Yasuhara looked unsure if he should intervene or not. "I thought you said not to touch—"
"Look." Mai's whisper was almost imperceptible, but it knocked the breath out of Oliver. He stopped shaking her, they were running out of time, he had to wake her up now and this was getting them nowhere.
"Hey boss, are you ok?" Yasuhara asked, his concern expanding in to include Oliver. "You look kinda sick. Should I get Li—" Yasuhara stopped, a warbling to his right pulling his attention to the coffee table. Mai's glass of water rattled against the table for a moment before floating upward and passing through the air until it stopped above Mai's face. The glass hovered for half a second then upended its liquid contents all over the unconscious girl.
Mai spluttered and swatted blindly to fend off the watery attack.
A loud shout of "Noll!" caused the upended glass to drop on Mai's chest before it rolled to the floor. Heavy clucks marking its stubborn refusal to shatter throughout the decent. Lin stood over Oliver looking very displeased with the display of PK that he had joined them to witness.
"Oliver," Lin began to lecture, "that was a reckless—"
"Mai, do you know where you are?" Oliver interrupted.
Mai blinked a few times, water droplets catching in her eyelashes. Oliver gripped the cuff of his black oxford and carefully wiped away the glistening droplets from her wild eyes shushing her softly.
"It's over now, you are safe." Oliver's voice little more than a whisper. "Listen, Mai. It's important that you do not try to move until the vision wears off. If you move around too suddenly, injuries that your body thinks it has could be exacerbated and cause you real harm." The softness slid from his voice as he instructed, "Yasuhara, grab a waste basket. She may become ill."
But Yasuhara didn't move, and Oliver turned to find the other boy staring at him and Mai. He didn't have to look to know Lin was watching them as well. The scrutiny of the others' gazes oozed across his shoulders and settled like an itch at the base of his neck.
The urgency that had lead him to action was replaced with anxiety as rational thought flooded back into his mind. What had he been thinking? But that was the problem, he hadn't, it had all been so reactionary.
He needed to go back to his office, he had to think. What had caused this? How could it have happened? Did Gene cause this? But why? His head was heavy, shadows hovered around the edges of his sight. Something wasn't right. Something, something had changed.
"Yasuhara, it would be best if you kept—" Oliver cut off with a sharp intake of breath as his left leg gave out from under him once again and he caught himself on the back of the couch. He could feel the dizzy pull of unconsciousness settling over him. Not yet. He had too many questions. He had to investigate.
Lin seized Oliver by the shoulders and Oliver tried to shrug him off, grimacing. "I'm okay."
He didn't have time for this. He had work to do. He could feel the room sway beneath him. Darkness pouring in from the edges of his vision, leaving only a small pin prick of intense light in the center where he could see Mai holding her hands to her head.
What have I done?
Oliver lost his grip on the couch and consciousness.
A/N:technical and developmental edits 06/30/18
