Ten: Game
When Quillsh came into the office the next morning, he found Lawliet asleep on the floor, arms and legs spread as if he was in the middle of making a snow angel. His breathing was light and faint on his pale little lips.
Quillsh knelt down and lifted the boy into his arms to take him to his room and was surprised to find the boy snuggled against him a bit. He made a small mumbling sound.
Strange little boy… Have you taken a shine to me? Is that it? Wammy thought as he laid the boy down in his bed, tucking him in.
He was just about to leave the room when a sudden scream of terror rang throughout the building.
Lawliet leaped up, eyes wider and skin paler than usual. The two of them exchange glances while the other two children in the room were roused in fear as well.
And like a bullet, Lawliet was out of bed and bounding down the hallway towards the source of the scream…. It was on the girl's side… Someone had screamed--- He slid around the corner, Quillsh only a few steps behind and found several of the little girls in tears and howling. Up against the wall was a nursemaid, stabbed to death.
"It was him…" Lawliet whispered. "He knows where I am, and he's sending out a challenge to me."
"What?" Quillsh asked.
Lawliet very delicately pushed the nursemaid away from the wall, revealing a line of cards nailed down the wall behind her.
L NO FUN.
That was all it said.
"Cocky bastard," He hissed. "Mr. Quillsh Wammy… get the children to safety. Hide them if you have to. I've got less than twenty-four hours."
Quillsh could do nothing but obey him.
-
How did he get inside? How did he get away without being noticed? God DAMN IT! Quillsh thought bitterly as the nursemaids and he gathered all of the children in the dining hall so that everyone could be on constant vigil.
"I can't believe Miss Marianne is gone," One of the little girls whimpered from her seat. All of them were about in the same state, except for Cosette, who sat there with her head on her arms, not speaking to anyone.
When she noticed Quillsh looking at her, she finally spoke. "My fault…" She wept in broken English. "Could of… bad dream… did not find her. Didn't look. For her."
He realized what she was saying. She'd had a bad dream, but she couldn't find Marianne, who was her attending nursemaid. Instead of going to look for her, she either went back to sleep or went somewhere else.
It hit him like a ton of bricks. If Cosette had gone to look for Marianne… she could have just as likely been a victim.
"It's not your fault," He offered, patting her head. "Miss Marianne would have preferred that you were safe."
"Lawliet… awake. Didn't hear?"
"I don't know, deary. He was asleep this morning."
She looked at the ground, her big blue eyes wet with tears. She blinked several times, causing the droplets to hang delicately from her long lashes and slip down her freckled cheeks. "Mother… Father…" She sobbed, head falling into her hands.
The little boys, though much less tearful, were about twice as shaken.
We've got to find this man.
"Sir, one child is not accounted for," One of the nursemaids said. Her voice was shaking.
He knew who she was referring to without asking. "I'll find him. Just care for the children here, all right?"
"Yes, sir."
-
Lawliet was in his office again when he found him… and his fingers were bloody messes. "I know it was him!" He shouted as soon as Wammy entered the room. He pointed a crimson finger at the man on the screen. Aaron. "I'm positive it's him, but I have no idea how to find him!!!"
He'd never seen the boy lose his cool. It seemed to be something new for Lawliet as well.
"Fake name! No idea where his home address is! I don't know his friends! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"
"Calm down!" Quillsh shouted, grasping the boy's shoulders.
Lawliet huffed and puffed for a moment until he finally settled himself. "We're running on no time," He said, trembling slightly. "It was him, Watari, I know it. He saw your name on your watch. He knew it was you."
"Lawliet."
"L!" He shouted, almost as if he was nervous for his real name to be out in the air.
"L, there must be something that can lead us to him."
"He won't return to the bar. I know that… He might underestimate my, or rather, 'your' intelligence, but not that much."
"Well, calm down for a moment, and let's try to think of something."
The two stood there for a moment, Lawliet chewing on his thumb, causing a small bit of blood to trail around the corner of his lip. "I have nothing to go on…" He mumbled. "He cornered me, and I didn't even realize… If I had something, anything…"
He trailed off, looking up, stunned. "OF COURSE!"
"Of course what?" Quillsh asked.
Lawliet looked up at him. "He goes to that café to have coffee every morning. He most likely wouldn't have remembered us from there. We should go there and see if he's there!"
"Lawliet, I think it's time we called the police to take care of this."
"But they don't even know who he is! It's not going to help-"
"It's too dangerous for us to go snooping around now. He got into our building without so much as setting off an alarm."
"That's because he cut the cables. I took the liberty to check them a few minutes ago. Security cameras and alarms have been disabled since about an hour and a half after you returned. His ability to do these things gives me a sneaking suspicion that he knows a lot about these sorts of things… Like, maybe he's done it before or… someone in his family has done it before…" He was off into his haze of thinking once again, and Wammy exhaled.
"Either way, I'm going to call the police. You go into the dining hall with the others and try not to look like you know what's happening.
If the child could shoot daggers with a look, he would have, and he lingered there for quite a few moments before turning on his heel and leaving the room.
Quillsh dialed the number.
-
When he came back into the dining hall, he exhaled. The chief had said something about sending a squad out in search of him, starting near the café and also sent another squad to the orphanage.
"Sir, you've returned," A nursemaid said, still sounding shaky and nervous.
"Yes, I have, and I intend to put Lawliet in his place for wandering off."
"So, you didn't find him?"
"What?" Quillsh turned his eyes on her. "Of course I did. I sent him here."
"S-sir, we never saw hide nor hair of Lawliet, and we've been standing by the door the whole time!" The woman exclaimed, already working herself into a frenzy over the idea that one of the children might have been captured.
No… Quillsh thought, scanning the children but failing to see the strange boy… and certainly he would have stood out. Lawliet never came to the dining hall.
OF COURSE. Wammy realized that he'd been a fool to believe that Lawliet was blindly going to obey him! Of course not. The boy was far too smart for his own good and stubborn too.
He ran a hand over his hair and then rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"S-sir?" The woman asked.
"Don't worry. I'm sure he's… fine…" He breathed. "I'm going to go look for him again. Just be cautious and don't leave this room until the police arrive."
"Yes, sir."
He left the room burning with determination and grabbed his coat, yanking it on over his clothes. It was pretty damn obvious where the prodigy had gone off to, and he wasn't about to let him do this…
…At least not alone.
-
When Quillsh arrived at the café, he found no Aaron and no Lawliet. Was… he wrong?
He looked around until he saw a flash of familiar red hair… The waitress that had served them before.
"Excuse me," He waved her over, acting as polite as possible.
"Hey, you're that man who had that kid with him awhile ago… That weird looking kid."
"Yes, um, I was wondering if you'd seen him around here. He seems to have… run away, I guess you could say."
The woman stared at him for a moment. "Now that you mention it, I thought I saw him a few minutes ago, but I didn't get a good look. I was taking care of a table you know. I saw him peek his head in the window while I was giving the check to that guy who always sits there." She pointed to the empty booth where Aaron had sat last time they'd been there.
Perfect. Just bloody fantastic. Lawliet had already spotted his prey and had stalked after it.
"Well, thank you," He said, smiling. He left the café but found himself doing nothing but standing outside. Which way did they go? What was he supposed to do?
A sudden feeling of dread washed over him, a feeling so strong that he had to lean back against the wall to keep from losing his strength. If anything were to happen to that boy…
He exhaled a shuddered breath, looking around… I have to think like Lawliet… He decided. When Aaron left that day, which direction did he take? Where would a killer live? No, no… not a killer necessarily…
He'd remembered… The man turned right out of the café. It was a start…
Perhaps all he had left were hunches, but…
Lawliet.
-
There was an old, abandoned mattress warehouse down by the docks, and that was where "Aaron" had slipped inside. There was a hole in the wall at the far end of the building, so it was usually extremely cold inside, and he often had the company of raccoons or other critters. However, he did have a bed and a few books and magazines to read, and he was still able to steal a newspaper from somebody every morning with no issue. He made enough money from his poker games to sustain him with food and clothes and any other whim he'd like to support, and had the patching of the whole not made it seem someone was indeed inside, he would have done it a long time ago.
Pulling his fingers through his dark red strands of hair, he ambled across the floor of the warehouse in his gangly legs, cigarette placed between his lips. Sunlight had broken through the clouds and was streaming into the building onto his little card table held up with flimsy metal legs.
He heard something moving from across the room but immediately shrugged it off as the cat that came by from time to time. He hated cats, but the animal left him alone so he did the same.
"So, this is where you live."
Well, that wasn't a cat.
He turned but saw nobody. There was a mattress propped up against the wall to try and keep out some of the cold, and it cast a thick shadow over the place.
"Who's there?" He asked bitterly, spitting out his cigarette.
"I am L."
That didn't sound like the old man from before. Had he been mistaken in believing Quillsh Wammy was L?
"Is that so? Then, show yourself, L," He smirked.
"Aren't I going to get a name from you first?"
"Fine, you want to play hide and seek? Then, let's play, but I warn you, I'm not a fan of childish games." He palmed his blade but didn't pull it from his pocket.
"Well, I actually do enjoy a childish game now and then…" Lawliet said, revealing himself from behind the mattress. "After all, I am a child."
The other man seemed a bit confused by this, raising an eyebrow. "You've got to be kidding me. Is this some bloody prank?"
"Not at all," Lawliet replied seriously, wiggling his toes (he'd gone without shoes and a coat in his haste to get out of the building before being caught). "I am L. Consider yourself lucky I've revealed myself to you."
"L is some kid? Forgive me if I find that hard to believe."
Lawliet shrugged approaching him. "Well, I'm obviously no threat to you then, correct?"
"Please, don't insult me."
Lawliet strolled by the man, feeling his eyes lingering on him the entire time. "Well, to prove I'm L, how about we play a game of poker?"
"What's the bets?"
"If you win, I'll let you go free, and I'll take the rap for the murders you've committed. If I win, you have to give yourself up."
"Oh, really."
"Yes, and I will only play this game with you, if you reveal to me your name. First name will suffice. I'm not going to call you by Aaron. It's ridiculous."
"I thought you already knew my name, L. Poker Alice?"
Lawliet raised an eyebrow, grinning slightly. "Oh, really?"
"It's Alyss. A-L-Y-S-S."
"Then you were born to play poker, weren't you," Lawliet replied, hopping into a chair. "Rest assured, the police have no idea you're here. Let's play."
"All right then," Alyss replied, sitting down and removing a deck of cards from his bag.
(A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update. I had some stuff going on and didn't really have time to write, and then I got stuck at a spot. My bad.)