A/N: Ok, here's the next awesome chapter for "After the honey moon ends"! We're soooo close to the end. T-T
Disclaimer: Inuyasha is not mine. He's Rumiko Takahashi's and Kagome's.
Chapter 12 : Wild goose chase
You can do this. Get Inuyasha and get revenge. Get back at Takeshi for everything. He nearly ruined your marriage, made you miserable. Make him regret every moment he spent terrorizing you. Make Takeshi pay for crying out loud!
Enough of the pep-talk; time was wasting. It was really late and I didn't know how much time I had to get Inuyasha out of there. I got out of the car and strapped the gun to my pants. I decided to leave the sword. I didn't think it would help me out too much. I walked up to the warehouse and strode right in when I found the door, there was no reason to be sneaky; Takeshi was expecting me anyhow.
The further in the warehouse, the angrier I got. For a second I felt so mad, I thought I would punch whoever got within hitting distance, but no, I needed to remember what Inuyasha told me when he first started teaching me to fight.
Be in control; always stay in control of yourself.
"Takeshi, where are you?" I demanded, my voice loud and clear. He wasn't getting a coward messing with me. I heard some shuffling before Takeshi appeared at the top of a staircase, Leila right at his side.
"Kagome, you came!" Takeshi greeted me as if I were a welcomed guest. Maybe in his mind I was, but I sure wasn't going to act like a good guest.
"Where's Inuyasha?" I shouted up, ignoring his greeting.
"Don't worry about him. He's safe . . . for now at least." His smile grew wider. "Why don't you come up here so we can talk?" A smirk curved on his lips and I wanted to run from there as fast as I could, but I stood my ground. I had business with this low-life.
"I don't have time for this." I growled. I could feel my face pulling into a scowl and my hands became fists at my sides. "Just give me my husband so I can go. I really don't want to do this the hard way." My hand itched toward the gun I had strapped at my waist.
"Kagome, there's only one thing I want from you right—" Takeshi started.
I cut him off. "Well that's too damn bad, because I'm not willing to give it to you!" I exclaimed thinking about how Takeshi tried to rape me a while ago. No way was I gonna let that man touch me with his blood-stained hands. No way in Hell.
"Well, can't say I didn't try." He said, as if saying that he was washing his hands of this. He then turned to his lovely assistant beside him. "Leila if you would, please."
Leila slowly made her way down the stairs as if she were walking down a catwalk. That didn't help my mood one bit. When she reached the hard packed dirt floor I noticed her shoes. She was wearing stilettos.
"Really?" I raised my eyebrow incredulously. This girl was just too full of herself.
"This fight shouldn't take too long." She smiled sweetly. "Why waste time taking them off?"
This trick. I thought rolling my eyes. Leila slowly circled me and I kept my eyes on her. She suddenly struck out at me and without thinking I raised my hand and wrapped it around her wrist, stopping her before she could touch my face. She tried to do the same with the other, but I grabbed that hand too before twisting her around and kicking her in the back. Leila hit the dirt floor with a thud. She got back up and glared at me before sending a series of punches my way. I dodged them all of them and that pissed her off even more.
"Come here you little evasive bitch!"
Leila ran towards me and wrapped her hands around my neck. I admit it now, Leila was a lot stronger than I thought and my clawing at her hands did absolutely nothing. I was starting to feel lightheaded. I slammed my foot down on hers and she screamed and instantly let me go. I gasped, finally able to breathe and retreated back a few steps giving myself some space and hopefully, more time to think.
"Higurashi! What's it going to take for you to fight me?"
"I don't want to fight you." I responded, rubbing the pain from my neck. Fighting was not a good thing in my condition anyway.
"Too bad." A devilish grin came over Leila's face and there was a knowing glint in her eyes.
Suddenly I knew what she was thinking and the realization made my heart pound faster.
They knew I was pregnant. I don't know how they had figured it out seeing as I had only found out a few days ago myself but they did. And I also got the feeling that they knew something I didn't and it freaked the hell of me.
This time when Leila came after me, all of her punches were directed at my abdomen. I didn't know how much harm the impact would have on the baby since I wasn't very far along, but I didn't want to take any chances. I made sure to block each and every one of Leila's punches and even threw a few myself.
"Takeshi, make her stop! Maybe we can work something out." I called up to him, hoping I'd be able to trick him long enough to get Inuyasha out of here.
"Sorry, you already had that chance."
"Takeshi, please." I was getting tired and Leila had backed me into a corner. It was quiet for a moment as Takeshi thought and Leila and I warily eyed each other.
"Okay, Leila let her up here." I waited for Leila to move but she didn't. She just stared at me with a look of hatred and disbelief in her eyes.
"I don't know why he likes you more than he likes me." Leila said quietly, enough that only I could hear.
"Leila, he doesn't love you. He's using you." I whispered back. Leila had to know that, right?
I'm not too sure what happened at this point in time. I know Leila tried to kick me in my stomach but I moved enough that she ended up kicking the wall and her shoe broke through the drywall. The next thing I remember was sitting on top of her with the intent of making her face look like hamburger meat, but Takeshi ran down the stairs and pulled me off of her.
"Let go of me Takeshi!" I shouted, struggling against his tight grip. I didn't even notice he was touching me with all the rage I felt that Leila had tried to hurt my baby.
"Calm down first." He said soothingly into my ear.
Bad idea.
"Let me go!" I screamed. I swung my arm back and heard a crack as my elbow connected with his nose. I ran for the stairs and scrambled up to the large loft-like area.
"Inuyasha. . ." I looked around. There was absolutely no one up here. I was alone.
"That's right Kagome." Takeshi laughed. "It was all a trap!"
Takeshi took his hand away from his bloodied nose and gave me a creepy smile, sending shivers down my back and cursing myself for falling for the trap.
Crap.
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Inuyasha pulled into the driveway, surprised to see the kitchen light on. He went to check it out, but everything was just as he left it and the ramen wrappers were still on the counter. He grabbed them and dumped them into the trash before heading to the room. A small smile came over his face when he saw Kagome's duffel bag on her preferred side of the bed, but it soon faded. Kagome was probably still mad at him.
He walked around the house hoping to see her in one of the other rooms so he could apologize. Hopefully she would forgive him. He felt like crap after having her mad at him for a whole week and wasn't sure if he could take much more of the silent treatment and her cold glares. All he knew was he was never going to let this happen again.
Finally he came to the conclusion that she was nowhere in the house. She'd probably gone back to her mom's place to pick up something she'd forgotten. He shrugged; she'd been gone this long, another few minutes wouldn't kill him too much. Inuyasha's stomach growled like an angry bear. He was so hungry it almost hurt. He hadn't eaten much all day and now, in his human form he seemed to be low on energy. A bowl of instant ramen seemed to be all that he could manage right now.
He was on his way to the kitchen when he noticed a piece of paper on the floor; he was about to throw it away but noticed his name somewhere on it. His eyes scanned over the page and his heart stopped. He crumpled the paper and threw it away. He had a bad feeling he knew where Kagome was and it wasn't anywhere near her mom's house. His cellphone was in his hand in a flash.
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Sango, Ayame, Miroku and Kouga stood in the living room waiting for Inuyasha to instruct them on what they were going to do but all Inuyasha was doing was pacing back and forth like a mad man and wearing a spot on Kagome's favorite rug.
"Inuyasha, I know you're worried but we need to come up with a plan." Ayame said, crossing her arms. "We have to do whatever we can to get Kagome out of there!" Her arms waved in the air and she walked to lean onto Kouga's shoulder. "Because we can't be sure of how much time we have left before something happens to her."
The comment hit Inuyasha, stopping him in his tracks and pulling him out of his strange little trance.
"I know, but look at me!" He motioned to his black hair and dark eyes as if motioning to something annoying. Everyone knew how Inuyasha felt about his weakened human form, but he went on anyway. "I don't know if I'm strong enough to save her right now."
Sango pulled away from Miroku and firmly said, "You don't have a choice Inuyasha! You're going to have to be strong enough." Her eyes pierced Inuyasha. "Your wife and child are depending on you to get them out of harm's way!"
"Child?" Inuyasha asked in a quiet voice. All the blood drained from his face and he took on the deer-in-headlights look.
"Yes, Kagome's pregnant, how could you forget?" Sango said and then realized what she had done. "Oh god!" She exclaimed. "You weren't supposed to know! Kagome was going to wait until after she got home and you guys weren't mad at each other and . . . and . . . Oh, damn it I'm so sorry." Everyone stood looking back and forth from Sango to Inuyasha trying to figure out what was going to happen as Inuyasha began to look more pissed than any of them had ever seen him.
"My wife is pregnant and in the hands of Takeshi?" Inuyasha growled out, his hand clenching tight around his car keys. Sango nodded. She looked like she was either going to cry or be sick. Maybe both.
"Let's go." Inuyasha wrenched opened the door and the other followed out to their cars. Before getting in Inuyasha called out to the others, "Our only plan is to get Kagome out of there without having her or the baby harmed."
The others nodded as he got in the car and slammed the gas pedal, zooming off before anyone else could.
There was no way he was going to let Kagome and his child stay with Takeshi for long.
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Congrats! Great job Kagome, give yourself a pat on the back because you just won the stupid award!' I thought, 'Oh wait you can't because you're all tied up. Put that together with the "worst wife in the world" and the "endanger the life of your unborn child award" and I was just going to be a freakin' celebrity. Yay me.
How could I not see this coming? Ugh, I was so pissed at myself. I walked straight into Takeshi's trap. What the hell was I thinking coming out here on my own anyhow? I shook my head.
"Kagome, what's wrong? You look upset." Takeshi asked from the other side of the loft where he was cleaning up Leila's face. It didn't look like hamburger meat but the effect was pleasing enough.
"I can't feel my hands and my shoulders hurt from being pulled back. And the floor's not exactly the most comfortable place to be, you know." I retorted smartly. If being a smart-ass was a virtue, I was on my way to becoming a saint.
"I won't untie your hands Kagome." Takeshi said, his voice patient. He was being oddly nice to me right now and I was getting the chills from it even more than when he was being a jerk.
"Can you at least tie them in the front?" I chanced asking him. If he was going to be nice, I at least I could take advantage of it.
"Maybe later."
I sighed loudly like a belligerent two year old before falling silent. How was I going to get out of this one? No one knew where I was, my hands and feet were tied so I couldn't run off and I had absolutely no way of getting into contact with anyone. Hey wait, I just won the FML award. Four in one day. I think that's a record!
What was I going to do? Since Takeshi was being so nice to me I guess I could play into him and get him to warm up to me long enough to be able to get word out to somebody. It was all I had at the moment; might as well try.
"Takeshi," I called in a slightly whiny voice. "This is really starting to hurt my shoulders. I feel like they're burning." I shifted around a few times making it look like I was trying to get comfortable and let a pained expression take over my face. That wasn't too hard because my shoulders really did burn. It was only a minute before he came over and knelt in front of me so we were at eye level with each other.
"I'm going to tie your hands in the front." He said, not taking his gaze off of my face. "I don't want you to do anything stupid though or you'll suffer the consequences, okay?"
I nodded. Takeshi untied one of my hands and moved my arms so they were facing forward before tying them again. "Good girl. Is that better?" Takeshi asked pushing my bangs from my face. It took all of my willpower for me to not cringe away from his touch. I nodded again. "Ok. Let's get you somewhere comfortable."
Takeshi helped me up and led me over to the other side of the loft where Leila was passed out on an air mattress. A few feet over, there was a living room chair. Running towards it like a bull, I sat down in the chair.
"Okay, now that you're comfortable let's talk." Takeshi stood in front of me, a sweet but still creepy smile on his face. "Listen Kagome, I really like you a lot. I tried to tell you this at your friend's wedding but I guess I came on a bit too strong for you. I want to try this again. Please, just give me a chance, you'll see, I'm a really nice guy once you get to know me. We can work things out."
"What about Leila?" I asked breathlessly. This was weird, plain freaking weird.
"Don't worry about her; I just keep her around to keep me entertained. A toy, I guess you could say. It's you I really want. I can't explain the extent of my desire to be with you."
"I can't." I said through clenched teeth
"I know, there's the problem of Inuyasha, but I can deal with him easy. And the baby, I know you probably want to keep it, and I guess we could, but honestly I can get that taken care of, we can get rid of it. I even have somebody who's willing to come out here and do it so we wouldn't have to go to their office. Then we can get you pregnant with mine. We can be happy Kagome, we can be a family."
Takeshi was on his knees in front of me now, a hopeful look on his face. I just stared back at him in horror. I would never voluntarily let him take Inuyasha's baby out of me, never ever. I would rather die before I let that happen.
I was so appalled I couldn't speak, couldn't even think of something to say. I just stared at him. "I know this comes as such a shock. I'll give you a little bit to warm up to the idea before we talk some more okay." Takeshi leaned down and tried to kiss me. That snapped me out of my silence.
"You sick bastard!" I yelled. "I love Inuyasha, not you! What makes you think I would want to ever be with you? And I would never, ever get rid of Inuyasha's baby, especially not to get impregnated by you! That's just sick." I spat.
"You won't feel that way after a while." Takeshi said as if he could change my mind. He just grabbed my chin and smiled at me. "I'll be right back, kitten." He got up, letting my face go and turned to check on Leila.
I'd had enough of this and suddenly I remembered that I had a gun. How is that I forgot? I reached down and with a little difficulty, pulled out the gun that had been hidden by my shirt. I aimed it at Takeshi and pulled of the safety lock. He turned and looked at me wide eyed.
"You wouldn't."
"I would. Now come untie me." I growled. "I've had enough of playing games with you."
He held up his hands. "Kagome, let's be reasonable-"
I rolled my eyes and cut him off. "Now!"
Takeshi untied my feet while warily watching the gun I had aimed at him. I shook my feet, gaining enough feeling to walk. I ordered Takeshi to walk back to where Leila was, about ten feet away and he did. With one hand I began to untie the knot around my wrists. I had almost gotten it undone when the next thing I knew Takeshi had lunged at me and we were wrestling one another on the ground for the gun.
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Inuyasha and the others got out of the car and stared up at the warehouse. Inuyasha noticed Kagome's car off to the side and went over to it. What was his sword doing in her car? Without thinking, he pulled on the door handle and surprisingly, it opened. He grabbed his sword and walked back up to the group.
"Alright guys, let's go." They were about halfway up the dirt path to the warehouse when there was a gunshot and a scream that sounded a lot like Kagome's rattled the old, rickety warehouse.
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I screamed as a gunshot, totally freaking out that it would hit me. I rolled to the side and realized that I hadn't been the one to get hit. In front of me stood a sight I had never thought I would see.
Takeshi was hit in his leg and he hissed in pain as he laid in the pool of blood. I lifted my gaze to see Leila, battered face and all, with a gun in her hand and ready to shoot again. I guess she did have some courage.
"You fucking bastard!" She yelled, the tears running down her face. "You lied to me! You fucking lied to me!" She cocked the gun for another shot. I was too shocked to move but my eyes landed on Takeshi.
He turned to her and yelled, "What the hell are you doing, Leila?"
She gripped the gun tighter. "Doing what I should have done a long time ago! You told me that you only wanted revenge, but I wake up to hear that you want to have babies with her? Seriously, what the hell do you want?" She shouted hysterically. I almost felt sorry for her, but then I remembered what she had done. Nope, no sympathy for her.
I watched as Takeshi looked at her pleadingly, but I could tell that it was fake. "I was just trying to lull her into a fall sense of security! I really do love you!"
"Shut up!" Leila yelled. "Shut the hell up!"
Wanting to not witness anything more, I tried moving to the side, but Leila turned to me with the gun instead. "You," she hissed. "This is your fault! Your damn fault for even existing! I should kill you right now." She said through clenched teeth.
My gaze locked onto the gun, but from the corner of my eye, I saw Takeshi grab the gun that I so carelessly left behind and point it at Leila.
"Leila, watch out!" I yelled.
But Leila didn't move in time. My hands reached out to her and I heard myself screaming as she was hit by the bullet and the force of it sent her flying over the side of the small thin bar that was the boundary of the loft and the empty space of the warehouse. She was so shocked that she just stared at me, eyes wide and mouth slack. My horrified and shocked face was more than fitting for the occasion.
Once I heard the thump of her body hitting the ground, I turned back to Takeshi, horrified. His wound was still gushing blood, but not as much as before. His eyes were cold as he stared at the place where Leila had fallen over and I realized that I was looking at a man who had just murdered someone. My hands were shaking and I knew that he'd kill me if I didn't move, but I couldn't.
"Now," He cocked the gun and turned to me. "It's your turn."
He was about to shoot when I heard someone scream, "Kagome!"
My face lit up like the fourth of July. My body responded and I looked over the railing, seeing a sword run through the front door. I turned around and saw Takeshi's hardened face as he grabbed me around my neck and pulled me to him, the gun at my forehead.
"Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled when he had slashed through the door. I saw my friends not far behind him. I could only stare at Inuyasha's face, his violet eyes and jet-black hair and felt an immense relief. He was safe. Damn safe.
"Don't you dare come any closer or she dies!" Takeshi yelled, pushing the barrel of the gun harder into my head. I cried out but bit my lip to stop. It was useless, though, as I glanced at the terrified face of my friends and Inuyasha's furious one. I was going to die here. A few tears slipped from my eyes and I met Inuyasha's gaze.
Even if he couldn't hear me, he'd be able to read my lips. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."
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A/N: Oh yeah! The whole first part up to the last segment was by Bella but the last part I had fun writing. We both did, actually, so I hope you guys review! I only got one review last time! What the heck is that? I demand at least five reviews for the next chapter! So it it's in your best interest to REVIEW! (more than five would be better!)
~Daichi
