Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

After I'd grabbed all the belongings I could take with me, Deidara burned down my house. All my belongings were gone along with most of the memories I had of my parents. It was sad to think that the village would assume I died in the fire. No one would come to save me.

There was no point in trying to run away because Deidara would stop me, or his red haired comrade. I was stuck in a bad situation that may or may not be the death of me.

Honestly, I had only heard a few things about Akatsuki and none of them were good. Being only a medic I had no need to know of trivial things such as Akatsuki, so far they hadn't been a threat to my village.

What I did know was that they were ruthless; if I wasn't what they wanted me to be, an adequate medic, would they kill me?

My legs were sore and I was tired from all the traveling; apparently wherever they were taking me wasn't very close to Iwagakure, and I wasn't used to traveling such far distances.

I was slightly irritated because Deidara and his comrade were ahead of me talking to one another, while I was in the back being ignored. Deidara knew me prior to my capture; the least he could do was acknowledge me.

I suppose it was stupid to be upset about that. I didn't really want to talk to Deidara anyway; I just wanted to know he cared. I was angrier at myself that after all this time I still had feelings for him. All it took was less than a day with Deidara back in my life to undo all the progress I had made once he'd left.

"We're stopping, yeah." Deidara said suddenly as he and the red-head dropped down to the forest floor and I gratefully followed.

The redhead was already sitting against a tree working with weapons. I saw a large puppet lying beside him. You don't really come across puppeteers in Iwagakure; I had never seen a ninja puppet up close. The puppet wasn't a human form, it seemed like an animal.

"What is that?" I asked quietly. He seemed a little taken aback that I was even talking to him. He continued with the weapon that would attach to the puppet and then he stood the puppet up using chakra strings. The puppet was much larger than I expected and very intimidating. It had a bandana like cloth covering its mouth and a shell on his back resembling a mask.

"This is Hiruko, he's meant to be an offensive and defensive puppet." He said simply.

I didn't want to see the puppet anymore. I wanted him to put it away and I could pretend like I'd never seen it.

"Sasori no Danna uses Hiruko as armor and travels in him, yeah. I'd be careful though, all of his puppets are made from humans." His chuckling was making me angry. Humans? Yeah right.

"Yes, Hiruko was once a renowned shinobi, but after he died I took his body and turned it into a puppet I could manipulate." Sasori was still fiddling with Hiruko. I could feel myself getting uneasy. This wasn't a joke; it was true. These people were as disgusting as the stories told about them.

I sat a bit away from both Deidara and Sasori I was feeling a little emotionally overwhelmed. My demeanor may have been calm on the outside, but on the inside I was freaking out. Sasori was disturbed and Deidara was clearly crazier than when we were younger.

I didn't want to be a part of Akatsuki and I didn't want to help them. If I ran maybe then I might get away, although that was a longshot. However, if I ran maybe they'd kill me; maybe death was the answer to all my problems.

Sasori and Deidara were still talking amongst themselves when I saw the sun rising. We'd been traveling all night and I didn't think I could keep my eyes open much longer. Was it safe for me to sleep? I guess that question didn't matter because within moments I'd drifted away.

My lungs were burning; running wasn't my forte. I'd taken off in the middle of the night during Deidara's watch because he'd seemed to have fallen asleep.

I was so happy that the burning sensation wasn't bothering me; I was free. I could go back home to my normal life.

I was almost to the entrance of the village; I only had about a mile to go. I wasn't even worried about the fact that I'd traveled so far without going noticed by Deidara or his partner.

The gate was closed and when I got to the entrance I banged on it as hard as I could. Someone had to hear me, I needed to be home.

I heard a loud, booming sound nearby and a flash of light filled my vision. I knew it was Deidara. My heart was sinking and breathing seemed impossible. I began screaming frantically while banging on the door praying someone would come.

Where were the lookouts who watched the gate at all times? Tears were streaming down my face. I heard more explosions coming closer to me. I was dead. Deidara was going to kill me and laugh in my face while doing it.

But Deidara didn't get to me first. Sasori must have noticed I was gone before Deidara. He was beside me in an instant, smiling manically at me. I had given up on calling for someone to open the gate. No one was going to save me.

I sunk against the wall. Sasori was twiddling a kunai in his fingers nonchalantly as if he was happy that he would get to kill me for trying to escape. I was so upset that fear wasn't even an emotion that I was feeling. My village had abandoned me. I knew they'd heard my cries; they didn't want me and didn't see the need to help me.

"You're not very bright, are you?" He asked as he flung the kunai at my head.

I woke up screaming. I had fallen in my sleep from my position against the tree and was lying with my face in the grass; tears were running down my face. I tried to tell myself it was just a dream but it felt so real.

"Akari, shut up, yeah." Deidara said pulling me up and covering my mouth. I looked over his shoulder to see Sasori glaring daggers at me.

My breathing was labored. I wasn't sure who I was more afraid of, Deidara or Sasori. I couldn't trust them; neither cared about me and wouldn't hesitate to kill me. My hands began pushing Deidara away, as I began screaming but he held me closer, the anger in his eyes shining through.

"I'll kill you if you don't shut up." Sasori said his eyes displaying how serious he was.

My heart stop, my voice stopped, and my body stilled. Deidara made no attempt to console me or say that he wouldn't let Sasori kill me.

"Are you trying to get people to find you, yeah?" He asked angrily.

I was still shaken up by my dream, but not so much by the fact that Deidara and Sasori could kill me so easily, but by the fact that it had almost been two days since I was taken from the village and no one had come looking for me.

So what if Deidara burned down my house? How could they just assume I died in the fire? I was classified as a regular civilian but that didn't mean that I wouldn't realize my house was burning down, I had some ninja training.

Then I realized that the person I was most upset with was myself. I wasn't strong enough to save myself; I was never strong enough to do anything. In a world with so many powerful shinobi I was but a mere ant.

"I'm sorry." I said quietly looking away from Deidara's gaze.

After my freak out we went back to traveling. I'd probably only gotten about three hours of sleep, but that didn't seem to concern Sasori or Deidara.

I was sure I wasn't cut out to help Akatsuki. I could hardly keep up with their members while traveling so how was i ever going to be of use?

After another four hours of traveling I was practically in tears. I was so exhausted I thought I would collapse at any moment. We were so far from Iwagakure that I couldn't even try to escape because I had no idea where we were and how to get back to my village.

Before nightfall we stopped at a fairly decent inn. They paid for two separate rooms. They were across the hall from one another but I ended up in the room with Deidara.

As soon as he opened the door I walked over to one of the beds and crawled under the sheets. Everything hurt, I was tired and hungry but the latter I didn't care about. I didn't care if I starved or died of thirst; I just wanted to sleep.

"Akari, yeah?" Deidara asked as he came over to me shaking my shoulder lightly.

"Please leave me alone." In that moment I had never hated anyone as much as I hated him.

"You need to eat, yeah. Are you thirsty?"

I sat up in the bed taking the water canteen from Deidara and drank as much as I could. Deidara had a granola bar in his weapons pouch that he handed to me. Eating it was awful; I was too tired to even want to chew.

"Deidara, please take me back." I said swallowing the last bit of food.

"You should be lucky that Danna didn't kill you when you woke up screaming, yeah."

"I'm scared Deidara." I said putting my knees to my chest and hugging myself.

"You should be, yeah." He said quietly as he ate some of the food he had left.

If Deidara cared about me at all he wouldn't have brought me into this mess. I was so angry at him it was making me sick. He chose to leave the village and I respected his wishes, I never tried to stop him, but here he was forcing me into this hell.

I woke up past noon; I was pretty sure I'd slept for a good eleven hours. My body felt so much better; I'd woken up somewhat happy until I remembered where I was.

But my captor was nowhere in sight. I was certain he hadn't left me here, but I was wrong. I found a note on the nightstand explaining he and Sasori had a mission and would be back once they were finished.

A/N: Well I hope you guys enjoyed that chapter! I should have another one up soon!