A/N: Thanks for your ongoing support! I never realized before how much fun it'd be to write suspense. I don't know if it makes me a masochist, but it almost makes me giddy to think of all the wonderful hell I'm throwing everyone in. lol.

On a side note, a concerned reader sent me a note regarding my former summary where I had used the phrase "owner-cum-bartender." The reader was concerned about my usage of the word "cum" in the summary. I just wanted to clarify that I was using the original Latin definition, which means "along with" or "in combination with." I didn't intend for it to be sexual or crass in any way. However, I did take it out for the sake of non-offensiveness. Thank you Reader for pointing it out! I didn't mean to offend anybody with my use of it, and I appreciate being made aware of how my wording could be misconstrued.

In any case, with that all out of the way, here's the next chapter. I reference things that are mentioned in both the Case of Denzel and the Case of Yuffie, so if you're curious, you can Google them and have a read.

Drop a review if you please! Thanks!


THE KILLING HAND

CHAPTER EIGHT


The call came in the middle of the night.

It was a good thing that she was used to of not getting a full night's sleep or else she would have been seriously irritated—more so than she was, at any rate. It didn't help her temper that the reason she'd been getting little sleep lately was because she kept spending her sleeping hours thinking about how she could mend her relationship with Zac.

He'd called her the day after IT happened and promised her that "they were cool" and that he was okay and for her not to worry. But that had been two days ago and Tifa knew that they'd be lying to each other and themselves if they thought they could go back to the easy friendship of before. Some things were irreversible.

She knew that only all too well.

Rolling over in her bed to reach the phone on her nightstand, she took in a deep breath to settle her annoyance before she answered. "Hello?"

"Tifa?"

She jerked up straight in bed. "Zac?" And he sounded like hell.

"Oh god, I don't know what to do." His voice was devastated as it degenerated into an incoherent mumble.

"Talk to me, baby. What's going on?" The fact that she'd used an endearment with him barely registered.

"Denzel." She could hear him swallowing over the phone. "Denzel has Geostigma."

Her stomach bottomed out and it felt like an anvil had just dropped on her chest. No.

Not Denzel.

Her mind raced. According to what Yuffie had deduced based on her experience in Wutai, only those who were faint-hearted got infected. Denzel was one of the most strong-willed people she had ever met, never mind the fact that he was all of ten years old. He was not faint-hearted, so how? How was he infected?

Oh gods, that wasn't all Yuffie had said. Death. Those who had been exposed to the Lifestream and believed at any point that they were going to die. The fire. The damned school fire. He must have thought that he and Marlene were going to die in the fire even as he protected and shielded Marlene.

The effort to keep her whimpers quiet had her clenching the bed sheet until her knuckles turned white. She needed to be strong. Zac needed her to be strong right now.

Hoping that she'd managed to make her voice steady enough, she said, "Okay, I'm going to come over right now. You need to tell me where you live."

When he did, she memorized the address and promised to get there soon.

Hanging up, she dressed in a hurry and went over to the room Yuffie was sharing with Marlene. True to her roots, Yuffie woke up when the door opened. She seemed to sense the despair in the air because her expression was unusually serious when she rolled out of bed and into the hallway where Tifa was waiting for her.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Tifa took a deep breath. "Denzel has the Stigma."

"Oh gawd."

"Yeah. I'm going over to Zac's place to check up on them. Can you keep an eye out for Marlene?"

"No worries. I'll hold down the fort."

Tifa nodded her thanks and just before she went down the stairs, Yuffie stopped her. "It's not contagious."

"I know." Tifa paused, then said, "It wouldn't matter even if it was."

Too many thought that it was. Children were abandoned on the streets and families torn apart because people didn't dare touch someone was infected. Never mind that previous attempts to quarantine the infected had done less than nothing to halt the spread of the disease.

Skimming down the steps, Tifa grabbed a medical kit before she left. It wouldn't do much, but she needed something to pretend that she could help Denzel.

But she knew that unless they found a cure, nothing she did would help.

The fifteen minutes it took to run to Zac's place was excruciatingly long. She forced herself not to speed up too much. While her body could easily take the pace, it was the middle of the night and there was no reason to ignore safety. In truth, there was little she could do.

Ousting that last thought from her head, she slowed her breathing with the meditation exercises Master Zangan had taught her all those years ago. Within seconds, her mind had settled into that state of awareness in which she saw nothing but sensed everything. She didn't need her physical eyes when she could see just as clearly with her mind.

The familiar sensation of suspending her physical senses soothed her frayed nerves. The past few weeks had been far too harrowing as incident after incident chipped away at her equanimity. Even though she'd known that life wouldn't go on uninterrupted as it had for the two years previous, but once sparked, this powder keg of events just kept blowing up one after the other.

Too much. It was all too much for her to handle.

She shoved the insecurity to the back of her mind once again. Focus.

By the time she arrived at Zac's apartment, she was confident that she had a firm lock on even her more recalcitrant emotions.

She knocked on the door and was surprised when the door opened even though she hadn't heard any footsteps. She was even more surprised when he swept her up into a tight hug, his face buried against the hollow of her neck.

Tifa stood there stiffly for a while, having forgotten what it felt like to be held like she was his salvation. His desperation constricted her lungs and made her want to weep for him. One of her arms went around his waist and her other hand went to stroke soothingly through the hair at the nape of his neck while she crooned soft words of comfort in his ear.

Fraction by fraction, his tense body loosened even though the tightness in her chest wouldn't go away. He pulled back from the embrace even as his hands sought and interlocked with hers.

"Thanks for coming." His voice was hoarse, like he hadn't used it in a while. Or had lost it in a bout of weeping.

"Of course. How's he doing?" she asked as he closed the door and led her to Denzel's room.

"He's sleeping now, finally. He'd been in pain all night long. The sore on his forehead just opened and it's oozing black pus."

His words should have prepared her, but when they walked into Denzel's room and she saw the evidence of the Stigma in person, she couldn't keep the soft cry of injustice inside. If she could have, she would have gladly taken the Stigma from him and onto herself.

Denzel's heartbreakingly pale skin radiated a feverish heat that she could feel even from a distance. His breathing, while slow and deep with sleep, was accompanied by loud rasping as his lungs struggled to take in the necessary oxygen. His face was clammy with sweat and his hair damp. A moist towel draped across his forehead, but she knew that beneath it laid an expanse of once-healthy flesh tainted by infection.

After brushing her fingers through Denzel's hair a couple of times, she stood and led Zac back into the hall.

"When did you find out for sure that it was the Geostigma?" she asked.

He came to stand next to her and slid onto the ground with his back against the wall. She followed suit. "I think a part of knew it since he came home with me after I was released from the hospital. I just ignored it because I didn't want it to be true. I should have known."

"There's no point beating yourself up about it now. Even if you knew for certain before, what could you have done?"

"I know that. I just hate being so helpless when he's in pain."

She didn't say anything because that was true for her too. Instead, she rested her head on his shoulder and threaded her fingers through his as they held silent vigil.

Tifa was beginning to dread Reeve's appearances.

She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, from the night before. She'd stayed the remainder of the night in Denzel's room, tending to him while he slept. That by itself wouldn't have been so tiring, but she and Zac had also argued that morning about where Denzel should stay during the course of his sickness. Neither of them was willing to voice the thought that he wouldn't recover.

Zac couldn't afford to stop making deliveries for such an extended period of time and Denzel shouldn't be left alone so Tifa had wanted to take him back to the Seventh Heaven where she and Yuffie and even Marlene could keep an eye on Denzel.

Zac had refused.

Tifa understood the reasoning behind it. Denzel was Zac's responsibility, his only family, and he didn't want to be parted with him. But she also knew that he was letting his emotions make his decision, not his logic.

In the end, she had left him without getting anything resolved between them.

Actually, she did have an idea. It was very simple; Zac and Denzel could both move in. Her apartment had a spare room they could use, and this way Denzel would always be attended. It seemed like the ideal solution.

If she could ignore the danger to her heart, that is.

Day after day of being in such close proximity to a man who already wreaked all sorts of hell on her emotions and her mind was probably not a good idea. Then she chided herself for being so selfish.

If Denzel was being cared for, and Zac could rest easy that he would still see him and stay with him, then what was a little discomfort for her?

Too bad it was so much easier said than done.

And in the meantime, she had to deal with whatever Reeve was about to present her with.

From his expression, it wasn't good news.

With a sigh she felt down deep into the marrow of her bones, she settled into the couch while Reeve took the one-seater diagonal from her. Again, that sense of disaster upon disaster snowballing one on top of another flooded her.

"What's going on this time?"

"We found another one of your bottles of brandy."

Dark tendrils of trepidation curled and twisted in her gut. "Where?"

"City Hall. It was used as a container for poison."

"Poison?" she echoed.

"Liquid rat poison actually. Turns out that when the liquid evaporates, it turns airborne and clings to surfaces. The effects are diminutive over short periods, but we have one guy who happens to be allergic to the toxins. Started swelling up like crazy and getting nosebleeds all over the place. That incident by itself would have been overlooked by itself, but several people reported feeling a little nauseous and dizzy as well. After the sweep, we found the bottle tucked inside an air vent."

"Why would somebody want to poison people in City Hall?"

A heartbeat's pause, then Reeve replied, "I don't think it's the people who are getting hit that's the focus."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. Liquid rat poison, if ingested, could be fatal, but it would take a long time for the poison to evaporate to the point where it would cause mortal damage. The only reason it spread so quickly this time is because the weather has been abnormally hot recently. That means that whoever did this isn't trying to kill people off."

"Just like at the school…" she realized, catching onto what Reeve was suggesting.

"Exactly. So if the victims aren't necessarily the intended target…"

"…then the perpetrator is after something else."

Reeve nodded solemnly and held her gaze. "We think someone's after you, Tifa."

She probably should have been upset by that, but right now she was too weary to really care. "Why do you think that?"

If Reeve was put off by her lack of response, he didn't show it. "First, the bottles were stolen from the Seventh Heaven. Everyone in and out of town knows that this is your place, and I doubt most people have the balls to try trespassing on your land."

"True, but hardly evidence."

"Second, the bottles stolen are of alcohol that, again, everyone knows only you have, at least in the vicinity. So, like we mentioned before, someone is trying to frame you, or someone is trying to get under your skin. I'm going with the latter."

"Why don't you think someone is trying to frame me?"

"Because we found physical evidence. A strand of hair. White hair. And the cell makeup indicates that it's part Jenova."

This made Tifa catch her breath. How many other people had Jenova in their blood? "Do you have a hit on who the third party may be?"

Reeve studied her, his expression inscrutable. "It's not Cloud, if that's what you're wondering."

She didn't have to say anything for him to know that she was disappointed. She still couldn't give up hope that Cloud was alive and well somewhere. A foolish consideration for someone who had watched him take his last breath and felt it when his heart beat its last.

Suppressing the wave of misery that always indundated her whenever she thought of Cloud's death, she asked, "So what now?'

"Now we hunt the bastard down."

They both knew it was far more complicated than that.

After a long pause, Reeve changed the subject. "How's Denzel?"

"You heard?"

"Yuffie is a megaphone even louder than Cait Sith's."

That wrung a dry laugh from her. "So true." Yuffie was a blessing, and Tifa only prayed that her spirit would never be broken. She sobered though when she thought about Denzel's condition. "Other than the whole infected by the Lifestream mess, he's doing about as well as can be expected. He's a trooper though, and he never complains. I wish he wouldn't try to carry the pain on his own though."

It reminds me too much of what Cloud used to do, went unspoken.

"Tell me if there's anything I can do. The WRO is just starting up, but I think we have enough resources to do some research."

"That would be great. Thanks."

"No need. It's the least I can do. Denzel made sure my mother wasn't lonely in the end."

"Your mother?"

"Ruby. After Denzel lost his parents, he wandered around Midgar and happened to come across my mother. She took him in until the Lifestream welled up. She died from the Stigma."

Tifa had known that Denzel had stayed with an elderly woman for those couple of weeks, but she hadn't known it was Reeve's mother.

"Small world," she murmured.

"Yes, it seems there are just some people we can never escape."

Tifa thought his wording was strange, but she couldn't agree with it more. Some days it felt like her whole life had been one long running game, and she was getting nowhere closer to the end.

Ah, delicious despair. The city is overflowing with it and he suppresses the desire to dance through the streets sucking up the despondency like a parched man would water. He does not because he will never do anything as undignified as dance. Even still, he is hard-pressed to hide the spring in his step.

Despair: food of the gods.

Or more accurately, he muses, food of the devil.

As Yuffie snuck through the Seventh Heaven and into the storeroom (which she didn't really need to do since she was officially "on the case" and all that, but it was more fun pretending that she was breaking in), she reflected on the fact that she really was in the perfect position to investigate Mr. Stud-Muffin-look-alike. Never mind the fact that she was the greatest ninja ever with the most drool-worthy uber-awesome stealthy-coolness, she also happened to be the White Rose of Wutai, fairest princess of all the land.

Shit, but she had some kick-ass credentials.

No wonder Reeve had appointed her as the WRO's espionage and intelligence specialist. She was hella special.

Forcing her wayward thoughts away from her own superiority and back to the case(s), she wondered for the zillionth time who Zac Taylor really was. Despite her usual irreverence for all things established, including government and religion, she didn't believe anything was a result of pure chance. She wouldn't call it fate, but she also wouldn't deny that certain people are led to each other and certain events happen for a reason.

For better or worse, Zac was connected to them all, and she intended to find out how.

It paid to be a princess, albeit a slightly exiled one due to that damned Geostigma crisis and the fact that everyone back home thought that she'd been the one to bring the disease upon them, but at least she still had connections back in Wutai. She should hear back from them soon about Zac Taylor's role in the Wutai resistance soon enough.

Until then, she'd focus on figuring out who the hell was using Tifa's brandy to blow things up and to poison a bunch of stuffy politicians.

Bloody damn waste of some good brandy, if you asked her.

Tifa wouldn't mind if she snuck a sip or two. Or a bottle. She snickered, her darkened mood perked up by the thought of free booze.

If only everything else in her life could be so easily resolved.