Hey everyone!
This story was originally One life to live, but I didn't really like the way it was headed so I decided to rewrite the whole thing. Hopefully this version comes out a whole lot better and youll all like it! Well tell me what you think, and if youre just gonna flame me, don't bother :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi does. So don't sue! ^_^
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Chapter 1-
"What am I suppose to do now?", I asked him.
There was of course no reply.
"Answer me damnit!!"
The strength left in my body had barely been enough to help me crawl over to his still form. He wouldn't move. A sob escaped my lips and I wiped away the blood and tears mixed together on my cheeks. "I'm so sorry....", I whispered down to him, wincing at the sight of his crippled form. The night had suddenly become cold and silent, and the smell of death had wrapped itself around us.
It wasn't suppose to end like this. None of it was suppose to happen. It just hurt so much to think that this is how it would all end. This was how I would die. It wasn't as though this was the first time I had come across a situation like this.
But...this time, things were diffrent.
In that little moment, I was no longer the tough, hard headed, shallow eighteen year old that walked around the city as if she owned the whole damn place. For once, I was scared. I was lonely. And I was lost. I didn't have anyone. The one person in my life that I trusted more than anyone, was gone.
Forever.
There was really nothing left to do. The only choice left now was death. Calm and peaceful death. Another sob escaped me and I laughed at myself, realizing how new the tears were for me. I wasn't the type of person that cried. For anything. In fact I couldn't even remeber when it had been that I had last cried. Probably because I thought it was pointless. Useless. There's no need for it, if something bad happens you get over it. You don't just sit around crying like a baby and feeling sorry for yourself. And yet, here I was.
'First time for everything, I guess..' I thought to myself bitterly and moved my hand to gently wipe the blood from his face, my other hand still pressed against my side, where the bullet still lay. There was a lot of blood coming from me. From my body. And the pain was almost too much to bare.
I was going to die, of that I was sure. I figured it might be easier to just get it over with.
The wind began howling and hissing its way through the dark abandoned alley, trying to offer some comfort to the dreaded night. I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy that little bit of comfort as it brushed my hair out of my eyes, and his. It was late, I already knew that. Just how late, I didn't have the slightest clue. I had stopped checking the time a long while ago.
Things like that just weren't important anymore. My life was over. It literally no longer had any meaning. Which meant that there was no longer anything or anybody around to keep clawing through life for. No longer any need to try and survive this forbidden hell hole. Ideas began swimming in my head when I reached for the black object by his side.
The gun felt cool under my fingertips, and holding it now, I didn't realize how hard my hand was shaking as I brought the gun up to my temple. I pulled the safety off and let my finger linger over the trigger. So this was it. This was how I would die? I saw it coming, I guess. I knew from the beginning what Id be getting myself into. I knew how dangerous it was. I knew that if I didnt find my own way to get killed, he would just do it himself. Eventually. And me, being the dumbass that I am actually believed I could handle it. Believed I would live. My hand began shaking faster before it realease the gun, letting it fall back onto the cold, black concrete.
I couldn't do it. Why couldn't I do it?
I wasn't afraid of dying, and I knew just how much I deserved to die. I didn't need anyone to explain to me how he should still be alive. To explain to me how long it had taken for him to come to his senses and get away, and how I had brought him back into this godamned mess. My entire body was in pain. The kind of pain that would make you want to kill yourself and get away from it all. Maybe I was just too much of a coward.
Yupp, that was probably it.
I suddenly began remembering home, back when I had such a thing. I remembered how we were all a family. We weren't the perfect family, but we were a family, nonetheless. We had dinner together on good nights and we had bed times and cartoons and all that stuff. That was back when everything was good, and the only thing I had to worry about was my mean ass hell third grade teacher and her stupid ways of giving homework.
We had a cat. A big fat one. I can't remember its name though. Just that it was big and fat and lazy.
I sat there. Thinking of everything that had just happened in the past few hours I realized that all of this could have been avoided. He could have still been alive right now. It had all happened in what seemed like so little time that it was hard to believe that it had all actually happened. That every little incident I had come across that night had been real. It was just too much. It was too hard to believe, to understand. It had happened, and it was real.
But it sure as hell wasnt suppose to end like this. It wasn't suppose to end like this, and yet...here I was. Here he was. Dead.
Fucking dead.
And it was all my fault.
****Flashback****
We had to get out of there. Now. It wouldn't be very long at all before that fucker sent his men after us. If we didn't get out quick, we were dead meat. I had scrambled into the apartment, practically knocking the door down as I began crying out his name.I didn't even know if he was home.
I had really hoped he was, because if he wasn't, it meant they had already killed him, and if he was but didn't answer, it...also meant they had already killed him.
And how lucky I had been that I found him there, and breathing too. The look on his face expressed horror when he saw me burst throught the door. But that was to be expected. Who wouldn't freak after seeing a phsycotic looking girl with a pistol in her palm and blood stains on her clothes? And again, how lucky had I been that most of the blood wasn't even mine?
Yeahh...point for Kagome.
After making sure I was actually alright, after realizing I was pretty much fine, he began his questioning. "What the hell happened?!"
"Are you alight?!? Kagome, answer me?! What happened to you?!!"
Once I had him assured that I was alright, I had told him what was going on. I knew he would be mad. He would be downright fruious when I finally told him what I had been keeping secret for a while now.
Well I told him.
He wasn't mad. He wasn't furious. Those words don't come close to describing how he reacted.
Let me tell you, it wasn't pretty.
But trying to explain the way he looked, how his eyes darkened and his veins seemed to be popping out of his head, all that stuff, well it wouldn't be easy. So I'll just skip the part where he wouldn't stop with his yelling at me and pointing out my stupidity in ways and words that I didn't even know existed. Nor did I really understand, for that matter.
After he ran out of breath, I told him everything he needed to know. Everything that had happened. I told him what to do, and although he didn't want to, he did it anyways.
"This is never going to work.", he said simply. I could tell by his tone that he was ready to give up.
I didn't answer as I hurridley did the same as he was doing. Stuffing as much as I could into my bag, then I ran up to my dresser and pushed it to the side. I lifted a square piece of carpet from the floor and pulled out a rather large brown leather bag, then threw it onto the bed. He eyed the strange thing before a look of realization crossed his face.
I knew he already knew what was inside it. Cash. Lots of it. And it was gonna help us get out of there.
"Please tell me you didn't get this from him", I still said nothing, and went back to packing.
"Damnit, Kagome! Are you fucking crazy?!?! Why is it that you're not smart enough to learn from my goddamned mistakes huh? I told you. I told you not to do this!! I told yo-"
"I know!! I know, okay? It's just that...I couldn't keep living like this, dont you understand?", I looked over at him,wishing that he could look at things the way I was trying to. In a somewhat positive, assured manner.
"I needed the money! We need this money! It- it helped me get you out of prison and now its going to help the both of us get out of here!! Don't you see? Now we can finally live a normal life. We'll move somewhere far away where he'll never find us! Okay? Somewhere safe where-" He grabbed me by the wrists tightly, a stern look on his face and it was hard for me to look him in the eyes when he was like this.
It always had been.
"Don't you ever say that. He is going to find us, Kagome. God, dont you get it? We're fucking dead, Kagome.", he said, releasing my wrists and, like in every bad situation we'd ever been in, he began pacing.
After I finally managed to calm him down, I took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
"Hey, hey look at me", I said when he averted his eyes."Listen. We are going to be ok. Arlight? We're finally together and now we have a chance to get away. I've got more than enough money to get us both out of this damn city, and once were out we wont let him find us. Okay? Isn't this what you've always wanted? To be free of all this? Well this is our only chance! You know a lot more about this stuff than I do, So I need you to help me get through this. Please. I need you. And I know that you need me."
His faced still held that stern look, but he seemed to be a bit more relaxed. He sighed heavily before looking down at me.
"Okay.", he murmered. It seemed as though his instincts had suddenly kicked in. Yeahh, he knew exactly what to do. I was good, but I would never be as good as he was. He grabbed me by the shoulders and gave orders.
"Now I need you to do exactly as I say, alright?", I nodded. "Grab all the money youve got and put it in a seperate bag. Then I need you to..."
I listened as carefully as I could. After telling me everything I had to do, he ran over to the bed and grabbed all our things before heading out the door. "Oh and Kagome?", I looked back at him.
"Were gonna need another car.", he said, and smirked. I smiled. "Im already on it.", I replied, then walked over to the bedroom window and slid it open.
'This is going to work', I thought as I climbed down the fire escape.
"This is never going to work.", he had said only moments ago.
He was wrong.
We had to get away. We were going to. And yet, there was still something in my gut that told me that that was all a lie. But I couldn't just give up now. I had come so far along in the last three years. All the shit that I had done, all the hard work...it was going to pay off now. Because I had the most important person in my life with me. After three long, dreadful years of working for him, and I finally had my family back. Well at least, what was left of it. Which really wasn't much at all.
Still, I had to keep telling myself that we would get out of this. That we would both be okay in the end. That maybe, after this night, we could both finally be happy.
****End Of Flashback****
I looked up and noticed the dark clouds that were starting to form over the sky. I could hear the low rumbling of thunder and sighed when I felt the rain drops on my face, mixing together with the tears that just wouldnt stop. Okay, so here I was. Alone in an empty alley in the middle of the night. My forehead was dripping blood and I remembered that they had thrown me pretty hard. I was in so much pain. And it just wouldn't stop.
I was helpless.
I laughed. "Idiot.", I whispered. "You've got to stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself. It's pointless. And you sound so stupid..." And I was talking to myself.
Great.
I must have moved the wrong way when I tried to get closer. I cried in pain, and pressed my palm tighter against the bullet wound in my side, which seemed to have gushed out even more blood than it had before. The gashes in my stomach looked disgusting. The wounds were covered in blood and dirt. Probably from my long journey of crawling I had done earlier. My head began pounding again, and my vision began to blur.
Again I cried out in pain, then fell over onto his side, barely conscious and angry that it had taken me this long to die, and I still wasn't even all the way dead.
I could hear the faint wailing of sirens before everything went black.
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What are those things called? You know those little rooms you see on TV that police and detective people use when they're questioning a suspect? It has a ginormous window type thing on the side that lets you see into the room, and if youre inside of it all you see is your reflection. Ever seen one of those? Like on TV or something? Well I was sitting in one. Not fun.
Nope.
"Well Ms. Higurashi, I believe we've come to a decision.", the man said as he walked in, closing the door behind him. He was some kind of FBI agent or something.
He had a badge. Maybe he was a sherriff. I don't know.
I looked up from my nails over to him, a lazy look on my face. I was just waiting for it to be over. It had been more than fourteen weeks since that incident, and I had spent those long fourteen weeks in the hospital and in therapy. So it's not as though the police really ever had a chance to question me and all that junk until now.
Those fuckers really had messed me up bad.
When the police finally got there that night, I was barely alive, which really surprised me. It makes me wonder whether or not they had really wanted me dead, or if they were just trying to "punish" me for what I did.
I had a broken leg, and three cracked ribs. I had still had the bullet in my side from earlier that night, which surprisingly hadn't hit anything important. It was by far the worst experience of my life.
But none of it even came close to the pain I felt on the inside.
The pain and sorrow and guilt that would just...never go away.
I had gotten so many blows to the head it was a real shock to everyone at the hospital that I wasn't as fucked up in the brain as I should have been. And as soon as I could walk on my own, and handle myself completly, I was taken out of the hospital and brought to where I was now.
I'm sure the cops were so ready to get rid of me. Today wasn't exactly my first encounter with any of them. But apparently they had no idea what they were going to do with me now.
They weren't exactly sure whether or not they should lock me up. I had told them that any damage I had done that night was entirely self defense, and I guess that really wasn't a lie. Of course they had no chioce to believe me considering the condition I had been in when they found me there, lying unconscious on top of a dead, bloody corpse.
The cops had been after "them" for a while now. Them being the son of a bitches that had caused me all this pain. And of course when the police got there that night, they were no where to be found. Before I was brought into this room, I had heard some investigator people saying that it would be too dangerous to continue the investigation without some better leads as to where they were now. They had also said it would be too dangerous to even continue the investigation with me still around.
Maybe they'd throw me in jail.
"..Kagome? Kagome are you listening to me?", I looked up at the guy, annoyed. "What?", he sighed and sat down in the chair across from me, on the other side of the metal table. "I said we've come to a decision.''
Well I had heard that part.
"I don't think I need to explain to you that this guy's dangerous. You should know better than anyone about what he's capable of and looking back at all that's happpend I'm sure you feel a lot of anger towards this man." I looked over at my reflection in the glass/window thingy and shrugged. "I don't feel anything.", I mumbled.
That wasn't true. I didn't feel anger towards Naraku, the biggest and most dangerous man in the entire state. I actually didn't think there were words to describe my feelings towards him. Or how much I wanted to make him suffer. Make him suffer like he had made us suffer. Make him feel pain, lots of it, and then kill him.
Slowly, painfully. To torture him little by little until every last breath in his body was gone.
What I really wanted was revenge.
Of course my therapist was convinced that I was finally past that stage, but I don't think that that's humanly possible. I don't think its possible to not want the kind of justice you feel you deserve. And I felt that I deserved to see him die.
"Well we feel that the kind of life you live here, it isn't safe. Not for you or your family.", I glared at him. "Well I'm still alive aren't I? That should prove that I can take care of myself just fine. I don't need anyone." Crossing my arms, I looked at him straight in the eye and he sighed.
"Well I understand why you feel that way. But this is the closest we've ever gotten to catching that scumbag and if we were to let you go you'd only be getting in the way. Not to mention that you'd be putting yourself at an even higher risk of getting killed. That being said, we've decided that we're going to-"
"-Throw me in prison?", I asked, finishing for him. He looked at me, then pulled out some papers. "Actually, we're sending you away.", he replied.
I blinked.
"Woah, wait a second. What?"
"Well since pretty much all of your family here is gone, and your home is now-"
"What's your fucking point?", I asked, my temper rising at his words. "Well, the only family you have left is in California. You have an aunt there and she has agreed to take you in." I blinked rapidly, trying to get his words straight in my head.
Was this guy mother fucking insane???
"Are you insane?!?!?!", I yelled as I jumped up from my chair, my finger nails digging into the table. "Now Kagome, calm down. Have a seat-"
"No I will not calm down! Why the fuck can't I stay here?? My friends are here, my entire life revolves around this place! I'm not afraid of him or anyone else!"
He tried his best to get me to sit back down. "I understand that, Kagome but it's just too-"
"Too what? Dangerous? Well I've been living like this practically my whole life, and I've handled it every step of the way. You've got to be fucken crazy if you think I'm gonna let you send me off to some dumbshit family that I've never even met just so you can try and solve a case that you've been working on for thirteen years?!?! Well you can just go ahead and shove that idea up your-"
"That's enough!!", he yelled.
His reaction startled me a bit. He wasn't finished. "Your aunt is a single mother raising two kids all on her own. This woman can barely afford to pay her bills and she is still willing to take in her sister's daughter. The former drug addict that prefers to waste her life getting drunk and sleeping around like a little whore!"
Ouch.
It's not like it was anything that I hadn't already heard before, but it still stung a little. After all this time, things like that still hurt. The sherriff seemed to be calming down a bit. "I-Im sorry, Kagome. I didn't mean to-"
"Yeah, ya did.", I whispered, looking back over to the reflection in the glass.
The bruises on my face were almost gone. And the rest of my body was almost completly healed. But to me, the scars were still there. They were the ones that would never heal, no matter how much I wished they would. And that night...it seemed to replay itself in my head whenever it could. It was a nightmare I could never forget.
A nightmare that was permanetly scarred on every inch of my body, whether the scars were visible or not. And sometimes it still felt as though it was to much too comprehend, too much to bare. At times it was, back when I was in the hospital. At times I went a little crazy. At times I had a breakdown or two. At times I threw things, hit stuff...and people. Mainly nurses...
And at times, I had no idea how to deal with it at all. Beacuse no matter what I did, the scars were still there.
They would always be there. As a reminder of some sort.
"When do I leave?", I asked, still starring at my reflection.
"Tomorrow morning.", he answered, sliding over the papers in front of him. "Your plane leaves at eight. It's a seven hour flight to California. And you'll have to take cab to get to you're aunt's. I'll have an officer drive you to the airport.", he said, then got up and walked over to me, setting a packet of papers in front of me. "Make sure you fill these out before then." I looked at them, not in the least bit interested in what they were.
"These are just some custody papers that both you and your aunt need to sign. There's also a few medical forms that need to be taken care of."
I was eighteen years old. I had spent my last birthday in the hospital, surrounded by....well, no one. I did have friends here in the city. But I'm sure that if they feared for their lives then they would think twice about trying to get in touch with me again. After everything that had happened, they knew how dangerous it would be. Whether or not Naraku knew I was still alive, I didn't know.
So if it meant anyone else would lose their lives under his hand, I'd rather not see any of them ever again.
But, like I said, I was now eighteen years old. Which meant I was now considered an adult. So I didn't need a legal guardian or someone to take care of me. But according to the hospital, I was still very unstable and unable to take care of myself. I was a melt down waiting to happen.
A ticking bomb.
'Who knows what she'll do if she's left alone. She's a disaster waiting to happen.'
'If you ask me, she'd be better off dead. Just look at all the problems she's caused in this city alone. I almost feel sorry for the family that has to take her in!'
'The girl has no self control. I'll bet she's capable of taking her own life if she ever gets the chance.'
One of the reasons I hated some of my nurses. Not all, but some. They were shit talkers, and I could tell that most of them were scared of me.
I remember, during one of my little fits, I hit one in the face with one of my cruches. I didn't care though. She was never nice to me either.
The sherriff looked down at me, then pulled out a card from his front pocket and handed it to me."If you need anything, don't hesitate in calling."
I looked at the card now in my hand, but still said nothing. "We will find him.", he squeezed my shoulder lightly. He said it with confidence, but I knew it would never happen.
"Stay safe, Kagome", he told me, then began walking towards the door. It was funny how he actually believed that they could catch him.
It was funny.
Well, to me.
"Oh and Kagome?", I looked over at him, but said nothing.
"I-It wasn't your fault. You know that right?" Still, I said nothing. And neither did he as he walked out of the room.
I looked back at my reflection.
The scars seemed more noticble now.
xXxXx
Okay so..there it is...my first chapter. Hopefully it wasn't too bad. I'm not very good with the whole depressing stuff. But let me know what ya think ?
-Thanks :)