Ch. 10 No One Needs to Know

Heero had been walking down the hallway when he heard a bloodcurdling scream that made his blood run cold. His body froze as his mind tried to reject what it was registering.

"Quatre." His name escaped his lips in a barely audible whisper. His body took action before his mind could as he sprinted down the hall.

He could see that the door to their room was open as he neared. He didn't even stop to look at the door, just exploded into the room only to be stopped dead in his tracks. His mind refused to believe what was happening before him. Quatre was on the bed his hands bound and tied to one of the bedposts. He was completely naked with pain evident on his face as some stranger raped him.

Something snapped inside as an enraged yell was torn from his throat. There was one solitary, thought in his mind, kill. Before he could stop himself he was over to the bed and grabbing the man by the neck. He could see the look of hopelessness on Quatre's face before passed out.

With strength he had never know, he lifted the man off the bed and slammed him into the ground all in one swift movement. The look of pure terror wasn't satisfying enough. He never wanted to kill someone so bad in his life as he did at that moment.

"Who the hell are you?" He gritted his words seething with anger as he tried to rein in on his urges.

"I just came here for some fun." The man choked out in a vicious laugh. There was a twisted smile on his face.

That was it; Heero couldn't take it any longer. He let go of the restraint he held onto so dearly earlier and let his primal urges take over. Blinded by his need to kill this man he grabbed him buy his shirt, yanked him off the ground and slammed him as hard as he could into the nearest wall. He smashed the guy's head into the wall repeatedly when somewhere in his thoughts about killing he realized that he didn't want there to be a grizzly scene when Quatre woke up.

Seeing that the man was still conscious and still wearing his sadistic grin he lost all control and just grabbed the man's head and twisted it for all he was worth. As the body crumpled to the floor Heero looked around for something else to take his remaining rage out on. The man's death hadn't been as satisfying as he had thought it would have been. His hands shook with the need to release all the fury he had, but seeing Quatre's body so lifeless on the bed brought him painfully to his senses.

He stepped over the man's body to close and lock the door. There were more important things for him to do than deal with his anger. Quatre was so still upon the bed that he could have sworn he was dead. He carefully untied his hands and after wrapping him in a blanket placed him in a chair so that he could remove the sheets. There was blood stained to the sheets from the man's violent attack but luckily there wasn't a lot which meant Quatre hadn't been torn badly.

After putting fresh linens on the bed he carefully cleaned and redressed Quatre before putting him back in the bed. He threw the dirty sheets over the dead man who still had his pants around his ankles. This was not what he had thought would happen when he'd gone out for the day. It never would have happened if he hadn't been delayed, it was his fault that this had happened and Quatre would surely blame it on him. He slammed his fist into the table as his anger returned.

Noticing that his computer had one of the cases pulled up he decided to sit down and finish what Quatre had started. The mindless work would distract him until Quatre woke up and his mind was forced to meet what it was so desperately trying to avoid.

(o)(o)(o)

He woke with a start and frantically scrambled up into the pillows trying to get away from his rapist. A pair of hands settled firmly on his shoulders trying to keep him from moving. Survival instincts telling him to run had him throwing a right hook in his frantic need to escape. It was caught by an expecting hand and squeezed, not tightly, but enough to get his attention. It wasn't the rapist that held him but Heero. He felt tears sting the back of his eyes in his happiness to see him.

Quatre threw himself into Heero's arms, desperate for reassurance and comfort. He wanted it all to be a nightmare, some horrible nightmare that Heero could erase. Heero's hands unknowingly stroked his back trying to provide some measure of comfort. The movement was very relaxing and was giving him the calming effect he so desperately wanted.

Dirty, abused, violated, he didn't want to think about any of it. All he wanted right now was to take a shower and forget that it had ever happened. He released Heero to look up at him and was more than a little shocked at what he saw. A mixture of emotions played across his face, torment, anger, guilt and before he knew it he was crushed into Heero's chest.

"I'm so sorry." Heero whispered. "If I hadn't left or been back sooner, none of this would have happened." A shudder went through his body as he remembered the scene he'd come across when he had returned. "It's all my fault, I understand….

A smile crossed Quatre's face. He couldn't help but grin at the fact that Heero was blaming himself for what had happened. In light of things he probably shouldn't be smiling, but hearing all this from Heero was overwhelming and it was all he could do.

"Heero." Quatre said quietly, cutting him off mid sentence, but Heero continued on.

"…if you want to blame me for this. I ….

"Heero." He said it louder this time, but Heero still didn't hear him.

"…never should have left you this morning. I took this mission to protect you and I couldn't even do that. I should….

"HEERO!" Quatre yelled and finally got his attention. He felt Heero look down at him waiting for him to continue. "I don't blame you." He said softly. "You couldn't have known this was going to happen. All that matters is that you made it before he could do anything else."

Heero was silent as he stood looking down at Quatre. He wasn't blaming him for what happened and that knowledge sent a wave of relief through his body. There was a tug on his shirt as he came out of his thoughts.

"Um, could you let me go? I'd like to take a shower."

He released him and watched as Quatre walked awkwardly into the bathroom. Heero felt his anger rise again for what the man had done but there were things that needed to be taken care of. WuFei was sure to be in the office by now. He sat down at his laptop and waited to be connected with the other Preventers agent.

"I didn't expect to hear from you so soon Heero. Did you have a break in the case?"

"Not exactly."

WuFei noticed the higher pitch in his normal monotone voice.

"What happened?" He demanded sternly. "If you don't tell me right now so help me I'll…

"You'll kill me? Right." The last word dripped with sarcasm.

"Yuy!"

Heero sighed and told him what had happened keeping the rape details to just assault. There wasn't any reason for WuFei, or anyone else for that matter, to know about what had really happened.

"Did he say anything or did you just kill him without asking."

Heero was a little irritated for that remark, but WuFei didn't know the whole story so he couldn't take it personally.

"I did ask him, and all he said was that he was here for some fun."

"Hmm, well as long as you didn't irrationally kill him for no reason. We have a few agents on a nearby colony; I'll send them over to collect the body. Don't want the local authorities to be involved in this."

"We'll be here."

WuFei nodded and signed off.

A shadow loomed over his computer as Quatre stood before him a concerned look on his face.

"You didn't…

Heero shook his head and watched as relief spread over Quatre's face. He had made the right choice in not telling WuFei about what had really happened. Quatre just wanted to forget about it and didn't want anyone else to know.

"I noticed that you made it through half the files."

Glad that Heero wouldn't push the matter, he pulled up a chair and sat down.

"I've actually managed to find out quiet a lot from these cases. I don't know if they're connected to our killer, but they seem to fit."

"What have you got so far?" He wanted all the information Quatre had dug up so that he could look for the same things in the rest of the files.

"Well, as you've probably already noticed he's not your average killer, he's more of an assassin."

"That explains the precisions of the deaths and cleanliness."

"Now, I think that in the beginning he just took the job and killed them. The first few murders where quick and painless, but somewhere along the line he started to enjoy it a little to much, so the deaths started becoming longer, more painful."

"Hm."

"On top of that, there are business cards on the first two bodies that always link them to the third."

"So he leaves a clue at the first two kills to lead cops to the third. Seems like he almost wants to get caught, make the third death more challenging. To bad no one caught on to that sooner. Could have saved a lot of people."

Quatre agreed but didn't say anything about it, he didn't need to. He had thought the same thing when he'd discovered that.

"Maybe that's why he's going after me as his third victim. He wants a challenge, and since no one else had caught on to this he figured that going after a gundam pilot would make it more rewarding. He knew that by going after me would involve the others and he knew we would figure this out."

"Hn." Heero thought about that for a minute, after all, it did make sense.

"Now, read this case." Quatre leaned over and pulled up the case that had stuck out earlier. There was a knock at the door before Heero could start reading it. Drawing his gun he hid is discretely behind his back before opening the door. It was room service.

"Would you like me to bring this into your room?" The hotel employee asked politely.

"I'll take it." Heero pulled it in swiftly closing the door before looking up at Quatre.

"I had called for it earlier, that's how he got in." He motioned to the dead man on the floor. "I thought he was room service."

He put the cart next to the table as he sat back down to read the file.

"This one doesn't fit the profile of the other ones." Heero said when he had finished.

"I know, but I'm not sure why. I think there's a serious clue in this file. Besides the fact that he had obviously met up with that guy."

"Why do you say that?"

"There haven't been any female deaths or rapes except for this one. My guess is that our killer took on an apprentice, but after this incident it didn't work out. Though I think they're partners again."

"Hn." There was curiosity in his voice.

"I had asked him what he wanted with me and he had said 'it's not what I want, but what HE wants'. That tells me that they're working together."

"At least we know it's a guy that we're dealing with and if this guy found us then the real killer won't be far away."

(o)(o)(o)

Well I seem to be on a roll with this story. Wish I had this kind of luck with my other stories. Another chapter down and on to the next. Enjoy and thanks for all the reviews.