So now that I finally have a working computer, survived the start of the New Year, all that... guess what I forgot I hadn't finished!
Yeah, I have no excuse. I have these written. It's just an extra hour or two of editing, honestly. Well, if anyone is still reading new, shiny version, let me finish this up for you!
Occasionally Q-class was broken up into two or three groups and assigned to different cases. Hongou-sensei was adamant that they needed to be able to complete cases independently, and this was their first step towards that. Usually these cases were smaller, less involved, and more easily resolved. At least that was true for the ones Kyu had been assigned to. He had noticed that Ryu was often the odd one out when they divided into three groups, and that Ryu never seemed to want to give up details of what he had been doing. Kyu had jealously suspected that their teachers allowed Ryu out alone on harder cases for some reason. Now, however, he had a different theory.
Kyu always tried to guess what the other assignments were. Megu and Kazuma had been the first to leave with someone who Kyu was fairly sure was actually Nanami-sensei, (though it was sometimes hard to tell). That would be something detail-oriented, Kyu speculated. Maybe they would be investigating some strange details at a scene that might or might not have been someone's dying message.
Hongou-sensei had taken charge of him and Kinta to deal with what some people were calling a 'haunting' and others seemed convinced was a common peeping tom. The only thing they knew about Ryu's case was that Tanaka-sensei was taking charge of him.
Vampires, Kyu decided quickly. This had to be something to do with vampires, and this time there was no reason why Ryu should have to go alone.
"Hey, am I supposed to pretend I don't know about you?" Kyu whispered in Ryu's ear while he thought Tanaka-sensei and Hongou-sensei were busy discussing logistics. Tanaka-sensei immediately looked around at the two of them, and Kyu froze guiltily. He couldn't have heard that, could he?
"I don't think that would work now," Ryu answered, confirming Kyu's suspicion that he'd been caught out.
Tanaka-sensei finished what he had been saying in a few curt words and approached the two of them. His expression was noncommittal, but Kyu was extremely aware of being scrutinized.
"Amakusa-kun?" he addressed Ryu, his voice as mild as his expression.
Kyu found Ryu's hand and squeezed it under the desk, trying to apologize and offer support all at once.
"He asked," was the only defense Ryu gave at first. It took a few seconds of Tanaka-sensei staring him down before Ryu added, "We trust each other."
Tanaka-sensei frowned at Kyu, giving him the impression that he was being inspected for some vital quality and coming up short. He felt Ryu squeeze his hand back, and somehow that made him feel more confident.
"Hongou-kun, would you object to my borrowing a fresh pair of eyes?" Tanaka-sensei finally asked, much to Kyu's surprise.
Kyu anticipated what Hongou-sensei was going to object to. He would accuse Kyu of shirking his duty by abandoning the case, but each time he was assigned to any sort of 'stalker' case with Kinta, it seemed to quickly culminate in Kinta leaving him behind and chasing the suspect down.
"You know Kinta can handle this easily. He doesn't need me to solve a case like that," Kyu pointed out, interrupting his teacher even though he should have known better by now.
Hongou-sensei might still have forbidden it, but for Kinta leaning over and hissing right in Kyu's ear, "Hey! You're not leaving me alone with-"
"Tooyama-kun," Hongou-sensei interrupted, his irritation transferring seamlessly from Kyu to Kinta. "Did you have something to say?"
"No, nothing!" Kinta lied quickly, "I was just wishing Kyu good luck."
Kyu tried not to wince at Hongou-sensei's expression. He didn't know why Hongou-sensei always seemed to single out Kinta to find fault with, but lying to him certainly wasn't going to help things. Kinta had already been complaining about their sensei running him ragged, and Kyu doubted he was about to lighten up today. Kyu actually felt a little bad leaving Kinta alone with him.
Of course Kinta wouldn't be allowed along if he hadn't been debriefed about the vampire situation. Kyu would need to bring up later how Ryu would feel about the rest of their classmates knowing. It was his secret to share or to keep, especially since he wasn't dangerous, but Kyu would have preferred not to have a big secret in the middle of their close-knit group. They might even be able to help Ryu.
"Hongou-kun?" Tanaka-sensei asked again, politely bringing Hongou-sensei's attention back to his original request.
Hongou-sensei studied them for a second, and Kyu belatedly realized that from where he was standing he would be able to see their hands clasped together under the desk.
"It would seem Kyu-kun is already involved in your case. You might as well take him along."
Kyu knew Kinta was going to grill both of them after this was over, and he'd have to be very careful not to breathe a word of Ryu's secret, but it was all worth it. For once, he was going to be working together with Ryu instead of watching his friend go off alone.
The victim was another young man, his body in worse shape than the first one Kyu had seen. He had also been blindfolded, this time with a sleeve ripped from his shirt. His other sleeve served as a gag, and the rest of his shirt was wadded up in the corner of the room. Nothing remained to hide the mosaic of bruises and bite marks scattered across his torso.
Kyu didn't even look to Tanaka-sensei for permission, simply knelt to inspect the marks scattered across the man's arms and chest. Each bite was a pair of puncture wounds, but not the clean, round holes that Kyu faintly remembered seeing in horror movies. Each puncture was a neat curve on one side, a jagged mess on the other. Between each pair were faint marks, which Kyu took to mean that the bites had been deep enough that the teeth in between the two fangs had also marred the skin. Kyu couldn't help thinking of the look he'd had at Ryu's teeth. The bite marks seemed a perfect match for what he now knew about vampire fangs.
The bites were scattered in strange places; on the man's palms, the insides of his elbows, the underside of one arm, directly beside his navel, and above his right nipple. Only one mark seemed to scream 'vampire,' the wound on the victim's neck. His head had been wrenched to one side, apparently to allow better access, which prominently displayed what Kyu took for the final, killing bite.
Why so many extra bites? The signs of bleeding from each made Kyu sure they had been made while the man was still alive. Surely there was no need to bite his arms and chest before going after the vulnerable vein in his neck and draining him dry, and wounding him over and over must have been what necessitated the gag. The thought of torture made Kyu feel sick inside, as if simply killing him hadn't been enough.
Ryu's hands descended firmly to Kyu's shoulders, drawing him out of his thoughts for just an instant. Kyu reached up and gripped Ryu's hand in acknowledgment. He didn't need to see Ryu's face to know that their feelings were the same, that Ryu found this wrong in the same way that he did. Having Ryu beside him served as a reminder of how real the 'vampire' aspect of this case was, which somehow made it easier for Kyu to investigate the scene with a level head.
"How do you think he was restrained?" Kyu asked, mostly to break the silence. The livid bruises on the victim's wrists suggested some form of restraint, yet Kyu couldn't see any signs of rope burn or marks from the edges of metal restraints.
"Probably with bare hands."
Kyu jerked himself around to look up at Ryu's face, surprised to hear him say it so blandly. He had gotten some hint of Ryu's strength, and so he thought he'd had an idea of a vampire's strength compared to a human's, but seeing it like this was entirely different.
When Ryu wouldn't look down at him, Kyu followed his gaze. His eyes fell on the wall across from the body, and he studied the message on it for the first time. 'Come home,' once again in garish red. Was it once again aimed at Ryu? He had gotten the idea that something had arrested Ryu's attention while he was examining the bite marks, and now he knew what it was.
"Paint again?" he asked faintly. That was the only way Kyu knew to deal with something that threw him off balance, to dig himself deeper and deeper into a case until he found answers. Even now he couldn't help grasping at this or that aspect of the scene, searching for something he understood, somewhere to stand while unraveling the rest of the unfamiliar facts around him.
"They wouldn't waste the blood."
That made sense, but it also opened up another question. The first scene had been so clean it had looked nearly sterile, particularly the floor beneath their victim. This time there were small splatters of blood decorating the floor and walls, painting out the struggle that had taken place here. Stranger still, there was a pool of dried blood where the body lay, as if his back had also been bitten over and over, and his blood smeared across the floor.
"Then what about the blood on the floor?" Kyu pointed to the smears the disappeared under the body. "He must have been bleeding from his back, too."
Ryu eyed the marks, but didn't speculate on them. He drew Kyu back with him, standing to one side so that final measurements and photos could be taken before the body was disturbed. Kyu watched Ryu's face, confused that he didn't seem to agree. The random scattering of bites on the skin they could see made it quite plausible that there were still more scattered in places that they couldn't see yet.
It wasn't until they moved the body that Kyu found out that there was more than mere bites there. The victim's back had been torn open, strips of skin and flesh trailing around the edges of the gaping wound, his broken spine jutting out unnaturally the moment the body was moved, and. . .
Not until Ryu caught him did Kyu realize that the sight had made him unsteady on his feet. He couldn't tear his eyes away, feeling lightheaded and sick and unable to stop his racing mind from piecing together an all too convincing explanation for the gaping hole, and for the protruding edges of ribs snapped and torn out of the way.
Ryu practically lifted Kyu off of his feet and hauled him out of the room, and Kyu found himself quite grateful for Ryu's strength, because he wasn't sure he could have taken a step on his own. He allowed himself to be propped up, sandwiched between the wall and Ryu's solid, steady chest, and was suddenly strangely aware of the tiny height advantage Ryu had over him. Ryu seemed to block out the whole world when he wrapped himself around Kyu, so that Kyu felt as if he was being shielded.
"They ate him," Kyu managed to say.
He knew Ryu knew, and his voice was so faint he wasn't even sure Ryu heard him anyway. He didn't know which was worse, the thought of someone carving out that unnamed man's insides and devouring them, or that the victim had then been neatly arranged to hide the fact. As if he had only been tortured and murdered, Kyu reminded himself, which did nothing to dispel the feeling of horror.
"He didn't feel it," Ryu reassured him. It was the only thing he could have said that was both true and comforting. Ryu whispered the words again into Kyu's ear, one hand cupping the back of his head and shifting him forward until his forehead rested against the steady shoulder in front of him.
"I know."
Mercifully, Kyu found that Ryu was right. His mind was working again, noting that the man's back must have been opened up some time after his death, judging from how little blood had seeped out of such a huge wound. Trying to piece together the order of events left less room in his mind for horror, and knowing made things somehow less terrifying, if no less terrible.
"This wasn't random, not just because of the message on the wall. There's some other message we're supposed to get from the body." Kyu spoke into Ryu's shoulder, not completely sure Ryu could even hear his muffled voice. He didn't want to move away just yet. As long as he was this close he had Ryu's clean, comforting scent to overpower the faint smell of blood still lingering in the air.
"Did you know, a vampire's bite is actually very distinctive. Not just the size and shape of the wounds their teeth make, but how deeply and where they chose to bite."
"So it's a murder weapon and a M.O. all in one," Kyu finished Ryu's thought. "They're announcing their identity." The first victim had been cut open, not bitten. A method like that didn't even necessarily announce that they had been after their victim's blood specifically.
"I wonder. The bite pattern and the marks don't quite match up." Ryu laid his head against Kyu's and Kyu wrapped his arm around Ryu's neck in response. "I've seen that pattern before, but the bites themselves. . . You got a good look at them, right? Those marks from the other teeth mean the vampire doing the biting has somewhat shorter fangs. The one vampire I know who favors that specific bite pattern doesn't have that trait."
Kyu lifted his head to stare at Ryu. He was quite sure that Ryu had been in on these investigations before, but Ryu had said 'the vampire I know,' instead of something impersonal like 'judging by the marks I've seen on other bodies.' Ryu was all but admitting that he knew that vampire on a level other than as a detective chasing a murderer.
"Imagine you find a body cut up in the same pattern favored by a known serial killer, yet you find that the wounds themselves don't match to the same weapon used on other victims."
"A copycat," Kyu responded, almost instinctively. "But that doesn't make sense. Why would one vampire try to frame another vampire? If they didn't want to announce who they are, why not just use a knife or something?"
Kyu stopped to think for a minute, considering Ryu's example in his head. He had almost completely overcome his earlier weakness now that he was focused again, but he continued to lean thoughtlessly against Ryu.
"You know, there's one big difference between a knife wound and a bite mark. What if one vampire sent another to deliver the message? In your example, they could have the same kind of knife, as well as mimic the cut pattern, but these aren't the same as knife wounds. You can't borrow another person's teeth. And you said there's only one vampire you know who bites in such a distinctive pattern."
Ryu's eyes closed and he took a deep breath, hugging Kyu more firmly against him. "That makes sense," he agreed.
"And you know who the message is from just by looking at the pattern, don't you?"
Ryu nodded, and his grip tightened still more. If he squeezed Kyu any harder it was going to become painful.
"He's my uncle."
"Oh."
Kyu felt faint again, and his stomach flipped over. He didn't even know how this must feel for Ryu, who had chosen not to hurt people out of empathy, to see this message from a member of his own family. Instead of letting himself dwell on that, Kyu tried to think about the case, to work out which details were part of the message and which might be unintentional clues they could use.
"Why were they blindfolded?" Kyu wondered out loud. Both of the bodies he had seen had been blindfolded, though Kyu couldn't think of any reason for that. "The first time, it looked like they put the blindfold on him at the very end. There was some blood on it, but there wasn't as much soaked in as there should have been if it was there when they slit his throat."
The second time, Kyu wasn't sure. The gag had most likely been in place the entire time, since it would have been necessary if the victim was awake and aware enough to struggle as much as the far-flung splatters of blood suggested. Considering that his shirt was wadded up in one corner of the room and hadn't been stained with spots of blood the way the floor around the body had, Kyu would bet the blindfold fashioned from the other shirt sleeve had been placed there at the beginning, when it was convenient. Kyu felt another surge of empathy for the unnamed man. He wouldn't have even been able to see where the next blow would fall.
"But why?" If it wasn't necessary, and it was some other part of the message, what did it mean? "Covering the eyes like that. . ."
Kyu looked into Ryu's eyes, thinking, and knew from the expression in them that Ryu wasn't sure he wanted to know, even as he couldn't keep himself from chasing the truth along with Kyu. So expressive, Kyu found himself thinking. Even though Ryu often covered up or subverted his emotions, his eyes still said so much.
The cloth was more than a blindfold, it was a mask. "They're hiding his identity," Kyu mused, before correcting himself, "No, not trying to hide his identity, just cover it up. Like. . . saying it doesn't matter. It could be anyone." Kyu felt cold as he said it, but he was sure he was right.
Kyu saw an expression of relief flash across Ryu's face, followed by something almost like triumph. He wondered if Ryu had already worked that out, and had just been waiting for him to confirm it.
Ryu nodded slowly, relaxing his grip on Kyu with apparent reluctance. "I think you're right. I should tell Tanaka-sensei."
Kyu pushed himself away from the wall, intending to go too, only to have Ryu push him back.
"You stay here for a little while. Just sit down for a few minutes."
"Ryu, I came here to help. I'm not going to let you chase me away now." Kyu grabbed onto Ryu's shoulders stubbornly, determined not to be left outside the crime scene again.
"You already have helped. You can see this from a different angle than I can," Ryu assured him, gently but inexorably prying Kyu's hands off of his shoulders. There was an extra quality in his voice that Kyu could detect as Ryu's particular, irresistible brand of coaxing, but couldn't he seem to do anything about it. The sound seemed to trickle past his consciousness and reason, whispering wordless reassurances and begging Kyu to step back and let himself be looked after.
Without meaning to, Kyu slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He lifted his chin defiantly and glared at Ryu. "You're doing it again."
"I'm sorry." Ryu reached down and ruffled Kyu's hair, and Kyu was only a tiny bit gratified to note that the hypnotic quality had mostly left his voice. "I promise I won't leave you out of this. I just don't want you to be overwhelmed. It really shook you, what you saw before."
"I don't know why. You'd already told me all about it. I can't say I was shocked or anything, especially after this many cases." But the thought of their victim being torn open after death, his organs and flesh and Kyu wasn't even completely sure what removed and devoured, his abused body rearranged almost artistically. . . all of it still made Kyu feel cold and sick inside. "It's better if I can do something," he insisted.
"I know." Ryu knelt in front of him, his eyes so intense that Kyu wondered faintly if he was being hypnotized again. "I'll come right back, and I'll bring you any extra details they've found, and we'll keep talking until you've figured out even more. I promise. It's just that someone needs to tell Tanaka-sensei what you've thought of so far, and I don't want you to see that again. Not yet."
"I love you," Kyu replied, managing a weak smile. He was only half joking. The offer to bring him more evidence instead of expecting him to sit quietly was unbelievably touching.
Ryu flushed, standing quickly and looking away from Kyu. "I'll be right back," he promised.
Kyu let his head fall back against the wall as Ryu went back inside. He thought he was steady enough that he could go back in now, but hypnotism aside he didn't want Ryu worrying at him and watching him like he was about to faint. He trusted that Ryu would come back soon, and they would talk more until Ryu was sure that Kyu could come back in and study the scene with him properly. And together they would find some answers that would help them put a stop to this.
"Are you hurt?"
Kyu looked up to find a man in a police uniform standing over him, faintly startled because he hadn't heard anyone approaching. He couldn't place the man's cragged, pockmarked face, but he had seen quite a few police officers on the way in and he didn't have a photographic memory like Megu. The man's expression was cold and faintly distasteful as he eyed Kyu, so that Kyu's first thought was that he probably didn't like the idea of letting teenagers into a crime scene.
"I'm fine. They just asked me to wait outside for a few minutes."
"You shouldn't be sitting out here on the floor." The man bent enough to grasp Kyu's upper arm and hauled him to his feet before he could protest. Kyu winced at the hard grip, taken by surprise by the rough treatment.
"I'm here from DDS," Kyu explained. "If I'm in the way out here, I'll just go back inside."
"If you want to sit down there's a bench this way," the man told him, ignoring Kyu's attempts to reach his notebook and prove who he was. Either he already knew Kyu was from DDS or he didn't care.
"No, my friend's coming right back," Kyu tried to protest again, even as he found himself pulled along down the hall. He couldn't break the grip on his arm, and found that he had to stumble along beside the man if he didn't want to fall on his face.
"I'll tell him where you went. He's that other boy from DDS, right?"
Kyu watched the man's profile, getting the feeling that there was something wrong here. The grip on his arm was too hard for mere assistance. If he thought Kyu might not belong there and intended to throw him out it would matter if he was from DDS or not, yet he hadn't allowed Kyu to produce proof or made any sign that he cared.
It didn't seem he was interested in talking unless Kyu spoke to him first, so Kyu cried out the first thing that came into his head, "I told you, I'm from DDS! You can't just throw me out! Tanaka-sensei asked us to come specifically."
"I know who you are. I'm just taking you to a more comfortable place to wait for your friend."
It didn't matter what he said. Kyu had just wanted to get the man to open his mouth again, so he could get at least a brief look at his teeth. He couldn't tell form the glimpse he got if they would match the bite marks on the body he had just been examining, but it was enough to be sure that he saw fangs in the man's mouth. His teeth were too pointed, too jagged, and too long to belong to a normal person. Of course it wasn't unbelievable that a police officer who happened to be a vampire might be called to the crime scene if Ryu was there, but the fact that this man was a vampire, and currently dragging Kyu away from the scene. . . .
"Ryu!" Kyu shouted at the top of his lungs. He didn't mean to panic, but when he struggled against that iron grip and only felt it tighten, he couldn't help himself. "Tana-"
That was as far as he got before a large hand was clamped over his mouth. Kyu found himself lifted clean off the floor as he was rushed down the hall.
Kyu could only kick ineffectively at his captor a few times before he was hauled around a corner–out of sight of anyone around the scene, he guessed–and slammed bodily against the wall. The blow stunned him for a second, and the next thing he knew the vampire's face was only inches from his, fangs bared in an unmistakable threat.
"Be silent, or I'll kill you right now!" he hissed through clenched teeth.
All Kyu could think was that the threat couldn't possibly be worse than being tortured to death. He would rather do something, anything, to call attention to himself than feature in a repeat of the scene he had just examined.
Just because he was a detective didn't mean Kyu didn't know a few things about fighting dirty, and the vampire was still only holding Kyu by one arm. Kyu moved faster than conscious thought, jabbing the thumb of his free hand into the vampire's eye.
Kyu was rewarded with a shout that might have been surprise or pain, but before he could do any more damage the vampire planted one fist in his stomach. That single punch was like having the air knocked out of him by a charging bull. Kyu doubled over, falling to the floor when the vampire dropped him. For a few seconds all he could do was lay on his side, clutching his bruised stomach as he struggled to breathe again.
The vampire nudged Kyu with one foot, and he managed to roll his head back and look up. He didn't know what to make of the mix of disgust and satisfaction on that face, but looking beyond that, Kyu at least knew that his struggle had been worth it.
"Keep your hands off of him." Ryu's voice made Kyu's heart lift, even as he sounded as if he was threatening to take someone apart.
The vampire didn't look the slightest bit intimidated by Ryu's anger. Instead, he seemed almost pleased. "I'm glad you were finally able to join us, Ryu-sama." He nonchalantly shoved his hands into his pockets, as if he expected Ryu had just come to have a chat with him, and then aimed a sudden kick at Kyu's prone body as punctuation.
What happened next was too fast for Kyu to see. Ryu was between them in the blink of an eye, shielding Kyu's body with his own. One arm shot out, little more than a blur, to knock the older vampire's legs out from under him before he could even finish the movement. Yet Ryu apparently wasn't fast enough. When he drew his arm back Kyu saw he'd been stabbed with something that looked like a cross between a dart and a syringe.
Even as Kyu tried to sit up so he could get out of the way, he felt Ryu sway and nearly collapse on top of him. For a second Ryu's eyes went impossibly wide, and Kyu was afraid he'd been attacked with some sort of deadly poison. In the next moment Ryu seemed to recover, tearing the weapon out of his arm and dragging Kyu up off of the floor. Even though Ryu didn't seem to have trouble hauling Kyu to his feet, he still swayed slightly where he stood.
"Get out of here," Ryu commanded.
There was no way Kyu could leave him. He felt like such an idiot for not realizing sooner, for raising his voice and calling out for Ryu. Of course they had been after Ryu all along. He grabbed Ryu's hand, trying to pull him away from his deadly face-off.
"Run, Ryu! Just run for it!"
"I can't."
Ryu hadn't taken his eyes off of his dangerous adversary, but it seemed Kyu had still served as a fatal distraction. The older vampire attacked, not as quickly as Ryu, but still too quickly for Kyu to do anything about it. He punched Ryu in the stomach, the same way he had hit Kyu a minute ago, making him double over and slump into his attacker's chest.
"Leave him alone!"
Kyu knew it had to be one of the stupidest things he'd done in his life, attacking someone who had that much of an advantage over him, but he was blocking the way back, so running for help wasn't an option now anyway. Besides, when the vampire lifted Ryu's limp body and slung it over one shoulder there was no other possibility in Kyu's head.
Kyu rushed in heedlessly, and found himself caught before he could do anything. Apparently the vampire only needed one arm to haul Kyu, protesting and flailing with all of his might, over his other shoulder. Kyu tried to elbow him in the throat, or knee him in the solar plexus, or do some sort of damage, but none of his struggles seemed to have the slightest effect this time.
Screaming for help was still an option, there was still Tanaka-sensei, but Kyu wasn't sure shouting for him would change anything. Why wasn't he here already? And if Ryu could be defeated so easily, could their sensei even do anything to save the two of them?
Ryu was hanging limp next to him, and Kyu found himself distracted from his own struggle by the sight of his friend. Ryu's eyes were glassy, wide open but blank. It was hard to be sure that he was even breathing until Kyu reached over to touch his face. Whatever had been done to him, it was horribly effective.
"Ryu, snap out of it." Kyu shook Ryu's shoulder, ignoring the fact that Ryu was getting more than enough shaking as the vampire carrying them clambered down stairs and made his way outside. "Wake up! Ryu, don't scare me like this. Please wake up."
Slowly, too slowly, Ryu blinked at him. The glazed expression in his eyes seemed to fade as he did so. He blinked again, and Kyu saw a faint spark of recognition in his eyes.
"Kyu," Ryu's lips moved, but Kyu hardly heard him. He braced his hands against their captor's back, shook his head as if to clear it, and suddenly seemed aware of his surroundings. "Kyu!" He cried a second time, and now his voice was clear, strong, and angry. "What do you think you're doing with him?"
Ryu finally tried to fight, but it was too late. Kyu felt himself being lifted off of that wide shoulder and thrown backwards. He landed on his back, recognizing the place he had landed as the back seat of a car. Before he could sit up Ryu was tossed in as well, landing on top of him and knocking the wind out of him a second time.
Kyu fell back, momentarily stunned. He heard the car door slam, and felt Ryu leap off of him to collide with the closed door. Kyu could only gasp for a few seconds, watching Ryu struggle with the door, not surprised when he saw it wouldn't open from the inside.
It was a little more surprising when Ryu tried and failed to break the window, slamming first his fist, then his shoulder into it. Kyu would have thought Ryu was strong enough to be able to smash the glass. Of course, if Ryu's kidnapping had been planned out this far, he wouldn't be allowed to escape so easily. Either the window was reinforced to withstand even vampire strength, or whatever the other vampire had stabbed Ryu with was still working on him, weakening him.
Kyu finally managed to sit up. He cautiously shifted closer to Ryu, and managed to draw him away from the offending window before he could do himself injury. Ryu was shaking almost uncontrollably, and Kyu couldn't tell if it was from fury or weakness. He wrapped both arms around Ryu, trying to hold his friend tightly enough to calm the tremors wracking his body.
"Bastard," Ryu whispered, even as he let himself be gathered against Kyu's chest. Kyu looked down at his friend, startled. He'd never heard Ryu use language like that before
"Malcolm, you bastard!" Ryu raised his head and his voice. "Let Kyu go! He has nothing to do with this!"
For all that he had referred to Ryu as 'Ryu-sama,' Malcolm ignored the command. He calmly started the car and put it into gear as if he hadn't heard Ryu at all. There was a glass partition separating them from the driver's seat, and without it Kyu thought Ryu might have leapt out of his arms and attacked their kidnapper right then.
Several long seconds passed, but there was no wail of sirens, no sounds of pursuit, only the small, helpless gasps of fury Ryu made against Kyu's chest. Kyu couldn't believe they were being taken away like this. If he hadn't had Ryu to hang on to, he probably would have been shaking too.
"Where are we going?" Kyu finally asked. He was afraid to know, but at the same time he had to ask. He didn't quite dare to ask what would happen when they got there. He had too many ideas about that already.
It was Malcolm who answered. "Home," he said simply, and Kyu could have guessed as much.
Malcolm's eyes, even reflected in the rearview mirror, bored into Kyu. For the first time in his life Kyu felt like prey.
