"Look, if you don't like the program, then don't pay for it!" The teen shrunk under my glare, hurrying away with her friends. I huffed loudly to myself, sending an icy look to anyone who started to stare.
"Hitomi-chan-"
"What!?" I spun around, only to be faced with a frowning Hiyori. I wilted under her stare, sighing as I let her lead me back to the main desk. She refused to talk to me and instead took my spot at the door taking tickets for the show.
I was in a terrible mood. Even at work, something I loved, i'm completely unmotivated.
"Welcome," I said to a couple who smiled gently as they payed, took each other's hand, and then walked off to be greeted by Hiyori.
Scorpio popped into mind and I grumbled to myself as I sat down. He was the reason I was in a bad mood. Him, but also the annoyance and confusion I had for myself. We held hands, he picked me up, and I felt that we had gotten closer. But thinking about it makes my heart hurt and I still don't understand why.
"Shut up. You think you know me? You've got some nerve."
Why was I so shocked to hear him say that? I was used to him being a little shit. He said that stuff all the time! I even had a good comeback for him but my chest wouldn't stop aching.
"Hey, Hitomi…" Hiyori slowly walked over to me, looking worried as she took a seat at my side. Glancing over to where she had been, it seemed she had tricked one of our coworkers to do it for her. "You've been muttering to yourself about something since this morning. Did something happen? That paper you're holding looks like it's in trouble." I look from her, down to my hands. Between them, almost crumpled into something unreadable, is one of the event surveys I was supposed to been organizing. "It's all wrinkled and crumpled…"
I sighed, laying my head on Hiyori's shoulder.
"Sorry.. I was thinking about something."
"Yeah," She says, patting my head gently. "I could tell that much just from looking." She watched as I unwrinkled the paper as best as I could. "You can talk to me if you want, you know." I nodded silently, but didn't speak. I couldn't tell her. Firstly, because the threat of people's memories of me being erased was still on the table I was sure. If I told her she could be in danger. Secondly, because I know she wouldn't believe me. She'd try to understand, she really would, but I knew she'd eventually try to take me to the doctor.
"Just tired," I mumbled. It was the truth too. Staying out late last night combined with staying up late just made me want to drop on the spot.
"...You can always talk to me, Hitomi."
"I know-"
"I'm serious." I straightened up so she could look me in the eye. "After your parents passed, you were always so quiet, and you wouldn't talk to me because you didn't want to put all your problems on me," My mouth felt dry as she pinned me down with a steely look. "But you have to understand that you could never, ever, burden me. You have to understand that i'm here for you so if you're in trouble, or sad, or anything, you can come to me." I could only numbly nod at Hiyori's words. If I tried to speak, I know i'd cry.
For the rest of work, while Hiyori sat next to me, I chattered on about a guy i'd been hanging out with. How he was confusing, and annoying, and a dick. The entire time I talked, she quietly listened with a big smile on her face.
Eventually, our shifts were over and we clocked out. I turned down extra hours and instead gave Hiyori a big hug before she walked off in the direction of her house and I turned toward the opposite direction, which is where I lived.
Before I could move through, my eyes landed on a man that sent my heart dropping. He was the same man who Dui said was playing survival games outside of the mansion. The man stood where I was supposed to go, so I immediately turned away and decided to find a different way home. Usually I would've walked right on passed and dared him to even try come near me… But Zyglavis, a fucking high up god, told me to be careful. I wasn't stupid.
Turning to make the long trek home, i'm stopped again. This time, by soft crying. A little boy is sitting next to a hedge outside of the planetarium, crying softly. How me or Hiyori hadn't noticed him before, i'm not sure.
"Hey, you okay kid?" I kneeled down in front of him, setting my hand on his knee. He probably just lost his parents on the way back from the Planetarium and came here to wait.
The boy slowly looks up, but he has a stoic expression, and not a tear in sight. This kid hadn't been crying so.. Why did make those noises?
"Uh.. Kid?"
The kid suddenly grabs my wrists, hard. The grip was like iron and even with my own strength, which has saved me ass from people twice my size, I couldn't move my hands even a smidge.
"What're you- let go!"
"Don't. Move." My heart sinks coldly as the deep voice sounds behind me. Before I can turn to yell, a handkerchief is smashed against my mouth. My vision starts blurring. "We've captured the suspicious woman. Heading back to base now."
I try to yell, but it's muffled by the rag, causing me to breath in more of whatever drug is on it.
"Let's get her in the car now. You help." The boy just nods as he helps lead me to a truck, where as the door opens and i'm thrown inside, my vision finally goes black.
My head throbbing wakes me up, but I don't immediately open my eyes just incase someone is in the room, but also so I can assess the situation. My skull feels like someone took a jackhammer to my temple several times, my back hurts, and i'm tied up, but I don't seem messed up in any other way. Finally blinking my eyes open, i'm glad to see that the room is dark and there's no bright light to hurt my headache anymore. I'm not glad to see that i'm in, what looks like, an abandoned building, and i'm lying on the cold floor. I move, seeing if I can inch my way up to a sitting position, but before I can even make a breathe a metallic click sounds in my ear.
"Don't move." Looking up I meet the nozzle of a gun, along with the face of the kid who cried fucking crocodile tears.
"Did you practice that act in the mirror or are you a natural deceiving brat?" I sneered in his direction, but his blank stare didn't waver.
"Move any more and you're dead." I sigh, but slump back down.
So apparently this little "Survival Game" that group had been playing wasn't as innocent as I was reassured. Looking at the gun pointed at me, I think i've realized why so many of those gods warned me to be extra careful. I had an inkling that what was going on was way more serious than any of us originally imagined.
"Any way you'll tell me what's going on?" He pressed the cold tip of the gun on my head. "That's what I expected…" I hissed as my head began throbbing from me talking. Even my own body was telling me to shut my smart ass mouth before I got shot.
I was a bit annoyed still. Why would anyone kidnap me? The man called me a "suspicious girl" but he had been the one loitering around me and the gods.
Speaking of the devil, the said man walks into the room me and the kid are in. I send him a beady glare, but he only smiles.
"So you're awake."
"Yeah, no thanks to you." The first time I saw this guy he was staring intently at me and Scorpio, even though the god never noticed. Why wouldn't anyone find him suspicious dressed in army clothes out in public, staring down me and Scorpio?
Because he had a kid with him.
"So why'd you snag me?" I say so nonchalantly, even though I could feel my heart speed up sickeningly
"We won't be interrupted here." Dread filled me. "...Now, how about you call that man you were with?" I give him a confused look.
"What man?"
"The man with the black hair! What kind of powers does he have? Or does he use some kind of special technology? How in the world did he move that man 10 yards just by snapping his fingers?" I roll my eyes.
"Look, if you want me saying anything, you're going to answer me first." I pause. "Who're you and the brat?" I was expecting, maybe, secret agents from the government. Maybe a father - son team that goes around protecting the city. Maybe just a dad who works on checking out old house, and he noticed the gods and me going there often.
"We're members of a secret worldwide terrorist organization… I'm the boss." Silence echoes as I stare open mouthed at him and he just smiles.
"...Seriously? Even.. Even the kid?" My voice is quiet.
"He was sold to us when he was a baby. We're raising him to be a soldier... He's very important to us. He's a living weapon." I can sense one of my famous shut downs coming on. My vision was blurry and I felt like vomiting.
A terrorist group kidnapped me. I'm being held at gunpoint by a kid brought up like a living weapon… like Scorpio. I.. What the fuck did I get myself into?
"You've got good instincts, girl... Are you a spy?"
"What…?" My voice barely comes out as I try to fight the anxiety attack crawling up my back. "No!"
"Then how about that man? He didn't give off the vibe of an ordinary person." I rolled my eyes, taking slow breaths to calm down.
"He was just a guy hitting on me, saved my life when he punched that ma-"
"Don't lie to me! Call that bastard here, now!"
"I can't!" I yell back, taking a shaky breath. "I told you he was just some passing guy, I don't have his number!"
"What did you say?" The boss yells, the kid reacting by shoving the gun harder against my temple.
"I'm serious," I say, lowering my voice. Yelling probably wouldn't help. "Really. I don't know how to contact him." He couldn't work a phone even if his life depended on it, even then he wouldn't give me the number even he could. He summoned me by sending little Altair. I was being truthful- I really didn't know how to summon him.
Either I was going to be used as a hostage, as bait, or I was only there to contact him and then be killed. I didn't like those options. Neither ended up in me going home and crying myself to sleep after eating gallons of ice cream.
"Hurry up and call that man!" Was he crazy? I didn't have a fucking phone in my hand, was he expecting me to just shout out for the guy!? This fucking ass piece of-
Pain racked through my back as my air left my lungs suddenly, leaving me gasping like a fish. The man had slammed his steel toed boot into my side.
My body began shaking. I was scared. Honestly, truly scared- which was an odd feeling seeing as I was on the ground. Even my deathly fear of heights was nothing like this. Being held by some terrorist group at gunpoint, an insane man slamming his foot into my ribs with no mercy, expecting me to call some guy without a phone, a guy who didn't even have a phone.
I wanted to act strong, like I always did. You know, mask my worries with snide remarks and jokes but how my entire body trembled coldly, the way I had tunnel vision as the man's heel slammed into my stomach again, I couldn't even muster a whimper. I couldn't make any sounds of pain, but my body showed it by creating streaks of tears down my cheeks that I couldn't stop.
I'm scared.
Please I-.. Scorpio please.
Save me, Scorpio.
"Or what?" The man spoke up, moving the heel of his boot to my shoulder and grinding it down. "Are you trying to tell me he doesn't care enough to come for you?"
"He'd come." I said angrily, but I had nothing to back it up. Yeah he's saved me in the past but...
"You know…" He's always frowning at me. Always telling me to do things I can't do. "I'm probably no good as a hostage." What if this time, he could finally get rid of me? He was right, I didn't know anything about him- he told me that yesterday. So how could I think he'd come save me? I was a smart ass, the bane of his existence. I always annoyed him, always egged him on. I had given him no reason to save me. "To him I'm 'only human', and he hates that."
"You mean he thinks you're an incapable person?" Luckily the boss didn't catch the slip of mine. I nod.
I can't say he's wrong. I can't erase Scorpio's sin and now i've ended up as a damn hostage.
…
What the fuck am I doing!?
When I fell off of the roof to save that kid, he saved me. When I fell into the void at the house of gods, he saved me. When that man almost shoved a knife into my stomach, He. Saved. Me. Now, being kidnapped and a gun at my head, I knew that he'd come save me.
I'm Hitori Wakahisa, the same girl that once punched a guy's teeth in because he hit on me! I'm not the type of girl who sits around having a pity party, i'm the type of girl who mocks a god to his bloody face!
"You're wrong! I mean that he won't come here for the likes of you."
"Look who's got an attitude all of a sudden,"
"Babe I was born with it, believe me, it doesn't go away." He gave me another sickly smile, shoving his heel harder against my shoulder, making me yelp in pain.
"Sounds like you don't understand how scary we really are…" Please. These asshats could never be as scary as Scorpio. "I wasn't planning on doing this… But if you can't bring that guy here, you're useless to us. Kill her."
The boy immediately looks me in the eye as he aims the gun. His eyes are cold, and he seems devoid of all feelings. His eyes… Look just like Scorpio's eyes when we first met.
"Stupid woman. Shut up if you don't want to die."
This kid, like I had thought before, really was raised like Scorpio had been. If… If he had been raised in the same way then… Maybe…
"Listen to me," I suddenly say with too much confidence as the kids finger brushes the trigger. "I know you don't really want to do this."
He pressed the gun against my head.
"Listen god damnit!" His eyes, unlike Scorpio's, look hazy and void. He was already too far gone.
I heard the metal scratching against itself as the trigger began to move. I shut my eyes quickly, sucking in a breath.
Scorpio! Please save me!
At the last second, I make my first ever prayer.
BANG
I hear the shot, and I smell the burning of gunpowder.
I've...been killed.
Scorpio…
I… I wanted to atleast see him one last time. Fuck that sounds cheesy, but it's true. Hitori, after listening to me rant the entire day, finally told me what I had been feeling for him. Why I got weird when I found out he made Altair cut the apples exactly like I had, why seeing him blush when we were holding hands made me happy, or why my heart hurt after him being an ass even though I was used to it. Hitori said it was-
"Human scum, what the hell do you think you're doing?"
Wait.
Fuck!
What?
I peeked open an eye to see a white coated figure in front of me, along with the same abandoned room around me. I blanched.
I wasn't monologuing on my deathbed, I had just been talking in my head like a dumbass because Scorpio saved me. I sighed loudly to myself, mostly out of relief, but partly for my own stupidity.
Fully opening my eyes, they trace over Scorpio's strong back, but then to his strained features. Scorpio, his palm out to the terrorist boss, is using so much power that his breathing is ragged. I was confused to why he had any power at all, since I'm sure his mark was still in place. I'm also sure he's using his powers, because he has the boys gun squeezed tightly in his glowing hand, pointing it towards the ceiling.
"Brats shouldn't play with toys like these. The burden is too heavy to bear." The boy doesn't answer. "Am I too late?"
I slowly climb my way back up to standing on my feet, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming out about the pain in my side and head. Damn was I doing to need an ice bath when we got home.
"Y-You're the real deal!" The boss says, seeming to ignore the seething Scorpio. "Don't hesitate now! The guy with the telekinesis showed up! Your power will be ours!" When he yells a few men come running. Scorpio, however, doesn't even look at the adults. He's still glaring at the boy before him.
"Geeze kid, you're freaking killing me here." I almost laughed. "Looking at you is like looking at old me. Gross." He turns slightly, giving the brat his full attention. Which is when I notice that Scorpio's usually blue eye color is now a glowing crimson… like they're responding to his power.
He begins to glow an odd blue color and I hesitantly take a step back.
"In the name of the Department of Punishments, I have a very special punishment in store for you. I'll set you free and release you into death…"
"Woah!" I take two steps, to compensate for the one I took backwards, and grabbed Scorpio's arm. "Look I know it bugs you but you can't!" This kid was a little shit but it wasn't his fault!
"Shut up.. Get off of me." I tug his arm harshly, causing him to almost stumble. I give him a menacing look.
"He didn't kill anyone on purpose you asshole! He was raised from a baby to do it, it's not his fault! Just… Just like you didn't kill people because you wanted to, right? You should understand him better than anyone!" Scorpio stares at me, as if trying to use his new red eyes to his advantage and make me back down. It doesn't work.
"It's idiotic, but… it's awfully brave of you to take your time and lecture me despite the fact that it looks like you're about to be killed." I take a shaky breath, already knowing the armed men had surrounded us a bit ago.
"Nothing… could be as scary as it was when you weren't here with me."