A/N: Read and review, please? (: 5 reviews and I'll post the next chapter.
He stared off in the distance with an expression of grim determination on his face. "I have some things to do." Leo said into the cell phone. His eyes followed a man who was crossing the street, talking on a cell phone of his own. Leo scowled faintly, but the intent look fit to kill didn't leave his eyes at all.
"Things to do?" Kyle echoed, his voice coated in worry. He didn't like the sounds of this. "What kind of things, Leo?" he wrung his hands as he paced back and forth in his small flat.
"It's personal." Came the gruff reply, the voice low and gravely. Kyle watched the rain poor down through the glass window, "You can't do this, Leo. Not again."
"I have some things to do." Leo repeated before he hung up, leaving Kyle in a black spiral pit of worry. Leo stepped out of his car, letting the rain fall on him. He'd always enjoyed the feel of rain on his skin. There was something so clean and reinvigorating about it nothing else could match in his mind. He'd need the rain tonight. It would be the only thing that could wash him clean after this.
He crossed the street at a light jog, dodging a speeding car with such ease it was odd no one stared at him. But they kept walking, not bothering to pay any attention to him, just as he liked. His eyes were trained on the same man, a few yards again, still on his cell phone. Did he ever take a break? Again, Leo scowled and stuffed his hands into his pockets, his right hand brushing a piece of metal. He sighed, treasuring the cold steal under his hand, tight in his grip.
This man didn't deserve who he had, didn't deserve the kindness and compassion she offered freely to everyone she met, least of all to him. The mere thought of her in this man's site made Leo growl under his breath, an animalistic sound so unnaturally human, that again it was odd no one stared. Yet, likewise, they were all too busy with their own things to give Leo any attention at all.
"Yes. Yes, I know. She's at home. How the hell should I know? Probably cooking that same shit from last week. God, I'm gonna get sick off of her cooking." The man scoffed with a harsh laugh as he turned at a corner. Leo slowed down, glancing around for a moment before he resumed following the man. How could this guy not know he was being followed? Leo knew his surroundings at all times. It was second nature. He knew that this man wasn't like him, but still, Leo'd been following him for a few blocks now and he'd not even giving the slightest hint that he suspected Leo was following him.
Leo grabbed the steal again, pushing back the beast that caused his skin to prickle and his eyes to train on the weakest points of this man. The neck, the stomach… lower areas. He involuntarily licked his lips at the inviting images the beast sent him. A few more blocks and he could deal with him. The way the man talked, he knew nothing of Rose being in the hospital. He didn't know his wife was fighting for her life due to something he'd done to her.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket but Leo ignored it. Kyle would just try and talk him out of it, but that was impossible on so many levels it made Leo give a low, harsh laugh. Nothing would remove him from his task at hand. Instincts urged him to kill this man here and now but the rational part of his brain argued that. He knew that a kill so brazenly out in the open was begging for the Six to come after him with just reason. Touch a woman like this man did and it gave Leo, in his mind, just reason to kill him. He mentally recounted the doctor's report on Rose, trying to keep his mind busy and push away the bloody scene the beast kept showing him; three broken ribs, a busted lip, fractured leg, a concussion and two missing teeth. The beast howled in rage, demanding justice be done as Leo thought of the wounds and bandages he'd seen Rose with as she'd laid in the hospital bed, sleeping. She'd never known he was there, or that he'd read the report that hung on her bed. He wouldn't put her through that, seeing him like he was. He had things to do, things that she'd never approve of. She was too kind and caring for what he had to do.
With a slow smile creasing his features, Leo quickened his pace as they neared the dead end. How stupid was this man? He lived in the middle of nowhere, a place where drug dealers were rampant and screaming people were a normality. No one would bother to call the cops for one more screaming person.
"Andre," Leo said, loud enough to catch the man's attention. He turned around, just as Leo expected him to. Andre squinted his eyes against the rain, trying to see Leo clearly. "What you need?"
"To talk to you," Leo said as he walked closer to the man. The beast was practically searing his skin now, clawing at his insides to be released but Leo kept him back with a bored expression on his face.
"Huh?" Andre raised an eyebrow.
"Your wife, she's in the hospital." Leo said in a calm tone of voice. He wanted to snarl it, pull his lips back and rip the man's throat out with his teeth, but that wasn't called for. Not yet, at least. The look on Andre's face shifted from bored and annoyed to worried. Leo knew it wasn't worry for his wife but worry at the police finding out what he'd done. They wouldn't find out. There'd be nothing to find out when Leo was finished.
"How do you know? Who are you?" Andre placed a hand in his pocket while his eyes continued to get wider.
"You don't want to know what's wrong with her?" Leo asked, forcing the surprised tone into his voice. He wanted to see fear in Andre's eyes before he killed him. True fear would come when he let the beast have its way. Fear would come when Andre found out just who Leo was.
"Y-yeah. What's wrong? Which hospital?" He asked so many questions, so many irrelevant questions Leo wanted to hit him, just for what he was asking. He didn't though, he had more control than that.
"Accident. She hurt herself. She's at the…" Leo trailed off, reluctant to reveal the hospital. He knew it, of course, but he didn't feel like revealing that bit of info to this man.
"What hospital?" Andre prodded, his voice rising an octave. Leo could sense his hand clenching into a fist, the other grasping a small pocket knife. He almost snorted at the audacity the man had. Almost.
"I can't remember." Leo murmured with a sigh, "Sorry." He scratched the back of his head, aware of the rising hand and tense body Andre carried with him now. Leo easily dodged the fist and knife, ducking from the second blow Andre threatened to deliver but never followed through with.
"You think that's going to faze me?" Leo gave a harsh laugh as he simply pushed Andre back with both hands flat against his chest. "It fazed Rose though, didn't it?"
The expression Andre wore was angry, eyes narrowed. "Who the hell are you? You don't know Rose!" He snapped. Leo raised an eyebrow, "I don't? Young girl, eighteen years old, amber colored eyes, five foot four with chestnut colored hair. Tell me I don't know her." Leo growled.
"Who are you?" Three times Andre had asked the question and this time, Leo managed to answer it.
"Your wife's older brother, bro." The look that spread across Andre's face ranged from horror and fright to anger and hostility. It brought a smile to Leo's own face.
The beast had all but torn Leo to shreds now, but he didn't fight it any longer. He let him out. You couldn't keep an animal pinned for too long, not this one anyways. The silver fur that rippled across Leo's skin was like water rushing over a dam that bad been kept back too long. The amber eyes that watched Andre shrink back narrowed as his ears caught the bloody scream that escaped the man's mouth.
"You think hitting a woman is alright?" Leo's voice took on a guttural sound, half normal, half that of an enraged wolf ready to kill. Andre continued to stumble back, his legs unwilling to carry him the ten odd feet to the door of his apartment. "You think my baby sister deserved what happened to her?"
Andre's face crumbled as tears spilled onto the already soaked concrete, "Don't hurt me, God don't hurt me, please." The clawed paw that caught Andre's shoulder gave him a quick answer: No. Without waiting to hear the scream that the man let out, Leo grabbed his throat between his teeth. Andre slapped and writhed in his grasp, letting out what little cry of help he could. You didn't give Rose a chance. Like hell I'd give you one.
The crunch of the wind pipe, snap of bone and gush of blood didn't catch Leo off guard. He'd done this so many times now it hardly fazed him. He watched what was left of Andre's life die out of him before he phased back, satisfied. He turned towards the lighter part of the city, the general direction the hospital which Rose was staying at. Leo had a few other things to tend to before he could be at her side again, one of the top most being the thrashing he would no doubt receive from Kyle. That would happen later though, not in the near future because Leo had no intention of going back to his father any time soon. No. He still had two people to deal with.
